#we waited for so long to get nothing in return

[buckyalpine]

Give me drunk Bucky who wakes up in your bed, confused over why he's in the softest pj's he's ever felt and for some reason wearing a giant fur coat he can only assume is from a pimp because who else would own such a thing.

What the hell happened

Mere hours earlier; 3:30 am, Guys night

"Noooooo" Bucky howled, letting his body go deadweight while Thor continued to carry him to his room, the only one strong enough to get the soldier off the floor after he'd polished the bottle of Asdargian mead clean. "Wanna see y/n"

"Yeah, can't imagine what y/n would say if she saw you being carried off like a princess" A very tipsy Sam and Steve followed behind while Bucky's bottom lip jutted out into an exaggerated pout, head thrown back with is eyes closed in defiance "She's still off on that mission, she'll be back soon, you can see her then-

Before Steve could finish, Bucky's eyes shot open, scrambling out of Thor's arms and stumbling towards your room. There was no time to stop him from entering, a drunk giggle slipping past his lips as he let himself in and sighed contently. By the time the three men reached, Bucky's shirt had already been discarded beside his socks.

"Oh no- Steve snorted at the sound of Bucky's belt bucky hitting the floor, his lip sticking out in concentration as he tried to work at the button of his jeans.

"Barnes, I swear if you take your pants off-Damn it" Sam huffed, a pair of black jeans landing on his head. "At least keep your boxers-Oh hell nah" He ducked before Bucky's intimates became aquainted with his face. "Don't you dare helicopter that third leg-he's doing it"

No one intervened as Bucky decided to make himself more comfortable, clearly missing you as he sighed, walking over to your closet. He was in there suspiciously long before emerging with-

"Buck, those are-

"Soft" Bucky hummed, coming out of your closet with a set of pj's you wore often, oversized so they'd be extra comfy. Bucky giggled at the smell of your soft scent, slipping the shirt over his head and putting the pants on, flopping on your bed like a cat. "Smells like y/n"

"Do we just leave him here"

"At least he's wearing pants" Steve sighed, frowning when he heard running footsteps approaching along with a chaotic cackling, who else would be still this active at this hour-

"There you guys are!! We're doing body shots off of- wait you're here. C'mon capsicle, take your shirt off-

"For fucks' sake Tony"

"Where the hell did you get that jacket" Sam's face scrunched when he notice Tony's shirt was missing however he was in a large coat which he'd thrown off, the pile of for landing on a half sleepy Bucky. Bucky's eye peeked open at all the fuss, wrapping himself up in the coat and blissfully falling asleep with his face in your pillow, the rest of the chaos mere white noise.

"SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS-"

"TONY NO"

"TONY YES"

Present

"What do we have here" you coo, giggling at a very disoriented Bucky who blinks up at you with puppy eyes, a pink blush spreading on his face. You'd just returned from your mission with Nat, the entire compound still reeking of alcohol, the hallway littered with various still drunk Avenger men. The only thing that cut through the smell was the fresh breakfast a happy Thor had already started, the only one standing as if nothing had happened.

You'd stepped over a sleeping Sam and Steve in the hallway to get to your room, cocking a brow at the large mound of fur and soft snoring sleeping in your bed.

"Good morning, sweet boy" You brushed back Bucky's hair, bending down to press a soft kiss to his forehead, letting him take his time to figure out his surroundings, "have a fun night"

"Missed you" he mumbled, pulling you to lay on the bed so he could cuddle up with you, his head now resting on your chest instead. "Missed you so much"

"I missed you too, bub" You continued to gently play with his hair, happy your boyfriend got to have a night of fun and thankful that you always kept painkillers in your bedside drawer. Poor baby was going to need it. You noticed the pile of clothes that were thrown on the floor, they were definitely Bucky's but Bucky was in clothes so what was he wearing-

"Buck?"

"hm?" "Are those my pjs?"

[whimsiwitchy]

we broke up (one shot)

hugh jackman x f!reader

summary: you get dragged to a work event by your boyfriend of three years when Hugh comes to flirt with you. after you reluctantly tell him you’re taken, he backs off for the most part. a few months later, Hugh tells the story during an interview but little does he know you’re single now. 

warnings: implied age gap (not mentioned), flirting while in a relationship (kinda)

authors note: here's a little oneshot I wrote tonight. enjoy <33

You’d been with your boyfriend, Rowan, for a few years now. He earned a degree in marketing and immediately got a job for a studio. While he enjoys his job and it brings in good money, the events he dragged you to were unbelievably boring. The company he worked for always had big parties after a success on a project. At first they were interesting, often running into celebrities here and there given that it was the success of their movie, but lately you found yourself sitting at the bar more often than not. It was routine at this point. Rowan would show you off for the first hour, then he would toss you aside to fend for yourself. You weren’t the biggest social butterfly, hence why you liked to sit alone, drinking. 

Tonight wasn’t any different. You were at another party for the successful marketing for Deadpool and Wolverine. You’d heard a few whispers that the stars of the movie themselves were somewhere wandering around but you hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing them. Rowan dumped you at the bar a little over thirty minutes ago and you’ve been sipping on some fruity little drink ever since, completely in your own world. You made small talk with the bartender every once and a while but you were mainly people watching. 

“Mind if I join?” A deep Australian accent asks. You look up and see a gorgeous older man. He was wearing a dark blue suit with a pair of black expensive looking glasses. He was deliciously tall and had a thich salt and pepper beard. “Uh no, go ahead.” He sits in the bar stool next to you. He orders a drink from the bartender before returning his attention back to you. “Pardon me if this is too forward but you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” The comment takes you aback. “Oh um, thank you. That’s really sweet of you to say.” He looks down to your glass that’s nothing but melted ice at this point. “Can I buy you another drink?” He asks. “You probably shouldn’t. I’m taken…sadly.” You whisper the last part, unsure if he heard it or not. “Oh! I apologize for coming on to you. You’ve been sitting here by yourself for so long, I thought you might have come alone.” You huff out a laugh. “My boyfriend works for the company. He’s out there socializing or whatever.” You shrug and signal to the bartender, asking for another drink. “That’s a shame. If you were mine, you’d be on my arm all night.” He smirks. “Is that right?” You smile at him. Before he can answer, you feel your phone vibrate with a text from Rowan that reads ‘where are you babe? Time to leave.’ 

“Well, the boyfriends calling, I gotta go.” You carefully climb out of the chair and grab your jacket and purse off of the back. As you start to walk away, the man speaks again. “Wait! What’s your name?” You turn back to face him. “Y/n.” He smiles and repeats it. “I’m Hugh.” His answer surprises you. “Oh! Congrats on the movie. I didn’t even recognize you at first with the beard and all.” He laughs. “Bye Hugh.” You wave before walking off.

—

It’s been a few months since that night in July, it being September now. You and Rowan had broken up mid-August, both of you agreeing that the relationship wasn’t going anywhere. It hurt for a little bit but you knew it was for the best. Living with him had been awkward as you searched for a new place, deciding that he can keep the current apartment. You wanted a fresh start, which is where you are now. Tonight was your first night in your new apartment. You didn’t have any furniture yet but you were happy. You bought an air mattress to make do until you could afford an actual bed. 

It was around midnight and you were doing your nightly youtube watch. You were scrolling through your recommended videos when you saw Hugh’s face pop up. It was an interview posted a few minutes ago from him on some late night show you’d never heard of. You clicked on it, wanting to hear what the man was up to these days. The interview was a standard one, mostly questions on his upcoming movie about some sheep. You weren’t really paying attention, close to dozing off when a question peaked your interest. 

“So Hugh, it’s almost been a year since the announcement of your divorce and the fans wanna know…How’s your dating life doing? Are you seeing anyone?” The woman asks, wiggling her eyebrows. Hugh lets out a big laugh. “I’m actually not seeing anyone. It’s funny you ask because the last time I even attempted to flirt with a woman she turned me down.” The interviewer's eyebrows shoot up in shock. She gasps before asking, “How could anyone turn you down? We need to know the full story here.” 

“Ryan and I were at this party for the marketing team that worked on Deadpool and Wolverine and I saw this absolutely gorgeous girl sitting at the bar all alone.” The interviewer is nodding her head, engaging with every word Hugh says. “I eyed her for a while to see if anyone was with her but she sat there alone for a good thirty minutes before Ryan hyped me up to go over there. When I finally did, I ordered a drink and tried to play it cool but I felt the urge to tell this girl how stunning she was, so I did.” You giggle to yourself and you hear him tell the story from his point of view. “She thanked me and I offered to buy her another drink. I kid you not, in the prettiest voice I’ve ever heard she says ‘you probably shouldn’t, i’m taken.’” His hands go up to his chest, gripping right above his heart. “My heart broke mate. I flirted a little more in true Hugh fashion but she had to go. I haven’t been able to get her out of my head since.” 

“What a lucky woman, I’m sure she regrets it.” 

“Hey, I tried my best.” He shrugs before looking at the camera. “Y/n, if you ever break up with him. I’m all yours baby.” 

Your jaw drops, the sound of cheers blasting from your phone.  

‘we broke up. I’m all yours. @/RealHughJackman’ 

You hit send on the tweet and hoped it would be enough to bring him back to you.

thank you for reading <3

[ohisms]

✱˚｡⋆ ↪ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐍'𝐒 𝐇𝐎𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐄 . ( a collection of fantasy - based dialogue prompts . adjust phrasing as necessary . )

strangers don't last very long around here .

lay down your sword , and i'll lay down mine .

whatever you do , do not stray from the path .

try not to get yourself killed .

the magic here is old and wild .

quiet ... do not wake it .

i thought i'd find you here . get up .

the tavern in [ location ] is known for its ale and its rumors .

you are starting the path towards your destiny .

is there no end to this accursed forest ?

my sword is yours .

the path to redemption is paved with trials and tribulations .

this forest feels ... sick . as if a disease lies upon it .

you are nothing but damned bones , and a damned soul .

have you ever seen the world beyond [ location ] ?

in the face of overwhelming odds , we must stand united .

please don't let them know that i'm here .

i've heard tales of your exploits . impressive , if they're true .

there's a town three miles east from here .

we have such history , you and i .

go carefully ... there's a camp nearby .

you will not die here , i forbid it .

your reputation precedes you .

i would rather die on my feet than on my knees .

there is no destiny . no born heroes .

you've got a fire in your eyes . use it , but don't let it consume you .

the spirits of this forest are restless .

there's more that you aren't telling me .

you have something that belongs to me .

you shouldn't be here , it's not safe in these parts .

all we can trust are the blades in our hands .

do you believe in fate ? destiny , prophecies ...

i don't think i'll ever get used to having blood on my hands .

wait ! there's traps here . lots of them .

i would die before helping in such a task .

there's an inn just another mile north .

have your blade at the ready .

if you can't already tell , i don't require saving .

have you drank your fill already ?

this isn't just some lark to me .

i'm headed to [ location ] . i could use some company .

your bravery is admirable , but it will also be your undoing .

you're exhausted , [ name ] . we're stopping here .

i will hunt you until the day i die .

i wish you a safe journey home .

as long as i can be of no help , i'm going to hide .

raise your sword . this should be a fair fight .

you're brave to show your face here again .

in this world , you can trust two things ; your intuition and your sword .

i've seen the way you look at the horizon . you're searching for something .

[ administers a healing potion / spell ] is that any better ?

you have no idea of the catastrophe you've set in motion .

there's an ambush ahead , stay quiet .

i want to know your story ... beginning to end .

in the end , we're all just stories waiting to be told .

i've heard tales of a dragon living high up in the mountains . some say it's just a myth , others swear it's real .

the line between friend and foe is often blurred .

try to stay quiet . is the wound deep ?

do not provoke them .

monster ? who's the monster here ?

i forbid you from telling anyone what you've seen here .

are you scared of witches ?

that's a beautiful [ weapon ] . may i ?

you are a valuable ally and a fearsome adversary .

do not tell me you've grown soft over the years .

if our enemy has returned , we must know .

you're a tough one to read , but i can see the kindness in your eyes .

the key to survival is knowing when to fight and when to flee .

i never expected to run into you in [ location ] .

last we spoke , you owed me some coin .

do not fear me ... everybody else fears me .

there is no magic or medicine that can cure this .

you keep questionable company .

every choice has a consequence .

the fate of the world lies in your hands .

so you're the great [ name ] .

remorse will get you nowhere .

you must stay on the path . do not leave it . if you do , you'll never find it again .

i once dreamed of this place . it's real ?

some secrets are best left buried .

the bridge is heavily guarded . we need a plan .

i thought you were returning home .

i would not do this unless i had to .

i need my horse .

it's real . all of the stories , the legends ... and it's real .

don't lose your wit . i believe you'll have need for it yet .

[a-d-nox]

nox tests hypotheses: "saturn tells you what annoys you"

this is one of shawtyherbs hypotheses. this is how i feel this manifests for me in my chart and why i believe this hypothesis works. my saturn is located in my 3h, in taurus at 29°... let's take deep dive!

taurus saturn

a lack of discipline: i feel like i have a strong work ethic - i value hard work. i despised when i did group work in school and i was paired up with procrastinators or people who were unwilling to put in the necessary effort to achieve a good grade. it felt like every time i had my part done i would start getting anxious that the other person/people didn't. it felt like a manipulation - like we were playing chicken. if they didn't do it, would i do it for them? how long did they have to wait until i stepped in?

instability and unpredictability: sudden changes, chaotic environments, and erratic behavior can make me uncomfortable, anxious, and annoyed. i guess it's sort of like a trauma response from childhood except now i get irritable... everyone know my dislike for surprises.

wastefulness: i get easily irritated by wastefulness, whether it's wasting time, money, or resources. again maybe its from my childhood and having those experiences. but i am the type of person who arrives on time. if i buy something and don't like it i use it until it's gone, i eat it til its gone (even if its stale), or i use it til its paid itself off (if i buy a shirt and can't return it and it was $30, i am wearing it 30 times). it sounds strange - i know - but it is how i am...

superficiality: i really value authenticity. i feel like i am easily annoyed by superficial behavior, materialism without substance, and people who put on mask to fit in... like so what if you don't laugh at someone's shit joke, so what if i am happy with my hydroflask and want nothing to do with a stanley (it's all the same to me), and who cares if your true self is not everyone's favorite (you'll find your people a whole lot faster if you're your self).

resisting practicality: you know how much advice i have given throughout the years THAT WAS ASKED FOR and people did what they wanted anyway??? why even waste my time if you don't want outside perspective. or something its just kind advice to help with ease like hi you are using a stain on the deck, i recommend you wipe as you go so it dries quicker and you don't accidentally smear/smudge later. but nooooo.....

saturn at 29°

arrogance: you know it's okay to be wrong... it's not okay to pontificate about how you were right in some alternate scenario. just admit you were wrong in this situation and move on or better yet say nothing...

irresponsibility: when you say you are going to do something do it. if you are a leader then lead and know that you are responsible for anything you designate to someone you view as your subordinate (especially when you don't train them on what you want them to do for you). if you can't commit to having a task or being in charge than don't do it. someone is relying on you - it's 10 times worse when its yourself and you push goals to the side.

unfounded claims/criticisms: perhaps i am overly sensitive to criticism because i tend to take my work and my self a bit too seriously. but if you can't take yourself and what you do seriously, then who will? i take everything personally too. so when i get criticism and its said in a nasty way (at least how i interpret it) or there is a lack of explanation or no backing i will get annoyed. you bet my humor will be ill-tempered... you can't expect me to react well to a comment like "you're wrong". like wow okay so detailed, i'm glad you decided to write one word and a contraction to dismiss my 2k essay. like if you are going to criticize me or disprove me make it detailed and make it sound. and if i do something wrong its probably because no one told me how to do it in the first place (cough cough work) so don't snap at me, walk me through it.

lack of respect: now listen - i'm no angel, i was a teenager once - eyerolls and all. but now that i am a bit older (she said at 23) i am getting to the point where respect isn't freely given (unless its to build a good first impression) but instead its earned in a pre-existing relationship. i don't tolerate disrespect, no one is going to snap at me and tell me what to do. you do that and you will get the opposite reaction that you expect from me (speaking from real life situations). asserting dominance doesn't make you worthy of respect, it makes you a bully.

3h

superficial conversations: i said it why back when in one of my get to know me posts. i prefer deep, meaningful conversations and i find small talk / superficial chatter frustrating or pointless. like skip to the meat bruv - we don't have all this time for "hi how are you?" "good how are you?"

disorganization: a lack of structure, whether in communication, in a learning environments, or my daily routines, irritates me. i feel like it effects me most in the routine bit. weekends are my prime culprit because my schedule falls apart. during the week my meals and tasks are standardized, but on the weekend, i somehow manage to always get annoyed because i eat lunch late or what i had in my mind to do gets tossed aside...

gossip/rumors: i feel uncomfortable with gossip, i prefer facts and reliable knowledge. which i know facts seems shaky when i am posting the content i do... but generally facts over fiction in conversations. gossip and the like almost always gets me in trouble - i struggle with holding my tongue especially when i see someone regularly who has been gossiped about frequently. withholding information is a form of lying in my opinion - and lying makes me extremely uncomfortable.

impulsive decisions: i am trying to get better about this because i tend to carefully deliberate everything. but i don't like when others around me make impulsive decisions that effect me because it ruins the plan i already had in my mind. for example, last weekend i wanted to go to an all day fall festival with my mother (and yes i told her tuesday my plan) but last minute my mother's boyfriend-not-boyfriend said he needed her help with a project and it was going to be an all weekend thing. so friday night my plan went out the window. so quickly had to make a new plan consisting of paid readings, trader joe's, and shampooing my couch (fun stuff i know...).

a lack of respect for rules/boundaries: a disregard for social norms, etiquette, and established rules of communication annoys me so badly. like it is common courtesy (at least for how i was raised) to call or write in advance of stopping over at someone's house. my mother's boyfriend-not-boyfriend is the biggest perpetrator of this behavior. they aren't technically dating anymore so hello hi in my opinion he should be giving us a heads up if he will be stopping over. also switching gears when i say "no" or "i don't want to" i feel like a lot of people around me push me and test me to see if i will change my tune. i don't appreciate that in the slightest. i make clear boundaries in all the relationships i have (even here i have guidelines) - so yes, you bet i get frustrated when i vocalized or wrote my boundaries and yet they get ignored.

do you have a hypothesis you want me to test? or perhaps you want me to build a hypothesis for something you've been wondering about where astrology is concerned? please use my "suggest a post topic" button if you want to see it happen!

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© a-d-nox 2024 all rights reserved

[goldenempyrean]

Close Your Eyes

〚 Notes - We haven't had a collab in a while, have we? I joined with the amazing @mapis-putellas on this so hopefully you enjoy! 〛

〚 Pairing - Supercorp 〛

〚 Summary - Lena is stubbornly working when she shouldn't be. Kara comes to bring her home. 〛

〚 Wordcount - 2,380 〛

〘 Check Out My Masterlist! 〙

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Kara had assumed it was nothing. In fact, she’d hoped desperately it was nothing. It wasn't like Lena hadn't woken up a little stuffy before. A little grouchy and clingy wanting to be held just that bit little longer than normal. If truth be told, it was quiet a common occurrence - especially during allergy season when all of that pollen was in the air.  

However today it seemed as though Lena had wanted nothing more than to stay in bed. Kara’s gentle hand grazed softly over the bare skin of her back as she'd burrowed herself against her chest.  

For a second, Kara had assumed she'd fallen back to sleep. This wasn’t like ger at all. No matter what, she was always up and out of bed before the clock could even strike seven.  God forbid, a Luthor stay in bed idle while the day passed them by. 

That morning Lena had seemed a little more subdued than normal as she sipped her tea and forced down some breakfast, but Kara again had thought nothing of it and simply put it down to simply allergies and the fact she’d just woken up. She had no reason not to believe it. 

After a quick shower, Lena left for work, as usual. The only difference being was she hadn't kissed Kara goodbye before she'd left. Now that wasn't normal.  Kara’s brow furrowed a little as she watched the door close behind her, her distinct crinkle forming at the bridge of her nose. Something seemed off. 

There wasn’t much she could do now except finishing getting herself ready for the day. Lena was constantly in the back of her mind however. Kara had a habit of zoning in to Lena's heartbeat periodically throughout the day despite her duties as super girl. It wasn’t spying or anything malicious, it was just that hearing that rhythmic beating was comforting and reminded her about all the good in the world, especially after a rough fight or incident. However, each time today that she'd listened in, Kara had heard said heartbeat speed up for several seconds before returning to normal.  

Now, the blonde may had been a little naive sometimes, but she definitely wasn't dumb. She knew full well that they were sneezes. Sneezes of which Lena was trying, and apparently failing, to stifle.  Now she really knew something was wrong. 

Lena never sneezed. Not really. They'd been together for over two years and Kara hadn’t seen Lena had only sneeze in her company more than 3 times. She'd passed that record by triple today already, and it hadn't even been two hours since they'd departed for their respective jobs.  

Her suspicions only grew from there and she just about managed to refrain from flying over to L-Corp and demand Lena go home. Kara knew that that wouldn't go down too well. Especially when her girlfriend was a little more...cranky than usual.  

It was no secret that Lena was a workaholic. In fact, she'd told Kara just that not too long after they'd first started dating - almost as though she was trying to warn Kara away.  

It hadn't worked, obviously, and slowly but surely Kara had gotten used to spending most days by herself. She'd visit L-Corp most days with lunch, - because Lena was nortotrious for forgetting the fact that humans need do indeed need food to function, and after they'd eaten, Kara would manage to coax Lena into her arms for a few minutes of snuggles, and then back to work it was.  

It was pretty much routine now. Their normal. And whilst Kara did sometimes wish they'd spend more time together, she'd gotten used to the fact that it was an uncommon occurrence. The last time they'd spend the entire day together was during her last solar flare just three short months ago.  

Lena had pretty much waited on her hand and foot, and had attended to every single one of her needs without question. She'd held Kara for hours on end, Kara's head on her chest and Kara's arms beneath her shirt, hands tenderly grazing over her bare sides. There had been lots of kisses too. Forehead. Nose. Cheeks, and lips.  

It was glorious, and despite the pain she was in, Kara had never wanted the day to end.  

Of course it had though.   

But apparently now, it was Lena's turn to be sick, which Kara was about 98.7% certain Lena was. The neglected 1.3% doubt was later confirmed when she'd gotten the phone call from Lena's assistant, Jess, pleading with Kara to come and get her girlfriend before she inevitably passed out.  

It had taken Kara mere seconds to make it to L-Corp, and with a deep sigh, - because she already knew Lena wasn't going to let herself be brought home without a fight, she pushed open the balcony door and slipped into Lena's office, meeting her girlfriends surprised look with a soft, yet hopeful smile.  

"Kara?" The sound of her voice alone has Kara's heart aching. It was so hoarse that it sounded painful.  

"Hi baby," She greeted her, walking over and crouching down. Lena turns in her chair to face her, and Kara automatically placed a hand on each of her thighs and gave them a soft squeeze. 

Lena sniffled wetly - a sound Kara decides to ignore, at least for now - before resting her hands atop of Kara's own. "What are you doing here?" She asked as she tilted her head to the side, and Kara had to physically refrain herself from awh’ing out loud as she interlaced her fingers with Lena's slightly smaller ones.  

"Jess called," was all she said, and that was all it takes for Lena's seemingly good mood to drop. She pulled her hands out of Kara's own and attempted to swivel herself out of Kara's personal space with a disgruntled look on her flushed face.  

Expecting this, Kara doesn't let this deter her and placed both hands on the arms of the chair preventing Lena from moving. Lena was visibly upset at this, eyebrows furrowing and lips falling into a small pout. Making it clear she wasn’t going to leave this, Kara reached to cup her chin and was met with Lena swatting her hand away and attempting to stand up. 

"Hey hey, no." Kara lightly chastised her, gently taking both of Lena's hands into her own. "You need to sit back down. I may be strong but I don’t think it’d look good if Jess walked in on me picking you up from the floor." She attempted to joke to ease the tension, and much to her relief, Lena's lips quirk up ever so slightly at the corners. 

"Jess called me," The blonde continued from earlier, doing her best to ignore the pleading look currently being sent her way. She hated confrontation. Especially with those she loved and Lena was the person she loved most in this world with the exception of Alex.  

She wanted so badly to leave Lena to her day because she hated seeing her girlfriend so upset, but she just couldn't bring herself to do so. She'd never forgive herself if she knowingly let Lena work herself to exhaustion like this. 

So, she took a deep breath and forced herself to continue, "She called me and told me you were sick. And baby, you look it. You shouldn’t have even come in today.” 

Lena sniffled again; her green eyes considerably shiny with the onslaught of tears. "Kara..." she trailed off pleadingly, her voice breaking. By now, she was becoming considerably flushed in the face, her brow damp with sweat, telling Kara it may be best to hurry up and finish with this conversation so she could take her home.  

"I must admit I was suspicious from the second you woke up this morning," The pad of Kara’s thumb softly began grazing over her feverish skin. "I should’ve said something then but I decided to let you trust your own judgment, which I realised now may not have been the best decision."  

Lena, despite her obvious inner turmoil, leaned into Kara's soft touch, telling Kara all she needed to know. "Let's go home, okay?" She rises to her feet and holds out her hands.  

Lena frowns, "Kara, no. I have to work. You know that. I can't-" 

Okay. Attempt two it was.  

"Can't what? Be sick? Leave your job for one measly day so I can take care of you?" She wasn't opposed to getting a little defensive herself if it meant Lena would actually listen to her.  

Lena frowned at her, "That's not fair. You know how much this job means to me. I can't just-" she abruptly cut herself off, and for a second, Kara was concerned and watches as Lena's nose twitched and lips quivered. Seconds later, Lena pitched forward into her seat and sneezes both loudly and wetly into her hands.  

"Hts'choo!"  

Kara let out a quiet sigh as she grabbed two tissues from the almost empty box on Lena's desk and once again crouched down in front of her. She offered them out without a word as her hand comes to rest on the small of Lena's back, and the woman shyly took them from her with a somewhat embarrassed look on her face before softly blowing her nose.  

Kara waited patiently as Lena disposed of said tissue before she squirted some sanitiser onto her hands. She knew it may be best to give her a few moments to gather herself because the next time she attempted this conversation, she wouldn't be asking. 

In the meantime, Lena sniffled again and leant back in her chair as she looked up at Kara through tired, glassy eyes. Kara knew it was time for her to go home. Staying here would only do more harm than good and she knew that secretly, Lena would also much prefer to be cuddled up in bed rather than sitting uncomfortably at her desk. 

So this time she tried a different approach, “As L-Corp’s CEO, it’s your responsibility to make sure your company performs at its best, right?”Kara began, and waited for Lena to nod in acknowledgment before she continued, “You’re sick and quite clearly it’s contagious from the way the security guard I passed was sniffling. As CEO, It’s your responsibility to make sure your staff are doing the best job they can do and well, they can’t do that if they’re also coming down with whatever nasty bug you’re fighting, can they?” 

“So, it’s not only in the best interest of yourself but also your company if you be brave, admit you’re not feeling the best today and let me take you back home.” Kara finished. Her logic was irrefutable, even Lena could understand that. 

The ravenette seemed to fight herself on what to do before after a few long seconds, finally giving into the smallest of nods. That was more than enough for Kara. She reached down and helped Lena up, pulling her waist up and towards her into a hug. She could feel Lena hold her breath as she rested her head onto her shoulder, seemingly trying to stop herself from breathing heavily or sniffling. 

“You’re okay love, just relax.” Kara whispered as she rubbed her back as Lena let out a long shaky exhale, “You’ll be okay, I promise. A nice hot bath and some snuggles on the sofa is just what you need. Thank you for letting me taking you home.” 

“M’sorry I’m so stubborn, I know it’s difficult-” Lena began but was cut off by Kara shushing her gently, her hand reaching down to take it into her own as she led her towards the door. 

She pushed open the door and held it as Lena walked through, “I knew what I was signing up for. Yes, you’re as stubborn as anything and it can be a real pain in the... anyway, regardless of that I still wouldn’t change you for the world. You’re my Lena Luthor and I love you.” Kara finished by kissing her softly, making up for the one she lost this morning. The two stayed like that for a minute until Lena had to inevitably break away to breathe. 

Kara smiled softly as Lena took a deep breath, the strain still visible on her flushed face. “Come on, let’s start getting you home.” She said quietly, wrapping an arm around her girlfriend’s waist as they headed towards the elevator. She could feel Lena leaning more of her weight against her, a clear sign of just how exhausted she was.  

The ride down to the lobby was quiet, save for the occasional sniffle or cough from Lena. Some curious people glanced at them curiously as they passed by, but no one dared say a word. Jess stood by the front desk, looking relieved as they approached. She gave her an appreciative nod, a gesture she knew Jess understood. She made a mental note to buy her some flowers or a small gift at a later date. 

In the meantime, Kara continued to guide Lena out of the building and into her waiting car. She helped her settle into the passenger seat, buckling her in with careful hands. “Just relax, okay?” she murmured, brushing a stray lock of hair away from Lena’s face. 

The driver looked at her curiously, “Where to Miss Danvers?” He asked as Kara climbed in the backseat at the other side. She thought for a moment as Lena scooted over a little to lean against her side, letting her head drop onto her shoulder. 

The blonde couldn’t resist cooing quietly at how clingy her previously stubborn and crank girlfriend had become, “Pharmacy first please then back to our apartment. Thank you.” She turned to Lena, letting her hand come to the back of her hair to gently undo the tight ponytail she’d had it pulled up into. Instantly she could feel Lena’s expression soften slightly as the pressure in her head relieved just a little, “Just close your eyes and sleep love. I’ll get everything we need and when you wake up, we’ll be back home, okay?” 

The Luthor sighed softly and nodded, her eyes fluttering closed as she quietly whispered, “Thanks Kara.” 

“You’re welcome sweetheart.” 

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[5five5five5five5five5five]

Pls headcanons of a flirty dolores [human] and five .

Trying to forget "that season".

Denial stage activated.

Pls and thank you.

Good day/night.

OOOHH YES! but first i want to write a human Dolores of my own then we can get to the flirty stuff. * she is in her mid 30's and works as a librarian who LOVES books and is very smart and pretty and perfect.

she is MADDENINGLY in love with the Noir detective novel series " Five "max" Hargreeves and the Umbrella of Time. a long running series about a Old man who turns into a young man some times and solves crime with his dog Mr. pennycrumb. * she hated that when they turned the books into movies, they hired a actor that looked NOTHING like how she sees him in her head. Five looks like how she sees him in her head. she cant pinpoint why it bugs her so much. its just wrong. thats not him??? * one day well sorting books, she no clips into the backroom subways and gets stuck. idk how. s4 logic aka make shit up. but she thinks "what would Five do?" and copy his mapping and travel style. * and then they meet......Jesus my kinnie ass heart melts even thinking about it lol. * "five?!" "Delores?!.....are you..real this time....." "wait how do you know my name??....and yes i am very much real? are YOU?" "how do you know MY name?? and yes??" then they nervously chuckle and tell each other how they know each other. * they get a bit sad that the others Delores and five were not real and five admits he got the better end of the stick by being a cool book character....she didn't deserve to be just a......mannequin. but Delores reassures him that his life needed her and that's what gave it so much value. "and at least you got to physically hold me~ i just had....really embaressing art of you...." *Delores drawing him then she thinks he's not looking. she wishes he was a bit older but her self shipping ass is used to his age "powers" but knows this Five cant turn back. at least he's not 13 Five lol. *he's tried to explain his age situation a few times.... shes so understanding about it and five, for the first time, feels seen....and got does his face get red. she knows he's a old man. she loves him BECAUSE he's actually an old man. ANYWAY TO THE FLIRTY STUFF. MY BRAIN IS JUST ON FIRE WITH HUMAN DELORES. * they CAN NOT stop looking at each other. five feels so stupid being THIS flustered. its not his wife. he knows this. but god....shes so stunning. younger then his Delores but he doesn't mind. * she's taller then him no matter what. she was taller then him when he was old, young doesn't matter. shes a tall women and he loves that about her. *her always behind his shoulder correcting his math. and him huffing and admitting shes right. *she likes to head to him. he likes listening. hearing her voice with none of his own voice fused in is so refreshing. he would read his head in her lap and just relax for once in his life. *them slow dancing and mumbling soft words of comfort to each other. *she loves booping his nose. at first, it bits him because the handler used to but ends up finding it nice. its a trait she would have. *he loves watching her move. dance. walk. talk. shes in front of him. again, their eyes are glued to each other and its hard hard not to. just knowing their loves are real keeps them going. *that art meme of all the lovestruck chibis surrounding a very flustered person. that's Delores if she walked into the deli. imagine all the fives looking over and melting in surprise. crumbling in their seats because they are filled with "i miss my wife,tails" energy. the five we are following for this post has to fight them back and give protective glares well she admits the attention is nice and oh god! so many fives! *when five finds a way to return, he doesn't fucking hide it and want to introduce her to his family so bad. she is worried about ending up in a different timeline. he understands the risk but at this point, he just wants the love of his life. and Shes so starved for adventure that she agrees wholeheartedly.

sorry if this wasn't all flirty themed stuff, i just really wanted to write Delores.

[snookienthusi4st]

mello sfw alphabet

warnings: language, gn! reader, angst if you squint, reader gets called pretty/gorgeous, pet names(doll), mentions of violence, mentions of sex

sfw, just suggestive

a (affection)

mel’s super possessive. not because he doesn’t trust you, he just likes having you all to himself. so i feel like he’d have no reluctance to show you any type of public affection, and will probably be touchy given the time and place.

like an arm around your waist in a crowd or a quick lil kiss before he goes somewhere

b(best friend)

i feel like we can agree that mello is a very distrustful person, so it’ll take time for him to even consider opening up to you. nothing personal, it’s just how things have always been for him.

but be patient, and whether it’s obvious to you or not, he will develop a soft spot for you and will come to enjoy spending time with you :3

c(cuddles)

this guy is so touch starved this answer’s a no brainer

maybe he’ll brush off the idea at first because he has that big of an ego, but if you ever lie down next to him and hug him around his neck he’s gonna consider crying and will not let you leave until the time he sees fit

as tough as he seems, he has such a soft heart and those moments where you two are holding each other are what push him to get through another long day

d(domestic)

it’s hard to tell if he would settle down. i know he would want to but the mafia stuff is making me rethink

unfortunately i think the closest he’ll ever get to settling down is having you move into their base thingy, which seems decent in theory minus the shootouts, yelling, blood etc etc

e(ending)

if he ever had to break things off, it wouldn’t be by choice. but like i said earlier he does grow a soft spot for you, and might distance himself because he doesn’t want you in danger

he’s involved with a lot of menacing people and the thought of you getting hurt or him getting hurt after you get attached could be too much for him to carry

f(fiancée)

wouldn’t get married cause of the mafia stuff and having to stay undercover, but i do think you guys would get to that level if that makes sense

like no documented marriage but after a while you guys are conjoined at the hip so it’s obvious you guys want to have a future together even without the rings

g(gentle)

it’s kind of out of character for him to be gentle by any means but if you guys get close enough, he’ll start warming up to you

whenever he attempts to be gentle it’s the hottest thing ever and he doesn’t even realize it. he’ll tone down his voice a bit cause we all know he can get a bit high strung or he’ll lean down a bit and tilt your chin up to hear you better

also he really likes people looking at him when they talk to him so once you guys start dating some of those mannerisms will be coupled with small little coaxes

“look at me, doll. there she/he is, you’ve got such a pretty face.”

h(hugs)

he wouldn’t initiate them cause he’s too nervous cool to ask

but if you’re a hugger then he’ll gladly accommodate! he’ll return it normally and let you stay as long as you want within reason, probably run a hand down your back or ruffle your hair if you’re already dating

i(i love you)

give it a while, but he will tell you he loves you eventually! prepare to be incredibly shocked when he does because the man will catch you off guard

and he’ll probably go about it like he’s already said it a million times and he’ll be surprised by how emotional you get if you’re a sensitive person

“have i told you i love you yet? no? wait, the hell are you crying for? you’re such a baby..”

and he’s holding you close while you both laugh about it together

j(jealousy)

so mel’s less jealous and more protective. not to the extent where he’ll go and hurt someone over talking to you but he has a killer stink eye

and then later on when you get a moment alone he’ll be all over you, kisses on your neck and running his hands over your waist and collarbones

not cause he’s envious of whoever got to talk to you but because he likes knowing he’s the only one that can get this physically close to you. it’s like an unsaid reassurance for him

k(kisses)

his kisses get rougher over time but it depends on where you two are, like he’s not gonna shove his tongue down your throat in front of the mafia members

subtle, quick kisses in public, on your forehead or on your cheek. he probably won’t give you many in public unless you ask, and he’ll have that lil smirk on his face when you do like aww you want me so bad

but in private he has no shame in heavy makeouts, his lips careful but firm against yours as he holds the back of your head to cradle you against him as you kiss :3

l(little ones)

homegirl hasn’t been around kids since 500 BC, and wammy’s doesn’t really count since he was a kid then too

wouldn’t end up having any kids, since he doesn’t want anyone born into a mafia “household,” but he’d be like awkward in a cute way if he ever encountered a kid

do not let him around babies though, he’ll freak the fuck out

“am i holding it right?” and he’s holding it upside down

m(mornings)

mornings are slightly chaotic when you live at their base. if you’re lucky enough you two get a cuddle session in before you hear people fighting outside

during kira, he’d be up earlier than you and out of bed already to work on the case stuff

but as soon as he’d hear you start to stir and wake up he’d sit at the foot of your bed and wait for you so he could greet you :3

n(nights)

work work work, especially during kira, but he’d always do his best to make time for you. maybe he’d have you straddling his lap and napping on him while he works, just so he gets to feel your body against his

you usually turn in earlier than he does but on the rare case where he’s ready for bed at the same time as you, you guys cuddle or have sex before you both fall asleep

o(open)

so he’s not a super open book considering he’s literally undercover half the time

but a while after you guys start dating he’d tell you his real name, but he’d urge you not to call him by it unless told that you could

he doesn’t want either of you two getting hurt but especially not you

p(patience)

his patience is usually pretty thin as shown in the series but he really does try for you

he’s super passionate about things so something that might get him slightly impatient is if you’re like super deadpan and nonchalant about things he vocally shows an interest in

not a lot of ways to get completely under his skin though, man’s been through hell and back

q(quizzes)

i see him as the type to forget a few minor details about your likes and dislikes but to remember the things that matter to you the most

like your favorite color, gifts you want, things you like about yourself, he’ll remember it all

r(remember)

his favorite thing he remembers about your relationship is probably the night he saw you after kira was apprehended

just seeing your gorgeous face and knowing that he wouldn’t have to worry about you being prematurely taken away from him made him feel so whole

he hugged you when he saw you and his voice was really shaky but he never ended up crying or so you saw

s(security)

he’s secure about your bond/commitment but he’s really insecure about himself :(

like he trusts you and knows you won’t leave but he feels like you deserve better than a mafia scarface like him

he dreads the day you’ll kiss his scar and tell him how beautiful he still is because the waterworks will be showing up VERY fast(should i make a fic about this)

t(try)

will definitely make an effort!! for anniversaries he’s got you covered on gifts, nothing you can’t buy with mafia money

but he’ll make sure you know how much he loves and appreciates you too, last thing he wants to be in a relationship is superficial

u(ugly)

some bad habits of his are being a workaholic and sometimes raising his voice

if you ever have an argument, he won’t raise his voice to try and scare you. it’s just how he’s gotten people to listen whenever he’s getting his point across in any type of conversation so if he ends up freaking you out he’ll definitely reel it back in and apologize

and he’s a total workaholic, but he manages to make time for the things he cares about, like you

also bottles his emotions up half the time since that’s what he was indirectly taught to do at wammy’s, so sometimes you have to sit him down and really reassure him before he cracks and opens up

v(vanity)

absolute fashionista

whenever he’s outside, he always has one of his fire fits on, extra points if you dress up too

you guys definitely go shopping together if you have similar or even contrasting styles

seems like the type to let you wear that big fur jacket he has whenever you’re cold and tease you about it later

w(whole)

after some time, he can feel you growing into a piece of him. like you’ve become such a big part of his life that he can’t imagine it without you

this was a big struggle back during kira, because he felt like you’re the only person that would ever love him that much and the only person he could love as much as he does

lots of nights where he’d spiral and stress, resulting in comfort from you that eventually calmed him down, until the case was finally over

x(xtra hcs)

will absolutely play dress up with you if you let him

like it won’t usually lead up to sex of any kind but it’s so intimate, just having him pick out your clothes and gently undress and redress you

even better if it’s his clothes, he’ll be so proud of himself like damn he really lucked out with you

“think this dress is my favorite on you, y/n..you really are gorgeous.”

“that shirt’s big on you. it’s a cute look, though, maybe you should keep it.”

y(yuck)

obviously all of this is subject to accommodate but he doesn’t fairly enjoy people he has to repeat important stuff for(unless it’s a normal amount and you genuinely didn’t hear him lmao) like no he will not tell you that for the fifth time

also he likes smart people and he’ll still like people that at least try to be smart, but the man does not fuck with airheads. like if you’re identical to misa if not more extreme personality wise, he will take forever to come around to you

z(zzz)

light sleeper, but he eventually starts sleeping better and getting into a better schedule after you two start sleeping together

another one of the reasons he’s so grateful for you

[darl-ingfics]

Sicktember Day 15: "Who decided __ is sick people food?"

Fandom: Seventeen

Sickie: Mingyu (cold)

Caregiver(s): Wonwoo

Word Count: 817

Notes: Better late than never!!! Based very, very lightly on the last time I was majorly sick, and called my mom in tears, and she brought me three different flavors of soft serve ice cream from Dairy Queen: one to eat while she was there, and two for later. Cheers, Mom! Also, there's a follow up to this for Day 19... which is still in the works...

The thing about being roommates for so long was that there were absolutely no secrets between them anymore. So when Mingyu’s attempted to squirm away from Wonwoo when the older rapper hugged him upon returning home from a solo photoshoot, it was the last red flag Wonwoo needed to conclude that his best friend was indeed sick. 

He’d had his suspicions since he’d woken up (he’d had the pleasure of hearing Mingyu toss and turn and sniffle all night, perks of being roommates), but had waited for further confirmation to confront Mingyu about it. Because an unwell Mingyu was a stubborn Mingyu; confront him too early, and he’d refuse all help. And Mingyu was the type of patient who required the help of others. For as thoughtful as he was when it was someone else in need, he was hopeless bad at self care. 

So Wonwoo needed to tread carefully here. 

“Heeey,” he singsonged after Mingyu had wiggled out his embrace. He casually moved towards his own bed, taking off his jacket and sitting down to remove his shoes. “How are you?” He kept his voice cool. 

Mingyu chuckled, shaking his head. “I’m fine, same as last time I saw you, what, three hours ago?” One of Wonwoo’s eyebrows arched skeptically at the sound of Mingyu’s huskier than usual, definitely congested voice. The younger man smiled like nothing was wrong. “How are you? How was the shoot?” 

Wonwoo waved him off. “Same old, same old. You know that’s not what I meant.” 

Mingyu rolled his eyes. “You’re so dramatic.” He looked off down at the floor, hands shoved in his pockets of his sweatpants. He had his shoulders hunched every so slightly. Conserving warmth, Wonwoo noted. 

“Nah, I don’t think it’s weird when you were up half the night.” Mingyu’s attention snapped back to Wonwoo, his face melting into the most pitiful look of guilt. Wonwoo withheld the smile from his face. “We share a room, Gyu. I always know.” 

Mingyu shivered, and Wonwoo clicked his tongue, patting the space next to him on his bed. Mingyu, surprisingly, rose from his desk chair and sat down next to Wonwoo, allowing himself to be pulled against Wonwoo’s side, head on his shoulder. 

“You want my hoodie?” Wonwoo asked, voice quiet for only Mingyu to hear. 

Mingyu shook his head. “Then you’ll be cold…”

Wonwoo rolled his eyes. “I’ll be fine, dummy. I’m not the one running a fever.”

“I’m not…”

“I can feel your skin, love. You’re running hot.” 

“I’m always hot.” Mingyu squealed when Wonwoo pinched his side. “Am I wrong, though?” Wonwoo rolled his eyes, pulling Mingyu closer as the younger boy giggled at his own joke. Mingyu’s body remained tense against him. “You’re gonna get sick too.”

“Babe. We share a room and you’re allergic to covering your mouth. I’m getting sick whether I like it or not. And pouting about it isn’t going to change that.” Mingyu quickly schooled his expression, Wonwoo smirking affectionately and pinching his cheek, much to Mingyu’s dismay. But the younger man did finally accept Wonwoo’s embrace, melting against his shoulder. They sat in silence for a bit, Mingyu mindlessly playing with a string on his sweatpants as Wonwoo simply existed in the moment.

Their quiet time was broken by a knock at the door.

“Wonwoo-ah?”

They looked up to see Hoshi leaning around the doorway with two bowls of… ice cream? 

“What’s going on?” Mingyu asked, eyeing the dance leader suspiciously as he drew closer after Wonwoo nodded at him. 

“Wonwoo texted that you weren’t feeling well, and asked me to bring you something to make you feel better.” As Hoshi explained, he held out one of the small bowls of plain vanilla ice cream. 

Mingyu looked down at the bowl, then up at Wonwoo. “Since when is ice cream ‘sick people food?’”

The older man shrugged. “Since forever.”

“But isn’t ice cream bad for your throat?”

“Only if you’re singing. But it’s actually really good for when you have a sore throat.” Wonwoo smiled. He touched his own throat for emphasis. “The milk coats everything, and the cold soothes the pain. My parents always let me have a little ice cream when I wasn’t feeling well, so I can personally vouch for its healing powers.” 

“I second that prescription,” Soonyoung said. He gave the bowl a tiny shake, prompting Mingyu to take it. “A little sugar never hurt nobody.” Mingyu finally took the ice cream from Soonyoung, taking a tiny, careful bite. Soonyoung then held the second bowl out to Wonwoo, promising he’d be right back with his own bowl. 

“Thank you, Woo,” Mingyu said softly as soon as Hoshi had ducked out of the room. 

Wonwoo smiled. “Anytime, love. Just promise to be nice to me when I inevitably catch this.”

“Deal.” Mingyu held up his bowl, and Wonwoo tapped it in their own personal cheers.

[letsplaythermalnuclearwar]

Homer!Odysseus and Epic!Odysseus would try to kill each other if they ever met

[wheucto]

on that note, in IDFB it's said that it's day 1127 of their video diary, and BFDIA 6 is when they started the video diary, so between BFDIA 6 and IDFB is 3 years and 1 month

[ckret2]

who wants a prism break?

So, the Theraprism! The Theraprism sucks, right?

This is like, a good day.

The Theraprism clearly sucks.

Have a one shot of Bill escaping Theraprism with the most desperate escape plan imaginable: reincarnation.

(Warning for, as you might expect, psychiatric hospital abuse.)

####

There are fates worse than death. Like boredom, for instance!

####

Everything was black and numb and silent and cold so so cold but no he could only call it cold if he felt cold and Bill didn't feel coldness there was just the absence of a feeling the absence of heat the absence of light the absence of sound the absence of touch the absence of air.

The absence of everything.

Bill had loved a void once—a micro black hole. Every time they touched it slowly killed him, spaghettified his limbs, drained his energy. His energy was so vast that she never claimed a drop of a drop of a drop of his reserves—but it still hurt like nothing else to be crushed and stretched and ripped and consumed by her event horizon. The pain was wonderful. Being shredded was ecstasy.

This void was the opposite of her. 

He couldn't even feel anything when he tried to scream—without air, he couldn't feel his vocal plates vibrate. He couldn't feel his hands, his face, his eye; he tried to bite himself just to feel something and he couldn't feel his mouth, he tried to rip open his wounds and couldn't find them; why couldn't he see his own light, why couldn't he see his blood, where had he gone, was he gone—

Reality returned like a light bulb being switched on.

The first thing he registered was a shrill sound on the verge of inaudibility; and then the pain in his eye, his sides, his wounds; and then the dull gray light, the hard floor under his knees, the antiseptic stench in the air conditioning.

He stopped screaming. The shrill sound stopped.

"Energetic as always, are we?"

Bill blinked blearily at the Orb of Healing Light hovering before him. He croaked, "I'll regurgitate you."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that." A glowing translucent clipboard manifested in front of the Orb. "Well, you've gone through this enough times to know the drill! Do you need a moment to recover, or—?"

"No no, I'm fine, I'm fine." Bill slumped forward, trembling hands on the floor, waiting for the vertigo to pass. "I'm fine. Do your thing." He'd rather get the post-Solitary Wellness Void reorientation interview over with.

"Perfect. What's your name?"

"I'm ol' Vinegar Pete."

"No clowning, please."

He sighed loudly. "Bill Cipher."

"Good. Where are you?"

He considered saying hell, but decided he'd used up all the clowning he could risk for one day. He didn't want to go back in. "The Theraprism. Ward 333."

"Very good. When are you?"

"I was gonna ask you," Bill groaned. "How long was I in the hole this time? A million years? Ten million?"

The Orb checked its notes. "Eight minutes."

"Wh—no, no I know that time moves slower out in reality than in the prism. I'm not asking how much time passed in reality, I'm asking how much time passed here."

"Eight minutes," the Orb repeated. "Outside the Theraprism, one third of one second passed."

Bill groaned again and flopped flat on the floor.

"Do you know why you're here?"

"Why are any of us here?" Bill asked the gray linoleum tiles. "Usually because some dumb beast tripped into the booby trap that sets off its reproductive process. How's your species work, you pop outta nebulas, right—?"

"I meant, coming out of the Solitary Wellness Void."

"Oh." Bill tried to remember what his infraction had been this time. "Because I failed to escape."

"Because you tried to escape."

If he'd succeeded, they never could have punished him. "Sure."

"Good, you seem oriented to your surroundings. Let's get you to the nurse and then back to your cell." The nurse? What did he need a nurse for?

He only realized then that he must have succeeded in reopening his wounds in the SWV: the never-quite-healed crack across his exoskeleton was wider, the edges chipped and bent. It hurt. His eye socket hurt too; he tasted blood. With the way his whole body usually ached after leaving the void, he hadn't even noticed.

Through the crack in his exoskeleton, his edges had frayed into fine golden threads. The sight of silvery blood on his hands made him nauseous; he hastily looked away and reminded himself it was only his own. 

####

As Bill wearily followed behind the Orb and two security guards followed behind him, he had to periodically turn to hover sideways to streamline himself. These days he was so weak that he could feel the air resistance pushing back against him when he floated; with his wound reopened, he felt like the air pressure could snap his exoskeleton along the crack and break him in half.

"You're not Emmy," Bill said. "You're, uh..."

"A-AOX4."

"Oxyyy," Bill said weakly. "Heyyy. S'been a while. Usually I get a personal welcome back from the void, why didn't Emmy show? Don't tell me it doesn't see me as a threat anymore!" He'd be offended if it didn't. D-SM5 was the closest thing he had to a nemesis these days. Even if he couldn't beat it, he wanted to think he still irritated the daylights out of it.

"Director SM5 couldn't make it. It's overseeing the preparations for Paingoreous's reincarnation."

"That's today? Good riddance." Paingoreous had started getting sanctimonious the past few hundred group therapy sessions—don't you have any compassion for your victims and it's possible to live a happy life without slaughtering all your enemies first and maybe I should ask for permission before I vivisect my friends' faces—passive, self-defeatist crap like that. Vivisecting your friends and seeing who complained was how you found out who your lame friends were! Now that the wet blanket was leaving, the rest of them could get back to spending their sessions reminiscing about the glory days and trying to set the donuts on fire when the therapist was distracted.

"Yes," A-AOX4 said pointedly, "it is good he gets to leave to go become a productive member of reality. We're all so happy that he's rehabilitated enough to earn a new chance at life." (Bill rolled his eye. A-AOX4 ignored it.) "Wouldn't you like a chance to rejoin reality, Bill?"

More than anything. He'd been in this crystallized brain's perpetual dreamscape for what felt like both a thousand years and a single day—time never passing, an eternal inescapable moment. He'd tried to break out, sneak out, or bargain his way out more times than he could count; sometimes he was locked in the SWV as punishment; and sometimes the staff gently stopped him, confiscated his supplies, and chastised him for the effort—and the reminder that he was as powerless as a child was worse than the void. He'd gone delirious from the boredom, hallucinating screams and burning faces as his mind struggled to stimulate itself (and he'd been medicated for it). He'd so despaired of escaping that he'd looked for a way to burn up the remains of his energy and vanish for good (and he'd been medicated for it). He ached with the need to see the stars again.

But not enough to sell his soul for it. If he took the staff's route—let them break him down, sandblast off his rough edges, erase everything that made him him, and finally physically transform him into some alien creature—then whatever left the Theraprism would no longer be Bill Cipher.

"What, and force you guys to find a new 'unique case'? I wouldn't do that to you! I know how much you love me," Bill said. "Besides, why would I go through all that just so I can reincarnate as a sentient snowflake, or Mi-Go antennae lice, or..."

"A butterfly," A-AOX4 cut in, an edge of impatience creeping into its tone. "Paingoreous has chosen to reincarnate as a butterfly. We all think that's a very productive way to channel his desire to digest his own skin."

"Unless it's one of those blood-drinking butterflies, lame." Bill scoffed. "Wait—hold on, you said butterfly? Like an Earth butterfly?"

They were, of course, not actually speaking an Earth language, but an interdimensional pidgin that borrowed words and grammar from dozens of worlds. When around the Orbs of Healing Light that held half the staff positions, Bill tended to speak a dialect of the pidgin that used flashes of light for 40% of its vocabulary. It was perfectly possible that the word Bill knew as "butterfly" was also used for some alien creature, but—

"Yes, an Earth butterfly. A Vanessa atalanta, to be precise."

Aw, boo. Not even a cool butterfly. "He's reincarnating on Earth?"

"Yes. Many of our patients reincarnate on Earth. As long as you're careful about which region and century you reincarnate into, it's at the top of our recommended list of Goldilocks zones."

There was another phrase that Bill recognized, but this time he was sure his definition was not A-AOX4's definition. "Whaaat do Goldilocks zones have to do with reincarnation."

"You didn't pay attention to the orientation session on our outpatient reincarnation program, did you."

"What! I didn't get an orientation session!" said Bill, who probably didn't remember any such session because he didn't pay attention to it.

"Well—we rank millions of planets and their dimensional parallels based on their potential to help patients reintegrate into reality. We do try to set our patients up for success," A-AOX4 said. "To qualify as a Goldilocks zone, a planet has to meet the Theraprism's rigorous list of criteria: its lifeforms, cultures, laws of physics, and position in interdimensional society must all be conducive to a patient's continued recovery. We want to ensure that our patients' new lives are neither so difficult as to retraumatize them, nor so easy as to let them coast by avoiding continued personal growth, but right in the middle, so that they're emotionally and spiritually challenged without being overwhelmed. The Goldilocks zone: a perfect compromise between two extremes."

"Yeah, sure, sounds great." Bill could feel his eye glazing over in disinterest. Fight it, Cipher.

"Do you miss Earth?"

Bill tilted to glance askance at A-AOX4, and was surprised to see it had turned to focus a spotlight on him. Oh—it thought it had finally found a carrot to dangle in front of him. That was a popular strategy here: they figured out what a patient wanted most, and then used it to coax them into good behavior and "rehabilitation"—better still if they could attach a sense of urgency to it. Don't you want to see your descendants again before the last of them dies out? Don't you want to see your homeworld before its sun swallows it? Don't you want to reconcile with your god before the heat death of your universe?

But Bill had no universe, no homeworld, no family; no lovers or friends or gods that hadn't betrayed him and left him to rot here; and he'd remained smugly steadfast in refusing to give D-SM5 and its minions anything else it could use to get under his chitin. He was proud that he was too broken for even the famed Theraprism to fix him.

A-AOX4 probably thought it had finally found an opening. It might be useful to let it keep thinking that.

"You kidding me? Earth? Pfff! I don't miss that overgrown asteroid one bit!" He waved off the suggestion, and winced when the gesture tugged wrong at his reopened wound. "But hey, you don't study a world for millions of years without finding a few things about it to like. The music's pretty good. And the movies and literature, though if you ask me, they peaked between the first two World Wars. I like trees, evolution did a great job with trees. And humans really went off with the architecture. The pyramids? 10 out of 10. And some of the locals aren't bad, I've got a few exes from Earth."

"Do you? How many exes?"

"Living? Just a hundred forty or fifty," Bill said dismissively. "Earthlings just have those pretty eyes, you know? I'm a sucker for a pretty eye! But outside of that, no, there's nothing on Earth for me."

"I see," A-AOX4 said lightly, and dropped the conversation.

Hook, line, and sinker.

####

The original definition of a "Goldilocks zone" came from astrobiology. The Goldilocks zone was the ring of space around a star in which an orbiting planet could support liquid water and thus water-based life: not too close to the star and too hot, not too far and too cold, but just right. Earth, for instance, orbited Sol in its Goldilocks zone.

It was from this definition that other, more metaphorical definitions of Goldilocks zones emerged. Such as the Theraprism's: a world that was neither too stressful nor too boring for a newly brainwashed—sorry, "cured"—patient. And apparently Earth was in that Goldilocks zone, too.

Which was very interesting to Bill—because in their search for a new home, the Henchmaniacs had come up with their own definition of a Goldilocks zone. For them, it was a dimension close enough to the Nightmare Realm with a thin enough barrier that they could easily punch through it, but not so close and so thin that puncturing the barrier would pop it like a balloon and cause the dimension to immediately prolapse into the Nightmare Realm—which was a problem they'd had before. More than once. They needed a dimension they could easily cut a hole into, but control it, so they could slowly pump the Nightmare Realm's contents in. A barrier neither too vulnerable nor too strong, but just right.

And wouldn't you know it—but Earth happened to be in that Goldilocks zone too. Right next to a point in the dimensional membrane so thin, the Nightmare Realm could almost stretch through and kiss it.

####

Since Bill Cipher was infamously known as the last survivor of a trillion-years-extinct species, and had until recently been capable of instantly repairing himself, there were no medical records on how his anatomy worked. It didn't help that at some point eons ago he'd somehow managed to graft a 3D exoskeleton to his 2D anatomy without breaking his own physics, meaning no one had seen his true body in recorded history. Bill knew how he worked, but refused to offer any hints. So the Theraprism staff had to guess at Bill's medical treatment.

But Bill was still made of energy, and even weakened he could eventually self-repair. So whenever his injury was exacerbated, the nurse tended to just patch up his exoskeleton to keep it stable enough to send him back to his room.

On top of his mysterious anatomy, the staff had no idea how to medicate his physiology. They knew he could be medicated—Bill's personal substance (ab)use experiments were notorious far outside the Nightmare Realm—but they had to treat him like a newly-discovered form of life in figuring out what affected him, how it affected him, and how much it took. He'd been on and off hundreds of drugs as they tried to chemically stabilize a mind for which they had no idea what baseline stability looked like. D-SM5 had told him that between the enormous doses needed to impact his energy-based physiology and the vast variety of drugs he'd been through, Bill's medication regimen was the most expensive in the Theraprism. He took some pride in that.

He had very few things to take pride in anymore. He clung to what meager victories he could.

If Bill got his way, he wouldn't be medicated at all. None of the substances they wanted him on were what he'd call recreational. (Although for a while he had gotten away with not telling the docs that one of his antipsychotics had given him a side-effect of kaleidoscopic hallucinations.) Plus there was the fact that he'd heard rumors that quite a few pharmaceutical execs were good pals with a certain director—not that Bill would name names, of course!—that's his motto, Don't Slander Maliciou5ly!

But when he resisted taking his meds, they could send in the guards to pin him down so a nurse could inject a sedative so strong he wouldn't remember anything that happened for the next few hours to months (hard to tell) until they started tapering it off... and although he'd rather die than admit it, after losing that fight five or six times, even he had to admit to himself it was a lot less scary to just take their rotten drugs. Better to go through his days with his mind dulled and hazy than blacked out altogether.

To retain what little pride he had left, he'd reached a compromise with his jailers.

When the nurse had finished attaching the reinforcing splints around Bill's injury, they grabbed a medication measurement cup, filled it halfway with syrupy eye drops, and double-checked Bill's chart as they dropped thirteen different pills (plus a fourteenth pill for a painkiller) in the cup.

As Bill redressed, he eyed the unappetizing cocktail of antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and things he'd forgotten the purpose of but that probably weren't doing whatever the doctors hoped and definitely weren't doing anything Bill liked. "My straw?"

"Right, right." The nurse handed over one of the wide-diameter disposable white straws they kept on hand for patients who struggled to drink (or, in Bill's case, patients they struggled to get to drink).

Only a tiny fragment of Bill was actually locked up in the Theraprism—like pinching the glowing lure of an anglerfish in a trap while the rest of the fish thrashed outside—and because most of Bill's vast energy was elsewhere, he was nearly powerless. But he still had enough energy to heat up a finger, twist the straw around it, and hold it there until it had melted into a new shape.

The nurse sighed. "Do you have to do that every time? You ruin more straws than you get right."

Imperiously, Bill said, "Leave me to my whimsy." He tugged off the straw when it had cooled down to examine the corkscrew shape he'd made. The wall was a little flattened in one place, but he could pinch it back open. "See? It's perfect!" Cheerfully ignoring the nurse, he stuck the straw in his cup and slurped down his pills like tapioca balls. He tried not to remember what was in them.

A-AOX4 had left Bill with the nurse, but the two mall cops with medical kinks known as Bill's personal guards were still waiting nearby. The nurse's office was next door to the cafeteria—for ease of patients picking up their medications at meal times—in an anteroom that was connected to the rest of the ward by a set of locked double doors. A couple of guards were stationed near those doors at all times, and generally the guards assigned to Bill hung around with them while Bill was in the cafeteria or nurse's office. Bill floated up to them, regarding them with the disinterest of a king ignoring the servants he expected to open doors for him, and continued to ignore them as they escorted him back to his cell, one in front and one behind, while he sipped on his drugged cocktail.

The Dimensional Tyrant Ward was already one of the most heavily-guarded wards in the Theraprism; but to reach the maximum security cells, a patient had to pass several increasingly heavy security checkpoints with increasingly impenetrable security doors. The final door was warded against all magic, unhackable, unbreakable, and so airtight that even without his exoskeleton there was no gap Bill's 2D form could slide through. The doors to each cell—outfitted with tiny one-way mirror portholes, no latches or hinges on the inside—were a little less heavy duty, but packed with just as many failsafes. The Dimensional Tyrant Ward's max security hall had the most advanced security architecture of any psychiatric facility in the multiverse.

Bill had made a trillion year career of trying to break his way through a door nobody wanted him to go through. He could think of seven different ways to get through the doors. Sooner or later he'd find a way out of this place altogether.

A few of the doors had modifications: this one with a metal slab over the porthole to protect passersby from the occupant's petrifying gaze, that one with extra soundproofed padding coating the door. Bill was almost insulted his own door didn't warrant any special modifications.

His favorite door was The Beast's. A comfortingly yellow triangular sign on the door displayed a black symbol of a steak. Red signs above and below read "CAUTION! FEED UNSEASONED MEAT ONLY." "NO SUGAR ALLOWED." The Beast's heavy snuffing was audible through the door; his hot, sickly sweet breath seeped through the slot in the door that had been installed to deliver his food.

Bill's escorts automatically drifted to the far side of the hall to avoid The Beast. Bill, whose first medication was already starting to kick in, zigzagged lazily back and forth across the hall, heedless of how close he came to The Beast's cell.

Bill had never seen this door opened once in all his time incarcerated, and the dust settled on the additional chains and padlocks stretched across the door showed just how long it had been since the last incident. But some of the patients who'd been here longer than Bill still couldn't bring themselves to speak of the last time he'd escaped. Elder eldritch gods shuddered and gibbered nervously at the mention of his name. 

Bill tilted over to try to peer through the food slot at The Beast. A quivering, sickly blue eye stared back at him. Honestly, Bill thought The Beast was adorable.

Outside Bill's door, the guards waited for Bill to finish his medicine, hand over his cup and straw, and open his mouth and lift his eye out of the way so they could check and make sure he'd swallowed them.

And then he was left in his cell.

####

A perfect cube of uniform dull grey tiles supernaturally lit by a uniform dull grey glow, no light source, no shadows; in a max security room in the Maximum Security Wellness Center, patients weren't even trusted around light fixtures. The staff had removed everything Bill had used thus far to commit violence or attempt escape, plus a few more things as punishments for various infractions: journal, paint, pens, books, magazines, puppets (he missed those the most), even the furniture. He'd never earned the privilege of a TV or radio. By now, all he was permitted were black, red, yellow, and blue dry erase markers to draw on his walls—and the red and blue had gone dry; the "Be a TRY-angle!" poster they'd replaced whenever Bill left the room until he gave up and stopped tearing it down; and the clothes on his back. He'd gradually gotten himself banned from every extracurricular and recreational activity the Dimensional Tyrant Ward offered. Whenever he was fresh out of the SWV, when his restrictions were highest, his schedule consisted of mandatory individual therapy, mandatory group therapy, med checks, and the cafeteria.

He spent the vast majority of his time in his cell, sitting curled up alone, day after night after day, barely moving, barely talking, barely eating, waiting for nothing at all.

####

The seamless door swung open and admitted an Orb of Healing Light.

Bill blinked blearily up at the Orb. It was hard to tell how slowly time passed here, but he was sure it couldn't have been more than a couple hours since he'd been returned to his cell: that was when his medications made his mind the foggiest. "Emmyyy. Where ya been? Didn't see you when I came out of the Solitary Dullness Void. Nice of you to, uh..." A second ago he'd had a clever quip about how D-SM5 had clearly dropped by because it missed Bill, but he'd forgotten how to word it.

"Well, I'm here now. I'm flattered you missed me, Mr. Cipher."

Bill blinked heavily. "You turned that around on me," he griped. "Not fair." Ugh, the room was spinning. He flopped on his back.

"A-AOX4 tells me you showed an interest earlier in our outpatient reincarnation program," D-SM5 said. "Since it looks like your schedule is light these days, I thought you might be interested in attending Paingoreous's reincarnation?"

It took him a moment to process the offer. "Really? That's something people can attend?" What was the catch?

"We usually only extend the offer to the departing patient's friends, and—exemplary patients. But... I thought you might benefit from watching the process for yourself. It may encourage you to take a little more interest in your future."

For it to push a possible lead so fast, it really was desperate to find some leverage they could use on Bill. It probably thought of this as a rare opportunity—a patient from Ward 333 wasn't ready for reincarnation every day.

"Wow. I sure am encouraged," Bill said. "You have no idea just how encouraged I am."

####

If an unambitious office building and a utilitarian hospital reluctantly got married out of a vague sense of heteronormative social obligation, had a depressed child, and the fae spirited it away to replace it with an even more depressed changeling child, the child's small intestines would look a lot like the Theraprism's interior hallways: it was windowless, it was labyrinthine, it was beige, and it was grey, and it didn't even care anymore. Monotonous commercial high-traffic carpet alternated with monotonous commercial high-traffic linoleum. The fluorescent lights buzzed just enough to be annoying, but not quite enough that you'd feel justified in snapping and screaming "I've had it!" as you swung a pleather-seated metal chair at the light fixture.

Even though Bill had been languishing in the Theraprism for hours and/or millennia (Bill couldn't tell; he couldn't feel the passage of time), he hardly knew his way around the Dimensional Tyrant Ward, much less the rest of the facility. As D-SM5 led Bill (and six guards) out of Ward 333 and into a lower security zone, he looked for any scant identifiable landmarks and tried to memorize which turns they took by coding the lefts and rights and ups and downs into a mnemonic word. The walk helped wake him from his medication stupor; but his mind never quite felt fully on.

Bill had only briefly glimpsed the Theraprism's reincarnation unit during intake, just one of many rooms he'd been whisked past as he was dragged to Ward 333 screaming and cursing the Axolotl's name. Entering the unit now, it looked like an occult sacrificial altar carved from marble that had been modeled after a 23rd century starship's teleportation platform, contained in a room that looked like a magic planetarium: glowing stars hovered around the dome of the ceiling. Against the back wall in pale pink marble was carved an impossibly long axolotl, swimming in a figure 8 so its vapid smile almost caught the tip of its ribbonlike tail. Bill glowered at it. Backstabber.

He, D-SM5, and the other observers who'd already arrived were in a connected observation room with an enormous, thick window and a sealed door. Next to the window was a large computer console encased in the same marble as the reincarnation altar. That probably controlled the process.

The audience consisted of three aliens who looked a little like Paingoreous might have with his face unpeeled, a few patients and staff Bill recognized, more he didn't, and Jessica with the shining spherical head and the thirteen fingers. Oh boy. If he'd known Jessica would be here he would have tried to polish. Bill straightened his bow tie and smoothed his rumpled orange jumpsuit.

Paingoreous himself was already in the next room, standing on the altar. At the sight of Bill, his exposed facial muscles twitched, as though trying to widen his eyes even though their eyelids were already long gone. "Bill? What are you doing here?"

D-SM5 answered before Bill could blurt out a witty retort. "I invited Mr. Cipher. I thought he would benefit from seeing what he can look forward to once he's improved. I hope you don't mind."

Paingoreous's face immediately smoothed out. "Yes—of course, director, if you say so. I remember how difficult it was in the early days. I'm happy to help my fellow patients in any way I can." Suck up. A dry note entered his voice, "Especially a more troubled patient."

Bill took one of the folding chairs lined up in front of the window and shot back, "I'm about to have one less trouble! Byyye!" (Did Jessica think that was funny? Sometimes she did. He snuck a sideways glance to see if she was laughing. Oh, right—she didn't have a face.)

Paingoreous didn't dignify him with a response. Too good for the likes of Bill, no doubt. Paingoreous wasn't obligated to answer anybody—except the staff, of course.

Bill had never met the real Paingoreous. By the time Bill was committed, the monotony, medication, and mandatory therapy were already well on their way to killing whoever Paing had once been. No way the offensively bland sap leaving now was the same one who'd come in with his face skinned and muscles pinned open.

A technician was already turning on the computer console, running through a whole list of checks as the machine booted up. A hum filled the room as the altar began to softly glow. To all appearances Bill was facing forward, slitted pupil aimed straight at Paingoreous; but his anatomy was built for watching things out of the corner of his eye and his real attention was focused on the reincarnation technician. "So how's reincarnation work in this dump?" Bill asked D-SM5. "I didn't get the orientation."

"Yes you did," D-SM5 said. "I was there."

"Oh yeah? Well, I don't remember seeing you."

D-SM5 sighed. "First, Paingoreous's memories of his current life must be erased, to give him the best fresh start possible and to comply with Earth's soul sanitization regulations."

"Seems like a big waste of time. His head's already empty enough."

One of the Paing-ish aliens a couple seats over shot Bill a dirty look. "That's my son in there."

"Not for much longer, he isn't."

"Be respectful," D-SM5 said warningly.

Bill ignored it. "So once you've scrubbed his brain clean, what then?"

"Then, we reincarnate him. We've already carefully selected his destination and species; except for special circumstances, we generally don't customize the patient's body further, as the program is already set up to divinely design the body most well-suited to the soul about to inhabit it."

"If these bodies are so perfect, why customize them at all?"

"We wouldn't want, say, a recovering pyromaniac to be reborn with pyrokinesis." (Bill felt unfairly targeted.) "Once his species and destination are entered into the program, off he'll go to start his new life as an egg."

"An egg?! Sheesh, wasn't going through childhood once bad enough? I assume his childhood was bad, anyway! Nobody with competent parents ends up like him."

The Paing-ish alien beside Bill bolted out of their seat and lurched aggressively toward Bill. (Ha. Too easy.) The next alien over tugged them back by the arm. Bill was sure he heard a whispered, "Careful, do you know who that..." 

D-SM5 said, "One more crack like that and you're going back to your cell."

"Fiiine. Why can't he skip straight to being a butterfly, though?" What he really wanted to find out was how to skip straight to adulthood.

"For starters, because spontaneous generation has been heavily restricted on Earth since the 15th century, and banned completely outside of special circumstances since the 19th century."

Spontaneous generation. The creation of fully formed life from unliving matter: maggots that emerged from flesh, geese that emerged from barnacles, snakes and crocodiles that wriggled out of the mud of the Nile. He'd always planned to legalize it again when he took over. So if the only reason the Theraprism couldn't do it was because it was banned, then they must have the technology for it, right?

Bill tuned D-SM5 out as it prattled on about the mental health benefits of restarting life and beginner's mind and boring therapeutic psychobabble, and ignored the flashing lights and divine music as Paingoreous's memory, personality, and identity were all wiped clean. He was only interested in what the reincarnation technician was doing. (Although when Bill briefly glanced at Paingoreous, his shape seemed somehow uncertain, as though his molecules had only just walked into the room and promptly forgotten what they'd come in for or who they were supposed to be. Ready to be reshaped into something else.)

The technician opened up the primary reincarnation program, checked a box confirming that the patient's previous incarnation had been erased, and began setting up the specifications for his next incarnation. Choosing the reincarnation world was easy enough: under the drop down menu, the "Goldilocks zone" worlds were sorted first. Earth was sixth on the list. Choosing a dimension was just as easy.

However, choosing the location and time period looked more complicated; rather than searching through a handy list of continents or geological epochs, the technician checked Paingoreous's patient file and typed a couple of long strings of numbers into the blanks for the coordinates and time. They didn't look like any date system or coordinate system Bill was familiar with. How the heck would he work with that?

And selecting the species, to Bill's horror, meant scrolling down a menu ordered by how frequently a species had been selected for reincarnation at this facility. That was insane! The Theraprism always discharged patients as unambitious species where one member was nearly incapable of making a meaningful impact on the local biosphere—anything useful like an octopus or a goat would be buried amongst the literal billions of species that had received zero reincarnations. Couldn't you just start typing the species's name to jump down to—? But no, the Theraprism's keyboard didn't have characters to type human loan words. The technician seemed to be scrolling manually.

That was fine! That was fine. Whatever Bill left as, he wouldn't be it for very long. He wasn't shopping for a makeover; just for an escape pod.

The technician located Vanessa atalanta (147 prior reincarnations) and kept moving, tabbing past a dizzying array of options—sex, size, coloration, visual clarity, caterpillar spine distribution, a whole list of health conditions and mutations the technician skipped—and every box she tabbed past automatically filled in with the word "DEFAULT". How many boxes could be filled in with defaults?

Bill leaned toward D-SM5. "So do you chuck these suckers out anywhere random on the planet or what?"

"Of course not," it said promptly. "What a thought! We take a deep interest in our discharged patients' well-being. We never leave where they spend their next lives at the whim of the computer's randomized decision." 

But they could leave it up to the computer. Still watching sideways as the technician scrolled past an "advanced settings" button without touching it (was that where the spontaneous generation option was hidden?), Bill asked, "Do youalways choose for the patient, or can the patient make requests?"

Dryly, D-SM5 said, "Unless you make some enormous progress, I doubt you'd get clearance to reincarnate anywhere near that town you terrorized, if that's what you're wondering."

"What! Who said I want to visit that crummy valley! All those mountains and trees? Ugh! No, do you know what kind of place I like? The Greater Cairo metropolitan area. Dry! Sandy! Flat!" said Bill, who detested flat landscapes with all his heart. "Covered in pyramids! Sometimes with my face on them! Plus there's the Nile! I love the Nile! I love being in the Nile! I'd spend all my time in the Nile if I could! I've had some loser ex-friends say that living your whole life in the Nile is an unhealthy coping mechanism to avoid addressing problems in your life, but if you ask me they're just jealous of how amazing my life is—"

"Ready for reincarnation," the technician said. "Proceed?"

D-SM5 left its seat, hovering closer to the glass to catch Paingoreous's attention. "Are you ready?"

"Sure," said Paingoreous, who clearly wasn't certain what he was claiming to be ready for.

"Proceed," D-SM5 said. Bill fell silent, paying close attention to how the technician began the reincarnation process.

She clicked a button that said "EXECUTE" (gruesome), clicked through a couple more confirmation screens, and then the faint background hum grew to a rumble and the magical stars glowed brighter. "Ten seconds," she said. "Nine... eight... seven..."

"Hey!" Bill shouted through the glass. "Friendly tip for Earth! Humans love when you fly into their eyeballs! You should do that!"

D-SM5 rounded on Bill, glowing furiously at him. (Maybe it was Bill's imagination, but he thought Jessica looked amused. Worth it.)

The soon-to-be caterpillar formerly known as Paingoreous stared in confusion at Bill. "Okay," he said—and then there was a bright flash of light.

He let out an awful wail of pure soul-rending agony.

When the light faded, he was gone.

The observation room had fallen perfectly silent.

"That's fine," D-SM5 said. "That's—that's normal."

####

Every once in a while, the Theraprism got something right. It was one of the few big government-sponsored "respectable" institutions that didn't make a fuss about how Bill ate. They just let him go to the cafeteria, strip down, unpeel his exoskeleton, and hang out with the photosynthesizers for half an hour or so in the corner under the grow lights. No gasps of horror or screams of outrage—not from the staff anyway; some of the patients took a bit to get used to it when they were new. It was a refreshing change.

On the other hand, even though they were willing to turn a couple lights high enough to melt most mortals' eyeballs when Bill was feeding, he never left feeling truly energized. The grow lights were designed for species with leaves and solar panels; they weren't designed to fuel up a god made of energy. A few bright lightbulbs didn't measure up to raw starlight.

He figured there wasn't any point in complaining. As much as he hated feeling like a gas tank trying to burn a dust mote for fuel, he knew that they knew that long before he even reached 1% of his usual power, he'd be strong enough to vaporize the Theraprism with the snap of a finger.

When he'd had his daily dose of light, he folded shut, redressed, and drifted over to the actual food for dessert. He grabbed a bottle of an allegedly "lemon" nigh-flavorless clear soda—this would do—and hovered toward the exit.

The cafeteria monitor stationed in the door elbowed her way in front of Bill. "Ahem."

"What?"

"You know the rules. No food outside the cafeteria."

"What! This isn't food, it's a soda. Beverages aren't food, everyone knows that." The monitor didn't budge. Bill tried whining. "C'mooon, I got injured in the void today. Look at this!" He gestured demonstratively at his splints. "Look how much pain I'm in!"

The Solitary Wellness Void made this cafeteria monitor uncomfortable. She'd never said so directly, but she tended to turn a blind eye when patients who'd just come out of the SWV were more aggressive than usual or tried to sneak extra desserts. One time when Bill had come out of a week in the SWV, she'd wordlessly slipped him a couple of packets of low-sodium fear sauce, a condiment usually distributed exclusively to the obligate phobophages in the ward. "Besides, it's my birthday! I'm a birthday triangle! You wouldn't deny a birthday triangle a soda, right?"

"Is it really your birthday?"

"Heck if I know. It could be. I don't know it isn't."

She was trying not to smile. "Fine. Just one time. Don't let anyone catch you with it and finish it before you're back in your cell."

"You got it, toots." Bill glided past her.

He slipped from the cafeteria into the nurse's office before his guards could catch sight of his illicit drink. "Hey, bartender! I'm here for my nightcap."

The nurse prepared Bill's evening battery of drugs. He bent his straw into a fun zigzag—honestly it was really more of a sad N shape—slurped down half the eyedrops, and opened his soda to refill his cup.

The nurse looked over at the hiss of the cap opening. "Hey! Hey—"

"It's just soda!" Bill protested. "The cafeteria monitor said it was fine! Besides, what's a little soda gonna do? Nullify all seven of my antipsychotics before I reach my cell?" (Bill had overheard the nurse grumbling to a colleague about the amount of antipsychotics he was on. They thought it was utterly excessive, considering that they'd had no evidence the drugs were doing anything but making him more erratic—which was something, because Bill had seen patients near drooling catatonia from their meds without any of the nurses questioning their current dosage. Conversely, the docs thought Bill's odd biology meant they needed to give him more if they wanted any hope of impacting him.) "Come on. It's not even caffeinated!"

The nurse took the soda bottle to check the ingredient list, then relented. "Fine. I suppose it won't do any harm."

"You're a peach." Bill topped off his cup, poured the rest of the soda over his eye, crushed the bottle, and consumed it too.

"The plastic probably isn't good for you, though."

"I like the way it melts in the back of my throat."

As he drank his medicated soda and got escorted back to his cell, he lazily drifted back and forth in the hall as far as the guards would let him go, dawdling more than usual—he knew they hated it when he dawdled, but they knew he hated spending one second more in his cell than necessary and grudgingly put up with a little lollygagging to keep the peace. But their tolerance ran out in the max security hall as Bill slowed down even further near The Beast's cell. The guard behind Bill pushed him. "Hurry up." 

"Hey!" Bill wobbled off path and stumbled into the wall, spilling some of his drink. "What's your problem!"

"You stopped moving."

"I did not! I'm just taking my time! Enjoying the weather out here."

"Well, take less time."

"Ugh, fine. Didn't realize you had plans I'm keeping you from." Bill rolled his eye and kept moving.

"Hold it!"

Bill froze. He turned around. The guard was pointing at a streak of clear fluid that had spilled from Bill's cup and rolled down the door. His bones frosted over.

"You dropped a pill," the guard said.

Bill's gaze focused on the circular soap-green tablet on the floor. "Are you kidding?! Aren't the other twelve enough?"

"No exceptions, Cipher."

"You don't expect me to eat it off the floor!"

"Do you want to go all the way back to the nurse's office for another?"

Bill groaned in frustration. "Fine!" He snatched it up, wiped it off on the guard's sleeve, and popped it in his mouth. The guard raised a fist; Bill bared his fangs; and after a tense moment, the guard backed down first. The Theraprism had taken nearly every other power from Bill, but it couldn't take his teeth—and though he knew the guards would win any fight, Bill could make it hurt.

They returned him to his room; Bill handed over his cup; they checked to make sure his cup was empty, inspected his mouth, and locked him in.

He hoped they wouldn't notice that half his pills had stuck in the zig-zag bend of the opaque white straw.

He hoped they wouldn't notice The Beast's tongue thrusting through his food slot to lap up the spilled soda that was running down his door and over the bright red "NO SUGAR ALLOWED" sign.

His entire plan hinged on it.

####

Bill was drawing on the wall with his scant art supplies when he felt reality ripple around him, like the wave in a still pool when someone new quietly slides into the water. He looked up from his work. It was happening.

There were several thuds; then a crash; and then the peal of a prison alarm piercing the air. The alarm melted into shrill dolphin-like laughter, and then the frenetic staccato of a hyper speed dance song that threatened to fracture Bill's internal organs. He shuddered as the sound tore at his wound like freezing ice crystals expanding a crack in a boulder.

But he rose into the air and turned to face the door, ready.

Just in time for the door to vanish. The Theraprism melted away like mist in the sunlight—and oh, the sunlight was glorious. The wide open sky pulsed maddening colors so vivid that the faraway rainbows looked monotone in comparison; the land consisted of rolling hills of candy-coated tongues and stomachs and muscles, the paws of enormous buried corpses thrusting up into the sky, the crevasses between burial mounds running with artificially-flavored saliva. It was Bill's kind of place. He wished he had time to hang around.

Before him, orange fur matted with a fine dust of powdery sugar, wild eyes contracted to pinpricks, stood The Beast.

"You did it, you beautiful monster!" Bill shrieked with laughter. "I knew you'd come through!"

The Beast rumbled, "Em deerf evah uoy."

"You're welcome! You can return the favor later! Me, I have somewhere to be." While The Beast was asserting his personal reality on top of the Theraprism's idea of reality, none of the Theraprism's walls or doors existed. Bill wasn't sure exactly how far The Beast's radius of influence extended, except that it was at least far enough to get him out of the maximum security hall—but he had to move now, before the guards rallied to sedate The Beast. Bill slipped a finger into the band of his ankle bracelet and found that under the influence of The Beast's physics, the stiff plastic stretched like a warm rubber band. He tugged it off and tossed it aside. "Seeya, pal!"

But The Beast held up a paw, blocking Bill before he could zip off. "Noob ym tpecca," The Beast said. "Hself ym emusnoc."

"Oooh. Woww." Bill looked at The Beast's candy paw. "Oh, man. Generous offer! You have no idea how tempting it is to take a taste, but I've really gotta get somewhere, and I've gotta be at least sober enough to pull that off..."

"Emusnoc," The Beast insisted. "Hsur ragus eht fo ssendam gnilims citatsce eht ni em nioj. Rehtegot srorroh letsap dna serusaelp kcis hcus wonk lliw ew. Evarg lufituaeb ym ni em htiw tor."

Bill stared again at the paw. The tip of his tongue slipped out beneath his eye to lick hungrily at his waterline. When was the last time he'd been on something that felt good? "Oh, what the heck!" He took The Beast's paw. "I can do this buzzed! How much damage can one little lick do, anyway?"

####

The guard heaved open the maximum security hall's door. The floor was covered in tacky pools of neon candy and removed ankle monitors. "It's just like we feared," the guard shouted into a walkie-talkie, glancing quickly through each cell door's window. "Every single max security patient escaped under The Beast's reality-altering field."

The guard stopped at the sight of neon yellow and orange, peering through the window at the triangle flopped flat on the ground and surrounded by powdery pink sugar.

"Well," the guard said, "all of them except Cipher."

Through the walkie-talkie, D-SM5 tiredly said, "He licked the paw, didn't he."

"Looks like it, boss."

D-SM5 groaned. "All right! Positive thinking! That's the second biggest threat in the ward already accounted for! Silver lining to Mr. Cipher's substance use issues. Assist in securing the others."

####

The good news was that The Beast seemed happy to frolic randomly around the Theraprism rather than head toward the exit, forcing the other escapees to follow along to remain under his reality-altering protection rather than get stranded in small rooms and locked-down halls. The bad news was that his meandering route let him pick up more and more revelers. After an hour, only a third of the max security patients had been re-captured and dragged back to their cells, and twice as many medium security patients had joined the riot. 

A-AOX4 was on hand in the maximum security hall to supervise as the guards brought in super-powered escapees. Most of them came back loopy on either The Beast's toxins or on the sedative that had been injected to keep them calm. A-AOX4 was checking them for awareness of their surroundings—name, where are you, when are you, why are you here—as each one was locked back in their cell.

And each time it passed by Bill's cell, it glanced in, concerned.

Bill had been almost pleasant when he'd come out of the Solitary Wellness Void—maybe after all those sessions in isolation he was finally ready to be more of a team player. And D-SM5 had said that he'd been unusually well-behaved and attentive during the reincarnation. A-AOX4 had hoped their most surly patient was finally opening up. It would be a shame if this incident with The Beast resulted in his new progress backsliding.

Plus, it took a heavy dose of anything to impact Bill at all, much less knock him out cold. He'd already had to go to the nurse earlier today; what if he needed medical attention?

So after locking up the latest subdued prisoner, A-AOX4 said to one of the guards, "Take over monitoring incoming patients. I'm checking on Cipher."

It unlocked the door and hovered into the room. "Cipher?"

No response. He was plastered flat to the floor.

"Bill?" It floated lower to check his condition. 

He was paper.

Paper meticulously colored in with yellow marker and folded into a triangle; scraps of paper colored black, carefully torn into hand and feet shapes, and shoved in the sleeves and pants of his prison uniform.

A-AOX4 lifted up the paper. On the other side was Bill's "Be a TRY-angle!" poster. He'd written across it, "IS THIS TRYING HARD ENOUGH FOR YOU?"

It turned toward the door—and discovered Bill had filled the wall with a drawing of himself making an obscene gesture, with a word bubble that read, "GIVE MY REGARDS TO THE AX! And tell Jessica I said bye xoxo"

It zoomed out into the hallway and grabbed its walkie-talkie. "Director SM5! Cipher's escaped his cell! He left a decoy! He's not with The Beast, we don't know where he is!"

There was a moment of dead air. And then the director growled, "I think I have an idea."

####

Trying to keep his giggles as quiet as possible, Bill looped through the Theraprism's halls, drifting between The Beast's rolling fields of hard candy corpses and the Theraprism's rigid monotone halls. What had he been worried about! Getting hopped up on astralplanar sugar before escaping his cell had been a great idea! It gave him instant shortcuts through half the walls! And he could handle a little buzz like this! He was totally in control of his actions and knew exactly what he—

How long had he been flying the wrong direction? He turned around. Wow was he high, he could barely focus on anything but all the colors. He wondered if The Beast's toxins had any weird interactions with his meds.

He was lucky The Beast had decided to dawdle around the Dimensional Tyrants Ward: here at the far end of the Theraprism, there were no signs of crisis beyond the sealed doors indicating the facility was under lockdown—and once he was outside a high security ward, there were plenty of cracks, gaps, and vents that Bill was thin enough to slide through. He hadn't even seen a guard since he'd left his cell. By the time he reached the reincarnation room, The Beast's landscape was fading out and the sugar crash headache was fading in, but the facility was still on lockdown and no one seemed to be looking for Bill. He slipped beneath the locked door and powered up the console to the reincarnation machine.

He skipped straight to the reincarnation program and checked the box that said, yes, the patient's brain had been washed. He paused when a warning pop-up blocked the screen. The technician hadn't gotten a pop-up. He had to read over the two-sentence warning three times before he understood what he was looking at. The soul sanitization routine hadn't been run recently, was he sure the patient's memory was erased—ugh, yes. He irritably clicked the confirmation and hoped that would be the last of it.

Bill quickly selected Earth and dimension 46'\; he tabbed past the coordinates and date, and they both automatically filled in "DEFAULT." D-SM5 had said the computer would make a "random" decision if you didn't plug in a time and place, but the staff didn't know Earth like Bill did. If he left the time and place up to the whims of fate, then something as weird as a trillion-year-old alien chaos god escaping a criminal insane asylum to spontaneously generate as a fully grown mortal would be sucked straight into the weirdest place and time on Earth. Gravity Falls: August, 2012. Weirdmageddon. He was willing to bet his life on it.

He was betting his life on it.

After that, with any luck, he'd be able to shed his new body like any other puppet and return to his castle in the sky. If for some reason he couldn't get out of it, he'd only need to pull a couple of magic tricks outside a normal mortal's capabilities to catch his past self's attention, find a way to prove his identity—heck, with any luck, they'd be seeing through each other's eyes and that would instantly confirm it—warn his past self about the Pines' treachery, prevent his own death, save Weirdmageddon, restructure the universe in his image, and rule his new party paradise as god-king for all eternity. Easy.

He scrolled down the list of available creatures, looking for something that would be easy to reach the Fearamid and prove his intelligence with—something with vocal cords that could speak eye-bat would be useful, it'd save him a lot of trouble if he could just shout at his sentinels in their own language and startle them into listening—but, to his surprise, the first useful species he found was humans, down amongst the species that had received a single-digit number of reincarnations from the Theraprism. Really, humans? They allowed that?

Over the blaring alarm, a voice made an announcement. He completely tuned it out—and only realized a moment after it ended that he'd heard his own name. They knew he'd escaped.

Bill didn't have time to search for anything better. He selected humanity.

He tabbed past dozens of features he could choose from for his body—default default default default—who cared what the body peed out of, he wasn't keeping the thing long enough to fill its bladder! He clicked open the advanced settings—there, spontaneous generation! He hoped this thing wouldn't drop him on the sidewalk as a baby, but usually when a human suddenly popped into existence, it was an adult sculpted from clay or something, right? He'd be fine! He checked the box for spontaneous generation.

He got another error message. He groaned. He wasn't sober enough for this.

Something about spontaneous generation being banned on Earth after 1859, is he willing to assume the liability if the patient generates after—yeah sure whatever, he clicked yes. Another pop-up prompted him for the digital signature of the person assuming liability. He typed in D-SM5's name.

As soon as he clicked enter, another error message popped up. "What!!"

He flinched at the sound of a muffled pneumatic hiss. Outside, somebody had unlocked the doors to this hallway. The alarm was still blaring; the Theraprism wasn't coming off lockdown. That meant whoever had unlocked the hall was coming for him.

"Focusss." He skimmed the new warning. Something about humans being on a list of species for which spontaneous generation was restricted—what loser had written a law about that! Who cared if a fully-formed, brand-new human popped out of thin air in the middle of town! What about Bill's wants?! He checked another box YES HE'S SURE HE WANTS TO SPONTANEOUSLY GENERATE A HUMAN YOU MONSTER and pounded enter.

Another pop-up. It wanted to know on which god's authority the spontaneous generation had been authorized.

Bill froze. Why did it need to know. Would it check? A machine that could reincarnate a soul was probably also a machine that could shoot off a prayer. Or was Bill supposed to have some kind of divine authorization code? Which gods were even allowed to authorize that kind of thing? He didn't know which stupid legislative body had made this stupid law or what their stupid definition of a god was! Gods weren't even real, they were just stupid, arrogant, stuck-up jerks who were powerful enough to trick people into thinking they were important! Like Bill! What name were they looking for?!

He heard voices in the hallway. He darted over to the door, slid his fingers through the seams around the doorframe to crush the latching mechanism so it couldn't be opened, and darted back. That wouldn't hold them long; he knew from experience that the guards could bust down the doors in these low security wings without much difficulty.

"Bill Cipher!" That was D-SM5. It had come personally? In any other circumstance, he'd be flattered. "Open up immediately!"

"Has that ever worked?" A god, a god, a god... his eye caught on the bas relief at the back of the next room. If there was any god this place would accept orders from... The guards were ramming the door; the bending metal groaned. He typed "THE AXOLOTL" and hit enter.

The button grayed out but the pop-up didn't go away. The screen froze. "What." Bill tried clicking again. The cursor turned into one of those little spinning balls that meant the computer was quietly having a stroke. "No no no no—"

D-SM5 hollered, "You know what the consequences will be if you don't—"

"I'm not listeniiing to yooou!"

"You're only going to hurt yourse—"

Dropping his voice to a demonic boom to drown out the director, Bill recited, "'I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited! People were not—" There was a shriek of tearing metal, and then a bright glow behind Bill as D-SM5 peered through the gap in the door. Bill started talking faster, "'Were not invited they went there they got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island and somehow—'"

The pop-up disappeared. The cursor returned to normal. The box next to spontaneous generation was checked. Bill stared for a split second, then quickly closed out the advanced settings, scrolled to the bottom of the page, and hit "EXECUTE."

Someone blasted the door out of its frame; based on the blinding glow that accompanied the blast, Bill suspected that wasn't one of the guards, but D-SM5 itself. He frantically clicked through the next two confirmations, flung a couple of folding chairs toward D-SM5 and its thugs, and dove beneath the door to the next room. Ten seconds.

"Cancel the reincarnation!" D-SM5 snapped.

A guard ran to the console. (What if they saw where Bill had gone? They could probably guess the planet, but would the computer keep records of his destination, what his new body looked like—) "I don't see a cancel! I don't think—"

"Then get him off the altar!"

Five seconds. Please spawn as an adult and not a baby, please spawn as an adult and not a baby, please— Bill hadn't broken the door between the observation room and the altar; the guards easily unlocked it. "No no no—!"

"Don't let him esc—!"

Three seconds. An impossibly bright light shone down on Bill. He reflexively peeled open his exoskeleton to accept it. LIGHT—oh, he felt even more alive than the time he'd stolen a bottle of stimulants from the nurse station, ground them up, and snorted them off Mrs. Mirrorcube's back. His eye widened, taking in as much free energy as he could—and then he focused his gaze through the window on the console, focusing the infinite light into a laser powerful enough to instantly melt through the window and explode the computer. The guards fell back, trying to shield their tender mortal flesh from the fury of Bill's fire. Enjoy the blisters.

D-SM5 bellowed, "Bill Cipher, you mo—!"

"CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, SUCKA!" He could feel his body ripping apart, cracking open at the wound. It hurt, but not the hurt of dying; it was the euphoric hurt of spaghettification, of being infinitely sucked beyond a beautiful event horizon. Bill's triumphant cackle filled the air—

—and then the room was silent and dark, and Bill was gone.

####

(If you're new here: I posted this as a one shot because I think we could all use a little Bill escaping from Theraprism, yeah? However it's ALSO part of my ongoing Bill-stuck-in-a-human-body fic I'm currently editing for TBOB compatibility. So, if you enjoyed this and want to see where post-reincarnation Bill goes, check out the fic!! And if you DON'T want to read the rest of the fic, I hope you enjoyed the one shot and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

If you do check out the main fic be forewarned it's only 100% TBOB compatible up to chapter 6. After that it is, bizarrely, 98% TBOB compatible, because somehow I accidentally wrote a fic that lines up with the book so well that I'm legit worried people could use TBOB to work out fic spoilers. But I still need to edit the remaining 2%.

If you're NOT new here: hey gang this is the new chapter 6!!! I finished editing this chapter about fifteen minutes before post time so it's not as polished as my usual chapters, but I hope it didn't read that way. Anyway, I look forward to hearing what y'all think!)

[hedgehog-moss]

I saw an astronaut walking on the side of the road today, which is the kind of thing my brain will placidly accept at first, only to go "Wait, an astronaut" a minute later once I'm done with my previous train of thought. By then I felt like it might be too late to stop my car, but I ended up stopping anyway because I didn't want to spend the rest of the afternoon wondering.

I waited for the astronaut to catch up with me since they were going in my direction, but they didn't. Eventually I got out of the car and retraced my steps, and after a bend in the road when I saw no one walking towards me I decided the visitor must have gone back to their spacecraft and I would never get an explanation for this—and then in the distance I caught a glimpse of the white space suit disappearing into the forest.

I managed to catch up with them and they turned out to be a distant neighbour of mine (let's call her M.), and what looked like a space suit when I was driving by was a beekeeper's outfit! (Sorry for the pointless suspense but I was taking you on the same little journey my brain went through.) M. was tickled when she learnt that I mistook her for an astronaut—she told me she'd borrowed her husband's too-big shoes which made her drag her feet, hence why she looked like she was having trouble readjusting to Earth's gravity.

Then she said that one of her hives had swarmed, and she was pretty sure she knew where the swarm was. I had no idea how swarming worked so as we walked in the woods she explained that when a hive becomes too crowded, the queen will get replaced by a new one, and the old queen will leave along with half of the bees. After this split, the swarm will cluster somewhere nearby and wait while scout bees fly away in search of a new hive location. "That's when you have to catch them—if you can find the swarm. But here it is!"

I wasn't expecting quite so many bees!! I'm pretty scared of all flying creatures so allow me to pat myself on the back for what came next—I thought I was about to learn how to catch a swarm from a prudent distance, but M. asked if I could give her a hand, seeing as her husband was supposed to be here to help but clearly wasn't.

The first step of catching a swarm was spraying the bees with sugar water, and I was glad not to be asked to help with that, as it seemed like something that could make bees angry. ("On the contrary, it makes them less agitated!" I was told, but that remained to be seen.) Step 2 was pulling on a rope tied to the tree branch in order to lower the swarm into the new hive, and that was the job I was recruited for. The rope was long enough that I could stand several metres away to pull on it, but my role in this swarm-catching business was still all too clear to any angry bee looking for someone to blame.

I remembered reading that bees can sense the electric field of flowers, so I thought there was no way they wouldn't sense the staticky nervousness coming from the rope-puller, but thankfully they completely ignored me.

M. was offering one fun fact about bees after the other, in a very relaxed voice, which was very interesting and very soothing for both me and the bees. She said this particular colony was very sweet ("some bee colonies are meaner than others?" "yes of course"), and that swarming usually happens a bit earlier in the year "but it's been raining so much lately, the bees had to postpone all their activities, just like us" and also "swarming involves quite a bit of planning ahead of time; for example worker bees have to put the queen on a diet so she won't be too fat to fly. Did you know that?" I did not!

Unfortunately our first attempt to catch the swarm failed. The bees entered the hive, had a quick look around their new home, then left in disgust and formed a thick, angry, buzzing cloud over our heads, while I tried to think nothing but bee-loving thoughts to make my electric field harmless and friendly.

Then one after the other all the bees returned to the exact same spot on the branch where we'd first found them. ("Because it smells like the queen" said M.) We examined the near-empty hive and found that a mouse had made a nest in there! She was no longer here but the traces of her passage were evident (some of the comb was very nibbled.)

As we were removing the supplies brought in by the mouse (sticks, hay), M.'s husband joined us and he had brought a spray bottle containing some sort of bee-attracting liquid (pheromones?) (I didn't have a close look at the bottle because I made sure to stay far away from the bee-attracting liquid, while he sprayed it inside the hive.)

He had also brought a white sheet which he spread under the tree, explaining that the bees will want to get away from the bright surface and look for darkness, thus hopefully getting inside the box. Another thing I learnt is that once the queen enters the hive, the nearest worker bees will spread the message by turning round and fluttering their wings to send a chemical signal in specific directions, which will be picked up by other bees farther away; at strategic intervals some bees will light the beacons of Gondor turn round and fan their wings to relay this scent-message until the entire colony is informed of the queen's new location.

We were more successful the second time around! This time the bees who went in didn't immediately get out again to return to their branch. Well I say "we" but I didn't volunteer to pull on the rope again, so I can't claim any role in this victory. But my personal victory was that I stood quite a bit nearer this time so I could watch everything closely, and I felt more intrigued than nervous. Bees were constantly zipping past me but it had become clear that my electric field was pure and they bore me no ill will. I was always fond of bees from afar and happy to see them do their thing in flowers in the spring, but today's adventure got me interested in their daily life as well, so I think I'll read some books about bees this summer!

I was reading last month about the morality of termite colonies (Maeterlinck's La vie des termites) and I had a feeling this man must have written some poetic stuff about bees as well—and he did. Here's a translated excerpt from his book "La vie des abeilles" :)

[lale-txt]

❥ 𝐓𝐎𝐎 𝐇𝐎𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐂𝐔𝐃𝐃𝐋𝐄 ↳ 𝐰/ 𝐀𝐭𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐮, 𝐎𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐮, 𝐊𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐨, 𝐊𝐞𝐧𝐦𝐚, 𝐎𝐢𝐤𝐚𝐰𝐚, 𝐈𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐳𝐮𝐦𝐢 & 𝐒𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐬𝐚

a/n: reader is gn! i started drafting those during one of the first sticky hot summer nights of the year, then forgot about it until this came over me once again like a fever, and now here we are. i love writing drabbles because they force you to really think about the chars, how you perceive them and how to nail their unique personalities in 200 words or less. anyway, this is my first time writing for HQ after the brainworms got me down bad and i had lots of fun! hope you'll enjoy them too ♡

word count: 1.3k

𝐀𝐓𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐔 whines when you have the audacity to kick him back towards his end of the couch, catching your ankle and pulling you towards him in return, stubbornly ignoring your protests. Too hot to cuddle, my ass, he pouts, genuinely offended that you’d even consider that; when the only time Atsumu ever feels a sense of calm is when part of you touches him. Your hand playing with the shaved hair in the back of his neck, your leg hooked over his hipbone as you sprawl out in bed together, hell, even your icy cold feet shoved underneath his butt during winter. Something was missing when he couldn’t have your proximity. Yer so needy, Tsumu. So what if he was? He pulls you into his lap, face nuzzled into the crook of your neck, hands tightening around your waist. His breath fanning over your skin, hot and cool against it. Atsumu takes, he demands, but with you he is pleading, silent for once. Just a little longer–dreaming, breathing you in, kissing till he feels you smiling against his lips.

𝐎𝐒𝐀𝐌𝐔 wears his hair shorter now, back at its natural dark color, too. You helped him buzz it off during one of those sticky summer nights. Both of you in nothing but your underwear, Osamu sitting on the edge of the bathtub in your cramped bathroom. One hand of yours holding a razor and the other clamped over your mouth because you horribly messed up a setting and now he had a funny little edge in his hair, throwing you both in a laughing fit. It was your first summer together and Osamu couldn’t help but hope that there would be many more like this to come, with your bodies orbiting each other, unable to keep your hands off despite the heat and the sweat, the air heavy and electric and yet so light whenever he hears you laugh. Nothing beats the feeling of lifting you up on the kitchen counter and your eyes lingering on his hands, shaping a midnight snack for the both of you, getting drunk on stolen glances and kisses. There’s many metaphors for food and love and right now, Osamu can taste them all on the tip of your tongue.

𝐊𝐔𝐑𝐎𝐎 hasn’t even kicked his shoes off at the entrance yet and is already loosening his tie, before slender fingers work down button for button on his shirt. He hears you laugh about his demeanor from the other end of the hallway. How lucky, he thinks to himself. To have someone waiting for him at home, making even long work days during the most miserable summer heat bearable. His shirt has barely hit the floor and he’s already on you, caging you in with his arms and covering every inch of your skin he can reach in kisses, despite your giggling and feigned huffing over how sticky he is, sending him to shower first (as if you wouldn’t come right after him). Kuroo purrs when your hands tangle in his hair. In the end you always pull him back towards your lips again, swallowing every little quip and taunt like candy, sweet and syrupy in your mouth. It reminds him how he fell in love with you many summers ago, his heart ablaze ever since.

𝐊𝐄𝐍𝐌𝐀 is glued to the fan at this point. He even switched gaming from his desktop set-up to a handheld console, reluctantly admitting that his old house would heat up even more with his computer running at full blast. His expression really says it all when you approach him, silently pleading for cuddles. Kenma just can’t understand how anyone would seek someone else’s body heat when the sun outside was already doing a pretty good job in trying to end him. Still, he isn’t immune to your charms, never was (one time he mumbled something about your stats being way too high and how everything changed once he received a love buff of yours). When you hold out a popsicle as a means of bribery and blink at him with those damn soft eyes of yours, Kenma pauses his game and holds out his arms. He hums into the kiss you give him before sitting down in his lap, your lips tasting like ice cream and summer love. He rests his chin on your shoulder, face nuzzled against your neck, before he continues his game, letting you feed him the sweet cold treat. Summer might have become a little more bearable with you in his life–though he was already looking forward to many winters under the kotatsu with you. 

𝐎𝐈𝐊𝐀𝐖𝐀 is squishing your cheeks together, his thumb brushing over the corner of your mouth. Collecting evidence, but also wanting to feel your tongue poke out slightly against it, cheeky as ever. Just how could you eat the last ice cream in the freezer without him? He lets out an exaggerated huff, feigned indignation, both of you knowing he can never keep this up for too long–not when it comes to you. Oikawa leans down to kiss you, your face still in a tight grip, tasting the remains of the ice cream on your lips, as if you weren’t sweet enough already. Maybe he can be bribed for another kiss when you offer a midnight walk to the 7/11 down the street, promising to pay for a cool sweet treat to make it up to him. He had already forgotten what he was mad about the moment you leaned into the kiss, but he’ll never say no to a chance to hold your hand, even if it’s sticky with leftover ice cream and the summer heat. To Oikawa, love is stored in the mundane things, even if his love for you is anything but that.

𝐈𝐖𝐀𝐈𝐙𝐔𝐌𝐈 is standing in the kitchen past midnight, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers while he roams the freezer for anything to help him cool down; even a pack of frozen peas would do. He feels a pang of guilt for having peeled away from you, your form pressed so tightly against him in his sleep, it almost gave him a heat stroke–for more reason than one. Everything is sticky and airless and Iwaizumi is sure that if he would have glanced at you even a minute longer, his heart might have just given out on him. All this love he holds for you, burning him up from the inside, like a fever. He lets out a long exhale when he presses an ice bag against the back of his neck, but it’s not that what causes a shiver down his spine; it’s two arms sneaking around his waist from behind, your sleepy voice mumbling out his name, your body melting into his again. The first kiss pressed on the side of your neck is an apology, the second one a promise. The third–to devour you.

𝐒𝐀𝐊𝐔𝐒𝐀 grumbles something about you being too sticky and sweaty, making a weak attempt to shove you back to your side of the bed, only to pull you back by your hips when you actually do leave some room between you. He can’t help it, you fit so perfectly in the curve of his body, your back pressed against his chest, one of his knees nudged between your legs, all tangled up. It’s the perfect position to plant kisses on the back of your neck, too. Kiyoomi loathes those hot summer nights in the concrete city. He’d rather be somewhere else with you, somewhere to breathe more easily through this heat. Maybe you should move to the countryside, yes. A small house with lots of green surrounding it. Less people and noise, just you and him. Yeah, he would like that. He kisses the back of your neck once more and takes a slow, deep inhale of your sweet scent, before sleep finally crawls upon him again. For now he’ll endure this heat, anything, as long as he can hold you in his arms like this–and have a cold shower with you in the morning, maybe.

[saetoru]

✩ ‧₊˚ ✩。i know you still think about the times we had

synopsis. satoru will always comes when you call him, he just never thought you’d stop calling

— word count. 5.2k (where did i go wrong)

— contents. college au, rich boy! gojo, break ups and make ups <3, it’s the cliche trope where the rich guy’s parent forces you to leave him aka gojo’s father is the villain, angst with a happy ending—i don’t want my cause of death to be angry rb! gojo stans, emo gojo ft. marvin’s room (iykyk), cliche rain scene—this fic is so cliche i’m sorry, reader is gn! but gojo is mentioned to like pics of girls on instagram (he was being petty)

— notes. well, it finally happened. the long awaited break up. this one’s for you niku 🤞🏽 AND DABITEE ANON

you open the door when satoru knocks—just barely, though. it’s just enough to hand him the bag with the remaining things he’s left at your apartment. it feels familiar, being here, but it feels so different too. it’s always been happy knocking on your door—he never thought he’d dread letting his knuckles meet the cool wood. it’s like taking the last bite of something sweet when you’re too full. when the sugar is too decadent on your tongue and your head spins and your stomach twists and it’s too much even though it used to be so good.

it’s too much being here. it’s too much trying to meet your gaze and get nothing in return. it’s too much being handed back that sweater he basically let you keep. and yet, it’s good to see you. he wants nothing more than to be here with you, wherever you are, even if you don’t want him to stay.

“that should be everything,” you murmur, still looking down. “let me know if there’s anything missing.”

satoru would never tell you if there’s something missing. he’d never come back and demand back something he gave you, he doesn’t think he could ever take back something he gave you—being handed back his heart after pressing it to your palms is hard enough. but then again, maybe he should look for small things you probably missed. just so he can come back. just so he can see you—how else will he see you now?

“no, it’s alright,” he says quietly. he doesn’t miss the way you quickly let go as soon as his hands grab the bag, almost like you’re being careful enough not to let your fingers meet each other. “you can uh…you can just keep them. or…throw them out if you don’t want them,” he mumbles.

you nod, standing there silently. it’s quiet, and then it’s quiet some more. and finally, you look up at him for the first time since he got here, staring at him a little expectantly. oh, right. now would be the part where he leaves.

“can i…can i just know why?” he croaks. fuck. he’s not supposed to cry. you ripped his heart out and threw it at his feet, you didn’t even care to hand it to him even after you tore every artery apart. but he sniffles anyway, lips wobbling as he stares at you. “why are you leaving me?”

your fingers twitch, like you itch to reach over and wipe that tear that rolls down his cheek. in the end, you cross your arms instead. “i already told you, satoru—”

“that’s bullshit,” he clicks his teeth, shaking his head as he stares at you frustratedly, “you gave me some bullshit reason.”

satoru has worked so hard to be here—to be with you. hadn’t he done enough? hadn’t he told you about himself, things he didn’t want to? hadn’t he tried to become something, someone more than just a guy swimming in trust funds? hadn’t he worked for your attention, waited outside classes and walked opposite directions in the hall with you just to seem dedicated? fuck, he even burned his hand trying to learn how to make pancakes to impress you, let the maids laugh at him as he twisted the stove the wrong way to try and turn it on. 

why wasn’t it enough? what more could he give you than everything? how can the guy who has everything not have enough to give? he doesn’t understand.

“satoru, we weren’t gonna work,” you pinch your nose—it’s like you’re the one who doesn’t understand why he’s being like this. “the sooner you accept that the more hurt you’re saving the both of us—”

“we were working just fine,” he says exasperatedly. it’s like you insist he’s crazy when he’s nothing but sane. like he’s trying to tell you the sky is blue, and you’re refusing to believe it’s anything other than green. it’s clear. it’s practically a fact. you were doing just fine—why don’t you see that? “we were happy,” he takes a step forward and cups your cheeks, pressing his forehead to yours, “was it someone? did they tell you something? just tell me who, baby—i’ll fix it. i’ll put them in their place, okay? no one can bother you if i get them to leave you alone—”

“then you leave me alone,” you whisper. he stills. you pull away from his hands. “sator—gojo. please just leave me alone. it’s better that way.”

you close the door, and he stands there. numb. maybe a little shocked. entirely ruined.

gojo. he laughs quietly after a moment at that—it’s a laugh meant for men who’ve lost the last thread to sanity. gojo. it’s like a slap in the face, being called the name he worked so hard to get you to drop. it took him weeks—months, even, to convince you to call him satoru. then he upgraded to toru. then it was baby. sometimes you teased him and called him pumpkin—he called you peaches in return. when you introduced him, you called him your boyfriend. 

not anymore. now he’s back to gojo—that god-forsaken name with everything but what he really wants attached to it. his grandfather’s legacy. his future. business deals. fancy invites. more money than he knows what to do with. the name gojo comes with everything but you.

but he had you for a bit, didn’t he? when he was just satoru—but now he’s gojo again, and you’re gone. the only sign of you left is in the faint traces of your perfume in the sweaters you’ve returned. 

and satoru still isn’t sure what brought the break up on. he thinks it’s the part that stings the most—when everything seems perfect one second, and then it’s not. had he not tried enough? maybe he was too much. maybe he didn’t understand you the way you needed him to. maybe he was too overbearing. maybe he asked for too much too fast. 

he’s not sure. he tried asking when you broke it off—you only shook your head and said it wasn’t going to work out between the two of you, that it was a mistake to try at all. mistake? how could you call this a mistake? things were so perfect, weren’t they?

satoru doesn’t think there was even one second he wasn’t smiling when he was with you, and he used to think the same was true for you too. had you been faking it this long? or was it real at one point—had he really failed you so badly, seen past you so blindly that he didn’t notice when your smiles stopped reaching your eyes?

it’s too late, he figures. you and satoru are broken up. 

you ask him to come over one morning, and he does—because he always comes when you call. he brings your coffee order from that cafe you like, the one you don’t go to often because the coffee is more overpriced than any other coffee shop you’ve ever seen. he’s grinning when you open the door, leans in to kiss your lips excitedly. you turn your head then, and his lips meet your cheeks instead—he supposes he should’ve known it at that moment. he should’ve seen that your lips weren’t smiling. your eyes were tired, a little red. you were hugging yourself in that way you do when you’re nervous. you didn’t let him kiss your lips, you made him kiss your cheek. 

and then you sat him down on that worn-down couch of yours, took off that bracelet his mother gave him to gift you on your anniversary, and pressed it to his palm as you said we should break up. break up. you wanted to leave him—and satoru didn’t understand, still doesn’t understand. 

he’s tried for so long, replayed the last month of your relationship in his head over and over and fucking over. you always smiled. you kissed him first. you held his hand, and even squeezed. you asked to see him. you laughed when he was around. you said i love you. you were happy. but then you weren’t—when did you stop being happy? and how could you have stopped feeling it with him?

—————

breaking up with satoru is the hardest thing you’ve ever done. how long can people live without the sun? you think not longer than a few minutes—that’s what it feels like without satoru’s warmth, anyway. 

gojo satoru has always smiled as long as he’s been with you. he smiled smugly on your first meet, smiled bitterly after every rejection, smiled in pure glee when you finally said yes, and smiled like his fingertips could touch the sky every time he saw you after that. 

satoru has never looked sad for long in your presence—you have that effect on him, you make his lips curl and his eyes brighten in that way that they deserve to shine. but for the first time ever, his eyes dim with you around, his lips curl into a frown at your words, and he cries for you. his eyes glisten with tears instead of wonder, and you think for a moment that you might be making a mistake. 

but then you remember that this is for the best—that if you really love gojo satoru, you’ll let him go instead of clipping his wings.

“he’s picked up his things,” you speak quietly into the phone. you don’t sniffle even as you desperately need to—it’s the last bit of control you have left, and you intend to keep it. “i won’t be seeing him again.”

“good,” his father speaks, “that’s good to hear.” 

satoru’s father is a cold man, you learn that on the first meet. he doesn’t look at his wife with a soft look that tells you there’s any love built between the decades of marriage, and he doesn’t look at his only son with any affection for the boy he raised. instead, he stares at satoru like any businessman would an opportunity—with a calculating gaze that tries to work out the best course of action for the most profit. 

satoru is young, but he’s charming and conniving and knows how to get what he wants when he wants—he’s quick on his feet and rarely lets himself get cornered into a wall. in the last three generations of the family business, no heir has shown as much promise as gojo satoru. that’s what his father tells you, anyway. you believe him—satoru is smart and knows how to play his cards right, you won’t deny that. his future is set to be comfortable, and he’s never known anything outside of that, never built any other plans for himself. 

you can’t rip that away from him—not for your own sake, not for your own happiness. 

“you promised you wouldn’t freeze his trust funds once i ended things,” you remind him, “and that he’d keep his inheritance.” somehow, because the world grants you this one favor, your voice doesn’t shake—it’s steady and firm as it reminds the stone-cold man at the end of the line of your agreement—and he offers a slow chuckle that makes your jaw clench. 

“yes, i do recall,” he hums, “i’m glad we could come to agree. you understand, don’t you? it is my job as his father to do what’s best for him.”

you know what he’s saying—what that means. you’re not what’s best for him. maybe he’s right—maybe satoru needs someone who’s equally as promising to build a successful company into even more success. maybe he needs someone who can take him out for a change to those fancy places he takes you every few weeks. maybe he needs someone who’s heard of half the brands he wears and doesn’t scold him to turn the lights off so the electricity bill isn’t high. maybe he needs someone who can keep up with everything that gojo satoru is—and that someone is not you, no matter how deeply you love him. 

“—the offer still stands, should you change your mind. i’m willing to compensate you for the trouble this must all be.” 

your lips curl into a scowl at his words. that’s the thing about rich people, you think—money is always enough to sugarcoat everything. why worry about the dead grass in your lawn when you can paint it green? but you don’t leave satoru for extra cash on your hands—nothing can be worth auctioning off the only man who’s ever made you feel anything. you leave satoru because he deserves to continue living comfortably, to make a name for himself that isn’t just a ghost of his father’s. if that means being cut from the corner of the picture, you’re willing to pick up the scissors yourself. 

“no thanks,” you hiss, “i don’t need the money.”

“i would disagree,” his father sneers, “but suit yourself.”

the line ends, and for good this time, satoru is no longer yours. was he ever to begin with? 

—————

you try to forget your ex-boyfriend—keyword, try. every hour of your life consists of you using your burner account to refresh his instagram page to see if he’s posted anything new. you unfollow satoru from every social media platform the same day he picks up his belongings—you know he’s noticed within the first thirty minutes because all of his pictures with you are gone, just like all your pictures with him. 

in what you assume is an attempt to be petty, he likes every picture of every girl he sees, and he even blocks you on twitter—you know he picks twitter because twitter is the only social media that blatantly states you’re blocked. but then you’re unblocked in two days, and you know he must be missing you now that the initial anger is faded. 

it makes you laugh a little, even through your tears. satoru is not satoru without petty fits of emotion, and you can’t bring yourself to be mad, not when it’s your fault he’s hurting like this. he’s extra sad today, you gather—if the way marvin’s room is posted to his instagram story on a blank screen is of any hint. it makes you scoff in amusement that in true gojo satoru fashion, he’s effectively told all eight-thousand-something of his followers he’s pathetically in his feelings. 

you scroll through suguru’s story, too—he didn’t unfollow you even after satoru temporarily blocked you, but you figure suguru is the only person satoru really has. you shouldn’t keep yourself close to him, not when it could hurt satoru more, so you remove him too. 

suguru is, as always, drinking at some fancy party with obnoxiously rich college students who have not a care in the world for midterms around the corner. who needs to pass when you’re swimming in money whether or not you have a degree? the first thing you learn about the rich is that most of them are only at college for the experience—they don’t see college as the stepping stone to better opportunities, there’s nothing education could offer that trust funds already don’t. but satoru attends college for himself—he enjoys business classes, you learn, and especially finance ones. for someone who spends money so carelessly, he understands it particularly well. 

there’s no sign of satoru at whatever party it is suguru is at, there’s no trace of strikingly bright white strands anywhere in any corners—you do see naoya in a corner, though, and you crinkle your nose in distaste. if satoru were here, he’d say something bitterly under his breath about the asshole, and you would giggle. but satoru is not here, and even naoya the women-hating jackass makes you miss your obnoxiously whiny ex-boyfriend. 

everything reminds you of satoru. that bear he won you at the fair (after maybe six tries) by your pillows, those polaroids at your desk that you can’t bring yourself to take down, that sticky note on your fridge he left promising to replace the creamer he finished (he’s replaced it more times than he’s needed to by now), that extra big blanket you keep on the couch because the old one barely covered his legs, that pair of silly matching mugs you both had for coffee in the mornings. 

every corner of your apartment has something that reminds you that satoru was here, that he was yours, that for a short while, he was the best thing you ever had. it’s your fault, you think—that satoru and you are here in this mess in the first place. he’s always looked at life through a hopeful lens. having everything does that to you, makes you ignorant to the misfortunes of the world, makes you think everything is within the realm of your reach. you, on the other hand, knew this was bound to happen. the two of you together is like hot oil and cool water—what feels like sparks is just the oil shooting out to burn you. you should’ve known this would have never lasted. 

in a way, you think you did. it’s why you hated him so fiercely at first—maybe deep down, you always knew you wanted him, that he would never be yours. maybe that’s why you were so adamant about rejecting him, that even when he was clearly trying, it would never be enough. satoru has always been enough, has always been what everyone has wanted—you’re not so sure you can say the same for yourself. 

you love gojo satoru. he loves you too—he falls first, and you think maybe, he might have fallen harder too. no one loves like satoru. they say if you press coal hard enough, it turns to diamonds—you think if you gave satoru coal, he would hand you back the sun and all of her stars. it’s just the kind of guy he is, the one that turns everything dull into something bright and warm and worth it. you wish you didn’t have to break his heart, you wish you could’ve walked out of this the only one hurt. but maybe, at the very least, if you break him good enough that he hates you, he’ll move on quicker, maybe have something to look forward to while you continue to work your way up and cheer him on. 

before you can refresh suguru’s page one more time to stalk his story, you’re pulled from your thoughts as someone knocks on your door—correction: pounds on your door. you jolt on your couch, standing up and making your way to the front door quickly and looking through the peephole. 

satoru. of course.

he’s soaked to the bone—it’s raining outside, and of course, just as on brand as always, he must’ve rushed here without an umbrella.

you shouldn’t open it.

but you can’t just leave him in the rain, can you? but he’s not your problem anymore, you agreed to leave him, didn’t you? but how could he not be your problem when he’s all you think about? but this could cause him trouble if his father found out he was here, right? but can you really leave someone, ex-boyfriend or not, in the pouring rain? you can’t be that cruel can you?

before you can make up your mind, he speaks up, “i know you’re standing there. open the door,” he demands. 

“satoru, go home,” you sigh, head pressing against the surface that separates you, “don’t make this anymore difficult than it has to be.”

“if it’s difficult, that means you don’t really want to do this,” he argues. he’s still as good as ever at sweet talk, still as persistent and charming as ever at getting what he wants. “please,” he croaks, “just let me in.”

you know it means more than one thing. you know it means more than just your home. but you shouldn’t, you can’t let him know why you did all this—how can you protect someone from something if they don’t let you? satoru would never let you if he knew, and that’s why you can’t let him know. 

“satoru, if you don’t leave…i’ll…i’ll call the cops,” you warn. 

“no you won’t,” he says instantly. “i’m not leaving until you open the door. and if i get sick, i’ll send you my bill for the emergency room visit.”

“you’re not going to the emergency room for a common cold, you idiot,” you scoff. 

the rain doesn’t slow—in fact, you can hear thunder. satoru is still stubbornly outside, knocking away. 

“i’ll start screaming,” he insists, “your neighbors will complain for noise again. do you want to be kicked out of this apartment? just let your cold, wet, heartbroken ex-boyfriend in if you have a heart.”

and because you are, and always will be, weak to the charms of gojo satoru, you open that damned door—even though you shouldn’t, even though you can’t, even though you said you would never again. but you do. because it’s satoru, and he always comes when you call, and you’ll always let him in when he’s here. 

“you don’t come to your ex’s house less than one week after the break up,” you sigh once you open the door. he takes a step in, shutting the door behind him. 

“why did you leave me?” he asks. 

“satoru, you can’t keep bringing this up—”

“why? just tell me why.”

“i don’t have to—”

“tell me why and i’ll stop bothering you. i just need to know why,” he insists. 

and then you break.

you’re only human. you’ve lost the man you’ve given everything to for over a year in the span of one week. you’ll never see his lovely mother again who spoiled you rotten, you’ll never hang out out with his funny best friend who treats you like family, and you’ll never be enough for gojo satoru, the rich, loud, sheltered, obnoxious, handsome jackass you met and had to do a project with and accidentally fucked over and over again until you fell in love. 

so you shove his chest, once, then twice, then a third time, each time getting weaker and weaker than the last as tears slip down your cheeks as you simply break down. “just leave, satoru,” you sob, “why can’t you just leave? why do you keep coming back?”

you hate seeing him here. you want him gone. you never want to see him again. you hope he never leaves. you’re glad to see him. you hope this isn’t the last time. you hate that he seems to not be getting enough sleep. his eyes are hollow. he must not be eating properly. he probably hasn’t attended class. he has a quiz next week. he most likely forgot about that. his clothes are wrinkly. he definitely hasn’t showered in days. 

“last month you said i was it for you,” he glares at you, his eyes red and swollen and every shade of heartbreak. you miss when they were blue—that beautiful, bright, perfect shade of blue. “last week you said we were a mistake. what the fuck do you mean, huh? what are you playing at?”

“you can realize a lot in a month—”

“not enough to erase over a year,” his voice booms. it makes you flinch and hug yourself tightly. tears slide down your cheeks, your vision is blurry. this might be the last time you see satoru, and even if he’s angry, you want to remember the curves of his features. so you wipe them away. they keep coming back. “so tell me,” he clenches his jaw, “did you string me along for a year or did something happen last week that you’re not telling me?”

“i realized you were bad for me,” you say quietly. 

satoru stares at you. it’s a piercing gaze—his eyes are electrically blue and his lashes are unfairly long and every time he stares at you, you think he almost sees into your soul. they’re tired—there are purplish bags under them on that pale skin of his, and the whites of his eyes are concerningly bloodshot. he stares, and stares, and for a second, you think you’ll die like this. watching him stare at you as your heart bleeds out. 

“i spent weeks,” his voice shakes, “i waited outside your class. i followed you to the next one. i memorized your fucking schedule.”

“satoru, you need to leave—”

“and then you fucked me and left every morning like i was nothing,” he glares, sniffling. you don’t know where the rain drops on his face start and where the teardrops end. “and then i begged you for a chance—begged. i burned my hand, got laughed at by the maids to learn how to make those stupid fucking pancakes for you.”

“i didn’t ask you to—”

“it took you two months to call me baby for the first time. did you know that? i waited two months to hear that. i thought it was the best two months i ever waited.”

“satoru,” you plead. 

you’ve given up on trying to wipe away the tears—he’s given up on crying altogether. you’ve never seen him so hollow, so dead in the eyes and so, so tired.

satoru has never gotten tired—not when he’s fighting for you.

“and then you kept pushing me away, acting like i was some shallow guy who wanted to get in your pants and leave cause i had some money to my name. i took you everywhere, introduced you proudly, let everyone say what they wanted to say about me because i loved you, and…and i thought you loved me too,” he shakes his head. 

his voice breaks, and god, so does your heart right along with it.

“i do love you,” you admit it before you realize what you’re saying. 

“then why did you fucking leave me?” his voice is loud.

satoru never yells, not at you. his voice is always gentle, patient, like he worships the ground you walk on, like he’ll get on his knees if you ask him too. satoru never yells—but he does tonight. 

“because i had to,” you sob, fingers digging into your temples as you shake. the words spill from your lips faster than the tears, like a swarm of angry bees, one following after the other. “or you’d lose everything. the trust funds, the inheritance, the company. i couldn’t let that happen to you—not for me,” you whisper. 

it feels like defeat—in the end, you couldn’t keep satoru, and you couldn’t leave him either. you couldn’t love him like you wanted, and you couldn’t let him go like you should have. what else is there left to fuck up? what more can you ruin in less than a week? the bees feel like maggots in your mouth, swarming a dead carcass.  

“so you left me because my old man threatened you with my trust funds?” he asks in disbelief. you think something in satoru dies at that—something in his shoulders falls and his eyes almost seem gray. 

satoru gets his blue eyes from his mother—they’re bright and kind and deeper than the ocean. but unlike the ocean, they’re not scary to fall into, to lose yourself in no matter how far you are from shore. his father’s eyes are gray—cold and blank and not laced with a single hint of emotion. 

you can’t help but think that blue suits satoru so much better than gray ever could. 

“it wasn’t just that,” you shake your head, “that’s not fair, satoru. what was i supposed to do? know you were about to lose everything and stay?”

“you could have talked to me before you decided for me,” he hisses, “what do you want me to say? thank you? thank you for breaking my heart? thank you for making me feel like a worthless piece of shit who wasted a year for someone who didn’t seem to care? thank you for walking out on me?”

“you know i’d have stayed if i could,” you argue, voice breaking.

“then why didn’t you? why the fuck didn’t you?”

“because i couldn’t!”

“you could!” he screams—you realize, for the first time in your life, you hate when satoru screams. he never screams. “all my life, that old man has been making decisions for me. satoru, wear this. satoru, go here. satoru, don’t do that. satoru, put that away. satoru, stay away from them. satoru, come with me. that’s all he’s ever fucking done—make every choice for me. and now…now you’re just like him,” he breathes, lips wobbling as he stares at you with hurt. 

it’s like that for a bit—you stare at him as he crumbles, and he stares at you like he doesn't know you anymore. you don’t know who leans in first, if it’s your hand or his face, but one second you’re feet apart, and the next second his face is cradled in your hands, thumbs swiping away at his tears. you catch them, one by one, waiting to wipe them away no matter how fast they come. because satoru always comes when you call, and you’ll always be there for him to find you. 

“i don’t want to leave,” you mumble, “i never do. you are it for me, i meant that, you know. who else will melt extra chocolate in my hot chocolate?”

“then don’t leave,” he begs, voice cracking, “i don’t want you to. i’ll handle that old geezer—my grandfather will knock some sense into him. fuck, suguru and i can even hide his body, it’s fine. just don’t leave, okay?”

you let out a watery chuckle, pinching his cheek as you shake your head. “i don’t know if i’m worth homicide, satoru.”

“i think you’re wrong,” he huffs, “you’re wrong about a lot of things, you know. so wrong.”

“i never said i was perfect,” you pout.

he buries his head into your neck, clinging to you tightly—you cling back, because nothing is as safe as satoru’s arms. you’d melt into his skin if you could, live in that spot right where his heart is so you can make sure it’s always beating. 

“you’re still perfect,” he mumbles, “but you’re always mean to me. this was the worst you’ve ever been.”

“i’m sorry,” you murmur, slipping your fingers into his hair—it’s still wet, you realize. he’s soaked, and he could catch a cold but you don’t care. satoru is back. he’s here in your run-down apartment with the mugs and the blanket and that toothbrush you forgot to return and that pair of socks you found in your drawer. satoru is finally home. “i’ll never leave you again.”

“promise?”

“yeah. as long as you don’t block me on twitter again.”

“you deserved that.”

“and for the love of god, toru, delete that marvin’s room story. that was so dumb.”

“are you stalking me?” he pulls away with a grin, making you glare with a huff. he chuckles, kisses your forehead as he murmurs, “missed me that bad, huh? yeah, i would too.”

“well, obviously not enough to post marvin’s room on my story.”

“you can’t be mean to me after you broke my heart!” he whines.

yeah, you think, satoru is home. he’s still that loud, obnoxious, pestering brat that he always was—and he’s still the only love you’ve ever known. 

“i love you,” you press your forehead to his, kissing him slowly. you want to kiss him harder, you want to kiss him desperately like you’ll never kiss him again. like you lost him and miraculously got him back. like you’ll never see the sun again without him. 

but there’s time for that—lots of it, in fact. because satoru is home.

“i love you too,” he whispers, “wanna shower with me? if you really love me, you would.”

read the makeup sex sequel ;) MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

if this fic was a person i would want it dead.

[ohgeezlya]

SOMETHIN’ STUPID | Five Hargreeves x Fem!Reader

Summary; In which everything is outed between Five, your husband, and Lila, your brother in law’s wife.

“Then he goes and spoils it all by saying something stupid like ‘I love you.’

Warning; Angst, cheating, spoilers for S4.

A/n: I found this season to be terrible, but ugh the angst I can make with it is juicy.

You feel nauseous, bile raising in the back of your throat, tears pricking your eyes threatening to fall. You feel embarrassed. All eyes on you, Five, Diego, and Lila.

You want to scream.

You’ve known Five since The Temps Commission, and you’ve spent years together happily married. You felt awful for being jealous of his looks towards Lila, but you just thought you were being paranoid; you could trust him. You always had.

Still, you were right. They had both been acting strangely when they returned. Exchanging heartbreaking smiles, lingering looks, and delicate touches.

Then the fucking bracelet.

You slap Five across the face with an unsteady hand, hoping to make a mark. Your wedding ring was on the hand that you smacked him, and the blow caused a tiny cut in his face.

Loud ‘oos’ and a gasp come from the siblings on the couch.

"You are disgusting. Were you with his wife, your brother's fucking wife?" Five just looked at you, his cheek cupping, grief rushing through him. You push him away when he reaches out to you.

“You don’t understand. We were stuck there for seven years. Every day I thought about coming home to you, but it felt hopeless. I felt like I was going insane.“ He trying, desperately wanting you to understand, but how can you?

“So, what, You gave up? You gave up on finding a way back?” You shake your head in disbelief. Five would never give up, the man in front of you is not the man you met all those years ago.

The one you married would’ve fought tooth and nail to get back to you.

“I knew something was going on since you got back; I’m not blind, Five. I… I thought I was being paranoid; I felt horrible for not trusting you, my husband." You look down at your ring; its typical shine is dulling.

All those years, the surviving, the fighting, saving the world. Together. Was all forgotten and all for nothing within a couple of hours—for you at least.

“It took seven years for 45 long ones to be nothing.” You mumbled taking the ring off, and throwing it at him—which he caught, a terrified glance at it in his hand.

There was a stunned silence, Klaus perched on the couch waiting for more along with the others.

You feel exposed, you don't want to be vulnerable while there’s onlookers, gawking at your ruined marriage taking place in your in-law’s living room.

“Five, I hope those fleeting moments with her were worth it.”

You turn your heel and walk away, ignoring the pleas from Five and the siblings for you to come back.

Some part of you that will love Five unconditionally wants him to run after you.

Your hands are tight around your arms, shaking.

You remember the train Five talked about...

You cautiously take steps down to the train station, the overhead lights buzzing eerily. No one was there, only yourself and the lone train.

Staggering to one of the doors, you quickly get on. Not looking back.

You take a seat, when your legs give out. Tears watering down your face, you do nothing to wipe them away. You’re tired. You don’t look back.

The train dings, the lights flickering, the train ramping up, and the doors shutting. You nervously tried to play with your ring finger but there was nothing to fidget with.

You don’t look back.

If you did.

You would’ve seen Five. Standing there solemnly, heavy tears going down his face as the weight of this breaks him. His fist tightens around your wedding ring, you leaving breaks him.

The wind from the train blows his hair to the side as he watches you leave.

Never to be seen in this timeline again.

[pissfizz]

So much is wrong and the only way I can escape it is death