#you are the truth i choose to bend myself around is something that can be so personal

[luckystarchild]

how different would be lucky if if you had chosen maya as your self insert instead of keiko? what would u have named the story?

I considered using Maya, actually! Not too seriously (Keiko made more sense for the story I was intending to tell, and that was obvious from the jump), but still. A few people have asked this question over the years; there's even a few unanswered asks in my inbox about it. In one past post on the subject, I said the following:

"If she ended up taking Maya’s place in canon, she’d have to think on her feet to avoid having her memory erased. Now THAT would be a recipe for disaster."

Early on in the story, I think Not-Quite-Maya's goals would center around avoiding getting her memory wiped the way Maya's is wiped in canon. She might stay away from Kurama only to get dragged back into his orbit by fate or destiny or whatever you want to call it. Having my mind messed with is a HUGE phobia for me, so knowing Kurama might try and alter my memory after a run-in with Hiei would probably influence my/Not-Quite-Maya's actions until the danger zone has passed.

What would that avoidance look like? I might try to stay away from Kurama, I might try to change Maya's relationship with Kurama, I might try to make friends with more of the YYH cast... who knows? But that would be a huge focus on the early part of the story.

After that point and once canon started up in earnest, Not-Quite-Maya's journey would be VERY different from NQK's. NQK is often preoccupied with the ramifications of increasing Keiko's roll in canon. If she were reborn as Maya, she'd be increasing the changes to canon even more since Maya was never intended to be there in the first place. It makes me question if I would allow myself to get involved at all. At least Keiko is supposed to go to the Dark Tournament; Maya isn't supposed to be featured after Kurama meets Yusuke, so tagging along as Maya would likely wreak even greater havoc than what we got in LC with NQK. There's a case to be made that NQM would stay away entirely as a result, and we'd probably get a Not-Quite whose story didn't intersect much at all with the canon cast's.

That's why I picked Keiko, in the end. Her role is much more involved with the main character's, which makes it easier to involve her in the story and bend canon to accommodate her presence. Accommodating Maya would mean BREAKING canon, not bending it. And since I'm a cautious person, I can't see myself giving readers a very interesting story while inhabiting the role of Maya. Using Maya as the insert character, therefore, didn't contribute to the story I was trying to tell, and Keiko had to be used instead. But it still fun to think about this AU.

As for what I'd call it... the themes of the story would be very different from LC's themes, but I haven't explored what those themes would be yet. Since I tend to choose titles that reflect the themes of their story, it's tough to say what I'd call a NQM story at this juncture.

BUUUUT... I named LC after the translation of Keiko's name (when spelled with slightly different kanji than what was used in canon, but w/e). Maya's name is spelled with a character that can mean either "hemp" or "numb" and a character that can mean "increasingly/further" (or a variation that denotes distance/a measurement growing bigger) or "mend." Other spellings of the name use characters for "truth" and "reality," and also "night" and even "irony." I'd probably make a title that plays on those definitions.

Just spitballing here, but if NQMaya's main hurdle is how distant she is from canon compared to NQK, I think a title that plays on that latter kanji could be cool? Something that plays on the distance between her and canon, and possibly mending that distance, or maybe that distance increasing over time. Throw in "numb" for some color if possible.

Typing all that out made me realize one of the themes of a Not-Quite-Maya story, especially one where she chooses to distance herself from canon, might revolve around the theme of learning to let go. So her story's title could very well be something like, "The Irony of Distance," or "A Distant Truth," or some kind of play on the "so close and yet so far" adage. Hard to say without actually writing the story, but you get the idea.

Thanks for this ask! Was a fun brain teaser.

[shadyruinskryptonite]

Titan Bending, Chapter 3

Warning: Violence consistent with cannon, NSFW so MDNI, language, major character death (both consistent with canon of both AOT and ATLA as well as diverging from canon), so much trauma literally everyone is so traumatized, very much slow burn, a little enemies to lovers, SO MUCH ANGST, hurt/comfort, hurt and delayed comfort, AFAB reader

Chapter Warnings: Language, violence and implied violence, Levi being a dick, please let me know if I missed anything

WC: 2600

Previous Chapter, Next Chapter

Masterlist

I’m given no formal introduction to the soldiers, but Hange does take me around. I’m trying so hard to pay attention to what she’s saying because I think I could be friends with her, but I find myself zoning in and out of the conversation.

“You’ll technically be on Captain Levi’s squad but much like Eren you’ll be running a lot of experiments with me,” Hange says.

“Wait, hold on. I thought we agreed that I was allowed to kind of be my own free agent? What’s this about squads and experiments?”

She waves me off and says, “yes, yes, you have your independence still. But for the sake of our strategy and planning, we have to know roughly where you’ll be located. And as for experiments,” I swear I see her vibrate with excitement, “we also need to understand your abilities and how we can best utilize them.”

I’m still a little apprehensive but I ultimately nod. Eventually, I quietly mumble “I refuse to call that little shit ‘Captain’ though.”

Hange bursts into laughter, so uncontrollable that it starts to draw the attention of other people milling about. Once she collects herself, she says “I can’t wait to see you two interact more. You’re either going to be his favorite or he’s going to hate you with every fiber of his being.”

“That’s…reassuring,” I say wholly unconvinced.

Our tour around the barracks comes to a close at the mess hall just in time for dinner. I join Hange in line and continue to listen to her describing the quality of food. “It’s not the best but it’s not the worst either. They do what they can with what little resources they have. We don’t often get meat though so I hope you’re not strictly carnivorous,” Hange laughs at her own joke and I smile.

“Honestly, a hot meal that I don’t have to hunt or catch myself is a welcome change,” I lament.

“You said something similar about sleeping in a bed even though the dungeon beds leave much to be desired. If you hate living out there so much, why did you choose to live out there?” she ponders.

I smile again as food is added to our trays and we slide along. I don’t know what a lot of the items are so I just pick up all of the same things that Hange does. As we look for seats, I explain, “Well, truth be told this experience wasn’t exactly what I was anticipating. When I’ve lived on my own previously, I had the option to go into villages and I did so a few times a week.”

She sits down and I don’t pay much attention to our surroundings as I finish my story. “Sure, I was completely self-sufficient before but what I liked was that life seemed so simple. I did odd jobs for people, made art, and played music when I needed extra cash. I was expecting the same thing here but obviously that’s not what I got.”

Now that we’re sitting, I take my first bite and nod in contentment. Hange was right - it’s not great, but I’ve certainly had worse. It’s only now that I take a moment to look at the people near us and realize we’re being stared at. Before I can get too self conscious though, I notice the boy that I treated on the cart is sitting just up the table from us.

I grin, happy to see a familiar face, and I wave enthusiastically to him and say “Armin! It’s nice to see you again!” He seems embarrassed so I just turn back to keep talking to Hange. 

We finish eating and she shows me where to return my tray before changing the subject. “Okay!” she says with a clap. “Now I just need to show you to your room!”

The surprise must have been evident on my face because she laughs again and says “What, you thought we were going to make you sleep on the ground?”

I snort and respond, “no, it’s not that. I honestly thought I’d stay in the cell or be put in some kind of communal housing. I’m surprised I get an actual room.”

The humor drops from her tone as she says, “we did consider that, but both for your safety and that of the other soldiers, we decided it was best to keep you on your own.” I let her words sink in and I nod knowingly before she continues. “Plus, your room is right between the Captain’s quarters and my lab, so we can keep an eye on you.” When she says this, she almost seems like she feels guilty for not trusting me.

We stop in front of a door and I turn to her, trying to reassure her. “Hey, I get it. You guys have been really accommodating as it is, I totally understand that you’ve gotta watch me. I’ve said it before, but in your shoes I know I certainly wouldn’t trust me either.” With that, her smile returns and she opens the door to an admittedly very small room. 

Hange sheepishly says “it was converted from a storage closet so it’s-”

“It’s perfect,” I say with a smile, cutting her off before she says anything negative. “Whether it’s a closet or a cell or a blanket on the ground, I’m honestly just grateful that you didn’t opt to execute me.”

The backpack I took with me as I left the forest is sitting at the foot of the bed and there’s a small chest of drawers with a lamp on top. It’s not like I have a lot of things as it is, so this is more than enough. I open my bag and begin to put things away, and Hange’s voice cuts through my thoughts, “Even though your room is situated among the officers, you will still have to use the communal bathrooms and showers that the enlisted use. Sorry about that.”

I laugh, saying something similar to my previous responses, “I’ve been bathing in a river and rubbing flowers on myself so I don’t smell like a dead turtle seal. If it’s water and soap, I have no complaints.”

It seems like she has a question, but she just turns to walk out, only adding “I’m experimenting with Eren in the morning, so I’ll plan to see you just after lunch. Captain Levi and I want to test the extent of your abilities.” I nod and bid her a goodnight, hearing her mumble to herself as she closes the door, “what the hell is a turtle seal?”

When I wake up, I can barely make out what’s on the clock. I have no concept of time because my little closet doesn’t have a window so I flip on my light and instantly regret it. As my eyes adjust I see that I’ve missed breakfast so I decide to shower before I start my day. I fold my clean clothes over my arm and grab the towel and soap from the bottom drawer. As I walk towards the bathroom, I see what looks like a field of kids training.

Wow, Armin was right, most of them do look like they’re only about 15.

I shower quickly and peacefully, getting dressed before I step in front of the mirror to braid my hair. As I’m standing there, a girl with jet black hair walks in. I glance at her from the corner of my eye and recognize her as someone that was sitting with Armin the previous night. As I’m about to greet her, I realize that she’s merely glaring at me so I quickly decide against it. Walking back to my room I also realize how strange it would be to introduce myself to someone in a bathroom.

To kill a little bit of time, I go for a quick run to get my blood pumping for the day. It seems like everywhere I go people are staring at me.

This will be hard to get used to.

I cut my run off early when I came across Hange running an experiment with who I’m guessing is Eren. As I approach she spares me a glance before doing a quick double take.

“Are you wearing the same thing you wore yesterday?” she asks, now looking at Eren again.

I glance at my outfit before looking at her and blinking slowly. I answer with my own question, “you wear a uniform every day, does that mean they’re the same articles of clothes you wore the day before?”

“Touche, but you’re a civilian, why do you have more than one of the same thing?”

“Because I like it?” I say, a little perturbed. “It’s comfy, I can fight in it, and it’s all black so it’s good for concealing myself.”

“Okay, okay. I appreciate how early you are! Your enthus- wait! You are early right? I didn’t miss lunch again did I?!”

I chuckle a little, “relax, yes, I’m early. I was just going for a run before lunch. You didn’t miss anything.”

She heaves a noticeable sigh of relief and returns to her work. I decide to make myself comfortable and watch.

As I’m watching the scene unfold, I hear one of the only voices I’ve come to recognize.

“Oi! Y/n! If you’ve got time to sit you’ve got time to train,” Levi calls to me.

I sit up straighter, but I don’t look at him, afraid that if I do I’ll just lunge at him. I take a deep breath before I slowly turn to look at him. His expression is stoic as ever. I take one more calming breath before yelling back, “I train on my terms, remember? Plus, it’s almost lunch anyway.” I turn back to Hange and Eren and see him crawling out of the titan’s neck.

Holy shit, so there’s an actual person in there.

Once he’s been pulled out and the two start to head towards me, I offer the exhausted looking kid a smile. 

“I’m Y/n, and you must be Eren.” I stick out my hand but his big green eyes only look at it before looking back at my face. Somewhat coldly, he says, “yeah, I know.”

Rather taken aback, I slowly lower my hand and opt to look straight ahead as I offer a weak apology, “sorry, I didn’t realize you don’t shake hands with people when you meet them for the first time here.”

“Oh no,” Hange quips and I turn to her. “We do, he’s just being rude.”

I open my mouth to say something but I’m too stunned for any words to come out. At least she told me the truth. I hear Eren mumble something about not being rude under his breath and I realize I recognize his voice too. 

Before I can stop myself, the words come flying out, “Oh! You’re the kid that I could hear whining when you were in the woods the other day!” As soon as I say it, I want to suck the words back in but Hange laughs and, like a ghost, Levi seems to appear on the other side of Eren and snort too. 

I can see the kid’s temper flare as he yells back at me “Oh yeah?! Well you’re the freak that uses magic bullshit to ‘heal’ people! I think it’s a crock of shit and I think you’re dangerous!”

I smile at his outburst as we enter the mess hall. The four of us get in line and I can see that he’s flustered by the fact that he didn’t get a rise out of me. I shrug and say, “Well, you’re at least partially right. I am dangerous, but I have no intention of harming you or anyone else here,” I wink at him as he stares blankly. “There’s nothing ‘magical’ about my waterbending though. I simply manipulate water the same way people have done for thousands of years.”

My dismissal seems to shut him up. I see that he grabs different items than Hange and so I try to copy him. When we sit down, Levi disappears again and this time some kids sit with us, I’m guessing friends of Eren. Armin sits directly across from me and I grin at him again.

Hange can’t sit quietly for long, so she starts in “you say people have been bending water for thousands of years? Who was the first water bender? How did people discover they could do it? How did the first people learn?”

I smile as I listen to her questions and take a bite of my meal.

Hm, I think I like Eren’s picks better than Hange’s. I’ll have to remember this.

I look up, about to start, when I see multiple pairs of eyes on me. I chuckle and begin answering Hange’s questions.

“Well, it’s kind of complicated. Each of the elements learned from what we all call the ‘original benders.’ For earth benders it was the badger moles, for fire benders the dragons, and for air benders it was the flying bison. Water bending is weird in that the original bender isn’t an animal but rather the moon. People learned to water bend by mimicking the push and pull of the tide and since this is controlled by the moon’s pull on the earth and the ocean, people were basically just copying the moon. For that reason, water bending is actually stronger at night and strongest during a full moon. Conversely, I lose the ability to bend at all during an eclipse.”

When I look back up, everyone looks at me confused. “Okay, which part was unclear? I can explain something better depending on what you don’t understand.”

Hange answers immediately, “Y/n, nothing you said made sense. It sounds like you were speaking a different language. Dragons aren’t real and what the hell is a ‘badger mole’ or a ‘flying bison?’ And once you explain that, do you mind telling us what a tide is?”

Before I can start, Armin excitedly speaks up, “A tide is the ocean water hitting land! I’ve read about it! Are you saying you’ve seen the sea?!” His childlike curiosity makes me grin again. 

“Yeah, you’re exactly right. And yes, not only have I seen the sea, I’ve been swimming in it more times than I can count. I’m from the Northern Watertribe. It’s the farthest North you can go…or at least, that’s what people from my world think. We also think the Fire Nation is the farthest West you can go but I ended up here somehow so clearly we don’t know as much as we think we do.

“Anyway, badger moles are basically these big blind idiots that live underground. They use earth bending to feel their way around and it basically acts as their eyes. Flying bison are almost extinct, but the one that’s left belongs to my friend. His name is Appa and he’s probably as big as this room. He’s extremely fluffy and has six legs and a tail that can generate as much wind as a tornado.

“As for dragons, they definitely do exist. It was thought that they were hunted to extinction by firebenders at the beginning of the 100 year war but my friend Aang - the same person that owns Appa - encountered and learned from the last two dragons in the world.”

It seems like I’ve managed to mesmerize these kids and even Eren seems to have completely forgotten his anger towards me from moments ago.

With a slap of her legs, Hange declares, “Alright! Enough talking! Y/n, you ready to show us what you’ve got?”

And with that, we stand up and head to the training field.

[hillbillyoracle]

When Thoughts =/= Beliefs in Shadow Work

[Read Time: ~6 minutes]

I want to talk about something that came up in discussion with my partner earlier. I think other people might run into the same issue. 

We were in conflict over how she’s been booting a lot of intellectual labor to me without asking and as we were talking, she kept saying something along the lines of “but I’m thinking the right thoughts.” I replied “yeah but I think you’re acting from some crappy beliefs.” 

So she asked me point blank “so can I not use these thoughts to undo the beliefs I don’t want?” 

And I was admittedly kind of confused for a moment because if you ascribe to pure CBT - or hell a lot of current mental health modalities floating around - the answer should be yes. You think new thoughts enough, you change how you feel, and you behave differently. You have experiences that confirm those thoughts and then they become beliefs over time. 

In theory. 

But when I was thinking back over my own experiences that’s not what I was remembering about moving past a similar beliefs. In fact the “but I’m thinking the right thoughts” loop had gotten me completely stuck. Because “thinking the right thoughts” was not rooted in some deeper belief to begin with, it had nothing more substantial to take root in than my own insecurity. So I was “thinking the right thoughts” in order to be loveable, in order to obey my therapist and not be called uncompliant again, in order to be technically correct as a form of protection. 

But when I wound up protecting myself from most was myself - the shitty bits that I really wanted to change. So the truth was I couldn’t use those “correct thoughts” to change my self centered beliefs. 

I had to meet my own unmet needs so those “right thoughts” didn’t need to bubble up to protect me in the first place. I had to use boundaries to protect myself as much as I reasonably can and let go of the rest. I had to love myself in an unrelentingly compassionate and boundaried way - understanding why I’d done things while knowing I needed to do better in the ways I could and having the wisdom to know what ways those were. And personally, for me, I had to step away from the mental health system for a while because it was doing far more bad than good. 

When I did those things, then I could go back to the shitty beliefs and neither affirm nor repel them. I could just sit with them, get to know them, understand where they came from and how they’d settled in so completely. I could ask questions that began to knock loose their hold. 

“I mean I fully get that I’m important and I deserve good things, I’m with you there, but what if the good things I want interfere with the good things other people want? Shouldn’t we try to work it out and bend a little or go our separate ways?” 

“Maybe” said the Selfishness, “I mean...I don’t know, maybe.” 

Given that this conversation came up in the context of labor, my partner and I were naturally talking about issues that come up a lot on the Left where cancel culture is still very much in prevalent. 

Cancel culture places a big emphasis on “having the right thoughts” and I’m sure that’s also where her “but I’m having the right thoughts” got reinforced too. It can be extra activating to the nervous system when the threat of total social separation and targeted harassment is on the line. 

She mentioned wanting to feel loveable through her thoughts - all this attention going to her thoughts and not her actions. I mean I get it to a degree. Because in cancel culture saying one wrong thing can mean the end of everything. But actions don’t always get a person targeted the same way.

So even if you don’t have access or choose not to engage with the mental health system you still might be having this block come up in your shadow work. Having come up in a time where it wasn’t as invasive and being rural meant I was less online than other folks - I seem to not be as taken in by it (though definitely not exempt) so I don’t remember right now if I consciously had to work through this block with relation to shadow work. 

If I was going to though, I’d probably limit my exposure to people who put out content that’s heavy on cancel culture themes - “calling people out” especially when not providing proof, participating in or cheering on public harassment campaigns of canceled folks, praising themselves for blocking a canceled person’s access to community, etc. I’d try to find people who are talking about treating the self and others in compassionate but firm ways and what a future beyond cancel culture could look like. 

I’d pay especially close attention to the judgements and beliefs I have around canceled people as that’s where it’ll be easiest to talk to the block and ask it “What do you really want and does canceling actually give it to you?” 

Basically, if you’ve been trying hard, “thinking the right thoughts”, and you’re still getting no where. It’s okay. You’re not doing it wrong. But it is a good sign that deeper foundational beliefs need nudged. 

So, what do you do in the meantime, while those beliefs are slowly changing and the foundation is being built up? Ideally, you have boundaries with yourself if you’re able. You avoid certain topics in conversation where you’re likely to be insensitive or hurtful. You just full stop do not engage in certain behaviors you have trouble moderating. The goal is limiting the damage to yourself and to your relationship while you work thought it. Is this easy? No. Will you always succeed? Also no. 

But, in my experience at least, it’s the only option that both allows you to have the space to process your shit and doesn’t require you to blow up your whole life to do it (not that I’ve ever done that -cough-). And support and subtle (and some times direct) feedback from people who care about you really does make the whole process a lot easier. 

We all have absolute shit beliefs and desires in our heads. But we also have the ability to clean things up a bit, to not spend our whole life running away from them, get to know them, sit them down, talk things out, decide whether we want to make decisions with their perspectives or not. And that’s absolutely not a process you can engage in with the correct™ thoughts. You gotta meet your beliefs where they’re at. Policing them will do fucking nothing but being kind, gentle, and firm is still necessary. 

Not sure is that’ll help folks out but I know it was revelation for me a while back and it seemed to be to her. Manage speech and behaviors now and get to know your head. The former practice really helps the latter practice. I know very Buddhist of me but what can I say - it helps. 

[gointothevvater]

Kloktober day 23: Group photo or feeling lonely

There was some anti-Magnus shit going on in the tag yesterday, and I choose to counter it with some pro-Magnus shit! Let him live and be at least somewhat happy!

.

The brothers of the Church of the Black Klok were, Magnus had discovered, not the best company.

He was grateful to be alive, sure, but it was lonely down here.

He could deal with that. It was better than having to deal with all the hate that'd surely get thrown his way if he ever left. It was a good thing Charles was stuck here, too, or the loneliness might have been too much.

Magnus found Charles, as he usually did, tucked away in the dim library, reading some massive crumbling old tome.

He flinched when Magnus touched him, asking, "Can I help you?"

Somehow, in the many months they'd been down here, that phrase had become a joke. Magnus said, "Sure," and bent to wind his arms around Charles's neck.

Charles didn't seem to mind, letting his head fall back onto Magnus's shoulder, his eyes slipping shut beneath the lenses of his glasses. "Did you need something?" he asked, though it was clear that he didn't mind Magnus being there.

"Just bored," Magnus said.

"You're always bored."

It was an unfortunate truth. "Been writing songs," he said, lifting a hand to fiddle with the medallion Charles wore. "Think I might send a few to the guys, see if they can do anything with 'em. Can't really use 'em myself when I'm down here."

Opening his eyes to stare at the stalactites that hung about them, Charles asked, "That's as close to an actual apology as they're going to get, isn't it?"

"Yep." Magnus felt a little bad, but apologizing didn't seem right. Yeah, he'd gotten what he deserved when the assassin had run him through, and yeah, he regretted pulling the kid into it, but an apology was just words, and it was never going to be enough. Unable to think of anything to say, he said, "You wanna fuck?"

Charles stammered, then laughed, then stopped to stare in wonder when the sound came echoing back off the walls. Living in a cave was weird like that.

Burying his face in the fur at the collar of Charles's robe, Magnus murmured, "Always wanted to bend you over one of these tables."

Charles laughed again, softer this time, so there was no echo. He said, "I'm sure you have."

It was a lie, and they both knew it, but with Charles smiling like this, held warm and safe in Magnus's arm, Magnus felt a little less lonely.

[luna-purple454]

Yoooo wassuuppp???

How's it goiiinnnn????

Have this ig- I might not make a part 2

Tbh I just whipped this out of my ass lol.

TW: Abuse, Panic attack, uh- idk just bad vibes in general (and bad shit going down too ig-)

Superhero isn't exactly the kind of teacher figure you'd expect him to be towards Hero. So when things started to go south, Hero's friend decided that they needed help fast.

Not Yours Truly

Hero was shaking, even more so when he finally heard the door creak open.

The previous mission did not go as planned. An unexpected ambush happened while trying to sneak into Supervillain's base, leading to the injuries of all the heroes that were gathered there. Hero being the one that was supposed to lead them.

"So, I heard that your little mission went south today, hm?" Superhero deadpanned as they closes the door.

Hero freezes on the chair he was sitting on, not daring to move an inch. They needed to choose their words carefully if they ever wanted to get out of this unharmed.

"Well uh-" They started, desperately trying to form a sentence. "W-we were jumped on and outnumbered-"

"Excuses excuses, Hero. You know I don't like those." Superhero says as he walks towards Hero, not even bothering to sit in his chair. He stops right in front of them, an ominous aura forming around him.

They tried not to squirm at the sight and focused on giving an answer. "Yes sir."

Superhero bends down a bit, locking his eyes onto Hero's. "You know, even though I trained you myself, I'm quite disappointed you turned out this way. After all, you are the strongest Hero below me."

'But there's no way I could match Supervillain!' A tiny voice in the do-gooders head said. 'Between me and the two of you, the only way I'd match is if my power was 10× stronger!'

But they bit theired young back and just look away in shame. Hero couldn't do this. They can't believe that they couldn't do this! They were supposed to be strong!

"Look at me Hero," Superhero growled. His face darkens as he forcefully turns their head with his hand.

"Tell me now, did you really think I'll let this slip? You've humiliated me as your teacher!" Superhero's voice was threatening.

Hero squeaked in fear, causing the latter to smile sinisterly. "You think-" Superhero tightens the hold on Hero's chin, "-that getting this reputation of being the best of the best, is so easy?"

Hero, shaking violently now, shuts his eyes tightly while a few tear drops form from the side of his eyes. He knows Superhero can do worse, and he knows for a fact that he might just do that.

"I-"

"Hush, now. I have a suitable punishment for you. Just be good and it'll be over." Superhero carries Hero by their hair, in return causing Hero to whine loudly.

There was no way they could escape this one. The door was probably locked and the whole room was soundproof. They should have seen this coming honestly, but they thought that as long as they behaved, Superhero would spare them. They thought that he might decide to not waste his time on them. To spare them.

But they were wrong. And they were about to pay the price for thinking that they weren't.

It's been a week since Villain has last seen Hero anywhere. And truth be told, they were getting worried. Ever since they've heard that Hero had led a group to try and infiltrate Supervillain's base, they've been worried sick.

They even confronted Supervillain themselves.

But as it turns out, even Supervillain didn't know where "that pestering do-gooder" was. It all led to a dead end.

That was until Henchman brought in a beaten-up-looking Sidekick. The Sidekick in question had her arm around Henchman's shoulder, bruises and wounds littered her body as they slowly limped their way towards Villain.

"Henchman- what is she doing here? And- what happened to her?" They asked a bit flabbergasted. They've seen Sidekick beaten up at times, yes, but this one looked brutal. Everyone knew she could hold her own well enough.

"She has something to say about Hero.." Muttered Henchman, more worried about the person he was holding.

Villain sits up, now interested. Whatever she had to say, if it's about Hero then she can count on them.

"P-please, Hero- a-and Other Hero- they-" Sidekick tried, but failed to say, and went into a fitting cough.

"What about them?"

"Superhero a-and his comrades- they're so brutal- they-" she broke into a sob, barely able to finish the sentence.

Villain was already tense enough, but from the sound of it, Superhero must have done something terrible.

"Just what the hell happened!?" He screamed.

"When we failed to- hic- infultrate Supervillain- Superhero was furious and, and he- hic- beat us up for it-" She sputtered.

"When we heard- that Hero was in Superhero's "care", we knew that- we wouldn't be able to do much- so the others- when Superhero's team finished with us, we- we agreed to save Hero- but we need your help and-" Sidekick let herself collapse onto the floor, she knelt and kept on begging Villain.

"Please! Hero, they're- probably so-" she cried. "O-our last cooperation- you said-"

"That I'd help Hero if I was feeling like it. Yes. I know." Villain was almost done dressing up. "That bitch Superhero..."

Sidekick, finally deciding to raise their head was shocked to find Villain now leaving.

"One last thing-" the Villain turned their heads towards the do-gooder. "Where is Hero right now?"

"W-we're assuming that they're at S-superhero's place. Inside HHQ." Sidekick sniffled, a bit dizzy as the adrenaline started to fade.

Villain turns back and smirks evilly, knowing that around this time of the day, there were few heroes at HHQ.

"Henchman, take care of Sidekick. Also prepare a guest room please."

He walks away as he hears the grunt of Henchman.

Superhero, you've made a grave mistake.

Part 2(??maybe not??)

[half-bakedboy]

ao3 wrapped~

Tagged by @chromatophorica 🥰 (Kinda. I’m reaching here a;lskjdfl;asd)

.....this is (more) pathetic (than it ever has been) but here we go asld;fjlsad; 

Works published: 31 

Words written: 79,662

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Most popular by kudos: we made these memories for ourselves - buddie

Most hits: tethering like hive minds do - steddie

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Fic that made me cry: I love you, I love you, I love you. by ThisB_tchEmpty

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Gifts: Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) by MsMalfoy (Nitz149), butterflies can't stop me fallin' for you by ByTheAngell (SomeLittleInfamy), You Are the Truth I Choose to Bend Myself Around by ByTheAngell (SomeLittleInfamy), Ground Control To Major Tom (Commencing Countdown; Engines On) by Wolfpup_4973, Against the Sleep of Reason by Molly_Jae, Something to Hold On To by SomeLittleInfamy, got my heart rate up while i'm tryna be honest by Carifusaga, a legal claim by SchrodingersHalfling, hey babe, we can dance slowly by Sivan325, to you i can admit (that I’m just too soft for all of it) by ByTheAngell (SomeLittleInfamy)

Collaborations: I did art for one of @bytheangell‘s fics 🥰

Events taken part in: Femslash February and 911 Bingo. (As an artist, I did a lot more tho!) 

(I’m gonna add on 85k words as a p.s. because I deleted an entire fic because I published it a;lsdkjflk;asdj) 

[turnpage]

send me a ✐ for a random sentence starter from my muse (1-1500) — tw: profanity, mild nsfw, long list

generator here quotes compiled from here inspired by

feel free to change to fit your preferences as need.

❨1❩ ❛ They are dreams, but I’m too out of control, I lose myself in them, and I’ve already lost too much to let them take over. ❜
 ❨2❩ ❛ Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters. ❜ ❨3❩ ❛ I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in. ❜ ❨4❩ ❛ Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win. ❜ ❨5❩ ❛ The world's a hard place. It doesn't care. It doesn't hate you and me, but it doesn't love us, either. ❜ ❨6❩ ❛ The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge. ❜ ❨7❩ ❛ Pull your act together and just go on. ❜ ❨8❩ ❛ I had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there is nothing physically wrong. I hurt all the time. ❜ ❨9❩ ❛ Tough old world, baby. If you're not bolted together tightly, you're gonna shake, rattle, and roll before you turn thirty. ❜ ❨10❩ ❛ Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford? ❜ ❨11❩ ❛ Truth comes out. In the end it always comes out. ❜ ❨12❩ ❛ Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are. ❜ ❨13❩ ❛ No matter where you go, the same asshole gets off the plane. ❜ ❨14❩ ❛ We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives. ❜ ❨15❩ ❛ That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. ❜ ❨16❩ ❛ Human nature, baby. Grab it and growl. ❜ ❨17❩ ❛ God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you. ❜ ❨18❩ ❛ Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you. ❜ ❨19❩ ❛ How many times, over how many years, have I—a grown adult—asked for the mercy of another chance? ❜ ❨20❩ ❛ I was suddenly so sick of myself, so revolted. ❜ ❨21❩ ❛ You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. ❜ ❨22❩ ❛ But those pieces, they’ll never fit just the same way again. Never in this world. ❜ ❨23❩ ❛ Dying is a part of living. You have to keep tuning in to that if you expect to be a whole person. ❜ ❨24❩ ❛ Officious little prick. ❜ ❨25❩ ❛ I’ve been sleepwalking again, my dear. — The plants are moving under the rug. ❜ ❨26❩ ❛ How I wish you were fear. ❜ ❨27❩ ❛ But it was a dreadful kind of curiosity, the kind that makes you peek through your fingers during the scariest parts of a scary movie. ❜ ❨28❩ ❛ All we have is time, you know. An eternity of time. Or shall we end it? Might as well. After all, we're missing the party. ❜ ❨29❩ ❛ We all remember our pleasant dreams more clearly than the scary ones. ❜ ❨30❩ ❛ The way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. ❜ ❨31❩ ❛ Got to be regular if you want to be happy. ❜ ❨32❩ ❛ But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. ❜ ❨33❩ ❛ He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none. ❜ ❨34❩ ❛ Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep. ❜ ❨35❩ ❛ It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness.  ❜ ❨36❩ ❛ If I had ever believed it, I no longer do. ❜ ❨37❩ ❛ I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands. ❜ ❨38❩ ❛ I cannot bear this world a moment longer. ❜ ❨39❩ ❛ I have a better idea. I will do as I please. ❜ ❨40❩ ❛ All my life has been murk and depths, but I am not a part of that dark water. I am a creature within it. ❜ ❨41❩ ❛ You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see. ❜ ❨42❩ ❛ When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world. ❜ ❨43❩ ❛ When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist. ❜ ❨44❩ ❛ But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ❜ ❨45❩ ❛ I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. ❜ ❨46❩ ❛ This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive. ❜ ❨47❩ ❛ You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you. ❜ ❨48❩ ❛ Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me. ❜ ❨49❩ ❛ If now I am wise, it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes. ❜ ❨50❩ ❛ You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite. ❜ ❨51❩ ❛ Give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for. ❜ ❨52❩ ❛ I have been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that is only a shape I’ve been poured into. I do not have to keep it. ❜ ❨53❩ ❛ I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. ❜ ❨54❩ ❛ Understanding the world is a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves. ❜ ❨55❩ ❛ Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two. ❜ ❨56❩ ❛ The truth is, men make terrible pigs. ❜ ❨57❩ ❛ My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it. ❜ ❨58❩ ❛ This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh. ❜ ❨59❩ ❛ Witches are not so delicate. ❜ ❨60❩ ❛ Those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats. ❜ ❨61❩ ❛ I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. ❜ ❨62❩ ❛ There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too. ❜ ❨63❩ ❛ The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them. ❜ ❨64❩ ❛ Life is warped. I'm just in sync. ❜ ❨65❩ ❛ Now it's a whisper from the past. ❜ ❨66❩ ❛ But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more. ❜ ❨67❩ ❛ Why is it always such a surprise? The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush. ❜ ❨68❩ ❛ Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it. ❜ ❨69❩ ❛ What is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives?  ❜ ❨70❩ ❛ I have scars, inside me. ❜ ❨71❩ ❛ The dead are not entirely dead but are alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. ❜ ❨72❩ ❛ However dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void. ❜ ❨73❩ ❛ Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic. ❜ ❨74❩ ❛ It is another way of saying tough luck. To people you aren’t going to help out. ❜ ❨75❩ ❛ I'm waiting, far off in the future. ❜ ❨76❩ ❛ The only sure camouflage is unpredictability. ❜ ❨77❩ ❛ There are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. ❜ ❨78❩ ❛ First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled. ❜ ❨79❩ ❛ I long to swim in liquid moonlight. ❜ ❨80❩ ❛ That's right, I don’t like to be summoned on trivial matters. ❜ ❨81❩ ❛ The part that really made me happy was that you wanted me to be happy. ❜ ❨82❩ ❛ Cut that part out of us: the grinning, elemental malice. Begin us anew. ❜ ❨83❩ ❛ Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot. ❜ ❨84❩ ❛ At last. It's you. ❜ ❨85❩ ❛ No, you will not be cooked on a fire when you die. Because you are not a fish. ❜ ❨86❩ ❛ Take what the moment offers. Don’t close doors. Be thankful. ❜ ❨87❩ ❛ How many others have stood in this place? Left behind, with all gone, all swept away. ❜ ❨88❩ ❛ Is it disapproval or extreme lust? With some men it’s hard to tell the difference. ❜ ❨89❩ ❛ My hair was driving me crazy, but then … I died. ❜ ❨90❩ ❛ Seek and ye shall find, eventually. And you found. You’re right, I don’t dispute that. Sorry. ❜ ❨91❩ ❛ Everything digests, and is digested. ❜ ❨92❩ ❛ My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft. ❜ ❨93❩ ❛ You cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there. ❜ ❨94❩ ❛ I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s something nobody knows about. ❜ ❨95❩ ❛ And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living. ❜ ❨96❩ ❛ The world is a beautiful place. Don’t forget that. And don’t miss it. ❜ ❨97❩ ❛ I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. ❜ ❨98❩ ❛ Something’s happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. ❜ ❨99❩ ❛ It’s taken root, a poison tree; it’s grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart. ❜ ❨100❩ ❛ We’re interpreters. We’re translators. ❜ ❨101❩ ❛ You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way. ❜ ❨102❩ ❛ No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-fullo’shit. Remember that. ❜ ❨103❩ ❛ We lived in monochrome those nights. ❜ ❨104❩ ❛ You live in a dream. You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? ❜ ❨105❩ ❛ Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? ❜ ❨106❩ ❛ I stand here in the dark: cold, utterly alone, full of fear and something that feels like longing. ❜ ❨107❩ ❛ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. ❜ ❨108❩ ❛ Not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye. ❜ ❨109❩ ❛ Selective emotional detachment. ❜ ❨110❩ ❛ Not for me, or at least not today. ❜ ❨111❩ ❛ Dead but not gone, watching life surge forward around me, powerless to intervene. ❜ ❨112❩ ❛ Do I sound like a hillbilly saying that? ❜ ❨113❩ ❛ Remember, you’ve got your secret weapon. ❜ ❨114❩ ❛ The dream drains away like water. The memory, really. I try to scoop it up in my palms, but it’s gone. ❜ ❨115❩ ❛ My shadow stretches along the carpet, as though trying to detach itself from me. ❜ ❨116❩ ❛ It curls away from me, like blood in water. ❜ ❨117❩ ❛ It’s been so long since I felt the rain. Or wind—the caress of wind. ❜ ❨118❩ ❛ But snow I never want to feel again. ❜ ❨119❩ ❛ Through adversity to the stars. ❜ ❨120❩ ❛ No hero. No sleuth. I am locked in. I am locked out. ❜ ❨121❩ ❛ Thinking hasn't gotten me anywhere so far. ❜ ❨122❩ ❛ The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you. ❜ ❨123❩ ❛ Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. ❜ ❨124❩ ❛ Women get consumed. ❜ ❨125❩ ❛ Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them. ❜ ❨126❩ ❛ A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort. ❜ ❨127❩ ❛ Safer to be feared than loved. ❜ ❨128❩ ❛ I ached once, hard, like a period typed at the end of a sentence. ❜ ❨129❩ ❛ It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wish I could stop trying. ❜ ❨130❩ ❛ I always feel sad for the girl that I was. ❜ ❨131❩ ❛ Every time people said I was pretty, I thought of everything ugly swarming beneath my clothes. ❜ ❨132❩ ❛ How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. ❜ ❨133❩ ❛ See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was. ❜ ❨134❩ ❛ Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand. ❜ ❨135❩ ❛ To refuse has so many more consequences than submitting. ❜ ❨136❩ ❛ I'm here. I don't usually feel that I am. ❜ ❨137❩ ❛ I'm tired of dying. ❜ ❨138❩ ❛ What if you hurt because it feels so good? ❜ ❨139❩ ❛ How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow. ❜ ❨140❩ ❛ Do you ever feel like bad things are going to happen, and you can’t stop them? You can’t do anything, you just have to wait? ❜ ❨141❩ ❛ Sometimes my scars have a mind of their own. ❜ ❨142❩ ❛ Everyone has their own version of a memory. ❜ ❨143❩ ❛ Isn’t a smile a girl’s best weapon? ❜ ❨144❩ ❛ My sense of weightlessness, I think, comes from the fact that I know so little about my past. ❜ ❨145❩ ❛ Do what I want; I might like you. ❜ ❨146❩ ❛ I feel sorry for Persephone because even when she’s back with the living, people are afraid of her because of where’s she’s been. ❜ ❨147❩ ❛ She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. ❜ ❨148❩ ❛ The sight of it actually does something to you, makes you less human. ❜ ❨149❩ ❛ It infects you. It ruined me. ❜ ❨150❩ ❛ Your health is not a debt you just cancel. The body collects. ❜ ❨151❩ ❛ Men love to put things inside women, don’t they? ❜ ❨152❩ ❛ We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. ❜ ❨153❩ ❛ Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. ❜ ❨154❩ ❛ The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience. ❜ ❨155❩ ❛ If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war. ❜ ❨156❩ ❛ There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. ❜ ❨157❩ ❛ The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness. ❜ ❨158❩ ❛ Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy. ❜ ❨159❩ ❛ It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong. ❜ ❨160❩ ❛ You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. ❜ ❨161❩ ❛ If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed. ❜ ❨162❩ ❛ We are asleep until we fall in love! ❜ ❨163❩ ❛ I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. ❜ ❨164❩ ❛ Everything I know, I know because of love. ❜ ❨165❩ ❛ Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. ❜ ❨166❩ ❛ If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ❜ ❨167❩ ❛ Yes, love, but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. ❜ ❨168❩ ❛ How can one be well...when one suffers morally? ❜ ❨169❩ ❛ Kings are the slaves of history. ❜ ❨170❩ ❛ God is the same everywhere. ❜ ❨171❩ ❛ Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. ❜ ❨172❩ ❛ One must be cunning and wicked in this world. ❜ ❨173❩ ❛ We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them. ❜ ❨174❩ ❛ When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair! ❜ ❨175❩ ❛ For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed? ❜ ❨176❩ ❛ He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died. ❜ ❨177❩ ❛ Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps. ❜ ❨178❩ ❛ Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible. ❜ ❨179❩ ❛ The distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable. ❜ ❨180❩ ❛ How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? ❜ ❨181❩ ❛ The wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe. ❜ ❨182❩ ❛ When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. ❜ ❨183❩ ❛ My memory is a patchwork of occurrences, of discontinuous events roughly sewn together: the parts I remember, I remember precisely, whilst other sections seem to have vanished completely. ❜ ❨184❩ ❛ Would it be worse to love someone who is no longer there, or not to love someone who is? ❜ ❨185❩ ❛ Like mirrors stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in darkness. ❜ ❨186❩ ❛ It is not that I was credulous, simply that I believed in all things dark and dangerous. ❜ ❨187❩ ❛ Sometimes you do things you regret, but there's nothing you can do about them. Times change. Doors close behind you. You move on. ❜ ❨188❩ ❛ Love will be an impulse that will inspire and ruin in equal measure. ❜ ❨189❩ ❛ He died alone. It don't matter a rat's ass whether there was anyone with him or not. He died alone. ❜ ❨190❩ ❛ It was love, I knew, and it tasted like champagne in my mind. ❜ ❨191❩ ❛ The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being averted, by love or foolishness or just plain old dumb luck. ❜ ❨192❩ ❛ She was my dream; and if you touch a dream it vanishes, like a soap bubble. ❜ ❨193❩ ❛ Daylight is always safe. ❜ ❨194❩ ❛ If not for death, they'd be content to simply exist, but with death, well, their lives will have meaning. ❜ ❨195❩ ❛ You want to know the future, love? Then wait. ❜ ❨196❩ ❛ There are things in the darkness beneath us that wish us harm. ❜ ❨197❩ ❛ Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated ❜ ❨198❩ ❛ But sometimes you leave blood on your instruments. ❜ ❨199❩ ❛ I'd like to be a wolf. Not all the time. Just sometimes. In the dark. I would run through the forests. ❜ ❨200❩ ❛ You've seen them. They have mouths that twitch, and eyes that stare, and they babble and they mewl and they whimper. ❜ ❨201❩ ❛ They are not mad, or rather, the loss of their sanity is the lesser of their problems. ❜ ❨202❩ ❛ Good a reason for writing as I know: releasing demons, letting them fly. ❜ ❨203❩ ❛ That miserable state in which everything seems flat and of equal importance; when nothing matters, and in which reality seems scraped thin and threadbare. ❜ ❨204❩ ❛ Someone had scrawled graffiti in black marker on the metal: JUST DIE, it said. Like it is easy. ❜ ❨205❩ ❛ Winter started today. The sky turned grey and the snow began to fall and it did not stop falling until well after dark. ❜ ❨206❩ ❛ Memory is the great deceiver. ❜ ❨207❩ ❛ Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. ❜ ❨208❩ ❛ I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.  ❜ ❨209❩ ❛ If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. ❜ ❨210❩ ❛ I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other. ❜ ❨211❩ ❛ But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. ❜ ❨212❩ ❛ I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other would have borne it. ❜ ❨213❩ ❛ There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. ❜ ❨214❩ ❛ One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. ❜ ❨215❩ ❛ Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ❜ ❨216❩ ❛ You must be the best judge of your own happiness. ❜ ❨217❩ ❛ Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing ; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature ; and I do not think I ever shall. ❜ ❨218❩ ❛ Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise. ❜ ❨219❩ ❛ If I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream. ❜ ❨220❩ ❛ If a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. ❜ ❨221❩ ❛ Faultless in spite of all her faults. ❜ ❨222❩ ❛ A heroine whom no one but myself will much like. ❜ ❨223❩ ❛ There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. ❜ ❨224❩ ❛ Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air. ❜ ❨225❩ ❛ I pity you. I thought you cleverer. ❜ ❨226❩ ❛ Evil to some is always good to others. ❜ ❨227❩ ❛ I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. ❜ ❨228❩ ❛ She is loveliness itself. ❜ ❨229❩ ❛ Time does not compose me. ❜ ❨230❩ ❛ A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her. ❜ ❨231❩ ❛ I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice. ❜ ❨232❩ ❛ I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be any more. ❜ ❨233❩ ❛ I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment. ❜ ❨234❩ ❛ I examined my own heart. And there you were. Never, I fear, to be removed. ❜ ❨235❩ ❛ With all your little faults, you are an excellent creature. ❜ ❨236❩ ❛ You have another long walk before you. ❜ ❨237❩ ❛ The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown. ❜ ❨238❩ ❛ What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? ❜ ❨239❩ ❛ Out of the frying pan into the fire! ❜ ❨240❩ ❛ We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity. ❜ ❨241❩ ❛ She sleeps. And now she wakes each day a little less. ❜ ❨242❩ ❛ And, oh, God . . . how frequently I weep! ❜ ❨243❩ ❛ From the coffin of your madness there is no escape. ❜ ❨244❩ ❛ I am feeling supernatural tonight. I want to eat diamonds. ❜ ❨245❩ ❛ All the same there is a chance that if we keep on shaking our chains, one day, some day, the clasps upon the shackles will part. ❜ ❨246❩ ❛ It was sad music fit to make you cut your throat. ❜ ❨247❩ ❛ Nothing is more boring than being forced to play. ❜ ❨248❩ ❛ Amongst the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest? ❜ ❨249❩ ❛ Wherein does a woman’s honour reside? In her vagina or in her spirit? ❜ ❨250❩ ❛ Perhaps...I could not be content with mere contentment! ❜ ❨251❩ ❛ Have you ever stared stark failure in the face? The trick is to outstare it. ❜ ❨252❩ ❛ Sometimes it seems that the faces exist of themselves, in a disembodied somewhere, waiting for the one who will wear them, who will bring them to life. ❜ ❨253❩ ❛ I have the febrile gaiety of a being without a past, without a present, yet I exist. ❜ ❨254❩ ❛ I felt myself turning, willy-nilly, from a woman into an idea. ❜ ❨255❩ ❛ She looks wonderful, but she doesn't look right. ❜ ❨256❩ ❛ The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind. ❜ ❨257❩ ❛ I raised you up to fly to the heavens, not to brood over a clutch of eggs! ❜ ❨258❩ ❛ I love to hear my bones rattle. That’s how I know I’m alive. ❜ ❨259❩ ❛ I learnt, first, as the birds do, from the birds. ❜ ❨260❩ ❛ Inside and outside match exactly, but both are badly wrong. ❜ ❨261❩ ❛ During the less-than-blink of time it took the last chime to die, there came a vertiginous sensation. ❜ ❨262❩ ❛ I fear a wound not of the body but the soul, an irreconcilable division between myself and the rest of humankind. ❜ ❨263❩ ❛ I fear the proof of my own singularity. ❜ ❨264❩ ❛ Still nothing could calm the fearful storm in my erupting skin. ❜ ❨265❩ ❛ Petersburg, loveliest of all hallucinations. ❜ ❨266❩ ❛ A breathless second between black forest and the frozen sea. ❜ ❨267❩ ❛ I'm beginning to feel totally cut off from the world. ❜ ❨268❩ ❛ What does this all mean? Where are we? ❜ ❨269❩ ❛ Sometimes I bleed. ❜ ❨270❩ ❛ If you see a ghost, you say "hello". ❜ ❨271❩ ❛ The war is not over. ❜ ❨272❩ ❛ You're not going. You left us once already. ❜ ❨273❩ ❛ You can’t go! ❜ ❨274❩ ❛ I loved you, but that wasn't enough, was it? ❜ ❨275❩ ❛ If you're dead, then leave me in peace. ❜ ❨276❩ ❛ The only thing that moves here is the light, but it changes everything. ❜ ❨277❩ ❛ I won't ask for forgiveness for something I didn't do! ❜ ❨278❩ ❛ Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead. ❜ ❨279❩ ❛ Death of a loved one can lead people to do the strangest things. ❜ ❨280❩ ❛ Sooner or later, they will find you. ❜ ❨281❩ ❛ They're everywhere - they say this house is theirs. ❜ ❨282❩ ❛ You're always teasing me, and telling lies. I'm sick of it. ❜ ❨283❩ ❛ Others will come. Sometimes we'll sense them. Other times, we won't. ❜ ❨284❩ ❛ No crying now. No crying. Stop that. Here. Look what an awful face you've got when you cry. ❜ ❨285❩ ❛ You listen to me. I've seen them too. ❜ ❨286❩ ❛ You'll see. There are going to be some big surprises. There are going to be... changes. ❜ ❨287❩ ❛ Why did you go and fight that stupid war that had nothing to do with us? Why didn't you stay like the others did? ❜ ❨288❩ ❛ Your place was here with your family. ❜ ❨289❩ ❛ So you say you know this house well? ❜ ❨290❩ ❛ I wasn't expecting you so soon. ❜ ❨291❩ ❛ What's the matter? Has the cat got your tongue? ❜ ❨292❩ ❛ You mean they just vanished? Into thin air? ❜ ❨293❩ ❛ No door must be opened without the previous one being closed first. ❜ ❨294❩ ❛ Here, most of the time, you can hardly see your way. ❜ ❨295❩ ❛ Whatever you do, don't open the curtains. ❜ ❨296❩ ❛ Now, come on. Eyes closed. ❜ ❨297❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. ❜ ❨298❩ ❛ By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨299❩ ❛ I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. ❜ ❨300❩ ❛ And the reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨301❩ ❛ Love does not exist, it's like religion, made to control you. ❜ ❨302❩ ❛ After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. ❜ ❨303❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨304❩ ❛ Everything in the street today seems soft focus. ❜ ❨305❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low. ❜ ❨306❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin’ miles off the pace. ❜ ❨307❩ ❛ It’s as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the way things are in a dream. ❜ ❨308❩ ❛ It’s all okay, it’s all beautiful; but I fear that this internal sea is going to subside soon, leaving this poisonous shite washed up, stranded up in my body. ❜ ❨309❩ ❛ It cuts me up. It confuses me. ❜ ❨310❩ ❛ It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. ❜ ❨311❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨312❩ ❛ They mean well, and they mean well to me, but there's no way under the sun that they can appreciate what I feel, what I need. ❜ ❨313❩ ❛ The pit of melancholy is a bottomless one, and I am descending fast. ❜ ❨314❩ ❛ Living like this is a full-time business. ❜ ❨315❩ ❛ I’ll stand or fall alone. ❜ ❨316❩ ❛ We are no wiser now than at the start. ❜ ❨317❩ ❛ This is pathetic, and fucking boring. ❜ ❨318❩ ❛ Death is usually a process, rather than an event. ❜ ❨319❩ ❛ We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? ❜ ❨320❩ ❛ We are all acquaintances now. ❜ ❨321❩ ❛ The problem is that this beautiful ocean carries with it loads of poisonous flotsam and jetsam. ❜ ❨322❩ ❛ Life is beautiful. I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm going to have a long life. ❜ ❨323❩ ❛ The grim reality of impending death can be talked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. ❜ ❨324❩ ❛ There must be more to life than this. ❜ ❨325❩ ❛ We all see what we want to see. ❜ ❨326❩ ❛ Statistically speaking, you're more likely to be killed by a member of your own family or a close friend, than by anyone else. ❜ ❨327❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨328❩ ❛ Maybe that's what love is: it's being pissed off. ❜ ❨329❩ ❛ You can forget who you are if you're alone too much. ❜ ❨330❩ ❛ Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God. ❜ ❨331❩ ❛ Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly.  ❜ ❨332❩ ❛ We must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing. ❜ ❨333❩ ❛ Everyone wants to feel like a princess, and princesses are selfish and overbearing. ❜ ❨334❩ ❛ We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young. ❜ ❨335❩ ❛ How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it. ❜ ❨336❩ ❛ Amazing how the heart clutches at anything familiar, whimpering: Mine! Mine! ❜ ❨337❩ ❛ All creatures know that some must die ; that all the rest may take and eat. ❜ ❨338❩ ❛ Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? ❜ ❨339❩ ❛ Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance. ❜ ❨340❩ ❛ Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy? ❜ ❨341❩ ❛ Love is useless, it leads you into dumb exchanges in which you give too much away, and then you get bitter and mean. ❜ ❨342❩ ❛ Maybe sadness is a kind of hunger. Maybe the two go together. ❜ ❨343❩ ❛ Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody -- a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules. ❜ ❨344❩ ❛ If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time. ❜ ❨345❩ ❛ You couldn’t leave words lying around where our enemies might find them. ❜ ❨346❩ ❛ I'm fine, for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in. ❜ ❨347❩ ❛ Because if you can't wish, why bother? ❜ ❨348❩ ❛ It's better to hope than mope! ❜ ❨349❩ ❛ Reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows. ❜ ❨350❩ ❛ In any case, time is not a thing that passes, it’s a sea on which you float. ❜ ❨351❩ ❛ I know I’m deceiving myself, but I prefer to deceive myself. I desperately need to believe such pure joy is still possible. ❜ ❨352❩ ❛ Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered. ❜ ❨353❩ ❛ Behind my eyelids I saw an animal. It was golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned. ❜ ❨354❩ ❛ ‘Why can't I believe?’ I asked the darkness. ❜ ❨355❩ ❛ Everyone’s too sad for everything. ❜ ❨356❩ ❛ If you can’t stop the waves, go sailing. ❜ ❨357❩ ❛ I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. ❜ ❨358❩ ❛ Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. ❜ ❨359❩ ❛ In the end, we'll all become stories. ❜ ❨360❩ ❛ I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. ❜ ❨361❩ ❛ If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. ❜ ❨362❩ ❛ If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. ❜ ❨363❩ ❛ Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. ❜ ❨364❩ ❛ Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been. ❜ ❨365❩ ❛ Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? ❜ ❨366❩ ❛ We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. ❜ ❨367❩ ❛ If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon? ❜ ❨368❩ ❛ You fit into me like a hook into an eye. ❜ ❨369❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened. ❜ ❨370❩ ❛ Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. ❜ ❨371❩ ❛ Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. ❜ ❨372❩ ❛ This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons. ❜ ❨373❩ ❛ Get rid of death. Make it be spring. ❜ ❨374❩ ❛ You are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets. ❜ ❨375❩ ❛ I am the space you desecrate as you pass through. ❜ ❨376❩ ❛ Favour me and give me riches, destroy my enemies. Save me from death. ❜ ❨377❩ ❛ She is a raw voice loose in the rooms beneath me. ❜ ❨378❩ ❛ Isn't the moon warm enough for you, why do you need the blanket of another body? ❜ ❨379❩ ❛ This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn. ❜ ❨380❩ ❛ If you look long enough eventually you will see me. ❜ ❨381❩ ❛ I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head. ❜ ❨382❩ ❛ I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief. ❜ ❨383❩ ❛ But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling. ❜ ❨384❩ ❛ How else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin? ❜ ❨385❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨386❩ ❛ Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. ❜ ❨387❩ ❛ We loved with a love that was more than love. ❜ ❨388❩ ❛ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ❜ ❨389❩ ❛ The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ❜ ❨390❩ ❛ There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion. ❜ ❨391❩ ❛ Never to suffer would never to have been blessed. ❜ ❨392❩ ❛ Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. ❜ ❨393❩ ❛ And all I loved, I loved alone. ❜ ❨394❩ ❛ Years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute. ❜ ❨395❩ ❛ The best things in life make you sweaty. ❜ ❨396❩ ❛ There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. ❜ ❨397❩ ❛ Anything is better than this agony. ❜ ❨398❩ ❛ You fancy me mad. ❜ ❨399❩ ❛ I hear all things in the heaven and in the earth. ❜ ❨400❩ ❛ Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? ❜ ❨401❩ ❛ Leave my loneliness unbroken! ❜ ❨402❩ ❛ A more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrills every fibre of my frame. ❜ ❨403❩ ❛ The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. ❜ ❨404❩ ❛ Let my heart be still a moment. ❜ ❨405❩ ❛ You call it hope —  It is but agony of desire. ❜ ❨406❩ ❛ Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? ❜ ❨407❩ ❛ To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! ❜ ❨408❩ ❛ The beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. ❜ ❨409❩ ❛ Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. ❜ ❨410❩ ❛ I have been happy, though in a dream. ❜ ❨411❩ ❛ Nevermore. ❜ ❨412❩ ❛ The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life. ❜ ❨413❩ ❛ I am convinced that every thing is going wrong. ❜ ❨414❩ ❛ The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls. ❜ ❨415❩ ❛ And if I died, at least I will have died for you! ❜ ❨416❩ ❛ It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. ❜ ❨417❩ ❛ Hurt and humiliation — But this, I can not take. ❜ ❨418❩ ❛ The walls in there have ears. ❜ ❨419❩ ❛ This is for your ears only. ❜ ❨420❩ ❛ What is it? You have me scared. ❜ ❨421❩ ❛ Whoever isn’t for us, is against us. ❜ ❨422❩ ❛ You are just a body; to be dumped, disposed of like a carcass, left out for the birds to feed on. ❜ ❨423❩ ❛ The dead will have to forgive me. ❜ ❨424❩ ❛ From now on and no matter how your mind may I change, I will not accept your help. ❜ ❨425❩ ❛ If death comes, so be it. There will be glory in it. ❜ ❨426❩ ❛ Live, then; and live with your choice. ❜ ❨427❩ ❛ I am doing what has to be done. ❜ ❨428❩ ❛ Nothing is going to stop the ones that love you from keeping on loving you. ❜ ❨429❩ ❛ Worst is the man who has all the good advice, and then because his nerve fails, fails to act in accordance with it, as a leader should. ❜ ❨430❩ ❛ Only a loony would walk himself into this. ❜ ❨431❩ ❛ Why do you need such fences and defences? ❜ ❨432❩ ❛ Enough. Do not anger me. ❜ ❨433❩ ❛ The gods, you think, will side with the likes of him? ❜ ❨434❩ ❛ Watch it. You are over stepping. ❜ ❨435❩ ❛ I warn you. You should keep a civil tongue. ❜ ❨436❩ ❛ There is no such thing as an oath the can not be broken. ❜ ❨437❩ ❛ Every now and then, the things you’d hardly let yourself imagine, actually happen. ❜ ❨438❩ ❛ And you stand over this? This is the truth? ❜ ❨439❩ ❛ The bigger the resistance, the bigger the collapse. ❜ ❨440❩ ❛ Iron that’s forged the hardest, snaps the quickest. ❜ ❨441❩ ❛ Even the wildest horses come to heel when they are reined & bitted right. ❜ ❨442❩ ❛ That’s how guilt affects some people. They break and everything comes out. ❜ ❨443❩ ❛ Will it be enough for you? To see me executed? ❜ ❨444❩ ❛ So you know something no one else knows? ❜ ❨445❩ ❛ They know it too. They are just too afraid to say it. ❜ ❨446❩ ❛ If you die, how will I keep on living? ❜ ❨447❩ ❛ There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'. ❜ ❨448❩ ❛ How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. ❜ ❨449❩ ❛ Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body. ❜ ❨450❩ ❛ I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me. ❜ ❨451❩ ❛ For this moment, this one moment, we are together.  ❜ ❨452❩ ❛ Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. ❜ ❨453❩ ❛ I am as neat as a cat in my habits. ❜ ❨454❩ ❛ Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me. ❜ ❨455❩ ❛ I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room. ❜ ❨456❩ ❛ We are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe ❨457❩ that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie ❨458❩ asleep. ❜ ❨459❩ ❛ These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom. ❜ ❨460❩ ❛ Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. ❜ ❨461❩ ❛ The moment is all; the moment is enough. ❜ ❨462❩ ❛ I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given. ❜ ❨463❩ ❛ I am not one and simple, but complex and many. ❜ ❨464❩ ❛ And if you are dead, I shall weep. ❜ ❨465❩ ❛ But beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful. ❜ ❨466❩ ❛ But our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love. ❜ ❨467❩ ❛ I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams. ❜ ❨468❩ ❛ Life is a dream surely. ❜ ❨469❩ ❛ I think sometimes I am not a woman, but the light that falls on this gate, on this ground. I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn. ❜ ❨470❩ ❛ Oh, I am in love with life! ❜ ❨471❩ ❛ I have been knotted; I have been torn apart. ❜ ❨472❩ ❛ There was no freedom in life, and certainly there was none in death. ❜ ❨473❩ ❛ I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am. ❜ ❨474❩ ❛ I ride rough waters, and shall sink with no one to save me. ❜ ❨475❩ ❛ I am above the earth now. I am no longer upright, to be knocked against and damaged. ❜ ❨476❩ ❛ I see it all. I feel it all. ❜ ❨477❩ ❛ Death is woven in with the violets. Death and again death. ❜ ❨478❩ ❛ We have been walking for hours it seems. But where? I cannot remember. ❜ ❨479❩ ❛ If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged. ❜ ❨480❩ ❛ When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass. ❜ ❨481❩ ❛ Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word; - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase.  ❜ ❨482❩ ❛ Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor. ❜ ❨483❩ ❛ If the world treats you well, you come to believe you are deserving of it. ❜ ❨484❩ ❛ If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go. ❜ ❨485❩ ❛ It’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength. ❜ ❨486❩ ❛ There is no fool like an educated fool. ❜ ❨487❩ ❛ There are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. ❜ ❨488❩ ❛ I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened. ❜ ❨489❩ ❛ Underneath it all is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. ❜ ❨490❩ ❛ And underneath all that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but ripe and splitting open of its own accord.  ❜ ❨491❩ ❛ The small details of life often hide a great significance. ❜ ❨492❩ ❛ Guilt comes to you not from the things you've done, but from the things that others have done to you. ❜ ❨493❩ ❛ I wonder, how can I be all of these different things at once? ❜ ❨494❩ ❛ It is always a mistake to curse back openly at those who are stronger than you unless there is a fence between. ❜ ❨495❩ ❛ Some call this "Eve's curse," but I think that is stupid because the real curse of Eve was having to put up with the nonsense of Adam. ❜ ❨496❩ ❛ I don't know why they are all so eager to be remembered. What good will it do them? There are some things that should be forgotten by everyone, and never spoken of again. ❜ ❨497❩ ❛ I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely. ❜ ❨498❩ ❛ If they want a monster so badly they ought to be provided by one. ❜ ❨499❩ ❛ It’s as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks. And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent. ❜ ❨500❩ ❛ Today you wear your habitual expression of strained anxiety; you smell of violets. ❜ ❨501❩ ❛ Of course you have always been an idealist, and filled with your optimistic dreams; but reality must at some time obtrude. ❜ ❨502❩ ❛ I wonder what would become of me, and comfort myself that in a hundred years I will be dead and at peace. ❜ ❨503❩ ❛ For it is not always the one that strikes the blow that is the actual murderer. ❜ ❨504❩ ❛ There is a “do this” or “do that” with God, but not any “because”. ❜ ❨505❩ ❛ If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything. ❜ ❨506❩ ❛ They say, why don’t you ever smile or laugh, we never see you smiling, and I say I suppose I have gotten out of the way of it, my face won’t bend in that direction any more. ❜ ❨507❩ ❛ I was shut up inside that doll of myself, and my true voice could not get out. ❜ ❨508❩ ❛ I see what you’re after. You are a collector. You think all you have to do is give me an apple, and then you can collect me. ❜ ❨509❩ ❛ If you want to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before you have made the same life choice. ❜ ❨510❩ ❛ Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo. ❜ ❨511❩ ❛ Nature is to zoos as God is to churches. ❜ ❨512❩ ❛ After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? ❜ ❨513❩ ❛ There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive. ❜ ❨514❩ ❛ These things sneak up on me for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency. ❜ ❨515❩ ❛ Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast. ❜ ❨516❩ ❛ You can’t buy it, but it has a price. Everything has a price. ❜ ❨517❩ ❛ As a species were doomed by hope, then? You could call it hope. That, or desperation. ❜ ❨518❩ ❛ I am not my childhood. ❜ ❨519❩ ❛ Human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else and live on forever. ❜ ❨520❩ ❛ “I'll make you mine”, lovers said in old books. They never said, “I'll make you me.” ❜ ❨521❩ ❛ How much is too much, how far is too far? ❜ ❨522❩ ❛ Expectation isn't the same as desire. ❜ ❨523❩ ❛ Why not cut to the chase? ❜ ❨524❩ ❛ Maybe there aren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. ❜ ❨525❩ ❛ I thought you didn’t believe in God. ❜ ❨526❩ ❛ I need at least the illusion of being understood. ❜ ❨527❩ ❛ What change would have altered the course of events? In the big picture, nothing. In the small picture, so much. ❜ ❨528❩ ❛ You are only looking at the dirt under your feet. It's not good for you. ❜ ❨529❩ ❛ I like to keep only the bright side of myself turned towards you.  ❜ ❨530❩ ❛ Grief in the face of inevitable death. The wish to stop time. The human condition. ❜ ❨531❩ ❛ So many crucial events take place behind people’s backs, when they aren’t in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance. ❜ ❨532❩ ❛ Would you kill someone you loved to spare them pain? ❜ ❨533❩ ❛ When the water’s moving faster than the boat, you can’t control a thing. ❜ ❨534❩ ❛ Don't be so fucking sentimental. ❜ ❨535❩ ❛ Wrong, as usual. ❜ ❨536❩ ❛ Why do you want to talk about ugly things? ❜ ❨537❩ ❛ I understand why serial killers send helpful clues to the police. ❜ ❨538❩ ❛ Take your time, leave mine alone. ❜ ❨539❩ ❛ You will hear thunder and remember me. ❜ ❨540❩ ❛ If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly. ❜ ❨541❩ ❛ I seem to myself an accidental guest in this dreadful body. ❜ ❨542❩ ❛ Call me a sinner, mock me maliciously. ❜ ❨543❩ ❛ I, from the very beginning, seemed to myself like someone's dream or delirium. Or a reflection in someone else's mirror. Without flesh, without meaning, without a name. ❜ ❨544❩ ❛ I knew the list of crimes that I was destined to commit. ❜ ❨545❩ ❛ The future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future. ❜ ❨546❩ ❛ You are untranslatable into any one tongue. ❜ ❨547❩ ❛ I was hoping my silence would fit yours. ❜ ❨548❩ ❛ See, we were never about butterflies. All about us is unearthly and radiant. ❜ ❨549❩ ❛ You do not know just what you've been forgiven. ❜ ❨550❩ ❛ I need to slaughter my memory.  ❜ ❨551❩ ❛ Forgive me that I appeared to you in waking dreams. ❜ ❨552❩ ❛ I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy. ❜ ❨553❩ ❛ I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death. ❜ ❨554❩ ❛ Wild honey smells of freedom. But gold smells of nothing. ❜ ❨555❩ ❛ You are three times more beautiful than angels. ❜ ❨556❩ ❛ I will kill you without spilling your blood on the ground, not touching you with my hand, not giving you one glance. ❜ ❨557❩ ❛ You invented me. There is no such earthly being. ❜ ❨558❩ ❛ You’re late. Way too late. I’m glad to see you, nonetheless. ❜ ❨559❩ ❛ Forgive me that I felt forsaken. Forgive me that I kept mistaking too many others for you. ❜ ❨560❩ ❛ Real tenderness can’t be confused, it’s quiet and can’t be heard. ❜ ❨561❩ ❛ What else lived in that house besides us? ❜ ❨562❩ ❛ How unhappy we are together! ❜ ❨563❩ ❛ I defend not my voice, but my silence. ❜ ❨564❩ ❛ Without love, I'm more at ease, I'm sure. ❜ ❨565❩ ❛ I've got no more tears or explanations. ❜ ❨566❩ ❛ I’m not complaining. Happiness is not for me. ❜ ❨567❩ ❛ Are you not the only tie between good and evil, earthly pits and paradise? ❜ ❨568❩ ❛ In the morning we shall find out who has died in the night. ❜ ❨569❩ ❛ I was not a lovable child, and I've grown into a deeply unlovable adult. ❜ ❨570❩ ❛ The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it. ❜ ❨571❩ ❛ I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark. ❜ ❨572❩ ❛ I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple. ❜ ❨573❩ ❛ I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way. ❜ ❨574❩ ❛ I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there - hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen. But the meanness usually wins out. ❜ ❨575❩ ❛ I felt something loosen in me, that shouldn't have loosened. A stitch come undone. ❜ ❨576❩ ❛ Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it. ❜ ❨577❩ ❛ Coffee goes great with sudden death. ❜ ❨578❩ ❛ I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite. ❜ ❨579❩ ❛ “Smile, it can't be that bad!” Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad. ❜ ❨580❩ ❛ Everything bad in the world already did happen. ❜ ❨581❩ ❛ You’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? ❜ ❨582❩ ❛ Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened. ❜ ❨583❩ ❛ Homesick for a place I've never been. ❜ ❨584❩ ❛ Worries find you easily enough without inviting them. ❜ ❨585❩ ❛ It is always consoling to think of suicide. It's what gets one through many a bad night. ❜ ❨586❩ ❛ Do you understand this is serious? ❜ ❨587❩ ❛ Sometimes it feels good to fuck with something. Instead of always being fucked with. ❜ ❨588❩ ❛ How could you kill something you cared enough to name? ❜ ❨589❩ ❛ Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs. ❜ ❨590❩ ❛ We have the same chemicals in our blood: shame, anger, greed. Unjustified nostalgia. ❜ ❨591❩ ❛ I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. ❜ ❨592❩ ❛ The phrase fuck you may not rest on the tip of my tongue, but it’s near. Midtongue. ❜ ❨593❩ ❛ Nothing to it but to do it. ❜ ❨594❩ ❛ There are a lot of people who deserve a lesson, deserve to really understand, that nothing comes easy, that most things are going to go sour. ❜ ❨595❩ ❛ If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we’d all have a very Merry Christmas. ❜ ❨596❩ ❛ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. ❜ ❨597❩ ❛ What does it do to a girl who knows her mother is a murderer? ❜ ❨598❩ ❛ That mean old bitch across the street bit it. ❜ ❨599❩ ❛ Survival is a talent. ❜ ❨600❩ ❛ Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. ❜ ❨601❩ ❛ Who has the courage to burn themselves? ❜ ❨602❩ ❛ Is insanity just a matter of dropping the act? ❜ ❨603❩ ❛ Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? ❜ ❨604❩ ❛ You need to be well fed, clothed, and housed to have time for this much self-pity. ❜ ❨605❩ ❛ When I am supposed to be awake, I am asleep; when I am supposed to speak, I am silent. When a pleasure offers itself to me, I avoid it. ❜ ❨606❩ ❛ There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. ❜ ❨607❩ ❛ In a strange way we are free. We've reached the end of the line. We have nothing more to lose. ❜ ❨608❩ ❛ The world won’t stop because we aren’t in it anymore. ❜ ❨609❩ ❛ I can't answer the real question. All I can tell you is, it's easy. ❜ ❨610❩ ❛ I am lighter, airier than I’ve been in years. ❜ ❨611❩ ❛ I am not dead, yet something in me definitely is. ❜ ❨612❩ ❛ You meant that as an insult but I am taking it as a compliment. ❜ ❨613❩ ❛ What life can recover from that? ❜ ❨614❩ ❛ It's a fairly accurate portrait of me. It's accurate but it isn't profound. ❜ ❨615❩ ❛ Pull yourself together! There's nothing wrong with you. ❜ ❨616❩ ❛ It's quiet. It's like― I don't know. It's like falling off a cliff. ❜ ❨617❩ ❛ Once you start parsing a face, it's a peculiar item: squishy, pointy, with lots of air vents and wet spots. ❜ ❨618❩ ❛ I lost him. I did it on purpose. ❜ ❨619❩ ❛ It’s a mean world. There’s nobody to take care of you out there. ❜ ❨620❩ ❛ Reality is getting too dense. ❜ ❨621❩ ❛ I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favourite word. ❜ ❨622❩ ❛ I can't come up with reassuring answers to the terrible questions you raise. ❜ ❨623❩ ❛ A spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. ❜ ❨624❩ ❛ Twenty-five chocolate chip cookies would be the perfect dinner. ❜ ❨625❩ ❛ A thought is a hard thing to control. ❜ ❨626❩ ❛ Life demands skills I don’t have. ❜ ❨627❩ ❛ Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful. Most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them. ❜ ❨628❩ ❛ It never stops, even at night, it’s my lullaby. ❜ ❨629❩ ❛ Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. ❜ ❨630❩ ❛ This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes. ❜ ❨631❩ ❛ I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. ❜ ❨632❩ ❛ Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. ❜ ❨633❩ ❛ Hatred is easier. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love. ❜ ❨634❩ ❛ Potential has a shelf life. ❜ ❨635❩ ❛ Don’t move. Stay like that, let me have that. ❜ ❨636❩ ❛ I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over. ❜ ❨637❩ ❛ Never pray for justice, because you might get some. ❜ ❨638❩ ❛ It disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. ❜ ❨639❩ ❛ We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. ❜ ❨640❩ ❛ This is what I miss, not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. ❜ ❨641❩ ❛ I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly. ❜ ❨642❩ ❛ You are amazing. Amazing and agonising and almost lethal. ❜ ❨643❩ ❛ In my dreams of this city I am always lost. ❜ ❨644❩ ❛ I don't know where these feelings have come from, I don’t know what I've done. ❜ ❨645❩ ❛ I am not the centre of your story, you are.  ❜ ❨646❩ ❛ I’m mad because you’re an asshole. ❜ ❨647❩ ❛ It's enormously pleasing to me, walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will. ❜ ❨648❩ ❛ There is never only one of anyone. ❜ ❨649❩ ❛ I can't do this without feeling I'm acting. ❜ ❨650❩ ❛ I am prepared for almost anything; except absence, except silence. ❜ ❨651❩ ❛ I’m losing my appetite for strangers. ❜ ❨652❩ ❛ You wear your cravings on the outside, like the suckers on a squid. You want it all. ❜ ❨653❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people weakens you. You are forced to understand their reasons for doing things. ❜ ❨654❩ ❛ I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now. ❜ ❨655❩ ❛ Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing. It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by. ❜ ❨656❩ ❛ Whoever cares the most will lose. ❜ ❨657❩ ❛ Young women need unfairness, it’s one of their few defences.  ❜ ❨658❩ ❛ Time has gone on without you. ❜ ❨659❩ ❛ Don't let the bastards grind you down. ❜ ❨660❩ ❛ Who can remember pain, once it’s over? Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind. ❜ ❨661❩ ❛ Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some. ❜ ❨662❩ ❛ There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. ❜ ❨663❩ ❛ Remember that forgiveness too is a power. ❜ ❨664❩ ❛ I am not your justification for existence. ❜ ❨665❩ ❛ I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. ❜ ❨666❩ ❛ If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. ❜ ❨667❩ ❛ All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard. ❜ ❨668❩ ❛ Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. ❜ ❨669❩ ❛ I want everything back, the way it was. ❜ ❨670❩ ❛ You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave. ❜ ❨671❩ ❛ Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. ❜ ❨672❩ ❛ To want is to have a weakness. ❜ ❨673❩ ❛ There isn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. ❜ ❨674❩ ❛ The past is a great darkness, filled with echoes. ❜ ❨675❩ ❛ Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. ❜ ❨676❩ ❛ I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised. I wish it showed me in a better light. ❜ ❨677❩ ❛ The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. ❜ ❨678❩ ❛ By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you. ❜ ❨679❩ ❛ Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard. ❜ ❨680❩ ❛ Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. ❜ ❨681❩ ❛ Keep the others safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. ❜ ❨682❩ ❛ The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish, drying on sand. ❜ ❨683❩ ❛ The world is full of weapons if you're looking for them. ❜ ❨684❩ ❛ Nobody's heart is perfect. ❜ ❨685❩ ❛ One false move and I'm dead. ❜ ❨686❩ ❛ Watch out. I've got my eye on you. ❜ ❨687❩ ❛ Fear is a powerful stimulant. ❜ ❨688❩ ❛ I couldn't afford to lose you. ❜ ❨689❩ ❛ Name one hero who was happy. ---- You can’t. ❜ ❨690❩ ❛ I feel like I could eat the world raw. ❜ ❨691❩ ❛ We are like gods at the dawning of the world. ❜ ❨692❩ ❛ I could recognise him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. ❜ ❨693❩ ❛ There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw. ❜ ❨694❩ ❛ You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature. ❜ ❨695❩ ❛ He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. ❜ ❨696❩ ❛ Some men gain glory after they die, others fade. ❜ ❨697❩ ❛ I am made of memories. ❜ ❨698❩ ❛ Will you come with me? ❜ ❨699❩ ❛ I wish I had let you all die. ❜ ❨700❩ ❛ It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after. ❜ ❨701❩ ❛ Bury us. Let us be free. ❜ ❨702❩ ❛ Go. He waits for you. ❜ ❨703❩ ❛ Nothing could eclipse the stain of this dirty, mortal mediocrity. ❜ ❨704❩ ❛ I know I have told you of this. ❜ ❨705❩ ❛ I don't know how you remember them all. I swear they look the same to me. ❜ ❨706❩ ❛ Perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don’t fucking kill myself of boredom. ❜ ❨707❩ ❛ I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest. ❜ ❨708❩ ❛ There is no honour in betraying your friends. ❜ ❨709❩ ❛ There is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong. ❜ ❨710❩ ❛ Divine blood flows differently. ❜ ❨711❩ ❛ How is there glory in taking life? We die so easily. ❜ ❨712❩ ❛ This is what I will miss, I think. I will kill myself rather than miss it. ❜ ❨713❩ ❛ How long do we have? ❜ ❨714❩ ❛ Do you think we fight hopeless wars? ❜ ❨715❩ ❛ There is no law that gods must be fair. ❜ ❨716❩ ❛ I do not fear ridicule. I never have. ❜ ❨717❩ ❛ You were always better with words than I. ❜ ❨718❩ ❛ Who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? ❜ ❨719❩ ❛ When you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. ❜ ❨720❩ ❛ That's how the madness of the world tries to colonise you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. ❜ ❨721❩ ❛ The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear. ❜ ❨722❩ ❛ Silence creates violence. ❜ ❨723❩ ❛ Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough. ❜ ❨724❩ ❛ There are certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of it inside you. ❜ ❨725❩ ❛ Nothing that ever lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth. ❜ ❨726❩ ❛ We all live in a kind of continuous dream. ❜ ❨727❩ ❛ You can either waste time worrying about a death that might not come or concentrate on what’s left to you. ❜ ❨728❩ ❛ What can you do when your five senses are not enough? ❜ ❨729❩ ❛ We will neither be what we had been nor what we would become once we reach our destination. ❜ ❨730❩ ❛ Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable. ❜ ❨731❩ ❛ When you are too close to the centre of a mystery there is no way to pull back. ❜ ❨732❩ ❛ I long ago stopped believing in promises. Biological imperatives, yes. Environmental factors, yes. Promises, no. ❜ ❨733❩ ❛ I look not for shooting stars but for fixed ones, and I try to imagine what kind of life lives in those celestial tidal pools so far from us. ❜ ❨734❩ ❛ I hesitated for just a moment. Some part of me wanted to see the creature, I think. If so, it was a very small part. I ran. ❜ ❨735❩ ❛ I don’t require any of this to have a deeper meaning. ❜ ❨736❩ ❛ All of this speculation is incomplete, inexact, inaccurate, useless. ❜ ❨737❩ ❛ We don’t have real answers, because we still don’t know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish. ❜ ❨738❩ ❛ This part I will do alone. Don’t follow. ❜ ❨739❩ ❛ People my entire life have told me I am too much in control, but that has never been the case. I have never truly been in control. ❜ ❨740❩ ❛ Has there always been someone like me to bury the bodies, to have regrets, to carry on after everyone else was dead? ❜ ❨741❩ ❛ I loved them, but I didn’t need them, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. ❜ ❨742❩ ❛ Places can impress themselves upon me, and I can become part of them with ease. ❜ ❨743❩ ❛ There is no one with me. I am all by myself. ❜ ❨744❩ ❛ Pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic. ❜ ❨745❩ ❛ I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction, and they're very different. Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct. ❜ ❨746❩ ❛ What did you eat? You had rations for only two weeks. You were there for nearly four months. ❜ ❨747❩ ❛ Something here is making giant waves in the gene pool. ❜ ❨748❩ ❛ I need to know what’s inside. ❜ ❨749❩ ❛ These aren't decisions. They're impulses ❜ ❨750❩ ❛ What do you think I do when you’re away? Do you think I’m out in the garden pinning, looking up at the sky? ❜ ❨751❩ ❛ If I know what’s happened I can save their life. ❜ ❨752❩ ❛ They either went crazy or something in here killed them. ❜ ❨753❩ ❛ Something is coming through the fence! ❜ ❨754❩ ❛ Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny. ❜ ❨755❩ ❛ People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. ❜ ❨756❩ ❛ Happy endings are still endings. ❜ ❨757❩ ❛ We believe in all sorts of things that aren't true; -- we call it history. ❜ ❨758❩ ❛ Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? ❜ ❨759❩ ❛ In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realise it is far more common for men to turn into rats. ❜ ❨760❩ ❛ Girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise.  ❜ ❨761❩ ❛ Love makes hunters of us all. ❜ ❨762❩ ❛ There is much to hate in this world and way too much to love. ❜ ❨763❩ ❛ You confuse not speaking with not listening. ❜ ❨764❩ ❛ As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. ❜ ❨765❩ ❛ The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say. ❜ ❨766❩ ❛ Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. ❜ ❨767❩ ❛ We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. ❜ ❨768❩ ❛ The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness. ❜ ❨769❩ ❛ I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! ❜ ❨770❩ ❛ Even at the very worst - there is always choice. ❜ ❨771❩ ❛ Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it. ❜ ❨772❩ ❛ Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on -- or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the entire universe is changed. ❜ ❨773❩ ❛ That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness. Life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same. ❜ ❨774❩ ❛ I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without. ❜ ❨775❩ ❛ It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new. ❜ ❨776❩ ❛ Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Always the godfather, never the god. ❜ ❨777❩ ❛ The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew. ❜ ❨778❩ ❛ Evil is an act, not an appetite. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal. ❜ ❨779❩ ❛ How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table?  ❜ ❨780❩ ❛ Even God used silence as a strategy. ❜ ❨781❩ ❛ I learned failure early and mastered it. ❜ ❨782❩ ❛ It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all. ❜ ❨783❩ ❛ This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is a very wicked distraction. ❜ ❨784❩ ❛ Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery. ❜ ❨785❩ ❛ Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience. ❜ ❨786❩ ❛ Such brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly. ❜ ❨787❩ ❛ I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can. ❜ ❨788❩ ❛ Tell me to mind my own business, tell me to go fuck myself, to piss off, go on, say it, but don’t tell me nothing’s wrong. ❜ ❨789❩ ❛ The truth isn't a thing of fact or reason. It is simply what everyone agrees on. ❜ ❨790❩ ❛ One can't make peace with another by force. ❜ ❨791❩ ❛ I am a forgettable leaf on a tree. ❜ ❨792❩ ❛ That's all I want; --- to do no harm. ❜ ❨793❩ ❛ I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is. ❜ ❨794❩ ❛ Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. ❜ ❨795❩ ❛ You’re too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and thanks to that we manage to endure the burden of the past. ❜ ❨796❩ ❛ Love, no matter what else it might be, is a natural talent. You are either born knowing how, or you never know. ❜ ❨797❩ ❛ Whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life. ❜ ❨798❩ ❛ There is no God worth worrying about. ❜ ❨799❩ ❛ The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love. ❜ ❨800❩ ❛ Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good. ❜ ❨801❩ ❛ Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the very end in itself. ❜ ❨802❩ ❛ Only God knows how much I love you. ❜ ❨803❩ ❛ There is no greater glory than to die for love. ❜ ❨804❩ ❛ Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies. ❜ ❨805❩ ❛ Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life. ❜ ❨806❩ ❛ Today, when I saw you, I realised that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion. ❜ ❨807❩ ❛ I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century. ❜ ❨808❩ ❛ I want to be myself again, to recover all that I was obliged to give up. ❜ ❨809❩ ❛ The only thing worse than bad health is a bad name. ❜ ❨810❩ ❛ This soup tastes like windows. ❜ ❨811❩ ❛ Why do you insist on talking about what does not exist? ❜ ❨812❩ ❛ One has to live a long time to know a man's true nature. ❜ ❨813❩ ❛ No, not rich, I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing. ❜ ❨814❩ ❛ My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse. ❜ ❨815❩ ❛ That may be the reason he does so many things, so that he will not have to think. ❜ ❨816❩ ❛ Love if it exists, is something separate: another life. ❜ ❨817❩ ❛ Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you. ❜ ❨818❩ ❛ There are things you do only for love. ❜ ❨819❩ ❛ I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I die. ❜ ❨820❩ ❛ There is no innocence more dangerous than the innocence of age. ❜ ❨821❩ ❛ You treat me as if I were just anybody. ❜ ❨822❩ ❛ The symptoms of love are the same as those of cholera. ❜ ❨823❩ ❛ There is no law, human or divine, that you have not ignored. ❜ ❨824❩ ❛ Why is it that I feel I've known you so many years? ❜ ❨825❩ ❛ Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. ❜ ❨826❩ ❛ It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. ❜ ❨827❩ ❛ We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real? ❜ ❨828❩ ❛ There must be something, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing. ❜ ❨829❩ ❛ If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. ❜ ❨830❩ ❛ If you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore. ❜ ❨831❩ ❛ You can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. ❜ ❨832❩ ❛ It was a pleasure to burn. ❜ ❨833❩ ❛ I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? ❜ ❨834❩ ❛ Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? ❜ ❨835❩ ❛ Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays? ❜ ❨836❩ ❛ Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? ❜ ❨837❩ ❛ I don't talk things. I talk the meaning of things. ❜ ❨838❩ ❛ I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning. ❜ ❨839❩ ❛ I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. ❜ ❨840❩ ❛ That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want. ❜ ❨841❩ ❛ Someday we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in it and cover it up. ❜ ❨842❩ ❛ You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. ❜ ❨843❩ ❛ You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. ❜ ❨844❩ ❛ When they give you lined paper, write the other way. ❜ ❨845❩ ❛ The sun burnt every day. It burnt time. ❜ ❨846❩ ❛ We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing. ❜ ❨847❩ ❛ I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago. ❜ ❨848❩ ❛ I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. ❜ ❨849❩ ❛ Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life! ❜ ❨850❩ ❛ How do you get so empty? Who takes it out of you? ❜ ❨851❩ ❛ It must be right. It seems so right. ❜ ❨852❩ ❛ To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. ❜ ❨853❩ ❛ It's my game. And no one can help me. Not even you. ❜ ❨854❩ ❛ What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. ❜ ❨855❩ ❛ Death is a long process. Your body is just the first part of you that croaks. Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. Your anger and memories must die. Your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope. ❜ ❨856❩ ❛ Help me give up my addiction to hope. ❜ ❨857❩ ❛ Life is short, death is forever. ❜ ❨858❩ ❛ Hope is something really tough and tenacious you have to give up. It’s an addiction to break. ❜ ❨859❩ ❛ If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes. ❜ ❨860❩ ❛ We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired. ❜ ❨861❩ ❛ All the demons of hell formerly reigned as gods in previous cultures. No it's not fair, but one man's god is another man's devil. ❜ ❨862❩ ❛ I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful. ❜ ❨863❩ ❛ It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities. ❜ ❨864❩ ❛ You fucked up. Game over. So just relax. ❜ ❨865❩ ❛ The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul. ❜ ❨866❩ ❛ If killing you will end my existence as well, be it. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. ❜ ❨867❩ ❛ I might be a touch of a sadist and a little bit jejune but at least I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. ❜ ❨868❩ ❛ Dying seems like the greatest weakness, and in a world where people say you're lazy for not shaving your legs, then being dead seems like the ultimate character flaw. ❜ ❨869❩ ❛ Any concept of right versus wrong, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. ❜ ❨870❩ ❛ To prove that I exist I must kill you. ❜ ❨871❩ ❛ I'd say that my life has been a way-too-long case history of chasing rainbows. ❜ ❨872❩ ❛ The world is a battle for attention, a war to be heard. ❜ ❨873❩ ❛ Every garden looks beautiful in May. ❜ ❨874❩ ❛ When we neglect to fear such brittle monstrosity, we render it powerless. ❜ ❨875❩ ❛ My taste for power continues to grow, as does my ability to accrue it. ❜ ❨876❩ ❛ Such language! Why don't you just take a dump in my ears? ❜ ❨877❩ ❛ You’d be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. ❜ ❨878❩ ❛ Depending on her mood, she can be more frightening than any demon or devil you might ever run across. ❜ ❨879❩ ❛ Cross your fingers! Maybe death won't happen to you. ❜ ❨880❩ ❛ Do not die while wearing cheap shoes. ❜ ❨881❩ ❛ Old habits die hard. ❜ ❨882❩ ❛ It's our attachments to a fixed identity that torture us. ❜ ❨883❩ ❛ What do I think I am? In a thousand words; I don't have a clue. ❨884❩ ❛ If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me. ❜ ❨885❩ ❛ All I wanted was to be loved for myself. ❜ ❨886❩ ❛ I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer. ❜ ❨887❩ ❛ Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? ❜ ❨888❩ ❛ You have a heart that can hold the entire empire of the world. ❜ ❨889❩ ❛ Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you. ❜ ❨890❩ ❛ Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. ❜ ❨891❩ ❛ You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! ❜ ❨892❩ ❛ Are people so unhappy when they love? --- Yes, when they love and are not sure of being loved. ❜ ❨893❩ ❛ Your soul is a beautiful thing. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight. ❜ ❨894❩ ❛ Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! ❜ ❨895❩ ❛ Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a life like everybody else. ❜ ❨896❩ ❛ You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. ❜ ❨897❩ ❛ I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased. ❜ ❨898❩ ❛ I am going to die of love, I am dying of love. That's how it is. I loved you so. I still love you so. ❜ ❨899❩ ❛ I am dying of love for her, I tell you! If only you knew how beautiful she was when she let me kiss her. ❜ ❨900❩ ❛ He fills me with horror but I do not hate him. How can I hate him? ❜ ❨901❩ ❛ Holy angel, in Heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest. ❜ ❨902❩ ❛ Nothing is colder or more dead than my heart. ❜ ❨903❩ ❛ I had loved an angel and now I despise a woman. ❜ ❨904❩ ❛ Our lives are one masked ball. ❜ ❨905❩ ❛ Why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing? ❜ ❨906❩ ❛ He would commit murder for me. ❜ ❨907❩ ❛ If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug, she is lost. But I shall save her. ❜ ❨908❩ ❛ We will go from here together or die together. ❜ ❨909❩ ❛ Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it. ❜ ❨910❩ ❛ Destiny has chained you to me forever. ❜ ❨911❩ ❛ You must never ask me that. ❜ ❨912❩ ❛ Are you afraid that you will change your mind? ❜ ❨913❩ ❛ You must come and fetch me in my dressing room at midnight exactly. ❜ ❨914❩ ❛ The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps. ❜ ❨915❩ ❛ I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts. ❜ ❨916❩ ❛ There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home. ❜ ❨917❩ ❛ I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head. ❜ ❨918❩ ❛ It’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to even mourn for it. ❜ ❨919❩ ❛ There’s nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion. ❜ ❨920❩ ❛ When did you become so weak? ❜ ❨921❩ ❛ I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it. ❜ ❨922❩ ❛ Let’s be honest: women are still only really valued for two things—their looks and their role as mothers. ❜ ❨923❩ ❛ Sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. ❜ ❨924❩ ❛ I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it. ❜ ❨925❩ ❛ I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep numbing it, it’ll never really go away. ❜ ❨926❩ ❛ I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some way. It’s as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move. ❜ ❨927❩ ❛ Who was it that said following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all. ❜ ❨928❩ ❛ It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers. ❜ ❨929❩ ❛ Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches. ❜ ❨930❩ ❛ I have to find a way of making myself happy, I have to stop looking for happiness elsewhere. ❜ ❨931❩ ❛ How did I find myself here? I wonder where it started, my decline; I wonder at what point I could have halted it. Where did I take the wrong turn? ❜ ❨932❩ ❛ Now look -- Now look what you made me do. ❜ ❨933❩ ❛ It’s okay, whatever you did, whatever you’ve done: you suffered, you hurt, you deserve forgiveness. ❜ ❨934❩ ❛ They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be. ❜ ❨935❩ ❛ You broke me and I broke us. ❜ ❨936❩ ❛ I’ve been the fool. If he does it with you, he’ll do it to you. ❜ ❨937❩ ❛ I’d never realised, not until now, how shameful it is to be pitied. ❜ ❨938❩ ❛ Sometimes, I don’t want to go anywhere, I think I’ll be happy if I never have to set foot outside the house again. ❜ ❨939❩ ❛ I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. ❜ ❨940❩ ❛ There can be no greater agony, nothing can be more painful than the not knowing, which will never end. ❜ ❨941❩ ❛ Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point in denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are. ❜ ❨942❩ ❛ I feel a rush of gratitude so strong, it feels almost like love. ❜ ❨943❩ ❛ You don’t know how determined I can be. Once I’ve made my mind up, I’m a force to be reckoned with. ❜ ❨944❩ ❛ The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be. ❜ ❨945❩ ❛ You don’t have to be afraid of being alone. It’s not the worst thing, is it? ❜ ❨946❩ ❛ I have felt this way before. On a larger scale, to a more intense degree, of course, but I remember the quality of the pain. You don’t forget it. ❜ ❨947❩ ❛ If he thinks I’m going to sit around crying, he’s got another thing coming. ❜ ❨948❩ ❛ I don’t like to lose. It’s not like me. None of this is like me. I don’t get rejected. I’m the one who walks away. ❜ ❨949❩ ❛ I don’t remember anger, raging fury. I remember fear. ❜ ❨950❩ ❛ I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days. I hate it, hate insomnia more than anything, just lying there, brain going round, tick, tick, tick, tick. ❜ ❨951❩ ❛ Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. ❜ ❨952❩ ❛ I’m not beautiful, and I can’t have kids, so what does that make me? Worthless. ❜ ❨953❩ ❛ Failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under and I gave up hope. ❜ ❨954❩ ❛ It’s an odd thing to say, but I think this all the time; I don’t feel bad enough. ❜ ❨955❩ ❛ Some battles aren’t worth fighting. ❜ ❨956❩ ❛ I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I had to. ❜ ❨957❩ ❛ I never meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do? ❜ ❨958❩ ❛ What bothers me most is that I haven’t got to the end of my story, and I can’t start over with someone else, it’s too hard. ❜ ❨959❩ ❛ A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. ❜ ❨960❩ ❛ It isn’t only wickedness and scheming that make people unhappy, it is confusion and misunderstanding. ❜ ❨961❩ ❛ Falling in love can be achieved in a single word—a glance. ❜ ❨962❩ ❛ Though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you. ❜ ❨963❩ ❛ I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. ❜ ❨964❩ ❛ It might hurt, it is horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but it is what it is to be in love. ❜ ❨965❩ ❛ It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. ❜ ❨966❩ ❛ Come back, come back to me. ❜ ❨967❩ ❛ In my thoughts I make love to you all day long. ❜ ❨968❩ ❛ The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence and I don’t think I can blame the heat. ❜ ❨969❩ ❛ Beauty occupies a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, has infinite variation. ❜ ❨970❩ ❛ Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? ❜ ❨971❩ ❛ However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I’ve always been. ❜ ❨972❩ ❛ Hate is a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational. ❜ ❨973❩ ❛ I’m going mad. Let me not be mad. ❜ ❨974❩ ❛ Is everyone really as alive as I am? ❜ ❨975❩ ❛ Every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone teaches you something about yourself. ❜ ❨976❩ ❛ Something has happened, hasn’t it? ❜ ❨977❩ ❛ I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness. ❜ ❨978❩ ❛ Is it possible that I am, in the modern term, in denial? ❜ ❨979❩ ❛ How could anyone presume to know the world through the eyes of an insect? ❜ ❨980❩ ❛ Not everything has a cause. Some things are simply so. ❜ ❨981❩ ❛ I’ll be quite honest with you. I’m torn between breaking your neck here and throwing you down the stairs. ❜ ❨982❩ ❛ How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? ❜ ❨983❩ ❛ It was never meant to be read. ❜ ❨984❩ ❛ If I fell in the river, would you save me? ❜ ❨985❩ ❛ That was an incredibly bloody stupid thing to do. ❜ ❨986❩ ❛ I want to thank you for saving my life. I’ll be eternally grateful to you. ❜ ❨987❩ ❛ I’m very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused. I’m very, very sorry. ❜ ❨988❩ ❛ Don’t call me that! – Please don’t call me that. ❜ ❨989❩ ❛ It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine. ❜ ❨990❩ ❛ Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. ❜ ❨991❩ ❛ No one ever really gets used to nightmares. ❜ ❨992❩ ❛ I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. ❜ ❨993❩ ❛ Sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila. ❜ ❨994❩ ❛ Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it. ❜ ❨995❩ ❛ Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful. ❜ ❨996❩ ❛ The ruminations are mine, let the world be yours. ❜ ❨997❩ ❛ You will fulfil a promise I made years ago but failed to keep. ❜ ❨998❩ ❛ Darkness never satisfies. Especially if it takes something away which it almost always invariably does. ❜ ❨999❩ ❛ I want something else. I’m not even sure what to call it anymore. ❜ ❨1000❩ ❛ What can I say, I’m a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff. ❜ ❨1001❩ ❛ Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you? ❜ ❨1002❩ ❛ It’s just silent, no sound at all. It’s like something’s waiting. ❜ ❨1003❩ ❛ I guess I’m hoping the weapons will make me feel better, grant me some kind of fucking control. ❜ ❨1004❩ ❛ Oh and something else: – Fuck you. ❜ ❨1005❩ ❛ God I’ve never been afraid like this. ❜ ❨1006❩ ❛ I miss you. I love you. There’s no second I’ve lived that you can’t call your own. ❜ ❨1007❩ ❛ I’m so tired. Sleep’s been stalking me for too long to remember. Inevitable I suppose. ❜ ❨1008❩ ❛ Not seeing the rip doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep clear of the Hey-I’m-Bleeding part. ❜ ❨1009❩ ❛ These days fantasies flourish and die like summer flies. ❜ ❨1010❩ ❛ Yeah I know, I know. This shit’s getting ridiculous. ❜ ❨1011❩ ❛ ‘Fuck’ and 'fall for’ have very different meanings. The first one you do as much as you can. The second one you never ever, ever do. ❜ ❨1012❩ ❛ It’s a nice idea but it reeks of hope. False hope. ❜ ❨1013❩ ❛ It’s, well…one thing in two words: fucked up…very fucked up. Okay three words, four words, who the hell cares…very very fucked up. ❜ ❨1014❩ ❛ Do you think I could spend the night at your place?  ❜ ❨1015❩ ❛ Any fool can pray. ❜ ❨1016❩ ❛ I feel like I haven’t slept in months. My neighbours are scared of me. ❜ ❨1017❩ ❛ I’ve lost my mind? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe I’m just really drunk. ❜ ❨1018❩ ❛ Perhaps by cleaning out my system I’ll come to a clearing where I can ease myself into peace. ❜ ❨1019❩ ❛ I should be dead. Why am I still here? ❜ ❨1020❩ ❛ Fuck if I know. Your guess is as good as mine. ❜ ❨1021❩ ❛ You are my flesh. You are my bones. I know you too well. I read you too perfectly. ❜ ❨1022❩ ❛ Not all complex problems have easy solutions. ❜ ❨1023❩ ❛ Do you believe in God? I don’t think I ever asked you that one. ❜ ❨1024❩ ❛ We all create stories to protect ourselves. ❜ ❨1025❩ ❛ Are you kidding me? This place is scary. ❜ ❨1026❩ ❛ These days the only thing that gets me outside is when I say: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. ❜ ❨1027❩ ❛ You like that crap because it reminds you of you. ❜ ❨1028❩ ❛ You may suddenly realise things are not how you perceived them to be at all. ❜ ❨1029❩ ❛ The two hardest tests are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter. ❜ ❨1030❩ ❛ People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves. ❜ ❨1031❩ ❛ Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Be brave enough to live different. ❜ ❨1032❩ ❛ You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. ❜ ❨1033❩ ❛ God chose you to be different. ❜ ❨1034❩ ❛ Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude? ❜ ❨1035❩ ❛ You have two choices, to control your mind or to let your mind control you. ❜ ❨1036❩ ❛ Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to. ❜ ❨1037❩ ❛ Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death?  ❜ ❨1038❩ ❛ If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem. ❜ ❨1039❩ ❛ Nothing in this world happens by chance. ❜ ❨1040❩ ❛ I want to continue living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be. ❜ ❨1041❩ ❛ Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains. ❜ ❨1042❩ ❛ Collective madness is called sanity. ❜ ❨1043❩ ❛ Consider each day a miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences. ❜ ❨1044❩ ❛ You say they create their own reality, but what is reality? ❜ ❨1045❩ ❛ Many people don't allow themselves to love because there are a lot of things at risk. A lot of future and a lot of past. ❜ ❨1046❩ ❛ Death frees from the fear of dying. ❜ ❨1047❩ ❛ The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. ❜ ❨1048❩ ❛ The happier people can be, the unhappier they are. ❜ ❨1049❩ ❛ Life is always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act. ❜ ❨1050❩ ❛ It's best to accept life as it really is and not as you imagined it to be. ❜ ❨1051❩ ❛ You don't seem mad at all. ❜ ❨1052❩ ❛ We’re allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroys us. ❜ ❨1053❩ ❛ You’re what you are, not what others make of you. ❜ ❨1054❩ ❛ Am I cured? ❜ ❨1055❩ ❛ Real love changes and grows with time and discovers new ways of expressing itself. ❜ ❨1056❩ ❛ A lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right. Is that it? ❜ ❨1057❩ ❛ They think they're normal, because they all do the same thing. ❜ ❨1058❩ ❛ I didn't know that other ‘me’s existed inside me, ‘Me’s that I could love. ❜ ❨1059❩ ❛ I have no idea what's awaiting me. ❜ ❨1060❩ ❛ What will happen when this all ends? ❜ ❨1061❩ ❛ I know that you are capable of great deeds. ❜ ❨1062❩ ❛ A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. ❜ ❨1063❩ ❛ The truth is that everyone is bored. ❜ ❨1064❩ ❛ I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. ❜ ❨1065❩ ❛ If there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love. ❜ ❨1066❩ ❛ Who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for even a single moment's suffering? ❜ ❨1067❩ ❛ It's not easy. I've been thinking it over for years. ❜ ❨1068❩ ❛ While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. ❜ ❨1069❩ ❛ People are more often bad than good. ❜ ❨1070❩ ❛ I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned that it can be murderous. ❜ ❨1071❩ ❛ What interests me is living and dying for what one loves. ❜ ❨1072❩ ❛ In fact, nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. ❜ ❨1073❩ ❛ Nothing in the world is worth turning one's back on what one loves. ❜ ❨1074❩ ❛ Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. ❜ ❨1075❩ ❛ There are more things to admire in men then to despise. ❜ ❨1076❩ ❛ It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence. ❜ ❨1077❩ ❛ What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this? ❜ ❨1078❩ ❛ Your code of morals? What code, if I may ask? ❜ ❨1079❩ ❛ I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding anything. ❜ ❨1080❩ ❛ No doubt our love is still there, but quite simply it is unusable, heavy to carry, inert inside of us, sterile as crime or condemnation. ❜ ❨1081❩ ❛ I’m not happy to go, but one needn't be happy to make another start. ❜ ❨1082❩ ❛ I am incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that I am incapable of anything really worth while. ❜ ❨1083❩ ❛ I should have found the words to keep her with me. ❜ ❨1084❩ ❛ We can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody. ❜ ❨1085❩ ❛ The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. ❜ ❨1086❩ ❛ There are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live. ❜ ❨1087❩ ❛ The best protection against anything is a good bottle of wine. ❜ ❨1088❩ ❛ There is no peace without hope. ❜ ❨1089❩ ❛ It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment. ❜ ❨1090❩ ❛ There is always something left to love. ❜ ❨1091❩ ❛ A person doesn’t die when he should but when he can. ❜ ❨1092❩ ❛ Things have a life of their own. It's simply a matter of waking up their souls. ❜ ❨1093❩ ❛ Tell me something: why are you fighting? ❜ ❨1094❩ ❛ I've come to realise only just now that I'm fighting because of pride. ❜ ❨1095❩ ❛ One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship. ❜ ❨1096❩ ❛ It's better than not knowing why you're fighting. Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn't have any meaning for anyone. ❜ ❨1097❩ ❛ Holy Mother of God! ❜ ❨1098❩ ❛ A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground. ❜ ❨1099❩ ❛ I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1100❩ ❛ Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it. ❜ ❨1101❩ ❛ I plead youth as a mitigating circumstance. ❜ ❨1102❩ ❛ Get those bad thoughts out of your head. You're going to be happy. ❜ ❨1103❩ ❛ Children inherit their parents' madness. ❜ ❨1104❩ ❛ I'll turn to ashes in here but I won't give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing me weep. ❜ ❨1105❩ ❛ You would be good in a war. Where you put your eye, you put your bullet. ❜ ❨1106❩ ❛ Men demand much more than you think. ❜ ❨1107❩ ❛ Even the craziest and most persistent love is just a temporary truth. ❜ ❨1108❩ ❛ If we’re alone you can whisper in my ear any crap you can think of. ❜ ❨1109❩ ❛ You have taken this horrible game very seriously and you have done well because you are doing your duty. ❜ ❨1110❩ ❛ We have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect. ❜ ❨1111❩ ❛ What worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death. ❜ ❨1112❩ ❛ What worries me is that you've ended up as bad as they are. ❜ ❨1113❩ ❛ It is characteristic of men to deny hunger once their appetites are satisfied. ❜ ❨1114❩ ❛ Dying is much more difficult than one imagines. ❜ ❨1115❩ ❛ If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself! ❜ ❨1116❩ ❛ We have still not had a death. ❜ ❨1117❩ ❛ How awful, the way time passes. ❜ ❨1118❩ ❛ You may be in command of your war, but I'm in command of my house. ❜ ❨1119❩ ❛ I missed you every hour. ❜ ❨1120❩ ❛ You know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. ❜ ❨1121❩ ❛ I’ve risked my life for you. ❜ ❨1122❩ ❛ The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak. ❜ ❨1123❩ ❛ I love you, even the part of you that loved him. ❜ ❨1124❩ ❛ I’m sorry it took me so long to see you. ❜ ❨1125❩ ❛ I never really belonged anywhere. ❜ ❨1126❩ ❛ Thanks for being my best friend and making my life bearable.  ❜ ❨1127❩ ❛ Thanks for finding me. ❜ ❨1128❩ ❛ You and I are going to change the world. ❜ ❨1129❩ ❛ I’ve been waiting for you a long time. ❜ ❨1130❩ ❛ I’m not used to people trying to kill me. ❜ ❨1131❩ ❛ You’re shaking. ❜ ❨1132❩ ❛ There's nothing wrong with being a lizard. Unless you were born to be a hawk. ❜ ❨1133❩ ❛ Make me your villain. ❜ ❨1134❩ ❛ Just you and me. It’s always just you and me. ❜ ❨1135❩ ❛ Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every dumb thing I’ve said? ❜ ❨1136❩ ❛ Well, if it gets too bad, give me a signal. ❜ ❨1137❩ ❛ Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark? ❜ ❨1138❩ ❛ Did you miss me when you were gone? ❜ ❨1139❩ ❛ What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men. ❜ ❨1140❩ ❛ You’re interfering with my plan. ❜ ❨1141❩ ❛ Too much champagne? ❜ ❨1142❩ ❛ I hope you don’t expect fairness from me. It isn’t one of my specialties. ❜ ❨1143❩ ❛ There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings. Faith. ❜ ❨1144❩ ❛ All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how. ❜ ❨1145❩ ❛ What is she? She’s everything, you dumb son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1146❩ ❛ She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned. ❜ ❨1147❩ ❛ I wouldn’t make that mistake again. ❜ ❨1148❩ ❛ It’s a great honor, to save a life. You saved many. ❜ ❨1149❩ ❛ In this world, there are things you can only do alone. ❜ ❨1150❩ ❛ What seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else. ❜ ❨1151❩ ❛ If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price. ❜ ❨1152❩ ❛ Why should you be interested in me? ❜ ❨1153❩ ❛ I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times. ❜ ❨1154❩ ❛ It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. ❜ ❨1155❩ ❛ I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel. ❜ ❨1156❩ ❛ The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish. ❜ ❨1157❩ ❛ The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.  ❜ ❨1158❩ ❛ So once you're dead there's just nothing? ❜ ❨1159❩ ❛ If only I could fall sound asleep and wake up in my old reality. ❜ ❨1160❩ ❛ Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action? ❜ ❨1161❩ ❛ Nobody can shake off their own shadow. ❜ ❨1162❩ ❛ The silence is so deep it hurts. ❜ ❨1163❩ ❛ I may not look it, but I can be a very patient guy. ❜ ❨1164❩ ❛ Killing time is one of my specialities. ❜ ❨1165❩ ❛ You can't fight it. ❜ ❨1166❩ ❛ Tell me something,—do you believe in reincarnation? ❜ ❨1167❩ ❛ I can’t understand nothingness. I can’t understand it and I can’t imagine it. ❜ ❨1168❩ ❛ I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner.  ❜ ❨1169❩ ❛ I do have a few things wrong with me, but those are strictly problems I keep inside. ❜ ❨1170❩ ❛ I can't take it any more, I can't go on any more. ❜ ❨1171❩ ❛ You don't really have it together. ❜ ❨1172❩ ❛ Is it against the law for me to know it? ❜ ❨1173❩ ❛ I keep having the same dream. ❜ ❨1174❩ ❛ Are you asking because you really want an answer? ❜ ❨1175❩ ❛ I hate this! I don't want to be changed this way! ❜ ❨1176❩ ❛ No contradictions, no irony. They do everything according to numerical formulas. ❜ ❨1177❩ ❛ Want to hear the rest? If you’re not interested, I can stop. ❜ ❨1178❩ ❛ If I didn’t have these memories inside me, I would’ve snapped a long time ago. I would’ve curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. ❜ ❨1179❩ ❛ I don’t know what you’re feeling. I won’t even pretend. ❜ ❨1180❩ ❛ What are you doing here, honey? ❜ ❨1181❩ ❛ You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets. ❜ ❨1182❩ ❛ You don't understand me. ❜ ❨1183❩ ❛ All wisdom ends in paradox. ❜ ❨1184❩ ❛ It is love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. ❜ ❨1185❩ ❛ I have lost my gift. ❜ ❨1186❩ ❛ Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair. ❜ ❨1187❩ ❛ The seeds of death get lost in the mess that God made us. ❜ ❨1188❩ ❛ They're just memories now. It’s time to forget. ❜ ❨1189❩ ❛ The time has to be right and the heart willing. ❜ ❨1190❩ ❛ The world, a tired performer, offers us another half-assed season. ❜ ❨1191❩ ❛ Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy. ❜ ❨1192❩ ❛ Grief is natural, overcoming it is a matter of choice. ❜ ❨1193❩ ❛ I want out of that decorating scheme. ❜ ❨1194❩ ❛ With most people suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. ❜ ❨1195❩ ❛ You never get over it but you get where it doesn't bother you so much. ❜ ❨1196❩ ❛ Don't waste your time on life. ❜ ❨1197❩ ❛ I'm a teenager. I've got problems! ❜ ❨1198❩ ❛ Adolescents tend to seek love where they can find it. ❜ ❨1199❩ ❛ Obviously, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl. ❜ ❨1200❩ ❛ It was a mistake. ❜ ❨1201❩ ❛ It seemed like we were supposed to feel sorry for everything that ever happened, ever. ❜ ❨1202❩ ❛ Buffeted but not broken. ❜ ❨1203❩ ❛ Shit. What have kids got to be worried about now? ❜ ❨1204❩ ❛ If they want trouble, they should go live in Bangladesh. ❜ ❨1205❩ ❛ I can't wait until I get out of here. ❜ ❨1206❩ ❛ When she jumped she probably thought she’d fly. ❜ ❨1207❩ ❛ I do not think the patient truly meant to end her life. Her act was a cry for help. ❜ ❨1208❩ ❛ You're a stone fox. ❜ ❨1209❩ ❛ It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. ❜ ❨1210❩ ❛ Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. ❜ ❨1211❩ ❛ He broke my heart. You merely broke my life. ❜ ❨1212❩ ❛ I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is. ❜ ❨1213❩ ❛ Words without experience are meaningless. ❜ ❨1214❩ ❛ I loved you. I was a monster, but I loved you. ❜ ❨1215❩ ❛ Come just as you are. ❜ ❨1216❩ ❛ If a violin string could ache, i would be that string. ❜ ❨1217❩ ❛ Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again. ❜ ❨1218❩ ❛ What's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own. ❜ ❨1219❩ ❛ Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me. ❜ ❨1220❩ ❛ You took advantage of my disadvantage. ❜ ❨1221❩ ❛ I walk in a maze I cannot get out of. ❜ ❨1222❩ ❛ Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses. ❜ ❨1223❩ ❛ Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me. ❜ ❨1224❩ ❛ There is no harm in smiling. ❜ ❨1225❩ ❛ There is no point in staying here. There is no point in staying anywhere. ❜ ❨1226❩ ❛ There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child. ❜ ❨1227❩ ❛ I am so tired of being cynical. ❜ ❨1228❩ ❛ Come to live with me, and die with me, and everything with me. ❜ ❨1229❩ ❛ This is the only immortality that you and I may share. ❜ ❨1230❩ ❛ I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. ❜ ❨1231❩ ❛ I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! ❜ ❨1232❩ ❛ Years of secret suffering has taught me superhuman self-control. ❜ ❨1233❩ ❛ Solitude is corrupting me. I need company and care. ❜ ❨1234❩ ❛ I've missed you terribly. ❜ ❨1235❩ ❛ I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you. ❜ ❨1236❩ ❛ It doesn't matter a bit, because you've stopped caring anyway. ❜ ❨1237❩ ❛ What makes you say I've stopped caring for you? ❜ ❨1238❩ ❛ Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you want to be a killer. ❜ ❨1239❩ ❛ The sun climbs high in the sky, then starts down. People come, then go. ❜ ❨1240❩ ❛ Tell me, have you ever thought of killing me? ❜ ❨1241❩ ❛ I can not believe you are the same human being. ❜ ❨1242❩ ❛ Just how urgent is it? ❜ ❨1243❩ ❛ It is time for you to be going. ❜ ❨1244❩ ❛ How is it you know something like that? ❜ ❨1245❩ ❛ I don’t mind. Your mess is my mess. ❜ ❨1246❩ ❛ Everybody has one thing they do not want to lose. ❜ ❨1247❩ ❛ I’ll be late tonight, so don’t wait up for me. ❜ ❨1248❩ ❛ Nothing I’ve tried to do by myself has ever come off. ❜ ❨1249❩ ❛ I am not catching you in the middle of anything important, am I? ❜ ❨1250❩ ❛ Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die. ❜ ❨1251❩ ❛ My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. ❜ ❨1252❩ ❛ To get irritated is to lose our way in life. ❜ ❨1253❩ ❛ A friend to kill time is a friend sublime. ❜ ❨1254❩ ❛ I don't really know if it's the right thing to do. ❜ ❨1255❩ ❛ Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it? ❜ ❨1256❩ ❛ Most of everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories. ❜ ❨1257❩ ❛ Your fate is and will always be the fate of a dreamer. ❜ ❨1258❩ ❛ You’re loads better than you think you are. ❜ ❨1259❩ ❛ You’re only half-living, the other half is still untapped somewhere. ❜ ❨1260❩ ❛ The song is over. But the melody lingers on. ❜ ❨1261❩ ❛ You are extraordinary. ❜ ❨1262❩ ❛ We tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on. ❜ ❨1263❩ ❛ It could be five years or ten years or one month. It's all the same. ❜ ❨1264❩ ❛ I’m forever realising things too late. ❜ ❨1265❩ ❛ I’m not complaining when I say my life is boring. ❜ ❨1266❩ ❛ Weakness is something that rots in the body. ❜ ❨1267❩ ❛ Coming from your mouth, it has the ring of truth, but I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them. ❜ ❨1268❩ ❛ You can't expect something unreal to last anyway, can you? ❜ ❨1269❩ ❛ A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat. ❜ ❨1270❩ ❛ So, kill me. Tell the others I attacked you so you killed me. ❜ ❨1271❩ ❛ Should never have come here. ❜ ❨1272❩ ❛ Hard to guess my tastes. ❜ ❨1273❩ ❛ Can’t it wait until the morning? ❜ ❨1274❩ ❛ You’ll find temper tantrums won’t help you here. ❜ ❨1275❩ ❛ It must have taken courage to return. ❜ ❨1276❩ ❛ It all sounds grimly dystopian. ❜ ❨1277❩ ❛ I am not afraid of you! ❜ ❨1278❩ ❛ All this could be avoided! ❜ ❨1279❩ ❛ You consider me a murderer? ❜ ❨1280❩ ❛ Gross way to die. ❜ ❨1281❩ ❛ What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. ❜ ❨1282❩ ❛ My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? ❜ ❨1283❩ ❛ Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others. ❜ ❨1284❩ ❛ I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there. ❜ ❨1285❩ ❛ You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human. ❜ ❨1286❩ ❛ Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible. ❜ ❨1287❩ ❛ Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty. ❜ ❨1288❩ ❛ Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths. ❜ ❨1289❩ ❛ Dreams are all I have ever truly owned. ❜ ❨1290❩ ❛ Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. ❜ ❨1291❩ ❛ I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. ❜ ❨1292❩ ❛ By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. ❜ ❨1293❩ ❛ The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken. ❜ ❨1294❩ ❛ Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right. ❜ ❨1295❩ ❛ The weak are meat the strong do eat. ❜ ❨1296❩ ❛ Do whatever you can't not do. ❜ ❨1297❩ ❛ What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. ❜ ❨1298❩ ❛ I remain thankful to God for all his mercies. ❜ ❨1299❩ ❛ You can maintain power over people, as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power. ❜ ❨1300❩ ❛ Power. The ability to determine another man's luck. ❜ ❨1301❩ ❛ Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong. ❜ ❨1302❩ ❛ Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively. ❜ ❨1303❩ ❛ Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions? ❜ ❨1304❩ ❛ You can’t lie to your soul. ❜ ❨1305❩ ❛ Why would I want to do a thing like that? ❜ ❨1306❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. ❜ ❨1307❩ ❛ Better to make life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨1308❩ ❛ I’m not running away, I’m moving on. ❜ ❨1309❩ ❛ The reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨1310❩ ❛ Some people are easier to love when you don’t have to be around them. ❜ ❨1311❩ ❛ Love does not exist. ❜ ❨1312❩ ❛ Fuck that ‘regrets’ bullshit. ❜ ❨1313❩ ❛ How does it make you feel? ❜ ❨1314❩ ❛ It’s horrible how we always die alone, but no worse than living alone. ❜ ❨1315❩ ❛ Choose us. Choose life. ❜ ❨1316❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨1317❩ ❛ I’m more of a warrior than you’ll ever be. ❜ ❨1318❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. ❜ ❨1319❩ ❛ You don’t have to run away.  ❜ ❨1320❩ ❛ I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn’t. ❜ ❨1321❩ ❛ I’m not going to get crushed. ❜ ❨1322❩ ❛ I love doubt in a woman. It’s nearly as sexy as determination. ❜ ❨1323❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty. ❜ ❨1324❩ ❛ You’re a mess. ❜ ❨1325❩ ❛ I know that it’s never left you alone. ❜ ❨1326❩ ❛ Are you asking me or telling me? ❜ ❨1327❩ ❛ You just get used to all the shit. ❜ ❨1328❩ ❛ You can’t afford a conscience in this life. ❜ ❨1329❩ ❛ None of us are saints and scapegoats are always handy. ❜ ❨1330❩ ❛ Doing things doesn’t hurt you; you get hurt by avoiding them. ❜ ❨1331❩ ❛ What was that? ❜ ❨1332❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨1333❩ ❛ You can’t love yourself if you want to hurt things like that. ❜ ❨1334❩ ❛ What happens when people open their hearts? ❜ ❨1335❩ ❛ Nobody likes being alone that much. ❜ ❨1336❩ ❛ I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.” ❨1337❩ ❛ Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that. ❜ ❨1338❩ ❛ You need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. ❜ ❨1339❩ ❛ I want you always to remember me. ❜ ❨1340❩ ❛ Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt. ❜ ❨1341❩ ❛ What stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish. ❜ ❨1342❩ ❛ All I want in this world is you. ❜ ❨1343❩ ❛ I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning. ❜ ❨1344❩ ❛ No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. ❜ ❨1345❩ ❛ What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously. ❜ ❨1346❩ ❛ If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark. ❜ ❨1347❩ ❛ I’ve had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy. ❜ ❨1348❩ ❛ People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die. ❜ ❨1349❩ ❛ Stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. ❜ ❨1350❩ ❛ When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you’re in big trouble. ❜ ❨1351❩ ❛ When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. ❜ ❨1352❩ ❛ If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. ❜ ❨1353❩ ❛ Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven’t answered me. ❜ ❨1354❩ ❛ People are strange when you’re a stranger. ❜ ❨1355❩ ❛ The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living. ❜ ❨1356❩ ❛ You don’t get it, do you? ❜ ❨1357❩ ❛ I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than you ❨1358❩ realise. ❜ ❨1359❩ ❛ At least let me know whether or not I hurt you. ❜ ❨1360❩ ❛ All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. ❜ ❨1361❩ ❛ I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die. ❜ ❨1362❩ ❛ So I’m not crazy after all! ❜ ❨1363❩ ❛ I miss you terribly sometimes, but in general I go on living with all the energy I can muster. ❜ ❨1364❩ ❛ Will you wait for me forever? ❜ ❨1365❩ ❛ I don’t want our relationship to end like this. ❜ ❨1366❩ ❛ When am I going to be able to talk to you? I want you to tell me that much, at least. ❜ ❨1367❩ ❛ It hurts not being able to see you. ❜ ❨1368❩ ❛ I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. ❜ ❨1369❩ ❛ The world is an inherently unfair place. ❜ ❨1370❩ ❛ Life frightens me sometimes. I don’t happen to take that as the premise for everything else though. ❜ ❨1371❩ ❛ I’m a real bargain, don’t you think? If you don’t take me, I’ll end up going somewhere else. ❜ ❨1372❩ ❛ We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning. ❜ ❨1373❩ ❛ Don’t you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don’t know a soul? ❜ ❨1374❩ ❛ You’re not telling me anything I don’t know already. ❜ ❨1375❩ ❛ He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. ❜ ❨1376❩ ❛ If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. ❜ ❨1377❩ ❛ We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness. ❜ ❨1378❩ ❛ Until they become conscious they will never rebel. ❜ ❨1379❩ ❛ Power is not a means; it is an end. ❜ ❨1380❩ ❛ They are not interested in the good of others; they are interested solely in power, pure power. ❜ ❨1381❩ ❛ Now you begin to understand me. ❜ ❨1382❩ ❛ In the face of pain there are no heroes. ❜ ❨1383❩ ❛ Big Brother is watching you. ❜ ❨1384❩ ❛ Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. ❜ ❨1385❩ ❛ It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. ❜ ❨1386❩ ❛ The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better. ❜ ❨1387❩ ❛ Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind. ❜ ❨1388❩ ❛ Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. ❜ ❨1389❩ ❛ We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them. ❜ ❨1390❩ ❛ How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? ❜ ❨1391❩ ❛ You must try harder. ❜ ❨1392❩ ❛ Confession is not betrayal. ❜ ❨1393❩ ❛ What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. ❜ ❨1394❩ ❛ If they could make me stop loving you —- that would be the real betrayal. ❜ ❨1395❩ ❛ Of pain you can wish only one thing: that it should stop. ❜ ❨1396❩ ❛ To die hating them, that will be freedom. ❜ ❨1397❩ ❛ No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. ❜ ❨1398❩ ❛ What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself? ❜ ❨1399❩ ❛ To keep them in control is not difficult. ❜ ❨1400❩ ❛ So long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. ❜ ❨1401❩ ❛ The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. ❜ ❨1402❩ ❛ The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. ❜ ❨1403❩ ❛ Stupidity is as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ❜ ❨1404❩ ❛ I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones. ❜ ❨1405❩ ❛ The past is dead, the future is unimaginable. ❜ ❨1406❩ ❛ You know the answer already. Everyone knows it. ❜ ❨1407❩ ❛ You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself. ❜ ❨1408❩ ❛ It is not easy to become sane. ❜ ❨1409❩ ❛ No emotion is pure anymore, because everything is mixed up with fear and hatred. ❜ ❨1410❩ ❛ They say that time heals all things —- they say you can always forget. ❜ ❨1411❩ ❛ The object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. ❜ ❨1412❩ ❛ I sold you and you sold me. ❜ ❨1413❩ ❛ You do not exist. ❜ ❨1414❩ ❛ How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer. ❜ ❨1415❩ ❛ Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? ❜ ❨1416❩ ❛ Everything else we shall destroy – everything. ❜ ❨1417❩ ❛ Two and two makes five. ❜ ❨1418❩ ❛ Facts, at any rate, can not be kept hidden. ❜ ❨1419❩ ❛ The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. ❜ ❨1420❩ ❛ So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing. ❜ ❨1421❩ ❛ If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then? ❜ ❨1422❩ ❛ The lie became the truth. ❜ ❨1423❩ ❛ It is like swimming against a current that sweeps you backwards however hard you struggle. ❜ ❨1424❩ ❛ Turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. ❜ ❨1425❩ ❛ It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. ❜ ❨1426❩ ❛ I don’t want to die without any scars. ❜ ❨1427❩ ❛ This is your life and it’s ending one moment at a time. ❜ ❨1428❩ ❛ You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways. ❜ ❨1429❩ ❛ You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. ❜ ❨1430❩ ❛ You are not special. ❜ ❨1431❩ ❛ You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. ❜ ❨1432❩ ❛ The things you used to own, now they own you. ❜ ❨1433❩ ❛ Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. ❜ ❨1434❩ ❛ Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. ❜ ❨1435❩ ❛ Only after disaster can we be resurrected. ❜ ❨1436❩ ❛ Everything is evolving, everything is falling apart. ❜ ❨1437❩ ❛ We’ve all been raised believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. ❜ ❨1438❩ ❛ Don’t you have other things to do? ❜ ❨1439❩ ❛ Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. ❜ ❨1440❩ ❛ You have been warned. ❜ ❨1441❩ ❛ If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t. ❜ ❨1442❩ ❛ It’s not love or anything, but I think I like you, too. ❜ ❨1443❩ ❛ If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? ❜ ❨1444❩ ❛ Why did I cause so much pain? ❜ ❨1445❩ ❛ The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly. ❜ ❨1446❩ ❛ Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer. ❜ ❨1447❩ ❛ May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. ❜ ❨1448❩ ❛ Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head. ❜ ❨1449❩ ❛ We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. ❜ ❨1450❩ ❛ The girl is infectious human waste. ❜ ❨1451❩ ❛ I want to destroy everything beautiful I’ll never have. ❜ ❨1452❩ ❛ On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. ❜ ❨1453❩ ❛ If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? ❜ ❨1454❩ ❛ It is like you’re never really awake; but you’re never really asleep. ❜ ❨1455❩ ❛ Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave. ❜ ❨1456❩ ❛ A moment is the most you could ever expect from perfection. ❜ ❨1457❩ ❛ The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. ❜ ❨1458❩ ❛ You have to give up! ❜ ❨1459❩ ❛ Reject the basic assumptions of civilisation, especially the importance of material possessions. ❜ ❨1460❩ ❛ Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. ❜ ❨1461❩ ❛ You have to realise that someday you will die, Until you know that, you are useless. ❜ ❨1462❩ ❛ A tiger can smile. A snake will say it loves you. ❜ ❨1463❩ ❛ Lies make us evil. ❜ ❨1464❩ ❛ If you died right now, how would you feel about your life? ❜ ❨1465❩ ❛ You always kill the one you love. ❜ ❨1466❩ ❛ Maybe we should always assume the worst. ❜ ❨1467❩ ❛ Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains. ❜ ❨1468❩ ❛ Which is worse? Hell or nothing? ❜ ❨1469❩ ❛ A minute of perfection is worth the effort. ❜ ❨1470❩ ❛ You’re going to die, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. ❜ ❨1471❩ ❛ Lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. ❜ ❨1472❩ ❛ I don’t give a shit. I have a gun. ❜ ❨1473❩ ❛ I know who you are. I know where you live. ❜ ❨1474❩ ❛ Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life. ❜ ❨1475❩ ❛ My philosophy of life is that I can die at any moment. And the tragedy of my life is that I do not. ❜ ❨1476❩ ❛ Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. You can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you. ❜ ❨1477❩ ❛ There are a lot of things we don’t want to know about the people we love. ❜ ❨1478❩ ❛ We just had a near-life experience. ❜ ❨1479❩ ❛ If people think you are dying, they give you their full attention. They listen instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. ❜ ❨1480❩ ❛ I am nothing, and not even that. ❜ ❨1481❩ ❛ This isn’t really death. —- We’ll be legends. We won’t grow old. ❜ ❨1482❩ ❛ Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go. ❜ ❨1483❩ ❛ The amazing miracle of death, when one second you’re walking and talking, and the next second you’re an object. ❜ ❨1484❩ ❛ Only if we’re caught and punished can we be saved. ❜ ❨1485❩ ❛ I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one. ❜ ❨1486❩ ❛ Dreams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't. ❜ ❨1487❩ ❛ Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. ❜ ❨1488❩ ❛ A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger. ❜ ❨1489❩ ❛ A leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own. ❜ ❨1490❩ ❛ In the end, we are alone. ❜ ❨1491❩ ❛ It is like a piece of my soul is lost, empty. ❜ ❨1492❩ ❛ If my life on Earth must end, let it end with a promise. Let it end with hope. ❜ ❨1493❩ ❛ Sorry? Sorry isn't enough. ❜ ❨1494❩ ❛ Every single thing I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was. ❜ ❨1495❩ ❛ Will you stay with me? ❜ ❨1496❩ ❛ A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people. ❜ ❨1497❩ ❛ Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. ❜ ❨1498❩ ❛ It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. ❜ ❨1499❩ ❛ There is nothing between us but rain. There is nothing between us at all. ❜ ❨1500❩ ❛ I like a little chaos. ❜

[youbloodymadgenius]

Crashing Waves (Modern!Ivar x reader)

A/N: This is my entry to @waiting4inspiration's 9K Multiple of 3 Challenge 🌺 Congrats again, love!

Prompt 16: Something red / High heels / A quiet place

@geekandbooknerd - thank you, darling, you're a wonderful beta 💖

Let me know if you want to be tagged 😊

Divider by @firefly-graphics

Summary: Bringing Ivar back to the place - Ragnar's hunting cabin - of his greatest failure seems pretty bold. Yet you are sure of your plan. It will work. And you will prove him wrong.

Warnings: smut; use of a cock ring; mention of Ivar's insecurities; no real plot.

Words: 2881

Sitting on the bed, Ivar swallows loudly, digging fingernails into his palms. "Why did you bring me here, Y/N? What are we doing here?" You watch the muscles in his jaw clenching and flexing as he grinds his teeth. You know he's trying very hard to control his anger.

Taking two steps towards him, you cup his face, "This is a quiet place," lean forward and your mouth grazes his cheek and then his earlobe. "You know how much I love quiet places."

"You love quiet places? Are you fucking kidding me??" Seething with anger, he gives you dagger eyes. "Of all the possible places, you really had to choose this one? This fucking cabin? You fucking know this is not just any quiet place."

Kneeling down in front of him – a task nearly impossible with your six-inch stilettos – you place your hands on the bed, on either side of his hips. Reaching up, your thumb strokes his cheekbone, your face peering up at him. "I know, my love."

Of course, you do.

You know exactly what Ragnar's hunting cabin means to your lover. You know what happened here – or rather what didn't. You know about his failure. You know everything because one night he told you, between sobs, and after way too much Akvavit. And that's exactly why you're here tonight.

"Why, then?" His knuckles white, he asks through clenched teeth, averting his gaze.

"Because," things are clear to you, so you don't hesitate, "it's time to start making some new memories, my love." Your right hand grabs his left and you intertwine his fingers with yours. "And because it's time I prove you wrong."

Ivar ducks his head down, unable to look you in the eye. His voice barely a whisper, you realize he is shaking. "I… You know I…", he releases a shuddering breath, his gaze finding yours, "I can't…"

The sharpness in his voice is gone, replaced by… despair… And the way he looks at you… Gods… His wide eyes are filled with fear, confusion and… tears? It's almost enough to persuade you to back off.

But no. You won't.

"I don't know that, my love. I only know what you told me." Carefully placing your hands on his thighs, you tilt your head to the side. There are a thousand questions in his eyes and he seems hurt, and self-conscious. Oh no, you won't allow him to go down this path. "Listen to me. I was not lying, Ivar – I never lied to you – with your dexterous fingers and your skilled tongue, you can pleasure a woman. You pleasure me each and every time, never doubt that. But I want more. For you more than for me."

"But… what…" He wraps his fingers around your right hand, squeezing it so tight it hurts, but you don't complain, not when you can almost feel the panic coursing through his veins, so you just keep looking at him, with a smile on your lips and love in your eyes. "What if it doesn't work? What if… I can't get it up long enough like… like with… with Margrethe…"

"Oh Ivar, stop dwelling on this old story, will you? You were so young, my love, still a boy. And she was just a girl. A girl you didn't have feelings for. A girl who didn't love you." Gently grabbing his chin, you bring his mouth to yours for a soft, light kiss. "I am in love with you, Ivar. And I know you're in love with me. That, my love, makes a huge difference. Plus, you're no longer a boy… And, as for myself, tell me the truth, my love… " You stand up and then slowly take off your long, black trench coat. "Do I look like a girl?"

The second Ivar sees what's under the coat, his mouth falls open. Gaping and gawking, he's literally gobsmacked. If you're being honest, that's what you were aiming for when you chose that red dress. Red is his favorite color and well, the dress fits like a glove and shows off every curve you've got. As he stares at you, his eyes wide open, you're pleasantly surprised to see more lust than fear, or worry, or anger in his gaze.

"So, do I look like a girl?" You ask once again, flashing him a cheeky smile while making your way between his thighs. Your hand grazes his crotch, but Ivar doesn't seem to notice, too entranced – mesmerized – by the sight in front of him.

"No," Ivar shakes his head and clears his throat but his voice is still hoarse when he speaks again, "No, you look like a fucking goddess."

"Then, you should help your goddess with the zipper." You pull away just enough to turn around and the next moment Ivar's hands are on you, roaming over your waist and back. He slowly unzips your dress, then slides his hands over your shoulders and down your arms to remove it. "Fuck!" Ivar gasps as your dress falls to the floor, and you can hear him swallowing. "You're… you're naked."

"That I am." You turn your head just in time to see him licking his lips. His nostrils are flaring, his pupils are dilated, and the bulge in his pant is unmistakable. Good.

"Take off your clothes and then scoot over and lie down." You order, stepping out of your dress but keeping your stilettos on. Ivar barely nods, but starts unbuttoning his shirt.

Crossing the room completely naked, you can feel his intense gaze on you and as you bend down to pick up your purse, your butt on display, he makes a sound, a cross between a whimper and a groan. "Gods, woman!" He whines when you slowly come back, swaying your hips, your hand grazing his feet before putting your purse right next to him and dimming the lights.

Ivar, a white sheet covering his lower body, watches your every move, and even if his arousal is obvious, you can tell he's still scared, or at the very least, a little wary.

Kicking your shoes off, you climb onto the bed and straddle him. Careful not to put your full weight on him, you lean forward, placing a soft kiss on his lips.

"Y/N, what are you planning to do?" His strained voice betrays his sudden anxiety.

Smiling, you brush his cheek. "Do you trust me, Ivar?"

"It's not about trust but about what I can or–" He starts but you stop him, a finger on his mouth. You then flatten your palms on his chest and soon your hands are venturing down. You explore the lines of his torso, tracing left and right across the ridges in his abdomen. Gods, you love his body! When your fingers come across the thin trail of hair leading lower, you tilt your head, your hand slipping under the sheet. Ivar's breath hitches in his throat as your hand meets his now half-hard cock.

"Answer me, Ivar, do you trust me?"

"Yes." Ivar breathes out his answer and, reaching out, he runs his hands up your ribs to your breasts. "You know I do." He doesn't have to say it for you to know he's referring to his legs. You know them; you're allowed to see and touch them and you know how big a deal it is to him. He does trust you.

"Then trust me, one more time, please. Trust me on this."

As you draw a finger up to the head of his cock and back down the underside, tracing a line around his balls, Ivar lets out a hiss, followed by a groan when you wrap your hand around him.

All of a sudden, he grabs your wrist, preventing you to move. "You know I can't…"

"Love, you're hard." Since you can't really move your hand, you squeeze your fingers around him to prove your point. You're rewarded by a deep, involuntary, grunt, but the next thing you know, Ivar is swaying his head from side to side. "It won't… last… long enough…" His words are barely audible; you know the admission kills him. And you know he's convinced that it is an unavoidable truth. Because that's exactly what happened with Margrethe.

"It will, my love. Have faith in yourself. And if you can't do that, then have faith in me."

Slowly, using your free hand, you unwrap his fingers from your wrist, your eyes never leaving his. Once he releases his grip, you give him a wicked smile and then scoot back farther while pulling down the sheet. Pushing his legs apart with care, you settle between them, reaching for his cock.

And then, you swallow him down and start to suck. Ivar gasps and pants, hissing breaths through his teeth. You know he never experienced anything like this. No one has never done that for him, and there's a sense of pride blooming in your chest knowing you're the one offering him so much pleasure.

Peeking up, you see your lover, propped up on his elbows, who looks at you as you really were a goddess. He's getting harder and harder, squirming underneath you. Pulling back reluctantly, you give him a sultry look, not missing how confused and… disappointed he looks.

"What… Why? I … Oh fuck… I think… Y/N… I… I was…" He stutters, struggling to gather his thoughts. You have to remind yourself of his reality. Your lover never had an orgasm.

"You were close, yes, I know, Ivar. And I promise you're going to come. But I want you to come inside me, my love."

Ivar swallows. "But…" Eyes darting all over the place, you know he's once again overcome with self-doubt.

"There's no buts, love." You cut him off, reaching out and then scrabbling around in your purse. When you find what you were looking for, you hold it triumphantly in front of you. "There's no buts because of this."

Ivar frowns, confused. "What's that?"

"A cock ring, my love. And well," you add, grabbing a small tube, "some lube too."

"A what?" Bewildered, Ivar sits up in the bed, but you push gently on his chest.

You did some research. The cock ring will help him maintain his erection. Not that he physically needs it – you're sure he doesn't – but emotionally, it's a different story. But since you don't want him to have time to rethink what you're about to do – and because you wouldn't want to waste such an impressive erection – you're not going to give him a lecture on cock rings right now.

"I'll explain later, love. It won't harm you; I promise. Trust me with this, Ivar, please."

When he nods – shyly, tentatively and almost sheepishly – you don't waste any more time and pour a small amount of lube into your hand. He gasps as soon as you wrap a slick hand around his still hard cock. Setting the lube aside, you slide the ring down his cock.

"Does it hurt?" Looking closely at his face for any sign of discomfort, you slowly run your hands up his thighs, and as he shakes his head no, you straddle him once more without ever breaking eye contact.

Ivar can barely breathe and doesn't even dare to blink. He can't believe it. Fuck, he can't. This is happening. This is fucking happening. He's rock-hard, harder than he has ever been and he feels like his pounding heart is going to burst.

Earlier, the warmth of your wet mouth on his dick felt insanely good. Your lips wrapped around him, your hand holding him, your eyes filled with an equal amount of lust and love… It has been almost too much, and heavenly as the same time. He would have wanted it to never end and had resented you for a moment when you had released his cock. But it doesn't matter, not anymore, not when you're just about–

"Aaaaaaaaah!" He closes his eyes, the new sensation incredible, otherworldly, overwhelming. He's dying. Or maybe he's already dead. He can't grasp what's happening, or what he's feeling. It's magic, like nothing he's ever felt before. His head is spinning and tears are welling up in his eyes. This… This must be Valhalla; it can't be anything else. Gods…

And then a distant voice brings him back to the here and now. "Ivar, look at me, my love." It takes him several seconds to understand that it is your voice, and that he's the one you're talking to.

Slowly, very slowly and almost reluctantly, because a part of him believes that what he's experiencing is nothing but a dream, he finally opens his eyes. What a glorious sight! You, the woman he loves, are sitting atop him, looking down at him as if he were the eighth wonder of the world. And you're… he's… fuck.

"I'm… Ah… Y/N… I'm…" He can't even form a coherent sentence but it doesn't matter, because you're so beautiful, because your face is radiant with love, because you definitely are a goddess. And because you know what he's trying to say.

"Yes, my love, you're inside me. And you're hard, and you're not hurting me. It feels so good, Ivar. You feel so good… Your home, my love…" Bending forward and weaving your fingers through his hair, you kiss him as you begin to move. He's at loss for what to do, and it doesn't matter, and there's fireworks in his heart, and you're fucking right, he's home. You're his home. His.

His hands on your thighs, he looks at you and you're so fucking beautiful it takes his breath away. And the feeling of you, wet and throbbing around his cock, is the most amazing thing he's ever felt.

Sitting upright, your back arches as you widen your legs. Your heat engulfing him, he stares at you, bewitched. You're riding him, hard, gasping, moaning, praising, your skin glistening with sweat.

Fuck.

The powerful thrusts of your hips coax his body to a place he's never been before. The sounds of your lovemaking are filling the room… The suction when he slides out of you; the slap of his balls against you when he goes deep. Your grunts. Your pantings. His breaths.

"Oh fuck… it's… oh gods..." You begin to move faster and he keeps his eyes on you. You don't shy away from his scrutiny, holding eye contact as you bounce on him. His hands now cup your ass cheeks, pulling you against him, and then they find your hips, guiding you. He's going to make you come, like a man. Like a whole man. He's going to make you come because he's inside you. The thought is exhilarating, intoxicating.

"Ivar, I'm close!" The way your eyes are half-lidded and lust drunk as you breathe out his name is the most erotic thing he's ever seen. When you begin to lose your rhythm, your moans morph to keening cries and finally you shout and he gasps and you cry out his name as you clamp around him, throwing your head back. The rush of your heat surrounding his cock is overpowering, prodigious, and he thinks he may be losing his mind.

Struggling to catch your breath and still trembling, you kiss him deeply, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. He groans when you lift off him but your hand finds his cheek, caressing it. "I want you to come, and you won't come with the cock ring around your cock, love." Your skilled fingers hastily removing it, you toss the ring on the floor and then you straddle him once again, sliding down his cock.

The tingling deep in his balls is nearly immediate and he's sure he's never felt this good. He kisses you like he's starving, and in some ways he's. His hands slide over your breasts, your hips rocking, and you're so fucking beautiful he can't believe his eyes. "I love you so much…" He manages to croak in a shallow breath.

And suddenly everything explodes and he loses track of where you end and he begins, and if you answer he doesn't hear it. His ears ring and his hips thrust up against yours and his whole-body shudders violently, once; twice; more. And then his eyes flutter shut as he comes, wave after wave after wave, until he feels disoriented and light-headed, his hot, thick seed flooding your pussy, and it's so powerful it's like a fucking earthquake.

When his whole body goes limp, he lets out a soft whimper as you rest your head on his chest only to reach up and toy with his hair.

When you look up at him, he's sure the whirlwind of his emotions is obvious on his face, but he doesn't care, just like he doesn't care about his tear-filled eyes, or his crooked legs. Truth be told, for the first time in his life, he doesn't give a damn about his legs. For the first time in his life, he feels whole and worthy. For the first time in his life, he feels like the happiest man on Earth.

And that could well be the greatest gift you, Y/N, the goddess of replaced memories, could ever give him.

He loves you.

🛡⚔️🛡

@waiting4inspiration @honestsycrets @lisinfleur @saldelys @gearhead66 @inforapound @readsalot73 @milkkygirls @xbellaxcarolinax @shannygoatgruff @zuxiezendler @a-mess-of-fandoms @hecohansen31 @lonewolf471 @ivarthebloodyking @fuckindiva @tgrrose @didiintheblog @peachyboneless @funmadnessandbadassvikings @ethereallysimple @destynelseclipsa @cocovikings23 @pieces-by-me @xceafh @mrsalwayswrite @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie @pomegranates-and-blood

[mittensmorgul]

I feel like I should be posting more original content. I’ve been here for so long, posting original content analyzing every detail of this show, and posting literally millions of words on the subject, and the show has gone and done exactly the thing I’ve been writing about, confirmed in text that the story I’ve been watching in the subtext is really the story they were telling all along.

And I could be posting gleefully about the beauty of the most intense metanarrative, the absolute bananapants layers of meta in any piece of media I’ve ever consumed in my 46 years. From the self-referential and universe-bending plotlines to just how deeply embedded ALL of this has become as the central core narrative of the final season, as the characters grapple with what is even real when they’ve been characters in a story beyond their control or understanding for so long only to come so close to earning their freedom and “becoming real” by using their OWN words and declaring for themselves their truth and their happiness and their love.

It’s... mind boggling that everything I’ve ever written about this show is coming back around in a final grand swoop of the narrative arcs that I honestly don’t know what else I can do aside from waving one hand at canon and inviting everyone to just read the entirety of this stupid blog while looking smugly satisfied with myself.

It’s about love. The whole story is, was, and always will be about love. And not just destiel, but the whole damn show. The character of Dean Winchester, for all the jokes about being emotionally constipated, is essentially the embodiment of selfless love and has been since the start of the show. But because of the story itself, he had to become hardened to it, to accept that it wasn’t something he could have for himself if he lived the life he did. And yet he never let that destroy him, despite now understanding that that’s exactly what Chuck spent the last 15 years (and really the entirety of Dean’s life) attempting to do-- to break him for the sake of the story.

Cas’s confession in 15.18 wasn’t just about how Cas loves Dean, but why. Cas, the only version of Castiel in any of Chuck’s infinite universes who broke free of Heaven’s command, did so because of the love he saw in this selfless but self-hating man. Years of crack posts about Dean breaking angels cannot even begin to touch how deep this goes.

One line in Cas’s monologue about Dean thinking of himself as “daddy’s blunt instrument” was a line from season THREE, before Cas ever even MET Dean Winchester and began to know him. It was a phrase that had never been spoken aloud in reality. It happened literally inside Dean’s dream, where he knew he was doomed to go to hell and was confronted by the demon version of himself. Dean said this line TO HIMSELF, IN A DREAM, TWELVE SEASONS AGO. And then yelled down that demon-dream version of himself with this:

DREAM DEAN: Dad knew who you really were. A good soldier and nothing else. Daddy's blunt little instrument. Your own father didn't care whether you lived or died. Why should you?

DEAN: Son of a bitch!

DEAN pushes DREAM DEAN hard, knocking him into the wall above the desk.

DEAN: (screaming angrily) My father was an obsessed bastard!

DREAM DEAN tries to get up and DEAN kicks him down on the desk again. DEAN holds the weapon as a bat and hits DREAM DEAN once and then pins him to the wall with it.

DEAN: All that crap he dumped on me, about protecting Sam! That was his crap. He's the one who couldn't protect his family. He-

DEAN steps back and swings the weapon again, hitting DREAM DEAN twice.

DEAN: He's the one who let Mom die. who wasn't there for Sam. I always was! He wasn't fair! I didn't deserve what he put on me. And I don't deserve to go to Hell!

DEAN shoots DREAM DEAN twice in the chest. As he lowers the weapon and looking at DREAM DEAN, we see the latter is dead. Blood is splattered on DREAM DEAN's face and his eyes are closed.

--

And then after that, spoiler alert, he went to hell and Cas pulled him out.

Dean: Right. And why would an angel rescue me from Hell?  Castiel: Good things do happen, Dean. Dean: Not in my experience. Castiel: What's the matter? You don't think you deserve to be saved?

It took him YEARS to truly get past this. He didn’t really get to confront his own father until season 14, in a sort of “It’s A Wonderful Life” sort of episode where he could see what his life might’ve been like if things had turned out differently. And oh, Cas isn’t in his life. But he gets to confront John with his own self-acceptance, his own confidence in the life he’s made for himself and the people (including Cas) who have become his family. He gets to hear from John that he never wanted that life for Dean, and Dean gets to say, well I would choose this life anyway.

Until Chuck’s revelation pulled that rug out from under him. Dean had been-- if not deliriously happy, at least content with his life. Because it was HIS. And then he found out it wasn’t, that Chuck had always been writing the broad strokes of his life, had always been the one throwing catastrophe after apocalypse after cosmic crisis directly in his path because he wanted to watch Dean struggle to save the world yet again, and finally give him the ending to the story that Chuck wanted-- a broken and devastated Dean who’d sacrificed everything for the story yet again. And suddenly NOTHING about anything made sense to Dean anymore, and even Cas showing up in his life and then weirdly sticking around all these years was suspect to him. He trusted nothing, not his choices or his feelings or his own happiness.

But now? We know (and Dean knows) that Cas was one thing Chuck just couldn’t control. That he was never supposed to think for himself and rebel and fall in love with Dean. And Dean knows that too. He knows all of it. And ALL of that just went wooshing through Dean’s central processing unit in the span of two minutes and came up error messages, because it was too late now and Cas was gone again, and there might not be any getting him back this time.

So unless Dabb era has been entirely about destroying everything that was ever good about this show, and about their own storytelling, and the metanarrative and the subtext and the character arcs, making Dean and Cas’s relationship the main emotional arc of the entire season demands that Dean get a chance to answer to this.

If love is truly the ultimate weapon of their salvation, as the show has been screaming since s11, then Dean gets to keep Cas. Because anything less is failure at this point.

I’m sorry I haven’t been replying to many people in my inbox, but honestly I’m too tired to deal with anxiety over how the story will end. I only care about the story, and I’ve written more about it in the last howeverlong I’ve been at this than I can possibly reiterate before the next episode airs. All I can do is point and gawp at the fact that the story is what I have always thought it was, and be content.

Revenge of the Subtext, indeed.

[sirthisisa-wendys]

The General (Part 6): Geto Suguru x Fem!Reader

synopsis: the search for a new place to settle has begun, but you’re left searching for a reason for Geto to stay.  

wc: 1.9k

tw: none

a/n: shorter chapter, but I have something super-sweet in the works for the upcoming parts because *you know I love sweets and lemons*

masterlist

“I cannot have you like I want to.” 

The words the General spoke the night before ring fresh in your mind as Kaori goes about her task of washing and preparing you for the day. He had left before you awoke, but you know you’ll see him at some point during the day. It seems that his explanation will have to wait, then. 

“You’re very quiet today, Lady y/n,” Kaori whispers, pouring water down your back. “Did something happen?” 

Could you tell her the truth? Could you tell her what the General said and what you did in response? 

“Nothing’s wrong; I’m just tired today.” 

“I’m sure you can catch up on your rest after we see Haibara and Gojo off.” 

“They leave today?” you ask, turning around to face her.

“We have to move quickly these days.” Kaori states, her face grim. “We can’t waste a single day as we get closer to the Imperial Palace.” 

“What will happen when we get there?” You wonder aloud, and Kaori shakes her head. 

“No, you’re not thinking like a warrior, my Lady.” Kaori stands and you do the same, placing the towel around your frame. “The question is not what we’ll do when we get there. It’s what will happen before we get there.” Your frown smooths out into a look of understanding, and suddenly, a headache begins to set in. Any number of things could occur before you arrived at the Imperial Palace, and a great many of those things could be terrible for both you and Geto.

“You needn’t worry, my Lady. Master Geto has a plan for everything. We just need to follow his orders, and everything will work out fine.” 

_______________________________________________________________________

Your mouth is full of grilled fish when you feel the familiar chubby fingers of Yuji Itadori on your arm. You look down at the toddler with expectation of more food being pressed to your lips - despite it being lunchtime - but instead, he’s holding a dandelion. 

“Make a wish!” You laugh, then close your eyes, searching for something to wish for. When you find it, you send it up to whatever gods are listening, and then blow on the dandelion with all of the breath in your lungs. 

Yuji lets out an astonished whoa and then watches the little spores blow away in the light breeze. “Nobara!” he calls out, running away. “We need more dandy-lions!” The two children dash off into the field, and you wonder about the brain cell they share before Kaori and her other friend hiss your name. 

“Lady y/n, he’s coming,” Kaori points toward the three men striding toward your small group, and you perk up at the sight of Geto. His eyes are on you, and at the contact, he smiles widely. 

“Are you enjoying your meal, ladies?” Haibara asks, trailing behind Geto and Gojo. 

“Yes, the fish is heavenly,” Kaori replies eagerly. “Give the cook our best.” 

“Will do,” he answers, and Geto sits beside you on the blanket. 

“Might I try a piece?” he inquires, and you oblige, feeding him with your fingers just like he has done to you many times. When his mouth makes contact with your fingers, you feel his tongue slide against the tips of them and for a moment, you wish he wouldn’t let go. But he does, and hums as he eats the fish thoughtfully. You smile at him and he returns the expression, placing his hand on yours before turning back to the two men who are left standing. 

“I’ll see you two in a few hours.” Gojo and Haibara take off, followed by Kaori and her friend - who wags her eyebrows at you before leaving the two of you alone in the field. You want to run your hands through Geto’s hair and ask him about his day, ask him about his words the night before, but you keep yourself rooted to where you are. It’s only after a moment of hesitation that Geto closes the gap between you and pulls you into his chest, examining the horizon with wide eyes. 

“What is on your mind, great general?” you whisper, and he looks down at you, lips curled up in a half-smile. 

“Would you believe me if I said it’s you?” 

“I would,” you answer. He exhales slowly, the smile dropping from his face before he returns his gaze to the horizon. 

“I must confess that you have placed me in quite a predicament, little one,” he begins, placing a kiss at the top of your head and smoothing a hand down your spine.

“Oh?” 

“Don’t play coy.” Your laughter peals out across the field like bells in the wind, and Geto chuckles as well, his shoulders shaking as he bends over a little. 

“And this… predicament… Is this the one you spoke of last night?” You were pulling answers out of him, but it seems only right for you to have to search for the truth. Because, somewhere in that truth, you know you’ll find your own version of what you felt for him. 

“The very same one... I want to have you, y/n; I want to make you mine.” 

“And what’s stopping you?” Geto inhales deeply, all of the laughter from before vanishing from his face in an instant. 

“I made a promise to myself on your behalf. I swore I would not take you to bed and - instead - preserve your maidenhood for whomever you choose to be with. My plan has always been to release you to your freedom in the end.” Your shock is evident by the way you lean away from him, but Geto makes no move to pull you in again. He eyes you carefully as you process his words, unsure of how to react. 

“So, I am only a pawn to you.” Realization sweeps over Geto’s features, smoothing them out to a wide-eyed gaze as he shakes his head. 

“No, no, little one,” He reaches a hand out and grazes your cheek with the back of his knuckles, the gesture making you close your eyes and instinctively lean into his touch again. “I want you to be happy. If your happiness is not here with m-- with us, then I will not force you to stay when I become Emperor. You will be afforded all of the privileges of a free woman, as you were before.” 

“But…” You capture his hand on your cheek, pressing a kiss to his palm. “What if I have found some happiness here with you?” 

“I would be elated to have you accompany me, if that is the truth.” 

“Why would I lie to you?” The side-eye Geto gives you makes you chuckle, and you lean into his arm again, thinking about the warmth of his body and how he feels so familiar now. He always smells like fresh rain, and the way spoke to you never bordered on disrespectful or harsh. At least, not anymore. “Geto, I--” 

“I know what you’re going to say,” he interrupts, holding a finger up to your lips. “But I haven’t divulged everything yet.” You wait for his second round of speech, holding your breath. “Should I be overcome, and my father wins the war… I am also saving your maidenhood so you can be spared. If it comes out that you have lain with me, I know my family will not hesitate to have you murdered.”

“Your father wouldn’t do such a barbaric thi-” 

“You don't know my father. Nor do you know my half-brothers. They are ruthless, y/n. And if my father will not have you punished for being the mistress of a traitor, I know that my brothers will not hesitate.” The breath escapes your lungs slowly and Geto looks down at you again, fixing you with his onyx eyes. “And so I ask you this: would you be satisfied with possibly losing your life for being with a traitor to the crown? Or would you rather resist the temptation, and live a long life with few regrets?” Your hand flies to his chest, right above his heart, and you answer confidently: 

“Whichever way the wind blows, I will not regret taking this chance to be with you.” At this, Geto hastily pulls you in for a deep kiss, holding onto you as if the source of life itself is wrapped in the sinew of your bones. 

______

“Safe travels, brother.” You observe Geto and Gojo - equal in stature but differing in composure - clasp arms before Geto turns to Haibara and repeats the motion; pulling him in and whispering something in his ear. Haibara pulls away and laughs, smiling widely before they climb onto their white horses. A group of soldiers are waiting for them as they ride off into the horizon, leaving the entire camp behind as the hooves of the beasts kick up massive amounts of dust. 

You shield yourself behind Geto’s broad frame as they depart, and the other members of the gathered crowd disperse easily, leaving the two of you standing in the field with Nanami. “Master Geto,” Nanami begins, and Geto turns away from the disappearing figures to face the youth. 

“Yes, Nanami?” 

“It has come to my attention that Emissary Noritoshi made it back to the Imperial Palace, and was immediately thrown out upon the Emperor’s realization that he had not secured a deal with you.” 

“Will they be sending another emissary, then?” 

“Within the week, sir.” You examine Geto’s face as he wraps an arm around your waist protectively, squinting his eyes. 

“Send for a scout tomorrow morning. I need to know if this emissary is any different from Noritoshi in his tactics.” 

“Shall I call upon Yuuta, sir?” 

“Yes; he would fare well. Thank you, Nanami.” Nanami bows slightly to Geto, and then to you, departing just as quietly as he had arrived. “And you…” Geto squeezes you closer to him. “You need to get some rest. We will recommence training tomorrow morning, after breakfast.” A groan escapes your lips at the thought of Geto making you fight with a rake again, but you follow him back to the tent anyways.

As you undress for the night, you wonder if Geto is really focusing on his plans or if he’s trying his best not to watch as you disrobe and expose yourself for his eyes again. But when you sneak a glance over your shoulder, he’s wholly focusing on his maps and diagrams, left hand propping his chin up as he faces away from you. Sighing, you dress in your night clothes and slide into bed, wishing that you could just feel his arms wrap around you before you drift off to sleep.

Some god heard you, you realize, as Geto pushes away from his desk and stands, wiping his face in exhaustion. Your body tingles with hyper awareness as Geto trims the wick of the lamps around the tent and shuffles over to the bed, yawning while tossing his haori and hakashita off. The moment he slides in next you and places his large arms around you, you jolt a little, and you feel his warm breath on your skin as he chuckles. 

“Easy there, y/n. I’m not going to hurt you.” You turn to face him in the semi-darkness and place both hands on his face. 

“I wasn’t worried about that,” you answer, and he hums, pulling you in for another kiss before tapping one to your nose. “Quite the opposite, actually.” Geto replies with a rumble in his chest, hands sliding further down to your ass. But the temptation is quickly overcome when he pulls his hands away, placing them behind his head as he lays on his back. 

“You cannot tempt me that easily, little one,” he breathes, exhaling through his nose. “Sleep well; goodnight.” You roll onto your side in defeat, but a small smile plays across both of your faces as you fall asleep, the wheels of imagination and desire turning around and around in your minds. 

_______________________________________________________________________

TAGLIST: @kamisamaundercover​ @jotazinha​ @just4readingfics​ @mxhi​ @sammytamaki​ @brownskinnedgirll​ @keelyshayee​ @leanne-tamashi​ @vabybizzle​ @amaris9​ 

[givemethatgold]

Fix’er Upper Pt. 3

Pairing: Eventual Frankie Morales x F!Reader Warnings: Clumsy injury, more stupid fighting Length: 2.5k Notes: If these two dummies could have one (1) adult conversation they’d be in bed together by now. Instead, we get this! *waves around vaguely*

PART ONE, TWO

Money was tight. You had been trying to ignore the dwindling stack of cash, telling yourself that you didn’t actually need to fix the cracked drywall, replace the old oven, or fill in the missing patches of shingles. 

That ignorance had finally come to bite you in the butt. You were rudely woken at three a.m. to the clap of thunder and the pat-pat-pat of rain hitting the house. You loved storms, the excitement of the lighting, and how fresh the air smelled once the rain had passed. 

You rolled over onto your back so you could watch the lightning flashing between the cracks of your curtains. A tap on your forehead quickly destroyed the excitement you were feeling. The wet ‘splat’ was quickly followed by another, and another, and before you were able to scramble up and search for the closest thing resembling a bucket, it had turned into a steady stream.

“Fuuuuuuuck!”

The next morning, the sun rose and shed its light upon a beautiful scene. The leaves, now free from dust, were beginning to turn, the grass glimmered with raindrops, and the sky was clear. You, on the other hand, were a verifiable disaster. 

Hair unkempt, heavy bags under your eyes, and wearing the first items of clothing you could find in your scramble last night. Your exhaustion was so complete, it hadn’t even dawned on you to change or freshen up a bit before going out into the public eye. All you could focus on was getting to Hank’s Hardware and buying all the shingles you could get your hands on.

Once again, however, you were harshly reminded of your dwindling savings and just how expensive fixing up a house could be. The owner, Allan if you remembered correctly, had shown you the right size and style for your home’s roof and you nearly choked at the price.

“You know,” he had said gently, “we do have the option of a payment plan. I don’t let just anyone use it either. It’s for trusted customers. I have a good gut on who I can trust.”

“Really?” You asked, feeling a little pathetic while also knowing now was not the time to let pride ruin such a good thing. “And, um, what does your gut tell you about me?”

“Welllll,” he smiled, hooking his thumbs into his suspenders and leaning back a little to size you up. “You’re hard-working, feel like you have something to prove, won’t back down from a challenge, and are in way over your head with that damn old house.”

“Oh.”

“No offense, ma’am! Sometimes I forget myself and talk to strangers the same way I’d talk to my friends.” He patted your forearm gently then hooked it back into his suspenders, pretending he didn’t notice you jumping at the physical contact. “But it’s true. No denying you won’t be able to shingle all by yourself. I’d offer, but I’m in no shape to be climbing up roofs.”

“That’s very sweet of you, truly. But I’ll manage! I doubt I could afford a handyman, so it’ll be me and my stubborn self scrambling around up there.” You joked, but it fell a little flat since the both of you knew it was the truth.

“I’ve got an idea...” Hank trailed off, his gaze searching around by the till. “Maybe you two can help each other out?” He fiddled at the computer for a minute, then grabbed a flyer from the corkboard mounted behind the counter before handing you two pieces of paper. One was a receipt of what you owed him after this latest excursion and a detailed timeline of when small payments could be made. 

Glancing up at him, you gave him a watery smile and thanked him for being so kind. Allan waved you off and pointed to the second paper.

‘Help Wanted’ it read, ‘Morales Acres. Light physical labour, quiet environment, rate of pay dependent on quality of work.’

“So friendly and welcoming,” you murmured, sarcastically, under your breath. Not quietly enough though because Allan snorted out a laugh and agreed that the ad was worded very abruptly. However, he vetted for the owner of the farm and suggested you head over to see if he would be willing to trade labour for labour.

Or at the very least, you thought, pay you so you can afford a roofer.

Following the directions Allan had provided for you, you quickly found Morales Acres. Surprisingly, it was a very short distance from your own home, making you wonder if the owner had been one of the people to drop by during your first weeks here.

The driveway was a beautiful, winding drive. The view of the farm was obscured by thickets of trees on either side of the road but you managed to catch glimpses of a pond and a few bales of hay before rounding a bend and driving into the yard.

A small gasp left your lips at the sight. It was picturesque! Something out of a travel magazine, or on every city girl’s Pinterest board. The driveway came to an end in front of a statuesque barn painted in the classic red and white, stone walls cordoned off certain areas that, from where you sat, looked like they could be used to house sheep or hens. A few small sheds were lined up along the other edge of the yard but the main attraction was the neatly lined rows of apple trees all heavy with fruit.

Climbing out of the cab, you slowly made your way into the yard with your mouth hanging open dumbly. It was just so peaceful here and it was obvious that the owner cared deeply for the property. You were enchanted and fell immediately in love.

“You must be the help Allan called to say he was sending over,” a warm voice rang out.

Looking around for the source your gaze widened, then immediately hardened, when you caught sight of who was talking to you.

“You!”

“You?!”

To say it had been a smooth business agreement would be a total lie. You and Market Asshole, Frankie you reminded yourself to call him, had bickered back and forth for the better part of an hour before shaking hands. Surprisingly, you had both argued more for the other person’s benefit, something you had been mulling over since.

If this guy was such an ass, why was he also acting like his help with your renovations wouldn’t be worth as much as you picking apples? You knew your presence disturbed his peace, and that you weren’t as strong as he might have hoped his helper would be, and he still hadn’t trusted you with all the workings of his orchard. 

So, while you weren’t going to argue anymore, you knew you were getting the better end of the deal: you help him gather his harvest and get it safely stored in the barn, then he spends the same amount of hours helping you. While the weather during September was prone to drizzle, you had convinced him that a tarp thrown over the baldest patches of roof would be fine and that the apples couldn’t wait. 

He had grumpily conceded your point but had sworn that as soon as the last of the fruit was picked he’d be over to do a proper job of it. So continued the uneasy truce between the two of you for the past four weeks. The first week was the hardest as your hands, unaccustomed to work, blistered, and your muscles ached from sudden use. You had initially tried to pass the time by making conversation but you got the hint and stayed quiet once Frankie started choosing trees farther and farther from yours.

Slowly, however, the blisters healed and gave way to callouses. Your muscles became accustomed to the work and you were able to carry twice the amount as you had started off with. Your home could now boast electricity and running water everywhere it should be, and the pile of discarded furniture had been reduced to ash by a spectacular bonfire which Jacquie and her family had joined you in admiring.

Today started off as a normal day. You showed up for harvesting at the break of dawn, having discovered you much preferred the cool morning air over being up on a ladder with the midday sun beating down on you. The trees were obscured by a low fog that had yet to burn up, but you knew what section you needed to start on. 

Enjoying the way the fog enveloped you, making you feel like you were in a magical world, you began to hum and your steps took on a dreamy dance-like quality. You had never taken lessons or had even been allowed to make such a spectacle of yourself while living with Brad but now you felt free enough to spin, twirl, and glide. Overcome with the joy your freedom gave you, you began to belt out “These Are a Few of my Favourite Things”, The Sound of Music having been played on repeat when you were a child. 

Once you reached the ladder, you hoisted the basket onto your back and continued to sing whatever songs you could remember while you worked. A particularly boisterous rendition of “Do Re Mi” had you flinging your arm out wide and leaning back on the ladder for a dramatic finish.

The apples threw you off balance. 

With a screech, you fell backward, managing to twist yourself around to land awkwardly on your hands and knees instead of on the basket of apples strapped to your back. You seemed to have come away unscathed, with just scratched knees and a throbbing in one wrist. Thankfully it wasn’t your dominant hand.

“Whoa!” Frankie called out, catching sight of you on the ground with the ladder tipped on its side, “Everything okay? Are you okay?”

Coming to a skidding stop next to you, he grasped the basket and slipped it off your back with ease. 

You took a few deep breaths and nodded. “Fine! Fine, just bruised knees and ego...” you assured him.

“What were you thinking?!” He tore into you, “You could have broken your neck! Or ruined a whole barrel of apples! Then what would I do?! This job doesn’t come with health insurance for Christ's sakes!” Running his hands through his curly, brown hair he let out a huff of air and walked over to where your ladder lay on the ground.

“Un-be-fucking-lievable!” You called out, incredulously. While trying to get to your feet, to march over and wag your finger in his face, you put too much pressure on your injured wrist that caused pain to scream down your arm.

You managed to mask the cry of pain as a cry of frustration and got to your feet. Surreptitiously cradling your hand against your chest, you grabbed another basket and walked past Frankie to start climbing the ladder again. Looking at the ground so he wouldn’t see the tears of pain in your eyes, you mumbled, “I’ll be more careful, alright? I’m sorry.”

Stopping your ascent with a hand on your arm he stuttered out what might have been the beginning of an apology but he couldn’t quite seem to put the right words together so he just cleared his throat.

“Just...” he said in a much softer tone, “just be more careful. Okay? I can’t lose my best worker.” 

The lame joke made you smile despite yourself. 

“Employee of the month,” you replied in a dry tone, “hurrah.” 

You shared wry smiles while a silent apology passed between the two of you. His dark brown eyes held a warmth to them you had never noticed before. Their hue reminding you of every tree in the orchard from the early light to the sunset, golden flecks reminiscent of the sun. His face, weathered from so much time spent outdoors, was marked with laugh lines, worry lines, and a small scar gracing his left cheek. 

Your eyes wandered past the scar to note how long his scruffy facial hair had grown and how it had started to obscure those pleasantly pouty lips. 

Then, with a start, you realized you were staring at this infuriating man’s lips like a hormonal teenager. With an embarrassed squeak, you quickly scurried up the ladder, hooking your elbow around each rung to avoid any more pressure on your wrist.

To say Frankie was coping well with having someone around would be a gross overstatement. 

It’s not that he didn’t like the company or wanted to be alone. The problem was that he was starting to like her company too much, to care too much. And caring too much had been the root cause of all Frankie’s sorrows.

First, there had been his Dad, trying to impress the man who never even wanted kids. Then the force, always feeling like he needed to prove himself and desperate for praise. After that was his wife, ex-wife, and trying to be someone he wasn’t so she would stay interested and in love. The pressure created by caring about these people and the expectations they had for him drove him to abuse drugs. Then his friends came calling and Frankie went against his gut because they had cared so deeply about something and he had cared deeply for them.

His wife, his kid, his family, his job, his friends. He had cared more than they did and he had come away worse off. At least now he was clean and sober, and was very aware of the irony of him now making and selling an alcoholic drink.

No, it was best to stay alone. He loved too freely and put too much stock in being loved back and every. single. time. it hurt him.

So, he closed himself off from you. Initially, he didn’t think it was going to be an issue, especially considering how you two had met. But then he found himself smiling at your stories, idly leaning against a branch so he could watch your graceful moments. He hated watching you leave, knowing you were going home to that piece of shit house that he should really be fixing up for you.

He recognized the signs and nipped them in the bud; working farther away, replying to questions with the fewest possible words, focusing purely on work, and maintaining a professional relationship. It pained him to push you away but deep down he knew it was best for the both of you.

Which brings him back to this moment.

Frankie was too stunned to notice your awkward climb up the ladder. Standing there, dumbly, for another few seconds. Wondering, all the way back to the idling tractor, what the hell had just happened.

One minute he was just driving the tractor minding his own business and the next he was having a mild heart attack after seeing his only worker laying limp on the ground. Then, after arguing like usual, you had shared a...a moment and stared at his mouth almost long enough to tempt him to use it.

Part Four

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[kjack89]

An Agreement Between Gentlemen (Chapter 13/14)

The penultimate chapter of the E/R Bridgerton AU, regency-era fake-marriage fic. In a return to form, this chapter is entirely SFW. (Chapter 1 tumblr | AO3, chapter 2 tumblr | AO3, chapter 3 tumblr | AO3, chapter 4 tumblr | AO3, chapter 5 tumblr | AO3, chapter 6 tumblr | AO3, chapter 7 tumblr | AO3, chapter 8 tumblr | AO3, chapter 9 tumblr | AO3, chapter 10 tumblr | AO3, chapter 11 tumblr | AO3, chapter 12 tumblr | AO3)

When this Author picked up the mantle left behind by the previous Lady Whistledown, it was with the intention of bringing a little levity to the otherwise long and sometimes dull proceedings that encompass the season, and to provide some color commentary that pokes fun at those otherwise generally unwilling to make light of themselves.

To that end, this Author has remarked upon and highlighted the general scandals that accompany this season as every season, the kind that serve to provide some drama to otherwise dull lives, but risk very little in terms of lasting damage.

This Author has never intended for this to cause actual harm, and as such, owes an apology to the Marquess of Enjolras and Mr. Grantaire. This Author does not dabble in morals, or legality; the sole concern of this column has been amusement, and the ruin of two gentlemen otherwise described by most who have met them as good men is something this Author cannot and will not be a part of any longer. While this Author cannot overstate that there was no prior knowledge of the truth behind the Marquess’s marriage, nonetheless the extra attention shone on it by and through this paper has brought harm, and for that, this Author is truly sorry.

While no promises can be made in regards to accidentally reporting similar in the future, this Author will certainly make every attempt to better vet sources before publishing rumor and innuendo. And the promise this Author does make is that the only additional mention of the Marquess of Enjolras or Mr. Grantaire in this paper will be for happy tidings, with best hopes for whatever they may face in the future. LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 6 JUNE 1831

The summons did not arrive with the usual fanfare, so much so that Enjolras almost missed them entirely.

No gilded envelope hand stamped with the King’s own seal, no scarlet-clad guard from the palace delivering it. Just a small, plain parchment envelope instructing Enjolras to attend to His Majesty the King the following day.

In truth, he very nearly almost missed it entirely, since Porter, who normally would have brought him such things, was confined to bed for the immediate future as he recovered – and the surgeon had been quite strict in his instructions. But Grantaire, far less used to having the number of servants Enjolras did, had seen it sitting on the table in the foyer and brought it into the dining room with him when he came in for breakfast.

“This is good news,” he told Grantaire after scanning through the note, though Grantaire didn’t look convinced.

“To be summoned in front of those with the power to strip you of your titles and lands and throw you in the Tower for the rest of your days, unless they decide to chop off your head instead?”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “Better a meeting with the King and Queen than the constable,” he pointed out. “Besides, there’s a limit to what they can do, and if they’re intervening now, it will serve to prevent the worst from happening.” He stood to leave the breakfast table before pausing and bending to kiss the top of Grantaire’s head. “In any case, the usual death in this situation would be by hanging, not beheading.”

“Because that’s so comforting a thought,” Grantaire said sourly.

“It should be.”

Grantaire stared at him. “The thought of you being hanged instead of beheaded?”

Enjolras gave him a look. “No, that the King wants to meet with me. I’m not fool enough to think my death by anything other than old age would bring you any comfort.”

Grantaire pretended to consider it. “Going out in a blaze of glory as you attempt to bring the whole damned system to its knees might.”

“Only if you are by my side as proof that I have won you over in the end.”

Grantaire’s expression softened for a moment. “I would die by your side in an instant, but I don’t think that’s proof of anything.” He kissed Enjolras before returning to the subject at hand. “In any case, why should the King wanting to meet with you bring me any comfort whatsoever?”

“Because it means the Crown wants this handled quickly and quietly,” Enjolras said. “Meaning very likely no public trial, and almost certainly no public execution.”

“That would be more comforting without the qualifiers ‘very likely’ and ‘almost certainly’.”

Enjolras sighed. “There is very little in life that is absolutely certain besides death and taxes.”

Grantaire smirked. “And as I have heard you rail about numerous times, the certainty of taxes is not always applied evenly.”

“Do you know, that may be the most romantic thing you have ever said to me,” Enjolras said, grinning at him.

“Oh, hush,” Grantaire said, but he was laughing, and seemed, for the moment at least, to forget his concerns about Enjolras’s impending appointment with the Crown.

They resurfaced in full force the following day as Enjolras adjusted his cravat while waiting for the carriage to pull around. “How do I look?” he asked, and Grantaire cast a baleful eye at him.

“Dressed well enough for a meeting with the King and Queen, and not at all like you’re headed to imprisonment or worse.”

Enjolras managed not to roll his eyes, mostly because he did not think it would help the situation. “Luckily for both us, I highly doubt the latter options will come to pass.”

But Grantaire didn’t smile, just reaching out to take Enjolras’s hand. “Just come back to me,” he whispered.

“I have every intention of doing so,” Enjolras told him, his voice low.

Grantaire sighed. “You know I’m going to be a nervous wreck until you do,” he said. “Just like I am every time you’re in danger, even if normally you’re the idiot who’s put yourself there.”

Enjolras half-smiled. “Arguably I’ve put myself in this danger as well.”

Grantaire gave him a look. “We’ve had this argument before,” he said evenly.

“Yes, and I still refuse to cast any blame on you.”

Grantaire just shook his head. “An argument we’ll have to continue another time, it seems.”

Now Enjolras managed a real smile. “Yes, and all the more reason for me to return. You know I hate to leave a fight unfinished.”

“No, you hate to leave a fight unwon,” Grantaire said pointedly, but for the first time all morning, he looked a little less miserable, and Enjolras took that as a small win in and of itself.

“Are they not one and the same?” he asked innocently, leaning in to kiss Grantaire, who stopped him, his face falling again.

“Enjolras—” he started, and Enjolras frowned.

“What?”

Grantaire searched his expression for a moment before blurting, “I have never once wished you to be less than who you are, and I do not wish it now. The man I love does not back down from a challenge, and his tongue is sharper than any sword.” He paused as if choosing his next words carefully. “But I beg of you, tread lightly. I will not love you less for holding back if it means you survive to fight another day.”

Enjolras did kiss him then, a slow, heated kiss that said hopefully everything he couldn’t bring himself. “I cannot promise my mouth will not get me in trouble. But I do promise I will not deliberately seek it out.” Grantaire made a face and Enjolras gave him a pointed look. “It’s as good a promise as you will get from me.”

“I know.”

“And yet you don’t seem satisfied.”

Grantaire sighed. “I will be satisfied when you are home with me again.”

“And with luck, that will be before you know it,” Enjolras told him bracingly, so convincingly that he almost believed it himself, enough to get him out the door and into the carriage before finally allowing himself to feel the nerves he’d been trying to swallow all morning.

What he had told Grantaire was the truth: this meeting almost certainly meant no real punishment was in store for him.

But he had very little idea of what was in store for him. And that worried him most of all.

----------

Enjolras slowly closed the door behind him, unsurprised when Grantaire immediately appeared from the drawing room, a glass of whiskey in hand, which, judging by the glassiness of his eyes, wasn’t the first he’d had. “Are you ruined?” he asked.

“Define ruined,” Enjolras said, a little grimly.

Grantaire scowled. “Perhaps now is not the time to be glib.”

Enjolras just shook his head as he crossed to him, dropping a kiss on his lips and grabbing the glass of whiskey from his hand, downing it in one gulp. “I wasn’t,” he rasped, handing the glass back to Grantaire and making his way into the drawing room. “The fact is that there is a limit to the punishment I can receive, barring criminal conviction and without an Act of Parliament.” He collapsed onto the couch, reaching up automatically to loosen his cravat. “The Crown has taken what actions it can, which is to say, I am no longer the Viscount of Digne.”

He delivered the words solemnly, but Grantaire just blinked in response. “I did not realize that you were.”

“It is a customary title bestowed upon the current Marquess of Enjolras, with some associated lands,” Enjolras said with a shrug. “Both will be given to more deserving peers, I’m sure.” He hesitated before adding, “Also, none of our issue will be eligible to inherit my title or any lands, save for that which I own outright.”

Grantaire stared blankly at him. “Any of our issue?” he repeated. “As in children?”

Enjolras made a face. “Well, technically my issue. I don’t think the Crown cares so much about yours.” He cleared his throat. “But if I were to remarry and sire children, none of those children would inherit.”

Grantaire raised both eyebrows. “And what are the chances of that?”

“Absolutely none,” Enjolras said, barking a dry laugh. “The King has also told me that my services to his Court will no longer be necessary, meaning my various ceremonial duties will doled out to others and my power at Court, so to speak, is diminished. Beyond that, I retain my title of Marquess and associated lands and riches, which means I will lead a very comfortable life.” He reached out for Grantaire’s hand, lacing their fingers together before raising his hand to his lips to kiss his knuckles. “With you at my side, and without having to hide. So to answer your question, no, I don’t consider that ruin. I consider that a gift.”

Grantaire looked relieved, but he still hesitated. “Even though I will be almost certainly landless and penniless?” he asked, and when Enjolras just frowned at him, he sighed and elaborated, “I doubt highly my father will continue to grant me my allowance and use of the houses when he receives Le Cabuc’s letter.”

Enjolras squeezed his hand. “The Enjolras purse has sustained this family for generations. There’s more than enough left to take care of the man I love.”

Grantaire searched his expression for a moment. “Yet you don’t seem completely satisfied. What else did the King say?”

“Well—”

Before Enjolras could elaborate further, someone cleared her throat from the doorway, and they both turned to look at Enjolras’s mother, who looked unusually somber. “Am I interrupting?”

On instinct alone, Enjolras started to pull his hand away from Grantaire’s, but Grantaire held tight, squaring his shoulders as he met Enjolras’s mother’s expression coolly. “As a matter of fact, you are. Your son and I are having a private conversation.”

He turned back to Enjolras, who tried not to laugh at the look on his mother’s face. But to his surprise, his mother did not immediately snap some dismissive rebuttal, instead inclining her head slightly. “And you have my apologies for intruding, especially at this trying time. But I need to speak to my son, alone, especially in light of his recent visit to the palace.”

Enjolras wasn’t surprised that she had somehow heard about his summons. “Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of me,” Grantaire said firmly. “Your son and I are sharing our lives, and that includes dealing with whatever family affairs you’ve brought with you.” He again turned to look at her. “And need I remind you, your part in our deception has not yet been revealed, but I will be more than happy to tell anyone and everyone who will listen what drove your son to the desperation of a fake marriage in the first place. I doubt highly your friends among the nobility will be impressed by what they learn.”

Enjolras’s mother’s lips pursed, but again, Enjolras was completely thrown by her response. “Thank you,” she said simply, and Grantaire’s cold expression slipped as he glanced over at Enjolras, who just shrugged. “I can see that you are protective of my son, and while I may not appreciate your tone, I do appreciate knowing that my son has found someone who loves him as...vigorously as you clearly do.”

Grantaire’s eyes narrowed, but Enjolras cleared his throat. “It’s fine,” he told Grantaire, squeezing his hand once more. “I trust her enough to have a conversation with her, and I can fight my own battles as needed.”

“Are you certain?” Grantaire asked in an undertone, eyeing Enjolras’s mother warily. “I believe you can fight your own battles, but it’s her I don’t trust…”

Enjolras rolled his eyes affectionately. “I have managed this long,” he assured him. 

“Fine.” Grantaire stood, but before leaving, he bent and kissed Enjolras, a long, slow kiss that Enjolras was fairly certain was for his mother’s benefit more than his own.

Not that he minded, since getting to kiss Grantaire and enrage his mother in the same blow was as close to perfection as Enjolras was likely to see in his lifetime.

Then Grantaire straightened again and winked at Enjolras before finally leaving, sidling past his mother with little more than a second glance. For her part, his mother looked mostly impassive at the display she had just witnessed, and she finally fully entered the room, perching imperiously on the armchair. “I suppose it’s too much to hope for tea,” she said with a sniff. 

Enjolras barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. “You might have heard that my butler was attacked,” he said sourly. “I’m sorry if him being laid up recovering from being shot is inconvenient to you.”

“I did hear about Porter, yes, but that’s not to what I was referring,” she said. “Have the servants started fleeing en masse?”

“None have yet offered their resignations, if that’s what you mean,” Enjolras said.

“Of course it’s what I mean,” she snapped. “This is a tainted household now – I doubt most will want to stay. Especially as they’ve no way to ingratiate themselves with whomever the next Marquess will be.” Her lips pursed again. “Do you even know which distant relative is your heir, now that you will almost certainly never sire children of your own?”

Enjolras shrugged unconcernedly. “A third cousin, isn’t it? Lives somewhere out in the west, if memory serves.”

Her eyebrows knit together. “I’m surprised you know that.”

“You once told me all about him when I threatened to abdicate after Father died,” Enjolras said mildly. “You seemed to think it would convince me to think otherwise.”

“Clearly it did.”

Enjolras laughed dryly. “I hate to tell you, Mother, but that actually played a very small part in my decision.”

She scowled. “Perhaps you should have abdicated back then. It may have made for an easier transition for all involved.”

“Perhaps so,” Enjolras said honestly, as it wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed his mind. “But we are well past that point now.”

“In more ways than one.” She paused, giving him a searching look. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in trying to convince you to reconsider.”

Enjolras shook his head. “None.”

His mother nodded, her expression unreadable. “Then that’s the end of it.”

Enjolras hesitated, before saying, as casually as he could manage, “You seem…decidedly less surprised by this whole situation than I would expect.”

“What precisely is there to be surprised about?” she asked.

There were any number of things that Enjolras had expected her to be either shocked or scandalized by, let alone surprised, but the look on her face stopped him. “You mean…you knew?”

“That you were…otherwise inclined?” she provided delicately. “Of course I knew. A mother always knows.” Her expression twisted. “Though I rather hoped you would grow out of it, or at least do the sensible thing and marry a woman while seeking your amusement elsewhere.”

Enjolras shook his head slowly. “I’m not certain I see that as the sensible thing.”

She considered it for a moment before shrugging. “Perhaps not,” she said. “But more sensible than being stripped of your lands and titles.”

“Not all my lands, or all my titles,” Enjolras told her. “The Viscount of Digne is the only major one.”

She made a face. “No real loss there, the bishop in that area rules it with an iron fist and will probably be glad to see the backside of our family.”

Enjolras trusted her to know more about it than he did or frankly cared to. “And there’s a few minor lands that will be redistributed but for the most part, Grantaire and I have made it out unscathed.”

Again his mother made a face. “I don’t know that I would go that far—”

“I imagine you wouldn’t,” Enjolras muttered.

“—But all things considered, it could have been much worse.”

On that, at least, she was correct. “And I’m certain you’ll be glad to know that your own holdings will not be affected, nor your allowance,” he told her. “And Grantaire is letting you keep the dowry.”

That seemed to surprise her. “That is...generous of him,” she allowed, before frowning at her son. “But you speak as if all you think I care about is money.”

Enjolras just arched an eyebrow. “You have given me little evidence to suggest otherwise.”

“Caring about the well-being of my only son isn’t evidence enough?”

He managed not to roll his eyes, but just barely. “Faux sincerity isn’t your strong suit, Mother,” he informed her. “If you wish to convince me, you’ll have to try a different tack.”

To his surprise, she laughed lightly. “Maybe I will, when all the dust has settled,” she said, standing and brushing invisible dust from her skirt before telling him, “I will be leaving the city for the near future, and possibly even the country for a bit. I need my friends and allies at court to think that I was not party to this.”

“You weren’t,” Enjolras said, his brow furrowed. “And you are certainly at liberty to tell anyone you need to as such.”

“I have, and I will,” she said. “But I will also not outwardly condemn you the way they would wish, and that to some is enough to make them think otherwise.”

For the first time in what Enjolras was certain was his entire life, he was speechless. He had frankly expected her to do exactly that in order to maintain her social standing. “You could,” he blurted, ignoring the raised eyebrow she gave him. “Condemn us, I mean. I would not hold it against you if you did.”

“You and I both know that you absolutely would,” she said dryly. “But more than that, you are my son. For all your faults and all our disagreements, public and otherwise, that has never changed. And it will not change now.”

Enjolras was again taken aback by what she said. “Thank you,” he managed, before adding, a little wryly, “I think.”

A small smile crossed her face. “You’re welcome, I think. And now I should leave you to the start of your new life.”

She turned to head to the door, clearly deeming her role in this complete for the time being, but Enjolras stopped her, his curiosity getting the better of him. “What do you think of Grantaire?” he asked. “Now that you know what he is to me.”

She looked back at him, surprised. “You have never sought my approval before.”

“And I’m not seeking it now,” Enjolras said. “Just curious what you think.”

She nodded slowly. “He is not who I would have chosen for you,” she said after a long moment. “But then again, this life is not what I would have chosen for you.”

It was no more than what Enjolras had expected, but before he could say anything, she continued, “I know what you think of me, that you think me cold, and vain, and cruel. And there is certainly more than a little truth to that.” He looked up at her sharply, surprised by this most of all. “I know I shall always play the role of villain in your story. But despite what you may think, I have only ever wanted you to be happy.” She hesitated. “And it makes me terribly sad to know you have chosen a path where the world very well may never let you be happy.”

Enjolras just shook his head slowly. “The difference between you and I, Mother, is that I have never needed the approval of the world to be happy.” He gave her a sharp smile. “Hang what anyone else thinks. So long as I have Grantaire, we will make our own happiness.”

She returned his smile. “I do not doubt that you will. As I said before, you two make quite the pair, and whatever else you may think, I am glad that you two found each other.”

With that, she left, and Enjolras sat where he was for a long moment, digesting everything that had transpired. This had been a day of surprises, from his meeting with the King and Queen to now his conversation with his mother, and he shook his head slowly before standing to go find Grantaire.

He found him in the library, sitting sideways in an oversized armchair, his legs draped over the arm of the chair as he skimmed through a book with seemingly little interest. He brightened when he saw Enjolras come in, tipping his head up automatically for a kiss. “Is she gone?” he asked as Enjolras settled onto the sofa across from him.

“For now, yes.”

Grantaire’s eyes narrowed. “But not forever?”

Enjolras shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not even this scandal was enough to be rid of her forever. But I am...strangely not as bothered by that thought as I once would have been.”

Grantaire blinked. “Did she hit you on the head while she was in there with you?”

“Something like that, anyway,” Enjolras said with a laugh. “But enough about my mother. Where were we?”

He eyed Grantaire appreciatively, mentally trying to determine the mechanics of what they could do with him in that position, and Grantaire scowled. “Certainly not doing that,” he informed him, sitting upright. “You were finishing telling me about your audience with the King and Queen.”

“Oh. Right.” Enjolras shrugged and looked away. “Well, the Archbishop is apparently pushing for us to be excommunicated.”

Grantaire snorted. “Does that mean I no longer have to go to church?” he asked idly. 

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “Well, among other things. But there’s an issue.”

“What’s that?”

“We could be imprisoned if we’re excommunicated, for a start.”

Grantaire just arched an eyebrow. “Just as we could be imprisoned for sodomy?”

Enjolras made a face. “The Crown has no intention of pursuing those charges,” he said. “But getting excommunicated could lend credence to future attempts at levying those charges, at likely the least opportune time.”

Grantaire considered it for a moment. “Well. We’ve faced worse prospects.”

Enjolras frowned. “You seem remarkably blasé about the prospect of excommunication, considering how concerned you’ve been about the possibility of imprisonment or worse for the other charges.”

“Mostly because you don’t seem particularly worried about it, and I imagine if this were an actual threat, you’d be somewhat less calm,” Grantaire said evenly. “Besides, I had several glasses of whiskey while you were out so it will take quite a bit for me to get riled at this point.”

“You didn’t seem to have any difficulty getting riled at my mother,” Enjolras pointed out.

Grantaire smiled grimly. “That was a more immediate danger.”

Enjolras shook his head. “Well, you’re not wrong about this not being an actual threat, I suppose. The Monarchy has little desire to create a public spectacle via excommunication and as the Head of the Church, I imagine that’s the end of the matter.”

Grantaire nodded slowly. “Does that mean you’re actually going to tell me what’s wrong?”

“Excommunication isn’t enough?” Enjolras asked, mostly rhetorically, and when Grantaire just gave him a look, he sighed. “Fine… I need to get word to Combeferre and Courfeyrac. We have much to discuss ahead of our next meeting.”

“Are you purposefully avoiding the question, or…?”

“I promise I am not,” Enjolras said, his voice low. “But they need to know, because this concerns all of us.” He paused, trying to figure out how to word what he needed to tell both Grantaire and his closest lieutenants. “I was...as surprised as any that the King did not wish to pursue any additional punitive matters. As a whole, the punishment dealt to me is mild, to say the least. And what troubles me is the reason he gave for why.”

Grantaire frowned. “He gave you a reason?”

Enjolras barked a dry, humorless laugh. “Oh, he gave me many. Most were mere platitudes, that out of respect for the service of my father, he would take no additional measures, etcetera, but he also alluded to his hope that our...situation would not inconvenience my political work.” He cleared his throat before adding sardonically, “That he hoped our allies would not abandon us with my public declaration of depravity.”

“And you suspect he actually hopes the opposite,” Grantaire said slowly.

Enjolras nodded. “I’m not going to pretend that my political sympathies are or have ever been well-received at court, and I think most were content to look the other way and pretend that the protests and political actions were the fun side project of an otherwise bored noble. Something I would grow out of in time. But now…”

He trailed off, and Grantaire’s expression turned grim. “Now they might not be so content to look the other way.”

“No,” Enjolras agreed. “And if I or any of our number were to get arrested—”

“Arrested again, you mean,” Grantaire said with the hint of a smile that Enjolras did not return.

“—My position is no longer enough to stave off any significant consequences.” 

Grantaire went very still. “Meaning what?”

“Meaning I may not be ruined. We may not be ruined. But Les Amis may be.”

----------

In lieu of coming over to Enjolras’s to discuss the situation, Combeferre suggested via return message that they call a special meeting of Les Amis. “That seems unusual,” Grantaire murmured, his brow furrowed as he read over the brief message. “Why would they not just come here?”

Enjolras shrugged. “Perhaps they don’t want to be seen entering a den of sin,” he said, more blithely than he remotely felt.

“Jest all you wish, but you cannot pretend the thought hasn’t entered your mind,” Grantaire said. “Not that I believe any of our friends will turn on us entirely, but they are all trying to make marriages of their own, and to be tainted by association…”

He trailed off, and Enjolras just shook his head. “That is their prerogative, and I will not hold it against any man to abide by his conscience.”

“Or by the prospect of increasing his purse?” Grantaire asked sourly.

Enjolras shrugged again. “If that is truly their reasoning, I doubt highly we would be associates for much longer in any case.”

Still, it was with an unusual amount of trepidation that they approached the Musain, and Enjolras hesitated before instructing his driver to drop them off at the back of the building by the worker’s entrance. “I do not doubt they would still receive us at the front entrance,” he told Grantaire. “I am, after all, still a marquess and a certain amount of respect must be paid. But I would rather not put them in that position all the same.”

Grantaire managed a wan smile. “You need not explain yourself to me,” he said. “I understand as well as any that the situation is complicated.”

Enjolras glanced at him. “Speaking of,” he said carefully, “have you heard yet from your father?”

“No.” Grantaire’s tone was clipped as he avoided meeting Enjolras’s eyes, looking out the carriage window instead. “I have not heard from him one way or another, so I have no indication if he has yet received Le Cabuc’s letter.”

“Could Le Cabuc have been bluffing?”

Grantaire shrugged. “Anything’s possible, but I doubt it,” he said. “He always did prefer my father to me.” He hesitated before adding, “I thought I might make a preemptive trip back to the house and gather some belongings. Just some personal effects, and things from my mother and sister that I would rather not lose to my father’s whims.”

Enjolras nodded slowly. “That is probably not a terrible idea.” He hesitated before asking, “Do you wish for me to accompany you?”

“I suspect that would cause more problems than it’s worth,” Grantaire said. “If I go by myself, I can hopefully slip in and out mostly unnoticed.”

Enjolras had expected that answer, but he couldn’t pretend that it didn’t sting, just a little. “Of course.”

Something of what he was feeling must’ve shown on his face, but Grantaire’s expression softened as he added, “Which doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t love for you to return with me, or that I won’t miss you dreadfully while I’m gone.”

“But this is the reality of the life we’ve chosen,” Enjolras said heavily. “Going in the servants’ entrance to avoid being seen. Travelling incognito to not cause a scene. Less visitors or invitations to visit because people won’t wish to be associated with us.”

Grantaire eyed him warily. “I feel as though you are trying to make a point.”

Enjolras shrugged. “Just that I do not care about any of those things. But I would understand if you did, and if the reality of our life together does not align with what you may otherwise have expected.”

To his surprise, Grantaire laughed. “How many times must you and I have this conversation?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I wish that you had chosen a better life for yourself than one stuck with me, who was always titleless and is about to be in short order landless and penniless to boot, just as you wish I had chosen a better life for myself,” Grantaire said, a little impatiently. “But you and I both know that the best choice, the only choice, is each other and whatever accompanies that.”

Enjolras laughed as well, feeling a little relieved that they were on the same page in terms of what mattered. “You’re right.”

“I usually am,” Grantaire said smugly before reaching for Enjolras’s hand and lacing their fingers together. Une vie et un amour, remember?”

“Fidelitas usque ad mortem,” Enjolras said, his voice low, and Grantaire smiled.

“And I still aim to be.”

Together, they stepped down from the carriage and made their way into the Musain through the backdoor. The workers they passed barely gave them second glances, though Enjolras assumed that was likely because they recognized them as frequent patrons, and knew better than to stop or question them.

But despite arriving almost a half hour before the meeting Combeferre had called was set to begin, when they reached the backroom, they could hear the buzz of voices through the closed door. Grantaire gave him a startled look. “Has the meeting already begun?”

“It certainly appears that way,” Enjolras said, feeling inexplicably nervous as he stared at the closed door, straining to hear what was being said beyond it.

“Did Combeferre not say that it would start at 9?”

Enjolras nodded. “He did, but…” He trailed off, not willing to vocalize his doubts. Instead, he squared his shoulders and opened the door, walking in with Grantaire at his side. Combeferre and Courfeyrac stood at the front of the room, the rest of their number assembled, all looking unusually somber, and all conversation stalled as soon as they looked back at Enjolras. “Forgive the interruption,” Enjolras said coolly, closing the door behind him. “I did not realize the hour of our meeting had changed.”

“It didn’t,” Combeferre said, his expression impassive. “But there was certain business we felt we should attend to before your arrival.”

“What sort of business?” Grantaire asked with a frown.

Combeferre did not seem deterred by his tone. “The business of determining if your continued membership amongst our association is beneficial or a detriment, mostly.”

“I see,” Enjolras said, his heart sinking in his chest. “Well, don’t let us impede your discussion.”

“We have nothing left to discuss,” Courfeyrac interjected. “All that remains is to vote.”

Grantaire reached out and took Enjolras’s hand, lacing their fingers together firmly. Combeferre cleared his throat. “All those in favor of expelling Enjolras and Grantaire from our number due to their sexual deviance and the threat that it poses to Les Amis and our efforts?”

Not a single hand rose in the air, and Grantaire squeezed Enjolras’s hand.

“And all those opposed?”

As one, all of their friends raised their hands before standing and applauding. Joly and Bossuet were positively beaming, Courfeyrac wolf-whistled, and Combeferre stepped forward to embrace Enjolras. “There was never any doubt which way the vote would go,” he told Enjolras, “but I knew you would not be satisfied if there was no vote at all.”

“Besides, if we start exiling people for buggery, there are more than a few of us who would be in trouble,” Courfeyrac said cheerfully as he embraced Enjolras as well.

“Hear, hear,” Bahorel chortled.

Joly took Bossuet’s hand and squeezed it. “Grantaire helped us avoid a scandal of our own, and we owe him our loyalty,” he said. “Besides which, I swore to go through fire for you, and I would not forsake that oath lightly.”

“Thank you, my friends,” Enjolras said quietly, his chest tight with emotion.

Grantaire squeezed his hand once more before leaning in and whispering in his ear, “It appears I am not the only one who understands the meaning of loyalty until death.” Enjolras wordlessly squeezed his hand in return and Grantaire smiled at him before asking Courfeyrac, “But one of our number is missing, is he not? Where is your erstwhile roommate this evening?”

“Oh, he has found the girl he was looking for,” Courfeyrac said airily. “It turns out your little announcement was good for more than one thing – she was the one who swooned in his arms!”

Much laughter greeted that announcement and Enjolras shook his head. “Leave it to Marius…” he started before trailing off, glancing around the room at the smiling faces of each of his friends, all those whom he loved most in this world. “Thank you all,” he said softly. “I know this will not be easy, but I appreciate your continued faith and love.”

“Our goal has always been to fight against oppressive powers in whatever form,” Combeferre told him. “And condemning men based on consensual acts in their bed chamber would be playing into that oppression.”

“Just promise us one thing,” Bossuet interjected.

Enjolras raised both eyebrows. “What’s what?”

“No funny business,” Bossuet said, mock-sternly. “No suddenly agreeing with everything the other says just because it’s your lover saying it.”

Again everyone laughed and Enjolras shook his head good-naturedly. “I don’t think we’re in much danger of that.”

“After all,” Grantaire added slyly, “what I love far more than him agreeing with me is that delightful shade of red he gets when he so vehemently disagrees with me. Who am I to give that up now?”

“In truth,” Enjolras said when the laughter again died down, “we aim to keep things as much the same as we can.” 

“And we’ll be relying on you lot to keep it that way,” Grantaire said. 

“There’s one other promise we would ask,” Feuilly said, glancing around. “Or at least, that I would ask.”

Enjolras’s smile faded, just slightly, at Feuilly’s far more serious tone. “If it is in our power to grant it, we will.”

“No more lies.” There were a few murmurs of agreement that Feuilly waited to die down before continuing, “There is not a man among us who does not understand the reason for your deception, but we in this room are brothers, and we deserve the truth no matter what consequence it may bring.”

Grantaire took Enjolras’s hand once more and squeezed it before affirming, “No more lies. We owe not just you the truth from here on out, but each other as well. And it’s the very least that we can give in return for your generosity and personal sacrifices.”

“In that case, let us open the wine and get the celebration started,” Jehan called, standing up on his chair to be seen. “To Enjolras and Grantaire!”

“To Enjolras and Grantaire!” everyone repeated, whatever glasses they had in hand, and Enjolras rolled his eyes with obvious affection before leaning in and kissing Grantaire as everyone cheered.

Grantaire was grinning as he pulled away, and that sight alone was enough to make everything they had endured and everything that they had left to endure absolutely worth it in Enjolras’s opinion. But before he could say anything to that effect to Grantaire, Joly and Bossuet grabbed Grantaire by both arms, tugging him away. “You owe us more than mere truth,” Joly said, with an almost evil grin. “You owe us details.”

“Exactly,” Bossuet said, wearing a matching smile. “And we want to hear all about your first time bedding Enjolras.”

“We promised the truth, not all the gory details,” Grantaire protested, making a pleading face at Enjolras, who just laughed. 

Before he could rescue him, Combeferre pulled him aside. “I wanted a moment, if it is not too much of an imposition.”

Enjolras clapped him on the shoulder. “For you, my friend, never. Especially as I believe I owe you especially an apology for our deceit.”

Combeferre shook his head. “I understand it more now,” he said. “And honestly, I’m surprised I did not put the pieces together earlier.”

“Grantaire said he was always a little obvious, even if I never noticed either,” Enjolras said good-naturedly.

But Combeferre just shook his head. “Grantaire may have been, but it’s you I should have noticed.”

“Me?”

Combeferre shrugged. “Looking back on it, all the clues were there, least of all how you allowed Grantaire to stay, not just for meetings, but well into the night when you were ostensibly working, a privilege bestowed on no one else. And I cannot help but think that if I had noticed sooner, we would have had more time to plan, to minimize the fallout.”

Enjolras just shook his head. “My friend, you could have told me until you were blue in the face that I was completely and obviously in love with Grantaire, and I would never have believed you,” he said. “It was something I needed to figure out with him.” He made a face. “Though you are right that I should have told you sooner, before we made our announcement, so that plans could have been made in advance, and for that, I do owe you an apology.”

“One that I readily accept,” Combeferre told him. “And the only recompense I ask from you is the answer to this: are you happy?”

“Yes,” Enjolras said, without even needing to consider it. “More so than I thought was possible, or at least probable.”

Combeferre gave him a wide, genuine smile. “Then the rest we will deal with when or if the time comes.”

Again, Enjolras’s chest felt tight with emotion, with the weight of how much his friends cared for him and Grantaire. “I truly do not know how to thank you, how to thank everyone, for what you have given Grantaire and myself.”

“There is no need to thank us,” Combeferre said. “Especially since you have given us something equally precious.”

“What do you mean?”

“You are free,” Combeferre said simply. “And that gives the rest of us hope.”

----------

Enjolras let out a sigh of relief mingled with happiness as he sat down in the waiting carriage. Grantaire clambered in after him, and sat down on the bench next to him instead of sitting across from him. “That went well.”

“That went far better than well,” Enjolras said.

Grantaire glanced sideways at him. “Surely you did not expect Combeferre or Courfeyrac to abandon you, or honestly any of our friends.”

Enjolras just shrugged. “In truth, I did not know what to expect.” He nudged Grantaire gently. “Thank you, by the way.”

“Whatever for?”

“For making my life complete,” Enjolras said honestly. “And so completely happy.”

Grantaire smiled at him, his eyes shining even in the dim light of the carriage, but he promptly ruined the moment by asking, “How much wine did you drink?”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “I had half a glass at best,” he protested. “Not nearly enough to undermine my sincerity. Nor my conviction that somehow, against all odds and, frankly, against our own efforts to the contrary, everything for us is turning out better than I ever could have imagined, let alone hoped.”

Grantaire rested his head against Enjolras’s shoulder. “We have been extraordinarily lucky,” he murmured.

“We have been,” Enjolras agreed, squeezing Grantaire’s hand. “We have our friends, and we have each other. Whatever else comes our way, so long as we still have that, we will be fine.”

“More than fine,” Grantaire corrected, raising Enjolras’s hand to his lips to kiss his knuckles. “Our future will be happy. Of that, I am as certain as anything.”

“Being in love really has changed you if you suddenly start espousing convictions,” Enjolras teased.

But Grantaire just smiled at him. “It’s changed us both.”

“For the better?” Enjolras asked.

Grantaire kissed him, a gentle, sweet kiss that was a promise of more to come. “For the best.”

[melzula]

The Reunion

*part of the Fire Lilies series

request: Could you write a Fire Lilies blurb about Zuko's and Princess! Reader's reunion when he joins Team Avatar?

The atmosphere is oddly tense when you wake up that morning and head out for breakfast. Aang and Sokka refuse to meet your gaze and Katara keeps her eyes set on the pot of rice before her. Unlike her brother and the Avatar, her eyes are more firm and hard set.

“Did I miss something?” You muse inquisitively. Sokka begins to sweat nervously, and you take that as an opportunity to narrow your gaze at the boy- if anyone’s going to break first it’s going to be him. “Sokka?”

“Zuko was here!” He finally blurts, earning a fiery gaze from his sister.

“Sokka!”

“I’m sorry! I couldn’t hold it in anymore, it was killing me!”

“What?” You gasp softly. Your bowl of rice begins to tremble in your pottery crushing grasp, and you feel absolutely sick to your stomach.

“He came yesterday while you were exploring with Haru,” Aang explains gently while trying his best not to upset you. “He wanted to join our team and teach me fire bending. He said he’s changed.”

“He was obviously just trying to trick us so he could turn us over to his crazy sister,” Sokka adds indifferently. “And he admitted to sending Combustion Man after us!”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” you grumble whilst angrily stabbing at your rice with your chopsticks.

“He... also asked for you,” Aang says, causing you to go wide eyed. “He wants you to know how sorry he is for everything he’s done to you.”

“We didn’t tell you because we didn’t want to upset you,” Katara consoles in response to your uneasy silence. “You’ve been so much better off without him, you don’t need him trying to uproot your life again.”

“I appreciate the sentiment but you don’t have to keep secrets from me,” you argue. “I’m glad I didn’t see him, but I have the right to know about him.”

Katara isn’t able to say anything more as Toph tumbles through the rocks with a groan.

“Toph!” You exclaim, rushing to her side and gasping at the sight of her feet. You’re quick to coat her burned skin in a pool of water, making sure to lower the temperature so that it’s nice and cool against her wounds.

“My feet got burned,” she frowns. “I went to see Zuko last night-“

“Zuko did this?!” You seethe. Anger and fury flow through your veins at the thought of him hurting the girl who’s basically become like a little sister to you.

“Hey, easy with the water there your highness,” Toph complains, and you barely notice that your anger has caused the water’s temperature to rise.

“Sorry,” you murmur apologetically as Sokka and Aang lift Toph from the ground and set her feet into the fountain.

“That’s the stuff,” she sighs contently. “Now I know how you guys feel. It stinks not being able to see with your feet.”

“How did this happen?” Katara asks.

“I kind of startled him, it was an accident.”

“Accident or no accident, Zuko is obviously too dangerous to be left alone. We have to go after him.”

“Go after him?” You repeat uneasily, despising the worry that begins to wrap around your heart at the thought of them going after Zuko. Why do you still care?

“I have to agree with Sokka,” Aang sighs. “I hate looking for fights but we have to do this.”

“Toph said it was an accident, can’t we just let him go?”

“Why are you defending him? He burned her feet! He’s obviously still evil,” Katara criticizes.

“I’m not defending him! I’m just saying maybe it’s better if we just avoid him. Seeking Zuko out will only lead to more trouble,” you try to rationalize, but your fellow water bender isn’t having it.

“Leaving him alone means there’s a chance he can hurt someone else. Wouldn’t you have wanted someone to stop Zuko from hurting you before it was too late?!” The question leaves you misty eyed and hurt, but you don’t have time to argue when a harsh blast shakes the earth underneath you. You’re quick to scoop Toph up into your arms before being guided to safety by Sokka.

You focus your attention on tending to Toph while the others fight off Combustion Man, keeping her safe since she can’t use her bending to protect herself. The battle doesn’t last very long thankfully, but now you find yourself facing a new obstacle.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this but, thanks Zuko.”

“Hey, and what about me? I did the boomerang thing,” Sokka points out, and you’d laugh if you weren’t so conflicted at the sight of your ex boyfriend before you. He looks so different from the last time you were together; his hair is shaggier and he looks a bit leaner, his eyes are tired and full of remorse. You do your best to conceal yourself behind Sokka, holding onto his arm for comfort and refusing to meet the Prince’s gaze.

“I know I didn’t explain myself very well yesterday. I’ve been through a lot in the past few years, and it’s been hard. But I’m realizing that I had to go through all those things to learn the truth. I thought I had lost my honor, and that somehow my father could return it to me. But I know now that no one can give you your honor. It’s something you earn for yourself by choosing to do what’s right.”

His eyes meet your own then, apologetic and full of longing for your forgiveness. You had tried to explain that same truth to him countless times before during your time abroad together, and each time it only seemed to go in one ear and out through the other. He had to learn the lesson on his own, and now that he finally had he was ready to follow your advice. He just hopes that you’ll let him. You look away and give Sokka’s arm a squeeze to which the boy responds by taking your hand in his own, and Zuko deflates slightly at the action.

“All I want to do is play my part to help you end the war and restore balance to the world. I know it’s my destiny, and I hope you’ll allow me the opportunity to see it through,” Zuko admits humbly. He turns to Toph. “I’m sorry for what I did to you. It was an accident, and I need to learn to be more in control of my fire bending so that I don’t hurt people unintentionally.”

A single tear slides down your cheek at his admission and you’re quick to brush it away. Don’t hurt people unintentionally. It was a little too late for that, wasn’t it?

“I think you are supposed to be my fire bending teacher, and I’d like you to teach me,” Aang says. “But I can’t let you join our team without asking my friends first.”

With each member of the group giving their acceptance, some more reluctant than others, of Zuko becoming Aang’s fire bending instructor, all eyes land upon you as the deciding vote.

“Y/n?” Aang calls gently, forcing you to meet your friend’s caring gaze. “I know how much pain you’ve been through and how long it’s taken you to overcome your heartbreak. Are you going to be comfortable with Zuko joining our group?”

Sokka’s arm comes to wrap around your shoulders comfortingly as you shrink under everyone’s gaze. At least a full minute passes before you finally will yourself to meet Zuko’s hopeful gaze. His eyes are different than the one’s you last saw in the cave, softer and lacking the malice they had once held, but you still can’t look at him without seeing the same boy who had intended to burn you in order to appease his sister. You swallow harshly and will the tears away from your eyes.

“I’m willing to put my feelings aside for your sake, Aang,” you finally answer. “Defeating the Fire Lord is more important than anything else.”

“I won’t let you down! I promise!” Zuko beams, and the group begins to disperse until it’s only you and him standing face to face. His features soften, remorse immediately washing over him as he takes a step forward. “Y/n, I-”

Zuko stumbles forward, struggling to regain his balance as he finds he cannot move; you’ve frozen his feet to the floor. He looks at you wide eyed and astonished, a hint of amazement at just how much you’ve improved since the last time he saw you.

You’ve spent countless sleepless nights figuring out what you’d say to Zuko if you ever saw him again- if you’d yell and curse his name to every spirit within ear shot, if you’d cry and scream with anguish, if you’d tell him off or welcome him with open arms. But now, with Zuko standing frozen before you, you find that you have nothing to say to him.

You leave Zuko behind to unfreeze his own feet, silently following Toph and Sokka back into the temple.

| tags: @titaniafire @dekahg @emberislandplayers @kikaninchen-2 @multi-fandomstan @eridanuswave @royahllty @lozzybowe @izzieserra @melacholy @music-geek19 @thia-aep @thyunnamed @kittenthekat1234567890 @haylaansmi @nataliahaslosthershit @coldlilheart @idkdude776 @aangsupremacy @thirstyforsometea |

[s1utspeare]

'You can barely keep your eyes open.. When was the last time you slept?' / 'You're burning up' with Huo Daofu × Wu xie

Ooooohhhh anon this is a good one! We're doing some HuoXie (is that their ship name? idk) from their COLLEGE YEARS bc i am personally a big fan of the headcanon that they both studied abroad in germany and dated. >:)

Send me a prompt and some characters and I'll write some whump!

Wu Xie has never been angelic. He's too rough for that, a bite in his eyes that scares Huo Daofu sometimes; it's the promise of some sort of future mischief, of adventure. If your friend jumped off a bridge, would you? For Wu Xie, the answer is obviously yes. He's the middle between paradise and damnation; not purgatory, but earth, exhilaration and longing and pain and pleasure.

Right now, though, lounging on Huo Daofu's tiny dorm bed, one leg crooked up, holding a novel in one hand and flipping through it with the other, eyes half-lidded and careful, he seems something like heaven.

Huo Daofu puts his pencil down. He's been scratching away at chemistry equations for the past three hours; it's exam week, and he's drowning in an ocean of his own undertaking. Medical school is difficult. Wu Xie's architecture degree is envious.

"You're looking," Wu Xie says, not taking his eyes off of the page.

"How would you know?" Huo Dafou asks.

"I can sense your eyes," Wu Xie says, which is probably only half-true; the other half means that Wu Xie's been looking back.

Huo Daofu puts his head down on the table, groans. "I hate chemistry."

"You hate chemistry in German," Wu Xie corrects, turning yet another page, and honestly Huo Daofu isn't even sure that he's actually reading the book anymore.

"Da," Huo Daofu agrees, because that is the truth. He's so much smarter in Mandarin.

Wu Xie finally puts the book down, and Huo Daofu watches him stretch, his image turned horizontal. He gets off the bed and comes over to Huo Daofu at the desk, lean, supple fingers massaging his shoulders.

"Ooh, you're tight," he murmurs, and Huo Daofu sputters.

"Do you have to say it like that?"

"Like what?" Wu Xie asks innocently, but the bend at the corner of his lips is anything but.

"Menace," Huo Daofu says, but his shoulders are starting to loosen up, and that does feel very nice. "Mm."

"You're exhausted," Wu Xie says, and if Huo Daofu didn't know any better, he'd swear that that was concern in Wu Xie's voice. "Look at you. You can barely keep your eyes open. When was the last time you slept?"

"A while," Huo Daofu says vaguely, because he doesn't know himself. "I don't know."

"You should sleep," Wu Xie tells him, and yes, Wu Xie, thank you. Huo Daofu is the medical student here. "It's not good for you to go too long without rest."

"I know," Huo Daofu mumbles.

"You get cranky," Wu Xie continues.

"I kno—what?"

"Got you," Wu Xie says, voice lilting with the upturn of his mouth, and then he leans forward, kisses the back of Huo Daofu's neck. Huo Daofu shivers.

"Stop," he says, "I have to study."

"No," Wu Xie says, "You have to go to bed."

"It's finals week."

"Yes, and I'm very lonely," Wu Xie sighs. "I've been so good, keeping myself occupied, but you've been neglecting me, A-Fu."

"Don't call me that."

"Your name?"

"Your name," Huo Daofu says. "The one you gave me. I haven't claimed that one at all."

"Do we ever claim ownership of our names?" Wu Xie muses. "Unless we choose them for ourselves. Like Xiao Hua. He's very protective of that."

"Understandable," Huo Daofu says. "He didn't get a choice the first time around."

"True," Wu Xie says. He drapes himself over Huo Daofu's back, sighs into his hair. "Please? Pay attention to me for once?"

"You're so annoying," Huo Daofu mutters, picking up his pencil again and trying to make an effort to look as though he's going to get back to work. "Leave me alone."

"Oh, you wouldn't want that," Wu Xie says into his ear. "Your life would be so boring without me."

"It would be safer," Huo Daofu says.

"Oh, no doubt." Wu Xie does not seem insulted by the insinuation that he is the cause of all the troubles in Huo Daofu's life, which he is (though he's also the cause of most of his elation). "But where would be the fun in that."

Huo Daofu, internally, accepts that he will no longer be getting any work done, and shuts his pencil into his textbook. Wu Xie gives a little thrill on top of him, and Huo Daofu turns in his chair so that he can look up at him.

"You want me to rest?" he asks, challenges.

Wu Xie's eyes are hungry, the flicker of a forest fire. "Yes."

"Alright," Huo Daofu says. "Then you'd better exhaust me."

Wu Xie is all too happy to oblige.

[melancholydreadfuldream]

Going Under Part Five

Fandom: Doctor Who

 Pairing: 13th Doctor x Reader

 Summary: An accident during a routine adventure made your life spiraled out of control with only the Doctor as the anchor. Will you ever find your way back to your Doctor again?

 Trigger Warning: ooc, angst, plot holes as usual, attempted suicide, dark!doctor, death, insanity, etc. You have been warned.

 More warning: English is not my first language so beware of the headache you will receive upon reading this.

   I found myself materialized inside some poorly lit room, disoriented and confused. I blinked my eyes trying to focus on the current surrounding.

  Suddenly someone strangled me by the neck and pushed me toward a nearby wall. I have no idea who it was that attacked me. I tried to get the hand around my neck off in futile. I groaned in pain as my eyes tried to focus on the attacker.

  "Did Jack send you?" The figure asked coldly.

  I blinked in confusion. I know that voice. I gasped as my vision finally cleared enough. It was the Thirteenth Doctor. As I focused on her sudden appearance, I noticed something off about her. For once, she has a menacing look on her face and she wasn't dressed in her usual outfit. She was dressed in all black and she has different hair style, wavy hair that framed her already beautiful face.

  "Doctor..." I managed to whisper her name.

  She stared at me in surprise and then suddenly snarled angrily. "Don't call me by that name!" she said as she tighten her grip on my neck.

  I gasped like a fish as I couldn't breathe. "It's me...(name)....Doct..." I don't understand why she attacked me but my mind supplied the answer, it is another version of the Doctor, one that apparently also has no idea who I am. "Please..." I begged her for mercy. 

  She glared at me coldly as she continue to cut me off from oxygen.

  A bunch of people barged into the room. They have guns as they demanded the Doctor released me.

  She glanced at me, rolled her eyes and released me as she raised her hands up in mocking gesture of surrender. The Doctor being pulled away from me roughly. I fell to the floor, gasping for breathe.

  A man bend his knees beside me and asked in concern, "Are you okay?"

  My eyes widened again. It was Jack Harkness. I lightly touch my sore throat as I glanced at the Doctor. The Doctor is being restrained. Her expression look bored now as she regarded everyone in the room with disinterest, as if she has not just attacked me violently.

 Jack pulled me up and away from the room where the Doctor is. The room then sealed with complicated lock. I realized it was a holding room, like a prison. I warily stared at Jack.

  Jack told me to sit down in the chair in another room. He wanted to check my neck. "It look bad. I will Tanya to look at it. She is a doctor." He said. "So...how did you get in? That room is deadlock so that nobody get in or out and yet you are able to come in undetected. Who are you?"

  "It's complicated." You said. 

  "Well, try me."

  This is Jack Harkness, a former companion of the Doctor in any universe, so I should be able to trust him, right? Beside, currently, it seemed he is more trustworthy than the Doctor. She just attacked me, after all.

  "Before that, can you tell me what is wrong with the Doctor?"

  Jack looked suspicious of me now. "How do you know the Doctor?"

  "I am her companion...in the alternate universe." I finally relented and tell him the truth.

  To my surprise, he accepted the explanation without much fuss. "I have seen so much in my lifetimes. I'm not surprised that alternate universe come into play now." Jack said with a shrug.

  "What happened to her? And where are Yaz, Ryan and Graham?"

  "Who?"

  "You're kidding. Who is she traveling with then?"

  Jack frowned. "She doesn't travel with anyone as far as I know. She called herself the Valeyard now. She gets angry if anyone call her the Doctor."

  "I noticed." You said as you rubbed your throat while your mind flashback into the room. "What happened to her?"

  Jack sighed. "Honestly I have no idea. I haven't seen the Doctor for a long while suddenly I heard rumors that she went insane, killing and maiming people, blowing up planet. She is not in a mood to be chatty about why she changed." he explained.

  My mind flashed back into a version of dark Doctor I met before, how she torture that person who shot me. I gulped as I have a feeling this version of the Doctor is way more dark than the one I met before after listening what Jack said about the Doctor who called herself the Valeyard. 

  Jack explained to you the prophecy of the Valeyard, a most darker version of the Doctor.

  "How are you able to imprison her then if she is that dangerous?" I asked curiously as I warned him not to underestimate the Doctor, Valeyard, whatever.

  Jack explained he tried to reason with the Doctor at first but that did not end well with her killing Jack's friend as if she is making her point of her no longer the Doctor.

  He tried to multiply times to capture her and stop her reign of evil but failed. It was a genuine luck Jack is able to meet the right people and able to outsmart the Doctor. Or so everyone think. Of course, Jack knew better that it might be a trap. He is trying his best to rehabilitate the Doctor.

  Jack stood up and walked toward the giant computer in the room, one of the monitors showed the room where he imprisoned her.

  "It was like after the last regeneration, she just gave up and actively choose to be the Valeyard..." Jack said. "I heard the rumor of her cruelty...even her kindness is a double edge of sword thing...she is just brutal..." he said. "Of course, I found it weird that we are able to capture her. She is up to something but I have no idea what."

  I frowned as I realized that maybe this world's version of Twelfth Doctor, after he lost Bill and Nardole, regenerated into this dark version of Thirteen Doctor. My heart hurts for her. I thought of my Doctor, how she suffered so many lost and still able to overcome it. Of course, there will be alternate universe where she just gave up.

  "Who was the Doctor's last companion? Was it Bill Potts and Nardole?" I asked Jack and he confirmed it after he checked his file on the computer.

  I coughed suddenly and it turned into a bout of cough as I tried to cover my mouth.

  "Hey, are you okay?" Jack asked me after he noticed the blood between my fingers. He offered me water.

  I cleared my throat, accepted the water and reached around for my medicine but to my horror, I couldn't find the bottle.

  It was then the Doctor, no, the Valeyard suddenly called out from the monitor. "Looking for this?" she asked, showing the bottle of my medicine in her hand. She looked so smug. "I will return it to you, (name), after we talk."

  She knew that I needed the medicine, she somehow knew that the medicine is for internal bleeding. "Tiktok, dear (name)."

  I flinched at her tone. I exchanged a look with Jack. I was afraid to get into the room with her but I do need the damn medicine.

  "It is your call, if you want to talk to her, I will make sure she does not attack you again." Jack said.

  I tried to be brave as I prepared the face her. She wanted to speak to me alone.

  "W-what do you want?" I asked.

  "I'm bored. You are the first entertainment I had in a while." She said with a pout. "I just want a conversation. I promise I will behave." She winked at me.

  Apparently, she is curious about me and how I know her as she never met me before. So, I told her the truth that I am from alternate universe where I am her companion alongside with Yaz, Ryan and Graham.

  She looked curious when I mentioned alternate universe but get bored real quick when I told her my condition is the result of me trying to protect her alternate self. She is more curious about the weapon but I don't know much about it.

  "Can I have my medicine back?" I asked politely.

  She hummed and shook her head. "I think I will hold on to it for a bit. I still have some questions."

  I am nervous around her and get jumpy if she get too close to me and she knew that, still do it on purpose. It feels like I amused her and she is toying me now.

  I gulped. She is acting all nice now but she still feel intimidating. I figured I could hold on for a bit and hope I will splinter away from here soon.

  "So, who gave you this medicine? One of my alternate self?" She asked.

  I nodded.

  Suddenly an alarm sounded loudly making me flinched.

  "Well, that is my cue..." She suddenly said.

  My mind registered what she said a bit slow and before I could do anything, she suddenly took a grip of my wrist.

  With a chilling smile, she said, "You are coming with me."

  "W-why?" I asked dumbly.

  "Like I said I'm bored, your condition is interesting, I want to study it." She grinned menacingly. "Who know, maybe if you are good, I might even get you a cure."

  "N-no."

  She rolled her eyes. "It is cute you think you have a choice." She gripped my wrist so hard I hissed in pain. 

  I laughed at her suddenly. I was hysterical now. "I don't have a choice since this whole thing happened..."

  It was at that moment Jack entered the room with a gun. "Release her, Valeyard!"

  The Valeyard seemed amused with Jack but she did release her grip on my wrist. She suddenly stepped forward menacingly toward Jack.

  "Don't come any closer." Jack warned but she ignored him. He shot her.

  I flinched at the sound of the gun. It was then I felt the tingling.

  The Valeyard laughed as if she is not just gotten shot. "Really, Jack, a gun? You should know better than..."

  I couldn't hear anything anymore as I splinter away from that horrid place.

  7777

  "(name)? (name)!" Someone shook me awake. "Are you okay?" 

  I blinked as my vision cleared up. It was River Song, she is wearing an astronaut suit. "River?" I hesitantly called out. She knew me. Which River is she? "Where are we?"

  "We are in the library." River answered. 

  "Inside the Tardis?"

  "No. We are in a planet called the Library." She explained as she pulled me to stand up. It was then she noticed the red handprint around my wrist. "You are hurt."

  I pulled my wrist away from her but she suddenly reached out to touch my face as she noticed the hand mark around my neck.

  River looked angry. "Who hurt you?"

  "It was a long story." I lied. I finally noticed the Tenth Doctor and he is with Donna, staring at us suspiciously.

  River pulled me to the side and explained that the Doctor and Donna has no idea who I am but she did because she had met me in her past before. "I guess you could say this is the first time you met me, this version of me."

  I had a fit of cough again. 

  "Your medicine..." River said. "You should take one."

  "I can't. Someone took it from me." I said weakly.

  "The same person who leave these marks on you?" 

  I nodded.

  "I would like to have words with this person."

  I felt vulnerable and the way River spoke, she sounded so protective of me, and suddenly I couldn't hold the tears. 

  "It was the Valeyard..." I said.

  River froze in horror at that. "Valeyard?" She asked for confirmation. "You met a version of the Doctor who called himself the Valeyard?"

  "It was her, actually, not a him." I said forlornly.

  River looked sad for me. "I'm sorry, it must be hard for you."

  I glanced at her sadly. She even know what the female version of the Doctor meant to me. She knew I traveled with the Thirteenth Doctor.

  She explained to me what the Valeyard is to me. Like Jack said, it was a darker version of the Doctor devoid of any care for those the Doctor stand for.

  "If you ever met that version of the Doctor again, you should run for your life." River said.

  "Trust me, I never want to see her again. I hope I never have to see her ever again." I said, shuddered at the reminder of the Valeyard's cold, unfeeling eyes on me.

  The Doctor stared at me and River curiously and he suddenly walked toward us. He introduced himself to me. 

  I told him my name. He said hi to me and then asked if I am also someone from his future.

  "She is." River answered for me. "But she can't tell anything more. Spoiler."

  I turned my eyes questioningly at River. I usually have to tell the Doctor about me being alternate companion and stuff.

  River shrugged. "I'm sorry, (name), but I need him not to be distracted right now." She informed me of the vastra nevada situation on their hands. "I suppose you would better off not taking that medicine of yours. The sooner you splinter away from here the better. It isn't safe for you."

  When the situation got worst, the Doctor wanted to send Donna back into the Tardis and River wanted to do the same for you but the Doctor refused, saying he doesn't trust you or River. River tried to calm herself. I felt like she is second away from slapping the hell out of the Doctor.

  I pulled River to the side. "I will be okay, River. I will have to splinter anyway sometime soon." I said. "Beside, you said you met me in the past, so I will probably be okay, we will all survive this situation."

  River still look worried. "Time can be rewritten sometimes..."

  I blinked at her. Wait, so there is a chance we could get eaten by these shadow monster? I internally started to freak out.

  "(name), make sure you stay by my side at all times." River said.

  I am not complaining so I stick by River side.

  After Anita got two shadow on her back and with Donna possibly dead, the Doctor seemed to get emotional and get mad at River. River didn't take his crap and told him to calm down. She whispered something in the Doctor's ear. The Doctor look shocked as he glanced at River. They seemed to talk again in whispers. I got the feeling that they were talking about me now as the Doctor stared at me in curiosity and wonder. 

  River told me that she finally tell the Doctor that I am his alternate future companion and will be someone he need to protect in the future.

  I glanced at River in worry. "Why? What is in my future?"

  River smiled. "Don't worry about it, (name), let focus on now, shall we?"

  They eventually figured out about CAL keeping Donna and the rest of the survivors. The Doctor said he need to download them back and he even goes oncoming storm on the shadow monster, telling them to search information about the Doctor in the library. River suddenly punched the Doctor much to my surprise. She told me the Doctor has to survive the Library. 

  I realized that River is about to sacrifice herself after hearing how the Doctor won't be able to survive the download. "River, isn't there any other way?" I asked in concern. I really don't want her to die. "River!"

  River is busy making the preparation and didn't answer me for a while much to my frustration. She told me that she knew she will die in the Library anyway that today will be her last day to see the Doctor. She said the Doctor knew it too. She suddenly turned at me and grabbed my face. I blinked at her in confusion. She tenderly kissed my forehead. "You will be okay, (name). I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for all the hardship that you will have to endure but remember, you will be okay."

  "River..."

  She released you as she continued her work.

  "There has to be a way, River, you can't die here." I pleaded with her.

  "There is no other way. The Doctor has to survive today or the future will be rewritten." River said. She turned to me and smiled softly. "It's alright, (name), we will see each other again somewhere in your future."

  I couldn't help my eyes being a bit teary, I felt emotional toward River for some reason. She is kind to me from the moment I landed here and she said we are friend and now I discover she will die here? I can't accept it but there is nothing I can do. And, of course, at that moment I felt the tingling. I don't want to leave. I don't want her to die alone.

  River smiled at me. "I know that face. You are about to go, aren't you? Go, (name), It is okay. I would rather you are not here to see what happen next..."

  I hugged her immediately and she hugged me back. I released her and then I was gone.

  7777

  I wiped away the tears in my eyes with my hand so that I could see where I landed to this time. My mouth dropped open when I realized I was in some train in space. Before I could do or say anything, an officer suddenly grabbed me, calling me a stowaway.

  "She is with us." I heard someone said. It was Twelfth Doctor and he is with Clara. They sort it off with the officer and they let me go.

  Clara turned to me and smiled. "It was nice seeing you again, (name)." 

  I smiled at her. "Same. Wait, the last time we met, was it with that time with Robin Hood?" I asked.

  Clara nodded with a laugh.

  I grinned with her before turning to the Doctor who is staring at me calculatingly. I suddenly felt self-conscious about the marks on my neck and wrist which thankfully I was able to cover with my coat but I have a feeling that he already saw a glimpse of it. I cursed myself for not being careful.

  Clara pulled my arms and took us to the scene of party.

  I scrunched my nose at the taste of the drink. "I don't like it."

  Clara grinned and talked to me about how I am doing so I lied that I am okay so far.

  I felt out of place in here due not wearing the period-appropriate dress for the occasion. I have fun in the party, eating some of the food. I watched as Clara and the Doctor talked to each other but I couldn't hear their conversation but they both looked sad for some reason.

  There was some incident on the train. Some old lady died after yelling loudly about some intruder. I glanced at the Doctor, wondering if he will investigate and Clara asked the same but the Doctor said it was nothing.

  Clara took me to a room on the train. I felt happy to see a bed but also annoyed realizing I couldn't rest properly for I don't have the medicine to delay splinter. But I used the time I have to wash my face and body. I suddenly remembered how the last Eleventh Doctor licked my face. I scrunched my nose and washed my face again.

  After that, Clara and I shared a bed as we tried to get some rest. We couldn't though so we ended up talking. Clara told me she wanted to stop traveling with the Doctor and that today trip apparently supposed to be their last hurrah. I felt bad now to crash it with my appearance but she told me not to. She said she is happy to see me again and once again asked if I am really okay as she pointed to the marks on my neck. Apparently, she noticed it too.

  I sighed. "I am fine now at least. I'm just...tired you know. I want to go home. I just...wonder if I will ever..." I shook my head tiredly.

  Clara wrapped her arms around me suddenly, rubbing my back in comforting gesture. I am grateful for the comfort all the alternate Doctors and their companions gave me. I remembered what River said about me will be okay but I don't feel like I will though. In fact, I almost feel like I'm about to have a nervous breakdown soon.

  Clara couldn't sleep so she goes to the Doctor, wanting to investigate if there is something going on in the train. She told you to get some rest. I honestly felt tired so I decided not to go with her.

  Not long after she left, I had a fit of cough again. I stared at the blood and washed my hands. I could feel my condition get worst now. I really need to get the new medicine from the Doctor. I stood up, wanting to go search for the Doctor for I knew this version actually have the medicine as he said it during the Robin Hood fiasco. But I get a headache suddenly as the surrounding started to blur. I fell back to the bed as everything turned black.

  I woke up to the frantic Clara. She asked me if I have taken my medicine yet. 

  "I don't have it." I whispered weakly. "I lost it."

  "You should have told us, (name), the Doctor will have one on board the Tardis." Clara said as she pulled me up. "Come on, (name), we have to go. It isn't safe here."

  I couldn't focus on her at all but she was saying something about a mummy on the train, something about sixty-six seconds left to live once targeted and how it goes after the weakest in a bunch. I blinked awake when she told me the Doctor deduced that I could be next due to my condition. She took me to some lab where the Doctor and a bunch of people are.

  It was then I saw the mummy. I freaked out but I was also too weak to run or do anything else but staring at the mummy. I heard Clara yelling at the Doctor and then suddenly the Doctor is in front of me, clutching my face on both hands, talking really fast about transferring the link the mummy had with me on himself. He went inside my head somehow, tracking down the link and pulled it to him but as he did, he seemed to froze. He stared at me in horror but he composed himself and turned to face the mummy.

  I fainted after that and woke up on some rocky-filled place. I heard the Doctor telling Clara about sometimes the only choices are bad choices. 

  The Doctor noticed me awake and pulled a bottle from his coat pocket. It was my back-up medicine. 

  I smiled gratefully at him. "Thank you, Doctor."

  He suddenly tousled my hair around in somewhat awkward but affectionate way. He glanced at me. "Hang in there, (name)...and I'm sorry..."

  I was confused why he is apologizing to me. 

  He looked grim now. "I saw it...inside your head...the Valeyard...and River."

  I glanced at him, suddenly mourning for River again. "I'm sorry too, Doctor, about River."

  The Doctor sighed as he sat beside me. I put my head on his shoulder. Clara watched us with a fond smile. I wanted to hug them but I felt too weak to do anything. I should probably take one right now so I could...

  I felt the tingling much to my disappointment. I pulled away from the Doctor and smiled at him and then at Clara. "See you soon." I said to them.

   tags: @thatsonezesty13 , @newheart97, @gracie-and-the-superwholock-gang

 @itsyaspwr

A/N: I want to say thank you for those who comments/reblog/kudos my stories, especially those who comments, I love re-reading your comments, give me energy boost and the believe that my stories are not that bad. So, thank you so much!

I know this is shorter than the last four chapters but hopefully it will be enough for now.

[moonflowerlesbians]

Hear me out.... Owen is in town, and Jamie and him have a big night out and for some reason Dani stays home. On Jamie and Owens adventures Jamie gets a tattoo of danis initials and has no memory of it until Dani spots it?

had this bad boy in the drafts for a couple days until I could finish it the way I wanted so thank you for your patience

~~~

“You’ve got some dirt on the back of your leg.” The amused smile is audible in Dani’s tone.

It isn’t unheard of for Jamie to draw dirt to her skin like a magnet--the creases beneath her fingernails are perpetually stained deep brown--but a soil stain by half seven in the morning might be a new record.

Jamie swivels, peering down at the back of her left leg with a perplexed brow.

Nothing but plain alabaster skin dotted with the occasional constellation of freckles. Then to the right.

She bends to touch the back of her calf, just below her right knee, to rub off the smear when she freezes, her fingertips mere centimeters away from the skin.

A flash of memory returns to her of the previous night. It’s hazy, blurred by the effects of numerous drinks, but she has a vague recollection of a dare proposed, a challenge accepted. The sterile surface of a leather seat under her stomach, buzzing, a faint stinging sensation, and--

Oh.

So, not dirt, then.

There, on the back of her leg in an elegant script, reside the letters ‘D.M.C.’.

Heat rises in Jamie’s cheeks.

“Alright over there?” Dani calls from where she moved across the shop to install a new shipment of bouquet paper. They’d been especially excited about this one. Miniature toucans adorn a tropical backdrop. Dani had spotted it in a supplier’s catalogue and insisted they stock it.

“Fine,” Jamie squeaks, covering her momentary flash of panic with a cough. Then, because Jamie Taylor does not squeak, she says with a modicum of false ambivalence, “All good.”

“How was your night out last night? You got home late.”

That she did. It was nearly three in the morning when Jamie made her way home after dropping Owen at his hotel. He’d made the flight over from Paris and insisted on a night out on the raucous streets of the charmingly quaint Vermont town Dani and Jamie call home.

She remembers downing an embarrassingly small number of drinks for her British constitution and engaging in a good-natured game of dares. A drink for every truth or dare not completed, and Jamie had yet to turn down a challenge. The evening was winding down when they’d gotten on the topic of tattoos.

“What do you mean you don’t have a single tattoo?” Owen sipped his drink, earned after refusing to admit whether he and Hannah had slept together, and wagged a stricken finger in Jamie’s face. “You’re sure? You seem like you’d have at least one hidden away under all those layers.”

“Not one,” Jamie confirmed, “Haven’t had anything worth remembering, I suppose.” Then, said with a laugh, “Had a pretty shite couple of years if you recall.”

“There has to be something,” Owen hummed and stirred his straw. Ice cubes clinked in his glass. “Truth: what is the best thing in your life?”

Easy, Jamie thinks, glancing fondly across the room at the woman who stubbornly refuses to use a stepladder despite being thoroughly unable to reach the top rack of paper.

D.M.C.

Dani Marie Clayton.

The script was taken from the back of a photograph Jamie keeps in her wallet. The two of them in a national park taken by a fellow tourist. Dani, in her neat print, wrote their names, the location, and the date on the back. Jamie had shown it to the tattoo artist to copy, while Owen had just chuckled from the edge of the room.

Despite the nature of the situation, the tattoo was not a fleeting thing meant for regretting in the cool dawn light. Rather, it was one boiled and steeped in the nature of them, of their relationship. Months and years of careful study, of gentle push-pull, of dedication to each other and to their shared growth. Stability of a sort Jamie had never encountered. Something worth saving, memorializing on her skin, though it may as well have been inked onto her heart, her mind, her soul.

“Night was grand,” she says to Dani, “Grabbed a few drinks down the road….” And sort-of-kind-of-maybe gotatattooofyourinitialswithoutconsultingyou?

Dani shuffles across the floor with a stack of boxes in her arms and bends down to place them on the floor beside Jamie. “Hey, you’ve still got some… What’s that?”

The words bubble from Jamie’s throat before she can stop them. “Not sure I can get it removed, but I can cover it if you like or use a plaster. I can probably get some makeup…” she rushes.

“Woah, woah,” Dani placates, “let me see.” She crouches to get a better look, while Jamie closes her eyes in morbid anticipation. Dani’s breath catches.

“Is that a… Are those--”

“Yeah,” Jamie breathes, a little embarrassed, a little loving, “yeah. They are.”

Dani touches the taught skin with the tip of an index finger, tracing the letters with the lightest touch by the blunt end of her nail.

“And that’s… That’s my handwriting?”

Jamie nods, unable to bring herself to speak, the words caught in reddening cheeks and thick swallows.

“I know I should’ve asked you first, made sure this was alright before… It’s just, well, Owen and a few drinks and he was talkin’ about memories and--”

“I like it.”

Jamie pauses mid-sentence, mouth hung slightly agape. She manages to meet Dani’s eyes, the gentle blue and brown shining with easy emotion. Not tears, no, just a sense of profound fondness that wraps Jamie like a warm blanket in the dead of winter. The sort of emotion that will not be chipped away by embarrassed rambling and twitchy fingers.

“You… you do?” Confusion laces the inquiry until it sounds a bit more like a statement than a question.

Dani nods slowly, her head tilted as though choosing her next words carefully. “I never… I never thought much about visible proof of devotion beyond, well,” she holds up her left hand, where a gold band glints in the morning light, “but I’ve also never loved anyone the way I love you.” The corner of her mouth quirks up, and the pressure in Jamie’s chest relieves just a fraction. “I’ve spent so much time trying to distance myself from my memories, it always seemed pointless to have a permanent reminder.” Dani considers, “But you know that. You know that better than anyone. So you wouldn’t have picked a tattoo if there might even be a chance you’d regret it later.”

Jamie shakes her head, says softly, “I’ll never want to forget you. Ever.”

Dani takes a step closer and nods again. “So, how could I not like it?” She quickly surveys the shop, still empty of customers, before pressing her forehead to Jamie’s and looping her arms around her neck. Jamie allows the calm of Dani’s touch to wash over her as she sinks into the embrace.

“Still should’ve asked you first,” she mumbles half-heartedly.

Dani hums, “Probably.” Jamie shifts with a low groan, and Dani cuts off the impending apology. “But you didn’t, and I forgive you, and besides,” Dani bumps their noses, “tattoos are kind of sexy.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhmm,” Dani confirms, nudging Jamie’s nose once more before stepping away. “Just make sure you take care of it so it doesn’t get infected.”

“Right, yeah,” Jamie breathes, inhaling the lingering wisps of Dani’s scent in the air. “Infections. Not sexy.”

“Not exactly, no,” Dani laughs. The bell over the shop door chimes. “Hi, there! I can help you over here….”

And Dani was off, her bright smile and swinging ponytail doing wonders to ease Jamie’s worrying mind.

This. This is what she wants to remember. Dani. Here, in their shop, her eyes crinkling at the corners when she laughs at a quip the customer rattles off as if it is the most amusing joke she’s heard all month. The joy in this moment. In this life. Their life.

It’s something worth saving.