#your local garbage beast

[eraserhead-baby-offical]

@therealhieronymous tagged me for a selfie so here's me at my job where I work

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

You're my favorite writer, and König is my favorite aussie man, so OF COURSE im making you write for him, hal, BEAR W ME !

Alright, what do you think about König with the “You’re here late.” prompt? The reader is part of KorTac and always worked alongside König, since they both entered about the same time, because of the readers personality, they are always fighting, one of these fights are specifically bad, leading the reader to go on a mission with another KorTac member, to help out somewhere else and take their mind off things, when the reader face a problem on the mission and ends up arriving late, König is furious.

Moths Hit the Window

PAIRING: König x F!Reader

SYNOPSIS: Fights with König were always loud, but this time his comments went a bit too far.

WORD COUNT: 5.9k

WARNINGS: Verbal fighting, angst, high tension, blood & stitches, wounds, canon typical violence, guns/weapons, death, suggestive near the end, fluff, hurt/comfort, etc.

A/N: Huge thanks to @idocarealot for the German translations!! Also, König's wearing the arachnid skin in this because I love it sm - enjoy, Anon!

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

You seethe. If eyes could turn red yous would be a beautiful shade of crimson—bloody knives ripping out of the cornea to strike whoever happened to get too close. It was as if the very air boiled with the force of a raging tsunami as you stomped down the local military base’s hallways, covered in blood and guts. Never had you reconsidered working for KorTac more than at this very moment. 

Maybe I should just become a mercenary, you rip at the torn-apart gloves over your hands and jerk your arm out. Passerbyers quickly avert their eyes as you shove them into a garbage can and continue on with a growl. No shitty rules, no regulations—no fucking partners.

If people happened to slide past without noticing the steam coming out of your ears, they would have immediately locked eyes on the pure elephant of a man trailing fast behind. König’s eyes were goring into the back of your neck, gray and tan garb swaying as the packs and flash grenades on his combat vest bounced with every step. Accents of red do nothing in comparison to his visible flesh—the section of his eyes uncovered by his mask and head rig alight around his obsidian gaze. 

 König was muttering to himself far under his breath, curses and harsh comments all in German that he wouldn’t say to your face. At least not right now in view of others. 

“I can hear you, you dimwit,” you hiss over your shoulder, grinding your teeth as you both make your way to the armory, “curse me out quieter!” 

“You are making a scene!” The beast grunts, that heavily accented English striking your eardrums with its harsh dialect. 

“Oh, jeez!” You raise your voice even higher, turning back forward and clenching your hands into fists as blood and guts drip off your gear—none of it yours. “I’m just so damn embarrassed, König! I’m making such a large and obnoxious display. Whatever will I do?!” Sarcasm like a valuable drug is injected into the waves of your voice. People from open doorways look out with shock, brows pulled up. 

Everyone quickly darts back away when you snap your head in their direction and send them a scathing glare.

No one was surprised to find you and the Austrian going at it again but knew well enough to stay out of the crossfire. Lest someone get roped into it.

“Fuck off!” You spit the last curse into the burning air and shove past a soldier ahead of you.

König’s dark eyes flash dangerously, lips under his mask twisting into a sneer. The man’s shoulders seem to dig in even farther, spine curling over as if a brooding child. 

This had all started the second you’d joined up with KorTac. Fresh out of the military and eager to get back into the game after a good vacation the PMC group had been at the top of your list. But if you’d known you’d be paired up with this damn mountain every chance there was just because he’d got into the game at nearly the same time as you, you’d have put in your luck with SpecGru. 

“I do not see how this is appropriate behavior,” König follows as you place your palms on the black metal of the armory door, pressing with your shoulders. “I did what I was tasked to do—”

The masked man is cut off as you whirl on your heels, the door slamming shut as his body is shoved into it with strong arms. Dark eyes go wide in surprise, feeling the dig of your nails on his abdomen as your form presses into him and the chill of the door on his spine. You feel his skin bunch under his thick shirt and even if you want to stare him down that’s just not an option. Your warm figures shuffle together with panting breaths and dangerous glints in your eyes. 

“Bull,” you drag out the word, growling it right up into his neck; sniper hood caressing your chin. König’s breath hitches with shakes of swirling emotions. “Shit.”

Shoving once more so he gets the point, you push off of him and stalk away like a feral wolf, already unclipping grenades and medical packs from your vest. 

“You’re the damn reason the target got away!” Gear is thrown haphazardly to the long table in the center of the room. The Austrian watches with predatory eyes, hands clenched so hard that they quiver. He stays still, watching, as you send scathing glances. “The reason we’re going to be here for ten times longer than we’re supposed to be!” 

“It is not my fault you failed to properly check the perimeter before you rushed in like a fool.” Volatile couldn’t be used to describe this…this was nothing short of volcanic. It was as if there were two sides of a scale filled with bullets and gunpowder—fire in the middle that was equally heating both piles as they raised and lowered erratically. König’s voice grates over the air, “I did what I could to fix your scheiße plan!”

“Don’t you shit on my plan!” You point, voice bouncing off the weapon racks as you rip the rifle strap from over your chest, chucking it away. 

“I will shit on it—it was…it was…!”  König’s voice cuts out and he can’t find the words. The Austrian descends into visceral German ramblings. “Es war so ziemlich der schlechteste Plan, den ich je gehört hab. Welcher halbwegs vernünftige Mensch geht in eine heiße Zone ohne vorher alle Zielobjekte richtig zu markieren?! Ich kann dich und deine Rücksichtslosigkeit nicht mehr leiden — du bringst mich um meinen Verstand! Hast du überhaupt ein Gehirn in deinem Schädel?”

You shake your head to yourself, heart pounding. “You’re still the one that was supposed to focus on the HVT. I rushed so he would flush out, but, no,” taking out the magazine of the rifle you hold it in your hands like an accusatory ruler that a teacher would hold. König shoves off the door and stands to his full height; arms tensed and straining before they coil around his chest in a soothing gesture. 

He hated the fighting—the constant strain between the two of you. But when you were together it could never amount to anything else. The room felt like it was a million degrees.

Your eyes stab at him, “No! You had to go and focus on me! I hate to break this to you,  König,” feet come forward and you once again find yourself close to him—breathing the same air and taking in the scent of gunpowder and blood. You point the tip of the magazine into his chest. His unseen lips pull; jaw clenching with held-back fire. “But I am not your damn mutt to keep on a leash. I had it under control.”

It’s as if you don’t realize the Austrian could snap you in half with a single kick of his leg, as if the sheer size of König had slipped your mind as a whole. His hands could snap your neck in an instant, but that was only if he got ahold of you. 

But that was a line the both of you were never planning to cross. Words were one thing in this profession, actions another. If you ever got into a physical fight, you’d both kill each other, no doubt. 

You’d like to think you’re a bit above that, but perhaps not.

König’s chest rises and falls deeply, taking in calming breaths as he tries to get his temper under control. “You didn’t,” he jeers out, “I saved your life, you Heißluftgebläse. And if you wanted to be treated less than a dog,” he grunts to you, head pulling down close to your face, harshly whispering out, “You could have simply asked me, yes?”

You both snarl at each other's throats like rabid animals, the world disappearing all around the obsidian eyes that match with yours; for a moment you get lost in the shining bits of silver in his iris that seem to burn with chilled iron. What little skin you can see is flushed and tight—hawk nose nearly poking out your eye as you’re leaned over like a giraffe near a bush.

Body vibrating, you sharply breathe, “I’m not even going to ask what that fucking means, you tool.”

“Good.” The words are bitten and fast, “because I am not telling you.”

“Great!”

“Perfekt!” You both were arguing like children. Hot faces and unwilling to let the other have the last word. If you got along it might have been funny. 

“I’m going to dump all of your Einspänner out on the tarmac.” Your sure voice echoes with a definitive promise to the tone. 

Pale lids widen in horror at the threat to the Austrian's favorite beverage, comfortably sitting in the Base’s fridge. 

“You would not,” König’s tone is deathly serious and you smirk, eyes dancing. “You…” a guttural growl meets the air, mind translating words and giving meanings, “beast of a woman!”

“Oh, is that the best you can fucking do?!” You yell, splaying your hands out widely and moving away from him. “Now that’s really a show stopper, König, I’m shaking in my damn boots.” 

“Ich komm mit dir nicht mehr klar.” König yells, moving back and placing both of his hands atop his head, knuckles white. “You’re rude—you do not even try to get along. You are loud and disrespectful; how do you live like this?!”

Your eyes slightly widen, watching the Austrian.

“Don’t try?” You echo, scoffing loudly. “What do you mean don’t try? I was the one to try and smooth things out between us in the beginning.”

“When?!” König spreads his hands out, knees slightly bent. “Because I have no recollection of such events.”

“Well of course you wouldn’t!” The heat was meeting a breaking point—words were getting more personal, sharper. Like a blade being honed for the kill slowly; being sharpened by rocks and whetstones of conviction. 

König points a finger at you, voice going low and thin, “I’ve had enough of you, yes?” His sniper hood moves rapidly with his fast ricochets of breath. “Just about enough. Would you have wanted me to let you die?”

“I had it,” your lips spit, nose scrunched, and forehead tight. The man’s chest vibrates with a mute growl. 

In all actuality, you’d never seen him this worked up before. König wasn’t above giving your quips back even if he obviously disliked it—most of that was due to the strange familiarity between the two of you. In large crowds, the man preferred to stay silent. This only added to his almost deadly aura with others, though you knew the muteness was because of social anxiety and not some built silence. He wasn’t shy per se, just afraid he’d say something wrong; mess up the conversation. You did most of the talking in meetings and you never minded it. Added him in when the topic was something he knew a lot about.

Your mind had addled it up to thinking it was cute, actually. How his feet would shuffle; his half-lidded gaze and his intense eye contact to let them know he was still listening. When he’d have to remind himself to look away with a pinch to his thigh because it was starting to seem threatening. It was endearing, even.

But around people König knew, well, he was going to speak his mind. No matter how long it takes his brain to catch up with his lips.

The only thing the two of you were good at was being moths—hitting the metaphorical window over and over on the same topics and tension points. Slamming heads and flapping wings. You were at the end of your rope just as he was.

“I should have never taken you as a partner!” He calls, feet splayed. “Should have gotten out of this the second you were assigned with me. Gott, ich hab wirklich versucht, dich zu verstehen — Ich hätte gleich aufgeben sollen.” Your lips thin, lungs stalling as all the air vacates the room. You stand still and listen to what he really thinks, fingers shaking.

König’s large form towers over all, great sparks of electricity flying out. His gear shakes as he moves, thigh straps pushing fabric to shift and conform to his body. Your blood pumps with brewing hesitance. 

Maybe this had gone too far. I’ve never seen him like this.

“I can’t stand you any longer! Pathetic squabbles that mean nothing, absolutely ludicrous plans that make little headway.” Your head bursts with aggression and what little warning signs you have are squashed. “I can’t keep saving you because you can’t do your job correctly!”

“You don’t have to save me at all!” You scream. “You can’t keep your damn eyes off of me for five seconds, König.” Feet move away quickly from the armory door as if someone had come to put away their stuff but thought better of it. The next words burst from you before you can think of the contents. “It’s like you fucking love me or something!”

König doesn’t miss a beat, but for months afterward, he wishes he had.

“Oh, do not make me laugh—” he scoffs ferally, adrenaline making him talk, “as if anyone could ever love a woman like you in the first place.” 

Twin eyes widen and both parties immediately fall silent. A sharp inhale.

Too far.

Under the hood, König’s face goes an embarrassing shade of red all the way down to his chest. Fingers freeze. Jaw slackens.

You feel like your heart was just grasped in his grip and ripped out of your ribs with one violent motion—one sentence out of all the others enough to knock down the rebuttal that had formed on the tip of your tongue. Your throat closes up as you blink in shock.

“I-I…” König stutters, mind blanking as he struggles for words. But anger was easier than pain.

Numb fingers rip off the last of your weapons and belongings as you let them hit the floor with defining thuds as warm shame floods your cheeks. Shaky puffs of breath like a panting dog. Dark eyes watch with regretful panic, heart jumping and eyes flinching. The adrenaline it…it made him forget himself on occasion—how to properly act when not on the battlefield. It was like that with everyone but…but he hadn’t meant that.

Shame that it’s already too late.

Your fisted hand slams into his chest, brutal and unforgiving. König lets off a grunt but does nothing as you slither past, hissing into his ear, “Find yourself a new punching bag.”

His hand snaps to his breast where you had slammed your KorTac patch right into his heart, catching it. It’s many moments before he can think enough through the alarm; form words.

“I…I didn’t…oh, du blöde Kuh!” 

By the time the man composed himself, panicked tears burning in his eyes, the door had already slammed shut. His feet squeaked over the tile to an empty audience. 

—

Private Military Companies don’t have ranks. There are no Sergeants, Lieutenants, Generals or Colonels. Just people. Beyond the orders you’d been hired on, there was nothing keeping you in line with König on this mission. And those orders were loose at best.

Adhere to policy and listen to the Base’s COs. Shut up and get the job done. 

The Austrian and you weren’t due out for another week because of rotations. Since you’d failed to capture or kill the HVT that you were assigned, another group had picked up the tracks in the meantime. Like an oiled machine, the gears of this operation kept whirling. 

Evolve, or die. 

“Lieutenant!” You call to the geared-up man on the tarmac—the one heading that very same group. It had been only a few hours since the incident in the armory. You needed a distraction; blood was still running high and brain pounding for release. There were only so many times you could bruise your fists and legs on a punching bag before people started giving you nervous looks. “Need an extra hand?”

Your voice sounds strained, even to you. The man looks you over once and narrows his eyes. Nods not moments later. 

“Get tired of your big friend? Okay, how fast can you be ready for me?” You feel your shoulders loosen, a relieved sigh exiting your lips.

“Three minutes.”

“...get to it then. We move in five.” 

So that was how you found yourself backed into a corner five hours into the op from hell—bloody knife held tightly in your grip and mouth open in ragged pants. 

“Fuck,” your vest is torn and riddled with bullets; your entire chest must be bruised by now because it surely aches like it is. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

You really are reckless, just like König had said you were. Maybe you’d just never realized it because he always seemed to watch your six. This…this was really bad. The comms were awash with screaming orders and panic, ringing out across the abandoned mining factory that exploded with light from gunfire and the sounds that accompanied it. You knew for a fact three soldiers were down; two KIA. 

The Lieutenant is one of them. 

Your hand snaps to the radio strapped to your chest, one eye squinted in pain at the ragged slice across your left brow line. At your feet, two heavily armed men lay dead. 

“Pull back! They knew we were coming!” But your word didn’t carry weight here. Your face twists between pain and rage. König’s comment still rings in your ears as the onset of tinnitus does, as if anyone could ever love a woman like you in the first place. It wasn’t ideal to be thinking about this now—it was detrimental that you didn’t. 

But König and the things he did often stained your brain. No matter how much you tried to distance yourself from that fact. 

Snapping the knife in your grasp down in an arch to dispel the blood from the blade, you take a steel-laced inhale and shove off the wall. Limping, but moving. Sprained ankle. Nothing you hadn’t dealt with before.

The concrete under you is splattered with crimson viscera and you stumble over spasming bodies riddled with bullets. With a subdued shink you slip your knife into its thigh sheath, grabbing the FTac Recon strapped around your chest after slamming a fresh mag into it. With a numb calm overcoming you, you slip your forefinger into the trigger guard, poised over the easy press of the trigger itself. 

The long shadows spread over you; your head illuminated by the dull sheen of the moon as you pass under a stretch of open sky to slink into the building across the empty street. Feral yells still bounce off the air and you go to them readily, purpose settling in your veins. 

Pain flies to the back of your mind, displaced by adrenaline and the rabid puffs of breath that fall like grinding thunder from your lips.  

You wonder what König’s thinking right now—he’d without a doubt noticed that you were gone. He’d even probably gone to your barracks room to try and apologize and found it empty. That was just how he was. 

Would he be happy? You wondered. Relieved to see you out of his life? You’d both done nothing but fight, but there were moments of peace. Understanding. 

Shared meals and comfortable, yet sarcastic, comments; soft glances when the other wasn’t looking. Heat in your face and obviously shown on his when shy hands brushed. 

Your hold tightens on your gun, brows dripping with sweat as it dribbles down along with the blood. Gunfire flashes. 

Closer now.

Shadows scream on top of a raised walkway attached to an in-mountain compound, targets with trigger fingers firing on your fellows who take cover behind crumbling walls. Pinned down. You watch, unseen, from a broken window as dust and moths collide. 

Your eyes lock on the closest hostile and you raise your weapon slowly, barrel resting on the frame between shattered glass. You clock the distance and adjust accordingly; breaths falling steady. 

The small insect that keeps hitting the window plays in your mind over and over—drowning out the yells; the fire. 

Just a moth readily willing to smash into that barrier until it dies. You hum under your breath and rest the gun into the crook of your shoulder, cheek to stock. 

Your finger slams into the trigger. 

—

You stumble out of the loud infirmary with a bloody rag pressed deeply into your forehead, medical pouch under one arm. You hear rushing feet and barked orders from nurses and doctors just before the door closes, cutting off as you stake out on your own.

Limping, you reason there were others with more severe wounds than your own; as blood drips from your flooded rag, your feet take you deep into the base one broken step at a time. You’d figure it out yourself. 

Plus, the silence would give you time to think. Think about König. 

You just gritted your teeth and decided that was better than taking up space in the infirmary. 

In times like these, the Austrian would fix your wounds for you, just as you did his. While you had your disagreements and heated fights, he’d never made it as personal as he had hours beforehand. Never made it hurt. 

“Jesus,” you mutter, rubbing your other crusty hand over the mud along your chin. Everything ached and you don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. 

Flinching along like a downed bird, you shove through into the last door into the barracks; thoughts now stuck on finding a chair to sit down on before your legs gave out. The darkness of the common area was deep—staining your eyelids as you grunt, bumping into the back of the couch. 

It’s almost funny the way the lamp flicked on mere moments later. 

You hiss, eyes snapping shut as the rays attack your sight, rendering you blind for a moment. The shaking hand on your dripping rag tightens before the spark of pain makes you lighten the pressure. 

There’s a dark grunt just as you open your eyes back up.

“You are late.” König. 

He sits in one of the chairs—sniper hood still over his head yet only clothed in a large compression shirt and casual camo pants. Like a disappointed parent, the Austrian’s arms were crossed over his chest; feet resting out and crossed at the ankles. With such a big stature the look could strike fear into anyone. 

Anyone but you, that is. 

König’s dark eyes rove over you, stopping immediately on the fabric you keep to your forehead. The previous, furious, tone stops and the flash of very real concern takes precedence. His hands tighten on his biceps, thighs tensing over the cushion; spine just a little bit straighter. 

You watch and say nothing—dead-faced. 

Your heart suddenly skips beats, stuck into the framework of the man’s eyes. König’s brows peel back and a timid stutter stays in your breast.

“...Vögelchen?” Lids blink rapidly, and before you can register anything because of your blood loss and fatigue, you’re being dragged to the couch and forced to sit down. 

Strong hands encompass your shoulders and small breaths flutter in front of your face as König peels back to kneel in front of you; spying the medical pouch in your under-arm. 

“What is this?” He mutters to you, vision flinching along your body but always dragging back to the bloody rag on your face. “What did you do to yourself?” 

Scarred hands raise before pausing, obsidian eyes staring deeply into yours as if in frantic question. Your own gaze keeps him close, spying on his veiled fear at the sight of your blood and your disappearance. He’d heard about the mission, then, that much was upfront because of his earlier comment. 

The humvee had been late arriving back. Half an hour. 

“Fuck off,” you utter, shoving off the couch before you’re captured in an unyielding press again, shoved down. Your anger spikes along with your unease, “König! I don’t have the patience—”

“I’m sorry.” The fight leaves you. 

Fingers squeeze your biceps, hold lightly shaking with nerves. “I did not mean it.” Obsidian pierces you, “Please, Vögelchen, I am sorry. Utterly. I speak so fast I misplace words—get far more,” words fail as you stare so intently at him, a strange feeling swirling in your gut. König’s face was going crimson again, though not from anger. His tone was deep and honest, accent becoming more whole with emotion. The hands on your skin stay. “Rude than I intend. It is not an excuse, but…”

In the horizontal oval of his hood, you spy the dots of tiny freckles; the whispers of auburn hair. That hawk nose still points violently from behind the fabric. König never finishes his sentence, just takes a large breath and looks to the side after a moment of silence. 

Then he steals the medical pack from your grip and opens the zipper with firm fingers, taking out gloves and gauze. Needle and sutures. It’s all placed on the side table as the bear of an Austrian stays on his knees for you—bending and shifting as the bottom of his shirt rides up. 

It’s a tense affair of touching skin; warmth and hissed curses. Gentle shushing. But you say nothing through it. Until he’s up in your face trying off stitches with forceps and a needle holder, breath making his hood lightly caress your bloodless face. His fingers are large and firm, never second-guessing or stuttering over the course of directing tools that dig a needling and thread into your flesh. 

He’s warm and every motion elicits shivers. You see his form from the side of your eye; his face’s outline as the lamp light illuminates the hood’s fabric. Shadowy silhouette of König’s strong jaw that shifts with every other breath from his wide chest. 

“You’re an asshole for saying that to me, y’know.” you slip your gaze away just as he snaps over. “Adrenaline or not.” 

The needle pauses and a swift nod is given. 

“I…I know it was. No amount of apologizing can explain how very horrible I feel. It was like I was so…so…” An annoyed grunt was leveled at himself.

“Pissed off?” You offer quietly. 

“Yes! Pissed off.” Amused glances were shared, the air slowly smoothing out between the two of you. Dark eyes quickly look away from yours and König clears his throat terse-like. But softer, steadier, “I…could not bear it if I were to see you in harm and be unable to assist you. That…is why I was watching. Why I do watch you.”

Inside of you, it was like there was a pot of water on the stove, steadily boiling under the heat. Your eyes are delicately wide when the man’s hands leave your face; kneeling body still tall enough to stare into you.

“You are…” König pauses, but not to find the words. To ready himself. He takes a long breath. “You are special to me, my Vögelchen. I can not see you hurt,” a gesture to your forehead and creased eyes. As if your pain was his own. “Not like this.”

“What are you saying, König?” You whisper, face twisted with hurt and confusion. Apprehension. “You’re giving me mixed signals. We always fight with each other. I’m not saying I’m blameless, but…c’mon, now. Look at us.” 

“Not…always.” He grumbled like a child, tools placed away and hands dripping blood before he slips the gloves off. They meet the side table with a tiny toss. The Austrian leans back onto his ankles, butt to heel. He begins to look at your forehead and you can practically hear his heart break. “I do not like arguing with you, you know that, yes?” 

“Me neither,” you whisper, fingers fiddling as a sheen of anxiousness sets in. “You just,” you pause, “confuse me.”

 König blinks in surprise, head tilting and large eyes shimmering. Your mind flashes to a curious cat and you try to explain with a burning face and fast lips.

“You say we’re partners but you never act like it,” he stares and listens. When had you both had a conversation like this before? “You make it seem like you can’t trust me to do the simplest task. I’m not,” your voice betrays you, cracking, “I’m not that useless, am I?” 

He freezes, muscles going taunt. 

“U-Useless? Nutzlos? No, no,” A hand comes to capture your chin and you let him move you where he wishes. Creased eyes lock on yours. “That is not right. You’re not useless to me—how could you be?” Pained brows move in, “did I make you think like this? Like I did not appreciate your skills?” 

Your eyes burn, and the aches from your wounds mix with the pure fatigue in your flesh to leave your emotions running between sanity and sadness. A moment later you’re turning your head away. 

König recaptures it, hands finding both sides of your cheeks. He looks shaky; desperate. 

“No, please, Vögelchen, please. I need you to look at me.”

“König, I don’t—” You close your mouth before you let out the beginnings of a sob. “I can’t keep fighting with you.”

“I know, oh, I know,” his hands are so grounding it’s like you’re the inner pages of a book, and his grip the thick leather cover—leather laced with shared scars and the same that had stitched you up countless times. This push and pull had to end. “I cannot fight with you either—it tears me apart. Oh, du weißt gar nicht, wie sehr es mich schmerzt, dein wunderschönes Gesicht anzuschreien. Mit dir zu streiten bedeutet, meinen Verstand und mein Herz gleichzeitig zu brechen.” König’s thumbs run up and down your skin, still bloody with dried flakes falling to the ground. He seems not to care a bit. 

“What can I do to fix this? Anything. Anything to get us to stop doing this to each other.” You stare into his eyes, both creased and glazed over. 

There’s a brief moment where you wonder if anyone truly even knew you as well as König did—there was no one else that you shared such a deep connection with. Years upon years of being stuck at his side. 

And someone else’s hands had never felt as good as his. They were hard and callused over but cupped your face as gently as one would cup water from a rippling stream. His eyes were stars; visible skin like porcelain, his breath raised a large and wide chest with a fast-paced heart. You could sense his throat trapping air. 

König kneeled to you and bared himself. 

Anything, he had said, to fix what he had said. To stop this. 

There was one way you could think to stop this—it might not have been smart, certainly not, but…hmm…You gradually raised your hand raised from your lap and slipped it under the front of König’s hood. 

Slowly, with all the delicateness of a glass dragonfly, your fingers strayed to the side of his neck to press into tight flesh. A rapid pulse.

The man goes to stone. It’s like you’ve stolen his nervous system. Dark eyes stay locked onto yours as you gaze back, hand dragging nails up with a light pressure near to the speed of a slug. 

König whispers your name into the empty space and the oxygen seems to dry up. Warm light from the lamp cast phantoms on walls and over skin in a small moment of foreign discoveries. The Austrian swallows saliva and you feel his neck flex. You don’t answer him, just watch and feel his own hands tighten on your cheeks in warning. 

But you never listen, do you? Reckless you were called. And König had been right.

You were reckless.

Your hand had now explored like a map the indents of hidden facial scars; long and short over jaw and lips. The hand that was doing this had hiked the sniper’s hood up around your wrist so that the man’s lashes were twitching as the fabric got too close to his eyes. And you watched. And so did he. 

A twin pair of moths hitting a glass window, staring from opposite sides at one another until they realized the break in the frame. 

“Anything?” You ask in a loose tone, barely heard above the flood in both of your ears. 

König was breathing heavily but didn’t pull away. Pupils wide and body heavy to your touch. His spine briefly straightened, until he realized he had moved back slightly and immediately hunched again if only to keep your hands on him. 

“I…” he grunts, “A…anything.” Fingers touch his nose, they spread under the hood to trace the bumps and marks he keeps hidden like buried treasure. Your vision takes in the otherworldly hue on his visible skin; the glaze of rapture in his eyes yet still that ingrained heat. 

Your body shivers at the gravel in his accented English. 

Fingers stall over his lips, hood showing you the pale being of König’s strong chin and jaw. You shift your touch to the side and find chapped lips revealed to you, a small palate scar that had healed to nothing more than a line up to his nostril. 

You spare it nothing more than a glance before you look back into obsidian. Dark ether and dead galaxies devoid of stars. Swallowed in a sea of pasts and futures. You look for hesitation; for disgust. 

You find none. 

“You said that no one could ever love someone like me,” your head leans in, and your breath mingles together with an intimacy that had never been shared between this type of partners. König, as if broken from a spell, takes down a swift inhale of air into his stiff lungs. He stares with far back lids. Flashes of unidentified emotions. “Why did you say that?”

A moment of silence and of rabid hearts. The man’s lips twitch over yours as he answers slowly, not breaking eye contact for a moment. As if he did he’d be turned to rock. As if he’d miss something amazing from happening. 

He speaks with a whispered confession.

“Because if they did—I would have to kill them. Because no other than I would be able to love you more.” Your world slows and your ears strain with the breathy words. 

Face burning your lips part with shock and awe. Violent to any other, but to you this was a confession from a man that could meet you blow for blow—calm you and infuriate you all in one. Challenge you, but knew when he’d gone too far and how to properly apologize. 

He’d waited in that chair for you all night, you’d realized. 

For you to come back to him. His partner. 

You press your lips to his and hear his pitiful sounds of gasped reassurance. Slipping your tongue into his mouth, you let saliva drip off of your chins to splatter onto bent knees and shaking thighs.

König’s arms cage you; capture your waist and draw you closer, lips breaking apart before you both share a wide-eyed look of momentary pause. There was no room to breathe; to think. Chests hit together and fingers tighten to a tendon-visible hold.

The man's growing smile is wide from where you still hold his hood up by his nose, and with a lick of his red and wet lips, he reconnects your awaiting mouths. 

This time, you’re the one to gasp.

“Lass mich zeigen, wie leid es mir tut, Vögelchen.”

NEW TAGLIST SIGN-UP: Here

TAGS:

@luuvbuzz, @emerald-valkyrie, @anna-banana27, @blueoorchid, @cryingnotcrying, @writeforfandoms, @homicidal-slvt, @jade-jax, @frazie99, @elmoees, @littlemisstrouble, @alpineswinter, @phoenixhalliwell, @idocarealot, @lavalleon, @facelessmemories, @h-leigh, @20forty9, @glitter-anon-asks, @emily-who-killed-a-man, @neelehksttr, @aeneanc, @escapefromrealitysm, @i-d-1-0-t, @pparcxysm, @hawkscanendme, @caramlizedtomatos, @konigsleftkidney, @sanfransolomitatm, @maelstrom007, @jemandderkeinenusernamenfindet, @pheobees, @glitterypirateduck, @uselsshuman, @fan-of-encouragement, @halfmoth-halfman, @ghostlythunderbird, @I-inkage, @pukbadger, @kopatych11, @0nceinabluem00n

[funshape]

new kaz song. challenged myself to make the worst hyperpop track of all time like literally horrible garbage unlistenable shit and this is whati came up with. not even the sound effects are right it got fucked up in the mixing and now they all play wrong this song is genuinely unsalvageable. enjoy. album art by @4taro

LYRICS:

My oomfs are the best oomfs ever

My oomfs are the ones I'd never sever

I got a perc and its shaped like Waluigi

Met a they/them named Tooth one time (yeah)

My oomfs are the best oomfs ever

January, Feburary, March and December

Never smoked a ciggy but I can flip it like a tech deck (2x)

Met a girl at my show, she said her name was Beast (hi Beast)

Would it be funny if I put in a lyric about feet? (I don't know.)

I think Spongebob and Patrick, Squidward too, are stalking me (I'm Spongebob!)

Got kicked out of the studio I kept fartin on beat (DAMN)

Take Ohio away from me (FUCK)

I'm like if eminem was a neet (im not white though.)

I'm like he/him Mr. Beast

I know your dni says "no South Park Fans", but can I come in, PLEASE

My oomfs are the best oomfs ever

My oomfs are with me till forever

I name all my money after women

Can't stop naming my money after women

I sell guns to ants online, like, all the time, man, giving ants machine guns

It's fine cuz the guns are small and each bullet is the size of a pebble

I got a warrior cats oc named DickAss

And if you're a hater, shut up - I didn't ask

Saw your dad yesterday wearing a fucking stupid hat

HE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHERE YOU WERE AT

Don't call me, don't come by my house,

Cuz you're stupid and you're ugly and you dress like a mouse

You will never find love, you will never find a spouse,

You don't talk, you just spout

uhhhhh fuck just put in some fuckin shit from that one anime lain here fuuuck umm

(And you don't seem to) Fuck with me

(And you don't seem to) Get it

Cuz you're a fuckin' local,

YOU'RE ONLY ON REDDIT

My oomfs are cool as fuck

My oomfs all have some swords

My oomfs, My oomfs,

My-my-my-my-my-my oomfs

My-my-my-m-m-m-m-m-my

We all hung out in a coffee shop called Poopy's

[come-on-darling-honey]

The Beaten Path, [Paul Lahote x reader.]

Walking through the woods to meet your ex-best friend Paul should've been an easy task but a red eyed creature changed that. Then a silver wolf changed it even further.

word count- 6k [my longest fic ever !!! [fem! reader, no biological factors mentioned] [reader is Quills cousin but no race is mentioned, in order to be accessible to all readers!]

warnings- mentions of ed!bles, nothing explicit.

I couldn’t see three feet ahead of me. The usual light touches of the leaves grazed and screamed at my skin, my face, my legs, my arms. I couldn’t stop, just keep climbing, keep going. The trees were thick and steady, the rough bark under my feet felt as if I could never fall. My fingertips gripped onto the rough bark; a blistering pain followed every movement up. I ran until I couldn’t breathe anymore, seeking solace in the high ground of the tree as a vantage point upon the misery I’d ran from. Climbing into the vivid greenery I couldn’t breathe, my lungs felt strained as each breath left rapidly. My feet and hands moved quicker than I could think, the only thought in my mind was run. Run from the creature that grabbed me. The foreign beast that didn’t belong on the hiking trails I grew up on. Even climbing now, I could see it. The creature’s skin was uncomfortably pale and freezing cold, like rocks. Empty red eyes, that were dull flames staring at me.

That creature belonged in the urban walls. Among the garbage of modernity. Not the beaten path. Locals referred to it as ‘the bush’, warning tourists visiting First beach to ‘stay away from the Bush, there’s creatures in there that would make a beast cry.’ The creature was of no doubt agile but held no comfort in the ground, its feet kept slipping as they never mastered the placement on the dry dirt floor. They tried grabbing onto a branch, snapping it by accident. Its red eyes screamed their discomfort. But most locals in Forks and La Push learnt how to walk the path. The dirt path and how to climb along the rough trees. Even on this unusually hot day where the dirt hardened, it was home.

I’d reached the west clearing when the creature found me. It was fast. Too fast. But it was frozen. For two seconds. Two glorious seconds where I managed to run to the treeline, skidding down the paths I’ve known since childhood. Climbing the tallest tree to see where it was. Turning around I wish I never had, the creature and its pale body had been ripped apart by a beast. Snarls and a viscous thrill filled the air, the swell of the trees forgotten now. The beast was a large… silver wolf. A glorious wolf. I’d seen wolves in the bush before but none that big. It was unnaturally big. Bears couldn’t even compare to its size; the sleek silver coat was so thick I expected it to sling it off to reveal a beast of a man. Two other wolves appeared helping the silver wolf, a black one and a brown one. My hiking boots felt too heavy on my feet, suddenly I felt this inhuman urge to pray. But I couldn’t move, think or pray. My movements were singular. Every slight change in my body a fault of my rushing mind. It was odd, I felt no fear as I watched the strange wolves tear the creature apart. Was it because I knew they wouldn’t be able to reach me this far up the trees or the deluded voice whispering in the back of my head that they saved me. That the creature that looked so human, it was inhuman was the desired target and they had let me run away. I wanted to give the wolves my onliness so they would protect me, love the dirt before me. But I don’t know why, and I could never explain it, but I felt as if they knew. They saw and bled with me. Or they were too busy tearing apart the creature. The guttural snarls sounded suffocated with marble or rock, every bite I could hear sounded more like a crack than a tear. It was haunting. The wildflowers of the clearing swayed in the wind, getting crushed by the fight.

There was a thick gust of wind swirling around me, my body felt as if the wind flew straight through. I could smell the sweet fragrance of the leaves that surrounded my body, shielding me. I emersed myself within the evergreen. Rough bark grazed my fingertips as I gripped onto the tree as a lifeline, my fingers still sore from my frantic climbing. My feet were warm and steady, the hiking boots, while too heavy and confining also helped me. I was alert. The trees whispered, well the barks, growls and screams were louder, but I couldn’t focus on them. The air was wet. It’d rained in the night, but the hot summer sun had dried most of the dampness, yet it lingered. It was weird that I couldn’t hear anymore, only a constant ringing pouncing through my ears. There was a lump in my pocket, remembering the edible stashed in there I was glad I decided to take it after I met up with Paul, glad my drug induced self wasn’t wandering the bush about to run into the creature. My reasoning being I’d need the small edible after to deal with whatever he was going to say and to manage the emptiness I’d been feeling since I had last seen him.

It had been hours since the attack. The wolves had left, burying the creature’s body in the dirt. But I couldn’t leave, I could barely move or think. What if there were others? Of course, my family would start to worry, so would Paul. I’d promised to meet Paul on the north clearing, not west but I’d been side-tracked, so he’d no doubt start to look for me. He’d always look for me. Even though I was angry at him, he’d find me and help me get rid of this dull pain in my head. I was no longer perched in the tree rather sitting on the thickest, highest branch. The sun had started to set when I felt myself drifting asleep, thankful that I’d been able to rest on the branch without threat of falling.

I felt a burning in my throat before I felt the cold. Wearing short cargo shorts and a thin t-shirt was a smart idea through the burning sun of the daytime as I hiked but it was now the biggest mistake I could’ve made. Carefully finding my footing, I climbed down the tree. Shivering, I wanted to vomit. Fear kept itself harboured in my throat. As I reached the ground my head spun, looking for red eyed creatures. Was it even real? Had I fallen and gotten the concussion instead of being thrown? But then how, in my concussed state, did I manage to climb the largest tree if it wasn’t for adrenaline? What I found was safer yet in my moment of haze from lack of adrenaline and possible concussion I was terrified. That silver wolf was there, at the bottom of the tree. How hadn’t I seen it? It was so large I must’ve been blind. But even if this wolf saved me, I was too close to it. Unforgivably close to an animal that could rip me in half with one movement. The ringing had subsided, I could barely hear the deep breaths as the wolf slept. Its paws spread to the empty sky, waiting for a sun kiss.

Moving as slow and steady as I could, the wolf awoke. Watching me with a soft kindness I’d never seen before. No one could ever explain to me why the hell I felt like I’d seen those eyes a hundred times before. Why I felt safe. I had begun to place some distance between us as I reached the end of the clearing, up north, Would I even be able to see the path? I stepped onto three stones, following the path over the deep lake, my head swirling and my eyes gathered a black haze. I couldn’t see. Even in the moonlit darkness, I couldn’t see anything.

I heard my name being shouted.

I kept walking.

After the fourth yell I realised who it was, Paul. His voice was dry and scratchy, but it was him, there was no one else it could be.

I turned quicker than I had moved in hours. Paul stood there wearing… almost nothing? He’d yelled my name again but my head was spinning. I needed to yell to him to be fucking quiet. That there is a massive wolf behind him and he could get killed if he didn’t shut up. But I couldn’t. Something wet hit my knees, I’d fallen into the edge of the lake. Blood flew from my knees onto the bedrock. My hands in the water up to my mid-arm. Everything was so blurry. All I could see was a shimmer from the moon onto the water. Then I felt him, hands coming onto my waist, pulling me up. I couldn’t speak. I just wanted sleep. Something to give me energy again.

I don’t know how I got here. In a large warm bed. Warm orange blankets encased my body, wooden walls holding me with a soft fondness. I could hear shushed talking now. I was at Emily’s. Her cabin was so warm. Looking down I could see my hiking boots strewn across the wooden floor, my shorts and shirt on a pile on top of the old red rug. Immediately I looked down to see old pyjamas I’d left here on my body, praying it was Emily who’d changed me. Coffee danced through the air; I couldn’t help but picture the familiar kitchen. Wooden furniture that had be loved and worn by the people I held dearest, the yellow and orange rug that Emily had made with her aunt, and Paul sitting at the table. His long hair framing his beautiful tan face. The dim, homely lighting of the kitchen would encase him, and he’d seem alive.

This was the first time in weeks I was going to see him, well technically the second time in weeks. I’d bumped into him as I was leaving Emily’s, he’d stared at me in shock. I was angry but I held no grudge. I held a grudge for weeks; bile rose in my throat when I thought of him. When our friends angrily spat his name. We’d be in school and see him, angry rants and swears flooded the air at his lack of loyalty and cruelness.  I couldn’t stop thinking about him though, Emily had told me I should just give in and see him. She’d been very persistent. Despite always helping me leave before Paul would arrive with Jared and Sam. I owed her, I guess.

“You’re awake!” A sweet voice said as the door opened, pulling me out of my wandering thoughts. Two long dark braids framed her beautiful face. She wore a green t-shirt and pyjama bottoms, holding a glass of water. Emily came over to me and started fussing over my head and that I should slowly drink some water, but also lay back and not push my body too far.

“how’d I get here?” I pushed out of my throat, it felt grainy, like someone had put a filter into my throat.

“Paul found you, sweetie.” She said, redoing the braid down my back. Her thin fingers moving to my shoulders lightly massaging them.

“You’re knees and hands are kinda cut up” a familiar voice said from the doorway, I hadn’t seen Paul and Sam standing there. They must’ve been there the whole time. He was worn down, under eye bags dark and large. I’d only met Sam a handful of times; he’d looked at me in such an odd way. Waiting for something, but now he looked oddly satisfied. I never thought I’d be wishing for the odd discomfort again. Sam was larger than Paul, but Paul normally at least, was quicker. He’d slide in before anyone else, in school, in gym and when we played as kids. Even on hikes he’d always reach the goal first.

Sam called my name, pulling my attention away from Paul, who looked incredibly dishevelled and stressed.

“When you’re fully rested, we have something to tell you but for now you need to eat and rest.” As if Sam rung a bell in Emily’s head, she got up swiftly and went pass the two men, probably to the kitchen. Sam followed her, laughing lightly at her.

Still standing in the doorway, Paul stared at the floor. He looked so tired, I signalled for his attention then to the bed beside me. He didn’t lay next to me like he normally did rather he sat on the edge. Somehow that hurt more than anything else. He tucked some fly aways form my braid behind my ear smiling weakly. Then pulled his hands into his lap.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, looking down. Tears filled his eyes. I realised now he was wearing a t-shirt; one I’d bought him. I’d wanted to buy him hiking boots, so he’d stop wearing that grim pair of vans he’d gotten when we were fifteen, but his feet kept growing and I only saw the point in buying him a stretchy shirt, three sizes too big. It was snug on him now, but it didn’t look like he could physically grow anymore.

“I don’t understand” before he could answer I continued, “why are you sorry?” the tears fell, I grabbed his hand pushing every muscle in my body to move closer to him.

“I should’ve helped you.”

What was he saying? He had nothing to do with the creature. It felt like my legs and arms burned as I remembered the creature being torn limb by limb. The great silver wolf that fell asleep at the foot of my tree, keeping me safe. How I didn’t run, maybe it was the concussion making me delirious or it was intuition.

“The wolf didn’t hurt me!” I almost shouted, getting defensive over it. There’s no way he could’ve thought that is what hurt me. He looked shocked. His mouth hung open softly, shock clearly sitting in his eyes. “There was this-” How on earth could explain this without sounding insane “this creature and it threw me…” trailing off I realised how mad I must sound but something in his expression made me carry on “… and the wolf, the silver one, saved me. I climbed up a tree and the wolf stayed there! Like- like it was guarding me” I was desperate at this point, begging that he’d understand. Or at least he’d think I’d hit my head harder than Emily originally thought. My throat scratched; I shouldn’t have yelled.

But he laughed. Grabbed me into a bear hug and laughed. He was still crying; he was crying harder than before. But he laughed.

“Did the wolf seem… familiar?” He asked, I would’ve taken this as a joke, but he was watching me with a constant sincerity, almost begging me for the truth. “Because it was and I know this is insane but you have to believe me.” He added, desperate.

“I believe you.” God, I wished I didn’t because I also wasn’t completely following what he was saying but I’d believe him.

The next twenty minutes were a haze of confusion, disbelief and hunger.

I knew the tribal history; my grandparents told me and my cousin Quill all of them. Quill’s tall friend, who I couldn’t remember the name of, had been calling Paul and his friends the hall monitors on steroids, I’d laughed at the time when Quill told me. Mostly because Quill kept quizzing me on Paul and if I knew anything, he looked like an angry squirrel being swallowed by his grey sweatshirt. I knew about certain men of the tribe who were in the three bloodlines and that they would protect us. As wolves, since that was their soul, but they were stories. Stories made by the Elders or even the elders, elders to keep the tribe’s history alive and interesting… and Paul was telling me it was all true.

That the reason he’d left my garden almost shaking in anger was because his body was throwing him into his first phase. That he’d been in incomparable pain. That I’d hated him and cursed him for weeks for leaving me, that he didn’t want to. Sam had given him an order and he’d no choice but to submit. I couldn’t be angry at Sam, no, it was for the safety of the community, for my safety and my cousins.

His hand traced down my back, beside my braid. It was a perfect sensation. A hundred tiny graces upon me. It hadn’t felt like this before when he touched me. It was as exciting and as explosive before. Now it was as if his hand had always been there.

“What are you thinking?” his voice was low, sweet and fanned by his breath next to my ear. We were so close. He’d moved closer to me after he’d explained the big thing. I thought him turning into a wolf would be the biggest news but then he told me about… imprinting. That he’d imprinted on me. That he couldn’t stop thinking about me, since we were kids. That all the imprint bond had done is prove his feelings.

“I’m not too sure.” Before he moved his hand away, I grabbed it, “I’ve always liked you, but I don’t know, you turn into a wolf, Paul. A wolf, it’s just… it’s a lot.”

“I understand.”

“But I do like you,” I noticed a small bird sitting in the tree outside the window. A black-capped chickadee, small and fragile but with an attitude larger than the moon, they’d always commute to the bird feeder in my grandma’s lush garden. ‘they’re a sign of content, dear’ I remember my grandmother telling me as I grew. I have contentment with Paul, he is adventure and roughness yet a peaceful whirl of wind. The hot sun on my back and the smiling grace of a clumsy fawn in spring. Sometimes my grandma would say that they can see the future, when I was a kid, the concept enamoured me. I’d practically ran to school the next day, sitting down in English class I turned around to face Paul and told him that those tiny, sweet birds can see the future.  He’d laughed and told me they couldn’t but we both spoke about it for hours after school. 

I heard his laugh and could already see his smile.

“Do you remember when we were kids, old Billy Black told us about the ancestors for the first time and we ran off to play in the ocean.” He moved closer to me, thighs touching.

“I remember my Nana and your grandfather laughing at us when a wave knocked us to shore.” I laughed with him, the pain from before now a dull ache. “And quill chasing us back into the sea.”

Quill. Does he know? It could happen to him. Has it already happened to him? He’s of the three bloodlines, we’re of the Ateara bloodline, it could happen. My tiny baby cousin could be subjected to revolting pain and his body reshaping, throwing him violently into this world. If it was anything like Paul had described, it to be he was about to be in an indescribable amount of pain.

“Will it happen to Quill?” I stopped laughing. All happiness had been scraped out of me. Barren would be the word to describe it.

“Sam thinks so, so does your grandfather,” my head pounded. My body shifted before my mind could. Of course, he knew but why would he know? How could my own granddad not tell me. Not let Quill and I into the world we both might’ve been subjected towards. “Your grandparents wanted to tell you both everything but they… feared it would trigger Quill to phase.” He added on, his hand reaching mine. It’s like he wasn’t even aware that he was doing it, like it was as simple and as common as breathing. When his hand gripped mine, I knew he was right, that it was all real.

“Do they know about the imprint?” I asked, he looked away from me.

“Yes, I wanted to tell you first, but you wouldn’t see me, and I couldn’t keep going.” He stopped, breathing heavily “Sam told them, they were worried about you and the impact the bond was having.”

“What do you mean?” Was this the cause of my headaches and insomnia? I’d been using some medication to sleep and it just led to some intensely horrific nightmares. Had Paul felt this? Had he felt worse? He certainly looked worse. Paul affirmed my thoughts, but it seemed he got the worst of it. He was in physical and mental pain at the thought of me hating him. His right hand lightly traced circles on my thighs. We spoke for hours till Emily came in and called us for food. I adjusted to being with Paul again quicker than breathing. He was glued to me. His warm body centred me, we laughed and joked with Emily, Sam and Jared. They spoke about Embry Call, one of Quills friends, how he was showing signs of changing. He was the tall friend I remembered, he was so sweet and shy. I couldn’t stomach the idea of that boy going through the pain the men around the dinner table went through. But he wouldn’t be alone. I guess that was something. God Quill was going to kill me if he finds out I know. At least I can call my grandma and talk to her about it.

“Oh um, I think I should get going,” I said standing up. I’d just noticed how dark it was outside it couldn’t be earlier than 1am, and as someone who lived with her Grandparents, 1am was not an ideal time to get home.

“I’ll drive you.” Paul said, his voice whirled around me, encapsulating me and holding me. The air was freezing as it hit our faces, walking to Pauls truck I laughed when he ran ahead of me to open my door. Everything felt so easy again. Paul lived five minutes away from me, we used to carpool to school every day. Stopping at the Sonic to get coffee and food. Singing off-key to whatever cassette we could find. We’d go and hike in the Olympic national park on the weekends, spend the whole day together and then the whole night. It didn’t feel like we’d spent an hour apart, let alone weeks. The ride was short and clam, the streetlights illuminated the road pathed by trees. There was an almost hidden path that was a sharp left to get to my house.

“I know it’s late….” I trailed off as we arrived at the front of the big house. “But is there any chance you could stay the night?” as we got out I noticed not only the porch light was on but so was the light to the kitchen. Someone was awake, and it wasn’t my grandparents who go to sleep at 10pm every night. “Who is that?” I asked, drawing Paul’s attention away from my face, how long had he been looking at my face? My knees ached, a throbbing pain from where I fell over in the bush. Paul walked towards the front door, opening it quietly. His shoulders were tense and I couldn’t see his face but I doubted it’d be very friendly to any intruders. The door creaked open, I closed it behind me. We took our shoes off, socked feet hitting the wooden floor. My home always smelt like incense, my grandma burned it everyday before she went to sleep, a habit I’d picked up from her.

“Quill! What the fuck!” I whisper shouted seeing Quill’s stocky figure eating cereal. He looked at Paul with a shit-eating smile on his face. “It’s 1am what are you doing here?”

“Gran called me cause you” he emphasised, pointing at me, “Didn’t come home!”

“Well, I’m home so thanks but go sleep in the guest room.” I tried to push him away, but he stayed put, staring at Paul. I knew the two almost got into a fight the other day if Sam hadn’t stepped in so my hope for a sweet loving interaction was so far away it was learning to read a map to go further away from the two men in my kitchen. “Please don’t you two.” I sighed, grabbing bread and butter.

“Why is he here?” Quill asked, cereal in his mouth and eyes piercing at Paul.

“Your cousin, who lives here, invited me in.” Paul’s voice was solid, but his tightened jaw showed how thin his patience was.

“You shouldn’t take in strays, especially ones who leave you alone for weeks.” Quill said practically spitting at Paul.

“You know nothing about this.” Paul shoved his finger into Quills chest. Of course, Quill knew exactly what button to push. I sat down on the counter, eating toast and pushing my socked foot between the pair to keep them apart.

“Guys, 1am, people are sleeping. Don’t.” my voice was cool; I knew neither of them would do anything but my head still hurt so I didn’t want to entertain them. Then I felt a cool hand grab my leg.

“What the fuck did he do to you.” Quill seethed. Staring at the dried blood on my legs.

“I fell Quill, stop being protective. I’m an adult, I can handle myself.” He didn’t look like he was going to take this well, always keen to having an overdramatic imagination. His grip tightened on my leg. “Seriously Quill, drop it.” My voice was deeper now. I didn’t want this to be a spectacle. Paul was staring at him, almost daring him to say what he was thinking. To give him a reason.

“He wouldn’t hurt her, darling. Let go of her leg.” We all turned to see my grandma in the doorway, her hair out of its usual braid, cascading to her hips. She knew about Paul, about the imprint bond. Of course, she knew but this wasn’t going to make it easier to explain to Quill.

“You woke up Gran well done idiot.” I whispered kicking Quill lightly. She made her way over to us, checking over the scrapes on me. She scolded us for being loud and then Paul and I for staying out so late. That despite us being adults I live her roof and should always listen to her. which i knew of course.

“You should’ve called little bird,” she muttered putting her hand to my cheek, she was cold compared to Paul who had grabbed my hand at some point. “Quill go to bed sweetheart.” Quill was about to protest but the glare he was given shut him up and he sulked off to the guest room down the hall but not before looking at me. I felt a swell of guilt raise within me. He looked so hurt. Liked I’d listened to the pain the sound of drums caused him and then proceeded to dance to the thumping beat. My hand tightened around Pauls. I looked down, my cheeks were hot in shame.

“He’ll understand one day.” Gran said, cleaning the scrapes, I felt a sting as the alcohol wipe hit my skin.

“I don’t want him to, he’s only 16 Gran. At least Paul had graduated high school when it happened to him.” I said my eyes following her actions as she teetered around the kitchen.

She and Paul soothed me, it got to the point where it sounded as if they were soothing themselves. Knowing one day Quill would understand if the Cullen’s didn’t leave soon.

Paul slept in my room that night and for every following night for the next two months until one night we made the decision to sleep at Pauls house. We weren’t expecting his dad to rush in at 3am, however.

He called our names. “It’s Quill.” He was holding the phone, pulling it from the kitchen through the one-story house. Despite being dreary and sleepy Paul and I immediately pulled ourselves apart grabbing clothes and shoes as quick as we could. Quill had a fever all week, he was sweaty and vomiting alot. I had wished it was just a sickness that he'd gotten from a friend, but I should've known better.

“Where is he?” I asked as Paul jogged to his truck, turning on the ignition.

“He was at your grandmas but he ran into the woods.” He said, leaving the house with us “Paul you should go find him, I’ll drive.”

“I think I’d be the last person he’d wanna see.” Paul said getting into the truck. I got in too, Pauls dad asked one more time if his son was sure, “I am dad, go back inside before the boys wake up.” His brothers were young and had school in the morning. I’m sure even though they have no idea what is happening they’d love to use it as an excuse to bunk school. The drive was quick and a complete blur.

Arriving at my house I saw my grandmother crying into my grandfathers’ arms. Her long hair melted into his, they fell into this whirl of grief together. There was something oddly haunting about that and yet beautiful. I’d found out recently it was my grandmother’s father who had been a shifter like Billy Blacks Grandfather. The pain was recognised by her, she knew it. She’d breathed it, I wonder if she ever could’ve imagined this would’ve all happened again. All this pain and anger. The lights in the house were all on, it was freezing, the wind was sharp.

“He screamed when he shifted.” A slight voice said interrupting my thoughts as Paul and I got out of his truck, his arms weaving around me. It was Emily, she wore her soft pink pyjamas and Sam’s denim jacket drowned her frame.  She looked just as tired as I felt.

“Where’s Sam?” Paul asked, it sounded broken, like there was bile raising in his throat. I knew he didn’t really want to see Sam, to be told to do something he deeply doesn’t want to do. But he respected Sam, loved him like a brother. He’d kill for him like a brother. He told me one night in hushed voices as our limbs entangled how he wished he’d known Sam and Jared before all of this, how it felt like he had been known by them so well he had finally felt seen.

“He’s looking for Quill, he said to tell you to stay with the family.” His chest exhaled heavily. His arm tightening around me. When I looked up at him I hadn’t even noticed the fear in his eyes till Emily walked away and he looked back at me.

“He’ll be okay. Scared but okay,” He whispered guiding me over to the little cluster of love that had formed for Quill. Everyone was whispering. We couldn’t speak any louder in case he heard us, frightened and confused. One wrong word had every persons throats suspended in the cold air of a Sunday night. Monday morning, I amended as I looked at the old leather watch on Billy Blacks wrist. Before I could think I was pulled into my grandparents. I couldn’t breathe, lungs constricting and thoughts blurring. My tears were hot and choked as I cried onto my grandpa’s shoulder like I was five again. A small child who had fallen from a tree or who just missed her cousin and couldn’t understand why he couldn’t live with us all the time. I just want to know he’s safe. He’ll be safe I know but I don’t know.

I wasn’t sure for how long I stood and cried but I felt a familiar warm hand on my waist pulling me into an even more familiar chest. Paul’s hand stroked my hair as I cried. My head hurt.

“They have him, he’s okay.” He muttered into my hair. I breathed shakily and heavily as my hands slipped to his back, gripping his shirt. I hadn’t known at the time, but Paul had shifted to hear everyone while I was with my grandparents. Embry had found Quill on the Canadian border. He’d gone so far.

After he came back everyone departed with their respective partner. Embry, Quill and Jacob all phased back and cried into each other. Overwhelmed and angry. They cried so hard they couldn’t breathe. Knowing they would be going through this together though, that soothed Quill. He wasn’t alone again. There was no forgiveness in the air as we all knew why they’d been forced into this. Quills mom, my aunty Rita, grabbed him with the most pained hug I’d ever seen. Uncle had walked over to Paul and I, explaining that Quill had shifted in his sleep, he’d had a nightmare.

An orange hair pin caught my attention from the corner of my eye, turning I saw Kim Ironheart, my cousin. She wore an old pair of basketball shorts and an old jersey. I ran over to her. Clutching onto her. Asking above to spare her. She sobbed into me, her breaths as rugged as my own. Sleep still laid in her eyes like the slippers that clung to her feet.

A strong and clear voice called us over, Quill. He stood on his own in the space between us and the rest of those who lingered. I couldn’t make out his expression. I couldn’t bare to look. Kim walked over to him. Saying how he ‘shouldn’t scare us like that, shitass.’ I heard his laugh, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the floor. Would he even forgive me? Understand that if I had told him it could’ve triggered him earlier or that I knew why Embry and Jacob were ignoring him and it wasn’t because he was a bad friend but because he was too good. That I knew the end was near. He called my name again and I looked up. His eyes were creased with a smile and flooding with tears as his hand beckoned me over. I ran. The dirt under my sneakers fleeing beneath me. Colliding roughly with him and Kim. We were as thick as thieves. We stood together throughout so much, when I lost my parents, when Kim lost her closest friend and now when Quill lost a part of himself for others. Our arms weaved around each other like when we were kids begging our family to let us all sleepover. Our cries turned into laughter as we stood, feet planted in dirt.

“I take it the three of you are all sleeping in the living room tonight?” gran laughed, ushering us inside. Emily and Sam lingered, Paul laughed and followed my Grandparents inside with my phone and purse in his hands. As Quill went over to Sam, I tried pulling Kim by the hand, but she was frozen. Transfixed. I followed her gaze to Jared. He was as frozen as she was. Staring at her like they hadn’t known each other since they were three. Oh. I think this is… Not my place. I decided to go and find Paul, I dropped Kim’s hand but not before an extra squeeze to let her know she wasn’t alone. I found Paul on the sofa his smile transferring to mine. His lap was warm as I sat down.

“Did Jared?” I asked, his slight nod was all I needed. He stared at me trying to gauge my reaction. But all I could do was smile more; she’d liked him for such a long time.

“Lets sleep, I’ll knock Jared’s teeth out in the morning.” He joked pulling me down into him.

I couldn't sleep, not until Quill and Kim came in. We spoke for hours. Quill still wasn't Pauls biggest fan but he understood. They tore me a new one for how i found out about Paul and the rest of the legends. We didn't speak to Kim about Jared, they will take their time. For now it would just us basking in the sweet moments of the end. We'd take a hike together through the bush the next morning, finding our place once more on the beaten path.

pauls pinterest board

authors note: just handed in two essays back to back so please accept this as a gift for being away for longer than I expected! I took so much love and care writing this I hope it makes at least one persons day! Next up is Paul Lahote colour blind ! I love you all ! I'm going to promise right now that you will get another post on the 13th of March which is my birthday !! Take care- em x

[androgynousblackbox]

Welcome to Hazbin Vale. 2 [Appleradio]

Good morning, listeners. Your good friend Alastor is here once again. Today you may forgive me for not being on my usual high spirits, for I find myself rather annoyed.

But Alastor, I know you must be asking. What could possibly annoy the always friendly and law abiding radio host that we know and love? That doesn't sound like you at all! I know, I know, I am nothing if not patient, dear listener, but even I have my limits. There are certain things in this world that must not be tolerated.

That weird static is there again. Please ignore it.

Unfortunately, until that weird static calms down, I am afraid that I will have to keep the suspense alive. For now, let's start today with our favorite piece of news: the obituary!

It seems that last night the old man Jenkins has finally passed away. This morning his neighbors were congregated around his house, in front of the open door. It was a disaster inside, you could see it even from the street, like a hurricane had stopped by and stayed a bit longer than planned. Tragic, absolutely tragic. Jenkings was a tolerable member of this community who we all could more or less remember clearly.

If only his own curiosity wasn't getting the best of him. That was always one of his biggest flaws, whether he would admit it or not. And his imagination, my! He had a bit too many, especially after just a few beers in the local pub. Oh, I know that those who were there know exactly what I am talking about.

Babblering on and on about all these strange and unexplicable murders that happened in our town. Talking about how once this was a pacific and normal place where everyone could feel safe. Truly delirious, that poor man. I almost felt pity siting next to him and hearing his incoherent conspiracy theories. He was convinced that someone in our precious and wise community could be the responsible for those deaths! I could not believe my ears when I hear it.

He even said he had some kind of proof that he was planning to give some friend reporter. But I am sure that if someone were to have a look all over his house, like that hurricane seem to have done, they wouldn't have found anything at all out of the ordinary.

So, clearly, that man was just suffering of some kind of brain tumor that was pushing against whatever rational thinkings he had left after a lifetime of wasting away being a parasyte for society. Quite pitiful.

Of course I had to help him out get home. What kind of monster I would be if I left someone so obviously unwell to go completely on their own at the mercy of the night? Obviously I don't mean it for anyone in our town.

But there are beasts out there who won't stop no matter how much you beg. Creatures that feed on your screams and laugh on the face of your demise. Things that no sane mind could ever hope to comprehend.

I am talking about raccoons, if it wasn't clear enough. Those damn monsters have been making a disaster out of everyone's garbage lately. So this is your friendly reminder to please lock up your garbage tight and keep it close, where it should have stayed in the first place. Don't share no matter how much you want to make a conversation out of it, like some other people could. Some things are best left unsaid.

After a lovely conversation about the stock market, I was off my way. For any police officer who may be listening right now, Husk, first of all, fix your hair, you shouldn't be judging anyone with a hair that messy. Second of all, how about lay it off with the donuts? If you want a heart attack so badly, goodness me… you just have to ask.

Indeed, everyone is going to miss old man Jenking. If I may give an advice, save the ink on the wanted posters. There are dogs who would appreciate the attention so much more and it would be infinitely more productive. At least with the dog there is a possibility to find them.

Unless a raccoon got them. But who would want to hurt the best friend of men, right, listeners? Only if they barked at the wrong moment, I suppose, bringing unwanted attention when it's the least convenient for everyone else. But they tend to be smarter than that. Beasts know to bow down when a bigger predator is around, after all.

The family of old man Jenking haven't officially dennounced his death yet, so I guess this is kind of a spoiler? I imagine it will take around a week for the idea to fully sink in. Someone could probably accelarate the process by showing what was left of our dear old pal. If only something was left in order to do that.

Please, forgive me if I laugh a little too much. I just keep thinking of an old joke I heard one time, one that has nothing to do with what I am talking about right now. I can't help it. Oh, but you wouldn't get it, dear listener. You should have been there.

Ah. I did needed that pick me up. I think I am on a better mood now to relay to you what soured my morning. After I do, I do hope you understand my state of mind.

I was on my way to the station when I remembered, silly me, that I forgot to buy something for lunch. I had a bunch of new meat to prepare, but nothing to accompany it! I was thinking so much about that old joke that it completely slipped my mind. Naturally I went to the supermarket and there, right there, in front of the dairy products, was the single most offensive view I have ever seen on my life.

He was a tiny man. Minuscule even. Such a small being that I could probably hold it on my pocket and squish it until his eyes pop out. Even at a distance I could see that his head wouldn't even reach my own chest. What kind of man lets himself be so small and vulnerable? Don't you have any dignity or it doesn't fit inside that microscopic frame? At least use some heels, women do it all the time!

So that was the first insult, dear listener.

But then this tiny man took out the sun hat that he was wearing and his hair was so stupid that I wanted to vomit right there. Yes, listener, as you heard! So stupid, shiny and silky, as if nobody in this town has anything better to do than to stare in awe and imagine what would it be like to caress it with your fingers. What a grostque display of vanity! How is that even allowed in public? Who gave this tiny man the right to have that stupid perfect hair? Second insult!

Oh, if only had ended there, dear listener. Maybe then that could have been just an unpleasant memory and it could be it. But he wasn't alone, you see. He was talking with that clerk with an eye patch that says "my creepy comments" on here are hilarious. I think her name was Cherri? I don't know what she means by that, but as long someone appreciate my work I guess they can't be that bad. I might even forgive her for what she did next.

She presented us! Right there! With no warning or preparation prior! Because I talked about that damn new toy maker that just moved to town on the last episode, she thought she was doing me a favor by just telling me that this tiny man with the stupid hair was that toy maker all along.

The one time that the youth decide to pay attention to what I say and this is what I get!

Lucifer Morningstar, said his name was. Have you ever heard about anything more pretentious than that? I seriously doubt that is his real name at all. Husk, if you ever want to do anything useful in your life, you should check on that. Someone with that hair and that tiny body and those big stupid blue eyes could never have a name like that. It can't be real. The feeling in my gut is telling me so.

And he said that oh, I was just getting to know the town and everyone told me about you. Oh, and are you really the radio host of this town? And oh, that must be so fun and your job must be great! Oh, I will have to take a listen sometime!

He just wouldn't stop! I wanted to grab him by the collar of his shirt and shake him until he felt as dizzy as I was getting listening to him! I would shake the answer out of him if I had to!

WHY IS YOUR SMILE SO WHITE!? WHAT ARE YOU HIDING?! I KNOW YOU MUST BE HIDING SOMETHING. NOBODY IS THAT NICE AND PERFECT!

AND CAN SOMEONE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT STUPID STATIC ALREADY, I CAN BARELY HEAR MYSELF HERE.

Oh-oh.

FUCK!"

"Apologies, dear listeners. We seem to have an sudden power outage. Luckily we have back up power regenerators while the fusebox is getting repaired. It seems to have exploded out of nowhere for no apparent reason at all. How completely unrelated to anything we were talking about here.

I had time to calm down now. I am good. Just don't pay any mind to the red splatters outside of the building, I am sure it's nothing. Maybe some teenager's new graffity or something as inocuous as that. That would explain the abandoned shoes I had no time to pick up.

Anyway, I think I didn't even finish my story, did I? Well, after that very horrible and disgusting encounter, "Lucifer", if that is even his real name, said that he was looking forward to opening the toy store with some of his new inventions real soon.

Clearly a money laundering scheme. Husk, look it up. Why it has to be me the one to tell you to do your job?

I think we all learned a lesson today, dear listener. Some things are best left unsaid and sometimes people should stay on their own towns and not comes to new places to talk with new people who didn't ask for them to be there. Sometimes change can stay unchanged. Sometimes change can be bad and quite upsetting. Why would you wanna risk it?

Ah.

Now, the weather…"

[earthstellar]

Despite the 90s Existing, We Never Got any Transformers Smell-O-Vision Content, Which is Probably Good

I was thinking about this today for some reason out of nowhere, but in the 90s there was SUCH a huge fad of scented toys. 

And this really kicked off a little earlier in the 80s with scented Care Bears and gross scratch and sniff Garbage Pail Kids cards and a bunch of stuff like that

It all actually began in the 70s when scented stickers started becoming a thing 

But when the 90s rolled around, it had this huge resurgence

Like, I remember when the Rugrats Go Wild movie came out in theatres, and with your movie ticket they would give you a scratch and sniff card when you were let into the theatre. (At least, this is how it was done at my local theatre.)

They were also giving them out at Burger King, as like a promotional thing with kid’s meals and toys, so you could take it to the theatre yourself if you already had one. 

During the movie, a little icon would pop up and encourage you to find the corresponding sniff spot on your card and scratch it for immersion in a few scenes. 

Here’s what the card looked like: 

And I loved that shit! That was my favourite application of this technology, and it sucks that nothing has done that to this level ever since. 

BUT. 

To my knowledge, we never got any scented Transformers stuff, despite Beast Wars being hugely popular in the 90s. 

There are obvious reasons for this.

Like, what the fuck would a scented Beast Wars scratch and sniff card be? 

1) Wet Fur 

2) Motor Oil 

3) Overheated Brakes 

4) Laser Fire (like an ash smell? because it’s hot plasma and we associate the smell of burnt ash with fire/hot things? IDK)

5) Energon (this would probably be a gasoline smell because what else would fuel be, and you CANNOT have a scratch and sniff card with gasoline smell on it, holy shit LOL) 

6) Road Rash (hot asphalt smell, also probably not good for kids) 

Maybe like, a leather scented one, to replicate the smell of car seat upholstery or something. IDK

Or if they did a scented figure, would it just smell like motor oil? 

They made Autobot/Decepticon badge stickers that change colour and shit, why not make a scratch and sniff one? 

That’s probably not OK. Like, we don’t want to accidentally encourage the target audience of literal children to go sniff motor oil. That would be bad!!!! 

Anyway, I got hit with weird 90s toy nostalgia while walking through a store today trying to pick up some shirts for work and they had a toy bin for kids and I was like “holy shit I remember scratch and sniff” out of nowhere LOL 

But for real though, with the new RotB movie coming out soon, could you imagine if that shit had Smell-O-Vision? 

I’M JUST SAYING. It would either be amazing or we’d all be choking on artificial engine smoke plumes after scratching the little card lmao 

or LOL imagine the icons coming up on screen to let you know when to scratch the card 

Just Optimus fucking punching a giant mechanical gorilla in the head and a tiny number pops up on the lower left of the screen that says “Scratch 3 Now!” And it smells like burnt fur 

fucking lmao 

[thelonesomequeen]

Hello! I listened to this garbage so you don’t have to! —Part 2 (April 6, 2023)

I typed up a transcription from the podcast that I will post below. I typed quickly, so please excuse any typos I might not have caught. Don’t drag me for the grammar. That’s all DM talking. I just typed it out the way she said it. For those of you wanting to hear it for yourself, she starts at 52:30.

————————————————————

DM: Well. I did a little poll on Instagram. Because I posted that Chris Evans is Boston’s hometown hero. And I did a little pill for the Bostonians. I said Who is your hometown hero? Ben Affleck or Matt Damon, I grouped them together, Chris Evans, Mark Wahlberg, or Hilaria Baldwin who I just threw in for good measure. And Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won the poll by a landslide and I just need to clarify for my Boston followers, I didn’t realize that Chris Evans didn’t grow up exactly in Boston, he grew up in Sudbury which

Lex: Yeah, Like a suburb.

DM: Which is like right outside of Boston, so I had someone write in and say “grew up in Lincoln Sudbury, was about 8 years behind Chris, but fully agree with this.” so the Sudbury people, and I hope I’m saying that right, they do think that Chris is Boston’s hometown hero.

Lex: Right.

DM: This person says “Lincoln Sudbury” I’m assuming that’s the school “was obsessed with Chris and our whole theatre department was like a shrine to him. He’d come home frequently to visit his family in the early 2000s and we’d see him at the local Natick mall. Him and his family are super suburb-normie. Like I think his dad coached youth soccer when we were all younger. He’s for sure a Sudbury hero, but not Boston. Just a star that loves Boston and Massachusetts." so I felt like I needed to make that distinction because I didn't realize that before I claimed Chris Evans as the...

Lex: I love this distinction. You know, any chance to talk about Chris Evans is a chance I'll take.

DM: Bost (laughs, cuts off word). Wait, I was just going to say! Aren't you, don't you love Chris Evans? Do you still love him so so much?

Lex: I mean, I do but it's so hard because I'm not getting enough content. That's why I posted, you posted those like high school or elementary school, his like bowl cuts year book photos and I was like "I needed this today!" I feel like we never see him anymore because he's got his girlfriend! But we're gonna get some press soon, right? Because he's got that movie coming out on Apple with Ana de Armas again.

DM: Yes. And he's in New York right now with Alba.

Lex: I mean, yeah, like in my, I don't know what the rumor is circulating or blah blah blah, but like, I just feel like they've been engaged since last year. He would not do the People magazine, come out about his love life, again, you wanna talk PR game. That is all strategic to keep the crazies at an arms length...

DM: You think so?!

Lex: satisfy the beast, but still maintain his privacy. Yes! Yes, yes ,yes!

DM: So you think that their relationship is PR?

Lex: Oh no! I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I think their relationship is real.

DM: Got you. Got you.

Lex: I think he gave...he's normally very private, but he like gave the PR the big, uh, People's Sexiest Man Alive and blah blah blah to then double down and then drop his relationship so that it's like, you know, he's given, he's giving us, he's breadcrumbing us a little bit and then he can still have his life.

DM: You know, I had heard People magazine was pissed about that. Because he didn't disclose to them..."

Lex: Stop, that he was in the relationship?

DM: When he was....yes. Yes.

Lex: Oh my God.

DM: Mhmm. And he did the photoshoot, did the article, was in the magazine, was in the article, and then was like SURPRISE! I'm in this relationship and they were kinda like...why didn't you just tell us? Like you were just on this huge cover and...

Lex: Talking about what you look for in a relationship...

DM: Yes!

Lex:...and like, what you want in a relationship.

DM: Yes, yes. They were like what the f-ck, but whatever. I mean, you know, happy for him. He seems really happy. I'm still...

Lex: So happy.

DM: in the...

Lex: I'm devastated.

DM: I'm still in the camp that if they do get engaged, or if they are currently engaged, I would not be surprised. I'm still in the camp.

Lex: Same. A thousand percent, I agree.

--and then they move on to the next topic.

[severus-snape-apreciation-blog]

People attack the game cause it’s the easiest rage topic they can go for without effort. Bonus, they get a standing ovation from their peers when they do. Hooray for them I suppose. Whatever happened to “block and move on?” Or is “harass and abuse” the latest fashion?

Either ways the very vocal few that have taken to telling people that play to kill themselves and bragging about their ban speed runs have done plenty of damage to their own reputation.

Not very love and acceptance from such tasteless behaviour.

Literally!! Two streamers were bullied till they cried on stream. A 12 posted a video that he got the game and he was told to kill himself.

The funniest part is when people are on TWITTER talking about how anyone who plays or wants to play are trash. Twitter. Owned by a transphobic piece of garbage. The hypocrisy!!! You can’t just pick and choose which items to boycott.

And again. No one said much when fantastic beasts came out. And there was so much more to boycott then terf face with that. WB kept a abuser on and fired her victim. They replaced him in the movie. No one threatened to cut family and friends out over it. So many reasons but the games the one thing they decided is the hill. Not her publishers. Not the artists for the books. Movies. Legos. Toy companies that make HP toys or figures.

You don’t want to play or buy cause you feel it’s wrong. Good for you. Don’t play or buy it. You want to make posts and videos and want to talk about why you don’t want to. Go right ahead!! But until you delete Twitter. Throw out half your possessions (cause almost everything has been made by a transphobe) delete Tik tok! Basically only have Tumblr and Facebook for social media. And tumblr was almost bought by pornhub. Which if they did you would have to delete if as well.

You have to make sure everything you own is ethical. All food bought local and organic and ETHICALLY farmed. Throw out all Nintendo items. Throw out all Lego. And research everything you own.

When you do that. THEN you can harass others.

And even then day to day people are not the problem. She’s already rich enough she can’t be stoped. That’s like trying to boycott Disney. Instead do something to piss her off. Send her videos of you burning her books. Make donations to trans charities in her name. Call her a terf online. She gets so mad at that no joke. She’s a bitch and a monster. My 50y dad who just wants a game to pass the time is not

[more-than-a-princess]

Munday Thursday meme!

Tag nine people you want to get to know better! Do the meme if you want to!

Favorite color(s): Jewel tones, especially sapphire blue, navy, blush pink, burgundy, and all sorts of neutrals. Soft colors are welcome too. Not a fan of brights/neons.

Favorite flavor(s): Tea, champagne (Sugarfina’s champagne gummy bears are the best), fresh strawberries, penne alla vodka, spaghetti carbonara, chicken tikka masala, rose-flavored macarons, Korean BBQ, red velvet cake, a fresh croissant, cannoli, a traditional afternoon tea set somewhere bougie like The Ritz and/or Claridge’s, baked macaroni and cheese, and chocolate. Yes these are all flavors do not test me.

Favorite genre(s): historical drama, historical romance, romance, horror, drama, thriller, and some action and comedy. Basically: give me a costume drama and I’m usually happy, unless I see glaring outfit inaccuracies.

Favorite music: Uhh...something pop/rock/oldies/pop goes classical/soundtracks go here.

Favorite movie(s): Dead Poets Society, Shakespeare in Love, Good Will Hunting, many things starring Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn, most Jane Austen adaptations. For animated: Beauty and the Beast, Lilo and Stitch, Howl’s Moving Castle. For pure camp/rewatch value: The Mummy, Clueless, Legally Blonde, The Addams Family + Values. For Horror: R U D E as fuck question. Depends on what I’m in the mood for. Cannot narrow it down to a handful.

Favorite series: Downton Abbey, Bridgerton, A Court of Thorns and Roses/SJM multiverse, What We Do in the Shadows, Endeavour, Outlander, Sanditon, The Great, Danganronpa, Cowboy Bebop, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Rose of Versailles, Lupin III, Mobile Suit Gundam (mostly 0079 and Zeta, with soft spots for 0080 and Char’s Counterattack), Umineko no Naku Koro ni. And for garbage taste background noise: Gossip Girl, Emily in Paris.

Last song: I don’t care that it’s like six months too early I am hype dammit

Last movie: History of the World: Part 1 rewatch in anticipation for Part 2. But Scream VI tomorrow finally! And after that, the Luther movie at some point.

Currently watching: The aforementioned History of the World: Part 2 (roughly half the skits were great, half were painful), The Last of Us, The Mandalorian, What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim? (as I just found it on Hulu and loved the webtoon), Sanditon, Call the Midwife, Marie Antoinette, Tom Jones, Call My Agent! (I need to watch 10 Percent too, but CMA is on Netflix and has Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, which is who I want to be when I grow up). 

Currently working on: Oh, a constant mishmash of replies, researching costumes for my conventions this year (one of my local friends is revamping her Despair!Kazuichi for a con and is giving me all the more reason to bring Despair!Sonia back out again, even if I wore her last year at this event. We wish we had a Gundham!), work, absolutely losing my shit with Jennifer L. Armentrout’s From Blood and Ash getting picked up by Amazon before we’ve even seen an ACOTAR finalized script/casting/anything from Hulu (ACOTAR > FBAA by a long shot. Heck, give us the Throne of Glass series we were promised!), prepping for cooking date with the husband on Saturday (we’re making a tomato-based chicken curry full of veggies with white rice (his) and shirataki/konjac rice (mine). 

Tagged by: Tagging? We don’t need tagging. I stole it like the Straw Hat Pirate I am (no really I was big into One Piece like 6-7 years ago with offline friends. Still have costumes sitting in my closet that I should sell)

Tagging: Hey you! Yes, you! Do you want to do the Really Cool Thing all the kids are doing and avoiding your drafts with literally Anything Else On The Internet? Then I’ve got exactly what you need! This meme.

[martian-martian-martian]

What’s your hyperspecific headcanon about Lucas that you’ll die defending? I’m curious!

Oh my gosh! Well we’ve been so blessed with Lucas On The Line, which I need to get my hands on. I ESPECIALLY admire how it tackles his experiences as a black child in a majority white state.

But I have a few thoughts about him that warm my heart!

Low Tier - Basic Headcanons:

- Lucas may have been a boy scout for some time! Ultimately not a good fit, for a multitude of reasons, (the real life BSOA kind-of suck) but he learned a lot of survival skills, and I think he has a huge obsession with survivalism. He can tie knots and sail a sailboat and start fires lots of different ways in the backyard!

-Related, but Lucas is as big into local plants and bugs as Dustin is into animals. Lucas knows all the loval flora and fauna in hawkins and keeps arguing for foraging. He’d be the kid trying to get everyone to eat a dandelion leaf while camping because “it’s edible go on try it!”

- Lucas and Eddie (imo) both have a father who was in the military.

-Lucas has a really big extended family and they are always home for every single holiday and the house is packed. They all have enormous board game nights.

Hyperspecific Niche Headcanons:

-With his mother’s teaching, Lucas can quilt AND sew serviceably.

-Lucas did karate for a little bit at the school Murray currently attends. Lucas passed the kid’s black belt level and gave it up for something else, but they were like ships in the night.

-Semi-canon but Lucas has the most hustle out of all the kids, he does townwide tasks and summer jobs to save money, and he is occasionally the ‘bank’ when people forget their cash for the arcade, although he charges interest on loans and keeps a STRICT tally in a notebook.

-On a related note, this makes Lucas an absolute beast on valentines day. Max had her candy gram arrive in the MIDDLE of class alongside a HUGE teddy bear and a GIANT RED BALLOON she had to carry the REST of the day. She says she hates it but Lucas knows she’s had a hard life and loves to buy her things to make her feel special and worth it. Max keeps the balloon in her room until it’s shrivelled up and deflated.

-This also translates over to D&D, Lucas’s first actions are always to protect Max in combat, but it’s more than that. He will make a big show of saying he is purchasing her drink at the tavern, and “are there flowers in this field? I pick a bouqet for Lady Maxine” and yes it IS a slightly competitive thing to make Mike feel like a piece of garbage to the point where Lucas and Max are locked in a constant battle of gratuitous fictional displays of affection to the point where Eddie has to draw the line after Mike drops 30 platinum on a sending stone for his “girlfriend in the next village” and Lucas says he wants to dual class in cleric and make Max his paladin diety.

-When he’s not roleplaying constant loyal romance, Lucas’s main tactic is preparing spells and taking the Ready action. He ACTUALLY USES ball bearings and caltrops. As a ranger (and later ranger cleric) he has a falcon animal companion named Rambo.

- Lucas’s bike is the most tricked out, and for Christmas one year he gets that attachment from the 60s and 70s infomercials with its own key like a car that makes it sound like a MOTORCYCLE and he uses it 24/7 until the batteries die out.

-Mike takes notes in D&D because he’s a goody two shoes. LUCAS takes notes to fuck with the DM and ask about shit he knows full well Eddie won’t remember. Sometimes he can get away with lying too, though he relents good naturedly if caught.

-All the actors are broadway stars so I have to say, if Dustin can sing, Lucas can sing AND dance— but he ALSO has the best sense of humor. Seconded by Will, who is unmatched for dry wit, but Lucas has a genuinely keen sense of what is funny. Especially at the D&D table, he’ll play the long game and then pull out a gag item everyone forgot about and have Eddie on the FLOOR because he forgot he gave them the ‘Stick Of Explode Horse’.

-Lucas (and Erica) are the best at insults. You will not survive.

BONUS:

This is half a headcanon half just an opinion but I think Lucas and Steve have a lot more in common than the show really displays. Both play basketball and bridge the gap between superficial jock popularity and making real friends. I think Steve and Lucas could REALLy bond over sports but ALSO about being fierce protectors over the ones they love. Steve and Lucas are both big fighters and BIG lovers and they deserve to relate to eachother! Related to the above, Steve gives Lucas his OWN varsity jacket from Hawkins High as a graduation present.

and FINALLY.

till the DAY I DIE.

LUCAS. IS. THE. HEART.

[fahrni]

Saturday Morning Coffee

I’m on my second cup. The first one disappeared while putting together this post.

Kolby, our puppers, decided he wanted to get up at 7AM. He doesn’t understand the concept of weekends. That’s ok, I still love him.

Platformer: “Elon Musk took over Twitter on Thursday like a military general who had assumed power by force, purging the company’s ruling regime and replacing it with the singular effect of his personality.”

Dear Advertiser, The reason I bought twitter is because,,,The Delaware Chancery Court made me.

— Scott Galloway (@profgalloway) October 28, 2022

The Verge: “Twitter is a disaster clown car company that is successful despite itself, and there is no possible way to grow users and revenue without making a series of enormous compromises that will ultimately destroy your reputation and possibly cause grievous damage to your other companies.”

The Elon era has begun. Will it be a total disaster or will he turn it around? One thing is for sure, the platform is poised to become more extreme and folks are fleeing. I plan on sticking around because I’m addicted but I also have my Mastodon instance and enjoy it. Read on for a link to a getting started with Mastodon post.

Per Axbom: “Let’s face it, Mastodon can be as confusing as it is rewarding. Especially if you are used to something else (like Twitter). The trick is always to minimise the frustrations and get on with the social benefits. And breathe. And find amusement in the chaos. Here are some tips to help y0u on your way.”

Here we are, a nice piece on getting started with Mastodon. I really do enjoy it. It’s a federation of little Twitters minus the advertising and each instance has the ability to define their own rules and controls which other instances it will allow pairing with. Basically if you have a garbage instance like Gab you can block them from participating with your network. There are a few out there, but most are excellent and provide great diversity in the community.

Apple Security Engineering: “To inaugurate our security research blog, we present the first in a series of technical posts that delves into important memory safety upgrades in XNU, the kernel at the core of iPhone, iPad, and Mac.”

If you’ve ever written any C or C++ code you know the power of the language as well as the pitfalls. This is a really nice post on Apple’s pursuit to harden the XNU kernel at the heart of their products. Great read.

Reuters: “Oct 26 (Reuters) - Skechers USA Inc (SKX.N) said on Wednesday its executives escorted Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, out of a Los Angeles corporate office, after the rapper and fashion designer ‘showed up unannounced and uninvited’.”

Our society has two sets of rules; one for the rich and one for the rest of us. Kanye definitely exercises his privilege every chance he gets.

The man is an antisemite and should be shunned by society. His behavior of late is stirring an already vile nest of hornets into a frenzy.

We cannot tolerate that behavior.

Ed Zitron: “As I’ve written before, I do not think much of Mark Zuckerberg as a CEO.”

I’m no fan of Facebook and I don’t feel bad for the folks who continue to serve this company. You know what you’re doing. If you have anything resembling a soul remaining, get out now.

Meta is a profoundly unethical and increasingly incompetent company, and it starts at the top, with Mark. https://t.co/2sGmrLKcw5

— Grady Booch (@Grady_Booch) October 27, 2022

The Daily Beast: “Guillermo del Toro effusively loves all things ghoulish, grotesque, and squishy—not to mention that he has a particular fondness for dank subterranean locales and slimy tentacled beasts.”

I’ve been looking forward to the release of Cabinet of Curiosities for some time now. We haven’t started watching but we most certainly will be, soon I hope.

WillowTree: _“VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 27, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) – Today, TELUS Corporation](https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=EEeewl4hdXdDUqU0WydpcHAISAIeQJqPQTEYCe-I8NkHjkVXK5YUwGZGi4aexMXaeAboLQ1cWip9J-ToOAuATQ==) (T-TSX; NYSE-TU) and TELUS International (NYSE and TSX: TIXT), a leading digital customer experience innovator that designs, builds and delivers next-generation solutions, including AI and content moderation, for global and disruptive brands, are pleased to announce a definitive agreement to acquire WillowTree…”_

Let’s go!

[eraserhead-baby-offical]

It's weird but to me the saddest part of Aaron Bushnell is that in the video he has a hydroflask covered in stickers, full of gas. He was my age, and I don't know anyone our age who doesn't have one just like it. I don't know anyone our age who isn't trying to stop the genocide with what little we have. But we're 25, we work low ranking jobs and we still collect stickers. The people in power have failed an entire generation and now Aaron Bushnell is dead and they're trying to convince us he was a one off extremist who died for nothing.

[toddbotblog]

The Pigeon says art is garbage in today’s #thepoetcomic ❤️ In case you missed it, there are The Poet T-SHIRTS, MUGS, & really nice TOTES at the link in bio! ALSO: The newest book collection of The Poet strips “Making It Up As I Go Along” is AVAILABLE NOW! 🥳 AND: If you enjoy my comics, please consider telling your friends about it and/or purchasing The Poet BOOKS which are now available (only $8!) - LINK IN BIO! It’s the best way to support my work! SO: Ask your local bookstore to order it for you via Indiebound, order straight from me, or from Barnes & Noble or even feed the corporate beast of Amazon if you have no other recourse - all options are on the table! #art #dailycomics #comics #poetry #poet #makingcomics #drawingcomics #comicstrip #toddwebb #toddbot #artistsoninstagram #thepoet #poetrycomics #dailycomicstrip #webcomics #parkbench #birdsofinstagram #pigeon #pigeonsofinstagram #poetsofinstagram #funnypoetry #dailycomic #comicsoninstagram #bookstagram #smallthings #writingpoetry #garbage #artwork #samething https://www.instagram.com/p/ChDFV59OTxX/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[studiomoon]

So I don’t forget

Drive to Vermont, empty highway sunset, smoothest border crossing, waking windows winooski, chase street, Noah the golden, dinosaur jr., standup show. Hot hot run to the water, brunch in Burlington, April Cornell, dog art, farmers market, clever girls, Francesca blanchard, patio dinner, Japanese breakfast! spud cannon, late night hill walk. Brunch, tallest filing cabinet, rough Francis, low cut connie, power up, crepes, nude party, touching our twenties, touching midnight, moon bathing, touching a hangover. Sneakers brunch, working in the car, New Hampshire coffee, lobster rolls in Maine, traffic jams in Boston, st. Botolphs club back bay, Fenway, standing on the green monster, pouring rain delay, reseating ourselves behind home plate. Breakfast in the library, Picasso stayed here once, big Boston walk, harbour views, nice shoes zegna, Parmesan pizza, modern, mikes, bova bakery, sals lunch, squeakiest subway out to Harvard, chess game hustler, Cambridge walk, MIT sunset, slightly too late for a magical basement taco, hefty American dinner. Morning run to magazine beach, amtrack red cap Harry, train break backup, Rhode Island, Connecticut, penn club Manhattan, Times Square chaos, Korean bbq, Rockefeller center, that guy from SNL. Bryant park, smoothies with Dan, you seem like tall blades of grass, subway to Queens, unlimited popcorn, mrs met cat calls, pin man, Coca Cola zone, good snacks, walk off win, stats nerd boring date with non-stop facts, sometimes a garbage can be handsome, does central jersey exist, zabars, babka locker, coffee in Central Park, casual rabbi go kart, billionaire row, Columbus circle to Hudson yards to high line sunset, downtown to midtown and back, classic pizza slice, midnight jazz shows, mezzrow, Johnny Oneil, March is spring, April spring, May is also spring, june is still mostly spring, smalls, sticky floors, rats!! your friend is cute where’d he go, street food spicy, locked out late night.

Coffee walk, you’re overthinking it, Bloomberg, MoMA, new LGA, five hours on the tarmac, cancellation chaos, last minute last seats flight to Charlotte at midnight, Ronaldo the uber driver, red bull taco bell two hours to Raleigh, drunk drivers and detours and someone died on the road, we gave away your room, jay saves the day, lost bags but at least a bed finally. Target run, hours on hold, campus walk, lunch at the inn, bags! a favour from Julian’s, local bands, tuxedo dress up, black tie wedding, beauty and the beast, Britney in the background, just in time thunder storm, sparkling wine and flowers and LED cowboy hats, granny dancing, sparkler send off, cobblestone escort service, SNL snack party. Four folks three seats, North Carolina backyard BBQ, swimming pool ecstasy, long walk up Franklin, rooftop soda pop, topo peppapew. Farewell new friends, uber driver Jesus, arriving home to a city with no power. :)

[dailyadventureprompts]

Dungeon: Down the Gullet

“I ask you, oh mighty sage, how does something that’s been dead for centuries STILL have such bad breath?” 

Rori Darebrook, famed adventurer and bodyguard of Chronicler Esternius the Elder

Setup: None can quite agree where the bones came from, as local legend has it belonging to a world devouring beast by the name of Golszul, created by a clever lithomancer as a foreboding defense against intruders, and even as a severed head of the primordial goddess Tiamat. Regardless, the colossal skull and it’s scattered, monument like vertebrae guard the entrance to a valley and cave system dozens of miles long and full of wonders and dangers just waiting to be explored. The name “Golszul’s Gullet” has became popularized among those that have ventured it’s depths, given the swampy and sometimes putrid atmosphere within some of the caves, a phenomenon that can either be chalked up to some ancient culture dumping their garbage down the gullet for generations, or the dragon’s last meal refusing to finally rot away. 

The gullet is a dangerous place for the unready, as delving its reaches requires much more wilderness traversal skills than your average jaunt into a ruined fortress. 

Adventure Hooks: 

Near as anyone can tell, people have been making expeditions down into the gullet since before recorded history, ensuring that wide sections have been mapped out and largely cleared of the most dangerous hazards, while other sections remain untamed and undiscovered. While relaxing in a tavern or stocking up on supplies at the local market, the party is approached by an NPC who claims that their uncle was on a delve into the gullet that nearly didn’t make it back alive after becoming lost in unmapped passages. This npc happens to possess a few of the maps they made while trying to find their way back to a known point, and is willing to sell them to the party as a means of accessing a largely unexplored region of the cavern complex. 

Little means more to Shilnyn of Largisburg than faith, a man who has dedicated his life to the service of his chosen god and sharing their benevolence with the world. Perhaps the only thing that eclipses this calling is his love for his daughter Jiridis, who inspired by her father’s piety ended up joining a zealous sect within the faith led by a philosopher with peculiar ideas. According to this charismatic visionary, the titanic bones that mark the entrance to the gullet belonged to a great beast slain by their patron during the dawn age, and the thing which refuses to rot within its depths is infact a scrap of immortal flesh torn off during their battle. The sect has descended into the gullet with the hopes of reclaiming this relic of the divine and healing their god, leaving Shilnyn in need of companions to help track down the cult and survive the rigors of journeying the caverns before his daughter ends up martyring herself for a lunatic’s dream. 

The darkest depths of the gullet are haunted by an enclave of Derro, who hollow claustrophobic complexes into the stone and set traps to punish incursions into their territory. These mad dwarven-kin are bound to Sc’koGAX, an eremite mindflayer sage who uses them as servants, test subjects, and occasional snacks while perusing it’s own exploration of illithid lore. Quite content to lay off world-domination plans in favor of study, Sc’koGax is paranoid that agents of it’s elder-brain that spawned it are out to get it and steal it’s knowledge, and so has a nasty habbit of bashing open people’s skulls to see if any of the tell-tale signs of mind-control have been inflicted on the victim’s brain. 

Future Adventures: 

Lithographs through the most isolated sections of the cave speak of a ritual belonging to a long forgotten culture that involves ingesting particular mushrooms growing in the gullet’s swampier areas and traversing a circuit through the complex as a physical representation of the dreaming soul’s journey into the greater mysteries of sleep. Those partaking the quest will have to navigate a hallucinogen altered landscape while fighting off dream creatures and eventually receiving communion from a long-slumbering being once worshiped within the gullet’s cavernous temples. 

As a scholar of mindflayer lore, Sc’koGAX is well aware of how unnatural its kind’s existence is: parasites from a future that never will be that rely on other creatures and their alien brain-pools to survive. Eschewing the uniformity of thought being part a usual illithid hivemind offers, Sc’koGax has developed a unique method of self-preservation that does not require it to give up it’s individuality to an elder brain. Instead, Sc’koGAX only allows one of it’s tadpoles to mature, and through the use of a special psychic link, transfers his mind into the new body by means of a psychic link ( and letting his new self eat the brain of his old self). Challenging the party will interrupt this replication process, forcing the un-implanted tadpole to develop into a neothelid, eventually escaping the gullet months or years down the line in it’s hunt for food, bringing it into invariable conflict in the future. 

[uvobreakmylegs]

On Golden Wings

Anonymous requested a Kurapika x reader story where Kurapika has a mythical element.

Kurapika is technically a seraph in this, but I added some elements of a griffin because I thought it was fun and Kurapika is extra so it fits

(sorry about the bad title it was the best I could come up with)

Warnings: mentions of violence, kidnapping, threats of torture, implied death

Feathers.

Everywhere you looked, you could find golden-brown feathers strewn about the city. In the streets, sticking out of bushes, stuck within whatever cracks they could find or drifting across the pavement as the wind pushed them along. Even some children would pick them up and use them as accessories.

When they first began to appear people had noticed them quickly – they were hardly small, some that you had seen were longer than the entire length of your hand. Questions about them came just as fast, on where they had come from and what kind of bird this was, to be losing so many feathers at such a seemingly rapid pace. The local zoo and bird sanctuary claimed to know nothing, and no one of the upper class within the city admitted to having some sort of exotic pet that had escaped. And if all of those parties were telling the truth, it only meant that it was wild. And once again taking in the size, it was extremely likely that it was a bird of prey.

The fears began then. That there was a monster bird stalking the city, ready to maim and kill whatever it came across. Despite the fact that there was no evidence of any actual danger, once those ideas were planted fear was quick to make the majority of the public lose their minds. For a few weeks, at least. Once enough time had passed and there were no reports of anyone turning up dead, the public's sights shifted to a new fear to worry over, and the feathers that covered the city were accepted as a new norm with only a small handful of people still trying to find the feathers' origins.

You fell within the former category, content to accept that the feathers were there to stay and since it wasn't actually affecting anyone negatively, it wasn't anything to worry about. The feathers could get annoying, yes, but it was a nuisance that was easily taken care of so you could get on with your day.

Whether it was just an abnormally large bird or something that fell under the category of a magical beast, you had no desire to kick that particular hornet's nest just to sate your own curiosity. There were things in this world that were beyond your comprehension. You were happy to accept that fact and content to continue living your life not worrying about such things.

The feathers stayed, and you continued as normal.

Or at least, you would have had it not been for a chance encounter one night.

It was a late Sunday evening when your work shift finally ended. It had been a hectic, exhausting day as usual and you wanted nothing more than to return home and pass out on your bed.

The walk back towards your apartment was quiet, with virtually no one else on the street and only a few cars passing you by every once in a while. Though you usually did your best to keep yourself calm, there was always a part of your brain that worried about being out alone so late at night. Women getting snatched up and murdered was something you frequently saw in the murder documentaries you occasionally watched, and as much as you told yourself that it could never happen, it didn't hurt to keep your guard up, subtly glancing around the area every so often to make sure no would-be murderer was following you.

Checking around again, you sighed to yourself when you confirmed that there was in fact no one tailing you. Adjusting the grip you held on the paper bag holding the donut you'd grabbed before you left your work, you told yourself that at least there was no one there to see you acting like a paranoid idiot.

But even you were caught off-guard when you heard a commotion coming from the alleyway a few feet ahead of you, followed by a stray cat who ran out and down the street at full speed. You stood still for a few seconds, waiting to see if anything else would come out. Nothing did, but you could hear movement from within the alley. Along with.... Breathing? It was most likely a person, then, and who knew what they were doing in there.

Common sense told you that you should probably go to the other side of the street before going past the alley, or maybe even to turn around and find an alternate route home. As much as an inconvenience it was, you would have done just that had you not seen the flurry of feathers that came rushing out of the alley, followed by what sounded like the flapping of wings.

…. That didn't seem normal. Granted, none of this seemed very normal, but the sounds and things you saw coming from that alley were decidedly strange.

Maybe the thing that's been leaving those feathers was in there.

The thought popped into your head, and once it had, you had a hard time getting your legs to take you away from the area.

You didn't care what sort of creature was hanging around the city. That was what you had told yourself. So why were you slowly moving forward, straining your neck to try and get a glance at whatever was in that alley? You didn't care, and you weren't going to actually do anything with that information.

But just getting a quick glance at it wouldn't hurt, right?

You took a few small steps forward, and finally, you could see into that alley.

A young blonde man, most likely in his early twenties and wearing all white, stood before you, a hand holding a trash bin lid as he was very obviously rooting through the garbage. But those things weren't even what was most significant about him.

It was the four large wings that protruded from his back.

Even as he held them tightly to himself, the wings still brushed against the walls and ground of the alley, the natural grime of the ally dirtying the golden-brown feathers. There was also a tail that swayed from side to side, resembling that of a lion and of a similar color to that of the wings. And to top it off, you noticed that on his bare feet and his hands were long sharpened nails. Or perhaps they were claws. Either way they looked deadly, and you inhaled sharply when you noticed him freeze.

He slowly turned his head, looking over his shoulder to glare at you with sharp gray eyes.

The two of you stood there for some time, neither of you taking your eyes off of the other even when he turned to face you fully, tossing the metal lid to the ground with a clatter. His chest puffed up and his wings extended as he stood at his full height. It was a show of force, you realized. He saw you as a threat and was trying to scare you away by intimidating you.

Common sense was back, telling you that you had gotten what you had come for and that you should retreat while he still gave you the chance. He hadn't attacked you, so it was safe to assume he would leave you alone if you left now.

But even as you thought that, another look over his figure made you reconsider. His white clothes were muddied, covered in dirt and what looked like blood. The fabric was ripped in several places as well, the wounds that were beneath partially visible. On a closer inspection, his wings weren't faring much better: there were several spaces that were empty where feathers were clearly supposed to be, and quite a few of the ones that remained looked scruffy and unkempt. Like he had gotten into a fight with something and had lost. Then there was the fact that you had caught him literally digging through the trash. Taking another glance at the trash bin, you saw the remnants of rotting food sitting at the top.

He must be hungry.

The man continued to glare at you, and then tensed when you held out the paper bag that you had been holding.

“Do you want this?” you asked, offering it to him.

His eyes narrowed further, and he looked at the bag and then back to you.

“What is it?” he asked.

Relieved that he could understand you, you answered “a donut. Food.”

He stayed quiet as you continued to hold the bag out to him, his guard not letting down in the slightest. He was clearly trying to assess if you were plotting something and if this was some sort of trap. You tried not to be offended. You had never heard of people with wings before, but if you had, you were certain that the general public would have treated them as being some sort of magical beast to be gawked at or hunted. Based off of his actions, he must have good reason not to trust you, and you couldn't blame him for that.

“Toss it over to me,” he finally said.

You did as he told you, throwing the bag over which he caught with one hand.

He carefully opened the top, peering inside while his figure relaxed slightly. Once he had determined that there was nothing wrong with the bag, he tentatively reached inside to grab what would have been your late-night snack, letting the bag fall to the ground as he inspected the donut, turning it over and sniffing at it. It was the first time you had seen someone give such an accusatory look towards a simple donut.

He looked back at you briefly before taking a small bite, carefully chewing before he swallowed. You saw the tension in him dissipate further, and he took a few more bites as he leaned back against the alley wall, satisfied that you hadn't done anything to tamper with the food. He would periodically glance over at you as you smiled to yourself, happy that he seemed to like it.

“Can I come closer?” you asked.

He paused in between bites, once again looking you over.

“.... Not too close,” he finally answered.

Delighted, you took a few steps forward, stopping when he ordered you to stop with a swish of his tail.

“You're a strange one,” he commented as he continued to eat, “why did you do this?”

You shrugged.

“I wanted to help.”

“But why?”

“You were hungry.”

He didn't seem satisfied with your answer as his eyes narrowed at you once again, but he chose to continue eating instead of questioning you further. Within moments, the donut was gone, and he was licking the last remnants of it off of his fingers.

“That was hardly filling,” he said, “but your kindness is appreciated.”

Lifting off of the wall, he turned and began to walk away.

“Wait!” you called out.

He stopped, glancing back at you.

“What is it?”

“Can I help you with anything else? Is there anything you need?”

“What else could I need from you?”

“Maybe some bandages? You're hurt, aren't you?” you pressed.

One of his hands instinctively went to his stomach that had one of the many wounds on his body, covering it as he bit his lip. He turned away and began to walk again.

“If I decide that I require your assistance again, I will come to you,” he called out, “but do not count on such a thing happening.”

“... Okay,” you answered, feeling a bit dejected.

“Could you at least tell me your name?”

He ignored your question as he reached the other end of the alley, his wings spreading out and lifting him up with such a force that the backdraft he created caused the paper bag on the ground to fly up and hit you squarely in the face.

Despite what he had said you saw him the next day, peering at you through the thick foliage of a local park. He vanished the instant the two of you made eye contact, his golden head popping back down beneath the leaves.

He must have been confident that he would get your attention and not alert anyone else that was around, you mused.

Or he was just that desperate.

Taking it as an invitation, you made your way into the the thick bit of forest within the park, quickly coming upon a small clearing where he stood, arms crossed as he waited for you.

“Am I right in thinking that you wanted to see me?” you asked, grinning as he nodded.

“Yes,” he said, sighing, “I'm trusting that you didn't tell anybody about our meeting last night?”

“Who would I even tell? No one would believe me.”

“And you intend on keeping my existence a secret?”

“Again, no one would buy it.”

“Very well,” he responded. His gaze shifted to the ground next to him in an almost bashful way.

“Is that offer to help still on the table?”

He couldn't look at you, and he was clearly embarrassed that he needed to ask.

“Of course,” you said, smiling at him.

“I have nothing of value, and will not be able to compensate you in any way. Is that still acceptable?”

“I don't care about anything like that. Just tell me what you need,” you insisted.

“As long as you're certain,” he said, his wings lowering in defeat as he let out another small sigh.

“You were correct last night; bandages would be very useful. It's also been a while since I had a proper meal, so if you could bring me some more food, it would be appreciated.”

“Got it. Anything else?”

“Just that for now.”

Nodding at him, you hurried out of the park and to the nearest grocery store. One quick trip later and you had returned, holding a bag full of bandages, medical supplies and food that you hoped he would like.

He hummed as he looked through it, picking out the bandages and ripping the packaging open. He glanced over to you a few times as he did so, looking more embarrassed every time he looked away.

“... Do you want me to leave?” you asked.

“If that is alright with you,” he mumbled, “I don't wish to be rude after you've done me a favor, but the majority of my interactions with your kind have been largely.... Unpleasant. I would feel more comfortable if-”

“It's alright. I get it,” you said.

“Thank you,” he said, sighing in relief.

You made your way to the 'entrance' of the clearing, then stopped.

“Can I ask you one thing, though?”

He looked nervous again, but nodded slowly.

“Can you tell me your name?” you asked, smiling at him.

“..... Kurapika.”

“So what do you normally eat?” you asked, resting your chin on your knees.

“Before I came here I largely ate the animals that I could hunt down,” Kurapika answered, “but the majority of the animals in this city are domesticated, and I couldn't bring myself to hunt any of them.”

“Why?”

He glanced away, a slight pout on his face.

“Just thinking about killing someone's pet for food made me feel badly, even if I was desperate enough for that.”

Kurapika sat across from you in the clearing, taking bites out of the lunch you had brought him for the day. He had forbidden you from visiting him more than once per day, in the event that your behavior would stick out as being suspicious to anyone that was trying to hunt him. So you went once every day under the guise of eating lunch in the park, secretly taking him a big meal that could get him through until the next day.

You wanted to ask about his life before he had become a fugitive, but you knew that would only cut your visit short. Any question that was even vaguely related to where he had come from and how he had ended up in this situation would result in him clamming up. It was clearly something that still caused him immense amounts of pain, and you didn't want to add to it. So you did your best to steer your conversations to more mundane subjects that you hoped wouldn't upset him. It had taken a lot of effort and convincing him that you were on his side and that all you wanted was to help him, and you didn't want to ruin that by asking intrusive questions.

His wings were in slightly better shape (after he reluctantly allowed you to help him clean them) though a lot of them were still growing back in.

“How long did you say your molting period lasts again?”

“About two months,” said Kurapika, “I believe it's been a little over a month since I started, so it should be over soon. Then I'll be able to leave this area.”

“Do you think the people who hurt you will follow after?”

“Most likely. But when my molting has ended they won't have a trail of my feathers to hunt me down again,” he said.

“I really do have to thank you,” he continued, “you helping me like this means I don't need to go out and risk getting caught.”

“Happy to help,” you said, grinning.

“I think I'll be sad when you leave, though.”

“I can't remain here,” he said, finishing up the last of his meal.

“I know. But I'll miss being able to talk to you. I really like you.”

Kurapika paused, looking over you carefully before snapping his head away, another blush on his face.

“We barely know each other. Ridiculous.”

You just smiled in response.

Although he stopped mentioning it out loud, he was continually perplexed by your willingness to help him. There were many times during your visits with him that he would watch you carefully, or even watch the woods that surrounded the two of you as if anticipating an ambush. While he trusted you enough at this point to believe that you had no intentions of harming him, he didn't trust that you wouldn't be followed, and he emphasized to be on the lookout for anyone who seemed suspicious.

You weren't sure what exactly counted as suspicious until you happened across the two magic beast hunters.

Walking by a crowded plaza, it seemed quieter than was expected. Everyone there was speaking in hushed whispers and seemed nervous about something. The air around the plaza made you pause, and you looked around the area to see what exactly was causing people to behave in this way.

Then you saw the hunters, armed to the teeth with an array of gnarly looking weapons accosting some old man. One of them was tall with a stocky build, looking smug while his partner, a smaller scruffy-looking man with far more knives than was reasonable did the talking. You frequently saw the old man make an attempt to leave but the hunters wouldn't let him, the bigger one going as far as to grab him by the shoulder to keep him in place while the other continued to speak to him, waving one of Kurapika's feathers in his face.

Oh shit.

You wanted to just run out of there and get away from them as fast as you could, but that would have gotten their attention. It would be less suspicious if you followed the example of the others you saw in the plaza and quietly left. Surely they wouldn't notice you among the dozens of others hoping to leave without attracting their attention.

It was easier to breathe when you had made it to the side streets, and when you saw Kurapika that day you told him everything. When you had described them to him, his hand went back to the healing wound on his stomach.

“Those were the ones who attacked me. You're certain they didn't see you?” he asked.

“I'm sure of it. There were too many other people around for them to have noticed me.”

“Alright. But if you ever see them again, don't come that day. Right now I'm still too weak to fight them, so if they found me it'd be over.”

You nodded. He wasn't back to 100% yet, but he had been doing much better since you had begun to help him. Even so, you didn't want to let him go without food for a day, but it was better that he go hungry for a bit instead of being captured.

There was a tense air that stayed over the next few days, and you noticed a change in Kurapika. Dark circles were forming under his eyes and you asked if he hadn't been sleeping well. Instead of actually answering your question he told you not to worry about it.

That only made you worry more.

This particular day you had asked him if he was doing okay, and he said that he was fine, brushing away your concerns, his annoyance evident.

But not five minutes later he fell over.

Directly onto you.

It was almost panic-inducing when it happened, and the first thought that went through your mind was that he had literally dropped dead. But after a moment you could see that he was still breathing. Given the dark circles that were under his eyes, Kurapika seemed to have passed out due to sheer exhaustion.

'You can't stay with him. You have work in an hour,' you thought to yourself.

So why were you adjusting him so his head could rest comfortably on your lap?

He'd probably be mad at you if you stayed with him while he was completely vulnerable. If there was one thing you learned during your time with him, he hated to appear to be weak in front of others.

But the thought of just leaving him passed out on the forest floor left a bad taste in your mouth.

After a few minutes, you called your work to say that you were sick and couldn't come in. As expected, your manager was upset and berated you over the phone. At least that call only lasted a few minutes. The money you would lose today would hurt a little bit, especially with all of the spending you'd been doing on Kurapika, but when you looked back down at his sleeping form, you were confident that you'd made the right choice.

Kurapika slept soundly on your lap, his wings and tail twitching from time to time. You laid a hand on his head, slowly stroking his blonde hair. Your touch was light, and yet you heard him let out a soft sigh and saw his body relax further. How long had it been since he had received a kind touch from anyone? Likely just as long as the last time anyone had shown him any kindness. Your thoughts went again to the questions he wouldn't answer: what had happened to his friends and family? How had he ended up like this?

You thought of those questions, and yet you could make a pretty good guess as to the answers. He had been alone on the streets digging through the trash for food, covered in wounds and dirt, carrying no money and being chased by hunters. If his life was in danger like that, then it was clear that his loved ones weren't alive anymore.

Time passed, and the sun dipped lower into the sky while Kurapika continued to sleep. You let him stay as he was, even when it was becoming uncomfortable for you as your legs began to fall asleep.

There wasn't a lot you could do for him, and while it hurt to admit it, what you were able to do for him wouldn't be much in the long run. But even if it helped in even the slightest, you wanted to do whatever you could.

It was nearing evening when he finally stirred, his wings fluttering slightly as he blearily opened his eyes. He seemed to take a little bit to fully awaken and realize the situation, his eyes widening in surprise and looking up at you.

You were expecting him to become upset. To shoot up and ask what you were doing, or to just turn away from you and tell you to leave.

But instead he stayed as he was, head on your lap as he continued to look up at you.

The silence was becoming awkward for you, and you cleared your throat before explaining “sorry. You fell asleep and, uh, I didn't feel good just leaving you.”

He stared at you, unblinking.

“I don't remember falling asleep,” Kurapika finally said.

“You just fell over,” you explained, laughing a bit as you continued, “fell over right onto me, actually.”

“Did I hurt you?”

“Ah! No, I'm fine.”

“That's good,” he said.

Kurapika pushed himself up, switching to a sitting position in front of you. He glanced about the clearing and noted how late it was.

“Isn't it too late for you to be here? Didn't you have work?” he asked.

“It's fine. I called in.”

“Won't that be an issue?”

“Ah, well. My coworkers won't be happy with me, and I'll probably get bullied a bit by the manager tomorrow,” you explained, but you tried to change your tune when you noticed how his face fell.

“It's fine, though! It's not the end of the world because I called in one day of work.”

He didn't look convinced, but he seemed to concede as he sighed at you (just how often had he sighed at you at this point?).

“Shouldn't you head back to your home? In case someone goes there to check up on you?”

“There isn't going to be anybody coming to check on me,” you assured him.

“You should still head back; you've been out here too long,” he insisted.

“Okay. But, uh,” you began, scratching the back of your head, “could I wait a little bit? My legs are still asleep.”

“That's fine.”

The both of you stayed where you were, sitting in the clearing while you waited for the feeling to return to your legs and feet. Kurapika was still staring at you, a thoughtful look on his face. Just as you had been surprised earlier that he hadn't immediately retreated from you when he'd woken up, it was unusual that he stayed this close to you. He hadn't made any move to back away. It was a stark contrast to how things had been when you had first met.

“You don't have to keep an eye on me, you know?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I just mean, you don't have to wait on me until I leave. If you've got other things to do, you don't have to keep your attention on me. As soon as my legs feel better I'll be out of here.”

You weren't sure what other things he might need to do without you there, but you didn't want to assume that there was nothing. With the way he was staring at you, it felt as though you were inconveniencing him in some way.

“It's fine,” he said. You hummed an affirmative, and the silence fell back over you.

When you felt like you were able to safely walk again, he spoke.

“You remind me of someone I once knew.”

… This was new. Kurapika had never talked about anyone other than the beast hunters that were trying to track him down.

“In what way?” you asked.

“Going out of your way to look out for me. Taking care of me, even at your own expense,” he added wistfully. There was a distant look in his eyes as he appeared to recall his memories of this person.

“Were they.... Like you?” you asked, unsure if that was the best way to phrase the question.

“Yes. His name was Pairo, and he was part of our clan,” said Kurapika, “he died with the rest of them when a group of murderers found our home.”

“I'm sorry,” you said, “I can't imagine what you've been through.”

He hummed noncommittally, seemingly lost in his thoughts.

“Are they the one who're chasing you?” you asked.

Kurapika let out a harsh breath that resembled a laugh.

“If they were I wouldn't be talking to you,” he said, “they didn't seem to care that one of us happened to not be there. At this point, I wonder if they even remember about my people and what they did to them. No, the ones who are after me are petty bottom-feeders. Apparently they want to sell me off as being an exotic pet.”

“They're... Hunting you for that? But then why did they hurt you?” you asked, looking at his bandaged wounds.

“Doesn't seem like they're that good at taking something alive. I suppose I'm lucky that they're not trying to kill me,” he scoffed, “if I'm having such trouble with rabble like them, it's only a testament to how weak I really am, and how much stronger I'll need to become if I want revenge for Pairo and the others.”

You didn't know how to respond. You couldn't respond. There was nothing you could say to offer him any sort of comfort, and any sort of encouragement or guarantees that things would be fine would be insulting.

“I'm sorry,” you said again.

He didn't answer you.

You stood up on slightly shaking legs, giving him a short goodbye and promising to see him tomorrow. He nodded in response.

The next day he was gone.

The clearing was virtually empty with no signs that he had been there other than the feathers that you had grown so accustomed to. It was the first time since you started this that he was gone when you went to visit, and your first thought was that he needed to leave to take care of something....... In the middle of the day. While trying to lay low.

Yeah, maybe not.

Your next assumption was that he had been discovered and taken away. But surely there would be some evidence of a struggle, right? And there was nothing that indicated that Kurapika had left unwillingly. Then the next thought was that he had found a new hiding place. Maybe those hunters had come a bit too close for his liking and he felt like he needed to find someplace safer, and he just didn't have a way to find you and tell you where it was yet.

That last scenario somehow seemed less likely than the other two, and you were forced to reconcile with the idea that he had left.

It wasn't too unexpected. He'd been getting better, and his molting was almost finished so he'd be able to fly about safely.

You had just hoped that he would've told you so you could have given him a proper farewell.

Maybe what had happened the day before had upset him more than you had realized. That hadn't been your intention, but who knew what it had looked like to him.

But he had opened up to you a bit more, hadn't he?

It was confusing and you didn't understand, but the longer you stood in that empty clearing, you accepted that he was gone, and your chances of seeing him again were likely nothing.

You tried to be happy for him. It was a good thing that he was able to finally leave the area. Hopefully he could get to someplace safer, maybe not need to worry about those people hunting him down, or at least get far enough away that they would have a hard time finding him again.

But even then, you couldn't help but feel sad that he really was gone.

You set the bag of food meant to be his lunch in the middle, just in case he did come back and needed something. It seemed unlikely, but you felt better leaving it for him. As you weaved back through the trees that surrounded the space, you picked up one of his errant feathers that had been caught in a branch, running your fingers over it. A small memento; something to remember him by. It was the most you could ask for, and you told yourself to be happy that you were able to help the way you did.

With you being so caught up in these thoughts, you didn't notice one of the hunters from earlier standing at the edge of the park, or the way he watched you as you left.

It was another Sunday night after work: your feet hurt from standing too much, your back and arms hurt from the overwork, and if you needed to hear one more complaint from an entitled customer you'd probably stab your own ears just to get away from those shrill voices. The one consolation you had was that you weren't working the closing shift and didn't need to worry about taking care of customers while simultaneously trying to close up for the night. Once the end of your shift came around, all you needed to do was run to the break room, gather your things and escape.

One day you'd get a better job, you told yourself. Something that you actually enjoyed and wouldn't cause you ungodly amounts of stress. You just needed to figure out what that could be.

Your thoughts went back to Kurapika as you walked the familiar path back to your home. It wasn't all that long that he had been around, really, and yet the idea of not seeing him again felt strange to you.

You pulled out the feather that you stowed away in your bag, looking it over again. With how busy you had been throughout your shift, you had managed to take your thoughts away from him, but now that things were more quiet, he was all you could think about.

It wasn't too late yet, with some people walking along the same walkway as you, but that didn't stop the car that suddenly pulled up next to you.

Or the man who opened the door and pulled you inside.

The amount of force he had used to grab you almost broke your arm, and all you could do was scream as you were shoved against the seat as the man who had grabbed you yelled at the other to drive while he shut the door behind you, keeping his forearm on your throat to the point that you could hardly breathe.

A knife in your face and him yelling at you to “shut the fuck up” made you silent, and your fingers latched onto the seat beneath you, your nails tearing holes into the worn fabric.

The car sped along, almost hitting several other vehicles and pedestrians in the process. Doing your best to calm down, you realized that the men who had grabbed you were the hunters you had been avoiding; the bigger one in the driver's seat while the smaller one waved one of his knives around, nicking your face a few times when the car lurched him from side to side.

It finally stopped on an empty embankment by a river. The water that rushed through the canal was almost black and it was impossible to see to the bottom.

'They're going to kill me,' you thought. 'They're going to kill me and then dump my body in the water.'

Your heart was beating in your ears when the smaller hunter began speaking.

“Let's make this quick, okay? A lotta people saw our little stunt and the police'll probably be here soon,” he said.

“We really need to know where that bird boy went. Tell us everything you know, and you'll be able to get home safely. If not-”

He grabbed one of your hands and held it up to your face.

“- I'm gonna to cut off your fingers one by one 'til you talk, and then they'll need to fish your body out of the river when we're done with you. If you're smart, you'll pick the first option.”

You sat there in shock as this man spoke so matter-of-factly about brutally torturing and murdering you while the man behind him sat there grinning.

There was a lump in your throat, and you couldn't make any sort of sound.

“Listen you stupid bitch,” he hissed, grabbing your face and pulling you closer, “I'm not gonna lose any sleep over killing you. His life is valuable; yours isn't. So tell me where the fuck he is or-”

You spat in his face. There was barely any saliva with how dry your mouth was, but you managed it.

One of his blood veins popped and his lip quivered.

“That was the worst thing you coulda done, you stupid little bitch.”

He barked at the other man to come back and hold you down while his hand went back to your throat, mercilessly choking you to keep you in place. The other man was already stepping out of the car, and with what little you could see, you could tell he seemed excited about the prospect of torturing you.

You tried to pull the knife man's hand off of your throat as he waited for his partner to walk around the car.

And he waited.

And waited.

Black spots were beginning to appear at the edge of your vision when he finally loosened his grip, leaning forward over you to look for his partner through the car windows.

A loud crash from the front of the car startled you both. His hand left your throat completely, and while he turned his gaze to the front, you lurched to the side, desperately grabbing at the door handle.

He noticed your escape attempt with a sharp cry, and you felt something slice down your back as you opened the door and stumbled out.

There weren't any thoughts running through your head as you ran; you were going off of a pure primal instinct and a desire to get out of there and survive.

Noises sounded from behind you: the sound of something flapping and a scream. But you could barely acknowledge them, your eyes only focused on the lights on the road next to the embankment.

You could feel blood running down your back as you ran but you didn't stop. Even when you had put several blocks between you and that car you didn't stop. You needed to get to safety, and that could only be found with other people.

A figure dropped down from the sky in front of you and you ran right into them. They wrapped their arms around you and you screamed, bashing your fists against their chest while you struggled to get out of their grasp.

“Calm down,” a familiar voice said.

You stopped, slowly looking back up to see who was holding you.

In your adrenaline-fueled haze, you managed to not notice the wings the person hand.

“Kurapika-!”

You sobbed into his chest, your hands grabbing the fabric of his shirt while he soothed you. His hand ran down your back and you winced, the skin still tender from where you had been slashed.

“We need to get out of here,” he said.

“Th-those two-!”

“I took care of them. Now hold onto me.”

Kurapika picked you up bridal-style, and you wrapped your arms around his neck. He lifted off the ground as his wings pulled him up, and within moments you were in the sky, miles above the buildings that littered the ground. The air was chillier up here, and as he flew, the wind stung your back-wound, making you bury your face into his neck.

You could vaguely make out him apologizing to you, and something about promising to fix you up. The wind made it hard to hear it, though.

It felt like only seconds had passed when he touched down on top of a large building, carefully lowering you to the ground while continuing to hold you, his wings folding over you to barricade you from the wind.

He ran his hand down your back, careful to avoid the cut while you took in huge gulps of air as you tried to calm down.

Half an hour passed before you could properly form a sentence. You pulled away from him slightly, your tears mostly dry now. There were a lot of questions running around in your mind, and you didn't know where to start.

“I thought you left,” you whispered.

“I did. But I got a bad feeling, so I came back. I'm so glad I did,” he said, a hand trailing down your cheek, “it would have been devastating if I found out that those two had killed you.”

For the first time, you noticed that his hands were covered in blood, but you didn't say anything.

“Thank you,” you whispered, “I- thank you.”

He didn't say anything for some time, and the two of you sat there on that roof. There was still pain coming from you back and you were about to ask that he take you somewhere to get that fixed when he spoke.

“Come with me.”

“What?”

“I can't stay here, and therefore I can't be around to protect you,” he explained, “if those men told anyone else about you, your life is still in danger.

“I was wrong when I left you like that, because for the first time in a long time, I finally have someone who I can't bare to lose. It'll be hard, but I want to rebuild my clan together with you. Once I get my revenge, I want to spend the rest of my days with you. So please, say you'll come with me.”

Kurapika held you tightly against him, his tail wrapping around your ankle.

“Please, let me have this little bit of selfishness,” he breathed.

“..... Okay.”

He tilted your head up to meet your lips in a kiss, and you found yourself pushing up into it, closing your eyes while his wings remained caged around you.