#short fiction

[kyutpudding]

FIRSTLY FIRST!

IMAGINE Getting a text from an unknown number saying cringey pickup lines like "do you smell something burning? Smells like my love burning for you" then proceeds to send a bunch of heart emojis but What you do not know is that it's YOUR CRUSH trying to get YOU to fall for him ( He doesnt know you have a crush on him though and he totally did not peek at your phone while its still on when you left it in class the other day) so basically you both like each other but is too oblivious🤓

OKAY BUT IMAGINE THIS BUT GOJO SATORU⁉️

I don't know why this just gave me university/college au Popular!Gojo x Normie!reader. Like imagine Gojo having many fangirls from his own majors combine with girls from other different majors. And then there's just our dear reader, just a normal hooman who harbours a cute little crush on this beautiful being cuz who wouldn't? Well turns out the man himself is head over heels for our dear reader. He'd just be stalking their social media's with atleast 20 different accounts just to check if they're out on a date with some creature or IS in a relationship. At the same time will also fantasise himself on a date with them, be it a romantic cafe/restaurant date or a amusement park date.

SO IMAGINE⁉️💭

Gojo and reader sharing the same physics class, and after the lecture everybody rushed out of the hall including our reader, but reader's phone slipped out of their bag to which they didnt notice at all dropped back on their chair. They then proceeded to sprint of of the lecture hall. Lo and behold there was THE Gojo Satoru who pops out of nowhere and grabbed reader's phone(EXCUSE ME?), blame his curiosity, he turned on reader's phone just to find NO PASSWORD/PATTERN/PIN like NO security AT ALL. There he secretly went to adventure in search for reader's phone number( and maybe sneek a peek to check if they already got a lover) luckily not which leaves him giggling like a highschool girl. Once he got what he needed, low-key just left reader's phone on the desk and left like nothing happened but deep inside her was celebrating and was excited to bombard them(using a entirely new number ofcourse) with love quotes and cute emojis hoping to win their heart.

To which the reader later on found a bit adorable, giggling at the silly pickuplines but decided not to remind in fear of getting hack(LETS NOT UNDERESTIMATE TECHNOLOGY ALRIGHT FOLKS) Reader would probably be the type to have NEVER been In a relationship because of their parents or is genuinely just not interested in having one. BUT they would also be the type to NOT confess when they have a crush on somebody. They would just quietly let the feelings fade as time goes by, their crush would most likely not be interested or already has a partner so why risk getting rejected (so slay) After going back to the lecture hall after noticing they lost their phone, to which they're glad was on their desk. What they didn't expect is to have an Unknown number text them, sending pickup lines and love quotes which they're sure are from Google but its still cute so it's fine. Occasionally would get spammed by heart emojis and love stickers. Reader did not expect to have a passionate secret admirer but they absolutely did not expect that the said admirer was her very own crush.

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN AFTER THEY FIND OUT THOUGH⁉️😱

[whereserpentswalk]

You're a parasite possessing a human’s body. The hunan in question was doomed the momment they touched you. Of course, you didn't know it at the time, your species is only as intelligent as what it latches on to, and you happened to latch on to one of about a dozen truly sapient species in the known universe. You killed them, but you were no smarter than a bug when you killed them.

You exist in this weird space between humanity and inhumanity. Your body is human, your voice a human’s voice, your face a human’s face, but none of that is yourse, you're a creature that crawled in through that body’s mouth and replaced the brain. They were just someone searching around an alien forest, you barely know who they were, and now you're basically puppeting their corpse.

There are also ways you're not human. Most people who meet you assume genetic modification, cybernetic implants, or just some sort of mental illness makes you act the way you do. You useally don't admit what it actually is. Your mannerisms are off, even though you feel human emotions your voice and face rarely reflect them well. When you infected the body, your very nature changed it, you neutered it and made it soft and sexless, you made it take in the minimum amount of food making it skinny and frail. You feel more like a monster than you would if you looked more inhuman, like you're puppeting a corpse.

Still you have freinds, a steady job, a human life on a planet far away from the one you originated from. Despite everything people like you, there are humans who care about you despite you not even being one. You never told them of course, you just said it was faulty cybernetics. But you can live life, read books, enjoy the view of the rain from your apartment, listen to music faintly playing on a street corner. And it all feels stolen, like you can only enjoy all of this because you're stealing someone else's chance at it. The thought rarely crosses your mind but it does so frequently enough, perhaps once every few months, to truly upset you with what you are, to make you feel like everyone who loves you only loves you because they think you're something you're not. You remember that you're an invasive species, that you have no mother or father, that your very existence isn't meant to be.

There was a time when you met someone on the street who knew the body you once inhabited. She recognized it, ran up to you wanting to talk to you, saying she thought you were dead. When you came clean to her you expected to be horrified, to want to hurt you. She didn't. She said she understood, and that she's happy the person your inhabiting still exists in some regard. A lot of people die in the forest, how blessed your body was to birth something new.

[llorentezete]

Asiento de la Suerte — Esteban Kukuriczka.

Capítulo II

warnings: nenhum

Os próximos dois meses seguiram do mesmo jeito de sempre. Elô acordava cedo, pegava o ônibus 357, sentava no assento da janela e lia seu livro. A morena trabalhava em uma biblioteca do centro da cidade de São Paulo. Não era o emprego dos sonhos, mas era o que tinha para sobreviver. Só que sobrevivência era algo difícil na capital Paulista. O preço do aluguel havia aumentado, não era culpa de Marcelo, havia muitas questões por trás. A verdade era que Elô precisaria mudar de serviço ou mudar de casa. E para ela, a segunda opção era a melhor.

Quase cinco e meia, seu expediente estava prestes a acabar. Guardava alguns livros que estavam fora do lugar, conferia alguns nomes que pediam reserva de obras específicas. Elô mal ouviu o sininho tinar, estava concentrava em anotar corretamente as informações. Laura passou por algumas pratileiras e fileiras lotadas de livros até ver sua melhor amiga. A morena mordia um lápis e batucava a mesa com as mãos.

- Vai trabalhar de graça, Elô? - A morena pulou com o susto. Levou a mão no peito após largar o lápis.

- Laura? Tá maluca? - Ela ignorou Eloisa e se sentou apoiando os braços na mesa.

- Já esta na hora de fechar - Cantarolou.

- Eu sei... - Eloisa a imitou. - Só mais dois minutos.

- Ai, Elô, que saco! - Dessa vez a loira bufou. - Não tem mais ninguém aqui, desliga isso e vamos embora - Laura fez beicinho.

Eloisa sorriu desligando seu notebook.

- Você não tem mais idade pra isso, Lara. - Sorriu vendo a amiga fazer uma expressão de descontentamento. Era bem verdade que a biblioteca havia caído de rendimento naquele mês. Mas Elô fazia de tudo para que a cultura e o acesso gratuito à educação fosse pauta para todos.

- O que acha daquele barzinho na Paulista? - Laura dizia agarrando o braço da amiga.

- Aquele que você foi banida? - Perguntou sugestiva.

- Não, né?! Aquele que fomos mês passado com Julia e Lucca - Elô sabia de qual bar ela falava.

- Não está de olho naquele barista argentino, está? - Levantou as sobrancelhas.

- Ele é um gato, e o sotaque? - Laura suspirou. Elô revirou os olhos.

- Não muda o fato dele se argentino... - Respondeu sem cerimônias.

- Elô, eu sou uma mulher de amores, não de nacionalidades - Definitivamente ela era.

- Você é muito pra frente, isso sim....

- Vamos andar rápido, se encher hoje, ele não vai ter olhos só pra mim... - Eloisa sorria da ousadia de Laura. Ainda não acreditava como alguém caseira como ela, poderia ser amiga de Laura, que inventou a noitada depois do trabalho.

O bar estava cheio, era sexta feira e o clima fresco fez quase todo Paulista sair de casa. As mesas do lado de fora estavam quase esgotadas. Laura puxava o braço de Elô como se ela fosse uma boneca de pano. A loira queria encontrar o barista que tanto desejava e Eloisa queria uma Fanta bem gelada.

O ambiente dentro era um pouco diferente, mais confortável do que o de fora. As luzes amarelas deixavam tudo mais calmo e sereno. Algumas pessoas falam alto, porém o som ambiente era confortável. Laura avistou seu peguete platônico no balcão. Ele estava exibindo seus truques com copos, aqueles que todos os baristas fazem. Mas, dessa vez, não era para mulheres e sim para um grupo de quatro homens que assistiam a tudo sem piscar. Laura suspirava em meio às acrobacias. Quando terminou, agradeceu em espanhol, fazendo Elô revirar os olhos. Ele se achava na opinião dela.

- Escuta, porque não procura uma mesa pra nós? - Laura ajeitava o cabelo enquanto falava com Elô mas mantinha seus olhos no barista. - Eu volto logo...

A loira saiu sem esperar resposta.

- Não volta mesmo, eu é quem não fico sozinha com esse tanto de estranhos. - Sem pensar duas vezes, ela a seguiu. Silenciosamente, pois não queria atrair olhares sobre si. Diferente de Laura que era barulhenta por natureza. Suas pulseiras, sua forma de andar e os barulhos naturais que fazia. Era uma legítima predadora!

- Ei, meninos - Ela sorriu esbanjando simpatia. E nem ao menos os conhecia. - como vão? - Os três primeiros se olharam, como se perguntassem uns aos outros se alguém a conhecia. Elô franziu o cenho, levando a mão direta até a testa e cobrindo os olhos. Era melhor do que assistir aquela humilhação ao vivo. - Se não se importam - Laura continuou se colocando no meio deles. - preciso de uma bebida com aquele barista em especial - O chamou com o dedo indicador. E, surpreendentemente, ele a obedeceu.

- Hola, Laurita - Ela quase soltou um gemido por causa do apelido. Era obsceno demais. - o que vai ser hoje?

- Pode me descer um whisky - Sorriu encarando o branquelo alto. - e pra você, Elô?

Só então o barista e os quatro homens notaram a presença de Eloisa. Ela preferia que não tivessem feito. Estava muito mais confortável no anonimato do que com doze olhos a encarando. Passou rapidamente pelos rostos desconhecidos enquanto pensava em sua bebida. Até que ela o notou. A quarta pessoa, na última cadeira, um pouco apagado pela luz amarela e pelo barulho do bar, Esteban.

O loiro pareceu ter visto um fantasma, mas seu rosto se iluminou e um sorriso escapou de seus lábios. Ele não disse nada, e Elô também não. Apenas um balançar de cabeças foi o bastante. Eloisa sentia o ar faltar aos pulmões.

- Uma Fanta gelada - Conseguiu dizer depois de segundos.

- Elô, Elô, sempre tão recatada.... - Laura batucou o balcão com as unhas. - Voltamos já já, lindinho...

A loira puxou Eloisa pelo braço, como havia feito minutos atrás. A morena se deixou levar, ainda não acreditava que Esteban estava mesmo ali, depois de quase dois meses. Laura a levou para uma mesa um pouco afastada do balcão, mas que ainda pudesse vê-los.

- Pode ir abrindo o bico! - Disse no mesmo segundo que se sentou. - Quem é o gringo?

- Que? como assim, Lara, do que tá falando? - Elô não conseguia pensar.

- Eloisa Andrade, eu vi seus olhos saltarem quando encarou o loiro bonitão! - As mãos de Laura gesticulava. Ela falava alto, estava empolgada.

- Fala baixo, por Deus! - As bochechas de Eloisa estavam começando a ruborizar. - Eu não conheço ele! - Advertiu. - Vi ele uma vez no ônibus e isso foi tudo.

- Você viu um homem daquele no ônibus e não me disse nada? - A loira parecia chateada, mas era apenas uma expressão. - Elô, ele é amigo do Rodrigo, o barista gostoso!

Os olhos de Elô caíram novamente sobre os quatro amigos, cinco com o barista. Rodrigo, como se chamava, estendeu a mão avisando que os pedidos estavam prontos.

- Os pedidos estão prontos - Apontou até eles.

- Me espera aqui, não acabamos esse assunto! - Laura disse soando como uma mãe irritada. Elô não podia crer que estava tendo aquela conversa com a amiga.

A loira voltou segundos depois, atravessou o salão como um furacão enraivado.

- Como sabe que são amigos? - Eloisa perguntou quando a amiga tomou um gole de seu whisky.

- Alô? Não é a primeira vez que viemos aqui! - Disse obvia. - Você não nota as pessoas? - Elô negou abrindo sua latinha. - Bom, tudo que eu sei é que ele também é argentino.

Eloisa quase caiu da cadeira.

- Elô, para de besteira!! Vi o jeito que ele te olhou, vai falar com ele! - Ela empurrou o copo pegando na mão da morena.

- Você tá maluca? Tá vendo coisas aonde não existem! - Elô se desvencilhou das mãos quentes de Laura. - Não me importa qual a nacionalidade dele, não temos nada e não o conheço!

-Tudo bem, não tá mais aqui quem falou... - Laura levantou as mãos em forma de rendição.

A verdade, era que Eloisa realmente se importava. O rosto de Esteban ficou o mês inteiro na cabeça da morena. Ela pegou o ônibus todos os dias com a esperança de vê-lo, nem que fosse sentado em seu lugar para provocá-la. Mas não aconteceu. Ele simplesmente desapareceu durante todo o mês e alguns dias. Elô chegou a pensar que ele foi uma alucinação de sua mente cansada. Só que vê-lo naquele bar, a fez recordar de todos os detalhes que o deixava bonito. Da camiseta branca que ele usava e que proprositalmente, havia deixado os primeiros três botões abertos. Do short também branco que o deixava mais alto do que da última vez que o viu. Ou da forma como seus cabelos loiros escuros sempre estavam bagunçados. Seu sorriso era singelo, ele sorria com os olhos, enquanto encarava um de seus amigos. Nunca desviando o olhar terno.

Elô fechou os olhos com força, apertando a latinha quase vazia em sua mão. Estava pensando demais em Esteban e nem sabia se ele lembrava dela. Uma movimentação no balcão fez ela redobrar sua atenção de volta a mesa. Laura mexia no telefone vendo um vídeo qualquer. Entretanto, um dos amigos de Esteban e Rodrigo andava em direção a elas. Elô prendeu a respiração. Ele chamaria ela? Ele se lembrava dela? Ou será que havia ficado com raiva, mesmo que em seus olhos não houvessem vestígios?

[sugurusombereyes]

sleepy mornings with suguru

“c’mon we have to get up.”

sunlight peeked through your half closed curtains, the liquid gold painting your exposed skin in the warmth geto gave you whenever you were in his presence. you attempted to cover your eyes from it since you already were going blind from your horrible eyesight that suguru would always tease you about.

(he would then later tell you in bed how it was a joke and he wasn’t making fun of you. you would then smile and tell him that you knew, his small doubts sending a flutter to your heart that was practically beating outside your chest)

shoko and gojo would constantly talk about how you and geto were complete opposites all the time. how he was the sunlight that everyone would be trying to get in pictures and how you were the night sky that he would disappear into.

(it was supposed to be somewhat of an insult to geto as he would always be teased about how he was so much softer around you. but he took it as a compliment as he truly felt like he could be himself around you)

“wake up.”

you groan for the fifth time in the past minute, you both had slept in for the past three days as you the two of you didn’t have work. but it got to a point where you most literally wouldn’t leave the bed, as much as you weren’t a morning person you had to take some control over your zombie body.

and zombie boyfriend.

“m’tired angel go back to sleep.” he groaned, turning over to your side and attempting to rest his head on your chest as you pushed him off. you rolled your eyes and tried to rub the tiredness out of them, “we all sing.” you referenced to that one video of victoria justice that would make geto cringe as you would cry out laughter which would make tears fall out of his eyes at your reaction to his facial expression. “close your eyes.” geto slapped his hands over your eyelids and attempted to close them as you giggled.

“i’m not sleepy sugu, we need to-.”

his big arms immediately wrapped you up in a giant bear hug, trapping you towards his body while your face met his chest and his chin meeting the top of your head. “getooo.” you groaned as he let out a laugh, his husky voice dripping like honey into your veins and slowing down your blood rushing as well as the moment. “i rarely get these with you so let’s just relax a bit, yeah?” he murmured into your hair, pressing a soft kiss onto your forehead.

(the same feeling heat that would make him blush rising up to your cheeks)

“you always have me.” you say quietly, relaxing your body into his. intertwining your legs and practically sewing together your hearts even though they were at very different placements geto still felt like his heart was stitched with the colour of your eyes.

“mm i know baby, just wanna love on you right now.” suguru rubs your back soothingly, slowly and gently as you sigh in content; your eyes drooping down as he snaked a hand underneath your t shirt and drew shapes that you were too tired to guess on the curves of your hips. “love you.” you sleepily mutter, your breathing slowing down as you couldn’t fight off the drowsiness. “don’t say you love me more or i’ll haunt you in your dreams.” suguru nods while fighting off a laugh. you yawn as his heartbeat fades out as you fall into a deep slumber.

“i love you most angel.”

[casinocarpediem]

▪︎■☆ молоко 🥛 ☆■▪︎

(Translation: Milk)

Part 1, Part 2

☆ 🔞!!NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!🔞

☆ amab! Switch! Francis Mosses / gn! Switch! Reader

☆ Reader can have either amab genitalia or a strap

☆ soft sex

☆ implied Russian speaking Francis

☆ short

☆ a little bit of a twist in the end

☆ author has played Not My Neighbor

°○☆nsfw under the cut☆○°

Francis was usually a laid back person who had a hard time showing any physical reactions to his feelings (not out of being stoic, usually he's just a little too tired to smile when he's happy or scream when he's scared). He wasn't one to smile all the time, but he showed his affection through other means. Like walking behind your back and kissing the nape of your neck and whispering "Золотце" (darling) behind your ear.

Or offering you some of his milk from work that his job wasn't able to sell so that you both could make something together or eat cereal together. There are a lot of doppelgangers everyday, everywhere, so he really cares about you. Even when he's usually too tired to express it with his face, he'll do so with his actions.

D.D.D. Is a pretty strict, so you and him made it an effort to always do everything required. If he forgot his hat at home he'd have a spare at work. You'd both work on your entry requests and always keep your ID's with you and to try to make an effort to always add your names on the list. Even if there would be an emergency at work. Just some extra measures to ease his anxiousness. And yours.

Other than that, being with him is always sweet. Like a warm mug of milk on a cold day. Steaming and keeping you warm.

Not to mentioned the sex with him. God. There's something about him and sex that makes you glad he's yours and yours alone.

His fingers are long. Not that thick, but he knew how to use them. Keenly observing your reactions within each prod as his digits brushed against a bundle of nerves that has you clutching his neck tight and holding him closer to you as he whispers "Куколка (dolly)... mmm... look at you"

He's not as verbal but he certainly has a smile on his face when he pleasures you and gives you what you want. Stroking and rubbing st your junk, it's wet. Thanks to him latching his mouth on the organ so that you could cum a couple times beforehand. He just wants to make you happy not gonna lie.

Oh, but sometimes he'll end up being a little too tired from work and not have the stamina to move at all. Not to worry! He'll be your pillow princess for the night. He loves those nights. You'll kiss his forehead softly whilst you thrust inside of him. A slow, passionate pace. You're slowly rearranging his guts while he holds the sheets so tight you'll fear they might rip in the morning.

He's a hummer. He'll hum and murmur stupid when he's fucking you. Or when you're fucking him. Phrases like "mmm... oh... З-Золотце... mmmmnnn..."

He can't help it! Even if he tried. He got shy about it actually but when you do engaged in sex more he felt like comfortable doing it. Honestly it's adorable.

Especially when he's giving oral. He's humming and drunk on the taste of you and he's always humming and moaning softly as you use him, and it feels so good. The added stimulation is so goddamn heavenly. And he's always good. He'd never tease and he never uses his teeth. He doesn't mind though if you do it. He's flexible with your desires. As long as if it isn't extreme or legitimately disgusting.

You love him so much and he loves you too and the entire building definitely knows.

...

So when he comes home with an odd demeanor. As if he's forgotten everything you two shared previously, as if hes a totally different person, you'll only have yourself to save before it's too late.

.

[dycefic]

Tom Saves The World

Everyone knows that it’s super-heroes who save the world. They fight the aliens, or the monsters, or the bad guys. And mostly, that’s true.

But not always.

I’m a psychic. The thing is, my range isn’t that great. I don’t have much detail more than about 36 hours out, 48 for something really big. I’d had a nebulous sort of bad feeling for about a week before this one finally hit, and it was big. Something very tough and very supernatural was going to come up out of the harbor of Nova Roma, and the death-toll was going to be high. Crazy high.

I did all I could. I told the Unaligned Supers Job Placement Agency, and they put the word out to everyone on both sides of the Line. The Henchman’s Union don’t like natural disasters any more than anyone else, and they’re often quite helpful against eldritch horrors and stuff like that. Things that don’t hire henchmen and ruin the property values.

The trouble was, nobody big was around. The only really big team of heavy hitters on the West Coast were away dealing with some sort of doomsday cult - I never was clear on what that was about - and Guarde and Dog Fox were out of touch and even Mx Frantique was out of town at someone’s wedding. It was going to happen in less than two days and we couldn’t find anyone to help and I was seriously considering calling in some kind of bomb threat or something to get people away from the docks, at least.

And then, about eighteen hours out, it just… went away.

Which never, ever happens.

My powers might be short range, but they’re reliable. I don’t get stuff wrong, and I hadn’t been able to find any way to prevent what was going to happen, or even been able to identify anyone who could. But someone did. Someone had done something to stop the threat, something that happened literally while I was opening my car door. When I reached for the handle, thousands of people were going to die. By the time the door was open, there was no threat at all.

At first I thought it must have been a ranged thing. Like, whatever I’d been seeing (all those teeth, I saw them in nightmares for months after) had been distracted by something tasty on its way here and gotten off track, that it’d come up somewhere up or down the coast. My range isn’t that big, either. Anything outside about thirty miles might as well be on Mars for all I know about it. So we kept a watch out, and warned the chapters of the Union and the Agency in other cities.

But nothing happened. Nothing at all. I couldn’t explain it, and I was really unpopular for a while. Supers do NOT like people who cry wolf. There’s enough freaky shit we have to deal with without someone panicking everyone with a dire prophecy that fizzles out.

Thank all the gods that Tunny showed up. Nobody’s really sure what Tunny actually is - sentient fish creature, some kind of really mutated human, an alien, or what. She changes her story a lot. But she’s pretty friendly, especially for a twenty-foot-long horror-movie-mermaid-thing with four arms, so when she came into harbor to pick up some supplies a guy from the Agency went out to tell her what I’d seen. I’d gotten a wharf and dock number, so she went down to check.

I don’t think anyone had ever seen Tunny scared before. Her English wasn’t good enough to really explain what she’d found hibernating down there, but it was something very old and very powerful and very dangerous, and if it’d been woken up my vision would just have been the start of the crisis.

She rounded up a bunch of whales to help her move it, once she was sure it hadn’t been agitated and wasn’t likely to rouse if moved carefully. They towed it out before dawn, not wanting to scare the civilians, and when I saw the footage from the helicopter the Union sent up, when I saw how big the swell was, how many whales were pulling, I swear I nearly crapped myself. No wonder I’d been getting hints a week in advance. Somehow we dumbass humans had built a whole fucking city almost on top of some kind of Ancient Old… THING, and eroded the sea-bottom until it was exposed, and if someone hadn’t done whatever it was we’d all have been dead long before Tunny arrived. And not just all as in ‘all of Nova Roma’, it could have taken out half of the continent... or all of it.

It took me years to find out what happened. YEARS. It turned into a kind of hobby, tracking everything that might possibly have come into contact with Wharf 38 on that particular day.  

And what I found, eventually, was a city employee named Thomas Briggs.

I’d found out early on that 38 wasn’t in good repair. Not that bad, but not great. It was old, things were getting a bit saggy in a few places, but there’d been no sign that anything was likely to fall off on the day. It had sat there for a couple of years after the crisis that never happened,, doing its job without problems then been rebuilt without any drama at all.

Entirely, completely, and totally because of Thomas Briggs.

The story, when I finally pieced it together, went like this.

There’d been some project or other to build some sort of high-budget science project over on the other side of the harbor, hanging it off’ve Pier 8, the furthest out on that side. Something about tracking sea-life or ships or something. My conversational English is near perfect, I’ve been here for years, but I don’t speak science nerd in ANY language. It’d all been approved, some university was covering most of the cost, it was all gonna be fine. And it was gonna be over on 8 because that side of the harbor is the shallow end. It’s where the sailboats go. All the big stuff that would block visual sensors and deafen the thing with engine noise was over in the thirties, in the real deep water.

They were almost ready to install the thing when a bunch of rich dudes suddenly got their panties in a bunch over having a big sciency tower thing ruining the view from their yachts, and tried to get it moved.

To, and I’m sure you guessed this, Wharf 38.

Which was completely insane. It wouldn’t be able to do its job over there, it’d be way more in the way, and (although they couldn’t have known it) the installation would definitely have woken up the Thing sleeping by the wharf and we all would have died. But rich dudes with yachts don’t care about that stuff. They’d bitched out and bribed up their friends on the city council, and those friends had done their thing, and the scientists had been left in the dark, and it’d almost gone through. They’d figured to install it right away, so that when the science guys found out it’d be too late and they’d either have to pay a lot to move it or just use it where it was.

Enter Thomas Briggs.

Mr Briggs, Tom to his friends, didn’t give a crap about the yachts or the science. He was a senior money guy for the commercial wharfs, the one who figured out things like how much money they’d take in in a quarter, and what the repair budget should be, stuff like that. He found out about this thing two days before the disaster would have happened, and sat down and did the math.

Then he sent out an email to the guys trying to push this through, and he ripped into them like they’d threatened to knife his mother. I got my hands on that email, and I didn’t understand a lot of it any more than the council guys would have. It was ALL numbers. But at the top he wrote it out in plain English. Pier 8 was new, and rated to handle the weight of the thingy. Wharf 38 was going to be scrapped in a few years, and it was NOT rated for that kind of structure. Pier 8 had plenty of room around it. Wharf 38 was already a tight fit for the big commercial ships, and adding a structure sticking out on one side would block off at least half of the wharf to those ships completely.

Bottom line, putting the thing on Wharf 38 would cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars more per year than putting it on 8, AND the city would have to eat the cost if 38 collapsed under it which it could easily do, AND the city would have to pay to move it in a couple of years anyway when 38 was due to be rebuilt.

And he cc-ed every important person he had an email address for, including the mayor, the anti-corruption people, and several reporters.

He must have sent that email right when I was opening my car door.

The whole plan collapsed right there, and some people got fired. There was no news story because the whole plan got killed before the reporters even got to the right office. The installation was started on Wharf 8 a few weeks later and I never connected it to a commercial wharf on the other side of the harbor.

One email, and a man who I never could have located in time, a man who had no powers at all, a man who was just conscientiously doing his job looking after the city’s money saved the city, and the continent, and maybe even the world.

Who could have predicted that? Not me, that’s for damn sure.

I can’t deny that I went home and got drunk off my ass that night. Just thinking about how close that had been made my hands shake. One man. One honest man who’d done the math.

I put the word out, once the hangover wore off. What had happened. That Thomas Briggs was the reason we were all alive and everyone better make his life real nice from now on, because he’d done what none of us could do and nobody but the supers would ever even know it.

He’s got a lot of luck coming to him, I can tell you. We don’t forget debts like that.

And I knew that’d freak him out, because honest men don’t like it when people start doing them a lot of favors for no apparent reason, so I tracked him down at the little bar where he likes to have a quiet beer on Friday nights before he goes home. Hell, I was the one who’d gone through it all, back then. I should get to tell him.

I sat down beside him at the bar and looked at him. I saw a thin, small, balding man who looked like he worried too much and didn’t get enough sleep, with lines around his eyes. Yeah, he looked like a man who’d do the math. “Thomas Briggs?”

He blinked at me through his glasses. “Yes? Do I know you?”

“No, you don’t. My name’s Barkhado Omar, and I’ve been looking for you for a long time.” I offered him my hand and he shook it, still looking confused. Which was fair, ‘cause I doubt a lot of seven foot tall Somali women came up to him in bars even when he was young. He’s got to be close to retirement now.

He frowned. “Looking for me? Why?”

I smiled at him. “Tom, let me buy you a drink and tell you about the day you saved the world.”

It’s usually us who save the city, or the world. We have all the intel, all the advantages, all the powers.

But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s someone like Tom Briggs, doing the right thing at the right time and never knowing that he changed the course of history.

Wild, huh?

--

This story is a direct result of me and my ex chatting about how different the entire Marvel Universe would have been if Jean’s first ‘resurrection’ - being found in a life pod under a wharf, IIRC - had happened at like... any other time. Earlier. Later. It would have changed SO MUCH.

And we speculated about how it could happen, how someone just puttering around in middle management might have unknowingly saved countless lives, prevented Madelyne’s corruption, the legacy virus, all of it, just by postponing that particular set of repairs a bit longer.... and I couldn’t resist writing a version of the story in which Tom does, in fact, save the world.

[shorteststory]

PLAYING WITH DEATH

PS: My new line of D&D enamel pins is now live on BackerKit!

[lovelylinnn]

steve uses the non-verbal safeword.

CW: slight NSFW, panic/anxiety attack, harmful stims (scratching self)

“tap three times on me if you ever can’t speak and wanna stop, okay?”

yes, steve had remembered those words. all throughout the times they had sex, he remembered those words. but it didn’t make them any less scary.

the thought of ever needing to stop in the middle of a scene made his palms sweat. of course he and eddie trusted each other; knew that if the other was in trouble and needed to stop, they’d completely understand. no judging whatsoever.

but still… absolutely needing to stop and move on made him so anxious. deep down he didn’t want to be a disappointment. he didn’t want eddie upset.

“baby, what’s your color?” eddie murmured to him, rubbing his shoulders and slowing his rhythm. steve did not reply, shakily breathing into the pillow and tearing up.

“steve, color?” he asked, louder, and more firm. yet he could not bring himself to talk. his mind went to the other times in previous relationships, where he felt like this exactly, and they didn’t even think to check in. and he couldn’t bring himself to stop them.

he could feel eddie shift, basically ready to pull out, before he asked again, “steven.”

oh. his full name. eddie only used it when he was deadly serious. this seemed to snap him out of his haze, and he shakily reached behind him and found somewhere on his body to tap.

one. two. three soft and hesitant taps, just like eddie told him to do months ago.

“red,” eddie mumbled to himself, worried, and pulling out immediately. he flipped steve over, pulling him close and cupping his tear-stained cheeks.

“what’s wrong? what can i do?” he asked softly, searching his eyes.

“i- i don’t know,” he choked out, a heavy sob leaving his lips before gulping down air he felt like was leaving his body too fast.

“that’s okay, just breathe. breathe, steve, okay? c’mere,” he pulled him into his lap, his head in his neck as he continued to cry. eddie ran his fingers through his hair, and steve clutched onto him tight.

“deep and slow breaths,” he told him, and steve was doing the opposite. breathing way too fast and inhaling far too much, to the point his chest and stomach hurt and he began to feel dizzy.

“steven, listen to me,” there it was again, the full name, which brought him somewhat back to his senses, “deep, slow breaths. do it with me.”

and he tried. he breathed with eddie, taking in some air and blowing it out too fast before inhaling sharply again; coughing and sobbing.

“there, that’s it. it’s okay baby, just try again.”

steve only wanted to cry more. of course eddie was congratulating him even after he didn’t even do it.

“again,” he told him, beginning to inhale slowly, holding it, and exhaling slowly. steve followed, better this time, but still failing.

“i- i can’t,” he choked out.

“yes you can, do it with me,” he said, inhaling and exhaling again. steve followed, his hand going to his forearm, clawing to try and ground himself more.

“no,” eddie caught his arm, pulling it away and bringing it up to his chest, “do you remember what your therapist said?”

“he said,” he paused, his breath catching in his throat as he cried, “to find a different way to ground myself.”

“correct. now, just feel my heart. i’m right here, steve. i’m not leaving. try and match your heartbeat to mine,”

steve kept his hand flat against eddie’s chest, then did the same for himself. he could feel how fast his heart was going versus eddie’s, and it made him uncomfortable.

the other rubbed his back, and kept one hand running through his hair, breathing slow and deep and watched as steve tried to do the same.

“good job,” he praised, kissing his cheek. the pair’s breathing pattern was now the same, and steve was no longer crying. steve nodded as thanks, crawling off eddie’s lap and under the blankets, curling up. eddie stood to put his underwear and sweats back on, only to sit back down on the bed and run his fingers through steve’s hair again.

“do you want to talk about it?”

steve sighed shakily and shrugged, wiping his red cheeks.

“just started thinking,” he mumbled.

“about?”

“things in previous relationships. and then i started feeling like i was crawling in my own skin, and i started to panic,”

“what about your previous relationships?” he questioned, only curiously, with no mean intent.

steve let out a quick exhale before sitting up, “how i could never really say no, i guess? i know it doesn’t matter now. i trust you. and i started feeling overwhelmed in the first place, so i started thinking about the safe word, and how you told me to say ‘red’ or tap you three times. but it just made me anxious. i knew i needed to stop but i didn’t want to upset you in the process,”

“you could never upset me over something like that, steve, okay? that’s the point of the taps and the system we have. you know your limits, and in case they’re ever pushed, you do or say so. i’m so proud of you for using it,”

eddie pulled steve in for a hug, rubbing his back softly. steve’s heart kind of broke. here he was, in his boyfriend’s arms starting to cry again because he said he was proud of him. proud of him for something as simple as saying no, and stop. something he never thought he could do; something he was taught was wrong, and his boyfriend was praising him for it.

“i’m proud of you,” he repeated, to which steve only cried harder, nodding in his shoulder as thanks and sniffling.

he pulled back, laying down and wiping his face again.

“i’m gonna go bring you some water and some easy food to eat, okay? just stay there,” he smiled, getting up and heading to the kitchen.

steve smiled softly, getting comfortable under the warm blankets and inhaling the familiar scent of gain and eddie’s cheap cologne.

and he thanked the universe for a boyfriend that was actually a decent human being.

[bakuwhcre]

"wake up."

bakugou shouted as he stumbled over to you. his body was littered with scrapes and bruises. as was yours. you both fought so hard-- and you shouldn't have been fighting out there anyway. not when you both had just figured your life out together.

"wake up, nerd."

dropping to his knees, bakugou managed to pull you onto his lap. he pushed some flyaways out of your face, "wake up, [name]. we won. . you won."

why wouldn't you wake up? his face began to twist into worry. he shook your body over and over, cupping your face as he shouted your victory. "you won, nerd! you won! this isn't funny!" his voice cracked and lowered as his and reached for your stomach, laying there for a moment.

heroes, emts, and more began to flood the scene. your body was ripped from bakugou arms.

you were pronounced dead at the scene, and the hero, dynamight, was never the same.

[the-modern-typewriter]

The villain stopped, attention zeroing in on the blood on the protagonist's lip. The very air, the clouds, the universe seemed to stop moving.

"Who?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Give me a name or I'll take it out on all of them."

The protagonist's jaw clenched. Their hand rose, smearing the blood away.

The villain was at their side in an instant.

If it was only pleasure at the excuse to cause pain - which it was - then maybe it would have been easy. But it wasn't just that. It was never just that.

"If I tell you, you have to promise me not to hurt them."

The villain cocked their head and raised an eyebrow. Chiding, but gentle enough. They both knew that wasn't a compromise the villain would make, just as they both knew the protagonist would not tolerate mindless sadism.

"Fine," the protagonist said, "you have to promise not to hurt them for more than -" they floundered - "ten seconds."

"Deal." It was too quick, too easy, and beneath the churning guilt the protagonist's heart swelled for such fierce protection.

They swallowed.

"Who?" the villain asked, again, soft.

They gave the name.

The villain, it turned out, could make ten seconds count for an awful lot.

[kyutpudding]

Imagine tigerhybrid!sukuna just has a 360 change of personality whenever he's with you. Imagine you're a housecat!hybrid and your owner brought you home to see sukuna's reaction towards other animals/hybrids. What they didn't expect is for him to later on take you as his mate and whoever gets near, including his own owners he will growl and bare his fangs ready to strike. However the moment ur soft hands reach up to paw on his chest/hands/face trying to get his attention on you, he purrs lowly as he grooms you, licking your cheeks and cuddling up to your small figure.

[whereserpentswalk]

You've been on a generational ship your entire life. There's about a million people on the ship, the population doesn't grow or shrink at all. Your entire life is and will be defined by a limited amount of room, a small space, barely large enough for everyone there to fit, that has become your entire world.

The humans that exist on generational ships are very alien to the humans that exist on planets. Your job is to maintain the ship and carry the culture of humanity but you don't need a human lifestyle to do it. Because reproduction needs to be done through artificial wombs all humans are neutered, with sterile sexless bodies. Everyone's job is determined by ship authority, and very dark things happen to those not able to perform some sort of duty. People spend the first fifteen years of their lives in virtual reality, learning about humanity in a simulation until they're ready to live as adults. Everything is so alien from the earth that you read about in books.

It wouldn't be so hard if society wasn't meant to resemble earth, meant to resemble the most conservative and traditional of earth. The American flags hanging up on the walls, despite everyone alive on board having never known America. The way the pods you live in have astroterf lawns, and fake blue skies painted above them, and the facades of American suburban homes. The way resources a distributed from things meant to look like family run stores, despite the monolithic power behind the economy. Even as monolithic as station authority is it still must dress as democracy, and must preach capitalism in a world with no markets, and patriotism in a world with no nations.

Despite your sexless body you're not free of performing gender. You wear dresses over your breastless neutered body, are expected to act feminine, to carry gender rolls into the planet you're going to. Your husband is expected to do the same for maleness. You love him but your situation feels like a performance with no audience. Despite having neither the instinctual desire nor the physical apparatus to you try to be physically intimate with him, it's what everyone does with their spouse, it would be weird not to.

Space isn't as empty as earth thought it would be. There are things that lurk in the void between stars. Nobody fully knows what they are, where they come from, even if they all come from the same place. Sometimes they put the ship in danger, sometimes the authorities make deals with them. But nobody is allowed to know. You're just all told to be afraid of them but not understand why you have to be afraid. The nightmares between stars aren't delt with with knowledge but with ignorance, they do seem creepy from the little you've seen of them but everyone kind of knows their power is being used for something by the station. Patriotism is always helped by having monsters beyond your borders.

Your entire you've dreamed of blue skies and stars and fields and forests and oceans and all those pretty things you've never seen, that you never will see. People always dream of being so high ranking they'll have access to suspended animation and life extension technology, but so few ever reach that rank. You've read all the classics they allow, read Dante, and Milton, and Homer, tried to let poetry bring you to earth but that planet is alien to you now. Sometimes you wonder what it would be like if you weren't raised in a world that copied earth, if you were accepted as a member of a race that lives on a ship, that exists so liminally. Would there still be such a longing. Mabye you shouldn't have been expected to meet a standard from another world. Mabye you weren't born to long for anything. Does it scare you to think you wouldn't want earth if they didn't tell you to?

[davidlundesanchez]

You're going for a stroll in the woods one day when you see a person approaching you on the same path you're walking on. From afar it looks like they don't have a face. That's a funny illusion, you think to yourself, but as you pass them you realize they actually don't have a face. Less than a minute later you see the same person approach again, exactly as they had a few seconds ago, and this happens another time, and then again and again, and you realize it's not just the faceless person that is the same. You hear the same exact bird chirps in the same exact order with regular intervals, go past the same trees including a tree stump with a cluster of mushrooms on it and a small ant hill. You want to stop and get your bearings but you can't stop, you just keep walking, passing by the same things and the same person over and over. You're starting to realize something about this person, too, that you hadn't realized before for some reason. They're wearing the exact same clothes you're wearing, they have the same hair, they're basically you. Somehow you know your face is beginning to disappear too, little by little, but you can't check because you can't stop walking and your arms won't stop moving in step with your feet. Soon your face is entirely gone just like the other person's face but you keep walking. You don't remember a time when you weren't strolling through these woods, seeing these same things over and over. You don't remember a time when you had a face.

[dnschmidt]

New Short Story: William and the Clockwork Devil

In this clockpunk portal fantasy, a young man named William finds himself transported to another world. This strange place seems like the Middle Ages, but the villagers are threatened by mechanical monsters and centaur highwaymen.

A masked doctor explains that poison has driven the kingdom mad, and William is the only remaining knight. Is the doctor trustworthy, or has he been struck with the madness, too? William must choose between pretending he's brave enough to battle an invincible clockwork dragon, or letting the masked doctor "cure" him with medieval brain surgery.

Available for Kindle for just 99 cents.

[dreamscapesofblue]

Dreamscapesofblue's Kinktober 2023

"Wait for me in bed without panties when I come back."

↠ summary - Wriothesley smut, Modern Au, as your college boyfriend. After spending one month away at an internship, he sends you a text to ask you to prepare for his return - without panties.

↠ characters - Wriothesley x fem!reader

↠ cw: mndi - 18+ smut, fluffy smut, fingering, somnophillia with consent, dirty talk. Brief mention of mental health struggles (no condition named), Wrio as your anchor in your mental health journey, reader works hard to be strong while he is away. 1.15k words.

Wait for me in bed without panties when I come back

Your heart thuds in excitement. It’s been a month since you have seen Wrio. Wrio had been caught up in a one month internship in a different state 4 hours away, and while both of you have no qualms with driving to meet each other, it had also been a busy season for you as you have been stuck in college trying to finish up your dissertation and final exams. 

This frustratingly stressful month without your boyfriend have made you miss his light hearted and comfortable presence. It didn’t help that you have been so used to him as your anchor through tough times. As someone who had mental health struggles, stressful times were hard and Wrio had always been there to ground you when the going gets tough. Although both of you try to make up for each other’s missing presence by being on the phone with each other almost all day, leaving FaceTime on the laptop running as you guys silently went about your daily activities, it was still different. Knowing that it was not an easy decision for him to decide to be away for a month, you consciously tried to appear the brightest and best you could to prevent him from worrying. 

After all, Wrio had originally wanted to reject this internship as he did not want to be physically away at your busiest time in University for a month. Wrio came to know of your story shortly after becoming your boyfriend and had been strongly protective and supportive of you ever since. At first, he was your ultimate crutch and saving grace in the early part of your recovery journey. Although you had gotten better, Wrio never changed in his staunch protectiveness over you and was very hesitant in leaving you alone. But you had spent 3 months conscientiously persuading, showing and promising him that you would be fine since you have been doing mental and physical preparations to cope. You shared that while you love his selfless support towards you, you needed to learn to stand on your own in order to become fully healthy again and become a better partner for him. Over the 3 months, he had watched your strong efforts in working even harder through therapy, always sharing and discussing on how you planned to improve your coping strategies. He watched how you’ve worked so hard to grow stronger for both of you by the days and acknowledged that his insistence to always be by your side would ultimately do you more bad than good. With your assurance that all will be fine since you guys would keep in contact everyday, he finally decides that not going would be letting you down and not respecting your efforts. 

Hearing his sweet voice through the speaker was different. No matter how close you tried to place the speaker to your ears, it would never reverberate through your body as his warm body affectionately snuggled you with his calming heart beats. 

But all of that suffering was finally coming to an end. You were feeling extremely proud of how far you have come on your own and having coped through this intense period without Wrio was testament to your growing strength. Right now, all that was on your mind was to receive your long awaited reward - to finally be in wrio’s arms again. 

So imagine the almost religious excitement you had while counting down towards the day Wrio would return to your shared apartment. On the day of your last written examination, he had lovingly sent you a beautiful morning message of encouragement - Wait for me in bed without panties when I come back tomorrow. 

You snuggle in bed and wished that it was already tomorrow’s night right now. You grabbed a little chibi sized doll that looked like a mini Wrio and hugged it to your chest.

I’m going to finally see you tomorrow. 

Slowly, you drift off to sleep. 

— 

Wrio enters the room silently. His icy blue eyes almost seem to be glowing in the dark, his usually sharp eye lines softening into an uncharacteristic gentleness when he trained his sight on your figure.

He sees your figure lying there wrapped in a blanket. He smirks in anticipation at the prospect of finally unwrapping his long awaited present. He slowly climbs up the bed and peels the blanket of you. His eyes darken in dizzying thirst as his starved body starts anticipating your soft body.

His cold and callused fingers slip under your nightgown, deliriously taking his time trailing your smooth jade thighs before he slowly reaches the apex. To his surprise, he reaches another soft covering that was still wet to the touch. Even though it wasn’t the surprise his was expecting, his body begins to heat up even more rapidly as he felt his crotch tighten painfully in excitement as he pictured you sprawled out on the bed; your sweet fingers trying to desperately please your aching clit that missed the touch of its true owner, your beautiful round breasts trembling under the moonlight as you pant and moan his name. 

He gulps another breath to restrain himself from tearing your nightgown apart immediately. Instead, he lines his chest to your back, reaches his hands from your waist to your pussy and starts rubbing your clothed clit. 

Just under a few of his masterful strokes, the sleeping bud began to bloom and harden in recognition of its master, trying to peek through the panties to directly meet his touch. 

Wrio feels your body start to pulse in pleasure as you subconsciously whine in dripping need, your cry urgent and needy, like a cat in heat mewling for salvation. Your twitching body rubs against wrio’s own clothed cock as he began kissing your neck. 

His familiar warmth coupled with the overwhelming sensations finally starts to rouse you awake. You blearily blink your lidded eyes as you try to orientate your mind and distinguish whether your brain is creating a dream to comfort your lonely mind. Just as you try to turn your head, Wrio moves forward and nibbles your ear. 

“Awake, sweetheart? Did I not tell you to wait for me without panties?”

As Wrio speaks, his uses one finger to dig beneath your panties and slowly glides over your dripping hole. 

“Hmm… perhaps you didn’t miss me as much to have forgotten about it. On the other hand, this one seems to miss me much more.” 

Wrio dips two fingers in your nectar, before clenching your rosy bud in between them, rubbing and pinching your love juice all over it as if trying to give it a bath.

Your body trembles harder in lust and pure delight as it registers that it was not a dream. 

“Wrio… you said you were coming back on 28th… I thought…I thought you were only coming back at night since you told me to wait in bed…” 

You pant in difficulty between breaths as wrio began fingering your pussy. 

“Ah, that’s my fault.” 

He suddenly stops his hand and you immediately turn more out of fear of disappointing him than reacting to the loss of his touch. When he finds your teary eyes face to face to his, he gently cups your cheeks in his warm palms and kisses your watery lashes.

“It is my fault for not elaborating, sweetheart. When I said to wait for me in bed without panties when I come back, it was to rid you of the hassle of wearing them when I know that it will be off the whole day soon. So sweetheart, while I might have actually preferred the unexpected surprise of finding you still wearing them with leftover traces of your desire for me, you are still not going to be able to wear them for the whole of today, or maybe even the whole of the upcoming week. “

Part 2 coming up soon!

[dycefic]

The Hearthstone God

[The sequel to the God of Prophecy, and the Serpent God of Protection]

---

Fire is out of fashion, in this new age.

Some of my kind have found new homes, new names, in factories or forges, in the hearts of wildfires or crystals or volcanoes.

Most of us are simply forgotten.

I was a fire god, once. A god of gathering, a god of communion, a god of song and story. But there are no hearthstones now. No fires around which families gather to eat and talk and tell stories.

I am lucky. I am tied to a great flat stone near a lake. A lake that has survived all the wild exuberance of men, when they learned to change the world around them. Once, this was a place where travellers stopped to rest. At first they travelled on their feet, or on half-wild horses. Then there were carts, and a road. Much later, cars drove down the road. The road was paved.

But some things do not change. People need clean water to drink, and the spring here is good. They need to rest, when they are weary. And even now, when they come to camp in nylon tents, to fish in the lake, or to hunt the ducks, or drive camper-vans to the flat place, their ancient instincts wake, and they turn to fire once more. They light new fires atop my stone, so flat and safe, from which no log will roll to set the woods afire.

Not so many come now. Camping is less popular these days. But some still come. Some still light their fires, and settle around my stone, and talk, or listen to music, or tell stories. So I survive, just barely, on the edges of belief.

I feel it, when things begin to change. Something is happening. Something is drawing old gods back. Not the great ones, risen beyond mortal understanding, but the oldest gods, the small gods, those who rose when humankind were still learning what they were.

Far to the west of me, a god even more ancient than I wakes, and begins to hunt again. I remember the stories that were once told of that old serpent, and tell them over to myself in the long fireless nights.

A god of prophecy, not of this land, settles south and west, and I remember tales of ancient ravens, their wisdom and their guile and their sharp, sharp eyes. There was a raven clan once, who passed this way in the days of skin garments and stone tools, but I have forgotten their name. I only remember the symbol they wore, the black bird with its spread wings, marked in charcoal or charring on wooden talismans or leather garments.

I wait, to see who will awaken next.

To my great surprise, it is me.

The people who come this time aren’t like the campers. They come at night, a ragged family group with few blood ties between them, with a single tent and few possessions carried on devices I haven’t seen before. Bicycles, they’re called, slung over with bags the way ponies used to be. They come at night, and hide when cars pass on the road.

They light a fire on my stone, with wood scavenged from the forest, and huddle around its warmth. They don’t speak much, not at first, but they say enough. They have no home, I learn. They are travellers of a kind I have not known before, who are allowed to stop nowhere, but have no goal but a place to rest. They are thin, and worn, and so tired. So very tired.

They need a hearth.

I am only a weak shadow of a god, now, who once recorded the songs and stories of a thousand generations in my ancient stone, but I am still a god of fire. Their fire burns slow, their little fuel lasting well. The food they heat over it sustains them better. The water of that spring, my spring, puts a little life back in them. This stone has lain in this place since great monsters walked this world, since before humans spoke words to one another, and I came into being with the first fire that burned on it. I am old, old, and though weak, I am not powerless.

They stay.

I cannot speak to them. I am old, and weak, and they do not believe. But slowly, with the power of the fires they build every night, with the tiny offerings of scraps of food spilled into the flames, with their growing confidence in the safety of this place, I am able to do more. I give them dreams and they find the cave not far away, where they can hide. They dream of fish, and begin to try to catch some. A woman remembers that some of the local plants are safe to eat, when I slowly wake a long-forgotten memory of a camping trip from her childhood.

And then a child, a strange, quiet child who rarely speaks, a child without mother or father, in the care of an older brother who is exhausted to the very edge of death but cannot give up while she needs him… that child begins to hear.

She sits on my stone, sometimes for hours, not moving or speaking. It worries the others, but at least she is quiet, at least she is no trouble, and they are beginning to associate their hearth with safety. So they let her sit.

She is *listening*. She is listening to the sound of the water, to the sounds of the forest, to the wind blowing. And because she is listening, where no-one else has listened for so long, I sing to her. I sing to her the songs of thousands of years. From the wordless music of the earliest people, who sang what was in their hearts without words, to the songs I have learned from the fishermen with their radios and bluetooth speakers.

I do not know if she hears me, for some time. But then, one night, while they sit around their fire and eat food the oldest have almost certainly stolen, she sings one of my songs. “In a cavern… on a canyon… excavating for a mine…” she sings in a small voice. The others are startled, confused, for she has not spoken aloud since some bad thing they do not name happened, but one of the older ones knows the song and sings with her.

I have always liked ‘Clementine’. It’s been popular with campers for a long time.

The next day, while she sits on my stone, she sings along to one of the wordless songs the Raven People whose name I no longer remember once sang. It is a lullaby, a soft croon to soothe an infant, passed from mother to mother, and she seems to take pleasure in it.

She can hear me. She can even answer me, as the voice driven away by pain and fear begins to return. And so I grow stronger still. Strong enough to make the raven sign on the stone, one day, in the ashes of the fire of the night before.

She takes a half burned stick, and draws the sign on the stone. Pleased, I show her another sign, a leaping fish. She draws that too.

Soon, I need not shift the ashes. I can show her the pictures in her mind, and she draws them. She draws the wheel of a cart, and into her heart I whisper the stories the travellers in covered wagons once told over my stone. She draws a fish, and I make her laugh silently with the jests of fishermen who boast of fish who escaped them. She draws a horse, and I tell her about the wild horses who once drank at this lake, about the men and women who captured and tamed them and rode them through the forest when it was far greater than it is now. She draws a long-toothed cat, and I show her the great cat that once slept on my stone, and denned in the cave where her new found family sleep.

One night, when all the others are asleep and my fire has burned down to coals, she creeps back to the stone and looks into the coals. “Who are you?” she asks. “Are you real?”

She is afraid that the voice in her mind is the voice of madness, a lie created by a mind that does not work like other minds, that has endured great hardship. I do not want this child to be afraid. To instill fear runs counter to my very nature, save in whoever might threaten those my hearth protects.

I am a god of the hearth. I am a god of food, and communication, and peace, and safety. I am all the things that fire used to mean, before humans learned again to fear the thing they had tamed. I do not often take a form, for fire is my form, but for her I must try.

There was a wise woman once, who knew me, whose clan visited this lake several times every year. I watched her grow up, and grow old. I watched her learn of the god of the fire stone, and I watched her teach others. She slept beside me as a child, and as a woman. She sang her children to sleep beside me, and her grandchildren, and dozed beside me as an old, old woman. To her, I was represented by a sign of a flame in an oval, a fire and a stone.

I build a likeness of her out of the light of the coals and the shadows of smoke, a child with straight dark hair and a simple tunic, and in lines of light I draw the sign of the fire and the stone on the outlined chest. “I am the fire,” I tell her, “and the stone. I am all the fires that have ever burned here, all the stories told, all the songs sung, all the meals eaten. I am the traveler’s hearth, and the rest for the weary, and this is my place.”

“Piedra de fuego,” she says, tracing the symbol with her finger in the air. “The fire stone.”

“Yes. I am the god of this place.”

She frowns at this. “My brother says that God is in the sky.”

“Many gods are in the sky.” I cannot continue to hold the form of the girl, but the coals shift to make my sign. “I am not. I am here. I have always been here, since the first people built a fire on my stone, and warmed themselves.”

She nods slowly. “You are… a small god,” she says thoughtfully. “A place god. Like in movies.”

“Yes.” I’ve heard of movies, which are a new way of telling old, old stories. “Old places, important places, often have gods. And gods who are forgotten return to their old places and wait, until someone believes again.”

“Will you protect us?” she asks. “When the police come, to tell us to move on?”

“I am not strong,” I tell her sadly. “I cannot make men go away from here, if they are dangerous, or even call game here for you as I once did. But what I can do, I will do.”

She sits watching the coals for a long time, thinking. “Can we make you stronger?”

I think too, and she waits patiently. “You have already made me stronger. You listened. You believed. If you can convince the others to believe, that will make me stronger still.”

She sighed. “They don’t believe in anything, anymore. Not good things.”

It is a sad thing, that she knows that. They’ve been trying to hide it from her. “Then,” I tell her, “that means there is a place in their hearts that is ready for me. I am not hope. I am not a happy ending. I am not a god in the sky. I am a stone, and a fire, and a song. I am *real*. They can believe in what is real.”

The next night, she asks for a story, and one of the adults tells her an old fairy-tale from a country far away.

The next night, again, she asks for a story, and another adult tells a funny story about his childhood.

On the third night, she asks her brother to tell her a story. He tries, but he is so tired - not physically, but emotionally - that he runs out of words. So she lays her hand on his arm and offers to tell him a story, instead.

And she tells them all a story about a stone near a lake, flat and strong, that people wearing uncured skins and carrying flint weapons built a fire on. She tells of centuries passing, of people coming to the lake on their feet, on horses, in carts and wagons, in cars and motor-homes. Of thousands of years of fires, of people gathered around them, of the great continuity of humanity, and the Piedra De Fuego that has lain in this place since time began, listening to the stories and the songs and the voices of people long gone. Somewhere in the stone, she says, laying her hand on it, all those stories are remembered. All those songs are still sung. And it will remember us too.

I don’t know if it will work. But I was right. People need to believe in something. They need something to hold onto, when times are hard, when the ties of community and family are broken and they feel alone. And a stone thousands of years old, and a fire endlessly renewed on that stone, always new… that is real. They touch me, and think of those who came before, of thousands of years of history meeting them in this place, and they feel less alone.

It’s not much, not yet. But it is something. My nature, my existence, as explained to them by my small, strange priestess, is a slender lifeline flung to those who are adrift, a tiny certainty in a world they do not trust. And the more they believe in that lifeline, that certainty, then the more they believe in me. I *am* growing stronger.

When the police come, I will not be able to make them leave… but I think I am strong enough now to hide my people from unkind eyes. And if I can do that, then their faith will grow.

Tonight, three more people come. A mother and two children, weary and beaten down with hardship. My people welcome them, give them fish and greens grown by the lake, speak kindly to them. And when they have eaten, my little priestess sits between the two children and tells them a story of a stone, and a fire, and thousands of years of stories and songs, and she sings a wordless lullaby six thousand years forgotten, but living again in a child who draws the sign of the Raven in the dirt while she sings, and the sign of the fire on the stone.

And I grow a little stronger.