kittlesandbugs

[kittlesandbugs]

mood

[kittlesandbugs]

I heart prey animal rage I love when characters are fucking insane with terror

[kittlesandbugs]

this scene really stuck with me

[kittlesandbugs]

I am as them, now. Am I not?

[kittlesandbugs]

harrowhark nonagesimus ⚔️

[kittlesandbugs]

Life advice for the ages. Those doing wrong want you tired and hopeless. But stay angry. And when a chance is in front of you: bite back. Digital plans for a real linocut. I'm anxiously awaiting a press to make this stuff possible with my RSI in my hands.

[kittlesandbugs]

Absolutely a sucker for the “ARE YOU HURT” once over. The wandering hands, frantically checking for blood or pain just SOMETHING. ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED of what they might find while searching. The panicked look on the face of the person doing the checking, the glossy, confused “I’m fine” from the person being checked. HOO BOY just inject that shit right into my veins

[kittlesandbugs]

so badass........

[kittlesandbugs]

also 19 (forehead kisses) for esme/ortega?

Thank you for the ask em, ask game here <3 sidestep era esme is so normal and knows common phrases. We simply love to see it.

19. Forehead kisses. (1.4k words...i think i was possessed)

It’d been a rough night. Most nights had been rough since the Nanosurge, really, curled up in a sleepless jittery mass while the screaming noise of thoughts roiled ceaselessly around you; but this was somehow worse than normal. More screaming, or more sensitivity, you had no idea, or maybe all the weight had built up and you’d finally cracked under the pressure. Not that you’d let that stop you, but damn, this shit hurt. Too early this morning, you had splashed your face with icy water, drunk enough coffee to acquire a rudimentary type of synesthesia quivering in the base of your skull, and gone out on patrol just fine—what was supposed to be a routine meeting at HQ, however, keeled over and fucking died the moment Ortega had seen your face.

“Get out of my way, Marshal.” You snap, attempting to dodge under the arm blocking your way. It doesn’t work, and not for the first time you contemplate your idiocy in having let other people find out that you had things like “feelings” and “injuries, sometimes.” “Swear to God if you don’t stop this mama hen shit I’ll bite you.”

“You need to rest.” Ortega says—stubborn to the end, just as much as you were. You hiss in your face and turn, hard enough for your braid to nearly snap across his face. He dodges, unfortunately. “Oh, fuck off. You look like the Zombie General’s right-hand woman.”

“Shut up, Charge,” You snarl, and storm toward the coffee machine. There’s nobody in the break room except you two; the rest all probably trickled into the meeting room for the meeting that started eight minutes ago. Where you should be. God damn your impulse to drink more coffee, he never would have noticed if you’d just kept your mask on. “You have no right to keep me out of there.”

“Hell yes I do.” He retorts. “I’m the Marshal, remember?”

“The Marshal not on time to his own damn meeting.” You snarl, “And I can tell you where you can shove your shiny condescending Ranger approval—“

“Esme,” It’s as loud as you are, but more heartfelt, and you bite off your words almost sharp enough to draw blood. “You look terrible. Have you been sleeping?”

“None of your business.” You retort, which was the wrong answer, probably, because his eyes narrow. He doesn’t look surprised, though, because he’s a smug overconfident bastard.“I’m fine.”

“You’re obviously not.” The anger is leeching out of him, which pisses you off, because being angry is always preferable to being sickly and miserable, but it’s hard to be when he’s upset. He’s probably doing it on purpose, so to prove it doesn’t affect you, you snort and look away. “The meeting won’t start without me. Us.” He concedes it when you throw him a look. “Just take five, alright?”

“Asshole.” You bite, but fuck, that did work. Stalking to the couch—the far end of it, you were still pissed off—you throw yourself down, ignoring the lancing pain from the abrupt movement. You almost wished it was worse, because then at least your pain-gate would come into play, but with your luck it was hovering just below the waterline. “There. Any more cure-alls, Doctor Charge?”

“I could kiss it better?” It’s got the tenor of a joke, if a weak one—testing the ground between the two of you, seeing if it held or shattered. You’re too tired to bite his head off about it, only close your eyes and groan.

“I am not making out with you right now.” There’s no easing of the pressure on you when you close your eyes, white hot light working through your eyelids and scorching your non-vision red. Better than orange, anyway. “Read the room.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Ortega sounds surprisingly flustered, enough for you to crack one eye open to squint balefully in his direction. His affront sounds honest, at least, and he was shameless enough for that to mean something. “I mean, it was a joke, obviously. But not a joke about making out with you.”

“You said kissing.”

“I said kiss it better.” He repeats, like that clarification does anything for you. His brow furrows as you stare blankly at him, making a small gesture in the direction to his forehead. “No, I mean, like—you know?”

“No?” The confusion is only adding to the agony in your temples, ice-pick chipping away at what remains of your patience. You pinch the bridge of your nose, attempt to stave off the drilling. “That sentence didn’t even have a direct object. What the hell was I supposed to get from that?”

“Just,” He huffs again, looking away. What the fuck was with him today. Contemplating that brings on another bout of slamming pain, and this time you cannot strangle the hiss in your throat, rocking your head forward to cradle it in your own hands. His undecipherable tone drops into panic. “Shit, Esme—“

“Fine.” You bark, palms pressing hard enough into your face to see stars. It’s no match for the splintering of your vision, the white-out noise that encompassed it all, the thoughts around you, too much, annoyed at waiting wanting some coffee they’re worried about—

“Hey.” Ortega’s voice so close has you recoiling; but there’s not far to go, back slamming against the couch’s edge. Even less when his hands land on your shoulder, weight pinning you down. You resist the urge to scratch, to claw, to scream at the pinning, wrap yourself in the buzzing nothingness of his mind, you tell yourself that it’s safe, it’s safe “you’re safe—“ In the stinging aftermath of the telepathic overload, your brain catches up in fragments. Pressure on either side of your face, but not your own hands. Ortega’s. Kneeling in front of you, face close enough to reach out and touch. The rushing noise of water fades out to reveal noise from his urgently moving mouth.

“—Esme?” He sees something in your expression and presses on. “You need—.”

“Nothing—” You snap, because the only thing that could make this situation worse was Ortega freaking out and calling you an ambulance. “I’m fine. Now.”

“Fucking bullshit.” His tone hovers toward real anger, at odds with the way he is still cradling your face. The disconnect makes you uncomfortable—but there are more important things to worry about, as the ache recedes and lets you back into your body. First off, getting into that goddamn meeting.

“I’m fine.” You repeat, with more emphasis. “It’s like sweating out a fever. I feel better now.” True, actually. You felt more drained then you had in—well, a couple days—but the relentless scraping noise had resolved into a low-grade aching, no worse then a toothache. Wholly manageable. You could definitely get through a normal day with only moderate pain. Ortega doesn’t look convinced, so you add with more acerbity. “I know what I’m doing. Who’s the telepath here, asshole?”

“Right.” He says, something in his brow unfixing with your tartness, an echo of your usual energy. He doesn’t move, though, crouched awkwardly in the space between your legs, and for all that he should have a snappy remark ready, he stays silent. You’re about opening your mouth to ask if he’d lost his mind when he leans forward and kisses your forehead. It’s brief. Gentle. So gentle that you’re dead certain you’ve hallucinated it, except everything hurts way too much to be a dream, and the flush to his face remains even when you blink hard against what you think must be spots dancing in your vision.

“That’s,” He clears his throat, releasing your head to rock back on his heels. “That’s what kissing it better means.”

“Oh.” You croak, mind gone perfectly, astonishingly blank. Then, because you’re an idiot who can’t keep your damn mouth shut—“You probably should have done that earlier if you wanted it to be effective.” Christ. You should not have said that. His brow lifts, and the flush, if it doesn’t work itself away, seems to be tamped down. Replaced by surprise, curiosity, a growing glimmer in his eye. Completely fucking untrustworthy. He asks—

“Were you going to let—“

“There is a meeting.” You bark, and fuck, your face is red hot, and you don’t even have a mask on to hide it. You stand, fast enough to send him reeling backward, scrambling your mask out of your pocket.“Haul ass, Charge, and if you try to stop me again I’ll kill you.”

[kittlesandbugs]

Summit Lake, Washington by me-wa

[kittlesandbugs]

i love when a character has something terrible happen to them and as a result they see themself as, essentially if not literally, a ghost. and so that means they only can (and have to) do what ghosts do, ie get revenge and then cease to exist. easy as that. but then halfway through this ghost vengeance they realize hey actually i might still be a human person. with human needs. that’s incredibly inconvenient, considering how much i’ve invested in this whole ghost thing

[kittlesandbugs]

it's so weird to me that everyone on this website is a human person outside of their weird internet niche so rb this with a random bit of your lore

[kittlesandbugs]

me at 6:99 am when work starts at 7 🐱

[kittlesandbugs]

PROMPT. A kiss, in water.

Disclaimer: everything here is slightly obscure because Una and Nadeem belong to an original work (stagnating) of mine that takes place in a not-too-far future; for this one you don't need to know much, except maybe that water is more or less a luxury (everything about survival is a luxury under hyper-capitalism, you know that ofc.) Oh and Nadeem and Una are colleagues and they are not supposed to fraternize, by the way. And of course they DON'T fraternize: Una is BUSY doing IMPORTANT things!!!!! Context: It was Valentine's day a week ago, we shared kiss prompts, this is what I spinned (very late), let's do this. What to expect: Sappy and poetic and a little frantic, as Una gets when....... romance (ew) punches her in the face out of nowhere.

To Unpath'd Waters, Undream'd Shores

(2083) UNA.

When he leads you here, when he leads you through the tunnels under the city, he doesn’t understand. When he brings you out, out of the bowels of the sewer and into the night, when he extracts you from the dark and into the dark, he doesn’t understand.

Under the moonlight, when he—you stop, you stop at the edge. Under the moonlight, when he turns back, his face shadowed-etched against the sky, when he turns back to you, and takes your hand, he doesn’t understand.

“Oh now you’re impressed,” he dimples, you think—you can’t see, not in the night-velvet, but you know where they dig and what they frame, the dimples. “Are you coming?”

His smile is a gift. The water, the dark water is a gift. At your feet the lake is a mouth waiting, splashed with light, lapping murmurs around his ankles as he moves, around his legs, come, around your legs, and stretching—all the way into night’s oblivion, a drowning dream.

The water is a gift. Lukewarm, sticky, trapping, around your chest, and up to your chin, and further still, a mouth waiting, a mouth closing, close—close your eyes, forget the heat, forget the thirst, forget the floods, and sink, sink here, into this forbidden embrace.

They taught you to swim on dryland, in the training room, each conscript moving insect-like on their rectangular table, and hold—hold your breath, now, keep going, longer, arm stroke, pull—hold the glide, feel the water, but there is no water, hush—hold your breath, conscript, keep your head down, arm stroke, one more—pull—one, two, three—and sink—breathe—turn, arm stroke, pull—hold the glide, glide closer, and pull—you are, pulled, now too, and sunk, hold your breath, conscript, and open your eyes.

His are dark-shining, cupped high over the crescent chalice of his smile. He gives in first, without trying—bubbles, then a kick, and he breaks the surface, the fanning spreading ink stain of his hair suddenly splashed over the angle of his jaw.

“So?” he brags, eyebrows waggling. “Aren’t you glad you’ve cultivated such good connections, Conscript?”

Yes. You are glad, glad to painfulness. Of course, he doesn’t understand, the idiot, and neither does he understand when you grab his neck, surprise flashing, as you—keep going, conscript, arm stroke, pull—hold the glide—as you, press your mouth to his beautiful mouth, and—glide closer, hold your breath, and sink—into the water-mouth, warm, and sticky, and trapping, you, press your mouth to his beautiful mouth, and he pulls you close, warm, and sultry, and trapped, you are, you are: trapped into this forbidden embrace.