#@ Discourse catch me crying on the phone to you again

[1ddotdhq]

🐕 Sun 25 Oct ‘20 🌶

Well it sure is SUNday isn’t it? We woke up to a hidden Reels from HSHQ (that has since been taken down) that showed a *golden* retriever swimming in the blue blue sea with Golden playing in the background. HSHQ has made a Habit (that they can’t break) of hiding media and random phrases in their source code, the most recent one in circulation being:  “Jewel-coat migration headed to Eroda!” within the Eroda site’s code. Fans quickly speculated that the dog in the video might be @/goldenloutriever on instagram, but I have no clue what brought that on, because there is no indication on the dog’s instagram nor on HSHQ’s instagram that would lead me to that conclusion. The best I can give you is that Harry seems to have taken a page out of Eleanor’s book and really embraced the dog content - he knows what we like! And THEN HSHQ dropped the official teaser AND the drop date of the music video! It drops tomorrow, 10/26? WHAT TIME asked Twitter with a worldwide trend. HSHQ ignored us all. The teaser trailer shows Harry running in a dark tunnel, I’m assuming chasing the sun. I would say that this time, he looks VERY ready to run! 

But Harry isn’t the only one with content to debut! LIAM put out his newest “show which has no name” on YouTube, and went live on instagram (wearing a headband that rival’s 2013!Louis’) right before the premiere! He went live with a young fan who ran a 1D fan instagram account and gave her some tickets, talked about not having seen the Golden music video, yet (me: YEAH NEITHER HAVE I UR NOT SPECIAL) and mentioned that Iron Man was his favorite avenger (“...after the sacrifices he made - for us all” hmmm, yup yup, totally, I remember that time Thanos came and made us disappear). He was also told by the chat to “Call Louis”, to which he promptly responded, “Louis was meant to call me a couple of days ago and he hasn’t yet...Louis where are you?? If you’re creeping around my Instagram live again, just. Give me a call”. Twitter then took it upon themselves to remind Louis and trended LOUIS CALL LIAM. Louis, always knowing what’s being said about him, took to twitter to say, “Answer your phone then dickhead @/LiamPayne”. Soooo...does this mean they’ve been playing phone tag?? Could timezone differences have anything to do with this? *Corneilus voice* whoooooo knooooowwwwssss…. 

And! In the roundup we got to hear a bit more about Cornelius! It started as an idea that he and Conor had “coming home after work one night” (if you’re counting - and I am - this is the second time he’s mentioned living with Conor) and that he thought it would be funny if there were a ghost haunting the place asking about the show. They tried out different names (first Peter), but settled on Cornelius as it tied back into an old 1D joke where Louis dared Niall to thank "Cornelius the Trombone player" but there never was a trombone player. So he was a ghost, Get It? Sigh, I love Liam’s sense of humor. In other round-up news, opener Carly Gibert will be zooming in from LA, though Tom Felton (“love ya, Big T!”) will be there live. He talked about how he’s known Tom for years, meeting at one of the HP premiers, though he wasn’t a big fan at the time, “I wasn't a massive fan then, it's just as I went along - you know how it goes - that I became a MASSIVE fan, but I already knew all of them". Okay, no need to rub it in Liam! But, speaking of fans, he thanked one on his live (twitter handle @/modeftziam), calling them “a good friend of mine”, and praising the awesome instagram filter that they made! He says that he sees their content on his timeline often, and loves it, and to go follow them. I ADORE (a door haha) how Liam treats his fans, it’s always so kind. Kinder, even, than he treats himself sometimes: he went in a bit on the behind the scenes video that Hugo put on their Instagram story about last month’s Esquire shoot, saying he was "super super hungover I’d partied all night the night before...you can see the drunkness on my face there". I mean, I hadn’t noticed it BEFORE he pointed it out, but, um...yeah he’s not wrong. I hope that, going forward, he treats himself more gently, because, as we all know HE’S GOLDEN TOO! 

And was Louis done tweeting after he told Liam off? No! He wasn’t! He went on to answer a fan about a child who really liked Louis’ music. Louis told the fan, “This is a beautiful story. Send my love to your gorgeous little lad. You’re both welcome to any show. Would love to meet the little lad. You’re an incredible mother, keep your head up!” The fan he replied to was NOT the mother of the child, but instead a 17 year old who had translated the story, which she had explained, but he clearly missed.  Who’s gonna take him up on the free ticket, d’you think? He also - once again - recommended the Red Hot Chili Peppers, once in a reply, and then went nah, I gotta put this on main, and posted a tweet with a link to the same liveshow, saying, “Anyone who’s missing live music. Watch this top to bottom...Incredible.” And he answered a question about the Social Dilemma, a documentary about the effects of social media, saying, “...Anyone who hasn’t seen it should watch it. Food for thought.” 

Niall described his COVID experience as “a lot of finger pointing, ankle injuries, and naked Instagram”. This time, can we please trend #DONTstripitdownNiall? They chatted a bit about the song (“ a delicate song...about divorce”) and Niall’s involvement (“I wouldn’t have been upset if she’d had said no [to having him on the song”), and they urged young US voters to get out the vote! Which, yeah! Please! And Zayn joined in the fun, tweeting “@UFC mashallah Khabib 🙌🏽”. The word mashallah is an Arabic phrase that means “what God has willed” and expresses appreciation, joy, praise, or thankfulness. Khabib is a boxer who has just announced his retirement. So, in the way that we often thank the guys for their hard work, Zayn was just showing off his fandom appreciation!  And, in Z’s extended universe Gigi also joined the Get Out Vote efforts by saying, “I voted absentee last week with my daughter next to me for an America I wanted her to see...”. Did it tell us anything about her daughter? Nope! Not even her name!

[oikadori]

a/n: not me crying at 2am about an Oikawa edit, that was my twin sister not me at all...this is totally self indulgent so uhm...yeah. Hope you enjoy it tho!!

edit: i'm so sorry for reposting again but i really feel that the best exposure is int the first hours let's hope this time it stays 😔

Oikawa Tooru x fReader

Summary: in which you are tired of hearing how is never enough for Oikawa Tooru.

Genre: angst, fluffy end tho, established relationship

Now playing ⊳ King by Lauren Aquilina ; Next to me by Imagine Dragons

WC~2k

It had become part of your routine at this point, sitting on the couch for hours, staring bluntly at some program as you wait for your boyfriend to come home.

It was not the passion he has for volleyball that has you on a gloomy mood today. It was  not falling asleep on an empty bed as you heard the sounds of balls hitting the wooden floor coming from the speakers of his laptop in the living room, and it was not how  your throat becomes dry after you begged him to sleep.

But you were tired, that is the only way to express it, tired of feeling your heart clench at the way he neglects himself, at this point you didn’t even care if he neglected you, which wasn’t the case, but him.

Your phone always got texts from him, asking if you had breakfast, if you had lunch or simply saying a hello. He called you before coming home offering you to bring some sweet from that store you liked so much. But, when you asked him if he had a good lunch, those tests always seemed to get lost in his inbox.

Oikawa always gave you a smile as the same words came out of the lips that kissed you every morning.

“Don’t you want me to be the best, my love?”

That simple phrase always seemed to wrap your heart in a death cold no matter the sweetness in his tone, they made impossible for you to come with an argument that would make Oikawa’s stubborn head understand. Understand that he was slowly tearing himself up and hurting you in the process.  

However, none of that is what had you sitting on the couch right now, arms crossed over your chest and lips pressed together, but as soon as Oikawa crossed the door, he knew the exact reason.

“Y/N-chan? I thought you were going out with your friends today”, he drops the bag on the ground, the keys of your shared apartment hitting the floor in the process, “Shit”

Your eyes are trained on the way his face contorts as he reaches for the keys, making your heart sink.

“Anyways, how are you, cutie?”, Oikawa stands in his full height before displaying a closed-eye smile at you.

However, his trademark grin fades as he sees your brows furrowing together, the air suddenly charging with the accumulated tension.

“Is there something w–��

“You tell me”, when you look at his knee with inquiring eyes, Oikawa blinks before turning his face away from you.

“It is nothing”, his mouth twitches down, “I’m fine”

‘no you are not’

His answer only makes you sigh loudly as your mind goes back to the early hours of today, the scene that made your chest sting popping out.

Oikawa had kissed your forehead like every other  morning before mumbling a brief goodbye, he chuckled lightly at the way you babbled some sort of greet and  he walked to the door like every other day but he failed to notice how your eyes opened and gazed at him.

His eyes widened as he felt the burn on his right leg, not knowing you were watching in horror the way his knee falters, causing his leg to tremble before giving in to gravity. He held onto the handle tightly, gritting his teeth to capture the whine that threatened your sleep. However, when he turned around, he founded your half-closed eyes fixated on him, but before you could say anything, he rushed away hoping your mind was clouded enough with tiredness to forget about it.

“How long?”, you ask, standing up slowly and moving towards him.

“I don’t know, what–”

“When started hurting this bad?”

His gaze fixes on the ground, his fists clamp together, annoyance bubbling up in his stomach. He knows what’s coming, he has heard that discourse way too many times to not know how this conversation will go.

“Since always Y/N!”, he cries out almost in pain, his hair moving violently matching with his gestures, the gap in your mouth mirrors the shock in you.

“You need a break Tooru…”

“So they can found someone better? No, thank you”, he lets out a dry laugh as he looks down at you.

“What is the point if you end up not being able to walk without limping??!!”, your voice falters at the end as you picture him holding onto the handle for stability, “You are out of control…”

Oikawa’s nails dig into his palm as he frowns, eyes narrowing at you with dangerous intensity.

“As if you knew…” , the sharpness in his voice makes nothing but press the wound in your heart furthermore.

“Of course, I know, damn it! Tooru you are barely sleeping! I don’t know if you’re even eating properly since we almost never have any meal together!”

And then as if your words had hit the right nerve inside the setter, Oikawa snaps, the look he shoots at you makes your movements halt and your voice dissolves into silence. He was tired and frustrated but ultimately scared and the fact you couldn’t see how scared he was, only frustrates him more.

“No, you don’t know a fucking thing! I need to get better!!”

“Tooru you are their regular setter already!”, you scream at him your face getting red with anger as your tone fades into a bare whisper, “Nothing is enough for you, isn’t it?!”

Oikawa knew that the question itself wasn’t entirely related to his volleyball career. The pleading look you give him and the tremble in your lips tells him that you are not only referring to the all the medals and recognitions but about your relationship itself.

You were asking him if you weren’t enough for him…And maybe you weren’t.

“No!”, the word comes out rushed, his thoughts getting more and more clouded by frustration. You grit your teeth when Oikawa places a hand on his forehead as if he had a bad headache, as if you were the cause of the annoying hammering,

“You are so selfish…can’t you see all what you ha–”, your voice comes in low hiss and before you can finish he lets out a loud groan as the keys in his hand fly across the room landing with a loud thud against your living room table, making you flinch.

“Why can you just let me do what I have to? Is it too much for your head to understand?!”, he shouts, and you feel a sting in your chest, your eyes almost seem to fall from your face and your breath stops as you see how your boyfriend’s face contorts in malice.

“I could pick any of those girls who wait for me after the matches, you know?  I could have any of them and they wouldn’t be as half as annoying as you!”

Oikawa’s chocolate orbits are piercing at you in anticipation when he catches the redness saturating your eyes, causing his heart to drop to the ground.

“I–“

“Go, pick a nobody who only wants to fuck with you,” you try your best to not flinch, but the venom in his words make a silent tear to roll down your cheek, “because I’m not staying to watch how you destroy yourself”

You walk past him, brushing his shoulder roughly, your steps to the door are so fast, he doesn’t get a chance to even try to reach for your hand.

The slam of the door makes a feeling of anguish settle on his chest. His feet move subconsciously to the door when a loud groan leave his lips, the pain on his knee makes his whole body shiver as he falls apart a meter away of the handle.

“Shit, shit, shit”, he whines as he manages to move his body until his back is leaning against the door, his hand travels to his pocket, desperately pulling out his phone, a pout cross his features when your name pops on his recent calls. The phone rings and rings but no answer comes, when the small device turns off, he feels himself growing numb.

And the minutes turn into hours, the night wrapping the city as Oikawa rests against the door.

Oikawa had never felt this desperate, the pain in his knee is unnoticeable compared to the ache swelling in his chest. One call, one message, anything that would let him know that you are safe, that is all he needs right now.

“What did you do for her to stay with you?”, Iwaizumi’ words ring in his ears, “You are lucky Oikawa”

He was lucky indeed, his head drops to the back, hitting the wood, his breath falters as tears stream down his face until they turn into uncontrollable sobs, the sting on his knee and the guilt mixing painfully together.

Suddenly, the door pushes his body to the side, hitting the back of his head causing him to grunt.

“Tooru?”, his eyes widen, he turns immediately to encounter your still glassy eyes gazing down at him in confusion, “What are you doing on the floor?”

Your voice is stoic however it is music for Oikawa’s ears, he quickly brushes the tears away from his face as he tries to stand up, a hiss slipping his throat.

“Oh god, Tooru!”, you quickly leave the store bag you are carrying and bend down to support him, “I bought some–

“I’M SO SORRY Y/N!! I-I DIDN’T MEAN TO–“, he groans as you try to lift him up but your small figure can’t do much to move the former captain of Seijoh, so you just drop him carefully back on the floor and kneel in front of him, “P-Please don’t leave…”

Your silence makes his heartbeat pace faster and he grabs your hands tightly, his gaze fixes on yours and you notice the fear his orbits hold. You have never seen him this vulnerable and your eyes don’t fail to show your surprise.

“Please don’t leave me Y/N-chan“, your lips press softly over his own before he says anything else, Oikawa’s brows furrow together as he squeezes your hands gently, sighing, relived.

“You should get someone better–”, he says,

“You are probably right”, you sigh, “you did hurt me, but– I guess I just love you that much”, he loses himself in the softness of your voice and tears threaten to come out again.

“I truly admire how hard you work but you have to take care of yourself Tooru–“,his glassy eyes look at you, still not able to believe you’re here, next to him, you bit your lip before cupping his cheek, “–you might not be the king of volleyball yet, but for what it is worth, you’re the king to me”

You blush violently but not even as close as the flustered red that tints Oikawa’s features, he leans in hesitantly to claim your lips and you both melt in the kiss.

He never thought such words would made him feel so complete and he realizes that all he ever needed was you by his side.

“Not gonna lie, I was hoping you’d say, ‘you are the king of my heart’ or something like that”

“I-Can’t you just take the stupid compliment?”, he chuckles with a husky tone but suddenly stops, he places a hand on your cheek his thumb making soothing circles over your flushed skin.

“Thank you”

“Uh?”

“For giving me another chance”, your knees start to sore from kneeling on the floor but you can’t move as his chocolates eyes stare into your own brimming with emotion, “I love you so much, I’m so sorry Y/N”

“If so, stop overworking yourself, okay?”

Your fingers tangle with his brown locks as he whispers a silent yes, burying his face in the crook of your neck, his arms wrapping your torso tightly as if he was still scared you fade away.  

Oikawa doesn’t  have a  throne, but he’ll proudly wear the title you gave him, and he’ll do his best the be worthy of the crown that comes with it.

❀ Please reblog if you like it! ❀

Thanks for reading ♡♡♡

[krokodile]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hi7iCxtUvBXv_BmigiUp2-5Qdcj84Unq/view?usp=sharing

Broadway, 3/3/22, the first half of All You Wanna Do is likely fucked up because my phone suddenly became possessed (no idea why the display would not STAY OFF) and not wanting to be a dick I shoved it into my bag until it chilled out.  The rest of it should sound ok though.

Adrianna Hicks, Andrea Macasaet, Keirsten Nicole Hodges, Brittney Mack, Samantha Pauly, Anna Uzele.

Not much I can say about Six that hasn’t been said a hundred times before.  Don’t get me wrong, I can discuss literally any aspect of the show for ages; the fact that there’s so much implied depth where we’re left to fill in the gaps means nearly everything has room for interpretation and discourse and I love it.  And, I mean, just at surface level, it’s a fucking good show.  I don’t know how the lighting techs do their jobs without breaking down crying.  The costumes are...god so great, but man I wish they’d let them wear flats.  The heels look great but dancing in those cannot be good for anyone’s spines.  Still think Parr got shafted with a song that’s half filler (and not...good filler?  Like, yeah, the show doesn’t NEED Haus of Holbein for any reason other than the show can’t be THAT SHORT, but it’s so damn much fun, and sometimes that’s the only reason you need.  But goddamn, I Don’t Need Your Love just DRAGS for me.  It’s not BAD, but it feels like it could be two-thirds as long as it is without losing anything.)  

Had mostly the principal cast, which...not complaining, I adore them all, but again, I feel like anything that could be said about them has already been said.  Not that it’ll stop me trying.

Adrianna Hicks just IS Catherine of Aragon.  Every so often there’s a pairing of actor and role that is just so utterly freaking PERFECT, and they caught lightning in a bottle here.  There are other people who are excellent in the role, but I can’t imagine feeling like it BELONGS to anyone else quite like this.  Hoping I get to catch her a few more times (I assume she’ll be leaving for Some Like it Hot, if not before then).  She’s also the one who gets genuine laughs out of me at times despite, you know, my knowing when every damn joke in the show is coming.

Andrea Macasaet had the audience in the palm of her hand from her first “beheaded.”  And I get why.  She is just so fucking funny; her line deliveries are just flawless, her comedic timing impeccable.  I love her take on the character; the killer queen vibe works so well for me.  She’s a conniving little bitch and oh god I LOVE HER SO MUCH.  I do kinda wish she had a song that shows off her voice more, because she’s SUCH a phenomenal singer, but...I also can’t really imagine her playing anyone else.

Keirsten Nicole Hodges was a total unknown to me when I walked in there.  I’m not sure I’d ever even heard her sing before.  I assumed she’d be great because literally everyone in this cast is great, but what I was not expecting was an actually interesting Jane Seymour???  Look, I love the typical take on Jane.  I love the soft-eyed, gentle-mannered Jane who sees strength in herself where others don’t.  I adore her.  But...can we all agree there have been a lot of those?  Keirsten is...not that.  And I love it.  The initial vibe I got from her was beauty pageant queen - oh she will kill you with sweetness, but it’s calculated.  Not FAKE, per se, but she’s invested in winning this thing as much as anyone and she knows this is her best angle.  She went into Heart of Stone not giving much away, and that concerned me a bit, but...yeah she knows what she’s doing and I shouldn’t have doubted that.  You actually get to see and feel the song become less about where she is and what she’s doing as it becomes more and more emotional and heartfelt, until she’s crying so hard I have no idea how the fuck she’s still singing.  The journey made the payoff so much more rewarding - and also I feel like just in general it makes Jane’s outburst later in the show a lot more in-character.  She’s the first Jane I’ve come across who really displays a drive to win.  (And yeah I know the whole show is meta and none of it’s ‘real’ but I’m still a fan of this.)  And her singing is just...gorgeous.  SUCH range, such power.  

Brittney Mack was the crowd favorite of the night; everything she did got a HUGE response, and understandably so.  I have NO IDEA where her energy comes from but she’s just such a joy to watch at all times.  I’m might-as-well-be-married to someone who once said, with only a mild hint of irony, “Anne of Cleves can GET IT,” and...okay I think I have to concur.  I’m always hoping for swing-heavy shows whenever I see anything, but if I only ever saw Britt as Cleves, I’d be delighted.

Samantha Pauly...first of all, I’m gonna get this out of the way, but I worry about her.  I wish she’d take some time off.  Seems like she’s always got a new injury, or a flareup of an old one, and this show is BRUTAL.  That said...beyond thrilled I got to see her, because if I haaaaaad to pick a favorite of the main six, it’d be her.  I love absolutely everything about her.  She’s an absolute star.  Such presence, such versatility, she does EVERYTHING flawlessly.  It’s a little ridiculous honestly.  I’ve noticed she no longer snaps on the KHoward ‘mask’ as soon as her song is over and remains visibly troubled for a bit longer.  Works either way, just something I noticed, idk.  She’s also the most present of the bunch; she reacts to EVERYTHING.  I’ve noticed she and Britt tend to share a lot of looks and whispers, and I wonder if that’s just the blocking, they just especially vibe, or they’re nodding to the fact that their characters were likely friendly in their past lives.  I assume the first, but it’s interesting to think about anyway.

Anna Uzele was the person I was most hoping to see,; she was the one person besides Abby Mueller I was familiar with before Six, and I was so excited when I saw she was part of the cast.  Her voice is just SO gorgeous.  I always feel like I Don’t Need Your Love doesn’t show her off as much as her voice deserves, but I love her Parr with all my heart.  She’s so heartfelt and plays her just the tiniest bit awkward, and I just...damn I’m gonna miss her.

Going back on Monday...yeah, went home and immediately got tickets to go again in a few days.  I was that impressed.  Best new show I’ve seen in a few years (not counting the last two, obviously).  Literally everything about it works.  And I love that it’s just so damn much FUN.  Nice to be reminded that media doesn’t need to be Deeply Serious to be genuinely great.  I forget sometimes.

[ubemango]

abg discourse, a side note: trappings

note 1: Yesterday, I said I would write a drabble and had no idea what I would write about. Reni and Fina gave me good suggestions and then I Did Not Follow Through. I am regretful. I apologize. Anyway, this happens between scene 3 and scene 4 in abg discourse

note 2: this AU has the potential for capital A Angst. I don’t want to be mean, so I’m promising you that no one is crying in this drabble.

note 3: “So what happens when jk and oc catch each other doing laundry at the same time and they start doing more catching up and BACKSTORY? There’s more backstory, Ella?” Good question! Here you go! Please don’t ask me if I’m writing more or else I will v*mit!

.

.

.

Jeongguk is nice enough to lend you ten bucks for your laundry card when you realize you don’t have enough funds.

“This is a trap,” you say. The loading machine eats the bill up fast.

“What, and leave you stranded out here?”

You realize it would be very embarrassing, asking him to help you lug all your wet clothes back to the apartment. “I’ll pay you back when I can.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

The dismissal in his tone is hard. You grit your teeth, save your tongue from answering back. If Jeongguk is one thing, it’s that he’s kindly stubborn.

You head back to the dryer and start your load. For a second you think this warrants your leave, but Jeongguk has already stationed himself two washing machines down from where you stand. Attempts to dig up any untold stories is difficult: you’d already caught up with him at the mailboxes, ten years worth of stories and myths and oh really, I could’ve sworn he’d moved to Finland.

No, you’d said, Taehyung is very much still in the city, and he’s still just as annoying.

The sound of the drying machine is loud against Jeongguk’s humming. “Any more stories to kill time?”

“You have time?”

He points to the machine with Hajoon’s clothes swirling around. “Thirty minutes on the dot.”

Now you definitely feel trapped. He probably doesn’t mean it, though—he was just a good guy. A tempter. Your ring finger feels oddly light, looking at the silver band on his.

There is a stretch of time strung between you and him. It’s coiled with your longing, his unawareness. You have never felt as far away from him as you do now.

“You ever think so hard your head starts to itch?” You ask.

Jeongguk snorts. “Sure.”

“I’m like ninety-percent certain I’ve started to bald.”

“That’s very unfortunate.”

“I would appreciate some sympathy.”

“That is very unfortunate and I am sorry,” he says, sympathetically.

You watch your clothes tumble. Jeongguk checks his phone, types quickly, and puts it back in his pocket.

“Where’s Hajoon today?” You divert.

“Doctor’s.”

“Check-up?”

Jeongguk nods. “Ahyoung just sent me a picture of him crying because of the needles.”

“Poor baby.”

“He’ll be alright.” After a moment, he mumbles, “I have a story, to kill time.”

“Sure.”

“Hajoon is a good kid.”

“Mhm.”

“But do you know what it feels like… to have something be taken away from you?”

In an instant, you think of Ahyoung’s arm squeezing Jeongguk’s on that porch. Tight, a threat. “Yes,” you say.

“You remember I wanted to do law?”

“Of course.”

“But Ahyoung really wanted to become an RN,” he starts.

He recounts his days working for the government, helping people get their passports while Ahyoung studied for an additional two years. They’d gotten pregnant when she graduated, Hajoon both expected and a cause for bewilderment, and Jeongguk quit his job the second she’d gotten off maternity leave.

“There’s a lot of things I would do for my family.” He sighs. “But I get tired sometimes, too.”

“Doing the laundry is very tiring,” you say.

“It is.”

“You’re a good dad, Jeongguk.”

“Thank you.”

He’d never accuse his wife of deprivation, and you know better than to blame her for her indulgences. Silently, you think of all the bad and explosive words you would use to describe Ahyoung.

You also think about grabbing Jeongguk’s arm, pulling him closer to you.

What a scandal that would be. The privacy of the laundry room, with Hajoon’s clothes right there. Sharing stories under the guise of reassurance. Hugging him close to you, a proximity you have not visited in years.

You shift a little further away from him.

“Ahhh…” Jeongguk fits his hands over his face. “I probably overshared.”

“You know you can talk to me,” you remind him. That’s only partially a lie, because if he says anything more about his wife then you might actually rupture your cells through thought alone.

You don’t think you’ll ever know peace, having him around.

“I’ll stop thinking now,” he resolves. “Don’t want to lose hair like you are.”

“You can fuck off,” you say, and Jeongguk laughs, and everything seems somewhat normal again.

The laundry rattles on.

x

x

x

“You bitch, take this strand of hair off my screen right now, why are you always shedding?” Taehyung says at work the next day.

You scowl.

[buckleyirondad]

xv. scars

It was the hottest summer day in history. 

Tony was seconds away from calling out every ‘climate change denier’ on Twitter, but Pepper slapped his phone out of his hand because he didn’t need to start up informal discourse again. He'd have to do it through professional means if any. He tended to answer every hate comment he found, which in his defence, he learnt from Peter. The kid co-ran a Twitter page with Harley that dragged anyone who dared hate on Tony, including the man himself.

Tony had prepared for the heat, by setting up a pool in the garden. Morgan was charging around, in her swimming costume, solely reenacting Finding Nemo. Pepper sat in the corner of the pool, keeping a close eye on Morgan, while unsurprisingly reading notes for her upcoming meeting on her Stark Tablet. Tony had gone inside to collect Juice Pops from the freezer. “Hi, Tony,” Peter greeted, panting as he walked in. Tony peered over the door, “Oh hey, kid.” Peter’s hair was sweat-ridden, and he was visibly out of breath, which was rare for him. He was in a short-sleeved shirt, which Tony knew for a fact, belonged to Michelle. Peter hardly wore short-sleeved shirts, even in the summer months, unless he was styling a plaid funnel with it. Thanks to his mutated DNA, he couldn’t thermoregulate, and it meant that hot weather didn’t bother him as much as others. Not today, it seemed. Peter was hot and bothered, like the rest of them.

“How was patrol?” Tony asked. “Disgusting.” Peter groaned, leaning on the breakfast bar. Tony closed the freezer, and moved to the fridge, he took out a bottle of water. He tossed it over to Peter, who caught it with ease, “It’s so hot.” “No…” Tony mocked, “Really.” “Shut up.” Peter chugged the water down, not taking time to breathe in-between each mouthful. Tony narrowed his eyes, studying a scar across Peter’s left arm. He’d never seen it before. Yet again, from what he could recall, he’d never seen the kid in short-sleeves. The scar started three-quarters of the way up his arm, and then snaked around, ending at the crease of his elbow. Peter didn’t have scars. Not even ones from his childhood, they healed, when he got his powers. He was once shot, and in a coma for a week, but there was no scar as evidence. His healing ability cleaned them up in hours. This wasn’t right. It looked old too, from how discoloured and faded it was against his skin, but that was impossible. “That’s nasty.” Tony gestured to Peter’s arm, “Did that happen on patrol?” Peter placed the bottle down on the counter, and nodded, “Um, yeah.” He answered, unsurely. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Tony had learnt not to freak out, but he could hear his heart thudding in his ears. For a wound like that, he should have been notified by Karen straight away. “You know…” Peter shrugged, “I heal.” “Yeah…” Tony circled the breakfast bar, “But usually, not this slow.” He held out his hand, “Can I have a look?” Peter flung his arm away, hiding it behind his back, “It’s fine.” “Peter.” Tony said firmly, but gently, he didn’t want to push too far, “What’s going on?” Peter mindlessly tapped his foot against the floor, “It’s not from today.” “Okay..” Tony trailed off, “When did this happen? Paint me a picture.” “It doesn’t matter.” “Kid.” Tony reached forward, squeezing his shoulder, “You got hurt. It matters.” Peter’s eyes glazed over. Great, Tony made him cry, that wasn’t what he was aiming for, “Hey?” Peter sniffled and wiped an arm across his face, “It was a long time ago.” “How long are we talking?” Peter let out a wet laugh, “Longer for you then it is for me.” Tony shook his head, “We’re talking….” “Before Thanos.” “Oh, but…” Tony blurted. This didn’t make sense. How had he never noticed before? Perhaps, Peter didn’t only wear long-sleeves for thermoregulation, “I ...you don’t…” “Scar easily?” Peter stared the floor, “No. This was just...different.” “It must have been horrific, kid.” Tony reached forward, catching his wrist, and carefully lifting his arm, “Why didn’t I know?” “Um…” Peter paled. Tony was petrified to hear what he had to say next, “Kid?” Peter stared at him, with tear-eyes, “You’re not gonna let this go, are you? “No.” “Promise me…” Peter reached up, grabbing Tony’s arm, “You won’t blame yourself.” Tony’s stomach lunged, he bit down on his lip and nodded, “I’ll try.” What did he do? “Before...Coney Island…” Peter’s throat cracked, “I confronted Toomes in this like warehouse...and he um, trapped me….” “Trapped you, how?” “He knocked down the building.” Peter admitted, “I was...in it.” Tony felt the floor beneath his feet soften, and if he wasn’t holding onto Peter, he’d nosedive in an instant, “A building fell on you.” He repeated, shocked, “Like...an…” Reality hit him in the chest, restricting his air, “You didn’t have your suit. I took your suit…” “Stop.” Peter hiccuped, “I said no blaming yourself, okay?” He took a deep breath, “It was my choice, Tony. I was reckless…” A smile crawled on his face, “And hey, I’m okay now. I got out.” Tony looked at him in disbelief, “You got out?” “I like…” He held up his arm in the air, “...Lifted it off me.” “Wow.” Tony blinked away tears, “Um..” He tugged on Peter’s arm, dragging him into a hug. It wasn’t comfortable because of how hot it was, but Tony needed it, in the moment, “You’re impossible, kid.” Peter snickered, “I guess…” “I’m sorry,” Tony muttered, as he tapped his back. “It wasn’t your fault.” Tony sucked in a sharp breath, “I know...."

[floatingpetals]

Boys in Blue || Pt. 8

Pairings: cop!Stucky x F!Reader

Warnings: angst, mentions of gun violence and blood, possible trigger warning(?)

Word Count: 3100+

Summary: (Cop AU) There was just one crappy thing after enough that happened to her. It possibly couldn’t get any worse, or so she thought until she saw the dreaded flashes of red and blue behind her. Could things get any worse?

A/N: This was going to be finished last night but noooo. Stupid painting. Anyways. I hope you all enjoy this next part... Maybe. I don’t know. It leans a little more on the serious side for this story. I won’t say much more to give it away. Let me know what ya’ll think! Enjoy!♥

The gifs are not mine, credit to the owner. 

Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Series Masterlist

Y/N was at work when she got the call. The dreaded call that everyone feared they would get about their loved ones. Her work phone rang, which wasn’t strange. She didn’t spare a glance at the caller id before she answered, cradling the phone against her ear.

“Y/N speaking.”

“Y/N, sweetheart.” Steve was on the other end, his voice trembling slightly as he spoke. Instantly Y/N knew something was wrong.

“Steve? Wh-whats wrong?” Frantically she began searching for her phone in her purse. It was on silent in the side pocket. The phone lit up, showing her the thirty-three missed calls from Steve and the several dozen messages from him begging to answer. Her stomach dropped to her feet.

“B-Bucky,” Steve started. His voice caught, a sob struggling to force its way to the surface. He swallowed loudly before continuing. “Bucky was shot.”

All the blood drained from Y/N’s face. She sank back in her seat, a buzz starting to grow in her ears. This couldn’t be happening.

“He’s in surgery. I don’t know how bad it is, they won’t tell me.” Steve continued. He was struggling to keep it together. All his training never prepared him for the agony he would feel after seeing the love his life get gunned down before his eyes. “Sweetheart- Y/N, I need you here. Downtown hospital.”

Y/N didn’t have to be asked twice. She was already logging out of her computer and tossing her phone back in her purse.

“Give me ten minutes. I’ll be right there, baby.”

Steve bit out an okay, his throat burning as he kept in the tears. He couldn’t cry, not now. Not yet. Y/N threw the phone in the cradle and sprinted to her bosses office. The man didn’t even need to know more details. He knew Bucky and Steve, knew their line of work. He saw the raw panic and the growing tears and immediately waved her off. She shouted a thank you over her shoulder before she sprinted to her car.

The drive was excruciating. Even though she was ten minutes from the hospital, it was too long. She needed to be there now. However, she also knew she couldn’t afford any delays. Instead, she gripped the steering wheel until the blood drained from her knuckles and gnawed at her lip until she tasted blood.

She thanked whatever God was up there didn’t have horrible timing of humor when she pulled into a front row parking. Slamming her door shut, Y/N raced into the ER entrance. Steve was there before she had time to look for him, wrapping her up in his arms in a crushing hug.

He buried his face in her neck, his body trembling as he hunched over and held her tight. Y/N immediately wrapped her arms around his broad back and clung to him like a lifeline. She let him take a moment to recollect his thoughts, to get his baring. Bucky might be hurt, but she wasn’t. she knew he needed to know that, to see that she wasn’t in any danger. Steve didn’t pull away until he calmed his breathing and let go of that concern.  

Y/N reached and cupped his cheeks between her hands, thumbing the tears away.

“What happened? Is he going to be okay?” Y/N asked with a trembling voice. Steve’s let his eyelids fall shut, his brows pinched together. His brain kept replaying the last few moments over and over again in his head. He should have seen the gun in the man’s waistband. The man wasn’t even a part of the original traffic violation, but he wanted to put himself in the situation.

“We pulled over a guy who had a taillight out. It was just a routine stop.” Steve began. “There was a pedestrian that didn’t like us, kept yelling at us to leave the guy alone. Bucky wasn’t even going to give him a ticket. Just a warning to get it fixed.”

Steve had to stop and take a deep breath. Y/N leaned and pressed a lingering kiss to his chin, hoping she could pass him some strength. Steve smiled shakily.

“The pedestrian kept getting closer and Bucky kept asking him to back up. The guy didn’t like it. I should have seen it.” Steve croaked, shaking his head. He clenched his eyes shut, guilt washing over him. “I should have stepped up and detained the man. He was getting belligerent. But we didn’t want to cause more discourse. We figured he’d yell and leave. But he didn’t.”

“He shot Bucky.” Y/N whispered the tears she was holding back now flowing freely down her face. Steve nodded sharply.

“He shot Bucky point blank in the chest. I watched him collapse. I saw his blood splatter on the ground.” Steve cried quietly. “If it wasn’t for the guy we pulled over originally swinging his door open and knocking the shooter out, he’d have shot me. I watched Bucky get shot down, and all I could do was freeze.”

Y/N inhaled sharply. Not only was Bucky hurt, but she knew Steve was dragging himself down with guilt. This was more to him than just Bucky getting shot. Yes, it’s terrifying and scary, especially to watch the man he loves to get shot and possibly murdered right in front of him, except for Steve, this guilt included his inability to keep Bucky safe. He felt he failed.

Without pause, she closed the space between them and wrapped her arms around his waist. Steve clutched to her tightly, trembling and terrified of what was going to happen to Bucky. It kept repeating over and over in his head, the horror still painstakingly fresh. He couldn’t stop seeing the spray of Bucky’s blood, the flash from the muzzle, again and again. The shot still rang in his ears followed by the sound of Bucky’s body hitting the pavement. It made his throat feel tight, his eyes burned as the tears started to build once more.

“Hey, no.” Y/N gently took hold of his face between her hands. Her heart broke at the tears in Steve’s eye, the guilt written across his features. “I get that you feel like you’ve failed. You didn’t though. And I know Bucky sure as hell doesn’t and will never blame you for one stupid idiot, but right now, I need you to channel your inner future captain and stay with me. We need to figure out how Bucky is, and we need to be there for him. Right?”

Steve blinked rapidly, willing away the tears as he took in a deep shuttering breath. Y/N was right. He needed to pull himself together. Not just for himself, but for Bucky and Y/N both. He was trained for situations like this, he shouldn’t be completely losing it right now. He needed to be strong.

“Okay, good. Let’s go find a doctor and ask if they heard anything new.” Y/N let his face go to grab his hand. Steve’s eyes fell to their hands, watching Y/N link his fingers with hers, a calm washing over him as she dragged him over to the desk

“Hi. We were wondering if you knew the status on a James B. Barnes. He was shot on duty and no ones given us any of any updates on whether he’s okay or not.”

The nurse raised a brow and looked up at her over the desk with a touch of disdain. It made Y/N’s hackles rise. The nurse let out an irritated sigh and turned to her computer, clicking away on the screen.

“As I already explained to your friend, Dr. Temple is in surgery with him. Nothing new has changed in the five minutes he’s asked.” The nurse said in a monotone voice. Y/N scowled, that wasn’t nearly enough information.

“First off, neither Steve nor Bucky is my friend. They’re my boyfriends, so get that right. Second off, drop the fucking attitude and tell me exactly what the hell is wrong with him.” Y/N seethed. She kept her tone low to not make a bigger scene, but loud enough that the woman could hear the underlying fury. “We’re fully fucking aware he’s in surgery, but we need to know more. Did the bullet make a clean exit? Where did the bullet hit him? Did it shatter in his chest? Are there internal damages that could be life threatening? Did it hit any major arteries? Is the surgery to double check or is there something more? I don’t need your snark, I need answers and you’re going to give them to me. Either that or I’ll charge in the surgery room and get them myself.”

The woman blinked, physically reeling back as Y/N leaned across the desk and into her space. It was frightening how calm Y/N made herself out to seen despite the look of murder plainly written on her face. There was no doubt in the woman’s mind that if she didn’t tell Y/N what was on his file she’d most like stay true to her threat. The nurse shot Steve a concerned look, but he wasn’t paying the woman any mind. Rather, he was staring at Y/N with stars in his eyes, completely in awe.  

“Well?” Y/N asked, tilting her head to the side as she waited for the nurse to catch up. “Which option do you want to take?”

“I-uh.” The woman began to stutter, glancing between the computer and Y/N. Technically, she couldn’t tell Y/N or Steve. They weren’t kin or married. She didn’t want to get fired for this, but the crazed look in Y/N’s eyes made her think that was the least of her worries. She floundered for a moment, her mouth opening and closing for a few seconds.

“It’s alright, Karen.” A voice coming from the double doors stopped them both. A woman stepped out, with her hair still up in the cap for surgery. “I’m Dr. Temple. I assume you two are here for Sergeant Barnes?”

Abandoning the desk, Y/N and Steve rushed over to the doctor, leaving the nurse to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Yes, I’m his partner,” Steve said, his heart jumping to his throat. “Is he going to be okay? How is he? Did it do any damage?”

Dr. Temple laughed softly, holding her hands up. “Slow down, Sergeant. First, Barnes is fine. The surgery went well, especially considering where he got shot.”

“Where was it?” Y/N asked hesitantly.

“He was shot on his right side just below his clavicle. He didn’t have any shatter bones and there’s not internal bleeding that we weren’t able to stop. Nothing vital was hit either which is surprising considering how close he was shot. The bullet did have to be extracted, but fortunately for him the wound was clean and the extraction was done without a problem. He’ll scar and there probably will be a little physical therapy he’ll have to go through, but at least he’s alive.”

“Oh, thank God.” Steve let out a heavy sigh of relief and wrapped an arm around Y/N’s shoulder to tug her to his chest. He firmly pressed his lips against her crown and let his eyes fall shut as he tried to steady his heart. Y/N could have cried from happiness to know Bucky was going to be okay and that this wasn’t going to set him back much. She clutched to Steve, the tears starting to prick at the corner of her eyes once again.

“Would you both like to go see him?” Dr. Temple asked with a happy smile. Unable to say any words, both nodded quickly, eager to see Bucky with their own eyes. Dr. Temple waved them to follow her through the double doors and down the hallways.

She led them up to the elevator and down the recovery hall before pausing at a doorway.

“I do want to let you know, he looks worse than he is. He’ll also probably still be asleep for a while as his body heals. We’re hoping we can move him out of recovery and into a room downstairs by tomorrow, but it all depends on how quickly he wakes up.”

She slowly opened the door and stepped aside, letting Y/N and Steve in first. Y/N sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of Bucky laid out under the white sheet, machines hooked up to his arms and the soft beeping of the monitor echoing in the room. Pulling away from Steve, she rushed over to his side and took hold of his hand. Steve stood at the end of the bed, a new wave of guilt washing over him as he looked down at his partner and boyfriend.

Dr. Temple saw the dark expression on Steve’s face, having seen that exactly look many times before on her patients family. Gently tugging Steve aside, she kept her voice low not to attack Y/N’s attention as she spoke with Steve.

“I read the file of the incident. Nothing you did was wrong and nothing you could have done would have stopped that man from shooting him.” She said sternly. Steve stared at her in shock. “I know that you think you could have done something, but speaking from experience, things are different when it’s your loved one's life is on the line. Nothing you could have trained for would have ever prepared you for that. At the end of the day, you still got him to a hospital and were here waiting for him come out of surgery. He’s not going to blame you for freezing and neither should you.”

She patted his shoulder firmly before walking away, leaving him standing there with an unreadable expression. How a complete stranger knew what he was thinking was incredible in of itself, but the fact that she cut right to the chase made him stop to think. This wasn’t something he was going to get over that easily, as much as he wished he could. It still didn’t mean it was his fault either. Hearing someone else, a complete outsider that knew nothing about their situation, tell him the same thing made his thoughts settle. Even if it was for only a moment, he wasn’t going to wallow in his self-pity.

“I’m going to give you two sometime with him. Just hit the button if you need anything.”

Y/N uttered a thank you as the doctor left, shutting the door behind her. Y/N turned back to Bucky and smoothed the hair from his face, his soft curl uncontained without his usual gel to keep it back. He was paler than he usually was, no doubt from the trauma and blood loss he suffered. A large bandage was wrapped around his chest, securing the wound from the outside germs. Beyond that, he didn’t look like he had just been shot in the chest but that still didn’t make this any easier to swallow. With a tender touch, Y/N traced the pads of her fingers down the side of her cheek, smiling through the tears as she did.

Steve pulled up a chair beside where Y/N sat on the edge of the bed, resting his hand on her thigh. Y/N glanced at him, reaching down to squeeze his hand with hers. Neither said a word at first, both too engrossed to stare at Bucky, needed it to believe he was still there.

“Thank you for being here, with us,” Steve spoke quietly, breaking the silence.

“Nothin’ to thank me for, Steve,” Y/N mumbled. “He’s my boyfriend to worry over too.”

“I know,” Steve let out a sigh. “I’m just grateful to have to too is all. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here.”

“Probably still be tyrin’ to get that nurse behind the desk to tell you answers.” Y/N snorted with an eye roll. Steve chuckled softly.

“Yeah. Probably.”

“Hey,” Y/N cupped Steve’s face and tilted it to face him. “I’d still want to be here even if one of you stubbed your toe or broke an arm. I care about you both, a lot. I’ll always be here for either of you, no matter where or what time of the day it is.”

Steve couldn’t reply, his voice was lodged in his throat as he listened to Y/N speak gently. He could only smile and bite back the tears before he leaned forward and kissed her. Y/N grinned in the kiss and leaned into it, desperate to convey just how much they meant to her through the touch. She didn’t want there to be any doubt in his mind that she didn’t mean what she said.

“Don’t I get some of that?” Y/N gasped at the sound of Bucky’s raspy voice and pulled away. She spun back to Bucky and tightened her hold on his hand.

“You’re awake!” She cried. Bucky shot her his lopsided grin, moving to sit up against the pillows. A sharp pain exploded through his chest, causing him to hiss low and freeze in place. Y/N scowled, and Steve made a noise of irritation. “Don’t move! You just got out of surgery you dolt!”

Bucky chuckled through his gritted teeth but settled back on the bed with Y/N’s carefully guiding hands.

“Yup. Forgot about that.” He groaned, letting his body go slack. He took a second to do a mental once over of his body. He had all fingers and toes. But it felt like he got run over by a truck, his body aching while his chest felt on fire. Not the best feeling in the world to wake up to, he thought bitterly. Steve pushed off the chair and reached for the button across Bucky. He could see the pain written on Bucky’s face, plain as day.

“If you’re in that much pain, I’ll have them bump up your morphine drip.” He replied. Bucky opened his mouth to argue. He didn’t want any more pain meds, he already was hating the fuzzy feel he had right now. However, the pointed look Y/N sent his way stopped him short.

“You were just shot Bucky.” She repeated. “You’re allowed to want relief for the pain.”

“I know.” Bucky relented with a sigh. Y/N was right. “Just hate feeling weak is all.”

Y/N let out a deep breath, biting her tongue from making a comment. Now was not the time either. A nurse walked in before they could say more, and Y/N stood to move out of her way. Bucky grimaced and tightened his grip on her hand, dread flashing across his face. He inhaled sharply and the monitor picked up a frantic pace.

“You-you’re not going to leave, are you?” He whispered in a quiet broken voice, anxiously glancing between the two of them. Y/N cooed softly and brushed her hand along his forehead, hoping to silence his fears. Steve walked around to wrap an arm around Y/N’s waist and rested his chin against her shoulder, watching Y/N calm Bucky. Slowly, Bucky began to relax to her soft murmurs of reassurance, the tension slipping away.

“No, baby. We’re not goin’ anywhere. I promise.”

Perma Tag: (CLOSED)

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(Let me know if I missed you, the strike means I can’t tag you for some reason.)

Boys in Blue Taglist: (CLOSED!!!)

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[shirtlesssammy]

3x15: Time is on My Side

Then:

Dean made a demon deal and his time is almost up

Now:

Cuthbert Sinclair A dude finishing up a late night at the gym is attacked at his car and thrown into his trunk. Cut to him stumbling into a hospital, blood dripping, and insides (WAY TOO FUCKING GORY TO SHOW THE AUDIENCE <--production drafts of the script are my jam) falling out at the behest of a not very smart hospital attendant. 

Sam and Dean torture Patience Turner’s dad a demon for more information on who holds Dean’s contract. They can’t touch him --he’s more afraid of the demon holding the contract that Sam and Dean. Sam exorcises him. 

Sam tells Dean about the hospital dude. Apparently he had fingerprints all over him, that weren’t his own. The fingerprints matched someone who died in 1981. Dean’s all for hunting zombies, but he’s confused why Sam is too. They head out to investigate. 

They ask about bite marks around where the liver was removed. The coroner has instant doubts about their credentials. Dean’s in fine sarcasm mode and gets them kicked out. 

So, they’re not dealing with a zombie. They head to interview someone who just had a kidney stolen. He was jumped from behind and remembers the worst pain of his life. He’s extra salty (as he should be) and has no other information for the brothers. 

Sam does some research while Dean tackles a burger. Sam’s long discourse on maggots is a particularly fine moment for him. He tells Dean they know this story and pulls out their father’s journal. Doc Benton, a 19th century doctor, found a way to live forever --mainly by harvesting parts from other people. 

A man takes a break while on a run at night, and gets chloroformed for his laziness. He wakes strapped to a table. Suddenly one ugly motherfucker appears and starts tearing him open. Fun.

Sam and Dean track where the doc could be hiding out. Dean gets a call from Bobby who’s got a lead on Bella. He mentions Rufus Turner, who heard from Bella recently. Bobby warns Dean to bring a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue with him when he meets with Rufus. 

Sam wants to stay on the case. Dean wants to find Bella. Dean wants to know why it’s important to work this case. Sam reveals he’s chasing immortality. Dean gets mad. If Dean doesn’t go through with the deal, Sam dies. Dean wants the Colt to kill the demon or the hell hounds. Sam tells his brother that he’s staying. The brothers part ways. 

Dean reaches Rufus Turner’s house and is greeted with a super friendly, “What?” Dean doesn’t get far with the man. He pops outside to tell Dean that a while ago Bobby had called him to let him know if Bella ever contacted him, to let Bobby know. He did. (And in retrospect, man, Bobby was doing everything he could for Dean.) Rufus isn’t budging with Dean, so Dean pulls out the Johnny Walker. Dean has a new BFF. 

They sit down for a drink (or two --half the bottle is gone!). 

Rufus asks Dean why he wants to track down Bella when he’s got three weeks to live. Dean sobers at the realization that Rufus knows this. Rufus tells Dean that the Colt isn’t going to save him. “Folks like us? There ain’t no happy ending.” Dean pushes back on those very real words but it’s clear that Rufus’s words haunt him ---even if he beats the demon deal, his life isn’t going to be easy. 

Sam continues to track the doctor. 

Rufus gives Dean the details about where to find Bela, and warns him about her. They talk about how she burned off her fingerprints. “You do her ear?” Rufus asks with a smirk. 

“I’ll try anything once but that sounds uncomfortable,” Dean returns and...DEAN. BEAN. What a word picture you just painted! 

Rufus tosses Dean a thick file of intel on Bela, obtained through his mysterious contact network. Rufus, we love you.

Sam finds his way into Doc’s creepy shed. The creepy shed is a must-have accessory for the modern sociopath! Sam discovers the latest victim dead on the table. Next to him there’s  another slab where a woman lies tied down, maggots on her arm. She shrieks when she wakes up and sees Sam. Up above, Doc hears the disturbance and heads down to check it out. Fortunately, Sam and the woman are good climbers. They’ve escaped out the window by the time the doc searches the basement. Though Doc catches up to them at the car, Sam runs him over and they peel away. 

Dean ambushes Bela, ordering her to stand down while he searches her room for the Colt. She swears that it’s gone - she sold it already. Dean reads Bela her own sob story when she pleads for her life. She had her parents killed and inherited millions. Dean is smug and self-righteous, but we flash back to Bela’s memories. She’s young and crying while sitting on a bed. Her father walks in and closes the door…

Bela smiles coolly after the horrible memory. “They were lovely people, and I killed them.” Dean aims the gun for her forehead when he notices some brambles slipping over the doorframe. He drops the gun and leaves in disgust. Bela, clever girl that she is, reveals a motel receipt that she picked from Dean’s pocket. She calls someone on the phone to relay the Winchester’s whereabouts. 

Driving back from Bela’s, Dean is in a tailspin. The Colt’s gone and pursuing Bela turned out to be a wild goose chase. He’s facing his own mortality and it is a B I T C H. Don’t worry, Dean. Sam has a plan! Sam found Doc’s lab books which explain “scientifically” how he’s managed to stay alive forever. While Sam nerds out about the Doc’s Super Life Extending Elixir, he’s attacked from behind and chloroformed. Science!

When Sam wakes up, his eyes are taped open which is UNNECESSARY.  

Doc reassures him that he will almost definitely probably survive the procedure. He prepares his surgical instruments, all the while bitching about how much maintenance he has to do to stay alive. Creepy old men, amirite? He’s after Sam’s peepers and as fandom knows, Sam has EXTREMELY POWERFUL PUPPY EYES - so these are high value items. 

Doc holds up John’s journal and lets Sam know that there’s probably a good dollop of revenge in this eye stealing. He then pulls out a MELON BALLER and I flinch and pretend I’m not watching it start to scoop around Sam’s eye. UUUUUGH. A+ body horror, show.

Fortunately, Dean arrives and shoots some ventilation holes into the ol’ doc. The gunshots don’t seem to do a thing to slow him down. Dean jabs a knife in his heart and Doc just chuckles...until Dean waggles a bottle of chloroform. He soaked the knife in it, and now Dean’s managed to drug his whole system. I love one smart boy! 

Also, look at his skull bracelet! I love one well accessorized boy! I miss Dean and jewelry.

Doc passes out. When he wakes up he’s tied to the table. Doc pleads for his life - he can give Dean immortality. Dean looks at his ugly mug and probably thinks, “Nah, I’m too pretty.” Sam proposes taking the Doc up on his offer. It’ll be years before Dean needs new organs! (All of us fans just wipe our brow and thank this universe for throwing a healing angel at this Winchester and his put-upon liver and arteries.) Dean refuses utterly. He’d rather go to Hell than sign away his humanity willingly. 

When Doc wakes up again, he’s trapped in a refrigerator. He pounds at the door, which is chained closed. His book of immortality lies on top. The Winchesters bury him, shovel-full by shovel-full. 

Bela arrives at Sam and Dean’s motel room, shooting the people-shaped mounds in the beds. She peels back the covers and discovers two GRUESOMELY DYING….blow up dolls. 

The phone rings, and it’s Dean. He realized he was pick-pocketed and they cleared out before she could take them out. Dean also tells her that the herb above her door was devil’s shoestring, and is used to ward off hell hounds. He knows she’s facing down a demon deal now.

We flash back again to young Bela. A little girl swings next to her and promises to kill Bela’s parents and she won’t need to pay a thing for ten years. Bela confesses that the original deal for the Colt was to tear up her contract, but the demons changed it so that she would need to kill Sam as well to save herself. Bela cries as the clock ticks her life away. She confesses that she knows who holds Dean’s deal - it’s the same demon who holds her own. Lilith. 

“See you in Hell,” Dean says as a parting shot...AND also as a polite appointment for hellfire tea time. Bela hangs up the phone. In the distance, hell hounds howl. She stands, and awaits her fate. 

Rufus Quoter is Our Hero:

Dr. Quinn, medicine zombie

I'm not gonna let you wander out in the woods alone to track some organ stealing freak

You are knocking at my door, so don't "Look, man" me. I'm not your man

Ears are as unique to humans as fingerprints

This whole eternal-life thing is very high-maintenance

What part of immortality do you not understand?

Wow, demons untrustworthy? Shocker

My man Dave Caruso will be stoked to hear it.

Excuse me? No, no, we’re very smart

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[kateelizabethporter]

“my writing advice is..” stop listening to writing advice

I know that posting this to writeblr may seem contradictory, but consider the line of thought that writing is an inherent craft, one that lives within ourselves and therefore cannot be wrangled and stuffed into a neat column.

I only say this because writing is one of the most personal things a human can do. You are quite literally splitting yourself into pieces of story, birthing characters with understanding of unique slivers of perspective that you bestow upon them with syntax, entire worlds with societal barriers, structures and expectations, fragments of narrative in the form of the macro- “the Chicago skyline,” to the micro- “fluttering of her eyelashes in the blue light as we stood on the porch steps.”

Writing is a means of exposing your soul for the world to see, for a stranger to hold in their hands and consume, judging and dissecting with each grave turn of the page. Sharing your writing should feel like stepping naked into a grocery store, and if you don’t feel this way you most likely haven’t dug deep enough.

I ask you, how is it possible for any given person to give another writer advice on the manner in which we must, should, potentially will, might want to later write? For any person to give me advice on the practice of my craft, they would have to garner the ability to unscrew my neck from my head and climb inside my brain, (being prepared to stay awhile), sip a few cups of coffee, and read the files I’ve stored in very specifically categorized boxes labeled, “fragments,” “story openings,” “characters without discourse” etc. until their fingers are bleeding from papercuts and their eyes can barely open from exhaustion.

(In other words, you would have to be me because nobody in their right mind would stay in there that long with such a mess.)

I know that this may come across as if I deny the aid of others, and that my writing process will cease to grow, and therefore my writing itself will cease to grow and never splinter into facets of wondrous ability and fostered potential, and I’ll never find those perfectly perfect metaphors to describe the way water rests on someone’s skin or learn to use the word pulchritude in a sentence--and I will inevitably stagnate into the murky depths of unpublishedhood-- however, I’m pretty optimistic about my unprocess, disprocess, lack thereof?

My thought is that if you’re going to bare your naked, vulnerable, multifaceted, illustrious soul to the world, you better know and trust yourself, your words and your rhythm.

You know it well. That internal rhythm that tells you--even though you just got comfortable in bed, phone charging across the room, the moisturizer still drying on your cheeks, neck propped perfectly by two pillows--that a character is pinching you to get up and write down the death of their grandmother, because this will deepen their emotional bond with the love interest whom you have just created in your head and she has long flowing midnight hair that rests on her shoulders like rorschach inkblots.

“Inkblots.” That’s beautiful and precisely the kind of poetic laser focus idealization you want them to have for one another, and so you (if you’re me) groan and get up to write, and probably stub your toe after you’ve shut the light back off, but you feel full and satisfied, like you’ve just eaten a piece of fresh apple pie or took a cold shower after a long run in the summer.

Writing is just like that, like wandering around in the dark until you stub your toe, turning the light on you realize the edges of your bed are far too close to your nightstand, and you wonder if its always been that way or if it seems this way because you’ve taken your glasses off for the night.

And as you’re wondering these things, you realize you too are a character, and that the fact you often clumsily stub your toe, wear wire framed glasses, have a carpeted bedroom with one light switch by the door, are aspects that craft your literal humanness. They make up your character. And so you use it. You write and you use those moments selfishly and rightfully. They are yours and you apply them.

If you wish to write with your soul, stand in a cave in the dark and use your existence as lighter fluid for the chance something might spark from the nothingness, then you my friend have the desire and drive to complete your story, poem, sentence, word tangling--whatever you may call it. You don’t need advice.

On the offhand occasion I have engaged with these so called ‘writing advice posts,’  I shudder at the thought, in which another writer asks me kindly to sit at a clean desk, put my phone away, find a fun gel pen at Target, and set the timer for fifteen minute to write as much as I possibly can, I have been left feeling confused.

Thinking of writing as an impersonal act, one that I must carve pieces of time from the day and night deliberately and calculatingly, one that exists in a proper journal with a key, to essentially inspire inspiration is unfair to impress myself and upon others. (Inspiring inspiration, can it truly be done?)

I don’t want to feel that way by any means, and respectfully speaking, the moments of clarity and true inspiration do not always come when we need them most, but then again with the mindset that verse is a natural occurrence--one that flows in our veins, not on command, why should we be able to conjure it from nothingness? From a blank sheet of paper, or an empty google docs, or the spiraling void of writer’s block simply because we followed a “process?”

Any writer knows this, that we do not select the fleeting, fluttering, twisting, effervescent, lovely ideas that fragment beneath our tongues and crawl up our throats when we’re safely in bed, in the midst of conversation with a crying, heartbroken friend, or taking an exam with fifteen minutes left to answer twenty-six more questions but you can’t stop thinking about the sound of all those pencils hitting the paper, the dullness, repetition, tap tapping in harmony.  

It is not a definable process to see a person you love with a face full of tears and consider the way the mascara has seeped down their cheeks like contusions and to wonder if you could write that into a poem when they finish crying.

It is not a definable process to feel everything and nothing all at once and bottle it, channel it, throw it in the blender, box it up in the garage, stuff it into light sockets using shredded poetry as insulation as you sit in the livingroom and knit together syllables, breaking syntax over your knee while the sound of the rhythm pulsates through the room, the air, catching itself on your sweater sleeve.

Any writer knows that anyone can create anything if they make themselves do it enough times, at enough intervals. You will create. You will produce something that will live on the paper. (If that’s your goal, for your writing to simply live ON the paper, rather than jumping from it, leaping, dancing, shouting so loudly that the reader thinks you may very well be in the room.)

My non-advice is that the root of all inspiration lies within ourselves. The root of inspiration is what deems our processes unique and infallible. So the next time someone tells you how you should write, what you should write, where you should sit, stand, breathe when you write--think about those moments of clarity that sweep over you without notice, like a gust of wind in the middle of August when your clothes cling to your skin-- and trust yourself.

[frgt-me-not]

Angelic ~ Paint

Previous part // Part 16 // Next part

(Words: ~1150)

Jimin’s POV

If it hadn’t been for losing that one death match against Jungkook there would’ve been no way I would’ve gone downstairs to get both of us a beer.

We’d thought the six-pack would’ve lasted us at least a couple of hours, but it turned out that we had drunk all of them in the course of an hour.

For a few seconds, we’d argued about who should go and get us another pack at the store, which is less than a kilometer away.

Jungkook had proposed a match in some stupid game that I hadn’t played or even seen since I was eleven.

Without any real effort, Jungkook had won the game and completely destroyed my ego within ten minutes.

All the way through the house I’d been cursing under my breath, thankful that Jungkook’s mom wasn’t home to hear me.

She was rarely home, but when she was, the house was a non-cursing zone, and it didn’t matter if you were one of her children or just a guest.

I’d learned that lesson the hard way after shouting a not so child-friendly word after losing a very important bet to Jungkook.

Their house is fairly quiet if you don’t count the sounds from Jungkook’s tv behind me, which sounds like the zombie apocalypse has just broken out.

I’ll be back within five minutes if I walk quickly.

My eyes land on the closed door at the end of the hall, which has been painted to look like the ocean. The door is always closed and the person behind it rarely shows her face anymore.

I don’t dwell on it and instead, I rush down the stairs and through the painfully white living room.

When I return with twelve cans of beer, thinking six wouldn’t be enough, Jungkook isn’t in his bedroom anymore.

For a second, I’m convinced he has gotten a text from some girl and left me here. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case, he didn’t last for more than a week last time we made a bet that he wouldn’t bail on me to hook up.

A muffled scream sounds from down the hall.

I twist around and stare down at the blue door.

I stay rooted to the spot, waiting to hear if the sound reappears, but the house remains quiet.

I find my phone and call Jungkook, but it goes straight to voicemail.

A breath weasels through my teeth and I set the beers on the coffee table.

As I turn to sit down on the bed one of the several dozen photos covering the walls catch my attention.

It’s the same picture that I always look at when I come in here.

It’s a picture of y/n from six months ago before she began to hide in her room.

Only the top half of her face is visible behind a bouquet of pale white flowers.

Something about her reminds me of an Angel.

I jerk back from the picture, realizing I have moved closer to study it.

It had been the sound of another muffled scream, followed by the crunchy sound of glass smashing against something hard that had jerked me out of my trance.

Concern floods my mind as I move out of the room and down the hall.

It’s not hard to find the source of the scream, because shortly after, something thumps against the door to y/n’s room.

I’ve only ever been in there once and that was three months ago when she allowed me to watch her paint for about ten minutes.

I hold my hand in front of my face before gradually opening the door, just in case something is going to be thrown at the door again.

“I come in peace,“ I announce as I creak open the door.

She shrieks and jumps back holding up a brush as if she’s going to defend herself with it.

When she catches me staring at it, she drops it, flinching when it hits the ground.

My eyes dart from her wide eyes to the wall where colored water is dripping down on several large and small shards of glass lying on the ground.

Splotches of paint are splattered across the room and across her skin.

There is a thick stripe of deep blue paint on her face, drawn from right under her right eye to halfway down her throat.

A few seconds pass where neither of us says anything, and even though she looks like she’s in shock, I feel an overwhelming urge to laugh.

When I give in to the urge, I see her body visibly relax.

She lets out a deep breath and stares at me with an illegible expression on her face.

Through my fit of laughter I try to form a coherent sentence, “Let’s get you cleaned up a little, shall we?“

I grab her paint covered hand and lead her into the bathroom.

“You really don’t have to,” she argues, but I just tug her over to the sink.

“Blue suits you,” I comment, following the line of blue on her face with my eyes before lifting her off the ground and onto the counter.

She watches me reach up to retrieve a cloth.

I wet it with lukewarm water and lift it to her face.

She stays completely still as if she’s a statue while I wipe her swollen cheek, removing some of the paint.

It’s easy to tell that she has been crying, but I don’t say anything.

“Why are you doing this?” She asks after several minutes of silence.

I wash some of the paint off the cloth, watching the swirl of color disappear into the drain.

I grabbed her hands and gently rub them, “Did you just want me to pretend like I hadn’t seen you?”

She doesn’t reply, but she doesn’t have to.

“What happened?” I question as I move over to the bathtub and begin to fill it with water.

She eyes the tub with an odd look on her face, “I won’t stay in here,” I grin at her and help her onto her unsteady feet.

“Did you splatter yourself with paint?”

Despite her looking like she wants to disappear completely, her fingers wrap around the fabric of my T-shirt while her eyes briefly flicker away from mine, “It was just Jungkook playing a stupid joke on me.” She murmurs in a small voice.

My face falls when she says Jungkook’s name, “Please tell me he didn’t.”

She swallows hard when I move away from her towards the door, determined on finding Jungkook.

“Jimin?” y/n’s voice says, while something nudges my thigh.

“Did he die or something?” another voice asks.

I groan, clutching a painful throb in the back of my head.

I blink my eyes open, slowly getting used to the bright light around me.

Two dark figures above me come into focus and one of them has her brows furrowed in concern.

“Hey Angel,” I mutter.

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[phantasmct]

| Signals |

starring: Nakamoto Yuta

genre: smut

word count: 3.1k

summary : As you try desperately to give the right signals to Yuta alcohol decides to get in the way.

author’s note: I haven't uploaded in such a long time and I'm deeply sorry. I'm planning to make another post to explain more in detail why I've been missing. For now, I'm back this time with a scenario starring Yuta and I really hope you'll appreciate it, it's been in my drafts for way too long.

You stared with envy his mouth sips into his glass of strong liquor before his tongue lagged onto his rosy lips to get the remaining. Yuta looked dangerously handsome as he faced you sat in his chair legs opened just like the first buttons of his white shirt. You could catch a sight of his toned chest whenever it heaved up and down as he laughed heartily at ones of your coworkers many jokes. The honest and beautiful tingling sound of his laughter could be heard amidst the deafening music just like the brightness of his smile under those dim lights. 

Suddenly your eyes met his again -for the tenth time- and you weren't able to swallow your drink properly so you just sat there stupidly with the burning liquid in your mouth while holding your breath. He was faster and diverted his eyes quickly after sending you a polite nod. Your eyes filled with embarrassment and disappointment as you mentally cursed at your behavior and his. 

Until when you two were still going to play this game? 

Deep down you knew you were as guilty as him. At first, you sure thought that he was a player, Yuta couldn't help but give this type of feeling. But you gradually understood over the years of you two being colleagues that he was indeed "a guy who likes to have fun", but probably not when it came to feelings. He sure had a thing or two...heck even multiples happening with some girls that were clearly not serious or whatsoever. But they were all consensual games between both parts. And most importantly you were aware that he also had some serious relationship going on with one or two girls, thanks to various complaints of disappointment coming from your other female coworkers.

Obviously, Yuta was popular among the females at your department and with any women of this world to be more specific. It was indeed hard to resist the boys his sweet yet dangerous charm. But you tried to avoid showing your clear curiosity and interest for the said man, just because you still haven't figured out exactly where you were on his "social barometer". What were you exactly to him? There were Yuta's male colleagues, Yuta's female colleagues -aka fan girl club-, Yuta's friends...but then there were you:  the girl Yuta seemed to send constantly contradicting signals. He could help you secretly and at the same time be able to avoid you and give you the cold shoulder, especially when you happened to find about it. This caused you to lose your mind a few times, and even give up on him even though you were dying to know, to know what could be the possibilities between you two. You indeed have found the courage despite your reserved nature to ask him directly; and that, many times. But you always ended up hesitating for the same reason.

You were scared. You were scared at the thought of finding out that you didn't appear at all on his barometer, that you were not a hopeless girl, but worst a nobody.

You frightened self only happened to change her behaviour slightly in hope to make him make a move; yes definitely pointless. But that was the best plan you came to elaborate; thus you decided to dress better and for some odd reason it meant shorter , you’d lie if you say you were at ease in your new skirts or shorts, but you did catch him look at least twice at your uncovered legs, so it was worth it from your perspective.

Your glass was getting filled yet again with an unknown alcohol by your boss -who happened to be also close to you-, an act that didn't go unnoticed by Yuta. You raised your hands towards her informing her she didn't has to, but your manners were found helpless against her joyful mood. And she had honestly all reasons to be, you almost forgot it but all of you were there because of you in the first place, you did manage to sign a contract with an important client today and she was obviously more than pleased. You originally avoided that kind of gatherings cause you wanted to avoid exposing yourself too much to your colleagues but this time you had no choice, plus your mind went blank as soon as you heard that Yuta was also coming.

Snapping once again from your thoughts, you felt a rough hand caressing your tight. This time it came from the opposite side of your superior, and chills run down your spine in disgust cause you knew exactly to who it belonged. Unfortunately, you were right, soon one of your annoying male colleagues leaned towards you as he tried to talk coherently to you. These days he was naturally annoying at work but you pretended to not notice his flirtatious acts towards you, sadly alcohol seemed to make him braver tonight.

“Who knew you could be so skilled?” He started to close to your ear. You knew he was referring to the said contract. “ Are you perhaps hiding some-”.

His words were cut short as Yuta raised himself brusquely from his chair startling everyone at the table. His burning gaze was fixed on you and especially the unwanted hand of your colleague, the said man felt obliged to take it off rapidly as you started to squirm with discomfort. You heard Yuta chuckles and brush his black locks lightly as he tried to ease the tense atmosphere he created, your mouth was slightly agape as you watched him excuse himself to the bar to order a drink.

You followed his back walking away until you lost him in the crowd still confused but relieved by his actions; with the once of sanity left by the drunken state you were aware that he did in some kind of way save you. You picked up your now filled drink lazily before putting it against your lips, in a sudden surge of contentment you found yourself gulping it in one treat. You heard from your friends that you were generally the happy-go-lucky drunk type and then the crying mess type but still, you were completely oblivious to the signs.

“Are you feeling ok?” You heard vaguely your chief ask as your other colleagues clapped and oohed your bold move.

You simply nodded to her putting your glass down hoping to reassure her, it obliviously didn’t work as she immediately proposed to bring you back home. You knew she was having a great time, which was ironic since this last minute party was for you, but you didn’t want to ruin her mood. 

“No it’s okay really I’m just...going to take a breath of fresh air and come back ok? Don’t you worry.” You said getting up slowly to avoid being dizzy. The alcohol suddenly hit you hard but you looked at her with a reassuring smile while leaving the table. She suddenly grabbed your hand to put your phone in it just in case while motioning to call her if anything happened.

You had, in fact, no idea where the exit was, it was your first time here and you were not the type to really analyze your surroundings, not to say that your current state didn't help anything at all. You walked aimlessly in the place, your body colliding from time to time with someone until you found yourself in front of the bar. You eyes directly started to wander looking for him, and there he was. But not on his own next to him was seated a really attractive girl, her back was facing you but you knew from her cascading hair and mini skirt that she could only be attractive under those blue and purple lights. You find this odd feeling slowly creeping within yourself leading you automatically to them. You didn't know when or how but here you were you hand resting on his shoulder as you softly called Yuta's name.

He suddenly turned to you his face lighting up as he recognized you, it did bring you some comfort as you watch enviously the alluring girl.

"Hey" he greeted you waving gently at you even though you were centimeters away from him,"what are you doing here?".

As if it was some cue to go -and it probably was- the young lady took her bag sighing loudly and left. Yuta didn't even spare her a glance as he eyes were intensely looking for a reason in yours. You just stared back in awe now drunk of his perfect shining pupils and soft black hair. You could have heard yourself wooing at his beauty but you weren't sure as you sat next to him.

“I don’t know...I was looking for the exit but I ended up here,” the words left your lips slowly still conscious of your current discourse “so here I am!” You said trying to brighten the mood.

He gave you probably one if his greatest smile reacting to your childish side “Are you feeling okay? You want me to show you perhaps-“ you quickly protested.

It was finally both of you and you weren’t going to let this chance slips away so easily. The barista came quickly at you, and you dared to order one more cosmopolitan, Yuta seemed concerned but you weren’t sure what for.

“I actually thought you’d stop here...are you going home by yourself?” You saw him nearly reaching for your glass as you brought it to your lips. “No, the superior is...but she is having way too much fun right now...” 

He nodded knowingly suddenly lost in thoughts. It was a first for both of you; seating together without it being work related, slowly a pleasant silence took place between both of you as you two sipped your glasses, from time to time he eyed you making sure that you were still all right. But your state worsening you barely noticed it.

“Anyway...congratulations,” he suddenly broke the silence again”I mean for the contract-“ “Yeah, thank you.” You cut him shortly not liking where the discussion was heading.”So how was the meeting? I heard that he’s a pretty stiff client-“. This time your glass hit the cold surface of the bar halting his words.

He looked at you worried, you could see the concern in his eyes. You were profusely hating the fact that he was trying to have a work-related discussion right now.  

"I don't want to talk about work Yuta." You aimed to sound stern but in some kind of way you knew you were pretty babyish right now."Oh? Sorry...What do you want to talk about then? “ you saw him getting taken aback a bit but he kept his composure while he went on drinking.

“Hum, I don't know?  What about how my lips would feel around your dick? “

Yuta nearly spat his drink as he turned completely around to look at you mouth agape and eyebrows furrowed. Honestly, if you weren't dazed you'd probably too. You saw him fumbling with his words as he tried to ask you to repeat yourself but he held himself back.

“ Ok, see? I think it's enough for tonight I'm bringing you home, “ he said holding your upper arms gently while chuckling still in disbelief. He took your phone but you quickly took it back protesting that you wanted to stay. 

It turned out into a ridiculous fight: him trying to raise you up from your seat without possibly hurting you and you trying to resist. He ended up grabbing your face between the palms of his hands and even though he might think you gave in because of his reasonable words it was in fact because of the warmness coming from them.

You ended hands in hands in the dark parking with Yuta. You felt lightheaded as he intertwined your fingers and lead you to his car. Soon enough you found yourself in front of the vehicle awkward as he started to look for his keys and let go of your hand.

"Get in." his cold tone informed you that you were now facing his regular and distant self. Your eyebrows furrowed as you realized that he wasn't holding the door of the passenger side."What? Are we going to fight again over this or you're going to a good girl?" he said and you swear you could have seen him roll his eyes."Why are you being such a prick suddenly?" you retorted "I swear...My patience is running thin-" he grabbed your hand and you cursed at yourself for upsetting him.

In a way you couldn't explain Yuta was partially on top of you as he tried to buckle your seatbelt right, you grabbed this chance to touch his moist face and comb throw his messy hair. Time seemed to stand still as he locked eyes with you slightly shocked by your sudden move.

"I'd lie if I say I didn't want to kiss you right now." his words left his lips like a whisper but he was close enough for you to feel even his breath on your lips. "Then why don't you do it?" you hated how pleading you sounded but the alcohol showed how truly desperate you were "Not here. Not right now. Not like that." "But I thought you were a risk taker," you argued optimistically. You perceived his familiar smirk in the dark and small confines of his car " Oh I am not sure about yourself though, sweetheart." It was the only word you seemed to wait before crashing your lips onto his. Yuta quickly responded as you felt his wet tongue lingers on your lips, you obviously allowed him the entrance to your wet cavern as you opened them he took the opportunity to also unbuckle your seatbelt so he could bring you to his lap.

Soon both of you started to share a passionate kiss on his backseat. You loved everything about it, the way his burning but yet soft lips felt against yours and how he roamed his hands freely on your body as if you were the most precious thing in the world to him. He pulled back momentarily biting your lower lips in the process, you met his lustful gaze.

“ Gosh you don't know how much I've been waiting to do this...and your legs have been tempting me these days, were you teasing me ? “ to speak his words into actions you felt his hands longing the side of your thighs to the aim of your skirt that barely hid anything now. You could simply nod to answer his question, he flashed you a knowing smile before diving into the crook of your neck “ I know it, princess. I' am just confused about something now: should I punish or reward you ? “ you shuddered as you felt him leave a trail of moist kisses on your neck. “ I think I deserve a reward I worked so- “ You gasped as one of his hand spanked your ass harshly before caressing it. “ You don't have the right to make the decision. “ he teased.

Yuta didn't waste his time as you felt his fingertips rush to the front buttons of your shirt, you heard him make a sound of disapproval as he opened only the first ones "Such inconvenient clothing..." he stated but was glad to face directly your naked breast. You moaned as his tongue started to lick and nip your tit you sensed his greediness and couldn't control yours as you arched your back and started to grind against him. He growled at your little movements his mouth still full."Someone is needy."  

he breathly stated after popping your nipples out of his mouth you purred in return. "I will be lenient this time because I don't think I can't hold myself back for too long." Your mind went dizzy just at the thought of having him between your legs a second, or even a third time. Yuta hiked up your skirt completely before scooping your mound, your pleasure automatically accelerated as you felt his expert digits caressing your clothed sex. You dared to reach his luscious but yet smooth jet black hair and pulled on it he didn't protest much as he groaned again before locking your lips. "You look so hot right now...you feel so hot,"  he said watching you already blissful you were bewildered for a moment as you pondered whether Yuta didn't actually talk about himself or not.

Unable to resist he got rid of the last fabric between his hand and your wet folds, he proceeded to run his middle finger between them. As the eternal teaser he was, he always stopped right before entering you "How bad you want it, hum?" "Really,really bad." you were unsure about being the owner of this voice, but cared much as he finally sank his two fingers into you as he laughed lightly at your words "Then show me, sweetie, and maybe I will give to you for real." his voice darkened at his last words. You gripped the back of the seat he was on as you soon frantically humped his fingers into your core. He enjoyed the show and the feel of your slick walls moving around his digits while he pulled out a condom.  

Yuta took a hold of your hips in his firm hand to stop you as the other one left your entrance, you looked at him breathless unbuckle his pants and pulling the now moist fabric just down enough. He must have had also enough of the foreplay as he rushed to press the tip of his erection at your slit, you nodded quickly to reassure him before he buried himself in you.

He quickly grabbed your buttcheeks in his hands and started right away to move at a fast pace which made you squeal. But it didn't matter since you both longed for this feeling and type of rushed up sex, whether you two looked like two animals grunting and jumping in the backseat of his foggy car or not. You dug your nails into his shoulders and leaned into the crook of his neck earning a primal grunt from him since you were looking for support amidst of his ragged penetrations.

Unexpectedly you found yourself reaching your high before him. It was maybe his last carnal growl or slap on your ass that lit up for good the fire in the pits of your lower abdomen but you remembered crying out Yuta's name before your orgasm rocketed within you. The man himself didn't last long as he felt your walls tightens around his shaft, his thrusts became erratic before he sank himself to the hilt inside you. 

“ Why don't you ever listen honestly? “ Yuta's breathless voice reasoned as your head was now resting on his chest. You felt hazy as you came slowly back to your sense, his hands were running on your back soothing you “ Can we go home now? “ 

[hamilkilo]

Infinity Pt. 1

Prompt: as requested by ANON: I adored your mapping fic, could I request a John one similar? Where the reader always plays off her cuts and scars as accidents and her lack of sleep as insommnia and he's a bit suspicious but goes with it but one day he comes home early or something and finds her bleeding out cause she's gone too deep and how he helps her and reassures her it's not her fault? And her admitting to him about her depression and anxiety though she's never told anyone?

As requested by ANON: Your bless the broken road was amazing, could you do another like it but with John maybe please??

Pairing: John X Reader, but has Jamilton, Marliza, PegMullette

SUPER UNEDITED, SORRY

TW: mentions of self harm, vivid description of self harm, blood, language, mentions of suicide, mental hospital, relapsing, main character almost dies, anxiety, depression, political debate on abortion, a slur against Muslims, political debates, mental illness

A/N: I'm so sorry this took so long, but this was where I felt moved to go. It's not exactly to the t, since (Spoiler Alert!!!) Jefferson did find out first, but I really hope you guys enjoy this one. It's very near to my heart. If you don't feel like you are in a safe headspace, please reach out! My ask is always open! You are loved and you are valid! These trigger warnings are going to be the same throughout the posted parts because this is a consistently triggering piece. I get that. Please take care of yourselves, loves! If you want me to tag something, please let me know! I want you to feel safe when reading my work! Please enjoy!

Total Word Count: 20554

Word Count: 1955

It was your first day of class. You fidgeted in your seat, nervous. You hoped nobody would see you. You would die. You would just shrivel up on the spot. God forbid anyone try talking to you.

The class started fairly quickly. Your first class of the day: Intro into Political Science. The teacher was an old, white man that reminded you of sour milk. His name was Mr. Adams. After a brief introduction and an overly detailed description of his wife, he cleared his throat. "So, to get to know each other, why don't we spend today with a debate. I'll start. I'm Pro-Life, and I believe that you should be tried for murder if you get an abortion. Discuss."

Silence. Well, internal screaming, outward silence. So this was what the rest of the year would look like. You glanced around, waiting for someone to say something.

"Okay, I'll go on. I'm Baptist. I'm Pro-Life. I'm pro second amendment. I'm against the Syrian refugees, and-"

"Wait a minute!" A voice spoke up, and you leaned forward in your seat to see a short man standing, fists clenched at his sides. "If you're worried about the souls of babies, that's fine, but you can't just ignore an entire country of people begging you for help and cry about the poor children! That's ridiculous!"

Adams crossed his arms and walked across the stage to the row where the man was standing. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and his glasses were perched on his nose. "I'm sorry, Mr...?"

"Hamilton," the man did not go on to say his first name, and you had to restrain the urge to smile. He did not like Adams.

"Mr. Hamilton. I'm sorry, but if we let the refugees into the nation, we are putting the entire country's safety at risk-"

"What about their country? What about their wellbeing?"

Another boy stood up, his sunglasses perched on his head. "They gave that up when they became ragheads-"

"Excuse me?!" Another boy stood up beside Hamilton. "You did not just say that! What the hell's the matter with you? You think people deserve to die because of their religious beliefs?!"

"Boys, back up. You," Adams pointed to the sunglasses douchebag. "Name?"

"Charles Lee," he answered as he tapped his pencil against the edge of his desk.

Adams then pointed to the boy beside Hamilton. The boy didn't waver. "John Laurens."

"Okay, please continue, Lee," Adams said with a smirk as he went to sit on the edge of his desk, clearly pleased with the discourse he caused.

Lee smirked. "If there was a bowl of skittles and three of them were poisonous, would you eat out of the bowl?"

"Did you just compare people to skittles?" Hamilton sounded exasperated. Your blood was boiling. You had always been firm in your standings.

"They could be sending over their worst. Rapists," Lee glanced around the room at the girls, his eyes bouncing to you. "thieves, murderers, terrorists-"

"Oh, shut up," Y/N, what are you doing? Sit down!!!! "Mr. Adams," you addressed the old man on his desk, and he eyed you curiously as you slowly made your way from behind your desk to the main aisle. You approached him as you walked, resisting the urge to fiddle with your sleeves in anxiety. "You said you were Baptist and Pro-Life... The argument often used in Pro-Life is that the baby has a future... it has potential... it could find the cure to cancer! No one goes around saying that the baby could be a rapist, thief, murderer, terrorist... I mean, it's a baby! But what if the refugees could solve cancer? What if they could better the country-"

"Not likely-" Lee interrupted, but you held up your finger with a glare.

"I wasn't finished," you spat, and he sat back down. "Are we going to deny them safety and the right to live based on their religious beliefs after we destroyed their country? Are we going to let them die? You can be Pro-Life all you want, but that includes all lives, Mr. Adams, and you can't call yourself a baptist or use the argument of Jesus's love if you don't choose both. Pro-life is all life."

Mr. Adams stared at you, and your knees wanted to shake, you could feel it, but you stood tall, your hands in fists by your sides. You could barely breathe. Why did you do this? What were you thinking?!

"Very good, Miss-"

"Y/N," you filled in, and he gave you a small smile.

"Everyone, take notes on how to debate from Miss Y/N here. You may have a seat," he dismissed you as he turned to the board and began to scribble on it.

You felt eyes on you as you carefully made your way back to the seat, your face cherry red. You could just die. When you sat down, you began to itch at and rub your wrists anxiously. You couldn't wait for class to be over. You had to get out of there.

When the bell finally rang, you had planned to slip out unnoticed, but as you walked down the sidewalk, someone caught up to you and gently caught your wrist. You winced and pulled your wrist away, facing the person.

"Hey, Y/N, right?" It was that friend of Hamilton's. What was his name again? John Laurens.

"Yeah, John Laurens?" You tested as you bit your lip and fiddled with your right sleeve.

He grinned broadly at you. "So sweet of you to remember! Yo, I really liked what you had to say back there. You're quick witted!"

You blushed and looked at your shoes. "Nah, it was stupid. I shouldn't have said anything at all-"

"You told Lee to shut up! That's legendary!" He exclaimed, and he began to walk with you from the building.

"I was hoping not to make any enemies on my first day," you admitted nervously as you bit your lip and looked at your schedule on your phone.

"Hey," Laurens stopped you by grabbing your elbow, and he beamed down at you. "You made some friends too, ya know."

You smiled weakly. "Really?"

He laughed and threw his arm around you. "Really really! See ya in class, Y/N!" He gave you a quick squeeze before he turned and ran to catch up with Hamilton, leaving you breathless and flustered.

The week had passed, and you found yourself looking forward to Mr. Adams’ class. Not because of the heated debates he always initiated, which, man that guy really loved drama, but because John would always approach you before and ask you about your classes, your dorm, your life... you even sat with him and Hamilton. Sitting with them made it a bit difficult to focus on class since Hamilton would always have something to disagree with and Laurens always had something witty to ridicule Mr. Adams with. It wasn't long until John had asked you to share your notes with him since him and Hamilton started whispering in disagreement about something Mr. Adams had said and continued to discuss it for the rest of class.

A month after school had started, you and John were sending memes and articles to each other. John really liked to do deeper study on topics Mr. Adams had touched on so that he had fresh material to add to debates in class, and he would share them with you for "back up" as he called it. You would occasionally share related articles with him and have discussions, eventually making your own set of notes on the topic and sending those back and forth. Sometimes, he would grace you with a political meme that would have you in tears, and you started sending him memes back.

You ended up following his political blog on Tumblr, but you had to be careful to hide your main blog from him. You loved the way he smiled when he looked at you; you didn't want to slip up and cause that to change.

A month of college had taken its toll on you. You had thicker bandages on your wrists, and your mom called you every day to remind you to take your meds. You still forgot. Your roommate was your childhood friend, Peggy, and she tried her best to help you, but she had a life, too, and you'd been so good at hiding it.

Still, you'd go to Mr. Adams' class first thing in the morning with a latte and a can-do attitude.

"Y/N! I wrote more notes on today's topic that I want you to look at!" John exclaimed as you came in and put your coffee down on your desk. You dropped your bag by your chair and threw your hood back. "Did you do something different with your hair?"

You had put it up in a messy bun since you had stayed up too late the night before and didn't have time this morning to deal with it. "Yeah, I woke up late so it looks bad..." You shrugged it off.

"No, I like it," John admitted to you as you picked up the paper he put in front of it. You hid your blush behind it as you read, but when you looked up, you saw John drinking your pumpkin spiced latte.

"John! You can't just do that! Put it down! That's mine-" you began to whack him with the binder he had on his desk, and he laughed as he held it out of reach.

"Say please," he taunted, and you all but stomped your foot.

"Give me my coffee, you filthy animal!" You kicked him in the shin lightly, and he laughed again before giving it back. "Ya nasty," you scoffed as you wiped the edge of it with your sleeve. You took a drink and practically felt the fall breeze.

"Ya know, I bet you have one of those cliche Tumblr blogs dedicated to the fall aesthetic," John commented as you continued to look at his notes. You rolled your eyes.

"And I'm sure you make out with Hamilton in your dorm," you retorted, and you looked up to see your damage. He was frozen in shock for a minute before he burst forward in laughter. This was body rocking, chest heaving, wheezing, crying laughter.

"A-Alex," he cried as he grabbed for his friend who had been silent through it all. Alex looked up from his phone he was typing on, and glanced in concern between you and John. "She... she thinks... hahaha... she thinks that we... we're a thing!"

Alex rolled his eyes at his friend and turned to you. "As if. John loves memes too much to love anyone else."

John had remotely calmed down. "That, and I've known Alex for so long that he's like my brother."

"Brothers that kissed once," Alex muttered, and your jaw dropped. John shot a quick look at Alex and worked to recover.

"Yeah, but we both agreed it was weird and we just wanted to be friends!" He turned to Alex.

"Yeah. That's true. We're just super close. Besides, he knows I have a thing for tall, dark, and handsome-"

John rolled his eyes this time. "Oh, shut up. Jefferson this, Jefferson that. Jefferson's so good at football! Jefferson's so smart! I hate Jefferson, but I love him! Pick one!" John teased, and Alex playfully shoved him.

"You're lucky I love you," he replied, and John kissed him on the cheek.

"Homo?" John asked, shooting you a grin, and you felt your cheeks flush.

"All homo," Alex replied. Somehow, you did not finish reading the notes by the time class started.

[oikadori]

a/n: not me crying at 2am about an Oikawa edit, that was my twin sister not me at all...this is totally self indulgent so uhm...yeah. Hope you enjoy it tho!!

Oikawa Tooru x fReader

Summary: in which you are tired of hearing how is never enough for Oikawa Tooru. 

Genre: angst, fluffy end tho, established relationship 

Now playing ⊳ King by Lauren Aquilina ; Next to me by Imagine Dragons

WC~2k

It had become part of your routine at this point, sitting on the couch for hours, staring bluntly at some program as you wait for your boyfriend to come home.

It was not the passion he has for volleyball that has you on a gloomy mood today. It was  not falling asleep on an empty bed as you heard the sounds of balls hitting the wooden floor coming from the speakers of his laptop in the living room, and it was not how  your throat becomes dry after you begged him to sleep.

But you were tired, that is the only way to express it, tired of feeling your heart clench at the way he neglects himself, at this point you didn’t even care if he neglected you, which wasn’t the case, but him.

Your phone always got texts from him, asking if you had breakfast, if you had lunch or simply saying a hello. He called you before coming home offering you to bring some sweet from that store you liked so much. But, when you asked him if he had a good lunch, those tests always seemed to get lost in his inbox.

Oikawa always gave you a smile as the same words came out of the lips that kissed you every morning.

“Don’t you want me to be the best, my love?”

That simple phrase always seemed to wrap your heart in a death cold no matter the sweetness in his tone, they made impossible for you to come with an argument that would make Oikawa’s stubborn head understand. Understand that he was slowly tearing himself up and hurting you in the process.  

However, none of that is what had you sitting on the couch right now, arms crossed over your chest and lips pressed together, but as soon as Oikawa crossed the door, he knew the exact reason.

“Y/N-chan? I thought you were going out with your friends today”, he drops the bag on the ground, the keys of your shared apartment hitting the floor in the process, “Shit”

Your eyes are trained on the way his face contorts as he reaches for the keys, making your heart sink.

“Anyways, how are you, cutie?”, Oikawa stands in his full height before displaying a closed-eye smile at you.

However, his trademark grin fades as he sees your brows furrowing together, the air suddenly charging with the accumulated tension.

“Is there something w–“

“You tell me”, when you look at his knee with inquiring eyes, Oikawa blinks before turning his face away from you.

“It is nothing”, his mouth twitches down, “I’m fine”

‘no you are not’

His answer only makes you sigh loudly as your mind goes back to the early hours of today, the scene that made your chest sting popping out.

Oikawa had kissed your forehead like every other  morning before mumbling a brief goodbye, he chuckled lightly at the way you babbled some sort of greet and  he walked to the door like every other day but he failed to notice how your eyes opened and gazed at him.

His eyes widened as he felt the burn on his right leg, not knowing you were watching in horror the way his knee falters, causing his leg to tremble before giving in to gravity. He held onto the handle tightly, gritting his teeth to capture the whine that threatened your sleep. However, when he turned around, he founded your half-closed eyes fixated on him, but before you could say anything, he rushed away hoping your mind was clouded enough with tiredness to forget about it.

“How long?”, you ask, standing up slowly and moving towards him.

“I don’t know, what–”

“When started hurting this bad?”

His gaze fixes on the ground, his fists clamp together, annoyance bubbling up in his stomach. He knows what’s coming, he has heard that discourse way too many times to not know how this conversation will go.

“Since always Y/N!”, he cries out almost in pain, his hair moving violently matching with his gestures, the gap in your mouth mirrors the shock in you.

“You need a break Tooru…”

“So they can found someone better? No, thank you”, he lets out a dry laugh as he looks down at you.

“What is the point if you end up not being able to walk without limping??!!”, your voice falters at the end as you picture him holding onto the handle for stability, “You are out of control…”

Oikawa’s nails dig into his palm as he frowns, eyes narrowing at you with dangerous intensity.

“As if you knew…” , the sharpness in his voice makes nothing but press the wound in your heart furthermore.

“Of course, I know, damn it! Tooru you are barely sleeping! I don’t know if you’re even eating properly since we almost never have any meal together!”

And then as if your words had hit the right nerve inside the setter, Oikawa snaps, the look he shoots at you makes your movements halt and your voice dissolves into silence. He was tired and frustrated but ultimately scared and the fact you couldn’t see how scared he was, only frustrates him more.

“No, you don’t know a fucking thing! I need to get better!!”

“Tooru you are their regular setter already!”, you scream at him your face getting red with anger as your tone fades into a bare whisper, “Nothing is enough for you, isn’t it?!”

Oikawa knew that the question itself wasn’t entirely related to his volleyball career. The pleading look you give him and the tremble in your lips tells him that you are not only referring to the all the medals and recognitions but about your relationship itself.

You were asking him if you weren’t enough for him…And maybe you weren’t.

“No!”, the word comes out rushed, his thoughts getting more and more clouded by frustration. You grit your teeth when Oikawa places a hand on his forehead as if he had a bad headache, as if you were the cause of the annoying hammering,

“You are so selfish…can’t you see all what you ha–”, your voice comes in low hiss and before you can finish he lets out a loud groan as the keys in his hand fly across the room landing with a loud thud against your living room table, making you flinch.

“Why can you just let me do what I have to? Is it too much for your head to understand?!”, he shouts, and you feel a sting in your chest, your eyes almost seem to fall from your face and your breath stops as you see how your boyfriend’s face contorts in malice.

“I could pick any of those girls who wait for me after the matches, you know?  I could have any of them and they wouldn’t be as half as annoying as you!”

Oikawa’s chocolate orbits are piercing at you in anticipation when he catches the redness saturating your eyes, causing his heart to drop to the ground.

“I–“

“Go, pick a nobody who only wants to fuck with you,” you try your best to not flinch, but the venom in his words make a silent tear to roll down your cheek, “because I’m not staying to watch how you destroy yourself”

You walk past him, brushing his shoulder roughly, your steps to the door are so fast, he doesn’t get a chance to even try to reach for your hand.

The slam of the door makes a feeling of anguish settle on his chest. His feet move subconsciously to the door when a loud groan leave his lips, the pain on his knee makes his whole body shiver as he falls apart a meter away of the handle.

“Shit, shit, shit”, he whines as he manages to move his body until his back is leaning against the door, his hand travels to his pocket, desperately pulling out his phone, a pout cross his features when your name pops on his recent calls. The phone rings and rings but no answer comes, when the small device turns off, he feels himself growing numb.

And the minutes turn into hours, the night wrapping the city as Oikawa rests against the door.

Oikawa had never felt this desperate, the pain in his knee is unnoticeable compared to the ache swelling in his chest. One call, one message, anything that would let him know that you are safe, that is all he needs right now.

“What did you do for her to stay with you?”, Iwaizumi’ words ring in his ears, “You are lucky Oikawa”

He was lucky indeed, his head drops to the back, hitting the wood, his breath falters as tears stream down his face until they turn into uncontrollable sobs, the sting on his knee and the guilt mixing painfully together.

Suddenly, the door pushes his body to the side, hitting the back of his head causing him to grunt.

“Tooru?”, his eyes widen, he turns immediately to encounter your still glassy eyes gazing down at him in confusion, “What are you doing on the floor?”

Your voice is stoic however it is music for Oikawa’s ears, he quickly brushes the tears away from his face as he tries to stand up, a hiss slipping his throat.

“Oh god, Tooru!”, you quickly leave the store bag you are carrying and bend down to support him, “I bought some–

“I’M SO SORRY Y/N!! I-I DIDN’T MEAN TO–“, he groans as you try to lift him up but your small figure can’t do much to move the former captain of Seijoh, so you just drop him carefully back on the floor and kneel in front of him, “P-Please don’t leave…”

Your silence makes his heartbeat pace faster and he grabs your hands tightly, his gaze fixes on yours and you notice the fear his orbits hold. You have never seen him this vulnerable and your eyes don’t fail to show your surprise.

“Please don’t leave me Y/N-chan“, your lips press softly over his own before he says anything else, Oikawa’s brows furrow together as he squeezes your hands gently, sighing, relived.

“You should get someone better–”, he says,

“You are probably right”, you sigh, “you did hurt me, but– I guess I just love you that much”, he loses himself in the softness of your voice and tears threaten to come out again.

“I truly admire how hard you work but you have to take care of yourself Tooru–“,his glassy eyes look at you, still not able to believe you’re here, next to him, you bit your lip before cupping his cheek, “–you might not be the king of volleyball yet, but for what it is worth, you’re the king to me”

You blush violently but not even as close as the flustered red that tints Oikawa’s features, he leans in hesitantly to claim your lips and you both melt in the kiss.

He never thought such words would made him feel so complete and he realizes that all he ever needed was you by his side.

“Not gonna lie, I was hoping you’d say, ‘you are the king of my heart’ or something like that”

“I-Can’t you just take the stupid compliment?”, he chuckles with a husky tone but suddenly stops, he places a hand on your cheek his thumb making soothing circles over your flushed skin.

“Thank you”

“Uh?”

“For giving me another chance”, your knees start to sore from kneeling on the floor but you can’t move as his chocolates eyes stare into your own brimming with emotion, “I love you so much, I’m so sorry Y/N”

“If so, stop overworking yourself, okay?”

Your fingers tangle with his brown locks as he whispers a silent yes, burying his face in the crook of your neck, his arms wrapping your torso tightly as if he was still scared you fade away.  

Oikawa doesn’t  have a  throne, but he’ll proudly wear the title you gave him, and he’ll do his best the be worthy of the crown that comes with it. 

❀ Please reblog if you like it! ❀

Thanks for reading ♡♡♡

[daniloqp]

Stop Doomscrolling and grab a game controller

Stop Doomscrolling and grab a game controller

https://theministerofcapitalism.com/blog/stop-doomscrolling-and-grab-a-game-controller/

If you are anything like me, at some point in your life your morning routine might look like this: wake up, go to bed, contemplate your existence, think about pressing the repeat button, decide against and then grab your phone to start morning ritual of social media checking.

We all did. What starts with just checking your phone can become an hour (or more) of switching between the same handful of apps (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, Snapchat) over and over again, scroll-scroll-scrolling through the abyss of the Internet, while covert AI keeps your eyes glued to the screen.

Suddenly, it’s time to get up and start the day, but instead of starting it in a good mood, my head feels like a washing machine spinning with destruction and gloom and disturbing information. (Which makes sense; I had just spent the first hour of my awake consciousness feeding my brain the mental equivalent of fast food.)

And it’s not just a morning issue – as long as there’s a second of leftovers a day, most of us are checking our phones. We do it before bed, while we eat meals, during movies, TV shows, car trips, buses, waiting in line, even when we are with other people. Half the time we don’t even realize we’re doing it.

What was once a place for fun memes and interesting information is now a content minefield that makes you feel like everyone has a better life, as well as police brutality videos, tweets about missing children, infographics about how they are being the oceans and forests. destroyed and volatile political discourse and articles on how little time we have left to fight climate change.

Many of us rely on social media to check the state of the world and catch up on what is important and relevant. Unfortunately, the line between this and getting caught in a cyclone of destruction and consumption is hard to master.

Doomscrolling had long turned my hobby into enjoying the articles I read and the videos I watch into something much more insidious. As the Internet has evolved and become more involved in everyone’s daily lives, many of them have become a mess of toxic propaganda and traumatic pornography, often leading to real-life violence from the start. influx of hateful comments and poisonous fights on the Internet.

I felt that my mental health was at a crucial point. The way I interacted with the internet filtered cynicism and hopelessness into the rest of my life. Every time I looked at my cell phone, I was more and more miserable. It got to a point where I had to ask myself: why did I want to start the day watching videos that make me cry? Why do I want to wake up and be bothered by the comments of some nameless ignorant ramblers on Facebook? And most importantly, why can’t i stop

The science behind Doomscrolling

For something that usually makes us feel like garbage, it doesn’t seem to make sense that we do it so often. But it turns out that there are some scientific and biological reasons why humans are so prone to final displacement.

Doomscrolling, a term popularized by Karen Ho, senior journalist of Doomscrolling Insider, describes something we all understand intrinsically: consuming meaningless tweets, videos, Facebook posts, and more media to try to feel connected and informed, while actually drinking from an infinite mesh of news fire that most often makes us feel horrible. It can be attributed to a kind of hypervigilance. Severe hypervigilance is usually a product of PTSD, but it can occur as long as you feel you are imminent. It makes you in a state of perpetual struggle or flight, and for those struggling with things like anxiety, panic disorders, or PTSD, it can be even more extreme.

As we (as individuals or as a society) face seemingly relentless global historical events, many of us experience symptoms of hypervigilance. When we continually see and hear things that make us feel threatened, from the media, from the government, from the weather, from the people on the other side of the political corridor, we begin to feel that we need to protect ourselves. ourselves. This may manifest itself as an obsessive need to continue “checking for danger,” by continually checking the phone.

Another reason why it is so difficult to break the habit is that the final displacement is one behavioral addiction. The reason you feel compelled to pick up the phone every two minutes is that you become physically accustomed to the routine of picking up something, holding it in your hands, and using your fingers to get around. At some point, it becomes muscular memory.

Source link

[michael-in-the-shitter]

Hi, I want to discuss Gabriel. And Season 2, Episode 1. But mostly Gabriel.

So I have quite a bit to say about these season 2 spoilers, so PLEASE read at your own discretion!!! I’ll be analyzing this episode thoroughly.

Finally, this show is getting some weight to it.

Marinette is clueless yet again.

I have so much discourse on the Agreste family right now.

Gabriel is Hawk Moth.

And, funnily enough, I’m more sure of it now than I was last week. But first, I’ll walk through what I believe to be the chronology of the episode, since most of the clips in the spoiler video seemed to be out of order.

So Marinette goes to Master Fu with the book she found in the Volpina episode. Already, this is a direct continuation of Volpina and not a standalone episode. Here, she learns about the history of the Miraculous - but not just of Ladybug and Chat Noir, but also of Volpina (and presumably the others, but Volpina is the most important).

Cue the surprise when Marinette realizes that the ancient Volpina looks exactly like Lila, which, to Marinette and Tikki, clearly means that Hawk Moth, whoever he is, knows about this book and is able to draw designs from it in his akumas. And who does Marinette quickly suspect?

Yours truly, Adrien Agreste. She knows that he had the book in his possession, and suspects him of being Hawk Moth (blah blah, clueless Mari strikes again). We’ll get back to this picture later, because it’s very important.

And of course, Marinette begins a wild goose chase trying to find him, ending up in the boys bathroom at school (this is where the bit outside Francois-Dupont happens, with Tikki trying to rationalize with her). But no, inside the school she finds not Adrien, but…

Chloe, crying real tears. This is unusual, as Marinette can see in the bottom left with a worried glance at Nino. We also known she walked in on this because she’s the only one here wearing a backpack (so this is a direct continuation of the bathroom picture. She found Chloe on her hunt for Adrien). Chloe, although you can’t see it very well in this image, is holding her phone in her right hand. Whatever happened, it did so very quickly through her phone. And, although it might be due to something completely unrelated, my guess is that it had something to do with Adrien being pulled out of school. I could do a whole discourse on why this would vividly upset Chloe, but I’ll save that for another post. For now, let’s jump on over to the Agreste household.

Remember this picture? That’s not Marinette holding the tablet. It’s either Nathalie or Gabriel, and very likely the latter of the two. Somehow, Gabriel found out about his son stealing the book from him. And boy, are there consequences. Sure, he gets grounded from things often, but… we know this is serious. Why?

Because in this picture (taken between two frames because it was hard to catch), Gabriel is throwing pictures of Adrien down from the wall onto the floor. Hoooooo boy. Something upset this man. We’ve known him to be stern, but level-headed. For this book to send him flying off the deep end and literally resenting his own son so much as to throw his pictures onto the ground, we know that it’s important to him. The Miraculous is important to him. Still, we could already assume that much from the Peacock Miraculous literally being in his safe. But it is very important to Gabriel that this book stays in his possession. To Gabriel, Adrien stealing this book (for whatever reason) is the ultimate act of betrayal. And this leads to the Collector.

Before we skip to the end of the battle, I’d just like to point out that not only does Gabriel toss Adrien’s modeling photos onto the floor, but he also trashes this, a handmade drawing by Adrien from when mom was still around. Don’t even try to tell me that Gabriel would normally act like this. He is beyond angry at his son. This image could be the last piece of young, innocent Adrien that he has left, and he chucked it onto the floor like a piece of garbage. We later see Chat Noir’s boots in front of it while it’s on the floor, so cue Adrien being sad that his dad hates him, and still pushing through to rescue him from his akuma form. I love character development, especially that of family dynamic.

I haven’t taken any images of the battle itself, because it seems fairly generic as far as battles go. We do know that the Collector has a book as a weapon and captures people and items in it à la Pixelator. The Lucky Charm itself is unknown at the moment, but we know that the solution involves Adrien’s foosball table, his shelf, and Chat Noir’s tail. Chat also Cataclysm’s his shelf. Whether this is undone after the akuma cleansing is unknown, but it probably is.

Now comes the speculation part of this analysis, and why I’m more sure than ever that Gabriel is Hawk Moth. This picture shows Gabriel (yes, it’s him, we can tell by the suit sleeve) scrolling through various images that were found in the Miraculous book. I have no idea what setting this takes place in but Gabriel, despite his lashing out earlier, still has copies of all these images. I’ve stopped at the image of Chat Noir because that’s where Gabriel stopped. And, lo and behold, two episodes ago Gabriel was checking out his son’s ring. But… why would Adrien taking his book make him so angry when he already had saved copies of every page in the book? Because, my friends, his son - who he now suspects as being Chat Noir - is closer than ever to finding out his identity.

But not in the “I can’t have Chat Noir defeating me” kind of way; it’s in the “I don’t want my son to despise me more than he already does” kind of way. He’s worried that Adrien will figure out that he’s Hawk Moth and do everything in his power to stop him, even if Gabriel’s intentions are good and, like many have speculated in the past, he’s just trying to bring Mrs. Agreste back. He knows that at this point the only way to succeed is if his son breaks his trust with Ladybug and joins forces with his father. But he knows that’s not going to happen. Adrien is too good, too kind for that, and Gabriel knows that the only way to throw his son off his trail is to akumatize himself. This is why, for the first time in the series…

We see Hawk Moth transform, back into Hawk Moth. He’s just come back from being a regular human being with his Miraculous. But at this point, after he’s tried so hard to enact his plan only to find out that his son is not only his arch nemesis but is also that much closer to learning that his own father is Hawk Moth, Gabriel knows he’s a lost cause. All he can do now is stall the moment that the reveal occurs, which means doing everything in his power to stop Ladybug and Chat Noir from learning who he is - to make himself his own victim. It may have just not been filmed, but what if there was no “fly, little akuma” in this episode? What if? What if the whole thing occurred in Gabriel’s office? If he akumatized himself in his office to throw his son off his trail? After all, he’s come to his own conclusion that it’s inevitable at this point. He knows he’s lost if Adrien ever finds out. He knows that very well.

And judging from this look of pain and condolence, Nooroo does too.

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “5 Minutes”

After a nasty concussion you got 2 months ago during a car chase where Batsy was involved, you developed a strange ability: for 5 minutes every day you can read minds. It happens at random times, you never know when it’s going to hit. It’s not necessarily a good thing…or a bad thing…

Friday, 3:25pm

You must be kidding me, you gasp, getting up from your loveseat, enraged as you can be and you go kick the desk, pushing all his papers on the floor.

“What the hell, Y/N?!”The Joker spins in his chair, turning towards you, wanting to start a whole tirade about how much you annoy him when you do random shit like this.

“Why are you thinking about Lexi’s boobs, huh?” you smack your lips, feeling your blood boiling. (she’s the new bartender at the club)

Dammit, J thinks, I’m busted. You couldn’t have read his mind at a worst moment so he tries to fix it:

“I was just accidentally thinking about that, Doll, and…”

You don’t care and block his attempt:

“Mine are not good enough for you?! I’m a G-cup; what do you need, triple G???!! You wanna suffocate with these airbags?”

He takes a deep breath and grins, knowing he might talk his way out of it:

“Daddy likes your airbags, ok? They’re purrrrrfect,” he purrs, slowly pulling you in his arms, wishing you would let it go. “Are you jealous?” he winks and you slap his hands away, annoyed.

“You suck!” you kick his foot, taking a couple of steps back.

“Where are you going, Pumpkin?” J inquires, irritated he got in trouble for such a trivial thing (in his opinion).

“I’m gonna go and stare at our henchmen’s butts and see which one looks nicer!!!” you yell, already heading out of the office.

“Don’t you dare, Y/N, come back here!” he growls, following you so he can set you up straight.

***************

Saturday, 9:57pm

Next day you evade him as much as you can and decide to go for a drive after dark. You are still livid from the day before and decide to take it out on a jewelry store you kind of had your eyes on for a while, breaking inside and smashing all the fragile glass counters, deciding to keep just a necklace for yourself when…

Fuck, you freeze for a few seconds when you realize Batsy is close, watching, probably waiting for you to notice him. You feel kind of stupid because you only have the baseball bath with you but your ability couldn’t find a better time to kick in for today.

You sniffle, placing the bath on your shoulder, and ask:

“Why do you keep on thinking about Bruce Wayne? Do you know him?” Batsy is shocked; he doesn’t know what to do with this so he doesn’t move a muscle when you keep on yapping:

“Are you related or something? All I see in your mind is that name,” you tilt your head to the side and smile; and my God, he freaks out and doesn’t show it when you wink at him (he just thought about it for a second but you caught it):

“Oh, thank you, they’re real. Mister J loves them too… supposedly,” you scoff and look down at your low cut top, passing your fingers through your hair. “Are you taking me to Arkham?” and you bend over because a very shiny diamond on the floor got your attention. ”Hey, don’t think that about my boyfriend!” you snap, kneeling so you can collect your treasure. Batsy didn’t say a word and he has no clue what the hell is going on, but you sure seem to know what’s in his mind. When you look up again, he’s gone.

You’ve never been more confused in your life; you thought you will for sure be locked away which will happen soon anyway if you don’t run: the police sirens are getting closer and closer.

******************

Sunday, 8:17am

The following morning you wake up, stretching and realizing J is not next to you - probably taking a shower and…it hits you for the present day. After a few seconds you hold your breath, stunned at the revelation: Oh my God, no way! And you jump out of bed, dashing in the bathroom, yanking the shower curtain to the side and just stare at him with the widest, creepiest grin ever:

“That’s your real name, baby??!!”

“Huh?” he turns towards you with soap in his eyes, trying to rinse his face. “What?” he makes you repeat because he didn’t quite hear you the first time.

“I know your real name, you were just thinking about it!” and your smirk gets even wider, if that’s possible.

“Are you kidding me?!” The Joker snarls, gazing at you with his mouth opened in frustration, debating on what to do.

“I knew it your name doesn’t even start with a J, I just flipping knew it !“ You suddenly sulk, furrowing your eyebrows, “Hey, stop thinking about killing me!…Stop it I said!”

“Then stop reading my mind, woman!!!” he splashes you with water, feeling homicidal and you try to ignore it:

“I can’t help it, you know that. Can I call you by your real name?”

“NO!” he slaps your shoulder but you don’t even care and get inside the shower with him, totally smitten.

“What about when we have sex?”

“No way!” he protests yet you get in his face, keeping that eerie smile on your lips. Right when you thought he can’t surprise you anymore…

“It’s suuuchhh a cool, unique name, I reaalllyyy dig it!” you roar, kissing him and getting such an urge to spend the day in the bedroom. “Sexiest name ever!”

The Joker doesn’t really react for a few moments but then he kisses you back as you grumble, locking your hands around his neck, enjoying the warm water on your skin:

“I said stop thinking about killing me!”

“I can’t help it,” he mocks your voice, actually telling the truth. Yeap, you know it too since you can still hear his thoughts.

********************

Monday, 1:31pm

You walk alongside Frost, holding his arm, focusing on walking normal since J went crazy on you yesterday. He was sooo pissed you found out one of his secrets that no living soul is supposed to know. Jonny is confessing how much he hates the latest missions because they are getting more and more dangerous when…here it comes for today.

“You would leave?!” you detach from his hand, astound while reading his mind. “You would just leave??!!!” Your eyes get watery and he doesn’t know what to say seeing how flustered you got.

“What’s going on?” J wants to find out when he catches up with the two of you. “Did you say something to my girl?” he barks at Frost after seeing your tears. “Nobody makes her cry but me, understood?” he continues to lecture while you don’t hear anything, too distressed about what Jonny was thinking.

“YOU!!!!!!!!!” you suddenly shout, interrupting The Joker’s discourse, pointing your finger at Frost, fed up with all the crap: “You don’t deserve me as your best friend!!!” and you are so mad your body shakes. “AND YOU!!!!!” your finger is now pointing towards J, “You don’t deserve me as your girlfriend!!!!”

You take a few deep breaths, letting it all out and even more irritating information comes up:

“Stop thinking about killing me!!!!!!!!!” you address J so loud all the other henchmen halt what they’re doing around the warehouse, puzzled on what’s going down with your little group. “YOU BOTH SUCK!!!”

You can’t even be there anymore so you turn on your high hills and strut away, not wanting to hear what’s going on in anybody’s brain anymore. But it’s not up to you; your daily 5 minutes are still here.

“Yes, they are real, OK????!!!!” you yell at all the guys on your way out, pointing at your cleavage, exasperated that so many have doubts about it. For once, you would just love to silence all the voices in your head and since you are aware you can’t, it really pushes you to the limit as you storm outside the building.

“Who was thinking that way about my Princess, YOU JERKS?????” The Joker’s angry rant resonates behind you before the heavy metal doors shutting down cut off all the sound.

*********************

Tuesday, 6:21pm

You drove away to your house on the secluded small patch of beach you own on the coast because you really need a break.  Your ability hits and for once you don’t have somebody around; it feels really good not to deal with reading minds. You blocked J’s and Frost’s phone numbers, this way they won’t bother you. Sure as hell they will try and that’s not an option for now.

* Frost was thinking about leaving on vacation, not permanently, tired as he can be after all the assignments but you didn’t let him finish his thoughts since you panicked and lashed out. On the other hand, J really had murderous intent in his mind- again. That was genuine. He’s such a sweetheart…*

*********************

Wednesday, 10:01am

You are finally finished with the morning walk along the shoreline and you are heading back to the house. It’s so nice and warm you can actually get away with wearing your favorite two piece bathing suit without feeling cold.

You slide the glass panel and tread inside.

“Oh,” you frown, seeing him in the kitchen, twiddling with your cell phone.

“What kind of greeting is that, hm?” J moves his elbows towards the end of the kitchen counter, not lifting his eyes up, concentrating on his task. “There, I’m unblocked,” he sighs, sliding your phone towards the center of the table. “Nobody blocks my number, Pumpkin, especially you, got it?” he bites his lip, huffing so you get the point faster. “You can keep Frost blocked thought,” the suggestion is fast to follow.

You gulp, noticing what he has on: the nerve on this man! He is sporting (try to keep yourself together) the purple shirt of sex, your absolute favorite. This shirt does things to you and he is very aware of it.

“Wh-what are you wearing?” you utter, feeling your heart skipping a beat.

“A shirt, Y/N,” he responds, the level of sass going up pretty high.

You take a few steps towards him and glance at that almost unbuttoned, enchanting piece of clothing, but have the confidence to mumble:

“I’m staying here for a while and you’re not welcomed, so…” and you show him the exit.

“HA!” The Joker sarcastically grins, slowly approaching and it gives you goose bumps.

“Y-you and your shirt stay away from me, alright?” you try to bargain without success. That shirt and those eyes sure are a lethal combo.

“What’s wrong with you? It’s just a shirt,” he insists, no doubt having some plan regarding the whole thing.

“Stay away, I mean it,” you sniffle, backing out more. “I’m not sleeping with you and I don’t want to…ummm… talk to you.” Wow, that sounds so fake it makes you hate yourself instantly.

“Good, makes two of us,” J shamelessly lies without blinking, being so close you can smell his cologne. Jesus, your favorite one: you’re so screwed.

10:05am

“I don’t want to!” you stop his hand pulling down on your bikini.

He just snickers with a devious expression on his face, forcing you against the wall.

“I-I really don’t want to,” you fight the sensation and for some reason manage not to lose your shit.

My God he’s a good kisser, you think when his lips find yours and you close your eyelids, moaning; he doesn’t see it coming when you push him away: “That’s enough, p-please take your shirt and go!” BUT, luckily (or unluckily) it kicks in for today:

10:08am

That freaky smile flourishes on your face once more as you read his mind.

“Really???” you whimper, emotional at that split moment he thought about it. “You love me?”

“What?!” he scoffs, so vexed your ability always hits when he is thinking about stuff he doesn’t want you to know. “No way, I barely tolerate you!” J attempts to save his pride but you sure have that bizarre, unsettling sparkle in your eyes that makes him tense.

You giggle, not giving a damn he is denying it, signaling him to come to you.

“Don’t put words in my mouth, woman,” he bitterly mutters but approaches regardless.

“I don’t have to,” you whisper, happy like never before and elbow him in the next second:

“Seriously??!!! Stop thinking about killing me!”

He starts chuckling and you tug on his shirt, antagonized:

“Are you… are you thinking it on purpose to annoy me?”

“Ahhhh, I wouldn’t know, Kitten, you’re the mind reading expert,” The Joker lifts you in his arms, making sure not to think about how much he likes you (in his own way) by the time the 5 minutes are up.

Too late, you already know.

Also read- MASTERLIST:

http://diyunho(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/153664676321/joker-x-reader-masterlist

[pumpkins-s]

Spilling Like An Overflowing Sink

Read on AO3 Here

Read the Other Chapters on Tumblr Here

Lance Alexander Rafael McClain is born in the middle of a summer storm, thunder cracking and rain slamming onto the roof of an old ramshackle house that had seen more than its fair share of children.

The miracle baby, that’s what the family had called Lance. The unexpected son to a mother of five daughters.

(In which family is always complicated, Lance’s life hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows, and he and Keith are really emotionally constipated for each other.)

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Relationships: Keith/Lance, significant platonic Lance & Hunk

Characters: Lance, Lance’s family, Hunk, Keith, Shiro, Pidge, Allura, Coran

Chapter 8: Longings

(( Author’s Note:

(kicks down door) Greetings, I'm back.

Apologies for being away from this fic so long. It's been a weird few months for me with a lot of personal stuff going on (If you follow me on social media I'm sure you witnessed the fallout of my breakup with my near year-long partner, for one), and that in addition to the Large amount of discourse in the fandom that sprung up after season 2, particularly surrounding Lance content, made me too nervous to update for a long time.

It took a while, but I eventually remembered that I started this fic for me, because it makes me happy, and letting the pressures of how long an update was or worrying over people's demands for when Keith would arrive was only hurting me, and my ability to write the fic.

So new rule. I'm doing this at my pace, Keith will get here when he gets here. End of story.

Now, before we begin, a couple things:

I'm incredibly honored and delighted to present to you all the finished version of Peachlance's fanart for this fic, which if you remember I linked the WIP sketch to a couple chapters back. You can check out their gorgeous art of Lance & Hunk here on tumblr, or here on twitter.

Also! I'm still not an artist in the slightest, but for those of y'all desiring them, here's some rough references for Mavis and Ritzie & Yuu I did a few months ago.

That's it. Have fun, bye. ))

Mavis’s apartment is a tiny thing on the thirteenth floor of a crumbling old residential building wedged between two larger, shinier new buildings, the few small windows in her apartment providing absolutely stunning views of her fire escape and the wall of the building outside.

It’s tiny, jam-packed, and bordering on claustrophobic, with its singular bedroom, living room, kitchenette, and bathroom all crammed together into one small unit. As a whole, it’s considerably smaller than Lance’s home, even if he is used to sharing that space with a hoard of other people, and arguably he’s pretty sure Mavis’s bedroom is actually slightly smaller than his and Hunk’s dorm room at Greenwood, which is saying something, given that’s not exactly a large space either.

Lance loves it instantly.

The first time he sees the apartment, an exhaustingly long thirty minute subway ride involving three train changes away from the airport, Mavis kicks the door open with otherwise little fanfare, dumping Lance’s suitcase by the door and straightening up.

“Welcome to city living! Mi casa es tu casa.”

Lance snorts, eyes roaming over the mess of dirty dishes in the sink, the unfolded pile of laundry on the coffee table, the assortment of books and music sheets on the kitchen counter. “Tu casa es un desastre.”

“Hush.” Mavis says, pointing a finger at him. “You try being an adult capable of clean, organized living these days. It’s hard.”

“You’re twenty-five.” Lance deadpans, and Mavis sniffs, flipping her hair and crossing her arms, pouting.

“Don’t remind me. I already feel old.” She claps her hands, grabbing Lance’s bag again and swinging it over her shoulder easily as if it isn’t heavily packed with everything Lance needs to survive here for three and a half weeks. “C’mon, let’s get you settled. You’re lucky I bought a bed that has one of those second mattress pullout trundle things in case one of my brothers or Evie ever came to stay or something.”

“Goodie.” Lance mutters, and Mavis smirks back at him, nudging the bedroom door open just as her phone goes off. Pulling it out of her pocket, she glances at the number and winces. “Work. I need to take this.” Swinging Lance’s bag off her shoulder, she turns and bodily chucks it at the trundle bed, sending it flying onto it with a loud crash that leaves Lance wincing and pitying his cousin’s neighbors. “Go ahead and get settled while I’m on the phone, if you want. There’s some toiletries and spare clothes I picked up just in case, since I wasn’t sure if you packed enough given I do the laundry like… once a month.”

“Gross.” Mavis snorts, and nudges him into the room, pulling the door shut behind her as she turns back to the living room, answering her call with a muffled, yet distinctly blunt “What.”, obviously none-to-pleased with whomever is calling her on her day off.

Sighing, Lance shuffles his way over to the trundle bed, nudging his suitcase over to a corner as best he can and then flopping down, savoring being able to stretch out properly after hours of being crammed on first a plane and then the subway. He may be smaller than an adult, or even, admittedly, small for his age, but that doesn’t mean he appreciates being shoved into tight spaces for extended periods of time any more than the next person.

Rubbing at his eyes, he sits up and turns to the small pile of clothes and what looks like a spare toothbrush and face-wash, among other things, resting on the pillow. He moves the toiletries without much thought, idly inspecting the label on the face-wash and happily noting it’s a brand he’s used before, but when he turns to the clothes he hesitates, looking at the shirt resting on top properly for the first time and noting a… small problem.

It’s pink.

A bright, searing pink, small flowers patterned along the collar and lace for sleeves.

Hands shaking, he grabs the fabric and carefully lifts it up, eyes roaming over the distinctly feminine cut and color of the shirt with a kind of displaced horror, offset by the hesitant want he feels just from looking.

The shirt is exactly the kind of thing he would have picked out, a year and a lifetime ago. On instinct, he holds it to his nose, and it smells… not like what he remembers when he thinks of clothing like this, of Loraine’s shampoo and his mother’s laundry detergent, but it does smell somewhat like Mavis, like the subtle scent of her leather jacket and her apartment, and that is… not right, but not wrong either.

God though, that doesn’t take the edge off the wanting, even noting these minute differences between his memories of the life he craves and his reality. If anything, knowing it’s real, here and presented in this space where he is relatively free of the consequences of such choices, makes the whole thing worse.

Almost idly, hands gripping light fabric, he thinks of a story his Aunt Rosa had told him once as a child, an old Greek myth from one of her well-worn books about a king who was punished for his transgressions in the afterlife by being placed on an island surrounded by water and with fruit trees growing on it, but could not eat or drink, no matter how much he hungered or thirsted, for eternity.

That is what this is like, he thinks. It’s placing cursed salvation in front of a starving person and watching them crawl desperately towards it.

He wants so badly, and yet to have it is akin to taking fruit from the poisoned tree.

Jerking slightly, Lance drops the shirt with shaking hands, as if it might scald him. From the kitchen, Mavis’s voice, raising in volume as she argues with whoever is on the other end of the line, drifts through, pulling him back to reality.

Mavis… right.

Assumedly, this is her doing, then.

Hesitantly, he turns to the remaining pile of clothing, eyes falling to a now more than obvious assortment of bright patterns and cheerful designs, a veritable ball of doom. Reaching out, both hands grasping unsurely, he rifles through it, overly-short cut fingernails, a habit he picked up to fight the urge to paint them, catching on floral shorts and thin tights and close-shaped t-shirts splashed with color.

As a whole, he counts four shirts, two skirts, one pair of high-waist shorts, and a single pair of light pink tights.

…Oh, and a clip-on hair ribbon. Blue.

Really, it’s not that much, barely a few days selection of clothes, but at the same time, it’s everything.

He wants to cry, he wants to cheer, he wants to burn it and curl up in a ball and try to forget.

It’s the little things that destroy a person, Lance thinks, when it comes to the wanting.

Outside the room, Mavis’s voice rises to a sharp crescendo, followed by the muffled sound of something being chucked sharply against a thankfully soft object, and, judging by the following array of colorful swears directed to the air, Lance can only assume it was Mavis’s phone being thrown, hopefully onto the sofa or something where it won’t be damaged.

It’s a funny thought that preoccupies his mind for all of about two seconds, before his gaze falls to the clothing spread out before him, and he swallows nervously, calling out. “M-Mavis…?”

Despite his half-hearted effort at the tiny vocalization, the loud cursing from the kitchen trails off, and after a moment, Mavis pushes her way into the room, door slamming open and then swinging shut behind her on its own momentum. Her hair is a mess, sticking out in every direction where she’s clearly run her fingers through it, but she doesn’t look upset, just mildly pissed at best.

“Sorry, sorry, my boss is a dick. I was supposed to have tomorrow off to do fun bonding shit with you or something, but he’s now demanding I cover my lazy coworkers ass so…” She trails off, eyes falling to him for the first time and widening, taking in his own shell-shocked expression, before her gaze catches on the scattered clothing, and it closes off, becomes guarded. “Ah.”

With a kind of long-awaited resignation, she trudges over to the trundle bed, nudging Lance gently with a food to get him to move over, and then flopping down next to him, lifting an arm in clear invitation. Lance doesn’t hesitate, despite the distant knowledge that the articles of his distress were undeniably provided by the person next to him, and falls against her side, tucking his head under Mavis’s chin and listening to the thrum of her heartbeat, the erratic sound slowing out to a steady rhythm as she calms down.

It’s good. Soothing. Like how he used to lay with Loraine when he was younger, the two of them tucked up together on that cramped bed layered in old quilts and well-worn pillows.

For a moment, when he closes his eyes and feels Mavis’s blunt fingernails scratch lightly against his scalp as her fingers card gently through his hair, he can pretend he’s back there again, in his sanctuary.

But... He sighs out, opening his eyes and meeting the sight of Mavis’s whitewashed wall. He is not there, and this apartment might just be his next best chance at something like a new sanctuary.

“I’m sorry.” Mavis says after a long moment of quiet, voice low and unsure. “I forgot.”

“Why would you…?” He rasps out, words falling into uncertainty.

Mavis chuckles, a brittle, bitter sound. “Let’s call it a momentary increase in stupidity. I just…” She sighs. “I wasn’t thinking, really. Well… No, I was thinking, just not very intelligently.”

“Well, clearly.”

She laughs at that, small but genuine, and Lance manages his own wet giggle in return. She grins down at him, and then her face falls, turning away to look at the wall. “I… I listen to you on the other end of that phone every week, Lance, and I don’t even have to see you to know how much it’s killing you underneath, living like that. No matter what, you’re miserable because of it, and I suppose I just thought…” She shrugs. “No one knows you here, so there’s no consequences here, y’know? It’s completely removed from home, from your school… from everything.” Mavis smiles weakly. “It’s stupid, but I guess at the time I wanted this place to be the escape for you that I made it for me. Plus, well… I can’t help but feel a little guilty, I suppose.”

Lance shifts at that, offering a questioning noise. “What? Why?”

Mavis shifts nervously. “Lance, you hate living like this, and I was the one who talked you into Greenwood in the first place—“

“Hey, no. No.” Lance sits up quickly, glaring at Mavis. “You didn’t talk me into anything. This— Everything was my decision. You didn’t coerce me into making the choices I have or any of that shit.”

“But—“

“Nope!” He says firmly, poking his cousin’s cheek gently. “You helped me, nothing more, and for that I’m grateful, okay? I’m…” He sighs. “I’m not saying I like living like this, or that I’m alright with it, because I’m really… really not, but I need it. I need this… purpose, to keep me going, to give me something to hold onto.” Lance hesitates. “I’m honestly not sure if I’d be alive right now, if you hadn’t helped me find that. It stabilized me.”

Mavis stares at him for a long moment, and then groans, head tipping back to fall against the side of the proper bed next to the trundle, where her back rests. “Don’t go getting emotional on me now, kid. We can’t both be having a sob fest, and your bullshit earnestness makes my self-pity just look sad.”

Lance grins in spite of himself. “Karma for deciding you’re to blame for all my problems.”

“Hey!” Mavis sticks a hand into the air, pointing up at nothing imperiously. “I never said I was to blame for all your problems. Just… a few of them.” She coughs, hand falling after a moment almost bashfully. “Ok, in retrospect, that sounds… Yeah.” After a moment, she glances down at him, raising an eyebrow. “I did actually mean to return those this morning before I picked you up and get you some different stuff, I just genuinely forgot.”

He smiles softly. “I believe you. I wasn’t angry in the first place, anyways.”

It’s true, really. Whatever slight slivers of annoyance he’d felt at Mavis sticking such metaphorical poisoned fruit in front of him had quickly drained away within minutes, leaving only a kind of calm acceptance and tiny pieces of lingering grief.

Mavis loves him, as much as any of his sisters, and maybe even almost as much as Loraine had, he knows this. She would never do anything to intentionally hurt him, or pain him. She only wanted to help— Had only ever wanted to help, since that first conversation after Loraine’s funeral, when she had offered him Loraine’s final gift, and along with it the directions to a chance at redemption.

“I should have known it was a shitty idea from the beginning, really.” Mavis murmurs quietly, leaning over and snagging the single pair of tights to glare at them ruefully. “Sticking you with that kind of decision.”

Almost unconsciously, Lance reaches out, catching the dangling ends of the tights carefully and tangling them between his fingers. “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just…” He swallows. “I want too much, I think. I’m afraid if I let myself have that kind of thing, I might not have the heart to give it up again.” His eyes flicker to his cousin. “And I can’t, Mavis. I can’t let those pieces of who I was back into my life. I’d rather die than jeopardize this last thing that I can do for her.”

Mavis sighs, dropping the rest of the tights into his hands. “You shouldn’t live your life trying to please what’s not coming back, Lance.”

“It’s what I want, though.” He says. “It’s the only thing I want, really, to do what she couldn’t. It’s the closest I can get to keeping a piece of her alive, and I… I need that.”

“I know…” Mavis says, closing her eyes. “God, I know.”

That night, Lance dreams of Loraine. Of the soft warmth of her hugs, of the sweet taste of summer air and of breathless laughter caught in near soundlessness on rushing air around a speeding hoverbike on old dirt roads.

There are dreams Lance has, nightmares really, that end in screaming, in the oxygen in his lungs being stolen in heaving sobs that leave him shivering and with an aching throat. Those… Those are the nights of blood and pain, the sensation of falling through air and of remembering what glassy, unseeing eyes look like, the nights when he cannot escape the day she died.

This is not one of those nights. Though, still, the bittersweet feeling of her face and her heart, loving and kind, haunting his sleep leave him with tear tracks on his face when he wakes, regardless.

Almost blindly, he rolls half out of bed, intending to walk the five steps necessary to reach Hunk’s across the room and curl up against the larger, slowly snoring warmth that is his friend, before his hand touches scratchy, industrial carpet instead of old wooden floorboards, and he remembers he is not at home, and Hunk is not here.

Sitting up, he rubs at his eyes blearily, squinting at Mavis’s distinctly unoccupied bed next to the pullout trundle, and then turns when the faint flickering of light under the doorway catches his eye. Stumbling to his feet, he carefully crosses the room and opens the door, pulling it open with the gentlest of creaks to bring the wash of yellow light from the kitchen streaming in, illuminating Mavis’s frame where she sits on a stool next to her kitchen bench, half hunched over a bowl of cereal and eyes settled on the book she has propped up against the fruit bowl. She blinks, glancing up, and when her gaze finds him her expression softens ever so slightly, almost lost in the imperceptibly neutral planes of her face.

He almost expects her to offer some quip, some cliché line that he can read in her eyes that screams you too, huh? But instead, she merely makes a halfhearted noise that falls somewhere between a snort and a sigh, and pulls out the stool next to her, patting it idly. Slowly, Lance edges out of the doorway and over to the stool, catching his toes on the well-worn wood of the ring between the legs of the seat as he looks for footing, scrambling up onto it as best he can. Legs dangling, too short to touch the ground, once he’s settled.

Mavis grabs a bowl from a stack on the bench, obviously washed but yet to be put away in a cupboard, in front of him, and then nudges the open box of cereal towards him. He accepts it wordlessly, pouring it into the bowl in rush of noise against the silence as the pieces of grain collide against the porcelain.

They’re Cheerios, he notes almost absentmindedly.

Loraine had liked Cheerios.

Fumbling, he reaches for the milk carton where it sits between the two bowls, and Mavis intercepts him quickly, picking up the carton and unscrewing the lid.

“New carton. It’s heavy.” Is all she offers, pouring the milk into his bowl. She resettles the carton once the pieces of golden brown are floating in white, presenting him with a spoon from who knows where wordlessly.

Lance takes it, scooping up a mouthful, and tries not to cry when the cool rush of milk and sweet tang of the cereal hits his tongue.

“I never liked Cheerios much growing up.” Mavis says quietly, staring down at her half-empty bowl and trailing her spoon through the mess before lifting it to her lips. “Loraine and Evie did, though, so that was all my Ma or Aunt Maria ever bought when they went to the store.”

Outside, there comes the faintest whisper of witching hour traffic along the streets, and the clinking of their spoons against the porcelain bowls is loud in the otherwise silence of the night.  

“You’re an adult,” He murmurs, “…Does it ever get better?”

Mavis sighs, propping an elbow on the bench and resting her cheek in her hand. “I’ll tell you when I figure that out myself.”

Lance nods jerkily, and that’s the end of it.

Even by that first day after Lance arrives, things are a mess, because Mavis’s schedule is a mess— And maybe her life in general is a bit of a mess, too, but Lance imagines that comes with the territory when one is somehow a part-time bartender, part-time stagehand, and freelance musician all at once.

Plus, well, it’s Mavis. She kind of specializes in functioning from afar while everything actively goes to shit, which he suspects is a trait he might slowly be inheriting via continued exposure to her mere presence.

Maybe. Maybe.

…Lance isn’t sure if he knows how to function period, really, regardless of outside problems, so maybe he’s just kidding himself with that one.

Either way, function Mavis does, so the morning after their little heart-to-heart over soggy bowls of Cheerios in the last trickling vestiges of night, she rolls out of bed to the chime of an annoyingly cheerful alarm at six AM and staggers her way into the bathroom to get ready for work, nearly tripping over Lance’s trundle as she goes, which is enough to wake him and send him scurrying into her bed to seize the warm spot she’s left behind.

She makes a face at him when she returns, poking the side of his head where it peeks out between the sheets. He hums sleepily, and she grins, a crooked, fragile thing. “’M sorry about this. I really wasn’t supposed to work today.” He offers a half-awake noise of understanding, and Mavis’s expression fades into a soft smile. “I’ll be back by dinner, I’ll bring takeout or something. You still like Thai food, right?”

“Mmmm….” Lance rumbles out, blinking the sleep from his eyes. “…Yeah.”

“Good, cool.” She straightens up, sighing out. “TV has a DVR, remote’s on the table. Don’t open the door to anyone, etcetera, etcetera.”

“I know, Mavis.” He mumbles. “I’ll be fine.”

She hesitates, dropping an uncharacteristic kiss onto his forehead, an action Lance would expect more from Marcie or Evie, and then she’s gone.

It only takes a few hours, once he’s rolled out of bed and forced himself into the living room, before the boredom sets in, and the itch, just there under his skin, becomes all the more obvious, like a crawling, wiggling thing, burying deep until it hums and scratches in his bones. It had been there since he’d woken up and gone to get dressed, uncomfortably aware of the selection of clothing Mavis had gotten for him shoved onto a shelf in the closet, just… there, right within grasp.

It’s undeniable, like a siren’s call, and television can only distract him for so long.

Almost automatically, he reaches for his phone, intending to call Hunk, his go-to backup system, before he pauses, and then drops his hand.

Hunk. Right. Part of the whole purpose of this trip was to not so subtly give Hunk a break from Lance’s… everything. He’s not going to go calling his friend after less than a day over some frigging clothing. It’ll just leave Hunk worrying about him incessantly.

He takes his phone, buries it between the couch cushions, and resurrects Mavis’s laptop from its constantly overheating, cracked screen, duct-taped death to Skype Ritzie.

“It’s just all so boring, darling.” She tells him in lighthearted monotone, bushy hair pulled back in a single ponytail on the other side of the screen, pale skin against jean shorts where she sits cross-legged and curled up in on herself. Off screen, someone calls her name, and she yells back loudly in French, before turning back to the camera with a sigh. “I love France, but it’s all just making nice with Papa’s business associates while he jets them around on cruises and listening to him arguing over the phone with Daddy about custody, again.” She rolls her eyes. “It’s like I’m a freaking commodity to be passed around.”

“Sorry.” He tells her in a whisper, and Ritzie laughs, the bright, cheerful sound he’s come to recognize and appreciate in her.

“Not like it’s your fault. I’m just looking forward to when I escape the parental affection battle and school goes back. I miss you lot, even Yuu, despite his nagging.”

“Miss you too.” He says, and even though he can’t tell her about the long-worn scars on his arms or the buzzing itch under his skin that he called to distract himself from, because she does not know, will never know, he still means it.

Will always mean it.

Even long after Ritzie hangs up the call, Lance sits there, fingernails digging into his arms where they’re crossed, and when it gets to be too much, he jumps up, forces himself into busyness by washing he dishes that lay piled high on Mavis’s counter, all the way down to their cereal bowls from the night before.

He eats a handful of dry Cheerios, pretends it’s lunch even as he ignores the sandwich sitting in the fridge, cut in triangles like he insisted on when he was little, before Mavis left home, and studiously does not cry.

It’s fine. He’s fine.

And when Mavis brings home takeout and bullies him into watching shitty old anime reruns with her, it’s almost good.

Almost… It feels like no matter what Lance does, he’s always just grasping at almost.

Two days after Lance first arrives in New York, minus the day he actually got off the plane and took his first steps into Mavis’s apartment, he reaches his breaking point.

...In a way, he’s surprised he even lasted that long.

It’s not so bad, in the morning, when Mavis doesn’t have work and drags him out of bed to walk around the neighborhood, teaches him the differences between the New York and D.C. metro systems, parades him over to the diner two blocks down and presents him cheerfully to the workers, who all know her by first name. It’s movement, noise, people, all the ingredients to the recipe for adequate distraction and entertainment. It’s nice, even with the oppressive heat of the summer sun beating down on the sidewalks, and Lance can see why his cousin treasures the home she has found here so much.

It’s in the evening, when Mavis, apologetic and reluctant, has to duck out for a short shift at the bar, that Lance finds the itch return, driving him to more frantic cleaning and fruitless pacing in an effort to forget.

He knows, really, that there’s only two options to drive away the itch— Give in, or… Well, he’s been trying to break himself of the latter habit, for the sake of Hunk’s sanity and the slowly healing marks on his arms.

On some level, Lance doesn’t know why it’s so bad this time, compared to any other. He’s been doing this for over a year now, has held himself strictly to this decision even when he’s home on the weekends and holidays, far away from Greenwood and its prying eyes, and he’s never come this tenuously close to slipping, to giving in.

He thinks, maybe, it’s the utter lack of pressures here. If he gave in at home, if he dressed and acted as he liked and found a way to lock it down every time he returned to Greenwood, his family would, in well-meaning intent, encourage him to take the clothing he loved, the things he once treasured, back with him.

They are too understanding, in a way. They’ll never be able to grasp the importance of this, of the lie he and Mavis have so delicately crafted.

But… Here? Here there’s only Mavis— Friend, cousin, coconspirator, secret-keeper. She knows. She understands why.

And so, as the hours drain away and the night creeps in, Lance finds himself falling from grace in a moment of desperate self-pity, fueled by exhaustion and resignation, and sneaking into the bathroom with the single hair bow Mavis had purchased grasped between his shaking fingers.

When he clips it on unsteadily, stepping back and squinting into the mirror, it’s all wrong, a conspicuous mark against his short hair and faded dark grey shirt. He looks more like a child playing around in his mother’s makeup drawer, metaphorically, at least, then he does like himself.

At the same time, though, even that one little piece is… Everything. The color of it, the weight of it against his skull, it’s everything to him.

“It looks nice.” Mavis’s voice rings out from the doorway, and Lance startles, turning sharply to see her reclined there, arms crossed and considering.

He hadn’t even heard her come in, he realizes. Too caught up in his elated panic over this tiny act of... something.

“It looks terrible.” He bites out, and Mavis shrugs.

“I think the color suits you.”

Lance glances back to the mirror, looking again, and for a moment he wants to ask if she really thinks so, but he shakes it off. “Doesn’t matter anyways.” He reaches to unclip it, and Mavis slides forward quickly, catching his hands in her own and staring down at them, biting her lip for a moment in an unsure, hesitant gesture.

“I’m not going to tell you what you should or should not do, Lance. But—“ She glances up ever so slightly, meeting his eyes even as she still looks down at him, the significant height difference between them never more apparent. “Nobody here can touch you. Nobody has to know.”

He blinks, pointedly ignoring the itch behind his eyes, and hesitantly looks back at his reflection, studying the splash of sky blue against his slight curls, the same as Loraine’s, even at this length.

He wants. He wants so badly, and he’s so tired of not being able to give into it.

Hesitantly, nervously, he slips one of his hands free of Mavis’s, dropping it to his side and running the edges of his fingers along the hem of his board shorts, the long fabric chaffing against the inside of his knees as it has for the last two days, heavy and unbearable.

“Could I…” Lance says quietly. “Could you bring me those shorts you bought me? Please?”

Just three weeks. Three weeks here, in this place where secrets can lay buried, and then he will go home to Veradera, and be who he needs to be once more.

Nobody needs to know.

…Right?