#A car burning like a comet

[cephalopod-prophet]

everyone please consider a comet that looks like a car

[gojonanami]

❝ 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐀𝐍𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐘 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐁𝐘𝐄 ❞

❝ I CAN'T BREATHE WITHOUT YOU, BUT I HAVE TO... ❞

✧ pairing: satoru gojo x f!reader (canon / multi au)

✧ summary: "would we love each other in every life?" it's the question you asked satoru the night before his battle, and he replied that, of course you would. but did that promise create a curse -- or were you both always cursed to begin with when it came to love?

✧ warnings: 18+, nsfw, smut, jjk manga spoilers (236 spoilers), multiple lives, assassin!reader x duke!gojo, actor!gojo x singer!reader, prince!gojo x knight!reader, model!gojo x photographer!reader, oral (f!receiving) in a car, semi-public, making out in public, pantyhose ripping, canon compliant except towards the end, angsty, but also bittersweet / implied happy ending

✧ wc: 6,589

“Do you think we would be together in another life?” you ask, not thinking much of the question, as your fingers draw lazy circles against his bare chest, your head resting right between his shoulder and chest. 

Satoru chuckles, vibration against your skin, “Of course we would, sweetheart,” his arms curl around you, tugging you higher, as he gazes up at you, “you think I could live any lifetime without you?” He murmurs, his lips finding yours, “I know we’d find each other, time and time again,” 

“How do you know?” your fingers brush against his cheek, shaking as he presses his cheek into your palm, a smile pulling at his lips. 

“Because, I love you,” he kisses you again, sweet lips gliding against yours, his breath warming your lips as he parts. 

“You did say love is a curse,” you give a small smile, and he presses his forehead to yours. 

“Then I’d want you to curse me — in every life.” 

“I swear on my life,” you press the dagger to his throat, blade digging into his formerly  perfect porcelain skin, drawing scarlet to the surface, “I’ll kill you, Satoru Gojo,” 

“I’m flattered to be a target of the infamous blueblood assassin,” his cerulean eyes glinted like stars in the candlelight, flames flickering across his eyes like burning comets, “but I didn’t think you would announce yourself as you did — what if I called for my guards?” 

You scoff, fingers flexing against the hilt of your dagger, “Then you would be dead before you uttered even a single sound and do you think I left your guards to chance? All of that schooling to be a duke and you haven’t learned a single thing have you?” 

“And what have I done to end up as your target?” he hums — as you bit back a sigh stuck in your throat — you preferred your marks to be much less chatty, but all he had was his mouth you supposed, “you only target the rich and the corrupt — and while I may fit the former, I do not fit the latter,” 

“You’re certainly sure of yourself,” and he’s unfazed by your reply, as his eyes wander the only thing visible of your expression — your eyes. 

“Since you have not stated my crime, I can only assume that I’ve committed none, and the infamous assassin whose morals could not be compromised have been,” and your grip wavers a moment, and he takes advantage of your hesitance to disarm you, and pin you to a nearby chaise all before the clatter of your blade hitting the marble floor, “and now what’s an assassin’s price who has done all of this for no reward?” 

“How do you know I’ve done this for no reward?” you squirm in his grip, but it’s ironclad, and you know all too well he could have broken from your grasp at any point, but he had chosen not to — your heartbeat roars in your ears as one question repeats again and again stuck between  beats — why? “I very well may have taken a payment you don’t know of — you act as if you know of me,” 

“Because I do,” the heir replies with a simple smile, “I have followed your work for a long time, and I found myself fascinated with what you do — and why you do it,” 

“Honored to have caught your attention,” you say in mock reverence, your arm beginning to ache, “now do you plan to call your guards?” 

“Didn’t know you were so eager to die,” he stares still, as you turn your head away from his piercing gaze, “shouldn’t you keep your eyes on your target or now your captor?” 

“Do you ever shut up?” You mumble as you flinch as you squirm under his grip, sleeve riding up ever so slightly — and then he sees it. His eyes narrow, as his hand grasps at your wrist now, “hey! Don’t—“ 

In a moment his fingers nearly rip the fabric of your tunic to tug your sleeve up —  angry red cuts and purple bruises litter your arm. Your breath catches as his eyes stare for several moments before sliding back to you — no longer a placid pool but a raging ocean. 

“Who did this to you?” he says quietly, and you’re blinking, nearly slack jawed, as you try to rip your arms away, but he won’t let you, “who is it? Is it the same person who told you to kill me?” 

“Stop—“ 

“Is it the same person who’s taken someone important to you?” and you grit your teeth in silence, “is it the little orphan you adopted? Yuji?” 

And your eyes snap to his, “How do you know this? Who are you?” 

His lips curl,  “You told me yourself, I’m Satoru Gojo,” and his fingers brush your cheek, “it’s a shame you don’t remember where we first met — because I never forgot,” 

You furrow your brow, “What are you talking about? I think I’d remember you. You’re…” you jerk your head, eyes looking him up and down — lingering on his white hair and eyes, “distinct,” 

“Well what if I had black hair and green eyes, would you remember then?” And he whispers your name in your ear, and you pause, “the fireworks were nothing compared to you,” 

And your breath catches — “You? But—“ 

“I had snuck out, had a disguise and everything, and I had planned to explore the festival alone but who do I find but you?” His grip on you loosens only to pull you a little closer, “the girl who had stolen two steamed buns and pinned me with part of the blame, making me run after you—“ 

“You didn’t have to run—“ and he snorted. 

“Well, it was that or get caught sneaking out — so I chose the lesser of two evils,” you can’t help it, your fingers trace the curve of his jaw to the back of his ear, “are you seeing if I’m defective?” And you find it. 

“No, he—“ you stop yourself, “you had gotten a small cut right behind your ear, it was deep enough that it would have left a scar behind,” and he had gotten a small cut from one of the soldiers who had grabbed them, bucking him with his sword, before you wrenched him out of there. The two of you spent the rest of the night eating food and sneaking around guards. And then finally climbing up on a rooftop to watch the fireworks. 

“How did you—“ 

“One of my father’s advisers found me later that night, in exchange for never sneaking out again without telling him, he said he would keep tabs on you,” 

You have no words, but one left — “why?” 

“I don’t know,” he shook his head, “maybe it was because I’ve been surrounded by nothing but my family’s yes-men, and you were the one person who treated me like a person, maybe it was the fact that day was the only day I actually had fun,” and he glances at you, “or maybe it was because I was drawn to you,” 

And you snort a little, “Do you believe in that fates nonsense they fed all of us as kids?” 

“I think fate is a very real thing, and I think it’s up to us to seize it,” he releases you, holding your hand before bending to press the barest brush of his lips against the back of your hand, “so, will you seize it or continue to evade your fate?” 

“We’ll never be able to evade the press if you do this,” you whisper, as he presses you against a wall of a secluded pillar of whatever place they had chosen to have this awards show, “and our teams will definitely chew us out if we don’t make an—ah,” you gasp, as his teeth nip at your neck, “Satoru, don’t leave a mark,” 

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he licks his lips, as he leans up, his normally messy white locks combed and parted to the side, his lips kiss bitten red from the liplock he had you in for the last ten minutes, and his white suit slightly ruffled and pressed against you, “you taste so sweet,” his thumb runs down your puffy lips, “and the desserts tonight sucked,” 

You chuckle, your fingers toying with the hair resting against his undercut, “Think you would have been pleased with receiving the award for best actor, is that not enough Mr. Gojo?” 

“The only thing that pleases me is my gorgeous wife’s singing and,” his lips find yours in a desperate kiss, and you could taste the fruity mocktail he had earlier on his lips, “and her moans when she’s under me,” his hand slides under your dress, dragging over your pantyhose clad thighs, “do you think anyone would notice if you came back without these?” 

“Yes, I do,” you gasp as he tugs at the delicate fabric, “Toru, we shouldn’t—” but your pleas are half-hearted, as his lips drift to press butterfly kisses up your jaw, “you deserve me insane,” 

“I know,” he chuckles, “that’s why you love me,” and you hum, your noses brushing before you meet lips again, “I love you so much,” 

Your fingers cup his cheek, as he leaned into your touch, “I love you too — don’t you want to enjoy all the accolades, the interviews, the congratulations? You won such a big award, Toru, I want you to celebrate,” 

“I am celebrating,” he grins, tilting his head, “I’m surprised at you, princess — and you’re the smart one between the two of us,” he teases, as he turns his head to kiss your palm, “in an entire ballroom full of people in there and all the places in the world, there’s no one place I rather be with than here with you.” 

“How did I end up stuck with you?” you grumbled, your armor weighing on you heavier than other days, as you stood in front of your prince — the little sun of this kingdom and the future king, the man you were sworn to protect for the rest of your earthly days, and your best friend, for better for worse, “if the fates have written it, I must have done something horrid in a past life,” 

“Do you really believe in that garbage?” Satoru raises an eyebrow, as he places his sword down from practice, waiving off his training partner, as he wipes off his sweat with a towel offered by a maid, “You know that stuff they fed to us so we wouldn’t throw tantrums during classes — so we didn’t turn into slugs for our next life,” 

“Why turn into one when you are one already?” you smirk, and he rolls his eyes, as he runs his hand through his hair. 

“Has a slug ever looked this good before?” and you roll your eyes. 

“Think your ego is going to be so large by the time you become king, your crown won’t sit atop your head correctly,” you sigh, rising to your feet, “now we must get you cleaned and dressed, you have a meeting with the—” 

“I actually cleared my schedule for the rest of the day,” and you blink, frowning. 

“His Majesty will not—” 

“His Majesty will be fine — old man hasn’t kicked the bucket over the last fifty things I’ve done — I doubt this will be more than a ten minute lecture on decorum, fifteen if I decide to poke the bear,” he throws you a grin, as he pulls on a fresh shirt, “come, I have something to show you,” 

“Show me?” you repeat, before his hand finds yours — his hands are smooth despite the constant swordplay and practice he put in — he supposed he owed that to the royal staff, tending to his looks as much as they did his health. The same could not be said about yours — riddled with cuts and calluses alike. Your cheeks burned as your unkempt hand held his — “your highness, this is—” 

“‘Your Highness?’” he repeats, throwing you a smirk over his shoulder, “when have you ever called me that?” 

The appearance of holding your hand as he pulled you down several hallways through the palace was beginning to attract the attention of several gawking onlookers. Your cheeks burn — and you’re not sure if it's from the stares, his words, or the fact he was still holding your hand as you both arrive outside his chambers. But you can’t stop him — but you never could stop him when it came to this, could you? It reminded you of the times he dragged you through the gardens, wanting to show you the rabbits’ hidey hole he had found in the corner of the royal gardens. 

“Well I was made an official royal guard and appointed as your personal guard yesterday so I thought a little professionalism—” he unlocks his door, turning to look at you, a smile pulling at his lips. 

“There’s no need for decorum between us, now is there?” his fingers find a stray strand of your hair, and presses his lips to it, as he opens his door. You glance inside to find a lovely decorated cake and a present wrapped perfectly on the table, “Happy birthday, sweetheart,” 

“What—but—” and your mind realizes the date, “how did you—” 

“You think I’d ever forget your birthday?” he tilts his head, as your eyes slide to him, “it’s the day we met,” 

It was — the day you were brought from your home with your father who had been the king’s royal guard for many years, you were brought to be the prince’s — but you didn’t know you would find more than that in him. 

“I didn’t know you did this for your personal staff,” you teased, a smile pulling at the corners of your mouth, “I certainly can’t imagine what they would think of you inviting a woman to your room for it,” 

“Well, you are my personal guard, you’re here to personally guard me against anything, right?” and this was the nature of your relationship wasn’t it? Teasing and goading — toeing that line of proprietary before one of you eased off. 

“It seems like I need to guard you only against yourself, your highness,” 

“Satoru,” he corrects, his eyes sliding to you, as he says your name with a softness that you wished he wouldn’t, “you had no issue calling me that before,” 

“We were only friends then, I’m your guard now—“ 

“Do you kiss all your friends?” And your cheeks flare, as your gaze refuses to meet his. 

“That was—a mistake,” you whisper the last two words, “we can’t do this—“ 

“Why not?” You turn away, your eyes sliding to the cake, a frown pulling on your lips. 

“Because you have a duty to your people and I have a duty to you,” and his fingers find your shoulder gently, giving you leave to pull away — but you can’t, you couldn’t. 

“My only duty I desire is the one to you—I love my people, but I can’t be the king they deserve if you’re not the one beside me,” your gaze still cast downward, “I will cast away any responsibility, if I could have a chance with you, sweetheart—“ 

“The king has discussed your engagement with me,” you murmur, “he told me he plans to have you engaged with a princess from a neighboring—“ And his arm is wrapping around your waist, pulling you closer — your gaze lost in the endless blue skies of his eyes, “we can’t—“ 

“I’ll find a way,” and you scoff. 

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” you mutter, and his warm palm slides against your cheek. 

“This isn’t me promising to find a unicorn when we were five, Princess,” and you chuckle at the thought of his child self trudging into the woods with carrots in hand and what he thought was fairy dust (it was ladies’ finishing powder), “I swear that we’ll be together,” and he reaches into his pocket, and holds a small box, opening it to reveal a beautiful infinity pendant, “and this is my promise,” 

You bite your lip, staring at the silver glinting in the sunlight trickling in from the windows, “Satoru—“ 

“Finally giving in?” And you sigh. 

“How can you be sure we’ll be together?” He chuckles, as he gently turns you, making you face the mirror in his room as he places the necklace delicately around your neck, his fingers brushing against the skin of your neck before he clasps it. His arms slowly slide around your middle as he meets your gaze in your reflection, lips curling. 

His lips press a sweet kiss to your cheek, “Because I know I’d choose you, again and again.” 

“Why did they choose him as my model again?” You groaned as you looked at the list, tossing it back on your desk, “he’s so impossible to work with—“ 

“The shoots are finished quick—“ your boss replies gruffly, as he stands with his hands in his pockets, “and he said he’d only shoot with you. Said he likes your work and you’re the only one who can ‘capture the real him,’ some crap like that,” he shrugs. 

“Yaga, I can’t keep dealing with this man, can’t he shoot with anyone else?” 

He sighs, scratching the back of his head, “Look, the magazine we’re working with chose him as the model, and he said he would only do the shoot if you did it,” 

You sigh, leaning on your palm, elbow against your desk. “you’re not giving me a choice are you?” 

And no, he wasn’t. 

Because now you were at the studio for the sight of the shoot, getting everything ready that you could before your model arrived. You made sure his preferred makeup artist and hairstylist were available, you picked out his favorite snacks, got his preferred lighting (to be adjusted when he was on set), and had your cameras adjusted for his light sensitivity. 

All of which reduced the amount of time you had to spend with this man — but not even the most divine snacks would stop him from running his mouth. 

“Sweetheart,” you turned to see him, “miss me?” 

“When pigs fly, maybe,” but your words don’t faze him, a mock pout on his lips, “why do you request me to do your shoots, Gojo?” 

“Because it’s the only way you’ll see me,” and you sigh, as you continue to adjust your camera again, “you still haven’t given me a chance—“ 

“I gave you one chance, wasn’t that enough?” Before you turn to him, “look, I’m here because I have to be. I want to shoot — get in and get out and not have to—“ 

“One chance to talk to you — please, even if you don’t believe me or forgive me—“ 

“Fine,” you shake your head, frustrated, “go finish the shoot and we can talk for five minutes after,” and maybe he would stop forcing you into this situation. 

Satoru Gojo was the top wanted model by all the agencies — agencies were looking to snipe him and others were looking to have exclusive deals with him — whether it was photography businesses or brands. 

You couldn’t blame them, as you adjusted your lights and took a few test shots — he was gorgeous, even by model standards. From his skin to his body to his attitude, it was effortless for him. Even a bad angle or bad lighting did very little to detract from his flawless look. 

The chiseled cut of his jaw put statues to shame, his eyes shone brighter than the shiniest gemstones, his charm the envy of the love goddess herself, and his smile was enough to change hearts and minds alike. 

The shoots always look little time — the part that took the most time was choosing the best shots — you’d love to take one bad picture of him. Even for yourself — but that had proved impossible. Even deprived of sleep in the hours of the early morning, he was perfect. 

Perfect — except for his loyalty, you supposed. 

How had it gone so wrong so fast? And how did you let yourself become so carried away that you thought you were different from the others he bedded? 

And the shoot was over in a moment, and just like he said, Satoru was by your side as you begin to break down the equipment, as the other staff filed out, “can we talk now?” 

“If you have to,” you would give him an ear, but it didn’t mean you’d give him anything else.

“I never cheated on you—“ 

“Bullshit,” you reply, as you pick up the tripod you set up,  “I guess you didn’t the full five minutes,” 

“No, I didn’t—what you saw—“ 

“I saw you kissing another girl all over social media—“

“You saw me with Suguru,” he sighs, “and we weren’t kissing — we were hugging. You thought it was kissing from the angle of the picture, and before I could explain, you had blocked me on everything,”

You pause, “Suguru?” You repeat, as you pull out your phone and pull up the picture — black hair, hair half up, and they could have been hugging. And Satoru pulls out his own phone and shows you a selfie he took that same day, the meta data matching, “oh, oh fuck,” 

“Was that an apology? Not familiar with those coming out of your mouth so—“ 

“Satoru, I’m so sorry,” you murmur, “I saw the pictures and I heard the rumors and I assumed the worst of you,” you run your fingers through your hair, “even though I knew you better than that,” 

“You did, but I understand why you thought that,” he shrugged, “we had only been seeing each other for a month, but it meant something to me,” his voice softens.

“To me too,” you shake your head, “I’m so sorry, Satoru. I don’t know how to make it up to you,” 

“I know,” he smiles, “have dinner with me,” 

You blink. “why?”

“What do you mean, sweetheart? Everyone eats dinner, it’s a—“ 

“Satoru,” you sigh, “I didn’t believe you, I didn’t trust you, how can you forgive me like that? How could you want to be with someone like that?” 

“Well, you made a mistake — you forgave me for the other mistakes I made during our time together, and if I hadn’t let my team convince me that my fake reputation as a playboy would help sell my image — maybe we wouldn’t have been in this mess to begin with,” his fingers brush against yours, “besides, I want to believe in second chances — because I’d want to believe you’d give me one too,” 

Your fingers intertwine with his, “Even when I don’t deserve it?” 

And he lifts your hand to his lips, blue eyes glinting like an ocean dabbled in sunlight, “All the more for you make up for, right?”

This wasn’t right. No. No. 

“Satoru, Toru, please,” your fingers cupped his face, your fingers smeared with his blood as Maki pulled gou away, “no, no!” You don’t remember screaming, but you know you did because your throat was raw, your tears streaming down your face as your hands shook, staring at the dried blood on your fingers. 

He promised you he would win. He promised you he would come back. He promised you a life, a family, a home — something beyond jujutsu. 

And now you were left with nothing but that. 

“I’ll come back,” he had murmured in your ear the night before, his fingers tracing your cheek, “there’s no way I won’t. Have you ever seen me lose?” 

You give a small chuckle, “You just got trapped in a box for almost twenty days?” And he pouts, as he tilts your head up, fingers sliding against your cheek. 

“It was a one time fluke, sweetheart,” and his lips grazing your lips, “and I’m here now aren’t I?” you hum, “and I’ll always be there,” 

“In every life?” He smiles. 

“In every one.” 

In every one — except this one.  

“One would think you’re helpless, if you pout like that,” you teased, as you crawl into bed beside him, a smile on your lips, as he tugs you steadfast into his arms, “it’s only been a few minutes,” 

“It felt like a lifetime,” he presses a kiss to your head, “Is he asleep?” And you nod, a sigh on your lips as you settle into bed.

“After about twenty minutes of arguing, he passed out while I was telling him a story. He’s still not accustomed to this mansion,” neither were you — you had spent a few nights lying awake after jerking from the clutches of sleep — the paranoia still rampant in your mind. But those thoughts were a little farther now as you lie against his chest, heart thrumming under your body — the very heart you were meant to stop, and a chuckle escapes your lips. 

“What is it?” He raises an eyebrow, and you shake your head. 

“Why did you help me?” You draw circles on his chest, “you had every reason not to,” your fingers traced a line across his neck, “I even held a knife to your neck,” 

“And that was very attractive,” and you roll your eyes, “what? I like a woman who takes charge,” 

“Oh I know,” you chuckle, your lips pressing sweet kisses to his neck, “but I still don’t understand — you had every reason to distrust me, we barely knew each other, and yet—“ 

“You were still the girl I fell in love with that night,” he murmurs, “I just knew you were something special and when I saw what you were doing — trying to uproot corruption, I knew I was right. And I knew I had to make you my duchess,” 

“Well I’m not your wife yet,” you tease, the words barely out of your mouth before he’s got you pinned under him, “Toru—“ 

“Now, I told you I was going to seize my fate when I saw it,” and he kisses you, stealing every thought from your mind and every breath from your body, his touch filling you with warmth in return, “and I see it right in front of me,” 

“And what does it look like?” you smile against his lips, as he leans down to kiss you again. 

“Bright.” 

“Is it just me or do these paparazzi lights get brighter and brighter each time?” you rub your eyes as the two of you slide into your car for the night, the driver setting off towards your home. 

“I don’t know, I was too busy being blinded by my gorgeous wife,” and Satoru’s hands are all but under your dress, sliding up and down your sides, before one cups your cheek, “did i mention how incredible you look, sweetheart?” 

You hum, “about a million times,” your fingers slide against his shoulders until he’s practically lying on top of you against these leather seats. 

“That’s a million times too little — you look incredible, sweetheart. This dress was made for you,” and his lips taste as sweet as his words, your fingers sliding into his snowy locks while his slide against your bare thighs, “and I can’t wait to take it off when we get home,” 

“You’re going to take it off now if your hands slide any further up,” he draws a shiver from you as his hands do just that, daring further up your thighs, “Toru—“ 

“Don’t worry, the partition is up and it’s just you and me, sweetheart,” and he’s sinking to his knees on the floor, as his hands slide up your dress, “just keep your voice down, don’t want anyone hearing my wife, do we?” And his lips are grazing your inner thigh, his smirk against your skin, “good thing I relieved you of those pantyhose, huh?” 

“Toru,” you whined, as his fingers parted your thighs, and he could see your all too soaked panties, a damp patch and the fabric nearly translucent while it clung to your clit, “please—“ 

“So needy — and now that mouth of yours is being as honest as this one,” his lithe fingers tug aside the crotch of your panties to expose your cunt, “all this f’me? Been like this since our make out earlier? Surprised I didn’t see your cum drip down your legs,” 

And his words make you squirm, “Satoru, I swear to god—“ and his lips kiss your clit, as two fingers tease at your entrance, gathering your pre on his fingertips. 

“You don’t have to call me god, Princess — just Satoru is fine,” he murmurs as his lips close around your clit, as his fingers work inside your walls, a delicious stretch that draws a pretty gasp from your lips, your head falling back against the leather headrest. 

The sounds of the squelch of your cunt and the slurping of his lips against your clit rang in your ears — your fingernails digging into the seat as your other hand clamped over your lips. 

“That’s it, just like that, Princess,” his tongue darts out to  drag circles around your clit, while his fingers find the spot that makes you see stars. 

“I’m—“ you manage, before you’re cumming around his fingers and lips, your toes curling as you do, head back against the headrest. Your eyes find him to see him looking all too perfect even ruffled, as his lips were glossy with your release, tongue darting out to clean it, before he licked his fingers one by one. 

“And you were worried about the paparazzi noticing your missing pantyhose,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your lips, letting you taste yourself on his tongue, a smirk against your mouth, “let’s hope no one saw that,” 

And there’s a sharp rap on the window, “Sir and madam? We’ve arrived,” and his lips quirk, as he adjusts your clothes, cleaning your smudged lipstick with his thumb, as you reach up to wipe his lips where the lipstick had gone. 

“Shall we celebrate my win properly?” He opens the door and slides out of the car, holding out his hand for yours.

“As we always do?” And your fingers find his, as he presses his lips to the back of your palm. 

“Always, Princess.” 

“Are you ready yet, Princess?” Your Prince’s arms slid around your waist, his lips already at your neck, as his ocean blues met your gaze in the mirror, “how lucky is our kingdom to have such a lovely future queen? And how much luckier am I to have her as my wife?” 

“We do not know if the people will approve of me still, Toru,” you murmur, eyes shying away from his, your fingers finding the infinity around your neck, “you promised me forever, but will they grant it to us?” 

“Do you have such little faith, sweetheart, in your future husband?” His fingers find your chin, tilting it upwards to meet your gaze, “I’ve already done the impossible — I charmed you over the last two decades haven’t I?” 

“More like wore me down,” and he pinches your cheek, before he presses a kiss to the affronted skin, “re-defined the long game,” and he kisses your nose, “and stole my heart and soul while I wasn’t looking,” 

“I never steal,” he smiles that same smile that was emblazoned in your memory all those years ago, when he emerged from the woods with not a unicorn, but a baby fawn he had frightened from very same thicket, “I only take what was given to me,” he smiles, “and you willingly handed over your heart the moment you let me into your life,” 

“What was I thinking?” you murmur, cupping his cheek, “now I’ll have to deal with the politics of a kingdom for the rest of my days,” 

His lips curl widely, as his lips find yours, a heat that simmers into passion and then into simple love, “I promise, in exchange, I’ll spend the rest of my days making you the happiest you’ve ever been,” 

“The happiest, huh?” you murmur, foreheads pressed together, “that’s a tall order, so you think you can do it?” 

“I know I can,” he smiles, his arms pulling you impossibly closer, “because I’ll never trying to make you happy, Princess.” 

“You’re far too happy with this arrangement,” you say through the door, arms crossed as you pressed your back against it, “I don’t want to come out,” 

“You agreed to this, c’mon sweetheart, you’ve taken countless pictures of me—“ 

“You’re a model — it’s literally your job,” you glare at him through the door, “I’m behind the camera — not in front of it,” 

“But you’re just as beautiful in front of it as you are behind it,” and you can hear his pout through the door, “if you really don’t want to, sweetheart, I won’t make you—“ 

And the door opens, your lips curled in a pout as you emerge in a cerulean gown — the same color as his eyes, the very same that widened upon seeing you. 

“Was this necessary?” you squirm in place, as he bites his lip, eyes raking over you, “Toru—“ 

And he’s in front of you in an instant, his arms winding aaaaaaaaround your waist, “I want to kiss you so badly, but I’ll mess up your makeup,” your breath catches, so his finger brushes against your lips and presses it to his own lips, a little of your lipstick sticking to his lips. 

“Toru,” and his lips quirk at the nickname, “why do you want to take pictures of me?” 

“Because, I want pictures of you that are just for me,” he gently takes your hand, pressing a kiss to your wrist, “because I’ll never have this moment with you again, but I’ll have these pictures with you,” 

“And when do I get pictures that are of you and just for me?” And he presses a kiss to your head. 

“Anytime you want,” he murmurs, “we have all the time in the world, don’t we?” 

Time — that was the one thing Satoru Gojo always lacked. It felt as if his whole life was an hourglass, waiting for the sand to run out — and the one time it came close, blood seeping like sand through his neck, he was able to turn it on its head, until time was on his side agai.  

He wasn’t sure if time was on his side now.  

He could only see the winter sky above — flecks of white he could think were snow but never be sure if that was his vision going blurry. He couldn’t feel anything — but he heard the all too distant squelch of his blood against the ground, the sounds of footsteps, the feeling of his body being lifted, a smile still on his face.

He was going home — the one person who always made his world right side up — the only person who could catch the sand that slipped between his fingers and hold it between warm palms. He forced his body to keep running — to keep going, the flow of cursed energy may have come from the stomach and his brain may be able to power his reversed curse technique — but that didn’t compare to his will to make it home — make it to you. 

“Toru! Satoru!” he couldn’t will his eyes to open, only managing the barest flutter of his eyelids, “it’s okay, Shoko’s got you, I got you,” you murmur, a soft brush that must but your lips. 

Love was always the most twisted curse of them all — and he knew it had always been a curse to love him. Anyone drawn into his orbit seemed only doomed to fall around him — whether it was by their choice, his choice, or fate’s choice. 

Fate. That was a word he never had put a lot of stock into. Suguru always said there was a certain order to things — sorcerers were made to defend humans, and that was our duty. He had replied that fate was an excuse for people too afraid to challenge the status quo. 

Maybe Suguru took that too seriously. 

When Suguru defected — Satoru knew something had to change — he couldn’t let others go even when they had that blue spring. The time that he had stayed frozen in — even as everyone else left, he still lived in those moments, and so he barely lived in the present at all. 

Not until you had shattered his self made prison. 

And it wasn’t without difficulty. 

He told you so many times that it was dangerous to love him, it was foolish to love a person like him with a constant target on their back because inevitably the target would shift to you. And he didn’t want to live in a world without you — but he could choose to, as long as you were the one who would live. 

But you were steadfast in your love, roots cracking through concrete until he was covered in your ivy, entangled so deep that there was no escape—because one look from you had stolen his reservations out from under him. Because loving you was as simple as breathing — it just was. 

“I would want you to curse me — in every life.” 

That’s what he told you the night before this battle — because he knew if he didn’t make it in this life, maybe he could be with you in the rest of them. But how many days would it take until you couldn’t remember the sound of his laugh, the smile on his lips, the way his face looked — because he always feared the same about outliving you. He would only want to outlive you, if only because he didn’t want you to have to bear the pain of outliving him. 

Love was twisted, he thought — as your lips brushed his, he could hear you whisper sweet nothings, falling on deaf ears, but heard all the same — once one found it, they cannot live without it — until they have to. 

His eyes flutter open, and he sees the blurry image of your face, scarlet smeared on your face, as his hand shakily lifted to your cheek, “I love you, sweetheart,” he manages barely a whisper, “I’ll see you again, I promise.”

Maybe he did curse you in the end — because your souls were bound together in existence — to fall into each other’s orbit and live together happily in every lifetime—

Your fingers gently shut his eyes closed, as tears streamed from your own — except in this one. 

“Is it really a curse to meet you again?” you had murmured that early morning, as dawn peaked over Tokyo, and his lips brushed against yours, “sounds like a blessing,” 

“You know that blessings often wear disguises — and words like that always carry a price—” but his lips curl, “but if the price is to meet you and fall in love again and again, I suppose I could pay it.” 

“‘Suppose?’” you repeat, and he laughs at your immediate pout. 

He kisses away your pout, as you slowly melt into his kiss, “Y’know I’d pay any price to fall in love with you again, sweetheart”

You smile, “Just stay with me in this one, that would be enough.” 

Did other lives matter when this was the only one he had fallen for you in this life? He wanted to stay with you here — in this moment, in this time — he wanted you in every life — not just all the others. 

And he vowed that he would— his fingers twitched— 

He would love you in this life too. 

✧ a/n: i hope you guys enjoy this one!! i had a lot of fun writing it. it might not be everyone's cup of tea but hey, i enjoyed it. although i questioned my writing ability a lot while writing it lmao

✧ taglist: @gojolova4eva, @xxemmarldxx, @gojolvrr34, @lilbrubby, @jaixxxsc, @hatsunemitskislobotomy, @elaemae, @gojonegs, @captain-shittykawa, @sillyrabbitreads, @akumicchi, @satorustorm, @equikaz, @imaginativeghorl, , @dhoranbolt, @strawmariee, @catsgomurp, @that-goth-bisexual, @fushitoru, @dazailover1900

[jezebelblues]

𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐁𝐔 ‘𝟗𝟐 | 𝐇.𝐒 ོ༘₊⁺☀︎₊⁺⋆.˚

ᝰ.ᐟ 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢'𝐦 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐢'𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐢 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝𝐧'𝐭

𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦 𝐛𝐮𝐭, 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐮, ‘𝟗𝟐. (a summer love he’ll never get back).

𝐂𝐖: allusions to smut+18 (piv), sadrry :( exrry, angst, unedited, fem!reader, time jumps between 1992-2012

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: approx 4.5k

❏ i need to take a break from angst fr i’ve been putting toooooo much of it out lately. this fun was to write tho. love doing lyric based things. anyway! thanks for reading :*

masterlist

sometimes the heat made every breath stale. you’d inhale, and the air would hit the back of your throat in a dry, sun-scorched blow—hot and sharp as a blade through your nose. it’d coat your tongue in something arid enough that the words couldn’t bear the weight of themselves anymore. they were caught there, chafing against the tip of your tongue, dragging to a sputtering death before they even touched your lips.

but the air was saccharine, cotton candy floating from pink clouds and lingering in the breeze. every now and then, the waves would lap gently enough that it sounded like a lullaby—the sand just warm silk between toes, soft enough to fool you into thinking the world could be kind.

harry didn’t know YN, not at all. not before that summer.

the summer she fled from the midwest like it might collapse behind her, leaving only dust and cornfields and parents who thought love was autocratic.

the same summer harry visited the states for the first time, fresh-faced and wide-eyed, still trying to find himself in a world that felt too vast.

a summer, that’s it—fleeting, but heavy enough to settle against your sternum until your chest caved in. like the season tried to resuscitate that feeling over and over again until ribs would splinter under the pressure.

now it just left a hollow.

the airport was no less stale than the air outside—now just bathed in white fluorescents, cold and sterile like a morgue, buzzing flies and all.

he kissed her anyway, and she swore it wasn’t goodbye, but harry knew better. he could taste the finality on her lips—something unresolved laced with something copper, sanguine, tragic. maybe she bit her tongue to keep things together, or maybe she bit it back to prevent the three words they should’ve said to each other but didn’t.

he still remembers the tang of it; still wonders if she bled for him that day.

she didn't have the money to stick around, not for long, anyway. her whole life packed into a bag, she tore through the season like a comet. motel rooms when they could scrape together the cash, but mostly they lived out of harry's borrowed car.

a piece of shit, really. the kind of car that rattled when it hit fifty and burned your thighs on the vinyl seats. but to her, it was perfect. she loved it most at night. they’d park somewhere desolate on the shore, right in the sand—the waves crashing in whispers, the windows fogging up just enough to bare evidence to the way she’d ride him in the backseat, claiming the length between his thighs as her own.

he didn’t have as much tattoos then as he had now, but his favorites weren’t inked—they were the ones she left herself—bruises kissed into his neck, dark as midnight, tender as promises.

and the motel 6 that was on the corner of palm canyon and serra bore the imprint of their young, naive vows—right in the pavement.

the sky was painted lavender and steel blue that night, bathing them indigo underneath the cool, flickering light of the motel sign.

harry remembers her laugh—airy and light, like it came easier than breathing. she pulled him under yellow caution tape toward the fresh concrete.

“isn’t this bad for our skin?” harry muttered, glancing over his shoulders warily as the two of them kneeled down. “‘nd what if we’re caught?”

she laughed, the sky and the sign and the silver glow of the rising moon coloring her in like art. “don’t be a wimp, h.”her smile broke him, it really did. her shoulder brushed his as she pressed her hand flat into the wet cement.

the concrete was cold to the touch, thick and dense like dead flesh as she held her hand flush against it.

he followed, YN’s kiss on his shoulder pushing him forward. his handprint was so much larger than hers, like they weren't even made for the same world.

he had tried to wipe his soiled palm against the dew of the grass as YN wrote their initials underneath the imprints of their hands with her index finger, her cheeks flushed and her smile wide.

“there.” she murmured, leaning her cheek against harry bicep. “now it’s forever.”

he believed her then. he believed it in the way you believe the sun will rise, like the natural rhythm of breath—like it was written in stone.

but now at the age of thirty-nine, he knew better—knew how cement dried, how it cracked, how time eroded things. perhaps he should’ve known it was a bad omen the way it was solidified in cold petrichor, left to dry and harden just as they did.

as the years wore on, harry would come back once every blue moon, if he had the expense for it. the quiet part of the beach where they'd park his car wasn't so quiet anymore. it basked in fairy lights and neon glow, in the bustle of seaside shops; the sand stamped with footsteps of tourists that came and went.

sometimes, when he got drunk enough, he'd try to walk the path back to where they stayed. but the tire tracks in the sand were long gone, and the waves crashed farther up the shoreline than they did twenty years ago.

he could remember the way she'd slip out of the car, the door creaking faintly as it swung open, and how the dim light from the moon framed her face. her hair was a mess of salt and wind, strands clinging to the curve of her jaw and the hollow of her throat, and his sweater hung off her like it was never meant to belong to anyone else. it was too big, swallowing her, the sleeves pushed to her elbows. his name clung to her, silently.

she turned back to him, holding the door open, bending at the waist slightly as she leaned in. she tipped her head, her eyes catching the light just enough to glitter as she threw him a look—all flushed cheeks and teasing lips. “c'mon, lover." her voice was a breath. an invitation, an inevitability.

and harry didn’t hesitate. he never did, not with her.

he slid across the cracked leather seats in the back, his shoulder brushing against her arm as he dipped out, the soft brush of fabric on skin setting something electric humming in his veins. he slammed the door behind him, the sound loud against the hush of the waves.

he remembers the way the way her giggles bubbled, how the backs of her thighs felt pliant in his hands as he lifted her like she weighed nothing—like the earth itself would let him defy gravity for her—setting her atop the hood dusted with grains of sand blown awry from the wind, clinging right to her skin.

her fingers were in his hair before he even kissed her, tugging gently, threading through the curls like she was mapping him out. when his lips found hers, she tasted like summer—like sun-warmed strawberries and sugar and something he couldn't name but would chase for years. he nipped at her bottom lip, teeth pulling it back enough to meet her gaze—just to find her looking at him like he was the only thing real in the universe, like he’d been carved from air and fire and the aching edges some long-forgotten dream.

she’d wrap her legs around his waist, his chest bare and his shorts still damp from the ocean during sunset.

her fingers tightened, her nails lightly scraping against his scalp as she tipped his head back to reveal the curve of his neck, the column of his throat.

and she had pressed her lips there, a searing kiss where his throat dipped, where his pulse beat unsteady beneath his skin. her lips were softer than they should've been, her teeth sharper than he expected as she left the marks he loved so much.

he remembered the way his laughter cracked as her teeth grazed the curve of his shoulder, his hands tracing up her thighs, his dimples cutting deep. “people are gonna think m’yours if you keep leaving ‘em.” he smirked, tilting his head back down as she ran her hands down his chest, glancing up at him.

“aren’t you?”

“am i?”

she nodded, tracing the lines of the butterfly on his tummy, the wings fluttering with every breath. “until you aren’t.”

her words had knocked a breath from his chest. they weren't cruel—she wasn't cruel—but there was something devastating in the simplicity of them, the way they slipped so easily from her mouth. like she'd already made peace with whatever came next.

he narrowed his eyes down at her, watching her intently as her gaze remained distant, fingers gliding along edges and lines of his muscles he didn’t know existed until she found them.

the three words sat right on his tongue that night—sour, heavy, unspoken.

after a beat, she stilled her tracings, looking back up at him with her eyes so full of something he couldn’t quite name yet. she had pressed her palms against his chest, pushing him gently, only knocking him off balance enough to rock on his heels while she let out a breathy chuckle. “you’re overthinking it.”

he parted his lips to speak, but YN was already sliding off the hood of the car, brushing past him with a faint pat to his bum, her smile almost too small to catch.

she had lifted his sweater over her head, revealing her bare chest, her nipples tightening in the breeze, arms stretching upwards before she let it fall into the sand.

next was the bikini bottoms she had been wearing since their swim, sliding down her thighs so easily he wished he had done it himself.

she walked in reverse, shooting him a teasing look before she spun on her heel, jogging toward the water that reflected the moon and stars above, twinkling in the blue.

“move it, styles!” she shouted, dipping her head beneath the surface, her hair slicking back once she rose again. “we’ve got another thing to cross off the bucket-list!”

and again, harry hadn’t hesitated.

the motel 6 wasn’t there anymore either. it was demolished in 2007. serra retreat, it was called—an overly expensive peaceful reprieve for the rich, flanked by huge mansions that sat perched in the rolling hills, overlooking the water.

but harry and YN still existed there, only there, right in the worn, cracked pavement.

and in a way, the corner of palm canyon and serra road would always be theirs—a testament, a vow, a grave.

the weeks after she left he went back home to cheshire, a shell of the young man he was before he left. he came back a heartbroken, blubbering mess that cried for his mom.

he remembers it vividly, because then, it was the first time he sobbed into his mother’s shoulder for comfort since childhood.

and anne would try to remedy his pain, she really would. she’d wipe his tears and make him tea, listen to the stories he’d whisper if he felt up to it—memories spilling out of him in fits and starts, mumbled right into his bent knees.

for a while, he’d save up money from the small checks he’d earn at the bakery to buy calling cards. at first, he’d get at least four a month—one international call each week. she answered occasionally, maybe once or twice.

but he did it again, and again and again—whether it was her that answered or the sound of her pretty voice layered over static in the background.

hey, it’s YN! reached the right person at the wrong time—you know what to do after the beep. later!

and as the time stretched enough to let silence sit between the spaces, he’d walk over to the community library with an obstinacy soaked in hope—saturated so heavily that it would weigh down on him like the threat of an executioners blade.

he didn’t go there to study, or to read, or to pray in the small chapel nestled into the basement of the building, the exact room his grandmom had told him about after seeing only tired, distant eyes since he had come home.

“he’ll listen, sweetheart. he’ll take your sadness bit by bit and offer you solace in place of it.” she promised, (although she didn’t really have the authority to) her voice weathered with age, concern woven between each syllable.

but harry would press his lips into a tight line as he nodded politely, tuning her out after that.

he’d wear the (something he felt was no longer his) silver cross pendant against his chest every day as if it was attached to him. but, at that point, he wondered if it was just a force of habit rather than a symbol of faith.

because the less she answered, the more hopeless he felt—and the silence began to wrap around him like a noose waiting for the ground to give out.

instead, he’d go straight for the row of clunky white computers that whirred so loudly it ought of been told to hush by the librarian. his leg would bounce while it would dial up, his hands clammy as he typed in search of what he came there for—what’s the time difference between cheshire and ohio?

he had taken out his little notepad that was tucked into his back pocket, writing the answer down in the spotty blue ink just so he could do the mental math for every time he called.

and, eventually, (even after he took the time to consider time differences) it dwindled down to only buying one calling card for the month—because her answers were just becoming more and more scarce.

for a while, he’d call on the third of each month like clockwork (it was her favorite number—three). so much so, that during that summer, after one too many cheap beers they bribed the clerk to let them buy, him and YN got matching tattoos. she had gotten a small three on her left wrist, right along the curve of the bone; while harry got a small little shamrock in the very same spot—her number, his luck.

“in concrete and skin.” she smiled, the two of them walking out of the small parlor, leaning into his chest as she laughed.

“careful,” he smirked, nudging his hip against hers as they continued down the jagged sidewalk. “sounds like you’re making a vow there, angel.”

“isn’t it?”

he’d sit down atop the kitchen counter, his feet dangling as he pressed the landline to his ear. it would ring, the trilling brrrttt a taunt that sounded awfully similar to the whispers that’d pick and pry at his brain—you’re part to blame, you’re part to blame, you’re part to blame.

that’s what he thought, at least. maybe if he had just said i love you at the airport they wouldn’t be separated by an ocean, both the atlantic and a sea of regret.

the sound of her voicemail only answered again.

nearly twenty years later in july, (three weeks ago) he found himself in malibu again. it was like an attachment he couldn’t let go of, an addiction that wouldn’t set him free.

he held onto this unrealistic idea that he’d see her again—kneeling into their handprints, retracing old memories marked into the ground, as if it’d bring them to life again—just as he was.

harry knew it was delusional.

he visited the pavement every time he came, grass and weeds starting to sprout through the cracks in their initials—but it was still there.

he’d visit it like one visits a headstone, mourning what once was.

when he was back in london, in his own house now, he did something stupid. he did something impulsive, he did something he wish he had never done in the first place—he’d call her again.

it had been over ten years since he gave up calling YN. what the hell was he expecting? for her to pick up? for the number to even still be hers? he didn't know why he was doing it. maybe it was the date he'd just come back from—nice enough, but nice was the kind of word people used when there was nothing else to say.

she wasn't her, and it was starting to feel as if nothing would ever compare to the way he felt at nineteen.

he cracked open another beer, the neck of the bottle slick in his palm. he held it too tightly, his knuckles turning white as he stared at his phone. his heart slammed hard enough in his chest to make him dizzy as he dialed the number ingrained in his memory.

this was stupid—pathetic, mostly. and deep down, he hated himself for it. twenty years of heartbreak over a fucking summer, over a girl he had known for basically only four months.

he took another sip.

but it’s ringing, the trill looping and looping—meaning the number was still connected. it wasn’t empty, he wasn’t calling into the void. so, despite himself, he didn’t hang up.

he’d be calling a stranger either way he cut it: either someone he had never known answering, or the older version of a girl he had fell in love with two decades ago. stupid. pathetic. pathetic—

“hello?”

his beer slipped, the bottle thunking hard against the counter. he barely caught it in time, his grip unsteady as the voice on the other end sent a jolt through him.

his lips parted as his jaw went slack, the words caught somewhere at the top of his throat. his hand shook, his thoughts racing. she didn’t sound all that different, older, yeah, but still her.

she said it again, a little sharper this time, like she might hang up if he didn't respond. "..hellooo?"

his stomach churned and his breath wavered as he forced her name out, “Y–YN?”

there was a pause on the other line, faint shifting and rustling in the background like she was leaning into the phone. “yes, who is this?”

he could barely get his own name out. “harry.”

silence.

it stretched thin and tight, his pulse pounding in his ears. he swore he heard her suck in a breath, heard her lips part.

there was a breathy stutter, as if she was fighting the words she didn’t quite know how to articulate. “how–how are you?”

and all he could do was stand there, clutching a half-empty beer and shaking like a kid, because for the first time in twenty years, he heard her voice and didn't know what the hell to do with it.

but, he exhaled a laugh, though it came out more like a nervous puff of air, and scrubbed his hand over his face. god, how would you even begin to answer that after twenty years? "uh, i'm–m’good. yeah, good." he lied.

the bottle in his hand felt suddenly too heavy, so he set it down, dragging his fingers along the edge of the counter instead. "and you? how've y’been?"

"i'm... alright," she said, though there was a hesitation, a weight to the word that made him suspect otherwise. her voice had softened in that way people's voices do when they're not quite sure how much to say.

the line hummed with static as he searched for something—anything—to say that wouldn't sound absurd. twenty years had passed. two decades. and all he had was how've you been? pathetic.

"you still in ohio?" he asked finally, hating how desperate he sounded to know something, anything about her life now.

"no." she replied quietly, and he could almost hear the faint shake of her head in her tone. "no, i moved. i'm in jersey now.”

the word hit him like a quiet ache. not malibu. not where it all began, not even back home in ohio, the whole reason she left in the first place. "right." he murmured, running his thumb over the edge of his counter. "makes sense. sounds...jerseys nice."

a faint laugh filtered through the line, and he almost forgot how much he'd missed the sound of it. "yeah, it is. what about you? uk still?"

"yeah, london now. still-still england." he struggled, tripping over his own tongue like a schoolboy.

"good." she sighed softly, but it hung there like an echo, as though she didn't quite know what else to add.

silence stretched out between them, not uncomfortable exactly, but heavy with all the words they weren't saying.

finally, she broke it, her voice lighter, almost cautious. "harry... why'd you call?"

his heart thudded, the question slamming into him with the weight of every regret he'd carried since the day she left. why did he call? he didn't have an answer that didn't sound like an excuse or a confession. "i... i dunno." he mumbled honestly, and his voice cracked just enough to betray him. "i just... i wanted t’hear your voice, i guess."

another pause. he could hear her breathing on the other end, steady but shallow, like she was processing something she didn't know how to hold.

"it's been such a long time.” her words were as much a statement as they were a question.

"mm-hmm.” he hummed quietly. "too long."

and there it was again—that silence, louder now, the weight of two decades pressing against them. his grip on the phone tightened.

"you didn't have to wait this long, you know—to call, i mean." she murmured, almost like an afterthought.

his stomach twisted, guilt tinged with frustration unfurling like a vine through his chest. "you stopped answering.”

her breath hitched faintly, and for a moment he thought she might hang up. but instead, her voice returned, quieter, more guarded. "yeah. i–i guess i did."

he swallowed thickly, feeling like he was standing on the edge of something too fragile to hold. "do you regret it?"

she didn't answer right away, and when she finally did, her voice was heavy with something he couldn't quite place. "do you?"

his throat tightened. he could lie—should lie—but he couldn't bring himself to. "every day."

another breath of silence, and then, "me too."

for a moment, harry could feel the years peeling away, leaving them bare again, like they'd been when they were young. when it was simple. when it was summer.

but it wasn't. it wasn’t 1992. they weren’t teenagers anymore, and they definitely weren’t in california.

"it's funny," she breathed after a while, her voice a bit steadier now, though there was something in it— some hint of resignation—that made his chest tighten. "i hadn't thought about malibu in... i don't even know how long. and then you call, and it's like i'm eighteen again."

he closed his eyes. eighteen. nineteen. it cut deep. "i've never stopped thinking about it, YN." he admitted delicately, his voice low, rough. "about you."

her breath caught, barely audible, but he heard it.

"harry." she sighed, a warning in the way she said his name, like she was afraid of where this might go.

"do you remember?" he pressed, the words tumbling out before he could stop them. "the beach? our bucket-list? our promises? us? how we said—how we said we'd never forget it?"

she was quiet for a long time, long enough that he thought maybe he'd gone too far. "of course i remember. how could i forget?”

and for a second, it felt like he could breathe again. like the two decades of distance between them weren't so insurmountable after all.

but then her tone shifted, growing firmer, almost bittersweet. "harry, we can't go back. you know that, right?"

his chest ached. "why not?" he asked, hating the way his voice cracked.

"because it's been twenty years.” she lamented, and there was something final in the way she said it, like she'd been rehearsing this conversation in her head for years. "because we're not the same people we were back then."

"so what?" he rushed, the words coming out sharper than he meant them to. "so what if it's been twenty years? so what if we've changed? does that mean it didn't matter? that it wasn't real?"

"it was real, harry.”she countered, and he could hear the emotion building in her voice now, raw and unsteady. "it was the realest thing i've ever had. but that doesn't mean we can just pick up where we left off."

"why not?" he asked again, his voice quieter now, almost pleading. "why can't we try?" he felt pathetic.

"because," YN insisted, then there was a pause, and he could hear her struggling to find the words. "because i'm not yours anymore, harry. i haven't been for a long time."

his heart dropped, the weight of her words crashing into him like a tidal wave—no, worse than that. "what do you mean?"

there was a long, shaky exhale on the other end of the line. "i'm married.”

he felt the air get knocked out of his lungs.

“i have a husband. a life. a... a house here in jersey."

he froze, his hand tightening around the phone. "a husband.” he repeated numbly, the word foreign and strange on his tongue. "you're... you're married?"

"yes.” she frowned, and he could hear the apology in her voice, even though she hadn't said the words. "i didn't think you’d ever find out—or need to.”

his head spun, lips threatening to tremble. "does he make you happy?" he asked after a moment, his voice shaky and quiet, almost a whisper.

there was a pause, “yes.” and it sounded like the truth, but it also sounded like something she was still trying to convince herself of.

he nodded to himself, even though she couldn't see it. "good..” he trailed off, his voice hoarse. "that's—um. that’s good."

"harry..." she started, but he cut her off.

"no, s’okay.” he croaked, forcing a small, bitter laugh. "i mean, of course. what did i expect, right? twenty years is a long time."

"it is…" she said quietly, and he could hear the pain in her voice, like she hated this as much as he did.

"you've got everything now, huh?" his voice trembled, the words slipping out before he could stop them. "money, a nice house. someone who probably doesn't spend two decades thinking about a summer that's long gone."

"harry, that's not—“ she paused, clenching her jaw. “that’s not fair.” her voice was a bit sharper now, but he just shook his head, his eyes glassing over.

"no, you're right," he said flatly, "s’not fair. none of this is fair."

silence fell again, heavy and suffocating, and he closed his eyes, letting the weight of it all settle over him.

he thought he heard a sniffle on the other line before it crackled. "i…should go, harry. m’sorry, i can’t.”

"yeah," his tone was short, his throat tight. "yeah, you should."

"take care of yourself, harry.” YN murmured, and then the line went dead.

he stood there for a long time, the silence of his empty house pressing in around him. twenty years, and all he had left was the ghost of a memory, the echo of a voice he hadn't heard in two decades, a stupid fucking vow sealed into the earth half way across the world like a taunt.

in twenty years she had forgotten malibu—but harry hasn’t left since.

[nanamimizz-archived]

tags: 18+ minors dni / fem reader / fingering / reader is mexican / spanish / religious imagery / aftercare / hinted virginity loss / penetration /2.6k/ pwp - let me know if i miss something.

synopsis: javier escuella feels an all encompassing desire to have you. you feel it too, maybe even more.

Javier laughs into your lips, you are kissing him with the reverence of the faithful. You kiss sweetly, gently with the undercut of hunger he is all too happy to sate. Your form is soft beneath his hands, flesh pillabe like the strings on his guitar and the trigger of his revolver - the hollow of his palms filled with the curve of your hips. Javier nips at your lip until he can hear you hiss from the sting among your sighs from the pleasure of having him suck on your tongue.

“I can’t believe you - all I did was kiss you,” he stops to puff a breathe against your lips snickering at the dazed look on your face and the glistening spit on your lips, “and now you’re letting me fuck you.”

You whine, high and embarrassed but so unbearably needy and pressing yourself up against him like a cat in heat. There’s a little gold necklace threaded along the slopes of your collar - it glints against your untouched and unblemished skin like a comet, looping along your form in a circle until completion where it stays in perpetual orbit. Javier doesn’t know if he should be jealous of the thin necklace or not.

Your nightgown is off, spread out on the ground and Javier’s eyes are caught on the pendant that holds the face of La Virgen that glints in the lowlight of his tent - his eyes meet hers and he feels a shiver against his spine. Of course she would be there, looped above your too-good heart and appearing before him. It almost pains him to touch you, the holiness of your skin burning his palms that are too greedy to stay away.

You gasp his name and it brings him back to you - it brings his lips to your chest and you sigh as your hands twist on the fabric of his shirt clad shoulders like you are scared to touch him. You still have your bloomers, the white cotton stark against his tan hands and he presses another kiss right above your heart as it stutters tucked away in your ribs.

“Esta bien hermosa - you can touch me.” The pet name makes you tremble, whining when the word graces your flushed ears. Hermosa, meaning beautiful or gorgeous in the language your mother would sing you to when you were a girl. Your nostalgia brings desperation and it only serves to make you needier, wanting for more of the man above you like how priests desire the light of God. You think of that ill-stricken Reverend that wanders this camp and something aches in your chest as you let your hands go over the curve of his shoulders and anchor yourself there. Teeth aching with each suck on your tongue you don’t notice it when your bloomers are off until the brisk cool night breeze dances on your bare thighs. The skin there is hot and growing more so when he lets his hands settle on the smooth skin.

It’s almost comical how perfectly you fit in his roughed hands, his callouses from his knife so seamlessly accepted by the plush of your thighs. Like the velvet cushions rich men sit in their gilded train cars and golden stagecoaches. You go from velvet to wet silk with simple touches and you moan something sweetly into his ear as his face goes to your chest and his hands in between your thighs. The backs of his knuckles tease the wetness of your slick that leaks like honey and Javier lets his lips kiss the bud of your nipple softly but not without letting his teeth have their own kiss at the edge to make you whine.

“You are so wet, leaking for me - you’ll make a mess on my pants mi amor.” His teasing is endless and you can hear that smile you see whenever you blink. You jumble out a half-assed apology and it makes Javier laugh at you again. He must have you in quite the state if it’s making your perfectly trained manners fall off like wool when faced with sheep shears. His fingers have made their way to where you are the most needy - letting them pet along the slit and cup at your mound. You moan his name, oh so, softly when he squeezes gently, cradling your most delicate part the same way he cradles the neck of his guitar.

“Javi - please, please.” The shortened version of his name makes him grin, shivering pleasantly at how affection given only to him melts into his ears like syrup.

“Ya se, ya se. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you tonight.” Dark eyes are wicked at how they glint in the low orange light of his tent as he lets one finger slip in. He reclines himself back so he can watch how you take him.

Javier does not profess how he would take care of you every night for the rest of the nights you have in your life.

You whine thinly into the air, and it makes him hiss at how tight you are around his one finger.

“Relax, chiquita - I can’t take care of you when you’re all tense like this. Shh, shh,” he murmurs to you and in return you whine with a nod; pliable and sweet for him as you let your legs shuffle more open, working on letting him in and letting him deeper. One finger turns to two, and they curl into you cruelly without respite for how you weep and sniffle at the pleasure he tugs from you like music from his guitar strings. Your mouth is hanging open, drool shining on your lips as you let out thin little sounds.

You feel full, and pleasure dances along your spine as his thumb plays with the glimmering pearl of your clit. You whine - no sing his name like gospel and it makes something inside his stomach preen like a peacock.

Javier is dedicated, giving you an even pace and deep curls of his fingers to make you soft and loose for him. Dark brown eyes watch you with the precision of a predator - eagerly taking in how sweat drips down the middle of your breasts and how your jaw drops to make out little pants of his name just for him to hear. His fingers do just enough to bring you to the edge, and you stutter over your words as you push at his wrist with the desperation that is unbecoming of you. Etiquette and education are long gone from your mind as you beg him with an addled mind.

“Please, please not - not like that,” you stutter and let out soft little moans in between each word as Javier remains unmoved; letting his fingers stay inside you at their same pace, dark brown eyes taking in how even this almost makes you weep in pleasure. His cock stirs in his jeans at how it will be when he’s inside of you, filling you well beyond anything you’ve ever had.

“No, like this - it will hurt if you don’t cum now.” He mutters, voice thick with lust as he watches your hips twitch and jump when you have begun to hit the highest peak of your pleasure. Your body is eager for his fingers, tightening and fluttering around them as you leak down to his palm. Javier goes to shush you but you’re a good girl he realizes, watching you with a grin at how your hands shoot up to your mouth to muffle your long winded whines when you crash and cum for him. His voice is soft, reassuring you as you ride out your pleasure with the trembling of your hips and the quickened rising falls of your chest.

“Just like that - like that. There you go, there you go. Cum for me, give me this one and I’ll give you another.” He promises you, his accent thick as he watches your eyes go dark and unfocused as you burn with hot desire for him until he hears your broken voice mumble; “There’s more?”

He laughs. Teasingly, adoringly, lovingly and so many other words he can’t quite say.

“Si mi vida, there is always more with me. That I can promise you.”

Again, he laughs at the way he feels you twitch around his fingers that have stilled inside at the prospect of what more entails. He won’t admit to how his cock twitches in time with you tucked away in his pants.

You whine at the idea, hot at the image of being filled with all of him and whine again when his fingers slip out of you. Gossamer strands of your cum follow them, only to break and splatter along the inside of your flushed thighs. Javier smiles the same charming smile as when he sings and soothes you by rubbing your thigh with one hand while the other goes to undo his belt buckle.

You don’t see the length of him, only feel the heat of him against the petals of your cunt and it’s enough for you to yelp like some poor animal caught in a trap. Javier is bent over you, the build of his slim body covering you with his elbow supporting him above your head, eyes attuned to the half lit scene before him. You, sweating enough to make strands of your hair stick your flushed face with your eyes half lidded and mouth parted. His hips move without him thinking, coating his length in your glimmering release and rubbing against your still sensitive clit that it makes you flinch - mewling his name in a wet and defeated tone that makes him huff in half fondness-half teasing.

“Javi-” you whine, hotter than you have ever been and voice cracking when the head of his cock brushes past your entrance and makes its way in. You gasp into his mouth, one hand coming to cover your eyes and the other gripping at the fabric of his shoulder. Javier sighs against your lips and kisses you to muffle his own noises - higher pitched than he’d like to admit they are lost in between your two mouths as you take another inch of him. He is long, he knows this and you are tight ; tighter than anyone else he’s ever been with due to your lack of experience so he is slow with you despite how he wants to devour you entirely with one stroke.

Javier is tactical when he wants to be and is more than practical when he has to be so he controls himself, letting you have him inch by torturous inch. You are panting, throwing your head back in a way that lets him catch the tears that make it down your cheek and are uncovered by your hand. With one hand he bats away yours until your face - glistening and flushed is revealed to him as your mouth shines with drool from pleasure. His thumb goes to wipe away a tear and you move to feel the warmth of him more closely.

“Why are you crying hermosa, hm?” He asks you, sighing at how you take more of him so sweetly. You don’t respond only squealing and squeezing around him as you lose more of yourself on his cock. Half of him is seated inside you, enough for you to moan his name brokenly as you beg for more despite you wincing when he moves. Javier grunts and stops, letting the half of him that’s inside you stay still to let you breathe

“You can,” you pant, “you can put the whole thing in - please, please put it in.” You beg, and a thrill goes up his spine at the idea of seeing you weep from his cock being too much runs across his mind before he pushes it to the side. You are far too sweet, too delicate to be treated so roughly by him. You aren’t a working girl he can forget about come morning but the woman he wants to wake up to, which is why it’s easy for him to do what he thinks to be best.

He denies you.

“No, this is -” he sighs deeply at the way you feel around him - slick and wet and wanting for him to give you more until it aches. “This is enough. You’ll take the rest next time.” You whine at the thought and whine again when he pulls his slim hips back to fuck you like that. He gives you slow, careful thrusts with the hand that cradles your face sneaking down to rub at your pulsing clit with gentle precision. It’s almost too much for you, he notes and he feels bad that the sight of you weeping on half his cock, losing your mind with your eyes glassy from tears is doing it more for him than anything else.

You’ve always been a proper girl, ever since he saw you on your horse in the snow of Colter looking at him with the sweetest eyes framed by snowflakes. There’s a sick pleasure tugging at his stomach at how he has you now, manners gone and all you are now is debauched and drunk on him. It’s almost enough to make him finish and clearly it’s enough to get you there too by the way you weep out the little nickname you gave him.

“Javi, Javi, ’m going to -” He cuts you off with a punched out exhale, grinding his molders to keep from cumming inside by how you keep tightening around him like a vice.

“Go let go for me, mi amor - you’ve been so good.” With that you break, voice so ruined it cracks when you whine out babbles of precious thank yous in his ear as you come to completion a second and last time for the night. It’s painful, the last drag he gets of your cunt before he tugs at his sticky and slick cock to shoot his spend against the mound of your cunt. The sight of him dripping down to your twitching lower half more than makes up for it and he is more than willing to bend back over you to press gentle kiss after kiss on your panting lips. Your eyes had fluttered close and you babbled mindlessly under his gentle touches as you slowly came back down to look up at him with blearily eyes. Javier smiles at you with all the tenderness of the world when you wrap your arms around his neck - he manages to settle on his side with you in his arms and you tuck your face into his neck. You nuzzle the skin and sight softly, eyes red and half lidded tired from all he has pulled for you. Javier is soft with you, spoiling you by letting his nails scratch your scalp the way you like.

“Rest mi vida, I’ll clean you up.” he murmurs into your hair, presses a kiss to the crown of your head. You hum, murmur his name and a soft little confession of love before your eyes slip shut. You shiver when the soft fabric of a pocket square wipes at the mess of your swollen cunt and whine when you are moved to have your nightgown pulled over your head. Through your fussing Javier remains gentle, whispering praise as he settles you to his chest to sleep. When you awake you’ll be faced with teasing you thought you were quiet enough to avoid but that can wait. Now your eyes are heavy and Javier’s heartbeat is soothing - anything else can wait as for now you want for nothing else.

[esamastation]

I've been writing some first sentences / prompts as idle writing exercise and here's the first 100. You're welcome to use any of them, if you get inspired.

-

Across the deep blue sky streaked a comet, with a purple tail trailing after it like skirts of a dress and several small companions chasing her.

Across the cell the older man farted loudly in his sleep - which was good, since for hours now John had been wondering if he'd gone and died.

Before the grand three story mansion the half a million dollar Porsche burned merrily.

Backstage, half deafened by the deep bass and the beat, Jane threw up all the whiskey she'd been drinking that night. 

"Call me when you get there," was the last words John heard from his mother, before his hometown was engulfed by a blazing inferno. 

Cloud seeding was probably a good idea, once, back when rain was still mostly water and frogs were only a ground level issue.

Dark academia was, in John's honest opinion, an oxymoron - but that didn't mean he didn't look damn good in a waist coat and ascot.

During the end of the world there were a lot of people who wasted their time looting and running - but in the end, it was the people covering under their beds who survived the longest. 

Elephants are unappreciated as hallucinations, in Jane's most expert opinion - with elephants there was rarely any doubt about whether she was hallucinating or not. 

Effervescent, John thought as he bled over his crumpled up crossword puzzle, a gaping hole in his chest, and sighed, who even uses a word like effervescent.

For all the times Jane had driven him mad with her stunts, John loved her crazy ass - he just wished she'd drawn a line before murder.

Fall descended upon the countryside like a knife - with a swift brisk breeze that brought with it a cutting frost and killed all their crops in a single night.

Grave is such an unpleasant place to wake up in. 

Gulls raced the ship to the shore, despite being easily able to outpace her - whether they were like vultures circling a dying beast or doves bringing the message of hope and safety, John welcomed their company nonetheless.

High on the church tower, a little runaway devil was miming the acts of sodomy and making rude gestures at the gathering crowd of shocked and horrified parishioners.

Hot, acrid air blew in through the vents before John shut down the car's air-conditioning - not quickly enough to block out the stench of sulfur.

Inclined to be polite, Jane let the sexy bombshell into her office, even taking a moment to appreciate the figure she made even though she wasn't that kind of detective.

In the last moments of her life before the zombie virus scrambled her brains, Jane thought about John and concluded, there's a man whose brains she'd like to eat.

Just as the bell rang for midnight, the vampire lord took out a notepad and said, "Let's start with your parents, shall we?"

Jackal puppies are kind of cute, thought the mummy, even as they attempted to unravel his binding and probably feast on his desiccated flesh.

Kitchen is a bad place to fight ninjas, John thought, completely tuning out whatever Jane was ranting about; too many knives.

Kicking the door open without looking, John read through the front page again and so completely failed to notice the fact that there were people in his house.

Leading with, "We have only twenty hours to live," might've set an awkward mood for the rest of the meeting - but it was damn effective. 

Lowering the rope feet by feet, Jane cursed her armour; it was pretty and impressive, sure, it got her all the ladies, but it also creaked with every move and the dragon was waking up.

Man's defining flaw is definitely hubris, John decided, but started the jetpack anyway.

Most of the city had already evacuated by the time Jane made it out of the basement, with torn ropes still hanging in her wrist and fury burning like an artificial sun in her chest.

Media tried to give the invaders new names, each more fantastical than the last, but the public had already made its mind - they called the aliens Kaiju right from the start.

"Now that civilisation has fallen, it's the survival of the fittest," declared her former highschool bully, before Jane racked the shotgun.

Night fell upon the office like some kind of hex, wearing on their already frayed nerves; the Deadline approached.

On her deathbed, Jane would announce a game, a treasure hunt to her great fortune - fortune which didn't even exist anymore.

Owned by the worst kinds of people, attracting the worst kind of user base, using the worst tech and implementing the worst kinds of terms and conditions… is it any kind of surprise that virtual reality went on to destroy a whole generation of people?

Parking the spaceship on top of the tallest skyscraper was probably an overkill - but it certainly got the message across.

Power cut off three days after the end - on the exact fucking moment John hooked his electric car to a charger, of course.

Quills aren't great tools for stabbing, maybe - but they hold poison very well.

"Qilin are supposed to mark the king, aren't they?!" he demands while again narrowly avoiding being stabbed by the unicorn deer from hell.

"Questions will be after the presentation," said John firmly to his captive audience, chained to their seats.

Rather than die in ignominy like the rest of her family, Jane made something of herself, digitising her mind at age of thirty and becoming a ship's AI by fifty.

Rest of the tenants were asleep when John broke out through the third floor window - and thanks to a whole lot of sleeping pills, so we're the attendants.

"Verily I say unto thee," slurred the handsome, completely shit-faced elf, "Thou truly art a harlot of the highest degree."

Venting her frustrations by throwing her smart phone across the street was a terrible idea - not only would Jane need a new phone now, but it hit a random passerby smack in the middle of the forehead and now she's going to be sued… again.

Without any damn sense at all, John falls in love on the same day he'd planned to kill his dad.

While busting up some dance moves on the battlefield isn't the best way to win a battle, sometimes it wins out an audience with a king; in unrelated news, Jane thinks she might be about to become the court jester.

"X marks the spot isn't driving directions, John - oh, shit never mind, I see it," Jane says into the phone, and gapes at the house - a true modern masterpiece if she ever saw one.

"X," the alien argues, sounding like a buzzer from a TV show, and lifts a laser gun to emphasise the point.

Yawning as he refilled his coffee cup, John didn't quite register the earthquake until he was two swallows in - moment later, the house begun falling apart

Yesterday everything was fine and Jane's world was normal, ordinary, blessedly boring even; today, she met John again.

Zero effort was spent in writing the actual article; the headline "Aliens Conquer the Moon" by itself was enough to sell the papers.

Zealous isn't how Jane would describe John, exactly; completely batshit crazy is much closer to the mark.

One thing could be said about the whole portal incident; it definitely turned a new leaf in Jane's life.

Two of the bandits had already broken into the back of the wagon - judging by the sound of it, they'd also found the gold.

Three times Jane had thrown John's clothes out of the window and into the street, and he was damn well going to make sure there wouldn't be a fourth time.

Four of Jane's students quit on a monday and another two would follow in the following week; by the end, she'd figured the problem might be her syllabus.

Five new starts lit up the night sky, which by itself was already an astronomically significant event - the fact that they were in a circle made it less significant and more ominous.

Six bullets in John's gun, each with its own target and a plan and chance to change destiny - and he missed each and every fucking time.

Seven is supposed to be the lucky number, but somehow all the worst things in Jane's life happen on the seventh - including this.

Eight coins in his pouch is a pitiful showing for a season's hard labour, except for one thing: they're each and every one of them magic.

Nine years old, John thought grimly looking over the crime scene, the blood, the body, and the unrepentant culprit - nine years old and already with blood on her hands.

"Ten outta ten," Jane breathes, her body limp and her vision full of stars, and sighs happily, "Would fly again."

Already Jane's hands were shaking, and she'd barely begun; cutting up frozen bodies was never going to be her favourite part of the job. 

Before the fire John used to love swimming, but now the scent of chlorine makes him want to cry.

Calling her boss at one in the afternoon to tell him she'd be late, Jane mused whether she should consider moving to an area with fewer reported spatial anomalies.

Deciding he'd had enough of zombie dogs in his lawn, John invested in automated machine guns - big mistake. 

Enemy drone sightings had gotten fewer and fewer in the last two days, as the fires had died down and the base laid in ashes - the plan, it seems, worked.

Figuring out she'd done enough for one day, Jane set aside her saw and hammer and went looking for a dog to play with - it shouldn't be difficult, the estate has about two hundred of them. 

Going with his gut feeling, John got a baseball bat and a trash can lid before investigating the noises coming from his basement - whether it was racoons or demons from the underworld, they wouldn't catch him unawares.

Hiding under her bed was a comfort thing Jane refused to feel ashamed for, not after it had saved her life twice. 

Including the weird kid in the game seemed to be a great idea - up to the point where John started throwing up frogs and Jane started floating during musical chairs.

Joking had been Jane's defence mechanism since she'd been young, and it usually worked, but going "Ey, how you doing?" at a serial killer was probably not the smartest plan. 

Keys rattling like a bunch of chains and his heart pounding in his chest, John peered into the darkened office and lifted his flashlight.

Lifting the well cover, Jane leaned back, fully expecting it to smell awful the way still water not disturbed in decades should - and the fact that it didn't was alarming.

Mowing the lawn on the eve of the asteroid impact might not be the most productive use of his last hours on earth, but John didn't care - even now it brought him peace.

New hires always get the worst jobs, Jane reminded herself while picking everyone's trash around the office - at least she was still being paid.

Oatmeal for breakfast, lunch and dinner got pretty boring after two months, but thank god John had even that much prepared.

Pleased with her progress so far, Jane lifted her hand and wiped John's arm - she isn't sure why he wanted the tattoo of a bunch of random letters all over his arm, but it was coming along nicely.

Quelling his rebellious stomach the best he could, John reached for the baby wipes - changing diapers is a basic fucking task for a dad, and he's going to do it, he's not going to throw up and he's going to do it. 

Rationally speaking, what she was seeing couldn't be what she was seeing - because portals to other worlds weren't real - but in her heart…

Singing as he worked, "Going down to the river,"  John lifted another log over his shoulder - ignoring with long practice the way his coworkers gaped at him.

Trying for several different things was how Jane had gotten where she is now - ballroom dance, coding, waitressing and working at a zoo might look like they had little to do with each other, but each was a useful skill for an assassin.

Under his house there's a basement and under the basement there's dirt, and under that, well, John isn't sure, but whatever it is makes a lot of very concerning noises.

"Vacancies 0," informed the sign of a clearly long abandoned roadside motel - of course they pulled over to check it out., 

Without John at the helm, the ship wouldn't budge, the AI simply refused to respond - which is unfortunate because someone had thrown John out of the airlock about half an hour ago.

Xylitol gum and old cigarettes - there was something very nostalgic about that scent, Jane thought, as she watched the old woman push her shopping cart over the crack in the pavement and right into the ditch.

"You know you're going to have to clean that up, right?" John asked as they watched the blood dye all primary colours of the carpet in hues of red.

"Zoom!" went the kid on her tricycle as she drove right over John's foot that morning, somehow breaking two toes in the process.

The store keeper glared at John and John glared right back - between them the dragon egg rocked gently side to side.

For as long as Jane had known him, she's never seen John read - which isn't really something you notice about a person, not until they have to do the thing… and they clearly can't. 

Finding people was rarely the hardest part of starting a new adventuring party, since there were always some newcomers hanging around the tavern - bringing them all back alive though…

Deciding that he needed some professional help with his problem, John went to consult the wizard, who then pointed him to a witch… who pointed him to a sorcerer… who summoned a demon… who pointed at him and laughed.

Even before everything changed, Jane had had a bad feeling about things, like, the sky shouldn't be that colour and she didn't used to get that many static shocks and the TV didn't use to be that… purple.

John and Jane tossed a coin over who got the first go at the treasure - and of course the coin landed on its side. 

Digging for gold used to be an honourable profession for loners and lunatics - now it's all about grave robbing and tomb raiding.

There was a noise coming from outside like the world was ending, but Jane was almost done with the damn report and not about to let herself be distracted. 

The doctor looked at him sadly, the way they do when there's nothing to do and no time left, and said, "I'm sorry, there's no easy way to put this; sir, you're inflicted with stage two lycanthropy."

When she was a kid, Jane pretended she was capturing fairies and sticking them into her doll house as prisoners - when she turns twenty one, this comes back to bite her in the ass.

Finding out that he got an inheritance from some relative he didn't even know about was one thing, but finding out that he'd inherited what was clearly a haunted mansion?

Before John met Jane, his world was dull and colourless, boring from start of the week to the end - now he can just taste technicolour his world has become… which is probably not a good thing.

There's a monster in Jane's closet, tied up with Christmas lights, hanging from a coat hanger, re-thinking all the choices in his life..

Seven days after his wife left him, John reconnected with his mother and took up the family grimoire again.

For the second time in twenty four hours Jane was sitting down to talk with a dead person - which was, even in her line of work, a bit unusual.

The fact that John went from being a secret agent to a nanny might've amused his brothers - but none of them knew the absolute abominations he was taking care of, and yes, Jane, the sidearm is necessary for his work, thank you very much!

-

Modify them as you see fit, etc etc. If any strike as especially good/horrendous, please let me know!

[copperbadge]

[ID: Four images; top left is a bright white light mounted on the ceiling of a shower, and the top middle is the remote control for it, mounted sideways on a wall. The top right is an overhead light in my front hallway, which is an unusual shade of green. Bottom image shows a window in the corner of my living room, with a star-shaped lamp hanging in the middle of it, gently glowing with light.]

Ironically, this is all photography of the stuff I didn't intend to do today.

I've been considering getting an offsite storage unit (more on this in another post) and it turns out some good friends who live nearby were also, but neither of us need a TON of space, so we decided to go in halves on the unit. They're a little more prepared than I am to move in, but they also have a car and will help me move my stuff when they move theirs, so for the next week or until the project is done, I'm mostly going to be packing big plastic bins with stuff I'm taking to storage. And all the bins I currently own have my full name on them in big block letters, so I won't be photographing those.

A side-effect of this, however, is that in the "DIY" bin (which will not be going to storage but needed weeding) I uncovered a light bulb that fits my star light, which had been flickering due to a dying bulb. So I got out Darth Ladder and changed the bulb. I figured as long as the ladder was out, I'd replace the bathroom lamp with a remote-control version, and that's a whole comedy of errors, but suffice it to say this one, which has a remote and doesn't NEED good motion sensing, actually has great motion sensing. So while I hung the remote on a magnetic bracket nearby, I probably won't need to use it much. I had to hang it sideways to get it to work, so now it does kind of look like my toilet has a control panel.

I found one other lightbulb in the DIY bin, a Kasa smart bulb -- I bought one for my bedroom floor lamp so I could turn the light on without getting out of bed, but they come in packs of two and I'd just kind of stashed the other one to deal with later, then forgot about it. As long as I was already running around risking death on Darth Ladder, I thought I'd install one in my hall lamp. I have two hall lamps on one switch, but I like to leave the front-door lamp on when I go out so that I don't come back to a totally dark hallway. This way, I can turn the smart lamp (nearer the living room) off so I don't have two unnecessary lights burning.

Also as you can see, it has some rad color settings, so if I want to have a little hallway rave, I can.

I sometimes find listening to new podcasts kind of challenging, so today I had some comfort-listening: The "Art Nouveau" and "De Havilland Comet" episodes of Well There's Your Problem. The Art Nouveau episode is a "bonus episode" you get with a Patreon membership and that episode alone is worth the $2 a month.

[naffeclipse]

Wave

Reader x Mer!Map Bot

Commission Info

I have the honor to write dear @craykaycee's Mer Map Bot OC set in the world of Deep Dreams with a reader who suffers from memory problems! This has everything from hurt/comfort to good ol' angst, but it's sweet in the end, don't worry. This was so much fun to write, ah! Happy reading!

———

The stars glimmer around you, rippling in a space like a black, engulfing sea full of comets and far planets that pierce the distance with their tiny light. You float within it, held safely in a large, clawed hand. Only three giant fingers with razor-sharp talons surround you. How strange. How beautiful. You want to admire him for a little longer.

Your dreams have never been kinder to you. 

A face looms above you, colossal and dream-like, but adoring. Eyes, pale and silvery like moonlight upon water, soften as he looks over you. Though you are held in a giant’s palm, you hold no fear. Though you have no memory of this place, of this being, a reassurance of safety blossoms in your chest. A sweeping warmth like tide pools sitting under the sun covers you, and you smile back.

Go to the water.

You tilt your head in confusion. What is he talking about?

Go to the secluded beach.

He is almost urgent. He lowers himself towards you on your hand, but the speckled stars of the dream are beginning to fade. The creature’s brow pinches. He warbles a low sound of a plea but gradually, slowly, your eyes close, and the darkness takes you under.

With a jolt, you sit straight up in your bed. A brush of something distant but so terribly close to your dream is at your fingertips. As you clutch the edges of the covers, you feel it slip further and further out of reach, until you are only left with a foggy recollection of something. The outline of a missing piece. The emptiness of a hole.

No. Come back.

A pang of sadness fills your heart.

What was it? Where did it go? A memory or a dream? 

A heat pulses behind your rib bones. You hold still, anchored by the comfort, but where it comes from, you can’t say.

Through the haze of your memory, a phantom voice lingers. Though muffled and inarticulate, deep within you, you hear the urge as if discerning words from a whisper across the room, shielded behind hands.

Go to the water.

An image softly presses into your thoughts. A secluded beach as viewed from out at sea, like a boat coming in to dock at the harbor. Not just any secluded beach—the one you’ve been spending most of your time at. It’s your vacation, after all, and you get to choose how you spend it.

But why do you burn with such a distinct need to return?

You don’t often trust yourself to wander out alone. Yet, you’ve always found your way back somehow. It’s all so strange.

Inexplicable, you have had very little to fear while upon this group vacation upon an island lost to time. There’s so little that feels like regular life here, filled with noisy phones and clicking computers. It’s been reclaimed as a tourist destination, and you’ve had so much fun with your friends who are well aware of your injury that still haunts your head.

The car crash was over a year ago. It busted your skull and banged your brain, and recovery takes a long, long time. Longer than you can remember sometimes. The doctors could only tell you to be patient, but it’s difficult when at times you forget who you are or what you’re doing or where you are. 

Sometimes you’ve wandered away, almost lost until your friends spread out and search for you. Sometimes a chore you’re in the middle of doing gets set down and forgotten about for days until it stinks, and you remember just what you were in the middle of. You trust your friends. They help you and take care of you. 

It wasn’t their fault a week back that you were carried away by a wave while everyone else was diving off of the boat, drinking and laughing. You hardly understood what was happening until the boat was only a speck and your limbs were growing tired from fighting to get back. Then… you don’t remember. Not even your friends know how you returned to shore the next morning, safe and sound and strangely, dry.

You lower your head in your hands and rub your face. You want to go to the water. The urge is not just outside of you but within. You have to see what’s there, how you keep finding yourself safe despite the precariousness of your injury. Maybe you’ll remember.

There are plans with your friends today that you can’t simply brush off. They wouldn’t want you going off alone to a beach by yourself regardless, so it would be best for you to wait until the evening. A rippling warmth within you spreads. It feels good. It feels right. 

Okay. This evening then.

You get dressed. If you don’t come downstairs soon, someone will come to check on you. You shouldn’t worry your friends more than you already do. 

You glance at the desk in the room. A jar sits there. You brought it to collect seashells in—that you remember, but there are other objects stored inside. Slowly, you walk over and touch the cool, curved glass. A broken seashell, a shiny carved stone, and a braided palm tree bracelet are all stuffed within. You unscrew the lid with a soft sound of air. The strong scent of the sea wafts into your nose. Where did you get these? Why does the sight fill you with such happiness?

A vague recollection filters into your mind like fog, and soon, you can see nothing but the denseness concealing what’s within. Shreds of joy are littered all about. You slowly re-screw the lid on and leave it before you grow too frustrated with your limitations.

You won’t let yourself forget this. You will go to the water and find why it’s so important to you, why can't you ignore this need deep within your chest.

A lingering image hangs in your mind of stars. Someone is holding you carefully. You stop to try and hook the memory, but it drifts away from you, lost to the sea of foggy recollection.

*

You slip away quietly, a hand clutching a napkin full of the rest of your dinner as you make your way toward the water. The water here is beautiful. In the setting light of the sun, it becomes darker with bright glints of orange catching on the tips of waves. The secluded beach is flanked by tall, towering palm trees and a dense foliage of leafy shrubs. Jutting out into the water is a creaky dock. The wood is gray and splintery but the supports are solid and damp with the tide splashing against it. 

Slowly, you make your way towards the end. It’s been good today, mostly. You only had brief moments of forgetfulness that your friends easily guided you out of or corrected. A little jog to your memory can put it back into place. They’re kind enough to take you with them here. It’s work, but they manage with you.

Sitting down, you kick your legs over the water. It’s darker, somehow. At the depth just below you, you remember swimming in the water beside the boat. You remember something below. There must be all kinds of fish in the sea. You imagine rows of teeth and tall dorsal fins. 

You flip the napkin open and take a bite. A little snack eases the jumble of your nerves, forcing you to focus on chewing and tasting the morsel in your mouth. It’s okay, right? You keep munching on the remainder of your dinner until there’s nothing left.

As the sun dips lower, you shiver under a slight breeze. The constant lapping of the ocean against the support beams lures you into comfort. You slowly ball up the napkin and shove it into your pocket. The horizon is bleeding red and the last of the light is golden. 

In the dark water, something strange shifts below the surface. A faint purple glow. Waves begin to rise. They start crashing against the support beams of the dock and you start. Blood pumping in your veins, you jump to your feet. 

A terrifying, unimaginable form rises from below. Your feet are anchored to the worn-down dock. A great crest of white, frothing water builds before breaking as a creature the size of a leviathan emerges. Your heart skips a beat in your chest until you realize pale, silvery eyes are gazing back at you. The being emits a brilliant purple bioluminescence about his towering body.

A flicker of memory. A warmth trickles into your chest.

You gawk in pure, unadulterated awe as a being from the very depths gathers himself at the surface. His eyes squint slightly against the fading sunset, but his attention remains entirely on you. Thick waterfalls crash off of him and back into the water. Slipping closer with a mighty flick of his sleek black and gold tail, the being easily matches the dock with his height.

You find yourself eye to eye with a mer.

The stunning creature is light yellow with golden markings on his cheeks. Frills with thick, black, and purple webbing in between spread upon the sea monster’s head like a sunhat. Two whisker-like tendrils twist and wave upon the creature’s face, purple and searching for stimuli. Darkness marks the being's body, splattering its golden color like dots of stars. A strange seam crosses where its mouth would be. 

Your heart warms with his presence as he knows you. Like he’s been waiting for you. The feeling is inexplicable and undeniable. You are terribly small under this beast’s gaze. You could easily be crushed underneath the palm of his hand, but you admire the finned tail he sports, flicking gently just below the black waves.

Beautiful.

How do you know him?

“Who… who are you?” you speak, amazed you can even find your tongue in the presence of such a great being. You only marvel at his appearance. Deep down, you feel no danger.

A forgotten song echoes in the back of your head, unearthly and dream-like, and then it disappears in a flash.

The creature’s brow pinches. Despite apparently lacking a mouth, the being appears wounded for a moment. You shift, uncertain, and almost wishing to comfort whatever hurt you caused. An echo of pain ripples through your chest. You hug yourself with one arm, confused. That couldn’t have come from you, could it have? 

As you stare a moment longer at the leviathan, an itch begins in the back of your mind. An answer to the question you asked. Standing here, on this dock, is familiar. You know what it’s like to behold such a creature and have no doubt that he will not harm you.

But why?

He leans closer to you. You almost step back, the scent of sea salt and something deep and dark emitting from him as if he belongs in the depths where no sunlight can pierce his milky eyes. Can he see you? 

A pang of emotion rings through you distantly. It is not your own.

The ripple of a memory brushes against your thoughts, and you grow still in the presence of them. There’s a sea, darkening with the sunset. There’s a boat, and your friends as they drink and laugh loudly. You remember, nudged by the familiarity. You were buzzing with alcohol and exhausted. Somehow, you’re looking up at yourself from the depths. No, not you. Him.

The strangeness continues in the vision with how you falter, your limbs growing heavy after struggling for so long trying to swim back, and a sensation of care spreads through you, warm like rain in the summer. 

Giant hands reach for you, three fingers on each appendage gently cupping you into his palms. You don’t remember this—your eyelids flutter and you briefly turn, held up from the surface as water drips from between his fingers, and gaze up at him in your weariness. Then, you succumb to your exhaustion. 

Rescued you.

The short, blunt words enter your mind as if a bell was rung. The place where his mouth should be doesn’t open despite knowing that he speaks to you. You almost stagger back, stunned by the connection.

“I… I remember,” you murmur, and touch your temple. You lift your eyes to his pale gaze. “Where did you take me?”

Patiently, he warbles a low sound, and another vision sweeps over your mind. You felt the seaspray as he carried you gently over the waves, swimming carefully to a secluded, perhaps undiscovered islet off the coast of the island. He swept into a cove to take refuge, cupping you to his chest as he rested, half submerged in the shallows that would have drowned you. 

He waits for you and sings. The song fills your mind as he sings again, layering the distant memory with the reality of his ethereal song. Your heart beats in time with his tune. A great heat fills your marrow, and you gasp softly.

When you woke up in his palm, he saw you, and you saw him. You remember.

“Wayfinder,” you breathe. His name is whispered to you through a connection that transcends oral tradition. 

A pulse of joy rolls through you and you understand now that this is an echo of himself. A song knitting you two together somehow. Magic, perhaps. You’ve heard stories of mers but you thought they were only told to the tourists who came here for a sunny vacation and lots of sand. 

You remember me.

He says simply, but you understand how he cherishes the fact. You do. Slowly, you step back to the end of the dock. Wayfinder follows you with his large eyes though he squints, as if finding it hard to focus on you in the golden light. His expression is curious as you carefully sit yourself back on the edge, your feet kicking over the sea. The mer gently lowers himself to remain eye-to-eye with you. Though he has no lips, you have the undeniable sense that he’s smiling. 

Gently, he lifts a clawed hand. You go over his three fingers, how they are ancient and otherworldly, but hold no fear with the wicked talon drawing near you. You hold perfectly still. He crooks one finger. A slickness to his gold and black flesh gingerly brushes against your cheek, almost engulfing the entire side of your face before he draws back, watching you closely. You reach up to touch the ocean water now drying on your skin. 

“Wow,” you say, unable to help your marvel. “You’re so soft. Wait.”

You jerk your head up, searching his expression for answers.

“Did we meet here before? Have you been visiting me?”

Wayfinder gently dips his head. The frills upon his head are stunning, purple on the underside, and dark up on top. You can’t help but notice a speckling of brighter purple bioluminescence as the darkness descends. The sight triggers a surge of understanding or a memory—you know he thrives in the darkness. 

Yes. Often. Here.

Here. You glance down to the worn-down dock and run your hand over the weather-beaten wood. The blanks creak and you remember the sound echoing when you stood before him, and you had felt his gentle touch before.

His tail flickers softly behind him, chopping up the waves rolling up to splatter against the support beams of the pier. You are overcome with a longing to run your hand over his slick skin and giant fins, feeling the parts of him that help him maneuver through a great and terrifying ocean. 

The mer lowers himself slightly and reaches down into the water below the dock. You follow his movement carefully. What is he doing? His clawed hands dig through the sand before he finds something. His frills flicker once. His eyes, half creased as if the light is too bright, shift back to you.

“What is it?” you whisper.

A gift. For you.

He gingerly overturns his hand and in the center of his massive palm sits a chipped sand dollar. You gawk, again. How many times will your mouth hang open in wonder? 

Wayfinder gingerly maneuvers his claws, and turning his hand again, he pinches the shell with a delicateness that betrays his leviathan size before he drops it a few inches into your waiting palms. 

You gape as the wet seashell sinks into your hands. It is beautiful, perfect despite the chip in its side, like the broken seashell in your jar—

A flood of memories returns. Each evening, a new gift. A broken seashell. A shiny carved stone. A braided palm tree bracelet. All given to you as you stood upon this very dock. A thickness gathers in your throat. And now the sand dollar.

You look up and adore him.

“Thank you, Wave,” you say wetly. The nickname rolls off your tongue but there is no doubt you have called him such a thing before. “You gave me gifts before, didn't you?”

I have.

The answer is soft and gentle. Ripples of care flow through you, and you wish you could hug him properly, but your arms can’t even fit around his golden-marked face. He struggles to focus on you, but the sun is nearly gone. You worry for his poor eyes in this level of light. He’s built for the deep depths and darkness, and yet, he’s here for you, patiently guiding you back to the memories you both made.

You want to cry but you convince yourself that would be messy. 

In the remaining light of the sun, the leviathan extends his hand carefully to you. You stare at it. Looking up into his expression, his eyes a bit brighter now as the day gives way to the night, you break into a smile.

Distant memories return to you like the tide crawling back up the shore, washing over you bit by bit until you’re dripping in them. All the times Wayfinder has carefully carried you so he might share with you the things he cherishes. Beautiful hidden spots around the island, tucked away from prying eyes. A cave opens to the open ocean as the moon reflects off the water.

He gently tapped your chest, and your heart, and touched his own to explain, in the best way he could, the connection you both share.

You fill with warmth. Eagerly, you accept his hand.

[5am-weirdo]

Okay so I know Joel’s thing is like CAR but what if he was also a comet/meteor

Just to keep up with the Space theme, they travel through the stars fast, looking like a star that you can wish on; burning up through space, if it crashes taking out everything with it.

Joel is one of the best combatants in the life series and he won at night by making the sun (Grian) fall so he can shine.

[tamblerdraws]

YALL

So yknow the whole "What celestial thing is Joel" debate

And how some are just using the car and how some say comet

I have

A proposal

Shooting Star

Shooting stars are similar to comets

They also burn bright and firey and stuff like Joel

You got the rhyming scheme with the winners still (tho we are rhyming stars with star but potatoe potato)

And. And also

[shamelesstragedyenjoyer]

Hi!! Do you have any fav Jason Todd- centric fic recs?? I like your taste in Jason's hc and takes hehe

Needles or Pines by Lanternwisp.

Sometimes Little Reds walk the path of needles, forbidden forests are urban jungles, the Woodsmen don't make it in time and disobedient children get eaten by wolves. It's when the story doesn't have the decency to end there that things get complicated.

No One's Son by Lanternwisp.

When it's revealed to Gotham's underworld that Red Hood is the second Robin and without the Bat Clan's protection, it's not long before every gang, cartel and rogue he's pissed off has him in their crosshairs. It's almost as bad as the "family"'s determination to find him first.

"Maybe Mike had been right after all - Jason is a Gotham kid. A real one, assembled and built with dirt and blood and dark alleyways, and he can't be washed clean of what's him."

Ugly Organs by One_Step_Closer_To_Death.

Jason Todd’s love is a wretched and terrible thing to be on the receiving end of. His grief, on the other hand, is incapacitating.

"How do you say – I think when you held me last, your rib fused with mine, and my marrow now creates your blood, my heart beats in tandem with yours – bones of my bones and flesh of my flesh, brother."

Things That Make it Warm by One_Step_Closer_To_Death.

“I’m not ordering Hawaiian,” Jason says immediately as he pulls up the menu for the local pizza place. [...] “Not even if I say please?” “Fuck that.” Jason says, and orders Hawaiian anyway.

All Roofs of Uncertainty by Kieron_ODuibhir.

For all the blood on his hands, Red Hood was never just a villain. And Nightwing never gives up on family, not for good.

Reclaiming Innocence by MurtaghMorzanson.

Jason Todd was kidnapped at nine-years-old and given two options. Work for his keep, or be forced to to work for his keep.

When Everything's made to be Broken by WorkingChemestry.

Nobody knows Jason Todd, not really, but there are a few who know these three facts: Jason Todd is a comet—frozen, poisonous, gas and fragmented rock that burns and evaporates as it passes closer to the sun. Jason Todd is a dancer—spinning spinning spinning on shattered bones and slipping on the blood that soaks through his slippers. Jason Todd is laughter—red streaked giggles ringing like tinnitus in a roaring crescendo that drowns out even his own heartbeat.

And since I know you are into SamBucky (stalker-ish of me to be aware of, I know) here's my top 5;

Not the End but The Start Of All Things by Notcaycepollard.

They keep driving, for lack of anything better to do. A mission, Sam had said, and maybe that's true; maybe wherever they're headed is the way out, the way up.

Guard The Angel by Silentnun.

"但警惕心还是有的，他尝试性掀起一边眼皮，然后发现整个眼球都肿胀得厉害，太阳穴底下像藏了个不正常的兔子中士，一跃一跃，不得安息。"

A Couple Rebel Top Gun Pilots by Notcaycepollard.

That seems to be the thing that breaks the ice between them; Bucky's never really hung out with Sam before, past being jammed into a too-small car for six hours and then two uncomfortable months in a safehouse trying not to get on each other’s last nerve. [...] He doesn’t notice, is the thing; doesn’t notice how ever since Sam's slept on his couch that night, he’s been letting Bucky closer bit by bit. That, as Bucky’s been wondering about the boundaries and structures of friendship, Sam’s been drawing in.

"There are weeks where he and Sam don't talk, where Bucky realizes they've gone days and days without seeing each other, and it always makes him think of the interiority of Sam's life. All the people he must know who Bucky's never met, the friends he has that are just names in his mouth.

It leaves this strange ache in his chest.[...]And he remembers what it was like to pour himself into somebody, the boundaries of their life and his blurring until it’s difficult to find the edges."

Diving Blind by Yukla.

Sam's about to exit out of the page and nag at Sarah for becoming a gossip-rag-follower when a voice starts piping out of his phone’s speaker. “Breaking news on our favorite superhero couple,” says the host of the show, bright and plasticky under the studio lights. “That’s right, folks! We’ve got solid evidence that the Cap and Winter Soldier romance is real—” Sam’s finger slams down on the pause button. What, he thinks, the hell.

I want to Feel Your Hearlines by Notcaycepollard.

The first time he watches Sam fall asleep, they’re in the stupid tiny car on the autobahn. Bucky stares at the back of Sam’s head, ignores how cramped his legs are. Watches Sam’s head slowly sink back and sideways until it’s slumped into the gap between the seat and the window. If he triangulates between the wing and rear-view mirrors, Bucky can see Sam’s face, slack with sleep, mouth soft. He wants to look and he doesn’t. He doesn’t know Sam Wilson at all, knows only that he doesn’t trust Bucky - an accurate assessment of Bucky’s threat level, Bucky thinks - and that he does trust Steve (also accurate, although probably stupid). Sam looks vulnerable, like this.

“It's fine,” Bucky says again, and means, you're warm, and means, you make me want to be gentle, and means, touch me again like I'm a person. Like you can take comfort from me."

"They sleep, and they sleep, fitting together in every bed for months, breath mingling and heartbeats blurring together until Bucky thinks Sam must carry both their hearts in his own chest."

[panda-writes-kpop]

the dreadful need in the devotee ~ lee gahyeon

a/n: sorry for all my international folks, I know I'm late (curse you comp sci homework for taking hours to complete) but happy Gahyeon day!! here's your daily dose of existensial dread and sadness in case you haven't felt that way recently :] (all jokes, but apparently I was in my feels when I wrote this)

tw: fluff to sadness, main character death, car accident, some religious elements, we almost got a happy ending folks

acknowledgements: inspired by hozier's talk and the pjo series on Disney plus!

word count: 2.8k

summary: a recollection of the five times you couldn't look at Gahyeon and the one time you did, but it's staged during a modern retelling of one of my favorite greek myths of all time (5+1 trope my beloved <3)

♡ Masterlist ♡

As the burning taste of alcohol travels down your throat, you think about why you’re here on a Wednesday night.

Here wasn’t home, the place you most often were found. Home was your paradise, your inspiration for your work - but you had been in a rut lately. Nothing seemed to spark your creativity, not even a hot drink and a warm bath would do.

So you wandered down the street, hoping to find something that would make you and your work feel alive again. Instead, the couples you passed on the street only chose to dig at a wound that you had covered with the patchwork of self-isolation.

Since tonight was an utter failure, much like most nights this month, you turned to the one thing that made everything a little better - booze. A drink sounded nice, especially as the last couple you passed discussed their wedding and future together.

You slid into the first bar that you found that was not too far from your apartment. Five blocks was a new record for you, considering that every store you needed was only two or three blocks from your apartment. Maybe you’d print out a certificate so you’d have some marker of success to hang on your wall.

World’s Most Introverted Person Travels Two Blocks Farther Than Usual!

You need another hobby besides drinking and bad jokes.

You’d turn to art, but blank pages and screens peek out at you from every corner of your apartment. That wasn’t an option, and you had already used all your daily wanderlust to find a bar, so drinking would have to do.

It wasn’t like the bar was busy or anything - weeknight traffic was slow, especially on Wednesday. You were sitting at the bar, making occasional idle chatter with the bartender and another patron who seemed to be in a worse state of despair than you.

You were fine in your bubble, and it wasn’t like anything would pop it any time soon-

Then you see her.

Your eyes landed on a group of girls sitting in a corner, but the girl that draws your attention is everything you had imagined and so much more. With bright pink hair, it was impossible to see anything but here.

She was a beautiful white lily among the tall grass, a sweet melody floated over syncopated beats. She was the sun, and you were a comet that was about to crash into her orbit. She was everything, and you were nothing.

…And she was looking right at you.

Fuuuuuck.

You immediately look away when she bounces up to you - she’s probably going to talk to that other person, right?

You couldn’t look her in the eyes, even when she, in all of her beautiful glory, was right in front of you. 

“Do you want to join us for drinks?” Her eyes are inviting as she holds her hand out to you.

You try to find a reason to say no, but she sparks something within you. Something warm and kind, buried under the safety blanket that you wrapped your heart in.

She wasn’t your inspiration, not yet, at least. A muse, perhaps?

Whatever divine intervention brought you together was well needed.

Even though you couldn’t look her in the eyes until you were both drunk enough to forget everything but each other.

~

Gahyeon, her name was. 

Even though the headache fucking sucked (but was so worth it, considering the extra phone number in your contacts), things started to look up for you. You could actually produce art, which meant that you could pay your landlord on time.

Your apartment was a mess while you were in a funk - a proper decluttering was in order. If you weren’t inspired to do art, you definitely weren’t inspired to do household chores. You shudder as your mother’s voice reprimands you about keeping your place tidy.

Perhaps sending proof of life would get her voice out of your head. Yet again, she’d probably call you and then want to visit, which would make things worse.

Suddenly, doing the dishes instead of mentally stalling doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

Tedious doesn’t begin to cover your feelings towards the stacks upon stacks on dishes, which hadn’t grown mold or attracted flies, thank god. You decide to set your phone aside (you’d checked it three times since you decided to do the dishes, maybe you need to get a safe to throw it into) before filling the sink with water.

As you add soap to the water, your phone chimes. You shut off the water, as flooding your apartment would be worse than cold water, you reason.

You were sober enough to put Gahyeon’s name in your phone, but your capitalization skills were a bit… questionable.

gAhyEOn: hey u up?

    some friends and I went drinking last night, and I need a pick-me-up.

    you wanna go for coffee?

Coffee? As in a coffee date? As in you’ll be face-to-face with Gahyeon alone, after you probably made a fool of yourself a few nights ago? 

Well, you don’t remember much about that night, do you?

God damn you, vodka, you taste good in too many mixed drinks.

You quickly respond with a ‘Sure! What time?’ after contemplating what to say for an uncomfortable amount of time.

gAhyEOn: Does thirty minutes work for you?

    I’ll send you the address, see if you can make it there in time.

Your phone buzzes, and afterwards, you plug the address into Google Maps - it’s only a block farther than the bar you met Gahyeon in. If you quickly scrubbed a few dishes and put proper clothes on (the Pokemon pajamas were cute but not ideal for a “first date”), you could make it there in thirty minutes if you run-walked.

You send her a confirmation text, telling her that the time and place will work. You manage to finish a quarter of the dishes (you’ll totally finish the rest of the dishes instead of continuing your latest masterpiece) before throwing on a comfortable outfit that’s perfect for a first date. You grab your wallet and phone before heading out of your apartment. 

The walk to the cafe takes a lot less time than you had considered, but that was probably because you were going through a hundred and one different ways that you could make a fool of yourself.

Although you nearly ran headfirst into a pole when you saw Gahyeon waving at you in the distance, you had made it to the café.

Even if you were a bit too embarrassed to look her in the eyes, a bit sweaty from run-walking here, especially after she told you off for being late.

“You’re five minutes late. I thought I told you thirty minutes, not thirty-five-”

“In my defense,” You raise your hands in the air, “I’m worse at directions when I’m sober.”

“If you buy me coffee, I may forgive you.”

“Let’s test that theory, huh?” You open the door for her as she gracefully smiles.

You let out a nervous sigh before closing the door behind you. You’ve got this, right?

Maybe the gods would push some luck in your favor.

~

Gahyeon didn’t think you were a total loser, so that was a plus.

She even agreed to a proper first date, and then a second, next a third, and you’d somehow convinced her to become your girlfriend… which meant that she would be moving in with you since you’d been dating for a year and a half.

Time flies.

“Can you help me with these boxes, babe?”

After shoving more of your supplies (holy fuck how much shit did you own) into a spare closet, you join Gahyeon at the door to receive the box that she had in her hands.

“I got it,” You say before immediately swearing after the box rests in your arms, “what did you put in here, a bowling ball?”

“Three, actually,” Gahyeon offers a sweet smile as you shake your head, “it’s just the first box of my clothes. You can set it in the bedroom, if you would.”

“The things I do for you.” You scoff before shifting the weight in the box (seriously, what was in here?).

You take a few steps forward as Gahyeon wanders around your apartment. She peeks into the room you just left before letting out a gasp.

“You didn’t move your work so I could have more space, did you?”

You pause, not turning to meet her eye, as she accusingly charges toward you.

“Yah, babe, I told you to leave that stuff there! You know how much I love seeing your work.”

You hightail it to the bedroom before she tackles you into a warm hug. You both dissolve into giggles, heavy boxes and caring anger set aside, as you enjoy her presence.

“I love you.” She whispers before kissing your lips.

You wonder what god of love was paid off in order to match you and Gahyeon, but you didn’t care. Everything worked, you two worked, and your work spoke for itself.

That’s all you ever needed.

~ 

A wedding ring was the other thing you needed.

You had fiddled with the ring for ages, wondering when would be the right time to propose. 

Gahyeon deserved the best, after all.

So you just asked her one day, when the moment was right.

And she said yes before bursting out into tears. You were quick to comfort her, of course, but you felt like you had ascended to another plane of reality.

Finally, everything made sense.

Your creative energy was at a high, so you were producing plenty of work. You were ahead on rent, enough so that you could save up for a house and a wedding, eventually.

Gahyeon stood in the kitchen, admiring the ring on her left hand, as you wrapped your arm around her waist.

“The ring’s pretty.” She says absentmindedly as you squeeze your arms, which makes her laugh. “What’s up?”

“I got bored. Something told me to go out here and check up on you.” You give a small shrug before kissing her cheek. “What are you up to?”

“I’m going to head to the store by my old place to pick up a few things. Do you want anything?”

For some reason, your stomach sinks. But why, you wonder? She made this trip often, what was so awful about it now?

“Are you sure you don’t want to go down the street, to the convenience store?” You try to convince her as she shakes her head and manages to escape your grasp.

“I’ll be fine, babe,” She turns to give you a quick kiss on the lips before grabbing the car keys on the table, “are you worried about me?”

“Maybe.” You give a noncommittal answer before checking the clock. “Be home for dinner!”

“I will, I promise.” She walks away and grabs the doorknob before turning back to you. “Hey!”

“Hey what?”

“I can’t wait to marry you.” Gahyeon winks at you as you look away in embarrassment. 

It’s crazy that she still has this effect on you, years later.

She laughs before shutting the door as you stare at the front door to your apartment like a lovesick golden retriever waiting for their human to return.

You couldn’t wait for her to return back into your arms, so you could make dinner and spend the rest of your night together.

~

Four hours.

It had been four hours since Gahyeon left.

Should you be worried?

She would’ve texted, called, told you if she would’ve been late. Gahyeon expected the same of you, even though you weren’t the most prompt person at times. 

You should stop pacing before you have to add carpet replacement to your laundry list of things to buy. The sun had gone down, but that meant that traffic must’ve been heavy, right?

You need to take a walk before you worry yourself into an early grave.

You grab a light jacket before exiting your apartment. Taking a walk around the block has always helped clear your mind, but your heart pangs with a new hurt as Gahyeon always liked to go on walks with you.

She was fine, she had to be fine.

You round the corner, only to want to immediately retreat back into your home.

A car accident.

The worst part?

Gahyeon’s car was among the wreckage.

Police officers pushed the surrounding crowd back, and you scream when you see an EMT pick a bloody ring out from among the wreckage.

Not just any ring.

Her ring.

You can’t look anymore.

~

You hadn’t spoken to anyone in weeks.

You hadn’t created anything since the day she died.

Three weeks.

Twenty-one days.

Five-hundred and four hours.

Thirty-thousand, two-hundred forty minutes.

You can’t breathe, can’t think.

You need to open a window.

The light casts a gentle glow over your apartment.

It’s a wreck. You’re a wreck. 

How fitting.

Your phone rings. It’s probably your mother, asking why you didn’t come to Sunday dinner for the third time in a row.

You can’t tell her about Gahyeon, you could barely face her parents and tell them what happened. You were choked up then, and you hadn’t felt much better since.

Your heart had been ripped from your chest.

You pick up your phone anyway.

“Do you want to see her again?” A deep male voice echoes from your phone speaker as you sigh.

“You have the wrong number. Have a good day.” You say with no emotion as the voice quickly replies.

“It’s Gahyeon. I have Gahyeon.”

“Who are you? Where is she?”

“Go to the bar where you first met. I’ll meet you there and take you to her.” 

“Hold on, how do I know you’re not-”

You pause as you hear the other line beep repeatedly. 

He hung up on me. What a dick.

~

“What do you want?” You gruffly ask as you slide into a booth opposite a man dressed in an all-black suit.

He fixes his silver locks for a moment before looking you up and down.

“You want the girl back?”

“Gahyeon,” You correct, “and I want her here as much as her family does.”

“Would you do anything for her?”

“Yes.” You answer immediately as the man smiles.

“Good, good.” He snaps his fingers as the scenery around you changes. 

You’re forced on your feet as the booth disappears behind you.

“What the fuck-” You look at the walls, which expand in every direction and then disappear behind walls of fire and stone.

The man walks forward as a set of stairs appears before him.

“Who are you?” You ask as the ground underneath you begins to shift.

“Death, not the devil.” He answers after sitting down on a throne made of fire and magma. “I have a proposition for you, since your love for Gahyeon has moved my wife. I’m feeling rather…. generous, shall we say?”

“What’s the catch?”

“You have to take the long way out, with you leading and her behind. You can’t look back to see if she’s there, you have to trust yourself and trust her. Understood?”

“I-” You pause while weighing your options.

Could you lead her out of Hell? A dangerous adventure, sure, but it would be worth it to bring her home.

“I accept.”

Death snaps his finger before a door to your left appears.

“Walk through that door and begin your journey.” 

You place your hand on the door before looking back at him.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me until you get to the other side.”

~

You didn’t expect walking through hell to be a cake walk, but you were absolutely exhausted. 

Who knows if death himself didn’t trick you in the first place? 

You couldn’t look to see if Gahyeon was behind you, and you couldn’t hear her speaking as well.

You just had to trust yourself and trust her.

You trusted Gahyeon, of course you did, but did you trust yourself enough that you wouldn’t have been fooled?

Everyone in hell is looking at you as you climb up towards the exit.

You can do this. You should do this.

Is she really behind me?

You should keep going. You have to keep going.

Your footsteps begin to slow as your breath becomes ragged. You were tired, but you were almost there.

You see the light, see everything that you would have again.

You reach out to embrace the light, you’re almost there.

Is she there?

Gahyeon gasps as your eyes connect with hers.

“You… were there.”

“I always was.” She softly answers before backing up towards the darkness.

“I made a mistake.” You try to reach out and grab her, but she’s fading away from you.

“I know.”

“I love you.” A tear falls from your eye as she disappears into nothingness.

“I know.”

Just like that, she was gone, and you were alone.

[mysticstarlightduck]

Unusual Associations Tag!

Thanks for the tag' @thecomfywriter (here)!!! I'll go with Damon Vaille from Scrapyard Boys for this one!

Seasoning: Coffee or Basil

Weather: A warm summer night at 3AM with a pitch-black sky lit up by orange street lights

Color: Graphite Grey

Sky: Comforting night skies, either smoky in the middle of a city or starry in the middle of nowhere

Magic Power: Umbrakinesis/Shadow Manipulation/Shadow Waponry Generation, Teleportation, Augmented Speed, Night Vision

Plant: Pastel pink roses

Weapon: Bare fists, baseball bat, shadow weaponry, pocket knife

Social media: His setting's version of Youtube and Spotify

Candy: Strawberry & Cream candy

Fear: Being unable to protect his friends/losing his loved ones, being forced to obey his worst enemies, being forced to relive the past

Method of long distance travel: A beat-up hover-car

Art style: Cartoons

Stationary: Stickers, scrapbooks and paint

Celestial body: Blue-Straggler Star

Tagging (gently): @kaylinalexanderbooks, @smol-feralgremlin, @oh-no-another-idea, @littleladymab,

@winterandwords, @eccaiia, @sarahlizziewrites, @illarian-rambling

@agirlandherquill, @anoelleart, @ray-writes-n-shit

@the-golden-comet, @writernopal, @anyablackwood, @unstablewifiaccess, @forthesanityofstorytellers

@i-can-even-burn-salad, @cakeinthevoid

@topazadine, @thepeculiarbird, @clairelsonao3, @memento-morri-writes, @starlit-hopes-and-dreams and OPEN TAG

Taglist for Scrapyard Boys below the cut 🧪

Scrapyard Boys Taglist (-/+): @ray-writes-n-shit, @sarandipitywrites, @lassiesandiego, @smol-feralgremlin, @kaylinalexanderbooks,

@diabolical-blue @oh-no-another-idea

@cakeinthevoid, @clairelsonao3, @sleepy-night-child

@thepeculiarbird

@the-golden-comet, @urnumber1star, @ominous-feychild, @anyablackwood, @amaiguri, @lyutenw @finickyfelix

@thecomfywriter, @the-letterbox-archives, @differentnighttale

@wyked-ao3

Let me know if you'd like to be added!

[gaykarstaagforever]

I said I was going to read it, and I read it.

And now I know why no one else has in 55 years.

Spoiler Alert: he doesn't actually electrocute Clark, and was never going to. Utter bullshit.

The only cool things about this old guy are 1) his name is Homer Ferret, and 2) he looks like George Burns.

What is uncool about this guy is that he is an optometrist who has been stalking Clark Kent since he was a baby, for reasons he never goes into.

Like, he is just at the Kent's house when Baby Clark does his first heroic thing (pushing a runaway train car off the tracks). He is also suspiciously at the high school when it catches on fire, to see Clark jump into a bush from which Superboy then emerges to blow the fire out.

Did Homer start the fire? If not, why the hell was he hanging out at the high school? We never get answers to these and many other questions.

My favorite part is where he guesses (correctly) that Clark is Superman, based on his glasses. But not in the sane way of noticing that Clark Kent looks exactly like Superman if Superman wore glasses. Remember, no one in the DC Universe can apparently do that. Instead, as the only optometrist in Smallville, he knows Clark Kent never bought glasses from him. Once he has Clark strapped to the chair, he looks at Clark's glasses and realizes the lenses are just fake plastic ones (this was back when glasses actually contained glass).

Clark, as usual, just fucking lies and says he wears fake glasses because he is a giant coward and figured glasses would make kids bully him less. Because that is how that works.

Homer doesn't buy it, either, and so demands Clark admit he is Superman or get juiced. At the last second Clark FINALLY decides to use his X-Ray vision to look through the floor, where he sees that the generator attached to the chair is a low voltage one. Homer throws the switch and it tickles Clark with like 2 volts.

Then Homer admits he wasn't 100% on Clark being Superman after all, so wasn't going to risk killing him. Clark says "oh, you!", and decides to do a Daily Planet report on all the Superman artifacts this clearly dangerous obsessive has collected into a Superman shrine in his basement.

No one gets punched a single time.

The only good thing about this story is this random full page portrait of Clark Kent looking vaguely upset:

The other story in the issue is better, in that it is way, way dumber.

It starts off showing you how YOU TOO can draw Superman!

I feel there are a few steps missing here, but

Jimmy Olsen tells Clark how he is joining an art correspondence school, and Clark IMMEDIATELY decides it is a scam worthy of Superman's attention. And sure, it is definitely a scam being run by mobsters. But the second half of that is not remotely true.

Before he starts using X-Ray vision and perfect recall and telescopic vision and TIME TRAVEL (yes) to "solve" this crime of low-level mail fraud, he has to interview a kid who wants to be a cartoonist at the Daily Planet. Where he says this:

I think I get what he's supposed to be saying in this weird attempt at 60s Mod talk, but it took me awhile. You give it a go.

He also is a total dick about how much this child's comic strip sucks.

I mean it's no Silver Age Superman comic, but they can't all be, Clark. And let's be honest here, the bar is pretty low.

At some point in his "investigation" of this scam art school, Clark decides the best plan is for him to create forgeries of classical Western paintings. By this point he already has more than enough evidence to have these guys arrested, but he didn't get to do any pointless TIME TRAVEL yet (yes), so, priorities.

He flies back in time to study the painting techniques of the great masters. But he is bad at time travel (yes, literally), so he accidentally flies through the tail of Halley's Comet, which makes him 1) 16, and 2) blue.

Then this happens:

Let's unpack this.

1) Superman was the inspiration for Thomas Gainsborough's "Blue Boy," because he at this point is a boy, who is dressed in the mostly-blue Superman costume. ...But also because his skin is blue. You know. Unlike the boy in the painting.

2) Gainsborough uses Superboy as a model, in that he has him pose, holding a hat. But the boy in the painting is wearing a completely different outfit of rumpled velvet. So Gainsborough just did the complex outfit from his imagination, but he needed Superboy to show him what a boy holding a hat looks like? What bizarre level of "master artist" is this?

3) He doesn't paint the Blue Boy's skin, because Superboy has blue skin, and that would be too weird. And while he can obviously do imaginary clothes fine, he needs another model with normal-colored skin to do a face and a hand. ...Even though he only chose Superboy as a model in the first place, partly because he has blue skin, which makes him a 'Blue Boy,' which is what inspired the whole painting in the first place. ...Except he never intended to actually make the Blue Boy blue-skinned. So...

Adult men with families and mortgages wrote this.

After this, Superboy flies back through Halley's Comet's tail, restoring his age and color. Then he goes to visit Rembrandt, where Rembrandt ACTUALLY DRESSES HIM IN A PERIOD OUTFIT, to use him as a model for one of the figures in "The Night Watch". Because Superman is so muscular.

Because, as everyone thinks when they see that painting, "Man. That one guy in the hat is buff as shit." (?)

Notably, yet again, the painter doesn't paint Superman's face, this time because a officer of the REAL Night Guard paid to have his portrait put in the painting. But I guess that guy's body wasn't all swol and hot enough for Rembrandt's painting...of that specific guy.

"WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH GETTING THE POLICE TO ARREST THE MOBSTERS RUNNING A SCAM ART SCHOOL??"

Good goddamn question.

Superman comes back to the present and creates perfect forgeries of the two paintings he was inexplicably involved in creating. When the mobsters try to sell them as the real paintings, Clark Kent shows up with the cops and points out how the forgeries aren't actually perfect, he made them slightly different to prove they were fakes.

And this somehow is a crime the mobsters get arrested for. Instead of Clark Kent, who very obviously painted the forgeries so that these guys could sell them. Like, that was their plan, that the heretofore whatever Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent is suddenly such an amazing artist that he can make near-perfect forgeries of great paintings. And Clark went along with it, until he stopped. And this finally proves their art school is a scam. Even though the building they are in literally has trashcans full of art submissions they have thrown out once they take the registration money out of the envelopes. And all the secretaries working for them know the whole plan and have been helping them do it.

I'm not inferring that. That is all specifically shown in the comic.

None of this was necessary. Absolutely none of it.

On the plus side, at the end, the Daily Planet hires that kid to do his monkey comic. But just the writing, because Clark still thinks his art sucks. Jesus Christ, Clark.

Here is an ad for a hobby model of what was at the time an 11 year old station wagon.

I'm not being sarcastic! That's what their ad copy says! That's how they sold this!

There is also a Letters to the Editor feature, which I didn't take a picture of, because they print everyone's full names and hometowns. Yes I know even those kids are probably dead now, but I'm not going to chance it.

At any rate, about half the letters are children telling DC's editors that these Superman stories are stupid and full of inconsistent nonsense. To which the DC editors reply by defensively snapping back at them.

So it's not just us, as adults, now.

They knew. Everyone knew.

[drchenquill]

Character profile tag!

Thank you for the tag @the-golden-comet , @sableglass , @finickyfelix and @paeliae-occasionally ! I'm sorry it took me so long, I just couldn't decide who to take for this game. I'll just go with my baby boy Leon.

Name: Leon Martens

Nickname: "Waschlappen" by his late grandma. (It's German and it means sissy, wimp and so on.) It's an insult, but she used it as nickname, often refering to him like that while talking to other people, making it sound like a cute "family inside joke".

Kind of being: Human

Age: 23

Gender: Male

Appearance: fluffy honey-blonde hair with dark drown eyes. Very pale, almost sickly looking skin. He mostly wears cardigans to feel comfortable. His calloused hands look frail like everything on him to be honest. He is rather thin and weak looking. He is a frail man.

Occupation: Art teacher

Family members: None (all deceased. It wasn't a big family)

Pets: None

Best friends: he would say none, but Kiki has taken that spot very fast.

Describe his/her room: So, a bit of context. He moved into a shabby apartment but mid story was forced to move again into a not-as-shabby apartment. I'll describe his old room because his current room isn't his, it's Kilians.

Quoting him: "My bedroom has a large window that looks out onto the street. Normally I would draw the curtains, which didn't happen this time. That's why I can see the first shy rays of sunlight creeping into the day. The apartment I'm currently renting consists of five rooms. The bedroom with a double bed that takes up far too much space, thanks in part to the wardrobe that will collapse on me with just a small earthquake and free me, a bathroom that barely has room for a bathtub, a living room furnished with a beige couch that I doubt was the original color, a small TV that I'm afraid to turn on and, last but not least, the small kitchen where I recently tried to make a coffee with shaky hands and the flame of the stove almost burned my face."

Way of speaking: Polite, tries to never raise his voice.

Physical characteristics (posture, gestures, attitude): He avoids eye contact and often walks with his head down. When he's stressed, his right hand tends to cramp, so you may see him subtly massaging it. He also tends to have twitching hands when he feels the need to draw something to calm down. He is developing a hunchback by always walking with a hunched posture to subconsciously make himself smaller.

Items in his/her back pocket/ purse: A small pocketsized sketchbook with a tiny pencil (he draws to calm himself down.) And his phone and wallet.

Hobbies: Drawing.

Favorite sports: None.

Abilities/Talents/Powers: Drawing

Relationships (how he/she is with other people): He tries not to interact with other people, but when he does, he tends to not hold eye contact for too long. He is rather submissive, not wanting to anger anyone.

Fears: Being looked at, making mistakes, angering other people, people thinking he is insane.

Fault: He is very paranoid and does not trust at all. He always thinks the worst and often doesn't give the other person a chance to explain. He can be very petty.

Good points: He is very gentle with children. He loves children because he feels safe around them.

What he/she wants more than anything else: To be left alone and to get rid of the crushing guilt he feels after surviving the car accident that killed his parents.

~~~

Tagging with no pressure @theink-stainedfolk , @inseasofgreen , @katenewmanwrites , @kaeru483 , @happypup-kitcat24 and open tag~

[if-only-angels-could-prevail]

hey! i recently moved to chicago and i'm interested in seeing some local theater. you've posted a bunch about the chicago theater scene, so i wanted to see if you had any recommendations for theaters/currently running shows/etc. thank you!!

ooh i get this question every once in a while, maybe one day my answer will be comprehensive

the two biggest titans of regional theatre in chicago are the goodman and steppenwolf, and your timing sending this ask couldn't be better:

tomorrow, the goodman has its first preview of midnight in the garden of good and evil, the new musical by taylor mac and jason robert brown. also the goodman has a lot of great discounts (including $10 student tickets the day of), check out their website

yesterday, steppenwolf opened little bear ridge road, which is a world premiere play by samuel d hunter, starring laurie metcalf. i saw it, i really loved it, i found it patient and moving. (i also admit that i bartend there, so, bias? but i did love it)

some of the other Big theaters in chicago include: chicago shakespeare theatre (i WILL be seated for the lord of the rings musical) and court theatre (i've seen two shows at court and adored them both).

and if you're willing to go to the burbs, there's the paramount in aurora, writers theatre in glencoe (they're doing natasha pierre soon!), and then drury lane and marriott (they both specialize in musicals--sadly, i don't get to those two often because i don't have a car and it's a hellish commute).

but those are just the big ones, and chicago is more famous for its storefront scene, which is just as exciting. for musicals, look into blank theatre (hi danny lol), theo ubique, porchlight, and kokandy. for plays, check out invictus (i'm seeing their three sisters tonight), factory, raven, a red orchid theatre, lifeline, theater wit (i saw their production of mr burns five times lol), and remy bumppo. just to name a few. there are many, many more.

i know this list is already long, but trust me when i say i'm just scratching the surface. it is literally impossible to see all the theatre that happens in chicago--but if you start going to shows and talking to people, you'll get a sense of the Must Sees! (also feel free to DM me with more specific questions in the future, and I will--privately--give you my unfiltered opinions.)

Finally, under the cut, I've shared a list of *some* of the specific shows i'm interested in seeing throughout the end of the year. they're organized by closing date.

6/20 - 7/21: The Hot Wing King, Writers Theatre

6/13 - 8/4: Little Bear Ridge Road, Steppenwolf

6/25 - 8/4: Midnight In The Garden, Goodman

7/12 - 8/11: The Mad Ones, Blank Theatre

7/21-8/25: The Normal Heart, Redtwist

7/17 - 9/1: The Lord of the Rings, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre

8/2 - 9/29: Alice By Heart, Kokandy

9/6 - 9/29: East Texas Hot Links, Court Theatre

10/4: Patti LuPone, Lyric Opera

10/1 - 10/6: Leonora, Chicago Opera Theatre

9/6 - 10/6: Henry V, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre

9/14 - 10/6: Rigoletto, Lyric Opera

9/26 - 10/10: Fidelio, Lyric Opera

9/14 - 10/13: Inherit the Wind, Goodman

9/19 - 10/13: Never Better, Theo Ubique

9/5 - 10/27: Great Comet, Writers Theatre

9/12 - 10/27: Noises Off, Steppenwolf

10/5 - 11/3: Primary Trust, Goodman

10/22 - 11/3: Some Like It Hot, Broadway In Chicago

10/17 - 11/17: Dear Elizabeth, Remy Bumppo 

11/9 - 11/30: The Marriage of Figaro, Lyric Opera

10/18 - 12/1: Seven Guitars, City Lit

11/16 - 12/1: Blue, Lyric Opera

11/8 - 12/8: Falsettos, Court Theatre

10/20 - 12/8: Pericles, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre

10/24 - 12/15: Leroy and Lucy, Steppenwolf

[nczaversnick]

WIP Questionnaire Tag

Thanks to @honeybewrites for the tag!

Rules: Answer the questions about a WIP!

These are for Project Gemini, with my answers in green and Rachelles in purple :)8

What's the first part of your WIP that you created?

For me, that would be Gemini. Or his concept anyway. A person with both fire and ice powers. Everything else was built around this one idea.

Uhh.. There aren't any parts I necessarily *created*, but more like added on. I've been here since the beginning. (We don't talk about the previous draft before I came into the picture) (Also, SIKE, I LIED. I created loveable Mason.)

If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

I'm not sure what I would go with, but off the very top of my head, I’d say the chorus in From Now On in the The Greatest Showman

Oooo, definitely Run by Iron Kid

What are your favorite characters you've made? Why?

Oh, definitely Adrian. He was originally the main character, so I developed his character way before I got to anyone else. He's the only one who didn't get replaced when I revamped everything a few years back.

I'm Adrian biased always, but I think I'm starting to have a bit of a soft spot for Mason and Iris - mainly because I don't know them that well, and that's a perfect start for me falling in love with them.

What other pieces of media do you think your fanbase would share?

Definitely the Lunar Chronicles. Probably Arc of a Scythe, too. Both series showed me how much I can do with multiple POVs to tell a story, but both are about revolutions and fighting for what is right

I don't think I understand this question

I hope they share sick animatics. That would be cool as Hell.

How do characters travel/get around?

Generally speaking, magneticlly powered trains and cars are the main transportation in the city

OH SHIT an underground rat maze in the sewers throughout the city would be sick af.

They mainly walk. Gotta keep hidden, ya know?

What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

I am currently trying to turn an outline into actual scenes. But I don't write like…whole chapters. I tend to write small snippets in random spots until there's enough to start trying to connect them

I'm constantly fluctuating between fixing what I've already worked on and continuing off from when someone gets their shit rocked for no reason (there's a reason, but it's a dumb reason)

What aspects/tropes do you think will draw your audience in?

I mean, who wouldn't love a dystopian lead by a found family of queer people?

Injustice and angsty slow burns.

What are your hopes for your WIP?

I have always wanted to publish this. Because I do actually want to be a published author, I enjoy writing and sharing stories with people, especially one so personal to me. A very longshot hope I have is that I'd love to see this made into a tv show, though I'd go 2D animation, not live action.

I obviously want to make something I'm proud of working on, but also use as a learning experience for my own projects. (I'm an entirely separate entity and *not* a growth from N.C.‘s brain)

Tagging: @wyked-ao3 @the-golden-comet @fractured-shield @theverumproject @the-letterbox-archives @ath3alin +open tag :)8