#And it’s kind of numb? idk. it’s been hurting for days and that doesn’t usually happen when im not standing a lot

[gaysforbyler]

I have a fun game I like to play called “did i break my foot or is my plantar fasciitis acting up again for no reason?” It’s a close call

[glowstone23b]

UAGSHDHFK ITS SO FUNNY U SHOULD MENTION TOOTHLESS FROM HTTYD BECAUSE WHEN I WAS DESIGNING A CONCEPT FOR SAGE’S WINGS (which im still in the process of making) HE WAS MY FIRST REFERENCE :’’’) I LOVE NIGHT FURIES

but also to answer some of those previous elytra questions because they have been on my mind . i’ll sort of just be quoting them audvdhfj ive been thinking about them all day

“What if the elytra (after having been fully fused, I guess, but early users apply too) runs out of durability?”

— okay so pre-fusing the elytra is sort of. brittle. not fully but like regular durability you get in normal minecraft; it wears down after a while and this is because of a couple factors

1.) still adjusting to the host, hasn’t gotten the proper intake of blood and nutrients in its wings to fully sustain itself for the while yet so it’s trying to run off what it currently has (which tends to be very little resulting in them damaging over time if not fixed)

2.) it doesn’t wear down post fusion because the mutations and genes mixing in with the host lets it sort of stabilize by itself and become a part of the host entirely; once the “magical” properties of it are slowly simmering and is replaced with blood, skin, bacteria, etc (on that note the tendrils inside the host’s shoulder blades etc also sort of melt and become new veins/paths for blood circulation to take) (dont ask me how that works uhhh magic and minecraft stuff idk)

“Are the wings something you yourself can feel once they’ve fused with you, or is it more like… a neurological thing, where the elytra just know what you’re thinking?”

— OKAY when the tendrils slip in you’ll feel some generous amount of discomfort but pulling them out hurts more than letting them sink in

— new elytra users need a small bit of time to adjust to the wings and get a grasp on how they feel. its sort of different for everyone but at first it feels like a very strange version of pins and needles- you can move the wings around but it feels weird.

— although yeah the parasitic-ish parts of the elytra kind of do. connect with your brain (DIY lobotomy /j) in order to both A.) get the brain to move the wings around and B.) to do all the increased reaction time and instincts shabang (these stay permanently after fusion)

“Could you feel them as an extension to your body? If they get hurt, would you be able to feel it as if it were your arm or something, or would it be numb?”

- new elytra users get a numb sort of sensation when the elytra gets damaged via an arrow or something

- older (fused) elytra users get the similar sensation to the webbing of your fingers being sliced or punctured (owie)

- also at first they do feel like weird body extensions before eventually adjusting and them becoming literal body parts aisnfwidhfjfk

“If you run out of durability on fused elytras, is that something you could ever fix?”

— yes actually!! healing potions + usually phantom membrane is an efficient way of patching up deep wounds— depending on the type of wing it might just require a lot of healing potions and bandages, but eh its different for every user

— although if a massive chunk of those wings is like torn off then oooh. ouchie thats like having ur arm torn off. yeah that probably wont heal

^ — however . you can get fixes where they attach like a leather-like wing and hollow light silver(?) rods onto where the bones end to make a makeshift wing repair (leather is typically dyeable and able to be decorated)

bonita drawing ik . but you get the idea !!!!

“Would you be able to get a new pair if you hadn’t been fused yet?”

— YEAH

— if you get the new pair from another person who used it previously the process of the wings shifting to suit you better will take a while longer and vice versa

“Would you have to try to cut off your old elytra to replace it if you *were* fused?”

— yes

— not a pleasant experience but if you hate ur wings so bad then yes you could probably slice them off (i wonder what you would do with them afterwards?? Whats to do with sliced human-sized wings? … wall decoration?? Could you cook and eat them maybe?)

“could you potentially *pick* how your elytra form to look on you?”

— kkkkkkind of? the elytra by default looks like a weird mix of dragon and beetle wings all in one. good flight but also not infinitely durable like mentioned

— the shape of the wings, however, changes to fit the user from what the elytra can gather from their brain

(for example, Sage’s wings are based off night furies and peregrine falcons — fast speedy creatures due to Sage’s own history of enjoying fast speeds/being thrown or spun around and also from the lack of any fear of heights/falling)

(in fact actually enjoying those things) (yk how some kids ask to be thrown into lakes because they enjoy the sensation. yeah thats her)

“Like, if you tried to repair your elytra using a combination of some standard repair materials (phantom membranes, occasionally scales) as well as some other thing (like parrot feathers, for instance), could you possibly get the elytra to take on a form you’d prefer?”

— this is sort of tricky to answer because like. the elytra chooses what form of wings suits you best.

— mutations, though? Like having the elytra change from the dragon-beetle-ish look to having feathers and bright colours? That’s still achievable!! Theres even the possibility to mix and match different biological materials from the desired creatures however if you add in too many the elytra might like. kill you by accident or something (im talking more than like 5 or 7) (usually people opt to have only one or two main repair materials) (3 is teetering on the edge slightly i imagine because of like. neurological effects with all the mutations both physically behaviourally and mentally etc etc)

this also kind of raises the question of “how do you get bug wings” and i’ll be honest w u i have no idea. I imagine there’d be *some* strange way to achieve it? go ham many methods for elytra repairing

( mini rant of sage vv)

(Her way of flying is very similar to toothless in the first two movies. shes sleek and elegant in that cat-like fashion but she also does dive bombs and spins and rolls and is overall extremely confident, nigh cocky with how she flies. a lot of control too!! ,,,, most of the time has definitely crash landed several times) (not to mention speed,,,,, in certain situations when she picks up enough velocity you can hear a whistle coming from the air being sliced by her wings . no idea how to explain but you get the idea)

ALSO THE PHANON TAG IS ALR !! she/her pronouns for me but idrc if you use they/them ajdbfjk

Apologies for the late response, I wanted to make some quick doodles for this at the least!!! It's so fascinating to me! A sidenote before I forget-- what do you think about rocket-propelled elytra flight? Would that be possible at all, or do we pretend canon isn't there for it? It's very silly to think of, but I don't think it'd be very safe, lol.

Here's a rough gif of how I think it might work! (emphasis on might). The 'elytra' (used to refer to the parasite in this sense) feels like a bug to me... like a palm-sized ladybug, sort of. Just the right size to fit on the small of your back pretty easily. Once you set it there, it'll like... pinch/hurt a bit as it sets in its initial veins & whatnot to connect to you, but it just chills there otherwise. I feel like for pre-fused elytras, trying to take one off would feel kinda like a tick? Gross, but hey

I also use "elytra" in the literal sense-- the hard, chitinous sheaths that cover bug wings-- here, so I could draw it in my head. I think that wouldn't be very comfortable to sit back on, to be honest, if you were in a high-backed chair or something. Anyways, like bug wings they'd unfold and the blood that goes through them would fill them up to full size like you said! It'd likely happen in a matter of seconds for long-time users, but take up to a couple minutes for first-timers.

I've also got a couple post-fusion drawings here, under the cut bc it's kinda veiny and a little gross, so if you're averted to that thing, look away!

Again, bonita drawing, but just to get it out of my head. The main "body" of the elytra would start to stretch down your back to get further up along your spine, where all the good veins are! Eventually, the body of it would be more vestigial than anything, because it no longer needs it to look for a host (do you think elytras in end cities would be able to wander freely before fusing to someone? Kinda funny to think of someone just getting like. hit in the face by a stray elytra buzzing around).

I do have this as bug in my head, because my brain loves making sense of things, so it's struggling to figure out how other wing types would work. I know it's magical, so whatever goes, but hmm... maybe the customization just comes after fusing, when the elytra doesn't need to expend the extra energy on needing to find a new host, and can instead divert it to making different, sturdier wings...?

I like the makeshift wing repair with lightweight metals or leather and whatnot, it'd be neat to explore that! Just like toothless :). Color & style customization, too! Do you think anybody gets wing jewelry or piercings just to show off? Like irl vultures with wing tags?

"(i wonder what you would do with them afterwards?? Whats to do with sliced human-sized wings? … wall decoration?? Could you cook and eat them maybe?)" -- I mean, if we're in a world with human-sized wings, there's most likely a market for them! I wouldn't be surprised if long-term elytra users were hunted for sport if they had a particularly unique wing type... Wall decoration, for sure, I think hunters would enjoy them! Also good for food in dire situations, as human meat is probably a lot more gamey than any other available source. Feathers or membranes would also be valued for use in repairing of other elytras, in clothing, ceremonial stuff, etc. Kinda neat!

Tell Sage I love her and her flying skills are unmatched. She's crashed before? Didn't see it. She rules

If any of this is coherent, congrats! If not, poke me so I can explain it! Most of my posts will be one long rant and not really read over again for mistakes or anything so godspeed, buddy! Overall I like your thoughts on the matter you rule!!!! Gives my brain more things to rotate :)

[jade-parcels]

idk if you did this already, if you did sorry for asking. but lately my period cramps have been killing me! could you do some comfort headcanons for period – cramps, sensitivity, chest pain, headaches, feeling more insecure than usual – involving childe, diluc and maybe zhongli (and, well, anyone else if you feel like it). it can be either in a modern au or in genshin universe. anything is ok. thank you so much!

Helping you on your period

With Diluc, Zhongli, Childe and Baizhu

I think the universe matched us up! In sync cycles gang!!

—————————

Diluc:

Thank the Pyro Archon!!

Diluc already has a high body temp but when he activates his vision and holds it against your stomach? Say bye to those cramps

Since it’s just the two of you, he’s more than happy to cuddle with you and read to you while holding you close against his chest

Anything you want, just name it. You want a hot bath? You want something sweet? You want pain killers? His staff is on it!

It hurts him to see you in pain like this cause besides letting you use his vision and giving you pain killers there really isn’t anything he can do :( so he’ll apologize a lot to you even though it isn’t his fault

If it starts to get really bad he’ll take you to the cathedral! I mean…Idk what they could do for you but he’s trying his best

Whatever commission work you had planned before your period started is finished rather quick. When he goes to check on the tavern, he’ll complete your commissions for you and bring the mora back for you! He knows how hard it can be to get good paying commissions nowadays so he wouldn’t want you to miss out

If he sees that you’re feeling down, he’ll put more effort into complimenting you and being more affectionate than usual :)

Zhongli:

Ah yes, he is experienced in this area

He’s been around for so long, he knows all kinds of tips and tricks to help make symptoms not as severe

However his remedies are notorious for taking forever to make. His sobering tea takes 6 hours to brew…and his pain killer tea takes 9. By the time he finishes making all of his herbal concoctions, your period will be over lmao

Zhongli will put a lot of effort in to make sure you’re comfortable. He’ll get you as many pillows or blankets as you need, open the window for fresh air, close the drapes if it’s too bright, read to you if you’re bored. He knows you’re miserable so he’ll do his best to entertain you and keep you as comfortable as one can be in this condition

He’ll offer to do yoga with you if you’re up for it. Certain poses can alleviate pressure in the pelvic area so he’ll do it with you! (Squats always help me out too when it gets really bad!! Doing squats, drinking water and applying heat never fails! But everyone’s different!)

When you sleep, he’ll play with your hair and rub your back :) he loves how peaceful you look while finally getting some rest :)

Childe:

He’s a little clueless but he’s got the spirit!

See, when he received his education from the fatui they didn’t really give him a course on female anatomy so…he is aware of periods and what they are but he has no idea how severe symptoms can be

So when you’re in so much pain that you can’t get out of bed?? He’s super worried about you, he’s about to go get a doctor to come here to see you

It’s kinda funny to actually go in depth and explain how bad symptoms can be, how much you bleed, how awful cramps are cause he just…doesn’t know. Most men don’t actually know! He’ll genuinely feel bad for you and by explaining it all to him, he’ll learn and become a very reliable helper :)

“You should probably take a bath, right? I’ll go warm up some water” “Stay with me…just for a few more minutes” “Okay but then we’re gonna take a bath together. I’ll make the water extra hot too, that’ll help with cramps right?” “Mhm”

He’ll try to get you up and moving when you allow it so you don’t feel stiff from sitting in the same position for too long

Ajax is very affectionate already and will become even more affectionate if he sees that your self esteem is low. He’ll make sure to reassure you that you’re still so beautiful to him :’)

He’d think you’re pretty no matter what. You could have greasy hair, hormonal breakouts and eye bags from being tired and he’d still look at you like ‘wow…’ :’)

Baizhu:

As a medical professional, he’ll insist on being at your side when you show any indication of being in pain

He’ll make you some herbal pain relievers, they’ll taste super bitter and make your tongue numb for a minute but they’ll kick in pretty quick!!

Baizhu cant afford to take full days off but he’ll take half days in order to make sure you eat breakfast and lunch, drink water and rest.

You help him out when his own illness kicks in so he has no problem helping you out :) he’s content to rub your shoulders and coach you into sitting/laying positions that may be more comfortable

If you’re more cranky or sad than usual he’ll make you something warm and cuddle with you :) when you don’t feel well, you get to see his excellent bedside manner in action! Though he is far more affectionate with you than he is with his other patients lmao

If you’re someone who worries about their symptoms and fears they have suddenly developed a rare disease over night (looking up symptoms on the Internet is a terrible habit :’) ) He’ll be there to assure you that nothing is seriously wrong

“Honey, my side has been hurting a lot” “I know dear, I’ve already told you you don’t have appendicitis” “Maybe my liver is gonna rupture!!!” “That’s higher up, I’d be able to tell due to swelling and a fever. You don’t have either of those” “But what about that pain in my neck? What if it’s a tumor Baizhuuuuu!” “Darling, I think you just need to go to sleep” pffttt

[aenaxes]

chasing fountains

[fives x afab!reader] it's so easy to forget that the man you love is war incarnate. and maybe that's exactly why he can't be yours.

warnings: nsfw, angst, breakup sex, cunnilingus, unprotected vaginal sex

w/c: 2.6k

a/n: wrote this while listening to the reverb edit of good days by sza and definitely didn't cry idk what you're talking about

"Are we gonna be adults about this, or are you gonna give me the silent treatment until I guess what I did wrong?"

Fives's tone is no longer a novel sound in the dark walls of your apartment, a jagged sneer sawing through the silence as he sets his helmet down hard on the countertop. It's the kind of sound that doesn't cut deep but cuts wide, leaving a broad swath of gnarled scar tissue that will never heal quite right. (The worst kind.)

The holodrama in front of you drones mindlessly over the midnight channel.

You tell yourself that you've grown used to it, the cold and bitter thing that found home between you after the rosy light he flooded into the room faded away leave after leave, tour after tour. It helps you cope. But your body remembers what your mind tries to forget—memories of first leaves in months and boyish glee as Fives swept you into his arms and kissed you breathless in the narrow berth of your kitchen—and you flinch anyways.

"Isn't it obvious?" you sigh. It's a labored thing that crowds the bottom of your lungs up to your collarbones and chokes your throat with what's left of your straining heart.

You don't think it's anger.

It's something muted, something like the ache of a rusted plasma turbine sputtering out what last dregs of fuel it has left, numb and rote but the only thing it's ever known before it careens off the side of a landing bay and into dark waters. It happens, disrepair, discord. But the fact that it happens somehow makes you feel even worse, makes it feel like it was bound to happen.

"No, cyare, it's really not," Fives frowns.

You can hear the scowl in his voice.

"You forgot to call," you mumble, shifting your arms tighter over your chest, and you aren't sure whether the pressure in your chest is anger or the desperate claws of sorrow trying to remind you that you used to care. That he used to care.

"Cyare, I'm sorry I forgot to call, but I was in an active warzone. I can't just call you whenever to tell you goodnight because I'm usually writing condolences to the training squads of the men I bury."

You can hear the anger tearing at the fine threads of his restraint, his voice rising and rising until it's another sound away from a full-bodied yell. Before now, that sort of volume, that sort of presence, had been exclusive to late-night speeder bike joyrides and chasing fountains of youth over sandy dunes—the types of adrenaline rushes that felt good. You wonder if it's now become resentment or regret or a combination of both.

"You forgot to call for our anniversary," you say at last. Maker, you can't believe how pathetic you sound.

"I'm sorry, but I almost lost my entire squadron out there. I have to prioritize... differently, on the field," Fives says after a moment's pause (so he really did forget), his voice soft again but no less cold, no less tired of raising hellfire and being greeted with an impassive glaze over your eyes.

Silence settles through the room again, thick enough that the holodrama playing before you is reduced to a low buzz, and you tell yourself that your fingers feel numb because you always let the air conditioning run colder when Fives was on tour.

"Look, I'll try to make it up to you next time, cyar'ika," Fives murmurs, picking across the threshold and dropping down onto the couch beside you.

You aren't sure if there ever will be a next time when Fives only exists because of this endless war that cracks open the earth and swallows battalions whole. But when you drop your head onto his shoulder; when he tugs you close and cradles your head with a rough, warm palm; when you both pause and breathe the same breath together, you can pretend for just a moment that things are good again.

"'m tired," you mumble.

"What can I do?" It's the most earnest his voice has been all night, seeking gaps in the armor, places where he can reach in past the stony impasse and to that pearlescent light you've long since hidden from him. It's the closest to an apology you'll get.

"Take me to bed," you say.

Fives gently untangles you from around him, clicking off the holo before he secures his arms beneath you and carefully lifts you into his arms. Bittersweet memory, fragrant and dusted from months of disuse, floods your tongue as you loop your arms around Fives's neck and feel him press a kiss to your temple.

It's muscle memory, really. Nothing more. But it completes the little show of normalcy. It shifts you away from the hazy fugue of the present and back into better days when touch carried with it tender intent, more than ritual motion.

Fives presses a second kiss to your neck when you reach the bedroom door, mouthing his dry lips softly over your pulse. You cling to him and sigh. A third on your jaw, the next on your cheek, and another, another, another over your lips as he shifts you upright and lets you wrap your legs around his waist so you can tilt your head and push your tongue into his mouth.

It's muscle memory when, after he's thrown his armour off into the darkness of your room, you shift your hips down against his, gasping softly over his tongue as you catch the bulge in his blacks and heat floods your core. He groans into your mouth, fisting one hand in your hair and kissing you so hard it's almost crushing. It's muscle memory.

"Fives," you breathe, and it's becoming harder to tell performance from truth as something else hums in your chest.

"I've got you," he murmurs against your lips. "I'm right here, cyare. I'm always gonna be here." And the way he says it almost makes it believable.

You kiss him before he can say anything else, your teeth clacking against his as you swallow his words with a low moan, too afraid that if he says any more, you might actually convince yourself that this is more than an elaborately rewound memory.

Fives is no fool.

He knows, too, laying you carefully on the bed where he would usually toss you onto the mattress with a gleeful laugh and tumble in after you. In the darkness, you catch him hastily twisting out of his top, the low light catching over rippling muscle and warm skin before he rushes between your thighs and drops to his knees. He kisses the soft inner skin of your thighs like he always does, but this time, he does not linger instead kissing you for the sake of motion than playful desire.

This is choreography.

But performance as it might be, you do not need to pretend your pleasure when his heady exhale over your clit serves as a brief warning before Fives licks a broad, wet stripe over your cunt.

In the early days, you had been eager to chalk it up to the end of the gilded shimmer of the honeymoon phase, an entry into a stabler shared life that would be just as sweet. You're not certain what you've become, he and you, but it isn't that.

Whatever you are now, it has no concern in this moment because Fives still knows how to coax pleasure from your deepest parts, finding your softest, most vulnerable places and calling you to something better than a frigid spat to welcome him home.

You clap your hand over your mouth as Fives wraps his lips around your clit, pulling a raw euphoria from your heaving lungs that has you moaning louder than you have in too long. He groans your name into your own skin, gasps, and delves deep again.

"Fives, Fives," you plead, reaching down to grope for his head in your blind pleasure.

"Cyar'ika?" Fives pauses only to respond then plunges his tongue back into the saccharine wetness of your cunt, feeling you jump and spasm around him.

"Fuck me," you cry over a groan, knotting your fingers in his hair.

"You didn't come yet," he murmurs into your skin, almost irritated, his voice thrumming straight to your core as you cry out again.

"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter," you chant. The intimacy will only prolong the ordeal of greed, will only make you want more when you're already drowning under the weight of what little remains now. "Need you inside me, please."

Fives hums his assent, curls his tongue into your cunt one last time, and leaves you with a ghost of a kiss pressed over your clit. He staggers up off his knees, hardly bothering to lick your slick smeared over his lips—to savor it with the mischievous delight he no longer shares before you—and cups the back of your neck to pull you into a crushing kiss that might almost be painful if you weren't so desperate to soak up every last touch he has to give.

"Tell me if it hurts," he says like he has every time he's pulled you into his arms and parted your thighs. Except this time, there is no lingering gaze, no silent professions of something more than physicality in a moment of heat. Fives only kisses you one last time before he buries his nose in the crook of your neck.

This is a performance, you tell yourself as you press close.

And then he's pushing into you, stretching you open around him and filling you in every way you forgot that you needed, in the way only he could as he cages you between his arms.

He sets a pace that is altogether the same and yet nothing like how you remember him. You're playing out something you had done before arguments lasted weeks and couches became occasional beds. Yet it feels just like the real thing, his thighs sticking to the skin of your ass as he plunges up into that spot that whites out your vision and curls your toes tight.

It feels so real that if you squeeze your eyes shut and release the tension coiled at the base of your neck, you can pretend that when you meet his eyes, Fives will flash you the smile that crinkles around the corners of his eyes and bubbles laughter from his chest.

Instead, he shifts your ankles from the base of his spine, his brows knit tight and his chest heaving as he hefts your legs over his shoulders. You sob as he fucks into you harder now, hard enough to nearly fold you in two and fill the bedroom with the sharp clarity of his skin pressing into yours. You wonder if it's to crowd you close, to mold himself as close as he may ever be and take one more fleeting taste of you.

"Fives," you cry out one last time, the flared ridge of his cockhead catching your clit as he pulls out.

Desire crests so high in your core you almost feel sick with want for more. You cling to the feeling, committing to memory what you will later try to scrub away: how you flutter around the ridges of Fives's cock, how he fucks you in the way only months of true, genuine desire would allow him to know, how when your legs jerk and he lathes his tongue your shoulder that you might have called this love.

It's ironic how that's the one thing that crosses your mind when you squeeze your arms around his neck and come with a strangled sob. His hips connect hard with yours, fucking into you in one swift motion that has your back arching off the sheets. You blindly kiss over the coarse stubble of Fives's jaw, and it crushes the air from your lungs as he takes your chin in his hands, all gentle and trembling restraint, and kisses you so sweetly it burns.

A few more sloppy thrusts, and Fives bows his head low and pushes deeper than he has all night. Groping over his shoulder for his hand, he frantically laces his fingers with yours, squeezing tight. And when you squeeze back, you hear him make something of a moan and a sob pushed into one as he finishes inside you.

He overwhelms you with one last gesture of him as you pulse around his softening cock, and you can't help how you look to him with stars in your eyes, just like before, just like how it was supposed to be. He notices—opening his eyes to reveal something forgiving and warm—but before whatever it is drags you both into its inescapable orbit, he takes you into his arms and collapses onto his side.

Fives pulls out of you with an obscene noise, something you might have laughed at before the thorns of distance had grown long and sharp between you. You only sigh at the slow drip of his come sliding over your skin and pooling over the sheets as he pulls out.

For a while, you lie there, the sheets kicked to the foot of the bed and your cheek pressed to the sweat-slicked skin of his chest. You don't remember what you would do to fill the buzzing silence of afterglow, but you remember it felt better than what you're feeling, the slow descent of gilded curtains in a dark room, falling, falling.

Fives takes the guesswork out of it for you, though. There's a semblance of real tenderness when he kisses your brow and shifts away just enough that he can't meet your eyes but instead can keep you close enough to touch.

"When's your next tour?" you whisper into the quiet as he lifts his hand to your face.

"I have a week of leave," Fives responds. He traces his fingertips over the highest points of your cheeks and nose, memorializing in touch what the darkness tucks away.

"Where to?"

"Ringo Vinda." His fingers curl over your chin, cradling you to his skin before he slowly sweeps them up the edge of your jaw.

"That's far," you say.

"Not too far," he chuckles, hollow and weak as he runs his thumb over your ear. "I can still call you at night."

"You don't have to."

"I want to, y/n."

"Don't," you whisper, and you hear his inhale catch in his throat.

It's where this entire evening has been going from the moment he stepped foot into your apartment until now: one final, cresting movement pressed into the absence of space between you, impossibly wide and impossibly close all at once as Fives's hand stills over the skin just beneath your eye.

"Don't call?" He knows his answer, but he says it anyways, desperate rhetoric clinging to something that has already been gone for months.

"Don't," you manage to say over the heat in your eyes and the asphyxiating swell at the back of your throat. "Please."

There's still a part of you that wants him to fight. Wants him to rear back, raise his voice, and look you in the eyes to say horrible things to fight for the sum of you and him like he always has. Because it isn't right for it to end like this, a lonely blip over the comm channels that cries once then blinks out forever. It isn't right.

But you're tired.

"I'm sorry." Your calm breaks with a trembling sob.

And when pries his fingertips from your face to wrap his arms around your shoulders and pull you close, you know it is the last time you will fly this close to the sun; the last time you will bear witness to the glorious, warm light that had only soured in the time you shared.

"I'm sorry," you hiccup.

"It's okay," Fives's voice rumbles under your ear, backgrounded by tight, shallow breaths that only close the vice tighter around your throat. "I'm sorry, too."

And you let him go.

(He doesn't call.)

[rainbowvamp]

i don't wanna lose you

 25. “Let’s not end like this.”

Modern AU. Background Portamis. Previous Athamis. Athos angst. 

Maybe OOC? Idk, it just felt like a fun idea and I rolled with it.

Modern AU. Portamis. Previous Athamis. Athos angst. Maybe OOC? Idk, it just sounded like a fun idea and I rolled with it.

—

Athos had known the break up was coming for a long time. Aramis had always strayed, but Athos hadn’t minded. 

But Aramis hadn’t just been straying at the end. 

He’d fallen in love, and Athos couldn’t fault him for it. Porthos was strong and sure and had as much kindness as he had courage, which he had in abundance. Porthos was everything that Aramis could want and need and Athos wasn’t really any of those things.

Aramis isn’t the one to break it off. Athos does it. Athos says they’re through in a little restaurant Aramis probably chose so Athos wouldn’t make a scene when he left him. Well the joke was on Aramis, because Athos said “I don’t want to be with you anymore,” and walked out, just throwing the money on the table to pay the bill for food they had ordered by hadn’t gotten yet, and he left without looking back.

He didn’t expect Aramis to chase him, but maybe he was hoping for it. Hoping Aramis would tell him “this was all a misunderstanding” and “please don’t go” and “I love you,” but Athos doesn’t look back and he doesn’t know if Aramis even watches him leave. 

It takes a few weeks for the anger to die down. That first night Ninon and Sylvie, the most loyal friends and man could ask for him, support him without question. They knew he and Aramis had a more open relationship, but they do nothing but drink with him and distract him when he shows up at their place needing not to be alone. 

Ninon is far more attached to Athos than she is to Aramis, and is the first to turn completely traitor against him and bash the man as if she’d never liked him to begin with. She is drunker than she usually allows herself to be and she has a way with words that would be delightful if she wasn’t talking about the man he loved and believed himself committed to just a few hours before.

Sylvie is slower. She is reticent that first night while Athos is Drunk and Ninon is Mean. She let’s Athos vent, and strokes his hair and nods when he starts to cry, too far into his cups to stop it, and she hums a song her mum used to sing to her when she was sad, and Athos falls asleep on her shoulder. 

Life goes on, as it often does. Athos gets up and goes to work, comes home one day to realize that Aramis has taken all his things out of the flat they hadn’t shared by had shared and has left his key on the entryway table with a note that only has three words on it.

I’m sorry,

A.

Athos throws the key and the letter into the fireplace, lets the letter burn and the key warp under the heat until it is unusable. He gets drunk with Ninon and Sylvie that night too, not ready to face the flat that feels like it will be empty until he dies.

He lays in bed the next die. The entire next day. He makes himself get up to pee, but food and water don’t feel important. Nothing feels important. He wants to go to sleep and never wake up again. He misses Aramis, but Aramis loves someone else and Athos should just to happy for them.

Apparently, not answering his texts is grounds for breaking and entering because Sylvie breaks in that evening (using the key he gave her years ago) and makes him eat, drink water, have a shower.

He trudges through the motions but his heart isn’t in it. 

—

Eventually the hurt subsides and he is numb. This is in part from the alcohol and in part from previous experience with this sort of emotional dampening. He thinks how Aramis would hate this for him, but pushes the thought away as quickly as it comes, each time it comes.

He is able to go about his day without thinking of Aramis, though he doesn’t think of much else either. He works and drinks and sometimes eats. Sylvie or Ninon or both chastise him for his complete disregard of his health, both mental and physical, and he promises to do better, lying like he lies to himself when he says he’s fine with all of this, really.

The first time he sees the two of them out in public, he turns on his heel, hopefully before they see him, but again, he doesn’t turn back to look.

Aramis was leaning close to Porthos in that way he used to do when Athos was feeling left out or overwhelmed, taking up his space to remind him that he was supported; that Athos wasn’t alone, and Aramis was there beside him. 

Porthos has a smile like stars, not brilliant, but luminous, glowing, happy. Aramis makes him happy.

Aramis used to make Athos happy.

He wants to be happy for them, and he just can’t.

He gets black out drunk that night, alone in his flat. Ninon shows up at some point with Sylvie’s key and makes him get up and even when he’s ornery she just beats him down with looks and just once an open hand across his cheek, hard enough to sting but not to bruise.

In the morning, he learns that he’d called Aramis, drunk and basically incoherent, and Aramis had called Sylvie because he hadn’t thought he would be welcome, and Sylvie had called Ninon because Sylvie had a cap for Athos drunkeness and he had very much been past that cap last night. 

He asks Ninon, who is asleep in his bed beside him and has been waking him up periodically throughout the night, what he said to Aramis. She shrugs and tells him that the only person who knows is Aramis. And probably Porthos, but she doesn’t say that part. 

Around 11am, after Ninon has gone home and Athos has decided to give getting out of bed a good try, he gets a brief text from Aramis. 

I know you don’t owe me it, but if you can text me back and let me know you’re alright, I would appreciate it. 

Athos stares at the phone for long moments, knowing Aramis can see that he has read the message and not really caring as he sets the phone down and goes to the bathroom to take a very long, brain-numbing, shower. 

When he gets out of the shower and gets dressed, it is in a nice set of trousers and a soft sweater that he has been trying to forget was a present from Aramis. He takes the early part of the afternoon, still throbbing a bit at the temples and sour in the stomach, to buy “thank-you-for-putting-up-with-me” presents for both Sylvie and Ninon. It’s while he’s trying to convince himself not to buy another bottle of wine at the grocery that he hears a familiar voice that is more awkward than it had ever been in all the years Athos listened to it. 

“Athos?” 

Aramis has never sounded uncertain, not in Athos’ memory, at least, and so for a brief second he wonders what stranger is accosting him during this very delicate time at the grocery story. 

“Yes?” Athos tries to look unaffected, settling his face into a neutral, expressionless thing that he realized he hadn’t given to Aramis since well before they started dating.

“I- Um, I wanted to check on you. Make sure you were well.” Aramis stutters at Athos raised eyebrow, “I didn’t follow you here. I- I just saw you and I wanted to ask.” 

“I’m fine.” The words are flat even to his own ears.

“You- Okay.” Aramis said and took a subtle step back. “I just. I know that you- We can be friends. I would like it if we were friends.”

“Mhmm,” Athos puts the bottle of wine in his trolley. He doesn’t grab another one, but maybe he will after he does a loop of the grocery store to get away from Aramis. “Right. I have to be somewhere. Goodbye.” 

“Goodbye.” Aramis voice is small, fragile. It makes Athos’ chest ache and his hands twitch to hold themselves out and ask Aramis if he needs him. He doesn’t do this. He pushes his trolley down the aisle in picks a random direction to go in, hoping he’ll remember what he came here for while he’s walking but knowing he won’t. 

—

Sylvie, as if by some miracle, shows up at his place less than an hour after he gets home from the store. He gives her a nice scented soap that vaguely reminded him of the shampoo she used and she gave him a hug and proceeded to spend the night. The wine bottles go missing when he goes looking for them and he doesn’t blame Sylvie for hiding them. He ends up in a familiar position, head against her shoulder, on of her hands clasped in both of his while she strokes his hair and shoulder and back. Anywhere she can comfortably reach, basically. 

“I’m sorry,” He tells her quietly. He doesn’t say what for. He hopes she knows.

“Did you really break it off with Aramis?” Sylvie asked, and Athos turned, pulling away so he can look her in the eyes.

“Yes.” His gaze is steady and she meets it without flinching.

“Why?” 

Ahh, the question. The question. The reasoning he’s barely thought about but hasn’t dared to speak. He leans his head back on her shoulder. This is not a conversation he wants to be looked at while he’s having. 

“Porthos.” Is where he starts, hoping that will be enough. It is not, as he assumed it wouldn’t be, so he took a deep breath. “I knew he was falling in love with him. He was spending more and more time with him. I knew it. He wasn’t cheating on me.” He feels like he has to reiterate this. He feels like he needs to defend Aramis, even now. “I just… He sat me down at this small little restaurant and I did it before he could. I didn’t want to be broken up with. I didn’t want apologies and ‘I’m so sorry Athos, please understand, please-‘” His voice cuts off and he has to swallow, hard. “I love him too much to listen to him spiral with his guilt while I fell apart inside. So I told him I didn’t want to be with him anymore and I left.”

“Did you want to not be with him anymore?” She asked and he laughed, humorless, degrading towards himself and his own misery. 

“Of course I wanted to be with him. I don’t think I’ve ever told a bigger lie in my life.” 

Sylvie hums, thinking for a few minutes. She plays with his hair and he closes his eyes, not ashamed that a couple of tears form at the memory, slide hot and accusing down his cheeks onto Sylvie’s shoulder. 

“How do you know he was going to break up with you?” Sylvie asked, and this throws him for a loop. He doesn’t understand the question. Aramis was in love with a man who Athos could never hope to match up to. Why wouldn’t be break up with him.

He takes too long to answer, so she goes on. “I just… I wonder if you didn’t jump the gun. If you didn’t go too fast to ‘break-up’ and didn’t spend enough time in ‘we-should-have-a-conversation-about-this’?” 

“It’s a bit late for wondering.” Athos mumbled, and sat up. She lets him have his space, but keeps one of her hands wrapped around his.

“Maybe not. He seemed. He didn’t seem like he was right as rain and over the moon. He seemed. Lost. When he called me last night about your drunk dial. Like he wanted to come over himself but didn’t think he’d be welcome.

“He doesn’t have the key anymore.” He clarifies. 

“Aramis has been able to pick a lock for longer than I’ve known him. And he could have climbed in a window besides.”

“I live on the second floor.”

“Would that have stopped him?”

Athos can’t help but smile fondly. “No, I suppose it wouldn’t have.”

“Exactly. So… I wonder if maybe you should’ve talked more, before you did what you did.” 

“He was in love with someone else, Sylvie. He is in love with someone else.”

Perfect, wonderful Porthos who Athos could never-

“There’s nothing that says you can’t love more than one person.” 

Athos brain slows, halts, goes quiet. 

“Did I break you?” She asked when it takes him too long to respond.

“Yes.” He says quietly and she pulls him to her again, and he goes, accepting the hug and feeling grateful that the flat isn’t empty.

Athos prods at the thought. There’s nothing that says you can’t love more than one person… Spoken with such ease that Athos isn’t sure that to do with it. Had he been a fool? Had he stepped too quickly out of a relationship that hadn’t been ready to end?

But, Aramis hadn’t come after him. Aramis had let him leave, let him walk out.

“I was wondering why Aramis wasn’t ever around. I thought, maybe, if you broke up with him because of Porthos, because you didn’t like it, he’d at least have offered to end it. To be exclusive if it meant keeping you. But… If you said what you say you did, that you didn’t want to be with him anymore, that sounds like the sort of think Aramis would see as a boundary. Something he shouldn’t cross. Wouldn’t dare to.” 

And that… sounded very much like Aramis, now that he thought about it. Aramis, who had asked explicitly for consent before their first kiss. Aramis who had made them have a half hour long conversation about comfort and limits and expectations before they’d had sex. Aramis who communicated so openly that it sometimes gave Athos whiplash because he came from posh near-nobility who wouldn’t share their feelings if it gave them eternal life. 

“Fuck.” He whispered, and then he shook his head. “Fuck. Sylvie. Stop putting ideas in my head. I just- I cannot handle it I-“ lose him again.

“I know.” She strokes his hair, temples, “I’m sorry.” 

“I know.” He repeats and they stay like that for a long while.

—

Ninon is the one who makes him call. Sits beside him while he does it, in fact, because for all that she was the first to betray Aramis, she was also very staunchly pro-Athos-Being-Happy, and she wanted them to work it out if it was possible to.

“Athos?” Aramis sounds breathless, and Athos tries not to think about why that might be.

“And Ninon. Just for transparency.” Ninon says beside him. The phone is on speaker.

“Oh?” He’s still breathing differently. “Well, that’s a surprise. What can I do for you?”

Athos can’t respond. Aramis sounds so happy to be talking to him that Athos’ brain won’t do anything but focus on the sound of his voice, memorizing the sound of it, giving him not space left to respond. 

“Athos wants to meet. Tomorrow. Is there a time that works?” 

“Um, sure. Yes. I’ll-“ A rustling, then paper’s shifting. “I have the afternoon free. We can meet for coffee that that place we-“ Aramis stopped, and when he finishes his voice is far less cheery. “We can do something in the afternoon. Just text me where and when.”

“Good.” Ninon says for him, and Athos is very grateful. “He will see you tomorrow.”

“Great.” It’s not as enthusiastic as it could be, but then Ninon is hanging up the phone and Athos is trying to pull himself together. 

Part 2 coming tomorrow.

[mischiefthedreamerx]

To Never Give Up

Summary: By mistake, Loki takes a portal leading him to New Asgard, where he meets Thor who is broken & hopeless after the events of Infinity War. Thor is given some closure and Loki can finally say goodbye.

Pairing: Loki x Sylvie implied.

A/N: Idk how Loki ends up in New Asgard in but that's irrelevant. Towards the end I kind of lost inspiration & ideas so it flopped a bit but I wanted to finish it.

Word Count: 3k

- - - - - - - -

Loki landed ungracefully with a loud 'thud' against a hard cold floor. As he lay down in his new surroundings, the awful smell of the room hit him first, making him scrunch up his nose. Getting up to his feet with an exhausted sigh, he took in the room. It was small, dull and unkempt. Only a slither of light broke through the closed curtains. Empty food packets and cans of alcohol littered the table and wooden floor. Loki saw some controls with wires connecting to a thin rectangular box next to a TV. The stoned-wall room looked abandoned, claustrophobic. How could anyone possible live here? Blankets lay over a gloomy sofa as if someone was sleeping on it too.

Loki cautiously walked around the room for any sign of life, avoiding treading on the litter or touching anything for that matter. He thought whoever lived here would probably not be much of a threat. Outside, he heard the sound of birds squawking and ocean waves.

The next thing he heard was a sudden high pitch creaking sound of a door opening. Loki conjured up a small dagger, eyes narrowing to the direction of the sound. Someone was home. The door closed and within seconds, the resident appeared in front of the room.

Loki’s dagger fell to the floor as he froze in place. He stared openly, wide eyed, trying to process who this heavy figure was. The figure in turn dropped a white plastic bag of food.

"Thor..?” Loki gasped in horror. His brother wore a grubby white t-shirt and a knitted cardigan, hair long and tangled. At first, Loki wasn't even sure it was Thor.

Thor mumbled out a bunch of incoherent sounds before managing to form actual words. "Loki..? Loki! You're alive!" He let out a laugh as he pulled his brother into a tight hug.

Loki was left speechless. Tears prickled in the corner of his eyes, hesitantly placing an arm around Thor to return the embrace. A warmth spread through him. Loki did not wish to let go though Thor eventually did.

A bright smile crossed his lips. “You bastard! You had me fooled there, thinking you'd actually died again! And for good this time. You truly are quite the trickster, brother. " The laughter continued as he pat Loki on the back.

Loki swallowed. "Thor..I'm.." His stomach ached at the thought of telling Thor the truth. "I'm not from this timeline." He guessed since Thor was not on Asgard that their home had been destroyed on this timeline by Ragnarok and Thanos had attacked. Loki placed a hand on Thor's shoulder. "I'm not your Loki." He said softly.

"Wait..this isn't another one of your silly little tricks, right?" He kept up his smile despite the uncertainty in his gaze.

Loki raised both hands in an attempt to calm his brother. "Thor. I need you to listen to me."

But he did exactly the opposite. "Please come in! Excuse the mess. I-i wasn't expecting visitors. Not that I, er, getting any.." Thor mumbled as he hurried in, removing any litter from the sofa and tidying the blankets. Loki turned to watch Thor helplessly, unable to move from his spot. He sucked in a heavy sigh. "Have a seat." Thor spoke.

Loki forced away the numbness in his limps and slowly sat down. "Thor, please. Just listen to me." He said in despair.

"Right. Of course." Thor muttered, siting himself down.

"What year is this?" Loki asked.

"Um.." Thor frowned, scratching himself. "2023."

"I've come from the year 2012." Loki explained. Thor stilled frowned.

"This isn't a joke is it?" His little piece of happiness faltered.

Loki shook his head, a pained smile reached his lips. "I wish it was."

Any trace of a smile left Thor completely. "So.. you're from another timeline..which means.." He sniffed. "..you're still.."

"Dead." Loki said. "Your Loki is dead." Loki felt a heaviness in his chest. Dead.

Thor wrapped his cardigan around himself. "Then why are you here?"

Loki took a moment to gather his thoughts. "It's a very long story. I took a portal and by chance it lead me here. To you." His gaze met Thor's. There was no sign of that prideful hero left in those empty eyes. Nothing that once resembled a would be King of Asgard, a saviour to many. Loki wasn’t sure it was a good idea to tell Thor about the whole TVA situation either.

“How come you’re alive?” Thor asked.

“After New York, I escaped with the Tesseract. I’ve seen a lot..I saw the events that happened to my future, from the Dark Elves to Ragnarok and the attack by Tha—“

“No. We don’t say that name here.” Thor choked out, cutting Loki off.

Loki nodded. Thor had lost everything and so had Loki too, though in return he found Mobius and Sylvie to help with the loss of his family but Thor was alone. Not even the avengers came to visit him from the sound of it. Loki fought the urge to let his fingers curl into fists.

"Sorry." Loki apologised. "So this is your new..home?" His eyes scanned the living room.

Thor fumbled with his fingers. "It's not much. After the..well, you know, the humans were kind enough to offer us this village. It's a bit fishy but it's all we've got. They even gave us a sign too." Thor forced on a smile. "It's not quite like home." He looked down at his lap.

"Asgard is not a place." Loki said.

"It's a people." Thor said quietly, finishing off the common saying amongst the Asgardians.

Loki knew he should not stay too long, it would only hurt Thor more when he left but maybe this was what they both needed despite not being from the same timeline. Loki told himself to go. Was it selfish to stay for a little while longer? Maybe this was meant to happen?

"Why don't you show me around this new kingdom of yours?" Loki suggested with genuine smile.

"No, I don't really go out much."

Loki stood up. If he was going to stay for a while, he wasn’t willing to be confined in this depressing room. "Well I'll just go ahead on my own, if you don't mind?" He smirked. "I'll be on my best behaviour."

Thor scrambled up to his feet. "I don't think that a good idea. You're suppose to be dead, they'll see you."

Loki chuckled. "No they won't. You still underestimate me, brother."

- - - - - - -

Loki concealed his presence from anyone nearby, though it wasn't too busy, some had gone out on their boats. They both walked along the pier, Loki had conjured up a black coat due to the weather. The sky was hidden behind grey clouds, as a breeze swept across the ocean. Rays of sunlight managed to break through occasionally. Thor briefly spoke about their job with trading and catching fish for nearby villages in this place called 'Scotland'.

After about half an hour of wandering along the pier, they both stood on a hill overlooking the coast and houses of New Asgard. Thor bent down, placing in hands on his knees to catch his breath.

"Are you okay?"

"Don't worry about me. The exercise will do me some good." He said sucking in the ocean air before standing up straight, stretching his back. Loki gave him a moment to steady his breathing back to normal.

"So what are your daily king duties on this fine and wonderful kingdom?" Loki asked in light humour.

Thor scratched his brow in thought. "You know, king stuff, the usual. It's not like I stay inside all day shouting at a bunch of fools on a screen."

"Sounds..exciting." Loki said flatly.

"What about you? Causing chaos wherever you go?"

Loki thought of his words carefully, there was no need for Thor to know all the specifics when he already had enough to deal with.

"Something like that." He smiled. Chaos was too much of a small word to describe what he had gone through. "I've been protecting the sacred timeline." Loki joked with enthusiasm.

Thor frowned but did not question it. "Oh, yeah? And how's that going?”

Loki's facial features tightened. "Marvellous.”

Thor did not have the effort to ask Loki to expand on his response, he probably thought Loki was lying but it did not matter to him.

They both stood together watching the ocean. Loki closed his eyes, tipping his head back as he let the breeze blow against him, prolonging their time together. There was something about the ocean that brought him a sense of calmness. As Loki's eyes remained close, Thor turned to look at his brother who appeared to be so at peace, a feeling Thor had rarely often seen Loki experience.

"You've changed." Thor said absentmindedly, his voice mirroring the calmness between them.

Loki opened his eyes, a warm expression crossed his face. "I know. Seeing one's own life play out on screen was certainly an experience. I finally heard what I needed to hear for so long.” That he was loved.

"I met people I could trust.” Well, it was still an ongoing process for some part of it. “Someone who told me I could be anything I wanted to be, even someone good.”

A tinged of jealousy pinched inside Thor's chest. "Met anyone special along the way?" He nudged Loki with his elbow as he grinned.

"Well," Loki placed his hands in his pockets, letting out a nervous laugh. "it's complicated."

The shining grin remained. "I wish to hear about them.”

Loki shied away for a moment, trying to force his smile back but unfortunately failed to do so. "She's sometimes irritating and very reckless." His expression then softened. "She reminds me of how I used to be..so full of anger but deep down she's hurting, a lot. She doesn't trust, or let anyone in. Or even know what it’s like to love someone.”

"And then you came along with all that charm of yours.” Thor teased.

Loki scoffed. "Cut it out. We're..still figuring things out. I think."

"Truly, I am happy for you, brother. And what is this fair maiden’s name?" She was definitely far from a ‘fair maiden’...

Loki averted his gaze downwards, their last moment that they shared together played through his mind. "Sylvie." He said, almost as a whisper to himself. A name that weighed heavy in his heart.

"Sylvie." Thor repeated, testing the name. “You know, brother, for the first time in my life. I'm actually jealous of you. Who would of thought that?"

Loki frowned. "Jealous? Of me?" This would of once made Loki feel victorious that the roles had been reversed after many years but now it only pained his heart to see his mighty brother succumb to such sadness.

"I mean, look at you! All happy and in love. And then there's me. Barely even a king, I spend every day inside pretending I'm fine, it's not like most of my people haven't died when I was suppose to protect them or-or that half of the universe has been destroyed, that we failed them, failed each other and fell apart..” Thor rambled on. “We lost.”

"If this means anything to you; I still think you're worthy." Loki said softly. Thor turned with tears prickling in his eyes.

"I am?" He questioned, sniffling. “I’m not quite sure anymore.”

"You are forgetting who you are. You can't let Thanos take everything away from you. He is no god.” Loki knew mentioning Thanos would displease Thor but Loki knew the hard way that hiding your pain, forgetting that it exists, only made everything more worse. The only way out was to face it head on. Loki would certainly know.

Thor shook his head. “No, no. Loki, I can't. Not without you. I've lost everything." He trembled in his words. Loki regretted not leaving sooner. He had failed to comfort Sylvie, to save their trust within their final moments, now Loki had to find some way to bring closure to Thor who was possibly past his breaking point. Comforting others was a tricky task, a trait he had not quite naturally inherited from his mother.

"You don't need me. Our paths were destined to diverge." Loki had found a way to move on and Thor needed to do so as well. "All is not so lost, brother." When you live for so long, loss must be something you became familiar with but regardless of long you knew someone, there was never enough time for when you'd be ready to say goodbye.

"I know. I know." Thor mumbled to himself. Despite his larger size, somehow he seemed to cower into himself, making him seem so small.

Loki cleared his throat. "So the Avengers..they disbanded?" He asked.

Thor nodded. "Seemed that way. Not heard from them since the whole 'snap' disaster." They abandoned him, Loki thought in anguish, failing to hide the disgust in his features.

"The mighty so-called Avengers gave up, is that it?" Loki folded his arms across his chest.

"You seem angry, brother." Thor commented out of curiosity.

Loki shrugged. "They call themselves heroes, protectors against evil but when they lose, they go and hide away from their mistakes like cowards.”

"Then what makes someone a hero?"

Loki blinked several times, his annoyance was caught off guard by Thor's question. Someone who blindly follows the rules? Who uses their powers for fame and fortune? Those who believe they are perfect? But it seems after all, that they were anything but perfect.

"I don't know." Loki looked across at the waves, straightening up his posture and gave Thor his answer; "They are selfless, willing to sacrifice themselves for others without question. They don't just give up even when they lose. They keep on going." Loki attempted to keep his frustration under control but tendril of it managed to slip through.

A small smile portrayed across Thor's lips. "So is that who you are now?"

Loki frowned, turning his attention to his brother. "What do you mean?"

"A hero."

Loki chuckled. Him? A hero? He'd never stopped to think of himself as that. Loki had been many things, taken on many roles; the villain, a trickster, an outcast, a prince. But never a hero in the eyes of others or himself.

"Is that really such a bad thing, Loki?"

"I suppose not." Loki huffed out in uncertainty.

"Whoever said you could be anything you wanted to be was right." Then Thor repeated the words he once said to his Loki on Sakaar; "You could be more."

"Thank you." Loki spoke sincerely with a smile. Maybe he was thankful that he had stayed after all. A final chance to see his brother and for Thor to know that on another timeline, Loki was alive and well.

"No need to thank me, brother. I should be the one thanking you. I am glad fate has brought you here to me, to remind me of who I am."

"My pleasure." Loki nodded.

After a gloomy start to the day, the sun had won its battle against the clouds and shone its rays against the ocean, blessing New Asgard with its glorious light and warmth.

"Looks like the sun is finally making an appearance." Loki commented, looking upwards. "This place is rather melancholy to say the least."

Thor's eyes widened in bewilderment, his gaze switching between the sun and his brother. A tear trickled down his cheek. Fate was truly cruel in some ways. Loki noticed Thor's odd expression.

"Thor?"

Thor shook his head to escape himself from his thoughts. "I'm fine. And don't talk badly about my newly established kingdom. It's a...work in progress. Come back in a few years time and we'll have towers across these mountains."

"I'll take your word for it." Loki chuckled, though their happy mood soon faded. Loki would not be back here in a few years time. He would likely not come back at all. Thor picked up on Loki's sudden change of mood.

"Why can't you stay, Loki?" Thor asked despite knowing that he could not stay.

"As much as I would wish to stay with you, I can't. I.. have people wanting for me." He needed to find Mobius and Sylvie, to fix this mess that had unfolded, he will not run away. Thor nodded with a sniff.

"Will you at least come and visit?" He pleaded. Loki did not want to make any false promises, though he so easily could to make this less painful for Thor but in the long run, the guilt would soon eat up inside of him. He had enough of it to deal with already.

"Thor. I can't. I don't belong here."

Thor’s newly found confidence collapsed, hands beginning to shake. Loki made the decision to leave before the pain was too much to bear for both of them.

"No." Thor shook his head. "Don't leave me."

Loki placed a hand on his brother's quivering shoulder. "I have to. People need need me."

"To be a hero?" Thor managed to force smile as the tears shone in his eyes

"Well I guess." Loki smiled back before opening up his arms to embrace him in a hug. He let their embrace linger on.

"Don't give up." Loki whispered until they let each other go one final time. Thor did not have a chance to reply when Loki waved a hand of green sparks across Thor’s tear stained face.

"Goodbye, brother." Was the last words Thor heard before a gentle darkness overtook his sight.

- - - - - -

"Hey, man. You waking up anytime soon?" Said a voice. Thor felt something small and solid hit his face. "You're not dead are you?" Another minor hard object made contact with his cheek.

Thor had awoken, he was inside his beach hut, Korg stood above him catching a rock in his palm. "Sorry, hope that didn't hurt too much."

Thor ignored him, shrugging off his blanket as he stood up, stable onto his feet. There was a gleam of strength in his eyes that had been missing for far too long. A broad smile made an unusual appearance as the sound of thunder rumbled in the distance.

"Must of been some good dream you had there, buddy?"

"We need to contact the remaining Avengers." Thor demanded as he strode off towards the front door.

Korg scratched the back of his head. "Why?"

"Because heroes never give up!" Thor beamed.

Thank you, brother.

- - - -

@cazzyimagines @maciswack

[c-c-cherry]

Mista Whump headcanons? I loved his chapter in the dadbacchio fic!

Hi! I’m glad you’re liking Communication Breakdown so far, the new chapter should be out once I’m done with my Halloween stuff! <3

//content warning for whump-related shit (sickness, major injury, etc..)

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I feel like I should just shove in my pre-established headcanons that I always have for Mista before I start like what I did for my man Jonathan:

-Oldest in the family and (ironically) has four younger sisters! 

-His parents worked a LOT growing up so he was often treated as the third parent growing up, doing almost everything for them in search of their approval

-It made him very responsible, but it also made him feel like he had to be responsible for everything and everyone

-That mindset followed him to where he is now; no matter how relaxed he seems to be, there’s always a feeling in the back of his head that he has to manage everything and be responsible for everyone’s safety and health

-Loves physical affection but would rather die than be an “active burden” on anyone

-Not in any form of contact with his family since he went to prison (and misses them a lot) ;(

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Pain Tolerance

-Getting shot? Been there, done that. Kidnapped and interrogated? He can hold off for a surprisingly long amount of time. Drugged? Barely even phases him.

-We all know he probably has the highest pain tolerance in the entire team

-Partially because it seems like he always gets hurt no matter what he’s doing

-I headcanon him as the oldest in his family so he was always brought up to have really thick skin and was always thought to be the most responsible growing up

-His parents were working all the time, so that meant he had to take care of his siblings whenever they were hurt

-But meant when he was injured as a kid, he had to deal with it himself :/

-When he first joined the gang, it was:

1) weird not being the oldest, and

2) really weird having people actually worried about you when you got hurt

-Even with Giorno having Gold to help them out all the time and Giorno insisting that its literally his stand’s purpose, he still feels this weighted guilt every time he needs someone else’s help

-Our man acts all whiny about it but truthfully, if he was given the option, he would much rather ride it out on his own or deal with things himself :(

Injury

-In all honesty, he’s probably one of the only members of the team that wouldn’t be opposed to going to a hospital

-Whereas Bruno or Narancia would be fucking terrified of stepping foot in one again for obvious reasons, the rest of the gang are just pretty stubborn about it

...

-He tends to be overdramatic most of the time when he gets hurt, but you can tell when something is really hurting him when he’s absolutely silent

-It’s almost the opposite of his other team members; most of them get uncharacteristically loud and panicky when they’re in serious serious pain but it's almost like his brain just completely shuts down

-He gets so quiet that he’s basically unresponsive and his body keeps trying to numb itself as the pain gets worse and worse

-It always bites him in the ass later when his state starts wearing off and all the pain his body was blocking out comes back tenfold and it's just OUCH

...

-Mista’s a pretty touchy guy. He practically lives off human contact

-Except when he’s hurt.

-His body kicks into this weird overdrive where he wants no one to touch him and he’s just supposed to deal with it himself

-Idk how accurate this actually is in canon but I headcanon that Gold Experience’s healing methods don’t actually hurt that much, it's actually pretty soothing for most people

-The reason Mista always freaks out whenever Gold is healing him is because of his weird defense mechanism that kicks in when he’s hurt

Sickness

-His chapter in Comm Break was pretty much just a sickfic because I decided to give him appendicitis, but I have other headcanons hehehe…

-I was actually going to make him lactose intolerant in the first draft and the chapter being about him having no fucking idea why he was sick and Abbacchio just being like “...dude...”

-I eventually dropped it for something with similar elements but more of a dramatic plot, but I still like the headcanon that he’s too dumb to know that getting sick all the time after eating dairy just isn’t normal

...

-He loves taking care of other people because it reminds him of taking care of his sisters; like he’ll be willing to do anything and he’s a master at making people feel better :)

-But him?

-Oho,,,he fuckin hates being sick >:)

-Maybe not Giorno in The Unknown levels of hatred, but the fact that everyone does nothing but makes sure he’s okay the entire day gives him this warm, fluffy feeling in his chest that MAKES HIM EMOTIONALLY CONFUSED because no one ever gave a shit about him pre-passione

-Is he the type of person to completely deny any feeling of ailment until it’s definitely too late? YES. DEFINITELY.

-Usually it's one of the bucci gang who will figure out he’s under the weather before he does.

“You’re looking a bit pale...”

“Nope.”

“Are you feeling alright? You don’t look so good.”

“Totally fine!”

-He’ll refuse to rest until he passes out, is pressed up against the tiles on the bathroom floor, or someone (usually Bruno) shoves a thermometer in his mouth and proves that he absolutely HAS to

-Give him some medicine and he’ll pass out for HOURS. All he’ll do is sleep because he wants to get over it as soon as possible

Emotional Stress

-Mista’s like an open book when it comes to most emotions

-You might not know when he’s hurt, but you’ll sure as well know when he’s sad or stressed

-He’s not afraid to cry, and even though he probably won’t tell anyone why he’s sad, bottling up his emotions was just something that he was never prone to doing

-Bruno’s gotten used to finding him in the kitchen at 3am waiting for his bread to toast and there’s just tears and Bruno’s like “...Meesta ;-;”

-but then there’s hugs so it's ok :,)

-Also Mista is definitely the type of person to just kind of slink into a room and have someone be like “what’s up?” and he’s like “I’m feeling fucking terrible!! :))))” and before they can even reply BOOM WATERWORKS-

-He’s ultimately not ashamed of it because it helps keep him regulated in the long run (and the homies are always willing to provide him with that good comfort) :)

This sad shit is the exception though…

-When he’s with the bucci gang, he’s not afraid to let his emotions run wild sometimes because he knows it’s always little things to keep him chill

-Not about this, though. Because he actually considers this big

...

-Mista has eternal homesickness for his family.

-His parents, his sisters, his uncles and aunts and cousins.. they all cut contact when he went to prison

-It wasn’t a huge fight, but a slow burn of distancing from each other.

-He misses them so damn much. He misses his childhood home, and the way his Madre would cook, and the stupid shit his sisters used to do...

-It comes and goes in waves; most days the feelings don’t hit him but sometimes, especially on holidays, birthdays of his family members, and even his own birthday, it hits hard.

-Normally when something’s bothering him he doesn’t see a problem in just talking or venting to someone

-But with this it's different because he knows if he starts talking about it, it’ll just be uncontrollable and he’ll be a fucking mess if he even tries

-Mista, despite his demeanour, is extremely good at hiding his feelings when he has to ;-;

-He’s too embarrassed to tell anyone, so he spends a lot of those days curled up in his room, sobbing into his pillow

-Even on holidays, when it’s hard to celebrate at all, he manages to hold it in until celebrating is over

-He knows they all suspect something is up, but he also knows that they won’t push him to say anything

-They can all tell he gets fragile certain times of the year, so they try their best to be extra soft with him when he does decide to come out and spend time with them <3

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I really do love writing for Mista. I should do it more sometimes!!

Got a headcanon you want fulfilled? Askbox is open!! <3

[wordsablaze]

Where Did Everybody Go?

Mages can often have cruel and confusing intentions but Geralt and Yennefer's intention will always be to find and save their bard... day eight of whumptober.

A/N: today’s pairing: geralt/jaskier/yennefer | prompts used: abandoned / isolation

-

Being in a relationship with two of the most famous people in the continent comes with risks.

Jaskier was more than aware of that fact when the three of them had settled on being associated with one another but he often forgets to remember what those risks are. As it is, he’s very blatantly reminded of them when he finds himself being drugged.

“No, no no no no …” Jaskier breathes as he wobbles on his feet.

There are hands on his arms before he can try to look for either Geralt or Yennefer and he feels himself being pulled outside. Stupidly, his last coherent thought is hoping nobody steps on his lute.

When he wakes up, he’s tied to something. It only takes him a matter of seconds to determine that it’s a whipping post, except he’s sat with his back to it, his legs stretched out in front of him and his arms looped around the wood, tied with rope.

He sincerely hopes that Geralt and Yennefer are smarter than to assume he'd merely abandoned them in favour of entertaining a stranger. He's not sure if he hopes that because he doesn't want to hurt them or if he wants them to save him from being hurt but he hopes it either way.

“Took you long enough to wake up,” someone comments.

Jaskier groans, his head still throbbing. “If it was my company you wanted, you only had to ask.”

He blinks his eyes open to see a familiar pattern of robes and groans again, this time just for show. “Not another one. How many of you witches have something against Yennefer?”

The mage seems to take offence, slapping him. “I am nothing like her !”

“Clearly,” Jaskier mutters, running his tongue over his teeth just to check she hadn’t broken any of them.

“You live to be theatrical, don’t you?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

Jaskier frowns, wondering if this is a trick question. “I’m a bard. I would think it’s rather natural that I often embellish my performances with theatricality, is it not?”

She smiles. “Of course. But do you know what I think?”

Resisting the urge to look away from her and admit defeat, Jaskier just shakes his head. “I assume you’re about to tell me.”

She kneels in front of him, one hand raking through his hair as the other trails down the side of his face. “I think it’d be fun to see what you do without an audience,” she whispers, her breath ghosting across his neck.

He stiffens. “Well, I don’t particularly see an audience now,” he replies, hating the way his voice sounds inadequate in comparison to the confidence within hers.

There’s a soft breeze behind him but before he can question it, she’s pushing something into his mouth, wrapping it around his head and, despite his struggles, tying a knot at the back so securely that it becomes painful.

He tries to complain - to shout - but only muffled gibberish leaves his lips. Satisfied, she pulls his hair down just enough to irritate his eyes and presses a finger to his mouth. “Are you still a bard if you have no instrument, no voice, and no audience?”

Jaskier glares at her, pulling against the rope wound tightly around his wrists, but it doesn’t matter because she gets up and smirks down at him, offering him a small wave before conjuring a portal. He tries yelling after her but she vanishes without another word, without explaining her motives like people who kidnap him usually do.

Jaskier has never been a fan of solitude. He’s always been someone who craves company and if he can find none he creates his own by talking to himself. To be left without either option is nothing short of cruel.

Still, he doesn’t truly panic until after it gets dark.

Empty nights only remind him of punishments from when he was younger, when his tutors had deemed it right to separate from the rest of his fellow students or when his parents had chosen to isolate him in order to maintain their honourable reputation.

He regrets not taking Geralt’s cloak when it had been offered to him.

Sleep evades him, replaced with shivers and strange noises that usually wouldn’t bother him, that he usually leaves to his lovers to take care of; he’s almost glad there’s nobody around to witness the way he draws his legs close and flinches every time anything interrupts the silence.

The closest thing to warmth he feels is the way his nails dig into his palms, leaving behind throbbing indents whenever he finds himself jumping at any kind of noise. And h e wants the horrible, heavy silence to stop. He wants so badly to go back to the small tavern, he wants to settle under a truly warm blanket with the two people who hold his heart between them, but he can’t .

When the sky opens up and rain pours down over him, it’s joined by his tears.

An awful keening sound escapes him as he finds his crying blocks his ability to draw breath but he can’t stop, he doesn’t know how to calm down when the rain is so loud against his skin and his teeth keep trying to chatter only to pull on the gag and make him wince over and over again. He tries to keep his fingers moving so he doesn’t lose them to the cold but his whole body is numb when night falls once more and he can’t even feel the wood he knows he’s slumped against.

Stupid witch.

Stupid him.

Stupid, stupid, stupid .

He tries humming when he’s jolted awake once more but it only turns his throat hoarse so he scraps that idea, laughing bitterly at the way he finds himself in the same position as his own thoughts: abandoned.

He gives up on trying to free himself when he feels the ropes burn fiercely against his skin, when the warmth of what he knows to be redness trickling over his fingers makes him gasp, because he’s so tired and so cold and, worst of all, so alone.

And then he’s not.

“Gods, Jaskier!”

“Open your eyes, bard!”

“Get that thing out of his mouth, Geralt!”

“His hands , Yen!”

“Jaskier?”

He groans, coughing and indignantly spluttering as his gag is removed and he can finally, finally breathe in a way that doesn’t at all hurt.

He flinches at the feels of nails against his face but when they vanish instead of pressing down, he frowns, peeling his eyes open. He knows he must look awful but he’s never been so relieved to find he's being watched in his life.

“You found me,” he breathes, not even sure if his voice is audible.

Geralt and Yennefer share a sideways look before nodding at him.

“We always will,” Geralt promises softly, his voice practically leaking affection.

“Bards are rather useful,” Yennefer adds, but the relief in her eyes reveals what she really means to say.

“Thank you,” Jaskier manages, his voice quiet but his gratitude as loud as the love he sees in his favourite audience’s eyes.

-

ik this one’s a bit of a mess but idk, i just kinda ran with it ?? i’m a little tired, don’t mind me :))

-

thanks for reading! masterlist | witcher blog: @itsjaskier

[vonnyphant]

To Blog or Not to Blog?

“You should start a diary and write about your experiences. It may help people going through the same thing.”

Honestly? If there’s one thing I discovered about this diagnosis, it’s that it makes me pretty damn selfish. I don’t want to help other people (not just yet, anyway). But putting some thoughts down about this time in my life may be of some sort of therapeutic value, and I do want to help myself. 

(Maybe for once, saving the world can wait. Do you remember how, soon after the pandemic hit, people stopped avoiding plastic and single-use items? When your health is at risk, suddenly rainforests and polar bears and the planet are deprioritised- not that anyone will admit to this. But this is my diary and I can say what I want!* Writing for myself it is.)

Having established my less-than-Mother-Theresa-like reasons for this blog, my conscience cleared, it’s time to start. This is where the Lifetime movie shows me, in a half daze, mellowed out on drugs while they sew a mediport into my chest to start administering chemicals. A fast lane to my bloodstream. A docking station. The soundtrack? Hopefully ‘Across The Universe’ by the Beatles (possibly Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. If I get a say in it, I veto The Walrus) Time to pump this body full of drugs that’ll make my hair fall out. 

Wait, what?

Voice Over: “Yep. That’s me. You’re probably wondering what I am doing here…” //record scratch - freeze frame - fast rewind to the psychedelic outtro of A Day In The Life//

Two months ago, during rub-a-dub-in-the-tub (less naughty than it sounds, was just washing myself), my mind inexplicably went to an episode of Beverly Hills 90210, s1 (aired in 1992- yes, I am that old), where Brenda Walsh has a breast cancer scare. I say inexplicably, because my usual shower fantasies do not include Ms Shannon Doherty - if I was going to pick a shower lady, I’d opt for Charlize Theron, Kiera Knightly or Winona Ryder in their short-hair phases, but that is neither here nor there. 

Say what you want for 90s television- weird outfits and ponytails notwithstanding, in their AfterSchoolSpecial PSA way, they dedicated a whole scene to the girls giving themselves a breast exam, including how-to instructions**, and eventhough I was only 11 years old when I saw it, I remembered what to do, and for the last 30 years, every now and then I have randomly carried it out while wondering how I always preferred Brandon over Dylan and how my tastes have changed over time.

But this time - my hand actually found something.

I took a deep breath and calmed myself down the same way I did after finding spots on my skin, lumps on my head and every time I sneezed since covid-19; by telling myself to fucking snap out of my hypochondria tendencies. One cannot go to the doctor every damn day after all. Breast tissue is pretty lumpy and I assumed it was just imaginary. I made an appointment to see a therapist, and  put it out of my mind until a few weeks later, when one of the kids came crashing down on me (literally) and faceplanted in my boob (as they do). 

Now this always hurts af, but it just hurt that little more that day, so that I grabbed the appendage in question and went “WHAT THE--!” And I felt it again- the lump, more defined than a few weeks before. 

Cue a lot more freaking out than the first time, and after a sleepless night, imagining what my funeral would look like (as one does), I decided to go to the gynocologist the same day or risk never to sleep again.

After a long wait and an ultrasound, my doctor assured me that while there really was a mass, it had every indication of being benign. We should keep an eye on it. If I was worried, I could schedule a second screening, but would not likely get an appointment before April. I scheduled one and tried to focus on preparing our first lockdown Christmas. 

But over the holidays, the lump started hurting, even when I wasn’t poking it or having a kid catapult themselves into my chest. I’d be Netflix and Chilling, and suddenly - ZAP - like someone stuck a hot needle into it. Repeatedly. My nipple would go numb or start tingling like a bodypart that fell asleep. It freaked me out, and in the new year, I realised I couldn’t wait until April - I had to get it checked out again or I may worry myself to death.

My gynocologist did another ultrasound and again, told me not to worry. I told her it was way too late for that as I had been worried for weeks, and I wanted the thing biopsied (they gave Brenda Walsh one too, after all! It’s the only way to be 100% sure). She referred me to the hospital. At the description of my symptoms, I could come directly, and the radiologist told me in no unclear terms: “I will not let you leave this room until we draw blood and take several biopsies.” Okay- not exactly what one wants to hear at that point, but at the same time, I figured knowing would be better than guessing by the shape of it.

Test results took a week. I went in, being prepared to be told (like Brenda) it was a harmless clump of random cells or a cyst we could have removed like a wart. Only it wasn’t. It was breast cancer, an aggressive, fast-growing kind, and had I waited until April, that could have had disastrous consequences.

While the doctor explained we now needed to determine the scope of the spread and take more tissue to determine what kind of chemo (if any) could be applied, all my 2020-PTSD brain could think was: 

“.............of course”. 

Didn’t hear much of what she said afterwards.

Another harrowing 4 days went by, with a CT screening with contrast solutions that gave me an intense stomach ache as well as a migraine, and finally, a fully rounded diagnosis and treatment advice could be made. 

Thankfully, all my organs as well as lymphnodes were clear, so it appears to be a localised tumor. And here we are - to fight this thing with chemicals and then cut out whatever is left. Genetics testing to see about the likelihood of a recurrency (and a possible double mastectomy if so - ‘pulling an Angelina Jolie’, ‘not saving the tatas’, insert ‘Think About It meme’...can’t have breast cancer if you don’t have breasts! THINK ABOUT IT***). 

Chances are good. I need to cling to that while I wait for this port and treatment to start. I have accepted the inevitable hair loss, have scheduled a ritual ‘crazy hair cutting party’ with my kids for this weekend (as I would rather shave it off in one go than clean up clumps and strands over the course of weeks and look like Gollum), and I have sewn several funny little hats for inside wear and ‘going out’ (though where will I be going in pandemic, idk). 

I was going to end this post on a light and happy note - but I must admit my confidence just took a really big hit in real time, as I googled how to spell Shannon’s last name for this blog entry and found out that she was treated for breast cancer in 2015, initially succesfully, but it reappeared metastasized in 2020 (again: ‘of course...when else’) and she is now in stage IV. Fuck 2020.

What are the odds that the woman whose character made me discover my own breast cancer is now, in fact, dying of the same disease? This will surely haunt me for a long time to come.

More tomorrow? Or soon? It may take a while. Until then: outro to It’s Getting Better.

*also for the record I would like to state that I’ve sewn my own masks from upcycled pillowcases and continued using fruit- and vegetable nets to avoid plastic; maybe that makes up for me being utterly selfish at the moment. Karma +1?

** https://youtu.be/pkgYXITkrfw (the scene from BH 90210)

***cis men / trans women without breasts can also get breast cancer (even though it’s rare) so this meme doesn’t really hold up, but that’s the whole point of the meme ;)

[does-it-need-saying]

#also idk if you meant it as foreshadowing but the *almost forever* promise reeeaaalllyyy got me here cuz the part making it *almost* is right around the corner 😰 #like did the TARDIS know this while teaching Rose??? #did the TARDIS intentionally tell her to make that line just so so that it wasn’t entirely forever?? UM???????????????? NO I DID NOT. SO THANKS FOR THAT MORNING PUNCH TO THE HEART. I would PAY you good money to keep that GOING

ohh goodness, here we go. I got a bit carried away but hope it is all that you’re looking for :)

Almost Forever (a continuation of Did You Make This? by @loupettes)

The Doctor made his way back to the TARDIS. His feet were heavy as blocks of cement, his mind was empty, and he couldn’t tell if he was actually breathing or not, but on he went. Last of the time lords and all that, what other option did he have? He found his ship, he walked inside, he shut the door behind him.

It’s gonna follow us!

The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn’t get through that door, and believe me they’ve tried.

He pushed the memory out of his head as he made his way up the ramp.

You think you’re so impressive.

I am so impressive!

He blinked away the vision of his past self and the much younger girl of pink and yellow and continued on.

That’s what you are, a big old punk with a bit of rockabilly thrown in.

He could almost hear her following him around the console, but shook it out of his mind. He trudged along, aimlessly falling onto the jumpseat.

You alright?

He tilted his head to see a Rose in a blue Witchita Falls t-shirt, a look of both sympathy and hurt spread on her face. But as soon as she was there, and before he could have responded, she was gone. He turned his head back forward.

The Doctor just sat. Maybe it was a day, a few weeks, a decade, although really it had only been a few minutes. He tried not to think about how quiet it was, how not even the TARDIS had been making that comforting wheezing sound. As if she was mourning herself.

I looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me.

He tried to move his hand to stroke her in support, but he just physically couldn’t. Instead he just stared off into the distance, into the eerie emptiness of his ship which not even a few hours ago had been filled with joy and laughter and…

Imagine watching that happen to someone who you –

What, Doctor?

He let out a sigh. No use in denying it anymore, he supposed, now that neither of them needed protection from those feelings. Or rather, now that the option of just being a coward about it had been taken away from him. The Doctor leaned forward, catching his head in his hands in shame.

When he finally looked back up, a post-it note attached to the monitor caught his eye.

Hold on. Did you—did you make this? This is your post-it note? You wrote this, in Gallifreyan?

Yep.

You learnt how to write Gallifreyan?

Mmm.

You learnt how to write ‘forever´ in Gallifreyan?

Yeah!

As gently as he possibly could, the Doctor pulled the note off the monitor and held it between his fingers. His mind shot back to the first time she had given him that impossible promise of forever. He knew he shouldn’t have let himself fall for it. Not that Rose didn’t mean it when she said it—he knew she did, and that’s why it was so easy to believe. But the universe had a funny way of catching up to him when he got too happy. He shouldn’t have led himself on like that, and he certainly shouldn’t have led Rose on. What had he been thinking? Letting her believe they could ever have a happy ending? He swore he usually wasn’t that daft.

It’s just… it just doesn’t actually say ‘forever’. Not quite.

The Doctor shut his eyes tight. At the time it had just been an accident, a line a one thousandth of a degree off. It was a mistake he had probably made centuries ago when he was a child. But now it had turned out to be an unavoidable fortune, a dark omen, a black spot calling for their theoretical kraken. It wasn’t enough that this whole ordeal had essentially been one big, awful practical joke the universe played on him. It had needed more as it always did.

The TARDIS finally offered the Doctor a small hum of support… but there was something else mixed in there. An apology. Except it was more than that. It was… guilt.

The Doctor looked up, confusion spreading across his face. “What do you mean you…?”

Ok- don’t laugh! But the TARDIS has been teaching me little bits of Gally… Gal- what’s it called?

Gallifreyan?

The TARDIS had known… she had known all along.

“You knew and you only tried giving me this bloody rubbish warning?!” he yelled, pure hot anger ripping through his body now. Of course he knew it wasn’t really the TARDIS’s fault, knew she never would have possibly been able to stop this from happening. But he didn’t exactly have the capacity for rationality at the moment.

The TARDIS shot back at him with a stronger, more indignant sort of growl, and the Doctor’s face turned even more puzzled.

“What do you mean it wasn’t a warning? What else was it supposed to be, then? Just a sign that I was getting too happy?! A sign that…” his voice trailed off into thought now. Was he crazy? No… well, maybe… but maybe- just quite possibly for once- he wasn’t. “A sign that I can get back to her?” he whispered.

He stayed frozen in place now waiting for some kind of response from the TARDIS, but she remained disappointingly quiet. The Doctor’s face fell and he slumped back down in defeat, back into his grief.

And then his head popped back up again. He threw himself out of his seat and started running around flipping switches and pulling levers like a mad man. Because the Doctor wasn’t ready to give up, not just quite yet, not on Rose Tyler. It wouldn’t have been the first time she had left them clues to get to where they needed to be, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time he had disagreed with the TARDIS about something.

Over the next few weeks, the Doctor worked tirelessly. He had only experienced disappointment after disappointment, but he frantically held onto that last shred of hope. Until one brilliant day he had finally done it. He had located a crack, just the tiniest little one that hadn’t properly healed up yet. A nearly giddy smile spread across his face at that discovery, but it wasn’t long before he was crashing back to reality. It was a highly unstable fracture, one that would undoubtedly collapse two entire universes if not travelled through properly. And that would take a lot of power he didn’t have.

The Doctor paused for a moment, considering his options. He had come so far… so far. And to give up now when he was so close… No. He wouldn’t do it. He pushed forward.

After what seemed like an additional infinite amount of failure, the Doctor finally found exactly what he needed: a great big ball of energy and power, a sun. He scanned for life all around, but to his relief there was none to be found. Well, there would be some plant life caught in the crossfire (which he hoped Rose wouldn’t be too angry about), but nothing detrimental in the long run. More than confident now, he began to draw in its power, his smile growing wider with each passing minute. Maybe the universe was finally doing something for him, finally realizing that a happy Doctor was good for everyone. Maybe after everything he had been through, he was finally being rewarded.

And then he heard the ding from the monitor and all of that hope and happiness drained from him.

It should have kept drawing power… there should have been more… He couldn’t get through.

The Doctor’s legs gave out and he collapsed onto the grating beneath him. He could feel his body filling back up with pain and exhaustion and despair, yet somehow he was completely numb at the same time. How could he have done this to himself again? Get his hopes up so high when he should have known- he should have known- it was never going to end the way he wanted. The universe had not only won, but it got another good laugh at the pathetic man who would do anything for the woman he loved. He leaned his head against the coral behind him and shut his eyes in defeat.

Then the TARDIS hummed at him. Since starting this mission, she had been constantly warning him off, trying to stop him, trying to calm him down. But now she was giving him encouragement to keep going? Without even opening his eyes, the Doctor gave her an empty laugh in return.

“You know as well as me it isn’t possible,” he answered tiredly. The TARDIS moaned back at him again. “I can’t,” he cut her off, practically spitting out the words. The TARDIS gave one last quiet groan, before letting silence overflow the room again.

“I’m sorry,” he tried a few minutes later, finally calming down. “But there’s nothing left to try, there’s not enough power… there’s not enough...” he breathed out, along with that last bit of light he had been clinging onto. Rose was gone, lost, stolen from him too soon and that was that.

The TARDIS whirred again, apparently with a new suggestion. “There isn’t enough power for that,” he shrugged it off. He wasn’t about to make the same mistake of getting his hopes up for a third time, but his ship didn’t seem to care. “We’d need at least another three times amount of power. Maybe if that fracture weren’t so bloody delicate, but—”

The TARDIS cut him off this time, and what she said apparently grabbed his attention. “Two minutes?” He let the words linger for just a moment, pondering them over, before snapping himself back to reason. “No… it’s not possible.” She wheezed back at him again. “Leave it to you? What do you mean leave it to you?” He waited for an answer, but this time the ship remained quiet knowing he already knew.

The Doctor looked up in concern now. “I can’t let you do that.” She wouldn’t have that answer though, and he knew there was no point in arguing further. He knew that his ship knew this wasn’t exactly a smart idea, but he also knew she wouldn’t suggest it if it were completely impossible. And above all that, he knew she missed Rose nearly as much as he did and wanted to do this last thing for her.

With what seemed like the last of his strength, the Doctor hoisted himself up and pushed himself back over to the console. “We’ll have to get a signal through to her beforehand. I’ll find a few stars that should be enough for a few minor messages. Can you direct them to her?” he asked, to which the TARDIS replied positively.

Over the next few days, they worked together to send through the messages and prepare for the full image transmission. With the ship’s help (and a few life-shortening breaths of power from the Doctor), everything remained on track for success. Still, he didn’t let himself get his hopes up. There was no real way of knowing if Rose would get their breadcrumb trail, no way of knowing if she would follow it, no way of knowing if she would arrive in time, no way of even knowing if all the power they were building up would be just enough to break through. And even if it all did miraculously work, it would still be just a couple minutes. A far cry from whatever sort of forever he had ever hoped for.

Finally everything was ready, or at least as ready as it was ever going to be. The Doctor had gone back to sitting on the grating, hugging his knees and trying not to think about how impossibly close he was again. Then the ship gave a gentle whir.

It was time.

The Doctor stood up and slowly made his way to the monitor. He continued telling himself not to be surprised if she wasn’t there, not to be disappointed if the transmission cut out earlier than expected or if it didn’t work entirely, and to just stay as calm as possible.

The Doctor flipped a few switches, pulled a few levers, and then waited as the power flowed through and the TARDIS boosted it up. He braced himself one last time for whatever sight he was about to come across.

At first there was just a little spark, and then an image faded in. He saw some sand, a quiet ocean, and—

Her.

The Doctor took in the view of Rose Tyler standing before him and did something he hadn’t done in months: he smiled.

---

After an exhausting day on every level he could possibly think of, the Doctor was back in the TARDIS. Alone.

After shaking the fake snow out of his hair, he finally gave his ship that comforting stroke. “I hope you’re feeling all better now,” he told her, and she replied with a half hearted groan. “I know,” he gave her one last pat and a sad smile.

As he sat down he found that post it note lying haphazardly across the console, and carefully stuck it back onto the monitor. He sighed. “Suppose it wasn’t nearly as almost forever as I was hoping for.”

The TARDIS gave him a wheeze of sympathy, and then silence washed over the room again. For some time the Doctor just sat in it, giving himself a chance to simply grieve one last time. But then he entered in some coordinates and he continued on as he always did- as he always had to.

Days passed and months passed and years passed. The Doctor found new friends, went on new adventures, and made new happy memories. And without knowing, he waited. Waited for one night at the almost end of the world where that woman he loved would be standing impossibly on the other end of a deserted street. He waited for the rest of that post it note to come true. And he waited for the moment he would have to give it all up.

[flokive]

lie to me II - Youngblood

description: part two of my internet bff au featuring ashton irwin // the fight between james and elisabeth left liz feeling lonely and numb. it doesn’t really help that her best friend, fletcher, really wants to know what happened and wants to help, even though he lives in australia and liz lives in europe...  writers note: yay! in honor of soft!ashton thursdays here’s the second chapter of lie to me :) don’t really have a lot to say, just a quick thank you to my loves @ashtonsos​ and @easierlftv​ for proof reading this <3 // enjoy! hope y’all like it, and, please, don’t worry... fletcher will be more prominent in the story soon...  wordcount: 1358

++

“Remember the words you told me, love me 'til the day I die Surrender my everything 'cause you made me believe you're mine Yeah, you used to call me baby, now you calling me by name Takes one to know one You beat me at my own damn game”

---

                                                                                fletchersthoughts

liz? hello? well, you sure know how to get a man eager with anticipation…

...

umm, earth to liz? where are you?

…

ok, i’m starting to get worried. liz???

… 

liz, please just message me back. i have got to get some sleep, it’s almost 3am here… love you!!! bye

Liz has been sitting on the floor, numb and empty until her thoughts are interrupted by the smell of burning sauce. As quick as she possibly can, she jumps to her feet and turns off the stove, watching the steam escaping the now blackened pasta sauce. Too tired from the fight to clean up the kitchen mess, she leaves the saucepan on the stove, cracks the window to let the bad smell escape the kitchen, and plumps down on the couch, feeling numb and unable to do anything else. 

Liz jolts awake, the sudden movement making her wince. A quick glance at the clock informs her it’s 3 am, the outside world is dark and cold, apart from the spots on the street that are lit up by the street lights. The house is quiet, Liz calls for James, her voice echoes in their empty apartment, and no one responds. He’s still gone and she’s all alone again. A lonely yet guilty feeling washes over Liz as she closes her eyes and rubs her neck, trying to ease the pain caused by the weird sleeping position on the couch. As she slowly rises to her feet, a sad sob leaves her throat when she looks at the kitchen mess. Quickly she turns off the kitchen lights, trying to ignore the mess and the guilt that comes with it. If she just did something else this night, if she just ignored Fletcher this one time, none of this would’ve happened. In the dark, the apartment feels even colder than it did before, maybe even more terrifying than before. Liz rests her head against the doorframe that separates the kitchen with the hallway to their, maybe now only her, bedroom. When she slowly opens the door to the master, her eyes meet the mess James created. Clothes are flung everywhere, a picture frame lies on the ground, the glass shattered and James’ bedside table is cleared. With tears burning in her eyes she tries to pick up the pieces of the picture frame, carefully to let the sharp glass cut her hands, a sad sigh leaves her mouth when she puts the glass shards on her bedside table. She slowly seats herself down on the bed, holding her head between her hands. Salty tears stream down her face when she thinks about everything that’s been said and done. The thoughts if she could’ve done anything different re-enter her mind as she lays down, dragging her blanket over her head, trying to just forget the world for a moment. 

The first thing Liz does when she wakes up is checking her phone, wondering if James has sent any messages since their fight last night. Her inbox is empty, apart from Fletcher’s seven un-read messages she chose to ignore last night. She clicks on the bolded notification and reads them slowly, after staring at the words for a while she decides to not reply yet, not wanting to talk about the events of last night. Since it’s Saturday and Liz doesn’t have anywhere to go she ends up scrolling through her Tumblr dashboard. Reblogging every sad quote she reads. A small smile appears on Liz's face, remembering how her 17-year-old self would’ve been doing the exact same thing, laying in bed, scrolling endlessly through the same site, using it as some sort of coping mechanism. Her phone chimes and on top of her screen a new message from Fletcher appears. Liz closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and decides to finally reply.

                                                                                fletchersthoughts liz?? i see you reblogging, i know you read my messages so i KNOW you’re awake.  please just give me some sort of sign of life, please?

queenliz hey fletch im sorry busy night, james didn’t feel good returning from work we fell asleep early

The lies are bad and Liz feels guilty for lying to her closest friend but she just can’t handle talking and thinking about the events of last night. Her phone chimes again, knowing it’s Fletcher, she decides to ignore him once again. Hoping he would get the hint and leave her alone today. A rumbling sound from her tummy interrupts her thoughts, reminding her she hasn't eaten a thing since last night. Liz changes yesterday's clothes for some comfy leggings and a black crewneck sweater. Before leaving to get some breakfast, she washes the mascara stained tears away, grabs her wallet, and leaves the damned apartment. 

Liz makes her way to the local coffee shop, orders a big iced coffee, a freshly baked croissant and strolls back home. Whilst munching down on her breakfast she looks at the city waking up. The events from last night fresh in her brain Liz decides to take the long way home, through the park, trying to clear her brain and understand everything that happened last night.

Halfway home, Liz plumps down on a wooden bench and starts to pick apart the last bit of her croissant, throwing some it at some doves in front of her. The peaceful sounds of the park finally give her time to process the events of last night. Every word, every action that happens plays in slow-motion in her head, it’s like she’s watching a really bad movie but she can’t find the remote to switch the channels. A feeling of guilt and sadness gnaws in her brain when she thinks how badly she treated her best friend. How bad her lies were, how she bluntly ignored the man who has always been there for her. Slowly she takes her phone out of her pocket and opens the last unread message Fletcher send her, saying he doesn’t quite believe her, and she starts writing an apology.

queenliz so... you’re right, i kind of lied to you this morning… we didn’t really fell asleep early last night we had a fight, a horrible one, i might add i think  god fletch, i think we broke up.. 

Liz looks up from her screen, tears forming in her eyes, making her vision blur. She quickly wipes away the tears before they spill over her cheeks. With shaking hands, she continues explaining what happened the night before. As per usual, Fletcher doesn't take longer than a minute to reply. 

                                                                                  fletchersthoughts he did WHAT?! he threw a fucking glass at your head? what the fuck was this guy thinking?? liz... fuck… 

queenliz i’m okay fletch, really don’t worry about me, i didn’t get hurt so it’s fine

                                                                                fletchersthoughts you didn’t get hurt so it’s all fine?! that’s fucking bullshit liz and you know it HOW am i supposed to not worry about you liz? fuck.

Liz huffs annoyed, re-reading the message Fletcher just send her. Her fingers fly over the keyboard when she writes her response.

queenliz please fletcher, don’t be so fucking dramatic i fucking said i was fine, so i am doing fine leave me be and please stop worrying about me, it’s getting on my fucking nerves  idk if you know this, but i can take care of myself.

Liz’s fingers hover above the keyboard, debating whether or not telling Fletcher to leave her alone, to stick his nose into someone else’s business. Her bottom lip rolls back and forth between her teeth, a metallic flavor reminding her she should probably stop nibbling on her lips and make a decision. Her thumb lays on top of the lock button and her other thumb hovering back and forth over the backspace and send button. Her phone buzzes in her hands, letting her know that Fletcher is sorry for being so protective and that he understands Liz might not be ready to talk about things today. A soft smile appears on her lips for the first time in, what feels like ages. Quickly she deletes the message and sends him a brief thank you, before locking her phone and standing up to head home again.

++

taglist: @cthofficial​ - @calmlftv​ - @kingcals​ - @spicycal​ - @another-lonely-heart​

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[donnerpartyofone]

idk if you've talked about it, probably have. but if you don't mind to again, ketamine injections for depression? did it work? was it expensive? how long did it work for? ty.

dang, i never got a notification for this message. sorry! ketamine absolutely worked for the management of my depression, it was very expensive, and i think i would have needed more for it to become a longer term solution. i may still go back in the future if my lifestyle changes, but for right now, i can’t justify the cost--which is an insane thing to say when what i’m paying for is freedom from hurting myself, but, ya know, CAPITALISM. 

the whole story is, i’ve been severely depressed my whole entire life; i don’t have any memories that don’t involve feeling morbidly upset, and i can remember things pretty sharply from the time i was slightly younger than 2.* i took ketamine recreationally some years ago when i was around 30 (i wasn’t adventurous about substances until i reached about that age), and i was totally astounded by how it affected my depression both during, and for weeks after the experience. it seemed to distance me from the oppressively immediacy of my bad feelings, giving me space to actually THINK about what was really bothering me, what kind of control i could have over how i assign importance and authority to things that don’t serve me, and what i might like my life to be like in the future. so, when i found out that there were ketamine clinics in new york, i kind of freaked out. actually, i found out about it from a guy who i met on an ayahuasca retreat upstate (which is its own hilariously mortifying story that i’ve been trying to write down for years and it keeps turning into a big unwieldy novel), who had been through the entire gamut of treatments for major depressive disorder. he liked his ketamine experience, but admitted that it was prohibitively expensive to keep up.

this is the place i went, and i recommend it to anyone who can afford it:

nyketamine.com

they say that they accept patients selectively, if you have treatment-resistant depression. i don’t know how strict they are about that, because by the time i came to them, i was looking pretty treatment-resistant. i’d been in and out of a few shrinks’ offices, and i’m basically incapable of taking any of the usual antidepressants because of how they affect other conditions i have. the process was, i filled out a request form on their website, and in a day or two, a clinician called to interview me over the phone about the character of my depression, and to gather some other anecdotal information about my history and health. the person i spoke to was very kind, attentive, and reassuring. the following day, someone called to set my first appointment. the whole reason i was able to do this is because of some inheritance that i received at the time; it’s $450 a session, and they suggest (or insist? i’m not sure) that you begin with a minimum of 6 sessions, each of them 2 days apart. after that, you just kind of monitor yourself to see when you think you need pickup sessions; the effect is cumulative and long term. i have no idea if they have any type of sliding scale accommodation, it could be worth asking.

when i went in for my first session, i had a brief interview with the head doctor, a navy veteran and anesthesiologist who had been working with ketamine in various capacities for 50 years. he explained a lot of things that i had no idea about, that were great to learn. periods of prolonged stress, especially while your brain is still developing, can result in a deficit of the neural pathways that you need to experience a full range of emotion; essentially, being chronically depressed and anxious can kind of give you brain damage. if you have that type of problem, it doesn’t matter what you do to try to boost your serotonin or dopamine or whatever; it’s like if you’re trying to get somewhere in your car and you can’t, not because you’re out of gas, but because the bridge is out. for some reason, ketamine switches back on the function that builds those pathways, so with regular therapeutic applications, you can actually heal the structural problem around your mood centers that’s reducing your emotional range to anxiety and depression. if you’re over 60 or so and your brain is less plastic, your chances of success aren’t as good as when you’re younger, but there’s always a chance; also, for some reason, ketamine plays especially well with estrogen, so women have a bit of a leg up. anyway, the doctor was great, and i really liked everyone there; it felt like they all knew they were doing something meaningful.

the sessions themselves are pleasant. they put you in a private room in a big cushy medical chair with a blanket and a pillow, and you let them know if you want the lights on or off. they give you an IV drip that lasts roughly an hour, and they communicate with you to figure out the dosage. you basically just tell them what feels comfortable, if the dosage they start you on is too low to notice. you won’t get something that puts you in a K hole, but you should enter a gentle dissociative state where you feel a little numb and floaty, and you might have a lot of interesting abstract thoughts. the worst part of it is just how bad you have to pee by the time the drip is done, when you’re still feeling a little anesthetized; sometimes i wound up looking at the bag with my flashlight to check if i had finished, and then i’d just press the call button to get them to come unplug me before i pissed my pants.

you’re not supposed to necessarily notice a difference right away, but you should detect a change in mood after a few weeks. i did. the way my disorder works is, most days i just have a low level background radiation of sadness and exhaustion, even on a “good day” when things are working out or i’m distracted by things i enjoy. when i wake up in the morning and realize i’m conscious and the time for sleep is over, my first feeling is disappointment, 100% of the time. then, i’d say roughly once a month or once every couple of months, i have a complete nervous collapse where i’m in so much pain i can’t really do anything but like drool and cry and let my eyes go out of focus, for anywhere from 1-7 days. there will usually be an apparent trigger; i’m a fairly dysfunctional person, and i frequently lose things, break things, and fuck things up even though i like STUDIED to do them, took it slow, asked for help, gave myself extra time, etc. but the thing is, i think the “trigger” is arbitrary, this is just a cyclic psychic event that builds up and waits to happen. but after my first battery of ketamine treatments, i had a particular day when i could tell that normally, i would quickly wind up curled up at the bottom of my bathtub scream-crying until i couldn’t move--and this time, i managed to just push through. not only did i not break down, but i actually got a number of difficult chores done, that i had put off because they seemed too intimidating, or like i wouldn’t be able to mentally handle my inevitable failure. i noticed more and more of that, while i was in proximity to the treatments, an ability to just buckle down and keep going. so it’s not like i felt HAPPIER or something, but i felt much more capable of coping, which was like a miracle honestly.

it’s been about 3.5 months since i last went in, and i think i could use a booster appointment, but as i said i just can’t fit it in with my financial reality right now. so, that sucks. but, i definitely feel that it was worth doing, and i would recommend it to anyone who can shoulder the cost. hopefully in the future, ketamine will become a much more common psychiatric treatment, and it will become available to more and more patients.

*A friend of mine just told me he read somewhere that you don’t actually recall memories from like 20 years ago, you just remember the last time you recalled them--so like, i THINK i remember my parents struggling to give me drops for pink eye in our first apartment when i was about 1.5 years old, but in reality, i just remember the last time i remembered it, or the earliest time i’m able to remember remembering it. pretty interesting! and kind of disturbing, like the idea that star trek-type teleporters don’t actually transport a person, they just DESTROY the original person and rebuild a new one on the other end, a thought that REALLY BOTHERS ME.

[set-phasers-to-whump]

tears

fandom: grimm

whumpee: nick burkhardt

written for today’s whumpmas in july prompt: tears. this is my first grimm fic and it’s set at some point in season 2 idk, pls be nice ive never written these characters before lol anyway hope this is ok!!

It’s been a long couple weeks. Nick is doing his best not to be completely consumed by his thoughts and feelings regarding the whole situation with Juliette, but it’s hard, maybe the hardest thing he’s ever had to do. He’s just trying to keep his life moving forward as best he can, even though everything feels like it’s spinning out of control. 

So when Hank had suggested that they should hang out at his place and watch the game after work that Friday, Nick had agreed. It’s something normal, casual and low-key, and it’s his best friend. He figures it’s about the best distraction besides his duties as a cop and a Grimm that he’s going to get. Maybe he’ll even be able to feel normal for a little bit. 

The game isn’t even a quarter of the way through before Nick is realizing that feeling normal had been an absolutely impossible goal for him this evening. He’s staring at the TV without absorbing what’s going on, mindlessly eating chips and doing his best to respond to Hank’s attempts at casual conversation. He feels numb, and mildly drunk, and he knows by the tight feeling in his chest and throat that he’s not going to be numb for much longer. Something is going to break. 

But for the time being, he is numb and everything seems like too much. It would be too difficult to stand and leave, too difficult even to just get up and hide in the bathroom and pull himself together. One of his hands is lightly trembling, and he quickly tucks it under his leg to hide it. Hank asks him if he thinks the Captain is also watching the game tonight, and he shrugs. 

He has no idea how much time passes, only that he finally brings his hand out from under his leg. It is no longer shaking, and it in fact kind of hurts, though that is of little consequence. Hank says something to him again, but he isn’t paying attention. He nods, and that seems to be the acceptable response, as Hank turns away from him and back to the TV, scoffing at something-a bad call, maybe, or a dumb commercial. Nick isn’t paying enough attention to know. 

—

Hank hadn’t been sure what to expect when he’d suggested this little hangout-obviously he hadn’t been expecting Nick to be all smiles and cheerful conversation, but he’d hoped, at least, for more than this. Some casual conversation, about the game, about work, anything to distract Nick from everything else going on in his life. It hadn’t been a lot, he thinks, to hope for. But he’s honestly not sure Nick would even be able to tell him what sport is being played, at the moment. He’s staring at the TV in a way that suggests no comprehension of what’s on it, and he’s giving one-word answers to all of Hank’s attempts at starting a conversation. He seems totally and completely out of it, and honestly, it’s a little concerning. Nick can be many things, but he is rarely out of it. 

But Hank knows Nick very well, knows he’s not the type of person to be open about his feelings, not the type of person to take kindly to being asked after. So Hank is doing his best to pretend everything is normal. He drinks his beer and cheers when his favorite team scores a point, and doesn’t bother poking Nick and asking what he thinks of what is surely a bogus call. 

He manages to pretend everything is normal until shortly after halftime, when he begins to feel it’s somewhat ridiculous to bother pretending, when he’s pretty sure the house could catch on fire at this point. and Nick would still just be sitting there. 

So he turns down the volume on the TV, sets down his bottle, takes a deep breath, and turns to look at Nick for the first time all evening. He nudges Nick’s knee with his own, hoping to catch his attention, but Nick does the exact opposite of what he’d hoped, turning his face completely away from Hank’s line of vision. 

“Nick,” Hank starts. Nick still looks resolutely away. “Hey. Nick.”

No answer. Hank sighs, briefly asks himself if this is really such a good idea, and reaches a hand out, gently grabbing Nick’s face and turning his head to face him. 

It takes him a second to process what he sees-Nick is crying, actually crying, silent tears that continually stream down his face (and probably have been doing that for some time now, judging by the redness of his eyes). He abruptly stops crying and tries to turn away when he realizes he’s been caught, but Hank decides enough is enough. 

Keeping one hand on Nick’s face, he carefully runs a thumb under Nick’s eyes, brushing away the last of the tears which have, for the moment, stopped falling. He’s never been particularly good at gentleness, especially not with a person who usually appears anything but breakable, like Nick. But he tries. Speaks quietly, kindly, like he would to a scared witness. 

“Hey, Nick, it’s okay, man. It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

Nick shakes his head. Another tear rolls down his face. “It’s not okay, Hank,” he whispers. 

Hank can’t argue with that-he knows that everything is just about as far from okay as it can be right now. 

“I know.” He stops for a second, considers the best thing to say. “You wanna talk about it?” he suggests, cautiously, pretty sure he knows the answer. 

Nick shakes his head, as expected. “It’s...too much, right now. Maybe...maybe some other time.”

“Yeah,” Hank agrees, stunned to have gotten this much of an answer out of Nick. “Just...just know I’m always here, okay? When you do want to talk.”

Nick makes a soft noise of agreement, and suddenly he’s crying again, less quiet this time, and he turns and buries his face in Hank’s shoulder. Hank startles a little at the sudden contact, but relaxes quickly enough, wrapping an arm firmly around Nick’s shoulders, a gesture which he hopes is grounding and comforting. 

The rest of the game passes in silence, though neither of them is watching it anymore. At some point, Nick stops crying, and by the time the game finishes, he’s lightly snoring, his face still buried in Hank’s shoulder. 

Hank, for his part, still has an arm wrapped around Nick, though he’d loosened his grip at some point in order to avoid Nick waking up later and feeling trapped. It’s a peaceful and finally comfortable end to the night, though Hank never would have expected it, and although he’s pretty sure he’ll need to move at some point (unless he wants to start his day tomorrow unbearably stiff and sore), for now, he closes his eyes and lets everything be okay, just for a little while. 

thankyouthankyouthankyou for reading this!! many apologies if theyre ooc like i said i havent written this fandom before so im still just getting my feet wet lol. hope u enjoyed!!

[daincrediblegg]

Can you please feed us some GORGEOUS Gen x Arthur hc's ????? Because we love you and we love Arthur and we stan our OTP. Please and thanks xp [I got'chu, boo

Genevieve x Arthur Fleck Headcanons

lmao LMAO LMAO ok so... idk what this is??? this is just how we are irl. ain’t no real scenario around it, but it still serves as a basic breakdown of our relationship as it’s unfolded the last 7 months or so. Thank you for giving me a platform to share this lmao. Sorry if it’s cringey and personal as hell, but hey, that’s life, and y’all know I don’t give a fuck by now.

We met in October. I’d snuck into a showing of Joker with my dad after the premier of Zombieland 2, and watched his story unfold. I couldn’t get him out of my head the whole night. I saw him again a little less than a week later, and I’d realized I’d wanted more. We’d agreed to meet for coffee the next day.

The next couple of weeks was just pure fascination with each other. I poured my heart into learning everything about him, and he seemed so genuinely interested in learning all he could about me too. 

Even though I was going through what’s easily been one of the most harrowing mental health crises that I’ve ever experienced… he fell quick for me, and hard. And I did too. He… he made me feel like I wasn’t alone. We were leading very similar lives (minus, y’know, murder- on my end), and knowing that he felt my pain when it seemed like not a whole lot of people really did… it made me feel seen. And it didn’t take long for things to get really heated. We’ve been together ever since.

He’s the one that got me to start taking my medication. I’d never been on antidepressants, and I was a little scared of the side-affects since the only other ones I’d tried made me dizzy and out of breath (and I’m a massive hypochondriac on top of all the other shit I’ve got going on in my head). But he convinced me that I was worth living for, and that was the little push I needed. I knew I wanted to get better, but he’d convinced me that I could. 

I drew him a lot those first few months we were together. His physicality still entrances me to this day. His elegance, yet this almost distinctly cartoonish poise and his innocence… he inspired me a lot. More than I had been in months. He’s shy about being the subject of a lot of my drawings… but he lets me anyway because he’s amazed at how it shows how I see him (which is fucking beautiful, like a disney prince thank you very much). 

We spent a lot of those first few months just lying in bed after a long day of writing and drawing, holding each other close and talking. About everything. It all felt so freeing to me that I could say just about anything to him and have him actually listen without judgement. And sure, he has his opinions, but he doesn’t dismiss mine.  

We did so much together too. We used to go to movies (not just his lmao), we got hot chocolates together and walked around town during christmas time.

For Christmas he gave me a beautiful necklace- a pretty blue/green pendant on a gold chain (that y’all might’ve seen in some of my selfies- and I wear it DAILY) and a silver bracelet with little red roses and garnets on it. They’re some of the best presents I’ve ever gotten. 

I gave him a scarf (that I’d worn out to work for weeks so that it’d smell like me at his request) and some chocolate.

I was also dealing with quite a few health problems those first few months, so he’s well versed in all my medical bullshit lmao.

I’ve got a weird bladder that just constantly feels infected (even though it’s actually not most of the time), which means that we can’t have penetrative sex sometimes (but we’re just as happy to touch each other in different ways even when I can’t stand to go all the way).

I was still having some panic attacks when I was on a higher dosage of my medication, and he’s very good at bringing me down from them. He holds me close and tells me to breathe slowly and deeply with him until I calm down and start to feel okay- even when I get super fidget-y from it. I can’t begin to thank him enough for helping me through it all as he has.

We don’t argue much. We see eye-to-eye where it counts, so we hardly ever get into moral disputes. But when we do it’s usually when I’m in a depressive rut and I’ve gone distant. He’s never raised his voice at me when it happens, but some heated conversations have spawned from it. And I’ll admit I’m not the most eloquent with these things sometimes. And I’ve said things that I didn’t mean to hurt him but just to say with honesty. He knows I have doubts sometimes. He does too, but we’ve been able to work through them well enough-better than most I imagine.

We uh… we have a lot of sex. No surprise.

We’re virgins (well, technically. At least with the opposite sex). We’re horny. We’ve got high sex drives and we’re not afraid to take it out on each other.

I’ve had a lot of body anxiety in the past, but with Arthur it feels even more non-existent than it’s ever been. He really loves my body. Not in a fetish-y way like a lot of guys have hinted at in the past. When I’m with him I really feel like his desire for me comes from love, that my body isn’t just a thing to get him off, but rather that he desires me for who and what I am, and I haven’t really ever felt that even with any of the other FICTIONAL guys I’ve been with before.

And he knows that I love him just the same. Body and soul. It’s a total two-way street. And we never feel the need to change for each other one bit. For that I’m so grateful god I could fucking cry.

And it’s made me do a lot of things that I kinda didn’t want or thought were inaccessible to me before I met him. I fucking wear lacy bras and matching panties (for the first time in my life!!!) on the reg because Arthur said that I deserved to have them if I wanted them (not to mention that I look beautiful in them to him), and now I’m coming around to the idea of putting on a little makeup ‘cause it makes me feel really pretty and Arthur agrees???? Like this MAN has really made me flourish for the better tbh I love him so fucking much. 

Before the pandemic he used to meet me at my regular haunt to watch me work after his gig for the day. He’d sit across from me and watch me fumble around with all my outlines and notes, sometimes taking out his own journal himself while he steals some of my coffee, taking my hand and running a thumb over it idly.

He really enjoys my screenwriting. My writing is very exciting, he says. He’s really supportive of my career choice, even though it’s still a long ways off from being anything tangible or serious. And he’s very supportive of the things I’ve written about him too. He doesn’t mind as long as some things get to stay just between us (and by and large he says I’ve done a pretty good job of that lmao). 

I sing for him a lot. We dance together too. I’ve always been a singer for as long as I can remember but being so depressed so long I didn’t really as much as I’d have liked. But for him I sing just about every day. Lotta swing-jazz numbers like from Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby and Caro Emerald. Some classic rock like Elton John and Billy Joel and Jethro Tull. He says he likes the way I sing their songs the best. Idk if I agree with him, but I believe him. 

He says we’re a dynamic duo in a way. Like since he dances and I sing, we’re a complete show. It’s the cutest fucking shit he’s ever said to me 

We kind of agreed to get married once the lockdown’s over. Neither of us really proposed to the other, exactly. We had been thinking about it for months (we’ve been talking about it since Christmas lmao- he’s said he wants to marry me so many times), but the first few weeks of this lockdown thing were really hard on me. It all felt very harrowing with everything changing all at once. 

And it was really touch-and-go for us. It was harder for me to feel him. And sure it had been hard before but it was… not quite as bad as this was. I almost thought we were done. 

But he stuck around, and helped me through it as much as he could despite how numb I was feeling. And he was still there when the dust settled, even stronger than before. So I told him one morning that I wanted to get married when all of this was over, and he agreed. 

So once the shelter in place order is lifted, we’re gonna go to the same jewlery shop he got me my favorite necklace, and pick out some rings. I for one am very excited.

And until then we’re perfectly content to enjoy this break from our normal everyday lives with each other. Even though it’s been harder for me to write we’re pulling through this whole thing just fine. 

[ofrstrnt]

that’s  ISAAC  TREMBLAY not  STEPHEN  AMELL.  he’s 34 years old and a RUGARU. he may be empathetic, loyal, & trustworthy but he’s also cautious, single-minded & vulnerable.

idk  why  the  admins  keep  letting  me  pick  up  muses  but  i  am  eternally  grateful  for  it.  we’re  going  to  keep  this  short  and  sweet  bc  i’m  sure  y’all,  like  me,  are  lazy.

isaac  is  a  rugaru.  they’re  basically  cousins  to  leviathans  and  wendigos.  i  won’t  go  into  the  lore  much  but  you  can  read  about  it  here.  TLDR?  rugarus  are  humans  with  cannibal  genes.  you’re  gucci  until  you  taste  human  flesh  and  then  it’s  game  over,  homies. 

his  family  is  complicated.  his  mother  had  an  affair  with  his  father,  resulting  in  him.  she  had  a  husband  back  at  home  and  as  such  he  had  a  sister  named  anne.  they  weren’t  super  close,  his  father  made  sure  they  weren’t  raised  together,  but  he  always  loved  and adored  her.  whenever  they  did  see  each  other  they  made  the  most  of  the  time  they  got.   when  he  was  18  years  old  though  she  disappeared.  he  searched  for  her  for  years,  couldn’t  give  up  hope,  but  eventually  he  made  the  decision  to  stop  looking.  

the  origin  stories  of  rugarus  are  all  very  similar.  around  30,  you  start  craving  meat.  first,  as  raw  as  you  can  get  it,  which  eventually  leads  to  —  y’know.   this  gene  has  been  passed  down  through  isaac’s  family  for  decades.   to  quote  his  father,   who  told  him  this  when  he  was  TEN,  it  ends  one  of  two  ways;   a  hunter  does  you  in,  or  you  do  yourself  in.   either  way,  it  ends  bloody.   in  his  defense,  that  has  been  the  case.   his  great-grandfather  was  killed  by  a  hunter,  and  his  grandfather  was  killed  by  his  great  aunt  when  he  knew  he  couldn’t  hack  it  anymore  and  needed  to  be  put  down.   his  aunt  never  made  it  to  thirty,  car  accident,  and  two  of  his  uncles  went  out  in  a  house  fire.   (  hunters,  his  father  would  later  tell  him  after  he’d  slammed  back  a  six  pack.   it  was  hunters  that  did  them  in.   hadn’t  even  turned  yet,  either.   they  weren’t  taking  no  chances.   can’t  blame  ‘em.  )    his  father  took  his  own  life  shortly  after  his  fifthteenth  birthday.  no  note,  no  explanation,  but  he  didn’t  need  to.  isaac  knew  why.  

as  far  as  he  knew,  he  was  the  only  person  left  from  his  father’s  bloodline.  if  he  has  any  distant  cousins,  or  relatives,  they’re  off  the  reservation.  he  worked  three  jobs  to  put  himself  through  college,  throwing  himself  into  work  and  education  to  avoid  thinking  about  the  future  he  was  staring  down.    maybe  it’s  a  foolish  choice,  or  some  unconscious  form  of  self  sabotage,  but  he  decided  to  become  a  veterinarian.   (   exposure  therapy,  much  ?  )    he  also  took  measures  to  ensure  that  he  never  passed  the  gene  on  to  anyone  else  and  got  a  vasectomy  on  his  twentieth  birthday.   happy  birthday  ig??????

his  whole  life,  he  watched  his  father  and  his  uncles  STRUGGLE  with  this  curse.   a  lot  of  them  turned  to  alcohol,  or  drugs,  to  try  to  numb  the  cravings.   he  looks  at  their  deaths  almost  objectively;  a  how  to  guide  on  what  not  to  do  while  he  deals  with  it.   he  managed  for  four  years  by  eating  a  lot  of  raw  meat  (   yes,  he  was  on  first name  basis  with  the  local  butcher.  )  and  focusing  on  work,  or  mindless  activities,  to  keep  himself  occupied.    he’s  somewhat  celibate,  sex  can  be  a  bit  tricky  when  you  want  to  sink  your  teeth  into  someone’s  shoulder,  but  there  are  moments  where  he’s  CHEATED  on  his  diet  so  to  speak.   

a  hunter  actually  tracked  him  down  at  one  point.   he  was  an  associate  of,  or  relative,  of  the  hunter  that  killed  his  uncles.    except  he,  like  isaac,  lived  by  different  rules  —   he  didn’t  kill  him  but  needed  to  make  sure  he  wouldn’t  hurt  anyone.    they  swapped  numbers  and  isaac  agreed  to  check  in  weekly  with  him.   if  he  missed  a  check  in,  they  would  kill  him.   no  questions  asked.   weirdly  enough,  they  became  friends???   he  couldn’t  really  say  how  it  happened  but  one  day  the  guy  gets  into  a  bind,  needs  an  assist,  and  isaac  helps.    somehow  he  ends  up  hunting????  he’s  not  the  best  at  it,  mostly  because  he’s  soft,  but  he’s  good  with  a  gun,  lightning  fast  and  could  bench  press  a  truck  given  his  supernatural  side.   ironically  it’s  his  day  job  that  helps  the  most.  if  someone  gets  hurt  badly,  needs  more  attention  than  a  few  stitches  and  a  shot  of  whiskey,  he  can  usually  help.    he’s  saved  more  than  a  few  of  them,  even  if  he’s  more  used  to  working  on  animals  than  people.    

okay  this  is  getting  long  so  let’s  get  to  his  death  &  personality.

he’s  always  been  an  optimistic  person.  his  father  tried  to  drag  him  down,  crush  the  hope  that  he  had,  but  he  never  let  it.   he  likes  to  think  he  got  that  from  his  mother.   he  believes,  despite  it  being  impossible,  that  he  can  beat  this.   that  he  can  be  strong,  can  help  people,  and  not  give  into  his  urges.   

isaac  is  the  kind  of  person  who  would  give  the  shirt  off  his  back  to  strangers,  his  kindness  can  often  be  misconstrued  as  flirty,  or  maybe  even  insincere,  but  he  really  is  just  that  nice.   he’s  a  chaotic  good  hufflepuff.   he  might  be  the  fluffiest  muse  i’ve  ever  written.    he’s  just  good,  man.   the  only  blemish  in  his  history  is  that  he  stopped  looking  for  his  sister.   in  truth,  he  only  stopped  when  he  felt  the  hunger  clawing  at  him  because  he  figured  she’d  be  safer  far  away  from  him.   maybe  he  was  right,  maybe  he  was  wrong.    he  has  no  idea  that  anne  died  or  that  he  has  a  niece.   and  i  oop.

so  those  hunters  that  he  was  involved  with  ?   they  were  associated  with  natasha  herrera  and  sam  winchester.   he  was  always  trying  to  bring  people  together  by  planning  movie  nights,  or  bar  crawls,  or  sunday  brunches  for  friends  and  family.    he  always  sensed  that  sam  resented  him  a  little,  though  he  wasn’t  sure  why,  but  he  broke  through  that  tough  cookie  and  ended  up  being  the  best  man  at  his  wedding.   (  yes,  i’m  playing  my  own  connection.  let  me  live.  )    so  the  wedding  could  have  rivaled  the  red  wedding  and  he  was  murdered  by  the  demon  azazel  in  2026.   he  had  his  heart  ripped  out  so  he  only  experienced  a  second  of  pain  before  he  straight  up  died.   then  he  was  in  purgatory,  though  he  doesn’t  remember  it,  and  now  he’s  here.   he’s  not  sure  how  he’s  back,  or  why,  but  he  sees  it  as  a  chance  to  try  and  get  things  right.    he’s  back  at  work,  trying  to  help  people  when  he  can,  and  isn’t  questioning  so  much  the  why’s  but  rather  the  hows;   how  he’ll  make  it   C  O  U  N  T.    

yeah  this  got  long.  but  if  you  wanna  plot  connections,  hit  me  up  on  discord  @  poor adam driver#2894

[thekingsparty]

//so, we’ve been back home for a bit but had to eat and blah and i got mom into bed after a very long, v stressful day. i’m gonna ramble on angrily under the cut for those who wanna read, otherwise quick summary. mom’s not really been helped, we gotta make sure to bring her in if her hands gets any more numb and she will have to stay there until ...well, idk. a while. i’m dead tired and just doodling around making icons while watching markiplier. i had to reschedule teaching to tomorrow, thursday is regular and then friday is class. im defs gonna try getting some sleep tonight for once. 

so, mom is v stubborn and doesn’t usually go see doctors. we all know now where i got that from lol, tho for me it’s mostly the fear of interacting with humans lol. so we got her to the doc today but they wouldn’t see her bc it was crowded and so they sent her off to the hospital bc she can’t wait until the 15th when their next open maybe-appointment is. she has been in pain since november and constant pain since new year. my mom is a fckn iceblock when it comes to pain usually, so for her to be unable to think due to pain ... i really don’t wanna imagine how bad it really is. her hand started going numb yday, which is the main reason she agreed to get help finally. 

we got to the hospital she used to feel safe in and promptly got her opinion changed. nurse lady was so, so horrible. she basically subtly called mom out for going there when she didn’t “just fall today” and made her out to be like a hypochondriac when she was basically crying in front of the lady in pain. i kept her on her feet but (and mom usually is like.. she’s got a bigger mouth than any other person on the world with excessive self esteem lol) she was so out of it after the lady spat at her the way she did, she barely got any words out, she forgot to mention her allergies and lady also didn’t even check if mom was taking any meds before offering all kinds of pain meds. like wtf. she then sent us back to the waiting room with the warning that we would have to wait very, very long bc mom isn’t really sick ofc. >_< 

so we waited for almost 6h, then finally got in. doc was young and v cold at first, which didn’t go over well with mom bc she almost collapsed on the floor after sitting for so long and i had to fckn carry her into the room. there were nurses and staff all around who saw her and nobody gave a fckn shit a potential patient clawed her way along the wall towards the room at the end of the corridor. ugh. anyway, he didn’t introduce himself or anything at first but i think he noticed how bad mom was doing and he softened up a little. still kinda cold but ... less so. he did a few tests and blah. so he’s p sure  one or more of the ver...tebral discs uhhh well, between neck and shoulder did a thing. her worst pain (it starts between shoulder blade and spine basically and vibrates/throbs into her fingers) is located a bit too ...high or low, but he still thinks so. he did some slapping on her neck lol and she like: i mean.... you’re hitting me so yea it hurts. XD 

anyway, he wants her to get an mri asap, but it’s not bad enough for them to do anything about it other than give her different pain meds. she’s using v strong ones (they dun help but attack the stomach) so he’s given her 2 days worth of strong ibu (you only get a dose of 400mg here, stronger is a doc thing) but given that doc won’t see her until like .. the end of next week if lucky... great day, really. if her hand gets any number and she can’t grip anything anymore, we gotta bring her in immediately. *sigh* i just want the pain to stop for her. she’s so done i can see it but there’s nothing i can do. she wants to rest tomorrow bc she’s v unstable emotionally rn and today like, finished her off, but i’m gonna gently poke for her to call anyway and maybe poke my student’s mom about seeing if mom’s ordinary doc (blood pressure etc) can get her the papers for an mri despite another doc having to look at them later on. student’s mom works at our doc’s place.