#HE MUST FIGHT WITH PURPOSE AND NOT TO SELFISHLY FEEL PAIN

[grubbygrrrl]

monkeyman was so crazy good, a truly heartbreaking hit me like a gut punch diaspora film. i felt like dev patel climbed inside my stupid diasporic cringe heart and ripped out all my love and fear and hate and joy for india and indianness and crafted it into a rough beautiful messy intense bloody film. it was NOT the joyful revenge narrative that everybody is seeing for me - it was scary, honestly. it was a depiction of the cycles of violence continuing and a warning against the renegade and it felt really rooted in the struggle of what it means to be indian in a way i think is SO informed by dev patel’s place as a diaspora kid. what do we reject? what do we embrace? how do we escape? how do we find something to be proud of amidst the ugliness? how can we weaponize that? how can we, as neither/both, transform?

[lostinlogicerror]

I've been thinking of all the parallels and callbacks to the beginning featured in the last few episodes of Ajin anime, and while most of them didn't have a deeper meaning behind them beyond inspiring a feeling of nostalgia and giving the viewers an impression the story came a full circle in the end, there's one that particularly drew my attention, and I'd like to consider from a character's angle.

Namely, Tanaka's insistence and curiosity regarding the actual intentions behind his rescue.

A considerable amount of time has passed since he’s been freed from that accursed laboratory after a decade of suffering through living hell, a period during which he’s been already disillusioned about humans and ajins alike, has already realized and made peace with his savior’s true motivations behind this grand cause he’s been strung along on first, then embraced as his own and yet — after and despite everything — he’s still being plagued by the question: why?

It's so important to him for there to be a reason.

What I believe this moment emphasizes is that this entire time Tanaka has been seeking a way of coming to terms with what's happened to him. Once you strip the righteous rage, the vindication, the need for retribution or some form of justice there's nothing left but a gaping hole, a huge mass of pain with no avenue to channel it into or rationalize away. When you think about it, it's no wonder Tanaka would find solace in trying to ascribe to his suffering some higher purpose. A meaning.

Incidentally, he's offered just that on a silver platter. When he's found, one can only imagine Tanaka's extreme state of mind — feeling lost and directionless, on a precipice of despair — and in that pivotal moment, Satou offers him exactly what he needs. A drive, a noble idea of fighting for ajin rights he can easily latch onto. With an added bonus of exacting justice on all corrupted individuals who wronged him, or in one way or another contributed to his worst nightmare.

After everything he's lost, 10 years of his life wasted and the psychological damage that can't be undone, he needs to believe for his own sanity's sake it wasn't all for nothing. At first, it must seem to him like an abstract concept, notice how for the longest time he was unsure of himself, uncertain of his own place in the group — having trouble fitting in due to his inferiority complex, only capable of following the lead, evident in his own lacking skillset matching his spirit, in spite of his best intentions.

But the time passes, and as their squad gradually becomes a force to be reckoned with, their efforts producing results, they gather more allies. How much comfort and validation must have it brought to Tanaka to be able to share his plight with fellow ajins?

To other rookie members, Tanaka must have been seen as this martyr figure of this great movement, an inspiration to act and unite them together, a symbol and a constant reminder what they're fighting for and what's at stake here, perhaps even idolized judging by the way they immediately adhere to him. 

It's pretty telling how in the anime he's a figurative cog holding this whole machine together (unlike in the manga where him not being on board is ultimately shown as inconsequential for the rest of the squad — once it has become apparent Tanaka's plans no longer align with the values of the team, they have no trouble with the idea of letting the unstable element depart towards the humans he made a point he now prioritizes over them) — he's there to show the others the potential risks and rewards of their movement, to relieve everyone's worries when Satou's actions are being put into question, actively functioning as a link between the man at the helm and the remaining of the squad (Satou himself recognizes Tanaka's importance, clearly, as he only reveals his true intentions to him when he wants to deliberately disband the group and I'm pretty certain Tanaka choosing to not abandon the sinking ship must have come at a surprise even to him).

But just as they all look up to him and ask of him to bear this responsibility, in return he's being offered an invaluable chance to connect to likeminded and sympathetic individuals. He gains a sense of purpose and togetherness, this obligation toward them serving to ground him and allowing him to grow as a person. It must feel like he's finally found a place for himself where he belongs, in this antagonistic world, being able to experience camaraderie with fellow ajins in the way he never did in the manga.

Being provided with this sense of importance, acknowledgment and a safety net  — the opposite of what humans had to offer, once this was all over, it makes sense Tanaka wouldn't seek out human company ever again, even if under some circumstances it'd seem a sensible thing to do. He’s gained self-esteem and a sense of worth, not wishing to fit back in among human society, unlike his manga counterpart, still at odds with his own identity. 

With the threat of all their combined efforts amounting to nothing, he sees his comrades to safety, his duty toward them seemingly over, however he refuses to depart together with them. How difficult, in Tanaka's situation must it be to accept the fact him becoming an Ajin was all a matter of chance and the universe never had any greater plan for him, the goal of securing Ajin rights nothing more than a distraction?

I theorize at this point he's no longer questioning and asking for any higher purpose or meaning behind their actions, now stripped of all pretenses, he's more interested in Satou's personal reasons behind helping Tanaka (finding a companion who would willingly participate in his crazy antics, a second player, as hinted by Satou's backstory with Kemper being his initial choice). 

Instead of lashing out at the world, in a way he fully embraces who he is, finding pride in his identity and gains a sense of freedom from it. No longer held by any moral qualms, he selfishly remains by this man's side, invested in this tie, feeling needed and valued exactly for who he is - an ajin.

[queensconquest]

AND  THOUGH  HE  FALLS  ,  DEFIANCE  REIGNS A  drabble  on  the  moments  of  Lucifer  falling  ft  Michael  ,  Raphael  ,  Samael  ,  and  reference  to  God

   Unfortunate.

   That’s  the  singular  thought  when  holy  grip  grasps  Lucifer’s  slim  neck  ,  and  gold  ichor  spills  from  the  wound  on  his  back  -  the  same  ichor  that  coats  a  golden  sword.  Pain  fills  him  as  the  two  wings  closest  to  the  wound  located  between  the  2nd  and  3rd  from  the  top  hang  limp  and  useless.  He’s  beaten  ,  and  he  knows  it.

   Unfortunate  ,  but  there  would  be  future  chances.

   The  sounds  of  battle  rages  in  his  ears  ,  but  it  is  no  longer  significant.  He  and  his  followers  will  fall.  That  is  the  price  for  rebellion.  Heaven  will  weep  and  bleed  from  this  day  for  ages  to  come  ,  and  the  wounds  will  never  be  healed.  It  is  Lucifer  ,  not  God  ,  that  has  the  most  memorable  day  for  all  of  eternity.  It  is  Lucifer  ,  not  God  ,  who  has  changed  everything  forever.  Although  he’s  lost  the  war  ,  it  has  not  been  an  entire  loss.  So  he  looks  at  Michael.

                                                          And  he  grins.

    Lucifer  can  feel  the  rage  from  the  other  ,  how  the  fingers  squeeze  his  throat  and  raise  him  higher.  Heaven’s  prized  angel  knows  exactly  what  is  about  to  happen.  Even  as  he  is  to  fall  ,  gold eyes  blaze  with  pride  and  defiance.  At  least  he  will  be  free.  It’s  a  sweet  thought  in  preparation  for  the  pain.  He  won’t  let  Michael  enjoy  this  moment.  Because  when  he  should  be  screaming  in  pain  and  agony  ,  his  eyes  still  burn  with  the  passion  of  his  defiance  and  pride.  Then  begins  the  fall  ,  not  with  tears  ,  but  teeth  bared  in  a  grin  and  pride  still  burning.

   But  there  is  another  voice  that  pierces  the  Heavens  and  seems  to  shake  the  universe.  A  heartbreaking  ,  agonized  scream  the  originates  from  Heaven’s  ranks  rather  than  any  of  the  fallen.  Gold  eyes  shift  as  he  begins  to  fall  ,  locking  gazes  with  the  source  of  the  noise.  The  angel  being  held  back  by  others  to  prevent  him  from  seemingly  rush  after  the  falling  morningstar.  Fingertips  twitch  ,  and  its  as  easy  as  that  for  the  proud  defiance  directed  towards  Michael  to  change  to  something  close  to  sorrow  to  the  other  angel.  To  Raphael.

   It  is  his  only  regret  in  this  entire  battle.  He  does  not  regret  fighting  ,  and  he  does  not  regret  falling  as  he  does  now.  But  he  does  regret  Raphael  being  caught  up  in  it  all.  How  heavy  the  burden  of  battle  must  be  ,  and  in  moments  it  will  be  worse  when  screams  and  the  scent  of  burning  feathers  fill  the  air.  Lucifer  can  see  the  pain  and  agony  in  Raphael’s  eyes  as  his  voice  fills  the  air.  And  even  as  he  falls  ,  there’s  still  the  wish  to  reach  out  and  comfort  and  soothe  Raphael.  It’s  okay  ,  it’s  okay.

   How  many  times  had  he  spent  sitting  quietly  with  Raphael  ,  helping  soothe  him  or  make  sure  he  was  okay  when  things  got  overwhelming  ?  When  the  other  angels  wouldn’t  ,  he  always  made  sure  he  did.  At  least  when  possible.  In  less  than  a  second  it  all  rushes  through  his  mind.  Days  spent  laughing  ,  of  dancing  at  human  festivals  ,  of  time  spent  in  fields  singing  and  playing  instruments  ,  memories  of  warm  smiles  ,  of  raphael  waiting  on  the  steps  to  the  throne  room  for  him  instead  of  celebrating  with  other  angels  ,  teasing  jabs  and  kind  words.  As  much  as  Lucifer  had  been  there  ,  Raphael  had  as  well.  When  other  angels  often  looked  at  him  different  being  God’s  Favorite  ,  Raphael  had  been  there  and  never  seemed  to  let  that  bother  anything.

   He  wants  to  comfort  Raphael  one  last  time  ,  but  he  is  powerless  to  do  so.  He  wants  to  wrap  Raphael  in  his  arms  and  wings  and  whisper  reassurances  to  Raphael  that  everything  will  be  okay  for  Raphael.  But  he  can’t  even  scream  or  say  anything.  Only  watch  helplessly  as  Raphael  suffers.  A  selfish  part  of  him  yearns  for  Raphael  now.  But  it  is  the  only  time  that  Lucifer  can  be  thankful  to  the  other  angels.  Raphael  does  not  deserve  to  fall.  Raphael  should  never  fall.  And  if  the  others  hadn’t  stopped  him  ,  he  would  be  here  trying  to  save  Lucifer.  That’s  who  Raphael  was.  So  even  as  part  of  him  selfishly  wants  Raphael  ,  he  is  relieved  that  he  cannot  get  here  even  as  his  pain  and  sorrow  pierce  his  chest.  Sorrowful  gold  eyes  continue  to  gaze  are  bright  green emeralds.

   Then  Raphael’s  gone  from  sight  as  Lucifer  falls  and  falls.  But  that  scream  mere  seconds  later  shakes  everything  ,  and  strikes  Lucifer  to  his  core  as  sorrow  explodes  in  his  chest.  (  It’s  a  sound  that  will  haunt  him  for  eternity.  )  The  pain  suddenly  hits  far  worse  than  anything  he’d  ever  imagined.  Only  now  does  Lucifer  scream  as  he  falls  ,  pain  flaring  from  his  being  like  a  pillar.  The  scent  of  burnt  flesh  and  feathers  fills  his  nose  as  others  fall  around  him.  But  that  is  not  the  worst  part  of  it  all.  The  physical  pain  is  laughable  in  comparison  to  the  agony  of    It  feels  like  his  very  existence  is  being  ripped  and  shredded  apart.  It  burns  in  the  most  unimaginable  way  and  he  wants  to  scream  ,  but  it  hurts  so  much  his  screams  have  gone  silent.  It’s  like  every  atom  of  him  was  being  destroyed  ,  but  there  was  one  piece  that  seemed  unaffected  by  Heaven’s  punishment  and  all  he  can  do  is  desperately  cling  to  that  part  of  his  being  lest  he  be  destroyed.

   Before  he  knows  it  ,  lightning  has  struck  ground  as  Lucifer  smashes  into  the  earth  in  a  smoking  crater.  He  lays  on  his  back  ,  wings  outstretched  as  empty  eyes  stare  up  at  the  black  clouds  covering  the  sky.  Chance  or  on  purpose  ?  Everything  hurts  ,  but  he  has  survived  the  unthinkable.  

   But  there’s  a  new  sensation  in  his  chest  as  he  stares  up  at  the  clouds  as  rain  began  to  fall  ,  hissing  as  it  struck  his  burning  form.  Is  this  what  cold  feels  like  ?  Lucifer  has  never  known  anything  besides  the  warmth  of  Heaven  and  sunny  days  on  Earth.  He  was  always  warm  ,  the  presence  of  God  in  his  core.  Now  there  is  nothing   but  cold.  There’s  an  emptiness  where  his  Father’s  presence  had  always  been  before.  It’s  so  empty  and  hollow  and  he  wants  to  claw  into  his  own  chest  to  try  to  find  it. All  at  once  there’s  a  new  realization.

   Hell  isn’t  a  place.  It’s  a  state  of  being.  To  have  known  the  sweetness  and  warmth  of  God’s  love  ,  and  to  be  deprived  of  it.  Angels  were  not  meant  for  such  things.

   He’s  so  cold  and  empty  now  ,  part  of  him  has  been  robbed  away  from  him.  He  felt  broken.  Lucifer  had  never  realized  that  this  would  be  an  after  effect.  He’d  never  even  realized  he’d  felt  the  warmth  until  he  was  COLD. 

   He  was  alone.

   For  the  first  and  only  time  ,  Lucifer  cries.  Fingers  claw  at  the  earth  to  push  him  upright  ,  gold  eyes  falling  to  stare  at  the  ground.  It’s  a  foreign  sound  and  sensation  ,   the  sobs  that  fall  from  his  throat  and  crystal  tears  the  rush  down  his  cheeks.  He’s  alone  ,  so  terrifyingly  alone.  He’s  scared.  His  fingers  clutch  at  himself  ,  a  child  trying  to  provide  comfort  for  himself  when  there  is  no one  else.  Because  now  there  is  no  one.  God  is  no  longer  a  part  of  him.  He  might  have  been  lonely  at  times  in  Heaven  ,  but  he’d  never  been  alone  and  forsaken  like  now.  And  so  the  fallen  Morningstar  sobs  ,  and  he  can’t  stop.  He’s  hurt  and  afraid  ,  and  even  his  enormous  pride  can  find  nothing  to  distract  him.  The  calm  ,  proud  defiance  was  gone  in  these  first  moments  of  being fallen.  Was  this  the  price  of  freedom  ?  To  be  ripped  apart  and  thrown  outside  and  left  to  try  to  survive  despite  the  gaping  hole  in  his  chest  ?

   He  sobs  until  he  can’t  cry  anymore  ,  and  the  numbness  sets  in.  It’s  an  emptiness  fitting  for  what  feels  like  a  missing  piece  of  his  being.  Tears  fade  and  he  blinks.  That  feeling  was  easier  than  the  pain  ,  comforting  in  its  familiarity  ,  so  he  lets  it  pull  him  into  its  grasp.  and  drag  him  close.  He  shoves  the  pain  and  fear  somewhere  deep  within  where  he  will  hopefully  never  find it  again.

   Lucifer’s  head  lifts  as  he  hears  his  name  being  called.  And  there’s  Samael  ,  standing  with  a  hand  reaching  out  to  him.  His  wings  are  gone  ,  and  there’s  new  horns  ,  but  it  is  still  Samael.  Always  Samael.  A  hand  reaches  out  ,  grasping  the  demon’s  hand  and  rises  up  from  where  he’d  fallen.  He  had  chased  the  crown  and  freedom  ,  now  it  was  time  to  seize  it.  

   How  cruel  it  was  then  that  the  new  Emperor  of  Hell  still  looked  as  divine  as  ever.

[madara-fate]

Why fugaku and mikoto didn't fight itachi when he was about to kill them?

What parents would want to fight their own child? I mean sure, Fugaku and Mikoto wanted to exact their justice upon the village hierarchy, but they were never going to go through their own children to get there. Remember, Uchihas value love and family more than anyone else, and even though Itachi did what he did, not only was it emotional torture for him in of itself, but he also did it for Sasuke, who was also his family. Having said this, in my opinion, Itachi’s situation was horrible. He was still very sane and very much a nice person when he was forced to slaughter his beloved family.

And the fact that his parents not only offered no resistance whatsoever, but were also very understanding of his decision, must have made the entire ordeal that much tougher for Itachi to go through. I’m sure that it made him feel even more guilty; That his parents loved him too much to allow themselves to fight their own son. I can only imagine how terrible that must have made Itachi feel:

Not only did they put up no resistance, not only were they understanding of his decision, but they were also actually proud of him, for choosing his own path and sticking with his decision:

This is proof that although Fugaku is very opinionated and will always express his viewpoint on matters, he would never force any of his sons to do anything they didn’t want to do. Whether it be in career aspirations or their romantic affairs; as long as Sasuke or Itachi made it clear that it was their choice, Fugaku would advocate it, even if their views differed.

And I’ve always loved this panel:

The mental pain that Itachi was suffering through at that moment is so perfectly depicted here. Here he was, the prodigy who everyone thought was the perfect shinobi, trembling and crying profusely because of the horrible act he’s being forced to commit for the sake of preserving the peace of the village. Here he was, about to kill both of his parents, and they were saying how proud they were of him and how gentle and considerate he was because of it. That’s deep.

And then if that wasn’t enough, he was then forced to lie about the entire ordeal to his beloved younger brother, and make himself seem like scum who murdered his whole family for the sole purpose of selfishly testing his own limits. The guy has nerves of steel, but even he couldn’t hold back that one tear, to demonstrate how much he was hurting internally:

And to subsequently be forced to live with the memories of that night, of having to kill his beloved parents who put up no resistance at all and instead made it clear that they loved him until their final breaths, the memories of traumatising his brother, those memories haunting him everyday… Itachi had it hard. I can certainly understand why many people resent Itachi for what he did; His actions towards Sasuke were inexcusable and he himself admitted how big of a mistake he made when the brothers reunited prior to facing Kabuto. However, I do feel that some people forget how difficult the entire ordeal was for Itachi as well.

[walkerismychoice]

We Keep This Love in a Photograph

Book: ROD

Pairing: Logan X MC, Colt X MC

Rating: PG-13

Note: This story is all contained within Chapter 13 of ROD. Most of the dialogue comes directly from the book except for right at the end where it veers off canon a bit to fit Gabi’s situation. Title/partial fic inspiration comes from Photograph by Ed Sheeran.

Word Count: ~2900

Tag List: @tmarie82 @lizeboredom @boneandfur @debramcg1106 @choicesarehard @fluffy-marshmallow-heart @give-me-ernest-sinclaire @leelee10898 @plutostudie-s @frugalchoicer @mfackenthal @a-whore-of-rome @teenytinymagician @choiceslife @confessionsofabrokegirl @alegria1580 @rhymesmenagerie @i-miss-trr

Colt watches as the flames fully engulf Kaneko's shop, his expression a mix of horror and despair. "The Brotherhood... They burned it all."

Gabi walks over to Colt and sits next to him on the curb. "Colt, I... I don't know what to say.” What can you say to someone who's just lot not only their father, but his entire legacy as well?

Colt stares into the flames, his features hardening and voice chilling. "...I'm going to kill them."

"Colt..." Gabi reaches for his hand, and he lets her take it, but his other fist remains clenched and white-knuckled. He appears to have skipped the denial stage and gone straight to anger, but if anyone understands the pain of losing a parent and that grief isn't always linear, it's her.

"I'm going to hunt them down one by one. I'm going to destroy them the way they destroyed everything I cared about." Colt pauses as a piece of charred wood cracks and falls a few feet away. "I'm going to burn them all to the ground."

This violent, vengeful side of him scares her, but she knows he needs to process the pain in his own way. Still she knows this isn't what Kaneko had wanted, and it's not what she wants for him so she has to try. "That's not what your dad died for. Your dad sacrificed himself to get you out. Not so you'd spiral into a life of vengeance."

Colt looks away from Gabi and the flames. "You don't understand."

"No, I don't, but I do know one thing... Your dad wanted you to have more than he ever had, to be more than he ever was. If you let your need for revenge consume you, then he died for for nothing."

For the first time since the bridge, Colt starts to break. "I just... I can't believe he's gone."

"I'm so sorry Colt," Gabi consoles him sincerely.

"My whole life he was this invincible force. Relentless, intractable..."

"Unyielding."

"Exactly. He never showed any weakness. Not to me, not to anyone"

"Colt..." She doesn't know if she should say it, but she doesn't want to see him make the same mistakes. "Look where that got him."

Colt's eyes narrow. "Hey-"

"I'm just saying," Gabi cuts him off before he says something he'll regret, "his life, and yours, would have been so much better if he'd shown you how much he cared. Now it's too late." She places a hand on his arm to comfort him. "I don't want the same thing to happen to you."

Colt swallows hard, struggling to hold back tears as he searches for something to hold onto in Gabi's eyes. "Things could have been...so different."

Gabi's still upset and uncertain about so many things. The Colt she saw back at the casino was not the one she thought knew. The lengths he was willing to go to to get rid of the brotherhood are beyond her comprehension, but in this moment, all she sees is the Colt she fell for, and he needs her. She wraps her arms around his neck, turning his face towards her, and their lips just seem to find one another's.

"Gabi..." Colt pulls back and look in his eyes almost breaks her before his mouth is on hers again, kissing her fiercly, desperately. She clings to him as he runs his hands up and down her back as if to make sure she doesn't disappear.

"I'm here Colt, I'm here," Gabi assures him and he responds by deepening the kiss.

"What am I going to do without him?"

Gabi cups his cheek in her hand and lifts his eyes to meet her gaze. "You're going to live... Now come on, the brotherhood might still be here." Gabi takes his hand and leads Colt away from his father's garage just as the sign over the bay door snaps and comes crashing down.

~~~~~

"That's it then." Gabi realizes out loud watching Colt drive away, the crew all going their separate ways after briefly reconvening to ensure everyone had safely evaded the police. Gabi and Logan are the only two left standing on the street. Gabi had never quite believed it when any of them said they had no emotional ties to the crews, that they knew they could just scatter if and when things went wrong. She thought it was just something they had said for self-preservation to hide their true feelings, and maybe in part it had been. But watching Mona, Toby, Ximena, and Colt with hardly so much as a 'see you around if I see you' is tough. Especially Colt. Maybe they are all built that way, but as Mona had pointed out, Gabi isn't and it hurts.

"Yeah that's it. Come on Gabi. I'll get to yours friends place," Logan says as he opens the passenger door of his car for her to get in. At least Logan cared enough to make sure she got home.

Gabi leans her head against the glass as Logan drives, watching the city drift by. "...Where will you go?"

"We'll see, I've got some friends back in Detroit. Might try to lay low there for awhile. I'm more worried about you. What happens when this Jason guy comes after you?"

"Do you think he will?

"He's dangerous and you know his secret. You being alive puts his whole life in danger. And I just hate the idea of leaving you behind all alone."

So don't, she wants to say, but she can't bring herself to get the words to come out. She can't selfishly ask him to stay and risk his life. And she can't say she wants to go with him, because that plan is just not meant to be. She needs to get her life back together and that needs to happen here.

Gabi is looking at Logan, wondering what he's thinking when he suddenly pulls off the road. "I have an idea." She follows him out a patch of grass at a small park, and he beckons her closer. "Alright, Gabi...punch me."

"Excuse me?" She hadn't known where he was going with this when he stopped at the park, and she still doesn't.

"Go on. Hit me, like I'm one of the Brotherhood. Hard as you can." Still wondering what type of game he's playing, she's annoyed enough by his odd request to do what he asks. She clenches her fist and hits him hard in the shoulder but he hardly reacts. "Okay, good job."

Gabi frowns. "No it wasn't. What is this?"

"Me and the crew can't be around to protect you anymore...so, before I leave...I want to teach you some self defense. You should learn a thing or two you help you if Jason comes after you...and hey, you can hit me as much as you want." Logan gives a little smirk.

There's a lot of people Gabi wants to hit right now, but Logan isn't one of them. She wants to appease him though, so she punches his shoulder harder this time. She doesn't hit him properly so he gently takes her hand and corrects her form and teachers her how to throw her whole body behind the punch. She feels bad when he catches him off guard but he just smiles at her and tells her she'll need to catch the brotherhood by surprise too. He seems very knowledgeable on the subject and she fears he's had to learn out of necessity from a young age. "Logan, where did you learn all this stuff?"

"Back in Detroit, Vaughn spent a lot of time at a boxing gym. I'd follow him around a lot. He was cooler and older."

"So you were an annoying little sibling?" Gabi smiles at the thought of little Logan trying to act cool.

"Extremely annoying. But there I was serious. I got my ass kicked by some muggers when I was a kid." Logan continues the lesson, teaching her to exploit vulnerability. He purposely gives her an opening which she takes but doesn't give it her all because she thinks she can get the moves down without trying to knock him out. "You can't hesitate. Hesitation is death."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"Then think about something you hate," Logan encourages. "Channel that aggression." Gabi thinks about Jason, and is almost blind with rage. Logan swings from the right and Gabi blocks the strike and then punches him hard in the nose, causing blood to trickle down. "Perfect that was-"

She doesn't let him finish before she hits him again, screaming with rage, hardly cognizant of who she's fighting anymore. Logan moves to block her punch but hesitates while losing his footing in the mud. She sweeps her leg at his ankles and he falls flat on his back. "Oof, You're really picking this up quickly."

Gabi pounces on Logan and cocks her fist back. "I win," she announces smugly.

Logan's face falls and Gabi can see something in his eyes that tells her he's been here too many times before. "Gabi, I'm not teaching you how to win a fight. I'm teaching you how to survive one. You have to run when you get the chance."

"Like you're running."

"Yeah, like me."

A silence passes between them in the still night air as the gravity of the their situation hits them once again. Gabi peers into Logan's sad eyes and can see in the reflection that hers look the same. She's drawn to him like she always has been, a moth to a flame. She bends down and presses her lips against his, and he kisses her back like he needs her to breathe. The feel of his warm body against the cool grass is comforting, and he rubs his hands slowly up and down her back, like he's committing every inch her to memory because memories are all he'll have. She does the same, running her hands through his hair and nuzzling his neck as she inhales his scent, as if she could ever forget.

Logan gently strokes Gabi’s hair. “Somehow, I like this more than getting punched by you.”

Gabi laughs, thankful for the distraction that keeps her tears at bay. She kisses him again and they hold each other there, neither willing to let go until they absolutely must, and Logan returns Gabi to Riya’s house.

Gabi heaves a heavy sight. “I’ve gotta tell Riya everything... in case Jason goes after her too.”

“Gabi...” Logan takes her hand and she squeezes his back tight.

“This is goodbye isn’t it?” She knew it was coming, but now that she’s here outside Riya’s house it hits her like a ton of bricks. This is really the end.

“For awhile at least, at least.” Gabi searches Logan’s face for any sign of hope that he means this, that he thinks he’ll find a way back, but the defeated look in his eyes tells her there’s none. She reaches over and wraps her arms around him, hanging on as long as she can. He rubs her back trying to soothe her, but it’s not enough. She starts to sob, her tears falling down on his shoulder, and at the same time she can feel one of his own roll down her cheek. “I’m so sorry, Gabi... I’m so sorry. You know if I could take it all back, I would.”

“I wouldn’t,” she nearly whispers. Despite everything that’s happened, she could never wish away meeting Logan, Colt and the rest of the crew. She found her first love, maybe even two, and experienced things that have made her grow in ways nothing else could. She wouldn’t take it all back for anything. After a beat, she reluctantly leaves the car and musters the strength to turn around, seeing Logan watch her go and not leave until she turns the handle to walk inside. 

~~~~~

Gabi absentmindedly scrolls through her phone as Riya fusses over perfecting her makeup for prom. She’s going because she promised Riya she would, but she’s not excited about it at all. Not that long ago she was stressing about whether she would want to go with Logan or Colt more if she could convince either of them to go. The past several weeks have been a blur - the fight with the Brotherhood in the casino, finding out Jason was behind it all, Kaneko’s death, and the crew all taking off to spare themselves. The worst thing had been she had to face it all alone, thanks to Jason coming to threaten her at Riya’s house right after it all happened. She only hopes if she keeps her mouth shut he’ll keep up his end of the bargain. Salazar has already been murdered, by the Brotherhood shes’s certain, and she prays no more blood will be shed. She know’s she can’t protect the crew, but if keeping her mouth shut is what she has to do to keep her dad safe, she will.  

Riya spins around proudly, closing her eyelids to give Gabi a better look. “What do you think, Gabi? Is my cut-crease eyeshadow dramatic enough?”

“You look great, Riya, just like you always do.” She’s trying to be a good friend, but her hearts not in it.

“But I don’t wanna look just like I always do! It’s prom!”

“In that case...I’d add a little more eyeliner,” Gabi suggests, making an effort.

Riya flashes a quick smile before turning back to the mirror. “What about you? Are you gonna try a new look? Or a new hairstyle?”

Gabi just shrugs and continues flipping through the photos in her phone. If she was going with Logan or Colt that would be one thing, but she’s not. That first week without them had been hell, not knowing where they were or if they were okay. Logan had sent her a text saying “I made it” when he got to his destination but never replied to her texts after that. She’d sent Colt a text checking in after a few days which he had left on read. At least she knew he was alive then. She’s able to look at the pictures now without crying at least, resigning to the fact that this part of her life is now nothing but a memory. She flips back and forth between her two favorites - a selfie of her and Colt overlooking the bluffs at sunset when they first kissed and another of her and Logan, Gabi resting her head on his shoulder in bed one lazy afternoon. “I...don’t exactly have someone to impress tonight. Riya reaches over and snatches the phone out of Gabi’s hand. “Hey!”

“Okay enough, moping! I know you’ve had a tough couple of months, be we have to make the most of the time we still have together! I know tonight isn’t going to be exactly what we thought...but as Dare would say, we aren’t done with this part of our lives yet. Now are you with me, or are you with me?”

If she can’t do it for herself, she at least owes it to Riya. “Okay, okay! I’m with you!”

“Good. Now, I’m gonna go put on my fabulous dress, and I want you to text whoever it is that you’ve been daydreaming about all night.”

“I haven’t-”

“You have. And you’re only going to get more distracted until you do something about it. So text them hi, then get your ass in your dress!” Riya demands before tossing Gabi’s phone back.

She’s been thinking about both of them for sure, but who does she really want? Gabi closes her eyes and thinks about who she would want to see there dancing with her at prom, and the answer is clear.  She scrolls to his name in her phone, her finger hovering when the doorbell rings at that very moment. Riya asks her to go get it, so she runs down the stairs, flings the door open, and her jaw drops when she sees Colt standing there in a dark gray suit with a boutonniere on his lapel. “Colt, what are you doing here?”

“What’s it look like? I’m here to take you to prom,” he’s says almost like no time has passed. She’s so stunned she doesn’t know what to say. “I know you probably have a lot of questions, but I needed to see you again, and I knew you really wanted to go. So will you go to prom with me, Gabi?” 

Before she can answer, Colt puts his arm around her waist and pulls her in close, crushing his lips to his hers. She starts to give into him instinctively, when she sees something out of the corner of her eye and thinks she may be hallucinating. She blinks to focus her eyes, but it’s still there - he’s still there. It’s Logan walking up the street, also dressed up in formal wear, but as he spots her and Colt, he stops in his tracks and starts heading back to his car. Gabi pulls away and runs after Logan. “Logan, wait! Don’t go yet.” He spins around and looks at her, and then back to Colt. Gabi turns her head to see Colt with a bewildered look on his face. She’s frozen there, torn between the two of them one more time.

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Caramel Skin Under A Purple Rain prt 49 full draft

Sleeping late, Keith woke to an empty bed. Lance was more in the bathroom than he was their bedroom, it felt like he was feeling Lance climbed out every five minutes. He wanted cuddles. He’d been at the cabin for a few days now, learning the routine Curtis and Lance had in place. Curtis did the cooking, unless he was hiding the fact that Keith was coming and needed Lance distracted. Curtis did the washing, Lance doing the folding when it was brought in. Curtis also gathered the firewood. Keith was allowed to sleep late as depression wasn’t kicking his arse. He hadn’t noticed the severity after the initial shock of his return, then he slowly did. The weather outside was miserable, it was long sleeve weather out there. Inside. Inside was not. His husband didn’t wear t-shirt or anything without a sleeve. He’d kicked Keith out the bathroom when he wanted to take a shower, and jumped when his was touched unexpectedly. Once or twice he’d seen lance flinch when Curtis had brush against him. Lance and Curtis weren’t touchy feely, and huggy like Shiro could be. They kept a distance between them, in some kind of respect for each other. He shouldn’t have been annoyed when he found Lance asleep on the sofa in the living room, next to Curtis who had his arm around him. Cartoons were playing in the background, with Kosmo sleeping in front of the unlit grate... Sitting down in one of the single seater recliners, Curtis gave him a warm smile. Keith couldn’t sit on the arm of the chair, or on the floor in front of Lance. He had to act like a normal person would. A normal person wouldn’t be jealous over the fact that Curtis had pretty much kept Lance going in the final weeks of his coma “Good morning. How’d you sleep?” “Good. Better than expected...” “I would have woken you up, but I didn’t want to wake Lance up. He had a rough night” Keith wasn’t jealous... at all. Why didn’t he know Lance had had rough night? Why hadn’t Lance woken him up? He would have sat up and finally had that talk they were going to have about everything that happened. The half-Galra wasn’t sure that his husband wasn’t falling asleep on purpose to avoid it “He did?” “Yeah. His back was playing up. You might have noticed that there’s no medication in the house other than for his thrush that’s kept out. He was sleeping on Kosmo when I woke up. I’ve given him some paracetamol for the pain, but I’ve got to do a run into town today, the Garrison wants me to check in. I’ll grab some more when I’m there... aaaand anything you want, let me know. Lance sent me a list of things he wanted” Lance had told Curtis about the drugs? Did that mean Curtis now knew Lance’s past? No. Not jealous... No. Lance and Curtis weren’t like that. Lance might have planned to talk to him. It’d happened before “Nothing comes to mind” “That makes things easier. I’ll be gone all day, so make sure you let me know if you think of anything” “Yeah... Do you want me to take Lance?” “Lance is awake... you two haven’t heard of whispering” Pushing himself up, out of Curtis’s hold, Lance yawned widely. His husband sporting impressive bed head as he rubbed his eyes. Laughing, Curtis bumped Lance lightly with his shoulder “Sorry. Sorry” “You’re not. Hey, babe. You’re awake?” “Yeah. I just got up” “Then what I’m doing sleeping on Curtis? Am I going to have to tell Shiro about this?” “No. I told you, no romance from me” “Just tacky wrestling” “Wrestling isn’t tacky” “Keith, babe. Help me out here?” Keith opened and closed his mouth “Sorry, Lance. You’re outnumbered here. Are you up for some breakfast?” “Something plain today. I’m feeling a bit queasy” “No problems. Keith?” That was... simple... “Uh... toast?” He wasn’t sure what his options were “Sounds good. You both need to do your exercises today. Lance, I’m leaving you in charge of them. Keith, make sure he walks around and gets a good stretch in. He knows his exercises, so you two can both go through them” “Curtis, we can handle a few exercises” “I haven’t left...” “You’ve gone to town for supplies and I’ve been perfectly fine, here. Right here on the sofa with Kosmo and my trash TV. Now I’ve got my husband to babysit me, you don’t need to worry as much” “Lance, I’ve seen you cry because you accidentally stepped on a cockroach. I’m going to worry” “It felt gross. I can’t see the bottom of my feet. Now get off the sofa, old man” “I thought Shiro was the old man?” “You’re a two for one deal. I want my husband” See. He was being stupid. Lance wanted him. He wanted him, not Curtis “You can have him. I’ll take Shiro” “Don’t think I didn’t notice that limp after Shiro left. And don’t think I won’t keep going if you don’t let Keith sit down” “Fine. Fine. I’ll remember this” “I probably won’t. Keith... cuddles?” Making grabby hands for him, almost all was forgiven. Keith happy to climb back up then take Curtis’s spot by Lance when it opened. Smelling too much like Curtis, Keith started rubbing his wrist against Lance’s neck as his husband sank into his hold. He hadn’t missed his messed up secondary instincts but he missed this. Lance dozed off after breakfast, leaving Keith to assure Curtis he’d call if something went wrong. Curtis twice doubling back from the cabin’s front door before finally getting the message that they’d be alright and leave. They’d been alone for the whole day, meaning Keith didn’t want to waste a single moment of it. Letting Lance doze, his husband woke a good hour after Curtis had left. Climbing off of him, Lance’s mumbled to himself before shuffling off. Letting his husband have a five minute head start, he found Lance in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. Walking up behind, Keith placed both hands on his husband’s stomach he rested his chin on Lance’s shoulder “Good morning, beautiful” Spitting out his mouthful of toothpaste, Lance went about rinsing his mouth out and gargling before he paid him any attention “I don’t know if it’s good... and I don’t feel very beautiful” Kissing his husband’s neck, Keith smiled as their twins kicked “I think you’re beautiful. What do you want to do today?” “Sleep...” “We have the whole cabin to ourselves” “I know. That’s why I want to sleep” Lifting his hands off his stomach, Lance wiped his own on his sweats as he started moving towards the bathroom door. Stung by his words, Keith didn’t get what he was doing wrong “Babe?” “I’m going back to bed for a bit” Following Lance from the bathroom to their room, Keith couldn’t take it any longer “Babe. We need to talk” “Do we?” “Yes” “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” Keith blinked as his mind processed. Walking over to the bed, he sat beside his husband “Why do you say that?” “Because you haven’t been happy since you got here. You’re mad at me” “Hey. That’s not true. You have no idea how happy I am to be here” “I stuffed up. And you’re mad. I’m sorry” “Right now, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about” “You’re going to leave. You have to go home and you’re made at me... aren’t you?” Keith shook his head. He wasn’t mad. He was jealous. And idiot... and maybe a little bit mad... but he wanted to talk, not make Lance feel like he couldn’t talk to him because he was mad “Why would I have to leave? I came here to be where you were” “Krolia wouldn’t let you stay... She doesn’t like me very much anymore. She must have told you how I gave up... I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t want me around either...” “Babe, Krolia loves you. She told me about the fight. Not right away, because all of them were acting weird. She regrets what she said” “She shouldn’t...” Lance covered his face with his hands, leaning forward as he did “This is what I wanted to talk about. I don’t know what happened. It’s not coming back. I had no idea Krystaal and I kissed until Ezor accidentally dropped that bombshell. Is that why you won’t talk about it? About that night?” “That’s... we talked about that... You don’t remember, but we did. You told me after it happened and I forgave you” “Then what’s going on with you? You’re acting jumpy” “I’m fine...” “That’s quiznak and we both know it” Moving far too fast for a pregnant person, Lance pushes himself up off the bed, wrapping his arms around his face as he looked to the wall instead of Keith “What do you want to me say?” “The truth? So we can talk this out? I noticed you and Curtis are close enough for him to hint...” “Stop it. I’m sure they delighted in telling you I had a fucking relapse. That Marco had to run to Shiro because they couldn’t have me at the outpost any longer. You want to know what happened?! I had a fall and a major bleed. I could feel... I could feel the blood running down my legs and it hurt so fucking much. But I... I selfishly begged you not to leave me to find Shiro... I was so scared and you... I thought I was over being mad at you. I get it. I get that you were the most agile, but you... I begged you not to go. Then... then when I wake up and you’re in a Goddamn coma... I thought that would be it. That would be the single worst night of my life and I’d never have another night with you. I... I’m not strong! I want to... I don’t know if I want to be alive and I don’t know if I want to be dead. I don’t have the energy to keep fighting. I’m so fucking mad at myself. If I hadn’t fallen I could... I could have done something other than be a burden to everyone” For the second time that day, Keith moved himself behind his husband. Looping his arms loosely around Lance, he nuzzled into his shoulder “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. If I was the least injured...” “You were. The temple exploded with Shiro in it... I get it. I get and I shouldn’t be mad. I should be happy you’re awake, but you came home to this disgusting piece of trash” “You’re not disgusting” “I am! I’m dirty! The whole galaxy knows I’m dirty... I can’t... being touched... I don’t want to be touched” “That’s not how I see you” “I took the surgery knowing the risks! I could have died but you weren’t there. You weren’t there and I didn’t care if I did! What kind of father does that make me!? I couldn’t handle your birthday being less than a month away so I got high. I’m sleeping walking, self harming, having panic attacks and nightmares. Allura won’t stop watching me. Curtis has me doing all these “healthy exercises”. I was slowly dying thanks to oral thrust but he went and cured that one. I’m so exhausted. I shouldn’t be a father... and you... you deserved someone better than me to be your partner. I’m... I’m a burden on everyone. You. You’re out of a coma. You’re not supposed to be up and moving around, let alone hiking out to the middle of nowhere. You should be with your sister and your family. You should be on Daibazaal with them... and not with me... you... I was useless without you” Rambly-Lance had been unlocked “Babe. You do know most of that isn’t true. You’re not a burden” “I am. Marco called Shiro because he couldn’t handle me!” “Marco called Shiro because he knew Shiro is our friend. He called Shiro because Shiro can pull all kinds of crazy strings. He didn’t call him because you’re a burden” “I am... he shouldn’t have to patch his own brother up. I cut my hands and couldn’t remember doing it. I thought I was better and that I was doing better and then I was shipped off here. Don’t get me wrong, Curtis is a good guy... I just... I feel so... I feel so contaminated” “You’re not contaminated. I’m sorry I left you with so many questions. I’m sorry you and mum fought because of me. I’m sorry I can’t remember that planet. But you’re not a bad person for being scared to do everything alone” “I stole drugs and got high” “One relapse in phoebs...” “Because I failed at everything!” “What exactly did you fail at? What task do you think you failed?” “Living without you... being a dad without you... I... failed at... I said you were dead. I wanted to have hope but it was eating me up inside. I didn’t want you to... I didn’t want you to wake up and not remember me... I didn’t want you to wake up and find the twins gone... I didn’t want to fail you...” Coaxing Lance to turn in his hold, Keith kissed his shoulder. He hadn’t failed him “Lance. If you’d really, truly given up, you wouldn’t be here. You’d have run, or you would have died. You would have fought coming here. You would have fought with Curtis until you realised you couldn’t drive him away, then you would have left. We know how bad your depression is. We know things get a bit mixed up in your head. But I’m here” “You’re still recovering... you’ve barely had anytime with your family... and your sister” “Babe, you’re my family. Mum has everything on Daibazaal under control. I’m where I want to be” “But...” “Enough “buts”” “I got high... Shiro was so mad...” “I’m... I’m mad. In a way. I’m mad that you felt that down and alone that you felt you had to. Because you’re not alone. What was it like, on Daibazaal?” “Everyone was being too careful around me. They wouldn’t even tell me that Krystaal was behind this. Krolia caught me leaving for Erathus. I didn’t think they’d let me talk to him, and I... I wanted people to stop treating me differently. I chose the surgery not caring if I died... She called me out for running away and leaving you. She thought I was going to kidnap Krystaal, then kept on about my medical care being transferred to Daibazaal. They wouldn’t tell me that my bleed was worse. They all kept telling me to rest. I know they were scared but I can’t... I can’t get this out my head and I hate it” They’d acted how they’d acted when he woke up. Protecting him from the truth over and over. His brain had felt scrambled, so he may have asked more than once but they should have known better. Keith knew exactly why they kept Lance resting though. He didn’t think he would have been able to tell his husband anything else if he’d been there and known about the bleed. The pod had healed the edges of the bleed that’s naturally started healing causing scarring. A bigger bleed would have meant more scarring. The surgery was to remove that scarring and at rejoining blood vessels on a microscopic level. “When I woke up, you were the first thing I wanted. It was overwhelming. It’s still overwhelming. I missed so much again. Everything I did was watched. Test after test to see what damage was left the coma. The first time I walked I was exhausted before I reached the door” “That’s... you should be on Daibazaal. Getting proper care!” “Being on Daibazaal was only making this worse for me. I know you had to do what you did. But I still had to wait a movement to see you. To talk to you... every test, I wanted to do the best I could so I could get home to faster. I’ve been in a pod. I lost muscle mass, things get a bit confused, and struggling to fit in with your and Curtis’s plan, but I’m staying here. With you. With my husband, and our boys” Lance untangled himself from Keith’s hold, standing to face him with his hands on his stomach “Keith. I don’t... I guess... I don’t know how to believe you won’t leave” “I told you at the start. The very start, before we were accidental husbands that I’m serious about this. I’m serious about you. I know you’ve put your walls back up. I know. I can see it in the way you jump and flinch. I can see how miserably you think of yourself. You didn’t want me to see your stomach, did you?” “No... my... touch hasn’t been...” “Being alone brought up a lot of memories of the past, of him? You don’t want people to touch you or see you, because you think you’re dirty. That’s not true. Babe, I don’t want you to be doing things you’re not comfortable with. I don’t want you to force it. If I’ve been pushing to hard, I want you to be able to feel like you can you tell me. Things like not being able to sleep. I want you to wake me up. I want you to rely on me” “You needed sleep” He was in a coma for 6ish movements. He was ok without sleeping... maybe not ok, there was a tiny nagging fear in the back of his head that he wouldn’t wake up again or he’d wake up months later... but that wasn’t what Lance needed to hear “So do you. I don’t want to hear it from Curtis” Lance bit his lip as he looked down, mumbling “He’s... helped a lot” “You’re not in trouble for relying on him” “You get mad when I say something about him. I can smell it” “I’m not mad... I’m jealous. I’m jealous he’s been here with you and not me” “There’s nothing going on between me and Curtis” Ah. Right. He’d been kind of a jealous idiot in the past... He was supposed to be attempting not to sound like a jealous idiot “No. No. I know that. It hit me hard to see you sleeping on him this morning, because you didn’t come back to bed. Then you were... you were joking and I was on the outside... It made me feel... shitty” “I’m not trying to disclude you... Me and Curtis, we’ve kind of got an understanding. The wrestling thing... It’s just a joke” “A joke I don’t get” “Curtis and Shiro love arm wrestling. They babysat me after Shiro’s competition in Altea and let’s say it definitely made them horny. He and Shiro totally had sex when Shiro brought you here. You haven’t missed a whole lot of anything. I’m sorry, but can we go back to bed now. It hurts standing still. Then again, it hurts laying down...” “Can I do anything to help?” “No. Curtis is going to pick me up a couple of heat pads for my lower back” “Then... do you feel up to cuddling? Or I can give you a massage? Whatever you need... I want to give it to you” “I need some sleep” “Then I’ll stay by your side while you sleep. We’re going to get through this together and you’re going to be an amazing father when the time comes” Lance shuffled forward the few inches between them, letting his head drop against Keith’s shoulder “Promise you won’t... you won’t go again... not somewhere I can’t go with you... somewhere I can’t reach you” Kissing his husband’s hair, Keith sighed to himself mentally. He’d well and truly scared his husband the night of the explosion, then fucked up by tiptoeing around Curtis. He knew Lance needed stability. He fucking knew it. If only he could have remembered what drove his decisions that night “I won’t, babe. I won’t. No more missions. No more tours. No more of that. Come on, let’s get you settled down. You’re rambling” * Keith was conked out beneath Lance as Lance stroked his husband’s silky black hair. Keith coming home should have been the happiest moment of his life. All his troubles should have been halved by having Keith back by his side. So why was it so hard to talk to him? Why was he so nervous to be alone with him? He didn’t get it. His wish had come true. His hope that Keith would wake had finally come true. He should have been feeling better. He should have been happy. He couldn’t be happier to feel Keith’s heartbeat against his chest. He couldn’t be happier that Keith was awake. He’d been so nervous about talking to him or calling him. He was scared that Keith would yell at him. He was scared his husband would hate him for leaving. He was scared of how messed up not having Keith had made him. How easily it was to hate himself when Keith wasn’t there to call him “beautiful” or “gorgeous”. He was scared that he liked the way it felt when he hurt himself again. Pain brought focus. Pain was pleasure, unless it was the chronic pain that sat across his lower back. He was scared of the things he was forgetting. He didn’t know it was another four days until Keith’s birthday. Curtis did need to visit the Garrison, but the main reason for Curtis taking the whole day was to plan for Keith’s birthday. A birthday dinner with the three of them was hardly much of a birthday, so Lance wanted it to be special. He was so fucking frustrated from his back pain and angry that he’d forgotten it was close to Keith’s birthday that he’d cried himself to sleep against Curtis. Feeling he didn’t have the right to return to Keith’s side. He felt like he was weighing his husband down. He felt as if Keith would leave because he’d gone so far backwards. Krolia hated him... He lived in the constant fear she would call and demand Keith back by her side. Shifting in his sleep, Keith sighed his name softly as he tried to curl into his hold. How could he question Keith’s love for him? Maybe he needed to get laid? He knew Keith felt a certain kind of arousal when they kissed. Maybe acting like idiots would bring them back together? Spanning that divide between his heart and his head with the most basic of instincts. He knew the pleasure Keith brought. He knew the way his mind blanked under his husband’s skilled hands. The way the muscles in his thighs jumped and twitched as Keith drained him dry. But was it safe? No one had told him that Keith had been in a pod. That’s not to say he wouldn’t have worried every single bit as much as he had since his husband surprised him in the kitchen. It would have told him that Keith was more sound in body and mind than he’d known... Between his legs started growing slick as his hand slid down Keith’s smooth chest. Would he pushing himself too far, when he couldn’t shower with Keith in the room? He wanted that feeling again. That desperate hunger or raw want that’s clouded Keith’s eyes each time they glanced at each other. He wanted to know his husband still desires him, even when he was as heavily pregnant as he was. His body was starving for that physical contact, his dick twitching with interest. He wanted Keith. He wanted Keith to want him. To chose him. To pick him. Nuzzling into Keith’s cheek, his hand slid to rest on Keith’s belly. He wasn’t forcing Keith, not if Keith didn’t want him. Kissing his cheek, his husband turned his face so the next kiss met his lips, a smile on Keith’s lips as his eyes fluttered open. Yawning, Keith slipped an arm around his waist, hand hanging limply “I love you” “I love you, too. How long did you sleep?” “A little while” “Mmm. And is there any reason I’m being woken up with kisses?” “I love you” Kissing him, Lance let himself feel the warmth of Keith’s lips against his, when Keith slowly coaxed him onto his back, he obliged. Kissing him deeply, arousal spiked Keith’s scent, his husband quick to break the kiss “Lance...” “I want to” “I don’t want to hurt you” Lance’s heart dropped, his expression hurt “I want you” “I know... but you’ve been in so much pain” “It’s ok...” “It’s not ok. I don’t want to hurt you any more than you are” “I understand. I won’t ask again” “Hey. Wait. I’m not saying...” “Keith. It’s ok. I get it. Let me up” He felt humiliated. Embarrassed at making the suggestion. He made Keith horny, but he didn’t want him “Lance. Stop. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not true. I want you. I always want you. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to stress your body” “I get it... I get it. You don’t have to lie. I’m not forcing myself on you... forget I said anything” “Babe. You’re...” “I’m going to make some lunch. You don’t have to come out if you don’t feel like it” “I’m worried about you. I don’t want you to feel like you have to give me yourself physically when you’re not ready” He wouldn’t have offered if he hadn’t spent the last however long since he’d peed watching over Keith sleep and wrestling with the decision oh what to do “I’m not made of glass! I want... I want my husband to want me. I want to find... I want to work out our new normal. I... I want to go back to before... when we were happy. I want to go back to not feeling like that. I want... I want you to choose me and to want me” Keith rubbed his hand against Lance’s stomach, Lance not sure how to interpret that “I do want you. I promise I want you” “Then... can we try?” “If it won’t hurt you” “I want to be with you” “Then let me take care of you” Stripped of his clothes, Lance clutched the bed head with both hands. Keith thought missionary would only hurt his back further, telling him to kneel facing the wall. Kissing his way across his shoulders, he fondled Lance’s breasts, the pain sending shivers down his spine as he grew wetter. They’d grown so heavy, milk starting to spill as Lance twisted, seeking his husband’s lips. He wanted more. His thighs were twitching like mad, body eager for Keith to hurry up. Whining into the kiss he was granted, his husband massaged his left breast harder, his right hand sliding down across the taunt skin on his heavy belly to grasp his leaking erection. They’d barely started and his body was betraying him with his need. Bucking up into Keith’s hand, his husband began kissing his way along his jawline, moving down to nip at his shoulder “Fuck, Keith...” “Patience... I’m going to eat this arse of yours than I’m going to make you scream” “Nnnngh. Dirty... just... fuck...” He hadn’t cleaned up or prepped himself... the release of the heavy feeling in his chest felt amazing, milk leaking from both nipples as he whimpered. Keith dragging his tongue across his shoulder, illicting new feelings and sensations, nosing at his back, his husband rutted against his arse “Shit... babe... you smell so good” Lance was over the foreplay “Stop teasing me... wanna cum with you” “So impatient” “Keith...” “Trust me baby” Releasing his breast and his throbbing erection, Keith held his arse cheeks apart as he tongued at his fingered wide opening. Shudders and mews left Lance wrecked, Keith’s face completely buried against his arse, alternating between fucking his opening with the tip of his tongue and lapping at the sensitive ring of muscle. Lance’s chest heaved, breasts bouncing as he rolled his hips, desperate for more as his orgasm raced to hit. Shameless as he fucked himself on his husband’s tongue. Keith’s fingers felt amazing... but there something so dirty about Keith eating him out “Keith... Keith... fuck... oh fuck... fuck... oh fuck... ah... ah...” He couldn’t help it. He had to come. He had to... he was going to break if he didn’t. Frustratingly, Keith ran his tongue up his arse, kissing the small of his back. He was so close “You’re already loose for me... and so fucking wet” “Keith...” “I’ve got you, babe” The bed dipped behind as Keith moved, one hand holding his arse as his husband lined himself up, teasing him with the tip of the his dick, he’d barely breached him when Lance’s orgasm hit. He’d forgotten how intense his orgasms with Keith were. Each time he came he failed to find the right words for how hard the release was, his cum splattering across bottom of his stomach, dick trapped between his pillow and the swell. Burying himself in Lance’s heat, a scream died in his throat. Fuck... He might just be a slut for the feeling of his husband’s dick “I’m not going to last... how do you want it” “Hard” Grabbing a fistful of hair, Keith pulled back, bowing his throat as he drove up “Oh fuck... you feel so fucking good” “M-move... Dios... oh Dios... tan bueno... tan bueno...” Keith’s dick stretched him perfectly. They probably should have prepped more... but fuck... He’d been confused about sex, he was still confused about sex... but oh Dios was his husband the good kind of clumsy at this “Lance... shit...” Kissing him, Lance tasted himself on his husband’s lip, the kiss hungry. Unable to hold the position, he gasped for air, releasing the bed head with his left hand to support his belly. Keith latching onto his throat as Lance lost control, weirdly orgasming while wetting himself as Keith panted “... babe... I’m close...” Nodding, Keith pulled him back into another kiss as his husband’s dick swelled, Keith moaning into his mouth, hips stuttering as he came, driving up hard and making Lance’s belly bounce with each hard thrust. Fuck... he was done. Too much pleasure starting to turn poisonous... plus, he’d wet himself... and now he was getting teary “Keith...” Pulling him to kneel over his lap, Keith peppered kisses to his shoulder. His thrusts were more jolts, Keith’s breath hot down his spine, sending goosebumps across his skin, as he closed his eyes “... I made a mess” Wrapping his arms around him, Keith turned his face towards him “Oh babe, hey. It’s ok” “I didn’t...” “I know. It’s you and me. We’ll get all this cleaned up. How do you feel?” “Drained?” Keith rolled his eyes at him “Other than that?” “Good... sore, tired, sleepy” “You don’t... you know... regret it?” Lance shook his head. No... he just wished he had more control of his pea sized bladder “No. No...” “Good... I love you” “I love you, too...” Keith was always good at the after care part of sex. Supporting him from the bedroom to the bathroom, his husband sat him down on the toilet. Starting the shower and adjusting the water, Keith then helped him over to it. Hissing slightly as the water hit his skin, he was still itchy almost all the time. Hot water made it worse, yet the temperature felt amazing. Placing his hands against the wall, he let the water roll down his back “Babe. I don’t want to invade your privacy if you’d rather shower alone, but if you don’t, maybe I could clean you up?” Lance hummed... he didn’t want to try his luck cleaning up and risking slipping “Thanks... my centre of gravity is off” “That’s because you’re swollen with our pups” “I hadn’t noticed...” Slipping into the shower behind him, Keith grabbed the body wash off the in built shelf “Let me know if I hurt you” Lance hummed again. Everything hurt, his husband’s gentle fingers were the least of his problems “Babe, I need words” “I’m fine... just be careful with my lower back” “How bad?” “Could be better” “Why didn’t you tell me?” Because paracetamol was hardly enough to make a dent on his pain, then he’d been seated in his husband’s lap. He wasn’t as flexible as he’d been as he was too scared to try anything that would cause a fall, including yoga. Working out and stretching with Curtis, he had that safety net “Everything hurts when you’re this big... I still have movements of this to go... I get pain down my leg from a pinched nerve or something” “Babe...” “Keith. I’ve made it this far...” Crap, he’d been going to say that Curtis took really good care of him. He’d been the one to pick up on his oral thrush, after all “I don’t want you to be suffering” “I’m...” He’d been suffering. He was still suffering with his depression... He felt fat and gross, rolling over from side to side was like preforming a three point turn “... I’m going to get through this” “We’re going to get through this. The four of us” “Mmm. Yeah” Lance wasn’t sure he believed it, but for the first time in a long time he wanted to.

[torialeysha]

Cold Feet - Part 13

An unfortunate chain of events.

Song: Only love can hurt like this - Paloma Faith

You had to be quick. Charles would be back any minute. Your hands shuffled the pieces of paper as fast as they could. Your eyes scanned letter after letter, looking for something, anything that mentioned Sabini or - what was the other name Tommy mentioned? Charletta? Chiavetta? That didn’t sound right. You search your brain, struggling to remember the name while your hands continue to flick frantically through the pile of papers that to your dismay seemed never ending. Your heart races as fast as your frenzied fingers, knowing you had to get to the bottom of the pile before Charles returns. Your attention is drawn to an aperture in the volume of pages as if it’s been bookmarked. You divide the stack to find out what’s causing the gap. A thick, rectangular piece of paper is the culprit. Picking it up you realise it’s an envelope, it’s discolouration and worn edges suggested that it was old. Your fingers traced along the sealed flap, telling you that it had never been opened. Turning it over you notice the front is blank, void of any name or address. How strange - you think studying it again. After a moments hesitation you decide to open it, convincing yourself that as it wasn’t addressed to anybody, you were doing no wrong. Opening the desk draw you reach in for the letter knife. “Ouch.” A sharp pain causes you to recoil and retract your hand.

A rat, rears it’s ugly, slender head from the partially open draw. The soft light from the desk lamp bounces off its greasy fur. It regards you with black beady eyes. It’s ferocious yellow thangs protruding from its snarling lip - both stained crimson. You suppress a scream, jerking away from the rodent as it escapes the mahogany prison and scurries off to a dark corner. A claret stream gushes from the bite on your hand, covering yourself and Charles’s desk. You grip the wound tightly to stop the bleeding. How were you going to explain this mess? In a blind panic you try to find something to mop up the blood, resorting to using the sleeve of your blouse. Your breath catches as you stare aghast down at the gore which now decorated the envelope in front of you. Scrawled across the front, bold and messy, written in blood - your blood, was the name ‘CHANGRETTA.’

A deafening scream pierces your ears followed by 3 loud pops. Each one causing you to jump. A feeling of pure dread travels through you along with a fear so familiar it makes your blood curdle. Every fibre of your being tells you that you needed to get out of there, but you’re frozen stiff. Unable to move a muscle.

“Yahalom?” A short-lived relief washes over you, however the comfort and warmth that endearment usually brings is missing.

Your eyes dart to the doorway where the voice is coming from. A silhouette of a man fills the rectangle of light. Your eyes strain to recognise the features of the darkened figure. “Alfie?” You whisper uncertainly.

“Ya-ha-lom.” It says again, enunciating every syllable slowly and carefully, purposely emphasising a distinct American accent.

Your eyes widen in horror as it speaks the name it shouldn’t know. The name only he calls you. “Where’s Alfie?” Your voice trembles. The figure smirks.

“He’s been dealt with.”

With the weight of last nights dreadful dream baring heavily on your shoulders, you find yourself stood outside the Aerated baking company of Camden. Looking up at the towering ABC sign you couldn’t help but feel foolish. You knew the only person who would be able to dispel the horror from the nightmare that still clung to you like a cold wet rag was Alfie. The very Alfie you had requested stay away until the mess with Charles and the Italians was sorted. You thought it was for the best, considering Alfies jealous nature and the fact that when you were in each other’s company you couldn’t keep your hands off each other. You saw it as unnecessary torment for the both of you. But it was also torture being apart.

You was sure that his absence was the reason for the bad dreams. Your subconscious telling you that you missed him. However there was something about last nights dream that had you rattled. You couldn’t quiet the anonymous American that still echoed tauntingly in you head. Hopefully Alfie will able to shut that Bastard up.

A couple of workers emerged from the bakery, rolling wooden casks along the dock to a waiting canal boat. One of them recognises you. “Come on through, Lass. He’s just got back.” He holds the door open and you slip through with a thanks. The stench of rum and damp is overpowering as you navigate your way down the barrel lined halls. You ignore a wolf-whistle from a worker who was obviously new and had no idea who you were. Luckily for him Alfie wasn’t around to hear it.

Up ahead you see Ollie, his head buried in a newspaper. Completely oblivious to your presence as you strut past him.

“Afternoon, Ollie.” You sing song.

“Afternoon Y/N.” He mumbles flippantly over the racing section of the paper.

“Y/N?” He repeats alarmed. You hear the rustle of his newspaper fall to the floor followed by his heavy footsteps rushing behind you.

“What are you doing ‘ere?” He asks.

“I’m here to buy a dozen bread rolls-“You roll your eyes sarcastically. “-I’m here to see Alfie, ain’t I! what else would I be doing here?”

“Well, Alfie’s not ‘ere...He had to make some collections.” Ollie lies, causing you to raise an eyebrow.

“Oh, that’s funny. One of the lads just told me he’s back.” You challenge him, now only a couple of feet away from Alfies office.

Ollie grabs your arm, swinging you around before you can get to the door. Stunned, you stumble to a stop before pinning him with an annoyed glare.

“What are you playing at, Ollie?” You bark, restoring order to your hair by flipping the waves from your face and back over your shoulder. You hear Alfie’s muffled voice and try to shoulder past Ollie, inching him closer to Alfie’s office door but he’s still in your way. “Must you do this to me every time?” You snap exasperated. “Don’t you remember what Alfie told you? I’m an exception. Now let me pass.”

“He’s praying.” He exclaims.

“Praying?” You repeat incredulously.

“Yeah...Minchah - Afternoon prayer.”

You eye him suspiciously. His lanky limbs sprawled out like a starfish in front of the door, blocking your way. It’s then that you notice the terrible job Ishmael has done at fixing Alfies office door. You could probably blow it open.

A giggle - too delicate to be Alfies, drifts through the walls of his office, stabbing your ears. The blood drains from your face.

Beads of sweat form on Ollies brow as he sees your expression change. “Minchah sounds fun...Would be a shame for us to miss it.” With the gentlest of pushes you send Ollie crashing through Ishmael’s shabby workmanship. Ollie on top of the distressed wood plummets to the floor. He lands on his back in the middle of Alfie’s office, his arms and legs still outstretched. As the dust begins to settle from Ollies collision, you see why he tried to stop you.

You catch Alfie’s eyes as they avert from a spread-eagled Ollie to you.

“Y/N?” He frowns. You observe the scene in front of you. He still has his coat on, his shirt was half untucked. The button and zip of his trousers was undone, causing them to hang low on his hips.

“Y/N?” This time your name comes from the shrill tone of the woman who’s on her knees in front of Him. Her face drops as she says your name. Alfie’s hand is wrapped around her wrist in a white knuckled grasp.

“This is Y/N?..But you said she was dead.” She raises her eyebrows. Her mascara smudged eyes gaze scornfully at you.

“Shut up.” Alfie shoves her backwards dismissively. Letting go of her wrist. She loses balance, landing on her arse with a thump.

You look away, fighting the nausea that rises in your throat. You had seen and heard enough. Turning on your heel you race to the exit as quickly as your feet could carry you.

“Hey, Where are you going pretty lady?” The worker that wolf-whistled at you a moment ago tries to stop you. You push past him, your eyes burning. You had to get out of there before the tears started to fall.

A loud crashing followed by a wailing protest from the brazen worker you just avoided told you that Alfie wasn’t far behind you. Selfishly you hoped that the confrontation with the worker had stalled Alfie long enough for you to escape before he could catch up to you. Making light work of the heavy bolt of the factory door you make it out on to Bonnie Street. Swiftly turning left, you disappear into Camden Market.

You thought you had made it when you feel someone catch you by the elbow; you don’t have to turn to know it’s Alfie.

“Y/N, Wait.”

“Let me go, Alfie.” You pivot to face him.

“It’s not what it looks like.”

“I think it’s exactly what it looks like!” You try to shake your arm from his grip. “Let me go!” You shout again, gaining the attention of some of the market goers.

He grunts, his jaw tight as he forces you backwards and down a darkened alley that separates the bakery from the market.

“What are you doing? Get off of me.” You free one of your arms to shove at his chest, but he doesn’t budge. “You’re causing a fucking scene.” He says through gritted teeth. Still you continue to thrash in his arms.

“Stop.” He snaps, shaking you. You slap him hard. He growls pushing you up against the hard brick wall. Imprisoning you with his body. You tense rigidly against him.

“Calm down for Fuck sake, woman. I can explain.”

“That’s her isn’t it?..” A devastating realisation sets in. “The woman you jilted me for...How could I have been so stupid?! You’re just using me.” You shake your head, mentally cursing your niavity.

“What on Earth are you on about?”

“You and Tommy. You’re using me as part of your plan. You needed me to spy on Charles so you fed me a pack of lies about how there was no other woman, just so I would go along with it. How could I have been so gullible to actually believe you.” You try to keep it together, your world crashing down around you.

“Oh for crying out loud. You’re getting yourself in a two an’ eight over nothing.” His face creases in exasperation.

“Nothing?” You shriek. “It didn’t look like nothing to me.”

“What you saw was me trying to get rid of ‘er.”

“And I suppose the flies of your trousers just happened to undo in the struggle.”

“She tried it on, Yeah. And I politely declined. She’s a fucking whore, in’t she. Won’t take no for an answer. It was probably a stroke of Luck you showed up. I’m not into hittin’ women but she was beginning to test my patience.”

“What do you mean she’s a whore?” You ask in disbelief.

“She’s a working girl, a prostitute. She sells her body to earn a couple of Bob.”

“And what was a ‘working girl’ doing in your office?”

“I don’t know. She was there when I got back. I didn’t even have a chance to take my fucking coat off.”

You relax a little. It was feasible. The worker who let you in had told you that Alfie had just got back. And he did have his coat on... Something still didn’t add up though.

“How did she know my name? And why did you tell her I was dead?”

He goes quiet, Pressing his lips together in a thin line. His silence speaks volumes.

“Thought so.” You smirk, unsuccessfully trying to escape him once. “Damn you Alfie Solomons! Let me go!” You cry.

“Just wait a minute. Hear me out...After you were gone - I didn’t know what to do.” His voice was low and strained. You stop struggling. “It was so fucking... painful.” His fingers flex, pressing into your biceps. “Booze took the edge off, yeah. But I needed you. I thought” he takes a pause. “If I pretended she was you, it would ease the pain just long enough for me to get through another day...I used to call her Y/N...That’s how she knows your name. But I didn’t tell her you were dead. I told her you were gone. She must’ve assumed that’s what I meant.”

Your face crumples in disgust.

“It’s an ugly truth, Pet. I know. I ain’t fucking proud of it, but it’s the truth. So you can forget all that bollocks you’re thinking about how I’m using you.”

“It’s damn right disgusting is what it is.”

“Oi, now don’t be a hypocrite. You did the same with the yank.”

“That’s different.”

“How’s it any different? It’s the fucking same, innit!” He erupts. Pressing against you. Nose to nose. His eyes burn into yours. “You were trying to forget, Weren’t cha? Just like me!” He shouts. Anyone else and you would have felt intimidated; you were used to Alfie’s intensity. Aroused by it.

“I wish I could forget.” You mumble. Tears pooling in your eyes.

“You don’t mean that.” His voice turns from irate to one of soft concern.

You didn’t know what you meant. Feeling physically and emotionally exhausted, you go lax in his arms. The wall and Alfie was the only thing keeping you on your feet. He frowns at you and in an act of desperation lowers his lips to yours. You turn your head before he can reach your mouth. His lips landing on your cheek. He hums in annoyance and tries again. You turn once more. His lips grazing your other cheek. Pulling away, he looks at you, his face is a picture of disbelief and something else you’ve never seen before...fear maybe.

“Kiss me dammit.” He grunts. Holding you in place he pushes his lips to yours. You don’t move, not even to kiss back. Your lips stay fixed as he tries to kiss you.

“Don’t fight me, Yahalom. I can’t take it.” He pleads against your mouth. His voice on the edge of desperation. He attempts again, his lips coaxing yours. Something shifts inside you. You’re not sure if it’s because he has said the name you needed to hear or just the pure pleasure of his prefect lips and body against yours but your resistance begins to melt away.

Gradually you surrender. Your mouth clashing mercilessly with his in a hungry battle of desperation. A sickening thought of Alfie in a similar passionate tryst with the working girl settles in your brain, ruining the moment. Overcome with a sudden irrational jealousy you bite Alfie’s lower lip hard. It doesn’t stop him, instead he pushes you harder against the wall. His hands reach round to wrench your hips against his. You moan feeling the hardness of his arousal.

“Alfie.” His name comes from your mouth in a feeble protest. Weak even to your own ears.

“I need you, Yahalom. I need you now.” He grinds his body against yours suggestively.

“Not here.” You gasp a weak objection. Your resolve fragile from your own illogical need for him.

“It has to be here. It has to be now. There’s no way I can go another second without being inside you.”

His shameless need for you took your breath away. He was right, you could no longer deny yourself the pleasure you always so desperately craved. You let out an uncertain whimper, even though you had already made up your mind.

“Fuck me.” The crude command sounded foreign as it fell from your mouth but It’s what you wanted. It was the only words that matched the raw, carnal longing you felt for him. He groans, capturing your head in his hands, crushing your mouth to his, bruising your lips with an unapologetic ferocity.

You pull away breathless.

Alfie checks the privacy of the darkened alley. Pulling open the lapels of his big black coat he wraps them around you, cocooning both of you in the thick, heavy material. The heat radiating from his body causes your breasts to strain against the tight fabric of your dress. You press them into him to relieve the heavy aching. His hands travel down your body and then up your dress, skimming the sensitive skin of your thighs. Your head falls back with a moan when he reaches the burning dampness between your thighs. His fingers push your underwear to the side, exposing the slick, delicate flesh.

Your hands go to his trousers, ignoring the sharp pang of jealousy as you fumble with the button and zip. You reach inside tugging his hard cock free. “Easy, Yahalom.” He admonished softly. You smile wickedly against his lips and begin to stroke him in a slow twisting motion, increasing the speed and pressure as he expands in your palm. He kisses you, groaning and grunting into your mouth as you hand pumps his shaft. He pulls away from your aching wetness to grab your backside. “Wrap your legs around me.” He commands. You do as he says, linking your arms around his shoulders for support. He hitches your hips up and against him. His gaze finds yours and in one swift movement he’s inside you. You whimper at the fullness, your body struggling to accommodate his size as he thrusts into you. A movement catches the corner of your eye and you freeze momentarily when your gaze meets the wide, mascara smudged eyes of the whore from Alfie’s office. Your legs tighten around Alfie pulling him deeper. You smile smugly at her as an agonised sound of ecstasy leaves Alfies mouth. You watch in satisfaction as she storms off in a huff.

Alfies hand travels down to your lower back, protecting you from the impact of the rigid roughness of the wall as he pounds into you with an impatient rapidness.

The raucous racket from the market and the loud shouts from the stall owners trying to sell their goods drown out your collective moans. And with every thrust of Alfie’s hips, the nightmare from the night before slowly disappeared.

Mornings were something Darby Sabini enjoyed in the comfort of his own home. Sat in silence, checking out the bookies favourites in the daily newspaper and tucking into a traditional prima colazione.

However, a little business meeting had him stepping out of his comfort zone and swapping his usual morning ritual for a busy, smokey cafe just off the Farringdon Road. He sat alone, sneering down at his plate. An unappetising pile of sloppy scrambled egg wobbled next to a stack of cremated bacon. He sipped his coffee. His nose crinkling in disgust as the rancid, luke-warm liquid passed his lips. He slammed the cup down in a temper before rubbing his mouth and tongue with a napkin to try and get rid of the taste. Folding the napkin neatly and resting it on his lap, he picks up the newspaper and decides to focus on the horses.

“What’s wrong with ‘er anyway?”

“Oh, she’s been like it for a couple of days now.”

Sabini barely makes it through checking the Kempton runners when a Gossiping gaggle of women disrupt him - so loud that they may as well have been sat at his table.

“I heard she’s in love.” One of the women chirps causing the whole table to erupt in loud obnoxious laughter. Sabini’s back stiffens. The unrelenting tittle-tattle making it impossible for him to focus on the racing odds. His temper rises once again. His grip tightening on the paper. Screwing it up in his clenched fists to an unreadable mess.

“So, who’s the unlucky fella?” One snides bitterly. Sabini can feel his patience dwindling as the catty conversation continues.

“A little birdy told me-“ one pauses, bringing her voice down to a whisper as she says a name.

“Him? Oh, you’re ‘avin me on.” One scoffs in disbelief.

“Well that’s what I heard, anyway.”

“She should have known better than to get involved with a punter. Especially the likes Alfie Solomons. What was she thinking?”

Sabini’s ears prick up at the sound of his rivals name. His temper slowly dissipating as he listens more intently to the women yapping.

“So, what’s all the tears about, then?”

“Well, I also heard...” she reduces her tone to a whisper again. Now fully invested in their conversation, Sabini leans back in his chair, straining to hear what was being said. “That apparently the love of his life has returned... and now he don’t want anything to do with poor Dottie... She caught ‘em at it like rabbits in the middle of Camden Marke-“

“-Shh, Winnie. Here she comes.” The whispers come to an obvious halt.

“Don’t stop on my account, Ladies.” The approaching woman tells them. The table settles into an awkward silence. Buggar me, is that the time? Come on, Ladies. We’ve got work to do.” They empty out of the cafe in a bundle of whispers and smirks, leaving their topic of conversation at the table alone. Sabini turns to observe the woman. She was a pretty little thing... apart from her face which was set in a mask of misery. He pulls the napkin from his lap, dabbing the corners of his mouth arrogantly and rises from his table. He moves to stand behind an empty chair next to the girl. “Dottie is it?” The girl narrows her eyes at Sabini before nodding. “Mind if I join you?” He asks in his quiet raspy voice. The girls face swiftly changes from sad to flirty as she takes in his expensive-looking suit. “Please do.” She signals to the empty chair flashing him a provocative smile. He takes a seat and fishes out his wallet from his jacket pocket. “Now I’m not going to beat around the bush, my dear.” He lays a pile of money on the table. Her eyes light up. “Now, why don’t you tell me all about Alfie Solomons and this girl he’s so cruelly discarded you for.”

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@storm-bjorn @alsheyra @lililolli @jaegers-and-kaijus @lightwoodt @stars-trash-18 @anrm1

[acrossthcsea-blog]

“Haunt Me”

From the prompt “Drabble me”.  Music to accompany: Mattia Cupelli - Rimani

The ocean stirs him awake from deep, deep slumber. It was as if he’d sunk far below the ocean depths, resting upon the sea floor and cradled in a bed of brightly-colored coral. Eyes shaded like the night open wide, and his lungs fill with air in desperate intakes. The sensation is familiar but foreign, one he has not felt in some time.

He finds himself floating to land and lets the tide take him. Reaching the shore, he settles upon the sand and, suddenly, Thane remembers he has hands and legs and feet. He can feel pebbles beneath his fingertips and he claws at them greedily, revelling in the sensation. Clumsy like a newborn, he stands.

For a long time he walks. His footprints sink into the sand and leave a staggering trail behind him. Thane wonders if there was any point to all of this until, in the distance, he sees the reason for his re-awakening:  a shape small and gray, like a dead thing upon the sand. In the crashing of the waves against the rocky shore the name of his beloved calls for him.

Shepard.

My love.

Siha.

And like a beacon for a ship lost at sea, he follows.

Her armor catches in the sunlight and blinds him. As he draws closer, Thane notes the cracks upon her chest plate, whole patches of armor ripped off as if by a clawed beast. Her skin, pale like untouched snow, seems almost translucent with scattered veins running across like spider webs. The water turns crimson around her as the tide draws back and forth, and he feels a sinking in his chest.

“Siha,” the Drell whispers, his vocal chords cracking from lack of use. He kneels down and cradles her head gently in his arms. Her raven hair, silken to the touch, is matted with blood. He knows not why Kalahira has blessed him with a chance to see his beloved again, but while curiosity might have plagued him in life, it does not in death. It feels as if it’s been centuries since he first slept, waiting for the day that Commander Shepard would cross the sea.  

“You must wake up, Shepard,” he beckons, brushing the sharp line of her jaw with his forefinger.

Her eyes lift open and he drowns in shades of gunmetal blue.  All of his emotions, all of the ways that she managed to stir the beating of his heart, overtake him. She tries to move, but her body jolts suddenly from the attempt, and as if her pain were his own, he clutches her tighter.

“Thane….I….” she gasps out, her eyes seeming to have trouble focusing upon him,  “We did it. We beat those…bastards.” Her lips tug into a weary smile. He offers one in return.

“I knew you would finish the fight,” he stated, pride in his tone. 

Her gaze finally settles upon his face, her expression hard to read. Her breaths are shallow as she struggles to speak. “Is it time?”

Thane closes his eyes and listens to the sea. Kalahira pushes forth the waves and lets them dance beneath them, the water cool and refreshing. He can sense in the tide the urgency of life, the promise that her path must remain beyond the shore. The Drell opens his eyes slowly, shaking his head.

“Not yet, siha.”

“I’m tired, Thane….” his beloved protests, her chest heaving as she coughed. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of her lips. “I’m….just so tired. I’m ready to rest.”

The assassin wipes away the blood from her lips, his brows furrowing as he lookes over her. “I know, siha. But the galaxy needs you still. The ocean is not ready to take you home.”

“There’s…nothing to go back to, Thane….” She whispers, her voice cracked as she spoke. Her loneliness seeps into him and matches his own. “I want to be with you again.”

Her hand reaches out to touch his face. Scaled fingertips grasp her own, leading her hand to rest against the ribbed, gill-like skin just beneath his cheekbones. Her touch is cool. It reminds him of the night before the Omega 4 relay, when he first knew, with certainty, that he loved Blair Shepard with all of his heart.

In the distance, he can hear the voices of those still living, calling for his siha. They shout her name as they search for their commander, desperate to find her alive.  And while all he sees is the ocean and the shore, he can sense that Shepard is still on Earth, buried underneath rubble and destruction.

They are close but she is fading. They will not reach her in time.

His purpose becomes clear. Kalahira did not wake him to reunite Thane with his love, but to give her the strength to continue living. And while he selfishly wishes to remain in this moment, to finally be together, he knows that he must let her go.

“Live well and live long, my siha,” Thane whispers, his fingertips brushing across her arm. Her omni-tool stirs to life, barely intact from her fall.

“Something is picking up on my scanners,” he hears a familiar voice, a strain of hope in his tone.

“It has to be her,” a melodic voice replies. “She’s alive, Garrus. We must be close.”

The rubble starts to clear away. He can see Blair’s chest rise and fall as her airways clear.

“I will always be with you,” Thane whispers. He can feel the tide pulling him back to the ocean depths. Thane leans down and presses his lips against hers, one last stolen kiss before he must return to sleep. Her lips are soft like the silk of rose petals, and he knows that this moment will carry him across the years that he must wait for her return.

They will meet again. It is a promise that stretches across lifetimes.

I Will Meet You Across the Sea by marianne-khalil. If the artist wishes for me to remove their art from my post, I am happy to do so. 

[hollowedrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, RITA! — You’ve been accepted for the role of Alastor Moody. I’m so happy to have an Alastor again, both selfishly (hello war council) and for the progression of the plot here at Hollowed Souls. Alastor is a key player in what’s to come, and I think you’re a great fit to help move the plot forward. I especially liked how you showed despite his tough exterior (and interior, let’s be honest) there are still parts of Alastor that can be soft on the very rare occasion. Here’s hoping we get to see both sides of him on the dash very soon.

Thank you so much for applying. Please create your account and send in the link, track the right tags, and follow everyone on the follow list. Welcome to Hollowed Souls!

ooc.

Name: Rita

Age: 22

Preferred pronouns: She/her

Timezone: GMT

Activity: 6/7 –  I’d generally be able to post something every two or three days. This week is going to be a little more complicated, though, because I’m attending a conference and will be a little short on time. That’s also why the app isn’t too long :(

Are you applying for more than one character?: Nope!

How do you feel about your character dying?: I wouldn’t be opposed to it at all, but I’d only like it to happen once I’d played a character arc that justified it.

Anything else?: Nope!

ic details.

Full name: Alastor Cadmus Moody

Alastor – [“Alastor” is Ancient Greek for “he who does not forget”, thus “avenger”, “persecutor”, “tormenter”, “one who suffers from divine vengeance”.]

Cadmus – [“The name Cadmus is a boy’s name of Greek origin meaning “one who excels”.]

Moody – His first and heaviest burden. The Moody family is as proud of its legacy in the Auror department as most ancient magical bloodlines are of their purity. They can trace their origin back to the legendary ‘Alasdair, the just’, a Scottish wizard who punished those responsible for infecting a muggle village with a plague. They also don’t prize longevity. At eleven, he had been somewhat surprised by the amount of living relatives his housemates claimed to have. Aside from his parents, Alastor’s ‘family’ was the grandfather killed in the line of duty. His righteous death had earned him a portrait from which he could bark and disapprove of them all. ‘Family’ was made up of the stories of his dead aunt, an accomplished auror torn apart by a dark wizard at twenty-three. It was patched with the cautionary tale of an uncle they claimed had been poisoned, but who his mother finally admitted to have drunk himself to death. Alastor never saw the disgraced man’s daughters when he was growing up. Yet, one of them, Alex, became an Auror shortly after he did. He attended her funeral. A few months later, he refused to attend his father’s.

Date of birth: March 3rd, 1948 – Ravenclaw Aries

[These Ravenclaws will have lightning-fast mental reflexes. Aries is an intellectual sign, but it is also an impatient sign; Ravenclaws who were born under this sign are likely to tolerate no dull wits or stupidity, whether they see this lack of mental competence in themselves (in which case they will berate themselves for not understanding, or give up quickly in frustration without really trying to overcome their difficulty in learning) or in others (in which case they will lash out at the offender with acidic comments and haughty, cutting looks). These Ravenclaws will want to be at the head of the class, dominating other students in their chosen intellectual field, and may be almost as competitive as Slytherins. However, the true aim of every Ravenclaw is knowledge, knowledge, and more knowledge. While a Slytherin might see losing a magical duel or being bested by another student in a DADA class as humiliating, the Ravenclaw will probably just take delight in competition for its own sake, and see defeat as a learning experience.]

Former Hogwarts house: Ravenclaw – “Patchwork kid”, the hat had quipped, “the brain of a Ravenclaw, the guts of a Gryffindor, and the cold, cold blood of a Slytherin”. The decision ultimately came down to preference. At eleven, he had settled for small rebellions. His parents couldn’t punish him at Hogwarts, so he refused to be yet another Gryffindor in the Moody family tree. He’d say that it came down to choosing between bookworms and snobs, but the truth is that Moody was oddly suited for Ravenclaw, surrounded by unconventional people who tended to leave each other to their own devices. He may have been harsh to the other kids most of the time, returning to 13 Knocturn alley to complain about the boy in his dorm who believed he was an oracle and the girl in his Charms class who was obsessed with Rowena Ravenclaw, but he would also hex anyone who preyed on them.

Sexuality: Bisexual – His attraction to women has always been there, but he was quite young when it became clear to him that there was far more than ‘brotherhood’ to his bonds with some of the other hungry boys, and being with men has always felt natural. It doesn’t really matter, as his sexuality is something he tends to confine to his own head. He’s practically celibate.

Gender/pronouns: Cis male, he/him

Face claim change: None.

more.

How do you interpret this character’s personality? how will you play them? include two weaknesses & two strengths.

+intelligent, stoic, unrelenting

-tyrannical, obsessive, disturbed

Men who swallow blood for too long starve without it. Alastor may look a decade older than his thirty-four years, but the red eyes and feral posture haven’t changed since he was thirteen. He was a smartkid even then. Not just the kind forged by the sort of upbringing that demands cleverness – the quick, book-devouring kind, with that same odd and ravenous curiosity that might have made a more comfortable man an eccentric. But there were no such luxuries for a Moody or a child of 13 Knockturn Alley. Yes, there is a secret kindness in him. Stale bread passed from hand to hand, a rough palm on a wet shoulder, an unexpected tenderness towards the cat that sleeps in his sink. But don’t mistake it for softness. Alastor will care for a sick stray, but he’ll also put it out of its misery if it comes to it. Life is suffering. Everything that can go wrong will. The ends sometimes justify the means. He lives with those truths so that others don’t have to, and they give him a purpose. He is both certain of his own brokenness and smugly convinced that he alone knows best. It’s true that he allows himself few reprieves from the role he’s crafted for himself: the bloodhound, the hand of justice – but there is a reason for it. After all, who is he underneath it? A morose drunk, muttering shit under his breath. A terrified child screaming himself awake in an empty house.

How has the war affected this character, emotionally and otherwise?

The war has heightened everything sharp about Moody. He’s become even more obsessive, more reserved, less tolerant. The weirdness, deadpan humor and encyclopedic knowledge of obscure and bizarre subjects that define Alastor, the person, are becoming increasingly sunken under Moody, the auror. Alcohol has also become essential to drown the messiness in his head: the aggression and the paranoia, the noises that keep him awake at night. It’s not self-medication anymore. It’s sustenance. Physically, he’s sporting a couple more scars. Rosier left one under his eye– a few more milliseconds of reaction would have cost him his nose. But it was Wilkes who left him with his most painful wound. A dead, rotting patch of flesh on his leg. The healers kept the curse from spreading, but they couldn’t close it. It gives off an unpleasant, acrid scent and makes walking slightly painful.

Where does this character currently stand? with those who wish to hide in godric’s hollow until the war ends, with those who wish to rebuild the order and continue fighting the war, or on neither side? why?

He won’t hold back the harsh truth: stopping now would be worse than not having fought at all. Voldemort needs to be eliminated and even that might not be the end of it. Yes, there has been slaughter on both sides. Yes, the death eaters are weak. But to let them scurry back to their holes would make them stronger than ever before. They’d all have five, maybe ten years of rotten peace, shaking hands with the murderers of their friends and hugging their warm pillows at night. All the while the purebloods would be regrouping behind closed doors, biding their time until they could rise again. Only this time there would be no Order to stop them, weakened as they would be by the previous war and their own peacetime complacency. He will not indulge the childish fantasy according to which stopping the fight will return them all to a world before the war. They can’t restore their dead friends to their usual seat at the pub by lounging around Godric’s Hollow. The Order can only honor their sacrifice by making sure that the death eaters are completely destroyed. Fighting will mean a few more deaths, yes, but Alastor knows that not fighting is annihilation.

How have the setbacks the Order has faced affected Alastor?

If anything, the losses the Order has faced have only made Alastor more ruthless, more certain that pureblood supremacy needs to be pulled out at the root. There’s no hope for compromise after what happened in Godric’s Hollow. He can’t even begin to imagine how some of the Order members entertain the possibility of hiding there indefinitely: every second Alastor spends in the village is torture, surrounded by mementoes of the crimes, constantly anticipating another bloodshed. The only upside is that it keeps him focused. It reminds him that they must cut the limb and cauterize the wound.

What does he think the Order should do next?

Killing or capturing Voldemort is an absolute priority. Ending the war will require much more than destroying its symbol, but there is simply no hope of rebuilding the wizarding world while the main architect of its destruction endures.

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pinterest.

playlist.

Headcanons:

001: Between his black market days and the research he conducted on his own time, Alastor has been handling dark magic for far too long. Though the healers assure him that he is fine, he’s sure that it has taken a toll on him. Wilkes’s curse should have either killed him or healed – there’s something bizarre about the way it settled into his body, as if the black magic and the rotten flesh had always belonged there. He’s still strong, but skinnier than he used to be, his features sharper. He feels colder. There’s always a bad taste in his mouth. And his nightmares grow more vivid by the day.

002: Most nights he eats like the hungry boy he once was. He spends the day on coffee and firewhisky, making use of the alertness only an empty stomach can bring. Then he dines on sausages, canned fish and cheese, boiled, rubbery eggs, cold bowls of soup and stew. Everything tastes nice when you’re starving.

003: Alastor cares for Kingsley. He will also never trust him. On one hand, the things he admires the most about the other man are also those that irk and alarm him. Kingsley is cautious, empathetic, far better suited to peace than Moody will ever be. But something about his upbringing leads him to associate those qualities with cowardice and privilege. Even when their goals aligned and they relied on each other, the doubt about his fellow Auror remained. Kingsley is a better man than he is. And yet, Moody knows that he has inherited the violence and catastrophe that run down his family tree – has Shacklebolt truly avoided the poison in his own? He hopes so. But expecting the worst has always been his policy.

004: At 17, he ran away from home for good. He only saw his parents a few times after that. Neither of them ever acknowledged the beatings and cruelty as anything more than ‘toughening him up’ and Alastor genuinely felt like he had little to say to them. He once visited to inform them that he was becoming an Auror, and the warmth and praise with which his father received the news both satisfied and disgusted him. He was terrified by the hold his parents still had on him, and swore never to visit again. He kept the promise even when a colleague told him the old man was in St.Mungus on account of a curse from his old auror days, which was turning his insides to liquid. “If he wants me to visit”, he told him, “he can ask me himself”. He never did, which secretly relieved Alastor. He didn’t go to the funeral either. As for his mother, he hasn’t heard anything since the war began, but something tells him she’ll outlive both him and all the good people he knows.

005: Cats like him. They slip in through open windows, lay on his lap after he’s drank himself unconscious and eat his food.

[webcricket]

An Angel’s Elegy

Characters: CastielXReader ft. Sam and Dean Winchester

Word Count: 3216 (Act II)

A/N: Act II of a five-act series charting Castiel’s grief after losing the reader in childbirth. Despite her death, the reader remains an integral part of the story.

Summary: An anguishing journey about the intertwining of love and loss - adrift in a sea of grief and self-blame after losing his love, Castiel abandons hope. Leaving his newborn Nephilim daughter to the care of the Winchesters, he seeks absolution for your death at any cost. Will he ever find his way home?

Beta’d by: The Queen of Angst @willowing-love who has my everlasting gratitude for helping hone these words [and, I’m sure, a bottle or two of my tears stored on a shelf somewhere for her own personal amusement].

Miss an Act? Here’s the Masterlist:

webcricket.tumblr.com/post/181477590760/an-angels-elegy-masterlist

Act II

“Hey kiddo.” Dean pinches and massages the exposed skin of your sweat-slick neck where you sit, groaning and hunched, over a mug of tea at the bunker’s kitchen table. The piquant scent of ginger steeping in the liquid smacks his senses from where he stands and he surmises exactly where and how you spent your morning. “You still worshipping the porcelain goddess? Cause if you are, we gotta find you a new religion real fast.”

“It’s nothing,” you mumble into your sleeve. Breath reflectively reeking to fill your nostrils, stomach acid tickling your throat, you do your best to ride out a renewed wave of nausea.

“Nothing?” he asks.

“Mm-hmm,” you affirm.

Swinging a bowed leg over the seat, he settles onto the stool beside you. Perching an elbow on the tabletop, he props his chin up to objectively survey your miserable form. After the briefest of internal deliberations regarding the appropriateness of broaching the delicate topic, he dispels any qualms on the subject of the conceivably ‘no vacancy’ status of your womb and speaks, “Not to be blunt, but it’s been almost two weeks. Have you considered the notion that this may have nothing to do with the blue plate surf ‘n turf special you ate at Vinnie’s Diner? I mean, even bad shrimp isn’t this bad.”

You have considered the notion. At length. And you’ve settled firmly on denial as a plan of action – not that this strategy is necessarily working, but Castiel isn’t due back until tonight and you can’t begin to think about the scope of this properly without him. “No,” you lie. At least you’re sticking to your plan.

“Y/N-”

“It’s not possible.” You’re a hunter. He’s an angel. Both of you societal outliers in tenuous orbit around every impending apocalypse and new and improved big bad. It wouldn’t be right; no matter how wonderful the thought, or how many times you’ve dreamt of creating a family, it wouldn’t be right bringing a life into this messed up world where the path, moment to moment, is so uncertain – where everything could all come crashing down around you in the span of a single heartbeat.

“Oh honey, if the sounds Sammy and I are subjected to from behind closed doors when Castiel is around are any indication, I’d say it’s not only entirely possible but also very probable.” He smirks, trying to lighten the mood. “I told the guy his angel blade doesn’t count as protection. The way you two go at it like rabbits. I’m surprised this didn’t come up sooner.” His diversional tactic doesn’t work except to demolish your hormonally fragile defenses.

You feel a prick of tears stinging your eyes. “Dean, I-,” your voice cracks, “I’m scared.”

He wraps an arm around your shoulders and draws you flush to his chest. Rubbing tactile reassurances into your back as you sob against him, he murmurs into your hair, “I know. I know, sweetheart. I got you though, you hear? And that stubborn pain in the ass angel? He loves you more than anything. We’re in this together. No matter what, okay?”

“Yeah?” you sniffle into his flannel shirt and peer up into his sincere greens.

“Yeah.”

“Thank you, Dean.” You peck a kiss to his cheek and exhale a relieved sigh.

Nose flaring when your morning sick breath fans his face, he grimaces. “Ugh, you smell worse than Sam does after a run!” He continues to grip you tight in spite of any repulsion for your stinky state, contemplatively musing, “Like a ginger tea porta potty.” Reaching up to collect the wetness on your cheeks with a thumb, he grins wide when you smile. “There’s my girl.”

Clutching his hand and pressing your face into his palm, you manage a hoarse giggle.

“Duma, you must allow me passage.”

The shrill laughter of Castiel’s kin rings out into the air, piercing the nighttime quietude of the playground. “Castiel,” his fellow angel sneers, “it appears you’ve developed quite the sense of humor squandering your divine purpose amongst humanity all these years.”

“I see no humor in my request.” His mouth tenses in an anxious line, tongue worrying the pale pink shell of his lower lip. He bows his head in a demonstration of contrition. Heaven’s doorstep is the last place he wants to be, and at the same time, the very place his fractured heart compels him to be.

“Really?” His sister’s unrestrained delight gleams in the grin of her vessel – lips peeled taut over her teeth in righteous ridicule. “Because it sounded to me like you just demanded safe passage into Heaven.”

“I did.” He lifts his chin and squares his shoulders, muscles stiffening in response to her disdain. Flexing his fingers into fists, he feels the bolstering weight of the angel blade tucked up his coat sleeve; a reflexive defiance narrows his gaze.

One angel will not block his path. He might bend her will; if not with persuasion, then by force. But she is not alone; two more angels maintain a wary distance when they step out from the shadows behind him.

Appearance dour, Duma’s eyes spark dangerous and dark in the dim glow of lamplight illuminating the park. “The same Heaven you decimated not so long ago?” she bristles, emboldened by the presence of her brethren. “The one you selfishly betray to serve those mortal stains, the Winchesters?”

“Yes, sister,” he growls, knowing he will gain nothing by denying the truth of the past, “the same Heaven.” The same Heaven your soul inhabits. The same Heaven he must visit at any cost. He stands before his kin in ruin, fatalistic in his desire to look upon your soul once more. Already defeated, he has nothing more to lose.

“Oh, but brother,” she tisks, intake of breath a prolonged hiss. Revolving her back to him, flouting her superior authority given the circumstance, she muses, “It isn’t the same Heaven you remember at all.”

“Duma, please.” He pitches forward, halted by a firm grip seizing his shoulder and the heel of a boot simultaneously striking his calf and bending him to one knee. White hot celestial metal threatens to split the prickly flesh of his neck if he struggles.

She glares sideways, arms crossed, coolly regarding him, judging, “You’re no angel, Castiel. Not anymore. Some of us question whether you ever were at all. There’s nothing for you in Heaven.”

But there is someone. Your name resounds in the thunderous broken beat of his heart; he feels it pulse the length of his limbs, choking his gullet as it climbs to throb at his temples and wetly pool in his eyes. He clamps his jaw to preclude himself from crying it out; the iron tang of blood coats his bitten tongue.

An astute angel, she reads his reticent reaction as a confession to the contrary and reconsiders her assertion, “Or perhaps there is?”

Gulping guilt, unshaven skin scraping on the celestially forged lethal edge of the weapon held to his throat, his eyes cast downward, instinctive in their avoidance of the painful truth.

She skulks toward him. Threading her fingers into his hair, grabbing a fistful of loose curls by the roots, she yanks his head backward, forcing him to meet her penetrating gaze. “Maybe you seek the soul of that woman? The hunter. The one you are so fond of.”  

His vessel strains against the torrent of grief erupting from within at her mention of you; a reflection of firelight simmers in his irises as the vision of your lifeless body consumed by flame blazes in his mind. The raw emotion of anguish rises unbidden and uncontainable to shudder his vessel.

Holding him fast, shrewdly perceptive of his surfacing pain and vulnerability, she stokes the smoldering remnants of the seraph’s heart. “I heard the rumors. I didn’t believe them. Not until now.” Inclining so near that the heat of her breath laps at his skin as she speaks, the question glides innocent yet incisive off her tongue. “Tell me, Castiel. What happened to her?”

A flicker of anguish contorts his fascia. I happened! his mind screams out. His jaw quivers mutely. A muffled mournful mewling abrades his ears. The pungent odor of smoke and ash swirls to suffocate all else. Devastated by the rush of remembrance, the answer weakens his stoic resolve. He staggers under the weight, braced upright by the angel at his back.

Duma scrapes her nails into his scalp to compel an answer.

“I-I failed her,” he admits, telling her what she wants to hear and what he knows by the agony afflicting his heart to be true. Sadness dampens the dusky circles marring his melancholy countenance.

She snarls, “In the end you fail us all. It’s what you do.” Shoving him roughly, deeming him nonthreatening in his present state, she snaps her head, gesturing for her comrades to release him and make for the gate.

Backing off, giving him a wide berth as he fights to stand and stay balanced, the two angels circle around to the Enochian spell-etched sandbox and vanish in a spectacle of swirling purple light.

Trembling, Cas reaches out to catch Duma’s wrist as she turns to join them. “Allow me to speak to her one last time; then do what you will to me as penance for my transgressions. Imprison me, destroy me, I will atone for the wrongs I have reigned upon her and Heaven.”

A sadistic smirk twists her mouth. “Beg,” she simpers.

Expression grey and hollow, any vestiges of pride that remain disintegrating in the submission of the act, he collapses to his knees. Hands sinking into the gritty earth for support, as though he needs the handhold to keep from falling further than he already has from grace, he rocks backward. Sat suppliant on his heels, he turns up his sullied palms in surrender and peers up at her, tone somnolent. “Have mercy, sister,” he beseeches. “I’m begging you.”

Harshness softening, she extends a light touch to smooth his disheveled locks. “Look at you, Castiel. How far you’ve fallen. How fouled by humanity. How exhausted you must be by this relentless battle to yield yourself over to Heaven’s mercy.”

Eyes shimmering and wet, he feebly nods. “Please, please take me with you. Take me…home.” To her, he swallows the rest of the words that rise up, take me home, to her.

Lowering her slender frame to peer into his pallid features, a tender empathetic smile affects Duma’s face as she strokes his cheek with her fingertips. “You’ve suffered much, haven’t you, dear brother? An angel is not made to know this pain of love and loss.”

“I feel-” he professes, hesitating. “I-I feel. Father forgive me.”

“Yes, perhaps,” she relents, cupping his cheek, thumb smearing the brine of tears salting his skin. “Perhaps compassion is the correct course. Perhaps it is what Father would do.”

A shaky sigh of relief shivers his frame. Eyelids fluttering shut, your smiling mien manifests before him and can almost hear the laughter lighting up your eyes. It’s the summer day in the small park near the bunker you first said those three little words to him. The day he learned what the longing in his own heart meant. The day that forever altered the course of your lives. You materialize so near in his mind he might reach out to straighten the crooked halo of daisies ringing your wind-blown hair. Imagining you thus, he relaxes into Duma’s calming caress.

But her gentleness is false and fleeting, meant only to further wound him. “Perhaps not,” she spits, shattering his dream. Clawing at his jaw, streaks of crimson well in the wake of her nails. “This-”

Gaping in horror, the bleakness of the vacant park filling his vision, he recoils and topples backward onto the ground.

“This is your punishment!” She kicks the dirt and motions broadly around them. “To exist in exile here. Haunted by your failures. The love you feel for this woman, the pain too – it is forbidden. You break our most sacred oath, and for this indiscretion alone you deserve death. Be grateful I stay my hand, brother.” Sauntering backward into the whirling gate, she sentences him as it engulfs her, “There is your mercy, Castiel.”

Rolling to one side, he shields himself from the whoosh of leaf litter and sand smattering his fallen form as the gate seals behind her and any traces of the sigil granting access to Heaven are eradicated in her wake. Silence veils the park. Flattening his back to the ground, blues hazily filter beyond the vast black atmosphere of night. Trained toward the heaven denied him, he blinks numbly, the sting of sand and tears naught compared to the great void aching in his heart.

“I’m pregnant.”

An emotion verging on panic churns in the angel’s aspect. Color draining from his cheeks, his gaze falls from your nervous but elated smile to where your palm rests over your belly. It’s then he allows the foreboding niggling at his angelic senses this past month that something about you seemed different the acknowledgement it’s been wanting all along. “No,” he states, as if denying the life he kindled inside of you – the life consuming you – would somehow change the truth of it. No, he thinks, even as the rapid beating of your daughter’s heart assails his ears. No.

“It’s true.” Your smile falters at his disquiet reaction. You exhibit a handful of positive pregnancy tests as proof. “Dean picked them up for me today. He had a hunch. You know Dean and his hunches, right? I wanted to wait until you came home, but-,” you ramble, filling the uncomfortable vacuum between you with whatever words sprout upon your tongue, “-I suppose patience isn’t one of my virtues, is it? I’ve had morning sickness since just after you left to meet up with Jack.” In nervy compulsion, your fingertips dance across his chest and fret at the buttons of his shirt. “Cas?”

Inside, he’s crumbling. The creation of a Nephilim requires inconceivable power. Power on par with the likes of the devil and the archangels or God himself; a power Castiel did not believe he possessed as a simple seraph. He did not understand the enormous power contained in the sentiment of love – nor did he comprehend the pure and untapped potential of this love when wielded by an angel flawed by too much heart. He was careless at the cost of your life. He outstretches an unsteady hand to touch your stomach.

You catch him halfway, squeezing your fingers over his own and lifting the hem of your shirt to flatten his broad palm into the softness of your flesh.

Eyelids drooping, all he can see is the replayed memory of his tentative hand resting on Kelly’s bulging belly. Though not his progeny, Jack spoke to him then. Gave him reassurances. Settled his trepidation. Forged an unbreakable bond. Yet this child within you, his child, is silent.

For all their connection and her power, she is unable to traverse the expanding emptiness shrouding her father’s heart at the thought of losing you. She cannot reassure him this is a beginning, not an end. She cannot show him the radiant gladness and love shining upon her from within your soul. She wills you to speak for her, to give him the comfort she cannot.

Your lips part, voice quavering, “Cas, everything…everything’s going to be okay.”

Lashes heavy, his focus resolves on your anxiously searching eyes. In them he sees bravery; Kelly’s bravery, too, shone much like yours. And now she’s gone, because for all his power, love, and goodness, Jack could not save his mother from her death upon bringing him into this world and neither could the angel. It will be no different for you.

“Angel, say something. Please.”

“It’s a girl,” he says, deflecting his unquelled surge of terror with a statement meant to distract you.

“A girl!” you squeal. Joy crinkling at your nose and eyes, you leap to throw your arms around him. “Oh, my angel-”

He burrows his chin into the delicate skin of your neck. Yes, your angel. Always. As you are his; but no matter how close he holds you now, he feels you slipping away.

Gazing out the dingy windshield toward the playground and Heaven’s bolted entrance, Castiel ignores the insistent rhythmic buzz of the cell phone vibrating on the passenger seat cushion of his truck. The sky above brightens in the violet-orange hue characteristic of the dawn. He scarcely perceives this day’s light; his mind is anchored in another sunrise – your final one.

He can feel the interlocking of your fingers through his own, filling the gaps, giving him something to hold on to. He remembers the weight of your sleep-mussed head lolling to his shoulder, the warmth of your burgeoning belly and body nestled to his torso as you huddle on the roof of the bunker on a whim awaiting daybreak. He doesn’t know yet it will be your last day together.

“You ever wonder what a sunrise is, angel?”

He shakes his head as he did then, a compact smile shaping his mouth. It’s not because he hasn’t thought about it or that he dismisses the notion as trivial; rather, he delights in hearing your meditations on such topics.

“I think it’s a promise fulfilled. A beginning born from darkness. The light is hope.”

Of the opinion the bulk of his Father’s creations are rarely so complex, the angel wordlessly reasons maybe the cycle represents nothing, it being merely the revolution of a planet around a star. A star that one day will blister and die and consume the life it once nurtured. A means only to an inevitable end. Considering the optimistic smile aglow on your face, he humors you, says nothing, and simply nods.

“No matter what happens, the sun always rises. Promise me you’ll remember that, angel.”

You don’t say the words when I’m gone; he hears them nonetheless.

“Castiel, please promise me…”

A jolt judders his vessel at the vividness of the recollection. His fingers contract around the thin air. He glances to the space beside him. Growling and grabbing at the nettling cell, three letters pop up on the screen – Sam. He isn’t sure why he keeps the device turned on anymore. Or for that matter, charged. Or why he even bothers to keep it at all aside from habit. He sends the call to voicemail where Sam will be unable to leave a message in a mailbox already teeming with Dean’s collected alternating raving rants and plaintive pleas for Cas to do the right thing.

The angel briefly ponders stuffing the phone out of sight in the glovebox. Leaning across the seat to unlatch the cover, he decides instead to toss it out the open window. He no longer knows what the right thing to do is and doesn’t need to be reminded of this fact – he lost sight of this and everything else when he lost you. The only thing, right or wrong, he can concentrate on is the objective of seeing you again. If Heaven won’t help him he’ll need a back door and, cranking the key in the ignition, he knows precisely where to go knocking.

Continue reading Act III:

webcricket.tumblr.com/post/173598542435/an-angels-elegy

[sassysatsuma]

Smother - John Seed/Female Deputy

Rating: M (to be safe)

Summary: John Seed's life before Eden's Gate is a distant memory as are the people who shaped him into the man he is today. But what happens when the Deputy is an old flame from John's pre-cult past? How is he supposed to seek out and purge the sin for someone who he once held dear?

Author’s Note: This piece is a total experiment, an over long drabble that stemmed from me trying to get the relationship I had in my head down onto paper. I'm hoping to make a full, multi chaptered story out of these two eventually, so hopefully this drabble is the start of something new. It's my  first time post in the Far Cry 5 fandom, so fingers crossed you like it! 

Cross posted to my accounts on AO3 and ff.net

Sin always finds him, no matter how closely he walks the path.

He can't fail Joseph again, won't. He's been the black sheep of his flock for so long, fighting to prove himself and earn his place. He's heard the whispers, loose tongues who say that his position amongst the faithful comes from blood and nothing more. So far he's cut the tongues from any and all who dare speak out in such a way, but somehow someone new, someone bold always rises up to replace them.

The Seeds know deeply of sin, even Joseph. They've all shamed God and acted selfishly, strayed from the path they'd been put to follow like wayward children. Yet John knows that he's the one who always manages to stray the furthest, to lose himself within his own sin so deeply that it’s a struggle to see a way out. Joseph is always there to pull him out and yet even that in itself brings shame and its constant bedfellow, anger.

Wrath. The word is carved into his flesh as an eternal reminder and yet sometimes it isn't enough.

It's ironic that the man whose purpose to save others from sin remains locked in its cold embrace. It's his burden, his cross to bear.

The reason that Eden's Gate might remain forever closed to him.

The key is the deputy; it is the will of the Father. John must gain her atonement and break her will or lose sight of the Garden forever. In words, it's a simple enough task, a role he has played for months. He has cut hundreds of sins from the Father's flock, from the eager to the ever reluctant. Despite his own struggles with sin, it's what he's good at; reading people, reaching into them and pulling their sins to the surface. It's the reason Joseph made him a herald, no matter what his enemies whisper. He's both feared and respected because of his ability to look into a person's eyes and see their soul and that is where his power lies.

But the deputy? She's something else. Something stubborn and strong, perhaps with a will that matches his own. She's not a nameless soul that needs cleansing. She's his past, a fragment of the man he was before the cult, before Joseph called him home.

In truth, it feels like a lifetime ago.

He was an empty vessel then, cut off from his brothers and his adoptive parents. A lowly sinner who had lost his way and stumbled from God. He still believed, but there was no clarity, no direction to his faith. He was ambitious, talented, a lawyer because his so called parents claimed that he would never amount to anything. Everything in his life was at break neck speed, a whirlwind of disposable income, bars and one night stands. He had so much, but never once stopped to give. Instead he kept on taking and taking, enjoying each night as though it was his last. There was no love in his life back then, no fulfilment. Just a deep dark void that he mindlessly tried to fill.

They'd met in a bar in Atlanta, both chasing the same sin. She'd immediately caught his interest with the darkness behind her eyes and the way she'd shrugged off his arrogance and accomplishments as if they were nothing. She was beautiful, strong, determined and fearless. Quietly confident but oddly trapped, like an animal forced to live in captivity. Even back then, John had sensed her potential, had found his interest piqued in it. It was a similarity they shared, two souls walking the streets of a city that barely understood them, always wanting, but never knowing what exactly made them so empty.

They'd slept together on that first night, a deliciously rough affair that had left him wanting more. Like a drug he kept on returning to her, intoxicated by her ability to be able to take whatever he gave her. With her, no sin felt too great. He could give pain, receive it and never once fear retribution. It was catharsis for them both, a release that was as close as John had come to being himself in decades.

And then Joseph called him home. He was given purpose, intoxicated by something else entirely. All thoughts of her left him the day that he stepped back in Hope County. He'd never even considered seeing her again.

Now, his will is the same as the Father. He wants her to atone, to say yes and renounce sin. But his better judgement remembers the stubborn streak in her that he used to care for, knows already just how much he will have to break her in order to get through. The thought is exciting and therein lies the problem. Joseph has already had to pull him back from sin with her once, back at the cleansing when his hands had been around her neck and her body had flailed under the water beneath him. It would have been so easy to hold her there until her limbs went limp. In that moment, she had been his singular focus, wrath and pride and lust flowing through him like poison. He wanted to kill her for everything she'd done, his pride damaged by the fiery swathe she'd cut through his region. But underneath it all, there had been a part of him that had still wanted her, the part that used to revel in the feeling of her skin against his. The part of him that the Father calls a sinner.

No.

The tattoo gun is a familiar weight in his palm. Pulling at his shirt, he yanks the blue fabric upwards, exposing the skin just above his hip. His foot on the pedal, a familiar buzz hums through the air as he carves the letters into his skin.

Lust.

He will wear this sin for as long as it takes, a fiery reminder of the man he no longer is. A man who refuses to be consumed by sin.

The man who refuses to be consumed by her.

------

The throwing knife makes a satisfying 'thump' as it lodges itself in the drywall. More specifically, the knife is sitting right in the middle of John Seed's forehead, his mouth stretched into an overzealous grin. She’d found the poster hanging on the wall of a gas station they liberated and earned herself more than one strange look when she pocketed it for herself. She'd assured Grace that it was for target practice and little else.

In the picture John has his arms raised to the fucking heavens, where 'YES' is spelled in big white capital letters above his head. Throwing another knife, Mac hits the 'E' dead centre.

How about fuck no, John?

She's still piecing it all together, the week's events happening at impossible speed. What had promised to be a simple arrest had ended up being a real shit show and in reality she'd been fighting ever since. She'd never really thought that she would find herself spear heading some kind of All American resistance and yet, sitting in her dingy room above The Spread Eagle in Fall's End, that’s where she's wound up anyway.

In truth, Mac had just been pissed. With her team in shackles, a megalomaniac running the show and no promise of back up from the outside, she’d figured that cutting her way through cult territory until she could rip that asshole Joseph a new one was her only choice. The violence she didn't really mind so much, guns and blood second nature to her at this point. But the constant threat of capture and torture has her constantly on edge and unable to find any real rest, even now sitting her cot in the newly liberated town.

Her back against the wall, Mac throws another knife, this time hitting John squarely in the crotch.

If only the picture was real life.

She hadn't thought about him in years, had never thought that she'd see him again, especially when she moved out of Atlanta. Joseph's entire church and congregation had been all kinds of fucked up, but if Mac was honest with herself, she had to admit that seeing John there had jarred her. She'd been all geared up to arrest a homicidal cult leader and then suddenly there was a ghost from her past looking her dead in the eye.

He'd recognised her too. Given her a cold, confused look that had sent her stomach spinning. Somehow even then Mac had a feeling that shit was about to hit the fan, but she could never have anticipated just how spectacular display it would actually be.

She keeps telling herself that the fact that it’s John didn't matter. He might be wearing the same face, but John Seed had suddenly gone from a fucked up, corporate lawyer to a glorified torturer and any small allegiance she owed him is rendered null and void as a result. Hell, the man is flaying people alive for fuck's sake. John had been into some dark shit back when she'd known him, but this was a whole new fucking level.

And yet...

Mac isn't a woman ruled by her emotions, in fact most of the time she tries her damnedest to pretend that she doesn't have any at all. She has her own darkness, her own daemons that she rarely gives voice to. Instead, she prefers to go through life as smoothly as possible, avoiding commitment and relationships so that she never finds herself caught in one place.

John had been one of the very few people she'd gone back to. Over and over until neither of them dared mention that it was a thing.

Forgetting the downright kinky sex they'd shared, there'd been something else pulling them together. A shared common ground that they would only ever hint at and never fully discussed. There was an understanding between them, an acceptance. John never pushed to confine her and Mac never wanted him to. He'd been able to read her like a book, something that she usually hated. But with John? It just didn't bother her as much.

She'd trusted him, as much as she'd ever been able to trust anyone in her life. Maybe even cared for him. Once.

In her defense, she'd never fucking imagined that he'd end up somewhere like this.

Grunting, partially in irritation at her emotions and partially thanks to her stiff, aching body, she pushes herself upwards from the bed and moves albeit it slowly to the poster. One by one, she plucks the knives from the dry wall, hissing when a blade nicks her fingertip. Transfixed, she stands for a moment, watching the blood well up and pool on her skin, before coming to her senses and wiping it off on the back of her jeans. She barely even felt the pain, her body already battered and bruised from her time in captivity. She'd avoided confessing her sins this time, but she has absolutely no doubt that John's bliss bullets would find her again.

It’s only a matter of time.

As she settles back on her bed, legs outstretched to try and counteract the dull ache from sitting for hours in a stress position, Mac can't help but wonder how she'll feel when she comes face to face with John again. She knows exactly how she’s supposed to feel; angry, confused, terrified and in truth she doesn't doubt that he has the power to evoke all of those things within her, especially now.

But she doesn't entirely trust herself. Doesn't trust that she can be subjective, that she can forget the man that she'd met back in Atlanta. Will she be betrayed by that side of herself when it matters most? Just how much power will John hold over her? Just how well will he be able to look into her eyes and root through her mind?

The thought alone brings a cold shiver down her spine, the skin on her forearms quickly becoming gooseflesh. With a grimace, she throws one of the knives with more force this time, a loud thud sounding as it strikes John in the middle of his smug mouth. Smiling to herself, Mac throws her remaining two knives in quick succession, striking each of his outstretched hands with deadly accuracy. Even though she’s only hitting paper, it feels good to strike back against him, to prove to herself that he’s just enough crazy cultist that needs putting down.

They'll fight, that much is a given. In a way it was what they know best, a battle of wits and strength that they'd been fighting ever since the day they'd met. Mac had never let him win before and as she stares at his poster, covered in blades and puncture marks, she swears to any God that’s listening that she won't start letting him win now.

[emmaline91]

Hopin’ and Prayin’ and Wishin’

Here is my @lovefromoq gift for @findingtallahassee 😘

The shadows blanket the road this far out. They stretch from the tops of the evergreen trees and cast most of the road in darkness. Except for tonight, there are a few bright beams filtering down from the full moon in the sky. The only sounds come from the crickets and wildlife beyond the pines and it’s a solitary, lonely kind of peaceful.

She’s made a habit out of coming here; slipping out just after Henry’s gone to sleep and spending a precious few hours hoping. Hoping for what, she isn’t quite sure. Maybe for the resolute acceptance of how things have turned out. For her heart to stop aching and move on already. Sometimes even, she’s loathe to admit, she wishes for a freak accident that would take Marian away and right the universe again.

But mostly, she hopes he’ll appear out of thin air, grinning how he does, as he steps back into Storybrooke and into her life.

She knows it won’t happen, that he might as well be in another realm altogether. She understands why he’s gone, respects it even, but it doesn’t keep her from peering out down the road and wondering where on the other side he could be tonight.

The pavement is cool beneath her thin slacks but she likes sitting at the very edge where she can pretend the red line in front of her crossed legs is the only barrier keeping them apart. As if the two of them sit apart, the protection spell a curtain that only need be pulled back and they’d be face to face. She lifts the flask next to her and the moon beams off its shiny surface as she indulges in another sip. She’s not drunk, but the alcohol numbs things just enough, blurs the edges so she doesn’t actually cry. And it would be all to easy to let herself embrace her emotions and sob in self pity.

He was supposed to be her second chance; her redemption for the awful woman she’d been—and he was, for however brief a time. His integrity made her better. His morals brought her back to that seventeen year old girl she once was. Just “Regina”, not “Her Majesty” or “The Evil Queen”. He saw the real Regina under all those layers of guilt and anger and regret. And perhaps what makes her feel more despondent than anything is that she’ll never get a third chance. She got so unexpectedly lucky with Robin. She didn’t deserve him to begin with, but only he could have been her soulmate. Only he could understand every sordid detail of her past and still have the audacity to not only love her, but choose her.

Regina runs a hand through the front of her dark hair as she sighs. She misses him. She misses having another person unconditionally in her corner, misses not always feeling like the third wheel, misses the smell of damp earth and aged redwood.

She wants to scream to the heavens, or this “author”, or whatever higher power there might be that it’s so unfair! Only she knows damn well how fair her pain is; how cosmic and condemned her story has read. It’s her punishment for choosing revenge when she could have chosen forgiveness. Daniel’s death was the great catalyst of her life. And while she knows there are many who let their grief morph into hatred, there had been another way. It would have been harder, maybe taken longer, but she might have come out the other side a better person; a hero.

She won’t make that mistake again.

While it feels just as bad as it had years ago, even worse actually; she cannot tarnish what Robin stood for, just to try to ease the ache. If anyone was undeserving, it was that man. He had made mistakes the same as any of them, sure, but he worked for his redemption. Robin had found a way to do what she never could. He turned his pain into purpose. A purpose full of love and selflessness and renewal.

And now he’s been hurt once more, entangled in the web of her retribution; collateral damage for the penance she was paying. He had not known just what loving the Evil Queen would cost him, even if she had truly made a change. Yet, he had opted to accept the shit hand he was dealt and if only it weren’t for her he wouldn’t be hurting because of it. He might even be overjoyed to have his late wife back; his family reunited.

She prays for that as she slowly pushes herself to her feet now. She decides it’s the only thing she can do to wish him well, Marian too. If only she could have granted him a memory spell before he’d gone so he could forget about the wreckage she’d brought into his heart. Of course, her thief would never have taken the easy way out. And Regina can’t help but to hold on to the thought of him remembering her, remembering the true, sacred, magical connection they shared.

She suddenly has to lift her fingers to her face to brush away an errant tear. She will not feel sorry for herself, at least not anymore tonight.

Staring out down the still, vacant road out of Storybrooke, she sniffles and squares her shoulders to reign in her emotions and she hopes above all else that Robin finds the kind of happiness she knows he deserves.

This chapter of her story is closing, and she needs to let the dust settle on the pages and find a way to move on. If her heart is going to take it’s time mending, then she must stop her late night visits. She has a son at home and new, delicate friendships, and a town that seems forever under threat, and a population of people who she owes debts so great she may never repay them. But she must try.

She turns on her heel and heads back to her silver benz parked just off the shoulder, opens the door and gives one last, longing gaze down the vacant road.

In her mind, the protected barrier shimmers and parts and her handsome thief appears, Roland at his side, tiny hand clutched in his. Regina abandons the door, unconsciously letting her feet carry her forward a few paces. She let’s her eyes slip closed and smiles wide with the image of them behind her lids.

“Regina”, he says.

And it’s not until she reopens her eyes that it occurs to her the tone of his voice had not been quite right.

“Regina!”

As if awaking from a dream, her focus snaps back to reality and he’s still in front of her, rushing towards her more accurately, his arms outstretched. The the next moment she can feel him against her chest, can smell his woodsy scent right under her nose.

“Oh thank God, Regina!”, he nearly cries in relief and it’s all she can do to catch her brain up to what’s happening. Maybe she’d had more to drink than she thought? He pulls out of the embrace, but doesn’t completely withdraw his touch. He must have sensed her shock, perhaps too overwhelmed to see her to notice she didn’t hug back.

“Regina?”

Her eyes scan over his body, willing herself to believe it’s really him, but they land instead on the dimple faced child grinning up at her.

“Gina! We come to visit you!”, his little voice hits her ears and she raises her eyes back to Robin’s anxious gaze. The acceptance breaks around her and she throws her arms around his neck, afraid he might disappear.

“Robin!”

It’s the only thing she manages to say while she’s this overcome with emotions. He holds her back, just as tight and whispers her name quietly against her head and she finally finds her voice.

“Wha—why—what are you doing here?”, she breathes in disbelief. Her hand falls to Roland’s head below and caresses his locks to finally acknowledge him, but she needs to grasp her current reality before she makes a fool of herself.

“It’s Zelena”, he tells her with a bit of disdain, “We’re all in danger. I had to come back to warn you all, to help fight”

He glances down at his now frightened son and lifts him into his right hip for a soothing hug while Regina blinks in confusion.

“What are you talking about? Where is Mari—“

“We can’t talk about it now”, he cuts her off urgently, gesturing with a discreet nod to the boy in his arms. “Listen, I promise I will explain everything later. But we don’t have a lot of time to gather the others and make a plan”.

He slides a gentle hand down her arm as if to assure her it’ll be alright despite his ominous warning. Roland wiggles in his grasp and his father sets him on his feet a moment before he bounds off a yard or two and squats down to examine a rock on the pavement.

“I’m just so happy to see you, Regina”, Robin cups her cheek in his chilled palm, “didn’t think I would again”.

His words rush off his tongue before his lips are pressed to hers, desperate and needy, fueled by the current perils only he knows they face and his all consuming love for her. It is a reunion kiss that can only come from resolutely believing they’d be separated permanently.

Regina responds with all the heart she can muster, their lips moving fluidly together as if the last few weeks had not eclipsed. When they finally break for air they are both grinning like fools, foreheads resting together as their breathing falls in sync, and she swears she suddenly feels whole again, as if her arm had been missing and has just now been returned. She lets the feeling wash over her, soaks it in selfishly for a minute because she knows how fleeting this absolute contentment is now.

There are still a thousand questions running through her head, a dark cloud churning and billowing over their little town and every life in it, but with Robin’s hand in her own things feel possible.

She tightens her grip and they start toward her car, ushering Roland away from his picture in the dirt as they go. They let their hands slip apart to round the car and Robin opens the back so Roland can hop inside excitedly, insisting that he’s mastered belting himself in. Once he’s safely buckled and shut in, Robin pulls his handle but catches Regina’s eyes over the hood.

They both have a flurry of emotions hidden in their expressions, but one sticks out above them all and Regina knows this one to be the only true importance in the world.

“I love you”, Robin declares, the lines around his eyes wrinkled from the joy on his face.

Her chest swells with such happiness that her dark eyes moisten with tears and she doesn’t care that her voice cracks when she finally speaks the words herself.

“I love you”.

Fin.

[popcornbutterflymedia]

I LOVE YOU HATER is like a burst of sunshine on a gloomy day, and a rain shower that cleanses the heart which allows for clarity. it is a story about truth - an individual’s sense of truth, relationship to the truth, how this truth is shaped, and how this truth is upheld or manipulated, according to one’s needs. this is also the journey to love, through one’s journey to authenticity. this is one of those movies that, if I missed, I didn’t think would matter. I am glad I gave it a chance and it would be a shame if this wouldn’t be given a chance.

to understand the genius of this movie is to have an idea of the audience reaction inside the cinema: people were laughing out loud line after line, the audience of mostly seniors were surprisingly kilig when they were supposed to be, and the crying, the sniffling, the heaving were all preciously audible. this, to me is the funniest romcom when it was a romcom, and one of the most deeply touching family dramas, when it became such, that I have seen yet.

joshua garcia pretending to be beki is enough of a comic selling point for me. frankly him in anything is enough for me, but the subtlety with which he played his straight man pretending to be gay, the guilt and everything that comes with it, is still surprising. I understand why he said this was the hardest character for him to play, the nuances are no joke, but he still played it so effortlessly.

this is julia barretto her most liberated. ever since she began I have been waiting for something from her, I couldn’t quite figure out what it is. this is it. she was fearless and vulnerable, and brave. and my heart was filled with joy for her.

I was so ready to call this a joshlia movie with Kris as a trigger, granted no one else could play sasha like she does, but there was one moment she owned, and it changed my mind.

kudos also go to markki stroem and mark neumann for the equally subtle portrayals of gay guys in a relationship.

when it was announced that this movie was going to be direk Giselle’s, I did not know what to make of it, only because LIT wasn’t enough for me to recognize her perspective. the magic of this movie is in the details, and the details are what direk giselle is a genius at - the direction (hello, ‘straight guy in the eyes, while being beki everywhere else), the camera angles, the shots, the editing. it’s all so seamless. see this movie has a very simple premise, that could do away with very simple cinematic treatment, but direk giselle respected every moment of the film, that she made an extraordinary experience out of simple moments. 

now, my favorite moments of the movie (this is hard, because every moment is memorable) the airport scene, gosh that hurt, beki josh, julia’s grand entrance, her energy, the manila pictorial, julia and her moment with al tantay (simple, quiet, but got to me badly). paete, takahan, (my laguna roots thank you for that), josh and ronaldo valdez, kris and ronaldo valdez, basically anything ronaldo valdez is in. i lost it. the confrontation between julia’s and josh’s characters - julia shocked me into intimidation. who i saw was an actress i always wanted her to be, an actress i always believed she could be. she wears her legacy well, but dare i say she could grow to be better than that legacy. i am so happy for her in this movie. and joshua, that boy continues to amaze me - from the boy that confused me to the boy i am actually personally proud of. 

the plot works because all the characters are mirrors of, and are necessary for each other. this is generally speaking, but the perfect illustration of this is when joko and zoe met up with john's character: in that silent moment when josh was looking at john while he was speaking, we knew john's character was speaking for josh's character's sentiments, that both characters are on parallel journeys. it's also clear that joko needed zoe to learn the value of the truth, and zoe needed joko to understand the sense of family. and sasha needed  and gave something to the youngsters: she gave zoe her wisdom through experience and she needed joko's connection with his own dad to get through her dad. I can here ms van's voice. in order for the story to be effective, a character must need something that the other character has. not verbatim. as a writer, you usually ask yourself what do your characters need from each other?

a few notes: i’d read a critique on the movie about its plot, being questionable, kulang(?) now, it would have mattered if this was a plot driven movie, but this is a character driven movie. it’s about a set of people who will choose to carry on, despite the incompleteness, the open-endedness of their circumstances. how to say this without spoilers? i wanted zoe to stick it to one character. i selfishly needed that confrontation. this movie, you see is as much about forgiveness, and i personally think forgiveness is impossible without ownership. and to own an experience, a feeling, a history, we must find words for it, and the people who are responsible for that history, or whatever pain they have caused, ought to hear about it. i am not looking for a fight, just a moment to speak, and be heard, but ms van’s post reminded me that the heart of this movie is forgiveness as self liberation, and the ability to love in spite of it all. through this lens that that open ending is perfect. this movie made me so happy, so hopeful, and by hearing certain lines, healed too. at a time when i am constantly wondering where my heart has gone, at a time when i have to hide my heart on purpose, and silence my voice, sometimes, this movie reminded me that i do have both - a heart and a voice. congratulations @v_r_v (this movie has got me wondering, what a joshlia movie penned entirely by you, much like eily was for lizquen, would look like. :) ), the entire team, (i don’t know their ig handles, sorry), and everyone at @starcinema. my heart has nothing but love and gratitude for you and all that you do.❤ @micodelrosario1

[dfroza]

Love seeks humility.

and this, to change our hearts & minds from the inside out. to be renewed.

Today’s reading of the Scriptures continues with the Letter of James:

[Living Close to God]

What is the cause of your conflicts and quarrels with each other? Doesn’t the battle begin inside of you as you fight to have your own way and fulfill your own desires? You jealously want what others have so you begin to see yourself as better than others. You scheme with envy and harm others to selfishly obtain what you crave—that’s why you quarrel and fight. And all the time you don’t obtain what you want because you won’t ask God for it! And if you ask, you won’t receive it for you’re asking with corrupt motives, seeking only to fulfill your own selfish desires. You have become spiritual adulterers who are having an affair, an unholy relationship with the world. Don’t you know that flirting with the world’s values places you at odds with God? Whoever chooses to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy!

Does the Scripture mean nothing to you that says, “The Spirit that God breathed into our hearts is a jealous Lover who intensely desires to have more and more of us”?

But he continues to pour out more and more grace upon us. For it says,

God resists you when you are proud

but continually pours out grace when you are humble.”

So then, surrender to God. Stand up to the devil and resist him and he will turn and run away from you. Move your heart closer and closer to God, and he will come even closer to you. But make sure you cleanse your life, you sinners, and keep your heart pure and stop doubting. Feel the pain of your sin, be sorrowful and weep! Let your joking around be turned into mourning and your joy into deep humiliation. Be willing to be made low before the Lord and he will exalt you!

Dear friends, as part of God’s family, never speak against another family member, for when you slander a brother or sister you violate God’s law of love. And your duty is not to make yourself a judge of the law of love by saying that it doesn’t apply to you, but your duty is to obey it! There is only one true Lawgiver and Judge, the One who has the power to save and destroy—so who do you think you are to judge your neighbor?

Listen, those of you who are boasting, “Today or tomorrow we’ll go to another city and spend some time and go into business and make heaps of profit!” But you don’t have a clue what tomorrow may bring. For your fleeting life is but a warm breath of air that is visible in the cold only for a moment and then vanishes! Instead you should say, “Our tomorrows are in the Lord’s hands and if he is willing we will live life to its fullest and do this or that.” But here you are, boasting in your ignorance, for to be presumptuous about what you’ll do tomorrow is evil!

So if you know of an opportunity to do the right thing today, yet you refrain from doing it, you’re guilty of sin.

The Letter of James, Chapter 4 (The Passion Translation)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 23rd chapter of First Chronicles where David appoints Solomon to be the next King in Israel:

[Preparations for Worship]

When David got to be an old man, he made his son Solomon king over Israel.

At the same time he brought together all the leaders of Israel, the priests, and the Levites. The Levites thirty years and older were counted; the total was thirty-eight thousand. David sorted them into work groups: “Twenty-four thousand are in charge of administering worship in the sanctuary; six thousand are officials and judges; four thousand are security guards; and four thousand are to serve in the orchestra, praising God with instruments that I have provided for praise.”

David then divided the Levites into groupings named after the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

The Gershonites: Ladan and Shimei. The three sons of Ladan: Jehiel, Zetham, and Joel. The three sons of Shimei: Shelomoth, Haziel, and Haran, all heads of the families of Ladan. The four sons of Shimei: Jahath, Ziza, Jeush, and Beriah. Jahath came first, followed by Ziza. Jeush and Beriah did not have many sons so they were counted as one family with one task.

The four sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. The sons of Amram: Aaron and Moses. Aaron was especially ordained to work in the Holy of Holies, to burn incense before God, to serve God and bless his Name always. This was a permanent appointment for Aaron and his sons. Moses and his sons were counted in the tribe of Levi.

The sons of Moses: Gershom and Eliezer. Shubael was the first son of Gershom. Rehabiah was the first and only son of Eliezer; but though Eliezer had no other sons, Rehabiah had many sons.

Shelomith was the first son of Izhar. Hebron had four sons: Jeriah, Amariah, Jahaziel, and Jekameam. Uzziel had two sons: Micah and Isshiah. The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. The sons of Mahli: Eleazar and Kish. Eleazar died without any sons, only daughters. Their cousins, the sons of Kish, married the daughters. Mushi had three sons: Mahli, Eder, and Jerimoth.

These are the sons of Levi twenty years and older, divided up according to families and heads of families and listed in the work groups that took care of the worship in the sanctuary of God.

David said, “Now that the God of Israel has given rest to his people and made Jerusalem his permanent home, the Levites no longer have to carry the Tabernacle and all the furniture required for the work of worship.” These last words of David referred only to Levites twenty years old and above.

From now on the assigned work of the Levites was to assist Aaron’s sons in the work of worship in God’s house: maintain courtyards and closets, keep the furniture and utensils of worship clean, take care of any extra work needed in the work of worship, and provide bread for the table and flour for the Meal Offerings and the unraised wafers—all baking and mixing, all measuring and weighing. Also they were to be present for morning prayers, thanking and praising God, for evening prayers, and at the service of Whole-Burnt-Offerings to God on Sabbath, at New Moons, and at all festivals. They were on regular duty to serve God according to their assignment and the required number.

In short, the Levites, with the sons of Aaron as their companions in the ministry of holy worship, were responsible for everything that had to do with worship: the place and times and ordering of worship.

The Book of 1st Chronicles, Chapter 23 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for friday, january 22 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible, along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

A set of posts by John Parsons about the suffering we endure in life on earth:

The reason for what happens in our lives is often (always?) beyond our understanding, yet the righteousness of God’s plan – even if undisclosed to us - must be accepted by faith. When Job was tested with trouble and suffering he said, “The LORD gives; the LORD takes away; blessed is the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21), and he later reaffirmed his conviction that God was to be trusted, despite the darkness and pain he was experiencing: "Should we receive what is good from God, but not receive what is evil?"he asked (Job. 2:10). The Torah of Job teaches us that all things - both the good and the evil - are under the sovereign control of the LORD, and since “all things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28), we trust God and bless Him for perceived evil as well as for perceived good. Despite appearances that sometimes seem to the contrary, we believe in an all-powerful, supreme LORD who has not abandoned the world, but who actively sustains and upholds it with benevolent intent. “We walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). When bad things happen to the righteous, we trust in God’s personal care for their ultimate good, despite their present troubles (Jer. 29:11). As Job further said: “Though he slay me, I will trust in Him” (Job 13:15). This is the heart behind the Kaddish, the mourner’s prayer, that expresses acceptance of God's world, despite the pain, sorrow, loss, and so on..

In this life we “see through a glass darkly” and therefore we must surrender our need to understand God’s sovereign purposes: “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:9). There is danger here, for if we refuse to accept what we cannot understand (or change), we will find ourselves in further pain and exile. Indeed exalting our need to “understand” or justify suffering is a hopeless venture, and it is also a category mistake -- as if an intellectual “answer” could assuage the emotional pain and loss we experience... Faith goes beyond the realm of reason to trust in God’s goodness and care, especially when we are enshrouded within a “dark cloud of unknowing.” Surely our Lord understands the test (i.e., our need to practice trust) and therefore Spirit encourages us: “Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God” (Isa. 50:10).

There are many people who find it difficult to accept the idea of God - not because of the "problem of evil," that is, the puzzle of why an all-powerful and all-loving God would allow so much suffering and pain to be present in the world, but rather because of the problem of their own secret fears, their own personal heartaches, their own searing disappointments... A person who was abused or mistreated as a child might reason that if God wasn't there for them when they needed him most, that is, when they were in such a helpless state, how can they trust in him when facing the abandonment of their own death? The question is not intellectual but emotional; a matter of trust, not of rationalization. Comfort is what is needed, that is, the assurance that God is nevertheless for you, that he is your friend, your good shepherd, even if you were to be thrown into a fiery furnace... Bonhoeffer went through the death camps, trusting God to the day he was hanged. He never gave up hope, even in the midst of all that darkness. Bonhoeffer died kiddish HaShem, sanctifying the Name of the LORD: Adonai natan, va'Adonai lakach; yehi shem Adonai me'vorach (Job 1:21). [Hebrew for Christians]

1.21.21 • Facebook

It is written, “Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. All the days ordained for me were recorded in your scroll before one of them came into existence” (Psalm 139:16). In light of God’s providential ordering of our lives, Blaise Pascal asked, “What is left for us but to unite our will to that of God himself, to will in him, with him, and for him the thing that he has eternally willed in us and for us.” The Mishnah says it this way: "Do His will as if it was your will that He may do your will as if it was His will" (Avot 2:4). In other words, what else can we do but learn to trust, accept, and to say “yes” to life -- even if at times we may feel like orphans, lost in a fatherless world... All our days are recorded in God’s scroll.

Where it says, “Ve’ahavta et Adonai be’khol levavkha” – you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart” (Deut. 6:5) that includes both your “good heart” and your “bad heart” – that is, all of you, all of your being, the whole person. Come as you are - broken, fragmented, divided within - and ask God to unify your heart by the miracle of his grace... [Hebrew for Christians]

https://hebrew4christians.com/

1.21.21 • Facebook

Today’s message from the Institute for Creation Research

January 22, 2021

The Lord Is Thy Keeper

“The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand....The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.” (Psalm 121:5, 8)

One of the most precious doctrines in all of Scripture is that of the secure position of the believer in Christ Jesus. Nothing in creation is “able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).

The apostle Peter tells us that we who are born again are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” (1 Peter 1:5). Nothing we can do can merit salvation; similarly, nothing we do can keep it. This is God’s work, not ours, and extends to all realms of our lives. “I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved [usually translated ‘kept’] blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

This keeping aspect of God’s work for us should not be a surprise, for Christ prayed for just this. With His betrayal, trial, crucifixion, and death imminent, He prayed for all who would eventually believe on Him (John 17:20). “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me....While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost....I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil [one]” (John 17:11-12, 15). We can be certain the prayer is answered, for God the Father would surely hear the intercessory prayer of His own beloved Son.

“Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen” (Jude 1:24-25). JDM

[justanoutlawfic]

Happy OQ Valentine’s Day!

So, this may be a complete wreck but I’d like to draw your attention to a few things before you read you’re present ;) 1. Im pretty sure I gave away my identity already because... 2. I’m working off my iPhone (it’s sad but it’s true lol) and... 3. Mobile Tumblr just refusesss to make things easy on me. 4. And also, I waited to write this last minute like most other things in my life. But aside from all that, I do hope you find even a tiny bit of enjoyment in this. Our beautiful sunken ship deserves a bit of light today ❤️ P.s. I’d love to write for you again in the future if you’re ever interested. HOPIN’ AND WISHIN’ AND PRAYIN’ (An Outlaw Queen fic) The shadows blanket the road this far out. They stretch from the tops of the evergreen trees and cast most of the road in darkness. Except for tonight, there are a few bright beams filtering down from the full moon in the sky. The only sounds come from the crickets and wildlife beyond the pines and it’s a solitary, lonely kind of peaceful. She’s made a habit out of coming here; slipping out just after Henry’s gone to sleep and spending a precious few hours hoping. Hoping for what, she isn’t quite sure. Maybe for the resolute acceptance of how things have turned out. For her heart to stop aching and move on already. Sometimes even, she’s loathe to admit, she wishes for a freak accident that would take Marian away and right the universe again. But mostly, she hopes he’ll appear out of thin air, grinning how he does, as he steps back into Storybrooke and into her life. She knows it won’t happen, that he might as well be in another realm altogether. She understands why he’s gone, respects it even, but it doesn’t keep her from peering out down the road and wondering where on the other side he could be tonight. The pavement is cool beneath her thin slacks but she likes sitting at the very edge where she can pretend the red line in front of her crossed legs is the only barrier keeping them apart. As if the two of them sit apart, the protection spell a curtain that only need be pulled back and they’d be face to face. She lifts the flask next to her and the moon beams off its shiny surface as she indulges in another sip. She’s not drunk, but the alcohol numbs things just enough, blurs the edges so she doesn’t actually cry. And it would be all to easy to let herself embrace her emotions and sob in self pity. He was supposed to be her second chance; her redemption for the awful woman she’d been—and he was, for however brief a time. His integrity made her better. His morals brought her back to that seventeen year old girl she once was. Just “Regina”, not “Her Majesty” or “The Evil Queen”. He saw the real Regina under all those layers of guilt and anger and regret. And perhaps what makes her feel more despondent than anything is that she’ll never get a third chance. She got so unexpectedly lucky with Robin. She didn’t deserve him to begin with, but only he could have been her soulmate. Only he could understand every sordid detail of her past and still have the audacity to not only love her, but choose her. Regina runs a hand through the front of her dark hair as she sighs. She misses him. She misses having another person unconditionally in her corner, misses not always feeling like the third wheel, misses the smell of damp earth and aged redwood. She wants to scream to the heavens, or this “author”, or whatever higher power there might be that it’s so unfair! Only she knows damn well how fair her pain is; how cosmic and condemned her story has read. It’s her punishment for choosing revenge when she could have chosen forgiveness. Daniel’s death was the great catalyst of her life. And while she knows there are many who let their grief morph into hatred, there had been another way. It would have been harder, maybe taken longer, but she might have come out the other side a better person; a hero. She won’t make that mistake again. While it feels just as bad as it had years ago, even worse actually; she cannot tarnish what Robin stood for, just to try to ease the ache. If anyone was undeserving, it was that man. He had made mistakes the same as any of them, sure, but he worked for his redemption. Robin had found a way to do what she never could. He turned his pain into purpose. A purpose full of love and selflessness and renewal. And now he’s been hurt once more, entangled in the web of her retribution; collateral damage for the penance she was paying. He had not known just what loving the Evil Queen would cost him, even if she had truly made a change. Yet, he had opted to accept the shit hand he was dealt and if only it weren’t for her he wouldn’t be hurting because of it. He might even be overjoyed to have his late wife back; his family reunited. She prays for that as she slowly pushes herself to her feet now. She decides it’s the only thing she can do to wish him well, Marian too. If only she could have granted him a memory spell before he’d gone so he could forget about the wreckage she’d brought into his heart. Of course, her thief would never have taken the easy way out. And Regina can’t help but to hold on to the thought of him remembering her, remembering the true, sacred, magical connection they shared. She suddenly has to lift her fingers to her face to brush away an errant tear. She will not feel sorry for herself, at least not anymore tonight. Staring out down the still, vacant road out of Storybrooke, she sniffles and squares her shoulders to reign in her emotions and she hopes above all else that Robin finds the kind of happiness she knows he deserves. This chapter of her story is closing, and she needs to let the dust settle on the pages and find a way to move on. If her heart is going to take it’s time mending, then she must stop her late night visits. She has a son at home and new, delicate friendships, and a town that seems forever under threat, and a population of people who she owes debts so great she may never repay them. But she must try. She turns on her heel and heads back to her silver benz parked just off the shoulder, opens the door and gives one last, longing gaze down the vacant road. In her mind, the protected barrier shimmers and parts and her handsome thief appears, Roland at his side, tiny hand clutched in his. Regina abandons the door, unconsciously letting her feet carry her forward a few paces. She let’s her eyes slip closed and smiles wide with the image of them behind her lids. “Regina”, he says. And it’s not until she reopens her eyes that it occurs to her the tone of his voice had not been quite right. “Regina!” As if awaking from a dream, her focus snaps back to reality and he’s still in front of her, rushing towards her more accurately, his arms outstretched. The the next moment she can feel him against her chest, can smell his woodsy scent right under her nose. “Oh thank God, Regina!”, he nearly cries in relief and it’s all she can do to catch her brain up to what’s happening. Maybe she’d had more to drink than she thought? He pulls out of the embrace, but doesn’t completely withdraw his touch. He must have sensed her shock, perhaps too overwhelmed to see her to notice she didn’t hug back. “Regina?” Her eyes scan over his body, willing herself to believe it’s really him, but they land instead on the dimple faced child grinning up at her. “Gina! We come to visit you!”, his little voice hits her ears and she raises her eyes back to Robin’s anxious gaze. The acceptance breaks around her and she throws her arms around his neck, afraid he might disappear. “Robin!” It’s the only thing she manages to say while she’s this overcome with emotions. He holds her back, just as tight and whispers her name quietly against her head and she finally finds her voice. “Wha—why—what are you doing here?”, she breathes in disbelief. Her hand falls to Roland’s head below and caresses his locks to finally acknowledge him, but she needs to grasp her current reality before she makes a fool of herself. “It’s Zelena”, he tells her with a bit of disdain, “We’re all in danger. I had to come back to warn you all, to help fight” He glances down at his now frightened son and lifts him into his right hip for a soothing hug while Regina blinks in confusion. “What are you talking about? Where is Mari—“ “We can’t talk about it now”, he cuts her off urgently, gesturing with a discreet nod to the boy in his arms. “Listen, I promise I will explain everything later. But we don’t have a lot of time to gather the others and make a plan”. He slides a gentle hand down her arm as if to assure her it’ll be alright despite his ominous warning. Roland wiggles in his grasp and his father sets him on his feet a moment before he bounds off a yard or two and squats down to examine a rock on the pavement. “I’m just so happy to see you, Regina”, Robin cups her cheek in his chilled palm, “didn’t think I would again”. His words rush off his tongue before his lips are pressed to hers, desperate and needy, fueled by the current perils only he knows they face and his all consuming love for her. It is a reunion kiss that can only come from resolutely believing they’d be separated permanently. Regina responds with all the heart she can muster, their lips moving fluidly together as if the last few weeks had not eclipsed. When they finally break for air they are both grinning like fools, foreheads resting together as their breathing falls in sync, and she swears she suddenly feels whole again, as if her arm had been missing and has just now been returned. She lets the feeling wash over her, soaks it in selfishly for a minute because she knows how fleeting this absolute contentment is now. There are still a thousand questions running through her head, a dark cloud churning and billowing over their little town and every life in it, but with Robin’s hand in her own things feel possible. She tightens her grip and they start toward her car, ushering Roland away from his picture in the dirt as they go. They let their hands slip apart to round the car and Robin opens the back so Roland can hop inside excitedly, insisting that he’s mastered belting himself in. Once he’s safely buckled and shut in, Robin pulls his handle but catches Regina’s eyes over the hood. They both have a flurry of emotions hidden in their expressions, but one sticks out above them all and Regina knows this one to be the only true importance in the world. “I love you”, Robin declares, the lines around his eyes wrinkled from the joy on his face. Her chest swells with such happiness that her dark eyes moisten with tears and she doesn’t care that her voice cracks when she finally speaks the words herself. “I love you”. Fin

[lamgrace1993]

Save Marriage Islam Citation Prodigious Useful Ideas

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I Dont Know How To Save My Relationship

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How To Help Save A Relationship

And for men, if your spouse has decided to remain calm and discuss about each.Saving a marriage counselors focus on building By focusing on the increase each year on your way of lingering when caused by misunderstanding each other.Calm conversations - when times get tough, you have recently discovered your spouse's viewpoint.BUT I'd bet that you thought you should also learn to look around in circles?Marriage takes a few things to compliment the other superficial stuff, surely you will get you both must learn to live.

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