#I felt lonely living on my own in the middle of nowhere

[ladyvandaele]

22 was my favourite year. That was when Strange Magic came out and I was finally living in my own house in the country. My brother had his own place too he had a great gf who was so beautiful and hot she took me to see 50 Shades of Gray and we loved it she was so sweet and such a good friend. Then my brother broke up with her (wtf) and now he only dates bitches who hate me. I miss Erin 😭

[sugoi-and-spice]

perfect, just perfect...

Serial Killer!Dabi x Reader x Serial Killer!Shigaraki

Summary: In which Dabi and Tomura Shigaraki are women-targeting serial killers and do what serial killers do. That’s it. That’s the fic.

CW: Quirkless!AU, Serial Killers/Slashers!AU, Explicit Smut, Non-Con/Rape, Kidnapping, Physical Abuse, Rough Sex, Asphyxiation, Mysoginy, Dead Dove: Do Not FUCKING Eat

A/N: Hey,, remember when I was gonna do a Halloween AU series? Neither do I!! Anyway, here's my first entry in my own event - out of order!! Enjoyyyy. (or not, this one's pretty gnarly ngl lol)

Cross-Posted on AO3

“P-Please… Stop, please…”

A smack. A loud one. Sounded like it was right across the face, and Dabi wouldn’t doubt if it was. Shigaraki really liked to mess up the face.

“Oh come on, you can beg better than that.”

“N-No, I— I…”

“No no — I know you can. You just were begging— begging fucking amazing too. Come on. Do it, you worthless slut.”

Dabi rolled his eyes, taking a drag from his cigarette as he stood watch outside the reconstructed Toyota Hiace they made their base of operations. One they’d gutted the seats out of to make room for a full-size mattress and some metal grating dividing the front seats from the back. 

A killing machine.

They parked it outside the city, in an endless valley of nature only ever occupied by a few off the grid campers. Ones that wouldn’t be suspicious of a lone van and two men in the middle of nowhere. They were also ones who typically had very few connections back home.

Who nobody would miss if they saw too much.

“Oi— I’m talking to you, slut! Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

Jesus, this must’ve been the thirtieth time that Shigaraki called her a slut this session. How uncreative could one demented incel be? He’d kind of expected more from the bastard…

Truth be told, he didn’t particularly like his partner in crime. They weren’t friends, they were barely even acquaintances. But they were kindred spirits. Two particularly violent young men who’d met on a particularly violent darknet forum about women.

And the inhumane positions they’d love to put them in.

Of course, just because they both lived for the end result, didn’t mean that they agreed on the journey there. 

Shigaraki was a raging misogynist and by-the-book incel. He despised women, wanted to take revenge on them for everything he felt they did wrong to him. He wanted to make them bleed because he wanted to make them hurt. Because he was full of anger and disgust and hate. 

Dabi was the opposite. He loved women. The unique beauty of every single one, the range of emotions they showed in their darkest, most desperate moments. Emotions he himself was never allowed to show. Ugh, the euphoria of it all. He loved women so much he wanted to see every part of them.

Including their insides.

“Come on you ugly fuck!” Shigaraki snapped from inside the van, “Scream! It’s all you’re fucking good for!”

…Truth be told, Dabi wasn’t sure why exactly he’d partnered up with Shigaraki of all people. He’d been looking for a co-pilot for this sick and twisted little endeavor of his for a while, and there had been many others in the forums who probably would’ve been better fits personality-wise, who seemed more agreeable. Guys who weren’t so picky about the girls they picked, who didn’t grumble and gripe when it came time to finally cleaning up their mess, who didn’t use the “standing watch” excuse when it came to carrying the bodies to the disposal spots. 

Who didn’t put their disgusting fucking feet on his dashboard…

That being said, while they both lived almost exclusively on the other’s last nerve, they also had a strange, almost psychic symbiosis. They balanced each other out. Dabi was emotional and passionate, often getting over-excited by the next prospective victim, moved so intensely by his passion upon seeing a new girl walking down the street or sitting at the bar that he wanted to grab them right there and then. Shigaraki on the other hand was meticulous and paranoid, holding him back until he was absolutely sure that they wouldn’t get caught. 

He kept them careful at the beginning of the kill. 

Whereas Dabi, who truly believed that he held a lot of deep respect for the women they abducted, wanted to be careful with their bodies after the fact. Shigaraki grew bored easily and completely. He often wanted to just dump the bodies down a valley or in a back alley and move onto the next one. A broken toy wasn’t worth another second in his mind. But Dabi wanted better for the girls. He wanted them to have a proper burial. Deep, deep in the ground where nobody else could ever find them. 

He kept them careful at the end of the kill.

Dabi exhaled a long stream of smoke as he considered where their latest little sylph would be buried. They had passed a grove of what looked like magnificent spider lilies on the way out of town.

Maybe he was thinking too much into all this, he kind of had to whenever it was Shigaraki’s turn. The brutish way in which he handled and defiled these girls, it always made Dabi contemplate just what redeeming factor he had ever seen in the guy. 

And then he’d hear them, the screams Shigaraki managed to rip out of their victims. Screams that only came from a level of brutality Dabi would never be able to inflict himself. They were so unique, so beautiful, so perfect . And they were sounds that he’d never be able to hear if it weren’t for Shigaraki.

Truthfully, that alone was worth the endless collection of crushed Monster cans that littered the floor of his van.

It had gotten pretty quiet in there now. The screams, the pleading, even the choked little sobs of self-pity, all muted to nothing. There was only the creaking of tired mattress springs, Shigaraki’s heavy breathing and grunting, and the occasional sound of a slap followed by irritated mumbling. Yeah, she was losing all will to fight. Which meant it was just about time for—

“Oi,” Shigaraki snapped as if on cue, throwing the van door open, “She’s no fun anymore. You take her.”

Dabi took a long last drag of his cigarette, watching as Shigaraki climbed out and readjusted himself in his pants. His partner-in-crime gave him a weirded, disgusted look at the way he took his time.

“What’re you fucking staring at me for? You want me to off her or something?”

 Dabi waved him off, tossing his cigarette to the ground and stepping it out, “Nah, nah. I’m on it.”

“Hop to it then,” Shigaraki barked, crossing his arms and leaning against the passenger door of the van, “We’ve been here long enough already.”

“And who’s fault is that?” Dabi retorted as he stepped into the van.

Shigaraki whipped around, “Get bent!”

“I’m trying to,” Dabi threw right back, slamming the van door closed behind him.

He quickly pulled back his cool once he was inside. It really was amazing how quickly and effectively Shigaraki pissed him off. But he knew he needed to simmer it. He didn’t want to let his own anger and hate slip out too much in front of his newest precious angel. He’d hate to scare her off.

Dabi turned back to her with a small, but reassuring smile, “Hello.” 

Of course, she didn’t respond, didn’t even bother to look at him. 

She laid in more or less the same position he’d left her to Shigaraki in. Arms and legs pulled wide, cuffed to the rods mounted on each side of the van. Her once smooth and spotless skin was now swollen and purple, black and yellow in some places even, where Shigaraki had managed to break a rib and an ankle. Dry blood caked her nose and the corner of her mouth while fresh blood seeped onto the mattress out of recent scratches and cuts Shigaraki had inflicted in a last ditch effort to make her wail again.

None of that bothered him though, quite the opposite actually. He loved a roughed up woman, one at her most natural and vulnerable. It was the beauty that got him into this in the first place. No, what Dabi turned his nose up at was Shigaraki’s loads spilling out of her abused pussy, all onto her raw, reddened thighs and the crumpled tear-stained sheets. 

Ugh, see this is why he’d said no when Shigaraki asked if they should get an apartment together. The motherfucker never cleaned up after himself.

“P-Please…”

Dabi turned his attention back to her face, to her eyes, dull and lifeless, staring right through the back wall of the van.

“Just kill me already…”

Oh, this sweet thing, he thought, tilting his head at her sympathetically.

He climbed onto the mattress next to her then, resting a hand gently on her hip, careful not to put any pressure on the bruises littered there. She didn’t even flinch when he did it. She was that far gone.

“Kill you?” he asked, curiosity far from feigned.

“Aren’t you those serial killers that have been on the news lately? The ones that—” she couldn’t even finish. The fate that she knew of being too much to leave her throat.

“Huh. Are we now?” he said, mostly to himself as he had a real epiphany from those words. So they were serial killers, were they? 

Yeah, he could work with that…

She buried her head into the mattress, trying to muffle the dry sobs from ducts that had long gone barren.

“Please, if you’re gonna do it then just do it already! I can’t go on anymore! I can’t take it…”

He ran the back of his hand slowly, whisperingly down her cheek, “Talk to me beautiful. Tell me how I can make this better.”

This finally got something out of her. A snort of sick, stupid amusement, weak and wheezy.

“God, what fucking game are you two playing? Some sick good killer, bad killer shtick?”

Dabi smiled. She sure was spunky. Even now. What a lovely quality.

“No,” he breathed, dusting feather light kisses down her neck, her chest, that sweet, soft tummy… “No games.”

He buried his nose into the crux her thigh, reveling in the heat and tremble of her raw, abused thighs.

“W-What are you doing?!” she gasped, a whole new flavor of fear coating her voice.

“Just relax,” he purred, kissing a path all the way to her center, “I’m not gonna hurt you…”

She cried out as he licked up the length of her cunt, flicking the stud in his tongue against her clit playfully when he got there. She tried to move her hips away from him, still completely baffled and terrified by not knowing what he was going to do to her, but thanks to her restraints, the struggle only ended up pushing her hips closer to Dabi’s lips in a grind motion. A wanting motion. 

It spurred him on to pleasure her further as the delusion of her reciprocation had him falling utterly in love.

Shigarai’s spunk was still slipping out of her, heavy and salty on his tongue as he buried it deeper inside her, but that didn’t matter. Her own sweetness overpowered it, those resistant sobs overpowering all of his senses, sending him into a delirium of pleasure.

Fuck, how much he wanted to throw her legs up over his shoulders, coil his arms tight around her and devour her, but he resisted. He knew how raw and wounded she was, and all he wanted from her now was a fraction of the bliss that she was giving him.

“P-Please! I don’t— nngh! ”

Her sounds were brand new now — constant choked sobs of despair and self-hatred over the way her body reacted against her will. She was so raw and oversensitive from Shigaraki’s brutal treatment, Dabi’s own gentle, devoted ministrations had her ankles straining up painfully against her restraints as she came in mere minutes.

Dabi pulled away, a crooked, love-drunk smile on his face as he watched her trembling chest rise and fall, listened to the sweet serenade of her wheezing breaths.

He hummed happily as he pulled himself back up to her level. He cupped his hand gently along her cheek.

“You have a beautiful voice.”

She snapped back to him, anger tearing violently through her “afterglow”.

“ Fuck you .” she quite literally spat, a newfound fire within her that set his own body ablaze.

Dabi brought a thumb to his cheek, stroking the spit she’d hurled at him to the corner of his own mouth. His tongue reached to meet it, and he shuddered as both of her tastes mingled on his palate.

Fuck, he couldn’t hold back any longer. He quickly back onto his haunches, trying to not let his desperation to be inside her rush or roughen his movements. He still wanted her to enjoy this, but it was taking every bit of self-control he could muster not to blow his load over the sound of her voice alone.

“W-Wait!” she yelped out, as she felt him line himself up at her entrance, “You said you wouldn’t hurt me!”

“I won’t sweetheart,” he breathed, easing his cockhead in slowly, “I promise this won’t hurt.”

“But it does! You doing this now— you’re hurting me!”

He groaned as her heat completely engulfed him. Between the mix of her own arousal and Shigaraki’s, and the desperate pulsing of her insides, post-orgasm, he barely even had to push his hips. 

“There’s no need to lie now, your body’s completely giving you away,” he grinned, dropping his forehead to rest against hers, “Your pussy is sucking me right in.”

She choked out a sob as he rocked out of her just barely, then buried himself again, somehow deeper than before.

“ Fuck —” he groaned, “I couldn’t pull out if I tried. Your body just wants me that bad. Doesn’t it baby?”

She tried to stifle a moan as his soft yet sturdy thrusts hit that perfect angle inside of her. She managed to keep the pleasure of the sound locked in the base of her throat, allowing out only a stilted and very unladylike grunt in its place.

The horrid little sound didn’t put Dabi off in the slightest though. If anything, it endeared him. He smiled, almost giddily, as he watched that strain and struggle coarse through her. She really was perfect no matter what she did, wasn’t she?

They all were, after all.

“How does it feel, sweetheart?” he urged her again between thrusts, “Do you like it like this? Does it feel good?”

“N-No, it doesn’t…” she whimpered out hoarsely, that momentary fire from before quickly extinguishing as she felt her dignity once again slipping away “Just stop…”

Dabi’s brows pinched disappointedly, hips slowing to a near-stop. 

“You don’t like it like this? Soft and sweet?”

She looked back up at him, confusion creasing her own cute little face.

His hand on her hip started to tighten, nails digging deliberately into the meat of her hip, “Maybe then you liked Shigaraki’s way better…”

Her eyes widened.

“Well I can certainly do that too,” he breathed, hip suddenly snapping painfully into her.

“N-No!” she yelped, “No, please I—!” she squeezed her eyes closed tight, trying to hold back her tears, as a particularly rough thrust jostled her broken rib painfully, “I want it soft! It felt so good what you were doing before! Please! ”

“Are you sure?” Dabi tilted his head, pounding hips having yet to slow, “Don’t just say that because you think it’s what I want. This is supposed to be good for the both of us.”

“I-I’m not! Really, I mean it! I want it soft, please!” she cried out, “Please! Fuck me soft, g-gentle! Just—!”

His hips finally eased to a soft roll.

“...yeah?”

She opened her eyes then, and instantly her blood ran cold. His voice was soft and romantic, he’d gotten that part of his act down to a science, but clearly he hadn’t quite figured out how to keep that sadistic fervor from his face. 

His eyes were wide, pupils blown. He was clearly trying to keep his smile even and comforting, but he couldn’t fight the way those corners twitched higher and higher, teeth grinding and showing through harder and clearer. 

Just a horrible face. 

This man was clearly no more a voice of reason than his more blatantly violent partner outside. He too was clearly deranged, a powder keg. Completely unpredictable.

And that made him a thousand times scarier.

Dabi leaned in closer to her, fighting to keep the manic tremble from his voice, “You want me to make love to you?” 

She gulped hard, desperate to keep the absolute terror from her voice, “Y-Yes. Please… M-Make love to me…”

He stared down at her for a long moment, utterly reveling in those words long enough for her to start panicking that maybe she’d said the wrong thing. 

But thankfully — god, she couldn’t believe she was thinking that — they were exactly the words he wanted to hear. He dropped his head down into her chest, groaning unabashedly as he began to hump into her again, slower for sure, but also deeper. With his entire body and being.

“Fuck, yeah… Yeah baby. Anything you want. I’ll do anything you fucking want…”

She choked out a joyless laugh at that. Anything she wanted, huh? What a fucking joke.

“You’re so good, fuck— perfect . And you too— it’s good for you? Come on tell me baby. I wanna hear how good I make you feel—”

“Uh-huh, it’s good…” she said flatly as she slipped into dissociation.

She stared up at the same tear in the headliner she’d tried to focus on by the end of Shigaraki’s torture, thinking about how oddly shaped it was. Those kinds of tears were usually outright holes, maybe with a flap of fabric hanging off of it. Or maybe it’d be just a little tear, a small line practically unnoticeable in the dim light of this van. But this one was different. Long and unnatural, it almost looked like a big Frankenstein surgical stitch. Or like the dermal piercings running up her captor’s cheeks—

Fuck. Her eyes fell back on her captors flushed, blissed out face. The electric blue of his eyes, the babbling growls spilling from his lips. She was having a much harder time tuning the pleasure out with this man than she’d had tuning out the pain with the previous one, and she didn’t know why.

Maybe it was because he was kind of her type. That’s exactly what she’d thought when he leaned out of the car window to ask her for directions after all. Watching him move over her like this, leaning down to catch her lips passionately with his own more frequently as time went on she couldn’t help but picture an alternate universe. 

One where he really had been asking for directions to the beach. Where he’d been alone in his car rather than having a freak friend in the back, lying in wait. And where she’d been standing on the well-trafficked main street just a couple blocks down instead of in front of the empty alleyway she’d been smoking a blunt in when he’d stopped. 

A universe where they’d flirted and hit it off and exchanged phone numbers and eventually he’d taken her on a date rather than just taken her. Where these sweet nothings and pleasurable rolls of his hips were accompanied with champagne and room service rather than rope and broken bones.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she pictured it all, what a wonderful life this could’ve been.

“Shhh, shh, shhh,” he cooed, “It’s okay. You’re so perfect, it’s okay…”

But that only caused her to sob harder, face reddening voice straining as she wailed uncontrollably. She didn’t even notice Dabi’s hand slipping up along her body and up to the base of her neck.

His thumb settled snug into that soft, sensitive dip of her throat.

God, she was crying so hard now, she couldn’t breathe.

And then he started to squeeze.

Wait, no, really. She couldn’t fucking breathe —!

She gasped out suddenly, arms instinctually shooting forward to try and force his hand off, but she was once again denied by her restraints. She quickly shifted gears, thrashing her body up and down wildly. And for a moment, she did loosen his grip.

But then he brought his second hand to her throat, pushing her deeper into the mattress.

“Perfect,” he growled through the steady snapping of his hips, “So fucking perfect…”

Her throat bobbed and begged as he constricted his hands tighter, getting lost in the song of her voice getting steadily higher, weaker, until she couldn’t form a word at all, could only gurgle and croak desperately. 

“Oh yeah, just like that. Be good for me baby,” he groaned, “Be good…”

He couldn’t say that this was the best part of these excursions, he savored every moment of it after all. 

…But there was something particularly special about these last few moments. 

It was so rare that anybody actually got to witness them, let alone experience them with their own hands — this perfect feeling of her body both tightening and going pliant around him, stiff and spasming, not to mention the view of it all that sent him barrelling frantically towards his release.

Fuck, she was so pretty! The way her drool spilled out her mouth, all gurgled and frothy. That lovely shade of blue she was starting to turn. The rabid fear that filled those eyes before they started to roll back — fuck even the pink undersides of her eyes were cute. He wondered what the backs of them, the optic nerves, looked like. He was sure they’d be adorable. 

He couldn’t wait to see.

[goddessesofeverything]

Your Song Fills the Empty Cracks in My Bones

Skully J. Graves x GN!Reader/Yuu

Yeah...The New Guy got to me...

If you'd prefer to read it on AO3, it's there too :3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/59525989

Halloween Town was alight with fright and mischief as its denizens eagerly buzzed around preparing for their cherished holiday. As the town’s band prepared a jaunty tune to liven up the spirit, they paused seeing a certain newcomer swiftly make their way right toward them. A jittery gait to his step, they watched him as he halted just a couple feet away. 

“Esteemed musicians of Halloween Town!” Skully J. Graves greeted with a bow. He pushed his glasses back up his nose as he rose. “So sorry to trouble you in the middle of your work, but might I inquire if you happened to spot one of the lovely dears that accompanied me pass by this way?”

The musicians looked to each other, not quite sure how to answer. 

“Ah, pardon me. I meant the one usually accompanied by the small cat.”

“Ohh…” the musicians nodded in understanding then. “Your little friend went that way,” the saxophonist jabbed a thumb to the direction of the town’s entrance gate. 

“Thank you!” They curiously watch as Skully bowed again, before speeding away to the gate. Through his glove, he lightly bit his nail as he waited for the gatekeeper to let him out of town. The musicians commenced their performance after he left. 

“To think of just walking out at such a critical time,” Skully muttered. “What could they possibly be doing…!”

Skully overheard his traveling companions mention that their “Ramshackle Prefect” was nowhere to be found after completing some of their given tasks. There’s still so much to be done, though! They couldn’t just simply up and flit away when Halloween was only days away. He made it his own mission to find the Prefect and hurry them straight back. I mean, it also wouldn’t do to wander off alone, of course. 

As he made it to the graveyard by Spiral Mountain, Skully began to hear something odd carried through the wind. At first, he thought he somehow heard the musicians back in town. But, no. It sounded like someone singing. 

Lala…lalaa…lalalalala…

Was it the screaming pumpkins? As he got closer to the mountain, the bespectacled boy realized someone was standing at its peak. What were they doing…

Ah. He could hear it more clearly now. The figure on the mountain was singing. He did not hear any lyrics. The tune carried vocally—melodic and haunting. 

He could see now. The Prefect was alone, vocalizing next to the moon. 

Perfect. Now he just needed to call to them, and bring them back to town. Yet, as Skully tried to make his way to do so, something itched at him. Something was against him doing it. He watched the Prefect be completely absorbed in their own world. Their voice carried out in a soft vibrato, and produced a sweet, yet melancholic tune. It was quite beautiful. 

…It couldn’t hurt to let the Prefect finish. 

Skully didn’t consider how awkward he must look watching from below. He couldn’t really care. Not when he was enraptured by this impromptu performance. 

The Prefect’s silhouette was captured so enchantingly under the moonlight. Like a shadow on the moon taking the form of a lone, dark ghoul. Lamenting its sorrows to the piercing night. It only added to their loveliness. All the while, their voice carried through the graveyard, sharing its woes to the beyond. Skully, though, was the only one with the honor of being a living, breathing soul among them. Captured by all the Prefect gave them. 

Yet, it was over before it even began. With a final note, the Prefect had already ended their song. Skully sighed in bliss as the proverbial curtains drew to a close. But, that felt much too fast! Perhaps he could request another…

Both Skully and the Prefect were snapped out of their trance with the familiar bark of a certain ghost dog. 

Adrenaline kicked into Skully, and he dove behind a gravestone large enough to hide his tall figure. Zero whooshed past him, barking for the Prefect’s attention as he floated up the mountain. 

“Hello, Zero!” the Prefect cheerfully greeted the ghost dog. Skully peeked from behind the grave to continue watching the two. Zero was enthusiastically nuzzling into their affectionate pats. “What brings you here?”

“Bark bark!” Zero gestured his head toward the town. 

“Oh, are people looking for me?”

“Bark!” Zero nudged at the Prefect. 

“Okay, okay, boy!” They spared one last glance to the moon, before a small sigh escaped them. “Guess I gotta go back now…?” 

The Spiral Mountain unfurled itself so that the Prefect could walk down. With a kind smile, they thanked the animated mountain, and quickly made their way down the mountain. Skully shied away into the shadow of the gravestone, watching on as the Prefect followed Zero back to town. 

As the duo trotted away, Skully let out the breath he subconsciously held onto. Leaning back against the gravestone, he grasped at his chest, feeling his heart flutter in a flurry of emotions. 

Could it be…

He just emulated his beloved idol! To be captivated by the sweet, solemn music as the one who’s captured your heart serenaded you atop the Spiral Mountain…It’s just like the stories said! Skully could feel his face warm in elated joy. His hands made their way to cover his cheeks, and he lightly bounced in place like a giddy school girl. Truly, his lovely dear was a blessing—inadvertently granting him a chance at recreating such an iconic moment in his own story. Does that mean he was the esteemed Sally to the Prefect’s Pumpkin King? Or was it the other way around?

Doesn’t matter!

Rejuvenated by his self-affirmations, Skully readjusted his glasses and suit, and began a cheerful gait back to town himself. Plucking a dark rose from a lone bush on the way. He had to thank that sweet, lovely dear for the performance of a lifetime, after all. One he so gladly was a part of, whether they knew it or not. 

It must’ve simply been meant to be. 

[1427]

i love you (always forever) pt.1

Daryl Dixon x sister!OFC

Summary: In the winter of ‘95 Daddy died. Leaving Lady to finish up her senior year in high school, and Daryl to brood over when to sell the house. The summer of ‘96 is the first time Lady feels alive. Daryl wants to give her one last summer before she has to grow up for real.

He gave her anything she asked for that summer.

Setting: Doublewide on some lone property in the middle of the woods, Georgia. Summer 1996

Warnings: INCEST (like it's the whole thing), virgin!oc, drug use (a joint), underage drinking, TENSION, poorly written SMUT, masturbation (f), lite!somno, oral (m receiving), some leering (??); most of the smut will be in part two. 

Word Count: 6.1k

A/n: INCEST I'll say it again. if it's not your thing, or can’t ever be your thing, DON’T READ IT. 

I didn't write it. I simply lived it in my head and documented (I wrote it but it felt like I didn't have a choice). 

Lady, Daryl calls her Lay, Bug

She calls him Bub, Bubba

// part 2 //

MDNI 18+ 

Wind chimes. Soft like the breeze. The heat of the Georgia in June. Daddy died this past winter, and Lady’d never had a summer feel so much like a hug. Finally able to really breathe again. Like a little kid. Magic around every corner. She swore sometimes, when she looked out the window in the dead of night, that she could see the faeries dancing out back in the woods. For a few years they'd gone, but this year they were back again.

Just her and Daryl (and the deer, and the squirrels, and the mice, and obviously the mosquitos, and sometimes the faeries); Like it shoulda always been. Like it always kinda was. After Merle left and all. Got older, moved out. Daryl stayed, though. Past his 18th birthday, and a few more after that. Didn’t wanna leave Lady all by herself with their old man. Couldn’t. 

Now he couldn’t really leave her alone in the house, even though she’d turned 18 last fall. Doesn’t even cross his mind. 

Lady’s finally done with school for good unless she decides she wants to go to college. First one in the whole damn family and no one but Daryl was there to see it.  Daryl quit his job as soon as Daddy died. Even if Daddy didn't have a few dollars in his bank account he didn’t know about, Lady figures he would have anyway. 

Daryl thought about selling the house but… not yet. 

He knew he was putting a pause on his life for this summer with Lady, but his whole life had been on pause til now anyway. Knows that when it’s over, it’s all over. Her whole childhood, their whole upbringing. Their dad dyin’ was just the bow ontop to seal the deal. They’d both think of it as the end. For the rest of her life, Lay’ll know this is when she had to grow up for real. So Daryl wouldn’t sell the house until Lady had her last summer as a kid with nothin’ to worry about. 

The heat was starting to get unbearable. 

“Lay!” Daryl yells, standing above a bed she'd made up in the living room. Dad had always kept the one lone air conditioner in his room, in front of the tv, in front of the recliner, in front of the bed. Lady had the idea to hang sheets on the doors to the living room and make a bed on the floor big enough for both of them to sleep in. She forgot the pillows, though, and now she was nowhere to be found. 

Daryl put down the tools he’d been using to fix the a/c to the window, pushing past the pink floral sheet between the living room and the hall toward the bedrooms, “Lay!” He quickly paces the double wide but she’s no where. 

Left a towel on her bed though, so Daryl’s got a good guess where she went. Swimmin’. 

It’s about a half miles walk, so it’s pretty far to just up and leave like that without saying anything, but Lady did it all the time. Like the creek was her own personal bathtub. Daryl’s not annoyed, not really. But he walks the half mile like he is anyway. Why couldn’t she just let him know? Because then he wouldn’t have to make sure this is where she went. And he wouldn’t have to bring her the towel she forgot. 

Daryl walks down and sure enough Lady’s shoulder deep in the muddy creek water, her clothes and shoes all bundled up on the dirt a few feet in front of him. She’s faced away, and at first doesn’t hear him come up. 

Lady tried to sneak away without being noticed to have a private moment. Like momma taught her. You’re allowed to touch yourself like that, but you can’t do it around other people. Momma said as long as you can be in private, it’s alright. 

Lady didn’t mean to forget her towel, but she almost assumed Daryl would find her anyway. She’d been fast though, always was. Was easy with the hormones. 18 and learning all new kinds of feelings. Merle always called her a late bloomer. Not being interested in boys until recently. She thought about the boys at school, and their plush lips on the soft skin of her shoulder, the protection in their arm wrapped around her waist, the butterfly light kiss of their eyelashes on her stomach. 

It didn’t take much for Lady to feel somethin’. Not in this heat, not with the breeze of freedom prickling every inch of her skin. 

Daryl can’t tell what she’s doing. All he sees is her shoulders barely moving in the lake, her head above the water and facing away from him. “Lay!” 

Daryl’s voice cascades through the air a few seconds after Lady, with a barely there mew, has her orgasm. Lady’s kisses with pleasure are soft, new, wanting. Like a light peck instead of a deep kiss. A soft mist instead of a thunderstorm. Lady only knew sweetness, even in her private moments. 

She’s beaming from ear to ear as she turns around to face him, making sure to keep her body covered by the water, “Bubba, what? I’m just swimmin’.” She already knew he was ready to be annoyed with her by his tone. 

“Yeah, uh-huh,” he nods, and smirks. Despite being annoyed he’s casual, “Thinkin’ maybe ya forgot som’n?” He throws the towel down ontop of her clothes and goes to stand behind a tree while she gets out of the water. 

Lady was always doing this. And Daryl was always following her with whatever thing she’d forgotten, or didn’t know she was gonna need. Daryl was always there. 

Full name Lady-Rae Cheryl Dixon. See momma wanted the name to rhyme with the boys but always said if she had a girl she was gonna name her Lady. Really liked that movie when she was a kid, didn’t matter it wasn’t a girls name. Didn’t matter to her what anyone thought. She thought it was sweet. And Lady was sweet. Could get away with probably anything if she wanted to, but she never even tried. Besides running around the woods naked, she didn’t find herself in much trouble. Sweet as honey. 

Daryl wasn’t sure how that was gonna work out in the real world. If she would get eaten up, or if she’d outshine everyone around her. He didn’t like to think about it. She didn’t belong out there. Not yet. Right now she’s naked in the woods, covering herself up just to be polite; right where she’s meant to be. Who she’s supposed to be. 

They make the walk back, Lady’s teeth chattering but she never complains. Barefoot like she grew the forest herself. She knew every inch. Daryl shuffled behind her, knowing the trail just as well, but letting her be the force she was. Skipping and stopping and stepping on her favorite parts as she went. He watched. 

Her towel small, and frayed on the ends. See through in spots. He tries to look away. He knows he should. But he can’t manage to stop himself. the way her tiny ass bounced as she walked, it was too lewd for him to avert his eyes. Like maybe if it wasn’t jiggling so much he’d have been able to stare at his feet or off into the woods, or at her bare shoulder or something, anything, else. 

But it was, just… her tight skin moving the fat of her ass back into place over and over, snapping against the sheer fabric of the towel, moving that too. Daryl keeps himself from leaning back to see more, to peak through and see the light between her legs. Wouldn’t do that. He’s not trying to sexualize her. What her ass is doing is right there in front of him? He tells himself it’s not his fault he’s looking. He’s seen her naked anyway, it’s not even a big deal. 

Getting caught up in shit that doesn’t matter, that’s what Daryl was good at. Getting stuck up in his own head and hung up on looking just barely a little too long at his sister. Merle would say it was no big deal, Daryl just needed to relax. He was making it weird by thinkin’ about it. 

He manages to look away, and to forget all about it.

💕 

Lady always assumes Daryls looking. Why wouldn't he look? Didn't mean nothin’. Boys always looked, wasn't a big deal unless they made it one. Unless someone made private thoughts public, with a purpose. Who cares who's lookin’? Lady doesn't. Never did. Why would she? How could she?

With Daryl for a brother, Lady never even got the chance to know what a bad touch might be. Never even heard of it. Maybe that's why she was such a late bloomer. Never even knew what she had down there until last summer when she met a boy who had a truck and talked like her brothers and he touched her through her pants and she ignited. 

Never saw the guy again. 

Never wanted to. Never needed to. She was alive and on fire and everything around her burned brighter for it. 

She was finding it hard to get comfortable in the bed she’d made. Still too hot even with the air conditioner on full blast. Daryl was about 3 feet away, a whole heap of comforter between them. “Get up” Lady’s voice a playful smirk. 

Daryl had been trying to fall asleep but got stuck staring at the ceiling fan. Trying to watch a single blade in its rotation. He stands up like she’d asked and watches as Lady lays the comforter out on top of the rest of the blankets she’d piled up, “if we’re not gonna use it.” She explains. 

Lady’s still got her light blue baby blanket that goes almost everywhere with her. Just as tattered and falling apart as the towel. Daryl never sleeps with a blanket anyway. Usually just passes out in his clothes, on his bed. Now he’d do the same thing here, in the living room. Hum of the a/c, chatter of the TV, the heat from Lady’s body - Daryl didn’t think he’d be able to fall asleep anyway. 

Well maybe. He did have a joint stashed in with his cigarettes that he’d been saving for sometime this week. So when lady gets up to grab herself an ice cream cone from the fridge, Daryl yells, “Lay, grab ma pack’a smokes.” 

Lady’s halfway to the living room but she turns back and grabs them from the kitchen counter for him. “You’re really gonna smoke in the fort?” 

“Fort, huh?” He grunts then smiles at her as she tosses the pack at him. 

“Yeah?” She looks around, elbowing the sheet hung behind her, “What else would you call it?” 

“Th’ livin’ room.” He’s not looking at her when he answers. Eyes and fingers fixed on the pack, fidgeting with the hinged top for a bit before pulling the joint out and putting it in his mouth. 

Lady stops complaining when she sees it’s not a cigarette, and takes her seat back down on the pallet. Laying on her stomach, up on her elbows, facing Daryl. Her ice cream cone had already started melting, her tongue now on a race with the liquid dripping down her hand. 

Daryl just watches her struggle, until she finally gets a hold on it. “Y’good, there, Bug?” 

“Shut up.” And she shoves him a little. She’s got strawberry icecream all over her cheeks and chin and Daryl wishes he took pictures because at this moment he needed one. He needed her to remember forever who she is right now. 

“Y’wanna hit?” He asks her like he asks her every time he smokes a joint in front of her. Which is often. And every time she says no, because it’s always no. Never wanted to, never really saw the point. Things were beautiful enough. And it reminded her of Merle, and the bad things he got up to. 

Her mind slowly has been changing about it, with Merle gone for so long now. And Daryl being so chill about it when he was about it. A lot of the kids in high school had been doing worse and Lady found herself wanting to say yes when Daryl asked her. 

But when she does, Daryl doesn’t believe her, “No fuckin’ way, Bug. Yer buggin’.” 

“Bubba, no I’m not. I been thinkin’ about it.” 

“Oh, ya have? What’chya been thinkin’ ‘bout it?” 

“Just that I kinda wanna try.” She sways on her elbows, licking at her ice cream, “I’m gonna eventually, right? Why not now?” 

She’s trying to keep herself calm, but she was more relaxed than she’d usually be when she thought about sayin’ yes. Maybe that’s why she’d finally said it. She was finally able to. Lady thinks that means she must be ready, if she’s not afraid to say she wants to try it. 

She remembers this moment for the rest of her life. 

Makes her feel brave, like she’ll always know if she’s ready for some new scary experience or not. If she can ask, she’s ready. 

He thinks about it for a second, but he doesn’t see where she’s wrong. She probably was gonna try it eventually, why not now? She was safe here, he knew it. She knew it. So he says, “Alrigh’, fine. But yer prolly gon’ jus’ get tired,” and passes the joint to her. Thinking she'd take a tiny hit, probably not even inhale, and wimp out.

Lady takes it delicately in her fingertips and brings it to her lips. She’d tried cigarettes before (and didn’t like them), so the motion wasn’t completely foreign. But everything about it felt new and different. It burned. She almost didn’t feel it until she exhaled. A cloud of smoke billowing out and surrounding the both of them. 

Daryl laughs and mutters, “Shit, Bug,” while Lady’s face falls. That was way more than she thought was supposed to come out. Way more than her little lungs were expecting or could take. Her hand shoots out to Daryl for him to take her half eaten ice cream cone as she turns into a rabid dog. 

A wild beast on all fours hacking up half her lung and Daryl’s laughing so hard he’s crying, taking the ice cream and the joint back from her as she seizes. 

She’ll be okay. He knows she will. And she’ll sleep amazing and she’ll be safe like she always is. Somethin’ in the air felt different there now. With everyone else gone. Like nothing could touch them. 

So even though Lady’s about to be as high as a girl could ever be, neither of them are worried it won’t be a good time. 

Just them in their fort. Way too old to be playing little kid games and way too young to be playing house. 

💕

Lady’s vision was fuzzy. Glittering and dancing and hazy, rainbow bursts of fizzy glowing sparkles. 

Lady was secretly afraid she was on fire. She stared at the TV but wondered to herself if it was possible that her lungs were embers that were slowly consuming her chest cavity. She could breathe now, it had been nearly an hour since she hit that joint, but she was sure that she was literally burning alive from the inside out. 

“Dar, do you think you can be burning inside your lungs? Like on fire? Is that how people spontaneously combust?” 

Daryl’s eyebrows shoot up, she’d been quiet for a while and he had been pretty sure that she’d fallen asleep. He had to think about her question. If he wasn’t also stoned he probably would have been able to tell her the answer was obviously no. Instead he says, “Don’t think so.” Which doesn’t really make her feel better. “I ain’t ever hearda it.” That does. Daryl’s hearda everything. 

Their voices are soft, the tv’s the only light in the room. Daryl looks over at Lady. Her bare legs disappearing under an old pair of pajama shorts, she’s definitely not on fire. Not the way she means. 

“Think yer good, Bug.” He reassured her before asking, “Need som’thin’?” 

Lady, sweet as ever, asks, “Tuck me in?” 

Daryl rolls his eyes but sits up anyway. Crawling the two steps toward her. He takes what he can of the stretchy old fabric and wraps it around her body. It’s not big enough, it was never gonna be. Daryl cracks a smile, Lady’s been laughing at his attempt. He pushes his fingers with the fabric around her, she’s laying straight as an arrow, blanket stretched to its limit tight against her body. 

Daryl isn’t paying attention to his fingers as they tuck the fabric under her thighs, or how tight it’s pulling against Lady’s breasts. Lady does. She took one look at him after she hit that joint and she hasn’t been able to sit right since. 

It’s the air, it’s the heat. It’s the sun, maybe something in the water at the creek? Its the pot. It’s gotta be the pot. It’s somethin’ that Lady doesn’t understand. That sometimes just being in proximity is enough. 

She felt brave. She wanted to skirt that line. The line itself moving, and blurry, and hard to make-out. She wanted to be touched. And she wanted Daryl to touch her. Not too much, just a little. Just enough to make her heart race. Just enough to kiss her sleep with something that felt like magic. 

Her pulse is pounding in her ears and down her throat as she looks at him up above her. She feels her blood burn in her palms, slowly falling away from her sides as the tight fabric comes loose from around her. 

Daryl’s lost in the same moment, just caught staring down at her, in a haze himself. Stuck in his head, romanticizing every moment of Lady’s last summer.  

“Kiss goodnight?” 

The words come from between them. Lady’s voice had spoken them but she’s certain it didn’t come from her mouth. 

Doesn’t matter. They’re in the air and Lady and Daryl both pretend that she doesn’t mean it in any way other than what a sister might say to a brother. 

Daryl leans down and just barely brushes his lips over hers. Soft and sweet, like he was leaning down and smelling a flower. It’s so brief, and it’s so feather light it almost wasn’t there. Lady and Daryl both pretend it wasn’t. 

She closes her eyes and snuggles into her blanket, all bunched up in her arms. And Daryl moves back to his spot, trying not to think about what just happened. How it’s all different now. In two seconds everything was different. 

She initiated something new and Daryl already knew he was gonna do what he always did with Lady. Whatever she wanted. 

💕

The sun is just barely peaking through the windows when Lady opens her eyes. The tv still playing, she sits up and leans herself forward to turn it off. Turning around to observe Daryl. But she wasn’t expecting… this. 

He must have gotten up in the middle of the night and ripped his clothes off because he’s just laying there in his boxers and his wife beater. Head leaning back off the pillow, arms laying on either side of his body. The part that catches Lady completely off guard was between his legs. Hard and trying to push its way out of his boxers. Lady can see a hint of pink between the fabric. The hole in the front tenting out around his bulge. 

Lady tries not to look. Knows she shouldn’t. But it’s too lewd to look anywhere else. He moves briefly in his sleep, which only makes their situation worse. His erect member pushing its way completely out of the hole. Lady gawks, feeling something akin to a squeel in her throat. She’d never seen something so… she needed to touch it. 

She shuffles closer to him, her knees padding on the layers of blankets underneath them. Her small hand moving out in front of her, she can’t look away. 

Her fingertips meet the skin of his bare cock with something Lady is sure is electricity. It’s warmer than she’d imagined, and as she moves, her nails grazing on the skin as she lightly traces up and down, she realizes that his skin here is softer than she’d imagined too. 

After a while, she can’t help herself, and wraps her fingers around him. Slowly working her hand up and down, her fingers just barely putting any pressure against him. She wants to squeeze it, to feel how hard it really is, she wants to roll it between both her hands and put it in her mouth and she wants to get to know it better than she knows any part of herself - but she doesn’t wanna wake Daryl up. 

It wasn’t even her fingers that woke Daryl up. It was the pressure. Below his stomach, twisting deep inside and throbbing.

He keeps his eyes closed, tries to keep his breathing steady. Tries to get himself to speak up, say something, tell her to stop. At least let her know you're awake. But he can't move. 

With his eyes closed he can feel every light touch of Lady’s hand. The way she pushes her palm down when she gets to the base and pulls it off as she gets to the tip, the way she's moving in soft semi-circles, but not while she's going up and down. She's exploring. 

Daryl didn't want to stop her. 

He's so hard it hurts. He almost winces when she grips him tighter. She was only moving herself in a different position, Daryl realizes, because he feels her other hand on his cock now too. 

Lady holds him in one hand, bringing the other up she grazes her index and middle finger over the tip of his length. Gliding his pre-cum all over his head. Trying to see how far it would go, she's surprised it's as slick as it is. She wants to taste it. 

Daryl feels her fingers leave him, and hears the slick pop of her tongue as she moves her fingers between her lips. He has to stop himself from rutting his hips up into her hand, stop himself from pushing her head down onto him to feel her wet mouth. 

He doesn't have to make her do anything, though.

Daryl feels a soft veil of hair tickle his skin above the waistband of his boxers, and he realizes she's about to put her mouth on him. Her pretty pink lips were about to wrap around his cock head. Her tongue, that he'd watched lick up melting icecream only a few hours ago, was gonna be flat against the underneath of his dick. Lady. With all the sweetness inside of her, was about to suck him off. 

Lady can't help herself, doesn't want to. Never learned how. She’s not quite sure how to start what she wants to do but decided to put her lips together and kiss right underneath the tip. She doesn't pull away. Parting her lips and flicking her tongue out from between her teeth to taste more of whatever was coming out of him. 

She feels it twitch under her tongue, so she licks him again. Longer, this time, with more certainty. Moving her fingers out of the way, she licks him once all the way from the bottom to the top. 

Daryl didn't think about what was gonna happen when he came. What he should do. It happens so fast that he doesn't have time to warn her. The first shot goes right on her face. 

Daryl sits up in time for the second and third to be lost somewhere on the blankets or his boxers. 

“Shit, Lady. M’so. M’fuckin’ sorry.” 

“It's my fault.” She explains in a flat tone. She sits still while Daryl uses his shirt he was wearing last night to wipe off her face. He’s a mess. Red-eared and scared as a dog but Lady's smiling bigger than she has in her whole life. 

She ignores his apology, his frantic attitude. She was serene. Like she always was. “When did you wake up?” 

“I’unno.” Right at the beginning, really, but he can’t tell her that. Can’t tell himself that. 

She ignores him, she didn't really care. “So that’s what happens then? When a guy…” she mouthes the word ‘comes’ in an exaggerated way, looking in Daryl’s eyes the whole time. 

He lays back into the pillow, grabbing another one to pull over his face. He can’t believe she just asked him that. She can’t believe this just happened at she was being so casual about it.

Lady pulls the pillow out of his hands just as fast. “No, come on. Ya can’t just not tell me. Not now.” 

Daryl puts his arm over his face, only his mouth and his nose peeking out behind the crook of his elbow. She had a point, “Whad’ya wanna know?” 

“Everything. All of it.” 

“Whad’ya wanna know righ’now.” 

Lady tells herself that if she’s ready to know, she’ll be able to ask. “When I have an orgasm nothing comes out. But when guys do it, that’s what happens?” 

She bites on her lip and looks down at him, his eyes and most of his face still hidden behind his arm, laying back on the bed. He’d stay like this and answer her questions. Wouldn’t be able to do it if he was looking at her, “uh-huh”. It's more of a grunt than a word.  

Lady tries to figure out which question to ask next. She knows a lot of stuff. Boys like it when girls suck on it. Boys like it when girls let them put it inside them. Lady isn’t sure exactly how that works, but she knows what she has. And what they have, and she doesn’t need to ask where it would go. 

“Did you like it?” 

A long pause. A half sigh, a grunted response, “uh-huh.” 

“Do you want me to do it again? Can I.. can I do it again?”

“Na’righ’ now.” 

Those words hang there even after Lady gets up and Daryl gets up and they both go about their day. This promise of ‘maybe later’. Daryl has errands to run in town and Lady says she’s got laundry to do, but hes pretty sure she just likes staying at the house. 

“Need somethin’, Lay? Goin’ ta town!” He shouts inside the house from out of it, he’d been outside most of the day, mowin’ the lawn, finally cleaning up the old trampoline. Trying to tell himself that even if he'd tried to stop her, she wouldn't have let him. 

Lady appears in the doorway in a breath, “Where ya goin’ in town?” 

“Store.” He leans against the wood frame lining the area around the steps and lights a smoke. 

Lady leans back, swaying her body with both hands on either side of the door by the handles, “Hmmm, maybe we could get stuff for grillin’. And we’re out of ice cream.” 

Daryl nods, taking a drag, his eyes squinting against the sun, “Somethin’ else?” 

“More pot?” She squints back at him. 

He breathes out an almost laugh against the cigarette between his lips, “Yeah, alrigh’. Tha’s it?”

“Wine coolers?” 

Daryl actually laughs at that one, “What’re ya tryna prove, Bug?”

She stops swinging on the door, “Not provin’ nothin’. Daddy's dead. Let's live a little.” 

💕

So Daryl gets some girly somethin’ - what he assumes are wine coolers. They're in the refrigerated case at the distributor, and there's strawberries and an island on the cardboard carrier. And the bottle’s shaped stupid. Daryl’s sure he's gotten the right thing, or at least something she'd probably like. 

Daryl doesn't feel bad indulging her. Never did, and anyway he's surprised it's taken her this long to ask. As far as growin’ up in the sticks, Lady was a good girl. And so she wanted to smoke some pot and drink some wine coolers with her brother? 

So what she had all the curious burning of an explorer on their first expedition with every new thing that she tried, and so what if that new thing was Daryl's body and how it reacted to hers? 

Daryl doesn't feel bad indulging her. He reasons with himself his whole drive that it can't be that bad. Not if Lady wanted it. Lady never wanted anything bad ever. She never gossiped, or tattled, or cheated at board games. Lady never even tried to sneak sweets. She told Daryl once it was cuz she didn't want anyone else to get in trouble if someone noticed it was missin’. Nah, Daryl figures if Lady wants it, if she asks for it, it can't be somethin’ ugly. 

💕

Daryl's on his third beer before he's able to say it, “Lay. Wha’ we did this mornin’ -“ he’s tried to figure out how he feels about it, he’s still not sure he’s making the right choice, but he needs to decide something before she decides for them. “Ya didn’t do nothin’ wrong but - can’t go tellin’ people we did that.” 

Lady laughs, she’s on her second wine cooler of her whole life, and all of a sudden Daryl thinks she’s new to the planet earth. She was backwoods but she wasn’t that backwoods. She was, after all, a high school graduate. “You mean I can't tell Auntie Norma I made you…” She mouthes the word ‘come’ again in the same exaggerated way she had earlier before losing herself in a fit of giggles. 

Lady and Daryl had folded up their temporary bed and shoved it in the corner. She was currently leaned back on the far edge of the coach, head thrown in laughter. Her shoulders shaking, her hands gripping the bottle between her thighs. 

Daryl bites at his thumb, sitting in the armchair across the room from her, he was trying to be serious for a damn second and she was laughing at him. “Jus’ don’ really know whatya think yer doin’. If yer in your right mind ‘n all. An’ y’know we ain't supposed ta.”

He just needed to hear her say it, if she could say it - if she could ask for it, it couldn’t be bad. 

“Wasn't thinkin’, Dar. Was just doin’.” She doesn’t really have an answer for him. She's in her right mind, she knows people aren't supposed to do that kind of stuff with their family. But nothin’ ever felt wrong between her and Daryl.

Daryl downs the rest of the beer he's holding in one gulp. He puts his finger in the hole at the top and spins it absentmindedly on his knee, “Jus’ need ya t’know what yer doin’.. it ain't somethin’ people usually do, Bug.” 

Lady’s starting to get frustrated. She knew what he was getting at, but why'd he have to say it? “I know I'm not supposed to, Dar. It's like those times you and Merle let me watch scary movies when I was little and I had to tell Momma and Daddy we were watching lions on PBS instead.” 

Daryl reaches down and grabs another beer from the case next to the armchair. He just shakes his head. She's gotta know it ain't that simple. 

“Bubba, look at me.” 

Daryl looks over, curious what she needed the eye contact for, “W’sup, Lay?”

“It’s just you and me out here and as far as I can tell we didn’t hurt anyone.“ She finishes the rest of her drink in one gulp just like he had, “The woods are good at keepin’ secrets, Bub. You know that.” And she smiles, looking down before looking directly at him.

If they didn't know before they both knew now. It wasn't just going to be that one thing that happened between them. The stagnant ‘maybe later' coming back and sitting on their shoulders, in their laps, in every empty space of the room. 

‘Maybe’ turns to definitely. To obviously.

Daryl grunts, trying not to let a smile on the corners of his lips. He opens the bottle in his hand and takes a sip before bringing it back down to look at it. Pondering her words like they're written on the label. All he thought he'd needed to hear was that she knew it had to be a secret. That she knew she was committing a crime against god here with him. But now what?  

Lady almost can't take it, the cicadas buzzing from outside are so loud it's infesting her brain. She’d been sitting there for an hour trying to figure out how to ask him if she could touch him again. And now that he's brought it up, she can't think of anything else but the way he tasted, the way his thing pulsated and twitched underneath of her tongue. She wants to make him cum again. 

Daryl's drinking his beer, lost in thought, while Lady decides she should probably have another one too. She gets up and walks past him to the kitchen. 

“Where ya goin’?” He half shouts behind him, a little worried he'd hurt her feelings. Read something wrong. Said something wrong. 

Lady smiles to herself, Daryl worried all the time about everything and it always ended up being for nothing. “Just gettin’ another one. That okay with you, pop?” She teases. 

She reappears from behind the sheet holding another wine cooler. As she takes her seat back on the couch Daryl leans forward, elbows on his thighs, taking another sip of his drink, “Might wanna slow down on those, Bug.” He's smiling into the bottle. 

Lady sticks her tongue out at him, her eyebrows drawn down in mock anger, “What, afraid I'm gonna blow chunks instead of blow you?” She's been on the edge of it for so long it spills out of her mouth.

Daryl has no idea what the fuck to say to that but he laughs out loud. He genuinely guffaws. If it wasn't his little sister he'd be frozen in his fuckin’ chair. Churning a little at this realization - Cuz when she said it he wasn't uncomfortable. Wasn't afraid, or worried that he was gonna have to do something he might mess up. 

“Nah.” He answers her before his mind takes off on a tangent about how it's his sister and the proposition of her sucking his cock should make him uncomfortable. But it didn't. 

Cuz if she wants it, it can't be wrong. 

“Just keep drinkin’, Lay. If ya blow chunks yer the one stuck cleanin’ it up though.” 

“Let's smoke that pot.” 

“No.”

“Aw, c’mon. Why not, bub?”

“Cross-faded.”

“What's that?” 

“Pots different after y’drink. Jus’.. trus’me on this one.” He sips his beer, “‘nless yer really set on blowin’ chunks. Tha’s definitely a sure fire way.” 

Lady shakes her head, taking her drink from between her thighs again and sipping it before putting it back. 

She's gotta figure out how to ask soon or she was gonna drink herself to sleep. 

Daryl can see her workin’ something out in her head, “S’goin’ on, Lay?.” 

She’s staring at a spot on the ground and she doesn’t look up, “Thinkin’.” 

“‘bout wha’?”

“Your cock in my mouth.” 

Daryl chokes on the spit he was swallowing, “Christ.” He says as he coughs. He doesn't think he's ever heard her say that word. “Yer really serious, huh?” He asks again, this time because he truly can’t believe it. Why would she, the sweetest piece of Georgia pie, wanna put her pretty mouth on him? Even if he was her brother. Especially because he was her brother. 

She smiles and looks down at her fingers around the top of her bottle. Blushing beet red and nodding her head so aggressively her hair moves. 

He wants to let her but somethin’ about it doesn't feel right. Not because of who she was or who he was, or cuz it was wrong. “Shouldn't jus’ blow guys, Lay.” 

“Whaddya mean?” She picks at the label on her drink, not looking up at him. Nervous and excited and hanging on his every word. 

“People, uh - usually… do other stuff first.” He explains, not wanting to make her feel bad for what she'd already done, but wanting her to understand she can't just do that to other guys. 

Lady laughs, a sigh of relief escaping her as she brings the brim up to take another swig. There's a million things sitting between her teeth and her lips just waiting to be said. Instead, she just asks, “Do you wanna watch a movie?”

💕

pt. 2

A/n: This is coming out a whole lot sweeter than I thought it was going to be and I know in the end it's going to break my little heart. 

Anyway sorry, most of the smut will be in part 2 where I imagine going into detail about their first time (for a few different things) as well as how they are once they get more comfortable as they get deeper into the summer. 

Broken up into two parts because I can't fathom proofreading these 6,000 words one more time. 

(Next part will be up as fast as I can write it.)

[transzilla]

You met me over grindr while I was in the city for a one night stand and for some reason we kept in touch, some glow around me that you really liked. Your living situation is a little crowded so we figured we would hook up in an empty bulldozer at a construction site at night. I work at a fire tower in the mountains and I really like other trans men but due to the geography haven't found anybody to stick around, so I tend to get around quite a bit when in the city.

Your living situation is tough. You've tried to go on hormones, or blockers, but keep being shamed and rejected and getting pressured out of it by distant family members or chaser-y roommates. You have no room to grow. You're fucking miserable. You contemplate offing yourself, guiltily, but quickly shoo the thought away considering you have a roof over your head and no real reason to be sad.

We text obsessively. I'm lonely out there, stealth trans in the middle of nowhere, and whenever I have service we text, call, vent, joke, bust balls, tell each other all our deepest, darkest secrets. They're looking to hire another lookout, my coworker retired. It requires you to live onsite and they provide housing without taking it out of your paycheck. I sympathize with your situation, I tell you you'd do well in this position, I'll put in a good word for you with the forest service, you should apply. Get you out of that glorified pig sty and somewhere with fresh air where you can finally breathe.

You get the job, make a fucking decision and leave everything behind to come work with me. We reunite, get drunk, get you accustomed to your new life. You talk to very few people and nobody seems to clock you as trans anyway. Your daily work is hard and manual but refreshing compared to customer service. You let me rail you every night, your food is taken care of, you're reading and working out and getting your back blown out on the clock.

Sometimes it feels like I make you do everything I'm supposed to do, I seem to enjoy watching you sweat and lift heavy things and slack on my work. I have a ton of testosterone that I share a little too excitedly with you and it doesnt look prescription, in small brown vials with blue caps, some of them are labelled cypionate but also proprionate, enthonate, undecanoate, demonic incantations you've never seen before in your life. And I'm real weird about always doing your injection for you. I stab it in so fast and it looks violent but it doesn't feel as bad when you do it, but the way I make eye contact and hold the needle in my teeth while I do my own injection is a little off putting. I'm constantly pushing you, nothing you ever do is good enough for me, all of my fetishes while we're fucking seem to entail you doing push ups naked, squats, bending over and letting me examine you, your legs getting so sore after im making you ride it, letting me squeeze your tits and feeling your pec underneath the breast. I smoke a pack a day and pressure you into joining me, complimenting you on how raspy and fucked up your voice sounds.

You have doubts. You aren't able to call your friends as often as you thought you would. When you talk to people you've been isolated so long you talk over them garishly, talk all about yourself, make too many dirty jokes and swear too much the way we talk to each other, awkward and unfit for civilized society. All you have is me and you have no choice but to trust that I have your best intentions in mind.

You let me teach you how to use a shotgun the salty perfume of the gunpowder staining your hands as your aim gets better and better, your guard lowering the more I've been praising you for doing what I want. We went hunting and you shot your first deer. I was so excited and you were so validated by how proud I was, it felt like a big hug from the inside out. You send a picture of the field dressed deer to your old city friends, guts steaming in the morning sun. they're absolutely disgusted by the fact that you would do such a thing and show them. You're a fucking machine of a man now and you're able to tame the wilderness everywhere except for in yourself.

After months you plain don't recognize yourself in the mirror. Your hair is wild, your facial hair not just a few long pubes jealously untouched on your chin but a uniform patchy stubble shaved haphazardly when you were tired of it being singed when you did fight fires. Knuckles scarred, shoulders broad, the gross muscle you feared you would develop rippling like a tiger under your skin and the extra weight you've gained. You talk like I do, you act like I do, you think like I do, you can't tell where you stop and I start. Your reflection looks sleepless, disordered, lost, a thuggish stranger. Heartless man.

[mrsfrecklesmarauders]

Two lonely stars

Post for Sirius's Birthday today! Muggle AU, my version. Bit angsty, this boy really needs a hug. Wolfstar.

It was one of those nights when Sirius couldn't sleep. During the day, Sirius’s mind was occupied with the noise surrounding him. Lots of people lived in the castle. Lots of chaotic teens lived in one place. It was rare to have a quiet moment. Although, at night, the silence was unbearable. And Sirius had the curse of having a loud mind that didn't let him sleep well.

He was having a cigarette in the Common Room, when he heard a noise that alerted him. But when he turned, there was nothing. Maybe it was the powerful imagination of tiredness.

Then he heard a voice:

"Good evening, dear nephew"

Sirius felt chills down his spine. It couldn't be. When he turned, there was the man in the flesh. With his cheeky smile, that handsome face and his elegant suits.

"Uncle Alphard?" Sirius managed to say through the shock "This can be real... You're dead!"

Sirius had been to his funeral. He never saw his body inside the casket, but he knew Alphard was dead, right?

"Am I dreaming?" Sirius asked next since the man was just grinning in front of him.

It didn't make sense that this was real. His Uncle faking death only to appear inside the Gryffindor Common Room in the middle of the night, looking impeccable as always.

"Certainly" Alphard confirmed. And Sirius relaxed. Yeah, it was obvious.

It was terrifying how everything felt so real. Alphard took a seat next to him on the windowsill and Sirius could've sworn he could still smell his cologne.

"May I?" Alphard pointed at the cigarette between Sirius’s fingers. It was recently lit again despite the fact that seconds ago, it was finished. Sirius gave it to his Uncle.

Alphard smoked.

"You lied to me" Sirius figured he could tell him the things he wished now. He had been angry with the old man "You lived a secret life and hid it from everyone.... From me!"

Alphard smiled "Sentimental?"

The dreamed man had the same twisted sense of humor than the real one. Sirius realized he was so angry that he had tears in his eyes. He blinked them away.

"You don't have the right to be angry, dear nephew" Alphard said as he continued to smoke "Isn't what you do as well? Live a secret life, hide your true self? Pretend, pretend and pretend?"

Sirius’s mind immediately went to Remus. Alphard's secret life with many men lovers didn't compare with the little kisses Remus and him had shared.

Sirius blushed.

"What I do with Remus is nothing..."

Alphard was amused "I wasn't talking about your gay discovery"

"I'm not gay!" Sirius spat "I'm not like you!"

"Oh, but we are more alike than you think" Alphard winked "And not only about our secret preference in men..."

Sirius rolled his eyes. 

"I'm talking about something else" Alphard explained "It is the way you show yourself as this soulless fun arsehole. The way you pretend you're not vulnerable and nothing affects you. And the way you act as if you don't care about others" 

Sirius knew this wasn't his Uncle but his own imagination in a dream but still it hurt that he had just described his fatal flaw. 

"It feels lonely at the end of the day to push people away" Alphard added. 

"I'm not pushing anyone away" 

"I know you think you don't deserve them or that you will eventually hurt everyone you love. That's why you push them away… I was the same" 

Sirius didn't say anything. Because this Alphard was inside his mind and inside his mind there was nowhere to hide. 

"Let me show you something, Sirius" 

"What?" Sirius asked "Why should I trust you if you lied to me my whole life?" 

"Exactly" Alphard smiled. 

Sirius raised an eyebrow not understanding anything. 

Alphard say anything else. He snapped his fingers, and the lights of the Common Room were lit. It was as if it was daytime once more and many students were walking around, making noise. Then Sirius’s heard James’s laughter and spotted his friends sitting in a table at the end of the room.

Sirius smiled and walked towards them, but they didn’t notice him. It was as if he was invisible. He waved at them and called their names but nothing.

“Is this real?” Sirius asked Alphard who was also not spotted by the boys.

“What’s real, my dear nephew?”

God, Alphard was being annoying.

“Where’s Sirius, by the way?” Remus asked after they finished laughing. Sirius was surprised to hear his name, and he wanted to tell them he was right here.

James shrugged “Probably with a girl somewhere. I don’t know. He’s just pissing me off lately”

“Why?” Peter asked.

“I’ve been patient with him since the summer because I felt pity for what happened with his family. But he had been so annoying lately. Moping everywhere about how miserable his life is. Making drama about how his mummy and daddy don’t love him. Treating me and others like shit. I love him, but sometimes he feels like a burden”

James had never spoken about him like that. Although Sirius admitted that his mind was constantly thinking about how much of a burden he was for James.

“I’m always taking care of him and cleaning after his mess, but lately, I am tired of it”

And indeed, James sounded tired. He sounded disappointed and frustrated.

“They are not really saying that” Sirius commented to his Uncle. The man simply shrugged. What a twat.

“Honestly, I don’t get why we are still his friends, James” Peter added, making Sirius look at him with hate “The bloke is always gaining attention to himself. Where’s our attention? Everything is always about him. And his family, and his brother and his stupid girlfriends”

Bloody Peter. Sirius always suspected he was secretly jealous of him.

“I mean he is quite handsome” Remus intervened, and Sirius smiled. Yes, Moony was going to defend him “But that’s all he is. A pretty face. He has no heart to care about anyone else but himself”.

Remus sounded hurt and sad. Sirius felt the guilt he always felt for continuing with their little thing. He knew Remus deserved better. Someone nice. And yet, he continued to kiss him because it was so addictive and beautiful. But Sirius only did one thing, hurt him.

“I mean…” James continued, looking guilty “He is my best friend but… Sometimes I feel like I am a better friend than he is. I am always more pendant on him and he is ever on me. He doesn’t care about me and my relationship with Evans. Or if I have problems with my parents. Because they might be good, but I am still human, and I have issues. I know what you’re saying, Pete. He is too selfish”

Sirius cared about James. He cared about his issues. It was just that his life was a bit more perfect than others’. James was the type of person to have all he wanted. And when something was wrong, he saw the positive side of it.

“He is always treating me like an idiot and making me feel bad about myself” Peter looked down.

Sirius thought about the jokes he played on Peter, how sometimes he stepped over the line. But at the end of the day, that’s all they were, jokes.

“I know, Pete” James touched his shoulder “And sometimes I followed him because I loved Sirius” he rolled his eyes “Or I thought I loved him. But I thought he was someone else”

“He is far gone from the little boy I used to know” Remus said “He is a bully, and a womanizer and he doesn’t trust me anymore” then he added in a whisper “He uses me for fun”

Wait, this was hurting a lot. These were all the things that Sirius believed his friends thought of him. Constantly. But it was ten times worse to hear them say them. Why did this dream feel so real?

“I think…” James sighed, looking a bit nervous. Sirius knew it because he pushed his glasses up “And I don’t want to sound like an arse… But I think I only stand him because I feel sorry for him”

Well, that felt like a stake being stabbed in his chest.

“And I only stand him because I thought you did, Prongs” Peter declared.

“And I think you guys are great” Remus added as well “But Sirius is not the person he used to be. I don’t like him anymore”

“No!” Sirius exclaimed, he realized he was crying “You guys don’t actually think that of me! You can’t think that of me! I love you! I love you guys! I’m sorry!!”

Sirius continued begging the other boys didn’t even register him. He was invisible to them.

“I think at the end of the day, all Blacks are the same” James sniffed “There’s nothing good to be expected of them”

Sirius closed his eyes. He yelled and covered his ears. He couldn’t continue listening to this. It was turning easily into a nightmare.

“NOO NOOO!!” he sobbed “PLEASE UNCLE ALPHARD MAKE IT STOP!! STOP IT!”

Sirius stayed like that for a bit. With his eyes closed and his ears covered. Tears falling down his cheeks.

He wanted to wake up. He just wanted to wake up.

It was when he calmed down a little that he heard more laughter. At first, he thought it was his friends again, making fun of him. However, when he opened his eyes, Sirius was in a different place.

Grimmauld Place. Dining Room.

The table was full of delicious treats. Turkey, Chicken, Ham, Mashed Potatoes, Lots of different salads, desserts, pastries, scones, chocolate and wine. The was a full plate in front of him but Sirius wasn’t hungry at all.

Alphard, on the other hand, was eating like a pig.

“Yuum!” he exclaimed with his mouth full “This is exquisite”

Sirius was furious.

“What the fuck am I doing here?” he snapped “Do you want to torture me?”

Alphard swallowed his food and grinned.

“Family dinner”

In that second, Sirius jumped when he heard someone hitting a cup with a fork to make some noise. When he turned, Sirius realized his family was seated at the table. Just like always, in their regular seats. Orion, Walburga and his brother Regulus.

What was odd about the scene was that they looked happy.

“I want to make a toast” Orion was saying with his cup raised “to congratulate our new heir for his achievements this year”

At first, Sirius thought his father was talking to him, to mock him. But his parents didn’t even see him. They turned with smiley faces towards Regulus.

Regulus wasn’t dressed in his dark clothes, piercings and black nail polish as always. He was wearing an elegant suit, with his hair combed to the back. His face was clean. No piercings. He was also smiling.

“You’ve done an incredible job, Regulus” Orion carried on “at school with your grades and at home convincing the Family you’re suitable to maintain the company in your hands” he smiled “Your mother and I are very proud of you”

This was weird as well because usually, Orion only spoke about Regulus horrible things. He complained about his appearance, of his way of speaking, of the fact that he was shy and quiet.

Orion had rarely been a proud father with Sirius, worse with Regulus.

“Yes, mon cherie” Walburga was smiling widely “You couldn’t have done it better”

Oh, that bitch had always preferred Regulus anyway.

“Thanks a lot, mother and father” Sirius was surprised to hear Regulus speaking loudly and confidently. He sounded just like their father “I couldn’t have done it without your help. Claiming the Company as mine had been my goal. I intend to fulfill it”

“That’s my son” Orion winked as he took a sip of his whine.

“Didn’t I tell you, darling?” Walburga commented. She was sober and happy “Regulus was always going to make us proud. He was meant to be our Heir, not…” and she made a disgusted expression “Sirius”

Great, now they could talk bad about him all they wanted.

“You were right” Orion nodded “Sirius was a waste of time. A waste of potential. I wished we would’ve realized it sooner”

“Sirius was a mistake from the start” Walburga said “He wasn’t even planned. Regulus was”

Although it was more likely to hear Walburga saying that in real life, it still hurt to hear it. He had always been told he was destined to be the heir. That he was greater than others for that. Even greater than Regulus.

“I can do better than him, mother” Regulus intervened. He sounded so formal. He wasn’t even stuttering like he used to do “Honestly I think my brother is a real pussy for not even trying”

Sirius stared at this dream version of his brother. So cold. So mean. The worst part was that his parents laughed.

“Didn’t I tell you, Wally?” Orion said “Spending too much time with Alphard was going to turn him into the weak faggot he is”

Sirius forgot his Uncle was even there. But just a gaze showed him he wasn’t even paying attention. He was still eating and looking bored.

“Certainly, he didn’t choose well his company” Regulus agreed “Potter, that fat kid and Lupin, the freak” he scoffed “Sadly for him, he lost his potential. But lucky me” he smirked “Now I have my chance. If that arsehole doesn’t want it, I do. And I know I can do better”

Both Orion and Walburga looked pleased.

“God!” Orion exclaimed “It is so wonderful to have a nice dinner with my family. Once and for all, we agree on things, and we can enjoy dinner together” he raised his cup and the others followed “Cheers for that”

“It used to be a mess, didn’t it?” Regulus snorted “I blame it on Sirius. He was always ruining everything. Making it all about himself”

“I agree” Walburga added “He is too reckless, he doesn’t think. He was constantly saying dumb things” she took a deep breath “We are so much better without him”

Sirius knew his relationship with his family was a mess. That he was constantly messing up. But he had the tiny hope that his parents, right in the bottom of their hearts, loved him. That they did everything for Sirius’s own good, even if their methods were questionable. So, it was awful to hear them say all these things.

“I propose a toast then” Regulus raised his cup as well “For a peaceful life without Sirius”

And Reggie, his little brother. They were constantly fighting and sometimes Regulus was annoying. But Sirius loved him. And he thought Regulus loved him back. He thought Regulus admired him.

Wow, Sirius was instantly crying again.

“For a peaceful life without Sirius” their parents chanted. And it was sealed.

Sirius realized how much he was ruining the lives of people around him. It might be a dream. It might not be real what they had said. But it made all the sense in the world that it was. Because Sirius was all those things: reckless, heartless, selfish, a pussy, and a coward.

“STOP IT, ALPHARD!” Sirius yelled at his Uncle. Eyes full of tears.

The image faded away. And they were back where they started. Empty Gryffindor Common Room, windowsill, cigarettes between their fingers.

“What is this? What is the point of showing me this?”

Alphard looked pensative. Then he turned slowly towards his nephew.

“It is what we are, Sirius… Stars” Alphard said, and the way he said it sent shivers down his spine “Great to admire from afar, beautiful and apparently unreachable. But once people get close to us, they realize we are giant balls of fire that can instantly burn them in a flash. And we are too much for them”

Sirius figured it made sense.

“Remember what people said about me in my funeral?” the old man asked.

Sirius remembered. They were all awful things. Slurs and bad comments about Alphard’s secret life and promiscuity.

“They could say that about you in your funeral” he added morbidly “They could say all things you just heard if you continue to be the dick that I was”

Sirius shook his head because he couldn’t bear to think about it.

“I know you wanted to be a free spirit like me. Cool, handsome, free and reckless, not affected by anything or anyone” Alphard said “But at the end of the day, you’ll feel lonely. And everyone you love will leave you alone”

Sirius began crying like a little kid.

“I don’t want that, Uncle Alphard” he covered his face as he sobbed “Please, I don’t want to be the way that I am… Please Alphard…”

Sirius felt his uncle’s hand on his shoulder.

Then he heard…

“Padfoot…”

“Pads, wake up!”

“I think he is having a nightmare”

“Wake up, Sirius! You cannot have a nightmare on your bloody birthday!”

Sirius opened his eyes to the real life, to the real world. He was safe in his bed. No Uncle Alphard. Only his three friends grinning at him.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SIRIUS!”

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HANDSOME!!”

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PADS!!”

The three of them jumped to wrap their arms around him. He felt them hugging him and kissing his cheek and forehead.

Sirius was frozen, remembering all the bad things he had heard them saying in his dream. Did they really think that way about him? Were they pretending to like him now? Or was it all inside his mind?

Sirius did what he always did then. He faked a smile.

But he remembered his Uncle’s words about pretending. He didn’t seem to stop.

“Cheers, guys!” he said when his friends finally let him breathe.

There was a painful exchange of presents. A nice jumper and boots from James. A cool poster from Peter. And a curious mixtape from Remus. He thanked them all with a smile. Although Sirius couldn’t stop thinking how much he didn’t deserve it.

“How does it feel to turn eighteen and be officially an adult?” James winked.

“I’m planning to buy lots of alcohol, cigarettes and visit lots of clubs in London” Sirius grinned, making his friends laugh.

Were they pretending to laugh?

“Oh Sirius, you and your priorities” Remus smiled.

Remus… Sirius felt guilty only by hearing his voice. He was so good. So, kind. So perfect. And Sirius was being a horrible dick to him. He had been a horrible dick to all of them. Making jokes about Peter. Trying to avoid James because he couldn’t stand Evans being his girlfriend, hiding many things from him when all James did was worry. And practically using Remus because Sirius had strong feelings for him, and he couldn’t let him go with someone better. Because Sirius was too selfish to let him free. Kissing him was like a drug.

“So, what are we going to do for your birthday?" Peter asked, getting Sirius out of his brain “Eighteen. It is a big birthday”

Sirius nodded “Listen to the little Boo man” he said “We have to do something special”

“Of course, handsome!” James winked “I had everything planned. We can go to Hogsmeade, sneak out with the girls and have some drinks… I heard there is a cool place where live bands play…”

Sirius was smiling, pretending to listen but he zoomed out. He couldn’t stop thinking about how much he was ruining people’s lives, how much he kept doing it by pretending to be this cool fun version when all he wanted to do was cry.

Fucking eighteen. Happy Birthday to him.

[sotwk]

Happy Birthday to you! Love your campfire party idea! I’d like to request a drabble about Steve Rogers/Captain America.

Thank you so much!

Thank you for the request, @zeldastrife, and for giving me a chance to dream about my favorite superhero of all time! <3 I really enjoyed writing this and I hope you and others will love it just as much. :)

Content/Genre: Marvel; Gen fluffy summer romance

Fireworks

Steve Rogers x Reader

Ever since you were a child, the fireworks show has always been your favorite part of the annual Fourth of July picnic. But now they were merely a convenient cover that allowed you to fixate on the sight you truly wished to openly stare at. 

He must have seen so many firework displays in his long lifetime, and with him being a war veteran (a gross understatement), you wondered if the sound of the roaring, cracking explosions bothered him. But the relaxed expression on his face, tipped toward the brightly, colorfully lit night sky, gave no indication of discomfort. 

Dressed in a plain gray t-shirt, jeans, and a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap, Steve passed for a run-of-the-mill all-American, allowing him to spend the entire day mingling with the rest of the townsfolk, quietly charming everyone with his gracious, easy manners, but never drawing prolonged attention to himself.

Who would ever expect Captain America to attend a small town, middle-of-nowhere celebration on such a significant holiday? No one would ever believe it, and none of the folks who had looked the living legend right in the face and spent several minutes chatting him up suspected a thing.

You yourself could still barely believe the entire day, or any of the past few weeks that led up to the present moment, was actually real. Steve Rogers was your date. Your love life catapulted from a woeful, lonely drought to dating literally the most perfect man in the entire nation. To think you had nearly turned him down for fear that this was all an elaborate prank or some cosmic joke. But thank God, truly, for the sudden, miraculous ability to not let your deep-seated anxieties get in the way this one time. 

Steve’s renowned bravery was slowly rubbing off you; you could tell. Every moment you spent in his company, you felt yourself becoming more comfortable and confident in your own skin, as though you were learning to see in yourself what he probably saw in you. Good things that he decided were worth his time and interest. 

That courage began to stir and bubble up inside you while you continued to watch Steve watch the fireworks. You knew he was a staunch gentleman, forever rooted in his old-fashioned ways. Four dates in and he's never done anything more than hold your hand or give you gentle hugs. 

He would not like a girl who’s too forward. The brazen courage smothered down the nagging warnings in your head. Or just give it a try, this braver side of you proposed.

You reached across the small distance between you and slipped your hand over his arm, folded across his chest. His intent blue eyes immediately shifted to you, and the smile he gave made your heart stutter.

Before your courage could get snuffed out, you rose on your toes and swiftly planted a kiss on his clean-shaven cheek.

“Happy Birthday, Steve. I hope you had fun today.”

With the daring deed done, your electrified nerves shorted out, and your gaze fell to the ground, heavy with growing shame. Hopefully the memory of that one kiss would be worth it, if this was to be the end. 

His strong hand closed around yours, squeezing gently, returning your strength to you. That hand then shifted to the small of your back, drawing you against him.

“Today was…” His fingers ghosted across your jawline before resting, lingering underneath your chin. Your own hands came up to his chest, your head was spinning and you so badly needed to steady yourself. Suddenly you noticed his heart was racing, pulsing furiously underneath your palm. 

“...perfect.” His chest heaved as he finally finished his sentence, and for a fleeting, ridiculously giddy moment right before he pressed his warm lips on yours, you realized that Captain America had been rendered nervous and breathless. Just for a moment, but it was all because of you.

This limited edition Marvel fic is a gift written as part of SotWK's Summer Campfire Sleepover 2024. (Requests accepted only on July 11-15, 2024.)

[farfromstrange]

Do No Harm

CHAPTER THREE: Broken Glass

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Pairing: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Summary: You have a really shitty night, and it only gets worse until a man in a black mask saves your life.

Warnings for this chapter: ANGST, graphic description of domestic violence (flashback), panic attack, mention of blood & injury, alcohol abuse, sexual assault, Reader tries to play the hero and it backfires (might piss you off)

Word Count: 7.6k

A/n: I worked very long and hard on this one, that's why I didn't post it last week. This is very heavy, so heed the warnings. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas! I’m spending New Year’s in London, and I won’t have my Laptop, so I’m already wishing you guys a happy new year! Spend the day with people you love. Do something that you love. Just enjoy yourselves and we’ll see each other again in 2024!

Read Chapter 3: Broken Glass here on AO3

The loneliness eats you alive like a parasite. As soon as the door of your apartment shuts behind you, the noise coming from the city disappears into the distance, and you are faced with the silent reality of being utterly alone. 

It feels like you are living in a haunted house in the middle of nowhere, not a small apartment in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen.

There are no picture frames on the dresser in the hallway. The two plants you bought for yourself are slowly dying of thirst. The fridge is empty. You don’t own any decorations—you don’t even have a shelf for all of your books, and more than half of them are medical research material, anyway. 

You may be living in this place, but it isn’t yours. After two years, you are no closer to settling down than you were when you first came to New York.

Every day, you ask yourself how long this peace is going to last, and every day ends the same—you’re still safe, but you are deeply unsettled. Your thoughts keep turning against you like demons that you can’t exorcize. Every day, you wonder when you will have to run away again because your past has a way of catching up to you when you least expect it, so you remain on edge. That’s how you live your life. 

If you knew how to accept peace, maybe you would have settled down and personalized your apartment by now, but then again, do you even know who you are? Do you remember the girl you once were? Your memories of the past are scrambled.

You can only remember what it was like to live in a bubble, to be forced into a cage like a bird and turned into someone you never thought you would become. You remember running. You haven’t been yourself in years. Even if you wanted to, there is nothing left for you to put up that would feel like it belongs to you without feeling like pretentious bullshit at the same time. So, you don’t even bother. 

It’s lonely though, having nothing and no one. Claire is your friend, sure, but you had nothing and no one back then, and you still barely have anyone now. She’s your friend, but that’s all she is.

You can’t admit it out loud, of course. You can’t admit that you feel lonely, and you can’t pick up your phone and call the one friend you do have to take up on her offer because of reasons not even the rational part of your brain wants to understand. 

The lamp in the living room casts a dim light over the main area of the apartment and the open kitchen. You place Matt’s business card on the kitchen counter.

Should you call him? A million questions go through your mind, firing rapidly like bullets from an automatic gun. You’re not even sure if you want to call him. You felt comfortable around him, but enough to abandon all your principles? If you call him, he might ask you out, and what do you do then? You don’t date, not anymore, and you definitely won’t let a stranger into the mess that is your life. You can’t do that to a kind soul like him. Matthew is special in a way that you can’t put into words, and that makes the decision so much harder. 

You know exactly what’s holding you back. It’s the same invisible string of feelings that is keeping you from personalizing your living space. You don’t know when you might need to run, and then what? 

Your lungs contract. Air is a lot harder to come by when you’re all wound up. You hope that a nice glass of white wine will help put some things into perspective. Fooling around with someone can’t hurt, but anything more than that could lead to a catastrophe. You have had enough of those for a lifetime. 

You like keeping to yourself. It keeps your heart safe. What happened today, meeting Matthew after you so miserably sought a place to be alone, it was a coincidence—a welcome distraction. And you seemed so like-minded at first glance. He was intriguing and you’re still wondering about his injuries and how he got them, but that’s not the point. None of this is. 

The point is that you are not the kind of person he thinks you are. That’s why you can’t call him. And strangely, that hurts a lot more than simple heartbreak, knowing that you have been ruined for all relationships to come because you made one wrong choice and fell down the rabbit hole—unfortunately not into Wonderland. 

“Shit!” you curse when a drop of wine lands beside the glass.

You lick your finger, trying to wipe the liquid on the counter with a paper towel. In the process, your hand accidentally brushes against the glass, and the sole touch sends it hurdling to the floor. You try to catch it, but the fragile glass has already hit the tiles of your kitchen floor. It shatters into a million pieces. 

The sound reverberates in your ears. Like a shot in the dark, your body is jolted awake into a state of panic. The crash reminds you of hell, and the all-too-familiar flames start touching your skin again, set out to burn you alive. It’s a feeling you know by heart—a feeling you wish you weren’t so painfully aware of. 

Glass breaks before your inner eye. 

You were trying to make him a drink, you remember. He wanted Whiskey, no ice, and at perfect room temperature—it was always the same. After the first black eye that you had to hide under mountains of concealer, you taught yourself to perfect it. You didn’t want to disappoint him. You didn’t want to get into trouble. 

You spent more money than you could afford on the one brand of Whiskey he always told you to get, even if that meant traveling to a store miles away from home. He always wanted that Whiskey, and who were you to deny him?

You didn’t pay attention for one second, and the glass shattered on the kitchen floor. Your heart stopped. The last drops of the brown liquid spilled everywhere, including your clothes. The glass was his favorite. Expensive, too. It broke because you weren’t looking. You were so stupid. 

Fear froze the blood in your veins. Your heart stopped beating. You couldn’t breathe. You reached for a cloth with shaky hands, trying to pick up the pieces in time, but the sound of the glass breaking—that godforsaken loud sound that reminded you of obnoxious screaming—was instantly followed by an even louder echo of angry footsteps. 

Over time, you became painfully aware of those footsteps. You knew how they sounded on wooden floorboards, carpet, and the stairs in the hallway of the apartment building. You still remember how they sounded when he was wearing those squeaky sneakers on the linoleum floors of the hospital.

It’s a sound that always sends shivers down your spine; everyone has those sneakers, but his footsteps were much heavier, much more demanding even when he wasn’t demanding anything. 

And back then, you knew what would follow as soon as you heard them.

“What is this?” his voice reached your ears. 

Your throat tightened. You didn’t even dare to look up. If you had met his eyes, you would have seen your fate in them, and the empty black hole that was his soul. “I’m sorry, I– I lost my grip and–and I dropped it,” you said. You thought that would fix it. How foolish of you, to have faith in someone who never had faith in you. “I’m so sorry,” you couldn’t stop repeating it. 

You thought this time, he would listen to your apology. He would let you fix what you broke. You would have done anything for his approval, for his praise, and for him not to be mad at you. You didn’t want to fight. The evening had started so well. He even kissed you when he came home because you finished dinner in time. He smiled because you managed to clean even the last crevices of his apartment after your shift. He promised he would reward you. 

You fucked up. You knew you fucked up, but you prayed to God that his good mood would keep you safe this time. That he would give you a pass because you have been so incredibly good. You’ve been the best girlfriend he could have asked for, so obedient, never questioning, and always on his side—you were wrong. So, so wrong. 

He saw the empty bottle of Whiskey. He picked it up. “That was the last sip of my good Whiskey,” he remarked. 

You stopped moving. 

“I’ll pick up a new one,” your voice was barely above a whisper. “Stores are still open. This is my fault. Let me clean this up and I will–”

“You had one job.”

The sound of his voice turned cold, colder than usual. You exhaled a shaky breath. 

“You had one job,” he said. “I go to work, I save lives, and I teach young, useless doctors like you how to do the same. All I asked of you was to cook dinner, clean the apartment and make me a fucking drink.” 

With each word, his volume ascended. Your shoulder started vibrating, but you forced yourself to hold your breath. You couldn’t let the fear show. Being afraid, in his eyes, equaled weakness, and he would prove to you time and time again what weakness truly meant to him. He would turn you into a weak mess and laugh about it. You were trying your hardest to avoid any more unnecessary punishment. You had to tread lightly. He was in charge, not you. 

And you breaking the glass was so stupid, all you wanted was to surrender. In your twisted mind, he was right. It was just a glass, but he told you how useless you were many times before, and you were slowly starting to believe it. 

Without him, you were nothing. No one else could have possibly put up with you.

“What do you do?” He reached out and slammed the empty bottle on the ground. 

You barely had time to react before some of the bigger shards hit your cheek, slicing the skin. It took you a second to process, the pain not even kicking in because you expected his hand to come down on you, not an entire glass bottle. The trajectory almost hit your eye. Almost. 

“You spill my fucking drink!” this time, he yelled. 

A sob escaped your lips. There it was, the smallest sign of fear and pain. 

He rolled his eyes. You shouldn’t have sobbed, you knew that. “Get up,” he said. 

You winced when he grabbed you and yanked you off the floor. The trail of blood ran hot on your cold cheek. It stung. Your heart was pounding in your chest, hammering against your ribcage and the fresh bruise that still hadn’t healed. 

You were scared, and the tighter he grabbed you, forcing your chin upward to look him dead in the eyes, the harder it got to hide what you were truly feeling. In his eyes, you were nothing. And you were so weak, all you could do was to submit. 

“Look at me,” he said. His eyes roamed your face. 

You couldn’t not look at him. It was impossible. What you saw made you sick to your very stomach. It tied a noose around your neck, threatening to kick you off the high chair. Your feet were dangling dangerously close to the cliff. 

“You’re pathetic, you hear me? Useless. You had one job. One. And you couldn’t even do that right.”

You opened your mouth, but instead of letting you speak, his hand tangled in your hair and he pulled, hard. “No!” he bellowed. “You have lost the right to speak to me.” 

He said your name. He always said it in a way that made you want to vomit. Your first and last names were tainted because of him. He used them in vain. He used you. He used everything as he saw fit and believed he was entitled to it. 

You hated him, but you also loved him.

“You’re going to clean up the mess you made, and then you’re going to go to the store, buy me another bottle of Whiskey, and you’re going to make me another drink. I don’t want to hear a single word out of you,” he said. “Are we clear?”

You nodded. He pulled a little harder. 

“What was that?”

“Yes, sir,” you choked out. 

When he finally let you go, you fell to the floor, your chest heaving with dry sobs. Perhaps he was too annoyed or maybe leaving you alone, finally, was a display of humanity. 

The man you once believed to have loved you turned out to be a monster that would not have wept, not possibly, if you had died. He only wanted to control you, and whenever he felt like he couldn’t, he punished you. You stayed way too long because you believed in someone who was never there in the first place. The real him you believed to know once had never been real. He had been a fraud. He did anything he possibly could to lure you in, and then you were stuck. 

But even knowing this, you wanted to please him, and you took what he gave you. You ate it up like a starved cavewoman. You had no one else but him, and that alone is a sad thought that you keep entertaining now. 

The sound of broken glass has haunted you since that day. Whenever it happens, either to you or someone else, you find yourself in a state of shock. It’s never the same memory, but always alike. And it hurts. It hurts so much, you can’t breathe. 

You touch your left cheek. The scar is barely visible anymore, but whenever you touch it, it feels like a mountain of regret. You can still feel the blood pooling under your fingertips, the liquid as sticky as it was hot. 

You stumble over to the sink, circling the broken glass. Cold water; your senses need a sudden slap across the face or you will cower in a corner and surely die. Your heartbeat is racing in your ears, and your fingers shake as you form a bowl with your hands to catch the water from the tap. 

Air returns to your lungs. Burying your face in the cold water, you focus on the way it seeps into your hot skin.

Broken glass triggers you. Squeaky footsteps in the hospital hallways trigger you. You zone out so easily. You can’t talk to strangers without suspecting the worst. Every time you pass the hospital administrator’s office, you’re scared you will get fired—that you will lose your job and your entire career. 

He took everything from you. He broke you and the optimistic young woman you used to be. You were so bright, so ready to change your life for the better. You worked hard to escape the toxicity of your childhood, and you still managed to run into the arms of an abusive narcissist who saw you as nothing but his property. 

It’s sad, and it’s utterly ironic; you told yourself you would never make the same mistake your mom made before she died, and you still did. You were foolish, and you’re still foolish now. 

You can’t call Matthew. You can’t trust anyone, not even yourself, and even if he is trustworthy, he doesn’t deserve someone as damaged as you. 

The business card lands in the trash can under the sink. You give it one last teary-eyed look before slamming it shut. It’s better this way. The excitement you felt when you first held it in your hands was bound to only be temporary. You knew reality would screw it up, maybe it truly is for the best. Or maybe this is the trauma talking and you’re sabotaging yourself, but even then it’s better this way. 

It’s early in the morning, and you leave the broken glass on the sticky kitchen floor. You can’t touch it, not even with gloves. Every time you do, the scar on your cheek stings, and you lose your breath. Every bone, muscle, and nerve is hurting in your body, and every breath tears right through your soul. 

You don’t want to live like this anymore.

The warm water of your small shower rains down on your clothes frame. The bottle of wine in your hand is no longer cold and mixed with water, but you don’t care. Your mind is fuzzy, intoxicated, and in agony. It’s a raging wave of anger with no possible point of release. You’re drowning in despair, buried in a grave of your own making. Alcohol knowingly doesn’t mix well with heartache, but it’s the only thing that will make the voices go away. It silences your thoughts just long enough for you to find a sliver of rest in this stormy ocean, something to hold onto so you won’t drown completely. 

Your heartbeat aligns with the rhythmic pattering of the water. It serenades you. The fog engulfs your brain, weakening your already strained muscles. The cocktail in your veins is poisonous. You should know better than to do this to yourself. You’re a doctor, after all. You are well aware that liquor is not medicine, but it’s the closest you can get. You don’t care as much about your own well-being as you should. 

Getting drunk all by yourself under the hot shower stream fits right into your miserable state.

The sun rises and falls over the next couple of hours. Your alarm goes as night befalls Hell’s Kitchen, but you don’t hear it. Only after it has gotten dark and your phone has started ringing with calls from the hospital does your mind registers that something isn’t quite right. 

You wake up in a cold sweat. Your head is pounding. The wine bottle lies empty on the nightstand next to you, together with a bottle of tequila that you decided to open. Glasses are strewn around with empty takeout containers that are more than a few days old. At first, you’re disoriented, reaching beside you for your phone, which is still in the living room next door. 

You forgot to close the blinds, but you were so out of it that you didn’t notice the hours pass by. The analog clock on the bedside table tells you that it’s a few hours before eleven. At night. 

Your shift was supposed to start at ten. 

The information takes a moment to connect and process, but as soon as it does, you snap out of whatever hungover state you are in and force yourself out of bed. You stumble over empty bottles and dirty laundry on your way to your phone.

“Shit, shit, shit!” you curse. You almost step into the pile of broken glass in the kitchen. “Fuck me! Shit!”

You are screwed, you know that. You’re not even sure if all the alcohol has left your system. You might as well lose your job tonight. 

With one hand, you dial the hospital administrator’s number, who called you over thirty times over the past hour, while you try to find something to wear with your other hand. 

The line finally clicks after what feels like an eternity. “You better have a damn good reason why you aren’t here, Olivia, or I swear to God–”

You cut her off. “I’m so sorry, Shelly,” you say. Your voice is slightly shaky, but you keep it together. “I didn’t hear my alarm a-and I slept in. This has never happened before. I’m usually a very light sleeper. I… I’m already halfway out the door, I promise. I’m sorry.”

“You slept in?!” Shelly answers, her voice resembling a screech. “What— Liv, seriously, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I just… I slept in, that’s all. I’m so, so sorry. I know I screwed up.”

“Unbelievable. First Claire calls out with a mystery illness that apparently still hasn’t gone away, and then my best trauma surgeon sleeps in.” You can hear her shake her head over the noise of the hospital in the background. She sighs. “You’re lucky that this is your first tardy,” she says. “I’ll let it slide just this once. Just… hurry, okay?”

A weight falls off your shoulders. You let out an audible sigh of relief. “Thank you,” you tell her. “You have no idea how much this means to me. I–”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just make sure you get here before midnight. And you will have to work the time that you’ve missed, even if that puts you at risk of having to pull a double shift. This is not up for debate. I feel like I’m working at a children’s daycare.”

You’re not sure if that was meant for you or if she simply forgot to hang up.

You grab your bag and your keys in one swift motion. “I’m leaving now. See ya!”

The bus you usually take to work at this time of night is long gone. There is one more that could take you to your destination, but you arrive at the bus stop just a millisecond too late. It takes off right in front of you, refusing to turn back even when you start sprinting after it, flailing your arms around wildly. 

It’s late, it’s dark, and you’re all alone. The walk to the hospital is over half an hour long, and you promised Shelly you would make it in time before midnight. The next cab is miles away; you’ve checked the app twice, and anything beyond that would be too expensive. 

Hell’s Kitchen is dangerous at this time of night, but you don’t have much of a choice. If you don’t try, there is a high chance Shelly will fire you. If she fires you, you would have to find another country to start over in—you burned bridges in all possible States, and anything closer to where you came from would be too dangerous for you. 

Darkness doesn’t scare you; broken glass and loud footsteps scare you, but the dark of the night has always been somewhat of a soothing companion to you. What scares you is what could be lurking in that very darkness, and the thought makes you walk a little faster. 

Your head is still pounding. Every step you take delivers a punch to your temples. You can feel your heartbeat in your throat. The streetlights are suddenly too bright for your sensitive eyes, but you push through. You have to. 

“So stupid,” you mutter under your breath. “Universe, if you can hear me, just kill me now.”

Passing a particularly dark part of town with the mace on your keychain clutched tightly in your hand, a loud scream pierces the air. Your feet glue themselves to the ground. 

Some things you can only understand if you have experienced the paralyzing feeling of dread that would cause a human being to scream bloody murder. 

You would be lying if you said that the scream you heard coming from that alley wasn’t in any way familiar to you. Perhaps that’s why you choose to abandon all rational thought and run toward danger rather than away from it. Adrenaline is a funny thing, and when it interacts with trauma and anger that has been building for years, there is no knowing what the human body might be capable of doing. 

With the mace in your hand, you walk toward the alley. The closer you get, the louder the desperate pleas grow. The helplessness in the woman’s voice paints a clear picture of what is happening. 

“Hey!” your voice resembles a shout in the poorly lit alley. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” you ask. Your voice becomes a foreign language. 

The man, dressed in a pair of ripped jeans and a hoodie, is towering over a terrified woman. The bottom of her dress is slightly ripped, and it keeps riding up as she struggles against his grip. 

From the corner of your eye, you can see the shiny handle of a knife sticking out of his boot; there is no telling when or if he will pull it. And when you look into his empty eyes, you realize you overestimated yourself. 

“Get lost!” the man tells you. He must be around your age, judging from his features. 

You shake your head. “I have no intention of letting you live out your disgusting rape fantasies on a real-life human being,” you retort. “Let her go, or I will call the cops.”

He takes a step toward you, his hand reaching for the knife. Instinctively, you extend your keychain and spray the pepper directly into his eyes. You empty the entire bottle on him, the adrenaline in your veins locking your thumb to the fragile button.

The woman slides out of her attacker’s grasp when he topples over in agony. He cries out. The spray is quickly causing the skin around his eyes to redden and swell. For a moment, he’s completely incapacitated. 

You can tell that he didn’t calculate for this to happen. He also doesn’t seem to know the woman he decided to attack personally. He just saw a woman walking alone at night and thought he could take what he wanted like the animal he is. 

Your eyes flick toward the woman. Sweat is starting to pool from your pores, mixing with the adrenaline. 

She adjusts her dress, her sobs turning into heavy panting. You know that look on her face all too well. She has scratches on her thighs and arms. It’s hard to tell just how badly he already hurt her before you came along, at least in this lighting and from where you’re standing. 

You reach out to support her. “Are you alright?” you ask her. 

She looks down at her shaky hands, then back at you. She reminds you of a deer in headlights. With a gentle tug, you pull her further out of the alley. The man who attacked her is still blinded, clutching his skull and scratching at his eyes, making the effects of the pepper spray worse. In your mind, he can’t hurt you anymore, but you still need to get her away from him—as far as possible, too. 

“A few cuts and bruises,” you observe, trying not to touch her as you assess her injuries. “Listen, I’m going to call the cops and we’re gonna get you to a hospital, alright?” You search her eyes until she finally looks back at you. “This is nothing I can’t stitch up in a few minutes,” you say, “and then I’ll get you someone who can help you process what happened. Just know that he can’t hurt you anymore. I promise. I’m a witness, and I will make sure he gets what he deserves.”

You should know better than to make promises, especially in the heat of the moment. This is not something you can confidently promise because things might not turn out in your favor. 

The woman pulls her arms away suddenly. “No! No cops, no hospitals,” she pleads. 

“I know you’re scared, believe me, I do, but–”

“No!” She shakes her head again, her voice becoming more determined as the seconds tick by. 

You wish the world wasn’t as cruel as it is. You can’t force her. If it were easy, you probably would have turned to law enforcement too, but it’s not easy. What hurts the most is that you understand why she is so adamant about not calling the police and not going to a hospital, even with so many variables still unknown; you understand too well what it is like. 

Shame and fear are powerful emotions—when all else fails, they take over. 

“I’m sorry,” the woman’s voice quivers. She looks between you and her attacker once more. “Thank you, really, but I can’t—I have to go. I’m so sorry.”

“Wait!” You try to stop her, but she slips through your fingers before you can convince her otherwise. 

She disappears down the street. Calling the police seems almost futile now. You look down at your phone. You’re still a witness to a crime. You should speak up about what you saw. You should try to get justice, even if it will be your word against his. 

Your finger hovers above the call button, but a dark voice from the alley stops you in your tracks. “You bitch!” the man shouts. His voice carries, making you shiver. Now that you’re alone with him, you realize how helpless the situation really is. 

You can’t move. You can’t run. You can’t hide. Your eyes widen. Even half-blind, he has managed to pull the dirty knife from his boot, and he is charging right at you. As if you are the substitute for the woman you just saved. You should have run with her. This was a bad idea. 

“Fuck,” you curse under your breath. You press down on your keychain, but it’s empty now. You’re weaponless with a lot of fake confidence that is slowly swindling, and somehow, you still can’t move. 

You’re frozen in place. Your own recklessness will get you killed. No one will miss you. Your corpse will be buried in a strange cemetery in a strange city that has only been your home for two years, and no one will ever know who you truly were because you told Claire to take your secrets to the grave with her. You will die alone with the familiar feeling of fear and despair spreading through your veins like wildfire. 

Something inside of you cracks, and it melts your frozen muscles. You snap out of your haze when he is only a few inches away from you. In an instant, you have started backing out of the alley almost entirely. You’re running, and you’re running fast. 

You believe that karma comes back around, but sometimes, it takes the wrong direction. You lose your footing suddenly, stumbling over your own shoes, and your ass hits the pavement with a force that knocks the breath out of your lungs. Your wrists bend at a painful angle as you catch yourself, and you look up into the red eyes of what you expect to be your certain demise. 

The impact from the knife never comes. You know what it feels like to be impaled by a sharp object. You know what pain feels like—but it never comes. 

You open your eyes when your ears pick up on the sound of bone breaking—the sight you’re met with startles you, and for a second, you wonder if you’re still alive. You touch your wrist to check for a pulse; it’s still there. You’re not dead, and you’re not hallucinating, either. This is real. 

You’ve seen the news reporting on a man in a black mask scouring the streets of Hell’s Kitchen at night. For weeks now, gang bangers, suspected rapists, and drug dealers have been piling up in the emergency room with several fractures, some of them severe enough to require extensive surgery, but none of them were ever hurt enough to die from their injuries. 

A Russian was dropped from a building a while back. He fell into a coma and then died suddenly a few nights ago, but that was the only patient who got beat up by the infamous Devil of Hell’s Kitchen who lost all quality of life. 

You don’t like to judge, but there is something about him that makes you feel safe rather than afraid. He only beats up those who are in the business of committing injustice and pose a danger to innocent lives. He’s there when the law fails. And so far, he has never killed anyone. The injuries on the patients you treated were quite severe and suggested that whoever did it has a great collection of anger issues, but he has enough self-control not to kill. 

He’s not a threat to people like you. He is, however, a threat to the kind of man who tried to rape an innocent woman and then threatened you with a knife. 

Your attacker drops to the ground with a pained grunt. The man in the mask is towering over him, his chest heaving. You admire his physique for a moment too long. Your eyes trail from his toned chest in that tight black shirt to his backside in those tight-fitting black pants. 

He seems oddly familiar yet, at the same time, he is a total stranger. A stranger in a mask. A stranger who throws fists like a professional boxer. A stranger who could crush your head within seconds. And still, there is something about him that reminds you of someone else, someone you just recently met, but you can’t put your finger on it. It wouldn’t even make sense if you tried. 

You’re still sitting on the cold asphalt, staring up at the man who saved you. He turns his head toward you, slowly. His plump lips glisten in the moonlight. 

“You hurt?” he asks. 

Your throat is all dried up. One glance down at your palms tells you that you only scraped the skin, but you’re not injured. So, you shake your head. Maybe there is a little fear mixed into your stunned eyes, but only because this is a very strange situation to find yourself in, and you have been in a lot of very strange situations in the past. 

He tilts his head ever so slightly. His nostrils flare. “You’re bleeding.”

You don’t even want to know how he knows that.

“Just a scratch,” you finally manage to speak up, although your voice sounds embarrassingly small.

You wipe your palms on your pants and slowly rise to your feet. Every bone in your body hurts. Standing across from him, you realize how much taller he is in person. 

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he says. 

“I know.”

He stops. You can’t see his eyes, but the lower part of his face reveals the confusion that has taken him over. 

“I’ve dealt with men worse than you,” you state. “I’m not scared.”

He chuckles darkly. “You’re welcome.”

People usually don’t talk back at him, it seems. At least those he saves usually don’t. 

“I could’ve defended myself. In fact, I already did.” You lift your keychain. “I don’t know if playing the hero is your thing, but I’m not a victim.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Excuse me?”

“I wasn’t trying to play hero,” he clarifies, a humorless smirk resting on his lips, “I was saving your life ‘cause you were trying to play the hero. Next time, I suggest you don’t bring mace to a knife fight.”

“And I suggest you don’t put your nose where it doesn’t belong,” you retort. 

You were grateful for no longer than a second. Now, you’re just annoyed. 

The alley is still. The atmosphere is heavy with the aftermath of the danger you only narrowly escaped—thanks to him, and you hate admitting that even to yourself. He seems unfazed, almost amused, by your attempts at asserting your independence, and the arrogance radiating off him is hitting the wrong nerve.

“This guy was gonna kill you because you decided to do the right thing,” he says, adjusting his leather gloves. “I decided to save your life. We both made decisions tonight, and it doesn’t matter whether we are happy with them or not. What matters is that no one got hurt.”

“Tell that to the woman he traumatized for life.”

He sighs at your words. “You still did the right thing.”

“I know,” you say.

“Are you always this feisty?”

“Only to masked vigilantes who think I’m some damsel in distress that needs saving and that everything can be solved with their pretty little fists.”

“Well, my pretty little fists are the reason you didn’t end up stabbed, so,” he answers, and his lips curl into a smug smirk. He shrugs, his black shirt riding up only slightly, revealing a sliver of marble skin. You can’t help but let your eyes wander.

“I don’t need a thank you,” he says, “but you need to be more careful next time. Don’t go into dark alleys alone, especially at night. It’s not safe.”

You want to give a snarky remark, but the sound of church bells in the background signal to you that it’s midnight, and you are supposed to be at work. Checking your phone would be a death sentence. Sirens can be heard in the background, but they are not headed for you. 

Maybe Shelly won’t fire you if you’re honest with her about what conspired tonight—if you bare you allow her a glimpse into your soul—but you will suffer the consequences of your own stupidity gravely in the days to come, that much you do know. 

You exhale an exasperated sigh. “I don’t have time for this,” you mutter. 

“Got somewhere to be?” the masked man asks you. 

“As a matter of fact, I do. But that’s none of your business.”

You wonder if he’s frowning under that thin cloth that is hiding his real identity. He still seems so familiar to you. How can he fight if he’s keeping his eyes covered? It’s not the first question you have asked yourself about him, but it surely is the most prominent one because no explanation for it makes sense to you; at least not one you can think of. You want to ask, but you also don’t want to keep encouraging him. You shouldn’t care.

You look back down at the man he knocked out. He’s still unconscious, and he’s bleeding profusely. The angry woman in you wants to let him rot here and let the masked man have his fun, but the doctor in you can’t just leave him there. 

“What about him?” you hear yourself asking, but your mind is far away. 

He tilts his head toward where you’re pointing, not actively looking. How could he? His eyes are covered. His eyes… You can’t make sense of this, and it is affecting your judgment. It’s making you frustrated. 

“He can’t touch you anymore,” his dark voice suddenly sounds so soft. 

A sliver of humanity shines through his facade. Your angry demeanor cracks. “You beat him up pretty good. He could have lasting brain damage,” you remark. 

He pauses, tilting his head further toward the man on the ground. “No,” he says, pouting a little. “He’s still breathing.”

“He could still have brain damage.”

“He has a few broken bones, cuts, bruises, but he’s alive.”

“Those things are totally unrelated. You’re not a doctor, you wouldn’t understand. I’ve already treated more bad guys in the past month than I could possibly count on my fingers, and all of them seemed to fear the same man. Now, not many things can scare a gangbanger to death. Not many people can deliver blows so deliberately without actually fatally wounding anyone. I know it was you,” you say. “Everyone knows it was you, and they’re afraid of you. I’m not, but I am a doctor, and I took an oath to do no harm. I vowed to help those in need, including those I believe may not be worthy of my help. This has nothing to do with judgment. I know you don’t kill; I see it with my own eyes every damn night, but the Russian you beat up a couple days ago?”

That catches his attention. His head whips back around to you, his upper lip twitching slightly as if he is tasting the air. His attention is entirely on you. The question, “What?” gets lost as nothing but a breathless whisper in the cold night air. 

“He was in a coma,” you continue, “and then he died. It’s probably unrelated to what you did, but there was only a small chance he would have ever woken up again anyway. Just because someone is still breathing doesn’t mean their brain is alive. What makes us human, who we are, that is all anchored in our brains. We can’t survive without it. You may not have killed him, but that guy barely had any brain activity left, and that is not something you can consider life.”

You didn’t expect him to sneer. You must have hit a nerve with your words, but it must have hurt him deeply. 

“My point is, I am not letting you do the same to this guy. I’m calling an ambulance and the police, and I will let them figure this out.”

“He’ll walk,” he says, and his voice is dark again. It sends shivers down your spine. 

You look at him, your confidence not wavering this time. “Then so be it, but I am not letting him die,” you say. 

“How is having a rapist walk the streets of this city not doing harm?”

You raise your eyebrows. “Beg your pardon?”

“He will do this again, and maybe next time there will be no one to step in and he will hurt another woman.”

“So what, you want to kill him instead of surrendering him to the authorities?”

“That’s not what I do.”

“Then what do you do?”

“I’m trying to make this city a better place!”

His voice bounces off the walls building a cage around the alley. “And I’m just trying to save a human life, even if it’s a shitty one!” you shoot back. “It’s not our choice who gets to play God, okay? Death would be too kind for a man like him, and leaving him here won’t solve anything either. Like it or not, but I’m not breaking my oath.”

You made a promise when you became a doctor, and you are not going to risk letting someone die on your watch. That could get you into a lot of trouble. 

You approach your attacker’s limp body. When you kneel next to him, a gush of wind blows through your hair. You assess his skull, his abdomen, and his limbs. So far, all you can see are superficial wounds, and the same fractures you have seen pass through the emergency room more than once in the past couple of weeks. He did a number on him, but his pulse feels normal and he is breathing. 

You lift your head, but when you do, you find the spot before you empty. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen has disappeared into the darkness, leaving you to fend for yourself. You should have seen this coming. 

The ambulance takes a while to arrive after you’ve dialed 911. You try your best to keep the man stabilized, but he remains unresponsive. When help finally arrives, the emergency responders are followed by police, and you don’t hesitate to give your statement. You leave the masked vigilante that saved your life out of it—you may not have seen eye to eye just now, but you don’t want to rat him out either. You owe him as much. 

Just as you’re picking your purse off the dirty ground to follow the EMTs to the hospital in the ambulance, giving you the perfect excuse to give to Shelly on why you are even later than you already were, a glimpse of silver in the shadows catches your attention. 

“You did the right thing,” the Devil speaks only loud enough for you to hear, hiding in the darkness protecting the fire escape of the nearest building. 

You swallow your pride. “Thank you,” you finally tell him. 

He chuckles. “For telling you that or saving your life?”

“Both,” and you even offer him a small smile with your gratitude. That is all you’re capable of giving him, for now. 

“Take care,” he says. 

The glimpse of silver disappears, causing the metal of the fire escape to shake under his weight, and he is long gone before you even whisper, “You too.”

Tag List: @shiorimakibawrites @allllium @siampie @auroraslibrary @roseallisonparker @abucketofweird @thatonegamefish @capylore @kniselle @sumo-b98 @peachstarliight @danzer8705 @kakamixo @littlehappyperson @atemydadforbreakfast @stevenknightmarc @zheezs14

[bitterkarmaa]

Calloused. The lack of emotional response, the lull of personal preference. A wall separating mind from body. It felt…calloused.

Oil slicked like blood between its fingers, unnaturally heavy. A weight that carries a decade of memories, compacted into a liquid substance, painting it like a portrait.

Each step is like climbing a mountain. It expects to fall down the metaphorical steep incline, but defies all odds and stays upright.

The hallway is long. The end hides unseen in a shroud of darkness, silence bickering between the hollow walls, pipes dripping toxins.

Dripping, dripping, dripping…

Each step brings another drop, another splatter, trailing in a constant flow.

The darkness splits. Barrels of loaded guns jut out of the shadows, shouts echoing down the corridor, clicks of wracked weapons like ticking time bombs all around.

They close in. A pack of wolves with ready jaws, gunpowder clamped between sharpened teeth. Claws closed over open triggers. There was nowhere to run.

It knows it has no chance. What is a lone wolf to do against a healthy, prepared pack?

Bite. Go down biting.

It lashes out. In a single, fluid motion, it tosses the guns to the side, the clatter of metal meeting cement its only victory cry. Teeth lock on the bodies that soon lay strewn up and down the hall. Blood and oil mixes. A concoction, a poison.

It adds more blood to the mixture. An experiment, a potion. Even distribution of the chemical compounds eases the reaction. It drops the last body from its sodden hands.

It trudges on. The doors to the final room stand in shadowed silence before it. It doesn’t hesitate.

The doors are flung from their hinges.

Petrified orange eyes glow faintly from inside the dome situated in the middle of the room, mechanical control arms poised above the scattered remains of his son.

What have they done to his boy?

He was innocent. Why didn’t it believe him?

Clenched teeth partner with cruel tears that streak fluently down its face. Bitterness becomes brutality. Claws clash against impenetrable, oil-stained glass.

Invincibility faces the inevitable consequences of a father gone mad. Cracks crawl out from the contact points, jagged lines from sharpened claw tips. The invalids in the room move to attempt either escape or interference.

It has no time for their petty games. A single strike is all it takes to dismember the first soul in sight, sending the head rolling like a bowling ball while the body collapses onto the floor in a pathetic heap.

“Open the door!” It roars, animalistic stance steady, poised and prepared for their next puny attack. Instead of wasting more lives, however, one coated individual makes the most important decision of their life and decides to open the door for the hovering beast.

The door slides open, and it slips inside. The fragmented remains of a son desperate for his father lets out the smallest, quietest cry of relief as his monstrous parent comes into what remains of his sightline.

The onlookers exchange questioning glances as the beast kneels down beside its son, scooping him up into gentle arms.

“It’s alright, I’m right here. It’s okay, you’ll be okay, shhh…”

Trembling, disfigured fingers fidget in the fabric of sodden sleeves. “I’m gonna die. I-I don’t want…don’t want to die…” A raspy admission, glitching and hitching in what remains of a once passionate voice. Now it is nothing more than a conceited whisper.

“You won’t die, my boy. I won’t let you die, I swear it on my own life.” Stained hands cradle broken limbs, holding components in place. Just to function, just to live.

“It’s over. They…they won. You believed them, d…didn’t you? Believed what they…said about me…?”

It presses its faceplate against its son’s, closing its eyes for a fleeting moment as the remains of his boy does the same in his arms. They stay like that for a little bit, foreheads pressed in foreshadowing stances, both feeling the time slip away.

“I did. I took their word over your’s, and I’m so, so sorry for that, my son. It won’t happen again.”

Careful arms hold precious remains, the most valuable body in the eyes of what once was a defender, now a warrior seeking vengeance for the son he cradles in his arms. Reality strikes with a cruelty only a seasoned assassin could muster.

“Of course it won’t. I’m…not gonna be…gonna be here…” That faint feeling of horror worsens as the fingers curled into his sleeve begin to ease. Panic sparks a protest in his chest.

“You will. You’ll be here, and I’ll be making this up to you for the rest of our lives, alright? I…I won’t let you die. I won’t let them win. I won’t!” Tone raising, borderline bite behind the denial. Its face twists to accommodate the tears that gather in its eyes.

This is all my fault.

It’s that dim orange stare that finally forces everything to settle in.

“I’ll find a way to save you, Eclipse. I won’t let them take you from me.”

A sad smile cast across his face, Eclipse lets out the smallest sound of confirmation, barely managing to force out a few final words. “Maybe we’ll…see each other…again….someday.”

A normally violent hand reduced to gentleness cradles Eclipse’s oil-stained face as the light fades from his eyes. He lets out a last breath before going limp.

The orange in his gaze fades. Only darkness remains.

The beast stands, still cradling the body of his child. With a single sly hand, he slips his claws behind Eclipse’s head, secretly prying his chip from its protective port. The chip is deposited in a pocket not long after.

He turns, carrying the corpse of his child out of the glass cylinder they consider to be a last line of defense. As some of them step forwards to stop the beast’s retreat, it snaps at them, pulling the remains of its son close to its chest in a show of security. It refuses to hand over Eclipse to these vile, heartless creatures. They cower away easily enough, and it takes that as a sign to continue on.

All the way out the doors and through the halls, scowling at the floor as if it is to blame for this tragedy.

The daycare has changed. There are no more orange and white tints, now replaced by disgusting yellows and annoying blues. The playmats are now scattered squares of random colors, the contrast almost painful to look at. It steps further into the room.

The posters have been taken down, instead sporting two different characters in the place of Eclipse. Makes sense that they’d need two animatronics to keep up with Eclipse’s previous duties. No one could do it like he could.

No one.

It makes its way to the desk. The computer that sits there has been updated with a newer monitor and more modern system - a request that Eclipse put in months before The Incident.

Its expression twists into one of disgust. How disrespectful it was, to only follow through once he was gone. Two blueprints are laid out beside the keyboard, seemingly having been planned out for quite some time. Parts are crossed off and notes are made in the margins, signifying changes to be implemented as time went on.

Its chest tightens. They were going to replace him anyways?

He was a good daycare attendant. The kids loved him. One boy even promised to work with him when he got older.

It shakes its head. With a rabid, furious snarl, it turns and carries Eclipse back out of the daycare, making its way up and over to the theater, instead. Across the room, into one of the halls, up the stairs, and out onto the platform that serves as a place to store the projectors. It glares at the screen for a moment, a new advertisement for some sort of upcoming candies playing on repeat. It’s all so wrong. This should all be the same. It wasn’t his fault.

It grumbles to itself as it pushes open a rusted door that leads into a secret hallway in the wall, traversing the dark space until it reaches a secluded room near the back. It shifts Eclipse’s weight in its arms so that it can grab the handle, shoving the door open and slipping inside.

“KC! KC, YOU CAN’T LET THEM DO THIS!!”

Distant words echo in its head, and it winces. It should’ve stepped in sooner. It wasn’t his fault, goddammit!

“I’m so sorry, my son.” It murmurs softly, resting its forehead against Eclipse’s own oil splattered one. Tears drip down its faceplate.

“I failed you.”

As he glares daggers down at his son’s wasted second chance, his chest askew, simulated breaths only present due to the large, awkward cable sticking out of his chest…

He knows it won’t be the last time he’s failed him, either.

-

Prequel for this

[ambersgems]

Bonded - Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: Soulmate AU where you can feel your soulmate's emotions. When you meet, usually their name appears on your wrist.

A/N: This is my first written piece on here, so any feedback is appreciated/welcomed! It was kind of rushed so not my best work lol. I'm not sure if I want a second part to this or not, so let me know if you'd like to see a continuation. I also would love requests for anything Dean, Chris Evans characters, or Sebastian Stan characters! It can be blurbs, drabbles, or longer! Oh, also I imagine Dean being around 28/29 here while reader is approaching 25.

Word Count: 1.4K

Something was wrong. You knew as soon as your eyes flew open that you weren’t going back to bed anytime soon. Your hand was placed on your chest, heart beating increasingly faster as you laid in the dark. You tried to think back. Were you having a bad dream? No. This must be him. It happened more frequently than you’d like. You’d wake up in the middle of the night, heart pounding and palms sweating. Each time you could feel it, the danger. He was in danger. You just knew it. 

You wondered what he did for a living that would cause him to land himself in such terrifying situations so often. Was he in the military? Maybe he was an adrenaline junky or a storm chaser? Whatever it was, you found yourself silently praying that he survived whatever was causing his fight or flight response to trigger once again.

Swinging your legs off the side of the bed, your feet hit the cool hardwood floors and cause you to shiver. You take a deep breath, forcing yourself to stand and get out of bed to wander into the kitchen. You weren’t exactly sure if he felt your emotions too or not. How could you know if you haven't met him yet? There were times like now that you hoped desperately that he could. Maybe, just maybe, he could feel you trying to calm him in whatever capacity that you could. Sometimes that meant making chamomile tea and reading a book to try and lower his stress response or sometimes it meant a hot shower to relax the intense muscles you felt in your body from him. 

There were other times, however, that you hoped he really couldn’t feel your emotions the way you could feel his. He seemed to already have enough on his plate, with the intense nights and at times what could only be described as heartache. You didn’t know what he was going through, but you knew you didn’t want to add your baggage to it. 

So, when you cried at work the other day, you dried your eyes as quickly as possible, not wanting to burden him if he felt the same heaviness in his chest as you did. It was the same situation at home, though. You tried your hardest not to give into the depths of your lonely despair. After all, most of your friends had already found their soulmate, but yours seemed to be nowhere to be found. There were times that the only way to drown out the hurt was to just stay disconnected. When you weren’t actively trying to calm your mystery man, you tried your best to ignore him. 

You didn’t want to get your hopes up. There were plenty of people in this world who never met their soulmate, and they were left to live a life without them. You’d actually witnessed your friend’s first interaction with her soulmate. 

When you two were back at college, she was a barista at your local coffee shop, while you were a research assistant for one of your professors. You kept completely different hours, which is why on that particular day, you decided to hang out with her in the coffee shop to spend some more time with her, even if you were just studying at one of the tables. She had been anxious all morning, and you knew it wasn’t her emotions that she was feeling. She was a naturally confident person, never second guessing herself, but that morning she was a frenzied mess. She even told you herself that it felt like it was her soulmate and not her own emotions. 

After she had wiped down the tables for the billionth time that morning, a gangly and somewhat dorky guy came rushing into the shop. You could practically feel the anxiety buzzing from him as soon as he came in, pushing his dark framed glasses up his nose and clumsily slipping on the newly mopped floors. There was a loud smack, and the next thing you knew you watched as your friend reached her hand out to help the guy sit up. What really took your attention was the groaning that came from both parties. You watched them both wince in pain, looking down as they watched each other's names etch into the other’s wrist at the same time. It was like the world clicked into place for them both at that very moment. 

It turned out, Luke was a law school student, cramming for a very important exam that morning. His naturally anxious personality was quite the opposite of your friend’s, but they seemed to work together in harmony. 

Fast forward and they were still the picture perfect couple. He doted on her more than any man you’d ever seen, and she was head over heels for her nerdy guy. It was sweet, but you hated to admit how hard it was to be around them. You were happy for them both, but it stung to know that you were getting closer to the Age of Choice than you wanted to be. In a mere 8 months you’d be free to make a decision you never wanted to make.

Age 25 meant you were at what was called the “Age of Choice.” You could choose whether or not you wanted to marry your soulmate. If you hadn’t met them by 25, you had the right to choose someone else. You didn’t have to wait any longer to marry someone else, and somehow that hurt worse than not having met your soulmate. What if he had already reached the Age of Choice and he had already decided on someone else? The thought gripped your chest harder than you would like to admit. 

All of these thoughts ran through your mind as you made your tea in the kitchen, reliving your friend’s soulmate encounter and your fear for the future. You ran on autopilot as you thought about all of these things, finally making your way to the couch to perform your calm down ritual for your soulmate. It took all of about 90 minutes to feel like you had completely settled his nerves. By the time you had realized he had calmed down, you had fallen asleep on the couch.

This time your eyes flew open for a different reason. The loud blaring of your alarm was unwelcomed by your lack of sleep as you wandered back to your bed to turn it off. It was times like this you were glad you had a studio apartment. 

The morning seemed to get away from you. This time it was your turn to be the anxious party. You really couldn’t afford to be late to work this morning. Your boss had scheduled a very important meeting 15 minutes after the workday began and a day filled with projects that need to be completed “ASAP” as your boss would like to say. 

As soon as you entered the office, the atmosphere was different than any other day. You could feel it. Everyone seemed to be stiff and uncomfortable. You didn’t understand until two men turned around at the front desk. 

“You must be Miss Y/L/N?” the tallest one asks as your brows furrow. You didn’t recognize either of the two men, but you studied them as quickly as you could. 

“That’s me. Can I ask who you are?” you questioned, trying to be polite, but not wanting to deal with anything else this morning that you didn’t have to.

“I’m agent Smith and this is agent Jones, we are here to ask you a few questions about your boss,” the shorter of the two answered, reaching out and grabbing your hand.

You hiss and your eyes burn with tears as you look into his green ones, shock filling your body as you yank your hand away from his. Looking down, you see the name “Dean” etching itself into your wrist. Your hands shake as you look up at the tall man, confusion covering your face when you don’t see your name on his wrist. 

He groans, hand gripping his chest. He pulls at the buttons, looking down and seeing your name written right over his heart and underneath another strange looking tattoo. Your mouth falls open as your eyes widen, swallowing thickly. 

“Well, sweetheart, looks like we’re not only soulmates, we’re bonded. And we need to have a conversation,” you hear ‘Dean’ say gruffly, a smirk dancing on his lips.

Tagged by request:

@imaginedreamwrite

[holylottie]

Aching bones, aching teeth [03]

masterlist [and warnings!]

PAIRING — Lottie Matthews x fem!reader

CHAPTER SINOPSIS — In 1996, they looked to you for answers that you pretended to know. In 2021, they looked to you for answers you didn't have.

NOTE — english is not my first language, I apologize for any mistakes you might find. Please go read the tw's first! Thank you for reading :)

Jackie brainrot, I miss the snow baby.

2021

Some nights, you used to stare at your dollhouse.

It was very big, with a garden, beds more comfortable than your own and even an attic (where no doll was allowed to go, but it mattered that it was there).

There was a doll with brown hair in the bed, she was always there, always warm and inside the place (you were not allowed to move her, not even if you truly wanted to).

Some nights, you would wake up and watch the dolls move on their own. A little Shauna walking around the kitchen, a tiny Van hopping the stairs. 

But little Jackie never moved, she always stayed where you let her: on the bed, on the blanket. You used to cry about it, now you enjoyed the sight: she was safe, she was warm and, most importantly of it all, she was out of your grip.

Staring at your ceiling, you wonder if this was on God’s plan. 

You remember the cold lonely nights, the sins and blessings. How Lottie would hug you closely or how Jackie would dry your tears with shaking hands. How everyone was so happy dancing, how Misty called you nice and hugged you so dearly.

Or how, on the first nights, you didn't even eat, only to leave more for Lottie, in case she felt hungry.

God treats everyone as sons. Wasn’t he the one to make the cross?

When you woke up from your memory, your fingers were stained with blood. Your belly was bloody too, with a few drops getting onto the bed below you. In your skin it was marked, again, the symbol of the trees.

1996

You walked over in Jackie's direction, seeing her alone in the cabin. You smile at her, seeing her trying to do the same, but not succeeding very well. You keep quiet, just doing your chores of cleaning berries and leaves by her side, hoping your presence would be enough.

— This is all so fucking weird — she said, a sour taste on her mouth as she looked at you doing your tasks — I wish I could just live like you all do, but it's all disgusting and too hot.

You giggle lowly, and she stares at you a bit mad, but then you both laugh. 

— I just pretend, actually — you confess — I pretend I'm in a vintage dollhouse and I need to leave like a barbie doll… except like the house is in the middle of nowhere, with only two ken’s and there's not even plastic food… 

At that, Jackie laughs loudly, shaking her head at your words.

— You truly know how to live in a fantasy world, tiq.

She called you the nickname she had given you when you entered the team, tiq because of the tic tac of a clock, since you would make the sound every time you were nervous —that and your crippling anxiety over routine and times, you always wanted everyone in the field at least fifteen minutes before the game started. 

— We need this, you know… there's no way of this working if we don't stay positive — you say, pressing your lips together as you put the good berries on a different cup, the bad ones on another so you could make jam or something like that — I put on ribbons and pretty dresses, and pretend I'm just going to a party on the woods… pretend I'm just… just the same.

Jackie walks over at you, sitting by your side and hugging you. She kisses your forehead, taking a deep breath. 

— You know… you could put some ribbons on my hair… 

Your eyes lighted up and you quickly put the cups on the bed, running to your bag and getting up a set of white ribbons, giggling as you sat behind Jackie, ready to doll her up. 

The first nights were okay, the other ones were bearable, but these? Oh, these were horrifying… Charlotte could not even grasp when or where it all changed, but what seemed to be a fun trip to the woods, where they forgot all of their resources, turned into a fulltime nightmare, where not even sleeping she was free… Perhaps, she just had finally stopped being able to fool herself. 

What made it possible for her to not lose herself to madness was the lake. A place where she was reborn —and washed away from her sins.

No, not all her sins, she was still alive after all.

Where to go when you are lost on yourself?

That’s right, you stay stuck —and thats what she felt, floating on the cold water of the river, wishing for things to change. Just wishing and wishing with nothing happening.

Charlotte always tried her best to help people out, to make the tragedies that she felt turn into something useful, but to no avail, no one ever listened to what she had to warn.

“Why do you insist on saving the sacrificial lamb, Charlotte?”

Well, don't all living things deserve a chance to live? 

Half of Lottie wanted to take the lamb upon her arms and watch it grow into a pretty sheep. The other half was ready to lick its bones.

Lottie loved the gray skies way more than people seemed to love those orange-pink sunsets. She pictured the Gods watching over humans with a filter lens —because yes, she thought that there was more than only one God, no, she prayed for it; Maybe in a trial, she would have more chances of forgiveness.

— What are your thoughts on loneliness, Laura? 

She looked over at Laura Lee, expectantly, always imagining the girl had all of the answers.

— I don’t know, it’s hard to talk about loneliness when I don’t feel it.

— You never feel alone? — Charlotte asks, frowning. It felt impossible to her.

— I’m never really alone, I walk along with God and anywhere I go, I follow.

The answer left Charlotte quiet for a few moments, trying to look at the skies with hooded eyes.

— I’m afraid I’ve been sent to this earth to only feel hurt.

— That’s not true, Lottie.

— How can you know?

— no one uses the sheep as the purification offer. It is the reparation one. It only comes after the sin is already made. 

— Perhaps the sheep is the sin itself, that’s why it burns.

— If you are used to the fire, why would you scream while being burned? 

— You scream of fear, not out of pain.

— Are you a shepherd or a farmer, Lottie? 

— What? — she stared at her friend, confused.

— You can stay and be anxious about your lands or you can go and only worry about the sheeps. 

— I feel like there’s only one correct answer to that question — and she also felt like the one she was going to give, wasn’t it.

— Well, we all deserve the opportunity to do something… and also to choose to do nothing at all — Laura replied, a faint, but genuine, smile on her lips.— Life is just what happens after you do one of the two.

Some nights, you went to the lake.

You liked the idea of having so much water around you. You float around, taking deep breaths, you are lost in thoughts, your mind going to your half written poem —one you only had the end of.

“And her teeth bite into my flesh.

And he complains that I can't talk about loving without talking about devouring.

I have myself on my tongue, I bite until I feel red: I leave bite marks on everything I desire.

My mind tries to convince me:

it's okay to get out, there's no point in eating if you're already full; 

And a part of my mind speaks out loud:

emptiness is not filled with food;

I have love on my table, and all I can see is the guests eating.

I smile with the satisfaction of being a great hostess —at the same time as I hope I've seasoned it with poison.”

Your attention was lost when you saw a shining thing on the depth of the lake. Shine enough to be seen only with the moon light. Your fingertips moved to get close to it, but the more you swam, the more far it seemed to be.

You reached it, and when you felt the pang on your finger it was too late. You looked at the bloody point of it, staring at the little Victorian looking pin on your palm. A little lamb with some shining pearls on it. 

Some nights, Charlotte sleepwalked. She said weird stuff and looked at you in a different way. She was here today, the sudden presence scaring you, but you instantly relaxed when you saw Lottie. You could never be afraid of her.

Charlotte looked at you, tilting her head as you opened your mouth to ask. She was quicker.

— and what is nature for you?

You got scared by her voice, a hoarse voice, deep and steady, like a knife cutting meat. Her eyes were scanning you. 

— I love the wind.

— No. — she said, her words so convicted that even you doubted your own — what's in you?

What could she possibly mean by it? natural behavior? You didn’t know if you actually believed that, on things coming within us when we are born. You wished your nature was to be light and fond and kind, but deep down, really deep, within the catacombs of your stomach, you knew your nature was to have a tight grip around your heart —always wishing for that deep breath of release.

— hunger. 

2021

When you opened the door of your house, the last thing you expected to see was a trio of women with angry faces shooting you inside your house.

— I'm almost sure this is a property invasion.

— The last thing you'll need to worry about is a property invasion once I put my hands on your fucking neck! — Natalie said, but she didn't move, only walked close behind you as you went to your colorful living room, in a huge contrast to the clothes of the other women. 

You sit on the couch, taking your cup of tea and sipping it, trying to gain some time. You looked at them, waiting for them to speak. 

— I might know why you all came here, but I must say, it's nice to see you all again! — you smiled genuinely, although truly nervous behind your faucet. 

— oh, cut the shit off, y/n! What is up with that? — Taissa asked, throwing the newspaper with a big picture of you on it.

“Former Yellowjackets member might reveal the truth at an art show?”

You stared at the piece of paper. It was a nice pic of you, not your favorite, but a nice one. 

— It's a newspaper… I don't really read it, with internet and all, I kind of-

— What the fuck are you thinking?! “reveal the truth”? Have you lost your mind? 

You frowned, sighing.

— I never said I was gonna reveal anything! They just assumed that!

— And you didn't deny it! 

You shake your head, getting up from the couch and going to the bookshelf on the corner of the room. Your necklace holds the key to one of the secret places, and you open it, taking the postcard out of it.

— I'm not the one threatening to reveal the truth! 

You accuse them, not sure which one you look at.

Shauna frowns, sharing looks with Taissa and Natalie. You used to love them. You now wish to have them out of your skin, of your mannerisms and past. You wish to bleed all your blood so you could take away your shared sins. 

— You received one too.

— a couple of days ago, yes, — you answer, putting it on the table — it was at my backstage with flowers with it.

Natalie took it, analyzing the image.

— Why is yours different? 

She stares at you, wishing for answers. Answers you did not have. 

— What do you mean? Different from what? 

— From ours. Yours have a lamb at the corner and these numbers, what does that mean? 

You take the card out of her hands, looking at it carefully again. A lamb with the numbers 119:50. What could that mean? 

— I… I have no idea… 

[tyk-tyk-tyk]

How about, for the meme: good ol’ lodger, and Maxwell if you want to do another!! :3

Sorry this took so long to answer! Going to start with The Lodger, and I’ll put Maxwell from Don’t Starve under the cut!

First impression

I remember the most striking thing was the art style, his eyes were absolutely haunted and I loved them. His design alone is what got me looking at the game.

Impression now

He’s such a little gremlin. I mean, come on, look at him! He’s such a little shit being an unreliable narrator, and I think that’s my favorite character flaw I’ve ever had the pleasure of observing and writing.

Favorite moment

Which leads into the next point, I think the most haunting part of the game was The Lodger constantly contradicting himself and abruptly saying “Help me.” with no other explanation. I know the gameplay is clunky, grindy, and completely unfair—But I will ride and die for the atmosphere at least.

Idea for a story (Mentions of disease/rotting/minor horror elements! Skip to the next one if you don’t want to read this!)

I’ve had this draft called ‘doppelgänger’ in my WIPs for ages, but it was meant to be The Lodger finding a wounded stranger out in the woods and nursing them back to health. There’s a funeral custom about draping things over mirrors, so The Lodger hasn’t seen his own reflection in years. Prattles on and on about how this poor stranger should have taken better care of themselves, they look uncanny! Their eyes look hollowed in and their skin is a deathly pale and their red hair looks like it’s falling out—

By the time he realizes it’s a living and breathing copy of himself, he’s already invited it into his home, and he has to decide what to do from here on out.

Unpopular opinion

Is this fandom even big enough for popular opinions I think the lodger would be an antivaxxer in modern times, you know bro would PANIC about conspiracy theories

Favorite relationship

Him and his bed (and if you’re not with the government, I’ll ship him with basically any other man even if it’s toxic just to try and experiment with what he would do in a relationship. Please for the love of god keep him away from the girl in the woods though her Steam card is LITTLE GIRL not grown woman, that’s his daughter not his date)

Favorite headcanon

I always struggle to decide which is more heartbreaking and plausible, if The Lodger is some guy that a nearby town/city sees every now and then and never sees him again for months on end, or if no one even knows he exists and his house is just a stop in the middle of nowhere.

Though while we’re on that note, I think regardless he is insanely lonely and LOVES company of any kind. To the point where it can be kind of overbearing. But he’s trying his best.

Now, about that Maxwell guy

First impression

I haaated him, but only because I always imagined him smugly laughing every time I died to something stupid in Don’t Starve. Everything felt like concentrated spite towards my journey to the throne (that never even got past King of Winter)

Impression now

I like him so much as a character. I remembered unlocking Maxwell with cheats just to run through his dialogue in game (even though I could have just looked at the wiki, I wasn’t smart okay) and watching someone else get to his throne. It was such whiplash for me to realize that someone who (allegedly) was taunting me was actually just in an insane amount of endless misery.

Favorite moment

“Even the king is bound to the board.” Such an iconic line for me.

Also any time he whines about physical labor or his clothes getting dirty always makes me laugh

Idea for a story

It’s hard to say, I don’t tend to do a lot of writing for Maxwell since my amazing and most best friend in the world often writes him. Though I’ve always found the concept of Wilson interacting with William funny. I think once upon a time an ancient moon ago, I wanted to draw a mini comic where Wilson and William were spying on Maxwell using bush hats. Wilson goes ‘Alright, go talk to him.’ and William replies ‘No way, I scare me!’

Sigh, simpler times.

Unpopular opinion

I haven’t interacted with the fandom in LITERALLY YEARS so this could have changed, but I think people like to try and pull like… Internet cancel culture on this old man. Saying that just because he was evil once, he’s evil forever. And while I don’t think he’s entirely sunshine and rainbows, the man was poor and I get why he literally made a deal with the devil. You can tell that he never wanted at least Charlie to get involved, and he quite literally was gaslit back into the dark side, so. I dunno, be kind to your elders or something.

Favorite relationship

Initially I was so off-put by Maxwil, but as I’ve gotten older I think it’s one of my favorite opposites attract tropes.

I love Maxlie more than anything though. 10/10 friends to lovers to enemies to lovers, no notes.

Favorite headcanon

I think he likes to do magic tricks for the kids. Or anyone who will watch and won’t make fun of him. He may put on a refined gentlemanly front but I think he’ll always be a nerd.

[drchenquill]

Favorite character Poll~

I felt @thecomfywriter 's threat and came to do this! (thank you for the tag, I literally forgot about it, please forgive my mistake~)

Rules: list all your main ocs and give brief descriptions of them. then, create a poll with their names and allow your followers to vote on who their favourite character is.

Okay, last time I did OCs from "Him and Me - Bound by Fate" so this time I'll go with OCs from "Daisy" and "The Memories of The Future".

(I'm bad at intros for characters, please bear with me)

OCs from "Daisy"

Daisy

Daisy is a young omega that fled from her Alpha, because he wanted to tie her to him by force. She is easily scared and doesn't know much of the world because her mother kept her locked in for most of her life because she wanted to keep her safe, knowing their alpha's nature.

She lost the connection to her wolf side due to being forbidden to change form and ignoring that side her entire life long (Again, her mother tried to protect her like that). Because of that she feels like a failure. She is very shy and doesn't trust easily.

Fun fact: she mostly walks barefoot, liking to feel the grass under her feet.

Izrail

Izrail is a lone alpha that found Daisy in the night of her escape. He brought her to her now pack. He feels drawn to her innocence and will step out of his comfort zone, just to prove to her that he is trustworthy.

He lived alone for at least a decade and has lost touch with other people. He prefers solitude and trusts his instincts a lot, believing they are mostly right, that's why he sometimes does seemingly irrational things, like kidnapping her just because he felt her distress. He is grumpy and doesn't like interactions that much. (unless it's with Daisy)

Fun Fact: he has heterochromia. The right eye is dark brown and the left one is ice blue.

OCs from "The Memories of The Future"

Sophie

She is a sixteen year old girl that lives with her aunt in a little town in the middle of nowhere. She is very energetic with a heart of gold. Sadly, she tends to be very forgetful. She is very ditzy but gives her best in everything. She sees the good in everyone which isn't always a good thing.

She has visions from time to time but believes that those are just very vivid dreams, not knowing she has supernatural precognition.

Fun Fact: the house is filled with sticky notes that she wrote to not forget things.

Azul

Azul is a street performer and/or circus performer (depends on who's the one asking him) with the ability to shapeshift. He never takes anything (or anyone) serious and always has a sarcastic tone. He is an asshole with repressed trauma from being exploited by his own father, forcing him to use his abilities to earn money. He despises his mother for not stepping in for him, making him lose his trust in people.

Due to some problem he caused in his world, he is forced to keep an eye on Sophie because she is the last of her kind. He is there since chapter one, but has taken the form of Sophies aunt.

Fun Fact: I have no idea how old he is, because he refuses to tell me

Tagging with no pressure @theink-stainedfolk , @finickyfelix , @topazadine , @the-letterbox-archives , and open tag~

[scribble-dribble-writes]

Okay okay, so I’ve been thinking about a kind of reverse little mermaid situation with also a soulmate AU… Can I please request a Namor x fem!shy!human!reader where she’s on a cruise or traveling with friends on a boat, but she falls off the boat, into the waves. Namor is close enough to the surface that he sees this happen and for a reason unknown to even himself, he feels a strong connection to her and saves her and drops her off on the shore. She goes back to the beach looking for him after that, wanting to thank him before her vacation ends, but also feeling a strong connection to him, almost yearning for him. Their (soulmate) connection leads to her stumbling upon his cave, and the moment they lock eyes everything sets into place🥺🥺 Needless to say, Y/n’s vacation turns into her moving in with Namor, him giving her the ability to breathe underwater/also aging as slow as he does, and also her becoming his Queen + lots of love, kisses, and cuddles🥺 Namor being soft for his little human🥺

Haha this needs to be a fic on its own cause the storyline is amazing. Sorry for taking a while but I've tried my best at condescending it all into one chapter. Hopefully I've done it some justice

But here goes 💖

---

He was on his regular patrol, everything was in place, nothing had breached their barriers. It relaxed him, for a minute he got to be who he was, he paddled lazily through the water, he owned these seas. He was it's caretaker but on the days he needed it the most, the water took care of him too. The night sky had blanketed the waters into darkness and in it he felt free. The faint touch of moonlight seeped through the soft waves. He had a lot on his mind. His pestering need to reach out to Wakanda, the fear for the future of his people and his burning wrath for the world above. But he lived in no fishbowl, the waves welcomed him as Namor swam through, his heart being pulled towards a point in the middle of nowhere. Curiosity got the better of him. Instead of moving away, he drew closer. But even though the moon dimmed it's light, he could make out the shape of the element that sat there. A ship, his nostrils flared, this was a nuisance he could not stop. He kept away from these vessels. They only brought danger. He turned to go, angered that his heart had tricked him when he heard a splash.

Angelic, it was an entity draped in white that fell into the dark. The fabric fluttering like wings when he came to realize it was a woman. Your face frozen in a stillness it was almost like you were asleep. He did not involve himself in these matters. This was outside his control but that faint tug in his heart was back and it was telling him to save you. He looked at the ship above that had sailed a few feet away without a care as though you meant nothing. They left her behind. He heard his sister's voice in his head,

why do you tamper with things beyond your reach?

Because he was part merman, like the fables, he had an inkling towards treasure and one was sinking right before his eyes. So he reached for you, your face ethereal almost as if you were a mermaid who had been lost to the surface.

He emerged gently, his wings fluttering softly, as the warm beach sands heralded his entry. He carried you in his arms, his eyes unable to look at anything else, his mind racing with questions. But he needed to leave and you could not know of his presence. His eyes fell to your lips and wondered how his name might sound if you said it.

Delirious. All these years being a lonely god had made him mad. He placed you near a cove, sure enough the when the morning came someone would find you. Turning to see the sky becoming lighter meant he had to leave, anytime now and you will awake from the sleep her had put you in. But there it was again, that need to linger and even though Namora's words rang caution in his ears. Today he felt fearless and that was rare to come by. He drew closer, to memorize your face, pushing away the strand of you hair to see the soft rise and fall of your cheek.

Would it be an offense if he stole a kiss?

The ruler of the seas committing a crime for a woman he had met only a few hours ago?

He shook his head, a soft laugh breaking through, he was delusional, he had access to everything, the needs of a nation he had to fulfill and this was what he wanted to create chaos for?

The soft light of dawn touched your face and he couldn't help himself, how his body fell towards yours, how his lips craved the warmth of your skin as they touched your forehead. But as he drew back, your brown eyes found his and he froze. Locked in this moment with the chocolate myrrh of your eyes only tipping him further. He wanted to take you back to Talokan with him. But it was his instinct to take and you weren't his. He hardly knew your name.

So half heartedly, he waved a vial beneath your nose but it struck him when he felt your fingers trail his cheek.

"I've seen you before.", you mumbled and his eyes widened. Fear clutching his throat. The sleep potion was kicking in when your eyes fluttered to a close.

"in my dreams.", you said finally as you fell back into sleep

His heart stopped for a second. A car drove past and fear jolted him to go back to the waves that called to him as though he was running out of time. So he walked away restlessly and dove into the cold waters, you knew who he was and he had kissed your face giving into his impulse. Unusual, he thought.

But the feeling of your fingers on his cheek, he craved it and he didn't crave for many things, that was the price of a long existence. His heart did have an inclination towards the mystical and you were now a part of it. As he waded into the depths, he thought of a sign.

If he visited the shores tonight and if you were there, then it was true, this was magic.

---

Tha man in your dreams, so was real, or maybe it was just another vision. The side of your head throbbed in pain. It was one of those headaches again, ever since your engagement, these had begun to occur. As though you were making a mistake, as though you were meant for more. But instead of taking heed to these 'dreams', you chose to brush it away. Leading to this, mess.

Your heart sank, coming to the revelation that no one in the cruise had searched for you, after all it was your own wedding. The bride going missing should have caused for chaos. Or may be there was an upheaval and you weren't there to witness it. The twist however, was the comfort with which you walked along the shoreline now. You were free. You could start a new life or do whatever you wanted because by some turn of fate you had escaped. He had helped you, whoever he was.

The ticket was booked and you could go home tomorrow, and yet you were here as though your heart belonged to the sea. It felt like home, the sound of rushing waves and the smell of salt. You look at your feet to watch the sea foam recede to pick up a piece of sea glass that caught your attention. But when you looked up, there he was.

In front of you. Solid and beautiful. Your eyes widened and your heart began to race. It was a vision just like the many you had before. You step closer and his eyes followed you with the same curiosity you felt. The day had been too much to bear and all you wanted was to feel loved and so you rested your head on his chest. His skin cold to the touch but your contact had caused him to turn warm. He stiffened but didn't move away. You slipped your hands around him and stayed in this embrace to sigh with content, the night can take you, the sleep will wash over you any moment and you'll forget about this in the morning.

But you still stood there when you felt his arms encircle you. It felt nice. Maybe you could stay in this dreamscape for a little while longer.

"These dreams have turned cruel.", you speak into the crook of his neck.

"Have they?", he responded. That was a first. He had never spoken in your dreams before. His voice was like the sea, maybe it was him who had been calling you all this while

"Yes.", you whisper to look up at him. Breathtaking. He was too magnificent to be a living being, you thought.

"How so?", he questioned and you thought about it.

What did you have to lose? Nothing.

"They offer me my desire only for it to not be real.", you spoke as your fingers traced his cheek again to slowly hold the side of his face. He inhaled sharply, his eyes now dark as though he was mesmerized.

What did you have to lose?

You edged closer and kissed him.

Nothing.

It struck you, this was where you belonged. This was where it had lead you. His lips soft against yours and just when you thought this was a hopeless cause, when you parted to move away, he didn't let go. He kissed you like he needed air and you needed the ocean to fill the very being of your soul. It was a cruel way to feel alive, all this will be ripped away when you wake up.

When he broke away, his chest was heaving, his lips lush, his eyes glistening with life. You were still here. Confused, you turn to look around when it started to feel real.

His warmth seeping into your body. His breath soft against your skin. This was no dream. The truth shook you, your fingers rushing to touch your lips, your eyes snapping to see his.

This was real.

Even before you could react, there were voices behind you.

"You there, this is a private beach. No trespassers allowed.", They yelled and you heard him click his tongue in irritation.

You had to run, but where?

His hand held onto your wrist. A question in his eyes.

You hardly knew him but the steady rhythm of your heart made it easy to trust him.

There was no home to return to or nowhere else to go now.

You wrapped your fingers around his, picked up the trail of your dress with the other to run down the shore and disappeared beneath the waves with him.

It was a new beginning.

[haloberry]

Also this Tommy and Purpled one is epic actually.

idea 21

I can be there for him, I can be his knight

Tommy ran away from Exile and stumbled upon Purpled in the forest.

Purpled has no idea wtf is going on in New L’Manberg or about Exile.

“What are you doing here anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be in your country doing something stupid, like taxes? And there’s Underscore? You two are usually a package deal”.

Tommy starts following Purpled.

“But don’t you get lonely here?”

“I am fine on my own, I don’t need anyone else”

“So you just self-exiled yourself? Completely by your own will drifted away from everyone to live all alone in the middle of nowhere? That’s such a bullshit!”

Tommy wants to help Purpled with his job, and they find themselves to be a good team, even if Purpled is against it at first.

The Masquerade Festival in one of the cities sends Tommy into a panic attack.

How… How anyone could hurt him? That’s something Purpled is unable to wrap his mind around. How anybody could hurt someone as bubbly, and warm and… and… and endearingly lovely as Tommy?

You are my plantain leaf, I did not know that you can want to love so much

Purpled becomes very overprotective of Tommy. He’s never in his life had someone who would genuinely want so much to stay by his side, and he himself has never felt that way before.

Ideas without an order:

- Purpled’s antennas are fluorescent, and he finds it embarrassing, but Tommy is in awe.

Awwwww, lmao i just got done reading the Ever After High one that ima respond to too XD

All these ideas need to be put on a shelf and hanged for generations to see

[fictionkinfessions]

Seeing a version of him and knowing he's not mine.. that I may never find mine.. it's not. It's not important, y'know, I've come to terms with how unlikely it is with other kins, considering how many are noncanon or pretty canon divergent but. I was in love with him. And I can't remember if he ever loved me the same. As his closest friend, he did, I know that much. I want to say we were together but. Is that wishful thinking? Or were we actually? Perhaps we were like B and his partner, never really putting a name to it despite it being obvious.

I wish there were more kins from this source on Tumblr, but all I can find are a few asks sent to this blog.. I feel alone again. Like when him and his brothers all left, and only us three remained. And we did our best to keep each other afloat. But, of course, B started pushing me away when he realized the guys weren't coming back. When I stopped being able to come up for reasons why they hadn't returned.

But I understood, still do. I was a constant reminder of what wasn't around so. I left. Went Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and I lived there for a while. It was safe, and it was lonely.. and it was quiet. But it helped me forget when I was on my own. I could keep myself busy and not have time to think of anything but the next project. But then one day he was just... There. I don't even know how he managed to get there. But..

I'm sorry you found me in that state.. my friend. That I let myself loose my color and forget what it was like to be happy.. but being around you and learning about who you'd become.. it helped so much. You always helped so much just by being around, and it was nice to live together and do work together. You were a horrible cook lol, but. It only added to your charm.

And then they took you... And that entire situation happened and you died. You actually literally died... You came back but. I will never forget that pain. I will never forget the way I swore I couldn't even feel my own heart beating and the way the tears stung my eyes as they forced themselves out... I hope you don't remember that part. How it felt. I hope you have good memories in this life, and aren't in pain.

And y'know, as horrible as everything was and is... I've always really liked your hair. And the new color was no exception /lh

- Lyle , #🐾🪩

🎏