#It's nice that I finally know what it was and it isn't something that indicates anything bad happening to you just a brain mishap

[xxf0rg0tt3n-b3st14xx]

I think I figured out what the hell I was experiencing almost a week ago. It was hypnopompic hallucinations.

It's something that happens just before you fully wake, you might see things that aren't there. Also, rarely sounds and tactile can be experienced, too. It also can happen when your sleep is interrupted and fall back to sleep quickly as that happened to me where it was like a loop of failing to fully wake to end it.

This does greatly explain the spider hallucinations I sometimes get, especially in the past.

It's something that I guess is a common one off experience people can get, but is far more common with people that have narcolepsy. Also, you might get them more often if you're depressed, too.

Though mine I believe is triggered by stress and anxiety, most often not.

[luvyeni]

( reaction ) you don't run away ̨ ! ୨୧ 一 엔하이픈 ՞

⸃ ⸰ ⌁ when he leaves the door unlocked but you don't leave  ヾ

OTSEVEN 엔하이픈 ・ reader ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ g ・ yandere ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ cw ・ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ wc ・ ‎ ‎n/a ‎ ‎ ‎| ‎ ‎click to library

request. yan!enha where reader actually doesnt leave when they get the chance and enha praises them for it 😓

「 ୨୧ author note 」 enjoy it my love <3 !

﹙ 𐙚 : heeseung﹚ .ᐟ

heeseung did this many times before especially when he first took you , it soon became a game to him , he'll keep everything unlocked and watch you through the cameras shuffling to get out as quick as possible , only to be unable to leave do the front door locked , laughing as he watched you break down crying — so when you don't try to escape , instead you stay put on the bed , he gets kinda confuse? why aren't you playing his game? did you finally give up. either way he's enjoying it , he finally broke you , now he just has to find a way to play with you.

"you're learning baby , that's a good girl."

﹙ 𐙚 : jay﹚ .ᐟ

he was confused because why did you want to leave in the first place? he gave you everything you wanted , you should be happy , but he digresses. when he accidentally leaves the door open , he fully believes that you'll leave , but he isn't worried , he has you tracked — but when he goes to check the tracker; you're home. so he checks the camera to confirm it and it checks out. when he comes home he goes straight to your room where you're waiting. "you're still here?" you're confused. "where would i be?"

"nothing just keep this up , and i'll take you out on a nice date outside."

﹙ 𐙚 : jake﹚ .ᐟ

he was freaking the fuck out on the way home , ever scenario running through his. you're not there, you've left him and you aren't coming back; how could he be so fucking stupid and leave the door unlocked , now you're not there , what is he gonna do ? he's gonna kill himself if you aren't there. pushing the door open , tears in his eyes. "jake!" you jumped in fear , you were still there in the same clothes from when left. "you okay?" you get up , wiping the tears from his face. "did something happen?" he lets out a sigh of relief. "you're here." you smiled. "of course , why wouldn't i be?" he shakes his head smiling.

"come on , let's lay down baby , let me hold you you're so good."

﹙ 𐙚 : sunghoon﹚ .ᐟ

he's pissed because he knows you're probably gone , he forgot to lock the door on his rush out that morning and he couldn't go back home , he was fully prepared to come home to you gone , and he was already planning what he was gonna do to you once he got you back — the house is quiet which doesn't ease his worry , making his way to the room , basically kicking the door open , you jumped at the sudden surprise. "you scared me." stomping over to you , you don't seem to have any marks or anything indicating you tried to leave. "where have you been all day?" you laughed. "here silly , where would i go?" he looked at you confused. "you didn't leave at all?" you shook your head. "you told me to never leave , why would i leave when you said no?" he nodded. "i missed you." he couldn't smile because he didn't want to give you the wrong idea.

"i'll take the day off , take you somewhere outside, this won't be an everyday thing , if you're good we can make it monthly."

﹙ 𐙚 : sunoo﹚ .ᐟ

he's elated when he finds you right where he left you after he forgot to tie you up; this means you love him now , and you won't leave. he's so giddy he's dropping his stuff , running to you , hugging you , making you surprised. "what's going on?" he felt you pat his back. "did something happen, are you okay?" he nodded , with a huge smile on his face. "you stayed , you really stayed and I didn't have to tie you up , this means you love me now right?" you nodded. "of course I do." he squeals in excitement.

"if you're good maybe we can go up , only if you promise to stay by my side."

﹙ 𐙚 : jungwon﹚ .ᐟ

he just wants to see what you do; keeping all the doors unlocked , watching over the camera to see what you do. he smirks when he sees you go to the door like you always do , checking to see if it's unlocked , he's so ready for you to open the door , of course the front door you won't be unlocked but it would be fun to watch you cry in defeat — but you don't open it , instead you just sit back down on the bed and continue on with what you're doing; he's confused , so he waits , keeps watching you through out the day , and you don't do anything about the door. when he comes home he asked you. "why didn't you leave today?" he said , you shrugged. "i didn't want to , i like it here." he just smiles , patting your head.

"good girl."

﹙ 𐙚 : ni-ki﹚ .ᐟ

you're his and you have no choice but to stay and if he has to hit you or tie you down then so be it , but you staying at your own free will is just less work for him — why does he need to praise you , this is what you're supposed to be doing; but then he sees you cooking and cleaning up for him and he has a change of heart , coming home , just walking through the unlocked doors to where you were waiting for him. "you're back." you give him food , which he makes you confirm that it isn't poisoned cause he still is paranoid. "it's good." he says flatly.

"you can't leave but tell me what you want and i'll bring it back for you , since you did all this."

©LUVYENI

[nashusglasses]

2. (let me hear you say) please (m)

+ based off nsfw prompts: 25. “On all fours, right now!” + 53.  “Don’t test me.”

note: happy thirsty thursday! these prompts are from this list. if you'd like, send me two prompts and a lads man for next week :)

note 2: Caleb nation this one's for u!!!!! I saw someone edit the lads men in sweatshirts and literally lost my mind when I saw Caleb like tell me he's not the most college romance love interest EVER ToT!!!!!!!!!!! anyway i went clubbing the other week and my personal headcanon is that Caleb doesn't like going but he sees u looking pretty n sparkly under the lights and all of a sudden the loud music isn't so bad <3

PAIRING. caleb/reader GENRE. established relationship/sort of college AU? WARNINGS. recreational drug use, alcohol consumption, oral (f receiving)/face sitting SUMMARY. “If I make you come in two minutes, will you do anything I tell you to do?” WORD COUNT. 1.2k

You have two tells to indicate when you’re drunk or high (or a nice mix of both). One: you don’t stop talking.

Two: you get inexorably horny.

Caleb is the (un)fortunate victim to both these whims.

All you remember is being offered whiskey neat, Tara slipping moon rocks into your palm, garish neon lights in your periphery as you danced to the music. Bodies on sweaty bodies on gyrating bodies. Caleb stuck to your back the entire time, and he’d done his due diligence in ordering a ride back home when the clock hit 1:30 and you couldn’t stop whisper-yapping into his ear about how good he looked in black. 

You high-tail it to your bedroom once you make it past the front door. Caleb barely slips your heels off your feet when you plop onto the bed, shimmy your skirt and panties off and wail dramatically:

“Oh my god. I think I’m gonna die if you don’t put your mouth on me.”

“I won’t let you die. Does your head hurt if you lie down like that?”

“A little.”

“Get on all fours.” You take ten seconds to process the fact that he’s actually indulging you, and another five to realize you haven’t followed his instructions yet. You think there’s cotton in all corners of your brain. “Now,” he says, half-exasperated. 

He has to grab your hips and haul you over because he knows it’ll be another 500 years for you to process everything. You barely stick the landing. You settle on your elbows, wiggling your butt in what you hope is a tantalizing motion. 

“Like what you see–ow! Did you just bite me?”

“No,” he lies. You twitch from the feel of his teeth on your asscheek. “Probably a ghost.”

You immediately conjure up a blurry image of hot ghost anal. You’re both very intrigued and slightly disgusted. “That sounds hot.”

Caleb snorts. You feel the bed dip underneath you, warm breath on your mound. You’re about to ask what he’s up to when two hands grab your hips down to lick where you’re embarrassingly wet.

Your tongue is a brick behind your teeth. “Oh god–”

“Let me hear you.” You both know you have it in you to be louder. But your head fogs over into stillness so calm all you can do is roll your hips downwards to show he’s got you feeling good. Caleb takes the bait easily. He sucks on your clit till your brain finally connects to the muscles in your jaw and you mewl, clawing at the sheets. “‘Atta girl.”

He slaps your ass as a reward. You squeal with the sting. “Ugh. Do that again.”

“You’re so needy.” He slaps it again regardless, and you hum in satisfaction. “If I make you come in two minutes, will you do anything I tell you to do?”

You laugh. You’re most definitely coming in less time than that, and the kiss he leaves on your cunt nearly tips you too far. “Depends on what you’re asking for.”

Caleb feigns contemplation with prolonged silence. You can’t see him but you know he’s grinning. “Washing the sheets when we’re done.”

Trust him to come up with something so pedestrian, but you know he’s got the ick for all the sparkles you’re rubbing into the bed every time you shift on your forearms. “Oh my god you’re such a loser.”

“Hey.” He licks at you in punishment, wet tongue for even wetter pleasure. “Don’t test me. Maybe I’ll just leave you here.”

“No–!” 

When he makes the move to slide away, you steel your knees and drop down. Exactly where Caleb wants you, because he grips your ass and eats you out in such spectacular fashion you’re two flicks away from sobbing. “You’re so easy,” he taunts. You’d bite back with a snarky response, but your brain lags reality to four frames per second.

“Mm,” is all you say. You’re always greedy with his mouth. You know he gets off to your desperation. “You just do it so well.”

“Do what?”

He draws a lazy pattern with a taut tongue, warmth unfurling from your gut down to your toes.  “That,” you moan, “just like that.”

You burn with every kiss he leaves on your aching clit. Caleb lets you settle into the muted noise inside your head, laser-focused on the way he tastes you like you’re his favourite flavour of the night. Your thighs are starting to tingle into jelly.

He lets up with a deep breath. “You’re so hot like this,” he groans, and your eyes roll back when he shoves his tongue as deep as he can go.  

“Fuck. Close–!”

You’re almost tempted to beg for his fingers, but he obeys your command with so much fervour you nearly pass out. He seizes the meat of your thighs, skin smarting where his nails catch to bring you in deeper. You choke on your next inhale. “Caleb–ngh–!”

You tense from the promise of an explosion, rock a slow rhythm into his face and you feel him groan. “Ride my face harder,” he calls. A dangerous feeling in your core flickers at the command.

It starts on your knees. Settling your weight back and forth till Caleb takes the lead, adjusting every stroke with a pliant jaw until he can hear you keening from the back of your throat. Your head is hazy with each heavy movement. “Feels…”

“Nn?” (He purrs. The sound rips straight through you.)

“Feels so good,” you whine. “God you’re gonna make me come.”

Your shoulders are starting to ache. But the pain fizzles into a swelling ache where Caleb guzzles on your most sensitive spots, and you revel in the nasty sound of him slurping up on your slick. “Oh don’t stop–yes–!”

Every single cell in your body splits into a frenzy for an orgasm Caleb coaxes out so easily, and you shriek through wave after wave of literal bliss. 

Your thighs are shaking. You’re vibrating down to your fingernails. You realize you’re probably smothering Caleb’s nose but you can’t stop grinding down into his mouth. “Oh my god,” you heave through the come down, burying your face in your hands. “Caleb–ngh–fuck, please–”

He leaves one last kiss on your clit. “You’re so sensitive tonight.”

He’s not wrong. You swear you can feel every single thread on this bedsheet. But your mind is still garbled with post-orgasm euphoria and all you can mumble is: “I don’t want to do the laundry.”

Caleb slips out from underneath you, helping you flop onto your back before sitting on the edge of the bed. He strokes a gentle rhythm on your cheek. You want to say something about his boner. You also want to tell him he’s the bestest boyfriend ever and that his cologne smells so, so yummy and that you want to merge existences till your souls are irrevocably intertwined with one another.

“You should at least take your makeup off,” he sighs. “You’re just gonna complain in the morning about how dirty you feel. Wait. Are you crying?”

You sniff away the sudden wave of tears. “You’re the literal god of giving head.”

Caleb shakes with laughter, then pulls at your dead arms. “I’m glad you think so. Come on, get up.”

“But you’re still hard.”

“Don’t mind that. I need you in the bathroom. Think you can wash your face without me?”

“Thank you for taking care of me,” you mumble, completely ignoring him. You sit upright, fall into his chest, and pass out immediately.

.

.

.

(When you wake up in the morning, the sheets are changed and your eyelashes are mascara-free. You start to cry again.)

[16wolke11]

Sweet Goodbye - Carlos Sainz

A/N Wanted to write something about that song for ages

WORDS:1857

INSPIRATION: Sweet Goodbye - Left Boy

WARNINGS: Manipulative behavior, NSFW (public sex, unprotected sex, fingering)

When relationships come to an end, it is dreadful if only one person realises it. However, if both parties know there isn't any reason to continue, it should be an easy line to cut, shouldn’t it? It isn’t. Both Carlos and I know we can’t carry on like this; this relationship is barely a relationship anymore, yet we both don’t take the step to end everything. His race to the top is tearing us apart, and I can’t bring up enough strength to stay with him any longer. 

So, we chose a day to go out for a walk, parking his car by one of the dirt roads. We wantended to talk, end everything with a conversation we should have had weeks ago, but in the end, we found ourselves tangled on top of his car. 

Carlos has bent me over the hood, the engine still keeping us warm while the harsh wind brushes around us. He has shoved my jeans down, pulled my panties to the side, before he buried himself inside of me. Making me moan softly, completely forgetting that we are in nature, on display for anyone who might come by. 

“God, you feel so fucking good.” Carlos groans, fingers digging deeper into the skin over my hips, pulling me back with every deep thrust. My fingers search for something to hold onto on the top of his car, but they slip over the hood without finding anything to grab. He shoves my feet wider apart, opening me up more and a strangled moan leaves my lips. This is so wrong, but so good at the same time, that I can’t bring myself to stop him. 

I manage to lean myself on my elbows, making me able to move my hips in sync to his thrusts, hips scraping against the car every time he buries himself deep inside of me. The orgasm comes in waves, making me clench around Carlos, tightening around his length while he just fucks me through. His own hips stuttering, before he comes buried inside of me. I let my upper body rest on the hood of the car, by now gone cold, while Carlos doesn’t pull away. 

We sat in his car around half an hour later, not going on that walk we wanted to go on, but finally talking about our relationship, the future we no longer have. 

“I have fallen out of love.” I mutter, eyes locked at something in the distance, knowing I will give him everything he wants if he looks at me with his damn pleading eyes. 

“This wasn’t enough anymore.” I gesture from him to me, trying to indicate that he isn´t at fault, not fully, even though what he could give me wasn’t enough to keep me in love. The feelings faded and so will the pain of not having the comforting certainty of coming home to someone dear. 

“I know.” Carlos says with a sigh, and this is the end of us, at least that is what I thought. 

The news of our parting quickly spread, leading to countless pictures and rumours of him dating and hooking up with different girls. Carlos then managed to invite me over to his house, and I didn’t want to be rude, so I accepted his invitation. It started nicely, him giving me the last things I left at his place and a promised dinner. But it continued with more and more inappropriate touches, and I tried to stay strong, but I wasn’t. 

I couldn’t resist him, now being naked in his bed again, his cum dripping down my thighs. Carlos reminded me of all the ways he used to make love to me, but it doesn’t feel like love anymore, just like lust and cravings. It happens again that day, until I gather enough strength to speak up again.

“You just can’t put me through this anymore.” I tell him, searching for the fault in him and not only on my side. Knowing I should be stronger, but at the same time hating that Carlos is using all of his charm to get me back where he wants me. Bend over, riding him or on my knees sucking him off.

“I know I got a problem.” Carlos sighs, stretching his arms out, before tilting his head to me. “Just can’t live without those girls.” He shrugs, like it isn´t his fault that everyone who looks at him wants him for his fame and he uses them for sex, but it is. And it is my fault that I give in again and again. 

I manage to put some distance between us, keeping myself hidden when he is around and only coming out when it is safe, during the race weekends. Until there is one of those sponsored events, I know we both will attend. I got the dress weeks ago, long slit on one leg, open back and hugging my curves perfectly. Carlos drooled over the dress when I got it and now, I almost refuse to wear it. But I don´t have anything else fitting, plus it was a gift from a sponsor. 

For the first hours, I avoided Carlos, seeing him speak with some people from time to time. Keeping myself busy by dancing with various people, exchanging a few words with their wives and trying to keep my connections warm, even though Carlos isn´t by my side anymore. When I go to the bathroom, fingers curl around my wrist, pulling me into one of the side hallways. 

I don´t scream, feeling the tingling sensation when he touches me and I am not surprised when I look up and spot Carlos. His eyes are fixated on me, and suddenly I am caged between his arms, the wall pressing against my back, his chest barely away from mine. 

“When I am around you, I can’t relax.” Carlos mutters in my ear, breath brushing over the skin, his lips lingering over my neck and I lean to the side out of reflex. 

“It’s not easy to keep my mind on track, especially not with you in that dress.” He continues, fingers brushing over my naked back and my body curls into his like it did so many times before. 

“But when I am near you.” Carlos’s voice is hoarse and I almost don´t realise his hand wandering to the slit of my dress. “I just want to run my fingers up your legs.” His fingers trail up my inner thigh and I need to bite down the whimper which is about to slip over my lips. 

“When I see you all, I can think about is sex.” Carlos kisses me the second he shoves his fingers under my panties to muffle the strangled moan. 

I want to push him away, but can’t, sinking into his touch like I am starving for the pleasure he gives me. It’s nothing sensual, it is quick, it is dirty, it is messy. I push my hips against every thrust of his fingers, letting him shove them in deeper and harder with every thrust, while his mouth keeps my sounds muffled. Carlos’s length is pressing against my thigh, but he isn't attempting to undress himself, just keeps fingering me. My fingers curl into his upper arms, leaving crescent marks behind under his dress shirt. 

The orgasm hits quickly, legs shaking slightly due to the lust, but I manage to keep myself on my feet. And as quickly as Carlos appeared, he disappears again, leaving me behind with soaked panties and smudged lipstick. 

The weeks go by, and I think I finally managed to draw the line between the time with and the time without Carlos, but then he appears at the front door of my apartment. I want to close the door in his face, shove him out, but I can’t, letting him in like we aren’t broken up, toxic for each other, but I can’t stop myself. 

Carlos doesn’t hesitate. He takes my hands in his, looks at me with those pleading eyes, before speaking up. “Stay with me.” My heart races, my body wants to say yes, my mind and my heart scream no and I know they are right. 

“No.” I manage to say, before adding. “I don´t love you like I used to.” I still might love him for the sex, but this should be the reason to stay with someone. It is time to finally end this and cut Carlos out of my life for real this time. No hook-ups, no kisses, just nothing with him anymore. Carlos' eyes flicker over my face, before he leans in, mouth just beside my ear and I straighten my back to keep up my strength.

“Oh, baby just give me a sweet goodbye.” He mutters in my ear, head pulling back to look into my eyes and I can feel my resistance melt under his look. Maybe one last time wouldn’t hurt? My eyes flicker from his eyes to his lips and back up to his eyes. Carlos smirks, knowing he is going to get what he wants and then his lips crash down on mine. 

We stumbled to my bedroom, littering the floor with clothes on our way. I still know we should do this, but the lust has taken over, the craving to feel Carlos' body close to mine for one last time. A real last time this time. Not coming back for another round, but the real cut. Savouring every second of it, until it is the end. 

His hands on my body feel like they are burning traces into my skin, showing every place he touched me, no matter how gently he brushed his fingers over or how tightly he holds me. Our bodies are in sync with each other, knowing exactly what to do, without having to think too much about it. 

I am straddling Carlos’s waist, him looking up at me with those dark, lustful eyes. Just desire in them, no other feeling, nothing of the love lust, just the craving of having sex. I don´t hesitate before I sink down on him, taking all of him with one smooth movement of my hips. It does sting slightly, the stretch around his length without preparation, but I don´t want to wait, I want to feel him and take everything he gives me. 

Ride him to fulfil my own lust while giving him the goodbye he asked for. Fingers digging into his chest, hearing his groans and purposely clenching down on him, drawing those soft moans over his lips. It’s a love-hate situation, but I keep going. Rolling my hips into his, letting his tip hit all the good spots, letting the pleasure build up. 

Carlos sits up, letting me slide into his lap, his chest heaving against mine while he is fully buried inside of me. I stay for a minute, don´t move, just look at him, seeing that adoration he once had for me one last time, before I push him on his back again. Picking up the pace this time to end this sweet goodbye in one last high.

[thriftedtchotchkes]

you're a mean one, mr. miller

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

summary: you and ellie decide the solution to joel's grinch-like approach to the holidays lies in finding him the perfect gift

warnings: jackson era, grumpy old man!joel, significant other!reader, fluff, mild angst, gift giving, christmas at the miller's, so many polaroids

word count: 3.8k

12 days of pedro masterlist - ty to @hellishjoel for organizing this project <3

The Miller household always gets a little tense around the holidays. When the days shorten and snow begins to fall, Joel throws himself into patrols and plans for winter-proofing Jackson, and it's all he'll talk about for months. It's obvious he does it on purpose. 

Christmas is basically an unspoken no-no under his roof, and there might as well be a swear jar for the word if his reaction is any indication. He refuses to acknowledge it and only tolerates the day itself because he knows it makes you and Ellie happy. 

You just wish it made him happy, too. You know it used to. Every year, Tommy regales stories about their Christmases in Austin as kids, and later with Sarah. Joel loved Christmas. 

They used to visit the tree farm, pick the tallest, fullest tree they could fit in their living room, and decorate it the very same day. Their attic and even parts of their garage were home to lights and tinsel in every color you could think of, and ornaments Sarah brought home from art classes and the yearly holiday fair at school.

All of that changed after the outbreak. It wasn't just her passing that did it. It wasn't even the threat of death or worse lurking around every corner. It was time. 

Joel just got used to life without it. After 22 years of missed holidays, he decided he didn't actually miss them at all. He couldn't afford to spare precious resources or energy on anything that wasn't necessary for survival. But that isn't the point of Christmas, is it? 

You celebrate your loved ones and their joy. You celebrate life. Here in Jackson, he finally has all of that, but if Joel is anything, he's a stubborn man set in his ways. You can tell he's still resistant to the idea because he genuinely believes there are better uses for his time.

You can also tell he's afraid to let his guard down. You just haven't figured out a way to show him he doesn't have to be. No one's safety is guaranteed in the world you live in, but you're protected now. And that responsibility isn't solely on him anymore.

If you could give him anything for Christmas this year, it would be peace. One day, even just a few hours of tensionless shoulders and a wrinkle-free brow would be a gift for all of you. He deserves to enjoy something merry and cheerful again, just for the sake of it.  

So, you ask the person who knows him best in the world for help.

"What do we think about getting Joel a Christmas gift this year?"

Ellie glances up from her guitar with the most incredulous look you've ever seen on her face. 

"Depends. Do you have a death wish?" she jokes, draping her arm over her instrument so she's sitting more comfortably. She's settling in—you both know this is about to be a painful conversation.

"No, but—," you sigh, leaning against the door behind you. It's still chilled, even through your coat, from when you barged into the shed and interrupted her practice. "I don't know. He wouldn't make that big of a deal, would he? It doesn't have to be anything flashy, just something small. Something nice."

"So, you wanna get Joel something nice for a holiday he hates? That makes total sense," she says, rolling her eyes.

You don't appreciate the sarcasm, but you expected it. She knows as well as you do that Joel won't be thrilled by the gesture, if he even accepts it.

"El, come on. I could really use your help here," you try to appeal to the part of her that usually can't say no to you, and thankfully she's starting to cave. "If there's anyone who can come up with a present Joel will actually like, it's you."

She sighs. Her fingers drum an arrhythmic beat on the wood grain while she thinks, a habit she must've picked up from Joel.

"Look, Joel's not really a 'thing' kinda guy," she replies, and she's probably right. He's never been the kind of guy who has physical attachments. "When's the last time he actually gave a shit when something broke or got lost? Even his watch is broken."

"Yeah, but that's different. You know it's different," you counter softly. But you can see the point she's trying to make. "Okay, so we don't get him a 'thing'."

She nods, waiting for you to offer another idea, but you're even more stumped than you were when you got here. 

"Maybe you can draw him something?" you grimace, grasping at straws now.

"His house is full of shit I've drawn," she deadpans. "Plus, I thought this was an us gift. That sounds like a 'me doing all the work' gift."

You let out a frustrated groan, and your head thunks dully against the door. You knew this wasn't going to be an easy task, but you thought it would at least be possible. Joel's a complicated man—it's one of the things you love most about him—but his wants and needs are surprisingly simple. 

He loves a home-cooked meal, especially meat and potatoes. He enjoys cold beers with Tommy on the porch during the summer and walking Ellie through complicated picking patterns when she's stuck on a song. He likes relaxing on the couch and watching old Westerns or cheesy action movies, and craves your body, soft and pliant, under his after a frustrating day on patrol.

But you want this to mean more than any of that. A special something that goes beyond the norm to loosen some of the springs that keep him wound up tight and constantly in motion. 

You glance around Ellie's space as your hope begins to dwindle, and the corkboard above her bed catches your eye. It's always been there, covered in doodled-on scrap paper and photos of her family and friends, and you're positive you've seen it hundreds of times since you've been in Jackson. But this time, it gives you an idea. The idea.

"That Polaroid camera you found in Eugene's basement—the one in the library. Does it work?"

Ellie's brows furrow at your sudden question. She clearly didn't expect it, but you're hoping she'll be on board once she finally catches on.

"Uhh, yeah, Cat and I were messing around with it the other day. Worked pretty well for us," she replies hesitantly, pointing at the entertainment console next to you. "It's next to the PlayStation."

Humming in response, you squat in front of the shelf to inspect it. It's in great condition, even better than you expected. Even the flash button lights up and whirs just like you remember. 

Before she can protest, you whip around and snap an extremely candid, brightly lit photo of her. If the look on her face is the same one you just caught on film, then you're already off to a great start.

"Dude, what the fuck? What was that for?" she groans in annoyance, blinking the bright spots out of her vision.  

"A scrapbook," you grin. "For Joel."

She's still glaring at you as she rubs her eyes, but she bites back whatever retort she was about to say. You watch her expectantly as she chews on the idea, relief blooming in your chest when she finally nods.

"I guess that could work," she says slowly, still thinking over the logistics in her head. But then she frowns. "When exactly did you plan on taking all those photos? Not to be a downer, but Christmas is in like, a week."

Damn, she's right again. It'll be hell in a handbasket to fill an entire scrapbook in that amount of time, and even if you manage it, it'll be a half-assed attempt at best.

No, if you're going to do this, then you're going to do it right. No rushed or slapstick presents for the man who already hates Christmas—Joel deserves better than that.

"What if we let Joel do his bah-humbug thing one last time? That's probably his idea of a perfect gift, anyway. Then next year, it'll be this," you hand her the fully-developed Polaroid.

It shows Ellie hugging the guitar Joel made for her, but there's no sign of the shocked annoyance that followed the camera flash. Instead, she's smiling. She has that rare, unguarded expression on her face, the one reserved only for people she trusts. It's a tender moment of peace, forever frozen in time.

She looks up at you, and you can see it in her eyes. She gets it, now.

"You do realize it's still a 'thing' present though, right?" she interjects playfully, and you have to resist the urge to grab the wood polishing cloth on the table next to you and swat her with it.

"Yeah, but it's a sappy thing. Admit it, Joel's a huge sap and you know it. You said it yourself, his house is basically a glorified fridge with your art magnetized to the walls."

She rolls her eyes again, but you can see the smile tugging at her lips. She knows it's true.

"So, you'll help me?" you ask, daring to hope that she'll agree.

"As long as you don't pull this shit again, I'll do whatever you want," she lifts the Polaroid, shooting you a dirty, but affectionate look before handing it back to you.

A grin breaks out across your face, and you bolt across the room to hug her awkwardly around the instrument still sitting in her lap. She places it down so she can wrap her arms around you properly. 

Physical affection has never really been Ellie's thing but if you catch her at the right moment on the right day, you might get lucky. Today, you do.

"So, when do we get started?" she asks, pulling away.

"Right now," you reply, unable to contain your excitement. For the first time in over two decades, Joel Miller might actually have a merry Christmas, and that's something to celebrate. 

"Now?" she gapes at you, looking over her shoulder longingly at her guitar as you drag her out of the shed. She barely has enough time to grab a coat before you're out in the cold with nothing but each other, a camera, and a plan.

"Now." 

ONE YEAR LATER

Jackson in the spring is one of the most beautiful things you've ever seen, even among your memories of the world pre-outbreak. Snow remains on the mountain peaks in the distance, but the foliage below blooms with the promise of warmer weather. Somehow, you managed to capture it all—fresh flowers in the shop windows, friends and neighbors shedding their coats and congregating in the streets, and the post-winter excitement that spreads more and more with each sunny day. 

You hid the stack of photographs in an empty jumbo box of tampons in the hall closet, positive they’d be safe from Joel’s prying eyes while you and Ellie continued your mission.

In the summer, two new foals were born, and Ellie and Maria spent almost every day at the stables to help out where they could. They even named them—Shimmer was Maria’s choice, and Ellie named the other Callus just to piss off Joel. Not only did it work, but it resulted in some of the cutest pictures of the season. 

Joel and Tommy built a porch swing for Maria and their rambunctious toddler and spent countless balmy nights drinking Tommy's extra-strength whiskey and shooting the shit. They even broke out their guitars every so often and managed to bully Ellie into playing with them once or twice. You caught that on camera, too. 

Slowly but surely, the memory box filled up, and the photos were transferred to a scrapbook you and Ellie made yourselves—with a little local help. One of the school teachers happened to be a former librarian with a bookbinding hobby, and graciously gave you a treasure trove of old, tattered books that were perfect for your project. 

By autumn, everything was falling into place. Ellie adorned those pages with painted leaves in shades of red, orange, and yellow to complement the photos you took at the town’s annual Harvest Festival and Thanksgiving potluck. You hopped around from booth to booth, table to table, and thanked your lucky stars that Eugene was a hoarder and held onto every pack of film he found over the years.

Now, it's the night before Christmas and you have a single shot left. One last photo intended for the final page, but you can’t think of anything you haven’t already documented. Looking around Tommy’s living room, there are plenty of moments you’d love to capture, and yet none of them feel like the moment. 

How the Grinch Stole Christmas plays in the background while you sit on their couch, curled into Joel’s side with Ellie’s head on your lap, but you’re barely paying attention, still lost in your thoughts. Joel isn’t paying attention, either—he was unsurprisingly averse to the movie to begin with—so when you don’t laugh along with everyone else at the Grinch’s antics, he immediately knows something’s up. He kisses your temple, careful not to jostle Ellie.

“What’s got you so in your head you’re not even laughin’ at Jim Carrey? I thought you loved this movie,” he murmurs against the shell of your ear. His familiar Southern twang somehow warms you up more than the fireplace crackling next to the television. 

“I do. I think I’m just getting a little sleepy, is all,” you reply softly, sagging into him. “Winter dance prep sucked this week. It’s like everyone conveniently forgot they volunteered to help.”

He nods, mumbling an apology into your hair.

“Guess that makes sense. All that runnin’ around you’ve been doing with that camera of yours probably ain’t helpin’ either,” he says offhandedly, and your brows furrow in response.

It’s not the first time he’s mentioned your sudden interest in photography, but with his gift sitting less than 10 feet away under Tommy and Maria’s Christmas tree, it seems more than a little suspicious. You catch Ellie glancing up at you in your peripheral, and you meet her gaze as discreetly as you can.

“Yeah, maybe,” you laugh it off, hoping it doesn’t sound as tense to Joel’s ears as it does to yours.

“What are you doin’ with all of those photos anyway? I swear, you take ‘em and then they disappear into thin air,” he presses on, none the wiser.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” you joke, shaking your head as if that’ll shake off all of his incoming questions. But it doesn’t work nearly as well as you hoped.

“Y’know, I was wonderin’ that myself,” Tommy interjects from the recliner to your right. “You’ve been takin’ photo after photo for almost a year, and I don’t think I’ve seen a single one.”

Maria scoffs next to him, coming to the rescue before you’re forced to come up with a believable explanation. 

“Mind your own damn business,” she smacks him in the chest, then shoots you a sympathetic look. 

You asked for her help not long after you and Ellie started planning Joel’s gift, so she knows how important this is. The last thing she’s going to do is let her husband’s need to stir the pot ruin it. But Tommy’s not the type of guy to give in that easily.

“I’m just sayin’, might be nice take a look at ‘em. You probably got some good ones of the kids in there, ‘specially from birthdays and holidays—,” he manages to get out before Ellie cuts him off.

“Can you guys have this conversation somewhere else? Some of us are actually trying to watch the movie,” she sits up from her spot on your lap to glare in his direction. 

Then, Tommy abruptly stands like something just occurred to him and strides across the room to the mantle above the fireplace—right where you set the camera down earlier. Your heart leaps into your throat. 

“Hold up. This thing’s still got one shot left, don’t it?” he asks excitedly, and you’re not sure how to shut him down without drawing too much attention to yourself or sounding mildly hysterical.

“Well, yeah, but—“

“Oh shit, s’got a timer and everythin’,” he continues, fiddling with its limited settings. He turns back towards the rest of the group and holds up the camera with a grin. “C’mon, everybody get together. We’re takin’ our first official Christmas card photo.”

“But, Tommy—,” you try again, but you’re drowned out by Joel’s sad attempt to leave the room.

“Look, I said I’d watch the movie, but I sure as hell didn’t agree to take a damn Christmas photo,” he grumbles, moving to stand, but you latch onto his flannel before he gets too far. He softens at your downtrodden expression and settles back in.

“Just to be clear, m’doin this for her, not for you,” he amends his previous statement gruffly, throwing an arm around your shoulder. You kiss his cheek gratefully, and Ellie pretends to gag as she shuffles to sit between your legs.

“Whatever you say, big brother. All you gotta do is sit there and look pretty. Think you can handle that?” Tommy teases him, making one final adjustment to the camera's placement. “Alright y’all, here we go.”

He sets the timer, then runs to the couch, squishing into the only available spot between Maria and an armrest. Everyone huddles together with varying levels of smiles and grimaces on their faces while you wait for the camera to go off. Except, it doesn't.

“Wait, how long did you set the timer for?” you peer around Maria to see Tommy looking genuinely dumbfounded.

“…Does it not just go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, shoot?” he asks sheepishly.

"Oh my god, are you kidding me?" Ellie groans, leaning back against you, and the entire couch bursts out laughing. 

And in that moment, the flash goes off.

Yeah, this is the one.

The photo in your hands feels like the culmination of every memory you made and preserved in the past year. Five faces—and one tiny sleeping one—look up at you, fully developed and as happy as you've ever seen them.

Tommy and Maria sit side by side with their son in her lap, their heads thrown back in laughter. Next to them, Ellie sits between your legs, mid-knee slap, as you cackle with your chin resting on top of her head.

And then there's Joel, grinning from ear to ear as he looks on at the family he's fought so hard to protect. The family that's safe and sound, and enjoying an ordinarily special day, just for the sake of it. You can only hope that a book full of photos and everything it represents will be enough to convince him once and for all that it's the truth.

As you slide the final Polaroid into place, Joel sidles up behind you and wraps his arms around your waist.

"What's all this?" he watches curiously as you close the book and swipe your hand lovingly across the cover. Then, you pick it up and turn in his embrace, leaning back against the kitchen counter. 

"A gift," you reply carefully, hugging it to your chest. 

You glance over to where Ellie's still sitting in the living room, but she shakes her head and offers you a small smile, her delicate way of telling you that you're on your own. You take a deep breath before continuing.

"It's a Christmas present from me and Ellie," you explain, hoping to convey even a fraction of what this means to you. "Look, we know this isn’t necessarily your favorite day, but...we still wanted to do something nice for you."

He nods, his expression frustratingly unreadable. But then he does something unexpected.

"Y'gonna keep huggin' it or are you gonna show it to me?" he drawls jokingly, and your brows shoot up in shock.

"You wanna see it?" 

His face falls, and you immediately feel terrible at the brief wave of hurt that crosses his features. You didn't mean to sound so surprised, but you didn't anticipate this easy acceptance.

"'Course I do. The two of you spent a whole year workin' on this thing, why wouldn't I?"

That grin you know he loves lights up your entire face, and you turn to place his gift back on the counter. Flipping to the first page, you step aside and let him explore it for himself.

He takes in each moment of each season slowly, running his fingers across Ellie's doodles between photos and in the margins. Spring is framed by butterflies that you're somehow just realizing are painted in all of Sarah's favorite colors. 

Ellie added so many painstaking details you'd never talked about. You're not even sure how she knew something like that, but you're grateful it's there. Joel notices it too, and reaches down to take your hand, gripping it tightly for the rest of the book. 

He's silent as flips through summer and fall, and when he finally reaches winter, you feel him begin to tremble beside you. 

The last page sits open in front of you, the photo from earlier flanked on either side by notes from you and Ellie. As he reads, then rereads them, you can see the cogs turning. He's starting to understand why you did this—and how something as simple as a photograph isn't just a look back on a life well-lived. It's a reminder to keep living.

“This is…,” his brows furrow as he tries to find the words to express the conflicting thoughts racing through his head.

“I—I’m sorry, I didn’t get you anything," is what he ultimately settles on, but when he looks up at you, his eyes are wet. You immediately drop his hand to cup his cheeks.

"You didn't need to. I have everything I've ever wanted right here," you tell him gently, brushing away the tears threatening to fall. 

You glance over at the familiar faces in the living room, the same ones looking up at you from the page below, and he follows your gaze. The tension in his body begins to bleed away the longer he watches them, and you learn the wrinkle in his brow isn't actually the permanent fixture it always seemed to be.

He reaches up to cover one of your hands with his own, and you can feel his heart racing through his fingertips. In the back of your mind, you wonder if this is the moment it happens. If his heart grew three sizes bigger today, and if he's finally ready to give himself the gift of peace.

“Merry Christmas, Joel Miller," you whisper, kissing him deeply as the sweet voice of Cindy Lou Who brings the movie credits rolling in the distance to a close.

thanks for reading and happy holidays!

dividers by @saradika-graphics

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

question! apologies if you've already answered this, but you've talked about how each alpha kid has a beta troll counterpart that would match well(or at least, was alluded to match well) with them thematically, or at least fit their interests. roxy = eridan, jake = vriska, jane = equius. following that theming, who would dirk's be?

It's not as obvious for Dirk, but given the pattern followed by the other alpha kids, probably Tavros?

The other kids, it's practically indisputable - Jake's intro literally yammers about how he loves "cerulean knockouts, hubba hubba" and how he wishes he could be the guy who dated Neytiri from James Cameron's Avatar, wording it in a way that makes it sound exactly like the TaVris SGRUB situationship. The other big hint is that Jake is pretty much at the center of the venn diagram of Vriska's two love interests, John and Tavros (three if you count Nic Cage). Let's note that one of those interests shares a Class with Jake, a Page.

Roxy's is also practically indisputable; she fucking loves wizards, she's a hipster, but crucially, she also has a crush on a broody Prince, and her other interest is John, who's got black hair and glasses (and in their initial meeting, she literally isn't even listening to him, just going "wow... black hair and glasses... is he single" hahaha). Similar to VrisJake, Roxy is in the center of the venn diagram of Eridan's two red interests, Feferi and Nepeta - a bubbly pink nice girl, and a cat-themed Rogue. Let's notice again that some major foreshadowing here is class.

Finally, Jane literally talks about having a wall of "cobalt beefcakes," and she's constantly described as a "tightass" who starts out correcting peoples' grammar and chastising them when they cuss. Equius's main redcrush? Aradia... a Maid, except he laments her low social status because he's really into being dommed. Well. Guess who is also a Maid and of high social status (heiress).

So, following this pattern, it's very likely that Dirk's redrom situation will be someone who shares a class with his extant red interest... which would be a Page. Moreover, while it's subtler, his interest sets him up for Tavros in a similar way to the other three - he unironically loves Rainbow Dash, a flying horse, with Tavros also having a preoccupation with flight; he has a tiny horse similar to Tinkerbull (and Tavros also has horse associations, given his fiduspawn of choice is Horsearoni), and he's shown in his introduction rapping with a robot significantly less good at it than he is, winning by dousing it with orange soda. This same orange soda is later used by Dirk to pacify Gamzee, and Tavros and Gamzee are implied to be destined moirails, so that also gives it a more direct Tavros association. It's also not the first time soda of a corresponding blood color has been used to represent a troll character, as part of pale EriKar foreshadowing is the cherry-red Faygo that Eridan picks up. Tavros is a real mess in the romance department, meanwhile, because he regularly pursues people purely for status/accomplishment - Vriska (after dying) and Jade most notably - but he also has a weird something-something with Dave, being the first one to show up to doomed!Dave's bubble besides Aradia to challenge him to a rap battle. As we've seen with Vriska and John, an indicator of compatability might be interest in a similar family member.

Plus, the glimpse we get to see of Jake and Dirk casts Dirk in an interesting light - he IS needy and IS pushy, but his messages largely read as "what do YOU want to do? Let's go do something fun for YOU. Or if you need space, that's OK, just tell me and I'll give you some. But still you have to tell me". In a very Heart-esque way, he's super comfortable putting his own wants aside to accommodate his partner - he's just pushy about knowing what his partner wants.

(Quick sidenote - I believe that Hal is a fully separate entity from Dirk, so I don't lump any of Hal's actions in with Dirk's.)

This actually seems like what Tavros would need - as we see with Gamzee, he ghosts people who are too forward, but Gamzee is also deeply pessimistic and self-conscious, so he probably didn't bother trying to get back in touch after the first ghosting. Meanwhile, we see from Vriska that Tavros actually doesn't mind some pushiness, and there are even parts of their adventure he had fun with, since he just genuinely loves adventuring - she was just ultimately too inconsiderate and selfish for him.

And again, the major caveat to all these relationships is that every character needs character development to get to a point where the relationship is viable. Eridan, Vriska, AND Equius, given how they were before they died, and sometimes after, were all far too unstable, their worst traits untreated, for them to be good matches with the Alpha kids - but with some char dev and maturation, each of these characters' best selves are basically perfect fits.

Vriska's character development cuts out her need to live up to her society's murderous standards, and learns to be a bit nicer, meaning she ends up as a confident, take-no-shit bitch, whose adventuring style would mesh well with Jake, who's a fan of a challenge to a greater degree than Tavros and rebounds better from humiliation and defeat.

Eridan at full character development is likely still a naturally arrogant-sounding, despotic-acting freak, but firmly on the side of good (the "i will kill for you" type of friend), much like Slinus Marlevort from Roxy's wizard fanfic, but 1) she's really into all of that, she DOES NOT STOP describing Slinus as Hot as Hell, and 2) he's also a simp, like he would do anything his dating partner asked LOL

Equius at full character development has had a very long reflection on the fact that he's mostly just got a fetish, which - because he hasn't realized it's a fetish - he's inadvertantly been pushing onto other people. And he would stop that. Equius, at his core, is a polite and helpful lil' stoic, and most of his casteism is a combination of being a sub mixed with "this makes sense to me as an explanation of the horrible things that happen around me". Once he learns to rein in his fetish, his natural tendency is already to be the strong, silent type - à la Ron Swanson, Jane's "ideal man". Moreover, we see from tiaratop!Jane (and Jane and Jade later describe their mind control as them acting on their worst impulses, so it's still meant to be read as a reflection of Jane) treats Jake like an object/breeding stud, meaning that there's a part of Jane that's looking for submission, deference, and obedience in a partner............ Equius.

And finally, Tavros with full character development sees Tavros friendly, nice, confident, and outgoing. It's the version of him that puts together a massive pirate army at the end just by asking them nicely. Dirk's introduction describes that he unironically loves Rainbow Dash... because she's so spunky <3. Spunky is a good word to describe this final form of Tavros we get to see at the end.

Just wish I could see these characters happy, man. Like, I get why I can't, but still.

[kitsunexgari]

Summary: You have to face the fact that once you make a deal with the devil he owns your soul, and he can do whatever he wants with you. Tags: Over stimulation, forced orgasms, restraints, humiliation, Dom/Sub, Blood, biting, dirty talk, semi-dub con/non-con Notes: This is quite a wild almost AU scenario that I came up with for The Salesman. It's definitely not for everyone so read at your own risk.

"Please just let me go I promise I'll be good!" You beg pathetically. You had been chained up in this room for you weren't sure how long now. Completely naked, exposed, and shivering. You weren't sure what exactly you did now to upset him but given that he was prone to throwing tantrums or just punishing you for his own amusement it may not have been anything significant or at all. He had been appearing at random times to taunt you, tease you, but there was always denial. He knew just how to touch you to build you right up to climax before stopping. Make your cunt as sensitive as possible. 

"Let you go? Let you GOOOO?" He taunts as he steps in front of you. You gasp and whine knowing that you are in for trouble now. You shake your head and look away from him. He chuckles, his hand going right to your cunt, one thumb right on your clit once again. He's been doing this enough that your arousal is painful. More pain than pleasure at this point and yet you don't hate it...no...this is what you've been craving and somehow he always knows this. If you tell him or not. "I'm sure you just hate this, Princess..." He snarls leaning in to lick your cheek sloppily. 

You start to rub against his fingers trying to get more towards his hand, possibly force penetration but he's very good at knowing just how much to give without allowing you release, how to torture you as sweetly as possible. Your cunt is dripping wet, your arms ache. He has you elevated so your toes just barely touch the floor but you are sure that at this point you wouldn't be able to stand on your own two feet anyway. He's weakened you, left you a sobbing mess. Heaven and hell completely combined. You don't even know what you want anymore.

"Do you believe you've suffered enough?" He whispers. You know if you tell him that you have then he'll deny you again, you've been making that mistake for what seems like days. Now you know it's your chance to try to give him what he wants, say what he's waiting for. 

"No...I...I don't...." You whisper after a moment of trying to find your breath as he continues to mercilessly handle your cunt. 

"Ooooh looks like someone's finally learning her lesson...." He taunts. There's another wild laugh, so unhinged and feral. His hand retracts and he moves behind you. You turn your head trying to watch him but he growls viciously indicating that isn't something you should do. 

"Please just-" 

"Just what?" He hisses in your ear, you can feel his teeth scrape over the back of your neck, "Let you cum? Is that what you want?" 

"PLEASE!" You screech, you don't think you can take it anymore, and just as you have that thought you feel his cock shove into you. This, of course, triggers one hell of a powerful orgasm, you scream, cumming hard as your body spasms and contracts around his absolutely perfect cock.

"Tsk...tsk...who said you could do that?" He purrs in your ear. 

"I-I didn't mean to-" 

"SILENCE!" He yells, "Since this is what you want...so badly...maybe I should give you all you can take...or more..." 

"Oh God don't-" 

"Don't? DON'T! Do you really presume to tell me what I can and cannot do? Silly....SILLY little girl..." He laughs again, his hands coming around to grab your tits roughly, giving them a nice firm squeeze. You scream out and he starts to thrust, slow at first, hard enough to swing you a bit with how you are restrained. You squeal. One of his hands moving down to your cunt, to get at your clit again. 

"I'm going to take it all from you, all your pleasure...pain...you're going to wish you never craved this to begin with...." He whispers so softly that you aren't even sure he's said anything at all or you just imagined it. His thrusting increases and once again you find that he's rubbing your clit to enhance your pleasure even further. His cock feels to be amazing inside of you, hitting all the right places, everything you need to force another orgasm almost immediately. You scream. 

"More..." He snarls, "Do it again." 

"S-Stop...." You beg but you don't want him to stop, you know that and he knows that too. Even if you were genuine, you know he wouldn't and you crave that part of the experience to. The thrusting increases so do his fingers. Pain and pleasure stab through you as his cock pounds into you even harder. You've felt this before, you know it won't be the last time. This mere act milks yet another orgasm from your body. Your arms tug down at the restraints, your toes curl and your back arches, as you gasp for air. Stars dancing in your direct line of sight. 

"AGAIN!" He demands then starts to bite at your shoulder, neck, and back, drawing blood and growling like a feral animal as he licks at the wounds. His assault on your body continues. You scream. Your hands clench into fists. Another orgasm rocks your body. "That's right...milk my cock like the little fuck toy you are....AGAIN!" 

"I-I can't..." You sob, but you know you can, he knows you can, and you know this isn't going to stop until he's completely satisfied. 

"You can and you will...do you remember what I do to liars? Huh...Princess?" He warns you. You screamed and shudder your body shakes as you orgasm again. Somehow the thrusting of his hips only increases, his fingers on your clit become far more rough. You jerk and twist, writhing under his touch. The hand left on your tit gives another painful squeeze. You cum again, then once more in rapid succession, gasping for air. You whimper and whine but he's still not stopping. "AGAIN!" 

"I CAN'T I TOLD YOU I-" 

"ONE MORE TIME" He orders, "You know how much I need to fill you with my cum...and you need to work for it." You mewl softly, you really don't think you can again after that. It's all too much, you're too sensitive, tired, and he knows this as well. He knows that he can continue at this brutal pace pushing you to your limit because your body has worn itself out, at least for now. Yet, he's not giving you any time to rest. No, he wants what he wants and he's going to take it. He isn't concerned with the limitations of your body only what he can do and his desires. You will submit to them. 

The pain builds. Becomes agony. You twist, struggle, your feet trying to kick back at him. You connect a few times but it doesn't seem to faze him. He's in a zone and he wants his cock milked. You have no choice. Your hands clench into fists, your nails digging into your palms sharp enough to draw blood. It begins to drip down over your arms and wrists. You scream and beg, this is impossible, surely, how can you cum again? How can you complete this impossible task? This is insane?

Just as you are sure you'd more likely die than actually cum again, it hits you. Your final orgasm. The most intense. It takes all the breath from your lungs, your vision tunnels. Your body shakes and jerks, the oddest combination of pleasure and pain washing over you until your eyes roll back and you succumb to the dark respite of sleep...the very last sensation you experience is his burning hot cum filling you entirely. You couldn't be more satisfied with your Master.

[on-a-lucky-tide]

Like You Mean It: A Nikprice Mafia AU

John is invalided out of the military and is struggling to adjust to civilian life, stuck in a cycle of poor coping mechanisms and denial. He gets sent to Chester by his younger sister to service a client that has scared all her other employees. Little does he know that the appointment will change the trajectory of his life forever.

cw: post-traumatic stress disorder, extremely poor attitude to his own disability, toxic coping mechanisms.

“How is the new hobby going? Painting, isn't it?”

Price frowned at the table in front of him, counting the rings of coffee stains. Four. “It didn't work out.”

“Oh, that's a shame. What happened?”

Price swallowed, his fingers twitching on his knees. He could tell the truth: that the inane, witless conversations had bored him to death, or that one of the women had started flirting with him and it had made him uncomfortable, or that the paintbrush had felt unwieldy and small in his hands, that it looked wrong there, or that he had lost his temper, overwhelmed by something he couldn't put his finger on, and thrown the canvas to the floor before limping out, or…

“It jus’ didn't hold my interest. ‘M sure I'll find somethin’.”

The therapist tapped her notepad with the end of the biro and studied him closely. She was one of the best, Mac had said. Worked with all the old boys that invalided out after a lifetime in the service. She helped them get back on their feet, navigate civilian life, and finally put to bed some of the ghosts they dragged behind them. Price had to give her a chance to help, which meant opening up some of those wounds he’d let heal badly over the years. Sally was nice enough, and he was trying not to let his own internal battles influence how he regarded her. Sometimes, she made that hard.

“How are the nightmares? Any better?”

“Yeah, they… uh, they don' happen as regularly.”

“When was the last one?”

Last night. “Coupla weeks ago, I reckon.”

She wrote that down. Price tapped his knees again and glanced at the watch on the table. She made him take his off because he had spent the first two sessions glancing at it. The compromise had been that she would set an alarm on hers. It was a brand new smartwatch, she said, it tracked her calories, her heart rate, had GPS. The kind of thing his watches had been doing for years, except his watches could call in an air strike and track enemy combatants across the field of battle.

The old one, that is. His new one just told the time.

Her husband had bought it for her, so Price had said it looked very posh.

“Have you given any more thought to the dating app we talked about?”

The watch beeped. Thank fuck.

“Whelp.” He clapped his hands together before rolling to his feet with a quiet groan, a combination of actions that he knew made him appear ten years older than he actually was. “I'll see ya next week then, Sally.”

She handed him back his watch and he slipped it over his wrist, before she placed the notes down on the table. Given that his eyesight was still sharp, he caught the words, ‘denial’, ‘withdrawn’ and ‘isolated’ amongst the scrawl. His jaw twitched and he averted his gaze. This was one assessment he didn't seem to be passing in flying colours. She gave no indication she had realised he'd seen. “Companionship, John. Even a friend that has nothing to do with the service. It will do wonders.”

“Right. I’ll… work on that.”

It was raining when he stepped outside, grey clouds stretching across the skyline in a dark, homogenous blanket. He almost skidded on a drain, his uneven gait prone proving more of a liability in the wet, as he walked across the car park, and he swallowed the resulting grimace even though there was no one around to see. He did it more out of habit than anything else; show no weakness.

When he slumped into the seat of his old Honda Civic, he sat in the mute silence for a moment, watching the raindrops tumble down the windscreen. His leg throbbed, the tight scar tissue pulling, tendons creaking under tension, and he looked down at his knee with a scowl.

It had been a building falling on him that had done him in the end, trapping his leg for seven hours while his task force dug him out. Ghost had dragged him out by his bitch strap, and then carried him to casevac, with Soap doing his best not to look at the mangled state of his captain's leg as he covered the rear. A miracle that he hadn't lost it, they said. That he hadn't been crushed completely.

A miracle.

So, now, he got to rot away slowly in a small, one-bedroom flat in Liverpool, with TV dinners and Coronation Street. He walked through the world numbly, like he was observing it from afar, through frosted glass. The only brief glimpses of feeling he got was when one of the 141 messaged him. Sometimes a picture, other times a text. They were few and far between. It wasn't that they didn't care. They were busy. He knew the demands more than anyone. The world didn't stop turning because Bravo Six had left the game.

That didn't stop him checking his phone every few hours, just in case he had missed a notification. Checking his watch so he could tell himself where in their routine they would be.

He did it now.

1400, Tuesday.

If they weren’t on mission, Simon would have the experienced operators running drills with the trainees. It was autumn, which meant the start of bad weather and low visibility environs. It was likely he would do a jump in a few weeks with full kit to test the development of their survival skills.

He glanced at his phone. Nothing.

With a deep sigh through his nose, Price jammed his keys into the ignition and turned. The old car choked into life, the engine ragged in the cold, and he clicked it into ‘Drive’. He was grateful for the bloody thing, really. Those first few months of riding around on the bus had nearly been enough to send him to an asylum, with screaming kids and the constant smell of piss from seemingly every person that sat down. When his GP had approved him to drive an automatic, he'd almost dropped to his knees to fellate the bastard in gratitude.

He didn't really track his drive home. Stopping at reds, giving way, flicking down the indicator as he turned corners. The streets, houses and people of Liverpool passed by in a colourless smudge until he was pulling into his car parking space and staggering out in the rain. It happened a lot; the disappearing into his own head. Like his brain was giving up without stimulus and switching into standby mode.

The lift was still out of order despite his numerous phone calls on behalf of the residents, so he turned into the stairwell and began the arduous climb to the third floor. Gone were the days when a phone call from John Price moved literal armies. Now he couldn't even get fuckin’ Bill from maintenance out with a screwdriver to fix the fuckin’ lift so Jenny, eighty years old and wheelchair bound, could leave to do her groceries.

By the time Price reached the top of the first flight, his leg was burning; by the second, he was breathless from pain, and by the third, his eyes were welling with tears. The pain from his leg seemed to burn through his entire body, clutching his chest in a vice, bile and nausea building in the back of his throat, and he was having to stifle the sounds punching from his chest by biting on his knuckles.

His hands shook as he extracted his front door key, and continued to do so as he tipped more than a single dose of his strongest painkillers into his palm, the kettle hissing behind him on the countertop as he slid to the floor. He didn't wait for the tea to brew, but necked the pills dry, crunching them down in between huffing deep breaths through his nose.

There had been a time after his injury that he had believed he would recover and return to the field. A small part of him still did sometimes, but all it took was a set of stairs to truly humble him, leaving him whimpering and shaking on his kitchen floor. Pathetic, weak. How far he had fallen. He turned his face into his palms and pressed the heels hard into his eyes.

When he looked up again, the room was dark.

Price latched a hand on the edge of the countertop and pulled. His bad leg was stiff, seized with cold and aching, and his right one was numb from where he'd been sitting on it. His stumbling efforts would have made for a great Benny Hill sketch, he thought bitterly.

Once he had set the kettle reboiling and a frozen TV dinner in the microwave, Price checked his phone. One message. From his sister.

Carol (16:00): How did the appointment go?

Price glanced at the clock. 1900. Bollocks.

Price (19:00): Good.

Carol (19:01): Three hours to write that. Nice one, John.

He sighed, smacking the top of the phone into his forehead in frustration, before typing out a response.

Price (19:04): We talked about the painting thing, some old missions, and she asked me about the dating app.

Carol (19:05): did you make the profile yet?

Price (19:06): what the fuck do you think?

Carol (19:07): stop being a miserable cunt and do it

Price (19:07): No one wants to date a cripple.

He didn't send that one. It read far too much like self pity and that just turned his fucking stomach.

Price (19:07): If I wanted someone nagging me 24-7 I'd move in with you.

Carol (19:08): Prick.

Price (19:08): Yeah, tthat'd be a fine thing.

Carol (19:09): omg 😭

Carol (19:11): Gary says you never text back about games night. Kimmy wants to see you.

Gary was Carol’s “gay bff”—her words. He’d been a godsend when her bottom feeder of a husband had finally pushed the old bill too far and got himself nicked for possession with intent to sell and GBH. Price owed the bloke a lot, because he’d picked up the slack where a big brother should have been. He was pretty sure Carol had tried to set them up once, which would have gone about as well as trying to get a Labrador to date a Persian cat. Gary would have shredded Price with his kitten claws in minutes.

Price (19:12): Depends on my shifts, boss.

Carol (19:13): Ok.

Carol (19:13): Don't give up on us.

Carol had saved him enough already. She had been the one to force him to retrain at college so he could work at her salon. Physical therapy and massage. Something to do with his hands that wasn’t killing people, she’d said. Besides, she wanted to attract more male clientele and his machismo would make them feel less emasculated about seeking support. He felt like there had been a hidden barb there, but hadn’t pressed. Price swallowed the lump in his throat and stared into his dark kitchen for a moment before he replied.

Price (19:14): trying

Carol (19:15): I know

Carol (19:15): love you big bro

Price (19:16): love you too, love to Kimmy.

He shoved his phone into his pocket as he poured his tea, taking it black despite the presence of milk in the fridge. That was at the other end of the kitchen and the pain killers hadn’t yet kicked in properly. His microwave meal seemed more or less cooked through, the steam searing his fingertips as he tugged off the plastic lid, so grabbed a fork and headed into the dark sanctity of his living room.

His flat had always been sparse, with basic furniture, a handful of books and family photographs. None of the ‘homely’ touches you’d expect of a home. In all fairness, he had never spent a lot of time here—only a few days leave if he’d been at a loose end. But even then he had preferred sleeping in Carol’s spare room, doing the school run in the mornings so she could have a less hectic start to the day, and making sure the house was clean, that there was something edible on the table in the evenings. Fat chance of that now. She didn’t need another deadbeat arsehole on her couch twenty-four hours a day. She’d done her time with that bullshit. So Price had only visited a handful of times since being discharged; once to take a look at a leak under the kitchen sink, and then to check the weird noise her car had been making when the temperature dropped.

Price slumped into the permanent dip of the right hand sofa cushion and took a moment to bask in the relief, tea and dinner hovering over his lap. Some days, he wanted to stay on the damn sofa and rot into it, but the stubborn streak that had managed to survive the last few months wouldn’t let him. He had to be doing something—anything—even if that was hobbling about the supermarket for Jenny while the lift was out of action. A last, defiant stand against the listless void left behind when they had taken the service from him.

He dug the clicker from where it had fallen down the side of the cushion and turned over just in time for the opening credits of Coronation Street, blowing over the heap of white rice and tasteless curry in front of his mouth. His mind faded out into white noise as he ate mechanically and knocked back his tea to wash the taste away. The episode hadn’t even finished before he was pulling the fleece blanket from the other cushion over his lap, eyes drooping closed. He checked his phone once more before he placed it on the lamp table for the final time.

The storm outside picked up a notch and Price felt it tremour through the old building, and he watched the rain lash against the balcony windows as fitful sleep dragged him under.

—

“This is Bravo Six in the blind; Watcher—ahh, Watcher, do you c-copy?”

Static.

”Kate… Kate, please… fuh-ck, Watcher, this S-six in—“

The rubble above his head moved. He held his breath. There was nowhere for him to move. Nowhere for him to run. It had taken an eternity to wrestle his arm free enough to get to his radio. If the rubble shifted now, it would crush him.

The pain was blinding. Like white hot pokers stabbing through every muscle. If he hadn’t been able to move his arm, he would have assumed his spine or neck were broken. Maybe both. He could feel his right leg, but not his left. Couldn’t even see it.

”Watcher, do you copy?”

Static.

”Kate, please… don’t let me die down here, don’t… please…”

His pleas were soaked up by the oppressive silence. The muffled, muted space that seemed to swallow his voice.

Suffocating nothingness.

Static.

He couldn’t move. Not an inch. His trap was closing in. Crushing him. Several tons of concrete and steel pressing down on his ribs, his legs. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t breathe.

—

Waking up felt like he was having to claw himself out from beneath that rubble himself, chest heaving, the neck of his t-shirt stained dark as he fought his way back to the surface. Early morning light was leaking through the balcony door, the spots of rain still clinging to the glass making the living room glitter like a disco ball hung from the ceiling. He lifted a shaking hand from beneath the fleece and smoothed his damp hair back over his head, mentally counting through the grounding exercises Sally had taught him.

Feel, see, hear, touch.

Like he’d been run over by a Challenger—his ceiling—phone alarm—blanket.

Price threw out a hand and managed to swipe his damn phone off the table. Cussing and snarling, he slumped onto the floor, fishing it out from beneath the lamp stand. He didn’t have enough energy to climb his way back onto the sofa, so he sat there once he’d switched the alarm off, staring into space. The world slowly filtered back in, his senses spreading out through the room, latching onto anything that connected him to the reality outside his head. Unfortunately, that also brought with it the constant dull throb of pain in his left side.

That last mission had been the final crack in a dam he hadn’t even been aware of. Over twenty years of difficult operations in the most inhospitable environs and his mind had soldiered through, unbroken, robust. Colleagues and friends had fallen before him, so he knew what post-traumatic stress disorder looked like, but it was something that happened to other people. Not him. Not in a million fuckin’ years.

But leave him trapped under some rubble for a few hours and suddenly every difficult experience, every interrogation, every period spent trapped behind enemy lines at their mercy, every close call, every fallen soldier, they all came flooding back like vengeful demons that had been caged in the pits of hell to tear off their pound of flesh.

The nightmares weren’t always the same. Sometimes, his subconscious decided to dredge up an experience from over a decade ago to torture him with. A few nights ago, it had been the interrogation that had left him with burn scars over his lower back. A month spent in an Al Qatala detention facility before Mac had extracted him. He hadn’t broken—had given them bloody nothing—and had passed the psych eval after that one with flying colours. Even the psychologist had been a little suspicious—impressed, but suspicious. Turned out all he’d done was squash it all so far down that it was invisible to a prying eye, and then managed to trick himself that he was just made of stronger stuff than average.

He was good at that though: keeping secrets. Pretending, manipulation, getting what he wanted out of people. Out of himself. It was no surprise that he’d got so good at it over the years that he had managed to dupe even himself into believing what he needed to get the job done. Stupid wanker.

Price scowled as he rolled to his feet, wobbling unsteadily at first as he regained his balance, before limping into his bedroom. He had a quick shower to wash the sweat off and threw on his gym kit. Just because his lower half was useless, that didn’t mean he couldn’t keep the rest of him in shape. The physio had told him to keep it light, that everything in his body was connected and his nervous system needed time to adjust, and he had nodded along.

Truth was, he liked the burn of it. It felt like punishment. A punishment that he could control. It was both proof that he was still, physically, worth something and a way to chastise the parts of himself that weren’t as strong as they used to be. John left the house just as his morning alarm went off.

He ignored the sideways glances from the reception staff as he limped through the automatic barriers, his car parked in the second row back because he couldn’t quite bring himself to use the damn blue badge the council had given him when Carol had completed the forms on his behalf.

This early in the morning, the gym was more or less empty. There were a few night shifters getting their end of day workout in at the squat racks, so Price dumped his gym bag by a bench in front of the dumbbells. The powerlifter to the right glanced at him as he grabbed 26kg for a warm up set, and from that point on he let his mind go blank. All that existed as he worked his way through his ‘push day’ was the burn in his shoulders, his chest, down his spine. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend he was in the gym in Credenhill, with Ghost grunting on his right and Soap pausing to take yet another selfie on his left…

His phone trilled.

He dropped the dumbbells to the floor at his feet and snatched it from his bag. He hated himself for feeling disappointment when he saw his sister’s name.

“Wotcha, love, everyfin’ ok?” He slumped back on the bench, spare arm dangling between his legs as the burn of the lift faded.

I know it’s ya day off, but I need a favour…

”Right…”

We’ve got a regular in Chester who needs a home visit.

”Oh yeah, cheshire set, is he?”

Nah, he’s… a foreign national. Scary bloke, actually. And that’s the problem, all the girls are refusin’ t’ go.

”Did he touch one’uv‘em?”

No, no. Nothin’ like that. He’s just… scary. Lives in one of those big detached houses, and he has loads of… well, they called ‘em henchmen. Said it’s like walkin’ int’ mafia film, John.

”If he’s so bloody terrifyin’, why not jog ‘im on?”

It’s… not tha’ simple, la.

Price’s hackles went up instantly. Not that simple could mean a hundred different things, but all the dots were joining up in a way that made Price want to load his M1911 before he drove over. “Why?”

Look, I… if ya can’t do, ‘ll go meself, but…

”Don’t you bloody dare,” Price growled. “I’ll go. Send me the time, the address, what his usual is.”

He heard her breathe a sigh of relief down the phone.

Cheers, John. I… I owe y’bevvy, yeah?

“Stop tryin’ to set me up with Gary, and we’ll call it even.”

Oi, I was jus’—okay, fine. Gary is off the Price menu.

”Carol, I swear t’…” He glanced over his shoulder as the grunting behind him had gone conspicuously silent and the brief moment of eye contact was enough to make him drop his voice. “Right. Forward me the intel, and—“

She chuckled.

”Wot?”

I will forward ya the intel, big brother. Love ya, see ya later.

Price stared at the phone in his hand long after it had gone black. The heat under his skin was adrenalin. He’d recognise the bubbling rush of it anywhere; the heavy drum of his heart, the tightness in his chest. Excitement.

“Fuckin’ ‘ell, get a grip,” Price mumbled as he chucked his phone into his bag and returned the weights. It was probably some sweaty billionaire who fancied himself the bloody Godfather. Normal people—people who hadn’t spent their entire adult lives fighting real mobsters, crooks and war criminals—saw a grim face and a sharp suit and were easily intimidated. Price would scope the place out and gather some more information on whatever the fuck this arsehole had on Carol, and then he would fix the problem. He was good at that. Fixing other people’s problems. It let him ignore his own for a bit longer.

[johnnylandslide]

WoL Magic Cards Tutorial!

I'd made a custom Magic: the Gathering card of Johnny recently, and shared it in the Seafloor discord, and since there was a lot of interest in the concept I figured a tutorial might be nice so we have something to do while we wait for plugins to come back. Here goes!

Download CardConjurer This is the tool I use to make custom cards. It's just a web app developed by a college student; he got DMCA'd by WOTC so it's not hosted on the internet anymore, but you can still run it locally.

Just unzip the contents somewhere, and then run launcher.exe when you're ready. It should open up the app in a browser tab.

2. Navigate to the Card Creator

3. Pick out a Frame

Enter this search box on the right. We're going to be using the Nickname ("Godzilla") frames. These give us a small subtitle box below the card name that indicates what the Magic card's actual name is.

If you want to create a custom card instead, use the Borderless frames.

In the menu below, you should see the different colors of the borderless frames. You'll have to add three of these elements to the card: the text box, the card name, and the power/toughness box. Do them in that order, by clicking each element and then Add Frame to Card. If your card is legendary (or if you feel like it), use the Crown option rather than just Title.

You'll have to choose the correct color. If your chosen card is monocolor or >=3 colors, this is very easy since you can just choose that color or gold, but for two-color cards the process is slightly more involved. First, add the color that goes on the left using the Add Frame to Card button, and then add the right color using the Add Frame to Card (Right Half) button. Use the gold power/toughness box.

If any of the card elements get out of order, you can reorder them using the layers controls at the bottom of the page.

4. Import the card text

Navigate to the Import/Save tab, and type in the name of the real card you're putting your OC over. Select the specific version of it using the dropdown afterwards.

(For some reason, Firefox suggests completing this field with my credit card information. I think it knows more about Magic than it's letting on.)

After the card is imported, navigate back to the Frame tab, and click Load Frame Version. This will force the text on the card to fit into the frame set that's currently selected in the bar on the right, which should still be the Nickname ("Godzilla") from earlier.

We should have something closely resembling the real card in the editor, now.

5. Make it yours!

First off, go to the Art tab, and upload your image. Once it shows up, you can adjust it by clicking the actual card in the editor. Clicking and dragging pans it around, shift+clicking scales, and ctrl+click rotates.

Next, pop over to the Set Symbol tab and remove it, since this is your own card and isn't from a Magic set.

And now, go over to the Text tab to finish this off! Start by entering your card name into the Nickname tab.

If your chosen card name is too long and ends up clipping the mana cost, you can reduce the width of the text box with the Edit Bounds menu until it fits.

Next, go to Rules Text to update the name if the card refers to itself. I changed all instances of "Vadrik" to "Johnny". Since this card is really just to look at and not to play with, I also renamed the Day/Night mechanic to fit the Black Mage flavor even better. Feel free to get creative!

You can use {flavor} to add flavor text as well. I added the {lns} commands after some words to add line breaks to make the text blocks look better.

You can also edit the typeline in the Type tab, if the creature type doesn't match your WoL. Johnny is already a Human Wizard though, so I didn't have to do that. Technically this would be a mechanical change of the card, but since these aren't real cards anyway I think it's a valid concession to make. Just don't go abusing it if you actually end up printing these out LOL

6. Download the card image

Finally, head back over to Import/Save, scroll all the way to the bottom, and hit Download you card.

And you're done! There's obviously a lot more that's possible with CardConjurer, and tons of avenues for creativity. If you end up following this tutorial, or creating any other FFXIV-related MTG cards, I would really love to see them!

[luveline]

Hello! i love all of the spider girl and miguel work you have ahhh may i request a writing where they finally make it official? and how miguel would react when the rest of the spiders start asking or are shocked that he’s openly being more affectionate with her in public :)

thank you for your request ♡ fem!reader

Everybody knows you and Miguel are together before you're officially together, but it's still a surprise for Peter B to find you both walking at a snail's pace toward the lab, hand in hand. 

"Can you fix it?" you're asking, oblivious to Peter B's shocked silence. You're a spider —you know he's there, you're just ignoring him. You and Miguel both are. 

"I'll get you a new one." 

"I like my phone," you say, Miguel a lovey-dovey smile. You're always soft on him, even when you first met and he treated you like a pest. "It's the first present you ever gave me."

"Ah, and I've never given you anything else." 

"That's not what I'm saying!" You swing his hand gallantly as you take a big step forward. Miguel is just tall enough to keep up without jogging. 

"Then what are you saying?" 

"I have, like, an attachment to it. The screen is smashed, not broken. I can get Peter KatKit to do it if you're too busy." 

Peter KatKit being one of your friends from another dimension (where KitKats are called KatKits, evidently). Peter B can physically see the moment the idea, the subliminal threat, loads in Miguel's mind. Miguel grabs you by the waist, your giggly yelping echoing between the atrium walls as he puts his lips against your neck and says, "My schedule's miraculously clear." 

You lean forward to escape him but Miguel follows, kissing and nipping at your skin if your breathless laughter is any indication. 

"Uh, guys?" Peter B says. 

"What?" Miguel asks impatiently. 

"I'm here?" 

"So?"

"So… You know. I can see you guys being gross together." Peter B shoves his hands in the pockets of his dressing gown. "Actually, it's kinda nice, but you guys like pretending you aren't all sick in love with each other. Figured you'd want a heads up."

"We're done pretending!" you say happily, leaning back into Miguel's chest. He accepts you with a straight face but his arms betray his agreement, wrapping around your front. "Miguel asked me to get married." 

"What?" Peter B asks. 

Miguel shakes his head. 

"Nah, I'm kidding. But he did tell me he loves me and he wants to be with me forever." 

Peter looks at Miguel, expecting a second head shake. He doesn't doubt that Miguel loves you, but he cannot imagine Miguel saying something so saccharinely sweet. 

Miguel doesn't shake this one off. 

You have the most smug, pretty smile on your face; you're glowing with how happy you feel, and Miguel isn't frowning for once, so despite any worries Peter B might have about your compatibility, he's thrilled for you. 

"Well, congratulations, kids," Peter B says. 

Miguel squeezes the crook of your arm. "Thanks, Peter." 

"You're welcome. Y/N, I'm pretty good with tech. I could take a look at your phone if you want? Fix it up?" 

"The position has been filled," Miguel says. He's definitely frowning now.

[bird-inacage]

Love Sea Episode 10 | The Fight (Micro-expressions + Mini Meta)

Peat and Fort did brilliantly in this scene. I wanted to pick out some of their micro-expressions to analyse in more detail.

1 - Just after Mut tells Rak he loves him, he's visibly taken aback, he looks crushed and frantic and helpless - 'Why did you have to get your feelings into the open? Why couldn't we have continued to play house without me having to confront my feelings? Why?' Rak is confused and crestfallen as to why Mut has chosen to shatter the bubble they've been existing in. Why is this necessary?

2 - Mut can't help his frustration. He's decided to put all his cards out on the table, and still Rak is choosing avoidance, to deny, to hide, to escape. Mut's played along until now, but he's so sick and tired of it. His attempts to be fully transparent, always lead to a rebuttal, Rak's unwillingness to concede, to compromise. Mut's anger comes from a place of 'you leave me no choice'.

3 - You can hear the gears grinding in Rak's brain when Mut reiterates that he was never after the money. His mind is going into overdrive. He's questioning. He's thinking 'but this isn't possible'. Despite being aware of Mut feelings, he can't face them because it forces him to recognise his own. And he just can't, he's scared shitless and he just doesn't know how.

4 - Just after Mut says 'let me love you', you can see the intensity of compassion and concern flit across his face. He softens. His eyes are searching, wanting. He so badly needs Rak to open up to him fully. There's hope and vulnerability - 'please accept my love, please. I'm trying so hard, I'm trying. Give me something, anything.'

5 - Rak is fighting with himself. He's conflicted, guilty, torn that he's been put on the spot against his will. He's dealing with the realisation that he will hurt Mut, and he doesn't have the stomach for it. You can see the second he decides to muster up the courage, decides to do the cruel but necessary thing. In this moment, Rak's fight or flight response is telling him to choose himself, which means he has to hurt Mut instead. It's the only way. 'You forced my hand'.

6 - Mut doesn't often exhibit outbursts of hurt but he does here. He's incensed. Rak's callousness is insult to injury. 'Perhaps you were never capable of loving me, but don't throw my love for you back in my face'. I think Mut is also making a last ditch effort to emphasise that he's not going to change his mind. Once his feelings are out there, that's it. Regardless of whether Rak loves him back or not, it doesn't change how he feels. This is the power of his conviction.

7 - This is super subtle, but you see the light diminish from Rak's eyes. He almost goes lifeless from the inside out. He deflates. Any active turmoil that was there is now replaced by resignation, by acceptance. It's sinking in what he's done and the realisation there's no going back and he has to make peace with it.

8 - Mut's final retort is painfully self-deprecating, that little chin tilt of 'How foolish I was to think I could have nice things. You've just proved to me once again how asking for things only indicates how wildly undeserving I am. I know my place, and that's where I'll return to'.

[malfiora]

Can't Get Enough

by captainBAEhab

Tags: GrayWing, getting together, previous DickKory, fluff, thirst traps

The first time they met was...less than stellar. Kori had been raving about her new boyfriend for ages and finally got to introduce him to the Titans during their annual holiday party. "You'll like him, he's from Gotham," he'd been assured.

Nightwing is curious – until in walks the princeling of Gotham, Dick Fucking Grayson. There's a blissful moment in which he thinks (knows) this is a mistake, but, nope, Kori is greeting him with a kiss and heart eyes. How had they even met? And what could Kori have possibly seen in him?

He watches to find out. Dick waltzes around, flashing his best paparazzi smile at the Titans and regaling them with ridiculous socialite stories. What's worse is that everyone else is actually charmed by this, if the faint blushes and waving hands are any indication.

When Dick finally makes his way over to him, he gives Nightwing a sweeping look and his smile tightens to a smirk. "You, I know," he declares. "My family's cleaned up enough of your messes."

And so Nightwing vows to hate the guy, even if the others vouch for him.

"Oh, c'mon, he was trying to be nice," Troia says. No.

"Yeah, isn't that just how Gothamites say 'hello'?" Beast Boy tries. Nope.

Nightwing gets the last laugh when Dick and Kori break up three months later.

---

Or so he'd thought. As fate would have it, night shift in Gotham falls to Nightwing one weekend. Batman and Robin are off world, Red Robin is on the West Coast, the Batgirls are on the other side of the world for a "mission" (read: vacation), and Red Hood won't return his calls. And apparently some upstart gang thinks it's the perfect window to kidnap a Wayne for ransom. But not just any Wayne, oh no.

Dick Fucking Grayson is sitting in the middle of a dingy room, gagged and tied to a folding chair. Nightwing removes the zip ties first and the gag absolutely last. As soon as he's able to, Dick pushes off the chair to stand but immediately falls back into it with a grunt.

"Whoa, take it easy," and Nightwing scans him for injuries. "Looks like your ankle is sprained."

"Doesn't matter, the girl –"

Nightwing raises an eyebrow. "What girl?"

"The other victim." Turns out, the upstart gang is more daring than they initially seemed and kidnapped two hostages. "I'm not leaving her, I gave her my word."

It's a bad idea, he should complete Dick's rescue before going back for another hostage, but Dick's eyes are burning with determination and it's crumbling his resolve. "Fine," Nightwing sighs, "hang onto me."

They hobble down the hall to another dilapidated room. Huddled in the corner is a girl, probably a preteen, with smudged glasses and a shock of red hair. She launches herself at Dick the moment she sees him and hugs him around the middle.

"Hey, Carrie," he says through a pained smile and he pats her head. "I told ya I'd come back for you. And I brought a friend."

Carrie peeks up at him and smiles. Nightwing crouches so he's level with her. "Hey, Carrie, my friend here's a little hurt, so I need your help. Is that okay?" She squeezes Dick tighter but eventually lets go and nods. "Awesome. I need you to go a few steps ahead of us and tell me if you see or hear anyone coming. If you do, make this signal with your hands." And he flaps his hands like a bird.

"Like this?" She imitates the gesture.

"You're a natural."

Carrie diligently checks around every corner as Nightwing supports Dick through the building. Either the goons all left or they get extremely lucky, but they don't encounter anyone, and soon enough they're free of the lair. GCPD arrives a minute later with paramedics, so Nightwing gives Dick over to the paramedics and calls it a day. But not before he watches Dick smile down at Carrie and offer his hand to her while they wait for her parents.

See, he's never seen this side of Dick before. Warmth, protectiveness, concern for someone and something other than his hair and his fancy clothes and gaudy cars. It's...weird and vulnerable and a little precious, and so now Nightwing is curious – what else is there to Dick Fucking Grayson?

Which, of course, leads him to Twitter. He scrolls through Dick's posts and retweets, just skimming, all the way back to when he first created it, just as part of his investigation. It's not obsessive if he's only looking, right? It's a patchwork of silly ramblings, vague political statements encouraging Gothamites to vote without endorsing anyone, links to interviews with various Waynes, and photos of charity events. Normal, even a little thoughtful. Must be Dick's PR team, right? Except that wouldn't explain the thirst traps.

There aren't many, but they're there, sprinkled into perfectly innocuous posts. Hashtag-no-filter selfies of him allegedly just waking up, post work out poses, fit checks in various dressing rooms, just there, for everyone to – FUCK.

He accidentally liked one of the posts.

And so now Nightwing is faced with a dilemma: does he un-like it and pretend it was a mistake? Or leave it there and act nonchalant? Dick is going to get the notification either way, and moment now –

"Well hello there 😏" comes the DM notification from @ not_a_dick_joke and nonononono this can not be happening right now. "Glad you liked the pic! But here's a more recent one" and sure enough Nightwing gets an alert saying he's got a photo.

Dare he? Should he open the messages to see? Well...a peek couldn't hurt at this point. Lo and behold, it's another thirst trap, this one of Dick with his shirt half unbuttoned and holding a sign with a scribbled 'to my savior' on it.

Nope. That's enough Internet for the day. Nightwing logs off of Twitter and considers deleting the app for five whole minutes before doing something more productive like polish his wingdings again.

---

And everything is fine for another couple weeks, in which Dick definitely sends more selfies and Nightwing definitely looks at them and leaves him on read and this is definitely normal and healthy behavior for both of them. Until it isn't.

@ not_a_dick_joke: is getting kidnapped the only way I'll get you to talk to me? okay then 😊

What...what does that mean? Holy fuck, is Dick Fucking Grayson going to get himself kidnapped just to get Nightwing to talk to him? That's just...(stupid/hot/crazy/sweet).

So naturally, Nightwing must check on him. He drops by Wayne Manor, onto a balcony he's seen Batman use before. Sure enough, Dick is there, waiting, elbows leaning on the balustrade. He grins when he sees Nightwing.

"So that did the trick, huh? I was wondering what I'd do to get you over here if that didn't work." And then he's tugging at Nightwing's wrist and pulling him inside the manor. "C'mon, I wanna show you something." He tossed a wink back at him. "Something I can't post on Twitter."

[aloneinthehellfire]

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Forgotten and the Remembered

Gates Of Hell

Word Count: 9k

Warnings: swearing, mentions of death, amnesia, the usual monsters, angst ofc, the biggest warning is that this isn't proof-read bc if I didn't release this soon then I was gonna start tweaking

[A/N: Writer's block is currently kicking my ass but I REFUSE to be beaten!! Posting at 3am!! No one can stop me!!]

The Forgotten and the Remembered

“Can I be the first to say that I seriously hate this apocalypse?”

Eddie shoves the dead demodog off of his torso with a groan, a small and grateful nod directed to Steve for killing it before he was literally dog meat.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think you’re the first.” Steve says, offering a hand and pulling him to his feet.

“Ugh, we can braid each other’s hair later, let’s get moving.”

Excluding Billy’s childish remark, Steve had to agree with his urgency; it was getting pretty dark already and if they didn’t speed up their footsteps, they would never make it to the Radio Shack.

The mission was as simple as it could be, drawn out on an out-of-date map with no contingency plans if it all went wrong. Which, as Steve goes over it all in his head, was a terrible mistake. When has anything ever gone smoothly for him?

They needed to get to the Radio Shack for nightfall, grab a spare walkie and contact their respective groups to alert their survival. Steve wondered if they'd be happy to hear his voice. After all, his absence was probably a relief considering how suffocating he had been lately.

Next, they were to trail around the outskirts of the centre, hopefully avoiding bigger hives of monsters on the streets. Eddie stated that getting to the edge of the mall was vital to the final part of the plan.

And, finally, the crucial part: Eddie will guide them to the delivery bay and lead them straight to the supplies. In and out. It should be simple.

If they even made it there, that is.

“I still don’t get why you don’t just leave, man.” Eddie reiterates for the thousandth time since leaving the camp. Steve’s head was starting to ache with the constant pestering.

“Because we can’t.” Steve sighs, rubbing his temple. Up ahead, he caught the subtle shake of Billy’s shoulders, indicating that he was very much amused with Steve’s distress.

Asshole, Steve thinks as he rolls his shoulder. The last demodog attack forced his swing too hard, leaving a dull ache that did not help his discomfort at all. No sleep, migraines, and now a bruised shoulder. It wasn’t his day, that’s for sure.

“But you have the perfect opportunity-”

“Can we talk about something else?” Steve suddenly snaps, not in any malicious intent but it came out more stressed than he wanted. “Please.”

Eddie sounds a low whistle, widening his eyes. “Sure, man, my bad.”

“Thank you.”

To the joy of his thrumming headache, Eddie was quiet after that. Rather than speak, he quietly kicked around a small stone, sometimes humming a strange tune. Steve felt a little guilty, but maybe silence was what they needed right now.

It didn’t last as long as he hoped.

“Who else is here?” Eddie questions just as they pass the abandoned Steelworks building. Steve always found the place to be a little creepy.

“Like our group?”

“Yeah. I realised I never asked and I think it would be nice to know who I’m risking my life for.”

“Well, there’s us, obviously.” He runs a hand through his hair, spotting the old inn in the distance. They were getting closer. “Then there’s a bunch of kids. Six of ‘em. And a girl from high school. Nancy’s there, too.”

“She the one dating the Byers’ kid now?” Eddie asks innocently enough, assessing Steve’s reaction. “Is he there too?”

“Uh…”

A pained gasp hits the air like a sobering thought, stilling his aching body. It didn’t belong to him.

In his silence, Billy throws a look over his shoulder and clears his throat.

“Not anymore.” He says, and Steve swallows the thick lump in his throat. Eddie merely nods, choosing not to pester further.

“No. No, his, uh, his mom is, though. And his brother.” He nods himself back into the confidence to have this conversation, smiling to hide his hurt. “There’s a fair amount of us, I guess. Hopper takes care of them, though. Kinda his thing.”

"Hopper? As in Chief Hopper?"

"The very same."

His eyes flicker with distaste. Steve can only assume Eddie and the chief hadn’t gotten along over the past few years, especially with the whole drug-dealing career Eddie found himself in. 

"Who, uh, who else is with you guys?"

"No, that's pretty much it." Steve frowns at the way Eddie's usually animated features suddenly drop, clearing his throat. "Why? Are you also looking for someone?"

"Uh, no, nothing like that- Wait… also?" Eddie's eyes narrow when he pulls Steve to a stop, leaning in so Billy doesn't overhear them. "I'm sorry, are you telling me that you've dragged me out here because you're looking for someone? What happened to the whole 'we're dying and need help' situation?!"

"Okay, firstly," Steve yanks his arm back, a small mumble of an apology flowing from Eddie's lips in return, "I'm not technically telling you anything, but yes. I- we are looking for someone. And secondly- dos -  we do need supplies. Without them, we can't find the person we're looking for. Now you might be upset with me for that but I didn't ask you to come out here. You led us all on your own, so maybe you should be thinking about why you seem so desperate to get away from that camp instead of blaming me for it."

Steve clears his throat, taken aback by his own words.

A small exhale of breath escapes Eddie's lungs, his mouth snapping shut. He wore a look of guilt, one Steve has borrowed and made all throughout his life. For a single moment, a slither of regret binds knots around his stomach. But it merely lasts that, a moment; he doesn't have time to care for others feelings when he still hasn't found you.

“Steve!” Nancy shouts, but what else could he do? He wasn’t fast enough to stop this.

His eyes fly shut once the dagger is closer than comfort, awaiting the painful stretch of metal into his flesh. Unfortunately for someone else, he didn’t have to.

A pained gasp hits the air like a sobering thought, stilling his aching body. It didn’t belong to him. It belonged to Jonathan.

Nancy starts to scream as blood pours from his mouth, his legs losing their power and stumbling him back into a hoard of shapeshifters. Steve watches as they grab at him, pulling at his clothes. They throw a hand over his mouth and drag him away, looking satisfied in their assault.

And there it was again. Even with his shifted morals, the guilt kept returning, embracing him like a mother would their child. Or, at least, he assumes a mother would. His negligence of other people's feelings seem to be almost as identical to that of his parents, and it was far deadlier in this apocalypse.

"Whatever." Eddie grumbles, snapping him out of his haze of self-hatred. "We've got about another 20 minutes so let's speed this up, yeah?"

He charged ahead, leaving Steve behind to stand in contemplation before he begrudgingly followed. Steve sighs. Why couldn't he just keep his mouth shut?

“Hello? Can anyone hear us?”

“Is anyone there?”

“I repeat, is anyone there?”

Your knuckles were white with the grasp you had on the microphone, throat tightening with every communication you tried. It had been a couple of minutes, and there hasn’t been a single response.

Once you and Jonathan had navigated the maze of hallways, you had been quick to usher him inside the comms room and lock the door behind you, ensuring at least some kind of security in your mission. Jonathan had assured you he could send out a signal to your friends, and you had immediately began your search for an exit using the camera system Brenner had set up in here. The only problem was that you couldn’t see an exit, and no one was responding to your call.

“It’s Y/n. Y/n Hopper. I’m here with Jonathan Byers. Can anyone hear us?” You try again, sharing a look with the boy currently fixated on the radio system. “We’re stuck in a bunker, and we need help. Over.”

The device eventually rests back on the table’s surface, along with your hope of a response.

“I thought you said they were monitoring the stations?” You ask Jonathan as he fiddles with various dials.

“They are.” He says with determination, shaking his head at the machine. “Dustin basically built on some radio extension, they should be able to hear us. Maybe it’s a problem with-”

His voice falters as he peers behind the table, momentarily ducking down. “I found the problem.”

Before you can ask, he sits back up with a frayed wire in his hand and a frown on his face.

“Shit.” You breathe and he can only nod, inspecting it with disdain.

“Looks like someone tampered with it.” He sighs, leaning back in the chair. “Can we guess who?”

“Probably the same person who removed any trace of a door from the camera feeds.” You say, resting your head in your hand as you continue to click through the screens in front of you.

You had seen what felt like a million hallways and rooms, an unnecessary amount of security in a deserted bunker, but not one single way out of here. It was starting to mess with your brain, wondering if there was even an exit at all.

“Maybe he knew we were gonna escape? You know, just ruined the radio and removed the camera on the front door so we couldn’t leave.” You offer, resisting the repetitive click of the mouse by pushing away from the desk and resting your hands between your thighs.

“How would he know that?” Jonathan frowns, looking lost in thought. “He’s crafty, I’ll give him that. He’s supposed to be dead so I guess nothing can surprise me now.”

You slowly nod along to his words, not really retaining anything here or there. Jonathan explained to you who Brenner was just moments prior to accepting defeat with the technology surrounding you. It turns out he wasn’t a complete stranger after all; Hopper had been hunting him down for years. But there was only so much Jonathan could tell you about him.

You still didn’t know why he took you here in the first place. Or why Jonathan was locked up in a random room with medical equipment.

While Jonathan continues to mutter about the possibilities of escaping, your eyes catch a series of tapes lined across shelves, noticing that very few are marked with a subject.

“What do they say?” You point above him, cutting off his spiel about seeing if there was a weapons room.

“Uh…” Jonathan abandons his seat and peers at the shelf, tilting his head to read the tapes. “There are a couple that say ‘Lab’. Another says ‘Experiment 8’... this one is creepy. It just says, ‘I saw you’.”

A chill runs down your spine as his eyes meet yours with matching concern. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

“Play it.” You say with more confidence than you expected. 

Jonathan doesn’t object, slipping the tape into the player and watching the screen brighten with the image of a furnished room.

“What’s this?” He frowns, looking to you for some sort of answer. Your face had dropped, eyes glued to the screen.

“No.” You whisper, watching yesterday play out in front of you for the second time.

The camera feed suggested it was hidden in a vent closer to the ceiling, metal lines obstructing some view, but the subject was still clear as day. You watched as Owens talked to you on the couch, holding your breath. Even in a grainy exposure, you could still see the fear on his face.

“What’s happening?” Jonathan asks quietly just as Owens ushers you to the closet.

“He’s saving me.” You state and Brenner walks into the room. From this angle, you can see the gun he’s hiding behind his back, and it makes your stomach churn.

“What…” Jonathan’s question cuts off with the flash of a bullet, a gasp leaving his lips as Owens falls to the ground and lays in a pool of his own blood. “He killed him.”

If the screen weren’t so big, you would’ve missed the way Brenner turns his head to the vent, eyes staring directly into the camera. He doesn’t smile, or speak. He just stares. Like he knew.

Because he always knew.

“There aren’t meant to be any cameras in there.” You say, shaking your head. “He- he knew Owens was telling me everything, he knew I saw what he did.”

“So why didn’t he kill you too?” Jonathan asks the million dollar question. Why didn’t he kill you too?

“Play the other ones.” You nod. “We have to figure out what he knows.”

The tapes didn’t relax your anxiety. You and Jonathan watched three before you felt like you could throw up if you continued.

Each one was a different shot of the Hawkins lab, following the lives of your dad, the kids, everyone. There wasn’t any sound, but it was pretty clear what each person was doing; patrols, planning. He had been watching all of you this entire time.

“There’s more.” Jonathan says, pulling out notebooks from one of the drawers he had curiously opened while you were flicking through tapes. “He’s been writing about us.”

You flick through a couple of pages, frowning. The writing was messy and cursive, detailing different notes about conspiracies, almost all about Hopper and his whereabouts. “Why? Why does he care what we’re doing?”

“Maybe he doesn’t like that we’re trying to find a way to close these gates.”

“What possible reason does he have to keep them open?” You ask just as you discard another book, laying your eyes on the last in the pile.

This notebook was eerily familiar to you. It seemed worn, a couple scratches and stains. They were almost comforting, especially in a stark clean place like this.

You turn the first page and fall into realisation, observing the scrawl of handwriting that fell from your own fingertips. It was your notebook.

It contained information about monsters; their strengths and weaknesses. Like you had been observing them for a while, not that you could remember. And it contained a small diary entry every few pages. Nothing seemed of importance, mostly details about feeling ill or wanting to go home. But one word was scribbled across these pages with such care, catching your eye with every letter.

The most important piece to the puzzle.

"Steve." You manage to whisper out before turning to the screen with haste when you hear your own voice muttering through the screen. This video had audio.

“When was this?” Jonathan asks, and you look closer.

You and a boy are standing at a railing, staring out of a giant glass window with one of the gates staring back at you. Steve. You were with Steve.

“I don’t remember.” You frown, trying to listen to yourself.

“… I’m glad I got to see the real Steve Harrington, even if it was just a few days, but… but that’s not enough time to really know each other. You don’t know me.”

“Looks like the day the lab exploded.”

Everything around you was either burnt or burning, small flames dancing along the ground and chasing after screeching vines.

The lab had exploded, you realise, shoulders dropping. It was gone. And it took the gate with it, only a large crack against the surface left in its demise.

You turn to see Steve already standing beside you, taking in the scene just as you had, his hard stare softening into defeat. There was no going back.

“What now?” You whisper, afraid if you say it any louder the realisation of what you had done would come crashing down, taking away that last remaining piece of sanity with its tide.

“I…” Steve frowns, slowly meeting your eyes. He didn’t have a plan this time, no positives to share. You were both stuck in an alternate dimension, your exit blown to smithereens. “I don’t know.”

“How the hell did I forget that?” Your hands find a tighter grip on your notebook, pulling it closer. “I… I should have remembered.”

Jonathan offers a sympathetic smile. “Y/n, you’ve been missing for weeks. If Brenner’s been feeding you those pills this entire time… it’s gonna take a while for you to remember everything.”

But I should have remembered him.

The way Steve smiled, or how he fiddled with his hair when he was nervous. Each mole painting his skin, or the way he’d huff when he was upset in the most adorable way. The way he’d hold your hand, the sweetness and care behind every kiss. It should have been easy to remember, because your heart never truly forgot.

Your eyes drift up to the screen, watching as Steve leans closer to you. The strain on your heart was loosening with the memory of him, but your stomach tightened with guilt. He would never have forgotten you.

“They don’t need me, Steve.”

“I do.”

“No you don’t.” You shake your head, tears pooling in your eyes. “You’ve been doing this shit long before I was ever in the picture. If anything, I’ve just ruined it-”

“Why do you do that?” He cuts you off, flickering between your eyes with a look of concern. “Act like you aren’t someone important, when you most definitely are.”

“Y/n?” Jonathan brings his chair closer, ensuring a respectable boundary between you two.

You almost turn back to him in defeat when you find yourself staring at the red beam of light behind you and Steve. Reaching forward, you click the mouse and pause the video, leaning closer. The gate was glowing a crimson fog onto the window, eerily beautiful despite its dangerous contents. But, most importantly, you remember that glow post-amnesia. In the room you met Owens.

“Oh my god.” You breathe out, leaning back into your chair to let the dread flood your body.

“What is it?” Jonathan glances between you and the screen, peering closer at the image as if he could use it to read your mind.

“It’s not a door.” You state with a whisper, repeating it louder when you realise he can’t understand you. “It’s not a door. Our exit. It’s a gate.”

You grab the mouse and start flicking back through the live camera feeds, rapidly searching for evidence of your claims until the image presents itself, eliciting a gasp from the boy beside you.

The room you had encountered Owens in for the first time was exactly as you remembered it. Small machines lined the walls and shutters blocked out what you assume to be a large window to your exit. The camera quality wasn’t the best, but it didn’t need to be perfect to see the red light peeking out from the cracks.

“Does this mean what I think it does?” Jonathan asks, arm leaning on the desk beside you as he peers over your shoulder, holding his breath until you answer.

“Yep.” You slowly nod, meeting his eyes. “We’re not just in a bunker.”

“We’re in the Upside Down.”

Almost as soon as the terrifying truth breathed from Jonathan’s mouth, a shrill screech of sirens started to echo around you, startling you out of your seat.

Brenner knew you were escaping.

“Shit, time to go.” Jonathan gasps, spinning around and spotting an old satchel under the desk. He quickly grabs it and starts shoving in evidence; notebooks, tapes, even an old recording device Brenner had left on the shelf.

Before you leave, you ensure your notebook is a part of the collection before unlocking the door and throwing it open to reveal the flashing white and red hallway of your nightmares.

“Which way?!” Jonathan yells over the alarm and you grab his arm, tugging him left into a sprinted run, racing against the clock.

But it didn’t matter how fast you ran. You couldn't outrun time.

Darkness fell over Hawkins like an omen, plunging everything into a deep, dark, black.

The red hues of the clouds above would cast a bloody visage on the buildings whenever lightning should clash, but no thunder followed in its wake. This weather wasn’t normal. It was silent, and it was very, very deadly.

Hiding after dark was the only solution in a world like this now. Unfortunately, sanctuary was getting harder and harder to find. Steve, Billy, and Eddie, learnt that the hard way.

“I don’t mean to point out the obvious, but, uh…” Eddie’s finger waved to the ceiling, gulping.

The problem with the ceiling? There wasn’t one.

“Shit.” Billy runs a hand down his face. “Something ripped that roof clean off.”

“Maybe we should head next door?” Eddie offers, but he knew any suggestions were useless. It was pitch black and Steve was pretty sure the windows of the building opposite were smashed into pieces.

“We can set up a camp.” Steve nods slowly, looking around the store. A couple of shelf stands were still upright. Maybe if they set up their tents behind them, it’ll shield them from anything in the sky. He could shudder at the thought of something flying around right now, but it wouldn’t surprise him.

And it wasn’t necessarily a shock to him that the roof was gone. He’s constantly reminded of the giant shadow you had seen a while back, a fear in your eye he couldn’t ignore. The worst part was that Steve hadn’t seen it around lately, and that made it so much more terrifying. It suggested that this thing only appeared when it mattered.

So why target the Radio Shack?

Billy was the one to start on the tents, while Steve gathered some old wood from broken tables to throw in a pile. Eddie watches them with uncertainty, uncomfortable with how calm they seemed to be. He knew they’ve probably been through a lot, they all have, but they move with such confidence in a situation that would definitely have him spiralling if he was in charge.

“You sure these radios are gonna work?” He tries to keep himself busy as Steve looks over, nodding.

“Yeah. Not those ones, but I brought one with me. It’s battery powered so I just need any packs we can find around here. And it’s always been a pretty good spot for connections. You know, since it’s a radio store and all.” He assures, pulling out some flint he may or may not have snagged from Eddie’s camp. The boy either didn’t mind or took no notice of it, still fiddling with the radios. “Hey.”

Steve carefully takes the radio from his hand, checking the battery. It definitely needed replacing, and he held it while he assessed the situation. There were more radios scattered about, at least one of them had to have the power he needed. 

“We’ll need to contact them in the morning.” He finally says, responding to Eddie’s wide eyes of disapproval. “Look, we don’t know why but radios are practically useless when it’s dark. Maybe it’s something to do with the clouds, I don’t know. But we also don’t want any of those things out there hearing us. Especially since we don’t have a roof over our head.”

He gently places it back down on the counter, sighing.

“I say we make a small fire. Just enough to keep us warm. And we’ll block out the windows so nothing can look in.”

“What about…” Eddie points to the ceiling, eyebrows raised.

“We can risk it.” Billy finally joins them, looking up at the sky just as a burst of red illuminated the clouds. “Nothing’s seeing us from up there.”

“How can you be so sure?” Eddie asks.

Billy doesn’t respond. Instead, he swipes the flint from Steve’s hand and starts work on the campfire, avoiding their eyes.

Steve has never known Billy to be normal. Not even close. He was an egomaniac, emphasis on the maniac, with an array of anger issues and, frankly, terrible judgement. I mean, this guy saw Lucas Sinclair as a threat, and Steve knew there could be only one reason why Lucas of all the boys was targeted.

And yet, even with all his horrible traits, Steve hasn’t known Billy to act this… weird. He was quieter, motivated, and, above all else, somewhat selfless? He didn’t have to volunteer for this trip. He certainly didn’t have to stay when the plan went awry, and considering the military were moving people out, Billy has every opportunity to leave them behind.

Something was just off. And he couldn’t figure out why.

“So, I know you don’t want to talk about it…” Eddie says after a while, the fire set and his back resting against an old wall. Steve looks over before his breath hitches in his throat.

You sat there once. It was back in the Upside Down, but it reminded him of you all the same. Eddie had that same look of defeat on his face, a cool determination still resting behind his eyes like he was still trying to fight. Just like you did.

God, he missed you so fucking much.

“Why is this person you’re looking for so important?” Eddie finishes and Billy’s eyes briefly flicker to Steve’s, the truth weighing heavy on his tongue.

“Because she is.” Steve replies simply, rubbing his hands together as the cold air creeps between the flames. “And she’s incredibly important to all of us.”

“Why?”

“She just is.”

Eddie tightens his lips, slowly nodding. Even as Steve avoids his eyes, his gaze is hard set on the side of his head, reading him like a book. He could almost feel the thoughts radiating from Eddie’s head.

"You're searching for Y/n, aren't you?"

Everything is suddenly too silent. Even Billy tensed up a little, pausing his efforts to pry open a tin of beans they’d packed back at the camp.

Steve isn't sure how to respond. He wasn't expecting Eddie to make such an accurate guess, especially considering your reputation in high school; Steve risking his life for you wouldn't ever cross someone's mind if they had not witnessed your change in relationship.

Unless it wasn't a guess at all.

"How do you know that?"

Eddie suddenly looks sheepish, eyes darting to the ground. "I, uh... I heard... I heard something."

"Heard something?"

"Your radio." Eddie sighs, still avoiding the boy's glare. "Back at the camp. You were asleep and I was on watch that night. I thought I heard a voice- her voice. It was coming from the radio in your bag. But when I tried to respond, nothing went through so I figured I had made it up..."

"You heard her." Steve blinks, shoulders tensing. "You heard her?!"

"Woah, dude, calm down." Eddie jumps from his seat, hands surrendering. "I was gonna look into it when we got here, try and send out another signal."

"Why wouldn't you tell me?!"

"Because last I heard you guys hated each other! How was I meant to know you're friends now?! I've been stuck on the other side of town for weeks now trying to help my uncle, I don't have time to catch up on the latest King Steve gossip!"

"Stop calling me that."

"My bad, would you prefer ‘freak’?"

"Fucking hell, will the both of you just shut the fuck up?" Billy groans, discarding the tin of beans and looking at them in disbelief. "You guys keep arguing over and over and unless one of you is gonna man up and beat the shit out of the other one, I'm sick of your whining."

Steve blinks. Billy Hargrove was the one telling them that their anger issues were the problem? Considering Eddie's similar expression, he wasn't the only one who realised how insane that sounded. Which only meant Billy was right; they really were a problem.

"Ah." Billy grins sarcastically, leaning back against the shelves, "Music to my ears."

"Whatever." Eddie coughs, snagging the radio from the counter and marching away before anyone could protest, mumbling about trying to find another battery.

"What is his problem?" Steve muttered to himself, not quietly enough to avoid Billy's coarse chuckle. "What?"

"Maybe the dude is worked up because we won't tell him a single thing about anything." He offers, eyes plastered the last remaining flickers of ember in the campfire. "We haven't told him about the Upside Down, forgot to mention anything about the gates of hell that we're trying to track. And now you're neglecting to tell him about how Y/n is trapped in another dimension and needs our help. Dude is gonna be pissed."

"Why does he care?" Steve asks, barely any venom in his words. He was just tired. More tired than he usually gets. Maybe he should have taken the opportunity to sleep when the tents were set up.

"About the Upside Down?" Billy cocks a brow, sending a knowing look. "Or Y/n?"

Steve straightens at the way he said it, shifting uncomfortably at the idea he was alluding to something he wasn't aware of.

"Both..." Steve says with uncertainty.

Billy smirks, almost hidden under the growing shade of nightfall. 

"I'm pretty sure his uncle is dying and he doesn't know how to stop it."

Dread and guilt bubble into their own brew in Steve's stomach, tightening his throat. "How the hell would you know that?"

"By using these things people call eyes."

"Alright, don't-"

"And because you've both been so busy avoiding the truth around each other that I've been noticing things you've both forgotten to hide. His uncle is clearly the most resourceful of all of them back at the camp and yet he's the only one who stays behind to 'keep watch'. Eddie always keeps things private from him like he's tryna protect him. And I'm pretty sure that Heather girl is in on it, too. She was training to be a lifeguard before Hawkins went to shit and is probably the only one with first aid experience. Tommy and Chrissy however have no clue since they're clearly traumatised about what happened to them on ‘day one’."

Steve is speechless to say the least, the darkness shedding a whole new light on his perception of the boy next to him.

"You got all that from just looking?"

"You can notice shit a whole lot better when you become an afterthought." He replies, a quiet anger in his eyes. "Y/n taught me that."

Steve tried to ignore it, but he couldn't help fixating on that last little comment. An afterthought. That's how you've felt this entire time. From realising you had been lied to for two years to assuming your father had left without you, Steve never truly appreciated how alone you must have felt, predicting people's departures before they'd ever arrived. 

"And the reason Eddie should know about what's happening to Y/n is the same reason we're out here right now risking our damn lives." Billy's eyes drift to where Eddie was fiddling the radio now, whispering into the speaker with a false sense of hope. "He cares about her."

"I didn't even know they were friends." Steve sighs, sitting down in defeat. Another migraine began to form behind his eyes. Jesus, he could use some painkillers right now.

"Me neither." Billy shrugs, and Steve looks at him quizzically. "What? Just because I'm observant doesn't mean I'm a fucking psychic. I only moved here last year, remember?"

"Trying to forget." Steve comments, but there was no malice. In fact, if Steve squinted, he could just see the making of a smirk lifting the corner of Billy's lips.

They could never be friends. But that didn't mean they had to hate each other forever.

You taught him that.

The persistent sounds of a warning system were the last thing you needed in such a hasty situation. It was hard enough to recall the layout of a white-walled maze without the constant interference of a building headache, barely remembering to grab onto Jonathan’s arm anytime you made a sudden sharp turn.

Time was running against you now. One wrong turn and it could all be over.

“We’re almost there!” You say aloud, but it wasn’t to ease Jonathan’s mind. 

You recognised the increasing door numbers around you, reminiscent of the days you would wander around this place and only have to worry about your memory.

It seemed that the closer to the gate you were, the quieter the alarms became. Maybe the power was malfunctioning. After all, electricity didn’t exist in the Upside Down. Brenner must be powering it with some external source and the security system had to be using up all that energy rapidly.

“It’s just down-”

As you pull Jonathan around another corner, attempting to lead him to the gate, someone blocks the hallway, gun in his unnaturally steady hand.

The both of you stop dead in your tracks, locking eyes with your captor.

“I can’t let you leave.” Brenner says, unwavering. “My work isn’t complete.”

You shake your head, slowly raising your hands in surrender. “What work?”

He doesn’t answer, but you don’t expect him to, especially not when he looked like that.

Eyes bloodshot and white hair messy, Brenner looked like he had been fighting. There were no bruises or blood as evidence, but his demeanour was wilder than you’ve ever known it to be. He was always collected, calm, unusually so. And right now, he didn’t look like himself.

“I… I can’t let you leave.” His voice trembles this time, alongside a slight tremor in his hand.

Beside you, you can feel Jonathan move closer. He’s obviously preparing for the worst, hoping you both can run before the bullet reaches you.

“You don’t understand!” Brenner yells this time, taking two harsh steps closer to you. You flinch, but he doesn’t pull the trigger. “I can’t- I can’t let him have her.”

That caught you by surprise, your hands slowly lowering back down to your sides. “Who…”

“I could have done great things. I would have.” He begins laughing to himself now, a crazed shell of himself echoing into the hallway. “But she is more important.”

Slowly, his hand lowers, gun pointed at the floor. He starts to stare into the distance, an unsettling smile dropping to a defeated expression. You exchange a look with Jonathan, unsure how to approach him. Brenner was clearly out of his mind and was blocking the only way out.

“Brenner?” You whisper out, taking a tentative step forward much to Jonathan’s immediate distress.

“What are you-”

You shrug him off, tilting your head to hopefully catch Brenner’s eye. You always had a sixth sense about people, about if they were truly good or evil. And right now, you saw a man that needed help. He wasn’t okay, and you hoped that your instincts were right.

“Dr?” You try again, and this time, he looks up.

“I’m sorry.” He says as he meets your eyes, his own glittering with silent tears. “I truly am sorry.”

“Just let us go.” You plead with a comforting voice, holding out your hands. “We’ll forget all about this. You- you need help. We can… we can get help.”

“You can’t leave.” He frowns, face suddenly hardening to stone.

“Y/n…” Jonathan warns, stepping closer to you, but it was too late.

Brenner raises the gun, straightening his stance and pointing it directly at your chest. “I can’t let him win.”

Him? You question, eyes glued to the weapon. You notice the flicker of his index finger on the trigger, and you wish you hadn’t. It meant you were about to die.

Or, at least, someone was.

Before any bullets could leave the barrel, something big lunges out from the darkness and pounces onto Brenner, the gun firing into the wall beside your head.

Brenner yells out in pain as the monster raises its ugly claw, striking down. A scream almost leaves your lips before Jonathan is taking the opportunity to escape, grabbing your hand and pulling you away from the horrifying miracle.

You find yourself unable to decide if leaving Brenner was making you feel guilty or not. And you didn’t have time to. Jonathan leads you straight to the red hue seeping from behind one of the doors, throwing it open and tugging you inside with haste.

“How do we-” 

He begins to ask how to open the shutters, but you’ve already launched yourself towards the door on the far end of the room, following the faint hum that has haunted your dreams since day one. He joins you almost as quickly as you left him, standing beside you in the open doorway and staring in at the room that follows.

“Jesus…” He whispers, the gate smaller than the one at the lab but big enough to have him wondering. “We’ve been searching for a gate for weeks. And it’s been here the whole time? How did we miss this?”

The taunting sound of heavy footsteps call out from behind you, something big hitting the door with malicious intent.

Both of you jump inside the room, tipping over a metal unit to block the door before you make a run for it, the shelves you destroyed scraping against the floor as the monster attempts to break in.

As your footsteps echo loudly against the silver steps leading to the gate, the unsettling wave of familiarity plagues you for the last time inside this bunker.

A lab, a gate, a boy. Time was repeating itself, over and over, making you question if your actions ever meant anything at all. You always ended back here, back in a life or death deal with only one realistic option left for survival; run.

You almost slip, but Jonathan manages to catch you, a terrifying crash sounding from the door.

As Jonathan takes your hand in his, the cool skin feels unusual against yours. Your body was aching for some kind of warmth this boy didn't have, reminiscent of a safe grasp.

You didn’t realise what was wrong until you were being pulled through the gate with a gasp, senses thrown off balance as you barely escaped the claws of a close death.

Jonathan’s hand didn't bring the same comfort you’ve yearned for all this time.

He wasn't Steve.

No one really appreciates a roof over their head until they don’t have it anymore.

There was the blinding light of sun peeking through the grey clouds and a horrible sensation of something clinging to his arm when he woke, causing Steve to groan in despair. He barely got any sleep last night, and now he’ll probably be up for another 20 hours. Life sucked right now.

Steve peels his arm away from the lining of the tent, frowning. It felt wet. Why was it wet?

Crawling out of his pop-up quarters, ignoring how uncool he must look right now, Steve’s heart drops as his hand slips into a puddle. It rained. It rained.

“Shit.” He spits, scrambling to his feet and letting his eyes fall across the store.

Any and all electronic equipment was now soaked and useless.

“Shit!” He says, louder this time. His hands were pressed against the top of his head as he paced.

“What’s going on?” Eddie yawns, stepping out of the second tent with much more grace than Steve had earlier. But he couldn’t dwell on that, right now. “Damn. When did it rain?”

“The batteries.” Steve gasped, rushing over to the counter. 

Any radios left were drowned, leaving no promise of what he desperately needed. His hands fumble with the battery compartments, a little piece of his soul chipping away as each battery led in their own pools of rain.

“Steve?”

Eddie’s voice wasn’t a priority. His hands were shaking. He was stuck here, just like in the Upside Down. Just like you. And now he-

“Steve!”

His eyes finally snap up to see his saving grace.

Eddie stood with a radio in one hand, pointing to it with the other. “It’s fine. I found a battery and shoved it into my tent when we turned in last night. And it works, too.”

“Oh, thank god.” Steve sighs, releasing all his anxious energy back into the air.

“You sleep okay, man? You don’t look so good.”

“Yeah, I- I’m okay.” He rubs his eyes, sucking in the fresh air. Well, as fresh as it could be in an apocalypse. “Where’s Billy?”

“Uh…” Eddie takes a quick look around before deciding on a shrug.

“Great.” Steve sighs, rolling his shoulder. There was still a dull ache resting there, flaming whenever he moved his left arm. “I’ll start getting us packed up, you try and contact your camp.”

Eddie didn’t seem all too convinced by his false display of wellness. “You sure you’re-”

“I’m fine.” Steve offers a tight-lipped smile, already taking down the tents with haste that suggested he really wasn’t in the mood to talk about how miserable he was right now. “See if anything else survived. We’ll need some spare batteries for when we’re out of the mall. Just in case.”

“Cool. Back-ups. I like it.” Eddie nods, mostly to himself since Steve had already left his side.

Steve’s hands immediately find solace in disassembling the tents, grateful to be busy. He wasn’t sure what was making him so cranky. Usually it would be from another nightmare he couldn’t control, images of your virus-stricken form weaving into his deepest fears. He didn’t dream last night, but he wasn’t even sure he slept at all.

It was like there was a small nagging pinch of a dagger resting at the back of his mind, occasionally piercing him but mostly leaving a dull ache in his brain. It was almost torture, and he wasn’t sure what was causing it. No sleep, no water or food, could remove it no matter how hard he tried.

Maybe it was all the pressure finally taking its toll on him. The apocalypse wasn’t resting easy on anyone’s mind, but after losing you and leading Jonathan straight to his demise, it was certainly heavy.

Maybe it was something else entirely. Something he missed. He’d been feeling it since that day in the motel basement, where you sacrificed all you had left to make sure he was saved. But he had nothing more than a blackout and a painful memory to evidence his growing fatigue.

One thing was for sure; his only cure right now would be you.

“Steve?” Eddie’s voice calls out from the other side of the shelves, making Steve pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah?”

“There’s something staring at me.”

Steve pauses all movement, eyes widening. His heartbeat raises quicker than usual, a trail of goosebumps straightening the hairs on his arms.

“Is this the demogorgon you were talking about?” He asks, and Steve slowly makes his way back through the store, attempting to catch a glimpse of the window.

“Tall, grey, faceless?” Steve recalls, taking slow steps. He can just see his bat resting near one of the deflated tents, calling to him. The sun above made everything impossible to see, pu

re light reflecting on the window.

“No. It’s, uh…”

When Eddie’s words falter, Steve makes a quick and crucial decision. He steps to his bat and swipes it off the ground, turning to see the boy fully now. Eddie’s face had fallen, fists clenched.

“What?” Steve frowns, afraid to look behind him at the glass pane.

“It’s grinning at me.”

Heart sinking into his stomach, Steve can’t seem to find the words to warn Eddie before glass shatters the earth behind him, a sharp ringing in his ear. It cuts his voice with a sliced gasp through the air as something pulls him backwards until he hits the ground hard.

He didn’t get a moment to recover. A large clawed hand found its way around his throat, pinning him to the ground.

As he chokes for breath, Steve finds himself staring up at the eerie image of a jagged smile, dead eyes glaring down at him with enough malice to turn his body cold. But Steve wasn’t the target. After all, that thing didn’t smile at him.

Pressure relieves his neck and he’s no longer the prey.

“Eddie-” He gasps, trying to sit up when the grinning monster leaves his side. “Run.”

“Shit!” Eddie has no objections as he snatches the radio from the counter and takes off in the opposite direction. And, just as Steve assumed, the monster followed.

A burst of pain seeped from his shoulder and along his spine, a hiss leaving Steve’s lips as he forced himself to stand. Various cuts from shards of glass littered his hands but that would have to wait.

“Billy!” He yells out, eyes struggling to focus around him. 

He doesn’t understand why it didn’t just kill him when it had the chance, but there wasn’t much time to debate it. Billy had the only weapon sure enough to take this thing out with a single blow to the head, and he was nowhere to be seen.

A cry echoes from inside the Radio Shack and Steve’s hand instinctively finds his bat. I guess I’ll have to do this the hard way, he thinks as he rushes to the noise, his only plan resting on the pure adrenaline of fear.

He appeared just in time to watch Eddie’s feet dangle above the ground, his hands scrambling to tear at the thick skin of the monster’s grip around his neck. Steve ignores the pain in his shoulder to lift the bat above his head and swipe it down onto the back of its head with as much force as he could muster.

It screeches, dropping Eddie to snap its head around to where Steve stood, panting. The bat was laced with droplets of blood, but his attack didn’t cause the damage he had hoped for.

Claws swiped at his face, causing him to jump back and stumble directly into old wooden shelves. They collapse into a heap behind him and he loses his footing.

His bat rolls from his grip and his eyes widen just as the smirk of his worst fears approaches him. It only seems to get bigger, the disproportionate body towering over him. It grinned the same way it had at Eddie. He was next.

“Hey!”

The sickening smile still rested on its face as it turned to the intrusion, keen on finding something to rip apart. Steve felt despair for a moment, closed in with a pile of wooden rubble at his feet.

He shouldn’t have doubted Eddie’s fighting spirit.

An ear-splitting scream left the creature’s jagged mouth when Eddie’s spear slotted perfectly into one of its eyes, black blood pouring out from the back of its head as it wobbled from left to right.

Steve manages to scurry out of the way just in time for the monster to collapse into the heap, a stomach-churning squelch of the spear being pushed further into the head with the impact.

“Smile about that, asshole.” Eddie quips, still shaking with fear.

Steve’s wide eyes turn into lights of approval, a trembling laugh erupting from his mouth. “Holy shit.”

Eddie only nods, adjusting his bandana. “Holy shit.”

“You just killed that thing with a spear.” Steve says in bewilderment, still chuckling, but none of it was funny. It was just easier this way, to find the humour in a situation that was very much deadly a few seconds ago.

“I played a lot of DnD.” He replies earnestly, balling his hands into fists. Steve could tell he was trying to pretend it was nothing, to brush it off. “That was… that was the first thing I’ve ever killed.”

“Really?” Steve frowns, brushing the dust from his hands. He was pretty much sitting in a puddle right now, but he wasn’t sure he could stand. Adrenaline wore off pretty quickly. “Well, uh… congrats, I guess.”

“Thanks.”

Steve had a lot of experience battling monsters from the Upside Down. Although, he wasn’t necessarily an expert per say. The normal baseline for experience with these things would be absolutely zero considering they aren’t meant to exist. But he knew the first time facing the reality of a life and death situation was scarring. He also knew Eddie should count himself lucky; not everyone could stand their ground.

Sometimes people run away before they learn that courage.

“Are we sure it's dead?” Eddie asks, peering down at it. Before Steve can reply, the answer presents itself instead.

The thing twitched, clawed hand shooting out to grab onto Eddie’s leg. Bat resting further than Steve would have hoped, he scrambles for a new weapon, hands rooting around the dirty ground for a rock heavy enough to cause some damage.

Luckily for him, he didn’t need to search long.

A heavy shot pierces the air and the next thing he knows, Eddie is splattered with the monster’s blood, the tight grip on his ankle faltering until the thing goes limp and it falls with a single bullet between the eyes.

“Holy shit.” Eddie exhales, looking up with an anxious smile, “That was close.”

Steve can only nod in exasperation, pushing himself from the ground for the fourth time today and dusting his hands free of gravel.

He turns to look for Billy’s smug face, expecting the drawl of condescending remarks to fall upon his ear. He was sorely mistaken.

One glance at the dead monster and he sees it; one tiny, clean, bullet hole. Not from a shotgun.

“Can’t you go anywhere without me?”

“... Nancy?”

Nancy Wheeler stands with her trusted gun pointed at the ground, a relieved smile painting her lips. She was wearing different clothes than the last time he saw her, a new jacket he recognised straight from Jonathan’s wardrobe. She had a satchel resting across her body, but that wasn’t her only accessory.

Behind her, Robin Buckley stood with arms folded, a radio strapped to her hip and paired with a taser on the other side. She didn’t smile, but Steve wasn’t at all surprised. She’d made it pretty clear she wasn’t a fan of his since your disappearance.

The only surprise was the fact they were both here.

“What the hell are you doing here?” He finally asks, posture depleting with exasperation.

“I was just about to ask you the same thing.” Nancy says, retiring her gun back to her belt. “Where have you guys been? We’ve been trying to radio-”

Her voice cuts out when she notices Eddie stood there awkwardly.

“Uh, hi.” He offers a wave, and she merely nods back. “I’m Eddie.”

“Munson?” She frowns, looking between him and Steve before focusing on the latter. “When did-”

“It’s a long story.” He sighs.

“Not really.”

Billy finally rejoins the group, the shotgun they had desperately needed a minute ago looped onto his shoulder. His shoes were muddy, hair a little damp from what Steve assumes to be the early rain.

“We got stranded at the library and ran into some other survivors. We camped out with them and then Munson offered to take us to the last place with supplies and, well, here we are.” Billy recalls, folding his arms. “Not a long story.”

“Where the fuck have you been?”

Everyone turns to Steve in surprise. His voice was bitter, a bite in his eye that suggested he wasn’t in the mood to be messed with.

“Took a walk.” Billy says, stoic expression faltering slightly when he finally clocks the dead monster on the ground. “Ah.”

“Ah?” Steve repeats, walking over to him. “Ah? We almost died because you took our only solid weapon on a walk, and all you can say is ‘ah’?!”

“Chill out, it’s dead, isn’t it?” Billy straightens, undefeated by Steve’s dangerous gaze. “Obviously you didn’t need me.”

“I can’t believe you-”

“Woah, okay.” Nancy steps forward, hand guiding Steve away from Billy with an ounce of pressure on his shoulder and he winces. “Sorry. Let’s just… calm down. We can fight about this later, but right now we have bigger things to worry about.”

“She’s right.” Robin speaks up for the first time, tilting her head. “We have a lead.”

“A lead on what?” Steve frowns, stalking away from Billy and cradling his shoulder. It definitely got worse after the attack.

“Y/n.”

If his heart could jump from his chest and strangle him, he’s sure it would have done it just then, throat tightening with a thick set of emotion. “What… what about her?”

“We heard her.” Nancy smiles, nodding feverously. “We picked up a signal yesterday. It was definitely Y/n. She’s- she’s alive. And she’s not alone.”

“Who…”

“Jonathan.” She laughs this time. Complete and utter joy slipping from her lips, a light he definitely hadn’t seen in some time.

Steve can only shake his head. “Wait, but that’s- how could he-”

“I don’t know.” Nancy steps closer, ensuring that he was only focused on what she had to say and not the disbelief running through his thoughts. “But we definitely heard her right. She and Jonathan were saying they were stuck somewhere. We- we lost the signal before we heard anything else, but it’s them. They’re alive, Steve. I know it.”

Confliction rolled around Steve’s stomach until it made him sick. He had so many concerns about this supposed signal, but mostly he was afraid that steering off course for a hopeful miracle would ruin everything. If the signal was wrong, if you and Jonathan weren’t there… then what?

“We’re heading to the new mall. Eddie says there’s enough supplies there to last us another month at least. I can’t- we can’t leave without it.”

“You’re not gonna believe it,” Nancy shakes her head in bewilderment, struck with relief of their luck, “But Hopper managed to track the signal.”

Billy unfolds his arms and Eddie stops slumping. Nancy doesn’t have to finish her words, but she does anyway, letting that hope solidify with a heavy promise.

“They’re in Starcourt already.”

[A/N: the next chapter is coming whenever I'm not rethinking my entire life after three years of university just to end up in a retail job, i hate it here. but ily guys for still reading]

@sheisjoeschateau . @kthomps914 . @curled-hair-red-lips . @nix-rose .

@palmtreesx3 . @kryztalglear . @sattlersquarry . @hey-barnes-stole-a-jeep . @sadslasher13 .

@iliveonteaandbooks . @innercreationflower . @newyorkangelbaby . @totally-bogus-timelady . @pansexualhoor .

@kitdjarin1 . @chiliwhore . @carolineesnell .

[yanderefarm]

I know requests are closed but 1. I need to write this down before it falls from my skull and 2. I just want to offer you this general concept for the brain worms not as a request.

Achilles is well and happy to be tortured, yes, but what if despite that(or more likely because he knows he'll get beat more) he is very resistant to being feminized. Gotta make him a pretty princess but he hisses and yells that he is a man and you can't change him. But no, no, it's not changing him, it's revealing his true self; a pretty little pet who is so obedient and feminine.

-🪼

god i love this idea so much. i love forced fem so much!!!

idk why achilles just makes me wanna go hard even when i shouldn't.

cw;; blood, nsft, torture, forced fem, non con undressing, humiliation

i really like nonsexual forced fem like i feel like if it was for sex they could at least justify it in their mind but forcing them to wear something around the house or out in public is so much worse. they can't justify it and they can tell themselves over and over it's for you but when you're not even looking at them it doesn't feel like it's for you anymore.

achilles got out of the bath and stared blankly at the lacey panties and pretty skirt you laid out for him. this wasn't right he was sure you had set out another suit for him. he raised his voice just enough to call for you but it seemed you weren't listening. he wrapped a towel around his waist and picked up the clothing. he came to find you in the living room. you were with a friend. it was one of your work friends who knew about your relationship with achilles but that did nothing for his embarrassment.

"why aren't you dressed yet?"

"i... i couldn't find my clothes."

"chilles i can literally see them in your hands."

his eyes darted away. you let out a heavy sigh and stood up. achilles instinctively flinched as you approached him but you didn't care instead you ripped his clothes from his hands.

"I'm sorry about him. he clearly isn't getting it through his head." you grabbed the corner of his towel and before achilles could open his mouth you ripped it off exposing his lower body to the open air.

"god you're so embarrassing." you didn't even sound amused just annoyed. "now get your clothes on."

achilles turned to leave, his face burning red, but you grabbed his arm firmly. you pulled him back to the middle of the room with an annoyed look on your face.

"i don't trust you not to wear what i gave you. put it on right here."

achilles swallowed hard, he couldn't bring himself to raise his head because the overwhelming embarrassment was too much.

"you-you have my clothes, sir."

"mhm. so ask nicely for them."

"may i please have my cloth-"

you huffed in annoyance, indicating he'd done it wrong but you didn't raise your hand to strike him. like you were so disappointed in him that he wasn't worth hitting. that hurt worse than the actual pain would have.

his breath hitched as he opened his mouth again to try and correct himself but you cut him off. "what should I hand you first?"

"th-the under-"

you huffed again.

"my-my panties... please hand me my panties,sir." it was the most humiliating way he could think to phrase it and it seemed to please you as you handed him the thin lacey garment.

achilles closed his eyes tight trying to pretend he wasn't getting dressed in front of another person. there was no pretending away that his cock had gotten hard even as he pulled the lace over it. you helped him out, fixing his leaking member into the slightly too tight underwear.

when he finally opens his eyes again you're holding up the skirt. underwear is one thing but that skirt is too much.

"please- i.. i don't want to."

you roll your eyes at that.

"do i have to put it on you" you sound so disappointed.

"i don't want to... I'm not a woman."

"why are you being so difficult? you're usually so well behaved." you look at your guest and then back to him with a scowl.

"oh. do you think he'll help you? do you think if you throw a little fit, act like I'm forcing you, he's going to help you? do you think he'll save you? do you need to be saved now, achilles?" every word you say is filled with venom. you must know exactly how much your words are getting to him, the way they make him feel guilty and disgusting. you even manage to look hurt behind all that anger in your eyes.

"no i- i- please.... i just don't want to b-"

"could you go wait in the car... im sorry about this." you let out a deep sigh. your friend leaves the room so it's just you and achilles.

as soon as you both hear the front door shut achilles attempts to open his mouth only for you to punch him in the stomach as hard as you can. you watch him crumple to the floor in pain as one of his wounds reopens. you kick him onto his back so you can climb over top of him. you sit on his chest with the skirt in your hands and all achilles can do is kick and flail.

"you stupid fucking girl. you embarrass me in front of my guest. you tell me-" you elbow him in another wound making him howl in pain, his legs straightening enough for you to shove them down. "you tell me no? and now, you're fucking fighting me."

you elbow him one more time to get him to give up his struggling. his body goes limp as he sobs underneath you. you make sure to pull his legs in the most painful way as you start forcing his skirt onto his body.

"you are a pretty girl. you're my pretty girl. and no amount of throwing fits or asking others to save you is going to change that. do you get that?" you yank his skirt up over his legs.

you notice that the wound you'd been elbowing has reopened and he's bleeding all over his shirt. he knows he's in so much trouble but all he can do is sob.

"im not a girl.." you hear him mutter through tears.

"you don't get to decide that. you don't get to decide anything." you slowly pick yourself off of him.

"I'll clean you up and change you since you're such a big baby. and when i get back from hanging out with my friends you're fucking in for it. maybe while I'm gone you can come up with how you're going to apologize."

achilles just laid there, bleeding and sobbing. everytime he tried to close his eyes he would feel a breeze over his legs and fresh tears would flow from his eyes. the humiliation of being forced to be your pretty girl was one thing but knowing how angry you were at him, how much he'd disappointed you hurt worse. he didn't want to be a girl he didn't want you to be angry at him and yet here he was. the old wound soaking his shirt and giving him a stabbing pain everytime he let out his shakey sobbing breaths seemed like a fitting punishment. of course that was for you to decide, not him.

you cleaned up his wound and changed his shirt in silence. when you pulled out the pink bedazzled shirt you gave him a look, daring him to say something but he didn't. you were clearly still angry at him but you treated him just as gently as you always did. he couldn't help but lean into your touch as you cleaned up his face.

"'m sorry..." his voice was small and weak.

you let out a heavy sigh before you picked him up with ease and brought him over to the couch.

"... i know you're sorry, sweet girl." he flinched at your words. "you were very bad, though. so when I get home you're losing all rights to boy mode. no more suits, no more he/him, no more achilles. I'll pick you out a pretty girl name."

he whimpered softly as his chest got tight.

"do you understand?"

"y-yes sir..."

"now say I'm a good girl."

"I'm... I'm..." he struggled to say it, his breathing ragged, but when he looked in your eyes he could still see the disappointment from before. "I'm a good girl."

"yes you are." you leaned in and kissed his forehead. "be a good, princess."

[realitythroughthelensoffiction]

Good Omens: on fate and reality

In season 1 of Good Omens, The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch play a vital role in helping to avert the Apocalypse. Anathema dedicated her life to understanding Agnes's prophecies and thereby helping to fulfill them. But in the final episode of season 1, when the package with the follow-up collection of prophecies arrives, she decides to burn them, because she does no longer want to live her life according to the writings of her ancestor.

This is interpreted by many as Anathema taking her fate in her own hands instead of subjugating herself to something that was foretold. But the fact that she burns the prophecies instead of studying them does not necessarily mean that she changed her fate. It is entirely possible that her life will still take the road that Agnes foresaw for her. Agnes probably even predicted the burning of the new prophecies.

The only difference is that now, Anathema knows that all the decisions she makes are of her own free will, while otherwise she would have always wondered what she did because she wanted it and what she did only because Agnes had prophesied it.

A further indication that people acting according to their free will does not contradict the idea of fate is God's Ineffable Plan itself. At the end of season 1, when the Apocalypse has just been averted, Crowley asks Aziraphale: "What if the Allmighty planned it like this all along? From the very beginning?" Aziraphale agrees that this might very well be possible.

So even though all the people involved made their own free choices, they could still have been acting according to a plan God laid out very long ago.

Conclusion No. 1: Free will and fate are not mutually exclusive.

However, it seems that some things can be altered. Adam as the Antichrist has the power to bend reality. He uses it to change the fact that Satan is his father and to bring back people from the dead, for example Lesley. When Aziraphale expresses doubt about Mr. Young really being Adam's father, Crowley says: "It is. It is now. And it always was. He did it."

So Adam did not only change reality for the present and the future, but also for the past. He was able to make things that had already happened undone.

Conclusion No. 2: In the Good Omens universe, reality can be altered, even retroactively.

And the ability to change reality does not seem to be limited to Adam. Another example, as Goldfarb Styrt (cf. p. 127; cited below) points out, is Crowley being able to get himself and his Bentley through the burning M25, while Hastur gets discorporated. Crowley simply imagines that everything is fine, and by imagining it, it becomes real. Goldfarb Styrt (cf. p. 123, pp. 126-127; cited below) also suggests that it might be the individual's interpretation of reality that matters.

That sounds really fitting to me. Because the Bentley is burning, no matter how Crowley imagines otherwise, and it explodes as soon as Crowley isn't concentrating on keeping it together anymore. And, as @indigovigilance mentions in this post, the people who witnessed the incidents during the attempted Armageddon, like Atlantis rising from the sea, still remember them, even after Adam undid everything again.

But Crowley and the humans interpret the aforementioned events in a different way than you would expect, and their interpretations have an impact.

In any case, reality and the ways in which it can be altered are important themes in season 1 of Good Omens. And season 2 contains hints that they might play a big role in the finale as well. The most prominent example of these hints is the recurring mention of the Book of Life.

I will go into more detail about the Book of Life in my next post, but the important bit for now is that by erasing someone's name from it, you create a version of reality in which "they will never have existed". So the Book of Life is another tool to effectively alter reality.

Conclusion No. 3: Reality and the possibilities to alter it are important themes in Good Omens and will be relevant to plot of the finale.

That's it for now. What are your thoughts on fate and reality in Good Omens?

Work cited: Goldfarb Styrt, Philip: Sola Fide. Ineffability, Good Omens, and the Reformation. In: Giannini, Erin and Taylor, Amanda (Eds.): Deciphering Good Omens. Nice and Accurate Essays on the Novel and Television Series, pp. 120-132.

@kimberleyjean

[tinykittendelusion]

Seventeen as different tropes

a/n : I've gotten into a book slump again so i thought might as well try something that's going to make me want to read more :)

triggers: mentions of sex or sexual content or indicates sexual behaviour

Scoups

Workplace romance especially billionaire ceo romance where he falls in love with this girl from a small town almost like a typical hallmark movie. he gives very CEO vibes especially like business proposal kang tae moo he loves showering you with love and lots and lots of gifts.

Jeonghan

Opposites attract. I think it would be so cool if jeonghan falls for someone his exact opposite who looks like a troublemaker but is actually very innocent. It would be hilarious when at first she gets blamed for a prank he pulled making him apologise with lots and lots of kisses. Also she'd be the only person with whom he won't cheat while playing games?!

Joshua

good boy x bad girl. This is the reverse of the bad boy trope and that suits him so much Joshua is a very good gentlemanly guy until he isn't and then he's this crazy person and he'd naturally be drawn to people who take risks.

Jun

childhood friends to lovers. Honestly after watching exclusive fairytale I feel this is exactly his vibe he's a shy guy so he takes time getting comfortable and since you've known him since childhood he's the most comfortable with you. The comfort of knowing someone through all their stages of life and falling for them.

Hoshi

Enemies to lovers. Hoshi is a sweetheart that everyone knows but he's amazing at teasing people aka seungkwan in gose episodes so him having an enemies to lovers relationship makes so much sense to me. Also hoshi getting angry/pissed would be HOT.

Wonwoo

Aloof couple. Everyone except the both of you know that you both are dating. Together you both are dumb and dumber. After Hoshi accidentally ends up spilling the fact that wonwoo has a crush on you You guys would finally start dating. Both of you would be so shocked to know that the other person actually liked them too.

Woozi

Fated soulmates. Now listen to me woozi is a homebody just like me and sometimes I wish the love of my life would just come to my house and announce his existence. This is exactly what happens when you go to deliver fried chicken completely drenched in the rain and he offers you to stay and dry off before leaving.

Dokyeom

brothers bestfriend. He's your brother's friend so he should be off limits to you but he's so kind so nice and so caring you can't help but fall in love. He doesn't notice you until one day you drunk confess and then suddenly you're all that he can think about.

a/n: very much like the male lead in hidden love (c-drama)

Mingyu

reverse grumpy x sunshine. Oh he falls for the slightly broody introverted nerd. They literally collided into each other when Wonwoo dragged him to this one book convention. He was jealous of how close Wonwoo and you were. Which led to him confessing and you both dating. He absolutely adores the fact that your cute silly side is reserved only for him.

Minghao

hopeless romantic x skeptic Minghao was that person who did not believe in love at first sight cause how do you fall in love without knowing anyone that is until you walked into his life and caused him to fall literally for you. You loved this fact as you were a big romantic person. You'd often watch rom coms together and have discussions on the characters for hours.

Seungkwan

Academic rivals. YES YES YES

the banter would be off the charts. He'd be full on sassy boo who loves winning and y/n would be the same. They'd fight argue and insult each other but would be forced into spending time together and boom he's pinned you to the wall.

Vernon

Second chance. Yes the angst the pain the hurt the NOSTALGIA. everything vernon runs into you in seoul one day and it's decided that he wants you back bonus points if you have a child that he babysits and that child comes to adore him.

a/n: i think I have to cry vernon with kids would be so funny and cute and I WILL CRY

Dino

a/n: i absolutely adore these I lowkey might make all of these into longer fics.

best friends turned enemies turned lovers. the chemistry would be fire you'd both participate in a dance competition as kids but at the last moment you ditched him to dance with your crush years later you both hate each other and it gets worse when you are one of the background dancers in seventeen's world tour.

i made a longer version for dino- here