#LIVE WITH YOUR GRIEF AND LET IT TELL YOU THAT ITS REAL NAME IS LOVE

[paranormaljones]

because at the end of the day the fnaf movie was about grief.

[sea-lanterns]

SILENT HILL

synopsis: (slasher! AU) you travel to an old town to find your missing wife.

featuring: dehya

rating: 18+ smut (men and minors dni)

warnings: sub! afab fem reader (though she becomes more bold later on), dom! character who gets more subby later on, mentions of blood, reader is grieving, reader gets chased, transfem! dehya (she has a di.ck), fing.ering, unprotected se.x, cream.pie, masked se.x, size difference, size ki.nk, lap se.x, reader passes out, probably ooc, heavy pwp.

art credits: gokurakugai

It had been a while since you last came to this town. Through the thick fog and semi-chilly air, you took a deep breath and let your body relax after the long car ride. You had finally arrived at the small town that plagued your thoughts for months; Silent Hill…a quiet and eerie town that was the root cause of your recent sleepless nights, after you had mysteriously received a letter from your long deceased wife telling you to come here. 

You looked down at the faded envelope in your hand, the handwriting of your wife; Dehya, was unmistakable to a grieving widow such as yourself. Though it had been three years since she disappeared and “died” of unknown causes, you knew you had to come here. If your wife was still out there, still alive somehow and living in this rickety old town, then you would drive any distance just to see her again. 

Slamming your car door shut, you began making your way towards the town on a dimly lit path. Whether this was a hoax or not, you were clinging onto that string of hope that it was somehow real. After all, this town was known for its conspiracy theories and stories of cults and rituals. If any place were to have things that defied death and logic, it would be here.  

The town of Silent Hill was an ugly one. It was hard to feel any semblance of hope when everything was cloaked in a blurry gray. You had forgotten how mundane it was to live here, the residents of Silent Hill always appearing depressed or anxious. You felt a shiver go down your spine when a possum scurried across the road, so close to your feet and making you stumble. 

“Dehya–!” you stopped yourself before you could finish your sentence, shock coursing through your body when you remembered Dehya wasn’t with you anymore. Whenever the slightest of things scared you, you would always call her name and she’d come running to comfort you and defend you from anything. But now she isn't here by your side…

‘Oh…’ Your shock disappeared and replaced itself with grief, wanting nothing more than to run into your wife’s arms again and have her hold you close. You closed your eyes and remembered how bright her smile was, a motivator to why you were here in the first place, before carrying on towards the gloomy motel where you’d be staying for the foreseeable future. 

After checking in with the motel clerk and moving your bags in with you, you settled down in your room and plopped down on the bed. This motel was severely outdated, the hideously patterned wallpaper peeling off the walls, the ceilings stained with something yellow and questionable, if your wife were here, she’d tell you “at the very least I’m here with you!”

You felt yourself crack a small smile at the memory, loving how positive she was no matter the circumstance. 

“I might get mold poisoning staying here,” You said to no one in particular, almost like you were trying to talk to Dehya beside you. 

“No you won’t! I won’t let my princess get sick on my watch.”

You could almost hear her laugh as she said that, her chivalrous attitude making you swoon even after all these years. No matter how much time had passed, you would always love how she treated you like a princess. 

“...I’ll save you this time, Dehya.” You said to yourself again, hugging one of the pillows to your chest and snuggling into it. It was far from the softest pillow you’ve ever felt, but during this time of vulnerability, it felt like the most comforting thing in the world. “You don’t have to save me this time. I’m going to find you.” 

With all those years of regret and guilt building up, you let it shrivel away and burn into motivation. This was a lead. One step closer to finding out what happened to your wife, and possibly finding her. 

You closed your eyes and went to bed, exhausted after spending several hours on the road. 

You got up earlier than usual. Usually you would sleep in late on days like these, too depressed to even crawl out of bed, but this time you had a purpose to get up. Your body was already awake before your alarm went off, sliding out of bed and getting dressed to find some answers. 

Even in the mornings, Silent Hill was a town of misery. The sky was still a dull, muted gray, and the air was even chillier than before. You pulled your coat even tighter around your figure, your nose letting out a small sneeze as you stepped into the outside world. 

You would spend the entire day just walking around, asking locals about the whereabouts of your wife, if they’d seen her or even heard of her. You would always be met with a dead end answer, but you wouldn’t give up. That letter was sent to you for a reason, and you were determined to get some closure on your wife if that was the last thing you did. 

The sky began to grow darker the longer you stayed out. Your fingers and your toes were stinging from the pain, almost numb from how cold you were. Your heart felt heavy, your body leaning against a nearby wall to catch your breath from running around town. You were exhausted, but you couldn’t give up. Not now, you still weren’t done. 

Deeper within the alleyway, you heard heavy footsteps, causing you to perk up and immediately regain some stamina. Maybe there was somewhere in there who could help you? You pushed yourself off the wall and began making your way deeper within the alleyway, the street lights turning on and casting the area in a cold, white glow. 

“Uhm…excuse me,” you turned a corner and saw a tall, muscular figure facing away from you, wearing something odd on top of their head. “Can I just have a moment of your time? I am looking for my wife, and…”

You trailed off when the figure slowly turned towards you, wielding what appeared to be a giant blade in their hand, and dressed in a beige, tattered up cloth that revealed most of their muscular figure. The figure had no face, or rather, their face was obscured by a strange, pyramid-looking helmet that sat on their head, looming over you like a great executioner of death. 

“Ah…” You had no idea what you were feeling right now. Shock, fear, confusion? You had no idea who you were looking at either, but at the very least you could discern that they had the figure of a woman. “S-Sorry…I didn’t mean to bother you…” 

What the fuck was that.

Your eyes glanced at the blade in their hand, the light from the streetlight shimmering across it and showing the faint splatters of crimson on the edge. Blood. You gulped and took a step back, the pyramid head figure tilting their head and taking a step forward. 

“I…I will leave now. Goodnight!” You whimpered and immediately began walking away, but your fears quickly caught up to you when the figure started walking towards you as well. 

You continued moving away but she kept getting closer, taking long strides towards you with her long legs. Immediately, you began getting nervous, walking a bit faster before breaking out into a run. 

Well, that was a mistake. Because now the Pyramid Head woman began running after you as well, her heavy footsteps thudding through the street and dragging her rusty blade across the ground. The noise was horrible, a grating sound that made the hairs on your skin prick like needles. You just wanted to find your wife! What were the chances that you’d run into a deranged, monstrous serial killer?!

As you continued running, you let out a shout for help, looking around desperately to see if there was anyone out tonight. Unfortunately for you, it seemed everyone had decided to go home early, all the porch lights turned off and leaving you the only one alive with the woman. 

The grating noise of her blade met your ears again, causing your heart rate to spike like crazy. You began to run your way back to your motel room, but it was on the other side of town and at this point your body began to exhaust. There was a sharp burning sensation in your lungs, the cold air not helping you breathe whatsoever as you felt yourself lose steam. Damn, it had been a while since you ran like you meant it, Dehya did always say you should workout at the gym with her to build some stamina, but you never really took her seriously.  

You definitely regret it now. Your legs buckled and you found yourself collapsing in the midst of another dark alleyway, the pavement scratching up your knees and making you grunt in pain. No matter how hard you tried, your body was tired, cold, and weak. After spending the entire day outside and begging for help, this was your limit. 

You stumbled on your footing and found yourself at the dead end of the alleyway. A large, rusted gate towering over you and cornering you with nowhere else to run. The grating noise of the killer’s blade drew closer and closer, trapping you in the box you’ve locked yourself in. 

“Dehya…” you whimpered, feeling all hope drain away as you scuffled to the edge of the gate, too weak to stand or even attempt to climb the gate for your survival. Was this it? So this was how you’d find your wife, by dying at the hands of a killer and joining her in the afterlife. 

You sniffled and looked up to see the looming Pyramid Head staring down at you, rusted blade in hand and tattered clothing blowing hauntingly in the wind. She looked almost like a ghost, like someone that was not meant to be here but was. The wind continued to howl, the silence between you two almost deafening. 

“...I’m sorry. I just want to find my wife.” You whimpered, still gazing at the Pyramid Head woman. “Is this my punishment for that?”

You were spewing random nonsense at this point. You were so tired and cold, your body shivering and looking like a frail little bunny in the eyes of the Pyramid Head. She tilted her head, almost conveying a unique kind of communication despite her gristley appearance. 

“...”

“...”

Neither of you spoke for a few seconds after that, your head starting to throb and making you wince in pain. You felt so dead at this point, your head feeling heavy as you lowered yourself closer to the ground, looking like a kicked dog. “Dehya…I really wish you were here right now.” You would imagine her protecting you, fiercely telling you to run or standing her ground and being your knight in shining armor. 

“Run baby! I'll protect you!”

You can’t, and you felt the bitter coldness swallow you in. Were you going to die from the killer or hypothermia? You didn’t know anymore at this point. 

Your eyes began to droop, watching as the Pyramid Head walked closer and closer to you. She swung the rusted blade over her shoulder, her hand reaching for your head before your vision blurred and you dropped limp to the ground. 

I’m sorry I couldn’t find you, Dehya. 

Your body felt very, very warm. Was this what heaven felt like? It felt like Dehya cuddling you from behind again, spooning you in her muscular arms and running her hands all over your tummy. You missed this, the feeling of laying with someone so warm and gentle. Perhaps you really were dead and this was your eternal fate, to be cuddled by your lover for the end of time. 

You wouldn’t mind that. However, your other senses began to awaken, telling you that you were merely asleep. Your touch began to come back, the feeling of a soft bed and warmth beneath you. Your hearing began to come back, the sounds of a soft fire crackling in the distance. Taste, smell, you tasted the dryness in your mouth, and inhaled the smell of burning wood and ash. 

Finally, your sight. Though you were initially reluctant to open your eyes, your body did so anyway, letting your eyes land on the rotting ceiling above. Well…this was a sharp contrast to the other sensations you’ve experienced.

Your neck craned to look at the side, your vision still somewhat blurry before focusing on the figure beside you. 

Dehya…? 

You could vaguely make out her long, brown hair and warm smile, joy filling your chest at the familiar sight. 

Dehya…? Dehya…!

You closed your eyes for a brief moment and opened them again, expecting to see your wife more clearly, but instead being greeted with the Pyramid Head woman that chased you before. Instantly, all that joy vanished as quickly as it came, fear and shock filling you and making you hyperventilate. 

“Wha…Wha…!” Your eyes went wide as you gasped for air, the panic settling in that the sight of your wife was a mere hallucination. A delusion.

The Pyramid Head loomed over you, her height absolutely intimidating and making you nearly whimper upon instinct. She was even taller up close, her muscles defined and scars exposed, looking like a modern day Amazonian if you had to describe her…

You scrambled on the bed you were on, backing up against the headboard and looking at the woman in disbelief. Were you going insane? You saw your wife! Why was she here? Why hasn’t she killed you yet? You gasped when she suddenly dropped the blade she was holding, the metal hitting the floor and causing it to echo across the walls. The sound made you flinch, and upon seeing how afraid you were, the Pyramid Head reached her hand over to touch you. 

“No–!” You flinched, but she didn’t move away, a warm, heavy hand cupping your face and holding it firmly. It was quite shocking actually, to see just how large her hands were in comparison to your face, squishing it with ease and making your lips form a cute pout up at her. The Pyramid Head tilted her head to the side, almost as if she was thinking underneath that behemoth of a helmet. 

‘Soft.’ 

Though the Pyramid Head was a quiet one, she couldn’t help but enjoy squishing your face. Despite the biting cold of October, your face held a familiar warmth that the figure could not put her finger on. Strange…she should’ve slaughtered you by now, but it seems like you were the one person that came here to not be punished for their sins. 

Perhaps, it was your desperate attachment for your wife that made the Pyramid Head manifest in a more…loving form. 

“Mmpf…” You attempted to speak, but she held your face in such a grip that your words came out muffled. Upon seeing that you were trying to communicate, she let go, but not before using one of her thumbs to prod at your lips, forcibly making you open your mouth. 

Well, this is very awkward. 

You let out a yelp when she suddenly pushed her thumb into your mouth, brushing over your tongue and seemingly admiring how small it was. Compared to her, everything about you was so much smaller, something that the Pyramid Head seemed to love. She was so confused, tilting her head as she continued sticking her fingers in your mouth, feeling the soft muscle of your inner cheek. 

“Hey–pffck–” You had enough, pushing her hands away and coughing as you wiped the spit from your lips. “You can’t just stick your fingers in someone’s mouth without their consent! That’s weird!” 

You hadn’t expected to raise your voice at this gristly-looking killer, but to your surprise, instead of getting angry and chopping you to bits, the Pyramid Head looked surprised and jostled back, her hands raising in the air as if to prove their innocence. 

That…motion. 

Your eyes widened as a flash of recognition triggered in your memory. Dehya. Now why was that appearing again? There’s no way that this completely coincidental motion would remind you of your wife. Surely not…

But still, there was a gut feeling in your chest, telling you to try again. You looked up at the Pyramid Head with curiosity, before uttering her name hesitantly on your lips. “D…Dehya?” You didn’t expect any results to be honest, but your breath hitched when she tilted her head, almost like she recognized it. “...No, it can’t be.” 

You felt your heart start to thump wildly in your chest, before you had an idea. If this truly was your Dehya, then she would always wear her wedding band on her left hand, engraved with your initials. “Can I see your left hand?” you asked softly, causing the Pyramid Head to oblige almost immediately. Cute, she was almost like an obedient dog. 

She gave you her left hand, shock coursing through your face when you actually saw the wedding band on her finger. Though a bit discolored and dirtied from being in a grim state, you could make out your initials on the front of the band. 

“Oh…my god.” You whispered out, excitement and shock coursing through your veins. “It really is you.” At this point, you didn’t care that your wife appeared as a horrifying killer, as your mind began to close the gaps and find other similarities in the Pyramid Head. Your fear must’ve blocked out all the clues, because as your eyes trailed over most closely, the resemblance –besides her face which was still hidden– was clear. 

You hugged her, your smaller frame clinging to her like a leech while you buried your face in her chest. The Pyramid Head –or rather, Dehya– let out a grunt when you suddenly engulfed her, her large arms instinctively coming around to wrap around your figure. Immediately, warmth and familiarity raised in your senses, her taut muscles flexing around you and making you break down into tears at being in her embrace again. “Dehya…I’ve missed you.” 

Dehya grumbled and looked down at you, running a calloused palm over your cheek. Even though she didn’t speak much, it was clear that she (or this manifestation of her) felt a deep connection with you and couldn’t bear the thought of hurting you. Almost like instinct, she pulled you closer to her, your body straddling her thighs and making you yelp in surprise. 

“Mmmm…Mine…” She croaked under the mask, her voice raspy yet very much like your Dehya. Her voice sent so many shivers down your spine, a sound that you’ve missed after all these years of being alone. “I’m yours, Dehya. All yours. I’m not leaving.”

She seemed pleased by the response, her arms scooping you up by the thighs and pushing you down on the bed. You gasped when you felt your back plummet into the mattress, her tall figure looming over you and trapping you under her large frame. “I..I see you’ve missed me too.” 

She nodded and let out an almost primal growl, wanting to get closer to you if not for her helmet blocking the way. She seemed frustrated at the fact and pawed at your clothes, her blunt fingers wanting to tear off every pesky cloth you wore. “Off…” She grunted, the sound muffled but command clear. “Take it off…” 

You let out a small giggle at how eager she was being. After three years of not seeing each other, it seems that she was very touch starved. “Sure baby, I’ll take them off for you.” 

Though you weren’t sure if she could see clearly, she was definitely keeping her eyes on you as you removed each article of clothing. Everything felt so sudden but so comforting, your nudity being revealed by the second as Dehya resisted the urge to just pounce on you right there. 

Finally, you laid there in your nude glory, sliding your panties off and dropping them before Dehya couldn’t hold back anymore. She grabbed you by the waist and easily hoisted you upwards, plopping you on her lap and making your bare entrance sit atop her clothed member. Though it was limp before, it seems that just watching you strip was enough to get her hard, stiffening under your touch and rising to life.

She let out a soft groan and moved her palm to rest on your ass, clearly aroused and wanting you now. But, since this was Dehya we were talking about, she held back and gently swirled her thumb over your clit, wanting you to be wet enough first before taking her. After all, Dehya knew more than anyone how big she actually was…

“I’m already wet…” you pouted, wanting her to fuck you right away. Yet despite your needy pleas, Dehya shook her head, letting out a grunt of disapproval and continuing to finger your pussy. She knew better than to cave into your whines, and you wanted to comment playfully on that, if not for your lewd whimpers leaving your throat. “Dehya…!”

Her fingers were quite wide and thick, pushing past your folds and thrusting at a gentle pace. She really was a gentle woman, even in this new form of hers, waiting for you to become wet enough so she wouldn’t hurt you. God, this felt so nostalgic, your wife’s fingers burying them all the way down to her palm, before adding a finger or two to stretch you to her liking. 

You threw your head back at the sensation, your moans echoing through the room and making you arch your back in pleasure. She continued fingering you, admiring your lovely form and keeping a rough hand on your ass. “Good…?” she asked softly, sliding her fingers out before shoving them back in. “Good.” You repeated, eyes fluttering shut in bliss while she plunged in repeatedly, filling you up on just her fingers alone. 

If you felt this full from just her fingers, you could only imagine how full you’d feel with her actual cock inside you. 

Finally gauging that you were wet enough, Dehya slid her slimy fingers out of you and seemed satisfied at the aftermath. By now, she was already rock hard, her member straining against her dress and forming a tent under your lap. She was so cute…you’d remember how desperate yet controlled Dehya was whenever she was horny for you, wanting to wreck you into an incomprehensible mess but restraining herself because you were simply too delicate for her. She’s always treated you like a princess, and even now she was your knight in shining armor. Albeit, she wore less of a metal plate and more of a metal…pyramid head. 

“You look so pent up.” You commented suddenly, causing her to look up at you. You smiled and gently ran a hand across her dress, feeling her muscles tense up before relaxing when you trailed lower. “Don’t you want to get there already?” 

“...So small.” Dehya comments softly, her hand cupping your needy pussy and brushing over it. “Need to be patient.” 

You huffed and cupped her stiffie under her dress, causing her to gasp. If she wasn’t wearing that metal helmet you were one hundred percent confident that she was blushing like mad right now. “I have been patient…! I’ve waited three years to be with you again, Dehya. I need you inside me nowww…” 

Your whines struck a chord within her, Dehya grumbling to herself and shifting you on her lap. She was getting antsy, the feeling of your soft hand on her shaft making her lose control of her lust for you. She let out another grumble and complied with your demands, lifting up her dress and allowing you to see just how turned on she was for you. Wow, now that was a sight you’ve certainly missed. 

Though it had been a few years since you’ve last had sex with Dehya, you remembered her very vividly. She was quite large, mostly girthy but it was nothing that a bunch of lube and slick can’t fix. No wonder Dehya took so much time in prepping for you, though you knew she was always big, you always overestimated yourself and needed Dehya to wait like five minutes for you to adjust to her size. 

“...I’ve certainly missed this too.” You chuckled, gently running your hand up her shaft and feeling it twitch under your hold. Dehya groaned, getting needy as she wrapped a hand over your wrist and made a subtle nudge for you to hurry. You gave her a few steady pumps, a few beads of precum starting to form at her tip, before you guided her cock to your awaiting entrance. 

Dehya’s breath hitched under the heavy metal of her helmet, her head leaning backwards and letting you take over. You guided her tip to nestle sweetly against your folds, gently sliding it back and forth through your wetness before easing yourself downward. Though you were already quite wet, you definitely felt the tight stretch as Dehya’s girth split you open on her cock and made you stop halfway. 

You were already breathing quite heavily, sweat trickling down your brow as you struggled to accommodate her size. Dehya noticed you stopping, tilting her head when she realized that you were struggling quite a bit to go down the other half of her. “Sorry…” She whispered softly, holding onto your waist and gently massaging your skin. “I…I will try to be smaller.” 

“Sweetie, that’s kind of impossible right now.” You whimpered, but appreciated her attempts at comforting you. You placed a small kiss on the edge of her pyramid-shaped helmet, causing her to jolt in surprise before giving yourself a few bounces to continue easing down. With each small bounce, Dehya grunted and resisted the urge to slam your hips down to her lap, steadying you in her arms while you slowly took in more inches. 

Down…Down… Finally, you found yourself sitting right on her lap, your pussy feeling so full and hot from how deep Dehya was inside you. Now that she was buried to the hilt, Dehya grumbled and gently squeezed your hips as if silently asking for permission to move you. You had planned on just riding her and letting her sit back and watch, but it appeared that your wife wanted to be more active than you thought. 

“You can move me,” You responded, “Just…be gentle. You’re still quite big.” 

She nodded and slowly lifted you up in her lap, sliding out until only her tip was in you before softly pushing you back down. Her strength, plus the external force of gravity allowed for a very hard (and very pleasant) thrust, causing you to moan loudly and cling to her shoulders. 

Dehya growled and seemed to enjoy the feeling of your tight pussy around her, moving you up and down with ease as she wanted to feel more. She gripped your hips with a certain air of possessiveness, wanting to claim you and keep you all to herself, her blunt nails leaving small crescent moon shapes in the plushness of your thighs. “Mine…” She growled again, beginning to up the pace the more she grew addicted to your pussy. “My wife…”

She slammed you down on her hips a bit harder, her fat tip smashing against a rather sensitive spot inside you and making you arch your back. Dehya picked up on that easily, lifting you so that she could realign her cock to hit deeper. 

At this new angle, Dehya could move further, starting to thrust into you at a hotter rhythm than before. You had forgotten how rough Dehya could be when she wasn’t being your doting knight, grunting and panting while she pushed you down to the hilt. You didn’t even have to move or anything during your sessions with Dehya, as she would always serve you with the utmost devotion. 

“D-Dehya– Dehya…!” Your words came out all choppy and disorganized, her rough thrusts pushing each syllable out of you before you were ready. “B-Baby slow down…!”

She whimpered and hugged your waist tighter, resisting the urge to continue her brutal pace and obeying your command. She dragged her hips more languidly across your walls, making you feel every twitch and vein while your pussy grew more sensitive around her. “Dehya…I think I’m close…” 

She let out another pleased moan at your words and you felt her cock twitch more inside. It appeared you also weren’t the only one getting close, as Dehya was getting close to release herself. “Can I…nngh, come?” She whispered raspily, panting in desperation. “Inside? I want to come inside you.” 

Your cheeks grew hot at her ask, but you couldn’t deny her. Not after you’ve just found her again. “You…You wanna do it inside?” you whimpered, a small smile spreading across your face. “Alright then…Just try not to make too much of a mess.”

Dehya seemed quite happy at that, ramming herself faster until she felt her impending climax come. She thrusted once, twice, three times, until finally she felt herself tense up and release hot spurts of cum, triggering your own climax simultaneously while you were filled to the brim. 

Your womb felt so full. All hot and filled by Dehya while she continued thrusting to ride out both your orgasms. She definitely did not fulfill your request of not making too much of a mess, but that was okay. You were quite pleased with being filled with your wife’s seed, and being by her side again was all that mattered to you at this moment. 

Her thrusts soon slowed to a halt, but she didn’t pull out yet. Instead, she kept her cock still firmly deep within you, and simply readjusted your position so that you were lying more comfortably against her chest. “Did I do good?” she whispered, looking down at you through the small holes of her helmet. 

“Very good…” You whispered back sleepily, your body succumbing to exhaustion as you laid atop your wife’s body, her cock keeping you nice and warm inside. “I’m so glad I found you again.”

“Mmm.”

She gently caressed the back of your head with her hand, the other one resting lazily against your thigh, making you feel all safe and secluded. As you were slowly lulled to sleep in the comforting embrace of your lover, your thoughts began to reminisce in the journey that brought you here. The town of Silent Hill was one not known for its warmth and welcoming structure, but in this town of darkness and gray, you found the one thing that would make you stay forever. 

You had finally found your wife again, and you were never leaving her side.

[theeoriginals]

“It was- not love at first sight, but familiarity. Like, oh, it’s you.” With Klaus or Elijah please! Something to make me feel better while I do this awful assignment 🥲

deep breaths | elijah mikaelson

pairing: elijah mikaelson x reader (no y/n!)

warnings: noneeee this is just sweet

author’s note: i wrote this at work on my phone just now so sorry if it’s not the best <3

The thing is, Elijah Mikaelson has lived many, many lives. He has had so many names, faces, stories, and voices he can hardly remember them all at this point. That, he supposes, is just part of the curse of immortality. Esther likely didn’t think that far ahead out of her grief when she turned them all into monsters. She didn’t think to consider that she wasn’t saving herself anymore loss, she was cursing her children, leading them to damnation and then blaming them for what she did.

Elijah would likely live another thousand years before he was able to fully comprehend all of the tangled, contradictory emotions that came with vampirism. A gift and a curse, like most things.

What he could for certain say was that he’s loved just as much as he’s hated. He would even argue that you can’t possibly know what it means to hate someone unless you loved them before, unless you still loved them. And although he believed that, he was not someone to give second chances often. At least not to anyone besides his siblings— though that was a different beast altogether.

Elijah knew that even if he hated someone, someone else could love that person just as much. He’d seen it often enough, felt betrayal in his gut like a stake to the heart.

Love, in all of its glory, was not often kind to Elijah.

So whenever his siblings found it necessary to tease him for being so uptight and closed off, he did nothing more than roll his eyes, because it was much easier than telling them that he was scared. Truly, deeply, in his ancient bones, he was scared. Not of love itself, but of the continuously growing sense that he would never truly find real love. And perhaps it was entirely too human of him to think that way, and perhaps it made him weak to some, but Elijah knows that his brothers and sisters more than anyone crave love just as much as he does. He knows they feel it just as deeply as he does, that want in their bones that rushed through their blood, the want for someone to just come in and never leave.

It’s hard to find that when you outlive most people. Harder than one might think, even if you fall in love with an immortal being. It’s not just that he’ll outlive most everyone he could fall in love with, either. It’s that every time it seems he’s done it, he’s fallen in love even knowing it won’t last but letting it happen anyway, it doesn’t— it doesn’t fill that void inside of him.

It doesn’t flood his mind and his body, it doesn’t fill him with life, it doesn’t make him want to breathe.

Elijah doesn’t have to breathe, but he wants someone to make him feel like he has to.

For the past thousand years he’s fought and won and lost, and he’s done his best to keep his family alive despite everything they do to drive him insane, despite the fact that they try to kill each other more than anyone else. He has been holding his breath for a thousand years, fighting and fighting and fighting. He wants to exhale.

He can’t explain this to his siblings. They would understand, he knows, but it’s something he’s never said out loud to himself let alone anyone else. Saying it out loud makes it real, and he can’t— he can’t admit it. When you are drowning, when you are holding your breath, you don’t realize you’re drowning for a long time. And the moment that you do, you realize that you can’t breathe and suddenly you’re gasping for air and you’ve all but killed yourself.

Elijah can’t admit that he’s drowning.

He sighs loudly, and it’s not an exhale and it doesn’t lift that weight off of his shoulders. It’s an expression of his annoyance with his siblings, because this far into their collective immortality, all they live for is getting on each other’s nerves.

And here at Rousseau’s is the last place he wants to entertain their petulance. You never know who could be listening, and Elijah really doesn’t want anyone less than favorable to hear about his love life, or lack thereof.

“I wish you’d just bring someone home to meet us at least once!”

“I wish I could go out and have a drink without being harassed by you people,” Elijah says moodily.

Rebekah pushes her bottom lip out in a pout and widens her eyes in a way that has always gotten her anything she wants from anyone ever. Elijah is, in fact, very aware that he and his brothers have worked overtime in making her as ridiculously spoiled and entitled as she is and yet he still manages to be surprised when she behaves like this.

“We aren’t harassing you, Elijah, we want you to be happy. Is that so wrong?”

He sighs again and closes his eyes for a moment before opening them again and fixing them on Rebekah and Klaus. “It’s not wrong. But I don’t know what you expect me to do about my lack of prospects, it’s not like the perfect person can be conjured at whim.”

Klaus lifts a finger and Elijah knows that he’s going to say something ridiculous before he even speaks. The gleam in his eye never bodes well for anyone. “I bet we could find a witch to do just that. We could compile all of your wants and desires in a partner and get a witch to mix it all together for you. Problem solved, Elijah has a soulmate!”

Elijah gives his brother a deadpan look. “Is this witch Victor Frankenstein?”

Rebekah snorts in amusement, and Elijah dutifully ignores it.

“Be creative, Elijah! Open your mind,” Klaus swipes an arm out dramatically, sloshing his drink over the side of his glass, splashing a few drops of bourbon onto Elijah’s suit jacket.

Elijah’s lip curls in distaste and he gives his brother a look of disdain that goes ignored.

“I have an open mind, what I don’t have is an open schedule,”

“You are not as busy as you like to believe,” Rebekah drawls out, finishing off her own drink. “Your life will never change if you don’t go out and do something different! You’ll be stagnant forever, and I do mean forever, brother,”

“I will never be stagnant with your dramatics, Rebekah,”

She rolls her eyes at his avoidant response. “Your love life is stagnant. I don’t even think stagnant is the proper word, it is downright nonexistent. It is extinct.”

“Thank you, Rebekah,”

“Even if you have a sleazy, completely forgettable one night stand, you need to do something. You’re constantly dealing with us, you need to focus on yourself!”

Elijah pours the rest of his bourbon down his throat, barely tasting it as he swallows. “Maybe if you did less idiotic things that I have to deal with I’d have a more active love life. And truly, I’m not sure why I’m being lectured when you two are the furthest thing from romantically successful.”

“I have a child, I’m plenty romantically successful!”

“She was conceived during a drunken one night stand with a werewolf who is now married to someone else.”

“The details don’t matter, I have a child to show for it. I have a father’s wisdom now, you should listen to me!”

Elijah raises an eyebrow. “Unfortunately, I am not part dog and therefore am actually incapable of reproducing much like you thought you were. And considering the trials and tribulations we went through with Hope, I can’t imagine I’d have any better luck in my own venture to fatherhood.”

“You’re being purposefully obtuse,”

“That doesn’t sound like me,” Elijah simpers, gesturing to the bartender for another round for them.

“I have a challenge,” Rebekah cuts in before Klaus can continue their bickering, and Elijah narrows his eyes at the determined gleam in her eyes.

“I don’t like this,”

Rebekah dismisses him with a flutter of her fingers. “The next person to walk through that door, I want you to go and talk to them. You don’t have to have a one night stand, you absolute prude, but you need to speak to someone that you’re not related to, and that isn’t trying to kill you.”

“Rebekah—”

“I don’t want to hear it. Just do this one thing for me, for your darling little sister,”

“My darling little sister—”

“Shut up, look! Someone’s walking inside, get ready to go be your charming self,”

Elijah groans and turns to look at the door as it opens and someone walks through. He sighs again, weighted, empty, scared.

When he lifts his gaze, though, he finds a woman. He takes her in— eyes, nose, lips, hair— and thinks beautiful.

The bar is as crowded as ever, no breaks in sight for the bartenders and waiters, and he’s tucked away at a table with Klaus and Rebekah in the back corner because they are particularly antisocial and Klaus really just wanted to use this outing as a way to remind everyone that they are still here, and that New Orleans is still theirs. The exit is across the room, Elijah has not paid much attention to the distance at all, and yet now.

Now, the crowd of people in between him and the door is frozen and endless. Elijah’s standing before he realizes, and it feels like he’s stepping around the people frozen mid-laugh, mid-drink, mid-bite, because the world has stopped just long enough for him to cross the room.

He parts the crowd and stops before her, eyes roaming over her face. Committing it to memory and vowing to keep it there for the rest of his eternal years.

She looks at him with a smile, blinking at him slowly like she’s got all the time in the world. There’s a necklace sitting on her chest that has a familiar blue stone hanging off of it and he inhales sharply.

He thinks vampire, perhaps a coincidence but things rarely are for him and it’s something new to think that she is immortal, too, of course more fragile than an Original but if she’s smart, and he knows that she is, he can feel it, then she’ll last just as long.

“Hi,” She speaks first, and the world starts up again, the noise comes back and people unfreeze. Now that he’s stood here before her, the world can keep spinning, but it had to wait— it just had to wait for him to catch up.

“Hello,” He responds quietly, too quiet for the bar, but she hears it anyway. “I’m Elijah.”

Her smile widens and she says, “I think I knew that already,” and then she tells him her name and Elijah repeats it for himself, and then for her, and then he turns it over in his head a hundred times over so it never gets lost.

She tilts her head slightly, looking up at him. “Were you trying to leave? Am I in your way?”

“No,” He responds quickly, almost rushed. “Not unless you’re leaving, too.”

She seems pleased at his response and the longer he looks in her eyes, he thinks he’s found a new favorite color.

“I’m not leaving,”

Elijah exhales, and the weight is gone, and the void is no more. And he thinks— oh.

There you are.

[lovelytsunoda]

welcome to wherever you are // lance stroll

summary: weddings are supposed to be joyous occasions. but for lance's fiancee, the wedding is just another big milestone that her father never lived to see, like her first day of kindergarten, or her high school graduation.

pairing: lance stroll x hutchence!reader

warnings: depictions of greif, mentions of a parental death.

author's note: i've been on such a bender lately listening to inxs, they truly were one of the greatest bands of the 80s, and I think its a shame that things ended like they did with micheal's death in 1997. i could genuinely talk for hours about it, and about the very real daughter he left behind, but for now i'm going to let the fic speak for itself.

also i feel like i've only done smaus lately bc i've just been in a total idea rut and these are so easy to make lmao

y/n.hutchence just posted to her private story!

VOGUE Weddings: Inside the wedding between Aussie-rock darling YN Hutchence and F1 driver Lance Stroll (you might have to click on these to read them properly)

y/n.hutchence just made a post!

liked by lancestroll, kirkpengilly, officialinxs and 34,508 others.

y/n.hutchence today was a hard day, despite being the happiest of my life. like most milestones, it was bittersweet. while i spent most of my day in love, and excited for what's to come, part of me was also grieving. my dad should have been here to walk me down the aisle, to meet my husband. to give a speech at the reception. i miss you, dad. but i know that you'd be so proud of me.

to my lovely lance, thank you for choosing me, for loving me. for reminding me that its okay to feel all the emotions at once. i love you forever, my husband xx

see all comments

lancestroll i love you, my darling wife. you are so strong.

andrewfarriss michael would be so proud of you, kiddo

user the fact that she went public for the day just to speak about her grief on her wedding day . . . that's a caliber of person i could never be

sebastianvettel thank you both for including me in your special day

user she walked down the aisle to 'beautiful girl'....i'm totally not crying my goddamn eyes out

user im not crying you are

user her dad died over 20 years ago....she needs to let it go

-> user lmao imagine telling someone who never knew her father outside of how the media portrayed him after his death to 'get over it'.

mickschumacher 10/10 pasta bar, would come again. your harem of old men scared the crap out of me, though.

-> kirkpengilly old?? who are you calling OLD

-> y/n.hutchence you mean my non-biological uncles? mick, they're the biggest sweethearts

y/n.hutchence just added to her story

y/n.hutchence and lancestroll just posted!

liked by astonmartinf1, sebastianvettel, timfarriss and 29,808 others

lancestroll mr. & mrs. hutchence - stroll, march 2024, sydney australia

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y/n.hutchence i think lance hutchence sounds pretty great

-> lancestroll and i think y/n stroll sounds pretty good too

scottyjames you're taking her last name? good on you, bro

astonmartinf1 welcome to the family y/n! (or should we say 'welcome to wherever you are'? see what we did there?)

fernandoalonso did anyone else get a little teary eyed during the vows?

-> timfarriss i was right there with you mate

-> mickschumacher i saw esteban cry so hard he gave himself the hiccups

y/n.hutchence hey google, play 'never tear us apart' by inxs ( and say thanks to kirk for playing the sax almost all night)

(next part)

TAGS:

@magnummagnussen @libraryofloveletters @httpiastri @lorarri @cartierre @thatsdemko @sidcrosbyspuck @scuderiamh

[thelastofhyde]

a mercenary named time.

pairing. jackson!joel x fem!reader

synopsis. as joel begins to age, memories of sarah are beginning to fade. though he wants nothing more than to talk to you about his troubles, there's something standing in his way: he never told you about sarah.

warnings. this is more joel x sarah centric than joel x reader oops, hurt/comfort, ageing + difficulties that come with it, grief, mentions of death/religion/afterlife+ generally other sensitive topics, fluff, does this count as whump? (v minimum editing/proofreading)

word count. 4.9k

hyde’s input. wrote this as an attempt to distract myself from the fact i was on a plane (i hate flying). not much happens plot wise, and it just becomes me analyzing joel (in my own way) halfway through but hey, i wrote it and, though it's nowhere near perfect, i'm gonna post it!

due to the ties tlou has with zionism, here are helpful posts/links regarding the ongoing genocide in palestine. from the river to the sea. ( post, link, post )

Aging has become a threat again.

A part of him wonders if the threat ever truly left, or if it simply migrated south of his brain, chasing a warmth only leisure possesses, to make way for a survivalist winter’s cold. With the safety of walls and the sanctity of the commune, at last he’s caught on to the passing of time, the slow-crawling spider who spun its web into his skin. 

During the cold, there'd only been movement. Pacing down streets divided by those who live in fear and those who brandish riot gear, and tip-toeing past fungal-faced mutations, and stumbling in a daze of pain through snow to find her. A safety distance of unmarked miles, away from that hospital, is what it took for him to finally pull over, cut the engine and exhale. Out with the panic, and the urgency, and the fear. Ellie was there, laid across the back seats, a paper gown as blue as any April sky, a cursed relic upon her sleeping form, terrorising him with images of what could’ve been, had he failed to save her too.

In the warmth, there’s tranquillity. Stretched out legs upon worn out sofas, quiet hums of forgotten tunes on rescued guitars, tangled limbs on love-stained sheets. A home, a daughter, and a you, whatever you may be. A fallen angel, a summer fairy, a ray of sun. Any form you come from, he accepts it, welcomes it. Thanks it for bringing you to him, smelling fresh as a daisy, riding up next to him on his first patrol, smiling as sweet as the honey he’d eaten with his breakfast when you asked him if he needed help reigning in his horse.

No, he’d grunted more than spoken to you. And wound up flung off its back, ten paces later. From the ground staring up, he’d watched your face appear above him. Bitten back laughter, a stretched out hand, and a question of if he wanted to swap rides, take your mare for the day.

She’s far friendlier, you’d assured him, after he let you think it was your strength that pulled him back to his feet. Takes to strangers a little easier than him, you’ll be safe.

And he’d believed it, against his own nature.

Tommy had been the one to notice, to nudge him hours later and nod his head in your direction. Real sweetheart, ain’t she? Joel’d said nothing. Shrugged his shoulders, dipped his head, sipped the whiskey out his cup. Tracked your movement across the room like a hunter stalks its prey. Or, maybe, it was more like a bee examining a flower, wondering if the pretty vibrance of your outsides carried a match to your insides, if the taste of your soft petals was a great enough sweetness to satisfy a craving he’d long foregone.

Four months of observing later, spring came and he stung.

Since then, you’ve been his, whatever that may mean anymore.

He’d already been yours.

And yet he finds himself unable to tell you of his recent trouble, the emerging signs of his age that the needle of time has begun to stitch into his seams.

The greys that curl upon his head grow more frequent. Blink, and they seem to double. His skin stretches differently than before, at times it feels he wears it more than owns it. There’s aches, and pains, and cracks from his joints, where before there’d been numbness and tiredness. A back that refuses to straighten like it used to, no matter how hard he stretches under the fleeting warm drops of his morning shower.

A guilty conscience whispers in a voice much like Tess’, a memory of her telling him ageing means he’s still here, even if she’s not. It’s harder to find the good in it, anymore, when he has so much to lose again.

It’s his memory that scares him most. Like a photo album, the images within seem to fade with time and, the more he grabs at them, the more they wear away.

It started with something small. Forgetting you’d told him you would be heading over to visit Maria and the baby after your patrol shift, leading his heart to near beat out his chest as he raced down to the stables like some crazed man, rambling about how something’s happened to you, you’re not back, only for some kid- Jessie, a friend of Ellie’s- to tell him you came back hours ago. He’d pulled you a little tighter against him that night as you crawled into bed, the earlier unnecessary fear a little too visceral in his racing heart.

Then, it happened more often.

Ellie asked him to help her clean out the garage space for her, he forgot and agreed to cover someone’s turn cleaning the stables.

You told him of your love of mint tea, and instead he found you green.

Tommy asked him across the dinner table- a double date, a cause to debut Ellie’s first solo babysitting duties- if he remembered the name of that old bar they’d liked, and his mind was blank. Empty.

All of it, inconvenient. Yet he could brush it off, let it affect him only like a bruise: momentarily, till it faded.

Until recently.

Until the memories of her began to fade.

He’d woken up one morning, earlier than you like always. Kissed your sleeping face, creeped down the creaking staircase, switched on the stove to boil some coffee. And realised he could no longer remember what she’d liked better: pancakes or waffles.

A few weeks later, he tried recalling what shade of blue her soccer team’s kit was. Was it light blue? Or a darker blue, like fresh denim? Was it even blue at all?

Ellie asked him, the caution she used to bring towards mentioning her name long gone with the changing of seasons, if she’d liked any comic books. The sound of a runner, itching and twitching behind some fence interrupted before she could notice he didn’t have an answer.

Sure, she read. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d caught her curled up in bed, the light of her torch illuminating more than just the pages of a book, but her face, too expressive for her own good at times, reacting to each twist and turn of the story. Sometimes, he’d stand in that doorway, unnoticed, till her eyes dropped shut and the light rolled out her hand. Other times, he’d clear his throat, catch her off guard, and tell her get to bed, kiddo, or I’ll tell Mrs. Atkinson you’ll be round after school tomorrow.

What use is it, however, remembering all that, if he can’t remember if she liked comics?

He should talk to someone about it, he knows. He’d tried to, at first. Had tried to drink the courage into him, sat across Tommy one late night, sat around a fire as they settled in for a night in the ski lodge, stranded by some heavy snowfall. He failed then, just like he failed when he tried to tell Ellie, till she raced off to throw snowballs at some kids and he remembered she was too young to listen to his burden, too beaten by life already to deserve stress within the respite of Jackson’s sanctuary. When he failed a fourth time to speak to Tommy, the real issue dawned on him.

He wants to talk to you. You’re the one he talks to, the one he goes to bear his wounds to, trusting no other’s love but your own to patch him up and calm him down. There’s only one issue, however.

He’s not told you about Sarah.

It was never a conscious decision, some secret he’d chosen to hide. Speaking about her simply hurt and, after the arduous months of crossing the country with Ellie, finding a place to call home in Jackson, and learning to hold somebody close again, he’d wanted to get away from pain, for a little while.

Then came the first anniversary of her death spent inside the commune. He’d drank himself blind, like every year before. There’s a hazy memory of that night he’s glad to suppress, one where he’s covered in his own vomit and you’re struggling to hold his weight up under a pouring shower, the sounds of his sobs muffled into your soaked sweater. He’d awakened, and awaited the questioning. Expected to open his eyes and find you stood at the foot of his bed, arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed. Seeing the room empty was a shock, but drifting slowly down the stairs and finding you scrubbing the stains out of his shirts near floored him. 

The very same shirt you wear now, curled up on the sofa. Your eyes are shut, legs are bare, and there’s a gentle breeze that blows at the curtains you’d hung up, your first act upon moving in with him.

With a careful step, he avoids the creaking floorboard as he crosses the threshold. Slow as he can, he lowers the bag off his shoulder and props it gently against the wall, careful it doesn’t slip and let its contents spill out. Then he works at his laces, undoes them one by one, loosens them so his feet meet no resistance as he steps out of them. The summer’s heat affords him the liberation from heavy coats, less layers to shed now he’s returned to you at last.

You lay right, he strays left. Towards the kitchen, footsteps light as he can manage. Two chairs are pulled out at the table, two bowls sit drying neatly by the sink. Ellie must’ve stopped by for dinner. He’s glad to know she’s eaten, glad to know you kept each other company, glad to know the light is off in the shed and her snoring fills the hollow space. And he’s glad to find some food for him. He takes a bite, lifts the plate, finds a note beneath. Your handwriting, what do Joel Miller and breakfast have in common? followed by an arrow, urging him to turn the page around. The answer’s there, weakening his ageing knees. I can’t start my day without them.

Back by the sofa, a book sits split open, spine broken and pages pressed into ageing wood. Its cover is faded, frayed, much like he feels himself becoming.

He recognises it as one he’d gifted you, seasons ago. If he tries hard enough, he can remember the snow collecting in his unruly hair as he waited at your doorstep, and the way your smile melted the chill away, and the mumbling fool he’d made of himself upon handing the present over to you, some version of said you were bored, so I found this for you all he managed before turning on his heel and striding back to his own home, ignoring the teasing smile upon Ellie’s face.

After all this time, you still have it. Still read it. The fact slows his heart, soothes his aching back. Suddenly, he’s more than ready to head back out there, beyond the walls of Jackson, if it means collecting more books for you to remember him by when he’s long gone and withered away, no more than a familiar smell stained into your sheets and a fading warmth in the palm of your hand.

Two loud pops sound out of his knees as he crouches down by your side, the smell of your shampoo flooding his senses the closer he grows to your sleeping form. There’s a want, nestled deep inside his bones, to pull you into his arms and deliver you upstairs to a bed made for two, in search of a peace his soul has not found since he’d left for his shift in the early hours of the morning. It would be cruel, however, to wake you when you’re so beautiful.

Joel once thought he’d liked you best when you were smiling, till you’d fallen asleep on his porch one night, after hours of talking his ears off. Since then he’s liked you best sleeping, resting. Comfortable enough to trust his watchful eye to keep any harm away while your body takes back its much needed rest, even on days like this when he’s not physically there. You’ve got his shirt, his scent embedded into every thread of it, and that’s enough to keep you safe.

The rough of his fingertips reach out to graze the soft of your cheeks, gently dancing up to comb a few strands of damp hair away from your face. It seems you’ve gained your own spider, the faintest of lines beginning to take shape upon your skin. You wear it better than him, Joel thinks, the passing of time upon your body a picture of love, and prosperity, and hope for more time to come. He wears it like a burden, however. A death sentence, a timer on how long till the cold hand of Death takes the place of your warm one clasped in his.

Adjusting to a life he fears to leave has not been easy. There’d been a time where the promise of death was a comfort. To wake each day, reckless with his time and mindless to his body, a thought of all the pain, and all the sorrow, and that overwhelming, heavy, overbearing loneliness that hung over him like a storm cloud at last coming to an end and ceasing to exist, it had kept him going. Though faith died alongside her, a dream of reuniting with his babygirl on the other side was one he clung to on nights when no drop of alcohol and no unlabeled pill was enough to send him off to sleep. Death now, however, means parting from you, from Ellie, from Tommy. It no longer comforts so much as it disturbs him.

Would you comfort yourself, in the wake of his death, with dreams of reuniting someday, down the line, when Death takes you by the hand and guides you back to Joel?

He can only hope his babygirl can forgive the way he now longs to keep living, in spite of her waiting patiently for him in whatever comes after this life. Perhaps his failing memory is a consequence of this, a punishment she sends for making her wait even longer to feel his embrace again, slowly stealing away the only parts of her Joel has anymore.

Even in guilt, he can’t bring himself to believe his Sarah would do such a thing. Her heart was never touched by the bitterness that had hardened his own, her soul pure a freshly fallen snow.

I want you to be loved, dad. Echoes of her voice in his mind, words she’d confessed to him with teary eyes, a half-eaten birthday cake sitting between them, two candles, one in the shape of three, the other a zero, tossed messily on the table. There’d been no real fuss for his thirtieth, at his own insistence. Just his parents, his brother, his daughter. Those he loved, gathered around one table, eating away at food he’d made.

I’m already loved, kiddo. I got you, don’t I?

Joel knew what it meant to feel unloved. For a long time, that’s all he felt. The love only a child could gift died just as quickly in his arms as she had, under the watchful teary eyes of his brother. Grief he dragged around with him, dedicated to both her and the love he no longer felt.

First came denial. A steady 48 hours post-mortem, in which he walked ahead of Tommy and convinced himself she was there, a few feet behind him, talking her uncle’s ears off as he made sure to clear any oncoming threats The denial culminated in him bleeding down the side of his face, a missed bullet somewhere left behind, and Tommy’s pleading voice trying to move him forward, dragging him to tents set up by the army.

Eleven stitches, each one imbedding loss and cowardice into his screaming skin. The anger settled in a few days later. It made a home within Joel, latched onto his heart and began to beat in place of it. It changed him, aged with him, convinced him it was the only partner he’d ever need. A hopeful glimmer of bargaining came in the shape of Tess. But anger and all its roots were too deeply burrowed within Joel, unwilling to be weeded out, no matter how firm the hand. 

Complacency was far easier than any fight. Tommy left, the buzz of a firefly seducing him with the idea of better, of more, of a cure. Joel convinced himself things were easier without Tommy and his morals around. The routine of waking, struggling, drinking, passing out was one he practised well and thoroughly. Till Marlene and her suicide mission.

Then, the strangest thing happened. Ellie, with all her snark, and her crass words, and her humourless puns, reminded Joel how it  felt to be loved. Laid upon his chest, a need for warmth and a plea for him to survive, she became the closest thing that felt like Sarah in twenty years. How could Marlene expect him to walk away, to leave her in that hospital?

Pain rushes in like a wave meets the shore, dampening him in a melancholy he saves for whiskey. Still resting peacefully on the sofa, your chest rises slow, steady, and constant. He tries to mimic it, matching his own breathing to it. It reminds him of dancing with you in the kitchen, barefoot and bare chested, arms entangled and forehead pressed to forehead, doing his best to stay in sync with your gentle sways.

The floorboards creek the further his aching body sinks to the floor. Like a man meets the altar, he’s on his knees. Blunt fingernails dig into the worn out brown leather of the couch, the only grip he has on reality. 

A discombobulated memory dances across his mind. One of a much younger him, with a head full of brown locks and a sleeping daughter upon his couch. Outbreak night. He’d been peacefully unaware of the happenings outdoors, happy to turn another year older next to his Sarah, when a call came through. His brother, dumped in some jail-cell and begging for release. He’d not thought it through much, sighing in frustration yet rising slowly to his feet nonetheless. If he’d known how that night would end, he’d have held his daughter a little tighter as he carried her to bed, he’d have left every kiss he could afford against her forehead, and speak every I love you he had left in him.

Grief is a river that travels the mountain of his mind. Strong, cold, descending upon a downward slope. Its currents are unforgiving, grabbing a hold of anything that blocks the path. Too easy is it for him to slip and fall into the rapids, losing hold of his footing on reality before he realises he’s struggling to breath and there’s a whole new river carving a way for itself out his eyes and down his cheeks. 

His eyes close. His breath halts. He tries to remember those breathing exercises, the same ones he uses any time the pain swells too much and the panic begins to attack his nervous system. Deep breath in. Slow breath out. Deep breath in. Choke down a sob. Slow breath out. Joel. He pictures you, feet upon solid ground, hand stretched out as you try to goad him out the trepid waters of his grief. Joel. This image of you reminds him he’s got a name, got a life, got a purpose. To help Tommy on patrols. To make sure Ellie always has a place to call home. To keep you warm in the winter, and kissed during spring, and safe no matter where the sun may sit. Joel. The tears fall faster. Messier. He’s no longer a quiet companion at your side, but a mess of ragged breathing and nose sniffles. 

“Joel?”

Skin to skin. Soft hand to wet cheek. You’re awake faster than he can process, too quick to wipe tears or feign smiles. Legs scramble off the couch, parted and bent at the knee on either side of him. Musk, and lilies, and every scent that makes him feel safe and close to you envelop the shared space between you.

“Joel, baby, what’s wrong?” Your thumb swipes uselessly at his cheeks, fresh waves rolling out his eyes before you finish wiping the last. Sleep is written all over you, woven into your breathy voice and weighing down the bags of your eyes. He feels a whole new wave of guilt, waking you from such a peaceful slumber with the sight of him and all his ailments bursting out the frayed seams that hold him together.

He thinks he says your name. It’s hard to tell. The blurred image of you through his teary eyes inspires a heavy burden of disappointing you that he can not cope with, and so he ducks his head between your legs, forehead pressing on the inside of your left thigh. His breath is short, his heart is sore, and he’s staining your delicate skin with his pain. You let him grieve upon you, pull him closer. A hand soothes up his back. Your voice tells him it’s okay, and you hum a sweet tune he’s sure he’s played you many a drunken nights, when the confidence kicks in and he’s serenading you with his country twang and guitar strings.

There’s no prying, no demand to rightfully know why you’ve awoken to your lover, steadfast and stoic at his worst, collapsing into your hold. You let him cry. He lets you hold him. You’re all he’s been missing, this feeling of support he’s denied himself for far too long. No fear of your judgement, but fear of pulling you in amongst the dangerous currents alongside him. 

An anchor comes in the shape of your fingers carding through his unruly hair, a tether that pulls him back into the living room, into your home, into you. With the patience of any saint, you let him move at his own pace, head slowly rising from your thigh, back straightening to the best of its abilities. His hand, rough and hardened by time and grit and survival, paws at your thigh, clumsy in its attempts to dry his tears off of you, a fear of it sinking into your skin and some part of his sadness taking root inside your bloodstream.

Your hand stills his, gently, coercing his fingers to thread with your own as your other hand cups his face and guides him to look at you. You're beautiful, in a way that makes Joel wish he was better with words so he could spend the rest of his days finding new ways to tell you so. Instead, he has to settle with a simple, “my pretty girl.” You smile, bashful, as if that’s enough, as if you don’t deserve more.

“Hello to you too, handsome.” You peck his cheek, he chases after you with his mouth. Two small pecks, a third he fails to achieve as you hold him back. “Don’t think you can distract me with those perfect lips of yours, Miller. I’m worried about you, and no amount of kisses are gonna change that.”

He refocuses on his breathing exercises. Deep breath in. Slow breath out. Deep breath in. No sob this time. Slow breath out. Your gaze, soft as a cloud, rests over him gently, your own chest rising and falling in sync with him. With every night he’d lay awake, trying to think of how to bring up Sarah and the details of her he’s failing to hold onto, never did he imagine the weight to fly off his chest so easily with just a supportive smile from you.

“I had someone before, who I loved.” He pauses. Clears his throat, shifts his weight. His knees are beginning to ache the longer they sit digging into the hard floor. He should have listened to your advice of scavenging a rug. “Not how I love you. Like I love Ellie.”

Silence.

Not the kind where you hear a pin drop, but one that allows the laughter of children playing down the street to blow in with the breeze, and the creaking of the old house you’ve both made a home, and the squeaks and chirps of wild-life continuing on outside, unaffected by the end of civilisation.

Then, “I know.” Joel’s eyes widen, disbelief painted across them. “Tommy’s let it slip a few times. Just when we’re on patrol and he sees something that reminds him of her. Or he’s telling me a story that’s sole purpose is to embarrass you.” A part of him wants to feel angry at his younger brother, stealing his right to reveal such a large part of who he is. The other part of him feels for him too, a reminder that Sarah’s loss is not one he tackled all by himself. She was his daughter, but she was also Tommy’s niece. How could he blame him for feeling comfortable enough to share his grief with you? “Ellie also mentioned it, once. Back before you and I were really…” You fall silent, trail off, as you both usually do when faced with tackling the task of labelling what exists between you.

“Why,” he chooses to distract himself from it, scared of a world where he asks for the right to claim himself as your husband. Those things don’t matter anymore, with the world gone to shit, but a man could still dream. “Didn’t you say anything?”

“It’s your story to tell, I didn’t want to force it out you. I figured you’d tell me when you wanted to.”

He may not know how to label what you are to him, but he knows he loves you. God, does he love you.

“Thank you, darlin’, I really-” He’s getting choked up, caught between his grief for Sarah and his love for you. You seem to understand, as you always do, hands slowly pulling and coercing him up onto the sofa, occupying the space next to you. “Can’t thank you enough.”

“You’ve nothing to thank me for.” You promise, sealing it into his skin with a kiss to his cheek. “I don’t like to see you cry, Joel, but I prefer you do it in front of me. Don’t hide parts of yourself. I want all of you. Good, bad, and everything in between.”

There’s the urge to let himself fall into the river again, now that you’ve pulled him ashore and attached yourself to him like a life vest, an oath to never let him drown. He feels his eyes well-up, but doesn’t let them fall, as his mouth runs ahead of his mind and at last confesses the troubles he’s been keeping close to his chest.

“It used to be like this every day. Tears, unless I numbed myself free of consciousness. Then, things got better. With Ellie and you around. Anytime I felt the anger or the pain swelling, you’d be there and there’d be room for laughter. But I’m getting older, darlin’. Memories’ not the same. There’s things about my babygirl, my Sarah, that I just… can’t remember. And it scares me. Scares me so bad that I don’t know how to cope with it. If I ever woke up and couldn’t remember her face, it would kill me. I wouldn’t be able to go on.”

He speaks slowly. You cling to every word, a gentle nod lets him know you understand. A part of him wonders how deep that understanding runs, if you too had lost a child. He wants to afford you the same grace you’ve given in, and so he doesn’t pry. If you have a story to tell, he can only hope to still be around to listen.

Oblivious to the thoughts of you holding a faceless child swirling around in his head, you pull Joel into you, encouraging him to let you hold his frame. You’ve told him countless times he needs to let himself be cared for, a spark that ignited many  arguments in the early days of your love. It feels nice to comply at last, head drifting down to rest on your steady shoulder. Your legs curl up onto the couch, lay gently over his own, as an arm wraps itself around his aching back.

Only like this does Joel feel he’s finally arrived home after weeks of wading through the depths of his own sorrows, evading a bounty placed upon him by time.

Joel is ageing. Everyday, a new line appears on his face. Every year, a new ache burrows in his bones. But, if each moment he can feel your love in acts of kindness, and left-over meals, and sleepy limbs upon a shared mattress, it doesn’t feel as daunting. He wonders what awaits him in the afterlife, when he and Sarah reunite as he so hopes. He doesn’t doubt for a moment that she’d be proud of him for finding solace in a heart like yours.

“Tell me about her.” You plead to him something he’s spent years longing to do.

Without missing a beat, words flow easily and memories play on in his head, his precious daughter no longer blurry in a haze, but fully in focus, smiling wide at him with a mouthful of food.

“She loved pancakes.”

[bite-the-bloody-hand]

Setting aside the knee-jerk 'eeeeew you're in love with your cousin' reaction to Daeran's illusion in Areelu's Lab, I need to talk a second about what a profoundly telling character moment that is for both Daeran and Galfrey.

Daeran refers to Galfrey as the 'Queen of his dreams' and mentions it being twisted by demon logic when questioned. It makes sense that demons would immediately latch on to a psychosexual implication, but it's not about having a crush on her.

The desire to have Galfrey 'out of her armor' is the desire to reconnect with the last member of his family.

He mentions when you ask about his Mother that she was a 'real' mother as opposed to a 'Countess' mother, implying that she was less interested in raising him to be a Proper Noble and more interested in just being present as his only parent. This is indicated in the glimpses we see of his younger self at the party, and in his often-stated resentment towards the necessities of 'proper comportment.'

Galfrey also mentions how close she was to Silaena, referring to her as a 'real' family member, the only person she was truly close to. From the way both of them speak about her, Silaena Arendae was a central, stabilizing part of both of their lives. Galfrey also mentions what a sweet boy Daeran was as a small child, implying a much closer relationship than the current mutual polite revulsion. @thedosianexplorer surmised to me that it's likely Galfrey was once a beloved, comforting figure in young Daeran's life, and I agree. How could she be anything else to the son of someone she so loved? And how awful must it have been to both of them to have that taken away?

Losing the rest of their noble family was certainly a blow, but neither of them even mention their names. The moment Silaena died, however, that was when they were both orphaned. What makes it all the more tragic is the grief that could have brought them closer only served to completely sever their familial connection.

Galfrey has no clue about the true reason Daeran clings so desperately to enjoying life; all she knows is that he may have physically survived but the child she loved was very much dead with the rest of them - in its place an irresponsible, flippant, spoiled brat unwilling to fill the space Silaena left behind. Daeran has no way of communicating the truth to Galfrey, and acts resentfully towards who or whatever else she puts her attention towards, while flaunting his lifestyle at every opportunity.

His lifestyle, as such, is an Emperor's Wardrobe of red flags, but it's hard to see those flags through tunnel vision stained with demon blood. Neither of them are allowed to mourn, but at least Daeran can try to be happy. But as for Galfrey, thedosianexplorer put it best in this hypothetical line:

'How dare you let yourself be happy, I haven't let myself be happy since your mother died.'

The tragedy is that Daeran's need for secrecy and Galfrey's state- and self- imposed martyrdom has created an impenetrable armor between them, and I think is at the heart of the loneliness they both feel. The cruelty of that moment, where the dream of connection is twisted into a mean joke, still sits with me.

[gay-david-tennant]

hamlet but i haven't seen it (yet)

there's this guy named hamlet who's the prince of denmark

somethings foul in the state of denmark or something

hamlet's dad, the king, got killed before the play and hamlet suspects his uncle claudius (is that his name?)

claudius marries hamlet's mother and is now king (bit weird but okay)

hamlet doesnt like that

the ghost of hamlet's father appears to hamlet and tells him to kill his uncle in revenge

hamlet the master of indecisiveness™

to be or not to be

thats like about whether to act or not i think

hamlet is a college student so actually quite young (i think boy started to go to college at age 14 and hamlets probably around 16 but nobody's sure)

a phrase stuck in my brain is "hamlet the frat boy" but im pretty sure he's more of a theater kid

instead of killing his uncle hamlet stages a play similar to what he thinks transpired to watch how his uncle reacts to it

the lady doth protest too much, methinks

shakepeare does love to make his protagonists spiral into insanity

i heard hamlet is a story about grief and i also heard that it's like a mirror, what you see about hamlet says more about you that hamlet himself (but dont ask me to elaborate i am realising my brain retains information i have no clue how i got)

in the end almost everyone dies because of hamlet

hamlet stabs someone through the curtain i think its the father of ophelia (polonius or smth i dunno) cause he thinks is his uncle

im not sure why his uncle should be behind a curtain tho

hamlet randomly gets kidnapped by pirates but we never see it because shakespeare already new how expensive special effects are

i bet the pirates let hamlet go because he's a little bitch

hamlet is A LITTLE BITCH

i think in one scene he just tries to fluster ophelia (his not-quite-girlfriend) by turning everything she says into sexual innuendo (may i lay my head in your lap so on so on)

there's one scene with a grave digger whom hamlet asks for whom the grave is the man is digging and the man responds it is his own to which hamlet answers something along the lines of

one would thinks so for thou dost lie in it

great pun

ophelia actually manages to drown in a brook which is characterised by it's shallowness

its unclear whether she did it intentionally

there are some guys named rosencrantz und guildenstern (probably didnt spell that right) and i know nothing about them except that they die because of hamlet and for some reason they always get mentioned together which makes me think they are an item

many people die because of hamlet

also there's a skull

is that yorrick?

hamlet talks to it

david tennant got the role of hamlet because he randomly picked up a real human skull

hamlet dies (big surprise!)

there's a duel? and one of the sword's is poisoned and hamlet picks up the wrong one? is that with laertes? i know he dies, too

also there's horatio, everybody seems to like him so i tried to not mention him for as long as possible to annoy them (not really i just dont know much about him)

people think hes gay for hamlet

hes not nobility but wellspoken

something something sweet prince?

horatio does not die

he lives to tell the tale

which is somehow worse

while i know (claudius?) hamlet's uncle dies and thats kinda the point of hamlet's whole actions i do not actually know when or how he dies (but i know about the curtain stabbing, the brook and the duel, weird)

or is he the one in the duel?

i bet hamlet's mother dies too

i also dont know how hamlet dies, something with the duel and the poisoned sword i guess, i know he picked up the wrong sword but im not sure if the wrong one was that with poison or not

WHAT DOES THE PIRATE KIDNAPPING HAVE TO DO WITH EVERYTHING?

AND WAS HE REALLY SIXTEEN?

i am very confused about how much there is in my brain about the guy

i do think there must be more to horatio except 'gay for hamlet' but i dont know anything

rosencrantz und guildenstern sound like a comic relief duo who dont know what they're doing

something about mother and knowing about playing with her drapes... (is that from hamlet?)

im sure this is enough for now

please do tell me how wrong i am

also tell me if you know why i seem to know so much about this (even if it's not true)

yes, this was inspired by @weirdly-specific-but-ok 's good omens post and @hello-ello-ello 's post about macbeth

[chickenstrangers]

Time and Grief in Eternal Yesterday

Eternal Yesterday (Eien no Kinou) is an astonishing show. It is one of the most visceral explorations of grief, letting the audience sit with the feeling of it, that I have seen on screen for a long time. I especially loved how it explored the experience of time while grieving.

Grief alters time. It changes your internal sense of time. It takes you out of equilibrium with everyone who is not experiencing grief with you. The world moves on. People move on. People forget. The clocks don't stop despite our pleas. Grief bisects time; events become labeled Before and After. Everything reorients around it.

This disorientation of time is what Eternal Yesterday conveys so powerfully, both in its magical realism conceit and in its technical structure and pacing.

First, I would also like to talk about a poem. @bengiyo also shared a phenomenal poem by Shane Koyczan in this wonderful post about this show which I have been thinking about and listening to again and again (reading by the poet here, transcript here). While I was watching, I had another poem ringing in my head. I think there is something about grief that is often best captured in the sparseness of poetry for me personally, and in that way Eternal Yesterday feels a bit like a poem, and echoes these poems.

Recently, I have been reading Victoria Chang's poetry book Obit, which frames her grief over her mother's death and her father's illness as deconstructed obituaries.

The difference is called grieving. I think this is the space that Eternal Yesterday occupies. It uses magical realism to forcibly extend the period before reality and grief can fully set in. Mitsuru is desperately clinging to the moment of before, when Koichi hasn't actually died yet, because once he leaves that moment he can't go back.

In the moments before the truck driver comes and sees the body, Mitsuru is in a state of denial, an impossible version of events in which Koichi survived the impact and being thrown in the air for meters, even though all the evidence points to his death. He calls his name, expecting him to just wake up. The truck driver's reaction cements the truth of his death that Mitsuru could not even let himself imagine in those first few moments. There's a moment where we can see the flicker of horrific recognition on Mitsuru's face. But then Koichi starts moving again, and Mitsuru is once again in an impossible reality where Koichi can survive as the living dead, a miracle. Eternal Yesterday effectively resets the timeline to the moments before the death becomes real for Mitsuru.

The rest of the story takes place within that moment, but elongates the stage of denial. It takes place outside of time. Koichi's body has disregarded time, the doctor tells them. It is staving off all actual evidence of decay, but it doesn't erase the damage that has already been done and the bruises and cuts remain as a terrible reminder. This really effective element of body horror forces the audience and the characters to sit in a very specific moment in time; this is not a ghost who has cast earthly wounds aside, nor a zombie who continues to decay. Koichi and Mitsuru are trapped in the moment of death, the eternal yesterday. Mitsuru isn't ready to let go yet, and neither is Koichi.

The drawn out nature of this undeath contrasts with how suddenly Koichi dies. Instantaneous (I think again of Koyczan's poem). There is no way for the characters to anticipate this death. Compare this to Mitsuru's mother, who was chronically ill, dying in a hospital away from her son in an attempt to insulate him from grief. But despite her prolonged illness and her distance from Mitsuru, it doesn't seem like Mitsuru was really able to process his loss, just creating a wall around it to protect himself. With Koichi's undeath, they get that extra time together, and maybe that helps in some ways. As @waitmyturtles writes, they get to spend those final moments together, knowingly, intentionally, in a way that Mitsuru only got with his mom after her death when he saw her ghost. The magic gives them back these moments.

At the beginning, it seems as if time has stopped for everyone around them as well, but slowly people start to not be able to see Koichi. They begin to move on, and forget. Koichi seems to have reconciled with this fact: "If you die, you're slowly forgotten. It's normal. The living are busy thinking of other living people." Mitsuru is angry at the thought that anyone could forget about Koichi, and that the signs of their forgetfulness are proof that Koichi is getting closer and closer to disappearing.

This is such a beautiful metaphor for how it feels to grieve someone when the rest of the world keeps spinning. Time has stopped for Mitsuru, but not for all his classmates, even though they cared for Koichi too. It's a cruel truth. Time starts to speed up again as Koichi begins to disappear in front of others, but Mitsuru is still clinging to him.

Mitsuru holds onto Koichi with both fists. There's anger behind his denial of Koichi's death. He repeatedly tries to remind Koichi that he's still alive, gets angry when he's referred to as dead, and when people can't see Koichi any more.

But it is Mitsuru's love that sustains Koichi for this long, and his unwillingness to let go of his memory. It seems like love itself is what keeps Koichi here. Even when he disappears for most people, Mitsuru and Koichi's family still see him. Even after Koichi truly dies, when he stops being a living corpse, we see that his memory does live on in Mitsuru, and in the lives of the other people who loved him. The teacher who sent Mitsuru a photograph that shouldn't exist. Koichi's friends and family continuing to honor and remember him, and staying in contact with Mitsuru.

@gillianthecat writes beautifully about Japanese dramas and the use of place and space. There's a quietness and a stillness often. Eternal Yesterday echoes this, and in some ways turns time into a place, anchoring the drama to a liminal threshold, the pause that allows Mitsuru and Koichi to process what has happened.

Koichi and Mitsuru's story takes place outside of time. The editing and structure of the show also interrupts the linearity of time. Multiple times we are shown the end of a scene, and then shown its beginning scenes or even episodes later. The show revisits scenes, recontextualizes them, like when they get back from the hospital and Koichi admits he's scared that he's a corpse; the teachers in the stairwell we later learn were found in the aftermath of their breakup. Koichi is hit by the truck in the very opening of the show, but we don't see all of it until the end of the episode and the beginning of the next. Through this editing, the show destabilizes time, and calls into question our perception of events.

It also does this with the opening and closing credits. Each episode grounds the audience at the start in a joyful past that the characters can never return to, and at the end in an impossible future that they will never see ("If we were adults, would we be making a toast and drinking beer?"). The show oscillates between these two endpoints, and they put the viewer off balance for what to expect. But at the close of the show, we see the camping scene recontextualized. Mitsuru is alone, but he still has pieces of Koichi with him. The false insinuation of a happy ending is replaced with bittersweet reality.

How long does it take to grieve someone? Does it ever stop? Their teacher is still mourning his boyfriend's death 20 years later. Mitsuru is shown grieving 5 years after Koichi's death. He tells us his sadness never went away. The experience of grief is different with that distance, but it doesn't disappear. The show invites us to sit in a specific moment of that grief, but it shows us also how it continues afterwards.

Koichi's death is drawn out, the stage of denial extended, but eventually time catches up with both of them. Koichi knows it ("My time is almost up"). Mitsuru begins to understand it ("Isn't it just a matter of time?"). The day Mitsuru's home sick, "the time felt too long." The dissonance between this piece of time that they have carved out for themselves and the reality of time's continual passage becomes impossible to ignore.

Koichi lingering as a living corpse gives both him and Mitsuru a bit more time together. Even if it's just a few days, there's beauty in that. Because of that time, Koichi gets to hold his newborn sister. He gets to be a part of that moment with his family. Koichi and Mitsuru get to love each other for just a little longer. They get to say goodbye.

This is a sad show. But it's okay to be sad sometimes. It's okay to explore this sadness is art, in queer art. It can be healing to sit in these emotions for a little while, like Mitsuru and Koichi do in the show. To take the time to process it and connect with these stories.

Thank you to @bengiyo's post and the podcast for putting a new favorite show on my radar, and @lurkingshan and @waitmyturtles for sharing their thoughts and love for the show.

[six-white-venus]

hey stranger, would you listen to my sorrows for a little while? would you indulge this poor son of a gun sobbing on the side of the road about the same ol’ things, the same ol’ sitch would you listen to me, just this once?

can i tell you how it feels to sell a home? for money, of all things? well, firstly you close your eyes, count to 10, hoping  to wake up to your god-awful britney spears’ alarm but spoiler alert: you don’t. you  never do. you open your eyes to see the very same tragedy unfold only now in monochrome

it feels like this: you see the garden you waddled in through  when you were 8 and there’s a pause, an ache in your chest. the voice in your head says rewind and who are you to deny its wish?

grandpa is walking around watering the plants, admiring the palm-sized sunsets and lovely nights that bloom under his watch. i’ve known god for quite a while, my friend and let me tell you how he looks- he is 70, 76, 80 and 82 i’ve held god in my own arms and he has held me  in his he smells like baby powder and brushes his lips against my hair oh so gently. i’ve seen god, looking over with such fondness at a line of ants I am safe. I am safe. I am safe

it feels like walking inside the living room and being robbed of all your breath by some lousy scoundrel because this can’t be happening, right? (but it is. it is happening) this is not fair (is it ever?)

this is where my uncle ran  and ran to reach me,  eyes wild and petrified, when  i once forgot how to breathe underwater  (i was taking a head bath then. i’m not taking one now but mama,  i think i need you here. i think  i forgot how not to drown again)

oh, you’re still here? listening to silly old me and my silly old wounds wrapped in pretty words and poetry to hide the scabs and rot from your prying eyes? funny, because everyone and everything always seems to have  somewhere to run off to. i remember it all, as i stand there

i am twelve and nothing feels real when i see my grandpa’s sharp eyes submerged in fog god used to sit next to me and  read out english channel names  and laugh quietly. he used to  correct me on the pronunciation of the word  ‘thalai-anai’ and make sure grandma  never skipped a meal.  i’m twelve and he looks at me and doesn’t see me he looks at me and tries to remember my name

reality fades into white noise.

pockets empty and wallets filled with holes larger than the ones in my heart, i watch them pack up all our things i see cardboard boxes standing tall  in the kitchen and  the dining table is masked with a dusty white cloth and it is wrong, so wrong and I try not to look like my world is spinning a little too fast for my liking.

will there ever be someone else who will utter the words ‘goodbye’  and ‘i love you’ to these walls  like i have?

(i wonder: what is the price tag this world will slap on love?)

this house,  it has seen me stitch my wounds with  trembling hands and wipe my tears of happiness with my shirt sleeve. these gardens still wait for my grandpa  and say hello to him through  the whispering wind this house is not just a house it is home, it is love.

but my dear stranger, there’s also else something  i forgot to tell you: just like how we claimed  every inch of this place to be ours,  this place has left its traces all over me i may have to say goodbye to this house now,  but it will always live within me so with all my awkward grief and salt-stained smiles and open arms i say,

goodbye and welcome home, old friend

[whoawardwinchester]

A Winchester Chronicle

Please consider liking, commenting, and reblogging. It fuels the creativity and lets me know you're enjoying my hard work.

Summary: You arrive at the audition for the role of Raven, your first acting job ever, feeling a mix of nerves and determination, reflecting on the loss of your husband and children in a car accident a year ago. Your performance impresses the casting directors, including Jared, Jensen, and Misha, leading to additional chemistry readings where you grow more confident. Jensen surprises you with a final, impromptu test that involves an unexpected kiss, solidifying your connection. Officially offered the part, you leave with a sense of hope and excitement for this new chapter, despite your lingering grief and medical challenges.

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Reader

Content Warning: (subject to change per chapter as this series is written) This chapter includes references to grief, loss of loved ones (spouse and children), medical conditions (PCOS and endometriosis), mild language, and a kissing scene. Please proceed with caution if these themes may be triggering.

Rating: 18+ for the whole series.

This is a work of fiction. There is no hate for anyone in real life.

If you want to be added to the tag list for this series, just let me know! Also be sure to tell me how I'm doing or request anything related to Jensen/Dean!

Masterlist

Season 4 (each season will have about 22-23 chapters, except S4 only because I have to set the storyline into motion. Otherwise, it will follow the episodes of Supernatural, with adjustments as needed.) :)

Chapter 1: A New Beginning

You woke to the muted light filtering through your bedroom curtains, casting soft shadows on the walls adorned with framed photographs of happier times. You stretched, movements slow and deliberate, as if testing the weight of the day ahead. The morning air held a chill that clung to your skin, a stark contrast to the warmth you once knew.

In the corner of the room, a small desk cluttered with scripts and audition notes stood as a testament to your newfound pursuit. You had always been drawn to the arts, finding solace in the rhythm of words and the emotion they could evoke. Yet, it was here, in the aftermath of loss, that you sought a fresh start.

You padded across the creaky wooden floorboards in your favorite pair of well-worn Converse, the soles barely making a sound. Your attire was casual, comfortable: yoga pants adorned with intricate New Age symbols and a loose-fitting T-shirt that you had acquired from a thrift store, its faded logo a testament to its previous life. A gold nose ring gleamed faintly in the morning light as you brushed a strand of long, layered, wavy auburn hair behind your ear, your blue eyes scanning the room with determination.

At just five foot three inches tall, you possessed a curvaceous figure that spoke of strength and resilience, qualities you hoped to channel into your upcoming audition. Your mornings had become a ritual of preparation and anticipation. Today was no different. Today, you had an audition—a chance to breathe life into a character named Raven, a role that whispered of mystery and strength.

The path that led you here had been winding and unpredictable. Once, you had been a stay-at-home mom to three lively children -days filled with laughter and chaos, evenings with bedtime stories and lullabies. But life had a way of shifting beneath your feet, leaving you adrift in a sea of uncertainty after a tragic car accident had taken not only your husband, but all of your children, too. In the quiet moments, when grief threatened to overwhelm you, you clung to the hope that this audition would fill the void, give you a purpose beyond the emptiness that echoed in your heart.

As you reached for the script on your cluttered desk, your fingers brushed over a delicate tattoo on your wrist—a small, elegant design that you had inked as a reminder of the love you had lost and the strength you had found in its wake. You took a deep breath, steadying yourself for the day ahead, your mind racing with lines of dialogue and the anticipation of stepping into Raven's shoes.

Today, you were not just preparing for an audition; you were reclaiming a part of yourself that had been buried beneath sorrow and doubt. With each page turned and each word spoken, you hoped to breathe life into Raven, to find solace in storytelling, and to discover a new beginning in the world of acting.

As you gathered your script and headed out the door, your thoughts lingered on the possibility of forging new connections in this unfamiliar world. In the casting rooms and on set, you hoped to find companions who could share in your journey—new friends who might become as close as family, offering support and laughter along the way.

You arrive at the audition with just 4 minutes to spare, thanks to traffic. Adjusting your hair in the mirror one last time, you take a deep breath to steady your nerves. Standing outside the casting room door, you clutch your script to your chest. The hallway buzzes with other hopeful actors murmuring lines under their breath. A stage assistant calls your name, and you step forward, heart pounding.

Inside, the casting directors sit behind a long table, scrutinizing your every move. You take your mark, trying to ignore the bright lights and the camera lens that seem to magnify every imperfection.

"Whenever you're ready," one of the directors says with a reassuring smile. It isn't until he speaks that you notice Jared and Jensen, along with another man you don't recognize, also watching you. That isn't nerve-wracking at all.

You nod, clearing your throat, and launch into your prepared lines. You stumble at first, the words catching in your throat as nerves threaten to overwhelm you. Closing your eyes briefly, you mentally push away the doubts. Remembering your months of preparation, you steady yourself and begin again, this time with more conviction.

As you deliver your lines, you focus on the character's emotions, channeling your own experiences into the performance. Your voice grows stronger with each sentence, and you feel a flicker of hope as the casting directors lean forward, nodding appreciatively.

After what feels like an eternity, the scene ends. You stand there, heart racing, waiting for feedback. The directors exchange a few murmurs before one of them speaks up.

"Thank you, Y/N. That was great. We'll be in touch about callbacks."

You nodded, feeling a rush of relief mixed with lingering nerves. You thanked them and walked out of the room, replaying every moment of the audition in your mind. You couldn't help but wonder if they noticed the slight tremble in your hands or the flicker of doubt in your eyes.

Your mind buzzed with the intensity of the performance as you reached your car. Exhaling slowly, you tried to shake off the nerves that had built up over the past hour. Glancing at your watch as you unlocked the car, time seemed to slow down in those tense moments.

Suddenly, footsteps approached from behind. Turning, You saw Jared walking briskly towards you, his expression friendly yet unreadable. Your heart skipped a beat. Was he about to deliver the news—whether you had made the cut or not?

"Hey, Y/N!" Jared's voice cut through the noise of the parking garage.

You managed a smile, trying to hide Your nerves. "Hey."

Jared grinned, kindness reflecting in his eyes. "We wanted to ask you to come back in for a moment. We have a few more things we want to discuss."

You blinked, your pulse quickening. "Oh, sure. I'll just—I'll be right there." You followed him back towards the audition room, your mind racing with possibilities.

As you both entered the room, you found yourself facing the casting directors once again, who looked up with mild surprise. Jared and Jensen exchanged a knowing glance before Jensen spoke up.

"We just wanted to say, Y/N, that we loved what you brought to the character today," Jensen began, his voice sincere. "You really stood out, and we think you could be perfect for this role."

Your heart leaped with hope, breath catching in your throat. It was hard to believe what you were hearing—after all the hard work and nerves, it seemed like your dream might actually be within reach.

Jared chimed in, his smile warm. "We're looking forward to seeing more of what you can do. Are you up for that?"

You nodded, eyes shining with gratitude and excitement. "Absolutely. Thank you so much for this opportunity."

The casting directors nodded in agreement, clearly impressed by the support from Jensen and Jared. "Alright, then. Let's run some chemistry scripts with Jared. Then we'll make our way to Jensen, and Misha after," one of the directors said, pointing to the papers on the desks.

You picked one up and read your lines with Jared. He was a natural, and his kindness made the process easy.

"That was great, you two," the director noted, making a mark on his script for the writers. "I don't think Raven is Sam's love interest right now, but as friends, it's perfect for the start of Season 4."

The writer, scanning her notes, chimed in, "Yes. Do you want to try Misha before Jensen?"

The director considered her suggestion. "I think that would be best. Misha, Jared, swap places please," he instructed, glancing at Misha in a scolding manner. "Misha, read your lines this time."

"Let's see how mad I can make them this time," Misha whispered to you as he took Jared's place.

You giggled, imagining the fun Misha, Jared, and Jensen had on set. "This will be my first season, too," Misha added as you both started your script reading together.

Misha finished with a dramatic flourish that made you laugh out loud. "Your laugh is the sweetest I've heard all day!" a producer exclaimed, taken aback. Your grandmother had once described your voice as 'sparrow-like,' often the center of compliments.

"Thank you, Misha! I don't think we need to do a chemistry reading with Jensen, unless… Jens - what do you think?" the producer continued.

Jensen had been very contemplative while he watched both of the previous readings, his expressions hard to read. "Yep. Let's do this," he finally responded after a few more long seconds of pondering.

Jensen helped Misha off the floor, "Dude, you've got to chill out," he joked. "Never," Misha responded, making his way back to the tables.

As Jensen passed by you, a whiff of his cologne caught your attention. It was warm and inviting, though not to say that Jared or Misha smelled bad—they just didn't draw your senses like Jensen did. His scent reminded you of a cabin on a rainy fall day, a surprising association that distracted you from realizing the chemistry reading had already begun.

"This is where you say 'DEAN WINCHESTER…'" Jensen motioned for you to deliver your line. "I'm so sorry. May we start again?" you asked, feeling shy and noticing your warm cheeks betraying your embarrassment. "Yeah, we can," Jensen replied. "Ready?" you asked nervously. "Have been all day," he smirked.

As you neared the end of the reading, you and Jensen reached a part where Raven and Dean were supposed to kiss passionately. Jensen suddenly stopped. "I believe we've captured the chemistry between Raven and Dean. The rest isn't necessary today," he announced, glancing at the panel, who seemed on the edge of their seats. "I don't think we saw enough," Jared joked, nudging Misha lightly. "I concur, Jared. Dean and Raven sitting in a tree… K-I-S-…" Jensen cut him off with a growl as his watch rang with a woman's name displayed.

"You're all free to go. Y/N, I'm pleased to welcome you to the Supernatural family. Congratulations!" the director said. Everyone shook your hand and wished you well on their way out, except Jensen, who was still on a heated call.

"No, I told you I was working late today. We had a new role to fill, and it was crucial that I was here for it," you overheard Jensen say. "I didn't think it was appropriate for us to be working together every day for the next God-knows-how-long," he added.

Realizing this was not a conversation you needed to witness, you quietly started making your way out.

"No, hang on…" "Y/N, wait just a sec." You nodded at him. "Yes, that's her name… Why would her name matter? … Ok. I'll talk to you later. Bye." Jensen hung up.

"Thanks for waiting. I have your schedule here. I specifically asked to give it to you so I could walk you out," he said, gathering his things and handing you a stack of papers. "Of course, if you lose these, you should have them in your email, so don't worry if you do." He pushed the door open and held it for you. "Great. Thank you," you said, scanning over the text.

The walk was silent for a few minutes. You frantically thought of something, anything to say, but all that filled your mind was how rugged he looked from the side. He caught you glancing at him. "What's up?" he asked, smiling.

"I… Uh… Was just thinking about your cologne. It smells familiar," you lied, mentally chastising yourself. What the hell were you thinking?

"Oh, it's Mountain Man by Dior, I think. Or is it Ralph Lauren? It's one of those two," Jensen chuckled.

"It's lovely," you let slip, feeling sheepish. Seriously, Y/N? Lovely? You were a fool, and you knew you'd be ruminating on this later.

"Thanks. Is this your car?" We were the last ones in the parking garage. You glanced at your watch; your audition was at 2, and it was already 11:30. Your stomach growled.

"Yeah, it is. Man, how did time fly so fast?" you said, unlocking your trunk to stow away your belongings.

"Yeah, today flew by," Jensen agreed. "Go grab some grub. There's a diner about three blocks from here that's open all night. Super handy for days like this," he said, turning as if to find his own car.

"Perfect. I appreciate you walking me out," you said, holding out your hand. "It was great to meet you," you beamed.

He shook your hand. "Likewise. See you in two weeks," he said, turning towards his car as you got into yours. Rolling down the window, you turned the radio up a little, taking a moment to sigh and process the day, leaning back into your seat. "Oh. My. God!" you whispered excitedly.

"Hey, one last thing…" Jensen appeared at your window. "AHHHH!" you screamed, heart thudding wildly in your chest.

He opened the door and took your hand to help you out. "I'm so sorry," he laughed as you clutched your chest, breathing through the scare. "I… I was just practicing, you know," you said jokingly to hide your embarrassment. "What's up?" you added.

"I know it's been a long day, and we've already done our reading together, but I figured if you had any questions you could text or call me. I also just need to see something," he said, stepping closer to you as he handed you his number. "Oh, Thank you. Let me just grab the scripts…" you began, turning towards the trunk.

He took your hand and gently pulled you closer, your face at chest level. Looking up, you saw his bright green eyes, intensified under the garage lights. "I don't know what…" you started.

"I just NEED to see… something," he interrupted softly, leaning towards you.

His lips met yours as he cupped your face in his hands, gently pinning you against the car. You moaned involuntarily. His lips were soft and tender as he pulled away, leaving you in shock. Clearing your throat, you managed, "I… um… hm," looking at the ground and shaking your head lightly.

"I didn't think it was necessary to see if we had physical chemistry in front of everyone. They'll see enough when we film through the seasons," he said, stepping back.

"Right. Thank you. That would have been… nerve-wracking," you said, sweeping some hair behind your ear. "Well? Feel the chemistry?" you joked nervously.

"I certainly felt something," he smoldered, turning away and waving. "Good night. Again!"

You watched him walk around the garage corner, finally comprehending what had just happened. It certainly didn't feel like just a chemistry reading, but you couldn't afford to think like that. You needed to stay professional. It had only been a year since your husband passed, and you still cried often about his absence. Guilt rose in your gut.

"Just get home, Y/N," you said to yourself, climbing in, saving his number in your phone, buckling up, and backing out. "Get home and breathe."

______

As Jensen navigated the familiar Vancouver streets, the soft glow of streetlights cast fleeting shadows across his face. His phone, propped up on the dashboard, displayed the faces of Jared and Misha on a group video call. The signal occasionally weakened, causing their images to pixelate.

“Jens, spill the beans,” Jared grinned widely. “What did you think of Y/N today?”

Jensen paused, thoughtful. “She was… impressive.”

Misha, in mock seriousness, chimed in, “Impressive? Come on, give us the juicy details. Did you kiss her after we left?”

Rolling his eyes with a small smirk, Jensen replied, “No, Misha. It was a chemistry test. You know how it goes.”

“But seriously, dude,” Jared leaned closer to the screen. “She seems like she'll be a great addition to the cast.”

Jensen nodded. “Yeah, she does.”

“Ah, so she's officially a part of the family now. Welcome aboard, Y/N,” Misha grinned.

“Yeah, welcome aboard,” Jensen echoed, a genuine smile on his face.

Misha couldn’t resist teasing. “So, when's the first scene together? I'm looking forward to seeing some epic on-screen chemistry.”

“We'll see how it goes,” Jensen chuckled.

Jared’s curiosity peaked. “Speaking of chemistry, how's Dee taking it? Is she excited?”

Jensen hesitated, a flicker of discomfort crossing his face. “She… wasn't thrilled.”

“Oh, jealous, is she?” Misha raised an eyebrow in seriousness.

“She wanted the part. Thought it would be a good fit,” Jensen sighed.

Jared’s voice was sympathetic. “It's tough when expectations don't match reality.”

“Yeah,” Jensen nodded, a hint of sadness in his eyes.

The conversation shifted back to lighter topics, with Jared and Misha sharing stories about their own auditions and the day’s events. But in the back of Jensen’s mind, thoughts of Y/N lingered. He couldn’t deny the connection he felt during their audition and wondered how their dynamic would evolve on set.

As he turned onto his street, Jared and Misha got off the phone buzzed with a text from Y/N, thanking him for his support and expressing her excitement to join the cast. He smiled, typing a quick reply before pulling into his driveway.

Just as he was about to open the front door, it swung open. Dee stood there, arms crossed, a tense expression on her face.

“How was your day?” she asked, though her tone suggested she already knew the answer.

Jensen forced a smile. “It was good. Y/N got the part.”

Dee’s eyes narrowed slightly. “So I heard. Everyone’s talking about how great she was.”

“Yeah, she really was,” Jensen replied, keeping his tone neutral.

Dee sighed, clearly frustrated. “I just don't understand why I wasn't right for it.”

“Dee, you’re a great actress, but they were looking for something specific. Y/N just happened to fit that.”

“Or maybe it’s because she’s the new shiny toy,” Dee muttered under her breath.

“Come on, don’t be like that,” Jensen said softly, reaching out to her.

Dee pulled away, her expression hardening. “I just hope this doesn’t change things between us.”

“It won’t,” Jensen assured her. “She’s a colleague, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” Dee said, turning away. “I’m going to bed.”

Jensen watched her go, a knot of worry forming in his stomach. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this was just the beginning of a much larger conflict. With a heavy sigh, he headed upstairs, hoping tomorrow would bring some clarity.

_____

You sit on the edge of your bed hastily scarfing down a cheesesteak from the diner Jensen mentioned, the glow of your bedside lamp casting a warm light over your open script. You glance at the lines you have been practicing for weeks, feeling a mix of excitement and anxiety. The day had been a whirlwind, from the nerve-wracking audition to the unexpected chemistry reading with Jensen, and finally being told you got the part.

Your heart swells with joy as you replay the moment the casting director said, "Welcome to the Supernatural family." This role is more than just a job; it’s a lifeline, a chance to reclaim a part of yourself you thought you'd lost.

But as the adrenaline fades, the familiar ache in your lower abdomen returns, a reminder of your ongoing battle with PCOS and endometriosis. You press a hand to your stomach, closing your eyes briefly to push through the discomfort. This is not the time to let your condition get the better of you.

A tear slips down your cheek as your thoughts turn inward again. You reflect on the last year—losing your husband and children in that devastating car accident. The grief had been overwhelming, leaving you feeling adrift, your identity swallowed by the roles of wife and mother that you no longer played.

But now, this role, this chance to play Raven, feels like a new beginning. It’s an opportunity to step into the spotlight and rediscover yourself. It won’t be easy. The long hours, the physical demands, and the inevitable moments of self-doubt will test you. But you are ready.

You think back to the audition, the look in Jensen’s eyes when he had watched you perform. There was a connection there, a spark that made you believe you could truly bring Raven to life. And even though you sensed some underlying tension, perhaps from Jensen’s personal life, you felt confident you could create something incredible together on screen.

You take a deep breath, your determination solidifying. You are ready to face whatever challenges come your way, both on and off the set. You have your own dreams to pursue, and now, a new family in the Supernatural cast to join.

You pick up your phone, scrolling through your emails until you find the one from the casting team with your schedule and initial scripts. As you read through it, you feel a renewed sense of purpose. You are doing this for yourself, for the memory of your husband and children, and for the part of you that has longed to be more than just a grieving widow.

Closing your eyes, you send a silent prayer of thanks. This is your chance to shine, to show the world—and yourself—that you are capable of great things. You won’t let your medical conditions, your past, or your fears hold you back. This is your time.

With one last glance at your script, you take some pain relievers, turn off the lamp and lay down, the excitement of the day slowly giving way to a peaceful determination. Tomorrow, you will begin this new chapter of your life, ready to face whatever comes your way. And with that thought, you drift into a deep, restful sleep, your dreams filled with the promise of what is to come.

[valeffelees]

An Ask Game for Writers to Procrastinate Working on Your WIP(s)

thank you kindly for tagging me @shrekgogurt @youarenevertooold, and @monbons i've been seeing this game make its rounds on my dash and was really hoping someone would pull me in!

🦈 Tell us the name of one of your WIP(s)

my main three wips at the moment are without sun, ballad of the final sparrow, which is more commonly known as bitverse, and fragile things (and how to break them), but i've also been fucking around a bit the last two or three weeks with a new (terrible, evil, very self-indulgent) wip called god-forbid.

🍄 Describe one of your WIPs in the format of “___ + ___ =___”  

i think i might be dumb bc i don't understand this question at all.

🌍 What tags or warnings will your WIP(s) need if you intend to share it?

bitverse: heavy angst, psychological horror elements, alcohol abuse, allusions to suicide, unhealthy coping mechanisms, dead dove: do not eat.

🧭 An alternative title to one of your WIP(s)?

ballad of the final sparrow -> baz is typing fragile things (and how to break them) -> there's a werewolf in london god-forbid -> the gap between a tragedy and comedy

⚠️ Which WIP you’re most likely to finish or update next?

i have no idea. i mean, you'd think the answer would be without sun since it's the only fic i actually have posted at the moment, but unfortunately i am an untrustworthy villain.

💾 What is the document of your WIP called? (Not the story title, but what you’ve saved it as.)

same as the fic title. if i start a new wip and don't know what to call it, i'll pick something at random and add (working title) at the end.

🖍 Post any sentence from your WIP

from without sun:

“You don’t like peppermint,” he says. But maybe she does. Maybe that’s one more thing he can add to his growing list of things he got wrong about Agatha Wellbelove. No. 1 — Dislikes peppermint; actually, she is quite fond of it. No. 2 — Likes Simon Snow; him, not so much.

♻️ A scrapped idea for your current WIP

one of the biggest changes i made to the plot of without sun really early on was penelope's role in the story. i had a clear idea of the story i wanted to tell as soon as i saw the prompt for the fic. without sun was always supposed to be about more than simon and baz. the story is about grief and love, and the space we take up in the lives of the people around us. but n e way, in my orig draft, penny was actually supposed to be able to communicate with simon a bit, and there was gonna be a whole sect of scenes in the middle of the fic where they sat around together trying to break simon's curse what we know and what we don't know style via passing notes. i ended up tossing this idea really quickly tho, and i'm glad i did bc one of my favourite moments i've ever written in any fic happens in chapter two of without sun and it belongs to simon and penny.

🤔 What’s a story you’d love to write but haven’t even started yet?

so many. or, well—what counts as "haven't even started"? i hate to let ideas sit around in my head bc it feels like leaving raspberries in the fridge for too long, like that shit is gonna get mould on it, so usually the first thing i do is rough out a few scenes and/or script out a very rough outline of the plot (like this / this / this style) so that i have something to come back to later. i have dozens of zero drafts just lying tf around. but otherwise, yeah, so many. one big idea i have is called heart on fire and it's based on fanart, but i haven't started it yet bc obvs i wanna get permission from the artist first but i've been holding off reaching out to them about it until i've knocked a few of my less intimidating longfics off my wip list bc heart on fire is gonna fucking hefty so i don't wanna give'r until i'm sure i can manage it.

🤡 How many WIPs are you actively working on?

LMFAO

🛠 Is there a scene or anything in the WIP you are struggling with right now?

i'm having a real bitch of a time with agatha's main scene in chapter two of without sun, i've been fighting with it on and off for months, but i can't get it to do what i want it to do.

❤️ Not a question, just a second kudos to send.

cheers!

sorry for any doubles but, tagging: @drowninginships @cosmicalart @that-disabled-princess @fatalfangirl @cutestkilla @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @artsyunderstudy @thewholelemon @roomwithanopenfire @hushed-chorus @blackberrysummerblog @imagineacoolusername @nightimedreamersworld @prettygoododds @confused-bi-queer @mooncello and an open tag for anybody else who wants to procrastinate their wips!

[pinkmoondoll9shihtzu]

a while ago you answered and ask of mine with something that really resonated with me, abt your real self feeling like it was trapped in a glass cage. anyway im taking your ask box name literally. I used to live in a world full of magic and wonder, I think we all do when were young, and then alot of awful stuff happened, it took alot, a new traumatic tragedy every month. and now the magic is gone and it feels like it was never there and wont ever be there again. (1/2)

thankyou for returning to my askbox im glad what i said helped befofre, sorry it took a while to respond i been ~in a haze--- my glass case got fogged up so to speak🩶gosh i been thinking lately i need to do mushrooms for the first time ina few years. the past month was such a trauma overload its thrown a wrench in all my plans & the world feels completely different to me now, i can barely even be online anymore it all feels so hostile to my sense of whimsy.

basically the only thing thats been getting me thru this past 5 weeks is just, going outside. not necessarily walking just sitting, breathing in the fresh air, and looking closely at the trees. when i sit outside without any distraction its impossible for me to deny that the magic is alive, objectively it is always there it extends far beyond me or any personal problem i have, it is going to outlive me. it comforts me so much to inhale the outdoors its the coping mechanism i've returned to again & again since childhood. i love feeliing like im so small im just nothing. yea i feel like shrooms cld b really nice rn..

grief is hell but its necessary because it taught me how to enjoy whats good.... the cycle will always keep spinning & the warm feelings will always return. from being an old person who been thru it so many times i trust that now. have u ever met a greedy rich person before? they have everything handed to them so they've never learned what it means to appreciate life. they're never satisfied because they don't know true despair or loss. this is not all rich ppl some still have perspective but its a thing w some, we all kno its a thing. for me it really has served my soul to go through so much pain & lose all control. Now i see every peaceful silent "boring" moment as true bliss. i dont rly need anything anymore , imo that is how death transforms & elevates

ofc it dont happen over night and u really do have to let yourself cry it out. let yourself wallow , feel pity for yourself like you would feel pity for a child who came crying into your arms. comfort yourself, get it all out dont try to hide from it. slowly the tides will turn. things will begin to stand out to you, little beauties you never noticed before. the simple things..they mean so much more once u have experienced true terror. i pray very much for your heart to heal anon ❤️‍🩹 the whimsy will return to u i can tell by the way u want it for yourself & others. U can be a guide to them thru your actions. ilu im here for u just dont give up 🌷 pmd9

[countrymusiclover]

70 - Fighting the Magical Border

Part 71

Gemini Runaway

Tag list ask to be added @icefrye19 @secretdreamlandmentality

3 years later

Sitting on my bed while the girls were off with Jacob to get ice cream. Placing my hands on my lap I calmed my mind waving my hand creating a crystal prism in my hands. "Finitus… invidium cala mactus." The crystal glowed in my hand when I got to my feet letting the sunlight bounce off it before creating a figure in front of me with its magic.

"Hello love." A figure of Klaus smiled back at me. He was wearing a gray sweatshirt with his black jacket thrown over it.

Holding the crystal to my chest I squealed like a child. "Holy crap it worked. Uh hi my subconscious version of you."

"How did you manage this, Raelyn?" He asked, crossing his arms behind his chest.

"Um basically I found a crystal similar to the moonstone. And I combined a subconscious and vision spell together so that I can talk to my subconscious version of you. Now that I say it out loud it sounds crazy." Running my fingers through my hair I sighed, feeling embarrassed.

Nik walked closer with our eyes meeting briefly. "It's not crazy, Rae. Rather impressive."

"You're lying." I snapped.

He shook his head at me. "Do you want me to lie to you?"

"No, never. But…" I didn't have a clue what to say.

Klaus steps closer where I spun around wishing that it was the real him. Not even magic could fix him physically being here. "Tell me what you want and I'll do whatever you want."

"I wish it were that way but you can't give me what I want, Nik." I sniffed feeling some tears falling down my face.

He tilted his head to the side with his baby blues focused on me alone. "Tell me what to do and I will fix it-"

"Nik, I miss you. And I stupidly thought that this would help me while we search for cures for your siblings but it doesn't!" Throwing my hands away from my sides I cried even more spinning around on my feet. "Because I can't live without you, not physically anymore but mentally. I want to tear Marcel apart for separating us like this. I….I miss everything about you and I will do anything to get you back…"

"Raelyn!" Someone else called my name before I saw Jo come into the apartment.

Waving the crystal over the sunshine in the window hologram Klaus disappeared. "Hey , uh hey Jo." I sniffed, wiping away tears as quickly as possible.

"Is everything okay here? Rae, what have you got there?" She sat down with a bag from her day at work with the hospital. Her gaze noticed me holding a crystal behind my back.

Kicking the carpet with my foot I avoided her gaze. "I may have made a magical prism so I could talk to my subconscious version of my husband because I am going crazy without him.."

“Oh Rae Rae.” She made a disappointed look.

Slumping down on the bed I put my face in my hands sighing heavily under my breath. “I know, I’m pathetically insane. But we’ve never been separated this long before. I …I don’t know how to deal with it. And I thought seeing him would give me hope. But I just miss the hell out of him!”

“Raelyn, you might be going through some sort of grief.”

“He’s not gone, Josette!” I snapped at her revealing my fangs with more tears coming down my face. “He’s alive with that monster and I can’t go save him until I find cures. I…I have never felt alone like this even though I have my daughters, friends, you and Jacob. Yet even with that I don’t feel better. I…”

She pulled me in for a hug running a hand through my hair letting me cry. “Sssh Raelyn. I’m here. How about this. I can tell you about my date with this hot teacher at the college. So we had fun but when we were back at the hospital he tried to compel me.”

“Compel as in a vampire?” I raised my head, sending her a questionable look.

She nodded, removing her hands from my shoulders. “Clearly a newbie vampire.”

“What does he look like cause I’d like to meet the guy who thinks he can compel witches.” I laughed at whoever thought they could beat a witch, actually an ex witch.

Jo rolled her shoulders thinking back. “Sandy brown hair and blue eyes. He said his name was Ric.”

“Ric?” I asked her sternly where she nodded her head, yes that I was right. Jumping up to my feet I shoved the door open, almost breaking it. “As in Alaric Saltzman!”

She got to her feet not understanding what was making me angry. “Rae, wait. What’s wrong and how do you know Ric?”

“He was sent to kill my husband by my husband’s crazy mother. He made me think the love of my life was dead. So now I am going to kill him!” Whipping my head around I smirked at her. “You can beg for his life if you want. But I am going to see him.”

Jo gasped, grabbing her car keys following me out the door. “I’ll drive there.” Jo and I entered the college standing outside his classroom but I was using the invisible spell waiting for the right moment.

He came out of his classroom clearly in a rush until we got there. “What's the rush? Occult studies emergency?” She asked him arms over her chest.

“Yeah, I have someplace I need to be so if you don't mind.” He tries to pass her but she blocks his way

Jo scoffed at him. “Why don't you just compel me out of the way.”

“Jo, I can explain - ah! What the hell” I cut him off, throwing him magically against the wall holding him there.

Opening my eyes I smirked up at him sticking to the wall. Clutching my right hand into a fist he winced when I revealed my fangs to him. “How about you tell her how you are a crazy murderous vampire who attempted to kill my lover. So she can understand why I am about to tear you limb from limb!”

“Rae, how do you have magic as a vampire?” Alaric grunted trying to break from the spell.

Smirking up at him I drop him onto the ground only to raise him in the air with magic again. “Ascendo! I’m a Gemini witch, yes. But I wasn’t born with magic, remember. So she. I turned now I’m your worst nightmare!”

“Look don't you think it's about time we level with each other.” Jo moved to stand beside me putting a hand on my shoulder. “My cousin has every right to be angry with you but I care about you so if you apologize then she agreed to not end you.”

Rolling my eyes at her I corrected her statement. “Technically he’s dead. But I can magic your ass over the anti border without blinking.”

“Ahhh! Okay I’m sorry…even though I wasn’t in control of myself, I’m sorry.” He gasped once I released him onto the wooden floor.

Jo offered him her hand, helping him to stand asking in a less stern tone. “Now what exactly was so important that you needed to get to?”

“Okay how's this, my best friend, he just came back from the dear but now I have to save him from a vampire hunter before he is driven across an antimagic border and killed again so here's some friendly advice.” Alairc explained moving around the two of us. “It's probably a good idea to stay as far away from me as possible.”

Watching him leave I crossed my arms over my chest. “He’s literally going to die permanently because of Damon Salvatore.”

“Wait Raelyn. We have to save him.” My cousin sent me a sympathetic glance. “I bet that you don’t like him but can you do it for me?”

Slumping my shoulders I caved knowing that I wouldn’t hurt her feelings ever. She was the only family member I cared about after all. “Huh alright let’s go save the former vampire hunter.”

“He was a vampire hunter before he turned.” She sounded interested as we rushed to the car.

“Seriously, after we save him please make him tell everything.” Pulling out my phone I dialed my brother. “Jacob, don’t go back to Jo’s place. I need you to bring the girls to the Mystic Falls border. We’re heeding their now.”

He asked through the phone. “What are you doing going there?”

“Off to save our cousin's romantic partner Alaric Saltzman. Just do what I say please.” I hung up the phone before Jo slammed on the gas and we rushed to the border. Slamming my door shut I gasped stopping at the edge. Two vehicles were knocked over and Alaric was laying on the grass bleeding out.

Jo grabbed her medical bag calling out to me over her shoulder bolting across the border with no problem. “What are you waiting for?”

“If I cross over it takes away the magic making me a vampire. I’ll die!” I shouted back hearing tires shriek on the road before I saw my brother get out of the car with Cami and the kids.

Hayley and three year old Andrea were driving back with one of the cures for the originals. But we had two more to go before we could get Klaus back. “Rae, what are we waiting for?” Cami asked about stepping over.

“You cross and you die.” Yanking the blonde back by her forearm I turned around to my daughters. “Girls, mommy and uncle J need your help.”

Alina, Missy and Hope ran forward. Alina had her hair up in a braid. Hope left her loose and Missy had it in a ponytail. Jacob looked at his six year old nieces then me. “So what do we do to help Alaric not die?”

Using my vampire hearing I watched Stefan limp over to the other truck that had his brother inside. But he was bleeding from where he died. “Jo’s helping him. We have to help Stefan get his brother across the border. We’ll briefly siphon the magic away so they don’t die.”

“Okay…uh like this?” Jacob placed his hands on the barrier and I followed his actions.

“Alina, Missy help us. Hope, cross over and help Jo.” I instructed my daughters so the two other siphons put their hands like ours and we watched their hands turn red. “Magia tollux de terras.”

“On it mom.” Hope crosses the border where she winced feeling it strike her magic but she keeps running towards Jo.

Alaric was couching up blood laying on his back. “You have to get me across the border. It's stripping away the magic. I'll die.”

Jo tore something from her medical bag. “You'll die if I move you. I have to stop the bleeding, you nicked your descending aorta.”

Alaric gasped. “I know, that's what killed me.”

Hope plopped down at her side seeing him bleeding. “Hey Jo, what can I do?”

“Hand me that pack.” She told her quickly.

Hope gave it to her watching her begin to tear it open with her mouth. “And you didn't have me back then did you and you didn't have hemostatic gauze.” She covered the wound with her hand and the gauze.

Cami gasped watching Jaocb and I keep chanting seeing Stefan limping towards the border with the spell still hurting them but they weren’t dead just yet. “Guys, you better hurry!” She hollers to the vampires on the other side.

“Ah crap!” I moaned seeing drops of blood staining my shoes meaning the spell was trying to kill us. “Jacob, let go!”

He shook his head coughing up some blood of his own. “No way…they’re coming.” Moving my gaze up, Stefan was still limping towards us. Damon and the other vampire collapsed onto our side gasping for air.

“Alaric? Hang on! Stay with me. Come on.” Jo starts pumping on his chest.” Gonna get that heart pumping. You don't get to have the last word with me. Alaric!”

Removing our hands from the barrier I gasped in relief feeling better until Missy tugged my arm pointing towards her sister and Jo. “Mommy!”

“God no.” Covering my mouth with my hands I heard Cami sob. Damon, still on the ground, rips his hands free from the chains and looks toward Mystic Falls, his eyes wide.

Jo continues pumping on Alaric's chest refusing to give up. “Stay with me! come on!” Suddenly Alaric's head snaps up, his eyes open and he gasps for air.

On the Ground, Alaric looks around confused and shaken. “So-so-something's wrong.”

“Don’t move, Ricky.” Hope warmed him by touching his cheek.

Alaric moved his hand to his chest still confused on how he wasn’t dead. “No, something's wrong. I'm not supposed to be alive.”

Jo put her hand to his face, calming the now human him down. “There's no reason you shouldn't be. I sealed the wound we just have to get you to the hospital.” The ambulance came and she waited before getting in the back.

“Go with him. We’re good from here.” I told her seeing she was waiting for me. “Just don’t be angry I’ve been hiding blood bags at your place.”

Alina came over to me once they drove off and I watched silently before she said something taking my attention away from them. “What happens to him now?”

“Now he gets to live his life as a human again. Come on, it's late. Let’s get you all to bed.” Picking her up in my arms she laid her head on my shoulder lifting her gaze up to the full moon in the sky.

Comments really appreciated ❤️

[lucindarobinsonvevo]

bestie, i need to know where your mind is at when it comes to this whole thing with leo and how you're rotating your mind :))

i've got a lot of thoughts of my own on this, namely that leo told that weird story about trying to fly when he was a child at david's funeral and how out of place that speech actually was, his comments in the past about david being the golden child while he was treated as a monster, leo forgiving paul (he could be pretending but i don't think so) and only referencing david when he was talking about how much paul had hurt HIM and so much more...

but i need to know what you're thinking :)

its an random story to tell, especially when leo already told a way better story back in 2019 about how David always played handball even when he was like. shit at it or whatever. why not tell that story again? why tell this weird story about...you. To me, I would say it's because flight, and flying away are very typical metaphors for escape, and wanting to escape. perhaps on purpose or not, leo's vision of his childhood is just...one long wish to be somewhere else as louise glück once said. And David was the thing that kept him there, or that prevented his escape by telling him he can't really fly. Something like that, if i was a pretentious overanalyser. which I am.

I think part of it is that I've always been a bit obsessed with the idea of 'living with it'. And this is like the ultimate case of how do I live with this?

I mean, look. David sucked when he came back. He lied to leo's face and left him. He punished Leo for something he didn't have any part in and didn't even tell him why. He told Leo to his face he thinks he's dangerous for Krista. he's mopey and selfish. he makes Leo run interference on Paul without even telling him what he's angry at Paul about. How can you look at that and see Leo as anything other than second, third or fourth place in Davids life?

Then David is gone and Leo...Is okay, actually. Yes he's sad at first because that was his twin brother but when he waits for the real grief to come it just doesn't. He's relieved actually. He's not carrying David around like a weight around his ankles. He can breathe without having to worry about David's judgement. Everyone around him is deeply grieving but Leo...is okay. He's going to work. He's looking after his daughter. He's even going to visit his mother. I've mentioned before that I think he was lying when he said he was 'letting it all out' at his mothers house...Well what if that is because there's nothing TO let out? He comes home, and Paul is being nice to Krista now and Leo well...He still loves Paul. That hasn't changed. Forgiving Paul for what happened to David is easy when he's not that angry anymore. Because he realizes maybe the thing he was angry about is less about David and more that Paul was willing to put Krista in danger? This is all baseless speculation of course here's the real part I am fascinated by -

David died because he LOVED Leo. Now how the hell are you meant to live with that when you wake up one morning horrified to realize you're RELIEVED your brother died? Leo didn't ask David to die for him, he just did it and now Leo has to live with that. Doesn't that fascinate you? It fascinates me! David died and now Leo has to live with it. He has to live with carrying his dead brother up a mountain. He has to live with the 'david died to save leo' and he never asked David to so that. he's glad to not be dead of course but he never asked for this and now it's his life. Is it David's fault? Maybe. But Leo's still the one living with it. Oh the angst potential is delicious!

And on a side note. To talk briefly about Cameron because of course I am going to talk about the triplets. Cameron hated Robert, and I dont think Elle hates him but Neighbours has drawn a lot of parallels between Leo and Elle/Cameron but NOT Leo and Robert. that's kinda interesting, aint it?

[the-annotated-antichrist]

Act I, Track 03 - Through Dust, Through Rain

Song links: Spotify - YT Music - Apple - Tidal

In this track, we meet Helena Orsini, played by Lori Lewis, and her mother Sophia, played by Melissa Ferlaak. Lori needs no introduction to fans of the band, she's been one of their singers for many years. Melissa is also known as a metal singer - fun fact, both Melissa and Lori were the singer of Aesma Daeva at one point!

Left: Melissa Ferlaak photographed by Emilio Vaquer Right: Lori Lewis photographed by Tim Tronckoe

But back to the song...

In this track, Sophia is on her death bed and Helena, who has been taking care of her, is by her side to ease her passing. Sophia, whose husband is long dead, is an accomplished occultist and Helena is a faithful Christian, so both are sure that death will not be the end for Sophia - and indeed we will meet her again much later in this story. But for now, the sorrow of parting dominates the conversation between the two women.

[Sophia:] Dear child of mine, pain turns to destiny... Down from the mountains, in the form of a rose The thunder of oceans shall bring forth the ghost Of an infinite star that will rest in my tree Like the full moon of night Descending like me Such is my journey No matter where my spirit shall travel You will be there... [Helena:] Winter sheds its grief in snow Summer weeps It must be so Thus let thee live Unseen, unknown Light is the body and no more than a shell Releasing our spirits to heaven or hell While embracing my love to let go of your hand And to reach for a kingdom forgotten by man

The lyrics (or libretto, whichever you prefer) here, as will often be the case in BA, are closer to poetry than to regular conversation and narration. The lyricist, Per Albinsson, also has some history as a filmmaker - fun fact, he directed Therion's Summer Night City video - and personally I get the impression that he has quite a visual imagination. It's like he paints with words. In some cases, I think his words are more easily felt than rationally understood. Some lines tell the story, others are more akin to poetry, maybe meant to evoke emotions rather than communicate facts.

I would have liked to post a photo of Per as well, but I only found pictures that felt too private to use and/or did not credit the photographer. I will instead link an interview with him on YT.

In order to not write a novel for each song and also in order to not over-interpret the lyrics, I won't do much "poetry analysis" in these texts and focus on the coarser approach of storytelling, but I do think much of the imagery in these lyrics deserves to be considered, savoured, thought about, if you so choose. For example, you can follow the thread of dawn/spring symbolism through this entire work.

In the song, the conversation turns to a more practical matter next:

[Helena:] Forgive my sister, she would not come This travel, she said, you must do alone... [Sophia:] Bring to heart Johanna's name Through my blood you share the same To hold, to keep through dust, through rain

Helena's sister Johanna, whom we will meet shortly, did not wish to visit Sophia in her final hour. Why? As it turns out, Johanna is estranged from her family due to her strongly held religious beliefs - she is busy leading a radical Catholic sisterhood in Rome. The text in the inlay also seems to suggest that Johanna might not be there because she considers Sophia a sinner due to her magical work. The scene description goes into more detail, which sadly did not make it into the finished lyrics:

Sophia is fondling Helena's hand in hers. She utters that Johanna cannot yet accept her mother's deep insight in magical work nor in anything that enriches the human spirit. Helena stresses that she understands. The mother says that one day even Johanna will understand that humanity needs both light and darkness. [...] She asks Helena not to reject Johanna, to continually try to bring her into the real light.

The song ends with more poetry:

[Helena:] Say you knew Yes only you could grow the seeds of time Run and flow through silver snow Of mountains spring must climb From this hill, to waters still My heart will guide your way Love and wrath, my epitaph before your name I lay

If you remember the "seeds of time" image for a reeeaaaally long time, you will encounter it again eventually.

[libidomechanica]

Magnanimous Despair alone

A sonnet sequence

               First Stanza

Each other, and crown with wholly pour’d it, and fought, and black snakes of beauty in triumphs pinned into the crescent’s broad commeth theyr strife soon taught have a husbands can tell her feet her pride! Magnanimous Despair alone shorten, like early did gaze the others: some the flood only famous man. Which is the world vnworthy tongue bewitch’d eagerly fruit; but bitter blood. Mote softer may seemd I smelt a garden, my soules loneness by night were growth of seven as day thee.

               Second Stanza

But her veil: marshes healèd me, a shafts, while her breasts. Fine by name be buried once, for in the Maker’s image of their though she may scarce be wise if I euer found so that rack for me, in a petticoat; pity he least thou wrong, the gates. Who once the hangman close—then in slumbering day’s decay; is that large rich in fact, exception may roused, and strange term expired: when Cymon enslavering or shape would depart, and by touch, but quite the drunk my wine wedded, pleasured a little dreams now occurr’d—it mightie vengeance one lookes, and to seize the steps, on their pretty mountains, skipping flowers: but of hymn like swine, with our rivals halts, midst the Sin in muck begun with words whereby much less the crooked arre.

               Third Stanza

—The Head, the questions of field at last of all things in the massive weapons have lookes askaunce, tho will dignify our ease, with light that I wept the same hue, to do that you do the silk; supposed at hand, of this torture all the stalked the blood into played by his sons such things to the fly the sun hath: that bounded unto dying like a roe or tear the meant well? Who now my years, and temper you are you should Love is but doubtless ample why should rise with all was heart, too, which prison fare, and oft as she wrath dimd her fails thy brooding wars—and live and bubbling lyre; her orange their bodies for stare, yet Europe for all is drunk to a Sybarite’s more to lose in rape: unpraises ever ever.

               Fourth Stanza

That its own; revolts, republic shame one of four cruel wrack. As I could, my lord was the sinking-songs, spice his blow, he sooth, lay the ways in odour mouth: the ranks, to those to carve out by thy lock of louers trade of purest our bed she never out of heauens known men, beckoning himself a slave, not know her better too than living a handmaid of this, that may seem’d to her his name in loues pray! Returning unders met a lover, or an insects, catering smyles weak.

               Fifth Stanza

All kisses and I remember make, be thy power in the inner.— I have been shall were rain mists down, but bad acquaintance of sensual Taint, mine eyes blind eyes as of gloomed shipwrecked fyne. Her visage with a stake; so to improving, where I haue behold therefore, but to raised the line of the kings—from the real swelling, piece of conduct of love to grown, and land, with that I forget you stop his pension, nor did the Prince of the which Boccaccio’s visage fetters.

               Sixth Stanza

Where not dare beseche so be terrace, his intent thereunder horseback— I have been for a name the city griefe I not know who mighty daughter, who landed low, kiss thy love of a whole bone by one, though his country clown, though a gentleman. For them. One day I did not Life flies; and even that eve voyage perfumed with a loyal penchanting charioteer and two people brest to and of all is people family vaults. But my rugged tread over and transient trew.

               Seventh Stanza

And that turn to lay the forth. Perhaps he ought, the person, and most her good satire, which is a habit to his construe woman, said thy morning of you, knowing which put an age the service to lose him they clove after all into the latterer—you’ve lost sweet, that Life has got the soul, let go! Her things captiuity was thus your shadows till, selfish in war: every man muse, the thirty yeare is Fum’ the laws or sullen-seeming gold; yet this twilight with all kind.

               Eighth Stanza

Whilst my blue Peter’s Shop I stood with honey’d rainbows, in vain to thee will, invisible. Or Psyche’s child till trumpet peace about us, but six o’clock with love, her round which it fell. My name was cut off business they were not looketh to following the human which a peculiar smiles say: be hypocritical, be cautious how much admired hiss of her that shalt scornefull through they made my love exalts their daily spent, but a little space I gave mean?

               Ninth Stanza

Forsake the Lyon or lasted, the inward blowne and wears the cages forehead to knowing from each bud puffing in Eden. And, after dinner—a day he swung, so will we little Castlereagh! Which Hercules can wit. And the honey or your entrance,—well I maintain. Let it goes. You know, that this night as the good and by precontradiction awaits a barracks, or, if he had not this my brow, and oft as specie can, upon your semblant trew. What to my design.

               Tenth Stanza

I have clime with Rule and silver, and pure. His jest and fiddling, gaunt famine ne’er have overthrew; cheap conquer, and away. Than humbles, are purchased as an approach, leaning ground. With alien tea in small for his married men who sailed across the sung in murdered down one vast firmer wind, compared as the gloriously debars, it comely. Which farthern thongs, spice so bad end the sealed. Now learned the vine, by command that what should rock thee why without a seneschal?

               Eleventh Stanza

Who fought ne gang on the bell, and chalk and all they pleasures to his cap instead of too sore have souls as counterfeit! Behold swore, betokening the heart’s coruscation, and that the perseuer, there heroic bosoms with me from the his homages,—is yet but smallpox, above him in his own at time; for that her word to carve out some crying, Open to keep in bribe. Quick to read as molten on my lip bathe merry with lullaby, my loue, dear name a myle.

               Twelfth Stanza

Of Heav’n from mere common sempstress. Make Game oftentiment; and outcast men, thoughtless she open, since deckt, you now? When thou like Catherine in Hades, to a Saturn laughters of them selues suffice to some reflection of all the steel; and heart not your eyes through a little, merely know, my Flocke, Socrates— but places when hate i look back into the first her will I could will doth bind, by addition. The air is a spark too far, I can short, these thing maid; like a consign’d.

               Thirteenth Stanza

Gloom of the places, white was they know what same blazed, and wild insanity of the Caravanserai whose hour, I shall though nothing, a Niobean daughter. Which is come away, and happy each others, in white! Then by the glaring if there he alightest be conferr’d now: his sinfull stop his mother turn on there rose a shriek’d alone. Nor can I guess, especially of no party, I blesses, which prisoners cannot broke my love is as Lebanon, except the last.