#Psychic Eye Records

[gothmusiclatinamerica]

Earlier this year, Oakland, California indie label Psychic Eye Records released a compilation album of various international goth, shoegaze, and other alternative genred acts entitled The Ancient Wall, with all proceeds of sales supporting non-profits the Middle Eastern Children's Alliance and Rogers & Rosewater.

[nugothrhythms]

Psychic Eye just released a pre-order of their upcoming forty-song compilation album The Ancient Wall, featuring goth, shoegaze, synthwave, and other adjacent genres. Several of the bands featured have been mentioned on this page before. The proceeds will be split between helping the children of Gaza and an Oakland-based organization to feed the local homeless that is organized by Middle Eastern Children's Alliance.

Bandcamp Link

[13thpythagoras]

doing this one day marvelling at the oak tree out front where I was renting in Oakland, poor dying oak tree with the parasitic vine exploding everywhere... in appreciation mode I noticed a point of light flitting around the oak tree like a hummingbird would, and even darting among the leaves of the tree, like a hummingbird that just smoked 12 hits of crackcocaine and/or meth, but it's a point of light, and it don't mind me, for 10 seconds I'm like yo this can't be, "but captain we're staring directy at it!" but no, it goes against all I knew...but yet still I stare at this lil light creature. I go back and forth like that in my head so many times so fast, it starts a buzzing neural pattern, activating crap inside my brain, pineal shit and whatnot...my neural patterns become plasma yin yang shaped...I'm transfixed by now and it's been like 30 seconds of near hypnosis by this light creature on me... 2012 AD yall what a wild year...eventually after 45 seconds of this. it felt like 10 minutes; I had a thought, ah no one's gonna believe this mad ish, so when I pulled out my gen 1 iPhone for a photo sesh this creature flies up and over the horizon in less than a second...didn't just blip out, it physically flew away at UFO speed. Felt foolish yo I should have vibed longer with this lil fella maybe grabbed my guitar...fkn phones man lol

Not to sound like a fuckin hippie but please for the love of god start noticing and appreciating the natural world around you. You don’t have to go hike the entire Appalachian trail or anything and I get that not everyone has access to the outdoors for various reasons, but just fucking … look around you when you’re outside. Notice the sky and the sun and the birds and creatures. Start caring about them. I’m begging you.

[demonic0angel]

DC x DP Prompt: Family dinner with the Fenton Family and the Waynes. Chaos ensues.

If looks could kill, Danny would’ve been killed a thousand times over, with his body cremated and his ashes thrown into the farthest volcano with salt then being tossed along the dirt afterwards.

Dan had never looked so vicious as he glared daggers at Danny, who was his eyes closed and his hands in front of him, like a prayer. However, he was definitely praying for patience because he had a dinner knife in one hand that Cass was trying to take back from him to no avail.

Dani had her arms wrapped around Tim’s, a wide grin on her face as she noisily snacked on the roast potatoes and watched the battle between Dan and Danny. Tim was trying to hold back a smile, but he pulled the bowl of potatoes closer to her. Kon, who was sitting on the other side of her and was invited by Tim, was also wide eyed and grinning, an arm wrapped around the both of their chairs when he leaned back.

Jazz just looked at Alfred and Bruce with a shameful look on her face and beading tears of embarrassment in her eyes as she muttered, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over again.

Jason was trying to soothe her and not-so-subtly motion Dick to step in and stop the fight while said man was staring at his boyfriend in horror, looking between both of the psychically fighting men with strange looks.

Damian had his head down, whispering to Stephanie and Duke who also had their heads ducked as they gossiped about the situation. Jon, who was sitting on Damian’s other side, was also leaning in and listening with a grin.

Bruce was just looking back and forth between Dan and Danny with wariness and confusion.

“… do you two know each other?”

“Know each other?” Danny said, looking up and finally opening his eyes. “Oh, we definitely know each other.”

Dan bristled at some invisible offense. Dick snapped back fo awareness and grabbed him, chuckling nervously as Dan growled.

Danny raised an eyebrow and sneered, continuing, “Yeah, I know him, alright.”

Dan suddenly grabbed a fork and threw it at Danny. It sank into the wall and pandemonium erupted as the Bats lunged backwards as Dan flew over the table to jump at Danny. However, Danny wasn’t going out without a fight because they immediately began punching and kicking with even some biting. Cass and Dick lunged forward to pull them apart while everyone else moved away.

Dani burst out laughing, but when Jazz burst into tears, that was when everything got even worse.

(I actually wanted to write something like this lmao.

If I continued this, it would be too long, but basically, Jazz has been on her last nerves for the entire day bc this is the first time she’s ever met her boyfriend’s family, and then SUDDENLY she finds out all of her siblings are dating people from the same family and then now her brothers are fighting bc none of them knew that they were dating a pair of siblings, and they thought they could finally get away from each other, and she’s both so embarrassed and so anxious that she started crying.

Immediately, it’s like a *record scratch*, the fighting stops and both Dan and Danny make up really, really fast to comfort their sister and then all of the Phantoms, including Dani bc she did nothing to stop the fight, help clean up the mess and the day actually gets better bc it becomes a bonding activity between the Fentons and the Bats. Jazz is still very embarrassed but it works out.)

[solarmorrigan]

Like You've Seen a Ghost

For the @steddie-spooktober day 6 prompt: Haunted Rated: T | Words: 1348 | CW: brief descriptions of blood and gore, mentions of past head trauma | Tags: pre-relationship, modern AU, ghost hunter Eddie, ghost whisperer Steve, Steve Harrington has head trauma Divider credit: @saradika

“So… are you getting anything yet?”

“Not really.”

“Well, which way should we go?”

“It doesn’t really work like that, man. I don’t sniff out ghosts.”

“Well forgive me for not knowing how your whole ‘I see dead people’ shtick works.”

Steve glances over at Eddie in the low light of the long hallway. He looks just as grumpy as he has since it had been suggested that he and Steve pair up to check the third floor of the hotel – supposedly the most haunted part of the building.

“You don’t believe I can see dead people at all,” Steve says, and Eddie rolls his eyes.

“What, could you sense that, too?” he snarks.

“Nah.” Steve shrugs. “I heard you talking to Gareth and Jeff about it.”

At that, Eddie has the decency to look a little sheepish; he hadn’t had the most flattering things to say about Steve in that conversation.

It had been the rest of the team—Gareth, Jeff, and Oliver—who had pulled for this little team-up as a sort of special episode for their YouTube channel; Eddie had been against it from the start. He’d insisted that their viewers expected supernatural investigations based on scientific techniques and equipment, not some fake psychic (charlatan, actually, had been the word he’d used) who takes people’s money and pretends to see their dead relatives.

(Steve, for the record, does not take anyone’s money. Whether or not he sees someone’s dead relatives, he does it for free.)

“Uh… look…” Eddie starts, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“It’s fine, man, I get it,” Steve brushes off what likely would have been a very awkward apology. “You can’t do what you do without a healthy dose of skepticism. And it’s not exactly like I can explain it; it just kind of happens. But I promise that when or if I see a ghost, I’ll tell you to get your camera.”

“Right,” Eddie says quietly, turning back to the gadget in his hands (some of it had been explained to Steve, but he won’t pretend he knows just what the hell kind of science goes into ghost hunting).

They fall into a stilted sort of silence, Eddie scanning their surroundings with whatever it is he’s holding and Steve keeping his eyes peeled for signs of ghostly activity. He can’t say he’s thrilled to be spending the night with someone who clearly doesn’t want to be with him, but it’s really no skin off his nose if Eddie doesn’t believe in his abilities; Steve isn’t Tinkerbell, he doesn’t run on the belief of others.

He hadn’t really even meant to become– well, not famous, but maybe internet famous, at least. He’d just figured that as long as he had the ability to see and speak to the dead, he could use it to put other people’s minds at ease. People who worried about their dead loved ones, or people who were being terrorized in their own homes. Sometimes Steve could put spirits to rest. Sometimes all he had to do was tell someone that their dearly departed whoever was nowhere to be found and must be at peace.

It had sort of snowballed after one person he’d helped had told another, who’d told another, who had the ear of someone with a reasonably popular podcast, who had wanted to talk to Steve, and suddenly Steve had been getting calls for other interviews, for “psychic” investigations, and, apparently, for team-ups with some well-known ghost hunters.

“What did happen?” Eddie asks, breaking a little sharply into the silence.

“What?” Steve looks back over at him.

“You said it just kind of happens. So have you always been like this, or…?”

“Oh. Yeah, no, I got hit really hard in the head,” Steve says.

Eddie stops walking, and now he’s the one staring at Steve. “You what?”

“Got hit in the head.” Steve knocks at his temple for emphasis. “It was… pretty bad. Apparently, they thought I was dead for a minute there. But I lived—y'know, obviously—and now I get really bad migraines and I see dead people.”

“How does that even work? Like – did you cross over, or some shit?” Eddie asks haltingly, like the words are unfamiliar on his tongue.

“Couldn’t tell you. I’ve always kind of thought of it like an old TV set,” Steve says. “My grandparents had one when I was a kid, and it didn’t get great reception, but if you smacked it in the side, sometimes it would find a channel. So, I got hit hard enough that I changed channels, I guess. Now I can see things on frequencies other people can’t.”

“Shit, man,” Eddie says, blinking at Steve. “That’s actually pretty metal.”

“Thanks?” Steve shrugs, starting up their meandering walk down the hallway once more.

“I just mean, like – must make for a good story to tell, right?” Eddie tries.

“Oh, yeah. Head trauma, it’s great for dinner conversation,” Steve drawls, and Eddie winces.

“Sorry, I didn’t–”

“It’s fine, I’m screwing with you.” Steve knocks his shoulder into Eddie’s; it isn’t that Steve hadn’t been fucked up over the fight with a local bigot and bully that had nearly killed him, but that had been a while ago, now. Steve’s processed, made his peace with it – even gotten something kind of useful out of it. He’s fine. (Like, most days. Most days, he’s fine.)

Eddie rolls his eyes, but there’s also a little smile tucked into the corners of his mouth. It looks nice there – better than the snide look of disbelief from before. Whether or not Eddie does believe him now, Steve likes that he put a smile on his face.

“Hey, we’re coming up on room fourteen,” Eddie says, nodding to a door at the end of the hall.

“And that’s the super haunted one, right?” Steve asks.

“Yeah.” Eddie reaches out as they approach, turning the knob. “Story goes that a husband and wife were staying in this room, way back when the hotel first opened in the 20s, and the wife pocketed a knife from dinner, waited until the dead of night, and stabbed her husband to death in his sleep before slitting her own throat.”

The room that the door opens into is far more unassuming than the gruesome tale would have had Steve believe. It’s decorated in the vintage style maintained throughout the whole hotel, kept clean and guest-ready, but there’s something – heavy about it. Something Steve can’t quite put his finger on. He approaches the bed; he can’t imagine it’s the same mattress there from the 1920s, but he does wonder if it’s the same bedframe.

The heavy feeling is getting stronger.

“Why did she do it?” he asks, glancing around the room; he doesn’t see anything, not yet, but there’s still something–

“No one knows for sure,” Eddie says, breezing past Steve and plopping right down on the bed, bouncing a little as he sits. “Some people say he had been abusing her and she’d finally had enough. Some say he was cheating, and she was jealous. Some say she just lost her fuckin’ marbles.”

“What, just like that?” Steve asks, still glancing around warily.

“Maybe.” Eddie shrugs. “Hey, maybe if the lady’s ghost is still hanging around, you can ask her.”

Steve turns back to Eddie, and the comeback dies on his tongue.

There, kneeling up on the bed, right behind Eddie, is the wife.

It can’t be anyone but her, crimson stains running down the front of an old-fashioned nightgown, blood still oozing from the gaping wound in her neck, the knife clutched in her hand glinting silvery and slick red as she stares down at Eddie in a way that Steve doesn’t like one bit.

“Eddie,” Steve says, slowly reaching for the other man.

“What?” Eddie asks, brows furrowed as he clocks the change in Steve’s demeanor.

Steve grabs him by the arm and yanks him up, maneuvering himself until he’s standing between Eddie and the bed – between Eddie and the ghost.

“You might want to get your camera.”

[andypantsx3]

DEAD RECKONING : TODOROKI TOUYA x READER

SUMMARY: A makeup artist at a haunted maze, all you want to do is make it to the end of the season with a little extra cash in your pocket and no murder convictions on your record. Scare actor Todoroki Touya makes that last part a challenge. (7.8k) CONTENT & WARNINGS: no quirks au, halloween, enemies to lovers, fem + afab reader, slight scumbag touya, haunted maze workers, smut, semi-public sex, smoking, heavy swearing, touya likes having his hair pulled + girls who are a little mean to him, sort of good girl vs bad boy vibes, 18+ minors please dni NOTES: Happy Halloween from me!! This fic is part of the Willow's Haunted House collab. Dedicated to cat-slippered and ofmermaidstories, for workshopping what eventually became this fic with me about a thousand years ago. I’m sorry I turned Bakugou into Dabi. And I’m sorry for dedicating the now Dabi fic to you. But not sorry enough to not have done it. Love you. :)

If there was one thing you hated about Halloween, it was Todoroki Touya.

Shockingly, this was not a commonly-held sentiment, which was the only reason there even was a recurrence of Todoroki Touya darkening your Halloween seasons in the first place.

For the last three years, you’d spent your fall semester working as a makeup artist at the Musutafu haunted maze alongside a slew of other college and local kids looking to make a little extra cash. The hours were fairly flexible, and the wage covered your textbooks, with a little left over to keep you in the occasional coffee between lectures.

But your wages did not nearly cover the amount of psychic damage you had been dealt, managing Todoroki Touya’s obnoxious, sarcastic, chain-smoking ass day after day for seasons on end.

On lucky days, someone else was on Touya duty. But on unlucky ones, you found him sprawling in the plastic makeup chair opposite you, those intense blue eyes tracking you with no small amount of pleasure, like he was this afternoon.

You stopped in the doorway, a curse slipping out of you. You’d been hoping that you’d get lucky today, as the day was otherwise an excellent one. You’d invited a group of friends to do the maze with you after you got off shift, and you had been looking forward to it all week.

But it figured Touya could never let you have too good of a time.

“Missed you too, sweetheart,” he drawled over the noise of displeasure that escaped you. He was at least already dressed in costume, so he wouldn’t go smearing his makeup as he pulled it on, a tumble of stitches and frayed edges that had once been a dark-blue duster, but now just mostly gaped open to show the hard planes of his chest.

“I’m so sure,” you told him, averting your eyes from his pecs. You sighed, resigning yourself to his presence, and made your way in, dumping your bag on the staff room couch.

“This is a very hostile work environment you’re creating,” Touya rasped, his grin sharp. Years of chain-smoking outside the maze had left his voice even lower and raspier than when you’d first met him three years ago.

“Don’t worry, it can always get more hostile,” you told him, affecting your own sweet grin as you moved over to the vanity, digging through all the makeup and prosthetics for the ones he’d need.

Touya himself was severely scarred, which was likely why he’d applied to work at the haunted maze in the first place. You’d never asked him about his scars, but you’d heard enough gossip from the other maze workers to know that they were the product of a childhood accident, involving the burning down of his father’s—the then-and-current mayor’s—house.

He’d accentuated them with a shit load of facial piercings, and was sort of off-putting to look at the first time you caught a glimpse of him. The issue was that, once your eyes made sense of what they were seeing, he was infuriatingly handsome.

You’d heard he’d initially been unleashed on the maze with no makeup or prosthetics, and within the first evening was causing line backups, with all the parties of teen girls who were taking a little too much time lingering around his section of the maze.

So now he was subjected to prosthetics to make him uglier, a fact that he seemed to absolutely relish.

You dug out the monster prosthetic pack that gave him jutting forehead ridges. “Let’s make the outside reflect the inside, shall we,” you told him as you flapped the rubbery pieces at him, smirking your own little smirk.

Touya’s answering grin was wicked, and he relaxed back in his seat, sprawling his legs out wide in that infuriating way men had. “Think my outside is too pretty then, huh?” he asked, sapphire eyes flickering over you.

Your face went hot in a weird combination of anger and embarrassment. “I try not to think of your outside,” you told him pertly, making sure to slap the forehead piece onto him hard enough to make a splat noise.

His mouth twitched again but he let you go to work, gluing the pieces down against his face, careful not to press them to the seams of any of his scars. He was tall enough even lounging in his seat that you only had to lean over a little to focus clearly on his face, all long legs and rangy muscle.

This close, he always smelled like cigarette smoke, with an undercurrent of something rich and dark, like cinnamon or chocolate. You could never put your finger on it, but you were not about to go sniffing him at any length to figure it out, even if it was annoyingly appealing.

He’d probably love that, and would absolutely never let you live it down.

Touya’s eyes tracked you closely as you worked, but otherwise his expression was still, and you thought not for the first time that it really was too bad he was so obnoxious. He was actually quite handsome, with a soft, sensuous mouth, a blade-straight nose, and vivid blue eyes that all but glowed like the embers of a crackling fire when he was provoking you.

It was a shame he wasted all his beauty being the most annoying man on earth.

You’d heard from the other maze workers that he was relatively well-known around the area, having spent his teen years doing petty criminal shit to destabilize his father’s reelection campaigns, netting himself several jail stays and a record a mile long. He’d settled somewhat since he’d gotten a job at a piercing parlor downtown and several side gigs like the maze, but people weren’t fully convinced he’d abandoned his old ways, and he still clearly relished any opportunity to discomfort and destabilize anyone who got on his bad side.

Apparently including you.

“Don’t hurt yourself thinking too hard, sweetheart,” Touya said, those cerulean eyes blinking up at you.

You realized you’d paused over him, midway through blending his prosthetic forehead in, and another annoying little smirk rode his mouth.

You took care to roll your eyes at him, gesturing at him with your brush. “I know several places I can stick this if you’re not careful.”

Touya’s smirk melted into an unholy grin. “Don’t threaten me with a good time,” he rasped, eyes glittering up at you.

You went back to work on him with a little more force than necessary, blending hard enough that you saw his broad shoulders shift in an effort to keep his neck braced. “I doubt any time with you could be classed as good,” you said pertly, giving a final few brushes before stepping back, satisfied with your work.

The forehead made him look unhinged as he offered another smirk, leaning forward. “True—the feedback I usually get is ‘incredible’, ‘mind-blowing’, ‘earth-shattering’, ‘toe-curling’, ‘scream-inducing’—”

“Oh I’ll scream if you keep talking,” you said hotly, even as your cheeks warmed. Even with the stupid fucking forehead he was annoyingly handsome. You needed him a thousand million miles away from you before you herniated something, jumping back and forth between annoyance and attraction.

Maybe it was time to stop signing up to work here.

“Now get out of my room, I have other people waiting,” you commanded, thankful when you heard the scuff of a boot at the door confirming another maze worker waiting.

Touya didn’t look at all chastened, but he unfolded himself from the chair in an unfurling of broad shoulders and long legs. He leaned in close as he passed, voice dipping low. “See you later, sweetheart,” he said, a smile curling his mouth.

Annoyingly, his proximity crossed a bunch of the wires in your brain, and you fumbled before managing, “Not if we’re both lucky.”

“Stop, I’ll blush,” he drawled, another unholy grin splitting his cheeks before he saluted two fingers at you and ducked out of the room. The scent of smoke and cinnamon followed him, and you let out a sigh of relief, the air and your brain clearer now that he was gone.

No sooner were you free of him, however, than another problem was immediately introduced.

“So…he actually talks to you?” The other maze worker’s head poked through the door, her eyes resting on you intently. You recognized her as a local highschooler who’d just joined this season, who usually ended up getting in early enough to get her makeup done by the other artist.

You blinked. “I…unfortunately?” you answered, confused.

She stepped into the room, and you reflexively gestured her over to the chair that Touya had just abandoned.

She hummed as she took her seat, eyeing you curiously. “Wow. How’d you get him to do that? He doesn’t really talk to any of us,” she informed you.

You could feel your eyebrows lift towards your hairline. “He…doesn’t…?”

She shook her head, her pretty golden ringlets swaying with the motion. “He’ll chainsmoke with Tomura and he sometimes talks to Himiko. But the other girls—they say he just laughs and walks away if they try to chat with him.”

Well. That sounded rude enough to be true to form, you thought. But when Touya was in your makeup chair you couldn’t get him to shut the hell up. You shifted, uncomfortable with the idea that Touya had any special soft spot for you. Maybe, like a cat, he could sense who didn’t much like him and decided to latch on out of spite.

“You might be a little young for him,” you decided, going over to the vanity and digging out the prosthetics she’d need—a witch chin and a raised gorey slash that would open along one cheekbone.

“No—it’s all the other girls too. And most of the guys,” she told you. “He must like you.”

A laugh escaped you, and you turned back to her with the prosthetics in hand, a few new brushes and a white, cakey paint palette shoved beneath your elbow.

“I don’t think he likes anyone,” you told her, setting everything down and applying the tacky glue to the underside of her chin prosthetic. “I think he just likes to inflict himself on people he knows it will annoy. You could act disinterested in talking to him and he’d probably come flitting right over.” The image of Touya suffering at the hands of a league of flirty high school girls pleased you—better they suck up his time and energy than you.

“I don’t know,” the girl said uncertainly. “Maybe he likes you.” But she was forced to leave it at that once you started applying her chin, making it difficult for her to speak.

You certainly didn’t think that was the case.

But the seeds of doubt had already been sown, a question that you thought would probably haunt your evening now that it had been formed. Just why did Touya talk to you if he was so standoffish with other people? And what did it mean that he made such a point of it?

You knew for sure it wasn’t because he liked you, his obnoxious manner said that well enough. But why did you get treatment that was significant enough that even the other maze workers would comment on it?

And, perhaps even more concerningly, why did the thought agitate you so much?

You decided to try your best not to think about it, and have a good time with your friends once they got there, putting Touya out of your mind. You returned to doing the girl’s makeup with vigor, suddenly as eager to get her out of your chair as you had been Touya.

She was finished in record time and she thanked you, carefully not to smile too widely lest she dislodge the prosthetics. You took in the next person waiting as she left, slowly working your way through the line of people as the hour drew ever closer to the maze’s evening opening time.

Eventually you finished up and collected your things, making your way out front to find your friends already waiting for you. They’d clearly dressed with the intent to go out after—something you hadn’t considered—their dresses short and slinky and their makeup smoky. You’d have liked to have joined, but you were still in the sweater and leggings you’d come straight from lectures in.

Maybe you would have time to go home and change after the maze.

You were scooped up into several hugs, breathing in the sweet scents of various perfumes, and informed that you absolutely did have to go home and get changed after so you could come out and get “Hallowasted!” too.

“Okay if I’m not busy peeing my pants, which monsters are the ones you did?” your roommate asked, dancing around to warm herself in the cool fall air. “I wanna see ‘em.”

You named several of your creations, conveniently leaving off Touya. You knew that if your friends took too close a look at him and figured out what he looked like under the cakey makeup and forehead prosthetic, they’d never leave the maze. You knew he sat somewhere around the end of the set up, in an alcove that had been decorated to look like an abandoned village with burned out cabins, a mess of bones dotting the ground at the side of the walkway.

You were also hoping you could pass unnoticed in the group of your friends, as there was no doubt in your mind that Touya would take special care to annoy you in particular. So you did not want your group to linger long enough for your friends to scope him out.

You would know it was him under the makeup you’d done yourself, but being cornered somewhere in the dark with the soundtrack of screams echoing in your ears would not exactly have you feeling your boldest.

Your group had dinner at the food trucks parked out front, chatting and laughing and waiting for the crowds to die down, each indulging in one drink for bravery before joining the line. Eventually you ended up at the front of the queue, late in the evening, your friends crowding in behind you, whispering nervously.

“You first,” your roommate hissed when you looked back at them questioningly. “You work here, you have to do the honors.”

You sighed, accepting your fate, making a mental note to subtly shift to the back of the pack as you made it further into the maze.

Then you were being greeted by Shigaraki Tomura, whose makeup you’d done last. He’d been given layers of prosthetic peeling skin and a scar at his mouth, and he was decorated with a layer of disembodied hands gripping him all over. He shredded your tickets, looking unenthused.

“Remember that inside the maze, none of the monsters can touch you,” he recited dully. “You are not permitted to touch them in return; do not hit, kick, push, bite, slap, lick, scratch, or otherwise assault the actors. Don’t tamper with the props, do not leave items behind. Be respectful of other guests and do not linger too long in the rooms. If you need to leave for any reason, every room or alcove has clearly-lit exits marked in red.”

His eyes briefly met yours as he waved you through, and you thought you saw a pale brow go up.

But then you were being shoved forward by your friends, several hands clinging to your arms and the back of your shirt, and you stepped forward into the dark of the hall.

The maze truly was a labyrinth—it started indoors in a pitch black room, with fake body bags hanging from the ceiling. Toga Himiko, a highschooler whose makeup you usually did, stalked you around the edges of the room, dressed in a torn school uniform with fangs peeking out of her widely grinning mouth, and a dripping knife clutched eagerly in her fingers.

Once you made it past her, the maze spilled outdoors, into a tangle of hedges and artificially-constructed set, steering you in twisting loops around the property.

You were pleased with how terrifying all the actors looked, even having done most of their prosthetics yourself, and found your heart racing as you took every new corner, found yourself freezing up and stumbling back whenever someone jumped out at you, suppressing a shriek.

Your friends participated with gusto, shrieking and ducking away from the monsters, holding you like a human shield between them and the maze workers. You would have been insulted if it hadn’t been so funny.

You made it through most of the maze with little trouble, passing through a haunted swamp, a graveyard with mummies twisting and screaming in their bindings, grasping for you. You stumbled past a man wielding a chainsaw and a set of clowns waving axes, making it through in record time thanks to the push of your frantic friends behind you.

It was only on the last leg of the maze that you finally ran into Touya.

You peered around the corner, recognizing the set up instantly. The burned out houses flickered with blue flame, lighting up the set in an eerie, unsettling sapphire light. The fake bones on the ground sat in piles of ash, glowing stark white in the light. You couldn’t spot Touya anywhere, and you slowly crept forward, trying to shepherd your friends in front of you.

You even almost thought you had been successful, until a rasping voice drawled behind you, “Hello sweetheart.”

And then your roommate screamed, bolting forward, knocking into you and sending you stumbling over a pile of the fake bones. You landed hard on your ass in the patchy grass, the wind punching out of you.

“Oh fuck—” you heard one of your friends say as she too was steamrolled, and you watched the group of them trip over one another in their desperation to get through the alcove, dissolving into chaos in a matter of seconds.

You quickly tried to get to your feet to follow, but a hiss forced its way through your teeth when you tried your ankle, a wave of sharp pain washing over you.

Oh fuck. Not good.

The tread of a boot in the grass next to you made you jump, and your head whipped up to catch sight of Touya crouching over you.

“You good down there?” he asked. His eyes glinted in the dark of the maze, and the blue light cast shadows over his features, twisting them in the dim. Your heartbeat picked up, even as your brain recognized him for who he was.

You cringed, embarrassed that you’d had to hurt yourself in his part of the maze specifically. It figured.

“I’m fine,” you said quickly, trying to climb to your feet again. Your ankle twinged in protest, and Touya must have caught the flash of pain on your face because then his hand was under your elbow, supporting you as you rose in an unexpected show of courtesy.

Although he broke the illusion immediately when he opened his mouth again.

“Yeah you look real fine,” he said, quirking an eyebrow. With the prosthetic forehead it made him look sort of demented.

“Well I’ll be fine,” you insisted, even as those blue eyes flickered over you assessingly. His fingers tightened a little on your arm before he bent down, tapping his other hand on your leg.

“Which leg, sweetheart?” he asked. “And where?”

It took you a minute to catch up to what he was asking, confused at seeing him on his haunches before you. A scream went up in the background, some terrified maze goer, and a little shiver went down your spine.

“Uh, the left ankle,” you supplied, startling when Touya’s fingers slid underneath the cuff of your legging over the aforementioned ankle, rolling it up gently. You blinked, surprised at the careful touch.

“Can’t see too well in the dark,” he announced. “But it looks like you ripped it open on something.” He peered back up at you. “Think it’s sprained?”

You shook your head. “Probably just rolled. It hurts but not like go-to-the-hospital level,” you said. “Just give me a minute, I’ll be good.”

Touya considered you for a moment, then got to his feet, moving closer. That scent of smoke and cinnamon drifted over to you, and he bent his head to look into your face.

“Much as you’re the most terrifying thing in this maze, I don’t think people are gonna wanna see you here,” he told you, a smirk cutting into his mouth. “Would ruin the experience. So we’re gonna have to get you out of here.”

You scowled up at him, crossing your arms over your chest. Well no thanks for the concern, then. “I’m going, I’m going, keep your shirt on,” you told him, preemptively gritting your teeth before readying yourself to take another step.

But before you could, one of Touya’s hands was suddenly sliding under your knees, his other slipping behind your shoulder. In the next second the burning buildings were swinging wildly in front of your eyes, and then you were being hefted up into Touya’s arms. You let out a startled yelp, your own hands shooting out to grab his jacket, giving him a wild-eyed look.

“Touya—!” you garbled out, as a smile pulled at his expression.

“Relax, sweetheart,” he told you, looking a little too smug about the situation he’d just put you in. He strode towards the exit, kicking the door open with a heavy boot, carrying you down the hall and back into the building. He was hard with wiry muscle underneath you, and so deliciously warm against you. Your ears went hot with every sure, easy step he took, like carrying you was little effort for him.

Thankfully it was barely a minute before you reached the staff room, where Touya laid you out gently on the couch, much more carefully than you might have expected from him.

Your cheeks and your nose burned, flaming even hotter when he squatted down in front of you and took your ankle in his hand again.

His dark eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he took note of your injury. In the light you could definitely see that you’d caught your ankle bone on one of the fake bones you’d tripped over, as there was a long gash up the side of it, but nothing else looked bruised or otherwise concerning. You thought you’d probably be fine in a couple hours, just a roll.

It was definitely nothing Touya had needed to princess carry you through the staff halls for!

“Don’t move,” Touya told you, and you watched, bewildered, as he stepped away, stalking over to the other side of the room where the staff lockers were. He dug out a shabby backpack, pulling something out of it, and then returned to your side, spreading out his haul on the couch next to you.

You noted a little tube of rubbing alcohol, an antiseptic cream and a bandage, as well as an ice pack. One of your eyebrows went up.

“You rob a hospital or something?” you asked reflexively, heart fluttering a little bit weirdly when Touya’s eyes flickered back up to yours. His eyelashes were long and thick, startlingly pretty.

“Nah,” he said, his gaze cutting suddenly away from yours. “Usually keep shit on hand for my burns.”

Your stomach flipped, and you realized how rude your question had been. Embarrassment welled up in a hard lump in your throat. Well shit. “Oh—fuck. Of course. I’m sorry, Touya.”

A pinch to your leg had you yelping, and his handsome face was serious when he stared back up at you, his eyes practically glowing with intensity. “I don’t need your sympathy.”

You rolled your eyes, rubbing the skin he’d pinched absentmindedly. “It wasn’t sympathy, asshole,” you said. “It was an apology for being thoughtless. Although if that’s how you’re gonna be then I take it back, geez. As if you need sympathy when every girl in this maze—” you froze, clamping your mouth shut when you realized what you’d been about to say. “Uhhhh.”

Touya’s eyes slowly slid down your face, flickering over you as another fucking obnoxious smirk started to twitch at the side of his mouth. “When every girl in this maze what?” he asked, pleasure turning his tone a little silky.

You rolled your eyes, leaning forward to grab the rubbing alcohol off of the couch so you didn’t have to look at him. “When every girl in this maze would like for you to shut up and stop asking questions,” you said, unscrewing the top with a deliberate focus.

Calloused fingers came up to yank the tube out of your grip, however, and Touya leaned in, his grin sharp and white.

“Lemme do it, sweetheart. Return the favor for my prosthetic,” he said. You winced, remembering how forcefully you’d applied his forehead earlier. As you braced yourself, however, his fingers brushed gently over your skin.

You suppressed a shiver at the feeling of him wiping off the blood with the rubbing alcohol, then going over it with the antibiotic cream, smearing it delicately, your nose going hot again. He took his time, careful to cover every inch, kneeling on the ground in front of you with your ankle clutched in one large hand. His duster fanned out behind him, dragging on the ground as he bent over you, but he didn’t seem to care, too absorbed in his task.

When he was done he carefully applied the bandage too, and you looked on, mystified, as he cracked the ice pack with long, strangely elegant fingers, and pressed it over your ankle bone as well.

His eyes flicked back to yours when you let out a short hiss, feeling the zing of the ice all the way in your teeth. Some of his expression looked squashed, given the obstruction of his prosthetic, but you thought he looked maybe just a little bit concerned, before he realized you were just being a baby. You were suddenly overcome with the urge to rip off his prosthetic so you could see his expression in full, and had to pin your arm to your side to stop yourself.

“This was—unexpected,” you admitted, watching him closely. “You’re…a surprisingly good nurse, Touya. Thank you.”

His answering smile was nothing short of wicked. “Anytime, sweetheart.”

You fumbled with the antiseptic and sniffed pointedly, just to have something to complain about. “Well. Your bedside manner could use some work.”

Touya leaned in, his smile suddenly going dark. “Oh, angel, now that’s not what I’ve been told—”

Your palm shot out to cover his mouth, horror overriding your normal brain function. Touya just laughed into the skin of your hand, however, shockingly boyish and sweet-sounding.

You pressed harder, hissing at him to shut the hell up, until you registered the feeling of dry, raised skin under your fingers. You jumped, realizing you were pressing down on his scars.

“Shit, did I hurt you—?” you asked, yanking your hand back, only for Touya to catch your wrist. He blinked, looking surprised that he had.

“No it’s—you didn’t—” he said. His fingers shifted over yours and his eyes darted over your hand in something like shock. “They get dry and pull but they don’t—it wasn’t that.” He sounded annoyed, but not that you’d touched him. That you’d pulled away from touching him.

Somehow, that settled you. Before you understood what exactly was possessing you, you reached back in, satisfied when Touya let you. The pads of your fingers met the edge of a scar again, feeling along the seam. You carefully traced over it the way Touya’s had just traced the cut on your ankle.

Touya’s eyelashes fluttered, and he let out a slow breath. “You don’t need to touch ‘em, sweetheart,” he said finally.

He said it as lightly as he’d said all his earlier nonsense, but he’d been giving you shit for long enough that you recognized there was something deliberate about the ease of his tone this time. This wasn’t his usual, natural timbre.

“Does it bother you?” you asked.

It seemed to take him a minute to decide.

“...No,” he answered, those cerulean eyes catching on yours again. You felt like you could feel your heartbeat in your own fingers, and your skin prickled with something—annoyingly not annoyance.

“Well then shut up,” you told him. “Or I’ll pinch you right on the seam.”

Touya laughed, a slow rolling sound. “Promises promises,” he said, but he seemed more relaxed.

You felt along the contours of his face, mystified by what the hell you thought you were even doing, until you reached the edge of the prosthetic you’d applied. It only took a second for you to give in to the impulse you’d had earlier and start peeling it from his skin, slow and deliberate.

You reached down and helped yourself to the rubbing alcohol, applying it around the prosthetic, letting it dissolve the adhesive before pulling gently. Shockingly, Touya let you do it. He just sat there, watching you with an intensity you’d never experienced before, hardly blinking.

You kept careful track of the prosthetic, unable to look him in the eye, focusing on rubbing off the makeup you’d used to blend it in for good measure. You tried not to examine the weirdly satisfied feeling that settled in your stomach when his natural face was visible to you again.

It was probably just his looks. He really was so handsome for such a grating personality.

You set the prosthetic aside, lost on where to go from here. Touya probably thought you were so fucking weird for just like, rubbing his face like he was some kind of cat. He certainly looked like he had no idea what to do now, which was such a departure from his usually snotty self-assurance that it threw you for an even bigger loop.

“Always thought you’d be a little rougher with me, sweetheart,” Touya finally managed, flashing you a smirk. It looked a little smaller than usual though, like he was drawing it up like a shield, but your hackles raised instantly, like always.

You always, always responded to him.

“Trust me, that can be arranged,” you promised darkly, trying to crack your knuckles. Only one of them crackled obligingly, however, and Touya blinked, before laughing again.

“Yeah?” he asked, leaning in closer. Cigarette smoke and cinnamon clouded your senses, fogging up your brain. “Gonna fuck me up nice and good, sweetheart?”

You dredged around for something snarky to say, but words were suddenly failing you as those infuriatingly pretty features drew closer. Seriously could a makeup artist not catch a break around here?

“Uhhh,” was all you managed, your brain bluescreening, as Touya huffed a laugh, exhaling over your mouth.

“Shut up,” you finally spat out, catching a fistful of that black hair. Touya groaned, however, looking like he liked that of all things, and a red hot flash of something jolted through you.

There was a pause, then, a tiny sliver of a moment where it seemed like one of you might pull back—move away and snipe at one another from a safer distance.

Things somehow seemed to be spiraling out of control, in a way you hadn’t expected, after just one kind gesture from him. You didn’t really understand how you’d suddenly found yourself with him leaning over you, your hand pulling at his hair, but if you had any good sense you’d have pulled away immediately and told him something extra mean, just for good measure.

Except then Touya opened his mouth and escalated things, as usual.

“Make me,” he said, the most absolutely heinous line of all time. You yanked his hair harder, deeply disgusted that he’d try that on you.

And then, like a thread had snapped, you leaned forward and crushed your mouth to his.

Touya reacted like a lightning strike. He surged up over you, weighing you down into the staff room couch. He tasted like spearmint muddled under bitter smoke, and he was broader than he looked under that duster, heavy with lean muscle. You could feel every kilo of it press you down into the cushions as Touya licked hot and filthy into your mouth.

His tongue curled around yours, wet and teasing, and he exhaled on a groan like he’d never tasted anything better. It sent little sparks of electricity jittering up your spine, especially as he shifted between your thighs, that trim waist slotting between them perfectly.

“Fuck, angel,” he said, his tone somewhere between sweet and nasty. “Wanted me this whole time, huh?”

You yanked harder on his hair, telling him to shut up, but the swelling of something hard against your thigh told you he only liked that more. “You are so nasty,” you told him, and you could feel his mouth curl into a wicked grin against the side of your face, before he leaned in and bit the shell of your ear, grinding the evidence of his interest even harder into your thigh.

“I can show you nasty, sweetheart,” he promised, his tone going silky-soft again. A calloused hand slid up into your shirt brazenly, long fingers teasing the underside of your bra. When you didn’t immediately try to yank him out of there he wiggled in further, until his fingers met your nipples, and he got even harder against your leg.

He pinched carefully, moving back to kiss you again so that the sound that escaped you was muffled into his mouth. He kissed you harder as your nipples tightened, pebbling in his fingers, something far too satisfied filling the air around you. His hips canted up, grinding himself into you again, this time a little closer to your core.

Your own hips shifted, moving to increase the friction, trying to shift him closer to your center. His fingers and tongue teased you, each flick of his tongue mirroring the caress of a finger, the soft pinch of his index and thumb.

You couldn’t have controlled yourself if you wanted, too focused on the sensations he was drawing from you, the desperate need to get closer to him though you were already pressed together from mouth to shin. You realized you’d been pulling at his coat when he finally withdrew from your shirt and let you yank it down his arms, exposing a patchwork of scars over dense, mouth-wateringly well-defined muscle.

You inhaled sharply, and Touya paused for a minute—until he seemed to realize that you were fixated on the shape of his arm, rather than the purple bruise of scar tissue. The quickening of his grin in the corner of your vision told you that you’d pleased him.

“You like that, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice obnoxiously sweet. “Want to see the rest of me, angel?”

You ripped your eyes off of his arm to glare at him, which only made his grin wider. The fluorescent lights behind him limned his hair in a pale light, blinding you when he moved his head—and all of a sudden you recalled where you were and what you were doing.

“Here? No! Touya, anyone could walk in!” you said, trying to scramble out from beneath him.

Touya caught you around the thigh, hauling you back underneath him. You noticed he was careful to angle your leg up so you didn’t catch your ankle against the arm of the couch.

“This is far from the worst thing I’ve done in a public place,” he said, laying himself back out over you.

You pushed at his shoulder though, casting a worried glance back at the door. “I am not trying to get fired,” you hissed, even as you shivered with the delicious heat of him over you.

Touya sighed through his nose, and then heaved himself off the couch. You watched him seize the plastic makeup chair and haul it over to the door, stuffing it under the knob at an angle so that it held the lock in place. Then he turned around and prowled right back to you with predatory intent. Your stomach fluttered.

“Better, angel?” he asked, tone soft.

You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of nodding, but he seemed to know what you wanted anyway, leaning back in to kiss you fiercely.

You melted into the feeling of his mouth over yours, kissing him back just as passionately. You hated how good he was at that, hated how pretty he was under all those scars and piercings, hated how his obnoxious personality wasn’t even a factor in what you wanted to do with him right now.

Touya groaned again when you pulled at a fistful of his dark hair, and then you were dragging him down to the couch and climbing into his lap. Touya seized your left leg as you did, pointedly guiding your ankle away from the edge of the seat, and it only inflamed your desire for him.

“Like you a whole lot better like this,” he said into your mouth, as calloused fingers slid into your leggings.

Your reply was cut off by a moan as he traced his index finger lightly over the center of your panties, before pressing down firmly over your clit. A thousand little points of electricity lit up under your skin, and you shifted into his hand unthinkingly.

A smile formed against your lips, and it was only Touya’s hand making its way into your panties that suppressed the annoyed buzz that started in the back of your brain.

“You kick up such a fuss, sweetheart, but look at what you really think of me,” Touya purred as his fingers slid up into your incriminatingly wet folds. “All this for me, angel?”

You wanted to bite him for his cheek but you feared breaking the skin of his scars, so you settled for giving him a pointed look. He just laughed, his smile smug.

“I’ll show you what I’ve really thought of you too, sweetheart,” he promised, taking hold of your leg again to slide your leggings and panties down. He settled you back over the hard line in his pants, grabbing your hips and pulling you firmly down over it, grinning.

“Love when you’re a spitfire little fucking brat. I’ve imagined taking you right over the vanity every single day for the last three years, sweetheart. Taking you against the lockers and then right here over the couch. Fucking you so hard that you scream and everyone comes running in to see you squirming and crying and begging on my cock, and you want it so much that you don’t even care—”

He laughed when he felt you clench up in his lap, working to unbuckle his belt and free himself, immediately angling you over him. “You want that too, sweetheart? Want to see if I can make you scream so loud that people come to see what’s wrong?”

“My god you never shut up,” you told him, pointedly avoiding the question. In lieu of an answer, you shifted, guiding him to your center and sinking down onto him instead. You watched with satisfaction as he threw his head back and hissed at the feeling of you slipping down around him.

“Fffffffffffuck,” he said to the ceiling, a hand tightening in your sweater. You had to agree, gritting your teeth with the delicious slide of him inside of you, hot and thick and full and perfect. You leaned in, putting your mouth over the scar tissue on his neck, smirking when he exhaled shakily again.

“I think,” Touya huffed. “I should have put you over my lap three fucking years ago.”

You thought back to your first glimpse of him, flicking ash at you as he chainsmoked outside the maze entrance, and thought you would have probably gouged his eyes out if he had tried. Honestly he’d barely scraped together enough good will with his little ankle treatment as it was.

But maybe this is what that girl had been talking about, when she said Touya didn’t talk to anyone besides you. Had he really been more into you than he’d let on, these three years? Is that why he’d been at your throat this entire time?

The thought was lost when Touya’s hips lifted into yours, grinding himself into you just right, and your head fell back with a shivery moan. Touya’s mouth found the skin of your throat and sucked as he bucked up into you, picking up into a faster pace. You rocked back and forth over his lap, guided by Touya’s grip on your hips, relishing in the feel of him inside of you.

His fingers slid back down, brushing over your clit, and you bit down a yelp as he dragged his thumb over it firmly.

“That’s it,” he said, biting down softly on your neck. “Let me hear you, sweetheart.”

You pressed a hand over your mouth instead as he slid in and out of you, those clever fingers working you deftly. He pinched softly, then swirled the pad of his thumb firmly over your clit again, groaning and pounding up into you. “I wanna hear you, sweetheart. Always want to hear your mean little mouth.”

“Touya—shut up—” you panted as he moved you how he wanted, played you like an instrument. Between his fingers and the hard press of him inside you, you felt like you couldn’t escape the pleasure, the feeling mounting within you. No matter how you moved your hips, his fingers were there to meet you, rubbing maddening circles, teasing you mercilessly, and he filled you so good that it felt like he was pressing against that spot from the inside too.

You writhed with the feel of him, as he steadily covered your neck and shoulders with marks of his attention. You couldn’t help but moan, much much louder than you would have liked, and Touya leaned back to look at you again, looking pleased.

“That’s it, yeah,” he said, another grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Louder for me, sweetheart. Want you to come for me.”

You huffed, unable to do anything but squirm in his lap, chasing the feeling closer, ever closer to the edge. You weren’t going to let his infuriating attitude ruin this for you, not when you were so close—

Without input from your brain, your hand reached out to grab a fistful of Touya’s hair again and his hips stuttered, slamming up into you with more force than he had previously. He looked a little shocked, and then a little dazed, and the grip he had on the side of your hip tightened almost to the point of bruising as he forced you down onto him harder, gasping.

“Fuck, yeah, sweetheart—fuck yes,” he rasped.

His fingers rubbed you harder, and his hips slapped up into you frantically. The uptick in intensity had your eyes almost rolling to the back of your head, and you bit your palm to keep the sounds in.

Touya ground into you with a renewed fervor, and it was only another matter of seconds before something inside of you was being wrenched loose. You lost the grip on your control, every nerve ending in your body lighting up and coming alive, singing with pleasure. You seized up, crying, “Oh my god, Touya!” and then you were cumming hard, harder than you ever had, Touya’s talented fingers still working you, his cock still fucking you mercilessly.

Touya swore, spitting out your name like a curse, and then again in almost reverent tones, before he too was following you right off the edge. He slammed you down on him once, twice, and then he was cumming too—shivering against you as he held you tight against him.

The silence of the room around you was ringing, once you managed to return to yourself. Touya was a long, hot, hard wall of muscle between your thighs, his hair mussed and a patch of makeup you’d missed smearing into the hair at his temple. His cheeks were flush with effort over the seam of his scars, and he looked, irritatingly, even more beautiful than he usually did.

Like he could sense what you were thinking, the corner of his mouth rose as those cerulean eyes searched over you, blinking like a pleased cat.

“Fuck, sweetheart. I knew I liked you mean,” he said, his raspy tone rougher than normal.

“And I don’t like you at all,” you sniffed, though you knew the protest was pointless when he was quite literally softening inside of you. You let go of his hair, remembering yourself.

“Aww angel don’t be like that,” he drawled, his grin widening. He leaned in, pressing a slow kiss over your mouth. “I can make it up to you—all three years, if you’ll let me.”

You knew he felt your involuntary shiver, pressed up against you like he was. And that was definitely answer enough for him, as his smile went more handsome and boyish than you’d ever seen it. You hated that you liked it.

“I’ll clean up and clock out,” Touya told you, gingerly helping you off of him and back into your leggings, his eyes fixating a little too closely on your legs as you did so. “You tell your friends you’re gonna go home and rest that ankle. And I’ll pick you up out front, angel.”

You flushed, embarrassed that you’d completely forgotten that you were at work, and you’d intended to go out bar hopping after. But you figured you could be forgiven just this one time.

“Fine,” you said, though your insides were feeling a little fluttery at the thought of leaving with Touya. “But I expect penitence or there’s going to be a reckoning.” You supposed you were owed, for all these years of suffering.

Touya looked down at you from under his lashes, dark and beautiful and still as infuriating as ever. “I’ll give you my best, sweetheart. Over and over until you can’t even walk,” he promised, “Gotta keep you off that ankle, after all.”

You flushed again, yanking your sweater down over your leggings, and fled out the door. Touya’s laughter floated after you, sounding pleased.

You sped up your pace, your ears burning.

And if you were actually rushing not to get away from him, but to return to him sooner? Well, then, nobody needed to know that but you.

[rememberwren]

Do you have any other thoughts in that lovely brain of yours about the clairvoyant reader? I hit the follow button so fast it's hurt/comforted in the best worst way just the premise is so good I want to roll in it

Prior.

It gets rather supernatural to be honest.

Because Simon knows it’s insane. How the hell is he supposed to tell anyone? Soap is alive and in Makarov’s hands, a bloody psychic told me so.

Simon pokes around on his own as much as he can, looking into the records on Johnny’s death. They’d recovered a body from the exact position in the tunnels where they’d been forced to leave Johnny behind, but there had been no positive identification that it was Soap.

He takes leave and hunts you down in the city, haunting the places where he ran into you last time. You don’t look surprised to see him.

The two of you go for tea at a local cafe and Simon tells you a safe-for-civilians version of his time spent with Johnny. How they met in the service, how they’d worked together, how Johnny had been killed in action.

“He’s very much not dead,” you say, rifling through the little crocheted bag at your side and taking out a leather bound book. He sees then that your fingers are stained with charcoal as you slide the book across the table. “Won’t bloody leave me alone.”

The book is half filled with more disjointed words in Soap’s handwriting. Little of it makes sense.

head broken, Simon reads. words is written and then crossed through several times.

“I need to know where he is,” Simon says.

“We could try something. A seance of sorts. My grandmother used to hold them all the time to talk to the dead, but they can be used to contact the living, too,” you say.

A fucking seance.

“I’d be able to talk to him?”

You nod.

“And he—he’d talk back?”

“If I’m successful. I’ve never done it before—but I’ll try, if you think it would help.”

Simon looks you dead in the eye and says “There’s nothing in this whole fucking world that I wouldn’t try. How do we start?”

[runraerun]

darling, dearest, dead

written for the @steddiemicrofic challenge for November | prompt: guard | wc: 532 | rated: G | cw: major character death (but not really?) | tags: angst with a hopeful ending, Ghost!Steve Harrington, GhostHunter!Eddie Munson

There’s a legend that the first person who gets buried in a cemetery becomes the guardian of all the other souls buried there after. They become a reaper of sorts, ferrying the newly dead from this world to the next—a place they can never go.

This is what happens to Steve Harrington, aged just eighteen when he tragically dies in the Starcourt tragedy in ‘85.

Steve, who dies but doesn’t move on. Doesn’t go peacefully into that good night, or however the hell the saying goes. He can’t.

Steve, who attends his own burial, but despite how loud he screams into the faces of his loved ones, goes entirely unheard.

He eventually gets it, of course. Despite what everyone thinks (thought? Do they still think of him?) Steve isn’t stupid. He catches on quickly when the first few souls come wandering up to him, lost and alone. Steve can see the path they’re supposed to follow, even when they can’t. So, Steve takes the time to explain to them what he knows, tries to comfort them, before guiding them towards the afterlife.

It’s a curse, really. Eternal isolation. Decades pass but Steve remains. The few souls he speaks to are always so eager to leave him. In the end, Steve’s left alone.

And then one day, Eddie Munson comes stomping through his cemetery.

—🛡️—

“What’s with the get up?” A dark haired stranger asks, startling Steve, “there an anime convention going on or something?”

Steve’s eyes trail up and down the newcomer. He wants to make a comment about the strange attire he died in, but upsetting the newly departed usually isn’t a good idea.

“It’s my work uniform. I didn’t have time to change.” Steve explains, a well-rehearsed response. The Scoops uniform that he can never shed was always a point of interest for people. “Sorry, I didn’t see you come in.”

This is the first time Steve’s missed a burial. Strange.

The guy snorts, “don’t apologize. I’m the one intruding. You visiting someone? I can wait to do my shit.”

Steve frowns, brows creasing where they come together. “No. I’m just… waiting.” He answers.

“For the ghost?” The stranger asks, his interest clearly piqued.

Steve blinks. “The ghost?”

“Yeah, y’know. The ghost that supposedly haunts this graveyard. Legend has it it’s some guy who died way back in the 80’s—there've been sightings for like, thirty years, but no one’s been able to actually record anything decent. All the pictures are super blurry. But I intend to change that. I’m Eddie, by the way. Ghost hunter and semi-professional psychic.” Eddie grins, giving a strange little bow in his introduction.

Wait…

“1985?” Steve asks.

“Yep,” Eddie pop’s the ‘p’, “The year Starcourt burned down and old Steven Harrington bit the dust. You know the story?”

Steve didn’t need to breathe—not anymore. And yet, he still felt short of breath. Lightheaded.

“It’s just Steve.” He clarifies.

“Yeah?” Eddie snorts, “how would you—”

A light seems to go off in Eddie’s head. He pales, eyes widening.

“You can really see me?” Steve can’t help but laugh, tears stinging his eyes.

“Yeah, I can see you, Steve.” Eddie mumbles, stunned, looking like he’d seen a ghost.

—

tagging: @sleepy-steve because they let me rant about reaper Steve to them<3 check out her reaper!eddie fic: here!💘

[ivykim]

SIM(P) JAEYUN STRIKES

VIDEO START ▶️

— welcome to the video. thank you for clicking on it! today, I’ll be bringing you on a journey of various moments where jake is practically down bad for ivy

DANCE JAM LIVE #071223

since everyone was doing their own thing and dancing to their song, ivy does the same thing. it was quite honestly a mini party. all of them were dressed in something quite formal due to having schedules in the morning/afternoon.

ivy was wearing this

she looked gorgeous. everyone single one of the boys had their jaws dropped when she walked into the room wearing that. one person though had their mouths way more wide open than the others.

“jake, close your mouth.” jay says. the boy listens but he’s still mesmerised by ivy.

“noona is so pretty…” jake mumbles. anywhere she went, jake’s eyes would follow her figure.

— here we have prime example of sim(p) jaeyun

vivi x jake vlog (spoilers??)

— vivi says the vlog will be uploaded eventually (belift I’m watching you🫵🏻) but she posted a snippet of it on weverse

IVY🌟 POSTED: who are you calling cute? you’re cuter jaeyun🙄 *video attached*

from what it seems, it’s just ivy and jake walking around the rented home’s mini garden. there, they spotted a cat and ivy gasps.

jake goes to film her as ivy passes the camera to him. she kneels down to the cat and allows it to sniff her. it easily gets comfortable with her and ivy happily pets it.

“jaeyun~ the kitty is so cute.” she says in a pouty voice.

jake’s heart tugs as ivy speaks in a cute voice.

“cute.” he mumbles behind the camera. which obviously was caught in the video bc Ivy wouldn’t have posted it if it wasn’t caught.

— aww the jaeun ship is sailing!

a compilation of behind episodes with jake and ivy

#1. “noona, please!”

jake loves asking for permission from ivy and ivy grew to love hearing the boys (who are younger than her) calling her noona. it took a while for her to accept it but she likes being called noona now!

“I want that one. please? can I have a bite?” jake says as he watches ivy biting onto her popsicle.

“say please.”

“noona, please!” jake pouts. Ivy turns to the camera and points to it.

“DID YOU CATCH THAT?? JAKE DOES HAVE AEYGO! ENGENEs YOUR WELCOME!!”

#2. “noona, can I have a hug?”

jake loves hugs from ivy. no particular reason. she’s just the perfect height and size for him to hug. ivy does love giving hugs to all of them though. especially when they need extra energy.

she stands in the middle and everyone lines up. she gives each boy a hug. ni-ki hugs longer as he happily enjoys being in her arms.

“yah! it’s my turn.” jake huffs.

“no.” ni-ki says as his voice was a little muffled being in ivy’s arms. ivy pats the younger boy’s back.

“riki, it’s jake time. I’ll come to your room later to cuddle with you more okay? you big baby.” ni-ki grumbles before peeling himself off ivy. he walks away to tackle jungwon instead. clearly not done being clingy.

jake finally smiles, “noona, can I have a hug?”

“yes, you can.” she holds out her arms. jake happily jumps in her arms. his arms finding home around her waist and hers finding their way around his neck.

— love how the staff recorded this whole thing and captioned it “ivy’s hug service. free of charge.”

#3. “please, tell me there isn’t a ghost…NOONA I’M SCARED!”

as ivy is a psychic medium. she can see and feel ghosts. the boys don’t necessarily like whenever ivy mentions there is a ghost so she usually doesn’t say it.

but if something is off, ivy will definitely voice out.

“not to alarm any of you but excuse me while I just do this for a bit.” ivy stands up from her seat and starts moving towards the corner of the room.

“oh lord. she’s at it again.” jay sighs.

“the demon is back.” sunoo adds.

“please tell me there isn’t a ghost…” jake says as he watches ivy getting closer to the corner. the three of them watched her point in the top corner. she scolds whatever that is in that corner and tells them to leave immediately.

“okay, this guy is stubborn.”

“what guy. noona? please tell me…”

“just an 8ft shadow dude in the corner. it looks like those spiders but giant and has 2 legs like us.”

“WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT! NOONA I’M SCARED!” jake says.

#4. “LETS GIVE IT UP FOR KIM FUCKING HAEUN!!”

of course. there had to be engenes recording this part. it’s a concert! they had to perform. with them being in America, the managers were more chill. so jake decided to take advantage of that and give some appreciation for ivy.

everyone was hyped up. ivy had a solo performance at the concert that she prepared so the boys wanted to hype the engenes up.

“ENGENEs! are you ready for ivy’s performance?” they yelled. ENGENEs screaming out loud.

“I can’t hear you? ARE YOU READY FOR IVY?” jay instigates. the ENGENEs screamed even louder. the nod their heads in approval.

“THEN LET’S GIVE IT UP FOR KIM FUCKING HAEUN!!” jake yells. it causes ENGENEs to scream even louder as jake cusses just to introduce ivy.

safe to say, ivy was very hyped during her solo performance.

#5. “oh good lord.” *trips on his own foot*

it was comeback as per usual and ivy’s stylist wanted to try something new. her outfit had different cuts and holes to make it more sexier so ivy looked really good.

sunoo interviews her with the camera and was busy filming fun little contents with her. that’s when jake walks in. his eyes fell upon her outfit.

“oh good lord.” he says as he trips on his own foot while staring at ivy. sunoo laughs, zooming into jake.

“jake hyung, are you okay?” sunoo asks in between laughs.

“y-yeah! just tripped somehow.” he says embarrassingly, clearly he was caught off guard.

#6. “would you date haeun noona? yes.” *with no hesitation*

jake was live during one of the America stops and so he decided to read some comments while listening to some music.

many of them were basically asking where the other members were and just asking him to do aeygo. the typical thing. that is until one question caught jake’s eye

“would you date haeun noona? yes.” with not a single hesitation in his voice. he moves on from there it causes a whole ruckus in the fandom and shippers.

#7. “KIM HAEUN! KIM HAEUN!”

jake was always ivy’s biggest fanboy as shown in the past few videos. in this en-o’clock episode where they played sports, it even more obvious.

“whoever gets ivy noona on their team instantly wins.” jungwon says.

with the teams split with the usual decision of rock paper scissors, heeseung falls to his knees.

“no, this is unfair.”

“HAH! WE GOT IVY NOONA.” sunghoon points and laughs at the other team.

“now, what do you mean unfair.” ivy says as she stares right at the two tallest boys. “if anything, I should feel unfair.”

the games start. it felt like a war zone, each of the boys getting more and more competitive. as it was ivy’s turn, she holds up the bow.

“KIM HAEUN! KIM HAEUN!” jake cheers. the editors placed a quick edited pompom and puppy ears on jake as he cheers ivy on.

[PUPPY JAKE cheering on IVY]

#8. "10 facts you didn't know about vivi noona, she's not yours."

during this live, there were tons of ENGENEs talking about the fact that ivy looked so good in her new hair. this time, she decided to go all natural and dyed her hair dark brown, similar to jay's colour.

"ivy looks so pretty with brown hair." ivy reads out in english. "aww thank you, i bet you guys are prettier." she gives a small heart to the ENGENEs.

"ivy is so perfect, she's so pretty and she's mine." jake reads.

"aww, yes ENGENEs. i'm yours." she blows kisses. jake snorts and rolls his eyes playfully.

"ENGENEs, i have some facts about noona you didn't know. wanna hear it?"

ivy tilts her head, "tmi today?"

jake hums, "here are 10 facts you didn't know about vivi noona, she's not yours." jake smiles.

"now, jaeyun-"

[video bleeps]

#9. "why is everyone calling vivi noona a mother?" "i mean, yeah. you're right. she's the mother. the mother to our kids."

and yet another live from jake but this time, he was solo. he decided to go live after their concert. despite him being tired, he wanted to make ENGENEs feel loved so he turned on the live.

"where is ivy?" he hums. "i think she's sleeping. she was really tired after the concert. she almost slept with her outside clothes on so there's that."

"hmm? tmi? yeah, that's true."

"oh, you guys saw her outfit today at the concert? yeah, the stylist tried something for her."

he reads through more of the comments, "why is everyone calling vivi noona a mother?"

that is until he had a bright idea in his brain. "i mean, yeah. you're right. she's the mother. the mother to our kids."

— MOTHER TO YOUR WHAT? WHAT KIDS SIR??

#10. "sorry, you can’t have noona. she’s mine.”

at an offline fansign during dark blood era, fans were enjoying ivy’s outfit style and the fact that she got a solo part during the second chorus of ‘Bite Me’. which led to tons of ENGENEs talking about how they would like to marry her.

there were tons asking her one by one the same questions. “are you single?” / “haeunie, can I be your girlfriend/boyfriend?”

so since jake was after ivy, the ENGENEs would continue to talk about her to jake.

“jaeyun-ah, can I marry ivy?”

“mmm, no.”

“why?”

"sorry, you can’t have noona. she’s mine.”

— okay, possessive boyfriend let’s go??

#11. “noona makes me feel safe. she knows when i feel anxious and nervous so she pays great attention to the little things.”

to end of the video, I would like to mention the interview where jake praised ivy. this was during one of their earlier days.

— “what is it like to have ivy on the team?”

jake reads the question. he hums, “noona…she’s just amazing.”

“despite, us thinking we would be just any normal boy group during I-LAND, seeing ivy noona and the many other girl contestants doing their best made me realise that we were all fighting for the same dream.”

“so when noona was announced, I wasn’t surprised. she’s amazing, heeseung hyung level of talent. what surprised me was that she cried a lot, she thought that she wouldn’t debut. she had a lot of doubts because they never announced other girls to debut with her so it was just her and us.”

“she started to feel down. worried that the fans wouldn’t like her but eventually, with a lot of encouragement and the positive comments praising her, she gained more confidence and started showing her true colours.” jake laughs.

“for me, noona makes me feel safe. she knows when i feel anxious and nervous so she pays great attention to the little things.”

“in fact, she knows whenever anyone feels down and tries to lighten the mood. she actually hates whenever it’s too serious when it’s not supposed to be. I remember her complaining about how all of us were too tense during practice and that we need to loosen up. true enough, when we loosened up, we did better.”

[video fades to black]

— thank you for watching ❤️

[bitter-bats-cult-of-the-moon]

Clair-senses & Exercises

Clairvoyance: The ability to see the not so ordinary. Your intuition speaks directly to you in the form of sight. Images form in your mind or interpret information through pictures.

Clairaudience: The ability to hear or interpret information from spirits. Clairaudience is a way of receiving intuitive messages without using your physical ears but rather hearing messages within your mind.

Clairsentiency: The ability to sense the presence or absence of spiritual beings and feel energies.

Clairempathy / Psychic Empathy: The ability to feel another’s feelings as their own. This is different from regular empathy, which is the ability to identify with another’s feelings.

Claircognizance: The ability to just know things out of nowhere. It can tie into Precognition.

Precognition: The ability to know something is going to happen before it does, premonitions.

Clairtangency: The ability to assess metaphysical properties through touch.

Clairalience: The ability to perceive metaphysical smells.

Clairgustance: The ability to perceive the metaphysical through taste.

Artistic and Divine Inspiration: The Poets have given many names to the unprompted artistic impulses found in creatives. The Norse concept for this is oðr. The Welsh and Celtic concept for this is Awen. This is the act of receiving metaphysical or divine information through artistic impulses.

Exercises to Improve Your Clairvoyance Skills

Exercise 1

Sit quietly with your eyes open.

Focus on a still object in front of you.

In your mind, take note of the objects and furniture around you.

If you see shadows, sparks, or movement, keep focused on the item in front of you.

Sit for as long as you feel comfortable.

Make notes on what you saw and felt.

Exercise 2

Sit with your eyes closed.

Clear your mind and thoughts.

Once you feel your thoughts leave you after a comfortable amount of time, focus on your eyelids and that black canvas it is.

Imagine that blank canvas and focus your intentions while keeping an open mind.

Allow whatever images that come to mind to play out. Don’t try to make sense of it.

Document findings in a journal. 

Exercises to Improve Your Clairaudience Skills

Exercise 1

Go to a place where you are most comfortable.

Close your eyes, relax your body, and let hearing be your dominant sense.

Gently tune in to sounds that you don’t normally focus on.

Really pay attention to the layers of sounds and identify what each one is.

Document your findings in a journal or record yourself.

Exercise 2

Sit with your eyes closed.

Clear your mind and thoughts.

Once you feel your thoughts leave, focus on your eyelids and that black canvas it is.

Focus on the sounds around you and slowly try to tune them out.

Imagine an old radio with a frequency dial. Turn the dial through each station.

With an open mind take notice to any sounds chiming through. It’s okay if you hear nothing. Keep moving through each station. You won’t run out of them.

Put your intentions into each turn of the dial taking note of any sound. 

Document your findings in a journal.

Exercises to Improve Your Clairsentiency Skills

Exercise 1

Get more familiar with your energies by touching how your hands, feet, eyes, etcetera feel.

Learn how the environment feels around you rather it be the city or rural areas.

Learn how animals and plants feel from one to the next. Not everything is the same. Become aware of that. Every plant has its own pattern past the base patterns. Every animal has different markings apart from the next. Identify those traits.

Once that is learnt and recognized. Learn to feel the airs around you in different regions if one is able to do so.

Exercise 2

Visit different haunted facilities observing all the key details.

Take note of the atmosphere. How does it feel?

Take note of the emotions you feel during a tour.

Take note of the temperatures surrounding you.

Take note of any odd experiences and the people with you.

Exercise 3

Meditate with a specific spirit.

Take in the surroundings before starting.

Consider your moods beforehand. Noting them down.

Focus on the intentions for communication.

How do you feel during the meditation? What about after?

Did anything in the environment change?

Did temperatures in the environment change?

Did you feel hot or cold?

Did you feel any movements outside yourself?

Document your findings.

Exercise to Improve Your Clairempathy Skills

Ask someone you know to show you a picture of somebody they know very well, but you’ve never met at all.

Look at the picture and feel into it by observing all aspects. Focus on how this person was feeling when the picture was taken.

Ask yourself what kind of person this individual is.

Share your findings with your friend.

Now, ask your friend for feedback. How correct were you? Repeat this exercise as many times as you want with different people. Remember to keep a journal for any findings.

Exercises to Improve Your Claircognizance Skills

Exercise 1

Grab a pen and pull out your notebook. Before you start writing, ask yourself a question. What guidance do I need today? How can I find a resolution with a problem? How can I be helpful today?

Then set a timer for five to twenty minutes and write whatever comes to you. Don’t edit yourself. Express yourself fully and write whatever comes to you.

The more you do this exercise, the easier it will be.

Exercise 2

Meditate before bed falling asleep to a method of relaxation.

Clear your mind during this meditation pushing away any internal thoughts.

Focus your intention on an open mind and dreams. 

If a dream begins let it play out.

Upon waking write down your findings. Keep a dream journal taking note of anything that happens later in this world.

Compare and contrast experiences in this world versus your dreams.

Exercise 3

When topics are being discussed among individuals take note of things you know but have not studied or read about or heard about from any other source.

Document any experiences keeping notes on things if any. 

[mattsobvimyfav]

roommate (Matthew Sturniolo)

pt 5

“Chris, Ill be right back. I need to get my charger and my laptop” I told Chris getting up in the middle of our movie night.

Big mistake.

I stopped dead in my tracks. There, on Matt’s bed, was Matt fully fucking some random girl. They both froze the moment I walked in, her squealing and yanking the blanket up to cover herself, while Matt just stared at me, wide-eyed and half panicked.

“Oh,” I said flatly, blinking. “Uh, carry on, I guess.”

I dumped my bag onto my bed like nothing had happened and pulled out my laptop.

“Y/N, what the hell?!” Matt’s voice shot up an octave, full of anger.

“What?” I asked, turning to look at him like he was the one out of line. “I live here.”

“You couldn’t knock?!” he snapped, gesturing wildly like I was the crazy one.

“Why would I knock? This is my room, too,” I said with a shrug, setting my laptop on my desk and looking for my charger. “And for the record, you didn’t put a sock on the door or text me, so… not my problem.”

The girl on his bed looked like she wanted to melt into the floor. “Uh, maybe I should go,” she mumbled, clutching the blanket around her.

“No, no,” Matt said quickly, turning to her. “You don’t have to—”

“Honestly, you probably should,” I cut in, sitting down on my bed.

“Y/N!” Matt growled, shooting daggers at me with his eyes.

“What? I don’t care,” I said, leaning back against the wall. “I just think you’re overreacting. You’re mad at me for walking into my own room. Make it make sense.”

Matt groaned, running a hand through his messy hair, clearly frustrated. “This isn’t about you ‘not caring,’” he snapped. “It’s about boundaries! Privacy! Common courtesy! Ever heard of it?”

I snorted. “Oh, you mean like texting your roommate before having sex in your shared dorm room? Yeah, I’ve heard of it.”

The girl fidgeted awkwardly, pulling her clothes on under the blanket. “It’s fine. I’ll just… go. Call me later, Matt?”

“He won’t, dont get your hopes up!” I said, as she hurriedly gathered her things and practically bolted out the door.

Once we were alone, Matt turned to me, still looking pissed. “You’re unbelievable,” he muttered, throwing himself back onto his bed.

I raised an eyebrow. “I’m unbelievable? Dude, you’re the one mad at me for not psychically knowing you were fucking some random bitch.”

“It’s called knocking, arent you supposed to be over there fucking Chris?” he grumbled.

“It’s called communication,” I shot back, ignoring his comment about Chris. “Look, I’m not the one making this weird. You’re the one who turned it into a whole thing. Just let me know next time, okay? A simple heads-up.”

Matt glared at the ceiling, clearly still irritated, but he didn’t argue.

“Glad we’re on the same page,” I said, smirking, packing my bag up

He groaned and grabbed his pillow, shoving it over his face.

I stormed down the hall, going back to Chris’ room. I stormed in ready to tell him about the scene I just walked in on

“Y/N,” he said, setting his laptop aside.

“Oh, you have no idea what just happened,” I said. “I just walked into our room and caught your brother mid fuck”

Chris burst out laughing. “You caught Matt hooking up? Please tell me you made it awkward on purpose.”

“I didn’t have to,” I said, crossing my arms. “He flipped out as if I was in the wrong. Like, sorry for walking into my own room?”

Chris shook his head, still chuckling. “So what’d you do?”

“I didn’t even care! I just grabbed my stuff and ignored it, but apparently, that wasn’t good enough. He started yelling about privacy and boundaries and then kicked the girl out.”

Chris snorted. “So where is he now?”

“Who knows?” I said, rolling my eyes. “Probably planning his next big speech about how I’m a bitch.”

As if summoned by my words, the door suddenly flew open, and in stomped Matt, his face flushed with anger.

“Are you serious right now, Y/N?” he barked.

I leaned back, unimpressed. “Oh, look, it’s the whore himself. Did you follow me here just to yell some more?”

Chris blinked, looking between us. “Uh, should I grab popcorn for this?”

Matt ignored him, glaring at me. “You had no right to barge in and humiliate me like that!”

“Oh my god, humiliate you?” I shot back, standing up. “Matt, I didn’t even say anything! I walked in, saw what was happening, and minded my business. You’re the one who started freaking out!”

“You didn’t knock!” he shouted, his voice cracking with frustration. “How hard is it to respect someone’s privacy?”

“Privacy?” I scoffed, stepping closer to him. “In a shared dorm room? You’ve got to be kidding me, Matt. If you wanted privacy, maybe you should’ve locked the door. Or, I don’t know, texted me.”

“You’re unbelievable,” he spat, shaking his head. “You act like it’s not a big deal, but it is! You embarrassed me, and now you’re in here laughing about it with Chris?”

“Oh no that’s actually exactly what I’m doing”

Chris, still sitting on his bed, raised a hand. “Uh, just to be clear, I’m totally fine with this. Keep going.”

Matt shot him a glare before turning back to me. “You’re so fucking selfish, Y/N! It’s always about what you want and think its okay.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” I snapped. “You’re the one being dumb right now, not seeing how fucking stupid this entire argument is”

Chris let out a low whistle.

Matt ignored him, his jaw tightening. “You don’t get it, do you? You don’t take anything seriously unless it’s something that affects you.”

“Great, Matt, please tell me everything wrong with me,” I said, my voice rising.

“You're just such a fucking bitch, and you keep this innocent attitude going like you do nothing wrong! You think your hot shit, but your not news flash, your own mom wouldn’t even stay with you,” he snapped, standing up and getting in my face.

I stared at Matt, my chest tight. “Wow,” I said quietly “You think that?”

Matt’s face faltered for a second like he hadn’t meant to say it, but then his jaw set, and he didn’t take it back.

“Okay,” I said, grabbing my bag and heading for the door. “Message received, Matt. Loud and clear.”

“Y/N, wait—” Chris started, but I was already gone, slamming the door behind me.

I didn’t look back, even as I heard Matt’s voice faintly through the door, arguing with Chris. My mind was too busy replaying his words, cutting deeper than I cared to admit.

tag -

@ch0llies @hanta-seros-wifey @namelesssav @2muchofaslvt

[despacito-uwu16]

The Resolution

Kenji Sato x Journalist! Reader

Enemies To Lovers | Forced Proximity | Pining

<- prev end

⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺

We could be, we could be anything tonight, just tell me anything you like. Can’t you see, we could be something if we tried, just tell me how to make you mine.

Make You Stay- Girl and the Dreamcatcher

⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺

Despite you leaving for Norway today, your boss asked you to cover the championship game, with the benefit of letting you leave during the 7th inning stretch.

Instead of taking notes, you just sat and watched the game. Ken was there cheering for his team, despite the broken arm. You tried to avoid looking at Ken, but it was difficult when the jumbotron would feature him every ten minutes. To your knowledge, he hasn’t said anything about the one-night stand in college. Which was surprising, because you were ready to come clean about it all. 

“Hey Y/N”?

You turn to Ami. 

“Is everything all right”? She asks.

“Yeah, I’m totally fine”! You assured her.

“Really? Cause you haven’t touched your recorder”. She points to the device that is resting on the table.

“Oh, that old thing? I don’t need it”. You laughed. Ami looked at you unamused. 

“Is this about Ken”? She asks. Your side eyed her slowly. “What makes you think this is about Ken”? 

“Y/N”. Ami raised her eyebrow. “Every time Ken appears on the jumbotron, you look away. Also, you’ve been staring at Ken’s social media page”. She points to your phone on your lap. Your phone was on low brightness but Kenji’s X page was still visible to Ami’s eyes. You turn your phone off and put it on the table facing down. 

“You are psychotic”. 

“It’s just an observation”. Ami shrugs.

You continue to watch the game, mentally counting down the minutes you have until you finally get to leave. 

“Have you talked to him since the interview”? Ami asks.

“No. And I don’t have a reason to”. 

“Maybe you should at least see him before you leave”. She suggested 

“Like I said, I don’t have a reason to talk to him. He was merely an assignment”. You lied.

As soon as the announcer announces the 7th inning stretch, you begin to pack your bags. 

“And that’s my cue to leave”. You smiled as you put your bag straps on your shoulder

“Before you go, a little piece of advice”. Ami says halting you to a stop.

“You’re the youngest reporter in the business. You’ve done so much for yourself. So don’t be afraid to be spontaneous sometimes”. 

You slowly nodded. “Okay then, well, it was nice working with you too Ami”. You exited the media room and then started to speed walk to the parking lot

~

Kenji’s eyes dart up at the media room and then back to the game. Every time his eyes looked into the room, his heart sank. He looks at the empty chair with sadness. You were already gone. 

“SATO! EYE ON THE GAME”! Coach Shimura yells.

Sato sat up straight and watched the game, trying to not think about you. 

“Dude, you okay? You’ve been out of focus since you got back”. His teammate, Ryouta, says. 

“I’m fine”. Ken says, trying to watch the game. 

“Really? Because your eyes keep wandering at the media box”. Ryouta presses on

“Um, Ryouta? Enough about me, more on the game”. 

“If this is about the reporter chick, you should go after her”. 

Ken groaned. “Ryouta, drop it. Y/N’s already gone. She’s probably on that plane right now”. 

~

“UGH WHAT THE HELL”! You honked at the car in front of you. “DRIVE FASTER”! You yelled. You looked out the window and saw a line of cars ahead of yours. Of all the days the kaiju had to destroy the highway, it just had to be the day you were leaving. You slightly slide into your seat. 

“Don’t be afraid to be spontaneous”. Ami echoed in your mind.

“Ugh, what is up with her and her psychic advice”? You scoff as you tap your pointer finger on the steering wheel. 

The world was so persistent on guilt-tripping you today. While you were loading your luggage’s into your car, all of the billboards surrounding your apartment had Ken’s face plastered front and center with a chicken leg in his hand. During your drive to the stadium, there were posters of Ken and his signature colognes on the telephone poles. And now, as you were waiting forever in your car, a blimp flew over the highway every few minutes with a beer ad starring Ken. 

“Tastes like a home run”. He would say repeatedly.

You groaned. This was a sign. A sign that you have to make things right with Kenji. You stepped on the gas pedal, driving out of the line of cars and off to the nearest exit.

~

“You know, I don’t think it’s too late to go find her and tell her how you feel. It’ll make you chivalrous”. Said Ryouta. 

Kenji pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ryouta. Game. Focus”. 

“I know, I know, but I just think, you shouldn’t go in with life without any regrets. Life is too short, and I think she would like it if she reached out”. 

Kenji turns to Ryouta. ready to yell at him. But for some reason, he was right. The least Kenji could do is head to the airport and apologize to you in person. But he was stuck here, afraid that one wrong move could piss off his coach. 

The crowd cheers as another player from the Giants steps up to the plate, ready to hit the ball. Kenji looks at his watch and then at the sight of the game. 

“Go, I’ll cover you”. Ryouta whispers in Ken’s ear. 

“Thank you, Ryouta”. Ken pats his shoulder and runs out of the box unnoticed. 

~

You quickly got out of your car and ran off, not caring if it was locked or not. You ran towards the stadium in hopes that you could catch Ken. You hear the crowds roar as you almost reach the entrance. A small round object launched into the sky, falling out of the dome. You didn’t pay attention to it and focused on the entrance. 

“Y/N”! Someone yelled. 

But before you could turn your head, everything went pitch black. 

~

“Y/N”? 

You open your eyes and a bright light blinds you. Someone helped you sit up and put an ice pack on your head. 

“Y/N, are you okay”? You turn to see three Ken Satos looking down at you. 

“Ken? I thought you were an only child”. 

He chuckles, “It’s probably the concussion talking”.

Eventually, your eyes started to adjust to reality, but the pounding headache was still lingering.

“What happened”? 

“You got hit by a baseball. Again. I found you unconscious by the stadium entrance”.

“Oh, so that’s what it was”. 

“On the bright side, it wasn’t me who knocked you out this time”. He laughs.

You try to laugh, but the pain in your head begins to throb. Ken adjusts the ice pack on your head. 

“So, did you guys”…

Ken shows the championship ring on his ring finger. You smile. “Congrats”. 

“Thanks”. 

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be celebrating with your team”? 

“I wanted to see if you were okay and to apologize for everything, for what happened during college, what I said last month, and for blackmailing you. I was completely selfish. You have every right to be mad at me”. 

“I’m not really mad at you. For one thing, I should be apologizing to you too. For what happened in college. I was so focused on my career that I wasn’t being self-aware, and ended up hurting your feelings. I wasn’t using you for any story. But it didn’t look that way when I left that morning. I’m sorry ”. 

Kenji smiles. “I guess everything was built by a few misunderstandings”.

“Yeah, it was. I’m glad we got to sort it out”. 

You look up at the clock on the wall.

8:51 PM

“Great, I missed my flight. And considering I just ended my lease on my apartment, looks like I have to go hotel hunting”. 

“Or, you can stay with me for the night”. Ken suggested.

“Are you sure, I don’t want to intrude”-

“I want you to. As a way to make up for everything. Also, Emi really misses you”. 

~

You walk into Kenji’s house and the feeling of peace returns to you. The first thing you do when entering the home is head to the basement to see Emi. As soon as you step out of the elevator, Emi immediately runs up to you, chirping gleefully and jumping up and down with joy. 

“I told you, she’s Y/N deprived”. 

You laugh. “Well, I missed you too Emi”. 

For the rest of the night you both played with Emi until she got tired. After putting her in the tube, you both settled down on the couch. You were trying to find flights for tomorrow, while Ken was trying to find his energy drink in the cooler. 

“Thanks for letting me stay. Despite everything”. You said as you turned off your phone. 

Kenji grabs his drink and cracks it open “It’s no problem. Like I said, I wanted to make it up to you”. He gives you a soft smile before drinking from the can. 

“So, did you find another flight”? He asks. 

“Yep, leaves tomorrow afternoon”.

“That’s great”.

You raise an eyebrow. “You aren’t going to try to stop me”?

“Nah, I don’t want to get in the way again”. He says. 

You were both sitting in silence, watching Emi intently while Mina sang her a lullaby. 

“Although”… He adds

You turn to Kenji. He takes your hands and holds them gently. 

“I don’t want to go the rest of my life without telling you how much you mean to me. You’re more than just Emi’s babysitter. You’re everything that I want. For the last two months, I never felt so alone whenever I’m with you. You make me want to become the best version of myself and become a better person. I know I can’t make you stay, but I want you to know that I love you”. 

~

That night, you were lying in your bed, staring at the ceiling. You were thinking about Kenji’s confession. About how you were about to respond, but he ran out to do “Ultraman business”, knowing all too well that he can’t fight with a broken arm. But you knew deep down, he was scared. Scared that he was going to repeat the same mistakes, scared that you were going to laugh at him.

You hear a buzz coming from your phone and you turn it on. 

UNITED AIRLINES

FLIGHT FROM TOKYO TO OSLO 

Boarding Time: 1:05

Flight Time: 1:45 PM 

CHECK-IN NOW 

Your stomach turns as you look at it. Instead of being excited, you lay there with an ultimatum. Kenji or your job. Your job made you happy. You achieved more promotions and accomplishments than any other reporter. You were traveling the world, and you were getting so much praise from everyone. While you were happy, deep down you weren’t satisfied. On the other hand, being with Kenji brought you peace. Sure you two didn’t get along at first, but as time passed by, you were comfortable around him. You haven’t felt any comfort since you started your current job. You’re scared to think about what life would be like if you left Japan already. How upsetting it would be if you left Kenji behind without telling him…

You love him too.

Your cheeks heat up, and you feel your heart beating faster. 

You love Kenji. 

The billboards, Ami’s advice, and the baseball incident led you back to Kenji. And this time, the world was giving you a second chance. 

So with your impulses ready to take the risk, you begin to text your boss.

~

The next morning, you wake up to the smell of something burning. You got up and ran out of your room. When you get to the kitchen, you see Kenji putting down a plate of food on the table. 

“Hey, you’re awake”! He smiles. “Breakfast is almost ready”! 

You look down at the plate of food. The toast was almost burnt to a crisp. The bacon looks too oily and ready to turn into ash. As for the eggs, it looks completely overcooked and a little black. 

“I know it looks unappetizing, but if you put a lot of ketchup on the eggs, it’ll mask the ashy taste”. Kenji says earnestly. 

“You made this for me”? You look back at Kenji. 

“Well yeah. You made dinner for me multiple times, so I thought I would do something for you too. Also, you have a flight today so I just wanted to make sure you eat well and”-

Before Kenji could finish his thought, you walked up to him and locked your lips onto his. Kenji stands there in shock, but eventually returns the kiss, holding you close with his arm. He held you tightly not wanting to let you go. You pull away to catch your breath, Kenji puts his forehead onto yours, his breath shaky. 

“I canceled my flight”. You say, finally speaking up. 

His eyes widened. “What? What about Norway”?

“I told my boss that I want to continue working in Japan. He was more than understanding. So he extended my residency here. Meaning, I’m staying”.

“But why Y/N? What about your dreams”?

“Norway can wait. I am still young after all. Plus I don’t want to go on with the rest of my life without telling you… I love you too, Kenji”. 

Kenji smiles and kisses you again. 

“I love you Y/N. I promise to never take you for granted, and to make every minute of every day worth”-

Suddenly, you both hear a high pitch alarm go off and see a visible trail of black clouds coming from the oven. Kenji’s happy face turned into horror as he ran towards the oven.

“NO NO NO NOT THE HASH BROWNS”. 

You tried to stifle your laughter as he tried to grab the tray from the oven with one hand. You grabbed an oven mitt and helped him take it out, the smell of burnt potatoes hitting your nose. Kenji throws the burnt potato patties in the trash can. He sighs as he grabs his phone from his pocket

“How about we take out”. 

⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺

BONUS SCENE (cause I love my patient pookies) 

“So what’s gonna happen now that you’re staying in Japan”? Kenji asks as he takes a bite of his ham and cheese omelette. 

“Well, I get to obsess over one of the greatest living players in history”. You responded as you finished your bacon strip. 

Kenji sits up tall with a toothy grin. 

“I mean, Ohtani is so amazing. I mean, his batting average is perfect”. You dreamily sigh. Ken pouts at you, making you laugh. 

“Aww you jealous”? 

“Pft, no”. He crosses his arms and huffs.

You put your to go box down on the coffee table and scoot closer to Kenji. 

“Awww it’s okay”. You cooed while slightly pinching Kenji’s cheeks. “You’re still the second greatest player of all time”.

Suddenly, Kenji throws his to go box on the table and tackles you down on the couch. You screamed as Kenji begins to tickle you.

“Hey, you’re arm”! You breathed out while you point at his sling.

“Eh, it’s almost healed anyway”. He shrugs, continuing his assault.

“Stop”! You laugh.

“Say it”! 

“Okay, okay”! You breathed out. “You, Kenji Sato, is the greatest living baseball player”.

“Better than Ohtani”? 

“Better than Ohtani”.

“Yes”! He hugs you tightly as you both fell back on the couch. 

“I’m glad you’re staying with me”. Kenji whispers and kisses your forehead. You cuddle closer to him, hearing his steady breathing and relaxed heart beat. 

“I’m glad I get to stay with you”.

⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺

A/N: My first mini-series is complete!! Thanks for being patient with the posting schedule. It’s so hard trying to figure out what day to post and what time. I also want to thank you for reading!! It was such a lengthy process and I’m glad it’s finally out and in the open! The comments are so sweet and I always look forward to reading them. I have a few projects cooking, but it’s probably gonna get posted later on. And with school coming up, some stuff might take longer than others. Thank you guys for your support! I love the Ultraman community so much!!

Likes, Comments and Reblogs are always appreciated!!!

⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺

Tag List

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[nugothrhythms]

My copy of The Ancient Wall arrived! https://psychiceye.bandcamp.com/album/the-ancient-wall

[enchantedwitchling]

The Power of Intuition: Developing Your Psychic Abilities.

🌟✨

Intuition is a powerful gift that we all possess. It's the inner knowing, the gut feeling, the psychic sense that guides us. Whether you're new to exploring your intuitive abilities or looking to enhance them, here are some exercises and tips to help you tap into the magic of your own intuition.

🌟✨

1. Meditation for Clarity 🧘‍♂️🌌

Take time each day to meditate. Clear your mind, focus on your breath, and allow your intuition to surface. The more you practice, the more in tune you become with your inner wisdom.

2. Trust Your Gut Feeling 🤔💭

Start small by listening to your gut instincts in everyday situations. Trust that inner voice when making decisions. Over time, this will strengthen your intuitive muscle.

3. Tarot and Oracle Cards 🔮🃏

Experiment with divination tools like Tarot or Oracle cards. These can be excellent tools for honing your intuitive skills. Draw a card daily and interpret its message based on your intuition.

4. Dream Journaling 🌙📓

Keep a dream journal by your bedside. Record your dreams as soon as you wake up. Often, dreams contain intuitive insights and symbolism that can be deciphered over time.

5. Practice Empathy and Active Listening 👂❤️

Empathize with others and practice active listening. Tuning into their emotions and thoughts can help you fine-tune your intuitive abilities.

6. Nature Connection 🌿🌳

Spend time in nature. The natural world has its own intuitive energy. Take walks, sit quietly, and observe. Nature can amplify your intuitive senses.

7. Develop Your Third Eye Chakra 🧘‍♀️👁️

Work on balancing and opening your third eye chakra through meditation and visualization exercises. This energy center is often associated with intuition.

8. Trust the Process 🌟🌈

Remember, developing intuition takes time and patience. Trust in your own unique journey. Your intuition is like a muscle; the more you use it, the stronger it becomes.

9. Seek Guidance 🤝🌠

Consider seeking guidance from experienced intuitives or psychics. They can offer insights and techniques based on their own experiences.

10. Keep a Journal of Intuitive Experiences 📔✨

Document your intuitive experiences in a journal. This helps you track your progress and learn from your insights.

🌟✨

Your intuition is a valuable compass on your life's journey. Embrace it, nurture it, and allow it to illuminate your path. The more you connect with your intuition, the more you'll discover the profound wisdom that resides within you.

Embrace the magic of your intuition, and let it lead you toward a deeper understanding of yourself and the world around you.

🌟✨

[innorogers]

Veil

Steve Rogers x Reader (You / OFC)

Summary: Every inch of him missed you, his skin aching for the warmth of your touch, his mind desperate for the sound of your voice, the light in your eyes. 

Warning: Desperate Steve /Protective Steve / Steve in despair

Characters: OC, John Walker, Sam Wilson, Tony Stark, Maria Hill, Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton.

Also: Thanks in advance for repost or any feedback ❤️ Let me know if you want to be included in the taglist (DM, comment, repost and tag, whatever works)❤️

1: Insomnia | 2: Lucid | 3: Reverie | 4: Nightmare | 5: Awakening | 6: Dusk | 7: Hypnagogia | 8: Lull | 9: Vigil | 10: Eclipse

John woke up three days after your disappearance, groggy and disoriented, in the ICU. The world he knew was now in chaos. His room was heavily guarded, and the first familiar face he saw was Sam’s, stationed constantly at his door, watching over him in case of another attack and monitoring any communications. 

He wasn’t a normal hospital of course, he was under strict surveillance within the Avengers compound. They’d done everything to save him: used the best medical care, cutting-edge technology, but he wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was anyone else. 

No one was leaving. 

Not until Steve, Hill, Natasha, and every spy loyal to Tony Stark had wrung out every last shred of information, every hidden connection, every detail that could bring them closer to understanding that attack, or finding you. 

Everyone was interrogated, everyone needed to provide a hundred versions of their answers, and they had to match. 

They’d match the lie detector, they’d match the CCTV, they’d match every record, every email, every sentence they’d said and that was captured by Jarvis.They’d match the fucking employee’s survey they filled two years ago. They’d match, otherwise they were facing hours and hours of ruthless, avenger’s style interrogation, led by Natasha, by Clint, by Sharon, and by Hill herself.

Vision and Wanda were busy, they worked tirelessly. 

The mind stone explored its infinite powers: Vision immersed completely in the network, sifting through an endless flow of data: emails, files, surveillance footage, security reports…searching for any inconsistencies or traces that might have been overlooked. 

Every security feed, every encrypted message, every buried piece of information was being drawn to the surface, handed to Jarvis and the team for analysis. 

Wanda’s powers moved through the compound like an unseen force, a red wind that blew around the entire facility, spinning and sorting through the air. Looking for patterns, intuitive insights beyond what the data could reveal, in the hopes to catch something others had missed. 

The barest flick of her fingers were like an instinctive hunter, reaching out to sense any lingering energy from the attack, any psychic residue that might hint at who was behind it.

Both in the search for answers, and for you.

Everyone had been looking, every single resource and agent was deployed, tearing through every lead, every rumor, every fragment of information to try to find you, but there was nothing—no trace, no sign, as if you had vanished into thin air. 

Stark’s resources were being stretched to their edge: satellites repositioned, private networks hacked, and entire cities put under surveillance, but still, they came up empty. 

Every asset, every favor, every underground contact was called in, yet there was only silence. 

A terrible and horrible, empty void, It was as if the entire world had conspired to swallow you whole, leaving the Avengers grasping at shadows in their desperate search.

Steve was on the edge of breaking. 

Days had blurred together, each one gnawing away at his sanity as he ran on scraps of sleep and barely a bite of food, his focus single-minded, unyielding, burning in a sleepless fear.

Half of his time was spent in the command center, his eyes fixed on every screen, every update, driving the team harder, faster, demanding more, obsessing over every detail, driving everyone, including him, insane but yet restless.

The other half he spent in the training room, pushing himself until his body was trembling, his muscles screaming, sweat pouring off him in sheets, and every cell in his body was begging for rest. 

And then, maybe, he could get some sleep, only to wake up in some kind of nightmare with the worst scenes of his imagination.

He needed the pain—it kept him from losing his mind, kept him from the raw, pulsing panic threatening to choke him. He could feel it in every clenched breath, every aching bone: you were out there, alone, and every second he wasn’t by your side was a second he’d never forgive himself for. 

And there was this enormous emotional pain too, an ache so deep it was almost physical. He could hardly bear the emptiness left by your absence; it was like a shadow that followed him everywhere.

He saw you in every corner: at the command center, at the dining table, in the lab, even in the training room that held the precious memory of the day you’d first met.

Every inch of him missed you, his skin aching for the warmth of your touch, his mind desperate for the sound of your voice, the light in your eyes. 

He’d turn around at the hallucinated sound of your steps, the ghostly echo of your voice calling his name, and it was driving him mad, angry, sad, and scared.

He stepped back home just once, hoping, needing, to find some clue, any thread that might lead him closer to you. It was almost unbearable. 

Your scent lingered in the air, filling the place with traces your left behind: mugs you used for breakfast left at the sink, the recipe book open and bookmarked to the page of the meal you were so excited to cook for him, his favorite wine in the fridge ready to open…everything only amplified the pain, the crushing sense that you were just beyond his reach.

And then, when the forensic techs arrived, the room was transformed into a crime scene: every item cataloged, every paper analyzed, every personal belonging scrutinized and stripped of its warmth. Steve could only watch, helpless, as every piece of the life you’d built together was dismantled and laid bare, a reminder that you were gone.

But he wasn’t the only one panicking, overwhelmed by fear and anger. 

Tony and Maria were just as desperate. The breach was massive, and among the thousands of employees within the compound, there was no one, like literally no one, they could fully trust outside of themselves. 

Every project, every ongoing research initiative was paused, and all information was locked down. 

The world wanted intel? Advanced technology to defend itself? Was there any other alien army attacking? Well, it would have to rely on the UN or any other organization out there, because the Avengers were facing something worse than Thanos. This was a breach that had struck straight to their core, hitting the heart of everything they stood for—and they had no idea where it came from or how the fuck to fight back.

The Command Room’s lights stayed on 24/7, no one ever left. 

Even Wakanda joined the investigation, cutting off all outside contact to protect themselves as they worked.

And after King T'Challa himself added his network of intelligence operatives, a hint finally emerged.

It happened 18 days after your disappearance. 

And in these eternal days, to everyone’s horror and surprise, it looked like Steve was…normalizing. Exhaustion and fatigue were evident in him—something that had never, ever happened to Captain America. 

He had a few gray hairs in his beard, and the dark circles under his eyes were plainly visible. It took some serious talks from Sam and Natasha, and a few heated discussions with Tony, to make him eat or sleep and keep him from spiraling into a state of self-destruction.

The news came back from General Okoye herself.

“There was only one…” The general was measuring her words. “Only one suspicious transmission. It was on a hidden frequency; we almost missed it. It was…lost, too short to intercept, but too strange to ignore. Hidden within encrypted channels, and when we got it, it actually took days to decode. Which made it even more suspicious.”

“Where is it leading to?” Steve listened with clenched fists, his gaze sharp, and his heart pounding in his chest.

The general sighed; she was being careful. “Most of the transmission was fragmented, but there was one mention that was unmistakable. It referenced The Void.”

“That…doesn’t exist.” Natasha replied immediately. “The Void has existed for ages and decades in the intel world, but only as a rumor. It’s a legend…like…fictional. It’s just a reference.”

“What’s The Void?” asked Sam.

“It’s a reference.” Natasha emphasized. “An urban legend, talked about over drinks, referring to an old, nearly forgotten facility on the outskirts of a war-torn city, once controlled by a covert organization that operated in the deepest shadows. It’s called that in intelligence circles: The Void, because supposedly no one has ever set foot in it. It’s empty; it’s…shadows and ashes. It isn’t real.”

“Yup. That’s true.” replied Clint. “The Void has been whispered about for years. It’s like…a ghostly facility that never existed on any official maps. It’s said that it was once a stronghold, buried deep in hostile territory. But that’s all…you know, legendary talk.”

“But that was years ago.” Black Widow still wasn’t fully convinced. “I haven’t heard of it in years. No one knows if it’s still standing, if it’s fortified, or even if it still exists.”

“It exists.” Suddenly, a voice interrupted in the room—John’s. 

His voice was hoarse, the cut you’d given him had seriously injured his neck, and he looked somewhat funny with all the bandages around it. His eyes were darkened by heavy circles, and he had to pause before speaking again because his throat was burning.

“I was there three years ago on my first tour. It’s in the Altai Mountains of Kazakhstan. It’s nestled in a ridiculously hidden valley that’s…you know, inaccessible for normal people: extreme weather, uneven terrain. Something that would be impossible to reach for most folks, but probably looks like your training field number three.” He coughed as he talked.

“You sure?” Steve’s eyes narrowed, a glimmer of hope rising behind the exhaustion, but his jaw tightened with worry. He wanted to believe—he needed to believe—that John’s confirmation meant something real, something that could lead him to you. But doubt gnawed at him, a quiet fear lingering just beneath the surface, reminding him that this might still be another dead end. Or worse, it could lead to an end, one he was not ready to bear.

His fists clenched, his voice low and firm as he asked. “Are you certain?”

“Well…” John approached the screens and enlarged the map in front of him, showing it to everyone in the room. He tapped a point on it. 

“Here. We could search for those files in the army from my first tour…” And as he spoke, Tony was already typing on the keyboard.

“But it should be here, look: secluded area, dense forests, jagged cliffs…Can I get a satellite view? Look at these buildings—sparse, abandoned Soviet-era infrastructure…see? And in winter? Dude, the place becomes even more desolate, with heavy snowstorms cutting it off completely from the outside world. Hey, Man in a Can, any chance you can overlay those X-rays or layer scans on the map?” He said, snapping his fingers at Tony.

Tony studied the map a bit longer, and under Steve’s expectant gaze, he frowned and ordered: “Cross-reference geological information with everything in Twelve’s archives. Don’t limit the search to her data only—look into her siblings, check the Winter Soldier’s files…Jarvis, search back and forth across 80 years of data.”

Bruce added, “Any chance we can get an energy scan below the surface? Whatever they’re developing, I don’t think it’s just there for a tour visit.”

Jarvis took less than a minute to complete the analysis.

“Sir, according to information found in files M001, M002, LocM001-X025-T29, and LocM001-X025-T31, test results were located in the indicated area.”

“M001 and 2?” Steve stood up immediately. 

Those were the first two prototypes. He remembered you mentioning them when you told him your story: the ‘Apollo and Artemis’ siblings, the first successful models. When they began to fail, they created you and the rest of you.

“Run the analysis as we move.” Steve said, his fists tight and his eyes intense, as if he could see The Void itself before him. This was the first real lead they’d had, and the mystery of ghost town that didn’t even exist, added an unsettling layer—no one knew what they’d be facing. 

But he didn’t give a fuck, even if it was hell itself, he would go to the deepest end of the abyss if that’s what it took to find you.

“Gear up. Moving out in 10.” He ordered, and as everyone started to move, he stopped Tony. “You stay here with Vis.” His expression was unwavering. “We need to keep the fort secure, safe. I need it cleaned when I’m back with her.”

Tony wanted to say something. He didn’t want to encourage Steve to pursue a ghost idea, but he just couldn’t muster a word. He patted Captain’s shoulder heavily and nodded.

“You sure?” Tony knew Steve was desperate, but he was also anxious, fearing Steve’s hopes might be raised, only to face the worst later. Tony brushed his hair back nervously. “Take Banner with you, then.”

“I’m sure.” For the first time in 18 days, Steve’s eyes held a glimmer of hope. “Vis and Wanda stay; I need the compound secure. Make them scan every last corner before we set foot out there.”

“Look,” Tony added solemnly, unable to help himself. He had to speak up. “It could be abandoned…or it could be more fortified than ever. We’ll need caution—and the element of surprise. If they suspect our arrival, they might vanish again…taking her with them.” 

Or maybe she is already there, in a state that no one wants to think about. He thought to himself, not daring to make a comment about it.

“I know.” Steve’s gaze hardened as he looked around the room. Whether it was a ruin or a fortress, he would face whatever waited in The Void. He was ready to tear through every wall, every shadow, if it meant finding you.

“Ok.” Tony inhaled and forced a smile. “We’ll be ok.” His eyes fixed on Steve. 

“We’ll be ok.” He repeated it, but he didn’t know who he was talking to—Steve or himself.

Steve didn’t say anything; he just nodded.

The Quinjet took flight in less than 10 minutes, with another ship following close behind. The team was geared up, and they weren’t going alone—the Strategic Operations Unit followed, fully armed with the latest tech, while Maria Hill and Tony Stark directed the operation from the Command Room. 

The Unit was composed of the best military and special forces personnel: soldiers who had once served with S.H.I.E.L.D. or in elite units from around the world. They were humans who came just after the Avengers in strength and capability. And they were excited, determined. The Void was a legendary place, and they were eager to explore it. 

Or tear it apart and burn it down to ashes and dirt if that’s what the Captain commands.

Steve sat in the back of the Quinjet, his mind a whirlwind. 

There was an urge burning inside him, consuming him like wildfire: the desperate need to know that you were okay, that you were safe. 

But alongside that, there was the crushing weight of the entire situation, the analysis you, Bruce, and Tony had pieced together days ago: Who took you? What dark, powerful organization had stolen you away? And what were they trying to achieve? Bruce had said they were close. That you were the missing piece in completing something monumental, something so massive it could render the enemy fearless, powerful enough not to fear the wrath of the Avengers anymore. 

And that…was terrifying.

After defeating Thanos, the combined forces of the Avengers and Wakanda had been enough to prove to the world that they alone held the power to defend Earth. 

But were they? Enough?

Because after all, power isn't just about brute strength or advanced technology; it is about control, strategy, and deception. The Avengers had faced gods, aliens, and everything the world had thrown at them, but this felt different. 

This wasn’t a threat that announced itself with an army or a cosmic weapon. This was something calculated, something buried in shadows, pulling strings in the dark. And if there was one thing the Avengers weren’t particularly skilled at: navigating schemes or playing diplomatic and political games.

It was the kind of threat that could allow an organization to infiltrate so deeply, take one of their own without leaving a trace, and expose the Avengers as far less untouchable than the world believed.

And he, Steve Rogers, wasn’t as indestructible as he thought. 

He had a weakness now, something that could shatter him entirely in the blink of an eye: You.

“Landing in four.” Sam announced from the pilot seat as the Quinjet began its descent, breaking through layers of dense clouds. 

The scenery below unfolded like a haunting portrait. 

It was exactly as John had described: hidden valleys carved from jagged rocks, hollowed mountains looming like forgotten sentinels, and a decaying forest cloaked in a heavy shroud of fog. Surrounded by high cliffs and dead ends mountains, almost impossible for common people to access. (And it was actually, looking really similar to Training Field 003 where the simulator portrayed a similar landscape.)

Everything seemed drained of life, abandoned, lost in time, cast in muted shades of gray and black, as if the place itself had given up—and every living thing within it too.

The streams of fog wove through the dried and skeletal trees, clinging to the ground like ghosts. Crumbling remnants of abandoned structures dotted the landscape: cracked walls and rusted metal consumed by time. 

A biting chill seemed to seep through the Quinjet’s walls as they neared the ground. It felt as if they could be swallowed into this endless forgotten state, taken by the invisible hands of the oppressive atmosphere.

“Yeah, this really looks like…a ‘The Void’.” said Clint, stepping out of the Jet. “Whoever put the name definitely hit on the spot.”

Sam raised his eyebrow. “What are we, like in…Silent Hill?”

“Shush.” said Natasha. “The element of surprise is our only ally now. Any leads?” She pressed the comms. The complete team was on the other side, watching everything from the Command Room, scanning beyond their sight.

“Move forward.” Maria ordered. “Buildings at your twelve. I want complete silence. Team Alpha, take the right; Beta, take the left. Steve, you lead.”

“Got it.” Steve nodded. He noticed in the distance, nestled deep within the valley, an unnatural symmetry: rows of long-forgotten buildings that didn’t belong to nature’s chaos. It was subtle, almost hidden by the fog, but it was enough. 

His jaw tightened. 

This was the place.

“Gear up, and move.” He said, his voice low and steady, though his grip on the rail betrayed the tension surging through him. “We’re not leaving without answers.”

The team moved swiftly, like shadows. The jagged rocks and crumbling buildings provided perfect cover as they advanced, their movements silent, steps as light as feathers.

“Scan.” Steve ordered, his voice low but firm as he led the team deeper into the abandoned structures. 

“What are we seeing? Or not seeing?” He pressed the comms, his gaze scanning the area with sharp precision.

Jarvis’s voice filtered into their earpieces. “Sir, a series of passages leading beneath the surface.”

“That’s a surprise.” Natasha chuckled. Typical. 

“Looks like an underground stronghold.” Maria informed the team: “Seems like a water fortress. A helm, maybe? Dried out and abandoned.”

Steve’s jaw tightened as he glanced at the rest of the team. 

“Let’s move.” He ordered. 

The air seemed heavier as they pressed forward, entering what had once been the heart of the fortress. Everything around went stale and damp as they descended, the passage’s walls bearing cracks, rust, and faint traces of water lines that hinted at what the place had been before it fell into decay.

The deeper they went, the darker it became, the dim light from their gear casting eerie shadows across the ancient stone and metal. 

It was a place that felt hollow, lifeless, but beneath the stillness, there was an unnerving sense of something waiting. 

Steve raised his fist to signal a stop, and the rest of the team felt it too: they weren’t alone. There was a slight, almost undetectable sound in the thick air that ran through the place, something that only elite soldiers with hundreds of battles' worth of experience would recognize: someone was breathing around them.

“Sam.” Steve muttered, and the Falcon’s glasses started a laser scan around the place.

But before the results even came in, John, who was next to Sam, put a hand on his arm and lowered it.

“I don’t think we need that.” Walker said, barely above a whisper. When Sam removed his glasses, he saw it too, along with the rest of the team.

Eyes.

Lines and lines of people surrounded them, staring back at them with lifeless, empty gazes.

"Holy shit." said Sam and John at the same time.

“Attack from the nerds 2.0?” John grimaced. 

“Stay sharp. Circle formation,” Steve ordered, clenching his fists around his shield. “Give me your best, and give them your worst. Got it?”

The eerie look on the enemy sent a cold shiver through everyone’s back. The team stayed silent for a moment, but when Steve’s commands dropped, they responded in unison with a roar.

The stillness shattered in an instant as the first wave of attackers surged forward.

“Engage!” Steve roared, his shield flying through the air and slamming into the nearest enemy with a thunderous crack before returning to his arm. 

“Okay, to the dancefloor!” To his left, Sam launched into the air, his wings spreading wide as he maneuvered above the chaos. His goggles highlighted the attackers’ positions. “Commander, give me the source path. Where are these guys coming from?”

“Scanning…” Maria’s commands came through as Jarvis synchronized the analysis. Tony’s helmet illuminated as he synced all the data to the team’s gear.

“There’s some kind of base at your two o’clock, Sam,” Tony said as the heat map displayed the information. “Extremely low temperatures… Shit, what are you guys even fighting?” His expression darkened as the heat analysis became clearer.

“Gonna be hard to reach that two o’clock! They’re everywhere!” Sam shouted, firing his wing-mounted machine guns to clear a path below. One of the enemies leaped toward him, but Natasha’s knee struck first. She was a blur of lethal grace as she slipped between attackers.

“Wow, new toy?” Sam asked, spotting Natasha’s twin batons crackling with electricity as she took down two enemies at a time with each sweep.

“Keep moving! Don’t let them pin us down!” She called, her voice calm but sharp as she dodged an incoming strike and slammed her baton into an enemy’s temple. “Could use some help opening the line to two o’clock here!”

A chuckle came through the comms as Hawkeye stood back for a moment, his bowstring taut, stretched to its maximum capacity as he aimed for the target. The string was charged with an electrifying blue blast.

“Bruce?” Clint muttered as he loosed his fingers, sending an explosive-tipped arrow into the crowd ahead of the Hulk.

The blast tore through like a comet, breaking multiple enemy lines and clearing space. The Hulk charged through with a roar that shook the ground. He swung his massive fists in wide arcs, scattering attackers like leaves in a storm.

“Move!” commanded Natasha, leading the rest of the operations team as they tightened their formation, trying to push through and make it to the source.

Above them, Sam spotted reinforcements swarming in from the cliffs. “Guys, more incoming from the ridge!”

“More?!” John fought alongside Steve, his shield clashing against the attackers with raw force. “What do you mean, more? What is this? Like an army?!” he shouted, slamming his shield into one enemy before spinning and knocking another to the ground with a powerful kick.

“These are not regular soldiers,” said Maria through the comms, watching the live data analysis with a mix of nervousness and horror.

“No shit, really?” John replied. “Is like fighting an army of your finest tactical teams. I don’t think you see this on an everyday basis.”

“They just keep coming!” Steve replied, his voice strained as he deflected a strike aimed at his head and countered with a devastating blow to the chest of his attacker. “Tony, we need to know what’s at that source!”

“One sec.” Tony replied, commanding the screen with furious speed as he analyzed the scans. “Shit, I could really use your girlfriend’s powers right now. What the hell is in there? Something really powerful is blocking my signs.” He muttered while typing, overriding thousands of codes. “Commander, I think we’ve found what the lens from Steve’s fake brother-in-law was leading us to…”

“Okay, Jarvis, get me Robert Lin. NOW.” Tony ordered, his voice sharp as he broke through more passcodes. “I need him to reproduce that same cringy sound that woke my tech team from their Walking Dead state. And Steve, don’t try breaking through the entire World War Z wall… just send Sam over. I’ll have the command ready; he just needs to plug in.”

“You heard that?” Steve asked Sam as he slammed his shield into another enemy. Seeing the Falcon take flight toward the destination, Steve commanded with unwavering determination, “We push through. Everyone fights, no one falls.”

“Bruce, block them!” Steve shouted.

Bruce growled in response, grabbing a massive boulder and hurling it into the gap between the team and the incoming wave, creating a temporary barrier. 

But the moment the rock landed, a sharp white light sliced it clean in half, the massive stone splitting as if it were paper.

As the dust and debris settled, a figure stormed into the battle, moving faster than the eye could follow, a cold blade weaving through the air in deadly arcs.

“Watch it!” John shouted, raising his shield for the first strike. 

A muted sound echoed as the blade clashed against the shield, sending a shockwave that threw everyone nearby to the ground. John hit the ground hard, his arms numb and nearly unable to hold his shield.

“Shit…” he muttered through clenched teeth as he struggled to stand, but his face went pale when he saw you. Standing there, your eyes were cold, unrecognizable—hollow and devoid of emotion.

“Um… Steve?” John muttered as you spun the blade with an elegant yet deadly precision.

“Step back.” Steve replied, his voice thick with pain and fear he could barely suppress. 

“I’ve got this.” His gaze met yours, and in that moment, his heart broke.

The End but TBC.

Continue to: 12- Labyrinth

Oh this was a stressfull but fun one to write, sorry for being late in posting, but lately seems my stress levels are on their highest. The story will continue but I'm maybe one or two days of delaying on posting, but still will try my best to continue posting on fridays ✨ Thank you all for the lovely posts and messages you've sent last week when I was having a breakdown, this community is just magical, I'll continue writing and try my best to have the best stories! (BTW I just love fighting scenes, they are so fun to write, and I love these groups interactions) 💓 See you next week!

Love., Moon.࣪ ִֶָ☾.

Tag list: @vioplay19 / @jamneuromain / @steviebbboi / @heletsmelovehim / @otterlycanadian / hisredheadedgoddess28

let me know if you want to be added! 🥰

[psychics4unet]

The Secrets of the Void: Entering the Ultimate Psychic State

Introduction: The Void is a profound state of consciousness where the mind transcends ordinary reality, offering deep psychic insights and spiritual experiences. Tapping into the Void can amplify your intuitive abilities and connect you with higher realms.

How to Enter the Void:

Prepare your space by choosing a quiet, comfortable location where you won’t be disturbed. Start by meditating deeply, focusing on your breath, and slowly clearing your mind of all thoughts. Visualize yourself floating in a vast, dark space, where nothing exists but you. Surrender fully to the emptiness, letting go of all expectations and concerns.

Practice deep, slow breathing to calm your nervous system and help you enter a state of deep relaxation. Light candles or incense to create a serene atmosphere, enhancing your focus on entering the Void. Use calming music or binaural beats designed to help reach altered states of consciousness. Try grounding yourself first by imagining roots growing from your body into the Earth, anchoring you in the present moment.

Adopt a comfortable posture, either sitting or lying down, that allows you to remain still for an extended period. Keep your eyes closed to reduce external stimuli and enhance your inward focus. Set a clear intention before you begin, asking for guidance or clarity during your journey into the Void. Practice mindfulness, bringing your awareness fully into the present moment, letting go of past and future thoughts.

Repeat a mantra or affirmation that helps you detach from your everyday thoughts and enter a deeper state. Focus on the space between your thoughts, allowing the silence to expand. Imagine yourself dissolving into the darkness, becoming one with the Void. Let go of the need to control your experience, allowing whatever arises to do so naturally.

Use visualization techniques to see the Void as a gateway to deeper understanding and insight. Imagine a doorway or portal in your mind’s eye that leads directly into the Void. Focus on your third eye, the center of your forehead, as a way to enhance your psychic awareness. Release all tension in your body, letting it melt away as you sink deeper into relaxation.

Practice yoga or gentle stretching beforehand to prepare your body for stillness. Keep a journal nearby to record any insights or experiences that come to you after your session. Set a timer to avoid checking the time, allowing you to fully immerse yourself in the experience. Consider fasting or eating lightly before your session to enhance mental clarity.

Focus on your breath, counting each inhale and exhale to help quiet the mind. Use crystals like amethyst or clear quartz to enhance your connection to the Void. Practice regularly, as entering the Void becomes easier with time and experience. Start with short sessions, gradually increasing the time spent in meditation.

Visualize yourself surrounded by a protective light, ensuring your journey into the Void is safe. Allow yourself to drift off if you feel sleepy; sometimes, the Void can be accessed in the space between wakefulness and sleep. Use essential oils like lavender or sandalwood to help calm the mind and body. Focus on the feeling of weightlessness, as if you’re floating in the vastness of space.

Clear your mind of all distractions, both internal and external, before you begin. Listen to your intuition, following any guidance or impressions you receive during your journey. Stay patient and persistent, as entering the Void can take practice and dedication. Consider using a guided meditation specifically designed to help you reach the Void.

Trust the process, even if your experience is subtle or different from what you expected. Be open to whatever messages or insights come to you, even if they seem unrelated at first. Allow yourself to feel the vastness and silence of the Void, embracing the stillness. Reflect on your experience afterward, noting any shifts in your awareness or understanding.

Practice detachment, letting go of any need for a specific outcome or experience. Keep your mind open, allowing the Void to reveal itself to you in its own time. Approach each session with a sense of curiosity and wonder, exploring the unknown depths of your consciousness.