#Thank you regardless and sorry for the radio silence

[loadbearingbelly]

Don't let Donovan's expression fool you, he's on top of the world and nothing in his life has ever felt so right. Pushing out a baby as big as his just inevitably gets exhausting after a couple hours.

[reevesdriver]

Over the Knee (NSFW)

Summary: John Dutton does not like being teased, much less by a woman half his age so when you disrespect him on his own land he has to take matters into his own hands, literally.

Requested by: @fdupdaydream 😏😏 (Sorry it took so long girl but thanks for your patience)

Word count: 1782

Character(s): John Dutton

Reader: Female reader

Warning(s): NSFW / 🔥🔥🔥 / Smut / Unprotected Sex / Daddy kink / Spanking / Brat reader / Outdoor sex /

Support me: Kofi

When Rip hired Teeter she had one condition, he had to hire you too. Much to his slight annoyance at hiring more ranch hands than he deemed necessary his judgement quickly changed when he saw you astride one of the wild horses John had asked him to tame some weeks ago.

"Told you she was good." Teeter said, a proud tone in her voice.

You hadn't expected to be given the job helping with taming the horses though you weren't exactly going to turn it down. You'd heard enough about the famous John Dutton to willingly accept spending months to years at his ranch regardless of your young age. Being in your mid twenties John was hesitant at allowing you to stay on his ranch but when Rip boasted about your performance with the wild horses John watched you with eager eyes.

"He's gonna kick you Jimmy." You said, watching the stallion buck. Within seconds the man was bent over in pain after the horses hoof collided with his stomach. "What did I just say." You throw your hands up in defeat.

"That'll teach you for tryna outsmart the horse tamer." Lloyd laughed before jumping over the fence to help Jimmy up. Meanwhile you'd already crossed the paddock and had a hold of the bridle trying to keep the horse still as Jimmy limped away.

As you pet the stallion along his neck John had made his way from his house down to the paddocks so he could find out what the shouting was. "Horse kicked Jimmy." Rip stated plainly when John approached him.

"Is he alright?"

"Think his pride is hurt more than anything." He replied and John laughed.

"I want to borrow her for a few hours if that's alright? Got some horses near the woods that Kayce thinks are worth taming, want to get her opinion on them."

"That's fine with me sir but you'll have to ask her." Rip replies then whistles in your direction. You were sat atop the saddle of the 'untameable horse', as Jimmy called him, and chatted to Teeter and Lloyd. When you look to Rip he motions you over with a wave and you quickly get the horse trotting to the other side of the paddock.

"Rip, Mr Dutton, how can I help?" You ask politely.

"Got a job for you." John says. "Need to borrow your expertise for a few hours."

"Sure thing, let me put this big guy back and I'll be all yours."

"Leave him, Jimmy can do it." Rip says stopping you. "Hey Jimmy, come put this horse away."

You laugh as Jimmys face drops when you dismount. Hopping over the fence you walk with John to his truck where he opens the passenger side door for you. "I don't need to grab anything from the bunkhouse do I?" You ask and climb up into the raised truck.

"No, we'll be there and back in a few hours, not unless there's anything you want to bring?"

"Nope, got everything I need." You reply and buckle your seatbelt when John closes the door, rounds the truck, and climbs into the drivers side. The drive down the main road from the Ranch was quiet for a few minutes until John spoke up. "You like working at the ranch?" He asks, tilting his head to you.

"I'm not really gonna say no when I'm in a car with the boss am I?" You laugh and he smiles.

"You can be honest with me darlin."

"Ooo darlin'." You repeat in a mocking tone. "Careful John you'll have people talking."

"Doubt it, I'm old enough to be your daddy." He says making you smirk.

"Mhmm Daddy." You say barely above a whisper with a smirk on your face which doesn't go unnoticed by John. He may be an older man but he heard what you said.

The truck fell into silence as you looked out of the window at the passing fields and trees, the radio played a quiet country song that lulled into another. John pulled down a dirt road and slowed to a stop putting the hand break on and turning off the ignition. "We're here." He said in the usual gruff tone and you slid your seatbelt off before jumping down from the truck.

You walk by his side to a gated portion of land where a few horses are galloping around near a tent. They stop and eye you quizzically before returning to run with one another. "I take it this is why you wanted me?" You say putting two and two together.

"Yeah, Kayce thinks they might be worth training but I want your opinion on them before we waste any time catching them." He opens the gate as he replies and ushers you through before shutting it behind him. You carefully walk onto the land trying not to scare the mare and her foal that has broken away from the small herd.

As you approach the mare with an open palm John heads to the small camp and takes a seat next to the un-lit fire. The foal walks up to you, it must be at least a month or two old and even though it hasn't had any human interaction, that you know of a least, it willingly walks past its mother and straight to you. You watch the mare with a nervous gaze incase she decides to charge as you pet her foal though after a minute or so she seems to be comfortable with your presence and approaches you too.

"That's a good girl." You say moving from petting the foal to its mother. You quickly look her over taking note of a few scratches on her legs that are poking out under the dirt and debris that had gathered from running in the fields and forests. She's toned but a little slimmer than normal and from the brief interaction she seems like a fairly easy horse to tame.

You stop petting her so you can join John at the camp. She turns with her foal and trots off down the field. "What do you think of her?" John asks as you approach the, now-lit, fire. You sit down in the little camping chair that's opposite. "I'd say she's worth taming, she looks strong but she needs fattening up a little more, same with that foal too."

"I'll let Kayce know when we get back, no reception out here. You want a drink?" He says motioning to the bottle oh Whiskey in his hand. You nodded and stood up, rounded the fire and joined him on the laid-out blanket that he was sat on. "Hold on, are you even old enough to drink?"

You laugh. "Yes I'm old enough now hand it over old man."

You reach for the bottle but he pulls it just out of range. "Enough with the old man, say it again and I'll have to take you over my knee." His voice is low and laced with a tinge of anger.

"Don't threaten me with a good time Mr Dutton." You say testing the waters. John was a very handsome man, everyone could see that and eve though he was double your age, if not more you were still heavily attracted to him. The way his large hands flexed against the reigns, how his presence alone changed the atmosphere in a room and his voice, that damn deep voice that massaged your ear drums every time he spoke drove you mad. "I doubt you'd be able to teach me a lesson, I am quite the handful...old man." You speak the last two words barely above a whisper.

You see the fire ignite in Johns eyes, dropping the bottle of Whiskey he grabs your wrist and pulls you across his lap. Lifting a leg from under you he rests his thigh against your lower back keeping you pinned down with your ass in the air. Before you can protest John raises his hand and slaps his heavy palm against your clothed asscheek. The denim offered no cushioning whatsoever as his hand collided with your backside three more times until John paused.

A moan had slipped from your lips when his hand connected with the curve of your ass for the fourth time. "You getting off on this?" He asks but doesn't need you to reply, he already knows the answer from the way you're squirming under his thigh, trying to grind your pussy over his knee in an attempt to cum.

In one switch motion John moves so he is behind you. He's about to speak out a command until he sees your hands move underneath you. You undo your belt and unbutton your jeans and John takes it from there. He pulls the clothes past your ass and down your thighs until they rest at the backs of your knees then he quickly works to undo his own jeans. As he fumbles with the buckle of his belt he looks around making sure that no-one is nearby and frees his hard cock.

Giving it a few tugs for good measure John lines himself up with your pussy and starts to slowly push in, relishing the way your cum coats his head and lubricates the shaft as he pushes deep inside until fully sheathed. "Fuck John, so good." You mumble. It had been months since you'd last got your leg over someone. Things had gotten a little hot and heavy in the bunkhouse with Ryan but that was quickly shut down when Lloyd and Rip entered drunk one night and you had to do a quick shuffle of shame to your own bunk.

But right now in this moment it didn't matter if you had fucked someone an hour prior, the way Johns cock filled your cunt was something that you'd never felt before. Your pussy felt like it was made just for him, it fit perfectly around his shaft as he pounded you into the blanket, his palm connecting with your bare ass every few seconds as he aimed to make both cheeks dark red.

Your walls squeeze around his cock as you cum. "That's it baby, cum for daddy." His voice is low but commanding as your thighs shake. After a few more thrusts John is pumping his seed deep inside of you, his thumbs dig into the deep red marks on your cheeks.

Coming down from your high you try to raise up from the blanket. "Fuck." You say in a whimpered tone. "I won't ever call you old man again." You rub at your ass cheeks and John laughs.

"At least you've learnt your lesson darlin'."

[farfromstrange]

Do No Harm

CHAPTER TWELVE: Oh, Chaos!

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Pairing: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Summary: You have an eventful day at work rekindling with a new acquaintance and dealing with a peculiar trauma case, but the most prominent thing on your mind is dinner with Matt, and you could really use some advice from someone who knows a thing or two about dates to keep you from canceling.

Warnings for this chapter: slight angst, self-hatred/doubt, mentions of past abuse, mentions of injury

Word Count: 5.3k

A/n: I'm sorry this took so long. I took an unexpected hiatus, and I couldn't break out of the writer's block, so this took close to a month to finish. I read this a dozen times, and I fixed what I could. This is rather "boring" compared to what came before and what I've got planned, but there is plot in there that will become important again later down the line. Just so you know what you're getting yourself into in advance. 'Kay, thank you!

Read Chapter 12: Oh, Chaos! here on AO3

Four missed calls, and twenty text messages. The chat is full of one-sided advances. ‘Claire’ is written on top, but her contact resembles an empty void in contrast. 

I don’t know what I did to deserve this radio silence, but I thought you would like to know I asked Matt out again. I like him. We’re having dinner on Friday. Do with that as you will. 

Hope you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere. 

Call me when you can. Please. 

I’m worried about you. 

Love you. 

It has been like this since Matt called you when you least expected it. Whether he was looking for support, professional advice, or just the sound of your voice, you’re not sure, but it warmed your heart to know he thought of you and no one else, and he picked up the phone to call you. 

Before, you tried telling yourself that there isn’t much between you. You tried telling yourself that perhaps, it would never go anywhere and not to be disappointed because from the start, Matt has been too good to be true, but after sharing a glimpse of your past, you feel closer to him, and you don’t want to let him go. He is the first good thing that has come to you in years. 

Claire’s radio silence hurts. You don’t want to admit it, but sending text after text to your best friend and receiving not even a ‘read’ sign both concerns and upsets you. Ever since she took you under her wing when you came to New York, you’ve—sometimes involuntarily—shared your anger with her, your sadness, your pain, and those rare moments of happiness. 

She was the one who told you to go for it, so her behavior remains suspicious. You want to ask her; you want to confront her about everything and get the truth out of her, but unless she answers your contact attempts or shows up to work, there is not much you can do. You tried from the moment you got home to the second leading up to your next shift at the hospital. So far, nothing. A few days ago, you would have called the police and said that this was nothing like Claire, but now, you’re not so sure anymore what to believe, and it is pissing you off when you should be excited.

Things are looking up. You don’t want to look down and ruin this for yourself, knowing there is a chance your thoughts will most likely turn against you again at some point. You have to enjoy it while it lasts. 

Glancing down at your phone, you walk down one of the hallways at Metro General. You shake your head. It’s been hours. Perhaps after you get off work, you will head to where Claire is staying. Just to check on her. The nagging feeling that shit is about to hit the fan won’t leave you, and it seems like the right thing to do, even if just to ask her what her problem is. 

She’s always so quick to tell you what’s good for you. She gives you advice you never even asked for, but you end up appreciating it regardless. She knows what she’s doing, and she is a lot smarter than you are most of the time. You know her as well as you possibly can after two years; Claire is hiding something, and that is unlike her. If she gets herself in danger because of something she feels like she can’t talk to you about, or if she has an opinion afraid to share with you, you need to know because it is important to you. Your mind is disordered and distorted; you are well aware that sometimes, you don’t see things as clearly as you should. Claire’s rationality is a blessing and a curse. You’re dependent on it.

“Hey, Doc,” a familiar voice sounds from the nurse’s station.

You stop in your tracks, looking up from your phone to the man standing across from you. You haven’t seen that face in a while, even though he spends a lot of time here—almost as much as he does at work. You doubt he ever goes home to sleep. 

Your face lights up, and you stuff your phone back into the pocket of your coat. “Ben!” you exclaim, your lips curving into a smile. 

“Long time no see,” he says in an attempt to match your delighted reaction.

You hate to admit it, but Ben Urich looks worse for wear. Dark circles under his eyes match the deepened wrinkles of exhaustion, and his lips are cracked in more places than one. His shirt shows the slightest of coffee stains he tries to cover with his visitor badge. You doubt he has had the time to do his laundry in a long time. And there is that expression of agony he usually knows how to hide, but the walls he once built around himself are starting to crumble. 

The sympathy you have for this man cannot be put into words—because your feelings are unpleasant most of the time, too, and unless you have been in an impossible situation, all you can have is empathy. You, however, are not a stranger to despair, and the people around you all seem to be carrying too much of it, too. 

You clear your throat, putting the file in your hand aside to shake his. “How have you been?” you dare to ask. 

He shrugs. “Could be better, but… I’m alive. Healthy,” he says. It’s a modified standard answer you do not buy for even a second. 

Your eyes soften, but you try to keep the mood light. God knows what he has been through since the last time you saw him on this very floor. “Yeah? That’s good. The Bulletin still giving you a hard time about the things you want to write?” You chuckle. 

“Ah, you know how it is.” Ben leans against the counter. “Readers these days are apparently more interested in celebrity scandals and gentrification than true crime.”

The pen scratches against the chart you have to sign. “Well, just know that you will always have a loyal fan of your true crime section in me, and I would tell that to Eric’s face if you ever need me to.” You offer him a smile of pure honesty, and his eyes actually light up this time. 

He chuckles. “Can I quote you on that?”

“That depends. Am I getting paid?”

“I’m afraid the only form of payment I have is cheap office coffee.”

“You’re in luck then,” you say, “I am a sucker for cheap office coffee because it’s still better than cheap hospital coffee.”

His face contorts. “Yeah, I’m not going to argue with you on that,” he says. 

Again, you chuckle. The question rests on the tip of your tongue, but only when the silence stretches out painfully long enough to prompt a drop of sweat to run down his temple, you ask, “How’s your wife?” No pain or pity in your voice—you know he doesn’t need it. 

Ben swallows in response, scratching his fingers through his hair. “Uh, hanging in there. They told me she’s had a good day today. Lucid,” he tells you. 

“That sounds like progress. You know, with her condition, every good day is a success.”

“Yeah, yeah, I, uh… I agree. But… she’s not the only reason I’m here. Shelly called me here today to, uh, discuss my wife’s future at this hospital…”

The muscles in your shoulders tense and stiffen. You slowly lift your head. “Oh,” is all you can muster up to say. You know where this is going.

“Yeah,” he says. “I tried convincing her to keep her here a little while longer. But apparently, you guys can’t accommodate her much longer, and she wants me to look into hospice or some other form of long-term care.”

“I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s not your fault.”

But what else are you supposed to say? You clear your throat. “I, uh… Shelly’s under a lot of pressure, you know? We’re having funding issues in every department, and she is just trying to make due, but… I know your wife’s been here for a very long time, and she’s dependent on the care. Alzheimer’s can be incredibly cruel, and I’m sure hospice is a lot more expensive than what your insurance covers if she stays here, so it isn’t fair. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” says Ben. 

“Can I help in any way?” you ask. 

“Well, unless you can win the lottery or find a cure for Alzheimer’s in the next seven days, I’m afraid not.”

“Believe me, people are trying, but—”

“I know,” he cuts you off. “I still appreciate it. You’re one of the few doctors here who still care about the people.”

You shake your head, saying, “It’s not that easy. The system is rigged against us. We’re all aware of it, but some of us just… fall off the wagon because they think the only way through is to become what we hate the most. Selfish, egotistical money-makers always chasing recognition rather than caring about the patients we’re supposed to serve,” you explain. “These new fancy medical centers only those with millions in their bank accounts can afford are where all the funding goes, and those who cater to the underprivileged and uninsured—like us—have to suffer the consequences because we don’t chase after money. I would know; I did my residency at one of those hospitals, and I hated how some of these people treated their patients, so I always tried to use the resources we’ve got to help people, even those who couldn’t afford it. Of course, not all of my fellow residents stayed on that path with me. The more high-risk surgeries, the better the payout, even when unnecessary. Upcoding and needless tests were the standards we were held to. I’ve always hated that. Public hospitals are at the bottom of the food chain, and the patients end up pulling the short straw, but most doctors don’t start with the mindset that it’s just something we have to accept. That lethargy comes with time. And the system.”

“Kind of reminds me of that kook in the black mask,” Ben muses. “With his disbelief in the system and his…his twisted sense of justice.”

You scoff. “Well…”

Your mind flashes back to the other night in that alleyway. The way he interfered when he heard you in trouble. The cockiness he seemed to exceed, but it quickly vanished when he realized you may have risked your life to save someone else’s, but you were not going to leave another person injured. You don’t have a lot of trust in the justice system, but that man seemed… different; like the only way he could believe in justice is when he does something against the persistent injustice that so many turn a blind eye to. 

But it’s not just Hell’s Kitchen, which the Man In Black seems to gracefully ignore. He does what he needs to where he thinks he has to, but it is not just the system in his beloved city that is wired against the people it is supposed to protect and serve. It’s not just the justice system or society overall, it’s the government, too. And you truly believe he knows that, too, he simply does not have the manpower to fight all battles at once. No one has. 

Ben eyes you curiously, up and down. “What, you don’t agree?” he asks. 

You sigh. “I don’t think he has a twisted sense of justice, no.”

“Why? You met him?”

Saying yes would make you an accessory to his crimes. “I’ve heard the same things you have, Ben, and I think he really is trying to change something,” you answer instead. 

You find a sudden determination in his eyes as he leans closer. “You treat his victims, right? You’ve seen what he can do with his bare hands. Taking out entire syndicates that have been bothering Hell’s Kitchen for decades, going up against bad seeds and corporations, and he never backs down,” he says. 

“If you’re trying to say it’s a bad thing…” You trail off. 

“I think it’s a grey area. A fine line.”

“Well, as fine as that line may be, I don’t feel as much empathy for the people he puts in here because I’ve seen what they can do just a few blocks from here,” you state and close the chart in front of you on the counter. “I had to watch lives and families get destroyed. The ones responsible for serving justice either didn’t have the evidence, or they were too late, or the only witnesses died on my table, or—and that happens quite frequently, too—they just didn’t care,” you say. “The times I watched them make arrests, the legal system ended up failing the victims anyway. Now, I’m not saying I condone violence, but this city needs help. Depending on the area, police sometimes don’t even bother to check, and that pisses me off because a lot of the time, tragedies could have been prevented if first responders just got there on time. Or if the perpetrators involved in a crime suffered the consequences for their actions instead of bailing out the same day on a domestic violence charge. I know that the police can't be everywhere at once, but… A lot of people feel safer with this guy out there because they know he tries.”

Ben desperately scribbles along on a small notepad you’re not sure where he got it from. He’s not even wearing a coat. 

“It’s like David and Goliath,” you tell him, too animated to pay closer attention to your surroundings. ���It’s a contest wherein a smaller, weaker opponent faces a much bigger and stronger adversary. I just… I don’t know. In this city, there are a lot of metaphorically weak individuals who don’t have the means to fight back against the big guy. Like I said, a system rigged against its people does not help the people live a safe and happy life in a city that makes them feel like all their advances are futile.”

“That’s excellent,” he murmurs.

You glimpse down at his hand, frowning. “It’s just my opinion.”

“There’s nothing ‘just’ about it. I know a lot of people feel the way you do, and yes, that’s fucked up. But that’s why we need people like you to speak up. People with more influence than the little guy. People who serve the people.”

“Ben,” you try to get a word in.

“Hear me out,” he says. “If I can get Eric to sign off on it, I want to write a think piece for the public. About the man in the mask. About Hell’s Kitchen and New York, and the things no one likes to talk about. And I’d like to get you on the record.”

“With all due respect—and I do love the concept—I don’t think interviewing me would be such a good idea.”

“Why not?”

Your pulse has inevitably gotten higher. Because if my ex finds out where I am, he’ll kill me. The thought screams like a banshee, echoing like the trajectory of a bouncing basketball. It takes you a moment to realize that the thudding is your heart. Dull, aching, and infused with a panic as old as time. 

You squeeze the pen in your fist, feeling the plastic crack under the weight. “I can’t have my name or face on the record,” you confess. “It’s a, uh… protection thing.”

The most human thing to ask would be, ‘Protection from what?’ You don’t have to read minds to know that those are the words forming on Ben’s lips the second you offer him an explanation that is not quite the truth. It couldn’t be further from it, but your truth is a tank and tanks can take down everything in their path without suffering as much as a scratch. 

You take the stage before he can ask—before you can ride yourself further into this pile of dirt and lies. “I treat people for a living, and my opinions out there… I need to protect myself if someone ever wants to file a lawsuit against me for prejudicial behavior because they could easily use an interview I gave as evidence,” you say. “I could lose my license.” Your license, and your life. 

He releases a strangled breath. “Yeah, no. Of course,” Ben says. “I knew that. But I could always refer to my source as anonymous. Most of the time, people don’t care about who said what anyway. They just want something to talk about.”

You want to scream. The alarm is blaring loud enough for the nerves in your body to hear it. The rage is so hard to swallow. Not at him though. It isn’t Ben’s fault that even now, you have to live your life as if it was never yours to begin with.

“But,” he adds upon seeing the look on your face, like a deer in bright headlights, “unless a certain Man in Black decides to leave another stranded criminal on my doorstep, Eric will never sign off on it. I’m sorry,” the exasperation in his voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard. “I didn’t mean to jump this at you. I know you have more…important things to do than worry about an old journalist who knows damn well his best days are behind him.” 

The shake of your head follows in an instant. His confidence lies drowned in the invisible puddle at your feet. “You don’t always have to go with the flow of time,” you tell him. “If you want to write something, you should. People’s tastes change, but there will always be someone out there who wants to read what you have to say.”

Ben smiles at you. “Does that mean you’ll think about my offer?” he asks.

You return the gesture. “When I’ve done my important things, maybe I will.”

And chances are, you will think about it. You will think about it, and then you will cry over a bottle of wine and wish you were never born or that, once again, he killed you when he had the chance. You will wish that you didn’t run, and you will curse John and your entire existence to hell and back because without him, you wouldn’t have to guard your heart like a maximum-security prison, and you wouldn’t have to hide who you are like a secret from Pandora’s box. In the end, though, you know you will have to decide if he doesn’t forget what he offered you—and knowing Ben Urich, when he is allowed to write about what he wants, he won’t forget the sources he tried to recruit along the way. 

You look up suddenly when the sirens start blaring above your head. 

Attention all staff, Code Red, Emergency Department. Code Red, Emergency Department. Trauma team to the Emergency Department immediately.

“That sounds bad,” Ben comments. 

You turn back to him, but before you can open your mouth and excuse yourself from the conversation (and your internal self-hatred party), one of the nurses behind the counter picks up the phone with a knowing nod. A second passes and all color fades from her skin before her features contort. “I’m sorry, what?!” she damn-near screeches.

You frown back at her. “Hey, Evie,” — you snap your fingers — “What’s going on?”

She moves the speaker away from her lips. “Um,” she stammers. “Have you ever seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre?”

“Oh, my God.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s 11 am!” you say, your eyes darting between her and the wall as if that would change anything.

Ben cuts in, “That doesn’t mean much in a city that never sleeps,” he says. “People are always crazy ‘round here.”

You scoff. “Apparently! I’m so sorry, but I’ve gotta–”

“Yeah, no. I know.” He nods, his eyes softening in an instant. “Go!”

With a grateful nod, you leave your work on the counter and head into a sprint down the hall. 

A life-saving surgery can take up to several hours. There really is no margin for error, so you tune out the noise of the world outside and focus on the chaos you have to control. You focus on what you know and what you have learned because if you don’t, the person you are cutting into with a scalpel could die at your very touch. For those few critical hours, you are nothing but a doctor, but the world doesn’t stop or disappear in real life when you cease to exist; when you come back after those few hours, the world is still falling apart, and you still have to go back home and face the reality you are forced to live in. But how can you think that when people are fighting for their lives every day before your eyes; when you can try as hard as you want to help them, but you fail more often than you do not? Mental scars often out-rule the physical scars of a trauma patient, and whenever you tell them it gets better, you feel like you are lying to them. Because it never gets better, it feels like.

People are dying and falling apart, and so are you, and it hurts that nothing ever seems to change, not even when you try to tell yourself that people are dependent on you and that your world can’t stop again because this is your job; you signed up for this. But you didn’t sign up for this kind of life. You fell in with the wrong person, craving a love like in the fairytales you used to read as a little girl. You missed the feeling of being loved because the people who were supposed to love you died and fell apart, and you were left fantasizing. It’s a downright mess in your head and everywhere around you, and you are continuously stumbling over the broken glass on your floor, falling into the shards and cutting yourself over and over again until you’re bleeding out but never fully dead. 

You spend the next six hours in the operating room, forgetting about Matt and the implications of your dinner. The one you asked him out to. You forget about Ben and his offer, and you think finally, finally, you can breathe. Human anatomy isn’t quite as complicated as this. The one thing you have been worrying most about, the person who has occupied your every waking thought for days now, fades into the shadows for a little while, but then you’re threading the needle through the skin of the man whose life you have saved, and your second to breathe turns into a riot.

Ben’s words return to your conscience; the masked individual he seems most fascinated with moves to the forefront of your fragile mind. He is all over you again, and it sends a thrill down your spine that positively terrifies you; it terrifies you that it doesn’t terrify you. He shouldn’t matter, and you shouldn’t lose another thought to him, but Ben Urich knows how to cast out a net to catch even the most unlikely adversary. 

You redial the last number on your phone. Standing in the emergency room that has grown quiet for the afternoon, you feel the weight of the world sinking back in. The clock keeps ticking closer to the end of your shift and inevitably, dinner. Forgetting is a blessing until you realize that thinking about it would have prepared you more, and now you barely have time. 

You want to cancel. You should cancel. Claire has not been picking up, and you’re worried about her. But she’s an adult, isn’t she? She pushed you into doing this, and then she bailed. A good friend would at least give you a reason for her change of mind. She hasn’t said a word because she refuses to answer, and it’s starting to leave a bitter taste in your mouth. 

“This is Claire. Leave a message,” her voicemail greets you. 

You sigh. “Hey, I don’t know why you refuse to pick up my calls, but I could use your help. I’m, uh, freaking out about this stupid dinner that wouldn’t be happening if it wasn’t for what you said, so the least you could do is call me back and help me pick a dress, maybe talk me off the ledge,” you say. Your voice cracks. “Please, Claire, call me back.” 

The silence is defeating. You put your phone down, staring at the paperwork before you. You have a lot more of that in your office, but you can’t be bothered to be entirely alone right now. Not when you are fighting a war with yourself inside your head. The one soldier you thought you could count on has retreated from the frontlines. 

You look up when your peripheral vision picks up on movement. “Trouble?” one of the nurses asks, motioning to your face.

“Depends on the definition,” you say.

“Hit me with it. Maybe I can help.”

You couldn’t shut up even if you wanted to. “Well… Do you know anything about proper date attire?” 

She grins, dropping whatever she was holding before to turn her undivided attention to you. “A date?” she asks. “Well, well, Doc. Who’s the lucky guy?”

“Oh, just… a guy I met. A good guy.” You smile sadly at the thought of those beautiful brown eyes, and the green forest that he hides in his irises whenever the light hits his beautiful face just right. The wrinkles, the dimples, and the faint freckles on his nose, too. He is so beautiful. 

She leans forward on her elbows on the counter of the nurse’s station. “The good guy who left your number here the other day?” 

You raise your eyebrows, flabbergasted. “Wh—” The blood rushes to your face, and you suddenly feel very warm as you gape at her. “Does everyone here know about that?” you ask, your voice bothered on a high-pitched siren of embarrassment. 

The nurse only smirks. “He is very handsome,” she states. “It’s hard to forget a face like that. And he’s come here twice. One of those times he sat by your bedside. Now, I don’t know about you, but I would marry a guy like that in a heartbeat. Bodies in the basement included.”

You hope he doesn’t have bodies in his basement. What if he does though? What if he is just another bad choice waiting to be made? What then? You can’t imagine it, and the things you’re feeling… you have only felt them in your mind because nothing you had was ever real, but you love feeling them now more than you thought possible. It’s the fact that you love that treacherous feeling so much that you feel like you’re not thinking clearly enough to make rational decisions. But you don’t want to make rational decisions, you’ve realized. Life shouldn’t be about that. You can’t turn the voice in your head off and make it stop screaming at you, but you know how to feel. If you only knew how to channel that without falling apart at the hands of your self-doubts though. If only you knew. 

You run a wary hand over your face. “Okay,” you murmur, closing your chart so you can look at your colleague. “Claire isn’t answering her phone and this date… it’s freaking me out. She said I had to get back out there, but she bailed on me,” you tell her. “I don’t know what to wear or how to behave because the place we’re going to is… fancy? And I don’t even know how to pay for it. I… I don’t know if I should go because the last time I was on a date… let’s just say it didn’t end well. So, if you could just tell me that this is a bad idea and I should take on a second shift instead so I won’t feel bad about lying to him, I would be forever in your debt.”

She shakes her head, not having missed a second of your rambling. “Oh, hell no!” she exclaims. 

You match her incredulity, propping your hands up on your hips. “Excuse me?” you ask.

Her head stops, and the way she stands there reminds you of your English teacher from high school. Tall, brunette, and sassy. “You are not bailing on that date like Claire bailed on you just because you’re experiencing anxiety,” the nurse tells you. She’s insistent. You doubt you will get a word in that isn’t an utterance of agreement. 

“You don’t understand,” you try to convince her, or are you trying to convince yourself? “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Did you miss the part where I said my last date ended in disaster?”

“So what? I’ve had a lot of disastrous dates.”

“That’s not…ugh!” It is your turn to shake your head, looking at the sterile wall as though it were a screen. 

A life built on a lie is not much of a life at all. You have as good a reason as anyone to bail on this date, and it’s not just a disastrous date. You didn’t pick the wrong guy off of Hinge and fall in love with him. What happened to you was different on a level you can’t easily describe, but it also shouldn’t define you; she’s right. Your insecurities are going to be the death of you one day.

“Let me ask you this,” she says. “Do you like him? Or do you just think he’s a really good guy because he was nice to you?”

Your jaw slacks. The Audacity. “I… I think he’s a great guy. Nice. Forthcoming. That’s all,” you answer. It’s not a lie, but it is not the full truth she wanted to hear.

“Uh-huh. I may not be a human polygraph, but I can smell a lie from miles away like a bloodhound. And you, Doctor, are lying and therefore interfering with your treatment.”

“I’m not a patient.”

“Are you though?”

You sigh. You should not have confided in her, but also, perhaps it was the best choice you could have made. 

“I like him,” you confess upon looking into her eyes. “Okay? I like him. He’s not just a good guy. He’s… different, and that’s why I like him.”

She stands up straighter, a newfound energy filling her veins. “That’s more like it. Now, let’s forget the whole ‘canceling and using work as an excuse’ thing. What’s the vibe?” she asks.

The change of subject throws you off for a second. You’re walking on eggshells, fragile train tracks you could fall off and electrocute yourself with if you only take one wrong step. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take risks. 

“Fancy-ish,” you answer. You don’t have any strength left to fight. “I don’t know. It’s dinner.”

“Dinner’s romantic. Put on a silk or velvet dress because those are the fabrics with less risk of becoming a sensory nightmare, possibly some jewelry, but you don’t need much more than that. He’ll fall in love with your personality first. The rest is just… for your confidence and his imagination.”

She looks so proud of herself. You can’t deny that it’s good advice. It’s not the sound of your voice filling a voicemail to the brim or a solely blue chat history; it’s something you can work with. 

You nod slowly. “If I didn’t have mountains of paperwork waiting for me, I would kiss you,” you say.

With a chuckle, she retorts, “Save that for your date.”

“I’m not kissing him.” You grab your pile of work. “It’s just dinner. I don’t even want to kiss him.”

On your way to the elevators, you catch a glimpse of her smirk. She’s not buying it. You don’t want her to. You don’t even trust yourself to tell the truth.

“I don’t,” you say, loud enough for her to hear but mostly to yourself. “I don’t want to kiss him,” you repeat because you don’t.

You don’t want to kiss Matt Murdock.

Except that you do, and you would do anything to make that happen—if your world wasn’t so unfair to begin with. 

Tag List: @shiorimakibawrites @allllium @siampie @auroraslibrary @roseallisonparker @abucketofweird @thatonegamefish @capylore @kniselle @sumo-b98 @peachstarliight @danzer8705 @kakamixo @littlehappyperson @atemydadforbreakfast @stevenknightmarc @zheezs14 @shouldbestudying41 @kiwwia-wiwwia @writtenbyred @echo-ethe @kezibear @peterbarnes

[artiststarme]

Steve’s No Good, Very Bad Day

This is something a little different from what I usually do so I hope you guys like it! Please leave your thoughts and title ideas in the comments!

~*~*~*~

Steve was just wrapping up at work one day, getting ready to run some errands when the kids stampeded through the door. He hardly even had time to sigh before Dustin was trying to negotiate for him to give them a ride to the community pool. 

“Steve, it’s eighty four degrees outside right now and the community pool is a mile away. If we bike there in these conditions, we could get heat stroke and die. What kind of friend would you be if you let us die when you could’ve prevented it? Since we all know you’re my best friend, you should give us a ride.”

“Dude, no. I have errands to run and I’m really not in the mood to babysit,” Steve said, shaking his head. He had better things to do than drive them around town all day. Like buying himself groceries and toilet paper, interesting stuff. 

“Please, Steve? We’re counting on you! Just give us a ride and we’ll leave you alone for the rest of the weekend!” Lucas bartered. 

“I’m hosting DnD at my house tomorrow,” Steve said, completely deadpan. 

“And we’ll leave you alone until then!” Dustin jumped in. “Please?”

“Son of a bitch, fine! Go wait by my car. Jesus Christ, you’re truly annoying. You know that, right?”

“Thanks Steve!” Dustin called and ran to wait by his car. 

Steve just sighed and shook his head. He didn’t sign up for this. He loves those kids but goddamn, he just wanted one day to himself after working customer service and faking smiles all morning. Nevertheless, he climbed into his car and cranked the AC before heading towards the pool. 

“So where’s Will, Max, and El? Are you guys hanging out with them today too?”

“Of course we are,” Dustin answered snootily. “They’re our friends.”

“They’re meeting us at the pool,” Lucas added. 

“Well, thank you Lucas for answering my question,” he turned to look at Dustin in the passenger seat. “You need to lose the ‘tude, Henderson. I’m doing you shitheads a favor. Tone it down.”

“Sorry,” Dustin muttered. 

They traveled the rest of the way in silence with only the soft tones of Simon and Garfunkel playing softly through the radio. When they turned into the pool’s parking lot, something felt off. Steve couldn’t put his finger on it. Nothing looked out of the blue but something was wrong, he was certain. 

“Stay in the car, I’ll be right back.” He opened his door and Henderson opened his as well. “Dustin, please. Just stay in the car for a minute.”

“Wha- but…”

“Dustin!” He gave him a confused look but shut the door regardless. 

Steve saw Max, Will, and El rounding the corner and ran up to them. They looked fine too but something still felt off. His stomach was twisting in warning and he didn’t know why. 

“Hey guys-”

“Steve? I didn’t know you’d be coming. We could’ve used the ride,” Max snarked.

“Listen, something feels off. Get in my car,” Steve told them. His heart started beating faster and he could feel sweat dripping on his forehead. His adrenaline was going crazy and he didn’t know why. 

“Steve, there isn’t enough room. We won’t fit-” Will tried to explain but he was cut off by the sound of gunfire. El threw up her hands to telekinetically redirect the bullets and Steve tackled Max and El to the ground. 

He lightly smacked his head on the cement but he picked himself up soon enough. When he looked around the parking lot, there were dozens of government agents facing El with their guns drawn. 

“Eleven. We are with a secret department of the United States government. If you come with us peacefully, we’ll let your friends live.” As the woman in charge was talking, Steve noticed a man standing behind El raise his gun to her head. 

“El!” He jumped up from the ground the pushed her away from the path of the gun as it fired. He felt a sharp, searing pain in his shoulder and then he was back on the ground. 

“Steve!” She looked over at him but he just shook his head with his teeth clenched. 

“Kill them!” He felt bad about ordering a kid to kill the fifteen agents, not for them but for her. She didn’t deserve to carry their deaths on her conscience. But as he saw all of their necks snap in unison, he couldn’t help but feel a little relieved. 

All of the kids surrounded him worriedly. The boys looked slightly nauseous while Max and El were looking at his shoulder in concern.

“Steve? Are you okay, buddy? I’m pretty sure you got shot.” Dustin told him gently, just as he had in Billy’s Camaro all those years ago. 

“El… you okay?” Steve asked her quietly. It was getting harder for him to speak. It felt like there was a fog over him that was pulling him under.

“Of course I am okay, Steve. You were the one that was shot,” she told him matter-of-factly. 

“Hmm, yeah makes sense. Fucking... figures,” and then he lost consciousness. 

~*~*~*~

When he woke up, it was to a bland hospital room. His head ached, his shoulder throbbed, and his throat was dry. As annoyed as he was with the situation, Steve was glad that he had been there for the kids. Who knew what would’ve happened if he hadn’t gotten there when he did. Would El have that man’s bullet in her head? Would Max and Will be dead due to a slew of bullets? He’s glad he would never have to find out. 

He was so lost in his thoughts of what could have happened that he didn’t notice Hopper stepping in until he spoke. 

“What the hell were you thinking?” Hopper hissed angrily. 

“What do you mean?” Steve asked in confusion. It almost seemed like Hopper was mad at him but he was pretty positive that he had no reason to be. 

“Why the hell were you taking the kids to the pool? You know that people are after her and you just took her out into the open? How could you do something so stupid?!”

Steve’s entire body flinched at his comment. “Hop, the kids were going anyway. The only reason I was there was to give Dustin, Lucas, and Mike a ride. The other kids were meeting them there. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You’re the adult, Harrington! You should’ve told them no and then none of us would be in this situation!” 

“Hop, I’m sorry. Next time I’ll be more careful. I know it must’ve been scary to see your kids like that…”

“You’re not my son!” He screamed at him in fury.

Steve’s blood turned cold. “Wh-what?”

“El is my daughter and your actions almost got her killed! And you put all the other kids in danger too. I don’t know if Joyce and I can forgive you for this, Harrington.”

Hopper shook his head derisively one last time and stalked out of the hospital room. Steve just laid there in shock. He didn’t know why Hopper was so mad at him or why he decided that Steve wasn’t worth any effort anymore. He didn’t know why he always pushed away his parental figures but this was three people now that he managed to disappoint so it had to be an issue with him. All he could do was close his eyes and cry at the unfairness of it all.

~*~*~*~

Between visits from Eddie and Robin, Steve was alone. The kids were banned from seeing him due to what Hopper had coined ‘reckless endangerment’ and it wasn’t like he had anyone else interested in visiting him. So it was a surprise when a chastened Hopper entered his room. 

“Hey kid, how are you doing?” He asked him softly. 

Steve just stared at him. He wasn’t sure where he and Hop stood after he screamed at him just a few days prior. 

“Look Steve, I want to apologize. I uh, I didn’t have all of the information and I blamed you when it wasn’t your fault. I know now that you were there to protect the kids and you did a great job other than getting shot and getting another concussion. I’m sorry.”

“I meant Will. When I said you were worried about your kids. I meant Will and El. I know you don’t consider me your son, why would you? Literally no one wants to be my parent so I get it-”

“Steve, I do consider you my kid. I shouldn’t have said that and I only did out of anger. You didn’t deserve that and I’ll make it up to you. You’re going to move into the house with us until you get better,” he promised him. 

Steve just shook his head though, “don’t worry about it. Eddie is going to stay at my house until I can use my arm. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“Harrington, I don’t care if I have to kidnap your sorry ass. You’re staying with me, Joyce, and the kids until you’re better.”

“This is part of your apology, threats of kidnapping? What the fuck, Hop?” Steve exclaimed, absolutely perplexed. 

“Yeah, did it work?”

Steve huffed, “get me some orange Jello and I’ll consider it.”

They had a ways to go until they were back to where they were but they’d get there. Steve would forgive him in time and Hopper would forgive himself eventually too.

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[royalelusts]

to the moon and back remember?

itadori yuuji made it his mission to inform you about everything happening in his life. it was a unique ritual but it put both of you at ease. especially yuuji since you weren’t a sorcerer. you couldn’t see the horrible things he had to fight, but from what you heard you can only imagine the struggle.

this is why you were worried now. no calls. no texts. to anyone else they might have thought you were overreacting. telling you to be grateful for the moment of peace. but to you? this wasn’t normal. you haven’t heard from yuuji since 9:00am. it was now 11:44pm. you even sent some messages of your own only to receive nothing. complete radio silence.

‘maybe he’s just been busy?’ your body cringed at the thought. it didnt feel right thinking it but your optimism was running thin. regardless you knew you were going to stress yourself to death if you didn’t call it a night. sighing, you checked your phone one last time before heading to bed. though you didn’t make it past the couch when someone knocked at the door.

upon opening the door you were speechless. the boy that had been missing in action and unknowingly stressing you out all day was standing outside your house covered in bruises and dried blood. you had half a mind to let our all your frustration right then and there. before you could get anything out the sorcerer hugged you. “yuuji-” you were barely able to safely land on the ground with the extra body weight. there you were. laying in the doorway of your house. thank god your parents were out on a trip.

“i know you’re upset and i’m sorry but…can we stay like this?” his voice was barely above a whisper, cracking towards the end. when you really looked at him his whole body was shaking. he was dangerously vulnerable. it took everything in him not to break right now. disregarding your previous anxieties, your arm circled around him while your other hand threaded itself through the messy pink mop of hair. “I got you.”

[th3-unseen-backup]

02/26/2015 21:05:23 PST

>SEEK: Search “Deacon Keller”.

>Searching...

>Unable to locate individual(s).

>Reconnecting with “Deacrophone”, please stand by…

>Connected.

>Automatic transcription protocol initiating, please stand by…

>Start.

[Rumbling of tires against asphalt and of wind against carrosserie. Occasional clicking of a turn signal, gentle murmur of a radio put way down low – 102.7 KISS FM maybe? Otherwise silence goes on for 11 minutes, 2 seconds.] 

UNKNOWN: Don’t worry, I’m not taking you anywhere to kill you. 

[Finally, tires screech against asphalt. Engine ceases with a click, followed by the sound of a seatbelt undone, driver seat belt missing alarm chirps on for a bit until door opens, closes. Then, closer now, another door opens.]

UNKNOWN: Come on, Keller. 

[Ruffling, a seatbelt clicking open, and a final slam of a door followed by two sets of footsteps, one steady, the other irregular. A light push, and a grunt.]

UNKNOWN: Delivery, one sheriff.

Bennett, A. : (Dryly) Thank you, Jerome. And again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

Jerome Smith !!! : [A sigh.] It's fine. Magnus is alright, a bit injured, but alright. I'm fine, physically. Keller's got some powerful disciplines that's for sure. [A pause.] How was London?

Bennett, A. : It was exhausting, and honestly humiliating at times, but I got what I needed.

Smith, J. : Yeah. You can tell me more about it if you want, when there aren't ears listening. 

[A pause. they know :> but also they know ? :| ]

Smith, J. : I have a question. Are you aware of how he found our address?

Bennett, A. : I assumed he got it in the police database, but I could be wrong. I'm actually not aware of how much information on civilians cops usually have access to, but knowing the government overreaches I've seen in my lifetime in this country, I wouldn't be surprised. [Pause.] And for what I've found back home, for now, I'd rather keep my cards close to my chest, and out of Grimslayer sights. I'm sure you understand.

Smith, J. : Yeah, I get that. [Throat clears.] Welp, thanks for taking him. I didn't want to just leave him tied up on the streets in case another hunter saw him and took the chance. I'm going to be vampire-proofing the house a lot more to prevent things like this from happening again. He was able to take a bite of Magnus, but luckily didn't turn him or anything. Probably just took some blood. [A pause.] Whatever you two have going on, you better figure it out soon. I have a sneaking suspicion that is what influenced this fight, and I would prefer not to deal with another one. I'll try to keep Magnus away from Keller in the meantime.

Bennett, A. : [Sigh.] I'm going to be honest, Jerome, regardless of his... issues with me, he is responsible for his actions. I tried to explain everything to him, but you know how I am... I've never been the best with words. 

Smith, J. : [He snorts.] You could say that again. Yeah, I get it. But I'm gonna make sure that you know Magnus is the same way. He's his own person, and you know how he gets when he gets determined to do something. We all have our own reasons for doing what we do. [Another sigh.] I apologize for being a bit blunt. I didn't sleep last night and only took a two hour nap earlier, which didn't help much.

Bennett, A. : [A sharp exhale, vaguely resembling a laugh.] I'd be a hypocrite if I couldn't handle bluntness. Regardless, I am painfully aware of Magnus's autonomy. But you've got a better handle on him than I do on Deacon. I barely know him.

Smith, J. : [A sigh.] Yeah, I know. But I don't have anyone else to turn to when it comes to Keller. [A pause.] Welp, I guess I'll be heading out. [Closer to the microphone.] Keller, I fully expect you to pay for the damages that you have done to our front door when you broke it down. If not, I will sue you for breaking and entering without a warrant.

Keller, D. : [Huff.] Sure.

Smith, J. :  Good night, gentlemen. [Footsteps in dried grass.] 

Keller, D. : [Silence.] Will you untie me?

Bennett, A. : [A pause.] Yea, yes, of course. Wait a second.  [Shuffling of clothes, subtle click of a pocket knife and the grinding of a blade against rope.] Can you walk?

Keller, D. : Thanks. [Tearing of fabric.] Yes, I can walk. [One step, then a thud.] 

Bennett, A . : No, you cannot. [Rustling of dried grass.] I could carry you, if you'd prefer. (Softly) But I'm guessing your ego couldn't take that, could it? 

Keller, D. : [Silence, interrupted by the shifting of bodies against each other and the rustling of fabric and dried grass.] Let’s go for the police station, I guess. (Coldly) It's the closest place that I have blood stored, besides my apartment, and I'll need to heal before I can walk again.

Bennett, A . : (Tenderly) Alright.

[Footsteps together, obviously at least two but only discernible as one.]

>End transcription.

>

>...|

>Store “deacon arthur blind date.txt” in Folder:”word on the street” under Directory: ME :3

[mad-c1oud]

Waves in you've not been on this blog in awhile and an inquiry as to how you're doing is included in the wave along with the implication of hoping you're doing well regardless :>

o/ <- the wave of various meanings

Hey hi anon!! Super sorry for not answering this earlier, I haven’t been online much lately

I’m okay!! Going through a general slump and had some irl stuff come up, especially this week. There’s going to be more radio silence from me for a bit until something gets better. Sorry :(, I mis blabbing and stuff here

I’m still writing when I can, just haven’t had the time I used to, sorry for wait on updates. Not abandoning anything if anyone has been worried.

Thank you sm for the ask anon <3

o/ <- the goodbye wave of various meanings.

[wally-franks-stan]

Joey Drew and Jack Fain Log #?? - Stress Testing

Joey: Joey Drew, captain and head scientist aboard the Dreamer, recording INC experiment log number… 4? 5? It doesn’t really matter right now so long as it gets labeled right later… anyway! Experimental method, purpose and results will be recorded in the attached document “Exposure testing in a human subject”. Volunteer name is Jack Fain. Say hello, Jack!

Jack: Uh—hello! I… didn’t know this was going to be recorded.

Joey: But of course! Keeping a proper record of things is always important, especially now. Sorry for not warning you ahead of time, though.

Jack: It’s fine, I just—do I need to say anything?

Joey: No, we’re done with the formal bit now anyway. Just pretend it’s not even on.

Jack: Oh, alright!

Joey: Thank you again for volunteering to help me with this, by the way. I would have done it myself, but… well, I think you can probably tell why just by looking at me.

Jack: It’s no problem, really. I mean, might as well, right? You’re going to need something to show Alterra when we get off this planet, and it’s not like I’ve got much else to do. [Chuckles]

Joey: Well, regardless, it’s a big help. Ready to get started?

Jack: Yes sir.

Joey: Go ahead and enter the containment unit, please. Oh, and make sure your radio is on.

[Hatch opens and shuts]

Jack: [Slightly quieter] So I’m just supposed to sit in here, right?

Joey: Until your oxygen runs out, or symptoms start, yes. Let me know if you feel any changes, like pain or irritation in your neck, any trouble breathing etc etc but honestly, you’re likely just going to end up sitting there.

Jack: Okay, easy. I can do that.

[Short pause]

Jack: Say, if I’m just sitting here, why not just do it outside or in one of the other aquariums? Of course I’m not objecting, I’m sure you know what you’re doing, just curious why you made a whole new containment unit.

Joey: Well, this is sort of a… not quite a control group, but a null variable test. Seeing what happens when there are no uncontrolled environmental stimuli that could influence the speed at which the INC makes its alterations. Pollution, flora and fauna, any changes in currents… those are all variables. Having a new containment unit just for this eliminates those.

Jack: Huh! That makes sense. Glad you’re not expecting me to sit outside with the sandsharks.

Joey: [amused] No no, I would never ask you to do that! Your safety is the most important factor here!

Jack: [teasingly] You sure you’re not just saying that ‘cause I’m pestering you about it? ‘Cause, I’m just saying, this whole thing seems pretty mad science-y and I’d really hate to end up in a horror story…

Joey: [laughs] Yes, of course I’m sure. Really, if you start to feel like anything is wrong, just say so and we’ll stop the test. And for your information, nearly all of history’s greatest innovators were called “mad”. “Mad science” is just what people who are scared of the future call progress.

Jack: Pretty sure that’s what every mad scientist would say. Not really making a great case for yourself, Joey.

Joey: [laughs again, harsher this time] Then let people call me mad! I’m ushering in the future, I don’t have time to care for the opinions of people who refuse to understand it.

Jack: …yeah, okay.

—(Joey’s note: From here we were just chatting for the next 45 minutes. Nothing of note happened in this time, so I have gone ahead and cut it from the log.)—

PDA: 30 seconds of oxygen remaining.

Jack: Guess that’s it, then.

Joey: [sighs] I guess it is. The lack of results is disappointing, but I can’t say I’m s—

Jack: [Overlapping] The hatch won’t open.

Joey: What?

Jack: [Panicked] It’s stuck, I can’t get it open!

Joey: Hang on, don’t panic!

PDA: 10 seconds of oxygen remaining.

Joey: I can’t—I can’t get it open either! Just, hold on, I’ll get you out!

Jack: Joey—!

[Jack starts coughing. Wetly, like he’s choking]

Joey: [Panicked] Jack!

[Coughing continues for several seconds, then goes silent]

[A few moments of silence pass]

Joey: [Completely calm] Jack? You still awake in there?

[Silence]

Joey: Good. Habitat, unlock the hatch to containment unit 4.

[Hatch opens]

Joey: Sorry about all this, really.

[Several seconds of silence. Water splashes, hatch closes]

Joey: I don’t like lying to you, but the whole thing hinged on you not knowing what we were really testing for. I meant it when I said I wouldn’t put you in real danger, but you needed to think it’s real.

[A clatter. Jack wheezes, starts breathing]

Joey: You’ve been a great help. So you just rest for now, you’ve earned it.

[Joey clears his throat]

Joey: And that concludes the “stress test”. I’d say it’s a resounding success! These results are… very promising.

[tummymoth]

Of (Tattoo) Guns N' Roses [6]

Chapter 6: You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory (read on Ao3 here)

Chapter Summary: Xie Lian takes an unsolicited trip down memory lane.

Additional Info: CW: depictions of a panic attack, blood and injury, and gore are contained within this chapter (tags have been updated accordingly). Please use your discretion before continuing to read!

Word Count: 5,672

<<Beginning <Previous

The engine rattles with effort as he merges onto the highway. Cars in the faster lanes whizz by him, their sound competing with the music emanating from the radio. 

“You’re doing me a favor by driving me to the office,” the man beside him says. “I do hope I’m not keeping you from anything.” 

“Nothing at all.” He feels his lips curve up in a smile. This is a lie. 

The man doesn’t need to know.

“I hope you don’t mind that,” the man says as he gestures at the dual camera with a blinking red light on the dashboard. The tiny monitor displayed a playback of them both in the car alongside a live feed of the road in front of them. “It’s just for my peace of mind. I have one installed in my car, but it’s in the shop.” 

He nods in understanding. “That’s helpful. Maybe I should install one of my own.” 

“You can have this one.” 

“I don’t want to be a bother. Thank you, though.” 

“You’re always so helpful, aren’t you? Eager to please.” 

Discomfort licks at the base of his spine as the man’s voice dips into something avaricious. He ignores it and smiles. 

This is a compliment. He takes it for the praise that it is and basks in it.

“That’s what friends are for, no?” 

That’s what they are. Friends. He feels proud for getting to this point—for reaching the level at which he can consider his mentor a friend. 

“Friends?” The man teases as he feigns hurt. “Surely, I thought we’d be beyond that after all these years.”  

“What else is there to be?” 

An impossibly warm hand on his knee. It’s hot, burning hot. Like still-smoldering coals on his skin. 

His hands constrict around the wheel in silent malaise. 

“Companions,” the other man puts simply. 

Fingers trace scalding circles through the fabric of his pants. The lingering heat leaves him feeling like an ant under a child’s magnifying lens.

He laughs as he takes the next exit. “I can’t joke right now. I’m driving.” The fingers withdraw. 

A moment of silence comes and goes like molasses. He thinks he’s going to drown in it.

“And your… venture. How is that going?” 

“Oh, same old, same old.” Another lie.

It took him ages to find the perfect place for a flower shop. Lots of room for shelving. Big windows for natural sunlight. He pushed back a meeting with the realtor to next week to be in this car. He hopes there are no other parties interested in the space he’s looking to buy. 

The man doesn’t need to know.

“Your mother would be proud of you,” the man observes. “How long has it been since…?”

A frown threatens to pull at the corners of his lips. “Ten years tomorrow.” 

“I’m sure you miss her.” 

The cloying smell of hospitals and sterile sheets still lines his lungs. The afterimage of harsh fluorescent lights is still burned into his retinas. If a room is too quiet, the beeping of a heart monitor rings in his ears as some twisted, faux tinnitus. 

“I guess so.” 

“Do you ever think that you could have done more for her? For them both?” 

“Ah…” The smile on his face feels taped on. His voice still has its light tone; it’s the same one that was trained and practiced to be used in business meetings and international affairs. His skin feels pulled taut. “There’s not much I can do now besides honor their memory.”

“What would you have done differently?” The man presses. 

“It’s been years,” he says, though it feels more like pleading. A lump finds its way to his throat. 

“Xie Lian, look at me.” 

“I need to keep my eyes on the road.” Chestnut-brown meets obsidian regardless. “I’d rather not talk about this. I’m sorry—”

“It’s been years, yes. I’m happy I was able to help you through them.” The man’s voice grows sharp with an austerity he has never heard from him before. He doesn’t like it. 

“After all, who would have been there to keep Xianle together while you spent your time ‘healing’?” The other man lets the word fall from his lips as if it’s something unpalatable. 

“Well—” 

“Don’t you think you could have done better?” 

He does. God, he wishes he did. 

“We’re going to reach your office soon.”

“It could be yours,” the other man casually drawls as if the words aren’t knives embedding themselves into his psyche. “But I suppose assuming responsibility for your parents’ legacy is too much compared to the life of a prince spoiled by luxury.”

He’s blinking away the moisture building up along his lashes. His knuckles are white. The painted lines on the road blip in and out of his vision. 

“Please stop…” 

“Xie Lian, I said look at me!” The other man’s voice thunders in his skull. The roar of it is as omnipresent and suffocating as the crashing of waves, indistinguishable from the blood rushing in his ears. 

“Jun Wu, stop!”

The steering wheel is yanked off course. Xie Lian sees the lamppost heading toward him before he feels the car swerving off the road. 

He slams on the brake. 

It doesn’t work. 

His fingers brush the leather of the hand brake. 

It’s too late to pull it.

He is fading in and out of consciousness. Eyes to the sky. 

The asphalt is somehow simultaneously digging into his skin with a piercing vengeance and rocking underneath him. He wills his arms to push back against solid ground. They buckle under his weight. He attempts to get his legs to abide by his command. 

A lance of molten pain shoots up from his right ankle. 

He registers the low keening of an animal nearby. Its breathing is labored and gurgling with something Xie Lian doesn’t want to think too hard about. He desperately hopes it isn't his fault. 

He tries to sit up again. His ribs ache with the effort. The animal’s cries grow louder, more plaintive. He finally manages to push himself into a poor imitation of a sitting position. 

Red stains his clothes. So, so much red. 

He looks down at his legs. His right foot is bent at an unnatural angle. 

Bile rises in his throat.

He hears the animal’s whimpering cries morph into an ear-splitting wail. God, it’s strident; he’s gritting his teeth to bear how it grates. He would look around to see where the awful noise is coming from, but his eyes are fixed on his foot.

Why won’t it stop? Xie Lian digs the heels of his palms into his eyes. He doesn’t care about the bits of asphalt lodging themselves in his skin. The pressure behind his eyes is immense. He struggles to think as his vision fades in and out.

Howls of pain ebb and flow into groans before they crescendo one more. The throbbing in his head doesn’t cease. 

The animal’s cries take on a weird cadence, like some caricature of human speech. Xie Lian doesn’t have the mind to try and parse words through the gurgling mess of incomprehensible utterances. He tries to bring his knees to his chest.

A pathetic yelp rings through the air just as the cloth of his pants tugs at raw flesh. It’s sticky with semi-dried blood. Bits of gravel and rock are embedded in his skin. Just a breeze of air passing by sets his tissue alight with stinging.

Every movement hurts. God, it hurts. Where is Ju Wu? 

He glances over at the car—that tiny movement sends him into another dizzy spell—and sees how the hood is crumpled at the point of impact with the streetlamp. He thinks the worst. 

Ever-present cries turn into desperate, wet gasps for air. The ringing grows louder in his ears. The skin around his throat is burning. He can hardly breathe.

Xie Lian isn’t detached enough from the situation to look for help. He unwittingly grips at something, anything to pull himself up. His fingers find nothing but unsympathetic asphalt and scratch themselves raw. 

He coughs up blood and gasps for air. Every expansion and contraction of his lungs gnaws away at his nerves and sends serrated signals of pain. 

Help me…

The words never fall from his lips. He can’t quite command them to form the necessary shapes. 

The animal moans. 

Someone help. Please. 

Help me, help me, help me, help, help, help, help.

The animal continues to let out disconcerting noises, wretched and drawn-out. 

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, IT HURTS, IT HURTS!!

“IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS—”

Xie Lian woke up with a scream lodged in his throat and fingers frantically feeling for his scar. The blistering phantom pain was so sharp in his mind, he half-expected them to come away with scarlet.

Harsh antiseptic. A heart monitor. He’s on a gurney being wheeled to god knows where. 

He could do little more than cradle his head in his hands as a roiling deluge of images and sensations came to the surface of his mind. 

Someone is asking for his name. Any attempted words are cut short by a bitter, metallic taste. Warm wetness covers his chin.

Some absent, detached part of him registered the sound of hoarse panting invading the space of his bedroom. A clapped hand over his mouth did very little to muffle it. Every now and again a whimper escaped, leaving shame in its wake to fester deep in his belly. 

His eyes darted around the room, not quite adjusted to the dark. He could vaguely make out Ruoye’s silhouette atop his cat tree. The cat usually slept either at the foot of his bed or near his pillow. 

I must’ve startled him… he thought with no small amount of guilt.

“This laceration needs to be closed immediately!”

“But the fracture—”

“Disinfection first, then we’ll deal with his ankle. Somebody page Dr. Mei! ”

His face was damp with salty tears. The room spun around him. Why was it spinning?!

Blood. There’s too much blood. He gags on the metallic tang. His forearms burn something vicious as a medic cleans the road rash on his skin with saline and extracts asphalt from his flesh. 

Still hyperventilating, Xie Lian gathered his right hand into a fist and steadily pressed his knuckles into his sternum in an attempt to keep his heart from beating out of his chest. 

“You would have lost all vocal function if the cut on your neck had been a centimeter in any other direction. Maybe even your life.” The doctor’s voice is erudite. Detached, but warm. 

“You’re incredibly lucky.”

Lucky? Death would have been kinder.

The detective is not nearly as welcoming. “I’m here to ask questions about what happened in the incident between Mr. Jun and yourself. It’s in your best interest to  tell me everything you remember, Mr. Xie.” 

It went on for weeks. Xie Lian hadn’t wanted to press charges; he begged Feng Xin not to call the police.

It was question after question, with multiple detectives screening him to ensure he gave them the facts—this was a high-profile case, after all. If charges were to be pressed against such an influential man—CEO of Xianle, one of the biggest conglomerates in this part of the country—they needed an airtight case. 

Xie Lian wanted nothing more than to erase any details he could from his mind.

Harsh antiseptic. A heart monitor. He’s sitting on a chair facing a hospital bed. A hand feebly reaches for his own. The bouquet of pink tulips he’s holding in his other hand does nothing against the too-sharp, artificial fragrance that permeates the room to mask the scent of infection. 

Yet here he was, drowning in the memory of it. Tears burned tracks down his cheeks as he gasped for air. 

Her face is the moon—impossibly pale against a backdrop of greyed, brown hair. The smile she gives him is fatigued, but softhearted all the same. Her lips move.

A shuddering sob rattled his lungs. He knew what her final words were; he made sure to engrave them into his brain, after all. As years passed, the actual sound of her voice faded more and more from his recollection. He knew it soothed him. He knew it was soft. But try as he might, he couldn’t actually hear her. 

He dragged his hand down his face, smearing tears across his cheeks in hot, biting frustration. What kind of a son was he, forgetting the voice of his own mother?

She flatlines. It’s indistinguishable from the ringing in his ears. There’s a hand on his shoulder. 

“Time of death?” the doctor asks from behind him. A nearby nurse pokes their head up. 

“Three forty-six a.m., Dr. Mei.” 

The doctor nods and offers Xie Lian his condolences. 

The hinge of his jaw is wooden like a puppet with its strings cut. His voice comes out robotically. 

“Thank you for your time and effort.” 

He distantly noticed the hallway light shining through the seam where his door didn’t quite meet the floor and froze. Soft, slow footsteps sounded out. He mustered the courage to hope that Mu Qing was just grabbing some water from the kitchen. 

Xie Lian could already feel the guilt gnawing at him for being the reason his roommate was up at ungodly hours. 

Tak tak.

Xie Lian flinched. A shadow was visible from under his door. Ruoye silently leaped from the cat tree with a dull thump, taking time to stretch before he approached the door with a loosely raised tail.

“Xie Lian?” His roommate’s voice was still heavy with a sleepiness he hadn’t managed to shake off yet. “Everything okay?”

Some quietly hysterical part of him thought that if he stayed silent for long enough, he could trick him into thinking he was asleep. 

“Xie Lian?”

He stubbornly—childishly—kept his mouth shut even as he hiccuped with silent sobs. 

“I’m coming in.” 

The door swung open, leaving him little time to protest. He shrank away from the light spilling across his floor.

“...”

Mu Qing said nothing as the silence stretched out between them, save for the sound of the city traffic below them. Xie Lian didn’t dare move a muscle in hopes of blending in with the bedsheets. He stared vacantly at the wrinkles in his blanket, refusing to make eye contact. 

“Why are you just letting yourself rot away?! Do you think it’s noble to wallow in suffering?” The voice yelling at him is laced with equal parts rage and concern. Xie Lian can’t find it in himself to acknowledge the words being thrown at him. 

If he didn’t look at Mu Qing, he could pretend that he wasn’t being seen in this state—sniveling like a small child afraid of the monster under his bed. He could pretend that his raw embarrassment was just the aftershocks of his dream. He could pretend he wasn’t falling apart. 

He could hide for just a little longer.

There was a soft rustling to Xie Lian’s left. From the way he jerked away from the noise, one would think a gun had gone off. 

“‘S for you,” Mu Qing said. Dredges of sleep still clinging to the edges of his voice, he vaguely waved at the box of tissues he had set down next to Xie Lian. “Blow your nose.” 

The mattress slowly dipped with a creak as he sat on the edge of the bed. 

They both sat there for a moment. Xie Lian stared down the length of his bed with his arms around his knees while Mu Qing faced the door with his back to him—almost as if he was saving Xie Lian some face by giving him one last layer of privacy.

With all the confidence of a spooked horse, Xie Lian reached for a tissue and dried the wetness on his cheeks as quickly as he could. Any attempts at a thank you were stifled by the lump in his throat and came out more mangled than he thought it would. He recoiled at the sound of it cutting through the air and wished he could sink into the bed for eternity.

How inept was he? Unable to do the bare minimum of talking.

Mu Qing was the first to ease the wearisome silence into something quiet with a controlled breath. 

“I won’t ask,” he said, all of his usual snark nowhere to be found. 

In just three words, Mu Qing released him from the dread of having to flay himself open. The relief of it made a cry wrench itself from his lungs. A thousand words threatened to push at the seams of his lips and spill over in an acetic concoction of gratitude and guilt. 

He said nothing. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. But he didn’t. 

Useless.

“But I won’t let you sit with it by yourself. Even if that’s all you want to do.”

“I’m sorry…” The words dripped out before he could stop them, thick and doleful. 

Mu Qing paused for a long while before he spoke. “...Don’t say ‘sorry’ if there’s nothing to apologize for. It’s a waste of time and makes you out to be a liar.” 

Xie Lian willed himself not to cry harder. His tongue dumbly sat in his mouth like a piece of lead—impotent and ineffective. There was so much that he needed to apologize for. 

He squinted past his tears to read the time from across the room. 4 am. 

Mu Qing had work tomorrow—later today, rather—and here he was, staying up late to comfort Xie Lian because he couldn’t pull himself together. He had done something similar not too long ago, going so far as to take fewer shifts and ask for fewer hours so he could stay and watch over him.

God, the several weeks right after being discharged from the hospital were the most incapable he had ever felt in his life. 

His car—a used Toyota Yaris that had been beyond its last legs when he bought the thing—had been totaled in the accident, so going back and forth to the courthouse with a broken ankle without help was out of the question. As with almost everything else then, the task had fallen onto Mu Qing’s shoulders. 

Whenever he thought back to that time, it was never with a lack of shame. 

He had fallen into a deep depression—never leaving his room if he could help it and barely eating. With the stress of going to court and trying to clinch a deal for the place he wanted to open his flower shop, he had no bandwidth left to work up an appetite. 

Xie Lian closed his eyes and leaned against the bed frame. The tears had subsided, but his chest rose and fell with unsteady breaths as he remembered the long, arduous court proceedings. 

His stomach turned at the memory of seeing Jun Wu in an orange jumpsuit a week after the accident, standing behind the bench without so much as a scratch on him. 

There was no ugly twist of betrayal in the man’s eyes. He looked at him from across the room with the same forbearance a parent would for their wayward teenager—as if this was just a phase he would grow past. 

That smile didn’t waver even as evidence had been presented to the jury. 

Dashcam footage of their conversation right before the crash played on a screen for all to see. Xie Lian still remembered the shame, solid as tungsten, pooling in his gut as the tinny recording of his desperate voice rang throughout the courtroom. 

His lawyer, a calm, no-nonsense woman who had professionalism radiating off her in waves, argued that there were injuries unattributable to the crash. She had wanted to press charges of battery on top of vehicular assault, saying that video evidence of Jun Wu grabbing the steering wheel and intentionally driving them off-course made for an airtight case.

Medical reports and images were given to the judge and presented to the jury in a laundry list of reasons why they should pity the sorry sap before them. Fractured ankle. Throat laceration. Multiple contusions of the body concentrated around his ribs. 

Airtight case or not, Xie Lian had been the loudest to argue against taking Jun Wu to court in the first place. It had been the point of contention in many of the arguments between him and Mu Qing during that time (“You’re the victim in this case. Why are you still defending him?!”). 

And yet, disappointment gnawed at Xie Lian’s ribs still when the man was declared innocent on all counts—soon followed by an all-consuming guilt for hoping that his former mentor would face any punishment at all. 

Jun Wu merely smiles at him as he listens to Xie Lian apologize through the glass of the visitation booth. It’s his last day before they process the necessary paperwork to release him.

“I hardly blame you,” he says as if he’s calming a belligerent child.  “It’s natural for princes to have others shoulder the blame when faced with distress. You’re still learning; that’s what I’m here for.” 

“I think you should take a day to yourself,” Mu Qing’s voice cut through his thoughts. 

The florist blinked dumbly at his back and discreetly grabbed another tissue to dab away any tears that may have decided to make an appearance. 

Ruoye’s nose bumped at his other arm. When had he gotten on the bed? Xie Lian rested his hand on the cat's back and petted his fur out of habit. 

His roommate reiterated his point. “It’s nearly morning already, and you’re in no shape to work.” 

“There are people coming in to pick up their orders,” he managed to feebly reply. 

The bed dipped once again as Mu Qing readjusted himself to face Xie Lian. In the dim light from both the hallway and the city lights outside, one could just barely make out the silhouette of his hair. It was uncharacteristically messy with some flyaways catching a light—a very different image from his usual neat and meticulously tidied appearance.

Xie Lian felt another pang of guilt as he imagined Mu Qing waking up with a start before rushing over to his room without enough time to so much as run a comb through his hair. 

“They can wait a day.” 

The florist shook his head. “I can’t.”

Chestnut Florals was the one thing Xie Lian could say he accomplished on his own. It gave him conflicted feelings to admit it, given the fact that he was pushing 30, but it was true. There was no way he could close the store on such short notice because of something as trivial as a bad dream. 

Seeing that his mind was set, Mu Qing rolled his eyes and sighed (now that he was more awake, some of his usual snark was beginning to make itself known) before standing up.

“It’s not like I’ll do anything to stop you, but I really don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said, not unkindly, before excusing himself to his room and gently shutting Xie Lian’s door behind him. 

Xie Lian’s hands hardly felt like his own as they fumbled for the right key to the shop. 

He had sat in his bed until his alarm went off instead of falling back asleep, thanks to his nervous system buzzing with the jumpy vibrations of a live wire. He had to give it to Mu Qing; maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to show up to work with only a few hours’ worth of sleep to his name. But it was fine.

Sleep deprivation wasn’t the end of the world.

Not long after he flipped the sign from ‘closed’ to ‘open,’ Banyue arrived for her shift, setting her bookbag in the workshop before going about her opening duties.

“Good morning, Mr. Hua,” she quietly supplied with a small upturn of her lips, her smile widening when Ruoye quickly found his place on her shoulder.

The smile Xie Lian returned felt like plastic molding taped onto his face rather than a genuine expression. A tendril of frustration squeezed at his lungs at his inability to collect himself in front of her. She deserved better than that.

“Good morning, Banyue.”

After exchanging the usual pleasantries and half-heartedly listening to a brief recap of how her weekend was, Xie Lian retreated to the workshop to fully throw himself into the work that needed to be done. He will be productive today. He will stay focused. He will end the day with the satisfaction of having done something worthwhile. 

He tried to, anyway.

Each time the door chime sounded up front, the florist's hands jerked with alarm. This would’ve been harmless if it weren’t for him being knee-deep in trimming flower stems and with quite a sharp pair of scissors in hand. 

One particularly loud clang sent the scissor’s blade glancing off the skin of his fingers. Xie Lian cursed loudly as crimson already began to well up from the cut, quickly setting the scissors down and rushing to the sink.

“Mr. Hua? Everything alright?” To his left, he saw Banyue stick her head through the door. Concern furrowed her brows when she saw the bleeding. 

He shut the faucet off and offered her the best smile he could muster, hurriedly grabbing a paper towel from the dispenser and pressing it against the cut. It was deceptively small—already bleeding profusely despite being only a few centimeters or so in length. 

Stupid, he berated himself. I’ll have to start buying bandages in bulk at this rate.

“I’m fine. Just a bit of a hiccup. See?” he raised his now-covered finger for emphasis. 

Banyue didn’t look convinced. “Alright…” She returned to her spot behind the register to attend to whoever walked in. 

To say that his day continued with ease was a lie. He worked in near-silence, only opening his mouth to speak when Banyue popped her head into the workshop. More than ever, he was grateful that she was here to pick up calls. He didn’t need to focus on trying to maintain the facade of friendly conversation and could instead devote his attention to not cutting his fingers off. 

The florist stepped back to appraise the arrangement he was currently working at. Pink anemone flowers were interspersed throughout a bundle of purple begonias, with some thistles thrown in for filler and contrast. 

He frowned, unsatisfied with the result. There was something off, but he couldn’t tell if it was the angle of the stems or the ratio of the flowers themselves. Cool dampness grazed his fingers as he readjusted the blooms, taking extra care  not to jostle the delicate plants. Both anemone flowers and begonias were particularly fragile; if the wind blew too hard or if the flowers didn’t get just the right amount of water, they were prone to wilting and losing their petals. 

Once he felt the flowers were situated properly, he analyzed the arrangement once more. His shoulders rose and fell with a huff before he removed the flowers from the vase entirely, setting them in a bucket next to the vase to start over. 

Xie Lian’s hands moved of their own accord. Maybe more anemones and fewer begonias would look better. He bit the inside of his cheek in thought, brows creasing in concentration as he lightly picked up stems and reinserted them into the vase. His smooth, practiced motions belied the mounting vexation brewing in his mind.

Harsh antiseptic. A heart monitor. 

The stem held between his fingers snapped. He scrambled to catch the flower with shaking hands as it fell, only for it to slip through his fingers. Not wanting to leave a mess on the floor—he had enough going on; he didn’t need another injury on top of everything else—he numbly knelt down to pick it up.

Blood. God, there’s so much blood. Won’t somebody help him?

He shot to his feet. 

Well, he would have if it weren’t for his head colliding with the underside of his work table. Hissing in pain, Xie Lian brought a hand to the crown of his head. It throbbed dully in time with his rapidly increasing heartbeat. 

He needed to get up. Water droplets from the fallen flower were seeping into the cloth of his pants. It would stain. 

Blinding pain shooting up from his ankle. A lance of molten metal.

Xie Lian gasped and, in a moment of delirium, glanced down at his legs. 

Bent at an unnatural angle—

His ankle was perfectly fine. He was fine. He was safe. No injuries. He repeated this mantra to himself even as the dark wooden walls and smooth cement flooring of the workshop bled away—replaced by asphalt, gravel, and the wailing of an injured animal. 

“Mr. Hua?” 

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, IT HURTS—

“Mr. Hua!” Banyue’s fretful voice snapped him back to the present day.  She moved to place a hand on his shoulder to jostle him, but Xie Lian shrank back before it could make contact. His head narrowly missed a second collision with the table. 

Round, dark eyes studied him with concern as he slowly came back to himself. 

It suddenly hit him that he was curled up under a table with his knees to his chest, hyperventilating like a madman. 

The embarrassment of being seen like this was more than enough to tether him to reality. Xie Lian forced his breathing to even out and swallowed any remaining agitation, along with the bile that had managed to sneak up his throat at some point or another. He slowly straightened out his legs and made to stand up, doing his best to steady his wayward limbs. 

“Is there something wrong, Mr. Hua?”

“I uh… I hit my head on the table,” Xie Lian dumbly explained, clearing his throat and giving his best attempt at a smile. A cursory glance at the girl’s expression told him that her worry ran deeper than a simple bump on the head. Just how long had he been sitting there? 

“It’s nothing, ahaha. Was there something you needed?” 

Banyue said nothing as she continued to study him. He surreptitiously wiped at any dampness that may have gathered at his waterline and turned away from her, picking up the fallen begonia and tossing it in the trash. 

He returned to the vase, halfheartedly working on the arrangement in silence. Banyue didn’t attempt to make any conversation as she observed. 

She periodically handed him a flower whenever she thought he needed it. Somehow, every stem that landed in the grasp of his fingers was the correct one—he had cut them to specific lengths depending on where they sat in the arrangement. Xie Lian didn’t even need to ask. 

“Could you pass me another anemone?” 

Banyue handed him a couple of blood-red carnations instead. “This will look better.” 

“Oh?” He gently inserted the flowers into the vase, making room for them by nudging the other stems aside and adding a couple of thistles. Taking a step back, he looked the arrangement over. 

“Would you like to borrow my coat?”

Xie Lian coughed into his elbow to hide the heat on his face. 

It seemed that she was right. They did look better. 

“Maybe you should take the day off?” she shyly suggested. “Crimson Elysium is closed today, so I have the day off from my apprenticeship.” 

He automatically waved the notion away. “You should spend that time resting or hanging out with your friends.”

“I didn’t make any plans for today,” was all she said as she handed him another flower. An anemone this time. 

The florist glanced over at his employee. She had been working here for well over a month at this point, but he was surprised to see that a mere month was enough time for her to acquire an intuitive grasp on everything from floral care to the act of arranging itself. Wasn’t he supposed to be the experienced one here?

It wasn’t that long ago that he opened Chestnut Florals—five months, to whoever was counting—but he had been making arrangements and taking care of flowers since he was 17. People were allowed to have off days, sure, but cutting up his hands and banging his head on tables wasn’t the mark of someone who had been doing this for a decade. 

He sighed, cowed by the fact that the 19-year-old found it necessary to pick up his slack at work, and nodded. His keys jangled against each other as he removed a spare key from the ring and handed it to her.

“Will you be alright closing the shop? Feel free to do so early if there are no customers coming in; everyone who had a pick-up scheduled for today came, anyway.”

“I’ll be fine.” 

“I’ll pay you overtime since this is past the hours we agreed on,” he added, already feeling guilty for saddling her with so much responsibility despite her having volunteered for it.  

“Okay.” She nodded and gave Ruoye a couple of scratches behind the ears. The cat butted his head against the palm of her hand, mewing softly as a low purr rumbled from his chest. “Take care of Mr. Hua for me, okay?” 

The florist’s heart squeezed in endearment as he saw Banyue and Ruoye interact with each other. He weakly thanked her as he grabbed a Hello Kitty-themed cat sweater (an extremely lucky find at the local thrift store. If he ever found the person who was giving up these pieces, he would have to thank them profusely) and harness, slipping them on the cat.

“It’s no problem at all.” 

With that, he wrapped his scarf securely around his neck and donned his coat before having Ruoye step into a set of cat boots (not thrifted, but he found them on sale, thank you very much). After waving Banyue a final goodbye and profuse apology, he left the store with Ruoye following closely behind. 

<<Beginning <Previous

A/N: Unlike last chapter, I have several life-changing events that have occurred since our last encounter. But I'm back now ! We press forward (slowly, but forward regardless) !!!! I'm leaving for Japan (!!!!!) in a few days so updates will continue to be slow but rest assured, I have fluff lined up to make up for this chapter :)) Many thanks to my inspiration who, for the sake of what little self-respect I have left, I hope will never see this. As always, thank you for your patience and I'd love to hear your thoughts :)

[angelasscribbles]

Victim of Love Chapter 13: Torn

Series: Victim of Love

Fandom: The Royal Romance

Pairings: Drake x Riley, Liam x Riley

Word Count: 1,243

Rating: MA

Warnings for this chapter: Language, drinking

Song Inspiration for series: Victim of Love by The Eagles

Victim of love We're not so far apart

My other stuff: Master List.

Riley paced nervously back and forth across the marble flooring of the great room at Balymore. She had returned to her Valtorian estate two weeks ago. The request for a meeting with the king had arrived at her door the next morning. It had taken her a week to respond. Not because she didn’t want to see him. But precisely because she did.

She had no idea what he wanted, what he was going to say. She had been gone for four months. Four months of complete radio silence.

She had told him to focus on Hana and the baby and she had meant it. Liam was nothing if not conscientious. Bound by duty and honor, of course he would do exactly what needed to be done, regardless of the personal cost to himself. Or to her for that matter.

It was something she both loved and hated about him. She wanted someone who would fight for her. She understood why he couldn’t. That didn’t make it any easier. Although, perhaps all the things he had done to keep her in his life was him fighting for her in the only way he could.

Four months with Drake had engendered feelings for him in her heart but had done nothing to diminish the ones she already had for Liam.

Her majordomo opened the door, “The king is here, Your Grace.”

Several guards preceded him into the room and did a sweep of the area.

Her heart stopped when she saw him. He was stiff, it was slight, no one but her would notice, but it betrayed his nervousness.

“Nice to have you back in Cordonia, Your Grace,” Liam greeted her formally, “I trust you had an enjoyable trip.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty. I did.”

The moment the guards and servants were out of the room, he closed the distance between them, “I’ve missed you so much!”

She let herself be swept into his arms, she didn’t resist his kiss, in fact, she returned it. She melted into his embrace, she inhaled the musky scent of him- familiar, intoxicating, heady, comforting…and laced with memories of pain.

She pushed out of his embrace and moved away from him.

“Riley, please! I want to fix things between us. I’m sorry for….everything-“

“It’s fine, Liam. We don’t need to rehash our entire relationship again. I was there. I know what happened and I understand why.”

“You understand why, but things are still strained between us…”

They stood in an awkward silence for several moments before Liam asked, almost in a whisper, “How was Texas?”

She turned her head away as she answered, “Fine.”

There was an edge in his voice as he followed up, “And Drake?”

Her eyes darted to him then away quickly, “Drake is good.”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t proposed already.”

“He has.”

Riley stood at the bank of the Nueces River, her deep auburn curls cascading out from under the cowboy hat and down her back. “Why are we here again?”

“Because you love to watch the sunset over the river.” There was a quality in his voice that pulled her attention from the orange and red hues painting the sky over the West Texas landscape. She turned slowly toward him to find him fumbling with what looked suspiciously like a ring.

She sucked in a breath of shock, “Drake!”

“Riley….these last few months have been the best days of my life and that’s because of you. I don’t think it’s any secret that my heart doesn’t belong to me anymore….it belongs to you….” He dropped down to one knee as he held the ring out and up to her. His hands were trembling so hard that he lost his grip on it and dropped it in the dirt.

“Shit!” His hands scrabbled through the mud as he tried to quell his shaking hands and steady his breathing. His fingers closed around the cool metal of the band. He wiped the dirt away with the bottom of his shirt, but before he could offer it to her again, she was on her knees with him.

Riley lowered herself to the ground in front of him, her hand instinctively going to his face, “When we met, I was broken, shattered into a million pieces... You put me back together again, you made me whole.... through sheer strength of will I believe…and I…I love you too, but-“

“But?”

“But I think there are a lot of things I need to figure out in my life before I’m ready to take such a step.”

Bitterness coated the king’s words, “So, you’re engaged now? You’re going to marry him?”

“I haven’t given him an answer. He wants to stay in Texas, but I’m not ready to leave Valtoria. I love it here; I feel an obligation to the people of my duchy. They need me and it turns out, I’m good at governing.”

“In none of that did you say that you don’t love him.”

Her head jerked sharply upward, “That’s because I do.”

Liam’s shoulders dropped forward in defeat as anguish swirled through him.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Riley, I-“

“Now you know what it’s felt like for me, watching you with Hana all this time.”

His voice rose as he pulled himself up to his full height, “I don’t love her!”

Riley arched an eyebrow at him.

He deflated again, “Okay, I do love her, in a way, but it’s not like what I feel for you! It’s not the same!”

She relented a little, “I do know that. But I’m not sure where that leaves us.”

“Are you…considering leaving Valtoria? Cordonia?” The unspoken question hung in the air….me?

She brushed a strand of errant hair out of her face with a sigh, “I love you, Liam. I will always love you, but I love him too and he's offering me everything that you promised then took away. He can give me a whole relationship, not just part of one.”

“Riley, I know what we have isn’t what we wanted, but it is real!”

The anguish in his voice was breaking her.

There was a knock on the door and the majordomo opened it, “Sorry for the interruption but you have another visitor.”

“I…what? Who?”

The visitor stepped into the room and her heart jumped into her throat, “Drake! What are you doing here?”

“Not letting you walk out of my life, that’s what! I’ve been thinking about everything you said, and I have some ideas…” He trailed off as he noticed they weren’t alone, “Liam! Sorry, I…”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. Congratulations on your impending engagement I guess,” Liam thrust his hand out, “Just…take care of her, all right?”

“Of course!” Drake’s brows furrowed as he took in Liam’s stoic expression. His gaze darted to Riley, standing stiffly, eyes averted, “Um…what’s going on? Why do you both look like this is a funeral?”

“I’m happy for you, Drake. You deserve happiness and so does she. But surely you can understand my…disappointment in losing my relationship with her. My marriage is political, my hand was forced. None of how things worked out was my choice. I love her! Not being able to marry her and make her my queen is the worst and most devastating sacrifice the crown has ever asked of me.”

Drake looked back and forth between his best friend and the woman he loved in perplexity. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

[titanus-horizio]

WELCOME EVERYONE TO THE FINALIZED FIRST CHAPTER OF AIN'T THAT A BITE, ARRIVING 4 DAYS EARLY

@standard-human@mjtheartist04@gay-trashcan-cat@littlemissatlas

featuring:the supersonic monster, Gyaos

Chapter 1: “The Pilot” 

Mach: a unit of measurement in stating the speed of a moving object in relation to the speed of sound

yoke:the airplane's “steering wheel.”

February 21, 1952

Crisp gripped the controls of his small airplane with a mix of determination and apprehension. The Stelwick Sea stretched below him, obscured by the swirling chaos of the storm. Lightning flashed intermittently, casting brief, stark clarity across the churning clouds. Yet, amidst these hellish conditions, he was flying into the heart of the tempest to confront a nightmare—one responsible for downing several military aircraft.

Armed only with the standard equipment of his bushmaster aircraft, which had been modified by a man Crisp considered certifiably insane, he knew he was facing an uphill battle. The creature, described as having an estimated 172-meter wingspan and capable of flying at speeds exceeding Mach 3, was said to emit a scream that could slice through military-grade steel. It was a dragon by any other name, though Crisp struggled to wrap his mind around the idea of a screaming dragon. Regardless, he had a job to do, and there was no room for questions—especially after seeing the wreckage it had caused.

As Crisp strained to maintain focus in the darkness, exhaustion gnawed at him. The flashing lightning played tricks on his mind, conjuring phantom figures in the fog where there was nothing but cloud cover. As a Hellhound, he had no trouble seeing in the dark, but the repetitive flashes disoriented his hell-born eyes, making it difficult to adjust. The heavy rain pelted the cockpit window, further hindering his visibility. And there was something unsettling about the lightning—it held a strange golden hue, unlike the usual static white. Shakily, Crisp tuned into the squadron’s radio frequency. In his gravelly voice, he spoke.

“Oracle One to Jackal Squadron, come in, over.”

Amidst the storm's fierce whiplash, a response crackled through, the pilot's voice tinged with urgency.

“Go ahead, Oracle One, this is Jackal One, over.”

Crisp let out an exhausted sigh, summoning every last bit of strength to keep his composure. “I was called in to take care of the situation you guys are in, over.”

“Uh, well, thank you, sir. I suppose we are in a bit of a mess right now, over.”

An uncomfortable silence hung between them for a moment.

“And how long have you been in the force? Over.”

“Since about ’49, sir, over.”

“So you haven’t seen much action? Over.”

“No, not really. Is that a bad thing, sir? Over.”

“Not at all. Actually, I wouldn’t want anyone to see a lot of action, over.”

There was a barely noticeable tremble in Crisp’s voice as he replied.

“What exactly have they assigned you to hunt down, sir? Sorry, they didn’t disclose that to me, over.”

“Something I’m not exactly paid enough to deal with, kid, over.”

Crisp chuckled, followed by a rugged cough. He hadn’t been able to laugh properly in a long time, but it didn’t hurt to try to ease the young pilot’s distress. Despite his effort, a pit formed in his stomach, enforcing the sense that he was out of his depth. Another span of agonizing silence passed as the storm interfered with their communication. Crisp glanced down at his worn dog tags and sighed—they were a painful reminder of why he was there.

Suddenly, a frantic transmission pierced the airwaves, the pilot’s voice screaming through the cockpit’s radio.

“THIS IS JACKAL ONE TO ORACLE ONE, DO YOU READ ME?!”

Crisp sprang into action, the inhuman screech signaling that the creature was near, banishing his exhaustion.

“I’m here, over!”

“It’s after me, sir! I don’t—I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO!”

“I’m on my way, just stay on line, okay?” Crisp tried to reassure the young pilot.

“Oh my God—it’s like a bat, sir! It’s huge! I KEEP SHOOTING THE DAMN THING, SIR, NOTHING IS WORKI—”

The sounds of metal groaning under immense stress, the anguished cries of the pilot, and the otherworldly shrieks of whatever was on the other line echoed through the cockpit. Crisp’s mind raced to the dreadful conclusion that the young, terrified pilot had been killed by the creature. Silence followed, a chilling reminder of the danger lurking in the storm's depths.

Crisp looked up and saw the form of the creature responsible for the young man’s demise. No amount of briefings could have prepared him for its horrific visage.

The creature was as large as his plane, its eyes feral and bloodshot, like those of a rabid animal. A primal sense of unease washed over Crisp as he gazed at it, feeling like prey before an apex predator. There was something fundamentally wrong about the creature’s existence. It resembled a bat, but that’s where the familiarity ended. Its skin looked like charred meat, and its wings appeared as though they didn’t belong to a living thing—the membrane torn in places, revealing the stormy sky behind it.

Crisp couldn’t tell if the creature was meant to look like this or if it had died long ago and been reanimated in some grotesque mockery of nature. Regardless, nothing about it obeyed any natural law he was familiar with. It opened its mouth and let out a wailing screech, difficult to decipher whether it was in pain or enraged. It didn’t matter. Crisp knew one thing: it did not want him there.

The creature cut through the air, pursuing him with frightening speed. Crisp guessed it was able to maneuver so quickly due to its arrow-shaped head, the only feature that made any sense to him. He wasted no time, taking evasive action to both retreat and gain a favorable angle for an attack. Sweat coated his palms as he nosedived, the pit in his stomach growing with each passing second. The large blip on his radar continued to grow in size, not daring to look behind him.

He reached a point where his anxiety subsided enough to allow him to open fire. He charged toward the creature as it opened its unholy maw. “Yeah, that’s right, come get some, you son of a bitch!”

His adrenaline rush rapidly faded as he noticed a light beginning to emanate from the back of the creature’s throat. Its scream grew louder, shaking the very cockpit of his plane. Then, before Crisp realized it, all sound cut out—not even the rain could be heard pattering against the cockpit window.

Crisp quickly banked his plane sharply to the right. Almost immediately after, a bright, thin white beam shot from the creature’s mouth, slicing through the clouds like a sword into flesh. Sound returned in a deafening wave. Gyaos, as he had heard it called, redirected the beam toward Crisp, who raced through the clouds, desperate to lose it. When the creature finally closed its mouth, Crisp breathed a sigh of relief. He quickly activated the homing sigil to guide his plane’s missiles directly to their target—the colossal head of Gyaos. The plane, along with the missiles, had been enhanced by an artificer back at HQ, both for extra punch and to ensure a direct hit. Crisp didn’t trust the artificer, but he didn’t have a better option.

He tapped the yoke twice, activating the homing sigil, which locked onto the creature. Gyaos opened its gaping maw again, preparing another sonic blast. Its roar was so powerful that bits of drool and saliva splattered onto the cockpit window, even from the far distance between them. Crisp opened fire, launching his entire arsenal at the creature. The rockets streaked toward Gyaos, and after about 15 seconds, they made contact.

The blast tore through the monster's head, sending blood, flesh, and skin splattering in all directions, painting Crisp’s plane. The creature’s corpse plummeted toward the ground below, and Crisp gave chase, determined to minimize collateral damage—he’d never hear the end of it if there was any. As they descended closer to the ground, Crisp noticed something impossible. The landscape below was jagged and desert-like, the unmistakable terrain of Dustmire—a place he should have been nowhere near.

[ioannemos]

tagged by @dangerously-human a week ago... thank you 🧡

Rules: Make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! Then tag as many people as you have WIPs (or, you know, as many as you feel like, but keep in mind Tumblr only lets tags stick anymore for the first five people mentioned in a post).

i have sooooooo many wips. so many. here are the ten most recent

(i'm adding the first line(s) of each (ignoring the numerous epigraphs) for reasons)

01. the buzz of a saw

> csi au, the setting for which that only my sister would understand without extensive explanation (sandstorm, babey)

Time falls in yellow-white sparks, reopening potholes as they skitter across the streets, turning trees back into saplings, and reversing the years on roofs.

02. Victors

> prospect

Banging against the ladder. Rhythmic, insistent. Maybe trying to get her attention.

03. certain kinds of deaths

> ...the bear au. no i have never watched the show

It’s around midnight in the middle of the week when the guy shows up.

04. so tell me you're still here

> national treasure

He’s opened the phone and put it to his ear before his eyes are even open.

05. Manifest

> is this an au of an au? is this basically original fiction with names that belong to an au of a video game i've never played? all i know is it's 8k words of weird post-apocalypse world building and making a guy Come to Terms with Being Perceived

I swore in surprise and dismay as I pulled Trooper to an abrupt halt at the top of the hill; he sidled and snorted, picking up on my unease.

06. Interlinked

> blade runner 2049

The thin layer of white compacts under his boots.

07. those who keep silent

> pacific rim au

They say you stumbled out of the surf, bleeding and whispering your brother’s name.

08. monster

> grimm au

You learn fast. You have to, when they could be around every corner.

09. silence like darkness

> stargate: atlantis

“Keep- k-keep-”

Words fly overhead before being diced to pieces by radio interference, the tread of boots, the smack of leaves, the calls of birds; pressure and heat and friction scrape over his skin like shark teeth, and flickering light bears down on his closed eyes like a heavy weight.

10. Naissance

> detroit: become human

“I’m sorry,” the woman says. “They- It sounds so- is racist the proper word? -but honestly, they do all look alike.”

tagging uhhh anyone who's been writing who wants to talk about their wips... idk who's writing rn. @morfinwen ? @sunheart ? i'm so tired and my brain is fried

[finniestoncrane]

First congratulations!!! 🎉🎉🎉 it's always a treat to see you on my dash tbh 💖💖💖 and your sweet words always hit the spot, so if you don't mind I'd like to order for Delivery! But it's a strange combination just fyi! Black Coffee [surprise me], Gazpacho [mr freeze], 🍁 Poutine [slow dancing] && 🥑 Guacamole [“please don’t leave”]

general!freeze x gn!reader, word count: 500 content (warnings): angst omg the angst ;-; the kitchen is now closed! 🔞minors dni🔞 • masterlist • kofi link • tag: finnie1500 (to follow or to block) a/n: THANK YOU MY SWEET! i got carried away with this one sorry lmao💚

There were three certainties you had come to accept about working in the lab with Victor.

One: It would always be freezing cold. Regardless of his suit, the temperatures were still far below comfortable. But you had grown used to it.

Two: There would be very little conversation. Victor was a quiet person, privately tortured, yes, but also introverted regardless of his personal traumas and emotions.

And three: The radio was always on.

The silence otherwise would be deafening, at least that's what you asumed was the reason for the constant music and chattering and ads and irritating sound bites. If neither of you were going to speak, or at least, if your words weren't going to be engaged with, then there might as well be something to listen to.

Which is why it was so strange when Victor spoke up, of his own accord. No reason to say anything, not returning a word out of social politeness, not an instruction for one of the experiments. Nothing.

"This song... it always reminds me of her."

You could see from his side profile, even, that his face had shifted from his neutral, blank expression, to the smallest suggestion of a smile.

"Of Nora?"

He nodded, silently, and you assumed that was the last you would hear from him all day. Until you jumped at the sound of his voice once more.

"It was our first dance. Not at our wedding of course. This wouldn't have been agreed by Nora's parents. They wanted a more traditional affair. But it was the first song we ever danced to on our very first date."

"That's sweet, Victor."

"Yes, and even though we had decided against using it for our first dance, after the wedding, when everyone was gone and we were alone in the honeymoon suite, I played it and we danced."

Your heart twitched, its strings tugged by the emotion in his voice, the smile he wore.

"If only I could dance to it once more."

It wasn't what he wanted, but you placed your hand on his arm, pulling him away from the counter. He put up no resistance, happy to feel the touch of another person in this vulnerable moment. And once you were both standing in the centre of the cold, tiled room, he let himself sink into the embrace as you swayed from side to side.

Long gone, though, was the smile that had crept onto his face. You could see sadness there, familiar for Victor, and as his tears began to water, he hid it from you by resting his head on your shoulder. Through the gentle sobs, you could hear him speaking, muffled.

"Please don't leave."

"I won't, Victor. I won't."

You knew it wasn't you he was speaking to though, but the way he clutched at the back of your lab coat told you that it really didn't matter in that moment, he was just glad to have someone there.

[innocence-wont-save-you]

[An overseer is ‘sitting’ next to the scavenger as they look at Innocence’s sleeping form.]

Hey bud, isn’t it kinda weird our friend is uh… still sleeping? Like, we should be moving out by now. I mean I know we’ve been waiting for like, six minutes, but it feels like a month! And yeah, I know you don’t understand me.

(OOC: Heyyyy so uh, sorry if it’s rude but I didn’t see a place to submit an ask on the website so I’m asking here. Is this blog ever going to be updated in the near future? If not, do you plan to still continue it or is like, irl stuff putting weight in your shoulders? I wanna join the disc and ask questions but stupid anxiety is making me not do it. If you’re still working on it or left the project, don’t feel pressured to continue, it would be selfish of me to ask that of you.

tl;dr: I kinda just want an update on the current situation Innocence Won’t Save You is in.)

OOC: YES HI HELLO I'M STILL ALIVE THANK YOU FOR ASKING ACTUALLY

Short answer: Yes there's. Shit going on in my life. Mostly school work; this has been one of my busiest quarters so far and I'm constantly swamped with work and haven't had the free time to really sit with IWSY and work out what I want/need to do.

Longer answer: Yes there is currently no way to submit on the website I am so sorry. When I said this would move off Tumblr I meant it and I was finding ways to do that, but I kept hitting roadblocks because I started learning web dev Solely for IWSY. Ultimately my progress on the javascript tutorial stalled (due to aforementioned busyness) and other people let me know that Neocities isn't... the best place to host comments locally? So that threw a wrench into the plans.

I've admittedly not written much for IWSY in the time since I announced we'd be migrating off Tumblr. In hindsight I kind of wish I'd waited a little, but I think this quarter would have done this to me regardless of if I'd wanted to migrate or not. However, I still want to work on IWSY. This project is NOT abandoned. I'm just very busy :'D in a good way though! After a bit of a rough spell, my life right now is, without exaggeration, the best it's ever been, and aside from just plain being busy, I'm also trying to enjoy being alive for once. Unfortunately it means things have been and will continue to be very, very slow here for the foreseeable future.

But I do have a small update. I gave up on trying to code comments locally, and instead found an open source commenting plugin called Isso that I'm hoping to install on the website. Actually doing so will require time I don't currently have since I. Uh. Don't know python. But if all goes well, I will have that set up at some point, and then I can get started on scene 14. I can't guarantee anything on that while this quarter is still going on unfortunately, but I will promise you all that once my summer break starts (which is in June since my school runs on a quarter system), I'll put more time and effort into this again.

If you'd like to help get the comments set up I would deeply appreciate it, but again I don't think I can see myself writing any long form creative fiction until I have the time to dedicate my mind to it, especially given what IWSY is. I'm really sorry about that, but I'm glad to hear that you're still interested in this story! So sorry about the radio silence, I really should have updated a few times since the last post I made, but thank you again for asking and reminding me to at least say something.

So TLDR, no the story isn't dead, I'm just hella busy and trying to appreciate life.

[draconscious]

After nearly two weeks of radio silence, Matsuba's calling out of the blue! When Clair finally answers, he sounds tired -- but in a chipper mood.

"Hey -- sorry for the sudden delay on my trip to Blackthorn. It's gonna be delayed a little longer. Got a bit banged up exploring the ruins."

Matsuba's voice sounds crackly and distorted over the well-worn Pokegear, but Clair still recognizes the newfound energy radiating through the speaker. She exhales, knocking knuckles to the back of the dented phone radio as if that will improve the signal. Blackthorn Clan Tech Support.

"...But you're okay, right?" the heiress insists, trying not sound too worried. "You need to be careful out there, Matsuba. I hope you haven't been stumbling through those ruins alone."

"Your League paperwork is taken care of and up to date, thanks to me. Oh, and Sayo is visiting--you should know that all of them are thinking about you. I want to give them good news, if I can," she debriefs, mindful of the Gear's finicky signal. "You'll call me right away when you've made it out, yes? And catch me up when you get here...?"

"Just stay sharp, and stay safe, alright? I mean it," Clair concludes with a stressed shake of her head. "Ugh. Regardless, it's...it's good to hear from you again. Things were starting to get tense over here."

[unluckybreadling]

Hi! I just wanna say if your still following me even after all these months..Thank You!! honestly, I’m really sorry for the radio silence, college has made me really busy and has slowed me down *alot* when it came to creating. Luckily the semester is almost over which means I can finally start posting again soon! (hopefully)

regardless still thank you all for still being around even after all this time it means a lot to me ^^ !!