#a decade later and that goddamn fic still haunts me

[ghost-proofbaby]

i think im actually burning my existence off the internet this is the most mortifying experience i will ever have on this website.

[hismercytomyjustice]

Ayyy, I’m back on my bullshit with my BG3 fic! Just about to hit 86k words. Good god.

Still struggling to comprehend that. And still have about two chapters to go. Eh, maybe 1.5. I’m thinking it’ll end around 95k. Maybe 100k. (・ω・｀)………..

Those numbers sound wildly fake. Especially how up until this fic, I’d never written anything longer than maybe 55k.

I can’t believe I’m finally reaching the end. Just a month or two ago, I was convinced I might never finish it with how bad my analysis paralysis was.

The whole reason I even started posting it was because my therapist suggested it as a way to help me out of the OCD spiral it was sending me into. I had fully intended not to post any of it until it was completely finished because I was terrified I’d never finish it.

…def don’t have unfinished shit haunting me decades later from ff.net…

Somehow my most popular fic on there was an InuYasha one from my MAJOR InuYasha brain rot days. God, Sesshomaru lived rent free in my head for fucking YEARS.

I am so fucking distraught with how they decided to handle his character arc. There is SO MUCH Sesshomaru merch out there this day and age. I would have lost my fucking mind as a teen if it had been available then. But I just can’t enjoy it now.

Like, no shade to those who are happy with how he wound up with Rin. I’m just not one of them. I just personally feel like it was a missed opportunity for both of their character arcs and also imho…he was pretty much her dad, so it just doesn’t sit right with me. Especially with how young she was when he took her in…

Would’ve loved to see her wind up with Kohaku like it felt they were going to. I also really loved Sesshomaru and Kagura together too (minus the whole uh…her no longer being around thing).

God my life fucking revolved around that show for literal years. Pretty much all of high school. Maybe some of middle school? I don’t remember 100% when I started watching it.

Idk if it was a special interest or a hyperfocus or what. It doesn’t happen to me often (despite what it might seem like on here). POTO hit me around the same time (when I was 16) and then there was a gap until Pacific Rim with a brief Transformers interlude in between.

The fact it’s happened again recently with BG3, Hazbin, and borderline IWTV is fucking wild to me. Like oh yeah, I get obsessed with shit but there’s obsessed and then there is Obsessed™. It might not look that different from an outside perspective, but good god it is BAD on the inside.

I fucking LOVE IWTV but I’m not hunting down every single microscopic bit of lore I can find for it.

Hazbin and BG3 tho? Good fucking god. I am desperate to consume anything I can fucking find. I am watching interviews, reading veritable dissertations on them, I am thinking about them non-fucking-stop.

You can gauge my true level of derangement by:

1. Have I written fanfic about it?

2. How much fanfic have I written about it?

IWTV is an A Tier obsession for me. BG3 and Hazbin? That shit is S Tier.

Not that I write fanfic for everything S Tier, case in point Stardew Valley, but yeah…there’s a fucking reason I have fucking 7 Pacific Rim fanfics under my belt.

And right now I’ve got a multi-chapter Hazbin crack fic cooking on the side that’s already about to hit 9k words. It is wildly self-indulgent but damn if I’m not enjoying every fucking second of it.

Maybe one day I’ll get back to the modern day Phantom AU I started back at the end of January. It’s got 5k on it. My only real concern with it tho is I worry about drifting too close to Binary, my fave POTO fanfic of all time. And, tbh, a solid contender for my fave fic of all time in general. The number of times I have read that masterpiece.

Fuck. Cannot recommend it enough if you’re a POTO fan. It is a goddamn work of art.

But yeah, being so close to finishing this BG3 fic is such a weird feeling. It kind of makes me want to peel my skin off and flee into the woods? But I think it’ll also be really fucking good for me. And I can’t believe I’m about to do it. It’s fucking terrifying lol. My OCD is NOT HAPPY.

I can take “comfort” in the fact I still have 9 weeks of editing ahead of me tho I guess? (ಥ﹏ಥ) Maybe that’ll shut my goddamn fucking OCD up with its chants of “you never finish anything, you’ll never finish this, best to give up now, easier to give it up than fight through until the end, you should give it up before everyone comes to their senses and realize it’s awful” blah blah blah.

OCD is the fucking WORST.

Weirdly I also have piano to thank for my ability to write again? Because the hardcore fucking OCD spirals that shit was sending me on was what made me realize I constantly have OCD spirals running in the background. It’s making them a fuck of a lot easier to see earlier on too. And that was like…Category 2/3 OCD for me lol. Writing was probably Category 4/5 until recently. There’s other shit that’s solidly a Cat 5 but I don’t ever intend to talk about it on here. That’s what I have my therapist for! Yay, therapy!

It is truly fucking wild seeing an OCD specialist though who is just like “oh, your big scary brain is not as big and scary as it wants you to think.” Like that was one of the biggest “holy shit” moments I had when she was walking me through the stages of OCD spirals and I was just like…I never saw the pattern before. But there it was. Spelled out in black and white on a little fucking worksheet.

Fucking insane.

Tumblr has helped me so fucking much too by making it easy for me journal about it all regularly. I don’t always post what I journal, but it helps me see the forest for the trees regardless. And by forcing myself to “share” shit, I’m chipping away at the part of my OCD that fucking thrives on avoidance and self-consciousness about this shit. Because you’re not supposed to avoid OCD thoughts. That just makes ultimately them worse. So I share them on here knowing there’s like a 1% anyone will ever read any of this, but it’s enough to take away some of the fear/shame/avoidance that would otherwise add fuel to the fire so.

┐(￣ ヘ￣)┌

It’s all not as big and bad and scary and awful as my OCD makes it out to be in the confines of my noggin. It’s fucking hard sometimes, sharing some of this stuff because it’s embarrassing and awful and stupid. There’s nothing logical about OCD thoughts and knowing that makes it even fucking worse.

Like… I know the entirety of the internet isn’t going to just show up one day and tell me my writing is shit and I should quit. Logically. My OCD, however… It makes a lot of compelling arguments to my little lizard brain that are a lot harder to ignore.

Like how I almost didn’t sign up for piano classes at all because my OCD told me I’d never practice and I’d be wasting the teacher’s time and if I then quit I was frivolously playing with part of their livelihood and therefore a terrible fucking person. Would I say that to someone else? Absolutely not. That’s all absurd. Did I spend weeks agonizing over it in my noggin? Abso-fuckin’-lutely I did. And it didn’t even occur to me it was batshit until I finally brought it up to my husband and realized “wait one goddamn second, this is an OCD spiral, isn’t it?”

Lololol. The “joys” of mental illness! But hey, at least the therapy seems to be working. One step at a time baybeee!

[avintagekiss24]

𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖙𝖔𝖚𝖗 | 𝖇. 𝖇𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖊𝖘

→ pairing: beefy shadow monster!bucky barnes x black!reader

→ word count: 5367

→ warnings: 18+ ONLY, dub con, a tinge of somnophilia, exophilia, #monster fucker, smut, sex, rough sex, masturbation, rough masturbation, sex toys, butt stuff, oral sex (female receiving), multiple orgasms, voyeurism, explicit language

→ square filled: @badthingshappenbingo​ 

wiping the other’s tears away

→ author note: guys, i’m... this is who we are now. we are monster fuckers. this is based on @idga-buck​ INCREDIBLE ask that was bred from this post. i honestly don’t know if this holds a candle to that ask because, whew girl. that shit fucked me up when i first read it! anyway, hope you guys enjoy because i might be planning a little monster fucker series based off of this and another certain someone that is mentioned in the fic.

→ read hirsute

The stress in your shoulders makes it hard to lift your arm once you finally reach your apartment door. It takes everything in you to shove your key into the lock and slam your hip against the old, swollen wooden door to pop it open, but just crossing the threshold into your sanctuary helps soothe your nerves. Everything falls to the floor within an instant— purse, messenger bag, coat— hell, even your keys. Hopping on one foot to remove a light brown, velvet heel, and then the other as you make your way towards your bedroom, ignoring the lively green house plants scattered around window seals and the living room.

You don’t even bother to turn on the lights. Don’t make a pit stop in the kitchen, or even the bathroom to remove your makeup. Hunger pains be damned. There are exactly two things that will help with this mood— an orgasm, and sleep. Thank God one always leads to the other.

It was 10:12am, just two hours into your work day, when you knew what you were going to need to help forget about this day. Emails piling up, phone ringing off the hook, picking up the slack for coworkers because you’re just so well versed in this… we could really use your help. Took its toll. By 10:12am you were ready to scream, punch your perky, always in a good mood cubicle mate, and rip your hair out— so you knew, right then and there, that you were gonna fuck yourself stupid when you got home.

Perverted thoughts lingered all day as you rifled through old court filings and scoured obscure statutes. Thighs tightened as your sex started to dampen at fantasies of being bent over your boss’ desk. Caught yourself staring, more than once, through his open door as he chatted on the phone, bright blue eyes glinting underneath the natural sunlight that poured into his office, crinkling on the sides as he laughed.

Then he would furrow those brows as he read through briefings. Jaw and lips set tight, eyes squinted as he nibbled absentmindedly on his bottom lip. Big hands and thick fingers made the pen in his hand seem entirely too small. Pink tongue darted out to wet pink lips.

You’ve spent many a night with thoughts of Andrew Stephen Barber; and tonight will be no different.

Dark shadows are cast across the floor and bed, small slivers of moonlight creeping in. The sound of your shoes hitting the floor don’t even register in your ears as you wiggle out of your skirt and panties and fall onto the soft, warm, inviting Queen mattress.

Deft fingers make light work of the buttons on your silk blouse but the other hand can’t wait— slipping down your stomach and between sticky, hot flesh. A sharp inhale fills your chest as you rub slow circles against your clit, pangs of quick excitement starting to fire off. Your fingers push down to your slit, prodding and stroking gently as a new wet starts to slick your muscles.

A lazy smile curls onto your face. The stress of the day starts to evaporate as you melt into the mattress, the circles against your clit quickening, hips starting to roll and push up into your hand. The expensive silk of your blouse falls off your shoulders just a bit as you push it away from your chest, exposing two bare tits and quickly thickening nipples.

You take hold of one— tweaking it slow. Pinching and rolling the nub before palming your tit all together, cupping and pushing the mound of flesh up your chest. A swipe of your tongue— rough and torrid— against your nipple makes you grunt deep. Makes your hips jut upward as you prod that now filthy wet slit and hole.

Muscles flex as the sound of your dirty deed fills the empty space. Wet squeaks and sloshes bounce off the walls as fingers thrash back and forth and up and down against your clit. Heavy, thick thuds of your palm pounding against your body when one, two, three fingers finally slip inside— but they aren’t enough. Not wide enough or long enough to feed the hunger.

Then… there’s a shift. The atmosphere in your apartment— your room specifically— just changes on a dime. The tiny hairs on your body start to stand on end, goosebumps raising on your skin. Your eyes slide open, blinking up at the ceiling as your pumping hand slows down to just a creep before stilling completely. An already racing heart starts to beat harder, lips part, eyes and limbs completely frozen in place as fear strikes you.

You’ve felt this before, at random times since you moved in. Sometimes in the shower or in the kitchen, when you’re getting ready for work, or catching up on a show— but mainly at times like this. When you’re stretched out on your bed, naked, fingers rooted deep in your cunt, when you feel like you’re being watched. Like there’s a thousand eyes on you all at once.

There’s even a chill that takes over the room, sometimes getting so cold that for a brief moment, you can see your breath. You’ve gone to management a few times, who of course did nothing— but a few of your neighbors put your mind at ease, it happens to them sometimes too. It struck you odd that it was mainly just your female neighbors who experienced the random chills, but you brushed it off. You live on the southside of the complex, the sun gets blocked by the surrounding buildings. You also live on the first floor— heat rises, cold sinks. It happens.

You swallow hard, shutting your eyes, trying to center yourself again. A small laugh escapes your lips seconds later— you’re ridiculous. Maybe it's time to lay off the horror movies for a while.

Shrugging out of your blouse the rest of the way, you roll onto your side and pull open the drawer of your nightstand. Out comes the cute little heart shaped butt plug, complete with a pretty pink crystal gem. A small bottle of water based lube is next, and then, the pièce de résistance. Your ten inch tall, two inch wide realistic dildo.

Your stomach tightens with anticipation as you fumble with the flip cap of the small purple bottle of lube. Just a dollop is enough to coat the steel plug, the excess on your fingers used to wet your warm, puckered hole. Melting back into the mattress, you roll your shoulders, let your eyes flutter closed, and grab your bottom lip between your teeth as you massage your rim with the rounded tip, gently pushing.

A soft moan vibrates in your throat as your body opens up. Your hole twitches, clenching tight around the toy as it disappears with a quick pop as soon as the widest part is shoved in, leaving nothing to be seen but the pink heart flush against your hot rim. You draw your legs up, calves pressed against the backs of your thighs, butterflying open as you drag the fake cock through your folds— against your clit— using your slick to lubricate the soft silicone.

Fingers find your nub soon after, slapping quick, before stroking the delicate flesh as you start to tease your slit. The cock head slips in easy, but you're so tight, so worked up and eager, muscles swollen, that it takes a little more effort to swallow the rest. Tiny little wet squeaks fall from your lips, body tenses and curls inward as you push, push, push— mouth falling open, face splintering with pleasure.

It takes not even ten seconds for your body to adjust, hips wiggling and shifting to get comfortable, before you're pulling the massive toy out and shoving it back in. You start to murmur, indiscernible, clipped words filtering through full lips— a hot tongue slipping out, sweeping over teeth as your hips start to get into it.

You’re soon too far gone to notice the black shadows moving around the room. Chalk up the feeling of the little hairs standing on end, the goosebumps popping up across your body to your arousal— and not the two piercing blue eyes that illuminate at the edge of your bed.

~~~

Bucky could reach out and touch you he’s so close now. He’s careful still— almost getting caught by you earlier, his anticipation for your almost nightly show getting the best of him. Making him sloppy.

He’s haunted these walls, these rooms, these buildings for decades, if not a century or more. Seen generation after generation moving in and out, kids growing up into adults, adults growing old, the old dying off— but you— fuck, you’ve got to be his goddamn favorite of them all.

Deep brown skin. Lithe and delicate. A soft little quiet thing, engrossed in her solitude and house plants, more than happy to shut the rest of the world out more often than not. You’re gentle. Your soul, your physicality, except in these moments. When you fuck yourself like this, and it doesn’t matter when— in the mornings when the sun is soft, in the late afternoons, your body covered in the oranges and pinks of the sky, late at night in the absolute darkness with nothing but the moon and the shadows— you’re anything but gentle.

Unrestrained and wild you are when in the throes of your arousal. Writhing and loud, a thin sheen of sweat on your brow. Eyes clamped closed so tight sometimes sweet little tears squeeze out and slip down your cheeks. Two perfect tits, mounds of soft flesh, jiggle and bounce with the aggressive thrashes of your fingers against a glistening, sensitive nub.

Nights like tonight are his favorite. When you’re acutely aware that he’s here, but too scared to really give it much thought. When the fear strikes you stiff. When you pull out that monstrous fake cock and spread yourself wide— stretch that pretty, pink, wet cunt. The squelch, the squish of the foreign object being jammed into hot, distended muscles.

Your smell. So sweet and pungent— distinctly you. It’s constantly on the tip of Bucky’s tongue, filling his nostrils, swirling in his head and chest— taunting him. Intoxicating him. Begging and beseeching him to just reach out and touch. Taste. Oh, to have your scent— your flavor— on his lips to savor. He wants to bury his face between those thighs, drown between them. Slither into you and curl up, take up residence.

Bucky’s gotten bold as of late— now, not even waiting until you’re fucked out and sex drunk, falling into a peaceful, post orgasm slumber to move around. No. Now he shifts while you’re still awake, still fucking— toy sowed deep, fingers slapping, hips snapping, back arching.

You’ve snapped your head towards him once or twice over time as you’ve caught his movement in the corner of your eye. Sat straight up, mouth hanging, eyes wide, chest heaving as you stared into the darkness— waiting. Scared shitless. You even tried to cover yourself, hands over your tits, legs closing into each other.

It made him laugh.

You’re already his. That body claimed— no need to cover it up now.

Even tonight, he’s even bolder still. Right at the edge of your bed, peering on. It’s a damn near perfect view when you get like this— sloppy. Legs splayed open, heels dug into the mattress, hips arched off the bed. Your slick glistens underneath the moonlight, splashed on your thighs, strings connected between two puffy, balmy lips. It’s nothing but an invitation— an invitation that he can’t ignore for much longer.

He pushes his knee into the mattress, and then the other, his substantial weight dipping it. Piercing blue eyes snap towards your face as he stalls, waiting for any indication that you feel him there— a smile curling onto his lips when it doesn’t come. So he pushes closer, settles right at your feet. Reaches out, hovers long, black fingers over your chest— so close that his pointed, sharp nails graze your skin.

Makes you gasp.

Bucky snaps his hand back, but you don’t stop. You shiver. Goosebumps ever present on every inch of your skin— but you don’t stop. In fact, you get faster, harder. Pounding that fake cock into your cunt, pushing your hips higher as you slap and knead at that sticky, swollen nub.

You like it.

You like his touch.

Pride swells in Bucky’s chest. Maybe you’re much more receptive than he originally thought. Maybe it’s the fear itself— knowing you’re being watched by something, not someone— is what turns you on. And it makes Bucky bolder still.

He looms over you, hand pressing into the mattress right by your head. Head tilting as he leans in, brushing the tip of his nose against your cheek. You jump again, mewl loud when his nails scrape against your skin, between your jiggling, bouncing tits. He wants to fuck you so bad. Stuff you full of his monster cock— he knows you can take it. Knows you can stretch wide for his veiny, dripping prick. Suck those pretty tits into his wet mouth, those hard, perky nipples between his sharp teeth. But he won’t, not now.

You’re so close.

And this is always the best part.

So he pushes away, away from the bed. Hovers up near the ceiling, eyes shifting from their brilliant blue to pitch black so he can enjoy your finale. Then he’ll wait a while, maybe a few nights— maybe a few hours, who knows—  to encourage an encore.

With a little help, of course.

~~~

You cry out, shrieking into the darkness as the coil planted deep threatens to snap. The chill in the room has your nipples hard, but the heat blooming across your skin has you damp and sticky. There’s gusts of something— splashing over your naked body— but the windows are closed. The air conditioning turned completely off.

It feels like breath. You’d swear it— and it’s so close. Like someone, or something, is right on top of you. Shudders wrack your body, adrenaline rushes as ice floods your veins. Alarm, panic, sheer horror gripping you.

But, you cum before you can rationalize it. Before you can pinpoint it.

It’s so sweet, the orgasm, so deep as the warmth of it spreads like wildfire. Toes curl hard, so hard they go numb as the waves crash, each one harder than the one before. Heart in your throat, the blood rush in your ears. Muscles spasming, clenching and clamping down around the silicone cock, clit jumping with each contraction of your cunt.

It lasts for awhile— your body knowing that this is what you needed. So you ride it out as long as you can, fingers still rubbing and thrashing against your clit until it’s too sensitive. You stuff the cock into you one last time and leave it there, fixed so deep as your body falls back against the mattress. Your asshole constricts around the plug, twitching and fluttering as the last jerks of your hips start to subside.

Chest heaves with deep, long, ragged breaths. Tits pushing up and down, jiggling, stomach flexing as you go limp. Limp and fucked out. Asshole and cunt used, hot— weeping lube and cum. You’re a mess. A beautiful, sated, sloppy mess.

A lazy smile on your face, eyes hooded, you stare up at the ceiling. Unaware that you’ve found two black eyes just perfectly— stare right into them as they peer back at you.

Sleep starts to pull, a mushy, hazy brain giving in all too easily, not giving you time to recognize that you’re being watched again. That there’s a presence looming just over you— all around you. Or maybe, it's a mechanism. Maybe you don’t want to recognize it. So you roll over onto your side, shimmy underneath the blankets to gather some warmth. Shut your eyes and give into the sleep— vow to stop watching those cheesy scary movies so late at night.

They’re making you paranoid.

-

The sting of cold on your extremities makes you stir. Letting out a yawn, you flex your toes, pulling the blankets up to your chin as a chill ripples through your bones. You roll onto your back, and push out a breath, not opening your eyes to see the white puff of air. Another shiver, a deep one, rolls through you again, making you shift underneath the blankets and push your face into the pillow.

Moments later is when you perceive a warmth. A soft moan trembles in your throat as you smash the back of your hand against your face, still teetering between sleep and consciousness. The ache between your legs grows harder to ignore— the warmth, starting to sear. Your hips buck soft. Another groan scratches at the back of your throat.

You’re writhing within minutes. A white hot molten pooling in the pit of your stomach and spreading out to the tips of your fingers and toes. The cold nothing but a distant memory as the familiar burn of lechery encompasses your tight body.

It feels so real— a long, forked, rough tongue lapping at your folds, swishing around your clit. You jump suddenly, gasping deep when something like teeth, so many sharp teeth, nibble and bite at the meat of your thighs. There's pressure, pressing down on your stomach and wrapped around your thigh as you draw your knees up slow, digging the balls of your feet into the mattress. The pressure, it’s warm and vast— something like a palm… there’s scratching, quick little tickles over your stomach, your tits, your ankles and calves.

Fingernails. Long, jagged fingernails.

You give in to the fantasy— the dream. Not opening your eyes, not giving into the consciousness that tugs at you, not wanting to lose this euphoria. The pressure on your stomach gets harder, heightening the sensation of the tongue against your core and almost pinning your writhing hips to the sturdy mattress.

The tongue, rough and wet, slithers through your folds, flicking quick against your clit before the mouth sucks you right up— lips, clit— right into it. Tongue flattening against your slit, teasing your pink opening. Then, oh God, and then it slithers inside, that tongue. Massages your hot, swollen muscles from the inside. Your body jolts up, away from the mattress, a breathy, drawn-out snarl bursting from your lips.

You fall back against the mattress— liquify into it really and let your hands roam, finding your taut, thick nipples. Tweaking and rolling them, pinching between deft fingers before palming your tits feeling the goosebumps that have popped up on your flesh again. Your knees fall apart, legs splaying open, putting your swollen cunt on full display for this invisible force.

It’s not long before your hips are jutting up into the dream tongue, the lips, the teeth hard and fast, a sharp sting piercing your clit just as you start to cum again. Loud, shaky moans fill the room as your hips pulse and your back arches. Cursing, whaling as the dream tongue swipes and flicks, lips wrap around your nub again, sucking hard, coaxing every last drop of your release out of you.

Thighs, stomach, arms, cunt burn as a delicious stretch, a used ache settles deep in the exploited muscles. Long, hoarse breaths fill your chest, the air rushing so fast, and yet so slow that it makes you dizzy. You couldn’t move if you wanted to, everything is just so fucking heavy.

Brain is mush again, cloudy and dense, stupid with ardor. Lazy, broken moans vibrate through your vocal chords, body twitches with quick aftershocks every now and again, making you giggle. You feel like you’ve been hit by a mack truck. It’s so nice.

Once your breathing has slowed back to normal, you roll your head towards the window, open your eyes just enough to see the moon cutting into the room. Relief floods through your veins, happy to find it’s still night time, still dark, your room still moody, giving you time to fall back asleep with the pleasant thoughts of whatever just happened— but you’re a mess again. Skin sticky and damp, panties ruined. Your eyes droop and close as you push out a soft breath, hand slipping down your body. You should really clean up.

Maybe in a few minutes. You push your knees together slowly, swaying them back and forth as your fingertips find your clit, toying with it gently. They calm your jumbled nerves quite nicely and immediately— the touch familiar. Your fingers stretch out, tips push down just a little lower as you smile stupid and lazy and blink slowly up at the ceiling.

The smile doesn’t last long.

Your eyes pop open as a simultaneous sharp gasp fills your chest with cold air. Blood runs ice cold through your veins.

“Good,” a scratchy voice sounds as your fingers push through a tuft of thick hair just between your legs, hot breath sticking to tacky flesh.

Shallow, quick breaths squeak through your teeth, eyes wide, lips and chin trembling as your limbs grow heavy— oh so heavy. Frozen. You slam your eyes shut when a hand slides slowly up your side, serrated nails skipping across your skin. A sob chokes out as you slam your eyes shut, fear gripping every inch of your body.

The wet, long, hot tongue of your dreams swipes at your core again but you’re still sensitive— jumpy— hips pushing down into the mattress to get away from it. A second hand grabs your hip, squeezes it hard, stilling your lower half as it laps at you again. The crawling hand finds your left tit, cups it— kneads it slow— rolling the thick bud between even thicker fingers.

“Look at me.” The voice sounds again, like gravel, low and rough.

Your clit is sucked into an instant warmth, a wide, flat tongue massaging— rolling— gently. A soft, tiny little noise thrums in your throat as a shudder ripples through already irritated muscles. The sound pleases whatever is between your legs, as it chuckles deep, the vibrations adding to the sensation of its tongue.

It pinches your nipple— quick, hard— and bites down into the meat of your thigh while also squeezing it with it’s other massive hand, “I want you to look at me.” you hesitate— and it doesn’t like it, “Look at me.”

The chill in its voice forces your eyes open, but you keep them on the ceiling as silent tears trickle down the side of your face and onto your pillow. An influx of air fills your lungs when a hand pushes up to your face. A thumb swipes underneath your eye gently before an index finger curls to wipe away the wet emotion.

“You’re pretty when you cry,” it says, a little softer, still rubbing your cheek slowly, “Look at me.”

Against your better judgement, fighting through the fear, you blink, shifting your eyes towards your drawn-up legs. There are two big eyes, unnaturally blue, probing and upturned, staring back at you, disappearing in the dark as it blinks before they settle back on you. In fact, they stay on you as it’s tongue flicks out at you again, sweeps through your folds, teasing your opening, your clit again. It palms your tit, squeezing before sitting up, exposing it’s true size.

Your eyes follow slowly upward as it towers over you, it’s knees pressing into the mattress, dipping it deep with its weight. You struggle to breathe, eyes flutter quick as your lips tremble, taking in the umbra. There’s a wide chest, thick biceps and forearms and hands and fingers that push your legs back— towards your chest and stomach. Stocky thighs and a—

You gulp slow, sitting up on your elbows as your eyes zero in on the throbbing, weeping cock between its legs. The moon illuminates the pulsing veins running the impressive length, the wet, red, dripping cockhead— cum already dribbling out, splashing on your skin. It’s hot and silky— dense, the cum, as it wipes the spot away with it’s thumb, a nail cutting into your skin.

It grabs itself, strokes it’s massive cock slow as it drags its eyes along your naked body. Another shudder trembles through you when it teases your cunt with it’s cockhead, pressing into your clit, dragging through your folds, prodding at your slit. You let your head drop slightly, let your eyes close to slits, let your mouth drop as it’s fingers skip up and down your thighs, it’s jagged, black nails tickling you.

Errant hips canter upward, pushing your clit against its tip again, coating it with your slick before you let it settle back against your opening.

“Now that you can see me, beautiful,” it’s raspy voice sounds, starting to push into you, “I want you to scream.”

It juts into you hard, pulling a loud scream out of you— just what it wanted. You pant as it pushes, deep, deep, deep, until its hips are flush with yours, cock completely sunk. It doesn’t move right away, lets you wiggle and twitch, hiss and grunt as you adjust to the size— the absolute fullness. Stretched so wide, clasped so tight around this pulsating cock that you aren’t sure that you’ll be able to walk tomorrow.

But you’ll risk it.

It locks one of your legs around it’s waist, throws the other over its shoulder, slipping its massive hand down the length, down your calf, over your knee, along your thigh until it’s fingers settle on your cunt— on your clit. Slow circles are drawn into your flesh, a gentle pressure applied as it pulls back, cock dragging out of your death grip. You hiss as it sinks back in, reaching something deep.

It’s blistering after that. Within seconds, hips are snapping, skin slapping against… skin? You aren’t even sure. Long fingers are everywhere, tits, stomach, legs, cunt— gripping, groping, pinching. They venture up to your chin, up to your parted, swollen lips, where they linger. You send wide, innocent eyes up to its blues, tits sliding up and down as you lunge with each thrust— and open your mouth wider, sliding your tongue along the tip of its finger.

When a husky moan rumbles through its chest, your heart soars unexpectedly. It’s pleased with your eagerness— your reception.

You’re empty suddenly. A strong hand grips your side, pulls you roughly down the bed. Flips you over before yanking your hips upward, propping you up on your knees. And then, you’re pinned— an unyielding grip around the back of your neck holding you in place. You grunt and start to whimper,  another bout of fright coursing through your veins as it smashes the side of your face into the sheets and pillows.

It fucks back into you slow, a long, shuddering groan spilling out of your trembling lips, “My pet,” it speaks again, squeezing the back of your neck a little harder, “Such a sweet little thing.”

Reaching back, your fingers graze over a sinewy thigh, taking hold as you start to spring forward with each drive of its hips. You slam your eyes closed, more emotion squeezing out of them. The dull burn is back in the pit of your stomach. Your toes and fingers start to curl and flex as each stroke gets sweeter and sweeter, hitting that deep little spot within.

Goosebumps pop up again. Heat blooms across your skin, filling your face and chest and stomach. Spit dribbles from the corner of your mouth as two pouty lips form a perfect little “o” as you start to shriek, each sound coming faster and faster, louder and louder. Your fingers find your nub again, rubbing and slapping to set this release in motion. The sound of your slick is sloppy, wet— and gorgeous, to both you and it.

You’re cursing, sobbing, begging within minutes, teetering right on the edge. It starts to thumb at your asshole, rubbing the rim gently, pushing just inside— coaxing you on.

That’s all it takes. You tense hard— toes curl, fists ball, stomach clenches— and then stiffen as your orgasm hits. A white hot flushing through as you quake, cunt spasming around it’s heavy cock. Jammed full, orgasm rippling, fingers still thrashing against your constricting clit, you’re dizzy, warm all over, sweaty and freezing cold all at the same time.

Your companion— this monster of the night, lurking in the shadows— hammers on behind you, pumping, gripping, squeezing, pushing you down further into the mattress as his strokes get sharper. Stronger. More forceful.

It gets loud. Growling so deep and heavy that the sound shakes the walls— the bed. God, the poor neighbors. It grips your hip with one hand so hard you yelp in pain, hands flailing, trying to grip and grab anything they can as it fucks into you.

One, two more jabs and it stills quick— and that’s when you feel it. Another white hot, this time all concentrated in your overstimulated, tight, wet cunt. Long ribbons of cum, silk soft and warm, fill you up, up, up— to the brim. It’s cock veins pulsate, it’s girth seemingly growing wider, stretching you more as it unloads. Cock jumping in your tight grasp as cum weeps from it.

You take it all, humming loud and proud, panting as you feel it’s seed spill out, down the inside of your thigh.

It drags out slow, as if not wanting to at all. Like it likes the feeling of your messy, cum filled cunt all wrapped around him. You feel that swollen cock head through your folds again, slowly pushing up and down your clit, teasing your slit. A finger, and then another glance over your asshole— lovingly. Softly. Massaging the twitching rim before burying it’s hard cock between your cheeks, slapping you with it.

“No more,” you plead, voice small and broken and pathetic, “Please, I can’t.”

Another chuckle rumbles through its chest, “Ok sweet girl,” there’s a hand on the back of your head, stroking curly, damp, surely tangled hair, “Such a good girl.”

Hands are back on your skin again, fingers pushing and pulling, adjusting you on the mattress. You’re flat now, splayed out on your belly, legs spread, hands shoved underneath your pillows and head. Balmy skin, puffy flesh is soothed by slow gushes of breath, making you jump and whine more— whimper more. The bed sinks again as it moves, pulled again, your back up against a massive chest and hard stomach.

It wraps around you, slinging an arm and a leg over you, enveloping you in its warmth. Rids your face of the wetness, pushing the remaining tears away with its thumb. Nuzzles in close— a scratchy cheek against your own.

A heavy hand over your heart.

“I like this,” it says soft, tapping along with your heartbeat, “The rhythm.”

You hum again, happily fucked out and cock drunk, already feeling an ache settling into your muscles and bones. Hips and ass push back into its hips, pushing its dense cock against you— wanting to feel it resting against your cunt, “You got a name?”

“Brarthronoz.”

“Excuse me?” you giggle through a deep yawn as your eyes flutter.

It— he nuzzles again, pushing his face closer, “Bucky is fine, pet.”

“Bucky,” you sigh a little, “I like that.”

You fall asleep with the soft rhythm of his breath against your neck.

-

When you wake, he’s gone— but you kinda figured that anyway. The oranges of the sky and rising sun chases away all the shadows. You go about your routine but a little slower— inflamed, throbbing arms and legs make showering and brushing your teeth a little harder this morning.

You look for him though, in the corner of your little kitchen, in that small spot where the sun just never quite reaches.

A smile tugs at the corners of your mouth when you find a pair of bright blue eyes fixed on you, a little wink encouraging you further.

“Toast?” You ask cheekily, a wide smile on your face as you offer him a plate.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

One Night🌙3

Warnings: noncon sexual acts (to be warned later in series)

This is dark!Andy Barber and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: One night changes your entire life.

for @kittykatlow​‘s 200 Follower Celebration

Note: Chapter 3 as I fight with every other fic to co-operate with me but here it is.

Hope you enjoy it. Thank you. Love you guys!

Please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

The next day, you went through your shift like a zombie. Despite the deepening pit of hunger in your stomach, you ate your meals without tasting them' without enjoying a bite. You were so distracted by this man’s sudden unshakeable presence in your life that you couldn’t think of what you were doing at any given moment. You just did it.

Your phone rang as you swayed with the puttering of the city bus. You frowned at the number you didn’t recognize and answered with a yawn. No closing shift that night. You ignored the call but your phone lit up again before you could drop it back into your bag. You hit the button on the wire of your earbuds and answered.

“Hello?” You said.

“You working?” Andy asked. You knew his voice, it haunted you as it continued to echo in your mind; ‘The hard way or the easy way’.

“On my way home,” You answered hesitantly. “Can’t I have one night to--”

“You’ve had the day to think. You don’t have that much time,” He interrupted. “How far along are you? Three months?”

“Please…”

“Just give me an answer.” He said.

You paused and read the stop across the banner as it flashed and the rope was pulled with a ding. You glanced out the window. Your stop was still another fifteen minutes away. You sighed and shifted in your seat.

“I don’t have one,” You said quietly. “I barely slept and I worked--”

“I’ve been working all day too,” He insisted. “You’ll see I work hard. For myself, for my family.”

“Look, I don’t need the lecture, alright? Maybe you think what I do is easy but--”

“Easy? You shouldn’t be on your feet so much, not in your condition. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” He sniffed.

“Alright, well, you’re going to have to wait for your answer,” You said tersely. “I’m tired, I’m going home to take a nap, then I’ll make up my mind.”

You hung up and dropped your phone into the gaping mouth of your purse. Your music began again, the vibrant tunes of 80s pop contrasted the grey Massachusetts sky. The lyrics were a buzz in your ear as you rocked and waited for your stop. You grew more and more anxious as you neared it.

You got off at the corner of your street and the bus chugged on. You dragged your feet along and stopped at the familiar car parked by the curb of your parents’ house. Shit. You sped up and peeked through the tinted windows; empty. You stormed down the driveway and through the door.

You stopped just inside the entryway as you turned to peer into the living room. Andy sat on the sofa, one leg bent over the other as he leaned back casually. He slowly looked at you and smiled. He wore an expensive suit and polished leather shoes. He must have come straight from the courthouse.

“What--” You began.

“Did you want anything in your coffee?” Your mother appeared from the dining room. 

“Just cream,” Andy replied. “Thank you.”

“Not at all. Oh, there she is,” Your mom tweaked a brow as she looked to you. “Coffee?”

“No, thank you,” You stepped through the archway and crossed your arms.

You glared at Andy and your mother disappeared back through the dining room and the fridge gave a loud suck as it opened.

“Good. Caffeine isn’t healthy for the baby.” He stretched his arm over the back of the couch.

“Shut up.” You hovered in the doorway. “What are you even doing here?”

“I came for my answer.” He sat up and you gulped as your mom entered again. 

“Here you are,” She handed him the mug and he took it with another thank you.

“You mind if I have a few minutes to talk to your daughter?” He set down the coffee on the low table. 

“Of course, Mr. Barber,” She preened.

“Andy, I told you,” He waved away her formality.

“Well, you know, I am so very sorry about what happened to your family… Andy,” She folded her hands together. 

“Thanks,” He looked down dramatically.

“Anyhoo,” Your mother broke the lull, “I will leave you to it.”

She shot you a look as if to say that she wanted no part of whatever trouble this was. She left and you set your bag down as you sat in the armchair. You picked at your nail and grimaced.

“You really couldn’t wait?” You huffed.

“Well, it’s like you said, we don’t really know each other. I can’t trust you. Yet.” He paused and sipped from the coffee. “I hope you make better coffee than your mother.”

“Hmmph,” You grumbled. 

“If I let you have your couple hours, you could just as soon be on your way out of town. Not that you’d get far.” He grinned. “You know, the uniforms always keep a patrol by the bus station? Lotta people think they can make a quick run on a greyhound.”

“I don’t care about the goddamn police.” You sneered.

“You seem pretty indifferent to most things. Not a very admirable trait so far. Especially with a baby on board. How long do you think you can afford to be so oblivious?” He rolled his shoulder and scratched his beard. “I’m not trying to ruin your life, I’m trying to help you fix it.”

“Well, Christ, Andy, you think maybe I need a little more time to think things through? To actually process what the fuck is going on here? You’ve done this before, I haven’t.” You were seething as you gripped the arm of the chair. “I don’t know what to do, okay?”

“It’s not that hard. I’ve--”

“You’re pregnant?” Your mother interjected as she appeared from around the corner, the shadows of the unlit dining room hanging over her shoulders like a cape.

“What the hell? Have you been listening?” You stood.

“Not intentionally but it’s hard not to hear.” She hissed. “What, were you going to wait until you popped it out and I had no choice but to pick up after your kid like I have for you for the last three decades?”

“No, I--”

“With all due respect, we were talking about the very opposite of that,” Andy rose calmly. 

“You fucked a married man?! His wife is on fucking life support!” Your mother shouted. “Fuck’s sake, and you!” She turned on Andy. “You’re both disgusting.”

“Mom,” You warned.

“This isn’t happening in my house.” She scoffed. “None of it. You take your things and go with this… this man.” She raged as she marched towards you. “Get out. You’re done leeching off of us.”

“Leeching? Well, mom, you can see if you can scrape together my half of the rent yourself as you sitting around here watching your goddamn soaps.” You snapped.

“Get the fuck out of my house, you ungrateful bitch!” She shoved you and you barely caught the chair to keep from falling.

She stumbled back herself as Andy grabbed her arm and spun her around. His eyes were lit with fury as he squeezed her shoulders.

“You don’t touch her. She’s carrying your grandchild. My child. You will not touch her, ever again.” He growled.

“You--you--” Your mother wriggled against him and brought her index up to jab in his face. “I bet your son fucking did it.”

“You shut your mouth,” He said slowly, quietly.

“Andy,” You rushed over and clung to his wrist. “Don’t hurt her.”

“I don’t need your help,” Your mother tried to elbow you away.

Andy flung her aside and she caught herself on the ottoman. He turned to block you from her.

“I’ll call the cops,” She threatened as she righted herself.

“Go ahead. They should be here to supervise your forced eviction.” He crossed his arms. “Your daughter pays her portion of the rent, that means she has the right to take her belongings with her and the time it takes to do so. For your own safety as much as hers, I think maybe the police are a good idea.”

Your mother’s face wrinkled, first with anger, then a slight trickle of fear. She stared up at Andy then glanced around him at you. She shook her head and smiled darkly.

“Fine, get your things,” She backed away. “I’ll tell your father you said goodbye.”

She rolled her eyes and shooed you with her hand as she stomped back through to the dining room. You heard her footsteps on the kitchen tile and the groan of the screen door before it clattered. She would hide with your father in the garage until you were gone. You didn’t expect a proper farewell.

You covered your face with your hands and held in the scream that bubbled in your chest.

“What the fuck have you done?” You asked as you dropped your hands.

“It’s fine. I told you, I’ll take care of you.” He turned slowly to face you.

“No, you won’t.” You spat. “There’s my choice.”

You spun as you grabbed your bag and blustered away from him up the stairs. He followed you to your room and you ignored him as you dialed your phone and pulled open the drawers of your dresser. You held the phone to your ear with one hand as you bent to pull out your suitcase from under your bed.

“Felicia? Hey, how are you?” You asked as you started to dump your clothes by the armful into the bag.

“Good,” She sang. “What’s up? Looking for another girls’ night?”

“Not exactly,” You muttered. “Look, I really don’t wanna do this to you but it’ll only be a couple nights. Um…” You stopped and rubbed your forehead as you turned to watch Andy staring at your bookcase. “I got in another fight with my mom and she’s… kicked me out. I need--”

“Ohhh,” She uttered. 

“Ohhh, what?” You stopped as Andy took a book out and opened it.

“Well, you remember Benny? He’s kinda… here for a while.” She said.

“Oh,” You nodded and your heart sank.”

“I’m sorry, if I--”

“No, no, I shouldn’t have sprung this on you. I’ll find something. It’s fine.” 

“I really am--”

“Please, don’t be sorry,” You cursed in your head. “Look, go have fun with Benny. I’ll figure it out.”

“Well don’t… Well, just let me know, okay?”

“Right, bye.” You hung up.

You scrolled through your contacts; Shaileen had moved away last month, Deena had roommates, Marcy had kids and a husband, and the rest were just… strangers by now.

“So…” Andy closed the book.

“Don’t, okay?” You opened the second drawer and emptied it. “Just for a little bit.”

As you opened the third drawer he came to help you. You shoved your heavy old laptop into the mesh pocket and as you closed the suitcase he stopped you.

“One condition,” He said.

“One?” You shook your head.

“Call the doctor. Make an appointment.” He stated. “I’ll be going with you.”

“Fine, but I have my own conditions.” You countered.

“I’d love to hear them,” He chuckled.

“I want my space. That means no touching,” You backed away from him, “That means you leave me be. I go to work, I come home, I sleep, I go to your dumb appointments, and you leave me alone.”

“It’s my house, not a motel,” He said.

“Motel? That’s a good idea.” You shrugged.

“Which you could afford for maybe a week, I’m sure.” He pushed back his jacket as he gripped his hips. “I’m offering you a place to live. We’ll get used to each other. We have a whole six months left to do that.”

“Six months?” You rubbed your cheek. “Andy…”

As far as I’ve seen it, you’ve lost all your leverage in this,” He said. “I’m doing you a favour because as it stands, I’m your only option.”

You chewed your lip and narrowed your eyes. You swallowed and nodded.

“I gotta get the rest of my stuff,” You said softly. “That okay with you?”

“Sure,” He finished zipping up your suitcase. “This one ready to go?”

“Yeah,” You threw up your hands. “Sure.”

He walked out with your bag and you grabbed a tote and crossed the hall to the bathroom. You filled it with your shampoo, body wash, lotions, toothbrush, and other toiletries. As you went back into the hallway, he was there, by your bedroom door, waiting. 

You slipped past him into your room to grab your purse and shoved it into the top of the bigger bag. You came back out as you slung the straps over your shoulder.

“I don’t care about the rest,” You said. “She can keep the books.”

He followed you outside and as you approached the driveway, the garage door slid open. You stopped as your father appeared on the other side and Andy caught your shoulders to keep from colliding with you. Your mother scowled from behind your father.

“You goin’?” He asked.

“She wants me out.” You shrugged.

“My house too,” He said. Always a man of few words.

“So… you gonna make her keep me?” You challenged.

“You keepin’ the kid?”

You looked over your shoulder at Andy and sighed. You turned back and nodded.

“Sorry,” He shook his head. 

“Yeah, me too,” You swallowed the bitterness on your tongue. “I figured as much.”

You spun away and continued down the driveway.

“You touch my wife?” You heard your dad ask Andy. You stopped and glanced back.

“I restrained her from harming your daughter.” Andy said evenly. 

Your dad frowned and looked at your mother as she avoided his gaze.

“I can’t abide it in my household, you understand?” Your father said.

“Not my house,” Andy said. “But you’re welcome to see your grandchild when it’s born. Welcome to check in on your daughter.” He started to step away and paused. “This wasn’t my call.”

He nodded towards your mother then made his way to you. He touched your arm gently and turned you away from the garage.

“Let’s go.” He muttered as he ushered you down to the curb.

He took your bag and dropped it in the backseat. You got in as he did, quiet. You buckled in as he started the car and you bent forward to grip your head. You sat back heavily as he began to drive.

“It was your call. I’m not stupid.” You glared at the dashboard. “This is exactly what you wanted.”

He didn’t answer as he turned the corner. He hit a button on the wheel and began to flip through the radio stations. He settled on a classic rock station and hummed along.

‘It’s down to me, yes it is.The way she does just what she’s told, down to me. The change has come. She’s under my thumb. Ah, ah, say it’s alright…’

[welllpthisishappening]

Welllp These Are Books: the February 2021 Edition

Most of my last month was spent on deadline and waiting for people to respond to my emails, which meant I did not have the time (or energy) to write much of anything, but had plenty of time to read, quite frankly, an absurd number of books. Some of which were very good, some of which were very cheesy, and some of which I have now told multiple people was quite possibly the worst book I have ever read. As always, though, what are my opinions if I am not sharing them with the internet? Ridiculous headlines, links, and those aforementioned opinions under the cut. As always, part two, feel free to send me any and all recommendations. It cannot possibly be worse than this one book. Seriously, you’ll understand in a second.

———

Quite Possibly the First Book I’ve Gone Out of My Way to Buy On Release Day Since Breaking Dawn, Which Says a lot About Me. As a Person.

A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas

Nesta Archeron has always been prickly-proud, swift to anger, and slow to forgive. And ever since being forced into the Cauldron and becoming High Fae against her will, she's struggled to find a place for herself within the strange, deadly world she inhabits. Worse, she can't seem to move past the horrors of the war with Hybern and all she lost in it.

The one person who ignites her temper more than any other is Cassian, the battle-scarred warrior whose position in Rhysand and Feyre's Night Court keeps him constantly in Nesta's orbit. But her temper isn't the only thing Cassian ignites. The fire between them is undeniable, and only burns hotter as they are forced into close quarters with each other.

Meanwhile, the treacherous human queens who returned to the Continent during the last war have forged a dangerous new alliance, threatening the fragile peace that has settled over the realms. And the key to halting them might very well rely on Cassian and Nesta facing their haunting pasts.

Against the sweeping backdrop of a world seared by war and plagued with uncertainty, Nesta and Cassian battle monsters from within and without as they search for acceptance-and healing-in each other's arms.

I’m not kidding when I tell you that I was counting the days until this came out. I was kind of indifferent to Nesta after the original ACOTAR books, but intrigued enough that I was like, I need to read this, and then I did read this and now I care quite a lot about Nesta. And how in love with Cassian she is. And vice versa. Because, let’s be honest, dude is in l o v e. There were some parts of the story I was not super into — namely, Ferye having to die in childbirth. Like, you’re telling me Cassian could have his guts hanging out at one point and we don’t know how to do a c-section? Nah, that ain’t it. Also, pregnancy as a storyline is not always my favorite thing, but more on that in a second. Also, also, here’s a bunch more words about ACOSF.

A “Huh, So That Happened” Sort of Ending. Which Was Disappointing.

A Vow So Bold and Deadly by Brigid Kemmerer

Emberfall is crumbling fast, torn between those who believe Rhen is the rightful prince and those who are eager to begin a new era under Grey, the true heir. Grey has agreed to wait two months before attacking Emberfall, and in that time, Rhen has turned away from everyone--even Harper, as she desperately tries to help him find a path to peace.

Fight the battle, save the kingdom. Meanwhile, Lia Mara struggles to rule Syhl Shallow with a gentler hand than her mother. But after enjoying decades of peace once magic was driven out of their lands, some of her subjects are angry Lia Mara has an enchanted prince and a magical scraver by her side. As Grey's deadline draws nearer, Lia Mara questions if she can be the queen her country needs.

As the two kingdoms come closer to conflict, loyalties are tested, love is threatened, and an old enemy resurfaces who could destroy them all, in this stunning conclusion to bestselling author Brigid Kemmerer's Cursebreaker series.

I loved the first book in this series. Absolutely adored it. So much so that I pretty quickly got the second one and read it. Enjoyed that on its own, but like I said in that one ask, I’m fairly certain A Curse So Dark and Lonely could have very easily been a standalone story. Should have been a standalone story? There was just SO MUCH going on here, and not nearly enough of it was resolved. Plot points just hung by the end of the trilogy, I was not ever entirely convinced Rhen and Harper were actually in love, let alone liked each other, and I thought Rhen got the very short end of an exceptionally cracked stick by the time the whole story wrapped up. Really, I think this  tried to do too much in not enough time and there should probably be another book. Also Lia Mara getting pregnant was dumb. There I said it.

Free Books On Amazon Unlimited That Were Better Than Expected, But Also Read Like Fic

The Bargainer Series by Laura Thalassa

Everyone knows that if you need a favor, you go to the Bargainer to make it happen. He’s a man who can get you anything you want … at a price. And everyone knows that sooner or later he always collects.

Callypso Lillis is a siren with a very big problem, one that stretches up her arm and far into her past. For the last seven years she’s been collecting a bracelet of black beads up her wrist, magical IOUs for favors she’s received. Only death or repayment will fulfill the obligations. Only then will the beads disappear.

But for one of his clients, he’s never asked for repayment. Not until now. When Callie finds the fae king of the night in her room, a grin on his lips and a twinkle in his eye, she knows things are about to change. At first it’s just a chaste kiss—a single bead’s worth—and a promise for more.

For the Bargainer, it’s more than just a matter of rekindling an old romance. Something is happening in the Otherworld. Fae warriors are going missing one by one. Only the women are returned, each in a glass casket, a child clutched to their breast. And then there are the whispers among the slaves, whispers of an evil that’s been awoken.

If the Bargainer has any hope to save his people, he’ll need the help of the siren he spurned long ago. Only, his foe has a taste for exotic creatures, and Callie just happens to be one.

No one is going to be able to convince me this wasn’t ACOTAR fan fic. I don’t care about timing or dates, or whatever. The similarities just...did not stop. In all three books, even. There were three books in this series, by the way. Most of which I really enjoyed. I read them all in like four days of email waiting, so they must have been doing something right. Des was a good love interest and I really liked the flashbacks in the first book. Also Callie didn’t super annoy me. That being said, whoever edited this book. Oof. Some of the prose was so goddamn cringe, I literally lol’ed. Right out loud. Every now and then it was like we had to be reminded that Des was a BAD GUY ™ but it felt very Edward “I’m a killer, Bella” Cullen, and Callie’s internal monologue was occasionally hysterical. Not in a good way. Also Temper was the worst. She was so annoying. Every time she talked, I was like, oh, her again. The first book was the best one.

HITTING ALL MY ROM COM BOXES! BASEBALL! ROMANCE! PINING! ONLY VAGUELY UNCOMFORTABLE WHEN THEY HAD SEX IN THE PORT JEFF DUGOUT BECAUSE I’VE BEEN IN THE PORT JEFF DUGOUT.

Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey

Georgette Castle’s family runs the best home renovation business in town, but she picked balloons instead of blueprints and they haven’t taken her seriously since. Frankly, she’s over it. Georgie loves planning children’s birthday parties and making people laugh, just not at her own expense. She’s determined to fix herself up into a Woman of the World... whatever that means.

Phase one: new framework for her business (a website from this decade, perhaps?)

Phase two: a gut-reno on her wardrobe (fyi, leggings are pants.)

Phase three: updates to her exterior (do people still wax?)

Phase four: put herself on the market (and stop crushing on Travis Ford!)

Travis Ford was major league baseball’s hottest rookie when an injury ended his career. Now he’s flipping houses to keep busy and trying to forget his glory days. But he can’t even cross the street without someone recapping his greatest hits. Or making a joke about his… bat. And then there's Georgie, his best friend’s sister, who is not a kid anymore. When she proposes a wild scheme—that they pretend to date, to shock her family and help him land a new job—he agrees. What’s the harm? It’s not like it’s real. But the girl Travis used to tease is now a funny, full-of-life woman and there’s nothing fake about how much he wants her...

Living her best life means facing the truth: Georgie hasn’t been on a date since, well, ever. Nobody’s asking the town clown out for a night of hot sex, that’s for sure. Maybe if people think she’s having a steamy love affair, they’ll acknowledge she’s not just the “little sister” who paints faces for a living. And who better to help demolish that image than the resident sports star and tabloid favorite.

Legit, I saw the description for this and I was like—did I write this? Kind of. (Shameless plug to read my own rom com, it also has baseball and pining) It didn’t matter, I loved it. Seriously, it hit all my rom com boxes: childhood friends, best friend’s sister, coming back home under duress, FAKE DATING and, let’s be honest, I am not immune to the use of “baby girl” as an endearment. Every time Travis called Georgie “baby girl” I was like, oh, ok, this is cool. It was cool! I only have two quips. One, that the fake dating didn’t last a little longer. The pacing of the story felt very quick, but that’s also this genre’s style. So I kind of get it. And two, that it happened in Port Jefferson, which is a town in Suffolk County that I have not only been to, but have spent significant time in. Meaning I could picture every single thing, knew exactly where they were and have used the exit on the Northern State Parkway that the final moments of the book took place at. The Port Jeff girls basketball team won a Long Island championship last weekend. In real life, not the book.

In Which Spinoffs Continue to be my Kryptonite. Especially Well-Written Ones

Mistletoe and Mr. Right by Sarah Morgenthaler

Lana Montgomery is everything the quirky small town of Moose Springs, Alaska can't stand: a rich socialite with dreams of changing things for the better. But Lana's determined to prove that she belongs...even if it means trading her stilettos for snow boots and tracking one of the town's hairiest Christmas mysteries: the Santa Moose, an antlered Grinch hell-bent on destroying every bit of holiday cheer (and tinsel) it can sink its teeth into.

And really...how hard could it be?

The last few years have been tough on Rick Harding, and it's not getting any easier now that his dream girl's back in town. When Lana accidentally tranquilizes him instead of the Santa Moose, it's clear she needs help, fast...and this could be his chance to finally catch her eye. It's an all-out Christmas war, but if they can nab that darn moose before it destroys the town, Rick and Lana might finally find a place where they both belong...together.

I mentioned The Tourist Attraction in my January list, and this is the second in the Moose Springs trio. And it’s so good! I wish people were all as nice to Lana as Rick was. It’s what she deserved! More small-town antics, more kissing, another moose. This one was just as cute as the original book, especially because it brought back original characters and Zoey and Graham were so goddamn adorable as a committed couple I genuinely feared for the state of my teeth.

Enjoy the View by Sarah Morgenthaler

Former Hollywood darling River Lane's acting career is tanking fast. Determined to start fresh behind the camera, she agrees to film a documentary about the picturesque small town of Moose Springs, Alaska. The assignment should have been easy, but the quirky locals want nothing to do with River. Well, too bad: River's going to make this film and prove herself, no matter what it takes.

Or what (literal) mountain she has to climb.

Easton Lockett may be a gentle giant, but he knows a thing or two about survival. If he can keep everyone in line, he should be able to get River and her crew up and down Mount Veil in one piece. Turns out that's a big if. The wildlife's wilder than usual, the camera crew's determined to wander off a cliff, and the gorgeous actress is fearless. Falling for River only makes Easton's job tougher, but there's only so long he can hold out against her brilliant smile. When bad weather strikes, putting everyone at risk, it'll take all of Easton's skill to get them back home safely...and convince River she should stay in his arms for good.

Wrapping up the Moose Springs trio, this one might have been my least favorite, but that’s not really saying much. Since I loved them all pretty equally. River and Easton’s banter was grade-A, top-notch, which is a one-way ticket to my reading-heart. Maybe part of the problem (I say problem like there really was one) was that most of the story took place on a mountain. I kind of wanted more small-town shenanigans, and updates on the condos and the state of the town and Graham being mayor. Still, this was very cute. I swooned multiple times. I’ll probably read anything Sarah Morgenthaler writes from here on out.

Seriously, What Is YA? Does Anyone Know?

The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh

In 1872, New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead. But to   seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau, New Orleans is a safe haven after   she's forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris. Taken in by the sisters of the Ursuline convent in the middle of the carnival season,   Celine is quickly enraptured by the vibrant city, from its music to its fancy soirées and even its danger. She becomes embroiled in the city's glitzy underworld, known as La Cour des Lions, after catching the eye of  the group's enigmatic leader, Sébastien Saint Germain.

When the body of one of the girls from the convent is found in Sébastien's own lair--the second dead girl to turn up in recent weeks--Celine battles her attraction to Sébastien and suspicions about his guilt along with the shame of her own horrible secret.

After a third murder, New  Orleans becomes gripped by the terror of a serial killer on the  loose--one who has now set Celine in his sights. As the murderer stalks  her, Celine finally takes matters into her own hands, only to find  herself caught in the midst of an age-old feud between the darkest  creatures of the night, where the price of forbidden love is her life.

Like I said last month, I put a hold on pretty much everything Renee Ahdieh had written in my library. And this was just as good as the last series I read. Her world building is just—chef’s kiss, gorgeous. I dream of writing this airy, magical way, that makes you feel like you’re in New Orleans. That being said, I do not know what kid is reading this because apparently this is YA and I had to read every single word to figure out what was going on. Now, I know there are two more books in the series, but this one felt like a lot of set up and I spent most of it being like...will this make sense eventually? It did, but only during a very rushed climax of final few chapters. The sequel isn’t available on Kindle at the library, and I haven’t bought it yet. So, that’s probably kind of telling.

In Which You Cannot Always Depend On Old Favorites

No Judgments by Meg Cabot

When a massive hurricane severs all power and cell service to Little Bridge Island—as well as its connection to the mainland—twenty-five-year-old Bree Beckham isn’t worried . . . at first. She’s already escaped one storm—her emotionally abusive ex—so a hurricane seems like it will be a piece of cake.

But animal-loving Bree does become alarmed when she realizes how many islanders have been cut off from their beloved pets. Now it’s up to her to save as many of Little Bridge’s cats and dogs as she can . . . but to do so, she’s going to need help—help she has no choice but to accept from her boss’s sexy nephew, Drew Hartwell, the Mermaid Café’s most notorious heartbreaker.

But when Bree starts falling for Drew, just as Little Bridge’s power is restored and her penitent ex shows up, she has to ask herself if her island fling was only a result of the stormy weather, or if it could last during clear skies too.

I love Meg Cabot. That should be stated upfront and at the very beginning because for a very long time I have claimed that being Meg Cabot was my dream job. I’ve read pretty much every book Meg Cabot has ever written and was fairly certain I’d be into these once I did read them. Only I was...not. Not really. Everything in this book happened so quickly, I felt like I was the one in the hurricane. People were kissing and then they were having sex and there was a storm and pets and then—it was over? The pacing was all over the place, I had no idea why Drew and Bree liked each other, some guy kicked a dog at one point?? It was weird. Which leads us to—

No Offense by Meg Cabot

A broken engagement only gave Molly Montgomery additional incentive to follow her dream job from the Colorado Rockies to the Florida Keys. Now, as Little Bridge Island Public Library’s head of children’s services, Molly hopes the messiest thing in her life will be her sticky-note covered desk. But fate—in the form of a newborn left in the restroom—has other ideas. So does the sheriff who comes to investigate the “abandonment”.  When John Hartwell folds all six-feet-three of himself into a tiny chair and insists that whoever left the baby is a criminal, Molly begs to differ and asks what he’s doing about the Island’s real crime wave (if thefts of items from homes that have been left unlocked could be called that). Not the best of starts, but the man’s arrogance is almost as distracting as his blue eyes. Almost…

John would be pretty irritated if one of his deputies had a desk as disorderly as Molly’s. Good thing she doesn’t work for him, considering how attracted he is to her. Molly’s lilting librarian voice makes even the saltiest remarks go down sweeter, which is bad as long as she’s a witness but might be good once the case is solved—provided he hasn’t gotten on her last nerve by then. Recently divorced, John has been having trouble adjusting to single life as well as single parenthood. But something in Molly’s beautiful smile gives John hope that his old life on Little Bridge might suddenly hold new promise—if only they can get over their differences.

This isn’t a sequel SEQUEL, but another one of those “exists in the same universe,” or same town, as it were, and it was better than No Judgments. Molly and John actually had a few legitimate conversations before they started kissing. The conflict was still weird and sort of forced, this was not Meg’s usual banter (I fell like I can call her Meg at this point, y’know?) and, again, the ending just felt like it...happened. I don’t know guys, maybe I should just reread The Boy Is Back. Or that quasi Persephone-Hades series. It’s been awhile. On that one, at least. I read The Boy Is Back like six months ago.

ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING ROM COM THAT I CANNOT BELIEVE I FINISHED, SOMEONE GIVE ME A PRIZE FOR FINISHING THIS

Fight or Flight by Samantha Young

The universe is conspiring against Ava Breevort. As if flying back to   Phoenix to bury a childhood friend wasn't hell enough, a cloud of   volcanic ash traveling from overseas delayed her flight back home to   Boston. Her last ditch attempt to salvage the trip was thwarted by an   arrogant Scotsman, Caleb Scott, who steals a first class seat out from   under her. Then over the course of their journey home, their antagonism somehow lands them in bed for the steamiest layover Ava's ever had. And  that's all it was--until Caleb shows up on her doorstep. 

When pure chance pulls Ava back into Caleb's orbit, he proposes they enjoy their physical connection while he's stranded in Boston. Ava agrees, knowing her heart's in no danger since a) she barely likes Caleb and b) his existence in her life is temporary. Not long thereafter Ava realizes she's made a terrible error because as it turns out Caleb Scott isn't quite so unlikeable after all. When his stay in Boston becomes permanent, Ava must decide whether to fight her feelings for him or give into them. But even if she does decide to risk her heart on Caleb, there is no guarantee her stubborn Scot will want to risk his heart on her...

When I tell you guys that this was the worst book I have read in recent memory, I am not kidding. Might actually be the worst book I have ever read. Bar none. And that’s saying something because one time I had to read Ender’s Game in college and that, like, physically pained me. This was awful. Awful people. Awful plot. Awful resolution. AWFUL. Where to start? Well, I’m not going to apologize for spoilers, because God help us all, do not read this book. Ava has been through so many horrible things in her life it was like someone was trying to set a record. Bad parents, cheating ex-boyfriend, dead former best friend who was former because of the cheating ex-boyfriend. Naturally, this made her a control freak because—of course, or something. And Caleb! Oh my God, fucking Caleb Scott. The dickwad. I’ve never rooted for anyone to not get the girl more. When Ava “broke up” with him (they were never really together) I might have cheered. Shitty things does not give you an excuse to be a dick, and Caleb was a dick. Seriously, he started crying about how his ex-fiance KILLED THEIR BABY and I was like—this cannot possibly be a real book. It was! With lots of abortion opinions out of FUCKING nowhere, and weird possessive behavior from, like, every dude in it. Both Ava AND her best friend (not the dead one, a different one) got assaulted at one point. I kept reading solely because I was desperate to see how they rationalized Ava and Caleb getting back together at the end and they didn’t. He showed up on her flight when her boss came up with a fake work trip so he could sit next to her on the plane. What? WHAT?? It was so dumb. So bad. I can’t believe I read it. 

[anotherisodope]

Fic/RP starter: Time For a New Employer

[Charon finds himself without a contractor after a trip to the Commonwealth with Ahzrukhal goes completely wrong.]

There’s a strange sound coming from the room Charon’s been sharing with Ahzrukhal at the Rexford Hotel. Dragging, scraping noises, and a kind of low, raspy breathing that doesn’t sound like his employer. Now and again, he hears the smash or clatter of something being knocked to the floor.

None of this is a good sign.

Charon listens, frowning, from outside the door. Ahzrukhal’s been in there two days, having disappeared into the room with a pile of chems and booze, leaving Charon with the unexpected demand that he “get the hell out and stay out”. So he’s been stuck outside, guarding the door...subjected to the curiosity and attempts at small talk of the surprisingly many passerby.

“Is he all right in there?” It’s the ghoul in the dun-colored fedora again, a mousy, nervous man who took hours of peeking out of his room before he came to say hello. He’s harmless, not obnoxious, doesn’t bother Charon much, though he’s obviously curious. “Your friend, I mean?”

Charon unfolds his arms and glances behind him as a hoarse growl sounds just inches beyond the door. No. It doesn’t sound like Ahzrukhal at all.

“Stay away from the door,” he advises the man, who nods and takes an extra step backward.

***

Things started to go to Hell a few weeks before Charon left Underworld.

The Brotherhood of Steel had brought clean water to the area. But the price was too steep for ghouls. Especially under that new asshole. Talk about a fanatic. They had never seen much difference between normal ghouls and ferals. Now, they always opened fire. 

Ten years into their “liberation” of the Capital Wasteland, and the Brotherhood started really causing problems. Rumors of attacks and disappearances ran through Underworld. Charon kept his ears open, slowly putting together why the other ghouls were so scared, and watched to see what would happen. There was little that he could do.

Ahzrukhal stopped paying scavengers for booze, stopped sending Charon out on jobs. First time in forty years. He was quiet. Thinking too much.

The others noticed. Got nervous. Some drank to keep nervousness away.

Barrows argued that the clinic couldn’t leave. He had made too much progress. The ghoul community needed a place to come for care. He had to stay there, or those who came looking for help would find none.

That poor, idealistic fool couldn’t figure out that there would be no clinic, and nobody to keep his work going, if the fucking Brotherhood rolled in and cleared the place out with miniguns. He and a lot of the others wanted to keep what the ghouls there had for as long as they could. It was stupid, but Charon found he couldn’t blame them much.

Then the Brotherhood hit Tenpenny Towers, and the ghoul colony that had lived there for ten years. Their attempt to secure a home after being locked out came to a violent end with no warning. The booms and sounds of shattering glass and concrete haunted the area all day.

Ahzrukhal took off that night, abandoning the others and loading Charon down with his caps and possessions. Charon went, hoping the others would be smart and scatter, but knowing he couldn’t have gotten them to listen. They had always seen him as just Ahzrukhal’s goon.

***

Charon frowns. He has his orders, but he also knows that this situation isn’t normal. Whatever is walking around in there isn’t talking. Ahzrukhal rarely shuts up.

“Ahzrukhal!” he calls through the door, his raised voice making the ghoul next to him jump slightly. “Can you hear me?”

Another low, rattling growl.

“Th-that sounds like a feral,” the smaller man gasps out, pressed against the far wall now. “Do you think he...do you think he changed?”

Charon’s jaw tightens. There's no ghoul alive who doesn’t fear losing their mind someday. Barrows has devoted his life to finding a way to prevent it, or cure ghoulism altogether. But they’re a long way from Underworld now, and what’s shuffling around in their room doesn’t sound like it has a mind left to save.

“I do not know,” he admits. But meanwhile, he’s thinking of the contract, and the prospect of being without an employer for the first time in decades. And what that means. “He did not show any signs during our journey.”

Despite his calm tone, there’s a heavy ball of ice in the pit of his stomach. I don’t want to go back.

But if his employer really has lost his mind, and no one else picks up Charon’s contract, he knows that’s what will happen.

***

Passing through Jersey on their long, dangerous way up the coast did bad things to Charon’s head. The Facility was there. That place he didn’t want to return to.

Even walking within fifty miles of the place stirred things up inside him. The few bits of memory that surfaced disturbed him before they sank out of sight again, leaving him cold and bewildered and feeling strangely...vulnerable.

He couldn’t exactly call it fear. He didn’t feel fear, at least not for himself. It had been burned out of him. But still, all the long time that he and Ahzrukhal plodded up the Jersey coastline, he caught himself mumbling and growling more than usual, and was glad that he never had to sleep. Or dream.

He didn’t breathe freely again until they crossed into the Commonwealth.

***

”Should I go get someone?”

He looks back at the little man with a frown. He’s trying to be helpful, but Charon isn’t used to that. The ghouls of Underworld could be friendly enough, but not toward him. Here, he’s not known as simply an extension of a guy nobody in town likes. Nobody knows him at all.

That’s plain from the little man’s concern.

Charon’s brow knits as he puts together his answer carefully. He has to really think about it, and the effort makes his head sting.  “No. Just watch. If he has gone feral and I must kill him, it will be helpful to have a witness.”

The man swallows hard and nods, moving a little further away. “I will, then. For as long as it’s safe to do so.”

That’s more courage than Charon expected. He nods once. “Good.”

***

They settled in the Slog for a while, but nobody there had time for Ahzrukhal’s bullshit. They wanted ghouls who were willing to work, and a pile of caps only did so much to mitigate that. 

Charon didn’t farm, or scavenge, or build. He guarded the perimeter. He killed fucking monsters. He didn’t belong chest-deep in a tarberry bog, and after so many years Ahzrukhal knew not to push it. So they moved on. Which was too bad. Despite having nothing in common with him, the ghouls of the Slog were kind and friendly. Just like the woman that Ahzrukhal had wanted dead.

One of the women at the Slog flirted with him before they left. Kept trying to get his attention. He was more polite and honest than usual with her. Ahzrukhal didn’t give him time off, and his on-duty rules were clear. No booze. No chems.

No women.

He explained this to her, and she seemed shocked and angry--but at Ahzrukhal, not at him. He didn’t really understand why. But after that, as they made their way to the only other ghoul-heavy settlement Ahzrukhal knew about, Charon found himself thinking now and again that he would have liked to stay. Places like that needed protectors, after all.

But he never got a say in who or what he guarded, or who or what he was sent against. So when his employer turned his back on the Slog, so did he.

***

Charon draws his shotgun, glancing back at the other ghoul. “I do suggest that you run if this becomes violent.” Holding his favorite firearm one-handed, he grips the doorknob and then turns it.

Growling and skittering beyond the door. He hears rapid pacing.

He shoulders the door open with a bang and moves into the room, fully intending to shut it behind him and seal himself in with...it.

But he doesn’t have time. The smaller form that slams into him has surprising strength behind its rush, knocking him back against the flimsy, cracked wood of the door and shattering it.

They tumble out into the hallway as the guy outside yells in panic.

***

Ahzrukhal clearly hated Goodneighbor. He couldn’t be the only chem dealer in town there, there was already a bar, and nobody had time for his facade of high manners and smooth talk. The flamboyant but quick-bladed mayor, Hancock, started watching them right away, giving Charon’s employer a brief, steel-in-velvet warning on welcoming him, and looking at Charon curiously.

And then, not three days later, the goddamned Brotherhood of Steel zeppelin showed up in the Commonwealth sky. It became clear that the enemy they had sought to escape was already here. Ghouls in this region just couldn’t catch a break.

Ahzrukhal snapped. He had been uprooted from his cushy home and position, he couldn’t get away with anything anymore, and now the Brotherhood had arrived with a fanfare. He started descending into booze and chems himself instead of slinging them, relying on Charon to scare off all the ass-kickings he bought with his slimy behavior while haunting the Third Rail.

More and more, he didn’t even go out. He stayed in his room--and he started sending Charon away. Normally Charon would have been delighted to get away from his employer. But this time, he could sense that something was wrong. He just didn’t know what to do about it, or even if he should.

***

It’s a feral. Eyes fixed and completely filmed over, like white marbles in its skull. The pale pinstripe suit and sprigs of dark hair are familiar. The remnants of too-sweet cologne, acrid jet fumes and alcohol are familiar too. As Charon jams the stock of his shotgun into its jaws to keep it from biting and starts forcing it off of him, he knows he’s looking at what’s left of Ahzrukhal.

The little man in the hat scrambles away, crying out at the top of his lungs. “One of the guests has gone feral! We need help!”

Charon doesn’t. If his employer’s mind is gone, then he is gone. This is just a feral now. He knows what to do with ferals.

He just wonders how any ghoul could go from fully sane to feral in just two days.

He feels dull regret as he uses leverage and superior strength to flip the thing over and pin it down with a knee in its midsection. It squalls and writhes underneath him, snapping at him, and he raises the butt of his shotgun and slams it into the side of its head. Once. Twice.

Bones crunch and it collapses under him. He gets off of it, steps back, reverses the shotgun, and blows off its head with a single shot.

The boom echoes down the hall as he stands panting over the twitching corpse.

This isn’t how I wanted to kill you, he thinks, the disappointment digging in deeper even as the relief of Ahzrukhal’s death washes over him. You weren’t even here to feel it.

But it’s done...

...and now, he has another problem.

He slides his shotgun into its back sheath and steps further away from the corpse, eyes fixed on it.

The contract will be in Ahzrukhal’s moneybelt, under his clothes. But Charon can’t bring himself to retrieve it. The moment he lays his hand on that piece of paper, his programming will kick in, and he’ll turn around and start walking.

Back to Jersey.

To be debriefed, tested, processed, and sent out again with another contractor, making Them another small fortune in caps.

Just like every other time he's been left with a dead employer, or one stupid enough to invalidate his contract.

I don’t want to go back.

But the alternative is to stay here, and hope that someone picks up his contract. He can stay away from Jersey if that happens. But that leaves him at the mercy of any passerby. For all he knew,

His head whirls as he struggles to figure out what to do. There’s no clear protocol here, aside from returning to the Facility.

But even as he backs up against the wall and leans against it, scarred face blank with what almost looks like shock, it enters his head that the jet fumes still wafting out of that room just don’t smell quite right....

[Hey guys, hope you enjoyed! DM me if you want to turn this into a line, I’d like to use this as a jumping off point for something.]

[touchmycoat]

Can I ask for the Whitebeards knowing Marco and Ace are in a relationship and thinking Sabo is a homewrecker because MAS are a bunch of trolls?

ASKDJFKSDJFKSD OKAY I’M REALLY–

I’ll try to finish this now that I remember it again thanks to you, but I def started writing a returning-to-the-Moby fic, set immediately post-Second Chances:

Rated T for mild descriptions of violence

The Grand Line sure was a funny sort of place. Sometimes, Thatch thought, the “Grand” in “Grand Line” stood for “Grand Irony,” or “Grand Tragedy,” or “Grand Piece of Shit.”

Take, for instance, the matter of his brother. No not that one, the other one. No, the other one. No, the other—

Take, for instance, the matter of Marco. “Grand Sap of a Man.” Thatch loved and respected Marco with all his heart, but as with most crewmates (especially ones who have been on the same ship for well over a goddamn decade), Thatch has also come to learn of Marco’s character flaws. Has gotten into screaming fights with Marco about his character flaws. You’re too much of a softie, Thatch might say in exasperation on a good day. Get off your self-sacrificing high horse already, he might snap on a bad one.

See, Marco’s whole martyrdom schtick would be wholly contrived if it weren’t for his stupid fruit. Don’t get him wrong, Thatch was, 99.9% of the time, glad about Marco the Phoenix being Second in Command on their ship. But that 0.1%, when Marco got into those frenzies of determination to give and give and give until he had nothing left, with very little consideration to everything and everyone else, those were what made Thatch angry.

(One of those screaming matches in question served a great example. Division One doctors and nurses had returned from the war-ravaged city they’ve landed at with haunted eyes and shaking hands. It hadn’t been the fighting and the violence, really. It had been their Commander’s ceaseless and insensitive demands for the medical crew to keep draining blood, removing organs, and cutting skin grafts from his person. No anesthetic, and he never even flinched under the scalpel.

That makes it worse, why can’t you understand that, Thatch remembered growling into Marco’s face. He cared for all his adopted siblings, but there was another doctor in particular that he had grown quite close to. She had been one of those stumbling into Thatch’s kitchen, desperate for a cup of coffee to settle her nerves.

Why can’t you understand the rules are different for me yoi, Marco snapped back. There was blood staining his shirt, probably his own. This is what I’m capable of thanks to this fruit, how can I do any less?

So for every patient you heal, you traumatize a crewmate?

Marco had been so offended that they didn’t speak for a week, and it took Pop’s intervention—a rare thing, considering Pop’s philosophy of well-they’ll-get-along-sooner-or-later-and-murder-attempts-are-fine—to finally mend the rift between them.)

Thatch hardly liked getting annoyed or angry with Marco, but after the whole Teach debacle, he felt like it might become necessary again. Not even because of the thing with Teach himself, but because of what came after. Or rather, who came after. A certain young man, with blond hair and nice clothes, Ace’s matching set.

Thatch couldn’t believe, of all the things time-traveling could’ve yielded for Marco, bringing back Ace’s childhood sweetheart and rekindling their love was on the goddamn checklist.

“Like, this is beyond stupid, even for you,” Thatch immediately began to complain, the moment he stepped through the threshold of Marco’s room. “Why would you—Huh? I’ve been trying to tell you this for ages, but sacrifice as a look on you only goes so far.”

Setting down the book he was reading, Marco carefully clasped his hands together and looked up at Thatch. His words were polite—

“You have mentioned that before, yes.”

—but his expression clearly read, oh god, this again?

“I’m not even talking about the giving up your powers thing, or the not telling any of us your secret thing, or the trying to kill yourself in Marine custody thing.” Fine, so maybe Thatch was still a little bit mad about the whole thing with Teach. He did almost die from it; he deserved to be angry about Marco’s executive decision to exclude him from any of the important fighting. “I’m talking about the Sabo thing.”

Frown lines appeared between Marco’s brows.

“The Sabo thing?”

“Just—why?”

Marco, suddenly, looked hunted, his shoulders bunching up in defensiveness.

“Listen yoi, if you’re trying to tell me it’s a bad idea, I know, alright? But I just—I guess I only want—”

“—only want Ace to be happy, blah blah blah, I know,” Thatch interrupted, waving his arms about in annoyance. “But you didn’t have to, you get that? You’re perfectly capable of making Ace happy yourself, but no, instead you went and resurrected his dead boyfriend to let them be happy. This is a new low for you, Marco. Dammit you piss me off sometimes.”

“I��”

So busy was Thatch with dispelling the frustration clouding his mind, that he missed the expression of dawning realization, then the devious grin that flashed across Marco’s face, before Marco schooled his features back into something tragic once more.

“You’re right yoi,” Marco said mournfully. “But they really do deserve to be happy, you know? I had to give them the relationship they asked for.”

“But Ace wanted you.” Yes, now that Sabo and Ace were together, Sabo was technically part of the family, and Thatch really had nothing against the kid. But Thatch could play favorites if he wanted, fuck that. “You realize that, right? Like, full on pining from dusk ‘til dawn, folding your clothes particularly nice on laundry duty, smiling when he got to your dirty dishes on dishwashing duty, all that disgusting stuff.”

“Oh?” Voice going appropriately strained, Marco bit his lip the way he sometimes did when he was trying to keep a straight face (though Thatch didn’t think that was it—after all, why would he be laughing at this surely heartbreaking information?). “I didn’t realize. Tell me more.”

[thepartyresponsible]

this fill is for @plantgrapes, who asked for frank castle and matt murdock as “ghost hunters a la buzzfeed unsolved.”

i have seen about...sixty-five collected seconds of buzzfeed unsolved. so this fic is actually about frank, who used to be haunted, and matt, who fixes hauntings, going around pretending to be ghost hunters while actually being ghost killers.

it’s frank, so warnings for violence and ptsd.

It works because it has to. The restless dead may be rich in misery, but they are almost universally poor in material goods. Foggy edits the videos together, and Karen does the research, and Matt looks affable and earnest on camera while Frank, at his best, sometimes earns the title of long-suffering skeptic instead of surly killjoy.

Ghost hunting can be reasonably profitable, but they aren’t hunting so much as they’re mercy killing. And there’s never any cash in mercy kills. Frank spent enough time in the murder business to know there’s never any money in mercy at all.

“Oh, yikes,” Matt says, as the EMF reader beeps and bips an insistent staccato beat. “We’ve got a live one.”

Frank holds his face perfectly still. He does not react to the terrible pun.

Foggy giggles off-camera, and Frank thinks, with less longing than he used to, that he could’ve died in Kandahar.

Matt curls his hand around Frank’s elbow, shuffles closer than he needs to, and makes an interested noise in the back of his throat. “What’s it say, Frank?” he asks, nodding at the reader in Frank’s hands.

Frank doesn’t really understand the damn thing. They bought it online because all the other ghost hunters had them. It has something to do with electromagnetic fields, and, as things get spookier, it sometimes obligingly lights up its little line of LEDs like a tiny, handheld rave for ghosts.

They had to alter it for Matt, because viewers kept asking inconvenient questions about Matt’s constant awareness of the silent EMF reader. So now it beeps and bops with increasing intensity as the reading climbs higher.

Foggy claims all the noise adds drama, which is what Foggy usually says about any annoying bullshit that’s going to ruin Frank’s whole damn day.

“Frank,” Matt repeats, fingers tightening around Frank’s arm. “What does it say?”

Frank should’ve worn long sleeves. Matt always gets handsy on the creepier jobs. Frank knows that. He knew that when he picked this shirt out this morning.

He really needs to stop all this self-sabotage. He suffers enough as it is.

“It says,” Frank reports, dutifully, “that this hundred-year-old building has some real shitty wiring.”

“Ah.” Matt smiles that sweet, secretive smile he uses on reporters and fans and attractive cops who show up halfway through a job with unhelpful questions. Frank has no idea why he’s using it on him. There’s nothing Matt needs from him that he couldn’t get just by asking.

“It’s a good thing you’re here, Frank,” Matt says, as they start navigating their way down the dark hallway, toward the rooms where the ghost children are supposed to walk. “Without you to ground me, who knows where I’d end up?”

Matt found Frank in crisis, walking the streets of NYC in the middle of the night, three months after the divorce, hauling sixteen dead men in his wake. The ghosts chattered and whispered and wailed, and he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t breathe without feeling their hands wrapped jealously around his throat. He walked with deep, festering wounds in his soul that ripped open again and again, leaked blood and hope and life right out of him.

Without Matt, he’d be dead. And there’d be seventeen dead men following Russo around, and Russo wouldn’t ever know or care, because Russo welded his soul shut, made his heart impregnable and cold.

Ghosts don’t haunt places. Memories haunt places. Walls can hold echoes of fear and pain and joy and hate, but they can’t hold souls. Ghosts only ever haunt people.

But the process of ripping a ghost away from its focal point is ugly and brutal and hideous to watch. It’s a second death. It’s not something that sells well. They’d lose their sponsors over it. So they sneak around places with troubled pasts, hunting safe scares for their subscribers, and they do their real work with the cameras turned off.

A door slams shut in front of them. It’s a draft, or maybe the hospital remembers a patient with a temper.

Matt flinches hard and leans into him, laughing in the tight, anxious way he laughs when he’s pretending to be startled. Frank can feel the warmth of him, all along his right side.

He really, really should’ve worn longer sleeves.

  Matt senses ghosts, the same way he senses people. It caused all sorts of problems for him when he was younger, because he couldn’t always tell the difference.

“It’s the heartbeat,” he tells Frank, once, when he’s drunk after a particularly grim night. “They can get the heat and the shape and the smell of a person right, but they mess up the heartbeat. They do it out of habit, like breathing, but they’ll forget for a while, or they’ll get a song stuck in their heads, beat to that instead. I once caught a ghost cuz his heart was beating ‘Highway to Hell.’”

Frank never asks about his ghosts. He doesn’t want to know. He killed them once, or he got them killed, and they attached to him because they could smell their blood on his hands.

He went to war, and he killed them. And then, when he could, as soon as he found someone who could do it for him, he killed them all over again.

He felt each one ripped out of him, like getting a tooth pulled from his heart instead of his skull. A long, building scream of pressure and then a sharp, bone-deep crack as they lost their hold. Every nerve in his body sent up static signals, like getting electrocuted all over, like getting plugged into something strong, and boundless, and starving.

He felt hollow afterwards, and he slept for two days straight.

“They’re not always malevolent,” Matt says, another time. “It’s a 60/40 split, maybe. The warmer ones mean well, help out sometimes.  People think they have angels.”

“Angels,” Frank says. That sounds nice. Sounds like not feeling alone every Goddamn second of his life. Sounds like not calling his kids from hotel rooms and roadside diners, sending postcards when he remembers, trying like hell not to forget their faces but knowing, when he sees them, that they won’t look the same anyway.

“They’re parasites, Frank,” Matt tells him, tone so gentle that Frank wants to punch him right in the mouth. “It’s in their nature. They can’t help it. They feed from the living. All of them.”

“Everyone’s a fucking parasite,” Frank says. And he leaves, because he has to. Because if he sticks around any longer, he’s going to tell Matt that the 60/40 split is bullshit, and he knows, just like Matt knows, just like everyone knows, that there’s no good or bad, no warm or cold, no malevolent or benevolent.

There is no or. With people, living or dead, it’s always an and.

Frank earned every one of his ghosts by killing someone who was a mix of saint and sinner, just the same as Matt murders ghosts who are a blend of angel and demon.

They’re killers. For whatever cause, they’re killers. Sometimes Frank can’t get the taste of blood out of his mouth.

  The video of the abandoned mental hospital goes viral overnight, because Frank is exceptionally surly, and Matt is especially charming, and Foggy catches the doors slamming on camera, and the machines designed to light up and beep manage to light up and beep in particularly theatrical ways.

They get thousands of views, then tens of thousands. It climbs higher. Karen makes a lot of enthusiastic noises at her phone.

Before they leave town, they pull the ghost of a boy who died in that hospital out of the grandniece he’s haunted her whole life, passed from mother to daughter like a family heirloom for three generations.

The woman’s still crying when they leave two hours later. Frank doesn’t blame her. She’s never lived alone, never been without him, and, even now, three years on, he still sometimes misses the souls that huddled and shook in his overcrowded ribcage.

Sometimes harvesting ghosts breaks the host. It’s like resetting a bone or amputating a limb. People are never the same afterwards. But carrying a ghost is always eventually fatal.

They steal life. They have to.

The haunted grandniece’s mother died at forty-five of a heart attack. Her grandmother ate a bullet at fifty-two. The grandniece is thirty and exhausted, but, if she recovers from the shock, her life expectancy should go up by decades.

They saved what was left of her life. It’s a good thing. Good work.

Matt’s quiet on the drive back to New York. He saves the amiable charm for fans and viewers, and Foggy, Karen, and Frank are the only ones who see him like this, blank-faced and grim, worn down by the work that they do.

“Hey,” Frank says, because Foggy and Karen are in the other car, and so it’s his job to keep Matt steady. “It was the right thing to do.”

Matt laughs, soundless and eerie. He tips his head back against the headrest. “I can hear lies, you know.”

If it’s a lie, it’s only because Frank stopped believing in the right thing the moment after his first messy headshot knocked a soul out of its body. “You did what you had to do,” he tries, instead.

“There we go,” Matt says. He smiles. It’s small, and sad, and so transparently fond that Frank can’t look at it, not even in the reflection on the windshield. “Thanks, Frank.”

“She deserves a life,” Frank says. He’s gone off-script. He doesn’t know where he’s heading. With everyone else, he just keeps his damn mouth shut, but, with Matt, he’s always saying things before he has a plan. “She didn’t—that boy deserved one, too, but he lost it. And it’s her turn. She deserves a life.”

Matt tips his head Frank’s direction. He’s not wearing his glasses, and his eyes aren’t aimed the right direction. He does this sometimes. He means to look someone in the face, and he ends up staring straight at their hearts.

He only ever does it with people who know what he can do, so Frank thinks, maybe, it’s not an accident. Maybe it’s intentional. Maybe Matt reads hearts the way everyone else reads faces. Maybe this is his way of warning people he’s listening.

“You’re right.” Matt’s voice is quiet and scratchy, the way Maria used to sound, years ago, when she’d wake up in the morning affectionate and soft instead of cold and hurt and walled-off. “Everyone deserves a life.”

Frank swallows and focuses on the road. He doesn’t want to know what his heart is doing right now. He doesn’t want to see the expression on Matt’s face as he listens.

  Between episodes, Matt freelances around the city. He goes to a lot of churches. He got kicked out of seminary school for fucking men or killing ghosts or both, so he has a sort of complicated relationship with most of the priests in town, but people will grab hold of any rope they see, when they’re drowning.

“Why don’t you tell these old bastards to fuck off?” Frank asks one evening, when he and Matt are sitting on the steps outside a church, eating cold sandwiches, waiting for Father Whoever to deign to speak to them.

“People trust them, Frank,” Matt says. He has mustard smeared on his chin. It’s adorable. “If you’re haunted, you go to a priest.”

“I hate these places.” Frank glares at the stained glass, gets a gunfire flash of memory, thinks about sacred places and penitents and how everything holy burns just as fast as everything profane.

“Hm,” Matt says. He licks at his mouth, maybe hunting for the mustard. He doesn’t get it. “Is it the guilt or the shame?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Frank advises. He takes a mulish bite of his sandwich and chews until he can speak like a sane, normal person. “It’s the lies.”

“Ah.” Matt seems perfectly at ease with that comment, like it doesn’t bother him at all, even with that cross hanging around his neck.

He prays for every one of the ghosts. He prays for the hosts. Frank once caught him praying for a raccoon they almost hit with the car.  

Matt’s got so much mercy in his heart that Frank doesn’t understand how the damn thing doesn’t shatter apart every single day.

“It doesn’t change anything,” Frank says, finally. Matt didn’t ask, but Frank doesn’t care. “It’s bullshit. It’s just words. They promise you shit they can’t give, and then you just—these guys make a whole fucking life out of lying to people. At least we elect politicians.”

“Not sure that’s fair, Frank.” Matt’s voice is mild. His body language is loose and calm and so trusting it’s almost sleepy. “I don’t hear any lies from some of them. If they believe in it--”

“And you weren’t good enough for them,” Frank says, which isn’t what anyone asked, and isn’t relevant, and isn’t what he meant to say.

Matt’s quiet for a moment and then a delighted smile breaks across his face. “Are you holding a grudge against all of Catholicism for my sake, Frank?”

“You have mustard on your chin,” Frank says, because he probably can’t tell him to go fuck himself twice in two minutes, not right in front of a church. “You asshole,” he says, instead, as a compromise.

  Half their fans think they’re fucking. Frank pretends not to notice. Matt knows, of course, because he’s the one people overshare with the most, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it. He keeps grabbing onto Frank’s arm, and leaning in close to murmur perfectly benign shit right into his ear, and sitting slouched into him at panels and interviews, so Frank thinks maybe he plays it up, to get more views or make a point.

Frank doesn’t care. Maria sends him a screencap and a shitty, passive aggressive text about accepting himself that she apologizes for later.

“Look,” she says, because she calls him, because she’s the kind of brave that looks right at the heart of things that hurt her. “That was cruel, and uncalled for, and I’m sorry.”

“Hey, Maria,” he says, “how’re the kids?”

“Fine,” she says. “You should visit more. That’s not why I called.”

“I don’t care,” Frank tells her. “It’s all over the fucking internet. You think I don’t know? I don’t care what people say. I don’t care what you think. It’s fine.”

“That’s a lot of not caring,” Maria says, and it’s like a live wire straight to his chest, the way she says it. Sad and gentle and serious, like a goodbye kiss. “It just hurts to see you happy without me, Frank. That’s shitty, and I’m sorry. You don’t deserve that.”

Things rotted and fell apart between them, and that’s always going to be Frank’s fault. Because Frank went to war and came back someone else, and it’s not Maria’s fault she didn’t love the stranger who came home. It’s not Maria’s fault she started flinching away from him.

He never, ever would have hurt her, but he scared her anyway. And some things don’t ever get better, so you cut your losses, and you run.

“I’m sorry,” Frank says, because he is. Because he probably always will be. That black well of hurt inside him doesn’t belong to anybody. He thought for a while that it was something she did to him, some pain she inflicted on him when she cut herself free, but Frank knows now that she cut herself just as deep. They were stitched together, after all.

If she hadn’t left him, he wouldn’t have found Matt. And if he hadn’t found Matt, those ghosts would’ve eaten him alive.

“Christ, Frank,” Maria says, “don’t be sorry. Just be happy. And visit sometimes. Your kids miss you.”

  They do a whole episode at a graveyard in the middle of the night, and Matt’s smug the entire time, because he’s the only one who doesn’t trip over any gravestones. “You should be more respectful to the dead,” Matt tells him, as Frank’s nursing a badly stubbed toe and offering a litany of crude suggestions to Leticia B. Vaughn, 1819-1836.

“Also,” Foggy says, off-camera, “Leticia’s a minor, so maybe watch your language.”

“She’s two-fucking-hundred years old,” Frank snarls back.

“What was the age of consent in the 1800s?” Matt asks, sounding genuinely curious.

“Not high enough,” Karen says. “She died in childbirth. Sorry, Frank. She probably hates men with good reason.”

Frank cannot believe that this is his life. He used to murder people, professionally. Back then, people took him seriously. His own wife divorced him because she looked at him and saw a monster looking back.

These idiots are needling him like they’ve never been scared of him in their lives.

It hurts like something cracking open, like blood coming back to fingers nearly lost to frostbite. He throws in one last, final, “Fuck you, Letty,” and then clears his throat before anyone notices the way his hands are shaking.

“Hey,” Matt says, hooking his arm through Frank’s. “Protect me from the angry Letty’s of the world.”

Frank is so much worse than a dead 1800s woman. He breaks every nice thing he touches.

The thing about Matt, though, is that he isn’t very breakable. And his kindness is almost saintly, but he isn’t, on the whole, very nice.

He takes two malignant spirits from the overnight groundskeeper, and the man is so grateful afterwards that he cries on Matt’s shoulder and blesses him six separate times.

Those spirits, when they go, aren’t anything like grateful. But Matt never flinches, not once.

  They go to Josie’s when they’re back in town. It’s a tradition they probably can’t keep for very much longer. “People keep asking for you,” Josie tells them, like they’ve brought syphilis into her bar instead of paying customers. “They say they’re from the internet.”

“They’re not from the internet,” Foggy says. “They use the internet. They find outstanding bars like this one on the internet.”

“They asked me,” Josie says, visibly outraged, “for a pineapple mojito.”

“Jesus,” Frank says, picturing the subsequent bloodshed.

“And may God have mercy on their souls,” Matt intones beside him.

They stay for a couple of hours, drink their way through at least half a bottle of uniquely terrible tequila, and play pool until their fine motor skills degrade past the point of entertainment. A small crowd comes sneaking in behind them, and Frank wonders if this is why Karen and Foggy have been so gleeful about their phones recently.

He stopped checking the view counts on their videos a month or so back. As long as they’re getting paid enough to live, he doesn’t need to know more.

Someone sends them a tray full of shots, and Foggy wades off, charming smile in place, to thank their admirers, and it’s all fine, really, until someone gets weird with Karen, and she drops him to the ground before Frank can even pass his drink to Matt.

“Whoops,” Karen says, Bambi-blinking with a look of practiced innocence. “Time to go.”

“Take your groupies with you!” Josie yells, and Frank honestly doesn’t know how she stays in business with a temperament like that unless she’s running an absolute mess of drugs through this place.

They empty out into the night. Foggy peels off to walk Karen home, and Frank ends up taking Matt all the way to his place, even though Matt’s not that drunk, and Frank’s not that sober, and it’s honestly a little hard to tell which one of them is holding up the other.

“I’m gonna go see Maria,” Frank tells him, when they get to Matt’s door, and Matt’s waiting, expectantly, like there’s something Frank forgot to tell him. “To see the kids,” he clarifies. “I can’t avoid her forever. And I miss her. You know? She was my best friend for years.”

“I know,” Matt says. He’s good with things that like. Painful things.

The dangerous thing about Matt Murdock is that he makes you feel like you can hand him every bit of pain you’ve got, like he’s some kind of Atlas. Like he’ll hold up your whole world while you find your place within it.

Frank’s never thought of pain as something you could share. It’s always been something he lived with or destroyed or evaded. It’s something he ate, piece by piece, until it poisoned him or disappeared.

Frank doesn’t know how the hell those priests could turn Matt away. He’s the holiest thing Frank’s ever found.

“I don’t love her anymore,” Frank says. But it’s a lie. “I’m not in love with her anymore.” And that’s true.

“Frank,” Matt says, slow and careful, voice curling up like there’s a question he won’t ask.

That’s the trouble with Matt. That’s what Frank’s learned. From the day they met, Matt’s been taking other people’s nightmares, swallowing pain, banishing demons. He takes bad out of the world, but he can’t ever seem to ask for anything good. Not for himself. Not ever.

“I wanted you to know that,” Frank says.

Matt’s turned his direction, head cocked, mouth slightly open, when Frank kisses him. He makes a soft, surprised noise into Frank’s mouth, and Frank’s been letting himself think about this for weeks, but he still not ready for it.

It’s not that different, really, from kissing a woman. He’s not sure why he thought it would be.

Matt’s warm and familiar and friendly, and it’s not until Frank’s got him pressed fully back against the door that he realizes things are getting a bit out of hand.

“Okay,” Frank says, stepping back, licking his lips and tasting Matt’s. “I wanted you to know that, too.”

Matt smiles at him, and there’s an echo of that very first smile Matt gave him, when Frank was stretched to the point of splitting right in half, hauling dead men behind him with every step, waking up to the taste of blood and gunpowder every damn morning.

Frank’s spent years being grateful to Matt for sensing all those ghosts, when all Frank could feel was the war. He’s just now realizing that maybe the most miraculous thing about Matt Murdock isn’t that he can see ghosts. It’s that he could see Frank beyond them.

“If you come by in the morning,” Matt says, “I’ll take you to breakfast.”

Frank’s heart is doing something stupid in his chest, beating out a rhythm he’s reasonably sure isn’t meant to sustain life. It’d be embarrassing, except Matt’s smile is wide and dopey and getting sweeter by the second.

“Yeah,” Frank says. He takes a step back. He knows, in the morning, that Matt will be waiting for him. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll be here.”

[soul-forged]

FF XV: Home is such a lonely place (Prompto x Noctis)

Rating: G

Summary: Set after the Final Fantasy XV main story. Five years after Noctis has given his life to save Eos, Prompto has given up on photography and talking to his old friends. His flat in Lestallum just does not feel like home. Nowhere does anymore.A small fic about how Prompto might fare after losing his best friend.

Repost?: Y, from here. That’s me btw. :D

Warnings: Hurt no comfort, depression, anxiety, sadness, spoiler alert!

Author’s notes: So yeah, I finished FF XV and it totally broke me, my heart, my head. I still cannot listen to the songs (but they are awesome and sometimes I have to and then I have to cry again). So I wrote this to deal with my sadness. It kinda helped, even though I will never be able to reread the story again because well. Sad... Heed the tags and warnings please. This is very sad and depressive and full of endgame spoilers! If you cannot deal with that, please do not read this! I don’t want anybody to feel really bad because of something I wrote to get it off my chest :( Anybody else. Please enjoy <3

*

We're falling faster than we can fly Forgotten seconds out on Sunset Drive And I hold on tight But not enough to hold you back It feels like the moon Is spinning off into outer space without you This room is such a lonely place without you

*

   Blink 182 – Home is such a lonely place  

The lock echoed loudly into the vast space of his flat, when Prompto closed the door behind him. It had been late evening, when he had reached Lestallum. Now, after turning in some beast hunts and doing some last-minute shopping, dusk had fallen over the lands. By no means did the darkness of night still mean the same doom and fear as before, but it still gave the blonde the chills being outside after nightfall, even after all this time.

The groceries lay forgotten in the kitchen, while he stared mindlessly out of the living room window. It was snowing. A rare occasion in Lestallum, where the sun burned hot in summer and the air rarely cooled enough for ice or snow. It was an unexpectedly cold winter. The skies had been shrouded in gloomy greys all day, never once opening up and letting some sunshine through. As the snow fell, Prompto felt that a day without sunshine was a small price to pay for such a view. His fingers instinctively itched for his camera, his mind already imagining the perfect setup, and lightning, and angle, the perfect vantage point, and lens, and… He swallowed, blinking rapidly to dissipate the feeling of tightness that had built behind his eyeballs and deep inside his chest.

Prompto did not take pictures anymore, not ever since that fateful day five years ago. He had developed all the pictures, only to put them neatly into a box that, alongside his camera, lenses, and other equipment, was now hidden away in the very back of his bedroom wardrobe, behind his clothes, shoes, blankets, and spare jackets. He had tried the same with the memories in his head. It worked; he got by, took some jobs, travelled around, visited old friends and made new ones. He had even gotten a flat in Lestallum, mostly because Iris had been insisting rather vigorously. “You need a place to come home to.” she had said, “A place to give you refuge from your travels.”

He had followed her advice, had rented a small flat near Lestallum’s main road, top floor, with a great view of the Disk of Cauthess from the living room and bedroom windows. Those shutters were always closed, even when he was home, which did not happen all that regularly. At least Iris seemed a little more content now and if it put her mind at ease, he would do much more than just this.

Prompto turned away from the window and drew the shutters. Darkness fell over the entire flat and it made his heart clench and race and his brow sweat like he was thrown fifteen years back in time, back to Gralea and to Ardyn and to torture, but also to Noctis and Gladio and Ignis. The thoughts only made his heart clench even harder.

Three quick strides carried him through the room and he hit the switch with more force than intended. The light flickered on, chasing away the darkness into the corners of his room and mind. Prompto could suddenly breathe easier again and a shiver of gratitude and relief slowly trickled down his back. All of this was so familiar, never once changing throughout the last five years, even the ten years before that, yet it still overwhelmed him like a bucket of ice cold water over the head. How much he missed it all: his photography, the road trips, the easy chatter, the carelessness, the wind in his hair, the smell of Ignis’s cooking, the banter with Gladio, sleeping on the ground in a too small tent, fighting and winning with those fights, chocobo riding, Noct’s voice, Noct’s laughter, Noct’s relaxed face when he slept or his pouty one when things did not go his way. He missed his friends, the best and the worst of them and while he could still visit Ignis and Gladio in Insomnia if he wanted, he never did. It was simply not the same.

Noctis had been the glue to keep them together and Prompto still remembered the look of astonishment on the other’s face when he noticed that in the very end, after ten years of absence in Gods knew where, after ten years of believing him gone or dead or worse. Prompto had seen enough sorrow and gruesome horror to last a lifetime. The sight of Ravus Nox Fleuret’s twisted body and anguished cries still gave him nightmares.

When Noctis had disappeared into the Crystal fifteen years ago, the group had all but crumbled as had the world around them. He had been in a bad place throughout those ten years, a place so black and dark it rivalled daemon-infested, desparing Eos. And when he had returned… Prompto had hoped for the first time in a whole decade, had hoped all would be well because Noctis had done the unthinkable. He had come back, older and more serious, a little weary, but still Noctis. The blonde had held on to that hope, the hope of a happily ever after, until the end, until they reached the Citadel and the throne room, until Noctis had asked for his pictures and he had not understood what it meant. Now, he saw it clearly, saw the signs, and noticed that there had never been any hope, it had all been wishful thinking. His own naïve mind tricking him into holding on to something that could and would never happen. Because the world was a cruel place, because there was no saving the world without sacrificing your own damn life, because Noctis’s legacy could be nothing but cruel and heart-breaking and sad.

The soft sound of falling drops of water broke his reverie and Prompto blinked. His eyes, his head, and his throat hurt. He breathed in deeply and his breathing hitched several times, a broken rasp and shuddery sigh. In and out like he had done so often before. He had cried enough to last a lifetime as well, had even thought that there were no tears left to spill over fading memories of laughter and smiles and happiness and carelessness. There were, apparently. Perhaps there would always be.

Brushing the tears away with the sleeves of his shirt, Prompto left the living room and headed for the kitchen to put away the groceries that were still sitting on the kitchen table.

All was deadly silent. The only sounds in the flat were his own rummaging through the fridge and freezers, the low hum of the electronics, and the wind that rattled the shutters fiercly. He idly wondered how much snow would still be left tomorrow. He was keen to leave Lestallum fast again, as he already felt the weight of its memories haunting and torturing him. Perhaps he could accept some bounty further north near the Vesperpool. Or further south. Or east or west, he did not care. Just something to take his mind off… this. This flat, this city, this region, this weather, this life, this whole goddamn existence.

His fist hit the closed fridge hard, pain radiating from his knuckles to his fingers and to his whole right arm. It was so unfair. How could the Gods call themselves gods if they needed Noctis to sacrifice himself for them? How come they needed him to die so the Starscourge, the illness they had created, could be defeated? Why him?

Prompto had grown bitter and resentful of every little thing related to prophecies or the Six, the true king or fairy tale stories of how heroically he had saved Eos. There was nothing bright, beautiful, or heroic about Noctis’s story. The months between the fall of Insomnia and their travels to Gralea, as well as the liberation of the capital and the defeat of Ardyn ten years later, had been laced with death, loss, tears, and tragedy. They had laughed, joked, bantered to forget the weight upon their shoulders, especially Noct’s. They had always been looking back, back to the time when the king had seen them off on a road trip to find Noctis’s fiancée and childhood friend Lunafreya. It had been supposed to be an adventure, just them on the road, just bros travelling the continent to marry their prince off in the name of peace.

Prompto saw now that it had never been Noctis’s choice, nothing at all. Everything had been dumped onto him: his fate as the King of Kings, his legacy as a prince of Lucis, his marriage to Lunafreya as an attempt to bring peace where it was doomed to wither. It was easy to utter empty words such as duty or honour or destiny in the face of a young soul that knew nothing else. No one should be forced to meet all those expectations, yet somehow Noctis had. He had taken all those things, and while he had struggled, he had managed them. He had played his part, done his duty, protected the planet, only to give his life and never get to see the happy ending.

Nothing hurt Prompto more than the memories of the last moment they had all shared. The bonfire was still burning brightly behind his closed lids, every night, like a song on replay. He still felt its warmth, even though the situation made him feel cold like Shiva’s breath. Noctis being himself, bad at expressing what was important to him, lost for words and something to hang on to because there was nothing he could say or do to make any of them feel better.

“You are the best.”

The words still lingered, still stabbed, still hurt. Like fresh salt in a festering, deep wound. They were nothing compared to Noctis, who had sacrificed everything for a world that had given him nothing but sorrow. From the death of his mother, the invasion of Tenebrae, to the death of his father, his fiancé Lunafreya in front of his very own eyes, and to his struggle against Ardyn.

Prompto unclenched his aching fists and relaxed his cramped jaw. This was why he did not return to Lestallum more often than he did now. It made him think, where hunting and travelling and danger made him forget. Iris worried he was working himself to death if he did not return, Prompto was more worried that he was thinking himself to death if he did. His mind had never been the safest place given all the horrors of his childhood. Now, it was simply a minefield, waiting to explode right into his face in a colourful burst of memories that hurt so endlessly deep because they reminded him of how he was still here and Noctis was not.

Since he was gone, Prompto felt like his heart and soul had been shot to a million little pieces and blown away by a harsh breeze. Nothing sat right with him anymore. The cities were too crowded but his flat too empty, he longed for company but shied from it, he hated killing but enjoyed it when it made him forget.

When he had come to Insomnia as a refugee all those years ago, he had felt a similar ache. A vacant place in his heart that needed to be filled. The house, where he had stayed, had never felt like home, but that was what he had longed for most. After meeting Noctis, and through him Gladio and Ignis, that yawning void had slowly been closed by good memories, by emotions and little nothings that had meant the world to him. By taking him in and accepting him, putting up with his insecurities and mess ups, they had rescued Prompto from himself and he knew, he appreciated. He always felt like he had never expressed that adequately because he was bad with words.

Now that Noctis was gone, gone for good, the flat, where he stayed, never felt like the hotel rooms or campsites of fifteen years ago. He had lost his home once again and he was reeling from the thought that there was no way to ever get it back. This home, this whole universe felt like such a lonely place, when he could not share it with Noctis. But Prompto was used to loneliness. He had just forgotten that he was. He had lived a dream, wondrous and full of hopes and kindness, and when he had been forced to wake up, he longed to live it again, longed for another moment shared between friends around a bonfire in the dead of the night, pretending there was nothing but this moment right here. He just wished he had known when he had lived it and could have experienced it more, longer, drawn it out and captured every tiny moment of it. It was not possible, however. The world was saved and kept on turning. People came and went, legends were born and died, history was written, life continued. And Prompto went along: he ate, he slept, he hunted, he earned money and payed the rent, he socialised sometimes, he watched the sun rise and set, he looked at old pictures and cried.

And he would do so until there was nothing left to push him forth, until the end of his days. Because he owed Noctis like he owed nobody else. And if not for him, he had not survived this world as long as he had done. He lived this life for Noctis as well now because he could only watch from the sidelines. Prompto just hoped he had found his peace for if anybody deserved it, it was the King of Kings, the hero of their story.