#a wall is a wall rather than a collection of bricks etc

[officialralsei]

Okay, objects are Darkners. What the hell are atoms though??? Where do they fit in this equation???

They're atoms! They make everything in the universe up!

[lynnerdo]

* The heart is not meant to rule *

Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x Atreides!Reader

Slow burn, knife kink, blood kink, strangers to lovers, softer!Feyd-Rautha, CONSENT, 18+, arranged marriage, assassination, poison, murder, etc

Chapter 1 - Introduction Chapter 2 - Beginnings are such delicate times Chapter 3 - Eclipse Chapter 4 - A Time of Quiet Between the Storms Chapter 5 - Harkonnen Arena Chapter 6 - Water of life Chapter 7 - Each man is a little war

***

“Just admit it darling, you need me.” He gets dangerously close to you when he utters the last part of that sentence. His breath lingering on your lips. At this point everything he says only makes you more upset, and your body reacts automatically. You push him off you, and your hand is faster than the speed of light for a split second as it lands on his cheek, hard. You’re breathing irregular and emotional. He seems to be shocked at the impact; his face slightly turned away from you, smiling, however. This could be incredibly dangerous territory for you.

His eyes glance back at you, an indescribable emotion behind them. Before he can speak you interrupt his thoughts.

“I’ll never be your darling Feyd,” you challenge his words directly. Not meaning half of them but you felt like he needed to be put in his place for once. You decide not to wait for any retaliation, and stomp off towards your quarters, leaving him standing there like an idiot.

You almost run, afraid he might follow you or worse, attack you. You have no weapon at hand, so you’d be safest in your room. You manage to get in and lock the door immediately. Your breathing is rapid and irregular. You’re having a small freakout, you just offended the most dangerous person in your known universe and gave him more reason to hurt you in the future. You go into your small bathroom and splash ice cold water in your face, as you look in the mirror you just call yourself “idiot” a few times over.

*

Feyd watches you leave, the slap resonating and leaving a warm feeling on his cheek. He must admit he enjoyed seeing you like this, emotional and upset over him, it made him feel like you weren’t indifferent to him, which was a start. You weren’t in love with him, not yet, but he convinced himself he could make that happen. He didn’t think you would slap him however, which added an extra level of power he gained over you now. The fact that you slapped a guest, that was something he could use to his advantage, he thought.  

He decides not to follow you, and let you collect yourself for the time being. The first brick in your stone wall collapsed and he loved seeing it happen before his eyes. Maybe married life with you wouldn’t be the worst thing, you enticed him, made him more curious, he wanted to explore what you would be like in different situations, how you would react to him. What you would look like at night, in the pale moonlight of this planet, wearing nothing but sheer fabrics. Panting his name. Clawing his back. He touches his cheek and smirks to himself. Soon, he thinks.

*

He eventually wanders around the castle all day, not wanting to confront you. He wanted to let his words to the talking in your head. He must admit, seeing the fire in your eyes as you slapped him, which he let happen, stirred something inside of him. A want and need, to comfort you, to reverse the things he said, just to make you smile so beautifully again as you did when he first saw you yesterday.

He was jealous of you, your upbringing, your friends, your planet. He finds himself wondering what it would be like had your lives have been switched. He would’ve grown up in a loving family, a brother who didn’t despise him, and a Duke that would rather see him thrive than whatever the Baron wanted for him. Whilst you were a pawn in this story, he envied the position you had to play.

He ends up wandering for a very long time, away in thought, before he realises, he had missed lunch and was missing dinner right now. His stomach growled a bit at the realisation, wondering why no one had come looking for him yet. Truly a laid-back people here on Caladan, he thought. On Giedi Prime he could’ve been assassinated twice already. He sets off towards the garden, smelling a beautiful perfume that reminded me of the one you wore. His mind drifts again, completely infatuated by the girl that slapped more sense into him than the Baron ever did.

*

You didn’t see him for lunch, so you had time for your nerves to settle. By the time dinner is served your family inquires you about Feyd’s whereabouts. Your father had heard from Gurney that you were walking around the castle grounds. You choke on your food a little bit.

“Wait, no one has seen him all day?”

Paul and your mother look at each other, understanding an unspoken something. “Maybe he’s in his quarters.” He speaks. You finish up dinner and promise to go and find him, much to Leto’s chagrin. His daughter shouldn’t be running around looking for a Harkonnen all alone. But your mother puts her hand on top of your father’s, reassuring him it will be fine.

As you take your leave, you head straight to his quarters. Tula is awaiting you, as if planned.

“Tula, my dear, is the Na-Baron in his quarters? Can I speak to him?”

You braced yourself for what was to come, going to his quarters at night, how scandalous.

“Oh, my Lady, he has not come back since this morning I am afraid.”

What? He has just been out all day. Without a clue of what dangers might lie on Caladan, no one to keep him secure and safe. There were some predators out there that even Feyd-Rautha himself couldn’t battle against. You sigh heavily, stressed out at the idea of losing Feyd to a stupid bear or something. You tell Tula all will be fine and that you’ll go search for him. You knew the dangers that were ahead, but it being night-time wouldn’t make it easier.

You decide to go out in what you’re wearing, he couldn’t have gotten far. You check the stables, the wrestling grounds, you even go check out the barracks, but no one has seen him. Did he just leave? He wouldn’t do that right. You decide the last place you could find him were the gardens, which were lush and almost like a maze. In the dead of night, you wouldn’t visit them however, too many creepy crawlies that come out and you had limited visibility.

You decide to start walking in the maze-like construction, the pale moonlight the only thing that is giving you any form of light whatsoever. You decide against shouting his name, it’s a little bit awkward, and he’s not some cat you’re calling back to the house. After getting your clothes stuck on some rose thorns, you rip a few holes in your clothes. If you didn’t find him here, you’d be mad about that later.

You hear a soft gasp and the sound of a blade being unsheathed coming from your left. As soon as you follow where the noise came from you see him, almost glowing in the moonlight. Your vision turns incredibly sour after you see the rest of him, however. He looks over at you, blade in hand, dark blood coating it. Your mouth falls open. He’s holding a white cobra head. Extremely venomous, deadly for people who had no immunity. He looks at the way your face looks in horror at the beast. He feels a bit faint if he had to be honest.

“Feyd,” you walk over to him slowly, “did that cobra bite you?”

He looks down at this ankle, the teeth marks still visibly bleeding. You had to act fast. This was no mere silly snake.

“You didn’t warn me Caladan had poisonous snakes as well Lady Atreides.” He says as he lets go of the snake’s head.

You really don’t think it’s time for joking right now, he might possibly die.

“I need you to take off your clothes Feyd, we need to get this out of your system.”

He laughs, and it angers you a little bit, but it’s also the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard. He doesn’t seem the grasp the severity of the situation he’s in.

“If you want to- want to get me to- my clothes off, you should- just- “ he stumbles on his sentence, the venom working fast. He falls to his feet in front of you, and you do the same. “Shit, Feyd, please, hang on”, you get up and yell for help but there’s no one close by.

He eventually falls completely and is slightly unable to move, the first stage of the venom having fully kicked in. Full body paralysis. He’s still aware of the things you’re doing, however. You decide to take matters into your own hands, and start to drag him back to the castle, you must act fast however, and he’s a solid block of muscle at this point, which makes him extremely heavy. Tula had been trailing you however, and upon seeing her face, you shout at her to bring a doctor over quickly. Tula runs back inside shouting for help.

At this point your arms are on fire, having carried his body back so far, you just hope there’s enough time before the next stage sets in, which causes him to sweat profusely and lose most of his body’s moisture intake. You already start to see a few beads of sweat on his face and yell out harder for help.

Eventually the medical team arrives. You order them to get the antidote and a blood transfusion because of stage 2 already setting in.

“My Lady, all we have is the antidote, we have no more immunity blood.” The doctor tells you, “All we can hope is that his body is strong enough to fight it off.” “No”, you simple state, “you will do a transfusion from my blood then, I’m immune, he will not survive this without it.” “But my Lady- by law it is forbidden to perform a transfusion on two unmarried peo- ““-I can’t remember me asking, this is a demand. If he dies, we all die.”

You didn’t like using your status like this, but this was the matter of life or death. Your house promised the Baron that Feyd would be well taken care of, should harm befall him right now they will invade and murder you all, as an example that the Harkonnen were not to be messed with, and they did not forgive.

“Quickly assess if my blood is suited, and then do the transfusion, I will not hear another word, nor will you inform my parents,” you tried to keep your calm, but you were quite emotional. This was taking too much time and all they needed to do was save a man from dying. They had your permission, so you didn’t see the problem.

They quickly shoot into action, and you go and sit down in the bed next to his. His body unmoving, sweating hard already. You fear for his life, a white king cobra was the bringer of death in your house’s folklore. They were a rare sight on Caladan but did enjoy thick foliage more than anything. As the medical staff prepped your arm, your other hand went over to Feyd’s face, and you touch his cheek softly, wiping off the sweat over his scar and chin. He looks completely at peace for the first time, which scared you even more. His face was lifeless.

You finally get hooked up for the transfusion, and you see your blood go over into his body. The laws state that people are not allowed to transfuse blood that isn’t to their own kin, unless married or stated otherwise. You were breaking a genetic law, but you’d rather be on trial in the future than have your entire family murdered by the other Harkonnens. The Bene Gesserit won’t be happy about it, but they would be a problem to deal with later.

As you feel a lot of your blood drain from you, you sit down on his bed instead. The medical team assures you it can take a long while for an individual to awaken from the coma that the venom places them in. After about an hour or so, the transfusion is done and all you can do is wait now. You stay with him for the night, falling asleep in the bed next to his.

*

You have a vision again that night, or a dream you’d rather say. It’s the same one you had a few nights ago, the wet, dewy grass underneath your hands, but now you see something more. A blade in your right hand, stuck in the ground beneath you. You also feel yourself trembling, sweat on your brow, heaving like a mad dog.

You wake up in a cold sweat, a side effect from the transfusion, or the dream. It’s too early in the morning, the sun still not showing her full self. Dawn peaking over the horizon softly. As you turn to look at Feyd, you see his body breathing. You sigh to yourself, and hope this is a good sign. He seems to be dreaming himself, tossing and turning in his sleep. You reach over and take his hand in yours, to not only calm him down slightly, but also yourself. It was terrifying to see what the poison was doing to his body. It was currently fighting off the venom and toxins released in his blood stream. Having been through this yourself as a young child, you faintly remember what it felt like. It’s pure pain rushing through your body, all your muscles are on fire and you feel as if you’re not breathing anymore. Yet your body is completely still.

You decide to let him rest for the time being, and head over to your quarters. You go and fetch your gifted blade and put on an outfit fit for exploring and riding a horse. You had to get out of the castle for a minute or two, allow your head to clear itself. You also set out to find a specific kind of herb in a nearby forest, one that will soothe the pain from the toxin, since it works better if it’s freshly cut. As you leave the castle, the sun is rising and the fields of Caladan greet you, and you breathe in deeply, feeling your worries leave your body as your horse gallops towards the thick forest ahead of you. As if by sheer coincidence, the moment you leave, Feyd wakes up from the hellhole he's been sleeping through. His first words being 'Lady Atreides?' when your medical staff assess him.

[goldenseresinretriever]

You Catch More Bees With Honey: Chapter 20

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Reader

Part of the San Diego Dogfighters universe

Summary: Bradley Bradshaw, blindsided by a team he trusted like family has been traded to the San Diego Dogfighters. Across the country from the place he calls home, Bradley feels lost and betrayed. Not to mention the familiar faces and ghosts from his past that he now has to face every day at work. Bradley’s caught between wanting to show his former team the mistake they made in double-crossing him and wondering if it’s time to hang up his skates after one final season. You’re living your dream as the PR representative for the Dogfighters. When Coach Maverick made a bid to bring his godson to the team, you hadn’t batted an eye. Bradley was a good teammate, and a good player. Unfortunately, the Bradley that shows up in San Diego is nothing like your research suggested. He’s moody, irritable, aggressive, and angry, throwing a wrench in all your careful planning. What’s caused such a drastic change in him? And can you figure out how to help him before he makes a mistake you can’t fix?

Series CW: 18+ ONLY, swearing, dead parents, drunkenness, alcohol consumption, violence, sports violence, blood probably, angst, fluff, eventual smut, age gap (28 and 38), enemies to lovers, suggestive language, hockey inaccuracies etc. There will be individual chapter warnings. No use of Y/N.

Word Count: 3.3k

A/N: This is a repost of my completed series, You Catch More Bees With Honey. It was originally posted in November-March 2023, and was lost when my blog was deleted.

Previous Chapter // Series Masterlist

That night Jake calls for a team outing and Bradley is surprisingly not begrudging as he agrees to tag along despite the fact that usually he’d point out that he’d rather spend the evening with you. There’s one more game on New Year's Eve but the coaches are cutting the guys some slack since it’s the holidays. That’s how you find yourself glaring at your boyfriend as you line up next to each other and you strongly consider accidentally dropping your bowling ball on his foot.

It’s boys versus girls in neighboring lanes and you and Bradley have been tied for the better part of the game. Sure, Jake’s ahead of him, but this competition between the two of you supersedes the overall game. You’d be playing better but Javy had implemented a rule that dictated that you take a shot if you land a gutter ball and you’re more tipsy than you’d like to admit. Bradley, despite his multiple gutter balls, is built like a brick wall and therefore the shots have had little to no impact on his game. You’re beyond arguing the skewed fairness of the game and you’ve descended into quiet rage. You still lead the girls but that means nothing to you if you can’t beat Bradley and as you watch every pin in the lane next to you clatter to the floor with a satisfying crack you’re wondering how good you’d be at shotput. He turns to you, a cocky smile on his lips that dares you to match him.

Sure you and Bradley have a softer relationship but you both have a natural competitive edge that comes from growing up in the world of sports. Yours manifests more often in the form of your stubbornness but when a game does happen to be on the line you’re determined to win. As you scowl at Bradley you catch sight of Mickey smirking behind him. He knows better than to goad you when you’re in competitive mode. You take a deep breath in a poor attempt at collecting yourself. The alcohol is starting to dull your senses so when you release the ball in your hand it veers left, just barely clipping the furthest pin and saving you from another shot.

“You can still spare,” Bradley remarks and you glare daggers into him as you line up again. The sound of his soft chuckle only makes you frown harder and Mickey calls out from behind him.

“Hit them with the trick shot!” You turn around, your attention now on him as you consider his words. The trick shot in question is something you coined back in college when you and Mickey were out with his team and someone challenged the group to a round of bowling with a catch. Every shot had to be embellished in some kind of ostentatious and ridiculous way. The game had quickly devolved into chaos but you’d patented what went on to become your signature move.

“Trick shot?!” Javy exclaims. “Now we have to see it!” Then there’s a chorus of drunk hockey players chanting at you to show off the trick shot and you roll your eyes before you step back and slide your bowling shoes over the slick floor, testing the resistance. You should be able to pull it off even though it’s been years. You take a deep breath and bring the bowling ball up to your chest as your friends start to cheer. Despite your intoxicated state, in college you mastered being able to keep alcohol from affecting your skating technique so as you push into the spin that’s almost a pirouette letting the weight of the ball steady your center of gravity before you slide forward on your shoes across the slippery ground, extending your arm clutching the ball in a ramrod straight position and releasing the ball. You watch as it takes the speed your spin charged it with and barrels straight down the center of the lane before colliding with a satisfying crack and you smirk as the pins tumble in a wave. Behind you, the guys are going crazy and the girls are cheering. You’re about to turn and rub it in Bradley’s face when he scoops you up from behind, burying his face in your neck as he whispers into your ear.

“That’s my girl,” and you feel your cheeks heat as you lean into his touch before leaning up to whisper back in his ear.

“Afraid you’re going to lose?” His laugh vibrates through his chest against your back.

“Challenge accepted, Honey. What do I get if I win?” You can hear the tease in his voice as it rumbles against the shell of your ear and you suppress a shudder.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” you say, voice saccharine sweet, batting your lashes up at him. “Of course, the same goes if I win.”

“Deal,” Bradley says before turning you in his arms so he can kiss you and you can taste the alcohol on his tongue. You hear wolf whistles from behind you that you’re sure are Javy and Mickey as your cheeks heat slightly. Bradley rolls his eyes and pulls you back so the next people can take their turns, not letting you out of his arms quite yet.

***

You smirk across the packed booth at Bradley where he’s sulking over a beer. You’d moved on to a local karaoke bar you’d been to with Mickey and Bob before after the bowling concluded. Jake won for the boys and you won for the girls, Bradley trailing you by a measly two points. He was currently soothing the loss with alcohol as the others excitedly made their karaoke selections. His ruddy cheeks tell you he’s made up for his lack of shots during bowling and you gaze at him fondly thinking of the last time you saw him drunk. You bring a hand up to rub at your long-since-healed jaw and you catch Bradley’s eye as he flushes deeper at the memory.

“Zam, what are you going to sing?” A drunk Mickey interrupts your moment, thrusting the list at you but Bradley plucks it from his grasp, scrawling down his suggestion as your eyes widen with surprise. He’s drunk enough to let his guard down. You’ve heard him sing before, of course, but that was in the privacy of his car and along with the radio. You never pegged Bradley as a performer when it comes to music but absently you remember the baby grand piano in his living room that you’d written off as merely ostentatious decoration. He gets to his feet without a second glance and takes the list back up to the front, ignoring Mickey’s protests that you haven’t signed up yet. He pushes over to where Jake and Javy are arguing over who’s going first and takes charge of the kiosk as they gape at him. You're all watching Bradley with varying degrees of surprise as the alcohol in his veins fuels this bout of confidence.

He grips the microphone, ascending the small stage next to the bar you danced on the last time you were here as the familiar opening guitar riff of “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” by Meatloaf fills the bar and he fixes a hard gaze on you as you realize what he has in mind and you smile, nodding at him.

“Well, I remember every little thing as if it only happened only yesterday,” your crowd of friends erupt into rowdy cheers as Bradley croons into the microphone. He reaches out to crook a finger at you and you bounce to your feet, reaching him just in time for him to lean down with the microphone so you can join the harmonies.

“Though it's cold and lonely in the deep dark night, I can see paradise by the dashboard light.” He reaches his free hand down to you to help you onto the stage before passing you the microphone.

“Ain't no doubt about it we were doubly blessed, 'cause we were barely seventeen and we were barely dressed.” You sing as he grabs the second microphone. You know it’s an almost nine-minute song but Bradley doesn’t show any signs of slowing as you join the performance, your friends going wild from the table.

Mickey brings you both a glass of water as the spoken interlude takes over and the two of you refresh before the next part of the song. You hand him back the glass just in time for you to take the lead.

“Stop right there! I gotta know right now! Before we go any further! Do you love me?” You meet Bradley’s eyes with a fiery gaze as you crow the lyrics. “Will you love me forever? Do you need me? Will you never leave me? Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life? Will you take me away and will you make me your wife?” You see something shift in his eyes through the alcohol-induced haze as you continue. “Do you love me!? Will you love me forever!? Do you need me!? Will you never leave me!? Will you make me happy for the rest of my life!? Will you take me away and will you make me your wife!? I gotta know right now. Before we go any further, do you love me!? Will you love me forever!?” You step up to him, getting into his face as a part of your performance as your friends lose their minds and the other patrons cheer. Bradley nods softly and it steals your breath as he takes over.

“Let me sleep on it. Baby, baby let me sleep on it. Let me sleep on it and I'll give you an answer in the morning. Let me sleep on it. Baby, baby let me sleep on it. Let me sleep on it and I'll give you an answer in the morning. Let me sleep on it baby, baby let me sleep on it. Let me sleep on it and I'll give you an answer in the morning.” The intensity in his eyes as he falls to his knees is at odds with the words he’s singing and you know he’s promising the opposite of his words as you continue to play your part, tossing the words from earlier back at him in a back and forth.

“Will you love me forever?” You demand.

“Let me sleep on it.” He begs.

“Will you love me forever!” You can’t keep the grin off your face.

Bradley gets off his knees and you feel your heart catch as he crows the next part, his voice blowing you away. “I couldn't take it any longer, Lord I was crazed. And when the feeling came upon me like a tidal wave, I started swearing to my god and on my mother's grave that I would love you to the end of time. I swore that I would love you to the end of time!” Your heart flutters at the sweet words falling from his lips as you watch him with awe and you wonder if this is the Bradley that Logan, Alex, and Wyatt knew in Philadelphia. “So now I'm praying for the end of time to hurry up and arrive 'cause if I gotta spend another minute with you I don't think that I can really survive. I'll never break my promise or forget my vow, but God only knows what I can do right now.” His amber eyes burn into you and you can’t help but simply stand in awe of him. “I'm praying for the end of time, it's all that I can do. Praying for the end of time, so I can end my time with you!” The crowd does wild and you join them before joining Bradley for the last few bars as the song faded away in true 70s fashion. The crowd in the bar roars as Bradley takes you in his arms and kisses you hard, dipping you in front of the crowd and the whoops and cheers echo off the walls. This feels like a beginning, a new chapter and you’re excited to see where it goes as your teammates storm the stage, tackling the two of you with hugs and more cheers. You laugh and you don’t remember the last time your heart felt so light. Looking over at Bradley you can see the same thing expressed in his eyes and you feel like you’re finally home.

***

“It’s PINK,” Bradley says for what must be the fifth time and you nod yet again. He’s gazing at the fabric spread out on the bed.

“Technically it’s salmon,” you point out and he just gapes at you. You shrug, not an ounce of mercy in your eyes. “A deal’s a deal, Brashaw.” You watch the fear grip his features before you push up on your toes to press a kiss to his cheek. “You’re going to look amazing.”

It’s New Year’s Eve and spirits are high at the arena. The boys are playing their last game of the year tonight and the locker room is buzzing. The boys have tomorrow off since the only game on New Year’s Day is the Winter Classic. You’re waiting patiently outside the locker room for Bradley. You hear a crow of pure delight from Javy on the other side of the door and you smirk as you imagine his reaction. A few moments later the door swings open and Javy’s wearing a feral smile as he wraps you in a hug.

“I love you, you know that right? It’s like Christmas all over again!” You roll your eyes as you hug him back. The door swings open again and Bradley appears, his cheeks ruddy and matching the salmon suit that makes him cut a dashing figure. His eyes widen as he sees that you’re dressed in a similar shade, the suit new, and you smile at him shyly.

“I thought we could match,” you say with a shrug and he smiles softly for the first time all night. He’s forgone a tie and his shirt is slightly open, exposing his throat and a sliver of his chest that makes your heart flutter in your chest. His curls are perfectly styled and his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides let you know he’s making an active effort to not run them through his hair. “You look so handsome,” you compliment him as you cross over to wrap your arms around him and his cheeks turn red for a different reason. His relaxes a little under your touch but you can tell he’s still uncomfortable. “I’m sorry you’re uncomfortable,” you whisper so just he can hear, guilt gnawing at your chest slightly even as you’re elated that he complied. After losing at bowling the other day, Bradley was at your mercy to do whatever you wanted. Likely he expected it to be something sexual as the two of you can barely keep your hands off each other these days, but you’d surprised him by asking him to let you choose his suit for their next game. You claimed it was retribution for how much he used to hate your suits, to which he reminded you was no longer his opinion on them.

He wraps his arms around you in return, burying his nose in your neck as he strokes your back gently. “Are you happy?” He asks and it’s genuine. You nod against him.

“Very,” you feel his lips tilt up into a smile against your skin.

“Then I’m okay.” He says and your heart aches. He pulls away and bumps your nose against his, gently. “Shall we go?” You nod, and the locker room door swings open and the other guys start filtering out in their suits. Jake’s eyes soften as he takes in the two of you.

“You guys look adorable,” he compliments, fishing out his phone to snap a picture and Bradley doesn’t argue.

“Oh my god, you guys!” Bugs exclaims as he comes around the corner, hearts in her eyes as she takes in your matching outfits.

“We have to do that sometime.” Jake agrees as he finishes with his pictures. Bugs agrees enthusiastically. “And you need to wear his jersey sometime,” Jake points out to you.

“Oh don’t worry, I have,” you say with a cheeky smile that makes Javy whoop with excitement even as Bradley squeezes your waist. The guys start moving to go get their photos taken before the pre-game press and you lean your head against Bradley’s shoulder. “Good luck, tonight.” You murmur and he leans to press a kiss to the top of your head.

“I have my good luck charm, I’ll be fine.” You giggle at that and he pulls you close.

***

Laughter and music are echoing off the walls of Jake’s house. The living room is full of teammates and their families with a combination of children and animals weaving between legs. After the game, everyone met up here to welcome the new year before they’ll eventually head out to enjoy having New Year's Day off. You’re standing in Bradley’s arms, listening to Bob explain the myth of Alaska having six months of darkness. You glance up and you can tell that Bradley’s far away so you gently tug on his sleeve and lead him out the back door to get some air. Jake’s backyard opens out onto a semi-private beach and you slip your hand into Bradley’s as the two of you make your way across the sand. You ditched your heels by the door ages ago and the sand feels cool under your feet. You can’t help but remember the last two times you and Bradley found yourself on the beach as you’re drawn towards the water.

The water is cold as it laps as your toes and you skirt back as Bradley stares wordlessly out at the sea. “Everything okay?” You ask softly as he turns at your words. There’s something you can’t place in his eyes and you’re about to push him gently for an answer when he drops to one knee and your eyes widen. “Bradley. Bradshaw.” Your voice is shaking as you admonish him. His eyes are soft as he squeezes your joined hands.

“I’m not proposing,” he assures you and you let out a shaky breath, “not yet.” He says with a brazen, boyish grin and it steals the breath from your lungs. “But I do want to make you a promise, because you’re it for me, Honey. There’s no one I’ve ever loved more than I love you and like I told you, you’re my family. I will always stand by you and protect you. You’re my everything, and one day I’m going to ask you to be my wife.” Your eyes are full of tears as this perfect man is once again on his knees for you, offering you the whole world. “There’s nothing in my life that’s more important to me. Not myself, not hockey. I don’t believe in fate, but I feel like our moms masterminded this and sent us to each other. I’ve never been so thankful, that I get to love you in this lifetime. A few months ago I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to live anymore and now I don’t think there’s anything I’d rather do than spend every single day I possibly can with you.” He lets go of your hand then, reaching down to shape the damp sand beside him and you smile through the tears cascading down your cheeks as he makes the little sandman, shaping the body and then scooping up twigs and fragments of shells to adorn it. The surf licks up, dampening his pants where he kneels but he’s undeterred. When he finally dusts off his hands after, he stands taking both your hands in his. “You’re my dream, Honey, and I think it’s going to be the sweetest one I’ve ever had.” You smile at him and as he kisses you, you think he might be right.

[seungrem]

hwang hyunjin x m!reader

‘The One & Only’ - Part 1 of ??

summary: Through mutual friends, reader and Hyunjin form a strong connection, though the process seems rather slow. A slight crush may turn into something more with the help of others.

( part 1, college student AU, pre-fame, slowburn, confused feelings, etc. my first fanfic pls b nice! )

emoji code:

🌿 ( long story/series )

🧸 ( light fluff, slowburn )

🪐 ( kinda an AU, students )

☁️ ( stands for y/n )

likes, comments, & reblogs r appreciated ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Footsteps echoed through the hallway as two students steadily walked side by side. Light blue tiles reflected the ceiling’s studio lights with beige walls displaying posters and large picture frames. A few feet ahead of the students, a pair of large, clear doors were open, revealing a great distance of field. Students sat around black tables or picnic blankets, most groups conversing amongst themselves. A small, white wall confined this outdoor area, the trees’ shade a seemingly popular destination. Time stopped as the students curiously turned their heads, eyes narrowing as they spotted the one and only.

Hwang Hyunjin was well known amongst most of the university body, even being referred to as a campus celebrity on some occasions. His inimitable sense of aesthetic and his model-like looks were topics of conversation for many; It was hard to miss him. Although he wasn’t on a sports team or apart of many clubs, he was extremely popular through his dancing videos, many of which had gone viral. Due to his notoriety, rumors resulted in many people thinking of him as stuck-up, some believing him to ignore and look down upon other students. Despite this, Hyunjin still had many friends, but he considered them to be more of acquaintances. He hung out with lots of people, and enjoyed it, though he was never separated from his true friends; one of which was Lee Felix.

Lee Felix was the school’s sweetheart, and everyone knew it. He was kind, collected, and empathic no matter the person, place, or situation. His energy was always warm, and he was adored not only by the students, but by the professors and staff as well. The school’s sweetheart was playful and a bit nerdy, though very few saw that side of him. Felix met Hyunjin in their first semester through a friend, BangChan, and the two clicked pretty quickly. Felix was able to understand and match Hyunjin’s humor, while Hyunjin felt comfortable enough around Felix to express himself without fear of judgement or social pressure.

On a sunny, yet breezy friday in the middle of January, Felix walked through the bright green grass. Spotting two of his friends at the farthest table, closest to the brick wall, he waved his hand high in the air. ☁️ noticed him, waving back as Felix practically skipped over to the table. ☁️ watched as the ice-pop dripped drops of blue and pink onto the group as he walked.

Across from ☁️, a boy he met a few weeks ago, BangChan (or Chris, as Felix called him) was bored and scrolling on his phone. He occasionally looked up, either to make small talk with the boy across from him, or stare out into the grassy fields behind the wall. Aimlessly looking between the other tables, and the huge university building in the distance, ☁️ rested his head in his hands with his elbows planted onto the table. Hyunjin followed behind Felix and sat next to BangChan, greeting him with a hand shake directly after. Felix sat next to ☁️, smiling as he showed him his half-eaten ice pop. Hyunjin turned to face ☁️, who was diagonal to him, ☁️ noticing and then giving his attention to the boy.

“I’ve heard of you, what’s your name again?” Hyunjin asked, seemingly emotionless. Felix looked up from his ice pop and looked at Hyunjin, the two locking eyes for less than a second.

“☁️,” The boy responded, giving Hyunjin a smile as he propped himself up and out of his hands.

“Oh.. I’m Hyunjin. It’s nice to meet you.”

☁️ assumed Hyunjin was just being polite despite the awkwardness, and wasn’t actually interested. He could feel Felix’s gaze switching between the two as their conversation continued.

“It’s nice to meet you too. I’ve heard a lot about you as well.” ☁️ smirked as he finished his sentence, not realizing that Hyunjin would take it the wrong way. He watched as Hyunjin frowned turned to look at Felix, the sun no longer reflecting off the side of his face. Opening his mouth slightly to speak, he hesitated. “Ah.. well, whatever you heard-”

“Don’t worry, he knows. We’ve.. talked about you quite often.” Felix interrupted. Felix looked from Hyunjin to ☁️, his lips forming a sympathetic smile. ☁️ nodded and looked back at Hyunjin, who sighed heavily.

“Oh, okay.. have you heard about what people say?”

☁️ nodded again. “I don’t pay it mind.”

Hyunjin forced a smile, looking from ☁️ to Felix, Felix’s furrowing as he smiled back. BangChan looked up from his phone to the three boys sitting at the table.

“You two haven’t met yet? We’ve been around each other on a few occasions..”

He looked tired, but BangChan was involved in everything. He helped coordinate events, was involved in the student council, and so on. Although he kept a “lowkey” profile, most people knew who he was. He had been friends with Felix since forever, but had befriended Hyunjin a month or two ago. ☁️ met BangChan through Felix towards the beginning of the semester, but had been friends with Felix for a few months now. The two became extremely close in recent days.

“I got an ice pop.” Felix said, breaking the silence as ☁️ thought to himself. The boy next to him held up the wooden stick, with a small chunk of ice pop still hanging on. Hyunjin and ☁️ looked at him and laughed.

“Okay.. anyways, what do you guys want to do today? It’s Friday, so I’m pretty sure most of our classes are done early.” Bangchan asked, him then placing his phone in his pocket. Even though ☁️ has been joining Felix while he spent time with friends or did afterschool activities with others, he still felt that he didn’t know who Felix’s crowd consisted of. ☁️ snapped back from his thoughts as Hyunjin spoke.

“You could come over to my place, and we could watch movies or swim in my pool.. I could also make you guys food or something.” Hyunjin thought out loud. He looked at ☁️ , who looked back, curious as to if this thought was new or premeditated. ☁️ saw this as an opportunity to get to know the other boys better, regardless.

“I’m okay with that.” ☁️ stated, smiling. He nudged Felix and looked at Bangchan, both of which agreed.

“I don’t think I’m busy, you and I can work on that film project then.” BangChan nodded to Hyunjin, who nodded back to him.

“Alright, you guys could stay over too. I’ve been home alone for a while, and I know that my house is far.”

“After my last class, I’ll go home and pack some stuff for us. When would you like us over?” Felix is so cute i love that man. Hyunjin shrugged.

“Whenever you want to come, I don’t care. My parents won’t be home for a few days so..”

“You’re sure they won’t mind?” Bangchan asked biting his lip. Hyunjin laughed and looked at Felix and ☁️.

“It’s not like they’re gonna know anyways.”

Bangchan sighed and rested his elbows on the table. “I’ll come around 7 pm, but I can pick you two up before then. Sound good?” He pointed at Felix and ☁️, both of which nodded without thinking twice.

“Alright, what do you guys wanna do?” Felix said with lots of excitement in his voice, him then looking at his phone. ☁️ assumed he forgot about the question he just asked as he watched felix stand up. Felix walked away from the table with a popsicle stick and wrapper, leaving his phone next to ☁️. An alarm titled “Go to Communications Class” buzzed as the three watched him power walk back to the table.

“Walk with me to class, guys.” Felix said as tugged at ☁️’s top.

Hurrying, the four grabbed their bags and walked through the grass to the closest school doors.

-

“See you on Wednesday!”

☁️ waved goodbye to the classmates at his table and was the first to walk out. Hyunjin leaned against the wall directly in front of ☁️’s classroom door. The two locked eyes as ☁️ took a few steps away from the door as to not block other people’s path. Hyunjin held out his hand as a hello and walked towards him, ☁️ waving back a bit confused. The two muttered a soft “hey” to the other.

“So, Chan told me to wait outside of your class so we could meet with him at the parking lot.”

“Okay, are you ready?”

Hyunjin nodded, the two beginning down a hallway towards the staircase, which lead to the bottom floor. Students entered and left through the closest set of doors coherently, as if the bottom floor was a highway.

☁️ felt a cool breeze race across his face as he stepped onto the outdoor patio. The sky was now filled with small clumps of overcast, just enough to block the sun for a few seconds at a time. The two walked down the stone path onto fresh grass.

☁️ could feel Hyunjin’s eyes look down on him as they walked, the two catching each other’s gaze and smiling in the seconds after. Both remained silent in their walk from the university building and through the grass. They approached the highly funded outdoor garden, side by side past a small path lined by large bushes, patches of flowers, and small trees. Felix and Bangchan became visible in the distance after a few minutes, the two waiting patiently at their usual meeting place: a secluded black lamppost beside a stone trail, which began at the end of the garden’s. The meeting spot’s only difference between today and other days, was the appearance of Hyunjin, not that ☁️ minded at all.

“It took you guys much quicker than I thought it would.” Bangchan commented, partially as a greeting. Felix looked up from his phone and then waved.

“I just followed him.”

Hyunjin discreetly pointed at ☁️, who looked up at him.

“I thought you knew where you were going,” ☁️ smiled, “He walked ahead of me for most of the trip over here.”

“Noo, that’s exaggerating- I was walking right next to you.” Hyunjin chuckled, but BangChan was visibly distracted by the grey clouds lingering above. “I think it’s going to rain soon, we should get going. I don’t want you two to get caught in the rain again.” Chan pointed to Felix, and then to ☁️, who rolled his eyes. Felix walked over to ☁️ and wrapped his arms around the boy’s body, him then squeezing hard.

“Come on ☁️, let’s not get caught in the rain!” Felix said mocking Chan as he began to walk with the boy still in his arms. He rested his head into ☁️’s neck as he shuffled with him, resulting in laughter from Hyunjin and BangChan.

☁️ muttered, but accepted his fate. Felix softly letting him go with a chuckle. The four then continued down the short stone path to the parking lot, where BangChan and Hyunjin had their cars parked.

Hyunjin began to walk away from the group of three. “I’ll see you guys later, then?

“Yup, I have your address. Is 6’ okay, though? I think it’s supposed to rain pretty bad tonight.” Chan responded. After Hyunjin nodded, the two waved, Chan then parting ways and walking to his car. Felix and ☁️ were already there, play fighting between the few surrounding vehicles. “You guys better not hit my car!” Chan said, loud enough for them to hear and conclude their antics. The three jumped into the vehicle and departed. Felix and ☁️ still giggling to each other in the backseat. Chan sighed, looking into his rear view mirror.

“You two are lucky you live next to each other.”

The ceiling felt so far away as ☁️ laid on his bedroom floor. Showered, ready, and tired of waiting, he dragged his packed bag next to him. He sat up and made sure he had everything he needed: pajamas (sweatpants and old shirt), skincare products and a headband, a charger, and slippers. From on the bed beside him, a buzzing sound caught ☁️’s attention. Chan was calling.

“☁️, I’m here! Sorry to keep you waiting, I was instructed to grab ingredients for later.”

“It’s okay, I’ll come out now.”

☁️ shut off his lamp light and ran out the door, his hefty bag thumping against his body. A stong rainfall filled the atmosphere, almost to the point where it was hard to see in front of you. The combination of gray skies, dark green trees, and the consistent tap of droplets against the car window made for a peaceful evening in the neighborhood.

“Where’s Felix?” ☁️ asked as he settled in the front seat, the semi-wet bag resting on top of his legs. He looked over to the driver, who wore a tight, black knit sweater and loose jeans.

“Eh, he said he wouldn’t mind just running over to your house, but I wasn’t going to make him do all that in this storm. It began raining much earlier and harder than the weather app said it would.”

Chan and ☁️ quickly arrived in front of Felix’s place, watching as the boy ran to the car with two large bags his hands. Felix jumped into the backseat as ☁️ helped him place his bags on the floor from the front. He wore a striped vest of browns and baby blues with a long sleeve shirt under. His light blue jeans were now damp.

The drive from Felix’s house was smooth and scenic. Hyunjin lived in a community about 10 minutes north, so ☁️ rested his head back and closed his eyes until they arrived. His stomach began sinking thinking about Hyunjin; just like everyone else, ☁️ had an innocent crush on the boy. Recalling how awkward Hyunjin was at the lunch table, he decided it was best to see him as nothing but a friend. The two didn’t really know each other anyway.

The ride took longer than ☁️ anticipated, not that he cared all that much. The trio arrived to a modern-looking house in the middle of nowhere, japanese hackberry trees surrounding the home and road. Felix took initiative to text Hyunjin, stating that “we didn’t swerve off the road!” with a “we’re outside” following right behind. Chan pulled his car into the driveway, the garage door opening as soon as he stopped. Hyunjin appeared from under it, him crouching and waving his hand hello. After the door was more than halfway up, the car was pulled in and the three hopped out.

“Thanks for being our storm shelter.” Felix said as he struggled with the two bags in his arms. Hyunjin hurried over to take one from him, laughing at the boy. He wore a large black hoodie with tan cargo pants and slippers.

“It’s nice to finally have people over.”

-

Hyunjin walked through a dark hallway while the three followed behind him. Light eventually appeared from an entrance in the distance, everyone walking through the entryway and into a massive kitchen. Studio lights illuminated the beige accent against the kitchen’s dark brown marble appliances. Felix and Hyunjin softly placed the bags on the island table.

“Your kitchen is really nice,” ☁️ said, thinking out loud. He placed his bag on a chair and leaned on the island. Hyunjin smiled at him, then turning his attention to Chan and Felix. “Let me show you guys to your room quickly.”

“You sure you’re okay with us spending the night?” Chan asked, shuffling behind Hyunjin. Felix grabbed one of his bags and followed the two. ☁️ looked around as their voices faded away. He walked over to the bag Felix left behind, it full of groceries. Felix mentioned he had wanted to bake something while they were together, but ☁️ wasn’t so confident in their baking abilities. He pulled everything out, slowly setting the items out in a line across the island. As he finished, the trio’s footsteps interrupted the silence.

“☁️, let me show you to your room.”

Hyunjin walked over to ☁️’s bag and threw it over his shoulder. Thanking him, ☁️ followed Hyunjin back into the hall, this time walking towards the end. A flight of steps appeared through the dimness, natural lighting emerging from the top. The two remained quiet as they walked up the steps, and into the nearest room to the left. The room was huge, with two rectangular windows on the opposing side’s gray walls. The curtains were tucked to the corners of both, revealing light gray skies and streams of water droplets. The bed had tones of grey sheets and was towards the far right, in between a dark gray nightstand and dresser. The room was minimalistic and somewhat organized. ☁️ watched from the doorframe as Hyunjin walked in and placed his bag on the bed, ☁️ then trudging over and sitting next to it. He looked around, noticing a backpack and computer on the dark gray desk across the room. Above the desk, two wall-mounted shelves held action figures and small plushies. ☁️ snapped back to reality when Hyunjin sat on the bed too, the large bag now in between them.

“Will this be alright? If you want another room, I can let you sleep in my parent’s.” Hyunjin looked over to ☁️, who titled his head to look back at him.

“Who’s room is this?” ☁️ narrowed his eyes at Hyunjin, who was caught a bit off-guard by the question.

“It’s mine.”

“Then, where are you sleeping?”

“I thought I would just sleep on the couch, I really don’t mind-”

“I.. can’t do that, I’d feel awful to kick you out of your own room.” ☁️ shook his head and stood up, grabbing the strap of his bag. Hyunjin stood up too, holding his hand up to stop the boy from grabbing the bag.

“You’re the guest, I really don’t mind. The couch is really not that bad.”

☁️ grabbed his bag and took a few steps toward the door. “I’m not kicking you out of your room-”

Hyunjin grabbed ☁️’s arm and stopped him in his tracks. “☁️, I don’t have a problem with it.. Please, leave your stuff here and take the room.”

Hyunjin’s face was lowered so that he could stare into ☁️’s eyes. The boy’s head was turned to face Hyunjin’s as the two stood in silence, the only noise being their breath and the frequent taps of raindrops against the window.

Finally, ☁️ nodded, resulting in Hyunjin’s grasp being released. Hyunjin watched as ☁️ walked back to the bed, not knowing the boy’s entire body went hot from his touch. Letting the bag slip off his shoulder, part of ☁️ wanted to volunteer himself to Hyunjin’s parent’s room. He contemplated, but ultimately felt as though that’d be awkward. Another part of him wanted to propose the two of them sleep in the same bed, but that was risky considering it could make things a lot more awkward. ☁️ didn’t know if Hyunjin felt that way about him, or if he was into men in general. He decided to just leave it alone.

“Thank you, I really don’t want to make you sleep on the couch, though.”

“We’ll see what happens.” Hyunjin replied softly. ☁️ didn’t know what he meant, but nodded in understanding anyway. Hyunjin held his hand out, signaling ☁️ to make his way out the room and back toward the kitchen. ☁️ bashfully smiled and began down the hallway and then the steps, Hyunjin directly behind him. Felix and Chan had already begun their baking project, with bowls and pans on the island. Felix put some of the ingredients back into the fridge as Chan mixed a powdery substance in a clear bowl. Chan looked up as the two stepped into the kitchen.

“What took you guys so long?”

Felix poked his head out from behind the metallic fridge door. “We figured we would start while we waited, hope you guys don’t mind.”

“We were only gone for a minute.” Hyunjin responded, smiling. Chan raised an eyebrow as he mixed, mouthing a sarcastic “ooookaayyy.” ☁️ rolled his eyes and smiled, walking over to Felix.

“What do you need us to do, Felix?” ☁️ asked as he leaned on the fridge door. Felix looked up, grabbing a carton of eggs and milk and handing it to the boy. “Can you take this over so we can put it in the mix? Also Hyunjin, can you take over for Chan?”

Hyunjin walked over to Chan, rolling his sleeves up. His eyebrows furrowed in disgust as he grabbed the wisk from Chan.

“Thanks, my arms were starting to hurt… wait why’re you making that face? You’re just crushing the flour, baking powder, and sugar clumps up before we add everything else.” Chan laughed at his friend, ☁️ placing the next ingredients beside the two. “Do you want me to take it over, and you can put the stuff in?” ☁️ asked, which immediately resulted in Hyunjin’s face returning to an expressionless state.

“I think that’d be worse, he doesn’t like egg yolk.” Chan said, laughing again. Hyunjin smiled and shook his head. “It’s okay, I don’t mind doing this.”

Felix closed the fridge door and sat in a seat a few feet from ☁️ and Hyunjin, watching as they measured, poured, and mixed side by side. Chan snuck pictures of the two together, him then taking selfies of him and Felix per Felix’s request. The pairs rotated positions every few minutes until Felix deemed the batter ready. As Chan preheated the oven, ☁️ carried a pan over to Felix. Him carefully pouring, the four watched from behind as Felix placed the empty bowl down, and the pan in the oven.

“All done.” Felix smiled. “Now we wait.”

“Well, what do you guys want to do in the meantime?” Hyunjin asked from the other side of the island. ☁️ looked over to him, noticing how the warm-toned ceiling lights clashed against the natural light’s cool tones against his skin. ☁️ looked over to the window, the clouds slowly becoming darker as night took over day.

“Do you have any games?” Felix asked, turning his head from the oven to face the boy.

“Hmm, I think so.”

Hyunjin stood up and walked out of the kitchen, the three following him into a dark room. Flicking a switch, the room became illuminated in baby blue tones by a gradient chandler. Hyunjin’s living room was spacious and comfortable, ☁️ noticing a large, dark blue conversation pit at the other end of the room. ☁️ walked over to it, carefully stepping in and sitting down. Felix followed this action as Chan stood above them, waiting for Hyunjin to look through shelves of a white bookcase. After a few seconds, he pulled out two boxes, announcing “This is all we have here.”

He handed a box to Chan, showing Felix and ☁️ the other. “Charades sounds fun, what’s the other?” Felix asked, Chan holding the box on its side for them. “It’s Twister, not sure how I feel about this one.”

Felix looked at ☁️, and then to Hyunjin. “Twister it is! Let’s set it up down here.” Felix said smiling as he jumped up to take the box from Chan. “Oh, so you want me to break my back.” Chan sighed, wrapping his arms around Felix and then leaning onto him.

-

“Why don’t I be referee?” Chan questioned, sighing once again. Felix mouthed a “no!” and flicked the spinner provokingly. ☁️ smiled. “I’ll catch you if you fall, don’t worry.”

Chan walked over walked over to the plastic mat and placed his feet on the middle two squares (yellow and blue). “You two go on that side.” He pointed. ☁️ stood on the yellow and green circles as Hyunjin stood to his left (on the red and blue circles). Felix flicked the spinner.

“Right hand on yellow.”

The three boys leaned forward, crouching as they placed their hands down. Chan nervously laughed as he waited for the next spin.

“Left hand on red.”

“Are you trying to kill me?” ☁️ asked, almost seriously. He looked over to Hyunjin to see how he would navigate the new instruction.

“Here, I’m going to place my hand on the third one up, you place yours on the second.” Hyunjin suggested, pointing at the circles to the left.

“Don’t help each other, it’s going to take longer.” Chan joked as he struggled to keep himself up.

☁️ whispered a ‘thank you’ as he rotated his body to face the left, crouching down to reach the red side. His left foot still on yellow while his right foot’s on green, the position became slightly more comfortable as he leaned on his toes. He felt Hyunjin’s sweater brush against his back as the boy reached down as well. Hyunjin whispered a ‘sorry,’ resulting in a very flustered ☁️ getting down lower to give him room. The two somewhat formed a plus sign with their bodies at this point, Hyunjin’s breath becoming heavy.

“Left hand on green.”

The three boys on the mat groaned as they repositioned themselves. “Is it okay if I put my hand here?” Hyunjin asked, slowly moving his hand past ☁️’s cheek to reach the green row. Now in a comfortable position, the boy noticed that Hyunjin’s face was inches next to his. He became flustered, trying to hide a bashful expression. Hyunjin turned his face to ☁️, smiling with a red tint filling his cheeks. He mouthed another ‘sorry.’

“Left foot on blue.”

Chan laughed out loud again as he now had two feet on blue and twisted his torso to reach the yellow and green circles. Hyunjin and ☁️ looked at each other nervously.

“Felix! Are you doing this on purpose?” ☁️ asked, not moving yet. Hyunjin didn’t move either.

“No, not at all, I’m flicking! See!” Felix responded, laughing. He shook the spinner to show them, though it wasn’t really convincing anyone.

“Okay, how are we gonna do this..” ☁️ half-asked Hyunjin as he tried making up his own mind.

“So, I’m going to put my leg on the third one and crouch down, so you can place your arms over.”

Hyunjin nodded and placed his foot on the second blue circle. ☁️ felt Hyunjin’s body crash into his, assuming that he fell as his chest was now directly against ☁️’s back. The boy held his breath as Chan and Felix looked at each other, trying not to laugh.

“I’m so sorry..” Hyunjin murmured, his chin now resting on ☁️’s shoulder. ☁️ choked on his words but managed something witty to calm himself. “Apologize when you knock the both of us down and make Chan win.”

“Right foot on yellow.”

“I didn’t hear you flick it.” ☁️ sighed and looked at Chan, who turned his head to face Felix.

“I did!”

☁️ placed his right foot in front of Hyunjin, as Hyunjin placed his foot behind ☁️’s body.

“Somebody fall.” Chan said as he struggled.

“You first.” ☁️ responded, smiling.

☁️ heard a flick. “Left hand on red.”

“See! You cheater!”

“I was flicking the whole time~” Felix smiled teasingly.

☁️ carefully lifted his arm and placed his hand past Hyunjin’s waist without looking over. His back now faced the boy’s torso. Hyunjin tried to turn his body but his hand slipped backwards, resulting in him kicking one of ☁️’s legs out. The boy fell directly onto Hyunjin’s abdomen, the two lying there in defeat. ☁️ lifted his head up and turned it quickly to scowl at Hyunjin.

“I’m.. so sorry.” Hyunjin said after lifting his head and upper body from the ground. He slowly ran a hand through his hair as an action of apology, though a smirk formed on his face when he saw ☁️ lying in between his legs, glaring menacingly. “Hey, I said sorry.”

Hyunjin laughed as he placed his hand under ☁️’s shoulder, lifting it so that the boy’s upper body was completely off of the ground as well. ☁️ sat on his feet. “You let him win.” he fake pouted, pointing at Chan, who was already standing.

“I guess that means extra cake for me.” The winner laughed.

“I can’t believe you not only let Chris last that long, but win.” Felix said, still giggling as he recalled watching the two boys fall.

☁️ turned his head to look at Hyunjin, the two locking eyes for a few seconds, though to ☁️, it felt like forever. He felt his stomach drop as he stared into the boy’s beady eyes. The bright light from the window behind wrapped around Hyunjin’s figure, almost as though he was heaven-sent. ☁️ came to the realization that Hyunjin was, in fact, still a crush.

“Hey, can you help me fold this.”

Chan had the mat by the edges, watching curiously as the two boys in front of him broke their gaze of each other. Hyunjin jumped up, grabbing the opposing end of the mat as ☁️ walked over to Felix.

“Is the cake done yet?”

Felix checked his phone. “38 seconds left. You guys finished just in time!” He said in a high pitched voice, teasing Hyunjin and ☁️ again.

“What exactly are we celebrating, again?” ☁️ asked as he spread cocoa flavored icing across the cake, which now sat on a large glass plate.

“We just made a cake. For no particular reason.” Felix shrugged, not taking his eyes off of the butter knife ☁️ was using.

Hyunjin brought a bowl of berries from the fridge and sat them in front of Chan. Picking at the berries alongside him, Hyunjin pulled out a chair and sat. Since the Twister game, ☁️ and Hyunjin had been making eye contact frequently. ☁️ wasn’t sure why or what it meant, but he couldn’t help but smile whenever it happened. Chan and Felix noticed, their eyes talking to each other as they silently agreed to break the ice.

“So ☁️, have you met anybody at the university?” ☁️ carefully handed the knife to Felix, then turned to face Chan. ☁️ figured he was referring to something specific, but wanted to play dumb.

“Yes, I met you guys. I’m glad we’re all friends.”

Chan and Felix anxiously glanced at each other, Chan preparing to word his question. Hyunjin glared at the two.

“I’m.. very glad that we became friends too, but I meant more so, as in.. a partner.”

☁️ mouthed an “oh” and shook his head. He looked down at the cake. “No partner,” he responded, looking back at Chan. “Why do you ask?”

Chan looked at Hyunjin, who furrowed his eyebrows. “How about you?”

Hyunjin shook his head, shy as he was now put on the spot.

“Well, that’s okay.” Chan shrugged, now seemingly feeling awkward for asking. He looked at Felix for help.

“Why don’t we play matchmaker while we eat the cake?” Felix suggested as he cut a slice out of it. Placing the piece on a paper plate, he quickly distributed slices. ☁️ glanced at Hyunjin, accidentally making eye contact with him again. “What about you two? Are you seeing anybody?”

“Oh, it’s not about us. We planned this get-together so.. now it’s your guy’s turn to...”

“Get together?” Hyunjin said, lifting an eyebrow. His eye twitched. ☁️ felt a knot form in his stomach, unsure of where this was going.

“With someone, yes! Exactly!” Felix said, nervously laughing. “Good answer.” Chan said, laughing at Felix.

The boys ate the cake in pairs. On one side, Felix and ☁️ went through Felix’s social media following, specifically looking for his university friends. Diagonal to them, Hyunjin and Chan did the same on Chan’s account.

“Guys, right?” Felix whispered, ☁️ nodding.

He tapped on a profile. The guy was okay, but not really ☁️’s type. “Nah, keep going.”

“Yeah, you can show guys too, it doesn’t matter to me.” Hyunjin whispered to Chan, though it wasn’t necessarily a whisper as Felix and ☁️ looked over to Hyunjin, whose eyes quickly glanced back at them, the boy now embarrassed. Felix went to the search bar and started typing. Hyunjin’s account came up.

“What are you doing, Felix.” ☁️ whispered, a sigh following his words. “You don’t like him?” Felix softly responded, his tone becoming serious. The two remained silent for a few seconds.

“Do you think he feels that way about me? I think he’s really attractive but.. I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you just ask.” Felix murmured. ☁️ looked over to Hyunjin and Chan, who whispered amongst themselves as well. “Absolutely not.”

“Would you like me to tell him?”

“Felix, hell no!” ☁️ half whispered, Chan and Hyunjin now looking at them. Chan looked at Hyunjin and cleared his throat. “Have you guys decided over there?”

“Yes, he’s picked.” Felix said, grabbing his phone from in between the two of them. Hyunjin’s profile was still on the screen. Chan and Felix locked eyes and began counting down.

“3..”

“What are you guys doing?” ☁️ asked, confused, him then bitting his lip.

“2..”

Hyunjin pulled his hoodie strings over his chin.

“1!”

Felix reached across the table to show Hyunjin his screen, Chan doing the same for ☁️. His social media account was on Chan’s phone screen, meaning that Hyunjin was seeing himself on Felix’s screen.

“See, matchmaker! We match-made.” Felix said as took his phone away and smiled to Chan. Chan took his phone away from ☁️, but he didn’t smile.

☁️ stared at the spot where Chan’s phone was once held. He face palmed, sighed, and then ran his hand into his hair. He looked over to Hyunjin, who stared at the table. His black hood was now over his head and the strings around his lips. ☁️ glared over to Felix and Chan as the room remained silent.

“Did you guys plan this whole get-together to do.. this?” ☁️ questioned, in a more aggressive tone than he intended. Chan shook his head innocently while Felix looked to the side and shrugged. The two looked at each other, Felix opening his mouth but hesitating. “Well, we didn’t base the whole thing around.. this, but-”

Chan interrupted. “But.. we noticed how the two of you admired each other. From the few times that we’ve hung out, everyone has noticed how you two look at each other from a distance.” ☁️ froze in both embarrassment and disbelief. Hyunjin always seemed to be so monotone and dull around him, the idea of him feeling the same way felt wrong.

Felix continued. “Hyunjin came to me one day and asked about y-”

“Okayyy.. let’s.. stop it here.” Hyunjin took his face out of his hoodie and stood up, still staring at the table. “This is.. humiliating..” Hyunjin turned to face Chan and Felix, Chan bending his head down and Felix smiling ruefully.

“I thought the outcome would be different, sorry guys.” Felix couldn’t stop smiling, probably out of discomfort. Chan grabbed Felix’s shoulder and started walked towards the living room. “How about we leave and let you guys talk it out.”

The two left, leaving Hyunjin and ☁️ to give each other dull gazes. Hyunjin walked around the island corner to stand in front of ☁️, who now leaned on the table with his right hip.

“Did you know about that stunt?” ☁️ asked, his eyes not leaving Hyunjin’s face. The boy shook his head. “I.. figured you didn’t know either. I’m sorry, that was awkward.. for us.”

“I mean… I don’t mind it all that much.” ☁️ replied, shocking himself by the statement. “Also, stop apologizing to me. You’ve done that a lot today.”

Hyunjin nodded his head and looked down. He smiled, unintentionally looked ☁️ up and down. “What do you mean you didn’t mind? You seemed pretty upset about it.”

“I know, I didn’t mean to come off that way. I just didn’t expect.. everything to come out like that.” ☁️ looked over to the living room entrance, Hyunjin and Chan immediately looking in a different direction from the conversation pit. “I was embarrassed, and still am. But I’m glad I know how you feel now. And now you know how I feel.” ☁️ looked back at the boy in front of him, now resting both of his elbows on the table behind him. Hyunjin nodded slowly.

“So?”

“So, what?” ☁️ turned his head to the side.

“So, would you want to go out sometime? Just us two?” As Hyunjin proposed the idea, ☁️ watched as Hyunjin played with the rings on his fingers. ☁️ couldn’t help but grin as he thought of a response. His body began to heat up again. He was obviously excited to be asked out by his not-so-secret crush, but wanted to play it cool.

“Mm, sure. I’ll leave it to you to pick the place.” ☁️ grabbed Hyunjin’s hand to stop him from fidgeting with his rings. A bold move, ☁️ screamed internally as he looked from Hyunjin’s hands to his face. He purposefully batted his eyes and smiled, making Hyunjin choke on his words.

“Ye- yea. I know a spot.”

Hyunjin grabbed ☁️’s hands back, intertwining their fingers. The two became startled as they heard claps from the conversation pit. Felix had his hands together, cheering the two on with a wide smile. Chan laughed at their reactions and gave the two a shy thumbs up.

Hyunjin and ☁️ smiled to each other bashfully as they continued to touch around each other’s hands. ☁️ noticed the light reflecting off of Hyunjin’s face again, this time, the orange and yellow tints exclusively illuminating his figure. It seemed as though ☁️’s crush was highly favored by something beautiful and ethereal. There was no contrast of the overcast’s cool tones as complete darkness now surrounded the home. The warmth of Hyunjin’s touch climbed up ☁️ ‘s arm, his heart beginning to melt as the two stood hand in hand. He stood only inches from the inimitable one and only.

Standing peacefully and unperturbed, ☁️ wasn’t sure what else to do other than play with Hyunjin’s fingers. Eyeing the boy up and down slowly, he contemplated on what to say next.

Softly snapping himself back to reality, ☁️ sighed and fixed his gaze over to Felix and Chan. The devious duo now talked amongst themselves. ☁️ opened his mouth ajar after turning to face the beautiful boy in front of him.

“They’re going to make this awkward now.”

Hyunjin moved his hands down to the boy’s wrists, using them to gently pull himself closer. ☁️ could now feel Hyunjin’s breath trickle down his neck as the boy’s knee brushed against his.

“I know.”

likes, comments & reblogs appreciated ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

a/n ~ i’m gonna be real with u guys, this story took so much out of me and it’s not even done :,o i’m going to put the rest in part 2, or even part 3 if it gets to that. my plan was to make it angsty but this is so cute so far, idk if i wanna do that. we’ll seeeee, thanks sm for reading my first posted fic rahhh <3

[a-weird-cryptid]

...I may or may not have created yet another MHA Oc

Name: Yumi Hoshino

Public Alias: Justice

Villain Name: Onryō

Age: 18

Quirk: Inheritance

Quirk Type: Emitter

Justice can collect the quirk of those she killed (similar to All for One), being able to stack them. Furthermore, she gains the memories associated with the quirk user from them, which makes it easier to learn how to use their quirk.

Weakness:

The observation of memories also creates heavy identity issues and inner conflicts between the "different quirk users" within Justice. This leads to her having a rather unstable personality with no consistent morals or ethics. The influence of the previous quirk users on Justice strengthens whenever they use the quirk from them.

Known quirks they have stolen over time (a quick overview):

Limit Break:

Allows the user to push their body to it's natural limits on command. (Similar to a controlled version of hysterical strength)

---

Weakness:

The quirk can not make a user able to do something outside of their body's limits, such as, for example, growing wings or punching through a thick brick wall it they have an average human body. (To get around this limit, they decided to steal the quirk "mutant" as well) The "power boost" is usually followed by a "crash" in energy, which makes the user very exhausted and tired. The longer they've used the power boost, the worse the crash that follows.

Mutant:

Allows the user to transform their body and give them, for example, extra limbs, parts of other animals, such as a dog's nose, etc.

---

Weakness:

The more they mutate their body, the harder it gets to control. Unwanted movements ("tics") become more common.

Elemental:

Allows the user to control one of the 4 elements (fire, water, earth, wind) at a time. This also includes "natural extensions" for said element, such as ice (water) or sand (earth).

---

Weakness:

The user can't use more than one element at a time and each of the elements requires individual practice to control. If they switch between elements too quickly, Elemental can temporarily get blocked because of over usage and needs to cool down.

Portal:

Allows the user to create temporary or permanent portals of various size through which they, allies or objects can go through in order to quickly go from point A to B.

---

Weakness:

The bigger the portal and the longer it's suppose to last, the more energy draining they become. The user can't control who or what can go through the portals, potentially leading to enemies using them as well. They can also only create portals between two places they have been to before.

Recognition:

Allows the user to get a basic understanding of other people's quirks, position and intentions.

---

Weakness:

In order to use recognition they have to make physical contact with their target. Using recognition it quick succession, such as on multiple enemies at once, can lead to migraines.

Disguise:

When activated, the user is able to disguise themselves as anyone they want in the eyes/from the perspective of perceivers.

---

Weakness:

This does not change the user's actual appearance. Non-organic reliant methods of perception, such as through cameras, are not effected.

Echo:

A passive quirk that doesn't require activation, which allows the user to fire any quick attack (physical or quirk based) back at the attacker and block out most of the damage done by it at the same time.

Weakness:

Just like a real echo, the reflected attack is slightly weaker and the echo user will still get hit with some of the damage.

Backstory:

Up until their mid teens, they and everybody else around them thought they were quirkless. They faced hardship both from their parents and from peers (bullies) because of it. Their dream of becoming a hero was seen as nothing but foolish, Then one day, their bullies threatened to off Justice and even tried to do so. In an act of self defense and out of pure terror and fight or flight, Justice takes the life of the bully who attacked them.

Suddenly, they felt a rush of warm and fuzzy energy, comforting them. Not fully aware of what they were doing, they decided to finish the job and chase down and get rid of the other bullies as well.

In the end, they were left with nothing but a bloody knife and a bunch of dead bodies around them. Once the high calmed down and they realized what they've done, they decided to run away in pure panick. When they realized they were able to use the quirks of their victims.

Realizing that and wanting to feel that rush, that euphoria from gaining new quirks again, they decided to "deal with everyone who ever wronged them". Addicted to the feeling they get by killing, as if it was a drug. One that makes them feel better in the short term, but slowly corrupts them long term, without them even realizing it.

Their desire for justice amongst quirkless people and quirk users slowly warping into a desire for power and control, fueled by revenge. One by one they "brought justice to both heroes and villains, secretly collecting powerful quirks all while remaining a "quiridess revolutionary" in the eyes of the public.

While many support their public persona, they secretly see heroes and villains alike as nothing more than a means to get more power. Their ultimate goal slowly turning. into the desire to transform society into one in which the quirkless are the powerful and dominating over quirk users. Justice slowly becoming more and more numb to the idea of killing someone.

Over time, they gathered quite a large following, but only a few, most dedicated and trusted followers are aware of their killing spree, them justifying it as a necessary sacrifice for their cause. Many of them even helping to bring powerful quirk users to their "Messiah" to kill. Eventually their popularity would lead to two other villains gaining interest in joining Justice, or rather, Onryō in their cause, forming a group known as the Order of Equality.

Previous quirk users - information:

Mutant, Portal and Echo: Quirks of the previous bullies.

Limit Break: The previous user of this quirk was a really ambitious UA student, who wanted to become a pro hero. They always looked out for others and were ready to endanger themselves to save them.

Elemental: A previous villain who thought that heros and villains who use gadgets are nothing more than amateurs. They sought out to fight only against those they deemed worthy appointments.

Recognition: A previous support hero whose idol always has been Ragdoll. Using their quirk and great analytical skills, they were always able to come up with the perfect hero gadgets for each individual.

Disguise: A patty thief who turned to this lifestyle because they struggled to get by otherwise. They might not be book smart, but they're definitely street smart, with a great set of basic survival skills.

[sknolls]

Maybe you'll find this helpful? But I think the concept of intelligence sort of dissipates as you get older. Because everyone works by their own metrics and specialties. Like, I couldn't tell you the first think about biology, that doesn't make me less intelligent than a dedicated biologist. Just means they specialize in something that I don't. And applies to shit that I'm good with too. It's all just experience. Even within the same profession, you wouldn't look at two brilliant artists and go "yep that one's smarter," without coming across as extremely reductionist. It's sort of hard to have a good relationship with a false concept.

I think the main thing that made me dismissive of the concept is that I couldn't define a coherent metric for it. Even as an abstract concept. Is Intelligence a measurement of the amount of information someone knows? One's propensity to learn and accept new information? Is it a collection of general knowledge or is it specialized knowledge? What information constitutes one's intellect? Is it a static variable or one that's in constant flux? Like, I've generally been above average at math in elementary school, but then I hit a brick wall upon reaching higher levels of it, which involved invoking a different set of skills. So, what does that say about my intelligence on the matter? Another potential metric for the concept is one's propensity to think. But the act of thinking, itself, isn't a measurable concept either. Like, it's the closest approximation to how I'll use the words "smart" and "dumb." Basically as ways of saying "you gave me a lot to think about" or "I don't think you've put in enough thought." But there's a more accurate set of words for that: thoughtfulness, nuance, etc. For the sake of comparison, I'd argue that wisdom is an abstract concept, but still a real one. It's the measurement of one's life-experience. It is abstract because it cannot be objectively measured, but its components are commonly understood.

Also, when I coin the term false concept, I'm just saying it's a concept people invoke and attach meaning to despite the concept itself being rather meaningless. When I say an abstract concept, I mean it's a concept that lacks quantifiability and yet still holds meaning.

I personally find talking about concepts and philosophies to be rather annoying because language is fundamentally imprecise. I dont think thats a fault of English specifically. I think it's more that language is how a person translates their thoughts into a format understood by their peers, and I think my autism just gives me a heightened sense of awareness to its function as a translator. Every word carries a degree of nuance and air for interpretation that makes communicating ideals, especially with non-autistic ppl, tedious. That's also why I end up using a lot of big words and coining a lot of terms; feels more precise.

I want to be smart and be seen as smart by others, its one of the only things I latched onto as a pup that could make me feel like I had something that neurotypical people didn't. It's at best a silly fantasy, but since I'm white I don't really know if I can have a productive relationship with "intelligence" in the first place. Much to think about.

[demonboyhalo]

The Technoblade Conspiracy

Even before Dream claimed there was a traitor in Pogtopia, there's been a lot of...suspicious activities happening in Techno’s streams. Others on the SMP are already distrustful of him, and the fans are as well, but I believe that we’re focusing on the wrong thing here. This thread isn’t quite a traitor theory, but rather a dive into what Techno has been hiding at large. I can say with utter confidence that the extent of what Technoblade has accomplished on the Dream SMP is being greatly underestimated.

I recommend looking at the sus Techno moments thread by @piggytechnobarb on Twitter for some of the stream clips I'll be discussing.

This is going to be fairly in depth, so the rest is under the cut!

1. There is another room under what Techno calls his "secret base"

I won't talk too much on how strange his choice of "secret base" is for now, but please do keep in mind how out of character it is for man-who-tracked-down-Squid's-college to settle for a home base so unprotected and close to Pogtopia's very well known location.

So, for some reason, there is Polished Blackstone Brick under the floor of Techno’s wall. He accidentally reveals this when a donation asks him to mine the exposed redstone in his wall, acts a bit strange for a good 15 seconds, and then never mentions it again. Sight of the brick prompts him to silently zoom in, fill the hole with stone (not cobble), and say "Don't ask questions".

This is only so strange because there's no real reason for him to have stone at the ready, or any blackstone brick at all. Techno is NOT a builder, and if a creeper blew up down there, he'd fill it with cobble and not give a shit about aesthetics. He doesn't use smooth stone in his base, and has never built with blackstone on stream. Not only are they unusual items for him to have, it's unusual for him to make a point to not have the viewers question it. Yes, it could just be Techno being dramatic, but why did he go silent for a straight 5 seconds at the sight of the blackstone?

Considering who he is as a player, it is completely in character for Techno to build a second base. The lake he lives under is incredibly near Wilbur and Tommy, and he's well aware that all an enemy has to do is watch his stream to infiltrate his base. Techno goes to the extremes when they aren't even required (Ex. His insane skill in party games, beating Skeppy in as niche of a game as Grinch Simulator, etc.) So I don't think it's a stretch for him to go the extra mile, and hide a bunker/resources/extra armour and what have you from even his own viewers.

2. The overpowered illegal villager farm

For those of you who don't watch Ponk, he recently stumbled across an area that is supposedly banned on the Dream SMP - a villager farm. In the clip, his voice is astonished and his confusion is palpable, and he goes so far as to say "It's a full scale arms race" because of how many good trades there are. The location is laced with traps, though he doesn't mention what exactly he had to get past to find the farm. Ponk's reaction is far too genuine for the farm to be his, but then that begs the question, whose farm is it?

...Who is willing to risk Dream's wrath by breaking his rules? Or, alternatively, who is capable of making a secret pact with the server owner to allow such a farm? The answer could only be Technoblade.

Ponk says it himself in the video, he does not have the time to build this. Whoever made this had to have carved out a hidden cavern, lead at least 14 villagers down there, breed them until only the ones with the best trades were left - all off stream, and without another player catching them. Whoever made this had to spend hours of work with no content to show for it, and who do we know has been grinding for DAYS on the server? Technoblade. Not to mention, all the villagers are numbered, and all but one are fletchers.

The signs above each stall are so important, because going so far back as SMP Earth, Techno has a history of dispassionately breeding mobs to his benefit, and then killing any mob not performing well enough. For example, his horse farm: where the horses stay in numbered rooms rather than all being named. The villagers in the screenshot above are numbered rather than named.

Wanna hear a fun fact about Fletchers? They're well known for accepting sticks for emeralds, but will also take string for that trade as well! And guess who has been seen waiting at the spider spawner collecting string by Sapnap, Awesamdude, Quackity, and multiple other players? Technoblade.

Technoblade also has every reason to be breeding villagers for special arrows and crossbows, because he's said on stream that he wants to try spamming multi-shot crossbows in combat to take out huge groups of enemies. He said at a later point that he had run into trouble with getting multiple crossbows with the enchantment multi-shot, and implied it wasn't going to happen. But has he ever been the kind of person to be stopped by something being challenging? Absolutely not.

Think of literally anything Techno has done - his Bedwars win streak, beating MC with a steering wheel, the Potato Wars - what I believe is really happening, is that Techno is lying about how equipped he is so that no matter what side he ends up fighting for, his enemies will have no true way of knowing how powerful he is.

3. Dream might be his secret ally (AKA The Glowstone Incident)

This brings us to a...confusing moment in Techno's stream that sparked a lot of questions. It pointed me towards 2 different, but not necessarily exclusive, theories.

The Glowstone Incident precedes as follows: Techno needs glowstone but can't find any in his chests, so he puts on his BRB screen. He says that he is "hacking" and asking Dream to use game mode to give him the glowstone. Typing can be heard, and then multiple chests are opened. Techno takes off the BRB screen and he now has three stacks of glowstone dust. This was absolutely bewildering to watch live, and was one of the most blatantly suspicious things he has done in front of his viewers. (You can find the exact clip on the thread I mentioned, it is...so weird)

Theory A: Though unlikely, Techno could be Dream's secret ally, and Dream really did use creative to give him the stacks. Or, he potentially gave Techno OP permissions so that he could get the glow stone (and any other materials he’d want) himself.

We all remember their meet up on that ocean hill, where Dream gives Techno golden apples, diamonds, and other such materials for the battle against Schlatt. It seemed to be a one-off gift that was more for Wilbur's benefit than Techno's, but there's potentially the chance that Dream saw an alliance to Techno to be more beneficial than working only with Wilbur, and contacted him off screen to make deals.

Going back to the Village Farm - for a player to get the exact enchantment they want for a reasonable price, breeding them is the most logical option. It's the route Techno would take regardless of Dream's rules on the SMP too, as he tends to show little regard for what the creators want (Ex. Taking over SMP Earth, exploiting Hypixel Skyblock, etc.) However, it could also be possible that Dream gave Techno permission to do this, and so the reason Techno is keeping the farm secret is so that the viewers don't know of their alliance.

Theory B: Techno has hidden resources in his base that he doesn't want anyone to have even the chance to see. Whether it is to hide from enemies watching (or to hide from Dream in particular because Techno knows he's breaking the server's rules) there are secret chests that Techno has with extra resources that can be heard loud and clear in the video.

They could be simple ones hidden in the walls...or in the blackstone brick base hidden under his floors. Saying he’s “hacking” rather than the reality of him just checking all his chests again is on par for Techno’s usual dramatics - yet we can clearly see that there’s no glowstone in any of his chests. This is why I believe he got the glowstone from some unseen resource. With the BRB screen on, Techno prevents his viewers from actually seeing how he got the 3 stacks of powder, and it keeps the location of his hidden materials safe.

Personally, I feel theory B is more likely, but there have been moments where Dream has acted Sus so...be on the lookout y'all.

4. Techno not participating in MCC

For those of you who watched Techno during the Potato War, many will remember that MCC 6 had a stressful undertone. Because of how much effort and time Techno had been putting into farming on Skyblock, taking a break to compete in another event was distracting. It ultimately led to him losing time that, from his perspective, would have been better off spent farming.

Techno might not be as blatantly grinding on the Dream SMP as he did with the Potato War, but it's undeniable that other streamers have seen him online for stretches of 10 hours and more. When asked about why he wasn't participating in the next MCC, Techno didn't say he was taking a break - something that'd be entirely reasonable and honestly well earned - he said "I don't want to."

It could be awkward phrasing by virtue of Techno's personality, but what I think is more likely is that Techno has learned from his past mistakes. Rather than "waste" time competing in MCC, Techno might be planning to use the time everyone on the SMP is gone to his advantage. He could sneak into enemy territory, set traps in certain areas, or maybe even perform some illegal acts that Dream would never allow. Either way, I suspect Techno has something planned for the 14th.

Honorable Mentions:

Dream poking fun, or blatantly covering for Techno?

This clip of Techno's secret Something??? next to the spider spawner, undeniably suspicious

Techno had around 5 stacks of wool in his inventory at one point - he absolutely could be bed mining the nether not only so that he has multiple sets of OP netherite, but possibly because he's preparing the gear for another person (cough cough Philza) or people

Techno's collection of ghast tears. He's studied Crystal PvP and made plenty of 2b2t references in the past (Look up FitMC for more info on those things) So it could be possible that Techno is hiding stacks of end crystals so that he can decimate multiple players in an instant

All in all, I'm 100% convinced that Techno has some serious plans hidden behind the scenes that he's not going to share until it's time for him to unleash utter chaos. We know he's keeping secrets, we know he's had the time, and we know he's capable.

I hope you all enjoyed my research and feel terrified of what Techno could possibly have done off camera :D

If anyone else has different theories, corrections to what I wrote, or other moments where Pink was Sus, feel free to comment!

[thegreatwicked]

1001 Lonely Nights

1001 Lonely Nights

GW

Pairing: Dean/OFC

Word Count: 11,465 Words

Rating 18+

Warnings: some angst, implied torture, shameless smut, spoilers. Explicit depictions of sex, dirty Dean, mild violence

Summary: A Sam and Dean Winchester original character series. Just a collection of one shots starring Sam/OFC and Dean/OFC, currently taking requests to add to this series.

No Beta, but if anyone is interested please let me know!

A/N: I love a good one shot. That’s not to say I don’t love a good slow burn, just sometimes I don’t have the patience for it. I have hundreds of ideas but nothing beyond one shots in my head sometimes and I just want to read a particular scenario, not a rewritten series to suit my OC needs.

Yes, requests for the 1001 Lonely Nights Series are open! Who knows how many chapters I will end up writing for this thing, and I may even adapt the Lonely Nights series to other TV shows, movies, comics, games etc. My fandoms are Marvel, DC, Assassins Creed, Supernatural, Once Upon a Time, The Walking Dead, among others. I'm not really into anime but it’s not out of the question, so feel free to leave suggestions for those categories too.

Also, these chapters will be fairly long ones and time and dialogue will be shifted around a little bit and as some chapters will take place before, during or towards the end of some episodes some scenes and dialogue will be cut entirely as we all know mostly what happens and you’re not really here to read a word by word rewrite of an episode as these are intended to be one shots, albeit some very long one shots. So if you notice any discrepancies then just roll with it.

Skin

Time is not your friend when you’re being held somewhere you don’t want to be. It either slows to a torturous, both literally and figuratively, crawl or it disappears entirely. Days, weeks, months… Years. Captors don’t usually keep clocks handy as depriving you of any sense of time can go a long way as to obtaining information they want, if that’s the goal. However, in this particular scenario that lack of a clock wasn’t on purpose as the circumstances that lead to Stella’s captivity had very little to do with planning and had in fact more to do with sheer dumb luck, but not on her part. The shifter had gotten the better of her and sometimes, no matter how much experience you have on the hunt, what you’re hunting can be better than you or just plain luckier than you and it was always the toss of a coin that made that determination.

Of course a shapeshifter could take the form of whatever or whoever it wanted, she just hadn’t expected it to take Dean Winchester, there was every chance that it was just as surprised to see her as she was to see it in Dean's form. But shock on both of their parts quickly fell away, although the shifters fell away a little faster than hers and it quickly got the jump on her. Shifters of course, not only could take the form of whatever they wanted but they also had an annoying penchant for taking on said forms strengths, weaknesses and possibly most dangerous of all, it’s memories and that made it difficult to determine who or what you were dealing with. So, while she was looking at Dean's rugged face, seeing for an instant a friend, it looked at her and saw only prey, prey that Dean Winchester just happened to desire.

The fight was rather one sided, much to Stella’s irritation, she was fast and despite the fact that she was a woman, she was no pushover, she still had little in her corner when it came to an advantage against Dean's superior strength. How much of it was Dean’s strength and how much was the shifters, she wasn’t sure but a kick to the chest sent her flying backwards against a painfully cold brick wall knocking the wind out of her and then something hard against her temple and everything went black, cold and wet.

Even if the blow hadn’t knocked her out, the disorientation would have made her completely defenseless, double vision, ringing in the ears and head pain in general was hard to combat even in fight or flight. And it was pain and an irritating tinnitus that gradually pulled her from unconsciousness. Once the tinnitus slipped away there was only a dull throb on her left temple from whatever had hit her, to contend with and it hurt like hell. The ache in her arms registered next, they were suspended over her head and her feet barely touched the ground. She had no idea how much time had passed, as the shifter wasn’t kind enough to provide her with a clock to check. In fact, she was still in the damp, dark tunnels she had entered however long ago, her clothes a bit damp from god knew what was on the ground and her jacket was gone allowing a chill to creep up her skin. It was cold and something wet was on her head, she couldn’t see what it was but the iron-like smell left no doubt. It was blood, her blood and it had trickled down her face and neck, and began to soak into the collar of her black t-shirt. Panic always sets in like an icy stabbing sensation, restrained, injured, vulnerable and from what she could tell, alone. Whatever was binding her hands was digging into the skin and it should have hurt but her body was only registering the most extreme pain which at the moment was her shoulders from being suspended. Her feet were able to find purchase on the ground and relieve some of the ache but not all of it, some was better than none as this particular style of restraint would cause a person to slip into unconsciousness in a matter of minutes. It had to be some type of cable that suspended her from what looked like a water pipe above her head but it was too dark to tell. There were no other sounds aside from the occasional dripping water, the scuffing of her feet and the occasional grunt as she tried to free herself.

That's when she smelled it. That god awful smell of decay, it was nearby,, earlier it wasn’t as pungent but now it was almost unbearable, searching the room she quickly found the source; a pile of skin on the floor. Skin, blood, hair and whatever else a shifter shedded when they changed their form. It was feet away from her and almost gag inducing.

“Holy God.” She muttered, crinkling up her nose trying to stem the smell.

“Not here.” A voice came from the darkness, a very familiar voice. She jerked her attention from the pile of viscous material to the sound, out from the shadows stepped Dean Winchester, only it wasn’t Dean Winchester and this time she knew it. It was his face but the eyes were unmistakable, inhuman… Cold and having a similar quality that a cat's eyes did when they reflected light in the darkness. “No God here, sweet cheeks.” The voice was cold and detached and very unlike Dean, his voice was always warm and usually had an undertone of either humor or anger, not this, this voice sent chills, the wrong kind.

The scuffing sound of her boots went away as she stilled, watching the shifter, it seemed so wrong of it to have Dean's face. Her breathing was slightly panicked but she hid it rather well, this wasn’t the first time she found herself in a dangerous spot, she was a hunter after all, play a dangerous game, win deadly prizes. The shifter approached with those eyes locked on hers, the scariest things in the supernatural world as far as Stella was concerned were the ones with strange eyes.

“Caught you off guard earlier, didn’t I?” It taunted as it stepped closer with Dean’s trademark mischievous grin, the very temperature seemed to change and grow colder, not unlike when spirits were near. “Guess I picked the right face for that.”

“Didn’t fool me for long.” She knew it almost right away but was still a few seconds too late, and the shifter knew it too, along with whatever else Dean knew. “It’s the eyes that give you away.”

The grin on its face would almost be charming if it wasn’t marred by evil “Yeah… These eyes make most people nervous. Do they make you nervous?” She scoffed lightly, not wanting to let on that yes, they did in fact creep her the hell out, it now stood directly in front of her, less than half a foot away, it didn’t smell like Dean either, that bothered her too. “Liar…” It taunted again, voice dropping a little lower. “You hate looking at my eyes almost as much as you hate looking at me right now. I wonder why that is…”

She knew what it was asking, but never being one to miss an opportunity to cause a blow to the ego, she didn’t bother resisting. “Because the eyes are a window into the soul, and you have no soul.”

That almost charming grin suddenly turned menacing and its lips curled into a snarl, she’d hit a nerve. A few seconds ticked by as she enjoyed the wounded look it had before a flash of movement at her side landed two hard punches to her ribs and stomach. Knocking the wind out of her, she coughed and sputtered, clawing desperately for air while trying to take the pain, probably a cracked rib maybe. The shifter seized her neck, forcing her to look up at it as it stood almost a head taller than her.

“Is that funny to you?” It snarled, “That I exist only for your kind to hunt me down, simply because I don’t have a soul? What kind of a sick joke is that?” She’d hit a raw nerve.

“It’s your lack of a conscience that leads us to hunt you down, not your lack of a soul.” Her voice was hoarse, expecting more punishment but she was both relieved and concerned when the snarl faded and that smile returned to its face. It’s grip on her neck relaxed but enough remained that he could hurt her, just a little squeeze, that’s all it would take.

“We’re getting off the subject.” It brushed her loose hair out of the way and one index finger followed the trail of blood that was beginning to dry down her neck. “You don’t like me wearing Dean Winchester's face. Or his body.” It stepped a little closer, a breath away now, giving her a contemplative look, as if it were changing its mind about something. “I can see it.” The shifter mused. “I can see what he likes about you.” It's finger tugged on the neckline of her shirt and he peered down with a grin, "Very nice." It released her shirt and it's fingers crept lower, sweeping over her breast, giving it an uncomfortable squeeze “Oh yeah, I can see it now, real nicely. No wonder he wants to fuck you raw." It leaned in to whisper against the shell of her ear. "You want to know what Dean thinks of you?" It paused, its other hand pressing her body into his and holding her in place by the curve of her hips, she could feel his hard body devoid of any real warmth. “I can tell you his deepest darkest thoughts…” It moved behind her continuing to speak hands continuing to drag along her body. “His fears.” Fingers gripped her hips from behind, pushing the hem of her shirt up to reveal taught flesh. “And every kinky thought he’s ever had about you, and there's a lot of them.” Fingers digging into her skin to the point of pain now, she didn’t like what it was saying, or where this conversation, if you could call it that, was going. “He’s got quite a bit of spank bank material and it's all about you, Stell.” Stell, Dean never called her Stell, only Sam did. She swallowed hard, trying to maintain an air of cool and unaffected, but everything the shifter said and every time it touched her she felt her skin crawl. "He likes these in particular," It's hands roamed over the curve of her hips now kneading softly, probably like the real Dean would. A slimy wet sensation against the skin of her neck made her want to retch, the shifter stuck its tongue out against her neck licking at the blood lapping at it all the way up to her ear. “You know, I was just gonna kill you, but now…” She could feel it smile against her skin. “I have a better idea.” Shit. The shifter breathed deeply on Stella's neck. “First I’m gonna kill little Sammy because I know you and Dean love him and then I’m gonna let him watch, and he’s really whiny and annoying. Dean would be better off without him.” It spoke against her ear again, fingers leaving bruises now against her hips. "I'll let Dean watch as I filet the woman of his dreams" It chuckled. “And I’ll wear his face and we’ll have some fun together. And then, then I’ll kill him so you can watch him die then I’ll kill you. Nice and slow, like I did the others.”

***

Sam forced his eyes open, shit, his head hurt, but then again a high five from a tire iron will do that to you. Trying to get up but finding he couldn’t he looked around and saw he was somewhere else now. Underground, near water for sure, and he was wrapped up in ropes against a steel beam of some kind, where the hell was he? The sewers, judging by the smell but then again sewers, from his questionable experience shouldn’t smell like decay. The fact that he had experience in what sewers smelled like bothered him almost more than being tied up in one. The light was dim and came mostly from candles set atop some old crates, there was nothing else he could make out that could tell him where he was with any certainty but all thoughts of assessing his situation quickly died away and his blood went ice cold in his veins when he locked onto a suspended form in the corner of the open space. Dark brown hair messy around its head, hands bound overhead and head dropped in unconsciousness, the unmistakable trail of fresh blood from what he knew had to be a head wound.

“Stella!” He called out to the figure but it gave no response, “Stella! It’s me, Sam!” Still nothing. “Stella, wake up!” But she didn’t, his struggles to break loose of his bonds renewed he pulled and twisted but nothing gave. He hadn’t seen Stella in at least a month, hell, he didn’t even know she was here, but he knew it was her, the Saint Christopher medal around her neck hung in perfect sight, and she never took it off. Saint Christopher was the patron saint of travelers and protection, the necklace was passed to her from her father who had died and was in the navy. He has no doubts it was Stella. “Stell.” He called her name again, not really expecting her to come to, he couldn’t even tell if she was dead, but if the shifter held onto its MO it likely hadn’t even gotten started on her yet.

The sound of scuffing feet in the background pulled his attention and emerging from the other side of the open space that he found himself in was Dean, only it wasn’t. It looked at him in a way that almost read surprise, as though it wanted Sam to think it was really Dean, only for a moment though, as it approached him and backhanded him so hard his head hit the steel beam behind him. He choked out “What did you do to her?”

The shifter smiled and glanced over to Stella, still out cold. “Nothing much, yet.” It moved around the room, Sam wasn’t really sure what it was doing, gathering tarps and rope. “But hey, she’ll wake up eventually and until I gut you and that brother of yours, you’ll have some company.” It walked away from Sam and towards Stella, pulling out a piece of duct tape and placing it over her mouth, not wanting her to be able to warn Sam. “I did damage her a little bit when she jumped me.” It shrugged, “She’ll be fine for now.”

Sam believed the shifter for the moment, it wasn’t really interested in Stella, his next concern was Dean. “Where’s Dean?”

“I’d worry about you.” It didn’t seem concerned at all about Sam, completely confident in the advantage it had.

“Where is he?” But Sam wasn’t swayed.

“You don’t really want to know.” A muffled groan came from Stella and both of their attentions had shifted, “Hold that thought.” It walked over to Stella and pulled out a large hunting knife and Sam's struggles to get loose began anew.

“Get away from her!”

The shifter held up a finger to its lips and mouthed a ‘shh’ as it reached up and sliced through the rope that had bound Stella's hands and she collapsed into its arms. “You’ll wake her up.” It whispered keeping the knife close to her neck as it hoisted her up into its arms. “Just gonna find her a more comfortable place to lie down.” Stella looked like a limp doll, head lolled back and Same could see the ‘damage’ the shifter had talked about, a small head wound and more blood than he was comfortable with seeing on his friend.

“Don’t you dare touch her!” Sam snarled back pulling and struggling as hard as he could.

“Oh, don’t worry Sammy…” It walked closer letting him see the blood and bruises in better detail. “I will, and you’re gonna watch.” The smile disappeared and it kicked out a foot which connected with Sams jaw, knocking his head back, not knocking him out but jarring him enough that the world was fuzzy and he saw double of everything, the shifters smile reappeared as it walked around a corner with Stella, casting one more glare at Sam. “Be right back Sammy.”

***

Being tied up against a steel beam gave Same something more to work with than what Stella had, he’d managed to get the tarp that the shifter had thrown over him at least off his head and was working towards trying to saw off the ropes that bound his hands against the steel. It was a slow process but he had to get loose and he had to find Stella, get both of them out of there, find Dean and make a plan. His harsh movements were halted when he heard a hoarse cough come from the other end of the room, somewhere behind him although he couldn’t quite see that far.

“That better be you Sam and not that freak of nature.” Good old Dean. His dry humor was unmistakable and Sam breathed a sigh of relief when he heard it.

“Yeah, it's me.” He almost laughed as he heard another tarp fall to the ground and he heard an even more pissed off Dean begin working his own ropes against the steel. “He went to Rebecca’s.” Sam paused, “Looking like you.”

“Well, he’s not stupid. He picked the handsome one.”

Sam paused. Definitely Dean.

“That’s the thing. He didn’t just look like you. He was you.” Dean paused at hearing what Sam was saying, equal parts creeped out and outraged. The sound they and both were trying for was a great relief, as the rope Dean was working had finally snapped and he began shucking off the ropes.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, it’s like he was downloading your thoughts and memories.”

“You mean like the Vulcan mind-meld?”

“Yeah something like that.” Sam's own binds were starting to slacken.

“Maybe that’s why he didn’t just kill us,” Dean pondered and he worked on getting to his feet. Sam's heavy sigh told him there was more to it than that.

“No, he has plans for the three of us.”

“The three of us?”

Sam signed before revealing what he knew would piss off Dean like nothing else. “It’s got Stella.” Dean instantly stilled and as Sams expected, his tone grew more angered.

“The hell do you mean it has Stella?”

“She must have been hunting it, but when I came to, I saw her. She was out cold. It took her somewhere else and said something about plans.”

Dean couldn’t dwell on that if he wanted to form any kind of plan, he had to distance himself from what was happening and gnaw at his conscience. Of course he wanted to find Stella and get her somewhere safe but if he worried about her for even a minute he’d be no use to anyone. “Maybe, it needs to keep me alive — A psychic connection.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Sam grunted as Dean approached and began helping him pull at the ropes. “We need to hurry and find Stella.”

“We need to get to Rebeca’s.” Sam's look of shock and concern registered on his face.

“What about Stella?”

“As long as it’s headed for Rebecca’s, Stella’s safe. She can handle herself, Rebeeca can’t.” Sam understood Dean's logic and to some degree he wasn’t entirely incorrect but it just felt wrong to bolt knowing Stella was there somewhere. All the same Sam nodded and they took off to find an exit, Sam hoping that he wasn’t wrong for trusting the faith his brother was putting in Stella.

***

Stella’s eyes bolted open and she was relived to find that she wasn’t in excruciating pain, nor was she suspended in the air, she was on the ground. Hands now bound with duct tape behind her back and more tape around her feet and there was tape over her mouth, rude. She was on her side on what had to have been the most disgusting bed she’s ever seen, and the sudden need for a scalding hot shower came over her, but later. She was finally in a position to do something about her bonds, thank god. Why criminals and shapeshifters thought keeping someones hand behind their back was a solid move was something of a mystery as it was just plain dumb. Stella’s favorite leather belt held more than a few secrets as directly behind it, hidden against the leather was a razor blade. A smile of relief washed over her face when she felt the familiar cold metal underneath her fingertips, it was glued in place so it took a few moments of fiddling with it and her thankfully long nails to pry it loose to where she could use it to start sawing at the duct tape.

Finally a break, literally and figuratively as the blade made quick work of the tape, a sigh of relief as her hands were finally freed and she pulled the tape from her mouth at least thankful that the tape prevented her lips from coming into contact with the mattress. The urge for a hot shower intensified as she took in more of her surroundings while she worked in the tape at her feet. The room she was in was much smaller than before, it was probably off a utility corridor and all it had was a mattress on the ground stained with only god knew what. There were cans and bottles strewn around, food wrappers that smelled like they had been there for weeks but to be honest she preferred the smell of rotting fast food over the smell of the shifters discarded skin. There were a few candles lit in what she hoped was the need for light and not meant for mood lighting, a shudder ran through her as she got to her feet and looked for something other than a razor blade to use but the room sadly didn’t hold much.

It was a good thing that rats didn’t bother her because they scurried across the floor in plain sight, she supposed any other woman would have shrieked but she knew that if she followed them she’d find one of two things, food or an exit. She hoped for the exit. Looking around outside the room she tried to find her way back to the room she was in initially a it had a litany of objects that could be used as weapons, hell, maybe her revolver was still there. Then she would hope for an exit, she had to find Sam and the real Dean, she’d sort out everything the shifter had told her later.

She hadn’t gone more than a hundred feet when the rats scurrying intensified and she heard the sound of shuffling and grunting became louder. She ducked behind some pipes and looked out into an arched doorway, something was standing in it and from the haircut and form it looked like Dean but instinct told her it wasn’t. It looked wounded and tired, maybe Sam and Dean had found it first. It staggered into a better view and to her horror it began too he’d it’s clothes and then its skin.

The sound of bones cracking was a sound she didn’t particularly like and she silently winced as the show continued, the shifter collapsed to the ground contorting into a profile of what had to have been sheer agony. The sounds of small hard things hitting the ground didn’t go amiss and after a moment of what she was watching she realized they were teeth, she’d never given much thought to what a shifter went through in the midst of a changing but now that she was watching it it had to have been painful as hell but after the things it had said to her and what it had planned she couldn’t say she felt much pity.

The sound of flaps of skin tearing and falling to the ground was sickening, blood was dripping freely and clumps of hair fell out as the shifter made it’s awkward way down the corridor, seeming to not notice her. It disappeared. Stella sat glued to her hiding place for at the longest minutes of her life, again, she had no idea how long she sat there but in the darkness she strained her ears for anything, any sound, any sign of life and after a moment she heard one but it came from the opposite end of the room here the shifter had come from. Moving quickly to the jacket it had discarded when it entered the sewers main room she found a hunting knife and breathed a minor sigh of relief, although unless the knife was pure silver, it wouldn’t be much help. Still, better than nothing. There was a shuffling sound nearby and when she looked to the source she found what had to be a human figure under a tarp, she glanced around the room searching for any sign of the shifter but it remained still, she pulled it off and found a very disheveled woman with blond hair tied up and looking like hell.

“Shit.” She looked like she’d been dragged by her hair and terror shimmered in her eyes. She knew the woman from the news, Rebecca something or other she was the sister of the suspected murderer who she now knew to be the shifter. Before the woman could utter a word, Stella clamped her hand down over her mouth and drew her finger to her lips, she whispered close to her brandishing the knife. “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re Rebecca, right?” The woman nodded furiously. “I’m Stella, I’m hunting the thing that took you and I’m not gonna hurt you, we need to get out of here. I’m going to take my hand off your mouth and I need you to not scream, ok?” She nodded again, slowly Stella drew away her hand and was about to slice the ropes when more sounds reached their ears and both women froze. “Shh. Stay calm, I’ll be right back.” Stella threw the tarp over her head again and hid looking out for the source of the sound.

The sound of footsteps echoing drew closer, but they were calm and measured steps, not shuffling like something in pain. Could the shifter have finished changing? Was it still here? Did it notice she was missing? She didn’t know but she was able to see the ground and a pair of boots enter the room and draw closer. A flashlight also lit up the room which didn’t seem like something the shifter would need, it shone on what looked like an altar with candles lit, small objects probably from past kills were illuminated and the figure wielding the flashlight drew closer. It approached their location and as it flashed the light over Rebecca’s from Stella struck. She launched herself out with the knife and enough force to knock over the figure who looked like Dean, skepticism colored her face as she held the knife to his throat.

“Stella! You’re ok!” He breathed, she hesitated for a minute and looked hard at his eyes. There was warmth in them and something else she couldn’t explain but her instincts told her it was the real Dean.

“Dean.” She breathed before letting up and withdrawing the knife from his throat allowing him to get up.

He looked at the knife and back to her, “Really a regular knife? You know they don’t kill shifters.”

“It’s got my revolver..”

There was a whimper from the corner, and they both turned to Rebecca, uncovering her again she looked both relieved and terrified at her and Dean, she suspected the shifter in Dean's form had paid her a visit.

“What happened?” Dean took charge quickly helping to right Rebecca and set her free with Stella, she sniffled and her voice trembled as she recounted what happened to her.

“I- I was just walking home and everything went white. Someone hit me over the head.” Stella scoffed.

“Yeah, it likes the blitz attack.” Stella mused helping Dean with the surprising amount of rope

“And I wound up here just in time to see that thing turn into me. I don’t know- - how is that even possible?”

“Ok. Ok, it’s ok.” Dean soothed in a voice that sent the utmost relief to Stella’s soul, that was the Dean she knew. “Come on, can you walk?” Rebecca nodded “Ok, we’ve got to hurry, Sam went to see you.” Stella’s eyes went wide as the three of them moved to leave the sewers.

***

The hands around Sam's neck grew tighter and tighter by the second, he didn’t want to believe that this was how he would die, not at the hands of someone wearing his brother's face. Not like this. Within seconds he would slip into unconsciousness and then not long after that, he’d be gone, but he refused to give up. With his strength fading, he reached up to the shifter trying to scratch, claw, jab, anything, his strikes slowed as oxygen slowed and the world around him began to grow fuzzy and fade around the edges. No.

“Hey!” A sharp voice that Sam knew so well called from the other end of the room and just for a minute the pressure eased around his neck, the shifter had a look of panic for a split second as the real Dean's voice cut through the tense air. It stumbled off Sam and backwards taking careful note of the gun that Dean held steady aimed at the shifters chest, Rebecca and Stella hot on Dean's heels.

The shifter held a look on its face that suggested he was about to make a plan or a mad dash but it didn’t get the chance, the sound of the gunshots shattered the night and the muzzle flare lit up the room. The shifter took several bullets to the chest and fell backwards as the silver rounds penetrated, it hit the wall knocking a framed picture to the ground before collapsing onto an ottoman, eyes lolling in its head as the last reflective glimmer of light dimmed. Sam struggled to his feet, blood obscuring his vision slightly after their fight.

Dean's face held a look of anger, contemplation, relief and caution all rolled up into one, having never killed a shifter before he kept the gun ready just in case. Silver rounds were what it took to kill a shifter but sometimes information was wrong, sometimes things weren’t what they seemed, but as the seconds ticked by and the shifter stayed still and the dust settled the occupants of the room breathed a collective sigh of relief. It was done.

Dean cautiously walked to the shifter, now dead and took the amulet from around its neck, the one it had taken from Dean to pass itself off as him. Inside its jacket he also found a revolver that had to belong to Stella, handing it to her she cleared the gun, glad to have it back. It was a strange sensation looking down at himself, dead. He wasn’t sure if he should expect the shifter to turn back into what it really looked like but to be honest he was relieved that it didn’t because one, he didn’t think he could stomach watching anymore bodily substances form and two with the shifter dead in Deans form it meant the manhunt for Dean would end. Hell of a way to end a hunt, looking down on your own dead body.

***

As Dean looked down at the map on the Impala’s hood trying to sort out what their next move would be, he was somewhat distracted, he’d read the names of several cities and towns multiple times before giving up pretending to read the map, just as Rebecca and Sam walked outside. Stella had done what she did best and made herself scarce after the shifter was killed, she wasn’t one to stick around on a good day but the complicated circumstances that surrounded the whole hunt had seen her tearing off on her motorcycle faster than usual. No playful ‘so long’ banter, just her taillights fading into the distance, given what Sam had told him after the fact he knew that there had been more than a few things left unsaid regarding him and Stella and he was certainly curious to know what the shifter had done and said.

“So, this is what you do? You and your brother, you hunt down these kinds of things?” The poor girl still seemed to be in disbelief despite what she had seen. Sam just gave her a matter of fact kind of nod before responding.

He chuckled because, what else could he do. Some Days it still sounded crazy even to him. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“I can’t believe it. I mean, I saw it with my own eyes, and…” She trailed off, it was a lot of knowledge to dump on a person and given that most people spent their whole lives thinking the things that go bump in the night were just stories, she was coping rather well. Sad thing was, she’d probably spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder wondering if what she saw was really what she saw and not something else. Dean didn’t envy that kind of revelation, it really was a sick joke that things like demons, vampires and shapeshifters existed but shit like Santa Clause the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy didn’t. Then again he wasn’t sure he wanted the tooth fairy to be real, the more he thought about it the more macabre it seemed. What kind of entity traded money for teeth, he shook the thought from his mind as Sam approached the car, having said his goodbye to Rebecca and now one more person knew the truth, knew more about the world than most people did or should. He gave Rebecca head nod in response to her wave before getting into the Impala.

So Dean was now a hunter and apparently a murderer, that thought didn’t sit well with him that his name was now sullied but on the other hand he was glad to hear that Sams innocent friend was being released soon, the guy had enough to deal with. He hoped he could find a way to move on with his life or what was left of it, at least he had his sister who never stopped believing in him. As the engine roared to life and Sam and Dean left St Louis behind them he smiled at the security his family could bring, he glanced at Sam and was grateful it was his brother riding shotgun and not the empty air, even if he did bitch about the music.

***

That hot shower that Stella was craving hours earlier when she was in a sewer was well received and it soothed a lot of the aches and pains that often came with a hunt, the bruises would fade in a few weeks and the butterfly bandage on her eyebrow would hold until it healed and in time she’d be just fine. But no matter how hot the water ran it couldn’t really rinse away the feeling the shifter had left from where it touched her, not that she didn’t try, her skin had been red from how hot and long the shower ran and it wasn’t until the water started to run chilly that she admitted defeat and begrudgingly turned it off. Stella was like Sam and Dean in that she favored simple and small hotels that often were fine with accepting false IDs or no IDs, preferred cash only, or would accept more cash to forget you had ever been there but after the ordeal in St Louis, Stella was feeling the need for a little more comfort than usual and a much nicer bed. She’d ridden for several hours north, eager to put behind her the experience and put some distance between her and Dean, still uncertain of how to even approach it. She wasn’t really even sure of what it was that bothered her, nothing had really happened, she got her ass kicked a little bit and the shifter supposedly had some freaky torture play time planned but it was what it had said about Dean that weirded her out. Why was she weirded out though? Dean was a guy, guys think about sex, guys think about lots of women and sex. Nothing unnatural there, and it didn’t bother her that maybe he’d thought about her like that but neither of them had ever really acted on it, or really accepted that there was anything to act on. Christ, what was she weirded out by again? She should have said her goodbyes to Sam and Dean instead of bolting.

They weren’t really what you would call close but neither of them would even try denying that there was something between them, some spark, some something. She had met the hunting brothers maybe six months prior and the three had gotten on great and had even bumped heads a few times since, Sam always offering a happy smile and Dean always there with a quick comment on how great she looked and that he loved the kind of woman who could kick his ass even though she was pretty sure she couldn’t. Dean was like that with most women he met though, just a shameless flatterer and unstoppable flirt.

The experience with the shifter hadn’t made her look at him differently, not by any means but it was what the shifter had said about Deans inner most thoughts, those alleged thoughts didn’t bother her either but something about the experience and finding out about those thoughts in the way she did felt just wrong. Like somehow she’d been eavesdropping through a third party, either way she probably wouldn’t be seeing the brothers for a few months at best and she had time to sort out this shit and the next time she saw them if anytime soon she could either conveniently not remember anything it had said, or she could play it off and focus on whatever new case she was working on. Yes, that was it, that was exactly how she’d play it.

Combing through her damp hair working out any remaining tangles did wonders for her after being in, you know, a sewer and she felt human again. What. A. Day. She was definitely ready for bed and in the morning she’d be back out on the road on her bike, she’d received a few emails with some interesting articles about unexplained happenings in different parts of the country, people asking if she was serious in offering help with the paranormal and what she was pretty certain were a few trolls. So, she’d settle down for the night and decide on the next course of action based on what was nearby and what was most urgent. Her cell phone sat silent on the dresser and she was about to fall into bed when a knock at her door drew her from the state of calm she was in.

“Just a sec.” She called out reaching for her revolver from her rucksack and carefully approaching the door, glancing out the peephole she blinked several times, Dean? She looked again, it was still him, keeping her gun handy she cracked the door enough to glance out, the chain preventing someone from barging in right away. “What are you doing here?” She was more than a little surprised that she was seeing him again but not only that, also that he had found her hotel room.

He glanced at the chain and then at her. “I’m good, thanks.” He responded to a question that she never asked. “I’d love to come in.”

That sounded like Dean. “Hang on.” She shut the door and unfastened the chain, setting her gun on the dresser nearby before returning to the door, letting him in for a conversation she was positive she didn’t want to have. He stepped inside, sans Sam, Stella glanced up and down the hall looking for him but he wasn’t anywhere where to be seen.

“Sammys in our room two floors down.” Stella’s eyebrow raised in confusion.

“Why are you here?”

“Had me one hell of a day, I killed myself and felt the need for some slightly nicer digs than our usual crap motel.” She latched the chain again and then the deadbolt, feeling exactly how he felt in her soul, but she felt there was more to his presence than just wanting a nicer hotel for the night. “Saw your bike from the highway and decided to get some early rest.” She nodded, wondering just how casual she could keep this encounter. “And I wanted to make sure you were ok.”

“I’m fine.” It wasn’t a lie, physically she was fine. Mentally, she wasn’t any worse off for the wear than usual.

“Yeah, that’s why you took off like a bat out of hell.” All humor had faded from his demeanor “You wanna tell me what you were doing in St. Louis? Or what I missed in that sewer?”

“I was on a job, same as you. I was in the area and saw the news report. The surveillance video didn’t sit right with me so I reached out to Noah and he suggested that I check it out, and gave me a few leads.”

“And how’d that end up with you in the sewer? Sammy said that the shifter had you tied up and you took a bit of a beating.”

“Shifter got the drop on me, wearing your face. Can’t say I wasn’t surprised, but it was enough for him to knock me out. Woke up once, had a creepy conversation, I must have passed out again because I didn’t see Sam. Woke up, got myself out of there, that’s when I ran into you and you know the rest.”

Dean had great instincts and intuition, his ability to read people was something Stella hadn’t really seen before and right now it was telling him something was just slightly off. Not that anything was wrong, not really but it didn’t let him just leave, he wanted to know more about this creepy conversation.

Dean took in the bruises and the butterfly bandage on her eyebrow, pretty light in terms of scratches and scuffs but he still didn’t like them. He knew Stella was tough on her own but the fact that ‘He’ had done those things didn’t sit right with him, there was something he wanted to know. He had picked up the implication from Sam that the shifter had maybe some unsavory plans, aside from murder and Stella wasn’t really the type of woman to just come out and admit when she was hurt or when something bad happened. “Did he hurt you?”

Stella knew what he was asking, Dean wasn’t stupid and she wasn’t sure what had taken place while she was out, or what Sam had seen or even what the shifter had said to him. “No.” A few quiet moments passed, she nodded towards the rest of the room as standing in the entryway wasn’t very comfortable. “What did Sam tell you?”

“Said he came and saw you tied up hands overhead and out cold. He saw blood and the shifter said he had plans for you. Didn’t elaborate much but at one point you started to come to so he cut you loose and took you somewhere else. Not long after that Sam and I got loose and went looking for it.” More silence, as Stella listened to events that she had no memory of, not even a dream like recollection of hearing Sam's voice.

She shook her head, “Couldn’t tell you that. No memory. I woke up in what I assume was the master accommodations and I got downgraded from rope to duct tape, got my razor and managed to get loose. I made it out in time for the shifter to come back and I got to see a horror show when it started to… shed. Found Rebecca not long after that and then you.”

He couldn’t dance around what he wanted to know any more, he had to ask. “What did it say to you?”

Jesus, she wished she had a beer. “Creepy shifter stuff. I’m gonna kill your friends, I’m gonna torture and kill you, etc.”

“What else?” How did he do that? “I know it said something else to you, you’ve been cold and distant since we finished this.”

“How do you do that?” She hadn’t meant to ask that aloud, but still his ability to see past bullshit was impressive. “I told you, stuff about you. Said it could tell me your fears, your thoughts, stuff like that.” She left out the kinky parts.

“Sam said it sounded like it was downloading my thoughts.”

“Yeah, I talked to Noah. Apparently shifters can do that, once they take a form they have a physical connection to they have access to your thoughts, memories, things like that. So long as the original person is alive. Probably why he didn’t kill you straight away.” When she turned back around, Dean was right there.

“Anything else you want to tell me?” The way he phrased the question gave her pause, like he knew what the shifter had said. Her eyebrow quirked up, well, she may as well. The more she thought about it the less the knowledge she had bothered her and the more it began to sound funny, and she was kind of done with this whole ‘angry Dean’ thing. She scoffed lightly before meeting his gaze.

“Yeah,” She lowered her voice a bit, and she watched the uncertainty in his face gave her the final push to spill what she knew. “It told me that it knew your deepest darkest fears and inner most thoughts.” She paused, “It said you had some dirty thoughts too.” A look of shock came over him, whatever Dean expected her to say that wasn’t it. “Apparently you have a bit of spank bank material and I’m the star.” The angry Dean disappeared and stunned Dean now took his place. “So, did the shifter lie to me?” Dean swallowed hard and said nothing, it made her wonder what was he expecting her to say?

Stella waited, wanting to hear what he had to say. Stunned Dean began to fade away and another Dean she didn’t see very often appeared, a serious and humorless Dean, it was a little unnerving. He took a deep breath and met Stella’s gaze, before replying with one word. “No.”

“Anything you wanna tell me?” She mimed his question back to him. It felt good to confront this, but she was more than a little nervous about what he would say next.

“Yeah, I wanted to tear the fuckers head off for two reasons. One for wearing my face to hurt people and two for putting its hands on you. If I’d had more bullets I’d have pumped every single one into him. Makes me wanna puke thinking of what it had planned, pisses me off that he did that to you.” His voice had started calmly enough but as he spoke it became angrier and angrier, his hands clenched into fists at his side, his shoulders tense as he looked over the finger shape bruises on her hips and his eyes grew wide in anger, he hadn’t noticed them before due to the darkness that shrouded the last 48 hours but now given the warm hotel room and the white tank top she was wearing they couldn’t be overlooked. “Is that all?”

Stella shrugged, “It didn’t elaborate on any of those thoughts.” Dean seemed to calm when she placed her hand on his chest in a lazy fashion. “Would you like to?” The anger subsided and the corner of his mouth turned upwards as her fingers fisted the material of his shirt.

Facts were facts and the facts read simply life as a hunter was dangerous and it could be short so if there ever was a group of people who agreed with the expression ‘seize the day’ the hunter community certainly could and it carped the fuck out of that diem. Dean didn’t hesitate and he closed the distance between them and his lips crashed against her not hard and fast but firm and passionate, the stubble on his chin scratched at her skin but it felt good and her lips gave way to his, pulling on the fabric of his shirt with one hadn’t while the other slipped around his neck. Monogamy wasn’t a concept that worked for hunters, not really, Stella wasn’t stupid, she kew there had been women before her and there would likely be women after. Dean wasn’t her soul mate, she wasn’t even sure she believed in the concept but she had certainly wanted to fuck him and based on how he was trying to rid her of the tank top and sweatpants she was wearing the feeling was mutual. Likewise Dean had no expectations that she would wear his ring or doodle his name on a notebook, she’d be with other men but his ego would always insist that he was the best she’d ever have.

Dean kept a simple wardrobe of jeans, boots, cotton t-shirts and flannel and although Stella could appreciate its simplicity, she’d rather appreciate it on the floor. She clawed at the gray t-shirt and it was quickly tossed over his head then flung into some corner of the room sight unseen. With her tank top joining his own discarded shirt a moment later, their states of undress matched for a second, before Dean pushed the drab army sweatpants down her long legs and lifted her up onto the dresser allowing her legs to wrap around his waist bringing him closer.

Their lips, tongues and occasionally teeth clashed, not in a dueling fashion like the angry sex you read about but more of the so-excited coordination was a little too much to handle, kind. She was getting tired hearing their teeth click together after the third time it happened and she seized his lower lip, causing a sharp intake of breath from him and a deep groan as she slid her tongue into his mouth while one hand pressed hard against his denim clad erection, her other hand tugged at the soft sparse hair that trailed down into his pants. He groaned against her lips a muffled word that sounded like it was meant to be a breathless ‘fuck’ but it came out to muffled. Dean had always liked Stella, she was smart, determined, tough and rather straightforward with whatever was on her mind, being a guy, he’d often wondered what this side of her was like and he was pleased to see that it was just as straightforward as her normal self, just with more tongue, lips and legs involved. He loved the sensation of her bare legs wrapped around him, a woman's smooth and soft skin against his was something of a kink for him and he had always been a legs and an ass man. With one of his hands stroking its way up her thigh to grab a handful of that ass he’d often found himself staring at the other working at the clasp on the back of her simple black bra. Lingerie was great sure, but it was meant to be savored and appreciated and while he appreciated what they were doing very much, there wasn’t much to savor about her simple black bra and panties, nevertheless he had wrenched his mouth away from hers to take in the sight for a moment. Stella, dark hair slightly tousled over one shoulder, lips slightly swollen, brown eyes hazy in lust, black bra strap slipping off one shoulder in a way that was oddly irresistible. The only part about what he was seeing that he didn’t like were the dark finger shaped bruises on her hips just above the boyshorts she wore. She met his distracted gaze before following it to see what he was stuck on.

“Take a picture Winchester, it’ll last longer.” She teased trying to lighten the mood just before grabbing at his belt buckle pulling him back to her, he was still a little distracted. “They’re just bruises, Dean.”

“I’m more irritated with the thing that put them there and-”

“Dean, you’re thinking too hard.” She punctuated the last word with a deep kiss while she worked the zipper of his jeans taking care to pull it down painfully slowly before she slipped a hand inside his pants. He groaned into her mouth and thoughts of the shifter began to fade away as she pumped his cock and lust began to cloud his mind, he seemed to allow the distraction because he didn’t say another word on the subject. Stella was a hunter and she had probably been through worse but it was his protective nature over women that always made him look at her like a doll in need of protection, even though she was quite capable on her own. Dean loved a strong woman and the thought of Stella kicking ass out there turned him the fuck on. The bruises were still there but he’d just leave marks of his own and the heavy panting from Stella as his mouth traveled down the hollow of her throat just spurned him on. “Dean,” She breathed in desperation as one of his hands slipped beneath the cup of her bra, exciting the flesh he found there. Stella had great tits and apparently was a bit sensitive as he brushed his thumb over her nipple her breath came out in a ragged breath, more so when his mouth followed.

Her legs were still loosely wrapped around his waist and he could feel her feet pushing on the waistband of his jeans and with surprising dexterity they slipped down his thighs. Fuck, this woman did things to him.

His cock was rock hard against her hand as she gave him a slow pump from base to crown rubbing her thumb over his head working the precum that had seeped out, “Fuck,” his hips bucked slightly as her grip tightened on him, “Goddamn Stella,” Stella pushed him back and slipped off the dresser and walked him awkwardly back to the bed as his pants were around his ankles before pushing him onto his back. Before he could form a sentence he felt her nails against his hips as she pulled his boxer briefs down, then taking him into her mouth. The sound that escaped Dean was primal and guttural, and while Dean was a very smart guy and a surprisingly extensive vocabulary, the only words he could manage were variations of ‘fuck’ ‘goddamn’ ‘hell’ etc. He’d allowed himself, many times to fantasize about this very act on nights when he was hard, and horny but there was no comparison when it came to his hand and some lube versus her hot mouth.

His chest rose and fell rapidly as Stella worked the head of his cock with her hot mouth and her talented tongue, he was starting to lose it and if he didn’t get himself under control soon he’d blow his load and as good as it would feel, it wasn’t what he wanted. Not entirely. Stella seemed to pick up on this or sucking him dry wasn’t what she had planned either because she slowed her pace and drew to a stop giving him a few parting licks. He surged forward taking her face in his hands slipping his tongue past her lips, Dean Winchester knew how to kiss and what he was doing was making Stella wet and wanton. “Lose the bra and panties. Need to fuck you, baby.” He muttered against her lips, that hot little tongue darted out to lick her lips and she nodded.

Dean quickly worked on his boots and pulled off his jeans and underwear, tossing them aside, making sure to grab a foil packet from his back pocket. He rolled the condom on after he ripped it open with his teeth. “Planning on adding to your spank bank?” She asked, finding it interesting that he just happened to have a condom on hand, or maybe Dean simply was like a big naughty Boy Scout and was always prepared.

“Hell yeah.” He settled back onto the bed pleased to see that Stella also had rid herself of the simple black bra and panties and he was more than a little surprised to see a few tattoos he didn’t know about. The image of Stella crawling naked on the bed towards him, wow, just wow. Their lips met in a searing kiss, tongue mingling, tasting and teasing as she settled into his lap, hovering over him. “Need to fuck you baby.” He mumbled again, Stella nodded, somewhat surprised of the seemingly passive role Dean was taking in sex, or maybe Stella was reading him wrong, thinking him to be the type of guy who always took charge and like to be on top. Although as she looked down into his hazy eyes she could think of nothing sexier than his hands on her hips, eyes meeting, neither really above the other, but equals. Fuck, now that was sexy as hell.

Dean's hand stroked the skin of her hips and settled on the soft curves of her ass, gripping her and guiding her to exactly where he wanted her, his eyes nearly rolled into the back of his head as she sank down on his hard length. Stella’s head lolled back and what Dean could only describe as a strangled moan escaped her lips. “Fuck!” Her chest heaved, it had been a hot minute since she’d had sex, hook up culture for hunters was easier for men rather than women and while Stella did just fine on her own there was no comparison to the real thing. The feeling of hot skin against hers, slick with sweat, Dean's hands gripping her hips as he thrust upward muttering expletives of his own, goddamn it was amazing.

“Holy shit,” Dean had every intention of taking things slow tonight and letting Stella run things for a little bit but it had been a hot minute for him too and he’d forgotten just how good it felt to actually have a woman in bed as opposed to trying to keep quiet while in the shower with his brother in the next room. There was an unspoken agreement that Sam and Dean didn’t talk about what the other was doing in the shower, there was teasing later about washing Sam delicate hair and how Dean didn’t need to spend too much time or product on his but hey, they both knew what the other was doing. Fuck. Why was he thinking about what he and Sam did in the shower? Stella’s lips on the shell of his ear, not saying anything but just there her hot breath bringing him firmly back to the present. “Goddamn, you’re fucking tight.”

Yeah, he couldn’t maintain the original plan. Stella gave out a slight yelp when Dean seized her legs and lifted her enough that he could get leverage to throw her onto her back on the bed without breaking their connection. He breathed a sigh of relief when his complicated maneuver didn’t give him a broken dick. He’d seen pictures. Cringe. Stella’s eyes went wide and rolled to the back of her head when he thrust deeper than their previous position would allow, especially once he threw one of her legs over his shoulder. One of his favorite positions, mutually beneficial. His medallion swung in the air as he thrust forward and back, trying to go a little deeper each time even though he bottomed out with every stroke. Beads of sweat were clinging to his brow and his eyes bore into hers, the room filled with heavy panting and the temperature grew warmer.

The friction caused by their new position was sending Stella spiraling faster and faster towards an impending orgasm and Dean knew it, she grew tighter and higher around him and it was taking everything in him to not lose it before she did. Dean had a reputation but he would never leave a woman unsatisfied. Still it was hard to stay in control, “You're fucking amazing Stella, but I’m gonna need to feel you come on my dick.” He had a devilish smile on his face and he brushed a finger against her lips which she sucked into her mouth, mimicking what she had done to his dick. God it was hot, he slowed his pace a bit to where she released his fingers in protest and he let them trail down her chest lightly touching and stroking, occasionally pinching until they reached the apex of her thighs where they were joined, slipping between them to stroke her clit. The desperate cry that wrenched itself from her lips, Dean had largely stilled his movements with the exception of the occasional slow thrust as he toyed with her, he watched as her lips trembled and her body writhed against him, she mouthed the word ‘fuck’ several times. And with each stroke of his fingers coating with slickness, he could feel her getting closer, “That’s it baby, I can feel you getting there. And it’s hot as fuck.” He worked her faster taking her mouth with his, slipping his tongue past her lips swallowing the noises she made, her hands desperately clawing at him bucking her hips trying to spur him into motion. “Not yet, not till I feel you come.”

The words were far from dirty talk but it was sensual and did just what he wanted and in an instant it snapped through her, gripping him like a vice as he felt her flutter around him. Stella bucked hard against him and moaned his name against his lips several times.

It took a minute or two for Stella to come down the the post orgasmic tremors, breath coming in short bursts, she met Dean's cocky gaze as he brought his fingers to his lips sucking on at a time. “Need you to fuck me, Dean”

He loved it when women talked like that, he wasn’t one for the euphemism of ‘making love’ but something about a woman using the word ‘fuck’ in reference to sex was just… hot.

“Hold tight baby, you’re still gonna be feeling me in the morning.” Dean pulled out but only for a moment before flipping Stella onto her stomach then back onto her hands and knees, one of his hands wrapped up in her hair. There was only a moment of hesitation on Dean's part before he pushed forward filing her again. “Hard and fast, yeah?” Stella nodded. This time he didn’t slow his pace, he thrust furiously one hand fisted in her hair pulling her head to the side so he could lick the shell of her ear, something he figured out that she loved. All sexy playful banter from Dean had halted and was replaced by feral sounding grunts as he slammed harder against her ass with each stroke.

Stella couldn’t believe how quickly she was headed toward another orgasm, sex with other men hadn’t been this primal, raw, to be fair she was lucky if she got off once, but that was not the case here in this hotel room with Dean pounding into her from behind. “Fuck, Dean, I’m gonna come again!”

“Fuck yeah, you are.” His clever fingers reached around again and found her still sensitive slit and resumed stroking, featherlight touches in comparison with his hard and fast cock.

“Oh, God, Dean!” Impending orgasm number two hit her hard almost as immediately after he touched her, it ripped through her again causing her to cry out, as seconds later Dean followed driving hard once more, twice more third stroke was the charm and it took all his resolve to not collapse on top of her, crushing her.

The primal sounds that had previously filled the room died down to slowed, shallow breathing. Dean rolled over and walked to the bathroom, presumably to dispose of the condom, a few moments later he returned to see Stella, combing her fingers through her sex hair now wearing his grey t shirt, post sex looked good on her. “My shirt looks good on you.”

“Nothing looks good on you.” She returned gesturing to his still very naked state as he crawled on the bed to join her sinking into her lips for a much slower heated kiss. When they pulled away he pulled her down on top of him against his chest, he arms wrapped around her and there was a low rumble in his chest of contentment. “When is Sam expecting you back?”

Dean smiled with closed eyes, hands grabbing a handful of her ass, “Sammy’s a big boy. He’ll be fine on his own for a night. I’m staying as long as it takes.”

“As long as it takes?” Stella lifted her head in curiosity.

Dean gave her that grin that Winchester men were known for, “You asked if I wanted to elaborate on my spank bank material.” A knowing look came over her face and she chuckled.

“And how long do you think that may take?”

“Could take all night.” Stella sucked hard on a spot on his neck, leaving a bright red mark that Sam would no doubt give him shit for the next day but he didn’t care. His dick did though. Her mouth trailed lower and lower down his chest, stopping at his hips sucking hard on the skin there.

“Guess we better get back to it.”

***

Yikes, that was long. Hope you all enjoyed this one shot of an OC I thought up a very long time ago and have simply been too lazy to write into the Supernatural series because one it just takes a long ass time to rewrite it all and two let's be honest, some of us are just here for some steamy stories with out favorite characters. Don’t forget, requests are open!

GW

[headoverheelsforramsey]

Hello, hello! This week, we are going on a little:

Home Tour!

Notes: Answer the following with pictures (dialogue from your characters is optional!). Collages are highly encouraged if you want to answer a question with multiple pictures because tumblr mobile only allows 10 total pics. Otherwise, tumblr on a desktop lets you add multiple pictures (non-beta)!

For both:

What does the outside of the home look like? (Front/back yard, garden, pool, etc)

Living room and home office (if any)?

Kitchen and dining room?

Bedrooms? (Master, guest, others)

Other rooms?

Do you own your dream home? If not, what does that dream home look like?

What is your favorite room to spend time in with each other?

Super super late to this, because of my stupid exam but now we are here so let's go! 💃🏽🏠

A/N : I am placing this two years and seven months after the wedding, because I HC Ethan and Meera staying at Ethan's apartment for two years after the wedding and they only start house hunting when they have the baby talk and start trying for a baby. So technically not newlyweds anymore. Now let's get started! ✨

Meera opens the door and greets Bree.

Meera : Hii Bree, welcome to our humble abode.

Bree (chuckles) : This place is anything but humble. I hope I am not causing much trouble.

Meera : Absolutely not. Who else is going to make me feel like a youtuber?

Both laugh, Ethan joins and greets Bree.

Bree : Congratulations on the good news Dr. Ramsey. How far are y'all?

Ethan : Thank you Bree. It's been 3 months already.

Meera (cradling her small bump) : Yup one trimester down two more to go.

Ethan (kissing her forehead) : And then there will be a mini version of you running around these halls.

Meera : Nope it's gonna be a mini you.

The couple shares a look as if challenging each other.

Meera : Fine, Bree, whose team are you on? Do you think it'll be a boy or a girl?

Bree : I am happy with either because at the end I'll be interviewing him or her too.

The three of them share a laugh.

Bree : Let's get started, shall we?

Ethan : Sure.

What does the outside of the home look like? (Front/back yard, garden, pool, etc)

Front :

Meera : We were looking for something modern yet chic, something that is totally us. I fell in love with the design whereas Ethan was in total awe of the open space and glass doors. Needless to say our heart was stuck on this no matter how many more houses we visited.

Backyard :

Ethan : The backyard also doubles up as the garden but it's not quite completed yet.

Meera : Yes it's been two months since we moved, and we haven't been able to work on the garden because of work and the pregnancy. Ethan : But we want to build a garden with a tree house and maybe some swings.

Meera (too excited) : Ohh swings! Yes please add it onto the list. Why didn't I think of it before?

Pool :

Meera : Definitely my favorite part!

Ethan : She is a water baby through and through so that's no surprise.

Meera : Don't act like you don't appreciate me in a swimsuit, Ramsey (winks)

Ethan : There is no denying that.

Living room and home office (if any)?

Living room :

Ethan : Meera was hell bent on having an L-shaped couch.

Meera : Those things are so bougie I had to have one because now I can finally afford one. But yeah the living room is so relaxing with a beautiful view of the outside.

Home office :

Meera : Honestly speaking, I do not understand the utility of a home office, I didn't understand back at his apartment neither do I understand now. If I am supposed to work from home I can do that on the couch or on my bed or even better on the daybeds by the pool.

Ethan (shaking his head) : You'll get it darling. When you start your maternity leave I'll see how you make zoom calls with the pool as your background.

Meera shrugs.

Kitchen and dining room?

Meera : This part was all Ethan so I'll let him do the talking.

Ethan (proudly) : A Poggenpohl kitchen with a granite-topped island adds an ultramodern touch. Glass shelves display colorful glassware convenient to the wet bar. A translucent sliding glass door below the shelves hides the more utilitarian gadgets. And finally playful mod pendant lights seem to levitate over the dining table, which is meant to resemble a river running through the woods.

Meera : You sure you didn't miss your true calling as an interior designer babe?

Ethan (smirks) : Nope, just the fact that I tend to excel at everything I do, Rookie.

Meera : And that makes you 10 times hotter!

Bedrooms? (Master, guest, others)

Master bedroom :

Meera : The bedroom has a different color scheme and tone from the rest of the house because I wanted it to stand out and break the monotone.

Ethan : Again the chandelier was Meera's opinion.

Meera : Finding common ground between his minimalistic taste and mine was difficult but we made it through.

Master Bathroom :

Ethan : Meera I don't think it was necessary to bring Bree in here.

Meera : It was absolutely necessary! Just look at this tub Bree! The bubbles and champagne dates we have here are a total hit.

Guest rooms :

Ethan : We have two guest rooms and both are styled the same way, but unfortunately we haven't had any guests yet. 

Meera : Is it unfortunate Dr. Ramsey? Bryce is just a call away from crashing here. 

Ethan (pinching the bridge of his nose) : Anyone but Lahela.

Meera : We haven't thought about the baby's room yet. But we have the nursery now. 

Ethan : Yes, maybe we'll turn the nursery into a bedroom or one of the guest rooms in a few years. Let's see.

Nursery : 

Meera : This was completed just yesterday hence the delay in the interview, Bree. 

Ethan : We decided to keep the gender of the baby a surprise so we went with a gender neutral nursery that matches the colour scheme of the house. 

Meera : Also because Ethan Ramsey would rather die than paint the walls of his house pink and blue. 

Ethan (rolls eyes) 

Other rooms?

Home library :

Meera (takes in the smell of books) : Better known as my safe haven. 

Ethan : This was absolutely non-negotiable for Meera. 

Meera : We both own a lot of books and the collection keeps on increasing now with the baby incoming. And look at this reading space. It's from my dreams. 

Ethan : This is tucked away in a far corner of the house and is the most serene place around here. Once, I returned home from the hospital and called out to Meera a hundred times, she didn't answer, I started panicking and then found her silently sitting here in her own world. 

Meera : If I ever go missing please check here before running to the police, because once I am in here I forget the existence of the world.

Bree picks up "Peppa pig's super noisy Sound Book" which was kept on a thick medical journal with a smile. 

Ethan feels embarrassed but Meera laughs. 

Meera : Yes these are the new ones in our collection. Ethan was reading it to the baby before you arrived. 

Home Bar : 

Ethan : The wine cellar grew into a home mini bar because we had this unused space left. 

Meera : He loves showing this and his collection off. 

Ethan : Excuse me! If I remember correctly your friends were very impressed as well. 

Meera : True that. Bryce went bat shit crazy during the housewarming party. He said he felt he got back his bartending days.

Ethan (proudly) : And Jackie's exact words for that evening's toast was "to hell with Donahue's" 

Meera : Yeah yeah, you did a great job honey. Also the more surfaces the better for us. 

Ethan : Keep it PG for the love of God. 

Meera (shrugs) : Pregnancy hormones. 

Bree (points) : And that? 

Ethan (facepalms) : The only thing that doesn't match with the vibe here.

Meera : Nonsense! It was a housewarming gift from my friends and I absolutely love it. Ethan just feels it is a cheaper and juvenile version of his favourite game, soccer. But don't worry Bree, I'll get him to play someday. 

Ethan (smirk) : I would very much like to see you try Dr. Ramsey-Bose.

Meera : And I'll see how you say no when your son asks. 

Ethan : It's gonna be a daughter. 

Meera : We'll see. 

Do you own your dream home? If not, what does that dream home look like?

Ethan : For the majority of my life home for me was a structure of bricks and cement with a ceiling but Meera was the one who brought all the love and light and showed me what a real home felt like. So for me, my home is where my heart is and for this lifetime it's kept safe with this gorgeous woman whom I fortunately call my wife. 

Silence lasts for a couple of minutes then Meera snorts. 

Meera (drying her eye) : Damn you pregnancy hormones, I am not even wearing waterproof mascara. It was super cheesy Ethan, a non pregnant me would have definitely called you out on your cheese but this pregnant Meera has to agree with you. Even a stable is my dream home if I have my dream husband with me. (she kisses Ethan) but I wouldn't mind a Jacuzzi, a home theatre, a game room (laughing)

Ethan (an easy smile on his face) : Always knew you were in it because of the money Bose. 

What is your favorite room to spend time in with each other?

Meera : The library. Just him reading to our unborn child like he isn't already the most perfect man in the world. 

Ethan (a very satisfied smile on his face) : First I am very surprised that you kept it PG. So the obvious answer is the bedroom but other than that, the patio, which is not a room though.

Ethan : Meera has a slight deficiency in vitamin D so to avoid complications, we spend a lot of time here in the sun. We play board games, read and even discuss work here sometimes.  

Meera : Ooh yes! This was another great investment and a great way to utilise the humongous outdoor space we have.  

Ethan : I hope you had fun Bree. Thank you so much for doing this. 

A quick shoutout to @a-crepusculo and @jamespotterthefirst who came to my rescue when  I couldn't add more than 10 pics. Also thank you Bree for doing this you are a star and an angel. 💜

Tagging my usual : @starrystarrytrouble @mm2305 @charisworld @choicesfanaf @potionsprefect @genevievemd  @shanzay44 @little-flowers-on-heaven @schnitzelbutterfingers  @coffeeheartaddict  @gryffindordaughterofathena @chemist-ana @adiehardfan @custaroonie @ireneadlerisseggsy @takemyopenheart @natureblooms24 @mainstreetreader @izzyourresidentlawyer @a-crepusculo @quixoticdreamer16 @starryeyedrookie @barbean

+ @openheartfanfics

Please let me know if you want to be added or removed. And if you want to sit out only the answers to the ask games hit me up too. There won't be any hard feelings. I promise. 💜

[kamak17]

Omg ok i’m gonna talk about uh. Sivanthru! They can and will be reffered to as sivvy or siv for short. OC of mine who lives rent free in my head 24-7 that i made up like. 2 years ago. They were initially just a one-off thing but oh no i’m attached now. My baby. I have only really talked about them with my irl bestie so why not here too

So, Sivanthru’s a ‘little’ magic computer who lives in/is comprised of a brick cave. I haven’t really drawn them colored that much since they’re a rectangle with a rather cutesy looking simple face/single large eye face (used for more serious moods it depends). They’re the, in their own words, “Legendary Beast of the Tiles”! Legendary Beasts in this world are powerful immortal magic beings who are supposed to eat/kill monsters. (they are not all-in-all doing their best at that rn, so people who become monster killers, like my main cast, have become more common since monsters have been on the rise too…)

Anyway, Sivanthru’s a special beastie who has different roles. They aren’t made for combat. but are made for surveillance! They constantly collect footage from anything that can be considered a tile, bricks walls windows etc. They have been doing this for centuries but more buildings have been made given industrial revolutions so they feel perpetually overwhelmed. They’re still attempting to manage regardless. They’re very cutesy and speak in a rather high-pitched yet not gendered voice, and are pretty patronizing tbh. They love chastising people by mentioning very specific embarrassing moments from their past, as well as calling people anything but their actual name to annoy them. (messing up tsunaga to be like. hiya tsuyatsu! hiya tsusamsung galaxy 2.0 and other shit like that)

The cave Sivanthru’s in/is is in the middle of a forest that their creators enchanted to act like a maze. Why people have to go through a magic tree maze to find my little computer? Since they can also grant wishes! Or more so give a piece of magic energy that can be used as a wish when the person so chooses but like whatever. They can also make portals by opening up tiles to make inky holes for their own uses but have been threatened to not do so willy-nilly for summoning people. Though their creators haven’t been around to enforce that for centuries…

Anyway. To get to where Sivanthru’s relevant in the story they decide to lure the team (Tsu the water dragon and Ali & Jay the electric cats) through an alleyway and make a portal under them, transporting the team directly to Sivanthru’s building/them. The monster killer team were given a mission to find them but even their bad boss is like “yeah no i don’t care. Just do whatever this week you’re not finding some wish genie in the forest.”

Sivanthru’s like “OMG you’re here! Well you still need something and there’s a reason you must have needed me, i know since i’ve been watching you since you’ve been born and heard that mission request. You need a wish!” And puts them through a trial in their own artificial *trial dimension* (magic ensues) “please do not think of triangles ONLY SPHERES while i’m moving you to the magic trial dimension controlled and operated by me sivanthru your bestie or you will suffer a fate worse than death” (they just say ‘don’t think of triangles’ since they really need people to not think of turtles and know these guys would probably get hung up on triangles and other shapes.)

Anyway. They kinda distract the crew by starting them out being like: “oh well i haven’t really thought of what the trial is. I could force you to kill 10,000 monsters (everyone in team but Ali reacts negatively) or like host a game show! (jay: yay!) on your insecurities! (jay: no!) or…we could just like stay here and hang out…”

And uh yeah they end up distracting the team for nearly a week by giving them whatever they ask for, placating and isolating them. It’s mainly just time they need, these guys haven’t had a real break in ages… however tsu is eventually like “wait a minute the weather has been perfect yet unchanging for like. 5 days i'm getting ali & jay and getting out of this place f u” and tries to find the others. That takes ages due to sivanthru interfering but she eventually finds them all and confront sivanthru with the fact that she wants to LEAVE now and begin the actual trial

But ah, this was so fun for them. (they're so lonely no one comes in this fucking cave) So. Sivanthru starts dissolving the dimension (think like. the space that they're in becoming tiles and falling apart as behind it is glitchy text repeating over and over and over again GET OUT. this is actually sivanthru's thought current not a threat to the party but they thought like“well that's behind everything in this fake dimension and showing that would make these guys scared so sure”)

Anyway. Sivanthru then gets reallll serious and threatening and is like “Do you really want to leave? Even if the world out there is crumbling and when it dissolves you'll still resist anything. even if your loves break from stress if the root of evil stares at you through the abyss, you'll fight it? REALLY?”

And the other two are terrified while Ali (autistic cat girl) is just like. “Yeah no dip”. And sivanthru immediately shifts and is like “YOU did it! *throws confetti and like. game show win noises* “The trial was actually to just refuse this shit and say no to me and return to your depressing lives where you kill monsters for $5 and have a combined $30,000 in medical debt. AND YOU WON!” (magic ensues) sivanthru: “please do not think of squares only hexagonal tiling allowed or you will suffer a fate worse than death.” (sivanthru just need them to not think of mucubes here. we get silly with it.)

After that the team's back and they get 3 wishes and are whisked away end episode.

Oh right can you tell i want to make a tv show with these bastards huh. CAN YOU TELL.

but we're not done yet. Sivanthru’s not done yet. Some time later Sivanthru summons the team again and is like, “Please my dear friends. well i know we don't get along perfectly…” (looking at tsu and the time siv forced them through 10,000 annoying rooms of her least favorite things, tongue-eating lice when she needed to find her friends/coworkers) “But you do care about getting rid of monsters right?” “so please. retrieve for me the seichan root seed (seed of far more pure form of the darkness that corrupts animals to make monsters)”“i need it for. research purposes. please y'all for me? i'm smart enough to do it i just can't get one. it's at these coordinates pls”

They guide the team to get the seed for them while planting misleading ideas on how the seed works, though through the team's own research they find that ‘hey this seed might not be the best to give to them they might just use it for power’ but they haven’t completely agreed on whether or not to avoid it since after all. They could be genuine and find a useful weakness of the corrupting seichan root since mortals aren’t getting anywhere. 

They eventually decide to bring it over, though  the final thing that sets them off that this isn't right is Sivanthru loosing their usual cutesy cadence and NOT being like. excited to recieve the seed. They’re looking at it with a mix of awe and remorse that the team was able to get the seed here, such a powerful and dangerous artifact of death, and orders them to leave through another portal while leaving the seed on the ground unguarded (this portal is not under the team, but to side.)

This final thing of Sivanthru being for once, seemingly calm and formal ticks them off, and Tsu tries to put the seed away. Sivanthru realizes that for the first time there, they’ve slipped enough that even these guys can see through it, and freaks out. Sivanthru triggers an earthquake by shifting the floor bricks in their cave to try and get the tsu to drop the seed, but Tsu manages to hold on and put it up in her bag of holding. sivanthru can't get it from there as they don't have hands so they’re very much devastated and their mind is racing.

and then the team's like “great you’ve probably been trapped here for a goddamned reason. and you're a fool too that seed would just take your magic energy and grow to world-eating size- (siv's like. a magic bank so. quite a bit of energy for that evil little seed) “-and it'll kill you.” 

And then siv's like *checkmark correct noise!*, shocking them into silence, and continues, “I don’t want to be here. This world has been falling apart thanks to the monsters and seichan root spreading exponentially. My comrades, the other beasts, have been failing to stop it efficiently, and I don’t want to be here and watch all of you people, your settlements and homes and families, be destroyed and eaten by monsters. I want to leave. So-” and then they get one of the team members Jay away and make a brick box around them, and start slowly lowering the ceiling of said box in a threat - “Give. The seed. To me. You’ll get to have him back and be able to leave this building and go far away from me. GIVE IT TO ME.”

So uh yeah. Ten seconds no training turns out that presumed power-hungry maniac is a traumatized suicidal prisoner. Ok. Tsu’s like “Ok. I don’t like you and we both know that, but please don’t crush it and kill yourself.” While Siv’s like “You’re only saying that since that’s in your interests. You just don’t want the inevitable destruction that would occur when the seed takes me over.” And Tsu retorts “-but you’re also a person who, no matter what, shouldn’t die. If it’s in my power to get you to stop, please do. I don’t think you even want this, I’ve never seen you so empty as when we came with the seed. My personal feelings on a person doesn’t mean I don’t want them alive.” Sivanthru does slowly stop crushing their friend/brother here, as it’s getting to them a bit…

Then, Jay joins in with “I know that things feel hopeless now, but please hold on. I’ve been there before, but others have been able to help and comfort me, and we’ll do the same for you. A guiding star of hope might seem faint, but it’ll come soon enough.” These finally suede Sivanthru, and they release jay. Yay they aren’t literally going to crush you know. Sivanthru’s more so stalled and defeated here. 

The final team member, Ali the cat girl, is like “I’m happy that we got you out of that, but it feels wrong to just leave you here now…” and she pulls out the last wish the team has, and decides to use it to ask for an audience with Sivanthru’s creators and tell them to let Sivanthru be free from their cave. Siv’s like “...Are you aware of the risk that is. They could just burn you to a crisp.” And Ali’s like “I’d prefer if we did everything in we could to get you out, right here and now. After all, who says we can’t be your star of hope?” The team uses their final wish to teleport to Sivanthru’s creators, the most powerful legendary beast pair of fire/earth and water/ice elements, and miraculously, the two listen without complaint and teleport all of them, including Sivanthru, to the regular town square of their city. (yay they’re free now!)

Afterwards Sivanthru’s like “Sunlight. For once. This is the first time i’m outside of that forest cave…thank you all so much I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.” extremely sincerely. And then they get back to their more cutesy voice and are like “Oh right! Yeah, I forgot about money. Here’s 100,000 dollars each go pay off your medical debts and buy a house or something. I still owe you but yeah ok byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” and they just like float up to the sky. Their head is just a single brick and can be any “tile” now. The team is extremely overjoyed in both a “wow i’m amazed that worked” and since this is the most useful thing anyone they’ve helped gave to them. move over feather of fair weather and talon that pierces through anything we got MONEY (this money is just stolen from the banks of millionares. siv can't create things from nothing and it's not like mcricherson is using it)

So yeah. That’s not even all of it they later have a whole quest with the team, officially commissioned, to revive/kill their sister (whichever works she’s kinda in a bind rn), elephant-tapir jesus christ. But that’s later and this is 4 fucking pages of lore I'm done.

^they look like this btw. if you even care

you guys should tell me about ur ocs

[heloflor]

About MML season 2

So after rambling about one season 2 episode, I now want to rant a bit. So here’s a list of reasons why I find season 2 weaker than season 1. Obviously, this post is mostly me complaining about some stuff so, if you don’t want to hear about it, don’t read.

Note that this is a personal opinion and you have every right to disagree with it. Also, the points given aren’t sorted in any particular order of importance.

For those who don’t want to read the post (because you don’t have time/aren’t really interested/ can’t stay focused for too long etc) or if you only want to see certain points, here’s a list of what I will discuss here :

- Murphy’s Law seems weakened

- Dakota and Cavendish are like looney toons characters and more time is spent on them getting hurt rather than on their interactions with each other, which makes their plot boring

- Compared to most Dwampyverse couples, Zack and Melissa have no development

- Doofenshmirtz is annoying but does have his few moments

- A few jokes take too much time; in particular, “Cavendish Unleashed” makes me straight-up angry because of that

- They wanted to make a plot for Zack but it goes nowhere

- other smaller things like the lack of time spent on the school characters

Now, onto the longer version (very long post ahead) :

1. Less Murphy’s law

So in season 1, Murphy’s law was a main focus for the story, in the sense that it was pretty strong. Most episodes had stuff blowing up or getting destroyed. And often, you end up thinking that people got hurt by such mess. Take episodes like “Worked Day”, “Family Vacation”, “Murphy’s Lard”, “The Little Engine that Couldn’t” or “Milo's Halloween Scream-a-Torium”, to cite some of the most extreme cases. And yes, not every episode is like that, and some are even pretty chill when it comes to Murphy’s law like “The Race” or “The Substitute”.  Also, Murphy’s law was conveniently turned off except when convenient for the story in major episodes like “Missing Milo” and “Fungus Among Us”. But overall, you really had that impression that Milo’s life was chaotic and explosive and hard to live by.

In season 2, there definitely were episodes in which Murphy’s law was strong, like for example “Freefall”, the ending of “Teacher’s Feature” and any episode with the aliens, in particular the last three episodes of the season. But for the most part, Murphy’s law mostly felt like an inconvenience rather than an actual problem. For example, you have “Walker, Runner, Screamer” in which like one problem happens or “Disco Do-Over” in which Milo very easily solves his parents’ problem. It also doesn’t help that both episodes have at least one character make a big deal out of Murphy’s law.

But aside from that, there are also episodes in which Murphy’s law doesn’t even seem to really happen. Like in “Lady Krillers”, “Spy Little Sister” (I’d argue that the lightbulb accident would have happened regardless of Milo’s presence) or even “Cake ‘splosion” in which Murphy’s law is there but overall it feels more like Milo overcoming the show’s obstacles.

So yeah, Murphy’s law is still present but at the same time it doesn’t feel as strong as the first season. And while it does give more time for Milo and co to have some character development I guess, overall it just feels kind of off. And now that I think about it, this lack of a mess in the A plot in a show that’s meant to be chaotic might be the root for my next complain.

2. Dakota and Cavendish are too cartoony

 So in season 1, the B plot was my absolute favorite thing in the show. I couldn’t and still can’t get enough of these two idiots and how they play off of each other. But in season 2…let’s just say that I barely watch their plot during the first half of the season, and the reason is simple : Cavendish and Dakota are a joke in this first half. Their plot is all about them trying to get something and stupidly get hurt by it, and it just feels boring.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against these two getting hurt. After all, they failed basically all their missions in season 1 and looked dumb while doing so. But the thing is : 1. In season 1, it was mostly because of Murphy’s law so it wasn’t always their fault and 2. The main thing about them in season 1 was their interactions. The most interesting thing about them has always been how they act with each other, at least in my opinion. Heck, my favorite B plot (not episode but B plot) is from “Abducting Murphy’s Law”, an episode in which all Dakota and Cavendish do is talk to each other in different places. It’s just two guys talking, and yet I absolutely love this plot.

So yeah, you don’t need to make Dakota and Cavendish be incompetent idiots for them to be great, you just need to make them interact with each other. That’s also why, out of all their “collecting trash” plots, my favorite is in “Lady Krillers”, because I love the first half with Cavendish complaining while Dakota is being baby while listening to music + their dumb argument over moving the bag and then Cavendish getting scared and Dakota immediately getting protective. This is fun ! This is cute ! This is very dumb and I like every second of it !

On the same note, I can’t stand the B plot of “Disco Do-Over”. The idea isn’t bad and the old lady is a great one-of character, but overall the plot is just urgh for me. The only thing I like is when Cavendish says that Drusselstein sounds made up (I guess Professor Time never wrote an autobiography) and Dakota starts listing made-up words, only to end up smiling at Cav while saying his name slowly in a borderline flirty way, as if he enjoyed every syllable of it. But thing is, I consider that, when shipping is the only thing I care about in an episode/plot, it means that it’s bad. And “Walker, Runner, Screamer” is in the same vein. I can’t stand the plot.

There are actually two things about these plots that I thing really pisses me off (the fact that these plots don’t have much of the duo playing off of each other doesn’t really pisses me of, it just makes the plot boring) :

First of, it makes Dakota seems completely incompetent. Yes I know he wasn’t a first-class agent and even in season 1 he wasn’t that athletic or anything but there was still the feeling that he knew what he was doing. He always managed to steal from Brick and Savannah or know where the duo was, he was able to save Cavendish hundreds of times and finally who knows what the Mississippi purchase was. So while he wasn’t the best, there was some competence. But in season 2, it’s more or less gone.

And for my second pet peeve : Cavendish’s mortality. In season 1, it was established that Cav had a hard time staying alive and could die from tons of different ways, including falling from great heights or getting sent through a wall by a horse. And while we do see him survive a giant rolling rock in “Murphy’s Lard”, Dakota still makes a comment asking if Cav is alive.

But is season 2, it seems like they completely forgot about this part of his character. The worse has to be in “Loot at This Ship” in which he somehow survives when messing with the ship. But earlier in the season, there’s also “Lady Krillers” in which he survives a bull attack three times ! Though, what really pisses me off with that isn’t just the fact that he survives for the sake of comedy; it’s Dakota. In this episode, Dakota has no problem just running away and letting Cavendish get attacked by the bull ! And it’s the same thing in “Disco Do-Over”. When Cav tries to sneak into the garden and gets attacked, Dakota just panics and runs away ! I swear the first time I saw this I was like “Excuse me ?!”. Because you’re telling me that Vinnie “sacrificing himself over and over again with no regrets for Cavendish” Dakota is now ditching Cav in situations he finds dangerous in order to save himself ???

I’m sorry but it pisses me off. It might just be me overreacting but seeing two characters whose main strength in the story was their banter now interacting less and getting hurt more, with one of them going against everything he did in the first season; this just angers me. And so when I watch season 2, I tend to skip most parts of the B plot (which makes me watch like 1 min of episode for “Lady Krillers” because the A plot is very meh. “Disco Do-Over” has an adorable A plot tho).

And last note about these plots, I didn’t mention “Field of Screams” and “Managing Murphy’s law” because I tend to forget about the first one that I find pretty meh (the entire episode, not just the B plot) and the second one has a B plot based on cringy humor and I’m not really into it, though I do really like hearing Jeremy getting more and more tired of Dakota and the hug at the end is such a cute and underrated Dakavendish moment. Also Dakota makes a dad joke near the beginning and I absolutely adore that.

I also didn’t mention “Freefall” because it’s fine. Dakota is being Dakota (and I adore this dork), we start to see Cav get genuinely angry about his job which sets the root for the second half of the season, there’s one scene in which the two are clearly very bored and for some reason it makes me laugh, and the action scene is fine (also damn Cavendish knows how to fly a plane !). But I find “Freefall” to be a good episode in general so yeah.

3. Zack and Melissa

 First thing first : I have nothing against the ship itself. I’m not a big shipper when it comes to child/teens characters but I completely understand why people ship them, and I agree that they have personalities that mix well together. And honestly, this point is probably my most minor complain.

That being said, I do believe that their relationship has basically no development. Or at least, if you compare them to other couples in the Dwampyverse. Because thing is, Dwampy tend to have pretty high standards when it comes to couples. I mean, if we look at every canon couple + a few fanon (aka “here’s my need to infodump about random stuff nobody cares about”. This part will be in italics so, if you want to skip it, you can see where it ends) :

- Phineas and Isabella : since the first episode, we see that Isabella is attracted to Phineas. And throughout the entire show, these two are always willing to help the other, with Isabella always wishing to help in any way she can with the project of the day and Phineas always wanting to make the best projects when it comes to Isabella (just look at how he gets upset in her birthday episode when the finale doesn’t go according to plan). So yeah, they’re two kids in love with a very sweet friendship that you know will evolve into a relationship once they get older and understand relationships better.

- Ferb and Vanessa : Ignoring “Act your Age”, this is the usual trope of a young kid falling in love with an older person. And just like with Phina/bella, it’s made clear that Ferb likes Vanessa and is willing to do anything for her.

- Candace and Jeremy : Same kind of relationships. Candace is clearly head-over-heels for him, Jeremy often gives her presents since the beginning of the show and overall is always patient and understanding to her. It’s very sweet and it’s satisfying to see them get together and know that they will stay that way.

- Linda and Lawrence : While we don’t see much of them, it’s made clear when they’re together that they genuinely love each other. Same for their respective parents.

- Vanessa and Monty : A very organic relationship. It’s two teens who find each other attractive and, after randomly finding each other in the same place, decide to talk and learn more about each other, eventually deciding to start dating. It’s pretty sweet.

- Sara and Neal : These two are just fucking adorable ! They’re two awkward nerds in love and the episode when they get together really plays onto this and it’s the most adorable thing. And while we don’t see much of them, at the beginning of “Love Toboggan”, it’s made clear that the two have seen each other enough for their respective families to know that they like each other.

- Amanda and Milo : Another duo of cuties. The idea of a relationship between them is hinted very early, in “Smooth Opera-tor” in which we see that Milo likes her. And throughout the show, we see them getting closer as Amanda learns to accept Murphy’s law and becomes a genuine friend to Milo. We also see that Milo really likes her and is always willing to help her in any way he can.

- Brigette and Martin : Probably the most underrated characters of the show. I simply adore these two ! They’re just really wholesome people, especially Brigette. She knew full well what she was getting into when she decided to marry into the Murphy family and it’s clear that she doesn’t have a single regret. Like the Flynn-Fletcher parents, they aren’t around that much but when they do you can tell they love each other.

And for some fanon ships :

- Buford and Baljeet : Basically an enemy to friends to lover trope. They start off as bully and nerd but, the more time they spend with Phineas and co, the more Buford shows off his sensitive side and learns more to respect Baljeet’s boundaries while Baljeet learns to stand up for himself. And by the end of the show, the two are genuinely close. Heck, even in “Act Your Age”, despite the canon ships, there’s one scene in which the guys tell Phineas that “guys don’t talk about their feelings”. After they say that, there’s an awkward silence and at the end of it you can see Buford and Baljeet look at each other before looking away with a sad expression, as if they did have feelings for each other but never talked about it because of the “boys don’t talk feelings” thing (which, in real life, is complete bullshit. Let men be emotive, dammit !). But yeah, these two have a friendship that grows over the show and is sometimes teased as if something else was going on there.

- Heinz and Perry : Fun fact : when I became an adult and started getting back into the show, I couldn’t help but laugh as I started to ship it because this is such a crackship on paper ! Also, everything related to Peter the Panda, especially “Time Out” and “Lost in Danville” is fucking hilarious because of how ridiculous it is. I love the Dwampyverse ! (and I just realized that I didn’t talk about the humans/objects canon couples but given that only one person can evolve in these relationships…yeah)

But looking at the show and the books, yeah, these two are like two people thrown into an arranged marriage and having to figure everything out. Even if they start off as enemies, they eventually get accustomed to each other, to the point of being each other’s most important person. We really feel it in season 4. In a lot of ways, these two are a lot like Buford and Baljeet (which a lot of people had already pointed out).

- Candace and Vanessa : This one is mostly based on how much Candace admires Vanessa in “Night of the Living Pharmacist” and honestly, it’s pretty alright. I can definitely see why people ship it as there’s definitely some material there and there with Candace trying to impress Vanessa and look cool in front of her.

- Cavendish and Dakota : Act like an old married couple 24/7 ; often have physical contact and never react to it, showing that it’s normal to them and that they’re very comfortable with each other, almost to the point of having no notion of personal space when it comes to each other ; call each other “partners” most of the time ; have known each other for at least 10 years given Cavendish’s change in appearance from “First Impressions” to ‘now’ ; have to share a room most of the time due to their work ; are compared to Perry and Heinz, aka Dan’s favorite fan ship (or at least it seems to be) ; would die for each other and are willing to do anything to keep their relationship going, including stopping a “break up” (Dakota’s words). What else is there to say ?

  So looking at all these relationships, including the fanon ones, it’s pretty clear that Dan and Swampy like to give out tons of shipping material. But Zack and Melissa ? They act like friends for most of the show. In season 1, the only episode that’s really shippy is “The Math Book” with how they play off of each other.

The saddest part with this relationship for the shippers is that in the PnF crossover, we start to get hints that they might be a couple, only for them to keep the exact same dynamic as season one up until the very last episode of season 2 in which suddenly they act like a couple most of the time. And before you point out “Escape”, it’s probably just me but the way Melissa tells Milo to hurry because “It starts to seem like a date”, followed by Zack saying “You wish” in such a neutral tone gives off the impression that they don’t want it to be a date. So yeah, by the end of the day, it feels like they only got together because 1. Disney likes straight people and 2. They’re the hero’s best friends.

Seriously, on youtube, there’s a video that’s a Zalis//sa compilation, and not only is the video only 6 minutes long, but most of these moments could come off as two friends acting like two friends. And for the video length : reminder that there’s a Milan//da video from the same person that’s 17 minutes long, Amanda being a character that appears like ten times less than Zack and Melissa; and there are also two Daka//vendish videos, both 10 minutes long each, and they barely cover like 1/3 of the episodes the duo show up in. Seriously, a fanon ship has a hundred more shipping material than a canon ship ! Honestly, Zalis//sa shippers were robbed.

I think the only other ship that has that little development (and by that I mean way less development) among major characters is the one between Baljeet and Ginger. Honestly for this ship : Ginger shows that she’s interested and it’s taken as a joke in season 1; in the bees episode, Ginger listens to Baljeet and, while Baljeet is happy that she’s listening, he’s mostly happy that someone is listening, regardless of who it is. Then we see them dance a few times in the background, including in a Halloween episode in which Buford and Baljeet were sharing a costume and, as Baljeet and Ginger start to dance, we have a shot of Buford not looking happy about this. And yet somehow they became a canon couple.

With this forced ship, I tend to accuse Disney being homophobic and refusing Buford and Baljeet to be both single at the end of the show (seriously Disney seems to be so homophobic that they allowed couples between humans and objects but refused any gay couple. At least they seem to have started to be more accepting with recent shows from what I’ve seen).

4. Heinz Doofenshmirtz

So I know it’s been talked about but it’s still a major point in this season so I have to talk about it. So : in Phineas and Ferb, Heinz is a motivated inventor who was able to make inators that worked, though his poor planning and some of his ideas often got the best of him. But overall, he was just a nice guy with a certain genius and who was trying to cope with his childhood trauma in the only ways he knew. He’s also one of the best fathers in all of animation, especially given how much baggage he has, but that’s not the topic here.

Then, when Dwampy made “The O.W.C.A. Files”, they decided to change Heinz’s personality. Suddenly, he was a complete klutz who’s can’t do anything right and just pisses people off. And when they made MML, they kept this personality trait. It also doesn’t help that quite a lot of focus is put on him, which renders him even more annoying. I won’t develop much on his flaws because, again, others already did before. Instead, since so many people already talked about what was wrong with Doof in this show, I actually want to talk about the good moments that Heinz has in MML.

So, to cite a few : First off, the PnF crossover. Yes he does mess up his time machine with orange juice but that’s like his only mistake. Overall, he’s seen to be a great inventor who quickly understands the Pistachions’ weakness after spilling juice on a plant and immediately creates a plan around it. And speaking of which, I also really like how, when he meets the group at the beginning and is told to be a hero, he asks “What do you base your assumption on ?” (not a direct quote), which really shows that yes, he’s a scientist who thinks like one.

The moments where he butts head with Cavendish are also pretty good, especially with how what he says is only the truth : he’s not Professor Time, he’s just some random inventor, and Cavendish feeling so much deception is his own fault for idolizing someone. Thinking about it, it might actually be the only moments in the show in which he’s seen as more mature than another major character.

And overall, he’s just his PnF self in this episode. Like, there’s also how he talks to Diogee and, later, when Milo puts some pressure on him by reminding him of the stakes, he goes “I’m going to go back to talk to the dog”.

As for some other good appearances : “Spy Little Sister” has Heinz show up for a very little and it really works with making him a lot like how he was in PnF (honestly the lightbulb accident seems like something he’ll do in PnF. Heck, in the first part of the episode, he reminds me of how he is in “Doof 101”, episode in which the problems are caused by the annoying bugs and not him).

“Disco Do-Over” does a clever use of the “I am a superstar” video, though Heinz is a bit obnoxious in this episode.

The season 2 finale has Heinz once again act like a scientist when he asks the Octalian about shape-shifting.

Finally, I really like the friendship between him and Dakota. The two are definitely bad for each other and that’s what makes their interactions interesting. Though, I would have loved to see some time spent on pointing out the fact that Dakota grew up seeing Heinz as a hero. And on that same note, I would have loved to see a bit more of Cavendish interacting with Heinz, especially after Heinz and Dakota became “friends” (the last episodes give off the feeling that now that they made up with their respective partner, they aren’t going to hang out with each other).

So yeah, Heinz does have his moments in which he works pretty well. But most of these moments are in episodes in which he’s a minor character. When the show starts to focus more on him, he’s just annoying and immature, which is really sad given how great he was in PnF.

5. The humor

 Now it’s time to get the claws out. Seriously, this part was meant to be short but I can tell from what my brain has in mind that I’m going to give a long rant. To be honest this wasn’t even really supposed to be a big thing to point out, like I could’ve put this at the end with the other “minor complains”. But one thing pisses me off so it’s now its own part.

So to make things clear first : when I talk about the humor, I’m talking about one kind of joke that the show has done since season 1 but that feels off in season 2. I’m talking about the jokes that go on for a while, sometimes too long; especially too long in season 2.

I think a good example of a long joke made right is in “Party of Peril”, when we have to watch Elliot get attacked by a duck for like 50 seconds. It’s a joke that probably goes on for too long but let’s be honest it’s hilarious, along with creating the recurring joke of ducks hating Elliot.

In season 2, they kept trying to make these kinds of jokes there and there; but for some reason it doesn’t really work. I have two examples : the first one is in “Teacher’s Feature” in which we spend 20 seconds on Scott dancing in a cringy way while the kids comment on it. And I swear as I’m writing that I’m considering checking the length because it feels like 40 seconds, not 20, and that’s the problem. Watching the scene, they could have easily cut out 5 seconds of him dancing with music to go directly to the part where there’s no music but he keeps going. Seriously. They definitely could have made this joke shorter.

But the worst to me, the absolute worst, is in “Cavendish Unleashed”. OOOH BOY the fucking waste they did there.

So in this episode, there’s a joke that plays out 3 times, two times the same way and a third time with a slight difference. The joke is about people wanting to sign a paper to destroy then protect the forest, only to get crushed by the alien and being unable to use their hand. To put it simply, this joke is boring. It doesn’t even feel like a joke ! It’s just 15 then another 15 and then a whole 20 seconds (more or less) wasted on this shit. And I swear I also want to go check the length because I remember that when I first saw the episode, the third joke felt like it went on for two minutes. It’s not fun, it’s just boring.

But what’s the problem with that ? Simple : the ending of the episode. At the end of the episode, Cavendish talks with the main trio, learns that Milo was the abductee and then tells the teens to leave. And they just leave, asking no questions whatsoever. Like hello ???? Cavendish has been missing for days, maybe weeks ??? Dakota is desperate to find him ??? Haven’t Dakota told the kids that Cavendish was missing ??? Hadn’t they noticed during “Cast Party” and even before or after that Dakota wasn’t with Cavendish anymore ??? WHY IS NOBODY ASKING QUESTIONS ???? Why didn’t the kids go like “Oh yeah, we saw Cavendish today” to Dakota ??? Why waiting DAYS before telling him ??? Hell, in “Escape”, he talks about finding Cavendish like the kids knew ! So what the hell was that all about ?!

Seriously. Would it have been too hard to remove that dumb recurring joke and instead have an angsty scene in which Milo points out that Cavendish is considered missing, only for Cav to feel bad about it, making us feel for him, and then tell the kids that he’s doing what he believes is for the best and then ask them to keep it a secret from Dakota ? How come the only time we see Cav feel bad about leaving is in a fan animation ?

This seriously pisses me off. The whole arc about Cavendish going rogue could have been one of my favorites. We could’ve seen him struggle to live, think about what he’s doing and why, feel homesick or missing Dakota and the others. Hell, he’s been stuck alone and conscious in an ice cube for who knows how long, so why did he never take the time to reflect during that time ? And yes he was conscious. When he gets trapped, his eyes move and when he’s saved, he’s able to protect his face the very moment the ice break, showing that he was well-aware of Dakota breaking the cube.

But no. Instead, this arc spends like 30% of its screen time on Cavendish doing a Candace-like joke about trying to show the ship and 70% of the screen-time on Dakota sulking. And in the last episode, there’s a scene in which Cav complains about Octalia, only to be remembered that he can save the planet; and then he goes on a rant about how he’s going to be the hero of Octalia, showing that he didn’t learn a fucking thing from his arc.

This pisses me off. This really pisses me off. No wonder I wrote like 5 oneshots around that arc. I need to get that “Cavendish is struggling” angst juice one way or another.

And speaking of bad arcs…

6. Zack’s plot

 So in the first episode of the season (not counting the crossover), the characters talk about how Zack is a coward who tries to get over his fears. Ok so first question : since when is Zack considered a coward ? I mean, he’s very cautious when it comes to Murphy’s law, yes, but being cautious is not the same as being a coward. Besides, Murphy’s law is dangerous. And for most of the episodes, his reactions are the same as Melissa and Milo, when Milo gets scared. As for his fear of fish, anyone can have these kinds of irrational fears. Also there’s the Halloween episode in which it’s made clear that he doesn’t have much fears aside from the fear of dying from the unpredictable, hence his usual resentment with Murphy’s law.

It’s also worth mentioning that MML follows the trope of having a group with two guys and one girl; with one guy being the main character, the girl being the smart one and the second guy being the coward or the forgettable one in certain shows. I think this might be one of the reasons why there’s this idea that Zack is a coward.

But aside from the fact that, in my personal opinion, this plot comes out of nowhere, there’s also the problem that we barely see it at all. I mean, in “Snow Way out”, it’s put into the story. Then they completely forget about it and Zack goes back to act chill and cautious until “Freefall” whose entire plot revolves around Zack being fearful (again, rightfully fearful given the situation). Then it’s dropped again until “The Mid-Afternoon Snack Club” with the idea that Zack feels overshadowed by Milo (which, honestly, sounds like a more interesting arc than the whole fear thing). And finally, it’s dropped yet again until the very last episode in which they keep insisting that he has no fear anymore.

Seriously, am I the only one seeing this ? Or am I just bad at noticing the character growth ?

7. Smaller pet peeves

 So that last point is a list of small things that bother me in this season but that I don’t see myself write 10 paragraphs about :

- Most of the supporting cast needed more screentime. Seriously, characters like Neal and Veronica basically don’t exist this season, Sara also has a much more minor role, Bradley desperately needs some kind of character arc, most of the school characters and staff are also pretty absent (we miss you Drako !), Brick and Savannah only appear twice, once being a cameo in front of a pistachio cart,  and I’m sure there’s more that I forgot.

- A very personal opinion so it’s not really a pet peeve but time travel was much more interesting than aliens, though the plots were pretty similar with the people involved trying to get to Milo, only for Murphy’s law to occur and ruin their plan. Also, while I really like the captain/leader, the two guys sent to capture Milo are your usual comedic duo, like the two small devils in Disney’s Hercules (I don’t know their name in English, I only know that they’re named “Peur” and “Panique” in French).

And fun fact, “Spy Little Sister” is probably my favorite episode of the season, and while watching it, I really had a feeling of “god I missed that” when time-travel occurred. Though, I’ll admit, the aliens plot does a much better job using Murphy’s law, not only with the aliens failing constantly because of it but also especially in the finale with each character having their own backpack to “fight against it”.

- Bob Block. There was some potential with that character (*cough* villain *cough*). Though, I won’t develop here because I already did at the beginning of another post.

- The episode “Game Night” is weird to me. Like, it’s not a bad episode, on the contrary it’s a great one, but at the same time I find myself not liking it. I think the main problem is that it should’ve been a season 1 episode due to the whole thing with the deadly vortex and how Cavendish and Dakota somehow knew what it was. Also I feel like there’s a waste of characters. I mean, we get the Murphy parents, Neal and Cav and Dakota and yet it feels like the episode is mostly focused on the main trio + Sara. Also Veronica was robbed. They could have easily removed the whole vortex thing, hence removing Cavendish and Dakota from the story, and have Veronica with the group instead. Look I love the two time-travelling idiots but other characters deserve some spotlight too.

Besides, thinking about it, it’s a bit sad that Cavendish and Dakota don’t really interact with the others when they’re on screen. There’s like 5 people in the room and yet we either see them talk to each other or to the group in general (though to be honest this disconnect between characters even when they’re in the same room is also in the crossover and the season 2 finale).

So yeah, this episode is weird. It has tons of elements that should make me love it (the Murphy parents; Neal; Melissa being Melissa; Dakota being Dakota; some Daka//vendish, including a 3 seconds argument that has some of the biggest “old married couple” energy we’ve seen in this show; Milo and Sara being overly dramatic babies; the Veronica cameo). And yet, I somehow can’t find myself really liking it. It’s weird.

  So, overall, it was still a pretty good and solid season. Most episodes were pretty fun and enjoyable. But they were still a lot of small issues that, in my opinion, makes season 1 much better; and when I decide to watch random moments of the show or watch full episodes, I tend to mostly pick in that first season.

[lady-divine-writes]

Good Omens - Addiction (Rated NC17)

Summary: Aziraphale is addicted to affection. Addicted to touch. But being an addict, he can't seem to manage to find a healthy relationship, nor make any relationship last. After his latest break up, he decides to forgo the emotion and go straight for physical satisfaction.

... He just wants to find someone who needs his body. He's not particularly picky as to who - or what - that entails. (5792 words)

Notes: A major re-working of another piece I wrote. If you guys like this one, I will complete the scene that should come after it ;) Let me know. Vampire Crowley. Warnings for mention of blood and blood sucking. Sexual content.

Read on AO3.

Aziraphale walks slowly around the perimeter of his bed, eyeballing the outfits he’d laid out earlier, scathingly critical of every item he chose even though, had you asked him two hours ago, he would have claimed each as tied for favorite. He’s 90% dressed already - cream colored trousers and a matching long-sleeved button down, a pale blue waistcoat (one he’s been told matches his eyes perfectly), tartan socks, and his best cocoa brown Derbys. All he needs now is a bowtie.

Does he need a bowtie? He doesn’t know exactly what the protocol is regarding neckwear where he’s going. He definitely prefers to wear a bowtie. Would not wearing one send some sort of message? Aziraphale assumes forgoing a bowtie might make him appear more casual. At ease. But in the context of the place he’s headed, might it also mean that he’s easy?

He sighs. He’s thinking too hard about this. This place he’s going - he’s paying to be there! What the Hell does the possible hidden innuendo of wearing or not wearing a bowtie matter under those circumstances? He hasn’t left the house without a bowtie on in over four decades!

He’s wearing the bowtie.

His gaze slides over his bed, the ties in the running lined up side by side on his comforter. He reaches for one, fingers hovering just above before he changes his mind and goes for the one beside it, picking it up between pinched fingers and holding it to his neck. He turns to his full length mirror and takes a peek.

“This one?” he asks no one, appraising the plain, gray fabric. “No. No, that won’t do.” He tosses it back on the bed and grabs another one - a tartan tie that matches his socks.

Heaven’s Dress Tartan. His family’s tartan. It’s pretty much the tie he wears for every occasion.

Naively, it makes him feel protected.

“This one?” he muses, already nodding his head. “Yes, this one.” Aziraphale slips the narrow strip of fabric about his neck and ties it. He looks himself over in the mirror, chest puffed with pride, but it doesn’t last long.

What is he doing?

He’s too old for this.

Maybe he should pack it in, wrap up his libido and call it quits. He’s had a good run, hasn’t he? He doesn’t need the physical. No more hugs, no more kisses, no more sex - that wouldn’t be the end of the world.

Aziraphale’s eyes drop from his smart outfit to his feet.

Except it would.

It would for Aziraphale.

He can’t give up touch. He’s never done well without some speck of it in his life.

Deep down inside, he knows he can’t survive without it.

It’s not as simple as feeling lonely or unfulfilled. His need for affection goes beyond that. And it’s stronger - so much stronger - than him.

Being an addict is no small burden. Aziraphale knows that firsthand. He’s seen what addiction can do to people. He’s seen how it can devastate families.

He sat around for years and watched, powerless, as it destroyed his own.

Addiction tore his father apart – his need for money, a lust for more, more, more that he valued over his wife and child, turning him from parental figure into perfect stranger well before Aziraphale’s formative years, then into an enemy when Aziraphale decided against going into medicine, law, or business (the big three that would ensure the family fortune would multiply and thrive long after his father was gone) and instead majored in linguistics and literature.

His father’s addiction led to his mother’s. She’d hit the bottle to numb the pain of watching her husband, the man she’d loved since secondary school, drift away, drinking herself stupid until she couldn’t remember what day it was, where she lived … or that she had a son.

But addiction isn’t only cause and effect. It can be hereditary. It spread through the Fell family like wildfire, jumping from generation to generation. It started with Aziraphale’s great-great-great-great-grandfather on his father’s side and trickled down. Since Aziraphale is the last living Fell, his family’s vices have caught up to him, pooled around his ankles with nowhere else to flow to.

Threatening to drag him under.

Aziraphale has an addiction, too. Anyone who talks to him for about five minutes would say that his drug of choice is books, and indeed there are a good many reasons to believe that. Aziraphale loves books. He’s amassed such a collection that he even became an antique book dealer, but mostly as an excuse to find a place big enough to house his vast collection.

No, Aziraphale gets addicted to people. To affection. To whatever feels like love at the time. And he can’t live without it. He’ll take it from anyone willing to give even a smidgen of it, usually finding himself in relationships that dry up before they fully blossom with people who weren’t worth his time to begin with. Not that these relationships would have gone anywhere if given the chance. That’s part of the problem. Aziraphale tries so hard to find the tenderness stolen from him at too early an age, he doesn’t necessarily look for substance. He plants the seeds of his affection in ground long wrung out, spots where rain won’t ever find them, away from the sun’s nurturing rays.

Tonight, walking alone through the city streets at a truly ill-advised hour, he’s suffering the aftershocks of one such break-up. But this time, Aziraphale was prepared … somewhat. Which is to say he saw the signs. He knew the end was coming, even if he couldn’t stop it. But instead of doing the adult thing and cutting ties painlessly, he let it play itself out, sucking from it every drop he could. And afterwards, when he’d brought home his obligatory box of random stuff from his ex’s apartment – toothbrush, shaving cream, CDs, a few shirts, underwear, the possessions that he’d used to stake his claim - he knew where he would go.

He arrives at the obscure establishment before ten o’clock, having fooled himself that he’s ready to move on even before his ex’s side of the bed is cold. He’s doing right by himself. No more leaping into empty relationships just to have his mind messed with and his heart broken.

He’s skipping straight to the physical.

This is the way to go.

But there is also the chance that he’s being phenomenally stupid.

Aziraphale has paid money for questionable things before, things that he’s looked back on and regretted, shoving them as far behind him as he could so as not to think about them ever again.

But paying to feed his addiction - he’s never done that.

The place he’s gone to, with its ornate wooden door set into the face of an everyday brick wall, looks like a day spa if anything – a rather foreboding day spa. In a way, Aziraphale had expected it to look that way. That or a bar. Where else did these kinds of transactions take place? A bordello, perhaps? He’d heard about one that operates out of a hotel downtown, but this one got far better reviews from people in the know.

Let it never be said that Aziraphale didn’t do his research.

From what he’d heard, this place isn’t only the most exclusive of its kind in London, it’s the most discreet.

Silent as the grave, he’d been told.

There is no buzzer, no knocker, not even a door knob. No indication at all that anyone is allowed in but Aziraphale knows better. He sends a text to a number he paid a hefty sum for, along with a selfie that takes longer than he’d care to admit to take, but that’s not entirely his fault. There are strict requirements for this photograph - angle, background, head tilt, etc. The phone number is one-time use. After he hits send, he won’t be able to follow up with another message, so his picture needs to be up to spec.

Each selfie he takes, he despises immediately. The first one … well, the first one always bites, doesn’t it? In the second one, his face is too fat. Chubby chipmunk cheeks and puckered lips? He looks like a frickin’ cherub! The third one … ugh! Where was he even looking? The fourth one - definite serial killer with that awkward, thin-lipped grin.

He can’t keep doing this. He has to pick one! He’s running out of time! Ten o’clock sharp the message had said! If he’s going to do this, he can’t afford to be even a minute late!

He decides that his next picture will be his absolute last. Whatever comes out of this shot, he can’t take another one. He holds his phone up at the pre-determined angle, holds his breath, plasters on his most sincere smile … and prays to God.

Just then, the unthinkable happens.

He fumbles his phone.

He’d been holding so hard to it and his smile that his fingers had begun to sweat. He loses traction, the traitorous thing sliding out of his grasp. The shutter clicks, the flash fires, and his phone makes a lyrical trill of affirmation.

Aziraphale’s stomach drops like a lead balloon straight to his feet.

That noise - that skipping of high-pitched notes that he chose at random because they reminded him of Rites of Spring - indicates that the picture sent without Aziraphale having a chance to double check it first.

“Oh … Hell!” he curses. He should have taken the damned thing at home! The glow from his reading lantern would have given his skin a soft, golden cast; made him look younger; mysterious; but he forgot that a picture would be required. In every photo he’s taken in this doorway, illuminated only by a chemical bulb above his head, he looks anemic, harsh shadows thrown by the overly bright flash elongating his nose, hollowing his cheeks, sinking his eyes into their sockets. But this one, snapped off while his phone was negotiating gravity, is likely to be the worst one yet! Instead of a solid face, he’ll look like a blur.

A middle-aged blur with absolutely no relationship prospects. Not even a cat.

Aziraphale scrolls frantically through his gallery to try and find the picture, see what disaster he’s unleashed, but he can’t locate it.

“Where are you, you little …?” he mumbles, heart thrumming so hard it’s beginning to make him nauseous. The picture isn’t in his saved file. Not on his SD card. It’s not in his sent messages. So where the frick is it!? Aziraphale has to see it, has to know what he’s done, has to know if he’s failed. Has to know if it’s worth waiting out here, or if he should turn tail and head for his bookshop. Somewhere in between bribing his phone and threatening to smash the screen to bits, the door pops open with a click.

Aziraphale’s blood runs cold, his head shooting up like a prairie dog’s on its guard.

The door.

The door is open.

He mustn’t have sent a horrifying photograph after all!

But it may not stay open for long so he’d better move his arse!

He pushes the door further and steps inside. It closes behind him the moment he’s through. He turns quickly to see who shut it since he didn’t notice a doorman when he entered.

But there’s no one.

He’s in the foyer of this large, imposing place completely alone.

As far as he can tell.

He has the distinct feeling he’s being watched.

Of course he’s being watched! he scolds himself. They probably have security cameras everywhere in a place like this! There’s nothing sinister about that! Why, he went to a thrift store not too long ago that had a security camera installed over every aisle, and the most notable item they had for sale was a velvet painting of Margaret Thatcher! Pull yourself together, Aziraphale, for Heaven’s sake!

Now that he’s inside, the place reminds him more of a bank than a spa: long stretches of empty hallway decorated in shows of old school wealth - leather chairs, ornate mirrors, glossy wood drawing tables, a long Persian runner leading him to his destination with chandeliers marking the path every ten feet or so. There’s been more money invested in this one hall than Aziraphale’s father could afford to put into their entire house, even with his lofty inheritance.

He can’t help thinking it would make the old man pea green with envy if he were alive to see it.

Little does Aziraphale know that there are two other hallways ahead of him just like this one.

Aziraphale walks through a total of three locked doors to get to what could be deemed ‘the main lobby’. He’s not escorted, but he does need to be buzzed through, the same melancholy voice asking him to repeat his name through an intercom at every checkpoint. Aziraphale marvels at the embassy-level security but he can’t help but wonder: is this a common practice at these places? No one mentioned anything about this.

What sort of trouble are they trying to prevent?

Aziraphale imagines most people might turn around at this point, go back the way they came and forget all about this place, but not him. As he approaches the final door there is no going back for him now. Not when he’s so close to what he wants.

He goes through the procedure one last time – name and then buzz. But this door is heavier, takes a bit more strength to push open. Black lighting overhead engulfs the room, creates a void that makes everything within indefinable. A few feet in, a wraparound counter fluoresces purple. Aziraphale sees only a single occupant in this room - a man sitting behind the counter who looks, from the outset, like a regular human being.

Of course, Aziraphale has never met a vampire before. He has no idea what one should look like.

He walks up to the counter, the door behind him swinging close and shutting with the same poignant click as the rest. But once this door seals, it takes the light with it, plunging Aziraphale momentarily into near complete black.

The man doesn’t look up at Aziraphale’s arrival. Aziraphale clears his throat to get his attention.

“E-excuse me?” he says nervously, his stomach flipping somersaults from his pelvis up to his neck. His voice sounds thin and disappointing to his own ears. Then again, he barely speaks to anyone from day to day. Maybe it sounds exactly the way it should.

The man sitting behind the counter – dark-skinned but with an ashy paler - blatantly ignores Aziraphale, who’d be standing practically on top of him if not for the counter between them. He flips exaggeratedly through the pages of his magazine (Aziraphale can’t tell which one in the unhelpful light), but doesn’t acknowledge him.

“Excuse me?” Aziraphale repeats, louder but still weak.

The man sniffs the air. He shifts only his eyes to address Aziraphale, looks him over, then returns to his magazine. “Wot do you want?”

“I … uh … I have an appointment. F-for a session.” Session. Is that the right word for it? No one Aziraphale talked to about this gave him the in on the lingo. “With a man by the name of Crowley.”

The disinterested man flips another page. “An appointment, huh?”

“Yes.” Aziraphale’s eyes dart around, looking for anyone else who might be willing to help him. For as popular as this place sounded, it’s surprisingly deserted. Aziraphale can’t see a single other soul anywhere. Of course, aside from the glowing furniture, it’s so dark in there – a darkness his eyes refuse to get accustomed to – someone could be standing right beside him and he might not know it. “I’m … uh … sort of new at this.” His statement is met with a silence as thick as a brick wall. He chuckles, anxiety starting to get the better of him.

He feels vaguely like he might be in danger.

If he backed out now, walked out the door, would the man behind the counter even notice?

Then Aziraphale realizes fuck! He’d probably need to be buzzed out the same way he was buzzed in. And the man behind the counter might have to be the one to do it. He has the same dry, unenthusiastic tone in his voice as the one that greeted Aziraphale at every door.

The man glances Aziraphale’s way, then blows out a breath, obviously annoyed he’s still there. “I’ll tell him you’re here Mr. …”

“Fell. Aziraphale Fell.”

“Aziraphale Fell,” the man repeats but doesn’t reach for a phone or make a move to inform anyone that Aziraphale has arrived. He gives the air another disdainful sniff and scrunches his nose, raising his magazine to cover it. “Did you have sushi for lunch, Mr. Fell?”

“Uh …” Aziraphale clamps his lips together tight, self-conscious of what he must smell like to a creature with super-sensitive olfactory organs. He did have sushi, but that was days ago. There’s no way he could still smell like it, especially with the amount of Listermint he uses daily.

“Was it refrigerated properly? Or do you buy your food from the day-old section of your local market?”

Aziraphale’s hackles rise. He disregards the feeling that he’s in danger in defense of his favorite restaurant. “I really don’t think that Hot Stone would stoop to selling day-old sushi!”

“Did you even remember where you were going when you left your house today?” the man scolds without listening to him. “I mean, have some respect, for Satan’s sake!”

“That’s enough, Ligur.” A new voice, amused but stern, says from the shadows. “If you don’t stop badgering the customers, we won’t have any, and then how will you afford your flat? Hmm?”

“Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir,” Ligur replies, barely bringing himself to care.

Inconceivably quick, their new guest goes from standing in the light to standing before Aziraphale. Ligur snickers at the move, like he’s seen it too many times before, but Aziraphale doesn’t pay him any mind. Ligur might not be impressed, but Aziraphale can’t. stop. staring.

Aziraphale has never seen such a man.

He’s never imagined a man like him could exist. He’s sure he could spend his entire life trying to think him up and still never come up with him. He captivates Aziraphale in a matter of seconds, mystifies him without lifting a finger. He’s tall, slim, and fair. He reminds Aziraphale of a prince from an old world fairy tale. In fact, Aziraphale knows just the book he’d find it in. He intends on searching for it the moment he returns to his shop (he thinks hopefully). The man’s eyes, even in the absence of light, are piercing, simmering in their depths with a light all their own.

The man doesn’t walk up to Aziraphale. He stalks. And the way he carries himself leads Aziraphale to believe he can take anything he wants with a snap of his fingers. At the moment, he’s stolen Aziraphale’s voice, his breath, practically every thought in his head.

Aziraphale’s entire focus becomes this man.

The man moves a step forward. Aziraphale takes a subconscious step back.

“I believe that you are my ten o’clock,” the man says.

Aziraphale nods, not sure if he’s expected to speak ... or if he’s allowed. “Are … are you … Mr. Crowley?”

“In the flesh. And you must be Aziraphale.” Crowley’s tongue curls around his words, the hint of an accent making an appearance. Several accents, actually. At his root, the man sounds English, but not born. But his accent is acquired, not practiced, bred from immersion. There are other touches here and there - a dash of Birmingham, a little cockney perhaps, an Irish brogue, peppered upon a foundation that sounds firmly Scottish. Lilts and rolls add flavor to Aziraphale’s name so that he feels he’s hearing it spoken out loud for the first time. Even lost in that dialect soup, Aziraphale doesn’t think it’ll ever sound more perfect than it does rolling off Crowley’s tongue. It tickles his eardrums, silently begs Crowley to say it again.

“I am,” Aziraphale says. “Aziraphale Fell. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“It will be soon.” Crowley winks. “Follow me, Mr. Fell.” He smiles, teeth impeccably straight and disarmingly white. It could be a trick of the black lights, but those teeth … that smile … make him look predatory, and Aziraphale considers again if coming here was the smartest idea, especially since he did so impulsively, took no precautions. He was so distracted by his break-up, so wrapped up in shoulds and shouldn’ts, what people would think of him if they ever found out, that he didn’t tell anyone where he was going.

What if he simply disappears?

No one in his life would dream of looking for him here, and he left absolutely no clues to point them in this direction.

Regardless of the warning bells tolling in his head, new ones firing off with each pound of his heart, Aziraphale follows Crowley down several vacant hallways. The place was dark to begin with, but this section is nearly pitch black with the exception of a red light bulb here, a green light bulb there, their faint illuminations doing nothing more than throwing shadows on the walls – shadows deep enough to disappear in. Crowley walks swiftly. Aziraphale almost loses him twice, but he slows in a hall lined on both sides with doors. Aziraphale hears moans come from behind several of the doors and his heart speeds in his chest.

It slams to a stop when he hears a man scream – strained and blood curdling.

Aziraphale can’t tell if the man is screaming in pleasure or in pain.

Aziraphale points to the door. “Um … is he going to be alri---?”

“Right this way, Mr. Fell,” Crowley interrupts, opening the last door on the left. “This is my private office. No one will dare disturb us in here.” Aziraphale hesitates but decides to go inside, not because he feels any more comfortable with this than he did a moment ago, but because if he doesn’t, he might run the other way. Crowley waits patiently till Aziraphale steps in, then shuts, and locks, the door. “Now … what can I help you with today?”

Aziraphale paces the room, examining its violet walls with their black-and-white photographs mounted in minimalist glass frames. It isn’t much brighter in here than in the lobby, but it’s more inviting - the sort of space created specifically for people to spend time in together, get to know one another. A round, wooden table in the center of the room holds a pair of crystal flutes and a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket of ice. Candles cover every level surface - some thick white pillars, some long white tapers, in holders of brushed gold, and scent the air with the sweet fragrance of vanilla. Their dancing flames reflect off the glass, the constant flickering making the room appear to sway. It’s disorienting. It gets Aziraphale’s adrenaline pumping and his heart racing, which Aziraphale assumes is the desired effect.

He’d heard that a speeding human heart can be a powerful aphrodisiac for a vampire.

They apparently get off on it.

Against a far wall sits a plush, red sofa, and against another, a four-poster bed.

Aziraphale bypasses the bed (it isn’t his gut decision, just the safest seeming one) and heads for the sofa. “I … I have a problem. An addiction.”

“Go on.” Crowley strolls over to join him, each step he takes deliberate, noiseless, as if his feet don’t make contact with the ground at all, gliding on the air right above. Aziraphale watches Crowley settle onto the far end of the sofa, sitting catty-corner to keep his amber eyes on him. That predatory expression he wears moves from his smile to his eyes, which track Aziraphale’s movements with unnerving precision. “Well, I … I’m addicted to affection, a-and everything that comes with it - touching, holding, kissing, sex, from anyone who wants me, really. And I fall irrationally in love with the wrong people over and over because of it.”

“A-ha.” Crowley crosses his legs. He draws it out, diverting Aziraphale’s attention purposefully to them. “So tell me why you think I can help you.”

Aziraphale swallows hard, mesmerized by the way Crowley moves, the fluidity of limbs that would look spindly on a human but not on him. Not in the slightest. “Because even though I need companionship, nobody seems to need me. But from the things I hear, you gentlemen … do.”

“We’re not desperate, Mr. Fell,” Crowley groans, rolling his head back on his neck, his eyes following along.

“Oh, no! No, no, no! That’s not what I …!”

“We service a distinguished clientele. We have certain expectations.”

“I understand that.”

Crowley gives Aziraphale a thorough once over with eyes that burn through him, every move Aziraphale makes telling Crowley more than his words.

“What do you do for a living, Mr. Fell?” Something about the way Crowley repeatedly calls Aziraphale ‘Mr. Fell’ shoots right to his stomach and lower, twisting everything up inside him, making him feel compliant, confused ...

“I’m an antique book dealer,” Aziraphale replies.

Crowley chuckles. “Ah. So you hawk old, worn-out romance novels to elderly women wanting a tingle in their lady gardens?”

“Uh … no,” Aziraphale says with a chuckle himself because, he has to admit, he’s gotten one or two of those in his lifetime. “Mostly literature, first editions, rare texts, misprinted Bibles, that sort of thing.”

“And you make a living from that?”

“I do,” Aziraphale says, a tad uncomfortable with this line of questioning. “Not that I need to. I live mainly off the interest of a generous inheritance. I get to do whatever I want mostly.”

“I see.” Crowley’s tone shifts, as if Aziraphale passed some sort of test. “And where do you currently live?” With a flick of Crowley’s eyes, Aziraphale’s hand crawls up his own shirt, reaching for his bowtie. He grabs a tail and pulls it, unties it, then goes after the top button. He toys with it, undoes it, feeling constricted, uncomfortable while it’s fastened.

“I live over my store front in Soho.”

Crowley slides an inch closer. “With a roommate or …?”

“A-alone.” Aziraphale moves on to the second button. “I live … I live alone.”

“Impressive. And your blood type is AB negative?”

“As far as I know.”

“Interesting.” Crowley moves another inch closer. “Alright. Let’s give you a shot.”

“A-and how do you do that … exactly?”

“Give me your arm so I can take a taste. Then I’ll know if we can use you.”

Crowley holds out his hand, long fingers with black painted nails motioning for Aziraphale’s, but Aziraphale doesn’t take it. He has a second of doubt, of Are you nuts!? that stays him. But it’s been so long since Aziraphale has felt truly wanted. And this man … or this creature … wants what he has to offer. Aziraphale can see it in his eyes. It’s cut and dry. No muss, no fuss, no emotions involved. Giving in should be easy. This is what he came for.

“If you’re nervous, I could always …” Crowley makes a gesture toward Aziraphale’s neck and smiles an alluring, toothy grin – charismatic, hard to resist. But Aziraphale might not be ready for what Crowley’s proposing. It seems a little too intimate.

“O-oh no.” Aziraphale rolls up his sleeve. “It’s not that. I was just … uh … thinking.”

“Oh.” That single syllable sounds tragically disappointed. “Whatever you’re comfortable with, of course. But just so you know, it’s always an option.”

Aziraphale gets a sudden image in his head of Crowley lying on top of him, licking down his neck, his fingers undoing the rest of his buttons and reaching beneath his shirt, nails scratching lightly down his skin. He envisions Crowley removing his clothes one piece at a time, marking his flesh with kisses, with bites, taking small sips as he paves a trail to his trousers. Sharp fangs slice through the threads that keep the button sewn on and he pulls down the zip with his teeth. There’s a mouth on Aziraphale’s cock, sucking, hands massaging his chest, the gentle brush of silky hair against his thighs, the occasional sting of a cut opening, a tongue collecting, and Aziraphale writhing with the sweet agony of it. He doesn’t picture himself cumming quickly, but sees himself sliding along the beveled edge, getting to that point, hanging from the crest of it, just to be sent back to the beginning, to start the process over again.

It feels planted, a suggestion. Aziraphale isn’t sure how. He’s not savvy to the abilities of vampires beside the blood sucking thing. It’s not real. Aziraphale knows he’s still dressed, can feel the fabric of his shirt sleeve balled in his fist, but he starts to sweat at the thought of it. His cock aches because of it. That’s what he wants – the give and the take.  

It changes his mind, stops him rolling up his sleeve.

“You know,” Aziraphale says, gaze fixed to Crowley’s seductive eyes, “that does sound like it could be … nice.”

Crowley grins. It’s almost too easy. “Oh, it will be,” he purrs. “I promise.”

Aziraphale scoots closer until they’re sitting beside one another, knees touching. Crowley wastes no time kissing Aziraphale’s neck, cool lips pressing against hot, sensitive skin. Aziraphale moans. God, it’s been so long. And whatever Crowley is doing with his tongue, circling the same spot, nibbling with just enough pressure to make it tingle, feels so intense, it overshadows the hand on Aziraphale’s thigh, creeping up steadily to his crotch, squeezing along the way as the excitement of kissing builds.

As Aziraphale’s heart beats faster and faster, until individual thumps are no longer distinguishable from the whole.

Crowley wraps an arm around Aziraphale’s shoulder, fangs lengthening as he searches for a place to sink in and drink. He finds the perfect spot and bites. Aziraphale’s eyes go wide.

“Oh … God.” He becomes rigid as the sensation of smooth and sharp assails his skin, but he succumbs to the sublime numbness and melts into Crowley’s arms. “Oh … oh God …”

Crowley retracts his fangs, licking them clean. “This isn’t really the place to be praying,” he says, inhaling Aziraphale’s scent – fresh, rich, healthy, untainted blood. The blood all vampires crave - not from unconscious drunks in the alley behind a night club or filled with preservatives like the bagged gunge they have the option to buy down at NHS Blood and Transport. But whole, pure, and willingly given.

Oh, yes – Aziraphale is an exquisite delight. A rare treat. He’ll make Crowley rich … if he can bear to share him.

Crowley might just decide to keep Aziraphale to himself.

It’s not just Aziraphale’s blood that tempts him. There’s something else, something sizzling beneath his skin that Crowley suspects Aziraphale doesn’t even know about himself. But it sends sparks through Crowley’s skin with every touch, a white light that nearly burns too hot to hold but fuck it all! The second Crowley moves his hand away and it’s gone, it makes Crowley want him more.

“I’m … I’m sorry,” Aziraphale mumbles, following Crowley’s mouth, whining like a kicked puppy when it seems he won’t be returning to the task of biting his neck. But it’s not that. Crowley has every intention of taking his time with Aziraphale. Savoring him. He wants to hear Aziraphale beg for it, beg for Crowley’s teeth buried deep into his neck, beg for the euphoria that comes with being fed upon.

“Do you like that, angel?” Crowley murmurs into Aziraphale’s skin. He punctuates his question with a nip around Aziraphale’s jugular, carefully so as not to prick it.

“Yes,” Aziraphale whimpers, his shaking hand grabbing Crowley’s knee and squeezing. “Yes, please.”

Crowley hums, lips pressed to Aziraphale’s neck so the vibrations travel down his skin. He licks over the pinprick marks, exploring with his tongue for a spot to take another bite. “You know, I think we might be able to help each other out.”

“You … you do?” Aziraphale rises from the sofa in a trance, following Crowley when he moves their soiree to the bed, preparing to make Aziraphale his own private nightcap.

“Oh yes.” Crowley lays Aziraphale out on the mattress and crawls over him, like in the vision. His fingertips creep up Aziraphale’s neck, up his cheeks, the pads coming to rest against his temples. A blue spark, an arc of static electricity, and Aziraphale’s brain fills with images that cloud his vision over so that Crowley’s eyes disappear, replaced by what promises to be a long night in this room, and all the methods of pleasure Crowley plans on using to distract him while he feeds. Skin against skin, Crowley’s hands covering his as Crowley enters him, his body possessing his. Aziraphale can already feel how hard Crowley would claim him, how sore he would be after, and Aziraphale wants it. Wants it more than life itself.

And he’s willing to pay with every drop to have it.

The vision rolls on. With every fantasized thrust of Crowley’s hips, it monopolizes all five of Aziraphale’s senses - his own moans in his ears with Crowley’s voice dripping honey underneath, the pungent smell of sweat and sex around them, the coppery taste of Crowley’s mouth, the slide of a flesh against his so smooth it feels like marble, and Crowley’s eyes - those snake-like eyes with pupils razor blade thin - watching unblinkingly as Aziraphale comes apart beneath him.

Trapped beneath Crowley’s body on the bed with Crowley’s fingertips rubbing circles against his skin, Aziraphale watches this fantasy in awe - open-mouthed and without an inch of fear. He shudders when he sees himself coming, the memory of similar sensations igniting every nerve in his body, turning fantasy into reality. Crowley absorbs every tremor, the way Aziraphale thrums beneath him, his hips bucking up in search of friction. Crowley smiles, reaches between them to start unbuttoning his own uncomfortable trousers.

And let the feasting begin.

“Oh yes,” he whispers, nose nuzzling against Aziraphale’s neck, following the pounding rhythm of his heart for a place to tuck in. “I could become very addicted to you, Aziraphale Fell. Very addicted.”

[morceauoleander]

Min’s mind & DID

thinking of DID i have some notes i wrote a couple days ago regarding my OC min and how their mind works with their DID! remember this is based off me, and Min is also a polyfragmented system with many sub systems!

while i have a lot of this written down, even Min’s alters names dont really come up outside. they are just Min. they are affected by some fronting but they are also very far into therapy and have many coping mechanisms and skills to help them! theyre doing pretty well and no one really needs to be super aware of their DID on the outside at all, but a knowledgeable Psychic would recognize their disorder upon  entering the mind.

its very hard to put together what min’s mind would be like, but i’d likely put it in “layers”

you have the “Front Room”. a small, and quite empty room in which most of the active alters of Min reside. Min is often co-fronting constantly as they’ve gone through therapy for years and have found ways to work together- that being they work together often and co front a lot due to their messy polyfragmented set up. this front room is the most “surface level” part of their mind, and you won’t reach the rest of it for a bit as you must navigate through a foggy black of nothing to get to the rest. this is a sort of dissociative barrier from everything else and you may not pop out the right end at first. it isnt supposed to be covered easily and most will not make it through without some kind of direction.

once through, you’ll tumble down a path and be opened up to a very undefined system of ‘bubbes’ and houses. called the “City Hub” this is the hub of everything else for Min’s system. in Min’s mind, it appears like a city walkway with buildings, houses, parks, etc in a sort of neon-like outline seen on figments but can flicker in and out of being full on 3D objects (they cannot be collected like figments btw) there are a few notable things: 1) ‘figment’-like outlined buildings and bubbles, bubbles that then lead to another “hub” like this - a sub system 2) many fragments... which are very much like ‘figments’ appearance wise but are sometimes capable of speech, fronting, and altering their in-mind appearance. 3) other defined alters, who may be dormant or are simply not at the Front- wandering around like any other person in a mind.

Min’s hub “flickers” into detail from time to time, as it kind of depends on how much mental energy they’re putting into being in the front. Its a lotta work keeping an eye on everyone back there and if they’re focused on the front they may not put a lotta that energy into the visual of their mind.

“sub systems” which appear as another hub like the main one, can be hard to reach sometimes as they can contain dormant alters or dissociative barriers that bar others from accessing it. it is NOT ever suggest one breaks through these barriers- while the Front’s barrier is trouble to get through, tougher barriers like ones blocking these sub systems can be like brick walls. Any psychic learning about dissociation will learn that dissociative barriers are not inherently bad, and that breaking them down can sometimes do more harm than good!

As Min is polyfragmented, their system is quite large, but it is hugely full of fragments. in-game i feel this kind of “messy” mind could be done with a sorta expanding path of the “main hub” being procedurally generated where it close gets less and less defined, maybe with some kinda forced perspective to make it seem never ending. No way would anyone get to explore all of Min’s mind, its too expansive and the further you go, the less defined stuff you’ll find and deal with.

Of course... there is the minds of Min’s alters. A sorta paradox situation, but the mind of the alters can be explored, but its just a smaller “room” inside what is already one person’s mind. its not another body or another brain. Most alter’s minds won’t be crazy big but they may look more akin to another non-dissociative person’s mind due to not being affected by the structure of the System and instead just displaying that one alter’s mind. im not even going to get into the concept of an alter having a system of alters, lets just stop there lol.

All in all, Min’s mind isnt too “weird”, just... expansive. and its almost like having your own massive team of psychics in your head, working as a group but also just living their lives. They have dissociative barriers held up in parts of their mind, and you’re unlikely to find a single memory vault of anything “traumatic” as those are safeguarded and kept far away. Min’s mind holds some typical things like doubt or bad moods, but censors do not work the same way! not in the same way. Min’s system does NOT hold typical roles like “gatekeeper” or whatever, as my system does not and i do not understand those concepts with my alters. here i will go into various Psychonauts’ world aspects that fit into min’s mind:

Alters & censors - Min’s mind does not have censors but rather alters who instruct censors. In a way one may think of panic attacks - not uncommon, but are usually tackled swiftly by alters who deal with them. if an alter who is fronting deals with them while fronting, usually when inside the mind it looks like the “time bubble” effect has been put over everything, but no one is slow. bad moods, bad ideas, doubts, judge - all work as they normally would. they may spawn because of another alter in the system too, as there are many who could get these thoughts. alters often work together to deal with them. baggage - there is a LOT of baggage but its greatly scattered around. when its found and dealt with, its gonna pop up again, somewhere else.

so who are Min’s alters...? well, thats big question considering their system size, and in actuality it doesnt really matter- my system is huge but we work collectively without much thought aside from some defined hosts. So, here are Min’s most defined hosts!

Koffee (he/they) - not unlike Min, and isn’t very old system wise, but he’s been co fronting since he formed and is almost never without Min. They and Min are often the ones to old the others together  when fronting in more intense situations. Green (they/them) - quiet, a thinker. likes to be the logical one but can get consumed in things go wrong. they keep shit in line for sure, have been known to fall into panics if they arent fronting with a good partner. Sable (she/he/they) - a fun one no doubt. they’re the one who definitely falls into being a bit immature and overly friendly. people like her a lot no doubt, but she isnt the best judge in many situations. she gets shit done though, thats for sure. she enjoys company and she likes working. Root (he/him) - not unlike Sable, but not a fan of all the more social things they tend to lean into. they are casual, a bit humorous, and incredibly analytical. they are great at organizing things but can be a bit controlling about it.

all of them have varying skills they are good at psychic wise, but i dont have the energy to go into that now too.

so yeah. thats a lot of what goes on in min’s mind! if anyone has questions on things regarding it and DID let me know! pls remember this is MY experience with DID. this is not what it is for everyone else. other than the basic criteria, lots of this can vary!

[daily-dose-of-imagines]

Hitmen AU! | Head Canons | 19+ [Haikyuu!!]

𝕹𝖊𝖐𝖔𝖒𝖆 [PART i] [PART ii] [PART iii]

Here’s the second team up~! Once all the schools have been set, deffo expect lots of one-shots, drabbles, etc uwu

I hope you guys enjoy these ones~!

» » Admin Ko

»»————-　♔　————-««

A group that has been established for quite a while and has a rather solid idea of what they’re doing and capable of

Are natural rivals with Karasuno in terms of business standards, but frequently does team ups in larger schemed assignments

Are one of the best at disposing the extra unnecessary bodies that someone ends up accidentally killing (Lev and his misfires is2g)

T̷e̷t̷s̷u̷r̷o̷ ̷K̷u̷r̷o̷o̷

Big Boss man of the squad

A clever and slippery bastard that Daichi deadass hates but both are polite to one another to keep ‘peaceful’ tensions between their groups

Can literally get away with anything and provoke anything to fall exactly as he wants or how he needs it to play out for his assignments or missions

likes to be out on the field rather than cooped up in the office 

Is one of the best interrogators for scraping out information from victims

loves to mess around with the rookies and any other fresh bloods that roam the streets to complete missions

is known to be the panther of the streets and has a list of people who shit their pants when they see him

“Oya oya oya~? What do we have here?” A deep chuckle came from the male as he leaned against the cold brick wall. The sight before him bringing nothing but utter amusement in his eyes as he slowly pulled out a cigarette. Lighting the stick before taking a long drag from the addictive nicotine. 

“If I remember correctly, you were supposed to pay us the minimum fee for helping you ‘take care’ of some left over trash. It’s been quite sometime since then. Hasn’t it?” He taunted as he leisurely pulled out a notebook, flipping through the pages for dramatic effect as he took another drag from the cigarette dangling loosely from his parted lips. His golden eyes glowing dangerously as his companion couldn’t help but let out a soft sigh.

Glancing at him, the male couldn’t help but put the notebook away as he put his hands up. 

“Alright, alright. I’ll cut the shenanigans.” 

A crunch and a pained scream was heard before it was quickly muffled as the male tutted softly. 

“Look, I’m being a pretty good guy here! I’m gonna cut ya a deal alright? But before I get to that...I wanna release some pent up stress since of course, you’re not the only one who’s late on payments~.”

Has rooster hair 25/8, he’s tried to tame it but gave up after the first day

has a whole sleeve of a panther on his right arm and enjoys wearing formfitting suits

is heavily built and toned from his adventures on the field

has a couple of piercings too

with his s/o he’s playful and mischievous

loves to pull pranks with his s/o or on his s/o

a cocky and flirtatious boi but can get stumped and flustered when his s/o sets him straight or combats with a wicked prank against him 

N̴o̴b̴u̴y̴u̴k̴i̴ ̴K̴a̴i̴

Literal Caretaker for the two oldest 

bless him oml we all need a man like this who’ll keep their friends from doing the dumbest shit

is the mediator in the group

keeps the members and more rambunctious members from doing anything out of hand that could risk them from getting their information

is the one who gathers and collects information from targets 

besides getting assignments via their brain, he sets out to collect more personal details and weaknesses that’ll help the assignments go by smoothly without any problems

Smiling at the target, the male calmly chatted away on their daily life. The comings and goings of how their lives played out as well as any exciting or memorable events coming up. For him, he had been on his information gathering mission for at least a month now. Having been away from home base had him only slightly worried for what his more...chaotic friends would do in his absence, but he pushed that aside as he took mental note of how the target’s family was going through a hard time.

With surprising ease, he comforted the male and offered sound advice as well as an ear to listen. 

“I understand you’re going through turmoil by now, but if I recall correctly, didn’t you mention a rather helpful investment that’ll solve your problems?” He inquired, feeding into the target’s emotions as the person before him merely nodded before explaining how the rather illegal investment was going to help change his and his family’s lives for the better.

A small smile formed on his lips as he let the information sink in. Hook, Line, and Sinker.

“I see, I’m glad it’ll work out! I promise not to mention this to anyone, just remember to keep me in your memories in case you need a friend to talk to.”

Tanned skin and buzzed black hair he enjoys the simplicity of not having to worry much about appearance

has a lip piercing and a whole back tattoo

broad shoulders and toned yis yis

has a couple of scars from scuffles and battles when he first began this life with Kuroo and Yaku

he’s very honest and thoughtful of his s/o 

likes to talk and learn all about s/o

wants to be as open as he can with them without scaring them

knows exactly how to calm s/o down or rile them up if need be *wink wink*

M̷o̷r̷i̷s̷u̷k̷e̷ ̷Y̷a̷k̷u̷

One of the best assassins 

is quick to analyze the situation and do what is needed to finish the mission with ease

ends up in squabbles with Kuroo every other day 

is very skilled with knives and other simple yet silent methods of getting rid of targets

once stumbled upon Karasuno’s inventor and was shocked at the utter chaos he caused

will always avoid the vicinity where he hears a “ROLINGUUUUUU THUN..DAAAAAAHHH”

gives the harsh love to the rookies (specifically Lev) and trains the shit outta them all

is always ready to swoop in as back up in case one of the rookies mess up

“...seriously?” A heavy sigh came from the figure in question as he stood from his spot on the ceiling. 

“They did try their best Yaku-san...” Was the response from the in ear piece before a jumble of apologies cut through the intercom. Dialing the sound down, the light brown haired male made his quick descent down the stairs. His eyes skimming across the street for the injured, yet escaping target.

Leave it to one of the most inexperienced rookies to not only not properly shot a hindering area, but to let them escape. He was sure he was going to make the new kid do drills all night until his eyes fell out of his head from the amount of precision aiming he’d do.

“Target sighted. Engaging.” Was the quick reply as hazel eyes locked onto the bloodied target. Not completely incapacitated, but injured enough to weasel out some information before getting rid of the body.

With practiced ease, he swooped in; landing gracefully on the floor as he pulled out a dagger. Then, without a second wasted, he pounced onto the figure, easily knocking them down and pressing his heel deeply into the messy knife wound on the man’s abdomen.

“I have to apologize on behalf of my stupid subordinate, but don’t worry. I’ll properly deal with you.”

Is a smol bb, and gets angry if it’s pointed out

once kicked Kuroo so hard that both him and Kuroo were put in a get along shirt by Kai

usually has lightly brushed light brown hair, no worries for bed head

has a multitude of piercings on his ears and one tattoo on his left shoulder blade 

like Kai and Kuroo, his body is littered in scars and bruises from spars and missions

He’s unsurprisingly, very gentle and doting on his s/o

goes into a whole emo-mode when s/o points out his height

expects lots of affection for pointing out his flaw

will listen to s/o’s concerns and take heed whenever he goes to work

always keeps s/o out of Kuroo’s sights

[frostmarris]

notes: hope you enjoy! this ended up being almost twice as long as the first chapter lol but i finally got to the scene thats been in my mind for over a year

Chapter Two

If Deidara was upset when he saw her without the gloves the next morning, he didn't let it show on his face. 

Sakura steps out to find him etching shapes into the snow with the toe of his boot, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket and his breath visible in the chill of the winter morning. He looks back as he hears her shut her door, glances to her hands, and turns around to face her with a grin that never falters. She's relieved that he doesn't comment on his gift (or lack thereof) but inwardly feels guilty as she knows he's probably disappointed. But she doesn't want to ruin the gloves by wearing them before they're ready, so she'll take his silent disappointment just for this morning and make sure he sees her wearing them tomorrow.

She has the weekend off, which means today is the perfect opportunity to get the gloves taken care of and run some errands. Of course, she doesn't mention to Deidara that she's not headed to work this morning, wary that he might ask to tag along.

Not that she wouldn't mind him accompanying her for a grocery trip. It's just that her first stop is somewhere… special.

Deidara walks her to the bus stop just like always, subtly hinting for her to drop some sort of baked good off at his place sometime - "Sucks that the apples don't grow in the winter. There aren't a lot of good pie fruits in season this time of year, yeah?" - and she makes a mental note to see what she can find at the farmers market. If she has no luck there, she can always go for canned cherries or just cave and make cookies again.

Sakura waves goodbye as the bus pulls in to the stop and she ends up in a seat on the other side, her window facing the street and not letting her see when Deidara’s smile turns a little sad as he heads home.

She idly checks her emails on her phone as the bus drives its route, getting off at the third stop rather than the fifth. It's a short walk down the downtown avenue, the shops and restaurants not as busy yet as they will be later in the day, until she reaches a small antique store nestled between a smoothie shop and a dog groomer. It's only just opened and Sakura heads in, waving in greeting to the old man behind the counter next to the door.

He looks up from the watch he's tinkering with, easily recognizing Sakura and waving her off.

"Ah, the pink one again," He grumbles, that ever-present grouchy look settled on his face. "Go on, go on. Head on in - and mind the lamp! Some little shit nearly knocked it over last week."

"Yes, sir, of course!" Sakura calls with a small smile as she heads to the back of the shop. "Have a good morning, Mr. Masumi."

He answers with a dismissive, "Bah!" and she carefully makes her way through the crowded, winding path of the antique shop until she reaches a door at the back left corner. Heeding the shop owner's warning, she edges past the lamp settled on the edge of an old dresser as delicately as she can, being sure not to bump the stained glass lampshade with her elbow. Once through the door, Sakura passes a second one on her right marked 'Cleaning Supplies' and walks down the short hallway to the doorway at the end. 

This one says 'Employees Only' but she pushes it open anyways, revealing a small, empty room barely bigger than a closet. Sakura steps inside and shuts the door, not removing her gloved hand from the doorknob as she silently counts to 25 in her head.

Once she hits the last number, she turns the knob, pulls it open, and steps out into a park.

The trick had taken some getting used to, as she didn't have any real magic herself besides her accursed touch and her ability to see the dead. So, she'd had many failed attempts of counting too quickly or too slowly before she finally got the hang of it. Now she was able to come and go with ease, well-practiced after a couple years.

Sakura pulls the door closed behind her and, though she can't see it through the swirling mist contained in the space of the stone archway, she can hear it click shut. She quickly steps forward and out of the way in case there are any other arrivals, looking out over the snow-covered park fondly.

Behind her is the collection of four stacked-stone arches, each facing one of the cardinal directions and connected by short stone walls, making a perfect square. The Landing, as it's called, sits in the direct center of the small, secret park, each arch standing tall and strong and older than Sakura knows. Though the tops of the arches and the corner walls are covered with snow, she can still easily see the sigil carved into the front of each keystone, placed there by whoever had crafted the gateways.

The park, formally named Bowerfield after the flowering vines that climb a majority of the trees and those waist-height stone walls (but never the arches themselves, as they're meticulously kept away from the gates so as not to damage them or meddle with the enchantment), was a lucky find on Sakura's part.

She'd been living in the city for a few months and had no idea how to find its secret magical community - or if it even had one - until she'd happened upon a friendly soul (quite literally) who'd told her about Bowerfield. He'd been a witch while living and could tell there was something supernatural about Sakura and, after a seemingly one-sided chat in the city's library, he'd directed her to the antique shop.

And now Sakura can enter the park freely and visit the… special shops situated around the outside.

The buildings formed another perfect square, encasing the park and closing it off to the rest of the city. The few alleys between some of the buildings all ended with brick walls and the shimmering field stretched overhead kept it hidden from outside eyes. It was a more useful feature in recent years due to things like drones, but had been put in place around the same time as the Landing, from what Sakura had heard.

Bowerfield itself was located somewhere in the southern half of the city, but she wasn't quite sure where. And she wasn't about to try to figure it out. So long as she had access to the secret park, she didn't care where it was hidden.

Sakura follows one of the pebble-covered dirt paths out from the Landing and through the trees to get to one of the walls of shops, double-checking the time on her phone to make sure she wasn't too early. Several of the businesses are still closed and there are few people out and about, but she can see the lights of the storefronts and the twinkling Christmas decorations through the last section of trees, welcoming and warm.

There are a variety of shops surrounding the park. Some are specialty stores - a couple witch shops, magical tool repairs, boutiques for less-standardly shaped beings, etc. - that are able to sell their goods and conduct their services openly without the need to hide, like some places outside Bowerfield. The rest are relatively normal businesses - such as restaurants, a laundromat, the salon, a clinic, and a supermarket - but provide a safe space for people who can't easily disguise their more obviously magical features.

It was the perfect place for someone with, say, an extra set of limbs or wings to go shopping for clothes and grab lunch, all without worrying about normal humans spotting them.

Sakura's destination is a small shop on the northeast corner, strings of red and white lights decorating the face of the building and a small flock of black birds perched wherever they could. A couple of the birds - ravens, judging by the size of them - let out harsh calls as she approaches and Sakura sends the familiar birds a quick smile and a wave before she heads inside.

The ring from the bell over the door is accompanied by another bird's caw, this time from a crow that flies overhead inside the shop. It heads to the back to land on the wooden counter, hopping closer to the dark-haired woman currently securing a paper-wrapped package with sturdy string. Another raven stands just next to her, perched on one of the prongs of a driftwood branch attached to the countertop.

The woman glances up and smiles brightly as she spots Sakura, raising her hand in greeting.

"Ah, Miss Sakura! What brings you in so early?" A magpie flies down from the railing of the loft on the second floor of the shop to land on her raised hand, earning itself an amused huff from the shopkeep.

"Good morning, Mrs. Uchiha," Sakura greets, heading for the back of the store and chuckling when a blue jay drifts down from the second level and lands on her shoulder, playing with her pink hair.

The woman sighs but smiles at her, shooing both new birds away.

"I keep telling you to call me Mikoto, dear," She chastises gently, running her fingers down the crow's back. "You've been coming here long enough."

At Sakura's chuckle and nod, Mikoto's smile returns and she finishes tying off the package before securing a leather strap around it. Holding her wrist out to the perched raven, it steps over onto her arm and is then transferred to the package, its talons curling around the handle attached to the strap and soon taking to the air. Carrying the package, the raven circles the empty air of the upper level before flying out an open window high on the front of the shop, disappearing with a short call.

"Now," Mikoto says, turning to fully face Sakura. "What can I help you with?"

"Just the usual," She replies as she digs through her bag to pull out a fresh box of latex gloves and Deidara’s gift. Mikoto eyes the black gloves curiously and carefully takes them as Sakura hands everything over, a red bubble of magic appearing around the items and floating above her open hand.

"Only the normal enchantment, dear?" The witch asks, writing Sakura's name on the outside of the bubble with a finger. "I can add an anti-snagging spell to the black ones to protect the embroidery!"

Sakura smiles and nods, reaching out to let the crow curiously nip at her fingers. "That'd be nice, actually. They're a gift from a friend."

She waves off Mikoto's sly smile and rocks back on her heels as the woman laughs and heads through a door behind her. When she returns, the red bubble is gone and a second crow is perched on her shoulder, eyeing Sakura curiously.

"They'll be ready in a few hours," She transfers the crow to the driftwood perch and starts to ring her up, shooing curious beaks away from the register. "I can have Itachi deliver them if you won't be in the park around then."

"Itachi…" Sakura mutters questioningly to herself, inspecting the little stand of luck charms on the counter before she glances up at Mikoto in confirmation. "That's your eldest, right?"

The witch nods, smiling happily. 

"Yes! He's visiting for a few days, so I tricked him into working." Mikoto winks before gesturing over her shoulder. "He's probably back in the aviary finding a spot to hide away in and nap. I swear, that boy's become such a night owl!"

Sakura chuckles, vaguely able to put a face to the name, before perking up and sending her an apologetic look.

"Oh, I nearly forgot. I need a rack of phials or something similar - they work really well for propagating plant cuttings." She smiles sheepishly, hoping the witch wasn't too far in the checkout process to add anything else to her bill. "Is it too late to grab it?"

"Of course not!" Mikoto answers, laughing and waving her off. "I should have something like that up with the potion making tools in the loft, left side. Go ahead and take a look, Sakura dear."

She nods in thanks and heads for the set of stairs against the right wall of the building, quickly climbing up to the second floor. The loft itself only covered about half of the space available on the upper level, most of it reaching out from the back to stand over the check-out and a few shelves below. To the left, an arm of the loft stretches out to the front of the store, connected to the opposite wall of the stairs and just wide enough for a few displays. The main section of the loft only had a few shelves and stands, however, as most of it was clear space to give the birds access to the aviary. Against the back is a single door and several, large, open window-slots, with a few perches jutting out from the wall.

There are a couple other corvids sitting on the perches and watching Sakura as she comes up the stairs, calling in greeting and ruffling their dark feathers. She smiles and quickly steps aside as she hears a caw from behind her, letting a magpie glide past as it flies from one of the three large windows at the front of the shop right through a slot and into the aviary.

Hurrying past in case there are any other arrivals or departures, she moves towards the arm of the loft to find those phials. Typically, only Mikoto or one of her employees were allowed up onto the second level, but Sakura had been visiting for long enough that she'd become fairly good at dodging birds. She usually only visited to get her gloves, both latex and the white cotton ones she used daily, fixed up with an enchantment that protected them from her touch, but it was fun to occasionally browse the shop.

Sakura searches the shelves of bottles and tools used for standard potion making before she finds a metal rack with five glass phials, smiling in approval. As she turns to head back towards the stairs, the door to the aviary opens and a young, dark-haired man steps out. She gets a brief glance into the aviary itself, more corvids flying around the large, dome-roofed room from nest boxes to perches to feeders, but quickly refocuses on the man.

His black hair is pulled back in a low ponytail with bangs framing his face and his eyes, just as dark as his hair, look tired - especially with the dark circles. He's pale, but he doesn't have much skin showing for Sakura to be able to tell if it's just his face's complexion or not, and taller than her by at least a full head. The long sleeves of his black shirt likely keep his arms protected from talons and the collar rises halfway up his neck, neat and trim and only a few stray feathers clinging to the fabric.

He blinks at her before nodding his head in greeting, a crow following him out of the aviary before he can close the entrance. It lands on his shoulder and he reaches up to rub the base of its beak, turning to pull the door shut.

"You must be Itachi," Sakura says, holding the rack of phials carefully so that it doesn't slip against the fabric of her gloves. "It's nice to me-"

"Itachi?!" Comes Mikoto's voice from below, her sudden call making a few of the birds squawk and caw. "Finally out of the back, you lazybones?!"

Itachi sighs and moves his hand to have the crow step off onto his fingers, eyeing Sakura before heading towards the stairs with her. 

"Yes, mother," He calls back, just loud enough for her to hear. "I'm here."

"About time!" Mikoto plants her fists on her hips as they come into view, regarding her son with a fond yet motherly-disapproving look. "We've been open for nearly an hour."

He simply bows his head in apology and moves to the counter to collect the other pair of crows, one on each hand and the third perched on his forearm.

Mikoto sighs but shrugs, gesturing to Sakura, who sets the rack on the counter and digs her wallet out of her bag.

"This is Miss Sakura," The witch introduces, disappointed when Itachi only nods again. "She's a long-time customer of ours."

Itachi turns to regard her again, clicking his tongue softly when two of the crows start to squabble.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Sakura," He says politely, finishing her sentiment from earlier. "Can I help you find anything?"

Sakura offers a small smile in return and shakes her head, patting the glass phials gently. "No, I'm all set. Thank you though, Itachi."

He nods again and, transferring the third crow to join the pair on his other arm, heads through the door into the backroom. Mikoto sighs once more when he's gone and sends Sakura an apologetic look.

"He's always been such a quiet boy." She shrugs and turns to grab a pen from a cup next to the register, pushing it and a sticky note pad towards her. "Before I forget, go ahead and give me your address, dear. I left my book at home, apparently. I'll pass it on to Itachi and he'll send a crow from his flock to deliver your gloves when they're ready."

Sakura nods and quickly scribbles down her address, soon helping Mikoto wrap up the glass phials once everything's paid for and tucking the package into her bag.

"Take care now, Sakura dear! It's going to snow again tonight, so watch for ice tomorrow."

She smiles and waves before heading for the front door, knowing the witch's forecast was always more accurate than the weather channel's. More black birds (and the occasional blue jay) caw and take flight as she exits the shop, but she pays them little mind and heads back towards the center of the park. Bowerfield is getting busier now that the day is fully underway and, with no other errands to run in the secret park, she's ready to head back out into the city, take a short walk over to the farmers market, grab some groceries, and head home.

Going back through one of the Landing's portals is a little tricky, but Sakura’s much more confident than she was a year ago. She simply reaches a hand into the wall of swirling mist, feels around until she finds a doorknob, thinks of the antique shop, and opens the door. The familiar muffled creak lets her know she's on track and she steps through the mist, entering the small Employees Only room at the back of the shop.

With the door pushed shut once more, she waits 25 seconds exactly and pulls it open, smiling as she finds the short hallway in front of her once again.

There's a few people idly browsing the shop when she leaves the backroom behind and a couple near the display of porcelain dolls send her odd looks when they see her step out, but Sakura simply heads to the front, offers Mr. Masumi a wave in farewell (to which he replies with a short grunt but a wave in reply as well), and steps out onto the street. The air feels different outside of Bowerfield, but Sakura's sure it has to do with the thrum of magic that fills the park, making everything feel duller by comparison for the first half hour or so that she’s back in the normal city.

She walks back the way she’d come but turns when she reaches the corner of the block, heading into the more shopping-focused area of the city's downtown. It takes her about ten minutes to reach the covered pavilion next to an old brewery, already full of the stands and stalls of the farmers market and bustling with early-morning shoppers. 

As she's only only here for a few specific things, Sakura tries to stay focused and not get distracted by the different goods, heading right for a particular product stand that she usually gets veggies from. She pulls a mesh shopping tote out of her shoulder bag and leaves the stand some minutes later with carrots, squash, and potatoes, starting her search for reasonable pie-fruit.

"So, what, I just fuckin' chomp the straw and eat it whole?"

Sakura pauses as she passes by a honey stand, glancing over curiously to see a very exasperated beekeeper and a silver-haired man who seemed to be about five seconds away from taking a literal bite from a honey stick.

"No, sir," The beekeeper says tiredly, obviously trying to resist the urge to run his hands down his face. "You just bite the end to pop it open and then suck out the honey. Please don't eat the tube."

She doesn't mean to eavesdrop, but the conversation did remind her that she was low on honey at home. Might as well grab a jar.

Sakura eyes the man as she steps to the other side of the stall, inspecting a stack of wildflower honey jars but unable to stop from listening in again as he rears back slightly and curls his upper lip.

"Do I look like a hummingbird or some shit?"

She barely suppresses her snicker and the stand owner quickly turns his attention to her, relieved to have someone else to assist. The beekeeper ignores the silver-haired man's indignant huff and stops in front of Sakura, putting on a smile as he greets her.

"Can I help you find anything, Miss? Would you like a free sample?" He gestures to the stacks of jars and bottles, pretending not to hear the other man complain that he hadn't been offered any free damn samples. "The bees we keep produce really great honey  - the orange blossom is my favorite."

Sakura chuckles and picks up one of the wildflower jars, passing it over as she retrieves her wallet.

"Just this one, please."

"Excellent choice!" The beekeeper quickly starts to ring her up and the man, who still hasn't left, gives an overly-dramatic sigh.

"Fine, keep your damn sticks. Just tell me where I can find a stand that sells rocks and shit."

The owner groans tiredly but Sakura steps in, fairly familiar with the market.

"There should be one on the other side of the pavilion," She offers, finally taking a good look at the man as he turns to her. His silver hair is slicked back and shiny, just long enough to reach the bottoms of his ears, and his eyes are an odd magenta color, scrutinizing Sakura curiously.

He looks rather out of place with his studded leather jacket and ripped jeans - especially considering how cold it is today - and she's fairly confident that he's never been to the farmer's market. 

The man nods and rubs his chin, his jaw sharp and strong, as she continues, gesturing towards the north part of the market.

"They're usually near the people that sell all the house plants and succulents. So look for a lot of green and you should find it."

He looks her over one last time before grinning and raising his hand in thanks as he turns to head the way she’d directed.

"Thanks, lady." The man says, rolling his shoulders to adjust his jacket. "At least someone up here is fuckin' helpful."

Sakura sends his back a curious look as he walks away, but shrugs it off and passes cash over to the relieved beekeeper. With the jar of honey slipped into her tote, she heads off to find her fruit, trying her best to not get distracted again. She keeps an eye out for that odd man but soon gets distracted by another produce stand, grinning at the sight of fresh pomegranates.

Vaguely remembering a recipe in one of her books for a pomegranate pie, she hurries over and starts to pick some out as she tries to recall how many she'd need.

If Deidara wants a pie, he's gonna get a pie.

: :

Sakura's just in the middle of peeling potatoes when something starts tapping at her kitchen window. She glances up, stood at the sink, to see a crow on the windowsill and softly pecking the glass with its beak. It gives a muffled caw and flaps its wings when it sees her looking back at it before hopping down to her small bistro table in the backyard, a wrapped package sitting next to it.

She smiles and slips her rubber gloves off to reveal cotton ones before hurrying to the back door and out into her yard, careful to be quiet so that Deidara doesn't happen to hear her and look outside. Even carrier pigeons aren't exactly a common sight among humans nowadays, so she isn't sure how she'd explain the crow and its delivery.

Closing the door as gently as she can, Sakura steps out onto the snow-covered yard and approaches the table, smiling in greeting at the bird and reaching out to give it a soft pat before she reaches for the package. Unclasping the leather carrying strap, she unwraps the paper partially to make sure it's her gloves before nodding to the crow, humming gently. She gives it a quick scratch under its chin before starting to step away, tucking her package under her arm.

"Wait just a moment, please," Sakura says softly, the crow tilting its head to watch her curiously. "I'll grab you a treat before you head back home."

It gives an enthusiastic caw and she chuckles, hoping her neighbors hadn't heard as she quickly returns to her kitchen. She sets her wrapped gloves on the table before retrieving a shallow bowl to fill with some lukewarm water, grabbing a handful of blueberries, and heading back out. Pleased to see the crow waiting patiently on the bistro table, Sakura moves to clear some snow off before setting the water and fruit down, smiling when it hops closer and eagerly accepts the treats.

"I thought birds are supposed to fly south for the winter, yeah?"

She fully jumps in surprise, startled by the sudden sound of Deidara's voice. Looking up, she sees him leaning out of a window on his second floor and lets out a huff as his grin grows wider.

"Sorry, Sakura," He says, stifling a laugh and crossing his arms as he rests them on the windowsill. "Did I scare you, hm?"

"You just surprised me," She looks back down to the crow, picking up one of the blueberries and offering it to the bird as she ignores Deidara’s chuckle. Relieved that she'd taken the package inside already, Sakura pets its feathers and glances up again when he continues.

"Make a friend? I heard it squawking and couldn't help taking a peek, yeah." He scrutinizes the crow with a curious frown, snorting when it gives a harsh caw and flaps its wings in his direction.

Sakura calms it with another blueberry and steps back when the bird takes off, finished with its delivery and snack. Shrugging, she picks up the bowl and dumps the water out, making a mental note that she really should put a bird feeder or a birdbath out here for future deliveries from Mikoto.

"It was probably just passing through," She answers finally, crossing her arms and leaning against the table as she looks up at Deidara. "I saw it through my kitchen window and wanted to see if it'd take any treats. Maybe I can make friends with a flock of ravens like those stories on the internet."

She deliberately misidentifies the crow but he seems eager to change the subject, propping a first under his chin.

"You got home early, hm. Short work day today?"

Sakura looks away and brushes a bit of snow off her sleeve, barely feeling the chill through her gloves. "I was just out running errands."

"Awww," Comes Deidara's voice, a slight whine to his tone. "I would have come with you if I'd known!"

She doesn't bother to hide her smirk but quickly crosses her arms again when a breeze passes through the yard, trying to suppress a shiver.

"How do you feel about pomegranates?" Sakura asks, changing the subject herself. She plans on making that pie tomorrow, but it'd probably be best to make sure he actually likes the fruit. When she looks up at Deidara, his expression looks rather conflicted and he sends her a slightly disappointed smile.

"Good shit, yeah. But it's cold out; you should head back inside, Sakura," He sighs, obviously wanting to continue the conversation but very aware of how another breeze makes her shiver. "I don't want ya getting sick just 'cause I'm a big chatterbox."

Her smile turns fond and she pushes off from the edge of the bistro table, brushing any lingering snow off of her house robe before raising a hand in farewell.

"See you later, Deidara. Stay warm."

He returns the sentiment, not budging from his spot until she's back inside, and she misses how he looks in the direction the crow had flown. Deidara frowns to himself before finally pulling back and closing his window, locking it with a soft click.

: :

Monday morning, Sakura heads out dressed in her usual white button-up, silk scarf, and long skirt combo. But, this time, she's sure to tug the black, embroidered gloves onto her hands, smiling as Mikoto's enchantment holds and they don't turn to gold. House keys in hand, she steps out to see a fresh layer of snow on the ground and Deidara shoveling his stoop clean.

He looks up to greet her but, at the sight of her hands, he cuts himself off and the brightest grin she's ever seen from him bursts onto his face. Dropping the shovel, he practically vaults over the hedge separating them and stops just short of taking one of her hands in his own, still beaming but looking a little more sheepish as he steps back.

"You're wearing the gloves!" Deidara says, foregoing greeting her as he's obviously too excited. "How do they fit, yeah? Not too tight?"

Sakura smiles gently and he backtracks as she steps down and moves for the street, slipping her keys into the bag on her shoulder.

"Morning, Deidara." They immediately fall into their morning routine as she heads for the bus stop, his smile never leaving his face. "They fit just right. Thank you again."

His grin widens and he rubs the back of his head, avoiding a pile of snow that was most likely hiding a trash can.

"Great! Awesome, yeah!" He nearly slips on a patch of ice in his excitement and Sakura quickly reaches out to catch his arm, chuckling under her breath when his face turns a little pink.

"I-I'm glad!" Deidara says, trying to brush the moment off and recover. "They look good on you."

"You've got good tastes," Sakura replies, holding a hand up to appreciate the embroidery. "The stitching is excellent."

He's got an admirable pep to his step and, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets, Deidara tilts his head slightly as he looks at her, his blue eyes sparkling.

"I can give you a referral if you wanna update your collection. Or get some of the older ones embroidered, hm."

Sakura hums thoughtfully, taking a sip from her thermos. "I might take you up on that, actually. The all-white look is a little plain…"

Deidara’s smile grows all the wider and he's quick to pull his phone out, typing silently for a few moments before he sends her a text with all the information. Sakura feels her phone buzz in her bag but decides to check the address later, instead turning her focus to discussing the benefits of touchscreen-compatible gloves versus the ruined aesthetics of the pad on the fingertips. They chat amicably as they walk, careful of ice and snow on the ground before, eventually, they're at the bus stop.

Sakura inconspicuously brings up pomegranates again while she waits for her ride, planning on bringing the finished pie by his place after she gets off work. She'd overestimated just how many she'd need for the recipe and had ended up with enough seeds for a second pie but, by the time the bus pulled up, she was confident that she'd only be eating one by herself.

Deidara wishes her a good day as she boards and Sakura waves at him through the window once she's seated, pulling out her cellphone. As the bus pulls away from the curb, she checks his text and looks up the shop, saving the location for future reference. Maybe she would get some of her plain gloves touched up with some nice embroidery or something.

The bus ride passes uneventfully and, by the time she arrives at the coroner’s office and gets her assignments for the day, she's pretty sure her shift will pass uneventfully.

That is, until her assistant unzips the black body bag and Sakura finds a vaguely familiar face on her examination table. 

Her hands, holding the clipboard and pen, low slightly as she frowns in confusion, trying to recall why this corpse seems so familiar. Jun sends her a curious look and she shrugs it off, beginning her external examination as she pushes her confusion to the back of her mind. She writes down a few notes as she speaks aloud, her Dictophone sitting nearby on one of the counters against the wall and recording her verbal report.

"Identity: Unknown. The victim appears to have suffered a gunshot wound to the forehead," She says, circling the table while her assistant drags the rolling tray of tools closer, waiting for her to give him the go-ahead to start removing the clothes. "Judging by the powder tattooing and seared skin around the entry wound, but the lack of a muzzle imprint, the shot was likely taken at close range, but not in contact with the victim's head."

She moves her head around for a better angle at the hole in the man's forehead, but doesn't reach out to move his hair away from the wound yet. The hole is circular and about half an inch wide, the edges of the skin blackened and burned with a wide zone of powder soot around the entry point. The reddish-brown stippling on the skin (pinpoint abrasions from unburnt powder grains leaving the gun) indicates that the man had been alive when he was shot.

"Complexion: pale. Hair: short and silver. Eyes…" Sakura reaches out and carefully lifts one of the corpse's partially-open eyelids with a gloved finger and pauses at the sight of magenta irises around the dilated pupils. She blinks, lips parted, and suddenly realizes why the man seems so familiar.

"Dr. Haruno..?"

Sakura glances up as Jun calls to her and straightens, clearing her thoughts.

"I'm alright - let's continue."

She takes a much better look at the corpse's face and inwardly confirms that this is definitely the man she'd bumped into at the farmers market two days ago. Vaguely recalling that the report had stated the body had been found outside the hospital this morning, she makes a mental note to read it more thoroughly after the examination.

Sakura always suspected that, one day, she'd end up performing an autopsy on the body of someone she kinda-sorta knew, but this is the first time that's happened. Rather unprepared, she's feeling a little… off her game. But also more intrigued than usual.

She can't help but wonder about the motive, about what had led to the silver-haired man being shot nearly point-blank. The body was in the very early stages of rigor mortis, which meant he hadn't been killed very long ago - most likely just before he'd been deposited on the hospital street. He was dressed in different clothes than she remembered, so he had at least made it home that evening.

"The victim is familiar to me," She says aloud for the recording, ignoring Jun's sudden, shocked expression. "A report will be made to the case investigator after the autopsy is completed."

Her assistant looks like he wants to say something but glances to the Dictophone, so Sakura steps over, pauses the recording, and turns to him.

"You have something to say, Jun?"

"Excuse me, Dr. Haruno," He answers, looking a little embarrassed at having stopped the examination. "Do you… know this man?"

He asks the question cautiously, unsure if she had some sort of emotional attachment to the victim and if he should go get Dr. Sato. But Sakura waves off his question and readies to start the audio recording again.

"I saw him in passing when I was grocery shopping the other day," She answers, shaking her head slightly when Jun relaxes. "I just recognized his face."

The external examination continues and Sakura keeps an eye out for any lingering shapes in the corners of the room. But she finds none, even after the initial review is completed, Jun finishes undressing and bagging the clothes, and they bring the body back from radiology and pin the X-rays up.

Sakura turns the lifeless head to take a second look at the exit wound, having already reported that there don't appear to be any other signs of injury on the man's body. She continues to speak aloud as she measures the larger hole at the back of his head, Jun pulling an empty cart closer as she begins to remove broken, misplaced skull fragments and tries to clear the wound as much as she can. She takes pictures both before and after and then has her assistant clean the wound while she grabs a few more photos of the body, providing evidence that there likely hadn't been a struggle.

Once the exit wound is clean, Sakura moves to take another picture, but pauses as she notices something at the nape of his neck. She rolls the body onto its side and angles the overhead light before grabbing a rectangular magnifying glass off the cart of tools.

"Did you find something, Dr. Haruno?"

She feels carefully at a spot at the back of his neck, just below his hairline and to the left of his spine, with her fingers, frowning as the round, red spot on his skin seems to belong to something hard puncturing his flesh. She glances to the X-rays but doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

"The victim appears to have something embedded in the back of his neck," She says aloud, detailing its location before grabbing one of the rulers on the rolling tray. With Jun holding the ruler in place just next to the red spot, Sakura takes a couple pictures and verbally logs the size.

"The foreign object measures a quarter-inch in diameter, is a perfect circle, though slightly jagged around the edges, and is red in color." She exchanges the ruler for tweezers and has her assistant hold the magnifying glass as she attempts to spread the skin around the spot with her fingers, giving her better access to get the tweezers around it. It takes a bit of finessing, but she soon gets a grip on the object and carefully pulls it out.

It's only about an inch and a half long, with one end (the outer end) flat and the other sharp and pointed. Sakura holds it up to the light and notes that the red color is due to the blood coating it and, after placing it in a shallow tray on the cart, moves back to the man's neck. With a little searching she finds a second spot on the opposite side of his spine, perfectly mirroring the location of the first. She repeats the process of describing the foreign object, measuring, and taking photographic evidence, before removing a nearly identical shard.

With both items placed in the tray and the ruler held next to them for reference, she takes another few photos before sending Jun to clean them.

"Is it glass, doctor?" He asks as he takes the tray. To which Sakura answers with a curious, "I don’t think so."

While he cleans off the shards, she examines the wounds left behind, takes another photo, then rolls the body onto its back once more.

Once everything is clean and Sakura can better identify the foreign objects, she realizes they're small crystals of some sort. The edges aren't perfectly smooth like quartz - instead, they jagged and ridged, but run evenly down the length of the crystals, as if someone had taken hundreds of incredibly thin sticks and fused them together. They are white but not completely opaque, allowing the blood to reflect through and make the flat ends look red from the outside.

She recalls how he'd been looking for a 'stand that sells rocks and shit' and can't help but wonder if it was connected.

Sakura takes several pictures from different angles before bagging the shards for evidence and making a note to try to identify them later when she was on her computer. Returning to the autopsy, she takes tissue samples for histology and blood for toxicology and typing before turning the examination inward.

The organs are measured and weighed, checked over for any abnormalities, and returned to the body. With no evidence of soft tissue trauma or even a single broken bone - 

(It's rather odd, she can't find any signs of old injuries, not even scars from childhood. For such a rough-looking guy like she remembered, it was strange that he seemed to have not retained evidence of a single even mildly serious injury in his life.)

 - anywhere besides the hole in his skull and the bullet path through his (otherwise normal) brain, the case is shaping up to be a fairly standard gunshot-wound-to-the-head homicide.

Besides the odd crystals she'd found stabbed into the nape of his neck, of course.

Sakura stitches the body back up, returns it to its bag with help from Jun, then approves it to be taken down to the morgue while she compiles her findings. All the while, she searches out of the corner of her eye for a lingering spirit, disappointed when she finds none.

It wasn't uncommon. Sometimes souls passed on by themselves without her aide or simply wandered off elsewhere. But, she can't help admitting that she is curious about this case and wishes she could speak one last time with the silver-haired man and find out what might have happened.

For now, however, she has other cases to attend to.

: :

It takes some searching, but Sakura eventually identifies the crystals as selenite.

She lingers on a web page describing its 'abilities' in aiding in sleep and deep peace for a moment before closing the tab and adding her find to the report. She'd already called the investigator in charge of the case to set up a time to talk about how she'd seen the man before and was now mostly through with her reports for her other cases and recordings for the day. He still hadn't been identified and no one had come forward with a missing person's report, but he'd technically only been dead for about twelve hours, so it might be a while before someone realizes he's missing.

It was hours later now, already past the end of her day, and Sakura debates opening back up that tab she'd just closed, wondering if the crystals were toxic. But, she's tired and it's been a long shift, so she'll save that idea for tomorrow and finish downloading her audio file and photos for the silver-haired man's case before locking up and heading home.

She leans back in her chair and balances a pencil on her upper lip as the files upload, alone in her office as Sato had already left for the evening. Her gaze crawls over to the corner of the room every so often, still hoping his spirit would appear, but she truly is completely alone. When her computer alerts her that the transfer is complete, she takes a moment to scroll through the photos and pauses as she realizes she'd missed something.

Though she had pictures of the silver-haired man with the trail of blood running down his face and his hair in a disarray, she'd apparently neglected to take a photo of him all cleaned up and his features much more identifiable.

Sakura curses under her breath, drops her pencil in a mug of pens, and slips the memory card back into her camera. Quickly emailing the audio recording to the transcriptionist, she closes down her computer, grabs jer coat and bag, and decides to get a picture before she goes home. Leaving her office, she heads down to the changing room next to the lab but forgoes changing into her scrubs. Instead, she simply swaps Deidara’s gloves for a latex pair, tucking the former in her skirt's pocket, and steps into a pair of sterile booties to cover her shoes.

She keeps her coat folded over her arm and her camera in hand as she heads to the pair of swinging doors that lead down to the mortuary. Once through the entrance, she follows the sloped incline path on her right down to the sub-level. It turns once, doubling back in the direction she'd come but still in a descent, and the stone walls, painted white, are far enough apart for her not to feel claustrophobic. There's enough grip on the shoe coverings for her to not slip on the linoleum and she passes a janitor swabbing down the flooring, raising a hand in greeting.

It's always quiet in the Northwest building, as the doctor offices and patient rooms are in the East wing, but it's late enough in the day that most employees have already gone home. Sakura isn't too bothered, as she's used to staying late, and she enters the morgue fairly quickly after swiping her ID card when she reaches the locked pair of doors at the end of the sloped hall, heading for the wall of steel fridges. There's only the single entrance into the chilly room, with the ramped corridor leading upstairs rather than an elevator to better transport bodies up to and down from the pathology department, and it's completely empty - besides whatever's in the coolers.

There's a tall rolling table near the entrance, the metal top covered by a long sterile sheet that someone had left out. The edges of the fabric reach down to the floor on three sides and Sakura clicks her tongue at the sight, wondering who'd neglected to put it up, but deposits her coat on top of the table anyways. She searches the wall of body drawers for the right label and eventually opens one of the doors, pulling the sturdy metal tray holding her mystery man out of the just-under 40 degrees Fahrenheit cooler. Making sure her latex gloves are secure, she pulls the sterile sheet covering the silver-haired corpse down to mid-chest and looks over his admittedly handsome face one last time before brushing his hair away from the hole in his forehead and raising her camera.

Sakura takes a couple photos before reaching out to lift an eyelid, needing to get a shot of his eyes.

She jerks back with a startled gasp, however, bumping the tray with her leg, as she finds those magenta irises surrounding constricted pupils.

Hand on her chest and her eyes wide, she stares at the body for a long moment, wondering if she'd just imagined that. Pupils are supposed to be dilated after death until rigor mortis makes the body's muscles begin to tighten once more. And the frigid temperature of the drawers was supposed to postpone those effects; he shouldn't have entered that stage yet.

Sakura keeps staring for a moment, noting that she'd disturbed his arm when she bumped the tray and it was now hanging limply over the edge. Taking a breath and inwardly telling herself that she'd been mistaken, she steps forward and moves to lift his arm back up onto the metal top, but pauses as she notices something on his palm. Holding his wrist, her eyebrows furrow in confusion as she inspects the odd symbol drawn on the palm of his hand, absolutely certain that it hadn't been there before.

She traces a gloved finger over the curves of the line but freezes when the dark brown mark begins to turn red. When it starts to glow, Sakura quickly shoves his arm back under the sheet, covers his face again, and moves to push the tray back into the fridge. Something was going on and she wanted no part in it.

She stops mid-push, however, at the sound of a loud thud out in the hallway and glances over her shoulder. It must just be the janitor but Sakura steps away from the corpse anyways, leaving the tray pulled completely out, and approaches the double doors of the morgue. 

The two doors, sturdy and coated in a sheet of sterile metal, have twin windows at the top third and she curiously peeks out into the hallway, her eyes going wide as she sees the janitor collapsed on the ground. The upper half of his body is just within view and the rest is out of sight around the corner of the turn in the hall and Sakura hurriedly moves to grab her ID card. She pauses as she pulls away from the door as her eye catches movement and she watches as the janitor's body is dragged out of sight, leaving a trail of blood on the linoleum.

Slapping a hand over her mouth as she gasps, Sakura quickly pulls away from the door and presses up against next to it, no longer within sight through the window. She takes a breath and just barely peeks over the edge, her stomach dropping as she spots two figures dressed in black rounding the corner.

Heart pounding, she ducks down, backs away, and searches for another exit, though she knows there aren't any.

But the soft groan from behind her makes her freeze and, reluctantly, Sakura slowly turns around.

The body of the silver-haired man is sitting upright on his tray, a perfect 90 degree angle and the sheet still covering his head. As his hand raises to slowly pull the cloth down, the symbol on his palm glowing bright red and an unwounded forehead coming into view, Sakura can hear the beep of the scanner outside the mortuary as an ID badge is swiped. She shoots a quick glance over her shoulder, filled with panic, and grabs her coat before diving under the tall table nearby.

She takes just a moment to right the edges of the sheet laid out over the table, the uncovered fourth side luckily being the one that's pressed against the wall, and lays as still and as quietly as she can. 

Listening to the sound of the doors opening, she can hear a quiet conversation abruptly stop as the intruders undoubtedly notice the moving - living? Reanimated? - corpse. All is quiet for a moment and Sakura is able to peek out from under the sterile curtain hiding her just enough to see shoes near the doors.

She can't stop how she jumps when there's a sudden gunshot but does manage to hold back her startled shout. 

Ears ringing and the floor cold under her, pink eyebrows furrow at the indignant, "What the fuck," that comes from the direction of the silver-haired man.

"You fucking shot me, asshole!" Comes his familiar voice again and she watches one pair of boots rush towards him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Growls a new voice, followed by a grunt.

"Same question to you, jackass!" Another grunt and Sakura can hear bare feet hit the ground and the sound of two bodies struggling to grapple each other before another gunshot. This time it's muffled and, from her left, she can see knees hit the ground hard and a puddle of blood quickly drip onto the floor.

"Quit it!" His voice again, but he sounds more annoyed than a man who'd just been shot - again - should be.

(Well, maybe the annoyance was justified. But there wasn't any panic or fear in his tone.)

"That fucking hurts, you shit-for-brains! And not even the good kind!"

"Shut your damn mouth before I blow your brains out." The second man's hiss is furious and he obviously doesn't appreciate when the silver-haired should-be corpse laughs.

"Too late!"

"What's he doing here, Sakon?" Comes a new voice, Sakura's head turning to look in the direction of the third man. "Why's he- Is he naked?"

The conversation and scuffle abruptly ends as they all, Sakura included, hear the sound of someone running down the incline hall above. They're headed down for the mortuary and a low, quick whistle from 'Sakon' has the other man moving away from the open door to crouch down next to the table she's hiding under.

She freezes and muffles her breathing in the fabric of her coat, glancing from the shadow to her left to what she can see of the exit just a few feet away from her. The footsteps slow as the new arrival approaches the doors and she can hear the click of a gun being readied next to her.

"Hidan?" Comes a cautious voice, and Sakura's heart nearly drops at the familiarity of it. "What the fuck did you d‐"

"DUCK!"

The shout was preceded by a grunt and a yelp and then immediately followed by the newcomer dropping to the ground and the sound of a gun being fired just seconds later. There's a chorus of curses, grunts, and shouts and the sound of fists hitting flesh until everything falls quiet again.

"Alright," Says intruder #2, panting and still standing just next to Sakura's hiding spot. She can see another pair of boots just in front of his own and guesses that he'd grappled the newcomer into a hold and was likely threatening him with his gun.

"Let my brother g-" He cuts himself off and Sakura looks out to her left, bare feet planted behind another pair of boots and facing the men next to her. "Wait, you don't even have a weapon!"

She moves her gaze to the unblocked, still open door, trying to determine how long it would take for her to scramble out from under the table and run for the exit. As silently as she can, she removes the plastic coverings over her shoes.

"I don't fuckin' need one when I've got this!" Silver-haired man says, probably showing off… something that warranted a growl from the intruder and his apparent brother.

"What the hell are you snakes even doing here, hm?" Comes that painfully familiar voice. Sakura bites her lip and stays silent, waiting for some sort of opening as she moves her knees under herself.

"None of your business. Now shut up before I put a bullet in your chest. I know you won't heal like loudmouth over there."

She hates that she can't see much of anything, just the white fabric walls around her, but listens intently to every sound and movement. It's all she's got to give her some idea of what's going on above her, trying to figure out where all of the men stood based on what she can see of their shoes and her knowledge of the mortuary's layout. 

There's another grunt and the sound of a gun muzzle being jammed harder against a body before she sees newcomer's boots slowly turn and plant more firmly on the ground.

Though Sakura isn't able to see the silent conversation that passes between two of the men's gazes, she's acutely aware of the low humming that suddenly starts to build near the wall of fridges.

"What the fuck is that noise-?!" 'Sakon's' question is abruptly cut off by a sudden crack and boom and Sakura glances over just as a body hits the ground and the slack face of man she doesn't recognize comes just barely into view. She sees pale blue - nearly grey - hair and green-painted lips and hears a furious shout from above her, followed by a gunshot and a second body collapsing next to the first. There's the sound of grunts and muffled punches and the splatter of blood and Sakura knows this is her chance, while everyone is either distracted or incapacitated.

As the newcomer drops down and rolls to avoid a shot from the remaining brother, she tears her latex glove off with her teeth and reaches one hand out to touch the boots still stood next to her hiding spot. 

They instantly turn to solid gold and, as he takes a step to go after the man with the horribly familiar voice, the new heavy weight of his shoes takes him by surprise and he falls forward. Sakura scrambles out from under the table, clutching her coat and camera, and races out of the room, just barely catching a glimpse of a blond-haired man's back as he crouches down behind a counter across the morgue.

Her gaze meets a shocked black eye and a face identical to the one she'd seen just moments earlier but she's already out the door and around the corner before she can really think on it. Nearly tripping on the janitor's body as she races up the hallway, Sakura stuffs her camera in her bag, still on her shoulder and crossed over her body, and curls her ungloved hand into a fist. She keeps it held close to her chest but doesn't let it touch her clothing and, once she's shoving through the swinging doors and back on the upper floor, she runs for exit to the loading bay near the storage room.

The heavy doors are propped open, a disturbing sight, but she races through them anyways and enters the delivery dock just as she hears distant gunshots from behind her.

It's only once she's a full two blocks away that she stops running, panting heavily as she leans against a brick wall and tries to catch her breath. She hadn't been followed, fortunately, and she debates calling the police, groaning as she slides down to collapse on the concrete. 

She knows she should but she can't bring herself to do it, recalling that voice she knows so well and that familiar blond hair. 

What was Deidara doing there? He'd called the other man, the silver-haired corpse, 'Hidan', which meant he knew him. It couldn't have been a coincidence that he'd just randomly showed up either. Something was going on and Sakura neither knew nor wanted to find out.

She shivers as a cold breeze passes through the street, bringing a fresh snowfall with it, and takes a deep breath to calm herself down. Her coat is still folded over her arm, but she needs to get her ungloved hand covered before she can even attempt to put it on, not wanting to ruin it and have to lug it back to her home. 

A few snowflakes drift down and land on her curled fist and she curses under her breath as they turn to gold before they can even begin to melt against her skin. The light from the street lamps catch on the golden snowflakes as she shakes them off her hand and she digs around in the pocket of her skirt for Deidara’s gloves, glancing down the dark street.

Sakura's stomach sinks when she only finds one of the black gloves.

She hesitates, digging around in her pocket again and then searching through her bag just in case, before finally standing. Luckily, the remaining glove is just the one she needs and she worriedly tugs it on, one hand covered with black and the other with latex. A look back the way she'd come confirms that she hadn't dropped it just now and she pales slightly, realizing it likely fell out of her pocket when she had left her hiding spot in the mortuary.

Running a hand nervously through her hair, she stands there on the street for a long, long moment, staring back in the direction of the hospital, before finally turning around. She pulls on her coat and crouches down to collect the golden snowflakes, her expression grim, until she's satisfied that she's found them all.

Straightening up, she sends one last glance over her shoulder before hurrying down the street to find a bus stop. She needs to get home.

[theastrophilearchitect]

I started writing a book.

And I’m mad about it, because I just started this post, brought up a new tab and lost it because I didn’t save my draft.

Anyway. That’s a thing I did. Wow.

As of this moment, this post won’t be going up until April 19th, but I’m starting writing this at 10.30pm on Sunday, February 21st, 2021. I’ve done a lot in the last couple weeks, and I want to have some record of all I’ve accomplished without just letting most of it fade over the next two months.

I’ve always wanted to be an author. From when I was reading under my covers with a torch past bedtime, through the years I wanted to be an artist, through the years I wanted to be a lawyer. It’s always been there - no matter what primary career path I went down, I wanted to be an author. The last few years, I’ve been invested in becoming a biologist, and that dream really took a backseat.

In the start of this lockdown, my mental health went downhill, and some advice my therapist gave me was just to prioritise myself. It sounds simple enough, but, even in my free time, I’d been focusing on schoolwork - revising constantly for exams I’m still not sure are actually happening. (Boris Johnson is apparently making an announcement tomorrow about beginning to ease lockdown, but we’ll see) So, on Saturday, February 6th, I started an attempt to coalesce the ideas I had floating in my head into something tangible.

I’ve tried to write books countless times (not technically countless - I have all the documents on my laptop, so I could if I wanted to), but mostly, I’ve never gotten further than a couple bare plot points and some characters, maybe some ideas for subplots, before I’ve stagnated and given up.

Three times, I’ve finished a skeletal outline. Twice, I’ve started to go back over those outlines only to realise they made no sense or just seemed week, and simply not cared enough to fix it. Until now, I guess.

February 6th, 7th, and fast-forward to my week off beginning the 15th, up until the 19th, I kept developing this concept I’d managed to form, but I was struggling to establish a coherent plot. I had up until and including a midpoint (which was later condensed into just a first act), but everything after that was just a void. I began searching for some skeletal structure I could apply to it, both to work on pacing and fill in the blanks. I tried several, and got a little further, but was about to give up hope.

Then I remembered a video by Katytastic I’d watched years ago about the 3-act, 9-block, 27-chapter structure she used, and couldn’t see the harm in giving it a go. And something clicked.

You can find the video here - the structure’s detailed and easy to follow, plus she even gives an example of using it to generate a plot.

I started binge-watching her writing vlogs in the background, and even started using her same writing program, Scrivener, which just made every a thousand times easier by taking away the need to juggle a billion Word documents. It’s fairly pricey, but I’m currently using the 30-day free trial - it’s 30 days of use, not of ownership, too: if you use it every day, it lasts 30 days, but if you use it once a week, it lasts 30 weeks.

Where Kat used the 27 parts the structure broke down into as chapters, I chose to refer to them as beats, and separate chapters later.

On Saturday the 20th, I finished defining my scenes and started writing an actual draft. I wrote two scenes, putting me at a collective word count (not including notes, synopses, etc.) of 2,580 words.

This morning, Sunday the 21st, I started over. I hated my opening. I’m not going to go through the mess of today’s process, but I currently have around 80 one-line-outline scenes, split into 3 acts. I wrote a draft of my prologue and detailed-outlined (which I’m mentally referring to as zero-outlining because it’s similar to how Katytastic does what she calls a zero draft, but is very much outlining, not a draft) two and a half other chapters. Scriver also tells me how many words I wrote in total, across notes, character profiles, location lists, a document I’ve named ‘Train of Thought’ for my ramblings as I go etc.

Today, I wrote a grand total of 4,141 words, which, rather counterintuitively, puts me at a draft total of 2,598. That makes sense. Anyway.

There are a lot of unknowns in the world right now, and I have no idea how much time I’ll have in the next six months to invest in this project, but I’d like, at bare minimum, to have one complete draft by the start of the next school year in September, which gives me just over 6 months. Which is probably too much time to actually motivate myself, but that’s not the point.

A manuscript needs to have a minimum word count of 50K words to be considered a novel, so, even though my ultimate goal for this project is around 80K words, 50K is going to be my goal for this draft.

I’m being optimistic about sticking with this.

Tuesday 23/02/2021 - Word Count: 3,099 I wrote nothing yesterday; planning to focus writing solely on days off rather than work days, but last night, watching through the incredibly long queue of Alexa Donne writing videos, I came to the conclusion writing every day, even just a little, would be the best way to ensure I keep working on this, so I set myself a goal of just 500 words a day.

Wednesday 24/02/2021 - Word Count: 5,350 After doing a little bit of maths as to how long this outlining and draft would take me if I were to only write 500 words a day, I decided to boost that goal to 1,000. I got started around 1pm today, online school draining me so much I couldn’t face another two hours. I worked on and off until 6pm, and around 4.45pm, I finished outlining Act One!

Thursday 25/02/2021 - Word Count: 7,022 I continued my scene outlining into Act Two, but I hit a brick wall around the midpoint. I have to write chronologically - some people jump around, but I have to write linearly, or it feels like I’m trying to make something in a void. It just doesn’t work. I didn’t know how to get from one scene to the next - there were so many things I needed to establish to get there, but I didn’t want to backtrack. I decided to re-jig the whole thing, but, after dinner, I realised I didn’t have to, and instead, decided to just start a draft, conscious of the things I need to establish as I go.

Friday 26/02/2021 - Word Count: 8,208 Starting draft one, I rewrote the prologue I’d already written, technically putting me to my second draft of it, because I’d been thinking about it for days and just wanted to revisit it, and it was so much better. Then I moved on to chapter one, but decided I wanted to re-jig my chapters. While outlining, I’d split the whole book into only about twenty chapters, but decided to go for shorter ones for more effective divisions of the story. I got most of the way through the first scene of chapter one, but basically ran out of both time and motivation, since I hadn’t heavily outlined that scene. in total, I wrote over 2000 words today, but because I only increased the prologue word count by about 100 words, it didn’t do that much to the total count.

Saturday 27/02/2021 - Word Count: 11,050 I got some chores done Saturday morning and focused on finishing my book so I could include it in my February wrap-up, but I still had time to get some writing done around mid-day. My goal was just to hit 10K this weekend, but I though I could do it in one day. I wrote about 1,000 words before feeling a little word-drained, but took a break for lunch, got back to it and wrote 2,400 words. Though that only added a little over 2,000 to the word count, it took me to 10K! I’m 20% of the way to being able to call it a novel! We’re in quintuple digits!

And then eight hours later, I wrote another thousand words and got to 11K.

Sunday 28/02/2021 - Word Count: 13,722 I spent most of my Sunday morning writing, though it took me more than two hours to write about 1500 words, though it only added about 1100 to my count. I decided to set myself an overall and weekly deadlines to hold myself accountable. Due to the fact I don’t yet have a clue how many words this will work out as, I decided I wanted to have either a complete first draft or 100K words (which I doubt I’ll reach, but it seems like a good way to make myself finish the draft before my deadline) by the end of April. Which works out to a little under 1500 words a day, or just under 11K a week, which is perfectly doable. Bearing in mind my current word count is including outlines, but I still believe in myself.

I wrote another 1600 words later, which took me to 14K, until I deleted the 300 word outline I wrote for one scene, but I worked out my words per day for the next two months with the assumption of a 10K word count as of March 1st and a target of either a complete draft or 100K words by the end of April, so I’m nearly 4,000 words ahead of schedule. Which gives me 6,606 words to write this week, instead of 10,328. (If you couldn’t tell, I like numbers. They just make sense to me.

Monday 01/03/2021 - Word Count: 15,005 I didn’t quite hit my daily goal, but I was completely leached of motivation today, I’m ahead of schedule anyway and I was only under by less than 200 words. It’s alright. But, hey, we hit 15K! Two days after hitting 10K!

Tuesday 02/03/2021 - Word Count: 21,119 This was an insane writing day. My end-of-day target was only 16,480, and that was still ahead of schedule - if I was sticking to the 100K by April 30th, I’d only actually need to be at 12,950 today. This was the best writing day I’ve ever had. I wrote before school and during breaks, which kept both my writing and working momentum up.

I didn’t read a page of my current read, but I wrote a total of 7,681 words and increased my wordcount by 6,114 words, or literally an additional 40.75%. I hit 20K three days after hitting 10K, and am 42.238% of the way to being able to say I wrote a novel, be it a shitty first draft that won’t be complete at 50K words.

I also finished chapter three, which I’ve been working on for three days and came out ~5,000 words, and wrote chapters four and five in their entirety.

Note to self: this is day 10 of vaguely outline-drafting this project.

Wednesday 03/03/2021 - Word Count: 23,364 I've only written 490 words today, as of writing this update, but I just wanted to make note of the fact I've done some calculations, and can reasonably finish my draft this month. I'm still not completely sure how long it'll work out to be, so I can't quite work out my daily words to finish on the 31st, but if I stick to my current 1,475 words a day, I'll hit 63,894 words by the end of the month, which is a little less than I imagine this draft will be, but if I stick to that as a minimum, my first draft won't have to go into April.

I'd like to post this later this week, but I already have a post for this Friday, so God only knows how long this will be by the time it goes up. So far, I've written 1,900 words today, and I don't think I'm out of fuel yet, but I'm stopping because I need to read today, and I'd rather not burn out. I'm over my goal, anyway.

Oh, also, I'm nearly at 25K, which is halfway to a novel, but I haven't broken into Act Two yet, which means this book will be 75K minimum. I'm going to do some maths and work out how many words a day to hit 80K by March 31st. 2,030. That's doable. So I haven't read, but back to writing for like ten minutes.

I've now hit an additional 2,245 words for the day, though I wrote a total of 2,663

Thursday 04/03/2021 - Word Count: 25,415 I've decided to work out how many words I need to write each day to hit 80K by March 31st, and watch the fluctuations. (I like statistics). It should steadily go down throughout the month if I surpass it each day. Today's minimum word count is 2,023, already seven words less than yesterday's. How exciting.

The last scene of Act One was very heavy on world-building I haven't yet figured out, so I stuck what was meant to happen in brackets and just moved on, meaning I have now broken into Act Two!

I think, during the week, I'm going to focus on just meeting my minimum word count rather than exceeding it, just to save fuel for the weekends, when I can write so many more words.

And, we hit 25K! I'm halfway to a novel!

Friday 05/03/2021 - Word Count: 26,693 In complete honesty, I'm beginning to lose momentum. Maybe it's just today, but I don't really want to write and feel like I need a break, but I'm going to make myself write anyway. I'm going to make myself keep writing until this draft is done, however shitty it may end up. I really hate first drafts.

When you say 2,000 words is only 7-8 pages, it doesn't sound like that much to write per day but my god. Luckily, most of the stuff I've had to save to a Pinterest board called 'Writing Motivation' says if you write when you don't want to, it should pass instead of worsening. I wanted to hit 35K this weekend, but I'm not sure I'll have the momentum. I'll at least hit 31,270, though, which is my minimum goal for this week. I'm still over 700 words off my goal for today, but I'm taking a break because my head is foggy and there's still eight hours left in the day. Besides, 700 after dinner is easy. She says, realising she's probably jinxing it. Oh, well. 80K by March 31st would be difficult, even if I weren't going back to school soon, but that's a stretch goal. 100K by April 31st is my minimum, and I'm 9,000 ahead of where I need to be for that.

I think I’m stagnating because I’ve hit the ‘Fun and Games’ section, which I find really boring. I’m going to try to keep going with it, but I may just skip it and come back later.

Saturday 06/03/2021 - Word Count: 28,150 So, I did not get the extra 700 words in. Before dinner, some stuff I had to deal with came up, and by the time it was done, I just wanted to go to bed, so I did. Today, I'm going to try to make up for it, which I think is reasonable because it is now the weekend. I'm still kinda exhausted this morning, but I'm going to do my best, and my wrist hurts, but I'm not sure why. You'd think it would be from all the typing, but only one wrist hurts - you know what? Never mind. They do both hurt. I'm just not sure why, but it doesn't hurt typing this, so that doesn't make any sense. Anyway, to hit my word count for the day, I need to write 2,555 words, which doesn't sound like too much, but it kinda is because I'm primarily writing Act Two at the minute, and for every thousand words I write, I lose like 400 from my outline. You'd think I'd just not include my scene outlines in the word count, but it's too late for that now.

I'm thinking this over, and I really don't think trying to write 80K by the end of the month is going to be good for either my motivation, mental health, or ability to function back at school, so I'm going to stick to 100K or a finished draft by April 30th, and re-work out my goals from there, based on yesterday's word count, so I'm not making myself do catch-up today.

So, to hit 100K by April 30th, I only need to write 1,309 words each day (which will decrease over time because if that's my minimum now, I'll probably surpass it, decreasing the amount of words left etc.). That's so much less pressure.

God, I really don't want to write today. I just want to watch YouTube and Netflix and read.

Okay, so here's the thing. I've been working on this story straight for three weeks and I'm kinda exhausted of it. I'm not done with it, not at all, and I want to keep working on it because it exists, which makes it workable.

I watched a writing vlog by ShaelinWrites yesterday, and she said she writes different projects at once, alternating in week- or multi-week-long blocks. I think I might try that.

My plan with this post and the following updates was to keep updating it until the day it goes up, the day after which is when I begin drafting the next, but, since I may be switching projects for a while and this is really about the project I've decided to dub 'Bay Tree' (which is just, I guess, a pseudonym for here because while I have no idea what it would eventually be called, I know that's nothing like the title I'd want to give it) so I'd want to start a new post for a new project.

I'm now doing a little outlining instead of actually continuing writing, but I think this will help me, though I'm still not certain about whether or not I'm going to directly continue with this specific project for the minute. Instead of setting daily goals based on a target, I'm also just going to say 1,000 words a day, and see where that takes me.

I've just been outlining into Act Three, and I've met a major plot stumble, but I'm going to work that out and explain what I'm doing in my next writing update.

So, go drink some water, eat if you haven't eaten in the last few hours, stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself how wonderful you are and how much happiness you deserve, and, if you want to write a book, stop thinking about it, and go write.