#alternate realities are so easy and terrifying to imagine

[vulpinesaint]

my toxic trait is that i think alastor hazbin hotel is cool actually. sorry for not being immune to the red-coded new orleans serial killer with a jazz age radio-based persona and character design meant to evoke the image of a deer. not like he's fucking tailor made to cater to my interests or anything. AND he's ace

[idesofrevolution]

Never Sleep with Your Phone On

Throughout recorded history, humans have been terrified of the dark. They created stories of sordid creatures of the night that would creep out from beneath your bed and drag you to some subterranean lair to languish in your final moments; or slither out of your mirror if you left it uncovered when your lights were extinguished to steal your soul from your snoring lips. The tales and cryptids across all cultures were all effective in terrifying their communities once the sun set on the horizon. Though that is not necessarily to say that every tale was crafted from pure imagination.

When technology bloomed, humans believed that the horrifying superstitions of yore were long behind them. They had evolved past the primitive fears of what lurks in the shadows, where in reality they had become complacent, arrogant, and lulled. Certainly some of the eldritch creatures had subsided, as all creatures do eventually. Though for every dead legend, a new myth sprouts, and each of those grew and evolved right there along with us. Which, of course, brings us to Asher.

Asher West was, by all accounts, a fairly normal guy. Graduated from high school, going straight into college on a modest academic scholarship. He played frisbee golf with his friends on the weekends, studied hard from 9 to 5, and was seldom seen without a cup of Starbucks in the mornings. He had a sizeable social media following, as was expected for someone with a traditionally handsome visage and adequately charismatic personality. Every day he'd happily post a quick selfie, posting for his thousands of admirers a run of the mill shirtless pic, often without so much as a filter. It'd almost become muscle memory for him: tap the camera icon, snap the pic, post with some benign emojis as the caption, and boom. 900 likes as the day meandered on. Did it provide him with a momentary burst of endorphins? Yes. Was it satisfying? Somewhat, at least he thought so. Years of his staggeringly average life had been all but usurped by this second life online, where he was glamorous, exciting, and adored.

It was so much easier to live in that fantasyland than to truly be present in the real world around him. He, as many of us are, was living his life as someone else- and a life that spectacled easily caught attention. It was easy to come across him in the sea of countless names and faces. It was easy to stumble upon that pretty face. It was easy find, attracting more than just starry eyed fans. Skulking in the void between lines of 1 and 0, buried deep in the infinite cosmic vacuum of the world electric and technological, another pair of eyes would befall him.

It had slinked into his vast sphere rather quickly, and it had begun to watch. Watching each and every 'tasteful' selfie, every vapid thought that he'd post, and every like and pin he'd make, it watched him with empty, expressionless black eyes from within a fragment of his phone's memory. It studied him, curious at first. Things of its nature were always curious, always inclined to watch and analyze and replicate. Even as he slept, his phone siphoning it's charge from it's cable, it would read. The more it saw, the more it had learned about Asher. In fact, it knew more of Asher than perhaps he himself was aware of, if not able to admit.

It had seen those intimate moments he'd taken careful measure to hide from the vast majority of those watching eyes. Second accounts under pseudonyms, gave way to countless of hidden alternate lives he lived: Tumblr blogs dedicated to bad-boy thrist traps and queer erotica, Twitter accounts cataloguing pictures and videos of his closest kept kinks, a well used and well loved Chaturbate account with his face tastefully cropped out of frame... all these lives immortalized in the endless archives of the internet. And after all it's patient watching, all the hours of analyzing, all the months of consuming his information, it had grown an attachment.

Asher had come home late one night. Not unusual for him, as the occasional party wouldn't derail his real life ambitions. After a few libations, and no small amount of cannabis, he'd made his way back home to his small apartment above the corner store. Just as he'd done numerous times before, he stripped himself of his shirt, pulling his camera from his jeans pocket, and snapped a slightly inebriated picture of himself. It'd be enough to boost his ego the next morning, enough to power through the long haul of his draining daily agenda.

SNAP. The flash of the camera went off, and his beloved face was shared for all to see. Though, that night, he mis stepped. Perhaps it was the booze, perhaps it was the toke, perhaps he was simply too tired to notice that he'd left the screen on. By the time he'd hit the bed he was out like a rock, collapsed onto the bed and quietly drifting to sleep. There on the brightly lit screen, in the darkness of the unlit bedroom, it saw its opportunity.

From it's perch on the nightstand, the phone began to spark. Small sparks at first, a quick fizzle and quiet pop. Then more: louder, brighter, faster. It began to rumble against the wooden tabletop, sizzling and sparkling as it danced before the screen went black and dead. Slowly, electric crackling gave way to a bubbling sludge. The glass subtly started wave and bellow, as if it were liquified, not taking long to begin to spill over the edges of it's metal frame. The black sludge fell like oil onto the hardwood floors, collecting in a growing, bubbling pool.

From the primordial ooze burst forth a long, slender arm; it's taloned fingers scraping as it braced itself on the ground. A second arm clawed it's way out, and with an echoing slosh, it had begun to pull itself out of the sludge. It's long, emaciated torso and thick muscled legs had slithered out, landing on two massive, clawed feet. It towered above Asher's bed as he slumbered, bent over so as not to hit it's back onto the eight foot ceiling. It stood there, looking at the person it'd observed and studied for so long. The image presented in the world it'd pried himself out of was nothing of what lay before it. From what it had gathered from his more clandestine dealings, it had noted that he was far from the archetypes he'd collected on Asher's behalf.

He did not have the tattoos like those he'd pinned on Pinterest. He was not wearing the dark, heavy clothes like those he'd saved on Instagram. He wasn't well endowed like the video's he'd favorited on X-Tube. He didn't give off the aura of some rebellious casanova like the stories he'd reblogged on Tumblr. To a creature of symmetry and consistency, this was an error to be corrected; a dichotomy requiring integration.

It crouched down above his drooling maw, gently caressing his head to face it's clenching claw. The talons pressed ever so tenderly past his lips and over his tongue, becoming the very black ooze it had crawled out of once more. It flooded down his throat as it's second arm made it's way into his mouth, as if it were being sucked into Asher. He was drinking it's essence, it's aqueous body slurping down into his core. It's torso compressed as it wriggled down his gullet, ringing out splashing squelches as Asher gargled it down.

As quickly as it had entered, it's long legs slithered into his mouth, leaving only its large feet thrashing about in the air. Asher's stomach was bubbling and undulating under the sheer pressure from this invasion, growing to a large gut spilling over the waistband of his jeans. One loud slurp and a crisp pop, and the feet slipped into him, leaving his writhing body squirming on the bed. It expanded within him, incorporating itself into every fibre of his being. Pressing into his arms, his legs, pushing up his throat until it met the top of his palate. The pressure began to mount, black goo dribbling down the corners of his mouth, until a wet crack sounded in his cavernous head, and it flowed into his skull.

It took mere seconds for it to reach his brain, which it flowed freely into throughout the grooves and nooks. Entirely coated, imbued and inoculated with it, the deed was done. Asher opened his eyes, tiredly sitting up in his bed. He looked over at his phone, tapping it with his finger: 3 AM.

At first it seemed like a nightmare. He could recall moments here and there, though the majority of his 'dream' was a blur. From what he could remember, it was nothing visual he could recollect... but it he could recollect the sensations. Wet, slimy, invasive, and cold- much like he felt drunkenly sleeping in his cold sweat. He brought himself to his feet, dragging his feet on the slippery floorboards to his bathroom.

Flipping the switch, the harsh fluorescent light flickered to life above him, as he turned the nozzle on his shower. Immediately, his jaw nearly dropped to the floor. In the mirror, Asher finally caught a glimpse of himself: strange black bruises and undulating bumps were scattered across his body. That pristine, smooth skin was now covered in sprawling web-like lesions from head to toe. He had mere moments to process the horror reflected in front of him before an immediate pain in the gut had him doubled over the counter.

His stomach started to bubble and groan, and through the foggy haze of his blurred vision he saw his feet begin to ripple and swell. He could feel the slick sweaty soles slide across the tile floor as they expanded and grew. As they reached a substantial size 13, the swelling crept it's way up his calves and into his thighs. Asher wobbled on his feet, as if they were filled with gelatin beneath his slippery skin while his knees began to buckle. He collapsed into a crouch, the fumes of sweaty footmusk bellowing up to his nostrils as his legs cracked and stretched above. He'd never truly experienced scentplay as he'd so dearly fantasized about throughout countless hours of edging to such content, nor had this funk ever emanated from his own soles. In the moment, he felt something within him prod into his brain. As if poking the individual folds of his cerebrum with thousands of tiny needles, causing cascades of thoughts to enter his mind- all of which telling him to embrace. In his mind's eye, he could see himself burying his face into his sweaty sole, between his long toes, lapping up every droplet of sweat that was spewing from his pores. The thought was buried deep in his subconscious, pried out with expert measure, by something now within him.

Grasping for anything to steady himself on, Asher gripped the edge of the sink, pulling himself upright once again and now towering above the countertop. He hung his aching head low, watching with strange newfound fervor as his cock began to feel heavier and heavier. Drool started to drip from the bottom of his lip, landing square onto the lengthening shaft. Like a sandbag, his balls dropped and swelled while he got harder and harder. Another onslaught of pinpricks in his head brought forth another command: stroke.

Steam started build in the bathroom as the hot water continued to fall from the shower, intensifying the scent wafting from now both his feet and his pendulous sac. Each breath of hot, wet musk hit like ecstasy, and with bated breath, he softly grasped ahold of his python and began to pump. Each knead of his engorged member was accompanied by a change. His fingers grew long and sinewy, smooth and slick with precum. His arms remained thin but toned, growing longer and packed with lean muscle. His torso lengthened, topped off with a firm pair of pecs above his sinewy abdomen.

As pressure began to build in his balls, his mind began to feel the needles one last time, imbuing his brain with one last injection of a single trait: pride. He didn't need the approval of anyone else, he was aware of how fucking hot he was. He didn't need to heed the rules that society had straddled him with, he always forged his own path. He had no fears of recompense for his attitude, his ego, his spirit- the world would either stand with him, or he would step on top of them. Either way, what bliss. As the last of his inhibitions and fears had gathered in his groin, he cried out in elation as he erupted. Rope after rope of black sludge shot from his cannon, washing him with a sense of relief he'd never before known. He released his grip on his softening cock, hanging at an obscene eleven inches. He smirked at the sludge coating his mirror and pooling beneath his toes. A sight like that would have shocked and terrified the old Asher, though as he stood before his reflection, devoid of any tension, he relented to the entity within him. It had delivered onto him a new self, a new image, a new viewpoint. As tattoos both vulgar and delicate began to sprawl across his skin, he happily admired his new likeness.

The entity had bestowed a gift to him; throughout the horror, throughout the fear, he was becoming the true Asher that had only ever peeked out from the abyss of his psyche. He leered, bringing his thumb and middle finger together before snapping loudly. From his pores, the black sludge began to spill across his body until he was nearly covered from the neck down in what appeared to be a rubber suit before it began to become a bit more defined. A plain white tee shirt, classically fashioned with a black and white varsity jacket from his college. Skinny, weathered black jeans barely containing his sizeable commando bulge beneath it's thin fabric. On his feet, a pair of white socks and tightly tied high top Chucks, quelling the ripe stink of his soles within the sneaker for some sub to pry off and enjoy.

He grinned, posing and modeling for himself, before he finally turned off the steaming water. After the long, arduous, painful process, the entity had incorporated itself entirely within him- now completely indistinguishable from parasitic to symbiotic. It had rewritten him, completely remade him in the likeness of who he had shown the vast virtual world. There was no cognitive dissonance, there were no lies, there was no deception. All that remained was the Asher he had created in his fantasy, now ready to fuck the real world and all within it.

Thus, as our creature feature comes to an end, I leave you with a modicum of friendly advice. Don't leave your phone on as you slumber, for those that are watching, those that are waiting, those that have been learning are a mere sheet of glass away from finding their way inside. Take my counsel, or ignore it. But do so knowing the outcome, and whether or not you are prepared to weather such a storm.

[flagellant]

Sorry to be Serious in your inbox but am I the only one terrified of this "shifting" thing? Like, I was a kid on the internet, I know how crazy it gets, but this shifting thing seems super fucking dangerous

Like....... Daydreaming/lucid dreaming to cope with shitty life stuff is one thing, but actually believing that you're travelling to alternate realities and wanting to go there instead of be here seems like. Really fucking bad.

This seems like a very good way for a bunch of emotionally vulnerable mentally ill teenagers to be completely fucked up for life because instead of learning to handle and cope with the real world they basically stop themselves from being able to differentiate between reality and daydreams/imaginations.

I've seen these people having whole ass breakdowns on Twitter because they "killed" a character in another dimension and think that they basically murdered another human being.

Also the fact they're projecting all of this on Twitter. They're basically advertising "Hey I'm severely vulnerable and mentally ill and SUPER easy to manipulate and take advantage of"

This literally looks like something that could very easily result in a bunch of teenagers being turned into a suicide cult and kids killing themselves so they can go to a different dimension because this one sucks.

While I hesitate to encourage catastrophizing, I certainly agree that there is a fundamental and very extreme danger in the sort of mindset and culture (for lack of a better word) with how "reality shifting" is being treated. Inducing a trance state in yourself in order to practice certain aspects of the esoteric has been the name of the game since we first chewed some leaves that made us sillymode. The greatest problem is that rather than recognizing "shifting" as doing such, people treat it as you've said and are actively hostile to any other rational explanation which would allow much more stability and safety when doing this.

Additionally speaking as someone who does magic wizard druid shit while having to deal with schizophrenia, the whole r-shifting and the rarer these days p-shifting make me deeply, deeply uneasy and worried for the people who are acting under delusions and are then having those delusions actively encouraged and affirmed by a community who isn't being hostile or cruel to them and instead is eager to confirm that yep what they're experiencing is Pure 100% Real Magic and there is no chance at all it's a mental illness.

All this to say is it makes me remember when the first Avatar movie came out in 2010 and left people feeling actively suicidal because they hoped to be reincarnated into Pandora. So that's something.

[cinemagooey]

CINEMAGOOEY

I had a happy childhood - a middle-class upbringing, the ranch house in the 'burbs on a quiet street, bestie sleepovers complete with canopy beds and giddy secrets. My younger years weren't perfect -no one gets a pass from childhood traumas and tragedies. But overall it was an uncomplicated and sweet time in the 70's.

But as great as it was, I still needed escape. So I ran away from reality as often as possible in those early years, fleeing to the movies, my drug of choice.

A Saturday movie excursion was a life or death necessity for me. I would beg, cajole and bargain with my parents for ticket money and a ride to the theater. There in the solitude of a dark theater, the projector would roll and magic would unfurl like a shimmering kaleidoscope. I became lost in a land of imagination and wonder, mesmerized in a celluloid world of make-believe.

I never outgrew my love of cinema; it expanded exponentially. There's something about immersing oneself in a good story in the sanctity of of your own home or in a popcorn scented theatre that speaks to me and whisks me to my happy place. Something magic happens when we engage with cinema. The good ones either lift us up and sing to us, or wound our hearts in a sweet, interminable way. The bad ones have us shaking our heads at the fact that we'll never get the time back. Either way, movies grab us, whirl us around in a dizzying dance and then push us out in the sunlight, dazed at the experience.

Let's get into the good ones. Let's dig into some old fashioned hoopla about really great cinema.

I'll begin with one of my favorites genres:

FOREIGN FILM

J'adore foreign film. I'm never put off by subtitles and find these movies to be some of the richest, most sumptuous of all cinema. Foreign film connects us to the world. It gifts the viewer with an intimate window through which we peek into other cultures, other lands and native stories. We climb into the vivid imaginings of filmmakers, whose minds were cultivated and nurtured in exotic locales. It's a form of travel without costly airfare and jet lag, with the bonus of a good story.

Here are my top three recommended foreign films that I've viewed of late:

CLARA SOLA

A stunner of a movie resplendent with gorgeous cinematography, this 2021 film written and directed by Nathalie Álvarez Mesén unfolds in a tiny village in Costa Rica. Clara, a 40 year old with mental and physical disabilities, lives with her fanatically religious mother and niece Maria, a fifteen year old who gleefully prepares for her Quinceanera. Middle-aged, curious and child-like, Clara's life is spent communicating with the family's white horse, being a pawn to her mother's money-making schemes and watching Maria's life bloom as she stands on the sensual precipice of adulthood. When handsome Santiago arrives on the scene, wooing Maria in a forbidden way, something awakens in Clara and she decides that she wants what Maria has. With bold stubbornness and using mystical powers that lend an supernatural aura to the story, Clara sets out to claim it all in her own awkward, humorous way - with devastating results. Fantastical, shimmering scenes set against a backdrop of naked poverty make this movie sing in a way that made my soul ache, and the brilliant screenplay had me laughing out loud and alternately tearing up.

Amazing performances by Wendy Chinchilla Araya as Clara and Daniel Casteñeda Ricón as Santiago, Maria's boyfriend and Clara's secret crush. This should have been a Best Foreign Film nominee (if not winner) at the 94th Academy Awards. It's not easy to find Clara Sola; I had to stream it with a Criterion Collection subscription, but it's worth digging around to unearth this hidden gem.

THE ZONE OF INTEREST

Buckle up. Watching this movie is like taking a joy ride with your scary older cousin behind the wheel; you want to enjoy it, but instead you feel terrified and little like throwing up. That's the point of Jonathan Glazer's chilling masterpiece The Zone of Interest.

Rudolph is a rising star in the military. His wife Hedwig cultivates a home for their children on a quaint country estate. But this is no Leave It To Beaver redux. Rudolph is a commandant in Hitler's Nazi party and Hedwig's carefully built utopia lies just over the wall from Auschwitz, which Rudolph manages. So close is their little manse to the concentration camp that the family can hear the daily horrors of screams and gunshots, and the fiery glow of the gas chambers illuminates the evening sky. To these recurring abominations, the family turns a deaf ear and a blind eye as they go about their idyllic life.

This cruel indifference is what makes The Zone of Interest so harrowing to watch.

Rudolph prizes his lilac bushes more than the innocent lives he slaughters, and Hedwig engages in chilling acts of depraved apathy: haughtily accepting a fur coat that Rudolph gifts her (booty from a Holocaust victim), and hosting her mother in the garden as a prisoner can be heard pleading for his life from the other side of the wall.

Part of this movie's power lies in the fact that the viewer never sees the acts taking place inside the concentration camp - the brutal sounds of savagery overlaying a lush, bucolic setting is enough to horrify us.

The Zone of Interest won both Best International Film and Best Sound at the 2023 Academy Awards. Sandra Hüller's performance as wife Hedwig garnered her a much-deserved Best Supporting Actor (female role) nomination.

This movie is an awful reminder of mankind's grotesque ability to normalize evil with unflinching apathy - especially in the face of cultural pressure or political brainwashing. It made me squirm as I pondered the nature of humanity. I've heard it said on several platforms that this movie is not for entertainment value; I agree. Instead, it's is an opportunity to turn inward and ask ourselves: could these types of horrors happen again? And if so, what would you do?

CINEMA PARADISO

Some have described Giuseppe Turnatore's 1988 Cinema Paradiso as a love letter to the early age of film. I would call it a slow, seductive kiss, beguiling us to remember the days when going to the cinema was an event.

Everything about this film is perfect - the heart-rending story centered around a small town movie theater, the lush cinematography capturing life in a dusty, Italian village and the trembling soundtrack that tugs at something soulful and primal. All this against the backdrop of cinema classics. It's a wistful salute to the Golden Age of Hollywood and a tender coming of age story in 1940's Italy.

In 1988 Rome, Salvatore Di Vita, a famous film director, learns his old friend Alfredo has died. He immediately flashes back to his childhood as an eight year old in the Sicilian village of Giancarlo, just after WWII. Salvatore's nostalgic flashback encompasses most of this sublime film.

Salvatore (Toto to the villagers), is a precocious child. His father dead, his mother overwhelmed with the everyday indignities of single motherhood, Toto finds escape at the Cinema Paradiso, sneaking in when the town priest sits alone in the empty galley censoring movies. Alfredo, the tired, middle-aged projectionist, is tasked with splicing out the offending bits before the villagers see it.

Toto is mesmerized by it all and is madly curious to see how the magic happens in the projection booth. Through pluck and luck, Toto connives Alfredo into giving him a job in as his assistant and the two form a tight, familial bond that is the heart and soul of this film.

Toto is still manning the booth at 16 when he falls hopelessly in love and is called to military duty. Returning home a year later, Alfredo does something surprising and insidious that alters Toto's life forever.

In modern day 1988, Salvatore returns to Giancarlo to attend Alfredo's funeral, and is bequeathed a package that sets up the last, flawless scene in this exquisite film.

Cinema Paradiso is a beautiful reminder of days gone by and things of old that once held meaning and sway over our lives. Before television, computers, the internet and iphones, there was a place where people gathered to be swept up, escape the banality of life and become immersed, briefly, in a world larger than their own.

And isn't that what cinema is all about?

[blushweddinggowns]

Part 2 to this!

Eddie had never considered himself to be a lucky person. Could anyone really blame him? For one thing, he was eaten alive last year. And that wasn’t even counting the fact that he had been a twenty-year old, drug-dealing highschooler before he was sent to literal hell. All after witnessing multiple horrifying homicides. 

But now that he had Steve Harrington on top of him, shoving his tongue down his throat like his life depended on it, he felt like the luckiest man in the world. 

Part of him still couldn’t believe that it was happening at all. He had been fully prepared to just play the part of the pining best friend and suffer through his unrequited crush. He even convinced himself that it would slowly disappear after he got off the high of seeing Steve all bloody and gorgeous in an alternate reality.

But it didn’t. It just got worse and worse. Eddie’s crush just bloomed into a full-blown love. Because Steve Harrington was nothing like he expected. Eddie had never experienced this much whiplash when getting to know someone before. Steve went from highschool bully, to a monster fighting badass, and landed on an adorable, snarky goofball who Eddie basically wanted to spend the rest of his life with. 

It had felt like such a long shot when he asked the question. The question that had been haunting him for months, but Eddie couldn’t help but ask. Not after everything he’d seen. At first he thought it was all in his head, just his overactive imagination trying to convince him he wasn’t alone in his feelings. 

But then he started noticing things. Like how Steve was always available to him, even when he had better options open. It was around the third time he witnessed Steve tell a pretty girl, “Sorry, I have plans tonight,” for him to raise a brow. Because the only plans he ever had was doing stupid shit with him. 

It was when he actually rejected Nancy in favor of getting high and listening to music in Eddie’s room that he got optimistically suspicious. It made him pay more attention, the little voice inside his head was getting louder and louder, that told him, maybe, just maybe, Eddie wasn’t the only one in love here. 

So Eddie let himself get a little bolder, terrified all the while but determined to figure out what was going on here. 

It was small things at first, touches that he would let linger. A hand on Steve’s waist when they puttered around the kitchen together, always giving him a little squeeze before he let go. Brushing his bangs out of his face, his hand curling around his ear before pulling away. Resting his head in Steve’s lap when they were sprawled out on the couch, talking about nothing and everything for hours. 

He didn’t miss the way Steve’s cheeks would redden at every touch, or the sweet little smile put on when he thought Eddie wasn’t looking. It made him feel emboldened, and terribly hopeful. 

So he let himself do more, obvious things that were not normal between two male platonic best friends. He waited until night, because despite what Steve said Eddie was not a brave man. At least then if Steve rejected the hell out of him, he’d never have to see his face. 

In theory it should have been easy. They shared a bed almost every night anyway, Eddie always making easy excuses to explain away why Steve didn’t need to go home. 

It was too late, it was cold outside, the trailer was closer to his work anyway, he could still be high from a hit he took two hours ago, Eddie wasn’t above a single excuse. And Steve never complained, he’d just nod along, agreeing to whatever stupid thing Eddie could think of for the night. 

They slept back to back, trying to hold onto some semblance of normal between them. And Eddie would be lying if he said the thought of breaking it didn’t scare the hell out of him, but that didn’t stop him from draping an arm over Steve’s waist one night. He had pulled him against his chest, heart on the verge of exploding as he waited for Steve’s reaction. 

He hadn’t expected him to turn over in his arms, and Eddie had been almost sure that he was doing it to ask him what the fuck he was doing. But Steve just sighed, all relaxed and happy as he snuggled into his chest, wrapping his own arm around Eddie’s waist.  They woke up tangled together, happy and restful. 

They never talked about it, but every night when Eddie opened up his arms, Steve went right into them. And God did Eddie love it, he loved him. And the idea that there was any chance he could be with him and he wasn’t taking it, was killing him. So he took a shot, and asked the question that had been plaguing him for months. 

And it fucking worked. Here he was, vindicated and rewarded with the most handsome, funny, kind boyfriend to ever live. In all honesty, not that much changed between them, considering how they were basically dating back when they considered themselves “friends”. But now there was the added bonus of being able to kiss the living hell out of him whenever he wanted. And the fact that Steve had apparently been holding out on him, because overnight he became the clingest cuddler Eddie had ever had the pleasure of knowing. 

Whether that be hugs from behind, arms draped around his neck in bed, or Steve clambering up into Eddie’s lap whenever the opprunintuity arose. And it was so fucking cute it made Eddie feel like he could die from happiness. And when he returned the favor, Steve would just melt. A hand on his thigh while they drove, an arm around his waist at friendly get togethers, any small touch was enough to make Steve a blushing, gooey mess. 

The whole thing was amazing and Eddie had never been happier. 

There was just one problem. 

For the life of him, Eddie couldn’t stop making him cry. 

The first time, he understood. It had been a bit of a dick move on his end, to force Steve to admit his feelings because Eddie was too chicken-shit to do it himself. He should have thought about that and he'd apologized more than once for the way he handled the whole thing, even if Steve insisted it was more than fine. He just…never wanted to be the cause of that sad, dejected face ever again. 

But then he did it again, completely accidentally. It had been a lazy Sunday morning, the both of them deciding to sleep in until someone from the outside world forced them out of bed. Eddie woke up first, blinking into the late morning light. Steve was draped across his chest, still sound asleep and only slightly drooling on him.

Eddie ran a hand through his tousled hair, completely lovestruck. The small movement was enough to have Steve shift against him, mumbling about it being too early to wake up. But Eddie was already trailing his hands down his back, more than ready to tickle him awake if need be. And it worked, it always worked, because the next thing he knew Steve was batting his hands away, a tired laugh escaping as he finally opened his eyes. 

He groaned as he blinked into the light, pouting up at Eddie as he rubbed his eyes, “You’re lucky you’re pretty Munson. Or I would have kicked you out of bed by now.”

Eddie grinned, wrapping his arms around him a little tighter, “You’d kick me out of my own bed? That’s cold Stevie.”

“My bed now. A consequence of being with me,” Steve laughed, snuggling closer, “It’s in the contract.”

The snarky comment on his tongue died the second Eddie looked down at him. Steve just looked so…relaxed. Unfairly handsome and happy to be there, tracing patterns along Eddie’s bare chest. He was struck with the realization that he wanted this for the rest of his life. Just Steve, with his bed-head and sleepy smile. Eddie had to look away, staring up at the ceiling as he was suddenly overwhelemed by just how much he loved this guy. 

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, embarrassingly earnest, “I think you’re the love of my life.”

Steve was quiet, but he could feel him nodding along as he traced Eddie’s collarbone. For a second, Eddie thought he just hadn’t heard him, and was doing that thing when he pretended like he did. He was a few seconds away from teasingly calling him out for it when he heard it. A soft sniffle, accompanied by a wet feeling, dripping onto him. 

Eddie glanced down, eyes widening at the sight of Steve wiping his tears away, trying and failing to be quiet about it. 

Eddie sat up, slightly panicked as he dragged Steve up with him, “Steve? Baby, what’s wrong? Was it what I said?”

Steve let out a wet laugh, “Not at all. I-fuck, Eddie I think you’re mine too. I swear this hasn’t happened before.”

Eddie was too worried to show how ecstatic that confession made him feel. He held Steve’s face in his hands, wiping away a few tears with his thumbs, “But you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, I swear.” Steve sighed, leaning into the touch, “I’m just being a fucking weirdo.”

“My weirdo.” Eddie corrected before kissing him, the salty taste of his tears be damned. Eddie reasoned that he was probably just overwhelmed, which was normal, considering how Eddie was speedrunning the pace of their relationship. It was a fluke, and that was fine.

But then it happened again. 

It had been a completely normal day, no fights with anyone, no problems at the video store or with any of Eddie’s clients. They were watching a movie on the couch, Eddie’s head resting in Steve’s lap as Fame rolled on in the background. Steve was braiding his hair, absentminded as they commented on the muscial, both agreeing that Robin had really oversold it. 

Though Eddie was a sucker for the New York based movies. He used to dream about running away there when he was a teenager. Working and playing in dingy bars until he was magically discovered and skyrockerted into stardom. But now, at the ripe old age of twenty one, he was much more interested in going wherever Steve would follow. 

He watched the screen, mind wandering as he asked,  “Where would you want to go when we leave Hawkins?”

The hands in his hair paused for a split second before Steve answered, “W-what do you mean?”

“When the kids graduate,” Eddie continued, missing the stutter in Steve’s voice, “We won’t really have any reason to stay here right? It’s probably about time that Wayne got the bachelor pad back anyway.” 

“You…you want to live with me?”

Eddie let out a small laugh, rolling his eyes, “Babe, I don’t know if you’re aware but we kind of already live together.”

He watched the screen, someone whose name he forgot was starting another monolouge, “New York is a bit much, but Indianapolis could probably work. Somewhere with some options, y’know?”

Steve cleared his throat above him, fingers still working in his hair, “Y-yeah. Sounds good.”

Eddie smiled, pleased as he went back to trying to follow the plot. Then he felt something wet hit his cheek. He scrunched his nose up, confused as he shifted to look up at Steve, heart jumping when he realized what was happening. 

“Holy shit, don’t look at me for a minute.” Steve groaned, covering his face with his hands, failing to hide his sniveling, “Seriously, just ignore me.”

Eddie sat up, ignoring Steve’s protests as he pried his hands from his face, “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing!” Steve insisted, avoiding Eddie’s eyes, “I swear, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me.”

“Sweetheart, if moving in together is too much to talk about that’s fine-”

“No!” Steve interrupted, voice loud in the small space between them, “I-I mean, that’s not the problem. Of course I want to live with you.”

“I don’t want to pressure you-”

“You’re not,” Steve insisted, grabbing Eddie's hands. He squeezed them, warm and comforting, “Whatever is wrong with me has nothing to do with you, or us. I swear.”

Eddie nodded, even if the worry didn’t fully leave his head. He couldn’t help it, because it just kept happening. Eddie was averaging on making Steve tear up at least once a month and everytime he would insist he was fine. That it wasn’t Eddie’s fault, he was just being a freak. 

It’s not like Eddie minded. In fact he kind of liked comforting him. And it didn’t help that Steve was fucking adorable when he cried. With his scrunched up nose and pretty wet eyes, Eddie was more than happy to be the one to kiss his tears away.  

He just wished he could figure out why it was happening, because despite what Steve said, he knew that he was the cause. It only happened when they were alone together, usually right after Eddie said or did something particularly mushy. He just wanted to know what he was doing wrong. 

It was starting to keep him up at night, and as embarrassing as it was, Eddie was having anxiety nightmares about Steve leaving him for someone who wasn’t making him weep on a semi-regular basis. 

Eddie blinked into the night, waking up from another one of those stupid dreams. He blindly reached over for Steve, his hand hitting the empty mattress with a thud. Eddie groaned, assuming he was in the bathroom, but knowing there was no way he was getting back to sleep without having him next to him. 

Eddie stood, deciding to get some water while he waited for him to come back. He stepped out of his room into the dark hall, cocking his head at the odd scene in front of him. The phone cord was stretched from the kitchen to the bathroom, peeking out through the half cracked door.  

Eddie stopped infront of it, curious as he made out what Steve was whispering through the phone, "Robin, if I cry in front of him one more time I'm going to have to change my name and flee the country."

Eddie snorted behind his hand, quiet enough to not be heard. He leaned in a little closer, fully aware that he should just turn around and not be an eavesdropping dick, but…if he could just find out why Steve kept crying, maybe he could actually do something to stop it. 

"I'm not telling him. I'm lucky I haven't scared him off yet as it is."

Eddie frowned, confused. That didn’t make sense, there was nothing Steve could do to scare him off, not after everything they had been through. Didn’t he know that? 

Steve sighed into the phone, sad and resigned, "I just…I don’t know how much more I can fall in love with him. When he ends it…it's going to fucking kill me."

Eddie could feel his heart stop in his chest. Where the hell did that come from? Sometimes Eddie spent half of his day just day-dreaming about their future, and here Steve was, thinking that he was going to end the best thing that ever happened to him?

"I know, I know. Maybe you're right. I love you too, I'll see you tomorrow."

Eddie backed away from the door, still feeling vaguely ill at what he’d heard. He slipped into bed, pretending to still be asleep when Steve eventually followed. He was back in bed for maybe five seconds before Eddie was reaching for him, tucking him tightly into his arms, like he could cuddle the doubts out of him. 

Eddie could barely sleep that night, mind-racing on what he could do to make Steve realize that he wasn’t going anywhere. It made sense, in the grand scheme of things. Steve’s parents were total shit heads who had no appreciation for the wonderful son they had. The only other person he’d fallen in love with besides Eddie ended up cheating on him, right after drunkenly declaring the fact that she never loved him back. 

And that wasn’t even mentioning his “best friends” who dropped him the second he decided to stop acting like a dick in highschool. Now that he was thinking about it, Eddie was kicking himself for not putting the pieces together sooner. 

Of course Steve would be worried about that. But Eddie wasn’t like them, he’d never be like them. In his head, the only way this relationship was ending was if Steve dumped him, not the other way around. 

If Eddie was extra clingy that morning, Steve didn’t complain. Even if he was making it a bitch for him to get ready for work. Eddie was still draped all over him by the time he was trying to get out the door, laughing at his antics all the while. 

“Someone’s needy today, huh?” Steve chuckled, prying Eddie’s arms away from his neck, “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“That’s not soon enough,” Eddie whined, going as far as to follow him to the car. He kissed him goodbye through the window, not giving a single shit who saw them. Not when it made Steve blush and beam at him. He waved at him as he drove away, a plan already forming in his head as he started his day. 

If Steve had fears, Eddie would just love them right out of him. No reason to make a big deal out of anything, not when Steve was already so embarrassed about the whole thing. He would play it cool, and slowly but surely alleviate all of the anxieties. 

That was the plan, but the plan went straight out the window that same night. Basically the second he laid eyes on him after stepping through the front door. Steve wasn’t even doing anything. Just sitting on the couch, lazily watching TV. But then he noticed him, gave him that bright smile, and the floodgates just opened.

“I love you.” Eddie blurted out, making his way towards him, “Like I really fucking love you.”

Steve cocked his head, confused but still happy to see him. He shuffled over for Eddie to sit next to him, “I love you too?”

Eddie shook his head, “I mean I love everything about you Steve. Everything.” 

Steve stared at him, surprise still painted on his face, but Eddie just kept going, aware on some level, that he probably sounded slightly unhinged, but he didn’t care. He needed Steve to understand, “I love how much you care about everyone. I love how you take care of me, and how you let me take care of you. I love how your hair sticks up in every direction in the morning, and how you get pouty whenever you wake up. I love it when you’re bitchy and you make fun of my music. I love it when you get too excited and scream at the TV over basketball. I love the little blush you get whenever I call you pretty. I love all of it, and I want it for the rest of my life. ”

Steve laughed, quiet and nervous as he looked away, ‘What the hell are you even talking about?”

But Eddie wasn’t having that. He grasped his face, tilting his chin up to force them eye to eye. The tears were already starting to form, but Eddie wasn’t worried. He knew what they meant this time, “I’m talking about how you’re the only person I’ll ever want. I’m talking about how I want a life with you Steve. You and no one else.”

The tears were really falling now, and Steve was looking at him like he ripped his heart out, versus perfusing his undying love, “You…you shouldn’t say shit like that Eddie. You don’t know how things will change later on.”

Eddie shook his head, steadfast, “I’ll never not want you. I’m serious Steve. You’re it for me.”

They stared at eachother, Steve searching his face as Eddie kissed his tear-stained cheeks, “I want to believe you.”

“It’s okay that you don’t yet,” Eddie murmured, “I’ll just spend the rest of my life proving it to you.”

Steve let out a weak laugh, pulling away from his hands to hide his face into the crook of Eddie’s neck, his self-proclaimed safe space, “You promise?”

Eddie kissed the top of his head, “I swear.”

It didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen. Their days together became months, months became years. Eddie never went a day without reminding him how much he was loved, Steve stopped waiting for the day that Eddie was going to leave, and slowly but surely, the tears stopped with it. 

It was ten years to that day, ten amazing years with the love of his life, when Eddie found him in their kitchen, making coffee and yawning while he absentmindely stared out the window, just as adorable at thirty-one as he was at twenty. 

He wrapped his arms around his waist from behind, kissing at his neck with a pleased hum, “You believe me now?”

Steve sighed, sleepy and happy as he leaned back into him, “Yeah, I think I do.”

[balkanradfem]

I hate the aggressive claims that we ‘have equal rights now’ and 'have nothing to complain about’ because it’s so removed from reality and shows that people who claim it have no awareness of women in the real world.

When I talk to any woman I know who’s lived in this world for 50 years or more, she already has a painful life of being used, exploited, suffering thru a painful or abusive marriage and still cannot imagine having any other life than this; to her, rules of living under males are cemented in her head, it’s next to impossible for her even to conceptualize young women not getting married and not having to go thru the same. When I talk to an 80 year old woman, she cannot understand or accept that I wont have children, alternate life paths that don’t include being married and serving a man and giving him children are out of her reach! Each of us has suffered experience of our mothers and grandmothers suffocating our confidence and trying to prepare us for a life of an obedient housewife who would bow down to social norms and her husband, because for them there are still no alternatives; the opression has claimed their lives and it lives in their minds as the only possible rule of life. It has already been extended into ours.

How much fight has it taken, for each of us to realize we do not have to get married to m*n? How terrifying was it to stop trying to be wanted or desirable, to opt out of what was enforced to us as the only acceptable way to stay alive? How many timed did we have to fight our own community and fight to be seen as an individual with free will and value outside of marriage and pregnancy? The oppression didn’t go anywhere, it lives in our minds and we fight it constantly; it swarms at us even from women we love and trust.

Women who can’t even conceptualize freedom aren’t free from oppression. Women who have to fight generational trauma, be at odds with our mothers, grandmas, sisters, cousins, and sometimes even themselves, aren’t free. It’s far from having free range at life, it’s a fight to be treated human from the very start, and we never will get our childhoods back, experience being treated as equals, not getting overworked and abused and undervalued until we lose sight of our own worth. Women who are still getting scorned for speaking out, hated and harassed for our appearance, our biological features still used against us, violence inflicted on us normalized. We have to watch our own getting brutalized and raped in every media and it’s terrifying to know how badly we are hated. We get to hear about women we know getting abused without ever being shown compassion and we are left to try and figure on our own what path can we take not to end up like her? Like our mothers and grandmas who have already given everything to m*n and are devalued and considered merely servants and annoyances now?

And in all this, we’re still not allowed a perspective. We still have to keep seeing ourselves thru eyes of those who rate our worth only by how much they can use us, how easy are we to objectify and manipulate and how pleasing our bodies look, we don’t get to decide that we’re valuable by ourselves. We have to wait to be deemed valuable by m*n and they’re ready to take it away the second we’re no longer young or pleasing or have any kind of human emotion that doesn’t fit them. We’re not allowed to even consider our own trauma a big deal. It gets diminished as 'women’s issues’ as if we made them ourselves. How could that ever be considered freedom? We’re forced to walk on a thin rope, every kind of torture, violence and abuse awaiting us the second we fall, methodical trap set for us so we blame ourselves when we get hurt, and experiences of those who went thru the same concealed from our view, making us believe we’re the only ones.

This is not freedom; the system was never set up for women’s freedom. We will not get liberation in the system we live in, we suffer revenges for trying to change it. All porn is revenge porn, trying to put women 'back in our place’. Our youngest are taught to sell themselves if we wont sell them. Our most vulnerable pressured to starve themselves. We are as far as possible from being free, we’re never even out of danger. We need to have spaces where we are safe from this. We need spaces with no oppresors trying to stop us from sharing our reality and finding we’re not alone.

[cienie-isengardu]

What's with the Black Dragon in MK, they confuse me?

I know they are a branch off of the Red Dragon, who they left because they thought the Red Dragon was too moral.

And they are lead by Kano, who has no morals and as an absolute piece of shit.

Kano doesn't confuse me.

Kabal "I used to be B.D. but decided to be a good guy cop, and even Raiden wanted on his team" and Erron Black "I might be a feminist/sexist man, because I never throw the first punch with women, and also seem soft of kids, unless they pay me a lot to shot them"

Both of these guys, who are the only other B.D. members I know of, are morally gray at best, which is what the what the Black Dragon left the Red Dragon because of?! So why aren't they just Red Dragon, and why does the Black Dragon even exist (other than to pad Kanos crotch)?!

To be honest, I’m not sure myself what is the deal between Black and Red Dragons (not the fraction / era of games I’m familiar or interested in) but I suspect it is something similar to the situation of Lin Kuei and Shirai Ryu. At some point some rogue element decided to leave and created his/her/their own organisation and since then both groups hate each other’s guts. And somehow along the line Kano took over Black Dragons and extended its operation to Outworld. I’m unable to comment on the “moral code” of Red Dragons because really, what is an honor in a crime organisation anyway, but sadly, alternative timeline doesn’t focus much on this conflict so Kano has (on screen) monopoly on dealing with weapons and other black market deals.

Whatever the excuse was to split, it was most likely about power and control or revenge than any morality whatsoever.

As for the members alone, I think it is less a matter of their morality and more why they joined or worked with Black Dragons in the first place. People join criminal organizations for money, for the thrill of danger, for protection or because they lack better options. Not sure how it was before Outworld Invasion and Netherrealm War, but the game does not show us the actual state of modern (alternative timeline) Earthrealm, or at least modern USA society. I mean, in a short period of time, out of nowhere came armies of monsters twice, murdering people right and left, destroying cities. The rebuilding for sure took time but beside the lasting psychological trauma, I’m sure the survivors demanded answers as to what the hell happened and did the governments know about other realms. It is not stated how much common people know now about Mortal Kombat and Outworld or general history of conflict, but the last invasion and the Netherrealm War changed the world in an irreversible way. We don’t have an idea about the situation of average citizens nor how countries managed to stave off political, cultural or economic post-war crises. We have a clue about show business like movie making and military operating inside and outside Earthrealm and cooperation between fractions representing different countries and/or continents. Our main heroes seem to do well, money-wise at least, but they all are in this or another way related to the military thus working for the government (or United Nations / NATO / whatever political-economic union happened post-war). That however does not rule out the possibility there are people who were abandoned or forgotten by their government, who were marginalised for whatever big or small reason. With what happened it is easy for me to imagine how humanity was militarized in case of another attack, and in result, how societies were controlled more tightly by their governments. In theory all for the security means but it easily could escalate into social inequalities increasing with each passing year.

There is a lot of worldbuilding the games did not tell us about but would help greatly to understand the relationship between characters, fractions and countries. Are there arenas that are now closed off due to some magic contamination or became the lawless zones but people live there because they are too poor to move into safer places? Are there more young people with special powers due to raping or magic means, as the remnant of the war? How religions work now, when humanity saw an army of demons? Are religious wars escalated, especially if faith in Elder Gods get renewed? Did religious fanatics start cultural crusades against certain social groups (like LGBT+, atheists, anyone tied to Outworld or at least looking unnatural, like orphaned Frost?).

And the more society is tightly controlled, divided into poor, unwanted and written off against the privileged ones (military), the more people rebel against authority. Which is how Black Dragons may fit into the new times, as a niche for desperate, angry people with little to none perspective on life. Under Kano’s guard, they can be as violent and uncaring as they want. They can hurt a government (military), get good money and fun and until they are caught, there is only Black Dragon’s laws (or lack of therefor) to worry about.

(Looking how extremely violent the Special Forces were during the raid on Black Dragon’s hideout, how Cassie went straight for killing instead of just injuring to arrest the criminals and put them before justice, I wouldn’t be surprised if the army was not popular anymore. And yeah, Cassie wanted to save her parents but as a soldier, she is bound to respect law… that may be much different than we known from our reality)

We, as gamers (viewers) know what scumbag Kano is because we see his crimes and how he interacts with other characters. To what awful level he managed terrifying strong heroes like Sonya. But most of Black Dragon members may know him just as the charismatic leader that time after time outsmart the Special Forces and always get a good-paying job for them, whatever it is a deal in the country or a totally different realm.

And those named characters that left are those who actually experienced on their own skin what a nasty bastard Kano was. Like in Mortal Kombat X Comics Series, Erron joined forces with Black Dragons out of desperation to help Kotal which ended badly for him because Kano left him to die, thus Erron’s personal hate for Kano and his buddies. Similar thing seems to happen with Tremor, sent on a suicidal mission and then also left behind without any care or remorse. Frankly, only MK9!Kabal seems to have left Black Dragons for moral reasons and actually made proper life changing decisions like joining the police and help citizens instead of serving criminals.

Because of that, I can see why Kano, despite his true nature, is actually admired or followed by a bunch of angry, rebellious, sociopathic people and why Black Dragons are doing well despite Special Forces (and Red Dragons) hunting them for decades.

[ghostdrew22]

Epeolatry || Daphne Greengrass

Requested: No Pairing: Daphne Greengrass x fem!reader but more Astoria Greengrass x fem!reader Warnings: none, I think, just sad girl vibes. Summary: Words always made sense to Daphne, except when you said them.

WORDS: 833

~~~

Epeolatry - the worship of words.

Words had always been a funny thing to Daphne Greengrass. Not because they didn’t make sense, which one would assume, but often because they made too much sense.

Words, unlike people, were easy for her to understand and decipher. Even when there seemed to be double meaning beneath the surface, she’d uncover it. It was her strength, she liked to think, knowing what words meant and what value they held in a world where everything usually felt meaningless.

She’d grown up with Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini- one used words as a way to shroud everyone else’s view from his true self and emotions, while the other rarely ever used words without meaning exactly what he said. She’d been best friends with Pansy Parkinson and Theodore Nott- one spoke so much that her words filled silences that hadn’t even made their way over yet, and the other threw words around like confetti in hopes of attracting the right kind of attention.

Daphne always understood their words, their words always made sense to her even when they didn’t make sense to the speaker’s themselves. Words were easy for her to comprehend.

Maybe that’s why she’d struggled so hard to understand you, you weren’t made of just words that you spoke. You were made of words that you captured in books, songs, conversations, thoughts that had all made you into a person. Your words were who you were, they weren’t just words with you. Words, unlike people, were easy for her to understand. But she could never draw a line between the two when it came to you- you were both the words and the person, both the artist and the painting.

She had never been an avid reader, but you had lined every shelf in your childhood home with novels. The library was a cold and uninviting place to her, but to you it was home. While Daphne preferred to be engrossed in conversation or consumed by a good movie, you were always partial to slipping between two ends of a perfect story. You were always reading, so she learned to do the same.

The two of you were friends, although not as close to each other as the rest of the Slytherin circle, but Daphne had always wanted to be more. She knew that you liked girls, everyone did, but she didn’t have the courage to tell you how she felt. For someone that knew words inside and out, that could probably outdo Shakespeare if she tried, she could never find the right words to say to you.

So instead she’d borrow books after you, with the sole intention of trying to figure out what made you tick. She would run her eyes over the words, imagining what you’d thought when you’d read them. She’d trace her fingers along the curvatures of the book, along the spine of story, and try to picture the smile on your face when you did the same. She’d draw out maps of your love for reading, for stories, for alternate realities in which Voldermort wasn’t a looming threat and death wasn’t a terrifying prospect.

While she desperately tried to figure you out from afar, study your brain like a neuroscientist staring at a CT scan, you took a liking to Astoria. Everyone had always thought that she was just Daphne's younger sister, that Daphne had always been the pretty sister, but not you, you thought Astoria held the world in the palm of her hands.

"Daph?" You’d perked up beside the older sister one night at dinner, eyes trained on Astoria as she sat a few people away and laughed at a joke.  

"Hm?"

“Does Astoria like girls?" You asked, eyes still not leaving the brunette.

"Um, I'm not sure. Not something we've ever discussed. Why?" She was sure. She was definitely sure that Astoria liked girls. It was a discussion they’d had late one night during their first year, awkwardly coming out to each other then feeling waves of relief wash over them both at the realization that neither of them had lost a sister.

"Would it bother you? If I asked her out?"

Your eyes flash up to Daphne’s and she feels her breath hitch in her throat. Those beautiful e/c eyes, how could she ever hurt you? “No, not at all.” She smiled, “You should give it a try.”

And give it a try you had. Daphne always regretted those words, always regretted sending you off to her sister. She’d known that you would ask her out, and that Astoria would probably agree, but she hadn’t anticipated how much it would hurt to see the two of you still deep in love years later.

You were meant to fall in love with Daphne, not Astoria. Daphne had put in the work, had studied you like a thesis that she couldn’t wait to share with the world, she’d known you. But she had never been able to understand your words, not even when you’d hinted at being into her way back in 3rd. She worshipped words, yours especially, but they’d fallen flat when she needed them most.

She’d spent nights losing sleep, just trying desperately to find you between the pages, forgetting that maybe it’d be easier if she just looked for you within the scope of reality.

~~~

get added to my HP taglist! (I’m going to make separate character taglists soon)

taglist: @dracoscene @dreaming-about-fanfictions @astoria-malfcy @gwlvr @wh0re4blaise @marrymetheonott @dracomalfoyposts  @realityblocked  @is-it-really-a-secret @louweasleymalfoy @dracomalfoys-wh0re @riddleswh0r3crux @o-rion-sta-r

~~~

So this is technically my first non-Draco fic (excluding the Ron headcanon) and idk, I quite like it. I’ve decided to expand my blog and start writing for more characters so if you’d like to know who else I write for then go HERE.

anyway,

love you all

jean <3

[kaekiro]

Lest

Pairing: Eren/Mikasa II Rating: T II Words: 3032 II [AO3] Warnings: Mentions of blood and death A/N: In which Eren thinks Mikasa is dead and he doesn’t know how to cope. Instead, he acts a bit aggressively out of despair and frustration. Alternate canon au where EM is 19 yo and are already together. 

A few months ago, an AO2 user by the name of Lola left a comment on chapter 49 requesting that I write this! I don't think I've written one of these before, so I took all the pent up angst from the recent manga chapters and dumped it into here 😅 Hope you like it! P.S. I threw in a reference from the Netflix Series Dark! If you know the series, see if you can spot it!

The news didn’t quite register in his mind. He fell out of touch from reality, hoping that this was some kind of nightmare that she’d wake him from, like she always did. The messenger left in a rush soon after the written note was handed off to the Captain, and he felt his body go stiff the moment the paper was lowered and Levi glanced to him, then to Armin. Levi’s eyes betrayed nothing, but he knew deep down that something was wrong. And when his fears were confirmed, his blood froze over, stilling every limb and breath and bodily function for a long moment.

“Mikasa is missing.” 

He blinked rapidly, unbelievingly, and he almost wanted to laugh because surely the Captain was just making another bad joke. Mikasa and her going missing is something that did not go together, it was impossible. Unthinkable. He looked to Armin for assurance, expecting him to voice these exact thoughts. But his best friend’s face reflected the anxiety he struggled to repress, and that was when he began to realize the gravity of the situation. Levi wasn’t joking, and Mikasa was missing. 

He stood and walked out of the room with firm intent, ready to get his gear together and leave to go find her. 

“Eren,” Armin called, following him out of the room, reaching out to touch his shoulder.  “Eren,” he said more sharply, moving to quickly jump in front of him and block his path. He glared hard, wondering why he wasn’t as eager to help or even join him. 

“What?” 

“I know what you’re planning. You can’t go out there.”

“And why not?” he challenged, his frustration and impatience flaring. “Mikasa could be hurt and she needs me. She needs us.”

“Or,” Armin began, stepping to block his attempt to get around him, “she could be okay. It takes time for these messages to be delivered. During that time, or even right now, she could’ve already used a flare to signal her and her squad’s location. Or they could have been found by other scouts. This is Mikasa we’re talking about. Have some faith in her. Who knows, she could return here by tomorrow morning after they check her health. Just -- don’t do anything rash. We don’t have the resources to help keep you safe out there. And we don’t need any more people going missing, you of all. ” 

He saw reason in what Armin was saying, he truly did. But the sense of alarm did not falter. Instead, it kept nagging and screaming that something was not right. It wasn’t easy, but he stayed quiet and swallowed a whole lot of what he was feeling, knowing and repeating to himself that Armin’s instincts hardly missed their mark. He also knew that he could trust in Mikasa’s abilities, trust in her to come back. He had to focus on that, lest he go insane with worry. 

-----

Without waiting to be told, he woke up earlier than his squadmates and began chopping wood outside. The exercise helped burn away the stress he still couldn’t shake off, but the real reason he was out here so early is that he wanted to be the first to greet Mikasa. He pictured lecturing her for scaring him, checking over her injuries himself if she had any. And perhaps, when they were alone, he’d take her in his arms just to feel her’s wrap around him, to prove that she was really okay and that he didn’t need to get as worked up as he is. The thought makes his face warmer but heart lighter. Yeah, he would definitely do that. All he needed to do was wait for her. 

Yet, no one showed up that day. 

-----

He didn’t mean to do it. 

This realization dawns on him when the room falls silent and he feels Jean restraining his arms, sees Armin gazing down at the broken teacup with tears in his eyes. 

The liquid that dribbled from the wall and seeped into the floorboards used to be warm. It was the Captain that had heated the tea, suggesting that Sasha bring it up to him as he hadn’t left Mikasa’s room since they all found out the news. Unable to sleep, he was the one a new messenger delivered the news to early in the morning. He should’ve given it to the Captain as it was his message, but desperation took over and before he knew it, he lost complete sense of balance and stumbled until his back met something solid, eyes wide but unseeing as the unfolded paper fell to the ground. Some of the corpses retrieved were scouts that were part of her squad. The mission had transitioned from a search to a recovery effort for Mikasa’s and the others’ bodies. Involuntarily, he recalled what the bodies looked like during the recovery missions he’d been a part of, imagined seeing a bloodied sheet with a tattooed wrist peeking out. He distantly heard a shout of his name as he doubled over and vomited out what little he had in his stomach.

He doesn’t remember when or how he got to her room. But his body was curled on her bed, stiff, unmoving, and to his misfortune, awake. Sasha must’ve known this as she quietly stepped into the room because she offered words of comfort, trying to sound optimistic yet her voice lacked the hope he desperately needed. He didn’t reply to her, did nothing to acknowledge her presence at all and she had in turn understood, whispered her condolences after setting down the steaming cup on the desk, and shut the door behind her. There was a fleeting feeling of guilt in his stomach when he ignored Sasha and let the tea go to waste, but it couldn’t be helped. The only thing that managed to bring him some semblance of consolation was turning further into Mikasa’s pillow and breathing in softly, the pleasant scent of her hair and clothes barely there, but there nonetheless. 

Falling asleep had been a slow and painful process for him, his mind and thoughts consumed by worry and memories of her. In his dreams, she was beside him as she’d always been, weakly scolding him about something he didn’t pay any mind to because she was so close and cleaning his cheek with her handkerchief. He wanted nothing more than to grab hold of the front of her jacket, to tug her closer and press his mouth to hers just to see her surprised reaction. But when he did, what he thought was a dream instantly turned into a nightmare. He pulled back to look at her and suddenly found himself kneeling over her body, his hands and her clothes stained with her blood. She tried to tell him something and he knew it was important with how she was clutching onto him, but she could only manage a terrifying mix between a gurgle and cough before the light left her eyes. He shook terribly, would have screamed if the pain hadn’t made it impossible to breathe. Tears fell from his eyes as did promises from his lips, whimpers of I’ll make it right filling the space between them as he clutched the hand that fell from his cloak, his other hand moving to gently close her eyes. 

He woke up in a panic then, became even more frightened when Jean and Armin came into his line of sight as they shook him awake. 

“Eren!” Jean whispered harshly, “snap out of it! It’s just us!” 

A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face as Armin helped steady his breathing, both of them taking in lungfuls of air and breathing out slowly, over and over and over. Eventually, with his legs tossed over the edge of her bed, he buried his face in his hands, rubbing furiously at his eyes to try and erase the remnants of his nightmare. Jean and Armin carefully sat on either side of him, offering their presence as he grieved. 

“Why did I let her go?” he asked tearfully, to neither of them in particular. 

“...Eren,” Armin started slowly, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t give up hope just yet. It’s only been a couple of days. There’s no confirmation that…” the last words of his sentence, the ‘she's dead’ remained unspoken, but the three of them were painfully aware of it. Armin continued. 

“A-and besides… there was no way you could have known that—”

He startles both his friends when he stands up, grabbing the cup full of tea and smashing it against the wall. He completely ignored the cries of his name and would've swiped the books and sewing kit off Mikasa’s desk if Jean hadn’t forcefully held him back. 

“I did know!” he cried, tears dripping from his chin. Armin was telling him to be hopeful, but he knew that tone, knew that it meant that his best friend was assuming the worst, just like him. “From the very beginning, right when the three of us agreed to join the military! I just knew that something like this would happen, and I still let her follow me here!” 

The deafening silence that follows is what slowly drags him back to a more sensible state, enough for him to realize what he’s done. He takes in the scene before him, the broken glass, the tears in Armin’s wide eyes, Jean’s hands struggling to keep their grip on his forearms. What would Mikasa think…

His arms go slack at that thought. He wishes she was here to hold his hand like she used to when he was overwhelmed, and tell him that even if things didn’t turn out alright, she’d be right there. Perhaps she was there with him. Even if he couldn’t see her. He never believed in those kinds of things if he was honest, there wasn’t anything to prove it was true. But… there wasn’t anything to prove it was entirely false either.... and the idea that she might be here made him shift entirely. She wouldn’t want him to react this way, yet here he was, making a mess and about to damage her belongings. 

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he murmurs, to Armin and Jean, to Mikasa. The hands holding his forearms let go. “I didn’t mean to…” 

He sees Armin nod, quickly wiping at his nose. “I’ll get something to pick this up—”

“No.” He reaches for the candle one of them had set on Mikasa’s dresser, using the light to carefully step around the broken glass. “I made this mess, I’ll clean it up.” 

“Eren,” Jean says as he clamps a hand on his shoulder. “you look like a pile of shit and you’re not doing well. Let Armin and me handle this.”

He sniffles, looking down. “You forgot to say ‘no offense.’”

“I fully intended to offend you.”

Though he can’t bring himself to smile, Jean acting like a jackass the way they always did with one another helped him a little bit, and it was enough to convince him to agree. When everything was picked up and fixed, they coaxed him to sleep in a different room, reasoning that he’d been in there all day and it’d be better if he was with them, in case of another nightmare. He takes one last look into her bedroom before leaving, an ache spreading within his hands and chest as he remembers sneaking in there late at night a little over a week ago, letting her head rest on his shoulder and arm sling over his abdomen. She was so warm, and the steady rhythm of her breath lulled him to sleep just minutes after laying next to her. He can’t imagine what he wouldn’t give just to be like that, at least one last time.  

-----

His eyes feel swollen and uncomfortably dry when he opens them, doing so long enough to notice the unmade sheets on the mattresses and floor, how he was the only one in the room. The morning light becomes too much after a few seconds and he closes them once more, his exhaustion from yesterday making him slump further into the flat pillow. I’m so tired… I wouldn’t mind if I could stay just like this for a while… 

He doesn’t know how much time passes but eventually, he feels his hair, outgrown and tangled, being pushed away from his face. The gentle nature of the touch is light but so familiar that he immediately peeks his eyes open, the silhouette blurry but undoubtedly her. His lips curl into a lazy and content smile before they part to say her name, his voice raspy but soft. Bit by bit, his vision clears until he can finally see her small, pretty smile. 

“Eren,” she responds evenly, her fingers carefully untangling the lock of hair caught on them. Her other hand is pressed against the floor she’s sitting on, supporting her weight as she leans heavily to one side. What he wants most is to nudge his way over and rest his head on her lap, but he hardly has the energy to keep his eyes open. And the soothing feeling of her movements was not helping at all. 

“Why are you on the floor? And not in your bed?” 

Not entirely sure himself, he makes a noise that, if anything, only tells how tired he is. She seems to leave the short line of questioning at that, successfully untangling another knot. “Well… you should start waking up so you can eat something before Sasha helps herself.”

A sense of anxiety washes over him for reasons he can’t fully remember at the moment, and he only shakes his head like a stubborn child, burying half his face into the pillow as if it helps make a point. All he knew was that if he listened to her, what has been happening the past couple of nights would happen again; he’d wake up from his dream and she would disappear along with it.

“I don’t want to wake up. I want to stay in this dream,” he says quietly, wistfully, closing his eyes tighter.

“...What?” he hears her ask, feeling her shake her head as she reaches down to touch his face and swipe her thumb across his cheekbone affectionately. “Eren… you’re not dreaming.”

He frowns and he opens an eye to look at her as if she’s said something crazy. 

“What do you mean I’m not dreaming?” 

“....You’re not dreaming? I don’t know a simpler way to say it.”

It takes all his effort but he pushes himself to sit upright then, a little more awake and even more confused. He takes in the sight of her, the concern on her face, and remembers thinking that he’d never get to see it again. That’s right, Mikasa was “missing,” but scouts were looking for her body. He had lost her. He briefly glances around the room, noting the white sheets and how they reflect the sunlight in a way that makes the room seem unnaturally bright, like he was in some kind of dream. Was this heaven? The afterlife?

“Am…. am I dead?” he genuinely asks, eyes widening.

Mikasa looks at him as if he suddenly sprouted an extra head, fixing herself into a kneel and pushing her palm against his forehead, the back of her other hand checking the temperature of his face and neck. “Do you have a fever or something? Why are you asking such strange things?” 

The firm and real touch of her hand snaps him out of whatever delirium he’s experiencing and he just stares at her, watches how she frets over his unkempt state. He couldn’t pay any mind to his dumb and embarrassing questions because this wasn’t a dream, and he wasn’t dead. This is real. Tears start to pool in his eyes, falling from them in thick droplets.

She looks even more worried, opening her mouth to probably ask more questions but before she can, he grips her arms and pulls her close to wrap his arms around her waist, his entire being weak and ready to collapse at the relief that pulses through him. He clenches his jaw tight, stifling his sobs but unable to control how they wrack his body. Her scarf catches the tears that won’t stop falling, and he only embraces her harder as he manages a barely audible, “I thought you weren’t coming back… I thought I lost you…” 

He knows that she finally understands the reason behind his bizarre behavior when she relaxes against him, her arms curling around his shoulders and head resting against his. 

“I’m sorry, Eren...”  

They stay like that for a few moments longer until her left hand coaxes him to look at her, her thin fingers wiping at the wet and darkened skin beneath his eye. “Plans were compromised, and we lost more than expected,”  she explains regrettably, her gaze fixed on her movements. “A small group of us were stranded for a short while, but… but I’m here now.” 

Her voice and words reverberate so nicely in his ears after spending so many hours longing to hear them, and yet there is a part of him that still feared that somehow this wasn’t real. Even awake and wound up in each other's embrace, he wasn’t entirely convinced, and he was becoming acutely aware of how he craved something more. So, in response, he nudges her hand away from his face so he can cup her cheeks and swiftly guide her lips to his. She inhaled sharply through her nose, clearly blindsided by his kiss and he would’ve felt more sorry if it wasn’t for the soft sensation of her lips, her breath and skin reassuringly warm against his face. His slight regret for surprising her (especially in a way neither of them was used to) diminishes entirely when her hands rise to wrap around his wrists and she kisses him back, over and over. When he pulls away, greeted by the sight of her blush and shy gaze, he takes in a lungful of air, finally feeling like he can truly breathe.

[detectivecarlosreyes]

In Case of Emergency (Ch 8/10)

Ao3 | 2.2/15.6k | Buddie | Status: Incomplete

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Chapter 8: 30 feet of mud between you and me Both Buck and Eddie struggle with the concept of sleep after Eddie gets taken to the hospital and Buck gets through the rest of the shift wondering what the rest of the team thought of reaction to Eddie's accidental burial. Set mid-Eddie Begins- 3x15, after Eddie's self-rescue and before Chris's show and tell.

Retrospectively, Buck knew he had let his emotions get the best of him. Losing his best friend, his partner, the man he decidedly loves to the depths of the earth to a place that he couldn’t easily follow was unlike anything that he ever felt, and it sent him in a spiral of despair that could not be easily explained to the others.

And it wasn’t just the fact that Eddie was trapped under 30 feet of mud with no certain rescue that sat heavily on his chest, it was his immediate thought afterward - what am I going to tell Chris? - that really had him hell-bent in believing that despite the odds, Eddie was somehow still okay because he just couldn’t fathom any alternative that didn’t result in Chris getting to see his father again.

And then Eddie was just there, having resurfaced in a way that was so typically Eddie that Buck couldn’t feel anything other than joy and relief. He reveled in just being able to hold Eddie’s hand even for the short period it took to get him to an ambulance.

Buck was ready to get out of there as soon as he could because all his thoughts were consumed by Eddie and the gravity of that situation, of the fact that he’d almost lost him for good. The need to see him and hold him to be sure his self-rescue wasn’t a figment of his imagination was near overwhelming, thankfully when they returned to the station, they were mercifully free of calls for the next few hours allowing them time to get warm and clean after being out in that torrential rainfall, but that didn’t mean he was able to get even a wink of shut-eye.

And with the mental exhaustion of being at the tail end of a 24-hr shift, there was little energy for speculative conversation to which Buck was secretly grateful because at least the tiredness gave him a buffer from the potential consequence of that call resulting in Cap calling him into his office to discuss interpersonal relationships and ask the questions that could very well be on everyone’s mind since witnessing his less than subtle emotional outbursts, something he assumed based on the way they looked at him.

Not that it would be a bad thing seeing as neither he nor Eddie were actively trying to keep it a secret anymore, not since Christmas really, but it was one thing for people to guess and speculate, and another thing entirely him to announce and confirm it without his better half present and consenting to share such news.

Much to his relief, the end of their shift came around soon enough, and having had a message relayed from Eddie through the hospital reminding him that Chris would need to be picked up from Pepa’s for school, a job he usually reserved himself but seeing as he was out of commission the job defaulted to Buck, meaning he had to leave as soon as humanely possible to keep to the schedule.

It was enough for Chim and Hen to question his eagerness to leave, seeing as he was usually the one of the last out of the station.

“What got you in a rush this morning?” asked Hen as he collected both his and Eddie’s bags, slinging them over his shoulders, “got somewhere to be or something?”

He looked at his watch and said distractedly without missing a beat as he added up time it would take to get from the station to Pepa’s and then to the school, “Actually yeah, I need to pick Christopher up for school seeing as Eddie is still at the hospital, and if I’m going to make it, I really need to leave right now. I’ll see you guys later.”

And promptly left with a wave, leaving Hen and Chim to share a long questioning look before staring after him, only now noticing that he was in fact not just carrying his own bag.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

Eddie was glad to finally be allowed to go home having been given the all-clear some 8 hours later.

The hours had passed slowly for him, lying in the hospital bed, waiting for his observation period to be over. It was excruciating, especially knowing that he could not for the life of him get any measure of rest despite being told by the hospital staff that was exactly what he should be doing.

It was something that he was unable to do, not when his mind was replaying what happened in that tunnel over and over again feeling as though he’d just barely cheated death, which in reality he had. He shouldn’t have survived being trapped down there, probably wouldn’t have it not for the family that he created for himself, with the fire station, with Buck, with Buck and Christopher.

Christopher.

Tears had sprung to his eyes at the thought of his son, knowing that he had been so close to not being able to return to him and that Chris could have very nearly lost both parents in the space of a year. It was a sobering thought, one that plagued him in the early hours of the morning while most of the hospital still slept.

And thinking about it all had just left him restless, itching to hold his son in his arms to remind himself that he actually did make it out and Chris still had a father to come home to. It was those thoughts as well that lead to remind him that he was supposed to be taking him to school and ended up convincing one of the nurses to call Buck to take his place for the morning, something he knew Buck would do without hesitation.

Speaking of Buck; the man showed up after dropping Chris off with an inexplicable warmth to him greeting him with a soft “hey” before insisting that he hang around until he was discharged despite looking just as exhausted as he felt, as if he had just as little sleep as himself.

Much to his displeasure, his body still betrayed him still showing signs of exhaustion despite being given a clean bill of health. And Buck walked closely beside his tired frame to the door carrying both of their bags and opened the door using his own key looking distinctly at home in doing so, a stark difference to the first time all those months ago.

With a sigh he sat on the couch, eyelids drooping while Buck left him for the kitchen stating he should at least have a shower while he made them some tea before getting some rest. Rest: there was that word again. Something Eddie was slowly beginning to hate because every time he closed his eyes he was back in that hole, trapped and alone. It was enough to keep the chill in his bones.

Reluctantly, he trudged to the bathroom and turned the shower on as hot as he could stand, and gave himself a quick but thorough wash not wanting to be surrounded by water for longer than necessary, unwilling to let the sensation of it get the best of him.

Soon after, he returned to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing out the pillow and finding himself unable to lay down, terrified that the moment he closed his eyes he would just keep reliving that moment when he realised he was alone, no connection to the outside world, no way of knowing that they knew he was still alive.

“I made you some camomile tea, thought it might help,” Buck announced as he joined him in the bedroom, setting the tea beside him on the bedside table, before turning and standing between his legs, cupping his cheek with one hand and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Eddie couldn’t help but lean into it with his eyes closed, relishing in the contact.  

It was over too soon, and he mourned the loss of contact until he heard the sound of clothes rustling and opened his eyes to see Buck changing into his sleepwear. He watched over his shoulder as Buck climbed onto the bed behind him and felt his heart speeding up at the prospect of the simple act of sleeping.

“Eds?”

“I can’t close my eyes, Buck.” He admitted under his breath unable to move from his spot, “I still feel cold even though I know that I’m not and I’m afraid if I close my eyes, I’ll open them again and I’ll be back there.”

He felt Buck’s weight shifting on the bed before his warm body pressed up against his back, a firm but gentle hand placed on his waist, and Buck’s lips lightly touched the junction between neck and shoulder.

“If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t been able to sleep either,” Buck murmured against his shirt, “Let me be here, with you- for you. I’ll keep you warm.”

He could feel the tension melt from his shoulders, not realising that he had been holding any in the first place and allowed Buck to drag him with him to lie down. Almost instantly he relaxed into the comfort of Buck’s arms, feeling the heat the man radiated seep into his core, warming him up in the specific way that he had been sorely needing.

And they just lay there in the still partially lit room, finding an easy rhythm in their breaths. He was close to sleep before he started with a sharp intake of breath, his brain reminding him of one important thought, “What about Chris? We need to pick him up from school.”

Buck shushed and lazily stroked a hand in his hair, “Don’t worry, I’ve got an alarm that’s hours from now to get us up before pick up, and then we can cuddle him on the couch for as long as you want, but right now we both need to sleep.”

That was something that he loved about Buck. His innate sense of knowing and understanding him as much as he knew and understood himself. He settled back down, nestled in Buck’s arms, and reflexively breathed out the words neither of them has said out of fear of saying it too soon despite knowing how the other felt.

“I love you.”

Buck’s arms gently tightened around him, pulling him in closer to his chest as he answered softly into his hair, “I love you too, Eddie.”

** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

True to his word Buck’s alarm startled them into consciousness. Much to their relief, sleep had come easily, exhaustion pulling them under swiftly, leaving no room for dreams or memories to wake them.

In no time they were dressed and fed with sandwiches Buck had prepared earlier when he was in the shower and were at pickup waiting for the moment that Eddie had been waiting for since he resurfaced in that pond.

“Daddy!”

After that nothing else mattered, he scooped up his son and held him tight and wouldn’t let him go, even going so far as sitting in the backseat with him on the drive home.

“Bucky said you had to go to the hospital because you got really cold when it was raining last night. Did they help you get warm?”

“That’s right bud, I was very cold and tired because I was helping a little boy, only a couple of years younger than you, get back to his mom.”

“You saved him?”

“He sure did Chris! Your daddy is a hero.” Chimed in Buck from the driver’s seat, and Eddie shared a look with him as Buck mouthed in the reflection of the mirror, our hero.

Soon enough the three of them were cuddled up together under a blanket on the couch with Eddie in the middle and Chris and Buck on either side of him, bellies full of pizza and ice cream, slowly being lulled into a food coma while watching the latest Disney movie that Chris was excited about.

Eddie was content, having the two reasons that helped him make it back alive wedged under each arm, feeling the most at peace than he had ever been in the last 24 hours.

By the time the credits were rolling, Chris was out like a light and he and Buck weren’t that far behind, despite having a solid 5-hour nap earlier. So, they drowsily set about relocating Chris into bed before falling into their own, resuming their earlier position with Eddie curled around Buck’s side head on his chest with Buck’s arms circled around him, securing him in place.

He was nearly lulled to sleep by the sound of Buck’s steady heartbeat when Buck’s voice quietly rumbled in his chest.

“Hey Eddie.”  

He hummed in response, not bothering to open his eyes.

“I’m pretty sure the team knows about us now,”

“Is that so?” He asked with an air of levity as he shifted his head.

“I would like to preface it and say that it’s not my fault, I thought I lost you.”

“I guess I can forgive you for that,” He answered before quietly laughing into Buck’s chest, “Really it’s on them for taking so long to notice anyway, its not like we’ve been all that subtle at recent gatherings.”

Buck softly snorted at that, “Yeah, that’s true.”

“We can figure it out in the morning when we’re awake to remember it.” He suggested with a deep yawn, barely able to stay conscious.

He barely got a whispered okay before they were both fast asleep in another peaceful slumber.

[holy-trinity-of-one-braincell]

So someone made a post about Willie and Noah Czerny being skateboarding ghost buddies and it got me thinking for some reason of an alternate reality where ghosts were more like Noah. Flickering from being alive to just being mute and hallow.

So look, the boys die and when Julie plays their demo they reappear. Only more gruesome. They look exactly like the second they died with empty eyes and sickly pale skin and clothes covered in the dirt from the alley and blood (because for some reason I imagine them throwing up blood don’t ask) Naturally Julie freaks out because this fucking Conjuring just appeared in front of her. She runs from the studio screaming. Once she gets the courage to come back she doesn’t find them again.

But they are still there. Just invisible and mute. They can hear each other and see each other but not by lifers neither can they interact with the world of the living. See the rules are that all people with unfinished business come back to resolve it. But they are literal phantoms of themselves. The longer they interact with other ghosts or the lifers (however one-sided) they gain back their humanity. They can start interacting with the real world. Most of the ghosts, however, try to contact their families after they come back. The trick is the dark room Reggie talked about. Because it’s a time warp. So many when they come back to come to a different year if not a decade. In most cases, the unfinished business is connected to their families but this also raises problems. See, one scenario is that the ghosts follow their loved ones around regaining their humanity and sometimes eventually crossing over. But usually, they just get discouraged or angry because they are very much not corporeal and they cannot be heard so they just get frustrated or resign and go back to their hollow form. Other scenario ties with revenge or anger that turns the ghosts into poltergeists which are extremally dangerous to both the living and dead.

So the boys are fairly lucky because they have at least each other to talk to. Not being able to interact with Julie they decide to check on their families. Luke goes back to his parents and it gave him some sort of comfort knowing that he was remembered. So he spends there most of his days. Reggie checks on his family but his house is sold and turned into a bike shack. He’s not angry. He’s sad and little disappointed but not angry. In a way, he saw it coming. But Reggie is also a people person. He’s shy at first especially with adults because adults were rarely reliable and trusting in his experience but nevertheless, he’s a people person and loves to interact with lifers. Even if it’s one-sided. Also alternatively Reggie has a younger brother because I adore that idea, fight me. So this is the two out of three. But not Alex. Alex doesn’t want to see his parents. But he wants to track his siblings because he gives me big brother vibes. So he looks for them.

The boys occasionally, mostly Reggie, hang in the house. They flicker on from time to time and Julie can see them for a second. It freaks her the fuck out. Because there are three very dead-looking boys in her house. But they look a bit better. The blood is at least gone. She goes back to the demo she played and finds the picture, then she googles Sunset Curve. She doesn’t know why three dead band members are in her house but she needs some answers.

When she plays their music they become visible but are still unable to communicate so the conversation is very based on yes and no questions. But they start hanging out more. Julie is still pretty freaked out but once she got the initial shock it’s not half bad.

At some point, the boys start to sing just messing around I guess. And she can hear them! They talk about music and how Rose loved it. This makes Julie reconsider singing again. So she does. And the boys join her. And something happens. They are not only visible and Julie can hear them but also they don’t look so hollow anymore. They still look phantomish but not as much as before.

They figure it is the music that brings them back to their old selves. And now they can interact with Julie more so that also helps. So Julie and Luke write some songs and they find a way to pick up things so they can talk more freely and the boys look almost as when they were alive only a bit bleached and transparent. So overall considering their situation it’s ok.

But then the shit hits the fan. One, the boys learn that Bobby stole their music. They are all pissed. Luke goes all poltergeist and it’s pretty terrifying. Julie rushes to Trevor’s house to stop it however she can. It’s chaos. Eventually, she salts them (because I watched Supernatural and I say so), because Reggie and Alex are not as fuming as Luke but they are still pissed and their combined energy is just pure chaos. It makes them disappear for long enough so they realise what is happening and get a grip. They could have hurt Julie in the process!

The other thing that happens is that Julie is obviously mad but also scared of what has happened. Because those sad boys just did that. And it’s scary as shit because what if you anger them and they lose control? So the are left to cool off. Luke goes off to his parents to ground him or stays behind and plays some music with Reggie because Reggie cannot go back to the house to hang with Ray or Carlos because it would upset Julie and also he’s scared that he might fuck something up like they just did with Bobby. Also, Carlos reminds him so much of his younger brother, this is canon now fite me!

But Alex, Alex needs to clear his head (and look for his siblings). So he walks down the Sunset Blvd and he meets Willie. More like Willie crashes into him but you get the point. And Willie, he is so ALIVE. He could be mistaken for a lifer if he hasn’t just phased through them. They talk and Willie offers to take Alex to Hollywood Ghost Club where they can be back to their old selves. No more hollow shell. They can interact with the real world. And Caleb can make them visible. It’s a tempting offer that he has to stomach so he tells Willie that he will meet him again when he decides.

Alex tells the boys about it and they immediately decide they are in. Luke is tempted by being made visible so he can get back at Bobby. The anger has dimmed but it’s still eating him inside. Luke can hold a grudge. Reggie just desperately wants to interact with people. He loves his friends but he wants to make people laugh and to make jokes so he won’t be left alone with the dark thoughts in his head. And Alex above all just wants to see Willie again.

So they agree and meet Willie who takes them to the HGC. And it’s amazing. Because for the first time, apart from when they played with Julie, they feel ALIVE. They are bright, and vibrant, and feel like they belong. Like it hasn’t been 25 years since they walked the earth. Of course, Caleb knew they boys are visible to Julie when they play but this is not the major point here because although he plays on their ambition to be successful musicians (because they can do it here with Caleb) it’s more about being alive than just a shadow of a person. And the boys know that they need to be grounded and connected to someone to stay the way they are. This place is filled with other ghosts and lifers that can see them so it’s so easy to find their place in the world. Out there, outside the HGC there is Julie and her family (and Willie) but that’s it. And in fact, Julie is the only one that can see them. That’s why this offer is so tempting. Because outside of Julie who might get bored of them, who will grow up and move on, they have no one. Luke has his parents but it’s not for forever either he knows. And they have each other but would it be enough? And on the top of that, there is their unfinished business that they have no clue what it is so they might spend an infinite time on earth just searching.

So it’s fucking tempting to just stay here. But they miss Julie. They brought music back to her life and she literally brought them back. They owe her. So for now they decline Caleb’s offer. But that tricky bitch is having none of that because it’s not about boys being visible to others when they play. No. It’s about trapping their soul here because it would make Caleb more powerful. He needs the souls to keep up this whole place and himself because he has no connection to anybody. So he feeds off souls to stay ‘alive’. If not for that he most likely let the boys go and let them whiter on their own, turn back to hollow shells or angry spirits. But he needs a fresh supply of souls to keep him ‘alive’. Willie is forced to help him and he is one of a very few, in fact, that is ‘alive’ contrary to how it looks like. It’s all a show. An illusion. Because Caleb is sucking the ‘live’ force out of the ghosts he has trapped here. So he stamps the boys.

The time passes, not considerably but it does and Julie sings with her new ‘hologram’ band. They start getting popular but of course, things go wrong. Because of the stamps. It’s different than in the show because it will not destroy them by the jolts. It’s not either crossing over or joining his house band if they don’t want to be erased. No. They are left free to be but Caleb will still take their ‘live’ force. They just don’t get the benefit of being a member of the HGC. The only indication that something is wrong is that they are being drained. Even when they play with Julie they are more transparent on the borderline of hallow. Playing and singing give them a boost that sustains them for a short while but then disappears again. And it shows when they appear while playing. They are no more almost alive happy himbos they are almost a scene out of a zombie flick. Which would be fine for the Halloween gig but not in ordinary circumstances.

Then Willie comes to the rescue. He explains what is happening and the only option to stop it is to end Caleb.

So I slept like 3 hours and I woke from a fever dream and I wrote this. It makes no sense. Please accept my contribution to the phandom.

[katsitting]

I would like to submit the word prompt 'Cage', please?

AN: So this is another one that grew a little out of control. It’s a little more emotional than I expected. I hope you enjoy, nonnie!

Ship: Tomarry

Rating: T

Tags: Alternate Universe - Muggle, Alternate Universe - Modern, Disturbing Themes, Prison, References to Murder, Unhealthy Relationships

You can read it on AO3 here.

___________________________________________________

“You’ve got an hour.”

Any response Harry could have made died in his throat when the guard opened the rusted, metal door.

The room could have been mistaken for a cupboard.

It was small, cramped, and unfurnished.  There were no paintings, no desks. There wasn’t even a place for him to put his bag.  All it had was a chair, a single bloody chair in the centre of the room facing a wall-sized square made of glass.

Harry tried not to make a face, already regretting coming here in the first place.

He knew it would be bad.

Prison wasn’t a pleasant place in England; it wasn’t difficult to imagine that America would be the same.

It was the first thing he’d considered when he’d made his choice to come to America, in the first place. It hadn’t been easy, convincing himself that it was the right choice, that it was the only way he could finally move forward from what happened, and yet—

Harry knew what he was getting himself into. This small, sterile place shouldn’t have come as such an unpleasant shock.

And yet—

It had.

Somewhere, deep down, Harry had had the faint hoped that it wouldn’t be that horrible, that he wouldn’t have to think about the fact that he was seeing his ex-best friend in prison and not over drinks at their local pub.

It was stupid, absolutely bonkers, but that hadn’t stopped him from hoping, hadn’t stopped his stomach from clenching tight with pain when he stepped inside.

This room that looked too much like that cupboard under the stairs, like that hellhole back in the Dursley’s home that he hadn’t thought about since he’d left.

And now Tom was living in one, had to live in one until the bloody rest of his life.  He didn’t wish that on anyone, even when—

“He’ll be here in five minutes.”

Harry blinked, thoughts scattering at the low click of the door closing shut behind him.  The guards had left him alone.

Five minutes.

Harry’s chest tightened at the same time his heart began to race.

Five minutes, and I will see him.

Harry sat down on the chair, unsure of what to expect, of what he could even say. He hadn’t talked to Tom in years, not since the news broke out.

Gods, how did anyone visit their loved ones in prison?

Closing his eyes, Harry tried to focus on his own breaths as he waited and not on the slow drip of the seconds ticking by, on the terrified murmurs in the back of his head telling him that he shouldn’t be there, that he should leave.

There was a clock on the opposite side of the glass window, but Harry couldn’t make out the numbers.  The glass blurred the hands, muddled the minutes.

In and out.

Harry breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth.

“Hello, Harry.”

Harry jumped in his seat, a rush of fear and something that he refused to identify swimming in his veins.

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

Harry tried not to panic, forcing himself to suck in steady breaths to calm himself down and level Tom with the coolest glance he could muster.

This was it.

The moment he’d been waiting for since he’d made his decision.

It was foolish to think that anything could have prepared him for the reality of Tom.

Harry tightened his hands into fists, stomach churning with anger and distress, with longing and hurt.

Tom was sitting in front of the window, arms carefully tucked over his thighs. His hair was well kept even though he wore it longer than Harry remembered, his skin still as bloodless. He looked normal, the same way he had when Harry had last seen him, except—

Harry’s breath caught.

His eyes.

Those were different.

There was something to them now that Harry didn’t recognise, a glint mixed in with a familiar sliver of humour.  

Harry swallowed, bracing himself for the task at hand. He wasn’t here for pleasantries, wasn’t here to catch up.

“Why did you do it?”

Tom’s expression didn’t change. If he was bothered by Harry’s lack of greeting, he didn’t show it.

“Why did you kill him?” Harry pressed, fingers beginning to shake and hating himself all the more for it when Tom’s gaze flickered to his hands and back to his face. It couldn’t have been more than a second, but Harry felt its weight like a layer of mesh.

“Is that really what you’ve come all this way to ask, Harry?”

Tom’s lips lifted into a smile as he asked, his eyes flashing with delight. Harry’s jaw clenched.

No.

“Yes.”

Tom tilted his head to one side, assessing, dark ringlets falling in his eyes in a way that they’d never had before as Tom appraised him.  Harry’s skin began to crawl.

“Liar,” Tom purred, a hand coming up to press against the cage of glass separating them.  “If you can’t be honest with yourself, at least be honest with me, for old time’s sake.”

Harry froze, throat catching when Tom slowly rose from his seat and pressed his other hand against the glass. He was no threat, no genuine danger, but Harry’s mind still shrieked with panic.

Leave. Leave. Leave. You have to leave.

It took every shred of strength Harry possessed to remain sitting.

“Do it.”

Tom’s eyes were smouldering, intent. There was no breath, no twitch that Tom didn’t catch. Harry knew it, could feel the inspection, the dissection, like a physical touch.

Tom had always been able to see right through him.

The circumstances might have changed, but that never would.

I can read you like an open book, a voice so much like Tom’s whispered in the back of Harry’s head.

Harry sucked a slow, steady breath to shake off his unease. He’d been dreading this from the moment he’d stepped on the plane, since he’d first set foot in the prison.

It was a question he’d planned to ask, but on his terms.  

Tom had taken that luxury away from him.

“Coward.”

Harry was on his feet before he realised it, vision turning red with rage, stomach tightening with violence.

Coward.

His anger was like a scream, a fire devouring anyone and anything in its path.  Harry couldn’t think past the flames, couldn’t breathe through the knots in his stomach demanding that Harry show Tom exactly how much of a coward he was.

Harry pressed so close to the window that his nose touched the glass, hands slapping hard against it.

“Why did he look like me?” Harry snarled, hands curling into fists to stop himself from punching the glass like he wanted to. He’d only hurt his hand if he did—this shit was bulletproof anyway.

Tom’s lips twisted, something feral flashing in his gaze. Malicious.

It was like a bucket of ice water had been tipped all over Harry’s head, like his rage had been sucked right out of him, leaving only horror behind.  

“Because I wanted it to be you.”

Harry’s mouth opened, but no words would come. The words were like stones in his stomach, weighing him down, dragging him down to the bottom of the ocean. They were lost.

“Because I—“

“Shut up,” Harry said, refusing to listen any longer, to let Tom say anything else. Something was in his throat, like a lump, a stone. Harry couldn’t swallow past it, couldn’t breathe through the block.

I wanted it to be you.

I wanted it to be you.

I wanted it to be—

Harry left, unable to stomach the look in Tom’s eyes, the stupid fucking smile on his face.

He just needed to get away, to get out—

I wanted it to be you.

Harry didn’t make it far. He got as far as the car park before he was vomiting everything he’d had for lunch, tears and snot streaking down his face. It was difficult to breathe, to think about anything but those words.

Those fucking words.

I wanted it to be you.

Harry wish he’d never come.

[crescent-quill-writings]

Swaddled in a Midnight Sun

Fandom: Hamilton - Miranda

Words: 2785

Relationship: Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens/ Gilbert du Motier Marquis de Lafayette

Additional Tags: Canon Era, Alternate Universe: Angels, Angel!Lafeyette, fluff, snowstorms, near-death experiences, horses

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The wicked winds blowing in from the north had frozen the earth, frost-bitten the air, and brought the world to a standstill. Those who could took shelter within their homes around the hearth, waiting for the seasonal celebrations to bring relief from the permeating dark and cold of winter. The world was peaceful in its icy, permeating silence, almost beautiful, too.

Still, there was a war that needed to be fought and won.

There was an elephant among the ice and snow of the Patriot’s camp. The conversations were hushed, threatened by the violent weather whipping around them and tension so thick it could be sliced through with a bayonet.

“Do you think the war will be over in time for Christmas?”

“Doubt it. If we’re lucky the redcoats will get us before we freeze to death.”

“I just hope we don’t run out of rum before then…”

“Ay, I’ll drink to that.”

John Laurens had had enough of the morbid, idle chatter the soldiers distracted themselves with. The war could be won before Christmas, and the British wouldn’t even know what hit them. Even though the chance to turn the tides in their favour was just within reach, apparently no one had the balls to brave the elements and bring a message to Washington. It was only a little blizzard, after all. What’s the worst it could do?

With a sharp whistle that pierced through even the howling northern winds, John’s trusted steed came trotting over to him in an instant. He mounted the spotted chestnut in one swift motion, and barely a moment later they were galloping off into the dark December night.

“If you want something done right, you do it yourself.”

 *~*~*~*~*~*

 Though he was gripping the reins with all his might, John could no longer feel his fingers. His cheeks were stinging and reddened from the frost-bitten whips of wind lashing at his skin as he rode onwards. Even the forest path offered little relief from the relentless blizzard, and his steed’s heavy breaths were like a smoking gun in the sub-zero air.

“Just a little longer, girl, we’re halfway there.”

In truth, John didn’t actually know how far they had gone. With the frost on that was threatening to freeze his eyes shut and the heavy cloak of snow and darkness he could barely see ten feet ahead of him.

Despite the deep-set chill in his bones, he fought off another shiver and forced himself to focus on the way forwards. His efforts didn’t work as well as the soldier wished. Though it was just for a moment, his vision faded and his senses dulled.

In that little sliver of time, John missed the splintering of frost-bitten wood as a great fir succumbed to the season’s savagery.

John swore with a shout as his steed reared up with a shrill cry of a whinny, “Sunny- Steady, girl!”

It was no use. There was no calming the mare’s frayed nerves against the shock of adrenaline the near-death experience caused. John barely had enough in him to stay awake, nevertheless, fight for control of his horse. His frozen fingers released the reins and with a swift kick from his steed he was sent crashing into the snow.

Winded from the impact with the frozen ground, John gasped for a breath of icy air as he pushed himself onto his knees. He could only just make out the sound of the mare’s swift hooves clambering through the snow before she too was lost to the darkness.

He never realized that the cold could burn worse than the brightest of blazes. His military coat was useless against the winds that rocked him to his very core and sapped whatever was left of his strength.

“Gotta stay awake,” John whispered through chattering teeth as another shiver wracked his body, “There’s a war we need to win, people we can’t disappoint.”

But John was fighting a losing battle.

The frost of numbness that had taken away feeling from his extremities begun to permeate his whole body and mind. He tried to fight against it, and though his will to survive was strong, the winter was stronger.

For a moment, John no longer felt so cold, only tired. So tired that he could sleep forever should the opportunity ever present itself. His body ached for something to rest upon, somewhere to lay his head, and through bleary eyes, the snow beneath him looked to be a good bed for until the storm passed.

He let himself relax, slowly unravelling as he began to fall into his deathbed. He expected to feel the soft diamonds of the blizzard’s wake to meet with cheek. He expected to slip into an eternal sleep as heavy frost froze his eyes shut. That moment never came.

 *~*~*~*~*~*

 John wasn’t sure when the frost finally released his thoughts, but he didn’t care either. In his moment of lucidity, he focused on the secure, welcoming embrace of another. He shifted closer to them with an unintelligible sound, squeezing his eyes shut as he pressed himself into their chest for every bit of warmth they had.

He whined when he felt them shift, crowding more into their space to keep them from slipping away. He felt their chest vibrate with a quiet laugh before a pair of soft lips graced his forehead.

John finally peered up at the one holding him so dearly, only to gasp at who he saw, “Gil!”

“You gave me a good scare there, mon etoile,” Lafayette spoke, and though his tone was sweet he couldn’t hide the crystalline tears pricking the corners of his eyes. “Sil tu plait, for both our sakes, never do something like that again.”

John couldn’t help but laugh at the request, though it seemed his smile brought more relief to the Frenchman than he could’ve imagined. He laced their fingers together and cuddled closer, enjoying the company of his foreign companion.

“I am just happy I managed to find you in time,” Lafayette continued with a small sigh, brushing a few of John’s curls from his face. “You do not always make my job easy.”

“Gil, what are you on about?” He frowned, unable to make sense of the Frenchman’s words.

For a moment John wondered if Lafayette was real or just a trick of his mind to turn his final moments into a pleasant dream. This realization terrified him and sent his rational thought spiralling down a rabbit hole of paranoid panic. He didn’t want to go like this, he didn’t want to be another casualty to the warring weather. He wanted to survive. He needed to survive.

“Deep breaths, mon etoile, what is the matter?”

“This… This can’t be real. You can’t really be here.” I’m dying!

John pushed himself out of Lafayette’s grasp, stumbling back into the snow before managing to get himself on his feet again. He teetered under the force of the whipping winds, a deep chill seeping into his core as he tried to make sense of his reality. It was dark, it was cold, he was lost and he was alone. I should be alone…

Unable to make sense of his situation both John’s body and mind began to crash. He lost his balance, falling into the snow as he once again gave in to a wintery grave. In an instant, he was in Lafayette’s arms, held so tight he felt like the singular reason for the Frenchman to be on this earth.

“John, you mustn’t move so suddenly!” He admonishes, though his tone was undercut with sorrow as he began to cry, “If I could not bring you home safe… Mon Dieu, I would not know what to do with myself.”

There was a distinct pang of guilt in John’s chest as he stared dumbly up at the Frenchman, watching him cry. He swallowed thickly, reaching up with a shivering hand to cup Lafayette’s cheek in an attempt to calm his grief.

“Hey, it’s okay, I’m okay,” He whispered, making Lafayette focus back on him and not on what could have been, “I just don’t really know what’s going on right now…”

A silent question hung in the air, one John was sure would break both his and Lafayette’s heart if he ever put to words. Thankfully, the Frenchman seemed to understand as he gave a solemn nod and a sigh before he next spoke.

“Be not afraid, mon etoile, you are well and alive,” He began to explain, placing his larger palm over John’s hand as he pressed a kiss to his tender, frozen skin, “And I am real, though I have not been entirely honest with you…”

“Whatever it is, Gil, you can tell me,” John reassured, though he could not stop the shine of fear in his eyes. It was hard not to worry about what Lafayette would say next when he still couldn’t make sense of what had already happened.

“I am not supposed to do this, but…” The Frenchman hesitated only to shake his head and find his resolve again. “It is best if I showed you.”

John opened his mouth in a question, but Lafayette only hushed him with a gentle kiss before covering his eyes with his hand.

Though he could not see, John felt the shift in the world around him. It was silent, the howling winds put to an end by only Lafayette’s will. He felt a single snowflake land on the tip of his nose, tickling him with a moment of cold as others fell in slow-motion onto his golden-brown curls.

Then, Lafayette pulled his hand away to allow John to take in the newly calmed environment. It reminded them both of how beautiful a winter’s night could be, but John was still left with so many questions. He looked to the Frenchman for answers, only to be stunned into silence from what he saw.

Shining like a midnight sun with beautiful hues of blue and speckles of gold were a pair of angelic wings resting behind Lafayette in relaxed arches. They pulled close to his body as the Frenchman gave a sheepish smile and a tilt of his head in response to John’s reaction.

“Surprise?”

“Of all things, Gil… I never thought you were this,” John trailed off as he reached to trace his fingers along the edge of one of the Frenchman’s wings, quietly admiring their delicate strength. “I guess it makes sense, though, I always thought you were too perfect to be human.”

Lafayette couldn’t help the warm, bubbling laugh that escaped him as he brought John to his feet, leaving a wing draped over his shoulders like a cloak. “It makes me happy to see you are still well enough to flirt. Come, let’s get you home.”

John could only laugh along with the Frenchman as he took his arm like a lady accepting a dance at the Winter’s Ball. He wasn’t sure if they could make it back to camp by the morning, but with Lafayette by his side, John didn’t care.

Before they could begin their hike the galloping of swift hooves sounded in the distance, sending both the angel and the soldier on high alert.

They expected to see British calvary darting through the trees ready to take them out, but instead, they were familiar, always welcomed face.

“Sunny!” John beamed at the spotted chestnut’s appearance, “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes… Didn’t think I’d get to see you again so soon.”

But the mare wasn’t the only one who approached. Following close behind was another horse, a familiar-looking bay with an even more familiar rider.

Alexander barely allowed his steed to properly halt before he leapt off its back, rushing towards John and Lafayette for a desperate embrace. “You scared me half to death! Don’t you ever going riding out into a blizzard like that again, I don’t care if your life depends on it!”

“It’s good to see you too, Lex,” John replied with a weak laugh as he ruffled Alexander’s hair.

Still, as Alexander continued to ramble on John couldn’t help his mind from wandering back to Lafayette. He looked up at the angel in question, absentmindedly running his fingers through his feather down as he leaned more into the warmth of his wings.

There were so many things John wanted to ask, about Lafayette, about what this meant, about everything. He couldn’t find the words to begin, never mind the fact that the adrenaline-filled need to survived had dissolved into the calm night, leaving a sluggish fatigue in its place.

“Hush, mon petit lion… Save your sweet nothings for the morning,” Lafayette suggested with a soft smile, placing a hand on the small of each soldier’s back. “Let us get back to camp before sunrise, oui? I believe a good night’s sleep would do us all some good.”

Despite the huff that Alexander gave in response, he still couldn’t help but grin at the Frenchman’s words. He gave John and Lafayette one more squeeze before slipping out of their embrace to mount his steed once more.

Lafayette kept John under his wing as he led him over to the spotted chestnut. He let John mount first, though as the Frenchman settled behind him it was obvious he’d be taking the reins. John didn’t entirely mind, he knew that Lafayette was a good rider and frankly he was grateful to be able to spend more time swaddled in angelic feather down.

Alexander led the way home, keeping the pace at a gentle canter. Feeling safe and secure with Lafayette behind him and Alexander only a few feet away, John allowed him to slip in and out of sleep as they rode onward.

Who knew a near-death experience could be so exhausting?

“We are home, mon etoile,” Lafayette cooed quietly as he shook John awake, “As sweet as you look while asleep, I can’t imagine a saddle would make for the best mattress.”

“It’s only a little worse than the cots they give us,” John mutters with a small laugh as he slipped off of his steed’s back.

Alexander was by his side in a moment, playfully jostling John as he wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Said the guy who nearly took a nap in the snow. C’mon, we’ll push our cots together so we can cuddle up, it’s the best way to avoid hypothermia.”

“Be honest, petit lion,” Lafayette chided softly as he ruffled Alexander’s hair. “You are just jealous that John has been swaddled without you.”

“So what if I am? It’s not like everyone gets to be in love with a literal angel.”

As the two other soldiers shared a laugh, John began to space out from the conversation. Having an answer to one of his many questions made him remember the original purpose of his journey; a message for the general to tip the scales in their favour.

“Wait,” He murmured, stepping out of Alexander’s and Lafayette’s hold as he stops to think. “I gotta- I gotta see Washington, there’s information from the south he needs to know!”

“Hey, Jacky, take it easy,” Alexander spoke as he took John’s hand again. “His Excellency already knows, a courier came through as soon as the snow stopped. It’s all gonna be okay.”

John couldn’t quite describe his relief at the sound of this news. He let out a sigh, the last few tensions finally leaving his body.

“That means the only thing left on the agenda is a good night’s rest,” Lafayette concluded with a small smile. “Come, my tent is not far.”

 *~*~*~*~*~*

 John was sure it was sometime near dawn when he blinked open his eyes. He rolled over lazily and pulled the blankets closer to him, only end up sneezing as his nose was tickled by soft feather down.

He smiled, feeling Lafayette shift next to him as he fixed a few feathers that had been ruffled by sleep. The Frenchman murmured something unintelligible in sleepy gratitude as he pulled John closer.

On Lafayette’s other side, Alexander was being held the same John was; a strong arm holding him close and a wing around his scrappy frame to keep him warm.

John closed his eyes, allowing himself to relax once more in Lafayette’s care. Even in the middle of a deadly winter and a losing war, the three always found these little perfect moments when they were together. It made sense now, and knowing that he and Alexander would be safe no matter how the war went was a peace he never thought he’d know.

Who knew all it’d take was a little blizzard to feel so safe and warm.

[ieatmypizzawithaforkandknife]

MAG 020 - Desecrated Host (part 2)

Summary: Jonathan reads the second half of the statement of Father Edwin Burroughs, regarding “his claimed demonic possession.”

I’d like to propose an alternate title for this one: “Bartleby”. I couldn’t help but see the parallel between Bartleby the Scrivener’s “I would prefer not to” and Father Burroughs saying, “seeing those bound corpses before me, I made the decision to take no action ever again.” Ah, Burroughs! Ah, humanity!

I mentioned in my last post that this episode was very heavy in the “altered reality” theme. I’d like to amend that: this entire episode was one long, terrifying fever dream. I’ve never been high but I think this might be what a bad trip feels like.

Jonny Sims et al. really outdid themselves on this one though, in both the writing and the performance. So many episodes really suck you in (not literally, fortunately - we’re luckier than some of the characters that way) and grip you ’til the very end. But this was one of the best so far for that. We get more than standard descriptions of things - we get things like that small, whispered “it was bright...so bright” in Father Burroughs’ description of the “church” and the resounding, gonging bell sound accompanying the bell-speech Father Burroughs hears. You can almost feel his throbbing head and blurring vision, and at times it just feels so real.

But it wasn’t. At least, not in the way that we like to think of reality. Whatever an outside observer might have seen that night, this statement was Father Burroughs’ reality. We do know that at least some of this episode was real in the normal sense of the word though. There are snippets, like Father Singh’s reaction to seeing Father Burroughs in the small chapel, and Father Burroughs later seeing Father Singh in the hallway, that seem like they were part of objective reality. Was this slip between reality and the illusion just so that we, the audience, knew that it wasn’t real? Or was it because whatever was affecting him couldn’t keep an airtight grip on his senses? I’d like for it to be the latter, but I’m worried that’s not the case. I do not like how powerful this thing seems to be.

During the “confession”, “Father Singh” recounted all of Father Burroughs’ past sins...so this thing either actually knew about all of those events, or it made Father Burroughs imagine that “Father Singh” was naming all of his sins (a la the psychic paper in Doctor Who). Also disturbing was the detail about its accent during the “confession” - it had “a crisp and clipped RP accent”, as opposed to Father Singh’s Indian one. The change in accent made it obvious for us that it was not Father Singh speaking, but otherwise it just makes no sense to me. Was it unable to imitate Father Singh’s accent for some reason? That might fit if it’s the same thing that spoke in a “low, grating voice” to Laura Popham in episode 15. But those are the only two times (that I recall) that the person making the statement has noted a change in the person’s voice when that static appears.

There are two possibilities I’m seeing for how this thing operates. Either it’s little more than an illusionist, or it can actually alter reality itself. The first would certainly be easier to deal with, but I’m leaning towards the latter. My main reason for thinking that is not strictly things seen in this episode, but more how things in this episode seem to relate to things in the rest of the season so far. We hear that recurring creepy static/interference twice in this episode, once when Father Burroughs reads Genesis 4:14 (after opening his Bible to Luke, no less) and once when “Father Singh” says, “Spiritual pride that has led to quite a fall.” And of course we have another appearance of creepy eyes: “the church’s large round window shifted as I watched, as though it were a tremendous eye that were turning to focus upon me.” The eye and the staticky voice tie these events to many others from the first half of this season, including a few times when reality itself seems to have been affected, rather than just people’s perception of it.

There were two Bible passages referenced in this episode. The second was Mark 9:14-19, which appears to be a pretty straightforward reference to Father Burroughs’ situation, as that passage tells the story of a boy “who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech” (NIV). But the first, as mentioned in the paragraph above, was Genesis 4:14: “Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the Earth, and from they face shall I be hid. And I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the Earth, and it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me.” And the writing around it seemed to swirl and was “obscured by dark stains”. This is obviously significant, given the static and the unexplained stains and the fact that this verse is actually quoted in the text (unlike the passage from Mark also in this episode, which was referenced but not quoted). But I can’t figure out the significance of this verse. Cain says the text of this verse to God after God banishes him for killing Abel. Cain is more or less saying that his punishment is too much to bear and that he fears for his life, presumably from others who will surely be angry about him killing Abel. The only possible parallel I can see between Cain and Father Burroughs is that they’re both cut off from God. If there’s anything more to this verse, I’m not getting it.

I’ve also been wondering about the various figures Father Burroughs sees throughout this hallucination. He sees shadowy figures along the street that “were always gone when I approached” - and then there were the parishioners in the pews at the “service”. Were the shadow figures the parishioners? Or were the shadow figures actual, real people, and his inability to reach them just a reflection of how trapped in this hallucination he was? And why did the parishioners come and go like that? Why were they leaving before the “service” was over? If they were real people then I think they had to have been members of the People’s Church of the Divine Host (episode 9). I just feel like there was something else going on at the “service” that Father Burroughs wasn’t privy to.

At the end of the episode, Jonathan calls attention to the man who met Father Burroughs at the Oratory door: “the altar server he described seems out of place with most of his other delusions, in that he appeared to have active agency.” We aren’t given much of a description of the “altar server” - he is tall, pale, and has thin, bony arms. None of that rings any particular bells (haha) to me, but I guess I’ll be on the lookout for a tall, pale guy with thin, bony arms. *shrugs*

“Cause of death was listed as blood loss from multiple lacerations all over their legs and torso, as well as removal of both their faces with a sharp blade, possibly a scalpel.” However, no tools or weapons were found at the scene, and “at no point did he perform any actions that might be analogous with the binding and actual murder of the students,” leading Jonathan to believe a second person was there. HMMM. I WONDER WHO THAT COULD HAVE BEEN.

The cause of death is very unusual, though, when you consider it from a real-world standpoint. It’s pretty easy to die of blood loss if, say, your carotid or jugular is cut. But lacerations on the legs and torso? Those lacerations would have to be extensive to cause fatal blood loss. It just doesn’t sit right with me - and it reminds me of another death we heard about previously. In episode 8, Ivo Lensik says his father was found dead in his study “with deep gouges along his wrists and arms”, and the coroner couldn’t identify the tool used on his arms. Robert Montauk (episode 9) also bled out, but that was after being stabbed 47 times, so it’s similar but not quite the same. The common threads I’m seeing in all three deaths are (a) cause of death being blood loss and (b) the idea that someone committed the murder who was not known to be there at the time.

Coincidentally, Father Burroughs was imprisoned at Wakefield Prison, the same place where Robert Montauk died a few years prior. I thought something might be up with that prison, so I did a quick search and apparently it’s a high-security prison for those who’ve committed crimes such as murder, rape, armed robbery, and kidnapping (Wikipedia). So there may not be any kind of supernatural connection there, but now I’m wondering if we’re going to get statements from or about anyone else in that prison.

One last observation. The sickly yellow color seen so many times in episode 18 made two appearances in this episode. Father Burroughs describes the parishioners at the “service” as having “fevered, jaundiced yellow” skin, and the stole that Mystery Altar Server gave Father Burroughs was “a pale, sickly yellow.” Oh, and that stole from Father Burroughs’ fever dream? An identical real one was delivered to the Oratory a few days prior to these events by Breekon and Hope Deliveries. And it must have been one of their last deliveries, since they liquidated some time in 2009, the year these events occurred.

Curiouser and curiouser...

This post is part of a series where I write my thoughts about each episode and obsessively connect dots in an effort to figure out The Big Mysteries of the series. All posts in this series are tagged “is this liveblogging?” Comments and messages are welcome but I have only listened to season 1, so I ask that you not spoil me for anything beyond episode 40. In the words of Jonny Sims…thanks for listening!

[jovialjudgebonkalmond]

Inevitable, Ch 1

Aight. So, I got crotchety and decided to write a fic. Obvious disclaimer, I don’t own the characters or universe in which the story takes place - yes internet I am that old, thank you.

Summary: Monty is alive, in jail. A recounting of his experiences and memories and basically all those flashbacks we weren’t given in season 4 that I am butthurt about. It is AU in the sense that he is still alive whilst Clay & Co are attempting to frame him for Bryce’s murder. Obvious spoiler alerts if you haven’t seen season 4.

Pairings will be Monty x Winston mainly. So far this is all from Monty’s POV but that may change down the line.

Warnings include violence, sex, drug use, rape, murder, and basically everything graphic and bad you can imagine. Will absolutely contain smut. Oh, and swearing. Yay, debauchery. 

Word Count: 2,963

Another warning: I haven’t written fanfiction for like...15 years guys. Go easy on me. Also, please excuse the shitty username. I didn’t pick it and I am far too lazy to change it.

Another another warning: This is from Monty’s point of view. Clearly he didn’t view his actions with the totality of how devastatingly monsterous they were. I condemn his actions, he’s a rapist and deserved jail time. As we saw in s3 and in snippets of s4 he didn’t share that point of view. I think Monty is a dynamic character that’s interesting and I relate a lot to his back story. That’s why I was motivated to write this.

The air was thick, heavy, and moist. It had that stench of too many bodies crammed into an enclosed space, like the end of the night at a house party and you're still sober and all you can smell is stale sweat and the old farts that people pretend they aren't sneaking out when they're grinding on each other.

Not that I have much experience with being the sober one at the end of the night.

Montgomery de la Cruz kept his jaw clenched and shoulders squared as he walked to the dining hall. As he passed other men, all dressed in the same ugly orange jumpsuits, he made brief eye contact. Walking with your eyes down here was a sign of weakness and he had a target on his back from the moment he arrived. His shoulders, back, and ribs ached with his movements. It hadn't taken the other inmates long to get acquainted with him, a matter of hours really. The urge to hunch his shoulders and put a hand to stable his broken ribs was overwhelming, and fighting it made the vein in his neck throb annoyingly in cadence with his pulse and footsteps.

  White, black, brown, gnarled, wrinkled, scarred, baby-faced youth, tattooed or not.... Monty silently made an inventory of their faces and features. One way or another, they were all just fucking assholes waiting for their opportunity. It was baffling just how much it reminded him of high school. The dining hall even had the same layout as a cafeteria, the same dull drone of a few hundred pricks all talking at once. He scanned his I.D. and settled into the end of the meal tray line, leaving an arm's length of room between himself and the back of the inmate ahead of him. He was a slight, wiry Latino with a snake tattooed from his shoulders up his neck. Only moderately safer than lining up behind someone else. Race dictated almost everything here.

But his charges changed the rules. Sexually assaulting a minor carried out its own price in jail. He wasn't even safe within his own demographic. 

Which was fucking bullshit anyway. Tyler was basically the same age and it wasn't fucking sexual assault for fuck's sake.

Not that anyone here gave a fuck.

Oh, and then there were the murder charges. Fucking Clay Jensen. He grabbed the plastic tray from the stack. It was the same ugly beige that the cement walls were painted. There were slits for windows close to the ceiling like a low-rent basement suite in the wrong part of town, with that cage wire in-between the panes of glass. So small even a tiny bitch like Standall wouldn't fit through them. It was incredible how much the human body craved the fresh air and cool breeze of an open window the moment you realize you may never feel it on your skin again.

Lunch was by far the best meal of the day. The food wasn't...terrible. Today it was plain lettuce chopped up as a 'salad', sliced ham on white Wonder Bread, and some kind of from the bag frozen brown slop passed off as soup.  The silver lining was the butterscotch pudding. It reminded him of the milk cake his mom used to make him on his birthday, sort of. He stopped at each station and watched the inmates who worked the kitchen plop the items on his tray. The kitchen work was reserved for the favourites, for the most part. After all, what else are you gonna do on the outside with a record?

He looked for an empty table and dropped his tray on it with a soft clacking of plastic on poured concrete. The tables and chairs were rows of picnic style benches made out of concrete and steel, bolted into the concrete floor. They were hard, cold, and uncomfortable just like everything else in this fuckin' place. He supposed that was the point. Everyone here was just in the grown-up version of a time out corner... from life, possibly for life. He sat down, the cold, hard seat digging into the bones in his ass.

It was unnerving, intimidating... and so terrifying he had been breathless since the moment he arrived. Like a white hot fist was clenched across his whole chest, suffocating him with the weight of his fucking mistakes. So many fucking mistakes. It made his head spin like he was living in some kind of alternate reality or a fucking nightmare. Although, if he was honest...he always knew it would end up like this. Especially without Bryce around to clean up his fucking mess this time.

The hot night air whipped his face as he pressed on the gas pedal, the stars flashing by above him as he sped down the empty road. Justin reached between them and turned the volume up, blasting the music so he felt it pumping through himself like a weird tachycardia.

"I fucking love this song." He yelled, sparking up a joint. He took a few puffs off of it to get it started before passing it over. When he exhaled the air around them swilled with the familiar skunky aroma. Monty laughed, guiding the old Jeep with one hand and reaching for the joint with the other.

"Of course you do, its a shitty fucking song." he chuckled, inhaling in a slow pull. It burned at the back of his throat. He held it in for a few seconds before exhaling and shaking his head and passing it back.

"That's cheap shit."

"Well yeah, I'm not fucking Bryce Walker." Justin laughed, the streetlights illuminating his black eye. His mother had a new asshole boyfriend who picked tonight to use Justin as a human punching bag...and well that's what brothers were for. It's not like Monty had anything better to do, anyway. He flipped his signal to turn right and pulled into the parking lot by the rocky beach. They could throw rocks and sticks into the water, maybe set some shit on fire and get shitfaced. Justin took another hit off the joint and pinched the end out with his fingertips, rubbing the ash into his skin like a salve.

"Neither am I, man, neither am I..." he muttered. Justin and Monty weren't the most unlikely of friends. Justin was a bit worse off than him in the family department, sort of. But Bryce Walker? Sometimes he wondered if not for the team what was the thread that held them together.

"Fucking Bryce." Justin muttered as Monty cut the engine. The silence without the music was sudden and deafening. "Of course he's out of town with his dad on vacation."

"Probably getting laid." Monty added, laughing. Justin laughed too. Justin Foley was like...allergic to being alone. The fuckin' guy had kicked puppy written all over his face, always needing a lap to curl up in...and in the absence of that there was always a powder or a needle to get him through til the next adoption. But he was such a drag and a honest to god pain in the ass on the field when he was in withdrawal or detoxing. So. Monty was here to pick up the pieces before it jeopardized the team. And he didn't mind. It was better than being at home...

He pulled the keys out and stepped out. The California summer air meant he didn't need the doors or the top on the Jeep and he enjoyed the freedom. Justin matched his footsteps as they silently walked on to the rocky beach. His trademarked puppy dog eyes were mournfully eyeing the skyline where it met the ocean. Monty casually reached down and picked up a rock, watching it skip across the waves when he tossed it. Justin stuffed his hands in the pockets of his varsity jacket.

"Sometimes I wonder why he even fuckin' bothers with a couple of fuck ups like us." He muttered, casting his eyes down.

So that's what we're gonna do, Monty thought, we're gonna mope... fuck that.

"Now Justy, imagine how fucking boring his life would be without us. Just an endless string of bitches to rail and expensive scotch." He skipped another rock and glanced over, leaned in and gently knocked his shoulder into Justin's, knocking the other boy off balance. Justin laughed and locked eyes with Monty for a moment.

"I guess you're right about that yeah." he laughed. It was a small, unsure laugh at first but Monty saw the sorrow break a bit in his eyes. He was good at noticing these subtle things, noticing things was often what saved his ass. If you knew to watch when someone's eyes changed, or the way their muscles tensed and moved you could easily predict what they were going to do. Quite often this was what was between him and a clenched fist to his face.

Monty and Justin had similarities, Monty could admit that, but where Justin pulled inward and consumed himself, brought himself down, Monty hardened and clenched his fist right back at the world.

If he was honest, he thought Foley was weak. But that's what brothers are for, they protect each other. The strong look out for the weak, especially in their weakest moments.

"I mean, who are we kidding," Justin said, "He's going to go off to like Stanford or Princeton or something..." He leaned down and picked up a rock, running his fingers over the smooth, cold surface.

"You couldn't pay me to go to one of those stuffy ass places anyway." Monty countered, kicking at some of the rocks by his feet, scuffing a small trench into the sand beneath. "I get sick just thinking about it."

"Yeah." Justin agreed, "I just... all these fuckin' rich kids..."

"Yeah. And their tight pants and cardigans." Monty snorted, watching Justin's face break into another smile.

"Fucking cardigan's. Like a fucking grandpa."

"I'm not going to live long enough to get old, so I can't relate." Monty said loudly, almost like forced bravado. He liked being obnoxious, to smile out of spite.

"Yeah," Justin laughed, "You're gonna die in prison with a fuckin' shiv between your ribs."

Monty laughed, watching Justin release his rock with a flick of his wrist. It skipped once over the glassy surface before falling into its inky black depths. 

"And you're gonna die with a fuckin' needle in your arm...or-" His face cracked into a grin.

"Maybe you'll get the fuckin hiv."

Justin laughed loudly and gave Monty a shove.

"It's H-I-V,  dumbass."

"Yeah, but hiv rhymes with shiv. We'll both get ivved." He crowed proudly, shoving Justin back lightly with both his hands. Justin took a half-hearted swing at him, but he dodged it easily and picked up a piece of driftwood as he ran by, swinging around and walloping the other boy in the ass. Justin's legs buckled and he took a few steps, laughing and chucking  handful of small rocks at him. They pinged over his broad chest like hail on a shitty day.

"Fuck you, Monty!"

"Ohh wouldn't you like to though, Justy." Monty countered, turning around and dropping his pants off his cheeks. He bent over and smacked his own ass, "I'm waiting!" He laughed, his face breaking into a slightly demented grin. He felt the stinging welt of a stick being whipped across his bare skin and jumped, yanking his pants back up. He yelped, turning around, the grin not leaving his face.

"Fuck no, you'd like it too much. Perv." Justin pointed the stick at him. Monty picked up the stick he had dropped before and aimed for Justin's thigh, but Justin blocked it and whacked Monty again, this time in his side. They continued to chase, smack, and poke at each other, delighting in the mutual torment.

"Fuck you're relentless." Justin declared in defeat, dropping his stick with a laugh and holding his hands up with surrender. He was panting, his pasty skin clammy in the moonlight.

"It's one of my more endearing qualities." Monty said with a devilish grin as he bowed. "That and my abs."

"Fuck your 'roid ass abs." Justin half wheezed. "Think Bryce will read our obituaries from his penthouse drinking his fucking scotch?"

"Nah man," Monty laughed with a shake of his head, "They don't write obituaries for shitheads like us."

Monty was yanked out of his drifting memories when another man sat across from him with a thump that rattled the table. The boy stared at the man for a moment, one triangular quarter of his shitty dry sandwich poised in his hand as he was about to take a bite. He bit down and chewed, watching the intruder with feigned disinterest. He was good at this. Putting on a front.

Until he couldn't anymore, that is. Until the mask slipped and revealed the scared, desperate pile of shit inside.

The man was at least six feet tall, three-and-some hundred pounds, white as mayonnaise with a big ol' swastika on his bicep. He had an earring in one ear and some scars down his face, chest, and arms. Scratches. Wounds made from desperate, terrified women in self defense. He was bald as a gummy walnut, his scalp weirdly wrinkled and beginning to be dotted with age spots. He was at least mid-fifties, Monty figured. Total skinhead. Asshole. Word of mouth said his rap sheet was a few miles long, most recently connected to a decent string of raped and murdered girls and women. Almost all of them were involved in the sex trade, women or girls of colour. He was a truck driver who used his profession as a tool to evade the police, making it hard to pin him down because he changed locations across different jurisdictions. The varied age and ethnicities of his victims didn't help the police either. Some were as young as 12 years old, and others as old as mid 40's. He, too, was awaiting sentencing. Obviously whatever happened, he'd end up in a maximum state prison.

Couldn't fit the stereotype more if he tried, Monty thought, disgusted.

That's the shit end of the stick awaiting sentencing in a county jail. You get petty crooks like Tim Pozzy who likely won't even get real time, and then assholes like this behemoth pile of trash.

Monty chewed his food, watching silently as the neonazi asshole reached across the table and took his pudding. His fingers were fat, like pale bloated sausages. He opened it, maintaining eye contact with Monty. His eyes were an icy blue, and they seemed devoid of anything. They say the eyes are the window to the soul... and there was nothing there. It sent a shiver down the 18 year old's spine and made the hair on the back of his neck tickle. He smiled, showing that he was clearly in desperate need of dental care. He didn't have many teeth left, and the ones that remained were brownish-greyish nubs of rot. Monty thanked whatever god or demon that might be listening that he couldn't smell this guy's breath. It just looked like it would inevitably stink. The whole time he felt the old familiar build up, the inevitable time bomb tick, tick, ticking through his veins. His blood sounded like thunder in his ears.

How is it that I fuck with Ty-ty, just some fucking hazing, not a big deal...and I get labelled a pedophile and a rapist - a fucking rapist for fuck's sake - and this guy...this guy basically runs this place...

It's not like he wanted to fuck Tyler. That's disgusting. He wanted to hurt him, and he could admit that was wrong. Sure. But the little creep had ruined his life, and for that he had to pay. It was simple.

This asshole, though, was the real pedophile. The only difference was Monty had the audacity to target a white male, the untouchable. And this guy stuck to the easily forgotten targets.

He stuck out a surprisingly short, wide, tongue that looked like it was covered in herpes lesions and licked the foiled plastic lid of the pudding. Monty felt it come alive inside of him, blinding and electric. White hot rage boiled through his veins, exploding in his head and lighting every muscle in his body so that he had to move or it would consume him. He couldn't have stopped himself if he had wanted to try, and he didn't bother with the wasted effort.

In a swift, smooth motion he grabbed his lunch tray with his free hand and backhanded the other man up the jaw with it and stood. Before the asshole had time to react, he used his other hand to grip the top of his head - ham sandwich and all, and slam his face into the concrete table and the pudding. Blood and pudding spurted in all directions like a moneyshot of rage jizz and he felt relief hearing the echoing crack of the larger man's skull. He didn't even have time to bask in the afterglow of his violence before he felt the familiar thud of knuckles to the bottom left of his jaw, the blow eliciting a sickening pop and sending him reeling out of control. He stumbled, losing his balance as vision went static like a television without a connection. He tasted the all too familiar coppery flavour of blood filling his mouth. He spat and staggered and threw a blind fist out, feeling it connect to something, but what he wasn't sure. The immediate agony and crack told him it was in fact the fucking table and he probably broke some fingers. That's when he took a second, devastating blow to his head and everything went black.

[greensaplinggrace]

Hi, I just wanted to ask if you would be willing to dabble in a prompt about Cloud having a wing? Like maybe something where it first manifests in a really bad situation of some kind and he's just horrified and scared about it, and runs away from everyone because he's terrified of what they they think. They then him and end up reassuring and comforting him? Just- angst to family feels? There is a distinct lack of Cloud wingfics haha 😅 so I was just hoping you'd be interested.

I debated a long time about this being pre-Sephiroth reveal and post-Sephiroth reveal and finally decided to place it earlier in the game. I hope you don’t mind! This an AU where the Sector 7 plate never drops.

-UPDATE! This prompt has an alternate fill - VERSION 2 - HERE IT IS ON AO3

*TW for self esteem issues, self hatred, blood and injury, a brief contemplation of self harm/mutilation, hallucinations

- If you want to send in a prompt, the guidelines are HERE and HERE!

---

“I don’t believe it for a second!”

“It’s true! In front of dozens of people, too, including Madame M.”

A bellowing laugh fills the room, and Cloud stares furiously at his tumbler as the table nearly cracks beneath the force of Barret’s gun arm. “I knew he was full o’ shit! ‘I don’t dance’, my ass.”

“He was so good at it. By the end of the song, he wasn’t even following Andrea’s lead. It was like he just fell into the music.”

“Aw! I can’t believe I missed seeing Cloud finally let himself go.”

“Oh, it was wonderful, and he was blushing like mad the whole time. But you haven’t even heard the best part, yet!”

Cloud bites back a groan and hunches his shoulders, angling himself as far away from the rambunctious group gathered around the corner table. He catches sight of Tifa working her way down the bar with a rag, an apologetic smile on her lips, and sighs in defeat when she doesn’t even think to say a word in his defense.

“What, that it only took him glancin’ at the walls of Wall Market before he broke out dancin’? Cause we already knew he was repressed.”

“Barret!” It’s Tifa who finally protests, but it’s too little too late. Cloud sinks into his seat and wishes the entire world would disappear. His drink sure does, though not nearly fast enough. He grabs a nearby bottle and refills it himself.

“He’s got a point, though.”

Aerith giggles as if she knows a thing about him. “Cloud’s just shy.” 

He is not shy. 

“Shy or not, he was certainly willing to dance for Tifa.”

“And-” Cloud can fucking hear the wink in her voice. “-wear a dress for her.”

The room explodes into chaos. Cloud scowls against a blush as everybody bursts out laughing, voices overlapping in glee and disbelief. Even Tifa’s grinning, eyes sparkling with amusement when Jessie bounces over and slams stomach first into the table. She’s flushed on Gaia knows how much alcohol, eyes bright and cheeks rosy.

“I knneww he liked you!” she exclaims a bit too loudly, and Cloud winces. Half of him wants to speak up against the fact that they’re all gossiping about him when he’s right here. The other half of him just wants to remain quiet, refusing to give them the satisfaction of knowing he’s affected. “Did he really? It mm...must have been- so pretty! I bet it was the- the most amazing thing you’ve...ever seen.”

Cloud would say it was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever seen, but Tifa actually blushes.

Huh.  

Cloud tries not to blush as well with the realization, turning away from the two as Jessie resumes the conversation amidst Tifa’s embarrassed silence. The others are busy, all chattering and mellowed out, scattered around the bar in small groups and talking about whatever it is drunk environmental activists usually find interesting. 

There’s a simple camaraderie in the people around him. More than friends or acquaintances could ever be. A family.

He almost feels like an intruder, sitting here silent and morose in the midst of their comfortable chatter. All easy touches and loving warmth. Even Aerith has settled into the group as if she’s always been a part of it. She’s moved on to her second bottle now, talking animatedly with Barret about flowers, and how Cloud hadn’t ever expected them to get along like moss on a boulder is a mystery to him. 

They look...happy. All of them do.

Fondness prods at the boundaries of his chest as he watches them. A wholly unfamiliar feeling, and one Cloud isn’t keen on courting at the moment. He can’t allow himself to think like that, not when he knows he’s unwelcome here. Barret had been right about this being a team - a family - that Cloud isn’t a part of. He’d been right to kick Cloud out the first time around.

He empties the rest of his drink in one go and doesn't even pause to deliberate further. It tastes like ashes.

He shouldn't have even lingered this long. Sitting here brooding at the bar while everybody has fun, bringing down the mood like one giant dark intrusion in their bright little haven of safety and warmth and... 

Had his presence annoyed them, and that’s why they’d ignored it? Or had they even noticed him to begin with? Tifa certainly had, otherwise she would have left to go join in the celebrations of her family- her new family. One that Cloud isn’t part of anymore.

He stands to leave. The world tilts for a second, and he has to catch himself on the bar as his feet trip up underneath him, breath hitching and vision blurring. Nobody comments or moves to help him, though. Nobody even looks his way. So he staggers until he’s walking and makes a beeline for the front doors, past every joyful conversation and a smattering of giggles, until he’s bursting outside in a rush. 

At once, he’s hit by a blast of the cool night air and the dim glow of the porchlights. For a second, the two worlds meld together - the quiet peace of the night and the warm, brash camaraderie of Seventh Heaven. A soothing lull to the strain of reality. Then the sounds cut off abruptly as the doors click shut, and all he’s left with is silence.

Cloud stumbles over to lean on the nearest metal railing, avoiding the stairs like the plague. Leave. He inhales deeply, the air crisp and refreshing, and breathes out some of the fogginess in his mind. They don’t want you here. He opens his eyes again and stares blankly at the ground below him, uncertain and on edge. Green flickers in the corner of his eye, a breath like ice ghosting through his hair. He swallows thickly and tells himself it’s the breeze, but slitted, sickly eyes grace his vision, and he has to duck his head over the railing to calm the tremors that arise.

“You think these people will accept you, once they know what you are?”

He breathes in shakily and grits his teeth against a response.

“You’re lucky they don’t care for you.”

They do. 

They don’t.

He clutches at his hair and tries to make the world stop spinning, panting so loudly he can hear it past the rush of water in his ears.

“Imagine how disappointed they’d be if they learned what goes on inside your head?”

Cloud shakes his head and takes in another breath. He refuses to answer. Refuses to give anybody the satisfaction of knowing he’s hurt - knowing he’s weak.

He doesn’t want them to accept him. He never did and he never will. He’s stronger than that.

“Cloud?”

He jumps at the voice - real and alive and right there - heart racing for a moment in pure, unbridled fear as he thinks that Sephiroth’s finally become real. That the man can finally hurt him. Then the rest of it catches up to him. It’s a girl’s voice, small and high and above him. Not next to him. Not Sephiroth.

“Marlene?” he asks in disbelief, half convinced he might still be hallucinating. Yet when he races down the stairs and turns to face the source of the noise, it’s a little girl’s head peeking out at him over the edge of the awning. “How the f- how did you get up there?”

“I- I didn’t do it on purpose. I promise!” Her voice warbles with tears, and Cloud shifts uncomfortably. This is decidedly not his problem.

“I’ll go get Barret.”

“No! You can’t!”

He glances through the windows of the bar, where Barret’s laughing uproariously at whatever Tifa’s said. The man would kill for his daughter, and he’d probably beat Cloud’s ass for even considering not telling him. Cloud doesn’t need that right now. Barret already hates him enough, but at least he’s still willing to foist off his money. “You won’t get in trouble.” Probably. “He should know you’re safe.”

“But I will!” Marlene wails, and Cloud winces. “Daddy will be mad. I’m not s’post... supposed to be out here.”

“You're not allowed, you mean.” 

Marlene sniffs again, lower lip quivering as her eyes start to water, and Cloud’s heart drops when he realizes she’s about to cry. “Please don’t tell Daddy! I only left out the window to see the lights. I didn’t mean to get stuck.”

“Can you go back to your room?” Cloud asks, though he already knows the answer. If only things were that easy.

“N-no...It’s dark and- and I can’t see. Please help me down, Cloudy...I’m scared.”

“It’s not- don’t call me that.” Marlene sniffs again, and Cloud sighs, squeezing his eyes shut for a second to fight off the growing headache. “Fine. Just...don’t move. Stay right there.”

He steps further from the building and examines the walls in the hopes of finding somewhere she could climb down, but she really has gotten herself trapped in the most unfortunate place possible. She’s on top of the awning, perched on the highest peak. Her knuckles are white from the death grip she has on the edge, knees occasionally sliding down the curve before she corrects them. Every time she so much as fidgets he feels his heart hit his throat, and by the time he’s finished examining every inch of the building, he feels more sober than he ever has in his life.

She’s much too high up, he concludes. This really is a job for Barret.

“You’d have to jump,” he finally says as he rounds the front of the stairs again, keeping his voice soft to avoid startling her, “we need to get Barret.”

“No! Don’t tell Daddy. He’ll be angry.” 

Barret couldn't be angry with Marlene if his life depended on it. “I don’t think so. He just wants you safe.”

“You’re lying.” Marlene hiccoughs, voice cracking on the last word, and it takes an effort for him to remain still in the face of her distress. Something like guilt and understanding twists up inside him, but he can’t think too long about it.

“I’ll be right back,” he says, though every word feels like pulling teeth, “just don’t move and B...Dad will come save you.”

“But I want you to come save me! Please dont- please don’t leave!” She yells out in a panic, and then she’s moving, letting go of the roof and pushing to stand with too much force, feet sliding and eyes widening as Cloud’s stomach lurches in fear. 

A dozen things happen at once, blurring and loud in the rush of panic. Marlene’s scream pierces the air, wood cracking and light flooding the area with a series of yells, and Marlene falls. Her scream cuts off as she hits empty space, and Cloud moves like he’s never moved before, feet skidding across the concrete and launching himself from the bottom step with a vicious gust of wind.

He doesn’t know how he reaches her in time. Doesn’t know anything except that he manages to snag hold of her before she even drops a foot, pulling her to his chest and curling around her with a snap. The harsh movement interrupts his flight, and in the next moment it’s Cloud that’s falling, wrapped tightly around his precious bundle as his back meets the top step. There’s a sickening crack, pain igniting across his back and forcing the breath from his lungs, but he doesn’t even think to let go. Not as every step afterward makes the pain spike and not as they finally hit the concrete, wrought metal a dark and twisting sky above them.

Marlene’s shaking on his chest, torn by hiccoughing cries and too afraid to let go, but at least she’s alive. Cloud almost wants to cry with her at the relief he feels seeing her there, safe and breathing in the cradle of his arms. Her small fingers are fisted in his shirt, head buried against his chest, and when she looks up at him her face is wet with tears.

“Is- is it over?”

His lungs feel too constricted to answer, chest tight, and before he can gather his thoughts or his breath there’s a thud of footsteps and a rise of voices. Other people, he realizes blankly for a second. Then, Barret - Avalanche, as awareness finally catches up to him.

“Marlene! Marlene!”

“What the hell happened?”

“Oh Gaia, is that-”

A shadow falls over them, and within seconds Marlene is pried from Cloud’s arms. Barret instantly sweeps her into a crushing hug, a spill of soft, comforting words pressed into his daughter’s hair. Cloud struggles to sit up when the other man turns away, hoping to capitalize on his distraction before anybody realizes a simple fall practically took him out. His face burns when he finally manages to push himself upright, but nothing could prepare him for the sight of everybody else standing there as well. Silent and frozen as they stare at him with wide, horrified eyes.

Cloud tenses and goes deathly still. His voice catches at the back of his throat, shame and pain and a dozen other things making his arms shake beneath his weight. He knows he should say something, but no words would be able to justify the fact that he’d almost let a child die. Now they know. Now they-

“What is that?” It’s Marlene who asks it, voice small in the heavy blanket of silence, and Cloud blinks in momentary confusion.

Then a feather falls into view, and Cloud nearly goes faint with shock. Before he can stop to think, he’s bringing his hand up, fingers splayed and stomach twisting as he reaches up to catch it. He expects dust and shadow - for the feather to disappear as every other has. Except that when his fingers wrap around it, all he feels are soft, delicates vanes and a thin shaft. Real.

No!

Cloud throws it as far away from him as he can, panic rising when all it does is catch on the air and keep drifting. Like a real feather should. Panting, he staggers to his feet, casting about desperately for Sephiroth as he grabs for his sword. Yet his hands hit nothing and all he sees is Barret and Tifa and Marlene, shocked and terrified and stunned. All looking at him and not anybody else . Or, more accurately, something behind him.

Cloud doesn’t need to see it to know, of course. The weight off balances him and has him trying to catch his footing, tripping backwards as they all just keep looking. Not saying anything. Not doing anything. Just-

“Are you a monster?”

And Cloud can’t bear to hear their answers. To look for one more second at their disgusted expressions and horrified eyes. The spell has been broken, Tifa opening her mouth to speak as Jessie gasps and moves forward, and Cloud trips backwards again, boots scraping loudly on the ground as he staggers around in a wide circle.

“Cloud!” It’s Tifa.

Tifa. She knows what Sephirtoth did. She knows he’s a monster-

And he can’t look back - can’t look into her eyes and know that she hates him.

So he runs.

He runs until his feet ache and nothing makes sense. Until the stares and gasps he draws from onlookers drive him deeper into the bowels of the scrapyards with the burn of shame and fear and hatred.

“I told you,” Sephiroth hisses, and Cloud spins in the center of a closed metal clearing to face the bastard, but all he’s met with is more walls.

“Shut up,” he snaps, “shut up!”

“They know you’re tainted, now”. Cloud doesn’t even need Sephiroth to tell him that. Doesn’t need Sephiroth to let him know that his mind is cracked and broken. That his body isn’t his own.

Cloud can’t even look at the metal for fear of seeing his reflection; gleaming snake eyes and a cruel smirk. He already has enough of Sephiroth. He already knows he’s a monster. He doesn’t need to see it. As if the voices in his head hadn’t proved it. As if the green flashes and painful hallucinations hadn’t already told him. Now his corruption isn’t only on the inside. Now it’s outside of him, too. A morbid display of his weakness and his failure. Proof that he can’t control what’s inside his head, let alone the appearance of his own body.

He holds back a sob, chest jumping and lips thinning. There’s a corner of the clearing that’s shadowed and dark, sheltered by a jagged metal overhang, and he forces one foot in front of the other. The sound of something dragging behind him makes him want to vomit. Pain sears through the appendage, pulling at his chest and back and making his shoulder ache. Snapped, he thinks, and has to push the thought to the back of his mind because he doesn’t care. 

If he’s lucky, the thing is broken beyond repair.

He drops down and crawls beneath the overhang, pulling his knees to his chest and pressing against the cold metal. Stretched out in a gruesome, bloody display is the wing, nearly unnoticeable in the darkness of the night, and he presses his eyes to his knees so he doesn’t have to see it. The pain is a stark reminder, though.

He really is a monster.

They’d all been so scared of him. Tifa had been the worst, of course, but Marlene’s fear was palpable. Even thinking about it makes his eyes wet, and no amount of rubbing them on his pants can brush away the tears. Aerith had been wide eyed, fingers pressed to her mouth in shock, and Barret had looked thunderous. Probably from allowing Marlene anywhere within a foot of Cloud.

He curls into a tighter ball and tries to fight the heave of his shoulders, but it’s a fruitless endeavor. There’s a feeling of loss that burns, even as he reminds himself that he’d never been a part of their family in the first place. One that has him wishing he could cut the fucking wing away. That he could make everything better. Head back to Seventh Heaven and beg for their forgiveness.

If only he had his sword.

The mere thought has him shuddering in phantom pain, and he resists the urge to pull the wing closer for protection. 

“Cloud?” A voice breaks the silence, and Cloud freezes at the sound. It’s Tifa’s voice, and she’s close enough to be right on top of him.

Then another voice speaks up, echoing down the walls of the alley he’s in, and Cloud ducks down to press even further into his hiding place at the sound of Barret’s approach. “Oi merc! Where the hell are you?”

“Barret, you’re going to scare him off.”

“Kid can take care of himself.”

“But did you see-” 

A light swings into view, flickering along the battered edges of Cloud’s feathers, and both sets of footsteps immediately come to a stop. Cloud swallows and closes his eyes, trembling with fear or embarrassment, he doesn’t know.

Have they come to hunt him down? Or kick him out?

Tifa wouldn’t do that.

Cloud doesn’t say a word. Neither does Barret and Tifa. Their light lingers on his wing for a long time, and he wonders if they’ve finally noticed how ugly it is. The gruesome bend and twist of an unnatural limb.

“Oh Gaia. Cloud, are you hurt?”

It takes a greater effort this time around to resist pulling his wing closer, wrapping it around himself and shielding his body from prying eyes. The light hasn’t moved, but he knows their gazes have, and there’s not even a millimeter more space between himself and the walls that could help him shift away.

“That don’t look natural.” It’s not. “Shit, do you think it’s broken?”

The light moves, then, over bloody patches and the scattered feathers ringing his form. Cloud feels nauseous just looking at them, undeniably grateful that they haven’t turned to dust even as he wishes they would.

“That looks like a lot of blood…” Tifa worries, and Cloud flinches when she takes another step forward. “We need to get him back. Cloud, can you move?”

He doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know what they want from him. His mouth feels sealed shut with fear and loathing, and he can’t even swallow past the knot in his throat anymore. As if it isn’t shameful he’d been so weak as to get injured in the first place. Now he has a fucking wing sprouting from his back and all he wants to do is cry. Are they here to mock him? He just wishes they’d leave.

“We’re just here to help. Please, Cloud.”

It shouldn’t be Tifa begging. It shouldn’t be Barret approaching with light steps and a soft voice. Shouldn’t be either of them here to see him like this, offering help.

This is all so, so wrong. They should be afraid of him. They should hate him.

He knows he does.

“It’s okay-”

“It’s not.” He inhales like he’s drowning, throat tight and vision blurred. “I’m a- I’m like- Sephiroth.” The word is acid on his tongue and Tifa’s startled inhale only makes it worse. He’s a fool for reminding her, and now she’s going to abandon him. She’s going to realize this was a mistake and she’s going to leave.

“You’re nothing like him.”

Cloud almost chokes on his sob, tension cut away so abruptly his limbs go numb with the shock of it. He collapses in on himself, biting his lip to stifle the tremors, but the rest of his body shakes with each breath.

“I told you before that I was wrong about you, kid. That wasn’t a joke. You ain’t nothin’ like that sick fucking bastard.”

Cloud shakes his head. “You’re wrong. You’re wrong. I-I see him- I-”

“You see Sephiroth?” Tifa sounds faint, but Barret powers on as stubborn as ever.

“That doesn’t mean a thing, okay?” he says, and the conviction in his tone eases the band around Cloud’s chest. He takes in a shaky breath, latching desperately onto Barret’s next words. “What you see isn’t real, and having a wing don’t mean a thing except that you’ve got a wing.”

“Sephiroth has-”

“Sephiroth doesn’t have shit cause he’s a dead sonofabitch.”

That brings with it a whole host of worries Cloud hasn’t allowed himself to think about since he got here, and another silence descends between the three of them. The pain in his wing is a lot more noticeable now that he’s gathered enough wits to focus on it, and he can’t help the slightest hint of hope from forming - that they actually mean what they say. That they still care.

“You ain’t a monster, and Marlene shouldn’t have said that.” Barret lowers himself to a crouch, the hard edges of his expression melting into something soft as he continues. “You saved her. You saved my baby girl, and I will never forget that.”

Cloud had failed her. He’d almost let her fall. Yet he can’t bring himself to correct Barret, careful of the tentative trust.

“I ruined your gathering,” Cloud ends up saying instead, though he’s not entirely sure why.

Barret snorts. “Gathering was ruined as soon as you left.”

Should have snuck out. “Sorry.”

“That’s not what he meant,” Tifa says, sighing. She lowers herself to kneel beside Barret, and Cloud’s surprised to see nothing but kindness and concern in her eyes. That small bubble of hope grows when she smiles at him. A shy, reassuring twitch of the lips. “He meant that we missed you after you left. Aerith was worried she’d upset you.”

“But it was a…” Private affair. 

Gaia, he’s such an idiot. It was stupid to worry about such a thing in the first place, and it only goes to show just how weak he is that he’d even been bothered at all. Cloud has never been shy about who he hangs out with before. He’s never cared before if people accept him. Yet the sting of Barret’s words had felt fresh, the mockery of a few days ago - of extra money and saying they wouldn’t need him - like a new cut across his skin. It hadn’t felt scarred over in the moment. Hadn’t felt anything but raw and exposed as they’d all laughed around him - at him.

“We wanted you there. Hell, it woud’a been nice to hear the story from you.”

“I’m sure you would have told it better. Though Aerith does have a...way with words.”

A hint of a smile finds its way to Cloud’s lips at that, but it rapidly gives up the ghost when his gaze lands on the wing again. He eyes it warily, swallowing down bile and blinking away the afterimages of blood and a sword and silver hair over monstrous eyes. He shudders at the memory, pulling his knees closer to his chest. There’s a limp, broken rasp of feathers over concrete as he moves, and he has to peel his gaze away before he does something he’ll regret.

“Cloud…” Tifa begins hesitantly, fingers outstretched toward his wing. They’re frozen, her voice hesitant as she speaks. “We never talked about what happened in Nibelheim. Sephiroth…”

“I know.”

She gives him a tiny nod and says nothing for a while, then: “you aren’t a monster. You’re not like him, and I could never hate you for this. You and Sephiroth...you aren’t the same. Even if-” She squeezes her eyes shut, lips pursing and shoulders hitching as she calms herself. Cloud and Barret both wait patiently. “Even if you see him...Sephiroth. You need help.”

“We can help you,” Barret pitches in, low and so unlike himself that Cloud thinks for a moment he might be fever dreaming or in an alcohol induced coma.

“The others are waiting at the bar for us, too.”

“Trust me when I say they’ll come out here themselves and scream your name for hours if we don’t return with ya. Your little flower girl threatened me. I ain’t never been threatened by someone so tiny in my life.”

“Everybody wants to help you,” Tifa says, “Please. I- we... love you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that-” Tifa’s hair practically cracks through the air as her head whips around, and the burn of her vivid red eyes has Barret cowed. Cloud can’t quite hide the smirk that appears this time around, and Tifa shares a smug smile with him when Barret scowls at the both of them. “Uh huh. I don’t know why the hell I thought our friendly neighborhood merc here was the only Nibelheim bastard. You’re both just feral pains in my ass.”

The word choice is uncomfortable, but for the first time that night, the pang of rejection doesn’t follow. Barret looks relaxed around his wing, now. As does Tifa. Neither of them appears horrified, anymore. They don’t look disgusted.

“I’m...I don’t know what to do.” He has to pry the first words from his mouth, but he isn’t even aware of the next words until they fall like fire from his lips. “It hurts.”

His face heats with shame, yet Tifa and Barret don't mock him. They don’t call him weak or useless or a sorry excuse for a SOLDIER. And he forces his muscles to unwind, inhaling deeply and exhaling at length. They wouldn’t hurt him, he reminds himself, these people are safe.

“It’s okay, Cloud,” Tifa soothes. She rises slowly, every movement of her approach projected, and Cloud would protest the treatment if he wasn’t so painfully grateful for it. When she falls to her knees outside his shelter, the careful compassion on her face hasn’t changed. “We can patch you up. Just like when we were kids.”

He hesitates. “Here?”

“Back at the bar,” Barret corrects, “ain't no way we’d be able to heal you up out here, otherwise. Even if it were daytime.

Cloud takes another fortifying breath, comforted by Tifa’s solid support. Yet voicing his concerns is still too much, and he subsides reluctantly into the shadow of his safe haven.

“We’ll take the back alleys,” Tifa says, and Cloud blinks at her in surprise. Her flicker of a knowing smile is like a benediction, a soothing run of words like water over his skin. “We aren’t that far from Seventh Heaven, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Okay?”

He nods, and Barret’s loud clap is almost enough to make him jump. “Aight! Let’s get movin’. You think you can stand, SOLDIER boy?”

“I’m not an invalid,” Cloud barks with a scowl, “I can move just fine.”

“We could carry the-”

“Don’t!” He regrets snapping immediately, wincing and looking away. “I can move it myself.”

“It’s got to be painful. Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Don’t...don’t touch it.” He pauses and flicks his eyes to her, then over to Barret as the other man shifts to stand. They both came for him. They want to help him. 

They consider him family. He blinks the tears from his eyes and looks away, crawling slowly from his shelter. Tifa is warm at his side, Barret steady and unwavering before him. Neither of them leaves.

They came for him. “...thank you.”

“Anytime.”

Cloud might just believe them.