#and i would rather die than draw water

[haechvn]

When I Had The Chance

Pairing: Shuri x F!Reader

Warning: Angst. M!rder. Dark!Shuri. Glory. I think. A little Smut. Shuri is sick of this shit.

Summary/Request: can you write the reader getting hurt by Namor and Shuri being mad?

Word Count: 1.05k

Author’s Note:Takes place weeks after Wakanda Forever so beware of spoilers. Anon, I hope you don’t mind but I made this a bit darker than I originally was gonna write. Ahhh. Our baby is a little bit evil. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Taglist :  @melodykisses, @blackhottie25, @tonakings, @coalmistyy, @szalipcombo, @prettyluhlaiiii, @yelenabelovasgf, @callmeoncette, @clqrosmgc, @beautybyfire, @homelessmicechild

Her panther claws were covered in blood that clearly wasn’t her own. Shuri launched the dismembered head down on the floor of the throne room, blood from the body part making a nauseating trail as it rolled and rolled until King M‘Baku’s foot ceased its movement . You could hear a pin drop. The room filled with council members and the Doja Moilaje was eerily quiet and still. Never in a million years would anybody have guessed that Princess Shuri would ever commit actual murder, let alone walk around with the proof.

Tattered and bloody wings were found where the sockets for eyes are meant to be, scratch marks littered the entire face of the creature and if you were to just quickly glance, you wouldn’t be able to recognize that the head belonged to none other than Namor, the King of Talokan.

“How many more people,” Shuri taunts, stalking slowly toward the King, glaring at him with eyes filled with nothing but rage and fury, “do I need to lose before this Bast forsaken council chooses to do something to stop this madness? Why do I have to lose and you all don’t?!”

Earlier that day, you had been helping the River tribe watch the waters when Namor attacked. After a far too many conversations with Namora, he concluded that yielding to Shuri made him powerless and weak, striking Wakanda when no one expected it. Having previously met you alongside the Princess, he stabbed you in the same place he did her, knowing the injury would be much more fatal for you and that it would draw the Princess out. He was correct but that mistake is what cost him his life.

The Princess of Wakanda is unrecognizable, eyebrows pointed downwards, jaws clenched beyond measure and her cornrows messy, looking as though one was ripped from her scalp. Chest heaving up and down, Shuri could not control her rage or her running mind, everything moving around her at one hundred miles per second.

“What is the reason for this nonsense,” the Merchant Tribe council member cried out, slamming her staff into the ground demanding an answer. “Do you know the danger you have now put Wakanda in? Eternal war with Talokan just because he hurt your girlfr–.”

Her grating voice stopped as she started grasping at her throat, dropping to her knees in front of the Princess, convulsing in anguish and trying to cry out for help. Her blood seeping through her hands as Shuri watched her choke on the vibranium ring she had thrown at the younger woman. The struggling halted as she fell onto hard ground. Good riddance.

Stepping over her body, Shuri continued her speech. “I don’t believe you all wish to end up like her do you? But after all, you would rather sit on your high horses and watch me die trying to save this country before you step in to help me! Now you will all pay the price for your sins.”

She began hitting herself mercilessly with her black panther suit still intact, mimicking the movementsn and shouts of a mad gorilla. Okoye cried out for the Princess to stop, confused by her overly aggressive gestures but Shuri had already blocked out all the voices around her a long time ago. They went to her mother’s funeral and placed a hand on her shoulder for comfort but that is all that she was given. When she needed them most, she was shunned as the “child” they still deemed her to be. She has seen too much to be considered a child.

It’s a true metaphor really. She had been beating herself up for the longest time for allowing her mothers’ killer to walk away breathing. The same way her coward of a brother did, she thought. She wanted to be different. She wanted to make things right but she couldn’t do that with the council not letting her make her own decisions. Well they are going to hear her now.

Building up enough kinetic energy, Shuri made her way to the middle of the throne room and body slammed the clay red ground, causing an explosion to occur, knocking everyone and everything in the room out of their seats and off their feet. Glass from the decorated cleaning began crashing to the floor as the wall of the palace shook, knocking down the Dora that stood up above from their posts. Screams of terror and pain was all she could hear and that, that brought a smile to her face. She could get used to this type of power.

Standing up and regaining her posture, she begins to yell at the top of her lungs with all of her might.

“From this moment on, I recant my decision to place Lord M’Baku as ruler of Wakanda and I,” whipping around to make sure all of the injured could hear her cries, curls covering her eyes only showcasing her sinister smile, “daughter of T’Chaka and Ramonda, am now the sovereign ruler of this land. Queen of Wakanda! Ready your troops. We invade Talokan at dawn!”

“You like how this feels, my princess?,” slurping you up like a madman, Shuri drove her tongue so deep inside of you, you swore you could feel her touching your heart. “Namor really thought he was going to take this sweet creamy pussy away from me? Hmm. Not on my watch,” she purrs stroking your clit with her index and ring fingers at super speed. She just wanted to bury herself in you and flee from all the problems of the outside world so she brought out an updated version of her vibranium strap, your favorite, and fucked your brains out until you couldn’t take anymore.

After she reached her climax, her anger started to wear off. Who has she become? Feeling the tug of your lips on her neck, she easily snapped out of her intrusive thoughts. She is the Queen of the most powerful nation on this planet and she has given everything but she will be damned if she has to lose you too. Nothing and no one will get in her way and if that means eternal war with the sea, then so be it. If she was able to kill the Takolan God with her bare hands, then his disciples were next.

[august-diehl]

The Pretender - Chapter l

A/N: So Aemond inspired me to write again, hope you guys like it and please let me know if I should do more of this story. Feedback is greatly appreciated, even if it’s to say that it sucks LOL.

Summary: You are the spitting image of a Lady of the Reach, when she framed you for a crime you did not commit you become her and marry her betrothed, Prince Aemond Targaryen.

Aemond Targaryen x Reader

Word Count: 4.2k

Warnings: Violence, let me know if there’s anything else.

Tag List: @aemonds-war-crime

The Pretender Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Life at your grandparents’ farm wasn’t easy, but it was all you knew. Waking up before the sun, milking the cows, taking take of the sheep, making sure the crops were growing properly, cleaning the chicken coop, everything that your grandparents couldn’t do. There was one thing that you loved more than anything, and that was horses, your family didn't have the money for one, so you tried to find wild horses, they were fearless and dangerous but you were able taim most of them.

A horse that hasn’t left your side since you were only thirteen was a black horse, he was a beauty, he always found you, having a domestic side but always wild at heart. You named him Arrow, due to the fact that he’s so quick, always has been. Arrow always found his way back to you, and he loved you and you loved him, you didn't have enough money for a saddle, so you rode him bareback.

After your chores you went to find Arrow, it was a freeing feeling being able to ride on his back, being tired didn't matter, worrying about what to do after your grandparents die, being tired after a long day at the farm, none of that matters when you’re with Arrow.

You were whistling, looking for Arrow in a field the grass was tall the sun was almost setting and you saw him, he was eating. You approached him, and he looked at you, the bond was strong between the two of you.

“I’ve missed you, Arrow.” You put your head on his, and he neighed you’d like to think that he missed you as well. “Let’s ride.” You jumped on his back, you tried to care for him, brushing his hair but he always came back more wild than before.

You always let Arrow decide where to take you, he knew the Reach quite well and took you to so many different and exciting places. You held on tight to his hair and he went. You closed your eyes, and the wind on your face was incredible, sometimes you wished to be like Arrow, being attached to nowhere.

Arrow stopped by a river, and you came off of him and started drinking water off the river. The sun was setting so you started thinking about coming back home. You started touching Arrow, you wished that he would come home with you but you loved him too much to sentence him to such a cruel fate, he was free. You heard hustling from the trees, you decided to leave. But it was too late, a couple appeared from the forest.

The man had to be a knight, and the woman was wearing an incredible purple dress, she looked absolutely amazing. The man looked angry, drawing his sword.

“Who are you?” He screamed, his sword was pointed at you. Arrow was getting scared, but you were able to calm him down.

“My love, she’s simply a farmer girl. She has no idea who we are.” You were avoiding looking at them, you wanted no trouble with the noble people.

The Lady approached you, you took a step back. She did not like that, she grabbed your jaw rather forcefully. You looked at her, you couldn’t believe it she looked exactly like you and she had a surprised face, the same as you.

“By the gods, you look exactly like me. If you weren’t so dirty and a peasant, you could be a pretender.” The Lady finally released your jaw, it hurt so much. “Have you lost your voice, peasant?” She was rude, and you did not like her one bit.

“I do, you haven’t asked anything before, m’lady.” She hit you, hard. You knew there would a bruise tomorrow, why did she do this? You almost fell, but you got your footing before that.

“Do not talk back, peasant.” Her words held so much venom, you hated the royals so much. “I simply had the most extraordinary idea. I will go to Braavos with William and you shall marry the one-eyed monstrosity in Kings Landing.” The knight, William you assumed finally approached the two of you. Your face held nothing but confusion, you pretending to be her?

“That would never work, this peasant doesn’t know how to behave, how to read.” William held contempt for you, but his voice had a tinge of pity.

“It will work, we will teach her everything. She shall become a Lady of House Oxwell, she shall become me.” You knew that name, her family was the richest in all of Westeros, richer than the Lannisters, they say.

“No.” You simply stated, you didn't want to become her, you wanted to be truly free like Arrow, you wanted nothing in your name, you craved freedom, you craved being away from the farm, you craved peace, you craved the wind on your hair.

“No, how dare you…” William started drawing his sword again, but the Lady stopped him.

“Most peasants would kill for an opportunity such as this, why do you refuse? Being adorned with the finest jewellery, touching only the finest silk, eating only the best meats? What do you truly desire?” Her line of questioning was uncomfortable, she wanted you to say things that you never told anyone before, of the deepest desire within your soul.

“I wish to be free, I wish to take my horse and ride him through the seven Kingdoms.” You uttered the words, finally. A weight has been lifted off your shoulders.

“Do you have a name?” It was as if she completely ignored your words.

“Y/N.” You wished that you could take back your words, those people didn't deserve to know of your heart’s desires.

“My name is Shaera Oxwell.” You’ve heard of her, the only daughter of Lord Lewis Oxwell. She could do no wrong in her father’s eyes, whispers around the town are told of her being a whore, entertaining knights and Lords, going to whore houses, and laying with men and women alike. You didn't know if there were any truths to those rumours, but she was unaccompanied by a man that certainly wasn’t her husband. “Do you have a family?” She queries, her curiosity was harmless, you thought.

“I live with my grandparents on a farm, not far from here.” You pointed in the direction where your farm was.

“I apologize for my antics, you must be impatient to go home.” Shiera allowed you to go back to your horse, you passed her and William. You mounted Arrow and you went back home.

The interaction with the Lady felt like an unusual dream, you put it past you. You would never see her again. Arrow took back to the farm and left, opening the door you realized your grandparents were asleep, you simply laid on your bed, sleep wasn’t far behind.

You woke up before your grandparents and you started work again, one more day. The encounter with Lady Shiera was long forgotten, you had many things to occupy your mind with.

“Y/N, come quick.” Your grandfather shouted, you could hear the panic in his voice. You ran towards him, he was close to the sheep.

“What’s wrong, grandfather?” He looked to be deep in thought, looking at the sheep.

“We are missing a sheep, it must’ve escaped last night.” Your grandfather was quite attached to the sheep, he has been taking care of sheep since he was a boy.

Your grandfather worked for a small Lord, not far from where you live now. That’s how he got enough money to buy your farm, the Lord taught your grandfather how to read and your grandfather taught you as well. You knew how lucky you were to be able to count and read, it was impossible for anyone to take advantage of you when you went to the city with your grandmother to sell your goods.

“I will go find it.” You hugged your grandfather in hopes to calm him, and you ran to where the sheep usually got stuck.

You must’ve been walking for five minutes when you heard the sheep. It had a paw stuck in a hole, you gently removed the paw from the whole and carried the sheep. You knew the sheep wouldn't go too far, especially with all the holes around this rocky area. Commotion on the farm was heard, things being thrown and screams. You started to run towards the farm, you saw guards thrashing your home.

“What is this?” You screamed to the guards, the sheep was still in your arms. Your grandfather and grandmother were crying, you had no idea what was happening.

“One of you stole the necklace of Lady Shiera Oxwell and I will find it and take the hand of whoever did it.” The guard screamed in your face, the sheep was scared you tried to calm her down before the poor thing had a heart attack.

This woman probably lost the necklace in the forest, you thought. But why are they here, a voice whispered in your head. Your grandfather came to you and took the sheep from your arms.

“I’ll take her away.” He whispered to you, kissed your cheek and left to put the sheep where she belonged.

That’s when you heard a really over top fake crying, it was her. William was consoling her, always going for big theatrics. She approached the guards, you realized that they had her House Crest on their chest.

“Have you found it? Please, it was papa’s gift.” The main guard was rushing the other ones, how could no one notice that there were no tears in her eyes?

“We will find it, my Lady. Do not fret.” The guard assured her, you felt as if this wasn’t really happening.

“What makes you so sure that it is here?” You question Shiera, and the guard has no reservations about slapping you with the back of his hand you fell onto the floor and from your pocket, fell the necklace, it was a blue diamond, not that you would know.

“My necklace!” Shaera exclaimed, you had no idea how it was in your pocket.

“Well, well, well. We have a little thief in our hands!” The guard grabbed you from the floor with no care. “You must lose your hand for this, even better your life.” The guard seemed so pleased with himself, he was a person that loved to inflict pain on others.

“It was me, it was me!” Your grandfather shouted, he couldn’t allow his beloved granddaughter to die for a crime she did not commit.

“Very well then, you shall be hanged at dusk tomorrow.” The main guard signalled to the other guards to take your grandfather away, your grandmother a mute was crying in the corner.

“Stop! I’ll do anything, do not kill my grandfather!” Tears were running down your face, you couldn’t let your grandfather be killed for this.

“Ser Wilbert, I will not allow tragedy to be struck in this family. I shall take the girl to work for me and her grandfather shall be free of charge of such crime.” At that moment you knew, she owned you, she just bought you for the price of your grandfather’s life.

“You are too forgiving, my Lady.” He bowed to her and looked at you with such venom. He kept looking at you, this time really taking in your features. Lady Shaera realized what he was doing and took his attention from you.

“That is nothing, Ser Wilbert. Take the girl to my carriage.” He started to drag you to the carriage, your grandfather was crying but the other guards were stopping him from getting any closer, you were kicking and crying but Ser Wilbert was much stronger than he appeared. Before you were put in the carriage, you saw Arrow. He was running away from the farm, you would never see your family or Arrow again. You would never be free, you would never be like Arrow.

He threw you in the carriage and closed the door. You broke down, you could hear the faint voice of your grandfather. Being in this carriage made you realize that people could never see you being weak again, she would never break your spirit, and she would never win.

The carriage door was opened and Ser William helped her get in, she sat down in front of you. The carriage was so spacious, it was almost the same size as your house.

“By the gods, you reek of manure.” You didn't understand the words that she said, but you realized that it was something about your smell because of the way she was holding her nose.

“If it bothers you so much, let me go.” Shaera was with her hand in your jaw in an instant.

“You are not going anywhere, you are my freedom. You shall do exactly as I say otherwise I’ll kill your useless family, starting with your mute grandmother, I wonder if she can scream. And after you watch Ser Wilbert killing your family, he’ll cut your hands, and feet and gauge your eyes out with a hot spoon. I own you now, and then you will become me.” She was looking for fear in your eyes, she found it despite you trying to hide as much as possible.

The carriage started and you decided to say nothing, it was going to be a long journey.

_______________________________________

It was evening when you arrived at the castle, you hadn't slept while Shaera slept the whole way through. Everything was quiet, you assumed that everyone was asleep. You wondered how your grandparents were, how they were going to survive without you. Shaera handed you a cloak.

“Put this on, otherwise people will see how much you look like me.” You quickly put on the cloak and you started following her, the castle was enormous, unlike anything you’d ever seen in your life. If it was in any other circumstances, you’d be excited to see something so grand.

The three of you ran towards the Lady’s chambers, the castle felt like a maze. It was intimidating, would you need to learn where everything was in the castle?

“This is my wing of the castle, no one shall disturb us. We must start with the lessons first thing in the morning. Go.” Shaera motioned to a room, whilst she and Ser William went to another.

You opened the door and the room was huge, you went to the bed, and the furs and sheets were incredibly soft. That’s how clouds must feel like, you thought. Laying on the bed, was the softest thing you’ve ever felt sleep came in more easily than ever before.

Waking up the sun hasn’t risen yet, so you decided to look around the bedroom. It was the first time you’d ever seen a mirror, you picked up the brush and started brushing your hair, the brush was soft it was easy to untangle your wild hair. After finishing your hair, you could see how much you look like Lady Shaera. It felt absolutely disgusting, how can you look like someone so vile? After that you started looking at the dresses that Lady Shaera had in the bedroom, they looked uncomfortable but so pretty.

_______________________________________

Hours passed and there was no sign of her or Ser William, you started hearing commotion outside the bedroom, things being moved around you decided not to come out it probably wasn’t Lady Shaera. You were right, you put your ear in the door and you heard the servants talking amongst themselves. Water was being dropped somewhere, she dismissed the servants and the noise stopped. The doors were opened and there was Lady Shaera, she had a white dress, you assumed that’s how she slept.

“Aren’t you an early riser? Come, I must try to remove the grime off of you.” She ushered you away from the bedroom, you saw the bathtub, it was made out of wood. You touched the water and it was warm, it had a nice smell and rose petals on the water. “Remove this disgusting dress and get in the water.” No one has ever seen you naked since you became a woman, not even your grandmother. “By the gods, do not make me wait!” She grabbed a knife and ripped the dress off your body.

You’ve never felt so violated, you felt cheap and vulnerable. She motioned for you to get in the bathtub and you did. Shaera grabbed a rag and started rubbing off the dirt from your body, she was forceful you could tell that she wasn’t affectionate or nurturing in any way. You were trying to hide but she was having none of it, always getting your arms out of her way. Getting scrubbed by her made you feel like cattle as if your privacy and modesty didn't matter. Shaera gave you a towel and you started to dry yourself.

“We now must dress you, we shall see if you actually resemble me.” She started dressing you, first with the undergarments, then the corsets and finally the dress. It was extremely heavy and uncomfortable but so lovely. The dress was purple, the House’s colours were purple and white, and the aminal on the crest was a horse. She started preparing your hair the same way she uses hers, your hair was longer than hers but it did not matter.

“By the gods, it’s almost as if I am looking in a mirror.” You heard a knock at the door, she looked at you excited. “It’s Ser William, he will be the hardest one to deceive but nothing better than passing throught the worst first.” She was smirking, and went to hide in the bedroom you were in.

“Come in.” You said, and it was in fact Ser William.

“Where is the peasant?” He inquired, you could do this you thought to yourself, Your grandfather’s life was in danger also yours.

“Still asleep.” You rolled your eyes, Shaera has done it plenty of times.

“Good, that means we have time for yourselves.” He approached you, and that’s when you flinched away from him. That’s when he noticed. “You’re not Shaera, are you?” He seemed to doubt himself, did you look like that much like this woman?

The door was opened and Shaera seemed really pleased with herself, you were able to fool her lover, for a few seconds but you did.

“I’ve done the most marvellous job.” They shared a passionate kiss, you looked away physical displays of affection are foreign to you. “What gave it away?” She was so excited, she finally saw that it would work.

“She flinched away when I approached her.” He simply stated.

“Well, if that was the only thing…by the gods, she’ll be able to become me.” You knew that was dangerous, if anyone found out you’ll be killed so you had to play the part, for your grandfather’s sake.

“We shall begin now, I am supposed to leave for Kings Landing to marry the one-eyed monstrosity in three months.” This was the second time she said this, you were curious.

“Who are you talking about?”

“He is the younger Prince, his name is Aemond. He had his eye gouged out by his nephew, and he’s a cruel man. Some say that he kills animals for fun, some say he brutalizes peasants in his free time.” Both she and Ser Willliam started snickering at your terrified expression. “We shall begin.”

___________________________________________

Shaera spoke five languages, played a few instruments and was very well-read. She was teaching you the languages whilst teaching you how to behave, and every time you got something wrong she would beat you with a cane. You realized that you were smarter than you thought, picking up the languages rather quickly. What you were struggling with was how to use the cutlery, and how to mimic Shaera’s handwriting.

“Wrong.” She beat you with a cane again, you had bruises all over your body due to her beatings.

“Will you please stop hitting me?” You shouldn’t have said that, she beat you again.

“I’ll stop once you get it right.” She sneered, you got her handwriting well but her signature was an issue. “Gaomagon ao shifang nyke?” (Do you understand me?) Her cane was raised again, she was doing that quite often, speaking with you in many different languages, and today was High Valyrian.

“Kessa.” (Yes) You replied, and her cane was lowered.

“Sȳz.” (Good) She was proud of you, impressing this woman was no small feat.

You did get it right eventually, she told you all the stories of her life. Shaera would question you about everything, history and philosophy.

“Who were Viserys l’s parents?” Her cane was raised, you couldn’t take this anymore.

“Baelon and Alyssa.” You knew everything, five months had passed and you didn't leave her chambers.

“Handwriting?” You handed her the paper, and she smiled.

“It appears that my cane is no longer necessary, you shall sleep in your bed tonight, Lady Shaera.” She smirked and left you alone, you were happy for some reason but you were dreading meeting Prince Aemond, would he mistreat you, would he kill you? Only time would tell.

The servants undressed you and you fell asleep, wondering what else Shaera and Ser William would teach you.

__________________________________________

When you woke up the servants were already in your chambers, Shaera was adamant on you mistreating the servants and being rude to everyone else, but that’s not what you would do.

“Your father demands to speak with you, m’lady.” The servant spoke softly.

“Thank you, help me get dressed please.” The servant was stunned but complied, she never heard you say any of those words before, no one ever has.

After you were dressed the servant left and you opened the other bedroom but there was nothing there, only a letter on the bed, and the blue diamond necklace.

“Dearest Shaera,

We shall never see each other again, I am to be happy in Braavos with the love of my life.

Be happy, be ruthless.

Y/N.”

Why wouldn’t she say something yesterday? You were angry at her, for putting you in this situation, for not giving a warning so you could mentally prepare. You’ve never met your father before. You put the necklace, you left your chambers since the first time you came here, you needed to have the courage to become Shaera, you were her. The doors of the Great Hall were opened and for the first time, you’ve seen the reactions to you, snickers, eye rolls or simply anger.

“My precious daughter, you have been hiding from this old man. Must I suffer this much?” You heard the pure love coming from your father, but you’ve never met yours, your grandfather never spoke of your parents. You ran towards him and you hugged him tightly.

“I apologise, father. Would ever be able to forgive me?” You had tears in your eyes, the rush of emotions was too much and everyone was shocked, by the display of affection and kind words uttered by you.

“Of course, I simply wanted to inform you that Ser Criston Cole is arriving in a fortnight to escort you to Kings Landing.” Your blood ran cold, you were so scared of Prince Aemond but you had to do this.

“Then I must prepare, thank you, father.” You hugged him again, and Lewis was giving you so much love, so much care, he was incredible.

The days went by really quickly, you knew of Ser Criston Cole the trusted Kingsguard of Queen Alicent. Today was the day that you were leaving for Kings Landing and you were afraid, of being discovered, of being hurt by Prince Aemond.

“Are you excited, daughter?” You could see that your father was excited, he wanted what was best for you so you smiled at him.

“Yes, but I am afraid of not being enough, father.” Your father scoffed at you and hugged you.

“It’s the other way around, they won’t be enough for you.” He kissed the top of your head, and the castle’s doors were being opened.

That’s when you saw him, Ser Criston Cole he looked angry, your reputation reached Kings Landing you thought. It would take some time to repair that, he got off his horse and approached you and your father.

“Ser Criston, welcome to our humble home. This is my daughter, Lady Shaera Oxwell.” Your father motioned towards you, Ser Criston looked nervous.

“It is known that Lady Shaera can’t control her tongue, be aware.” Ser Criston reminded himself of the Queen’s words, he was expecting a rude comment or even hurtful.

“Ser Criston, I was told that you are the Queen’s most trusted knight?” You approached him carefully, you didn't want to antagonize the man.

“That I am, my Lady.” He curtsied you tightly.

“Then I shall be at peace knowing that the King and Queen sent their best fighter to accompany me.” That caught Criston off guard, he was expecting an insult not a compliment.

“Thank you, my Lady.” After this interaction, he knew one thing: The rumours of Lady Shaera Oxwell were that, only rumours.

[yummycastiel]

''the dreamer'' part 4- aemond targaryen x oc

Summary of part 4: Daenys avoids Aemond, but Aemond has other plans. (SERIES MASTERLIST HERE)

story summary: Daenys Velaryon, the brown-haired third child of Rhaenyra and Laenor, travels to King’s Landing with her family to visit the King, her grandfather, and to witness Jacaerys’ and Baela’s wedding. As tensions between house Targaryen rise, Daenys and Aemond cross paths once again, and the prince discovers an annoying attraction to the Velaryon girl

a/n: stalker!aemond in this chapter!! i hope you guys realize that this is a full on series now. oh well, let's see how it goes LOL. As always, i am eternally grateful for all the support, you all are awesome!! Enjoy part 4 :) this fic is also found on AO3, link in my bio!

~~~

Daenys.

            Daenys was avoiding Aemond. She was physically unable to be in his presence after they met in the library the other evening. The Velaryon princess remembered how his voice had dripped with venom as he made it clear how little he cared about their past friendship as children. To Daenys’ surprise, the way Aemond had spat his dismissive response at her made her feel more hurt than any bastard comment he had ever sent her way in the past. Daenys had felt mortified as her eyes began to burn with tears, so she had avoided Aemond’s violet stare. She would rather die than let him see her cry, especially at something that shouldn’t mean as much as it did to her. However, the way that Aemond had gotten so furious when she brought up the past made her think that he never cared. She understood if he didn’t care now, but what hurt the most was that he hadn’t cared then either. She must have been something comparable to a pest in Aemond’s eyes.

            At supper, Daenys would avoid his gaze, practically acting as if he were not even present. She didn’t direct a word to him or even go near him. From time to time, she could feel his stare burning into the back of her skull, but she brushed it off, entertaining herself with her brothers. During the day Daenys would sometimes walk past the training pen, the clanging of metal swords drawing her near. That was the only time she allowed herself a glimpse of her uncle, who was too busy training to notice her watching from above where King Viserys would sometimes sit. She would slowly walk by, turning her head ever so slightly and watch as Aemond’s silver hair would fly as he expertly swung his sword at Ser Criston. He moved fluidly, like he was dancing with the Kingsguard knight, and Daenys couldn’t help but admire his skill. The princess would only look for a moment though, convinced that if she looked any longer, she would stay stuck in place.

            In efforts to avoid Aemond, Daenys would take to the sky with Aegarax longer than she usually did. Before she took her dragon flying every day for the whole morning, now, she was spending most of her waking hours on dragon back. Aegarax and Daenys would fly across over water, mountains, and streams, and land on secluded islands and clifftops. The feeling of the cool air would make Daenys’ nose turn red, and she’d urge her black dragon up further into the sky until she could see her own breath. Her trips with Aegarax, while a good distraction from her dull life at the Red Keep, offered her a happiness that was incomparable to any other. Daenys felt as though she was born to fly.

            Sometimes she’d see Vhagar’s hulking form take to the sky, and only then would she refrain from mounting Aegarax. Her dragon’s yellow eyes would watch her as she left the Dragon Pit, almost in a teasing way.

            ‘’Oh, stop it.’’ Daenys would mutter, knowing her dragon could sense she was avoiding something.

            An occasion had occurred when Daenys saw Aemond in the library as she had walked in. The girl had frozen to the spot, unsure whether to run or to stand her ground. A dragon would stand its ground, she knew this, but when Aemond turned his head in her direction, his violet eye piercing, she ran. Daenys Velaryon fled before her older uncle, face hot, unable to stand the scathing words she knew would come spilling out of his mouth.

            Weeks had gone by, and now Daenys had taken to hiding in the gardens, as Aegarax had flat-out refused her efforts to climb on his back to go for yet another ride. The dragon completely ignored her, only giving her a little shove and a huff, smoke billowing out of his nostrils as he clearly stated he was tired of flying around and needed to take a nap. Daenys, frustrated at her disobedient and apparently lazy dragon, and fearful of accidentally bumping into a certain someone, fled to the royal gardens. There, she saw only ladies and their ladies-in-waiting walking and lounging around, the scent of roses wafting into her nose. Daenys smirked, knowing that Aemond would never find himself here.

            Daenys had settled, resting her arms on the stone terrace that overlooked the glimmering blue sea. She breathed in the salty air that blew her brown hair back. Sometimes she would take her hair and almost try to will it to become a silver haired color, rather than the brown she had inherited from Harwin Strong. A pang of guilt would consume her, as she remembered the man who was her real father. He had had a kind face and kind eyes. Daenys looked up at the sky, half-hoping to see the great Vhagar spreading her wings in the distance, but she saw nothing. The Princess then suddenly heard a rustle behind her, and she whipped around to see none other than her uncle Aemond appear from behind the garden hedge. He was clad in his usual black garb, silver trim giving it a more regal look than usual. His hair was perfect, pin-straight, his face was emotionless, but his good eye was looking at her in a very different way than she remembered he had.

            ‘’Princess.’’ He greeted, dipping his head slightly. He kept his arms behind his back. Daenys took a small step back, trying her best to inch away from the Targaryen prince. She was once again, fighting the urge to run away, but she knew that this time Aemond had cornered her well and good.  

            ‘’What do you want Aemond?’’ She questioned in a demanding voice, giving him a suspicious stare. Aemond almost seemed nervous during the moment of silence that followed, and he took a breath before answering her.

            ‘’You have been avoiding me.’’ He replied, voice soft. Daenys bit back a laugh, knowing that it had been obvious what she was doing, but she was also confused as to why the prince cared.

            ‘’I do not have time for your cruel jests, uncle,’’ She replied, rolling her eyes, and crossing her arms, as she began to turn away, ‘’Leave me be.’’ She turned her back on Aemond and began to walk away, when suddenly she felt a warm grip on her forearm. Her eyes shot down to see Aemond’s hand, after he reached out for her suddenly, touching her, pulling her back. Daenys could feel the heat of Aemond’s fingers through her sleeve, yet she shivered at the bolt of icy electricity that shot through her veins at his touch.

            ‘’Please,’’ He all but whispered, eye pleading with her. He had never looked so vulnerable than in this moment, and Daenys could never recall a time where he had ever looked slightly afraid. He let go of her slowly, looking down at where their skin had connected, but then his eye shot back up to her face, as if thinking he did something wrong. Daenys turned, fully facing the silver prince, expectingly looking up at him, waiting for an explanation.

            ‘’Go on.’’ She urged, raising her eyebrows. Aemond straightened up, mouth twitching, as if holding back from something.

            ‘’I wanted to apologize,’’ He began, much to Daenys’ surprise, ‘’For the other night. I spoke to you in a way that is not deserving of a lady, of a Princess.’’ Aemond was so serious in that moment, his tone very formal, as if he was speaking to someone he didn’t know. That made Daenys’ anger rise a little bit within her, but she controlled her initial impulse to be insulted. Aemond rarely, if ever, apologized.

            ‘’I wasn’t aware you considered me a lady or a true princess.’’ The brown haired Velaryon girl quipped, her tone a bit short. Aemond, looking slightly abashed, shook his head.

            ‘’You are, and I know that.’’ He explained in a calm tone as Daenys’ eyes widened at his words, ‘’When I first saw you, I thought that you had been brainwashed by your mother to hate me and my family, like your brothers hate me. I thought you were trying to manipulate me or use our childhood friendship against me’’ At Aemond’s words, Daenys’ heart softened as she gazed up at her uncle.

            ‘’You severely misunderstood my intentions, my prince.’’ She murmured, looking down at the ground, suddenly unable to meet Aemond’s gaze. ‘’I can’t tell you how much I valued your friendship as a young girl, and when I saw you again, after all this time, I was hoping that the tension between our families wouldn’t change anything.’’ As soon as the words left her lips, Aemond’s violet eye widened in shock as he looked down at Daenys, and his arms released from behind his back. Hesitantly, Aemond reached out, crossing the distance between them and he gently pushed Daenys’ chin up to look at him. Daenys felt her heart flutter at his touch, half-expecting the lightning to go shooting through her again. He let go, much to her disappointment. To fill the silence, Daenys continued.

            ‘’When you reacted the way you did, I will be truthful with you, it surprised me and I got upset,’’ She recounted, ‘’I was not sure what to expect but I did not expect that, uncle.’’

            ‘’I lied.’’ Aemond said after another moment of silence, painful moments for Daenys who waited for his response with anticipation. Aemond took a step closer to her, gaze unflinching from his niece’s face. He reached out and rested his arm on the stone next to Daenys, and he leaned down, towering over her, until he was a breath away from her face.

            ‘’I lied,’’ He breathed calmly, his earlier nervousness replaced with calm confidence, ‘’When I said those things to you about how it all meant nothing to me, I lied, and what is happening between our families is of no consequence to us, sweet niece.’’ At the prince’s words, and given how close he was to her, Daenys wanted to turn and flee once more, but the slight smile on Aemond’s face made her smile right back. She tried to picture the boy he had once been, and when she looked up at the man standing in front of her, she didn’t recognize him. He was smirking down at her, as if he knew something she didn’t.

            ‘’You’ve certainly changed a lot, Aemond.’’ Daenys mused, her brown eyes meeting his single violent one, ‘’I’ve never heard you apologize before.You’re no longer the little boy you used to be.’’ She meant it truthfully, but she added a slight tone of a jest.

            ‘’I would hope not,’’ Aemond returned in a low voice, eye running up and down Daenys’ figure, ‘’Meanwhile, you, my lovely niece, have not changed at all…in some ways.’’ His lips grew into a crooked smirk and even though Daenys didn’t know entirely what he meant; she felt her cheeks burn. He was still so close to her, his upper body almost caging her into where she was rooted to the spot.

            ‘’I’ve changed a fair bit uncle,’’ She explained, trying to appear as though his presence so close to her vicinity did not affect her ‘’I can now outfly Jace on Aegarax, I can speak perfect High Valyrian, I can fight! I no longer need to hide behind you like the little shadow I was as a child.’’ At her last claim, Prince Aemond raised an eyebrow.

            ‘’Your mother let you learn how to fight?’’ He questioned, seemingly surprised. Daenys nodded. When they were children, Daenys would always watch wistfully as the boys trained, and she would fume when her mother wouldn’t let her join them. Rhaenyra had apologized, but she explained that Queen Alicent would not have any royal princesses taking part in any un-lady like activity. On Dragonstone however, Daenys did as she pleased, no green Queen forbidding her from doing anything.

            ‘’She did. I’m quite good.’’ Daenys said cheerfully, ‘’I’ve practiced with the bow and arrow, and I daresay I am skilled with the dagger; however, I must admit that I had difficulty with swordplay.’’ Daenys was not surprised at how truthful she was being with Aemond, as their conversation reminded her finally of the boy he had been, a long time ago. Aemond chuckled, setting Daenys’ heart pumping even faster than it had been already. She wanted to hear it again.

            ‘’Sword too heavy for you to lift, Daenys?’’ Aemond said lightly. When Daenys rolled her eyes.

    ��       ‘’Shut up.’’ She muttered, but she couldn’t force back the little smile that betrayed her emotion. The silver haired prince looked down at the brown-haired princess, gaze unflinching. Daenys tried to tear her eyes away from her uncle’s angular face, and she tried to fight off the feeling of blooming desire in the pit of her stomach. Gods, how could she ever hope to avoid him now?

Aemond.

            The one-eyed prince was relishing this moment with his niece. As soon as he had heard the words from her mouth, when she had blown his assumptions about her in a single second, he felt a wave of relief wash over him. The past couple weeks without seeing the little princess had been miserable for Aemond. He stayed awake at night, staring at the ceiling, trying to not wonder if Daenys was in the library right now. In those moments Aemond had forced himself not to go looking for her, thinking it was for the best. In fact, he had thought all of what he’d done had been for the best. Yes, he had to sit in his seat and watch her during evening supper times laughing with her army of brothers, not even acknowledging his existence, but he figured that if she hated him already, he was saving himself a world of hurt. That thought didn’t stop him from wanting to spring to his seat and cause a problem like he had before, if only to get Daenys’ attention. He would have even welcomed her hateful stare if it meant she would look in his direction.

            Aemond sometimes caught a glimpse of Daenys while he would train with Ser Criston. Her chocolate-brown hair caught his eye from above where his father, the King, would sometimes sit. She would do her best to stay out of sight, but Aemond knew she was there. He could almost feel her presence near him, as though she were a beacon of light in the darkness of the night. The Targaryen prince would look up subtly, trying not to scare her away with his glance, but he always got too distracted, and Cole would knock him to the ground. He would have looked away from the princess for but a second, but when he looked up again, Daenys was gone. Ser Criston would look up to see what he was staring at, but never saw anything.

            ‘’Your mind has been gone these past weeks, my prince,’’ the Kingsguard noted as Aemond would gather his bearings, ‘’This is unlike you.’’ Aemond would sneer at his mother’s sworn shield and attack without warning, shutting the Dornishman right up.

            Aemond would watch from his balcony as Aegarax swooped through the sky, his impressive wingspan carrying Daenys further and further away from the Red Keep. The prince stared after them, knowing he could easily catch up on Vhagar, but knew from experience that whenever his great old war dragon would take to the air, Aegarax would stay in the Dragon Pit.

            Finally, Aemond had caught sight of his niece in the Royal gardens, walking alone, hands clasped in front of her. He hadn’t caught sight of her so much as he was following her through the castle since she left her room. Aemond wasn’t sure what brought himself to torture himself so, but he decided that he would finally speak to Daenys, whether it was for his best or not. He all but chased her through the maze of hedges, surprised at how fast his little niece walked but he finally caught up to her. Seeing her face so close was like a breath of fresh air in his lungs, and he had been suffocating for much too long. Aemond swallowed his pride, threw caution to the wind, and apologized to the princess. The bastard princess, said a little voice in his head, but Aemond ignored it. He no longer cared.

            As soon as Aemond realized that he had been wrong, that Daenys didn’t hate him or was plotting anything against him like he though her mother or her brothers might have coached her to do, he relaxed. His body released the tension it had been holding for many days, and Aemond felt a newfound confidence as he realized what this meant for him. Simply being in Daenys’ presence made him feel like he was flying, and he loved being so close to her that he could smell her sweet scent. She smelled so familiar to him, like coming home. As Aemond closed in on her, he felt his cock twitch in his pants as he saw how pink her cheeks were at his closeness. Gods, he wanted her. He wanted her like a dragon would want to take to the air. His face was now but a breath away from Daenys’, and he revelled in how she shrunk away from him bashfully. His sweet niece. Aemond wanted to curse himself, for now he did not know what would stop him from going down this path.

~~~

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[onsunnyside]

HEHE MYTHOLOGY THOT INCOMING

so there's that fairytale all over asia w the hunter/cowherd/woodsman stumbling across a bathing fairy/maiden and stealing her clothes. then he wont give it back until she marries him 👀👉🏼👈🏼

i mean!! i havent decided on someone, mebbe big gruff curtis or cocky steve 😖💕 but you're naked and small, trying to hide yourself in the water while this big mortal holds your dress out of reach and he's so mean!! he says you can have it back if you're a good little fairy for him 🥺

i've never heard of that oh my !! BRANDY I LOVE THIS !!

let's go with steve !! hunter!steve is big and burly, living in his cabin and the best in the business for tracking/hunting animals. he's got his long hair and beard, ultimate daddy era, and he's so dirty !! clad in fur and leather from his prey (perhaps even some from other mythological creatures).

You try to cover yourself, holding onto any sliver of modesty you have left. The hunter just raises a brow and holds out the thin cotton woven with skeleton leaves. A small gasp flutters from your lips as a flower falls to the ground, joining your vine and twig crown.

"You want this back, don't you?" His voice is deep and rumbling. he waits for a few moments, then his blue eyes narrow to slits. "Can you speak?"

You nod hesitantly, shivering as a cold gust brushes along your wet skin. The sun sets behind the trees, bathing the pond in a yellow glow. Your skin gleams naturally, sparkling brighter than the stars. Steve would give anything to touch it, to feel you.

"Would you rather be a good fairy, or freeze and die there instead?"

You stand quickly, the water sloshes and ripples spread throughout the calm. Your teeth chatter from the abrupt rush of air and your thighs clench tightly, inevitably drawing the hunter's gaze. You quickly shield yourself, ignoring your hardening nipples against your palms.

"Good girl, now c'mon. It's getting dark, and you don't wanna be here when the beasts come out." The blond tuts, swinging his rifle over his broad shoulder. "The gods know they'll devour you in the blink of an eye."

[turnpage]

send me a ✐ for a random sentence starter from my muse (1-1500) — tw: profanity, mild nsfw, long list

generator here quotes compiled from here inspired by

feel free to change to fit your preferences as need.

❨1❩ ❛ They are dreams, but I’m too out of control, I lose myself in them, and I’ve already lost too much to let them take over. ❜
 ❨2❩ ❛ Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters. ❜ ❨3❩ ❛ I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in. ❜ ❨4❩ ❛ Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win. ❜ ❨5❩ ❛ The world's a hard place. It doesn't care. It doesn't hate you and me, but it doesn't love us, either. ❜ ❨6❩ ❛ The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge. ❜ ❨7❩ ❛ Pull your act together and just go on. ❜ ❨8❩ ❛ I had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there is nothing physically wrong. I hurt all the time. ❜ ❨9❩ ❛ Tough old world, baby. If you're not bolted together tightly, you're gonna shake, rattle, and roll before you turn thirty. ❜ ❨10❩ ❛ Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford? ❜ ❨11❩ ❛ Truth comes out. In the end it always comes out. ❜ ❨12❩ ❛ Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are. ❜ ❨13❩ ❛ No matter where you go, the same asshole gets off the plane. ❜ ❨14❩ ❛ We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives. ❜ ❨15❩ ❛ That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. ❜ ❨16❩ ❛ Human nature, baby. Grab it and growl. ❜ ❨17❩ ❛ God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you. ❜ ❨18❩ ❛ Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you. ❜ ❨19❩ ❛ How many times, over how many years, have I—a grown adult—asked for the mercy of another chance? ❜ ❨20❩ ❛ I was suddenly so sick of myself, so revolted. ❜ ❨21❩ ❛ You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. ❜ ❨22❩ ❛ But those pieces, they’ll never fit just the same way again. Never in this world. ❜ ❨23❩ ❛ Dying is a part of living. You have to keep tuning in to that if you expect to be a whole person. ❜ ❨24❩ ❛ Officious little prick. ❜ ❨25❩ ❛ I’ve been sleepwalking again, my dear. — The plants are moving under the rug. ❜ ❨26❩ ❛ How I wish you were fear. ❜ ❨27❩ ❛ But it was a dreadful kind of curiosity, the kind that makes you peek through your fingers during the scariest parts of a scary movie. ❜ ❨28❩ ❛ All we have is time, you know. An eternity of time. Or shall we end it? Might as well. After all, we're missing the party. ❜ ❨29❩ ❛ We all remember our pleasant dreams more clearly than the scary ones. ❜ ❨30❩ ❛ The way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. ❜ ❨31❩ ❛ Got to be regular if you want to be happy. ❜ ❨32❩ ❛ But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. ❜ ❨33❩ ❛ He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none. ❜ ❨34❩ ❛ Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep. ❜ ❨35❩ ❛ It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness.  ❜ ❨36❩ ❛ If I had ever believed it, I no longer do. ❜ ❨37❩ ❛ I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands. ❜ ❨38❩ ❛ I cannot bear this world a moment longer. ❜ ❨39❩ ❛ I have a better idea. I will do as I please. ❜ ❨40❩ ❛ All my life has been murk and depths, but I am not a part of that dark water. I am a creature within it. ❜ ❨41❩ ❛ You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see. ❜ ❨42❩ ❛ When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world. ❜ ❨43❩ ❛ When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist. ❜ ❨44❩ ❛ But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ❜ ❨45❩ ❛ I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. ❜ ❨46❩ ❛ This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive. ❜ ❨47❩ ❛ You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you. ❜ ❨48❩ ❛ Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me. ❜ ❨49❩ ❛ If now I am wise, it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes. ❜ ❨50❩ ❛ You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite. ❜ ❨51❩ ❛ Give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for. ❜ ❨52❩ ❛ I have been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that is only a shape I’ve been poured into. I do not have to keep it. ❜ ❨53❩ ❛ I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. ❜ ❨54❩ ❛ Understanding the world is a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves. ❜ ❨55❩ ❛ Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two. ❜ ❨56❩ ❛ The truth is, men make terrible pigs. ❜ ❨57❩ ❛ My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it. ❜ ❨58❩ ❛ This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh. ❜ ❨59❩ ❛ Witches are not so delicate. ❜ ❨60❩ ❛ Those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats. ❜ ❨61❩ ❛ I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. ❜ ❨62❩ ❛ There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too. ❜ ❨63❩ ❛ The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them. ❜ ❨64❩ ❛ Life is warped. I'm just in sync. ❜ ❨65❩ ❛ Now it's a whisper from the past. ❜ ❨66❩ ❛ But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more. ❜ ❨67❩ ❛ Why is it always such a surprise? The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush. ❜ ❨68❩ ❛ Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it. ❜ ❨69❩ ❛ What is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives?  ❜ ❨70❩ ❛ I have scars, inside me. ❜ ❨71❩ ❛ The dead are not entirely dead but are alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. ❜ ❨72❩ ❛ However dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void. ❜ ❨73❩ ❛ Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic. ❜ ❨74❩ ❛ It is another way of saying tough luck. To people you aren’t going to help out. ❜ ❨75❩ ❛ I'm waiting, far off in the future. ❜ ❨76❩ ❛ The only sure camouflage is unpredictability. ❜ ❨77❩ ❛ There are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. ❜ ❨78❩ ❛ First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled. ❜ ❨79❩ ❛ I long to swim in liquid moonlight. ❜ ❨80❩ ❛ That's right, I don’t like to be summoned on trivial matters. ❜ ❨81❩ ❛ The part that really made me happy was that you wanted me to be happy. ❜ ❨82❩ ❛ Cut that part out of us: the grinning, elemental malice. Begin us anew. ❜ ❨83❩ ❛ Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot. ❜ ❨84❩ ❛ At last. It's you. ❜ ❨85❩ ❛ No, you will not be cooked on a fire when you die. Because you are not a fish. ❜ ❨86❩ ❛ Take what the moment offers. Don’t close doors. Be thankful. ❜ ❨87❩ ❛ How many others have stood in this place? Left behind, with all gone, all swept away. ❜ ❨88❩ ❛ Is it disapproval or extreme lust? With some men it’s hard to tell the difference. ❜ ❨89❩ ❛ My hair was driving me crazy, but then … I died. ❜ ❨90❩ ❛ Seek and ye shall find, eventually. And you found. You’re right, I don’t dispute that. Sorry. ❜ ❨91❩ ❛ Everything digests, and is digested. ❜ ❨92❩ ❛ My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft. ❜ ❨93❩ ❛ You cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there. ❜ ❨94❩ ❛ I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s something nobody knows about. ❜ ❨95❩ ❛ And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living. ❜ ❨96❩ ❛ The world is a beautiful place. Don’t forget that. And don’t miss it. ❜ ❨97❩ ❛ I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. ❜ ❨98❩ ❛ Something’s happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. ❜ ❨99❩ ❛ It’s taken root, a poison tree; it’s grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart. ❜ ❨100❩ ❛ We’re interpreters. We’re translators. ❜ ❨101❩ ❛ You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way. ❜ ❨102❩ ❛ No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-fullo’shit. Remember that. ❜ ❨103❩ ❛ We lived in monochrome those nights. ❜ ❨104❩ ❛ You live in a dream. You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? ❜ ❨105❩ ❛ Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? ❜ ❨106❩ ❛ I stand here in the dark: cold, utterly alone, full of fear and something that feels like longing. ❜ ❨107❩ ❛ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. ❜ ❨108❩ ❛ Not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye. ❜ ❨109❩ ❛ Selective emotional detachment. ❜ ❨110❩ ❛ Not for me, or at least not today. ❜ ❨111❩ ❛ Dead but not gone, watching life surge forward around me, powerless to intervene. ❜ ❨112❩ ❛ Do I sound like a hillbilly saying that? ❜ ❨113❩ ❛ Remember, you’ve got your secret weapon. ❜ ❨114❩ ❛ The dream drains away like water. The memory, really. I try to scoop it up in my palms, but it’s gone. ❜ ❨115❩ ❛ My shadow stretches along the carpet, as though trying to detach itself from me. ❜ ❨116❩ ❛ It curls away from me, like blood in water. ❜ ❨117❩ ❛ It’s been so long since I felt the rain. Or wind—the caress of wind. ❜ ❨118❩ ❛ But snow I never want to feel again. ❜ ❨119❩ ❛ Through adversity to the stars. ❜ ❨120❩ ❛ No hero. No sleuth. I am locked in. I am locked out. ❜ ❨121❩ ❛ Thinking hasn't gotten me anywhere so far. ❜ ❨122❩ ❛ The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you. ❜ ❨123❩ ❛ Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. ❜ ❨124❩ ❛ Women get consumed. ❜ ❨125❩ ❛ Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them. ❜ ❨126❩ ❛ A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort. ❜ ❨127❩ ❛ Safer to be feared than loved. ❜ ❨128❩ ❛ I ached once, hard, like a period typed at the end of a sentence. ❜ ❨129❩ ❛ It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wish I could stop trying. ❜ ❨130❩ ❛ I always feel sad for the girl that I was. ❜ ❨131❩ ❛ Every time people said I was pretty, I thought of everything ugly swarming beneath my clothes. ❜ ❨132❩ ❛ How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. ❜ ❨133❩ ❛ See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was. ❜ ❨134❩ ❛ Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand. ❜ ❨135❩ ❛ To refuse has so many more consequences than submitting. ❜ ❨136❩ ❛ I'm here. I don't usually feel that I am. ❜ ❨137❩ ❛ I'm tired of dying. ❜ ❨138❩ ❛ What if you hurt because it feels so good? ❜ ❨139❩ ❛ How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow. ❜ ❨140❩ ❛ Do you ever feel like bad things are going to happen, and you can’t stop them? You can’t do anything, you just have to wait? ❜ ❨141❩ ❛ Sometimes my scars have a mind of their own. ❜ ���142❩ ❛ Everyone has their own version of a memory. ❜ ❨143❩ ❛ Isn’t a smile a girl’s best weapon? ❜ ❨144❩ ❛ My sense of weightlessness, I think, comes from the fact that I know so little about my past. ❜ ❨145❩ ❛ Do what I want; I might like you. ❜ ❨146❩ ❛ I feel sorry for Persephone because even when she’s back with the living, people are afraid of her because of where’s she’s been. ❜ ❨147❩ ❛ She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. ❜ ❨148❩ ❛ The sight of it actually does something to you, makes you less human. ❜ ❨149❩ ❛ It infects you. It ruined me. ❜ ❨150❩ ❛ Your health is not a debt you just cancel. The body collects. ❜ ❨151❩ ❛ Men love to put things inside women, don’t they? ❜ ❨152❩ ❛ We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. ❜ ❨153❩ ❛ Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. ❜ ❨154❩ ❛ The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience. ❜ ❨155❩ ❛ If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war. ❜ ❨156❩ ❛ There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. ❜ ❨157❩ ❛ The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness. ❜ ❨158❩ ❛ Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy. ❜ ❨159❩ ❛ It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong. ❜ ❨160❩ ❛ You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. ❜ ❨161❩ ❛ If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed. ❜ ❨162❩ ❛ We are asleep until we fall in love! ❜ ❨163❩ ❛ I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. ❜ ❨164❩ ❛ Everything I know, I know because of love. ❜ ❨165❩ ❛ Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. ❜ ❨166❩ ❛ If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ❜ ❨167❩ ❛ Yes, love, but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. ❜ ❨168❩ ❛ How can one be well...when one suffers morally? ❜ ❨169❩ ❛ Kings are the slaves of history. ❜ ❨170❩ ❛ God is the same everywhere. ❜ ❨171❩ ❛ Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. ❜ ❨172❩ ❛ One must be cunning and wicked in this world. ❜ ❨173❩ ❛ We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them. ❜ ❨174❩ ❛ When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair! ❜ ❨175❩ ❛ For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed? ❜ ❨176❩ ❛ He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died. ❜ ❨177❩ ❛ Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps. ❜ ❨178❩ ❛ Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible. ❜ ❨179❩ ❛ The distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable. ❜ ❨180❩ ❛ How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? ❜ ❨181❩ ❛ The wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe. ❜ ❨182❩ ❛ When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. ❜ ❨183❩ ❛ My memory is a patchwork of occurrences, of discontinuous events roughly sewn together: the parts I remember, I remember precisely, whilst other sections seem to have vanished completely. ❜ ❨184❩ ❛ Would it be worse to love someone who is no longer there, or not to love someone who is? ❜ ❨185❩ ❛ Like mirrors stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in darkness. ❜ ❨186❩ ❛ It is not that I was credulous, simply that I believed in all things dark and dangerous. ❜ ❨187❩ ❛ Sometimes you do things you regret, but there's nothing you can do about them. Times change. Doors close behind you. You move on. ❜ ❨188❩ ❛ Love will be an impulse that will inspire and ruin in equal measure. ❜ ❨189❩ ❛ He died alone. It don't matter a rat's ass whether there was anyone with him or not. He died alone. ❜ ❨190❩ ❛ It was love, I knew, and it tasted like champagne in my mind. ❜ ❨191❩ ❛ The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being averted, by love or foolishness or just plain old dumb luck. ❜ ❨192❩ ❛ She was my dream; and if you touch a dream it vanishes, like a soap bubble. ❜ ❨193❩ ❛ Daylight is always safe. ❜ ❨194❩ ❛ If not for death, they'd be content to simply exist, but with death, well, their lives will have meaning. ❜ ❨195❩ ❛ You want to know the future, love? Then wait. ❜ ❨196❩ ❛ There are things in the darkness beneath us that wish us harm. ❜ ❨197❩ ❛ Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated ❜ ❨198❩ ❛ But sometimes you leave blood on your instruments. ❜ ❨199❩ ❛ I'd like to be a wolf. Not all the time. Just sometimes. In the dark. I would run through the forests. ❜ ❨200❩ ❛ You've seen them. They have mouths that twitch, and eyes that stare, and they babble and they mewl and they whimper. ❜ ❨201❩ ❛ They are not mad, or rather, the loss of their sanity is the lesser of their problems. ❜ ❨202❩ ❛ Good a reason for writing as I know: releasing demons, letting them fly. ❜ ❨203❩ ❛ That miserable state in which everything seems flat and of equal importance; when nothing matters, and in which reality seems scraped thin and threadbare. ❜ ❨204❩ ❛ Someone had scrawled graffiti in black marker on the metal: JUST DIE, it said. Like it is easy. ❜ ❨205❩ ❛ Winter started today. The sky turned grey and the snow began to fall and it did not stop falling until well after dark. ❜ ❨206❩ ❛ Memory is the great deceiver. ❜ ❨207❩ ❛ Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. ❜ ❨208❩ ❛ I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.  ❜ ❨209❩ ❛ If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. ❜ ❨210❩ ❛ I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other. ❜ ❨211❩ ❛ But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. ❜ ❨212❩ ❛ I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other would have borne it. ❜ ❨213❩ ❛ There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. ❜ ❨214❩ ❛ One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. ❜ ❨215❩ ❛ Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ❜ ❨216❩ ❛ You must be the best judge of your own happiness. ❜ ❨217❩ ❛ Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing ; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature ; and I do not think I ever shall. ❜ ❨218❩ ❛ Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise. ❜ ❨219❩ ❛ If I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream. ❜ ❨220❩ ❛ If a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. ❜ ❨221❩ ❛ Faultless in spite of all her faults. ❜ ❨222❩ ❛ A heroine whom no one but myself will much like. ❜ ❨223❩ ❛ There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. ❜ ❨224❩ ❛ Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air. ❜ ❨225❩ ❛ I pity you. I thought you cleverer. ❜ ❨226❩ ❛ Evil to some is always good to others. ❜ ❨227❩ ❛ I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. ❜ ❨228❩ ❛ She is loveliness itself. ❜ ❨229❩ ❛ Time does not compose me. ❜ ❨230❩ ❛ A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her. ❜ ❨231❩ ❛ I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice. ❜ ❨232❩ ❛ I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be any more. ❜ ❨233❩ ❛ I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment. ❜ ❨234❩ ❛ I examined my own heart. And there you were. Never, I fear, to be removed. ❜ ❨235❩ ❛ With all your little faults, you are an excellent creature. ❜ ❨236❩ ❛ You have another long walk before you. ❜ ❨237❩ ❛ The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown. ❜ ❨238❩ ❛ What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? ❜ ❨239❩ ❛ Out of the frying pan into the fire! ❜ ❨240❩ ❛ We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity. ❜ ❨241❩ ❛ She sleeps. And now she wakes each day a little less. ❜ ❨242❩ ❛ And, oh, God . . . how frequently I weep! ❜ ❨243❩ ❛ From the coffin of your madness there is no escape. ❜ ❨244❩ ❛ I am feeling supernatural tonight. I want to eat diamonds. ❜ ❨245❩ ❛ All the same there is a chance that if we keep on shaking our chains, one day, some day, the clasps upon the shackles will part. ❜ ❨246❩ ❛ It was sad music fit to make you cut your throat. ❜ ❨247❩ ❛ Nothing is more boring than being forced to play. ❜ ❨248❩ ❛ Amongst the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest? ❜ ❨249❩ ❛ Wherein does a woman’s honour reside? In her vagina or in her spirit? ❜ ❨250❩ ❛ Perhaps...I could not be content with mere contentment! ❜ ❨251❩ ❛ Have you ever stared stark failure in the face? The trick is to outstare it. ❜ ❨252❩ ❛ Sometimes it seems that the faces exist of themselves, in a disembodied somewhere, waiting for the one who will wear them, who will bring them to life. ❜ ❨253❩ ❛ I have the febrile gaiety of a being without a past, without a present, yet I exist. ❜ ❨254❩ ❛ I felt myself turning, willy-nilly, from a woman into an idea. ❜ ❨255❩ ❛ She looks wonderful, but she doesn't look right. ❜ ❨256❩ ❛ The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind. ❜ ❨257❩ ❛ I raised you up to fly to the heavens, not to brood over a clutch of eggs! ❜ ❨258❩ ❛ I love to hear my bones rattle. That’s how I know I’m alive. ❜ ❨259❩ ❛ I learnt, first, as the birds do, from the birds. ❜ ❨260❩ ❛ Inside and outside match exactly, but both are badly wrong. ❜ ❨261❩ ❛ During the less-than-blink of time it took the last chime to die, there came a vertiginous sensation. ❜ ❨262❩ ❛ I fear a wound not of the body but the soul, an irreconcilable division between myself and the rest of humankind. ❜ ❨263❩ ❛ I fear the proof of my own singularity. ❜ ❨264❩ ❛ Still nothing could calm the fearful storm in my erupting skin. ❜ ❨265❩ ❛ Petersburg, loveliest of all hallucinations. ❜ ❨266❩ ❛ A breathless second between black forest and the frozen sea. ❜ ❨267❩ ❛ I'm beginning to feel totally cut off from the world. ❜ ❨268❩ ❛ What does this all mean? Where are we? ❜ ❨269❩ ❛ Sometimes I bleed. ❜ ❨270❩ ❛ If you see a ghost, you say "hello". ❜ ❨271❩ ❛ The war is not over. ❜ ❨272❩ ❛ You're not going. You left us once already. ❜ ❨273❩ ❛ You can’t go! ❜ ❨274❩ ❛ I loved you, but that wasn't enough, was it? ❜ ❨275❩ ❛ If you're dead, then leave me in peace. ❜ ❨276❩ ❛ The only thing that moves here is the light, but it changes everything. ❜ ❨277❩ ❛ I won't ask for forgiveness for something I didn't do! ❜ ❨278❩ ❛ Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead. ❜ ❨279❩ ❛ Death of a loved one can lead people to do the strangest things. ❜ ❨280❩ ❛ Sooner or later, they will find you. ❜ ❨281❩ ❛ They're everywhere - they say this house is theirs. ❜ ❨282❩ ❛ You're always teasing me, and telling lies. I'm sick of it. ❜ ❨283❩ ❛ Others will come. Sometimes we'll sense them. Other times, we won't. ❜ ❨284❩ ❛ No crying now. No crying. Stop that. Here. Look what an awful face you've got when you cry. ❜ ❨285❩ ❛ You listen to me. I've seen them too. ❜ ❨286❩ ❛ You'll see. There are going to be some big surprises. There are going to be... changes. ❜ ❨287❩ ❛ Why did you go and fight that stupid war that had nothing to do with us? Why didn't you stay like the others did? ❜ ❨288❩ ❛ Your place was here with your family. ❜ ❨289❩ ❛ So you say you know this house well? ❜ ❨290❩ ❛ I wasn't expecting you so soon. ❜ ❨291❩ ❛ What's the matter? Has the cat got your tongue? ❜ ❨292❩ ❛ You mean they just vanished? Into thin air? ❜ ❨293❩ ❛ No door must be opened without the previous one being closed first. ❜ ❨294❩ ❛ Here, most of the time, you can hardly see your way. ❜ ❨295❩ ❛ Whatever you do, don't open the curtains. ❜ ❨296❩ ❛ Now, come on. Eyes closed. ❜ ❨297❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. ❜ ❨298❩ ❛ By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨299❩ ❛ I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. ❜ ❨300❩ ❛ And the reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨301❩ ❛ Love does not exist, it's like religion, made to control you. ❜ ❨302❩ ❛ After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. ❜ ❨303❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨304❩ ❛ Everything in the street today seems soft focus. ❜ ❨305❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low. ❜ ❨306❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin’ miles off the pace. ❜ ❨307❩ ❛ It’s as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the way things are in a dream. ❜ ❨308❩ ❛ It’s all okay, it’s all beautiful; but I fear that this internal sea is going to subside soon, leaving this poisonous shite washed up, stranded up in my body. ❜ ❨309❩ ❛ It cuts me up. It confuses me. ❜ ❨310❩ ❛ It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. ❜ ❨311❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨312❩ ❛ They mean well, and they mean well to me, but there's no way under the sun that they can appreciate what I feel, what I need. ❜ ❨313❩ ❛ The pit of melancholy is a bottomless one, and I am descending fast. ❜ ❨314❩ ❛ Living like this is a full-time business. ❜ ❨315❩ ❛ I’ll stand or fall alone. ❜ ❨316❩ ❛ We are no wiser now than at the start. ❜ ❨317❩ ❛ This is pathetic, and fucking boring. ❜ ❨318❩ ❛ Death is usually a process, rather than an event. ❜ ❨319❩ ❛ We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? ❜ ❨320❩ ❛ We are all acquaintances now. ❜ ❨321❩ ❛ The problem is that this beautiful ocean carries with it loads of poisonous flotsam and jetsam. ❜ ❨322❩ ❛ Life is beautiful. I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm going to have a long life. ❜ ❨323❩ ❛ The grim reality of impending death can be talked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. ❜ ❨324❩ ❛ There must be more to life than this. ❜ ��325❩ ❛ We all see what we want to see. ❜ ❨326❩ ❛ Statistically speaking, you're more likely to be killed by a member of your own family or a close friend, than by anyone else. ❜ ❨327❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨328❩ ❛ Maybe that's what love is: it's being pissed off. ❜ ❨329❩ ❛ You can forget who you are if you're alone too much. ❜ ❨330❩ ❛ Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God. ❜ ❨331❩ ❛ Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly.  ❜ ❨332❩ ❛ We must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing. ❜ ❨333❩ ❛ Everyone wants to feel like a princess, and princesses are selfish and overbearing. ❜ ❨334❩ ❛ We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young. ❜ ❨335❩ ❛ How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it. ❜ ❨336❩ ❛ Amazing how the heart clutches at anything familiar, whimpering: Mine! Mine! ❜ ❨337❩ ❛ All creatures know that some must die ; that all the rest may take and eat. ❜ ❨338❩ ❛ Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? ❜ ❨339❩ ❛ Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance. ❜ ❨340❩ ❛ Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy? ❜ ❨341❩ ❛ Love is useless, it leads you into dumb exchanges in which you give too much away, and then you get bitter and mean. ❜ ❨342❩ ❛ Maybe sadness is a kind of hunger. Maybe the two go together. ❜ ❨343❩ ❛ Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody -- a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules. ❜ ❨344❩ ❛ If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time. ❜ ❨345❩ ❛ You couldn’t leave words lying around where our enemies might find them. ❜ ❨346❩ ❛ I'm fine, for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in. ❜ ❨347❩ ❛ Because if you can't wish, why bother? ❜ ❨348❩ ❛ It's better to hope than mope! ❜ ❨349❩ ❛ Reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows. ❜ ❨350❩ ❛ In any case, time is not a thing that passes, it’s a sea on which you float. ❜ ❨351❩ ❛ I know I’m deceiving myself, but I prefer to deceive myself. I desperately need to believe such pure joy is still possible. ❜ ❨352❩ ❛ Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered. ❜ ❨353❩ ❛ Behind my eyelids I saw an animal. It was golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned. ❜ ❨354❩ ❛ ‘Why can't I believe?’ I asked the darkness. ❜ ❨355❩ ❛ Everyone’s too sad for everything. ❜ ❨356❩ ❛ If you can’t stop the waves, go sailing. ❜ ❨357❩ ❛ I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. ❜ ❨358❩ ❛ Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. ❜ ❨359❩ ❛ In the end, we'll all become stories. ❜ ❨360❩ ❛ I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. ❜ ❨361❩ ❛ If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. ❜ ❨362❩ ❛ If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. ❜ ❨363❩ ❛ Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. ❜ ❨364❩ ❛ Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been. ❜ ❨365❩ ❛ Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? ❜ ❨366❩ ❛ We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. ❜ ❨367❩ ❛ If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon? ❜ ❨368❩ ❛ You fit into me like a hook into an eye. ❜ ❨369❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened. ❜ ❨370❩ ❛ Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. ❜ ❨371❩ ❛ Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. ❜ ❨372❩ ❛ This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons. ❜ ❨373❩ ❛ Get rid of death. Make it be spring. ❜ ❨374❩ ❛ You are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets. ❜ ❨375❩ ❛ I am the space you desecrate as you pass through. ❜ ❨376❩ ❛ Favour me and give me riches, destroy my enemies. Save me from death. ❜ ❨377❩ ❛ She is a raw voice loose in the rooms beneath me. ❜ ❨378❩ ❛ Isn't the moon warm enough for you, why do you need the blanket of another body? ❜ ❨379❩ ❛ This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn. ❜ ❨380❩ ❛ If you look long enough eventually you will see me. ❜ ❨381❩ ❛ I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head. ❜ ❨382❩ ❛ I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief. ❜ ❨383❩ ❛ But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling. ❜ ❨384❩ ❛ How else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin? ❜ ❨385❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨386❩ ❛ Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. ❜ ❨387❩ ❛ We loved with a love that was more than love. ❜ ❨388❩ ❛ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ❜ ❨389❩ ❛ The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ❜ ❨390❩ ❛ There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion. ❜ ❨391❩ ❛ Never to suffer would never to have been blessed. ❜ ❨392❩ ❛ Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. ❜ ❨393❩ ❛ And all I loved, I loved alone. ❜ ❨394❩ ❛ Years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute. ❜ ❨395❩ ❛ The best things in life make you sweaty. ❜ ❨396❩ ❛ There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. ❜ ❨397❩ ❛ Anything is better than this agony. ❜ ❨398❩ ❛ You fancy me mad. ❜ ❨399❩ ❛ I hear all things in the heaven and in the earth. ❜ ❨400❩ ❛ Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? ❜ ❨401❩ ❛ Leave my loneliness unbroken! ❜ ❨402❩ ❛ A more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrills every fibre of my frame. ❜ ❨403❩ ❛ The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. ❜ ❨404❩ ❛ Let my heart be still a moment. ❜ ❨405❩ ❛ You call it hope —  It is but agony of desire. ❜ ❨406❩ ❛ Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? ❜ ❨407❩ ❛ To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! ❜ ❨408❩ ❛ The beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. ❜ ❨409❩ ❛ Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. ❜ ❨410❩ ❛ I have been happy, though in a dream. ❜ ❨411❩ ❛ Nevermore. ❜ ❨412❩ ❛ The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life. ❜ ❨413❩ ❛ I am convinced that every thing is going wrong. ❜ ❨414❩ ❛ The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls. ❜ ❨415❩ ❛ And if I died, at least I will have died for you! ❜ ❨416❩ ❛ It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. ❜ ❨417❩ ❛ Hurt and humiliation — But this, I can not take. ❜ ❨418❩ ❛ The walls in there have ears. ❜ ❨419❩ ❛ This is for your ears only. ❜ ❨420❩ ❛ What is it? You have me scared. ❜ ❨421❩ ❛ Whoever isn’t for us, is against us. ❜ ❨422❩ ❛ You are just a body; to be dumped, disposed of like a carcass, left out for the birds to feed on. ❜ ❨423❩ ❛ The dead will have to forgive me. ❜ ❨424❩ ❛ From now on and no matter how your mind may I change, I will not accept your help. ❜ ❨425❩ ❛ If death comes, so be it. There will be glory in it. ❜ ❨426❩ ❛ Live, then; and live with your choice. ❜ ❨427❩ ❛ I am doing what has to be done. ❜ ❨428❩ ❛ Nothing is going to stop the ones that love you from keeping on loving you. ❜ ❨429❩ ❛ Worst is the man who has all the good advice, and then because his nerve fails, fails to act in accordance with it, as a leader should. ❜ ❨430❩ ❛ Only a loony would walk himself into this. ❜ ❨431❩ ❛ Why do you need such fences and defences? ❜ ❨432❩ ❛ Enough. Do not anger me. ❜ ❨433❩ ❛ The gods, you think, will side with the likes of him? ❜ ❨434❩ ❛ Watch it. You are over stepping. ❜ ❨435❩ ❛ I warn you. You should keep a civil tongue. ❜ ❨436❩ ❛ There is no such thing as an oath the can not be broken. ❜ ❨437❩ ❛ Every now and then, the things you’d hardly let yourself imagine, actually happen. ❜ ❨438❩ ❛ And you stand over this? This is the truth? ❜ ❨439❩ ❛ The bigger the resistance, the bigger the collapse. ❜ ❨440❩ ❛ Iron that’s forged the hardest, snaps the quickest. ❜ ❨441❩ ❛ Even the wildest horses come to heel when they are reined & bitted right. ❜ ❨442❩ ❛ That’s how guilt affects some people. They break and everything comes out. ❜ ❨443❩ ❛ Will it be enough for you? To see me executed? ❜ ❨444❩ ❛ So you know something no one else knows? ❜ ❨445❩ ❛ They know it too. They are just too afraid to say it. ❜ ❨446❩ ❛ If you die, how will I keep on living? ❜ ❨447❩ ❛ There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'. ❜ ❨448❩ ❛ How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. ❜ ❨449❩ ❛ Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body. ❜ ❨450❩ ❛ I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me. ❜ ❨451❩ ❛ For this moment, this one moment, we are together.  ❜ ❨452❩ ❛ Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. ❜ ❨453❩ ❛ I am as neat as a cat in my habits. ❜ ❨454❩ ❛ Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me. ❜ ❨455❩ ❛ I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room. ❜ ❨456❩ ❛ We are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe ❨457❩ that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie ❨458❩ asleep. ❜ ❨459❩ ❛ These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom. ❜ ❨460❩ ❛ Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. ❜ ❨461❩ ❛ The moment is all; the moment is enough. ❜ ❨462❩ ❛ I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given. ❜ ❨463❩ ❛ I am not one and simple, but complex and many. ❜ ❨464❩ ❛ And if you are dead, I shall weep. ❜ ❨465❩ ❛ But beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful. ❜ ❨466❩ ❛ But our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love. ❜ ❨467❩ ❛ I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams. ❜ ❨468❩ ❛ Life is a dream surely. ❜ ❨469❩ ❛ I think sometimes I am not a woman, but the light that falls on this gate, on this ground. I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn. ❜ ❨470❩ ❛ Oh, I am in love with life! ❜ ❨471❩ ❛ I have been knotted; I have been torn apart. ❜ ❨472❩ ❛ There was no freedom in life, and certainly there was none in death. ❜ ❨473❩ ❛ I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am. ❜ ❨474❩ ❛ I ride rough waters, and shall sink with no one to save me. ❜ ❨475❩ ❛ I am above the earth now. I am no longer upright, to be knocked against and damaged. ❜ ❨476❩ ❛ I see it all. I feel it all. ❜ ❨477❩ ❛ Death is woven in with the violets. Death and again death. ❜ ❨478❩ ❛ We have been walking for hours it seems. But where? I cannot remember. ❜ ❨479❩ ❛ If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged. ❜ ❨480❩ ❛ When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass. ❜ ❨481❩ ❛ Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word; - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase.  ❜ ❨482❩ ❛ Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor. ❜ ❨483❩ ❛ If the world treats you well, you come to believe you are deserving of it. ❜ ❨484❩ ❛ If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go. ❜ ❨485❩ ❛ It’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength. ❜ ❨486❩ ❛ There is no fool like an educated fool. ❜ ❨487❩ ❛ There are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. ❜ ❨488❩ ❛ I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened. ❜ ❨489❩ ❛ Underneath it all is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. ❜ ❨490❩ ❛ And underneath all that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but ripe and splitting open of its own accord.  ❜ ❨491❩ ❛ The small details of life often hide a great significance. ❜ ❨492❩ ❛ Guilt comes to you not from the things you've done, but from the things that others have done to you. ❜ ❨493❩ ❛ I wonder, how can I be all of these different things at once? ❜ ❨494❩ ❛ It is always a mistake to curse back openly at those who are stronger than you unless there is a fence between. ❜ ❨495❩ ❛ Some call this "Eve's curse," but I think that is stupid because the real curse of Eve was having to put up with the nonsense of Adam. ❜ ❨496❩ ❛ I don't know why they are all so eager to be remembered. What good will it do them? There are some things that should be forgotten by everyone, and never spoken of again. ❜ ❨497❩ ❛ I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely. ❜ ❨498❩ ❛ If they want a monster so badly they ought to be provided by one. ❜ ❨499❩ ❛ It’s as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks. And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent. ❜ ❨500❩ ❛ Today you wear your habitual expression of strained anxiety; you smell of violets. ❜ ❨501❩ ❛ Of course you have always been an idealist, and filled with your optimistic dreams; but reality must at some time obtrude. ❜ ❨502❩ ❛ I wonder what would become of me, and comfort myself that in a hundred years I will be dead and at peace. ❜ ❨503❩ ❛ For it is not always the one that strikes the blow that is the actual murderer. ❜ ❨504❩ ❛ There is a “do this” or “do that” with God, but not any “because”. ❜ ❨505❩ ❛ If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything. ❜ ❨506❩ ❛ They say, why don’t you ever smile or laugh, we never see you smiling, and I say I suppose I have gotten out of the way of it, my face won’t bend in that direction any more. ❜ ❨507❩ ❛ I was shut up inside that doll of myself, and my true voice could not get out. ❜ ❨508❩ ❛ I see what you’re after. You are a collector. You think all you have to do is give me an apple, and then you can collect me. ❜ ❨509❩ ❛ If you want to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before you have made the same life choice. ❜ ❨510❩ ❛ Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo. ❜ ❨511❩ ❛ Nature is to zoos as God is to churches. ❜ ❨512❩ ❛ After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? ❜ ❨513❩ ❛ There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive. ❜ ❨514❩ ❛ These things sneak up on me for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency. ❜ ❨515❩ ❛ Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast. ❜ ❨516❩ ❛ You can’t buy it, but it has a price. Everything has a price. ❜ ❨517❩ ❛ As a species were doomed by hope, then? You could call it hope. That, or desperation. ❜ ❨518❩ ❛ I am not my childhood. ❜ ❨519❩ ❛ Human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else and live on forever. ❜ ❨520❩ ❛ “I'll make you mine”, lovers said in old books. They never said, “I'll make you me.” ❜ ❨521❩ ❛ How much is too much, how far is too far? ❜ ❨522❩ ❛ Expectation isn't the same as desire. ❜ ❨523❩ ❛ Why not cut to the chase? ❜ ❨524❩ ❛ Maybe there aren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. ❜ ❨525❩ ❛ I thought you didn’t believe in God. ❜ ❨526❩ ❛ I need at least the illusion of being understood. ❜ ❨527❩ ❛ What change would have altered the course of events? In the big picture, nothing. In the small picture, so much. ❜ ❨528❩ ❛ You are only looking at the dirt under your feet. It's not good for you. ❜ ❨529❩ ❛ I like to keep only the bright side of myself turned towards you.  ❜ ❨530❩ ❛ Grief in the face of inevitable death. The wish to stop time. The human condition. ❜ ❨531❩ ❛ So many crucial events take place behind people’s backs, when they aren’t in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance. ❜ ❨532❩ ❛ Would you kill someone you loved to spare them pain? ❜ ❨533❩ ❛ When the water’s moving faster than the boat, you can’t control a thing. ❜ ❨534❩ ❛ Don't be so fucking sentimental. ❜ ❨535❩ ❛ Wrong, as usual. ❜ ❨536❩ ❛ Why do you want to talk about ugly things? ❜ ❨537❩ ❛ I understand why serial killers send helpful clues to the police. ❜ ❨538❩ ❛ Take your time, leave mine alone. ❜ ❨539❩ ❛ You will hear thunder and remember me. ❜ ❨540❩ ❛ If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly. ❜ ❨541❩ ❛ I seem to myself an accidental guest in this dreadful body. ❜ ❨542❩ ❛ Call me a sinner, mock me maliciously. ❜ ❨543❩ ❛ I, from the very beginning, seemed to myself like someone's dream or delirium. Or a reflection in someone else's mirror. Without flesh, without meaning, without a name. ❜ ❨544❩ ❛ I knew the list of crimes that I was destined to commit. ❜ ❨545❩ ❛ The future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future. ❜ ❨546❩ ❛ You are untranslatable into any one tongue. ❜ ❨547❩ ❛ I was hoping my silence would fit yours. ❜ ❨548❩ ❛ See, we were never about butterflies. All about us is unearthly and radiant. ❜ ❨549❩ ❛ You do not know just what you've been forgiven. ❜ ❨550❩ ❛ I need to slaughter my memory.  ❜ ❨551❩ ❛ Forgive me that I appeared to you in waking dreams. ❜ ❨552❩ ❛ I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy. ❜ ❨553❩ ❛ I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death. ❜ ❨554❩ ❛ Wild honey smells of freedom. But gold smells of nothing. ❜ ❨555❩ ❛ You are three times more beautiful than angels. ❜ ❨556❩ ❛ I will kill you without spilling your blood on the ground, not touching you with my hand, not giving you one glance. ❜ ❨557❩ ❛ You invented me. There is no such earthly being. ❜ ❨558❩ ❛ You’re late. Way too late. I’m glad to see you, nonetheless. ❜ ❨559❩ ❛ Forgive me that I felt forsaken. Forgive me that I kept mistaking too many others for you. ❜ ❨560❩ ❛ Real tenderness can’t be confused, it’s quiet and can’t be heard. ❜ ❨561❩ ❛ What else lived in that house besides us? ❜ ❨562❩ ❛ How unhappy we are together! ❜ ❨563❩ ❛ I defend not my voice, but my silence. ❜ ❨564❩ ❛ Without love, I'm more at ease, I'm sure. ❜ ❨565❩ ❛ I've got no more tears or explanations. ❜ ❨566❩ ❛ I’m not complaining. Happiness is not for me. ❜ ❨567❩ ❛ Are you not the only tie between good and evil, earthly pits and paradise? ❜ ❨568❩ ❛ In the morning we shall find out who has died in the night. ❜ ❨569❩ ❛ I was not a lovable child, and I've grown into a deeply unlovable adult. ❜ ❨570❩ ❛ The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it. ❜ ❨571❩ ❛ I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark. ❜ ❨572❩ ❛ I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple. ❜ ❨573❩ ❛ I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way. ❜ ❨574❩ ❛ I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there - hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen. But the meanness usually wins out. ❜ ❨575❩ ❛ I felt something loosen in me, that shouldn't have loosened. A stitch come undone. ❜ ❨576❩ ❛ Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it. ❜ ❨577❩ ❛ Coffee goes great with sudden death. ❜ ❨578❩ ❛ I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite. ❜ ❨579❩ ❛ “Smile, it can't be that bad!” Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad. ❜ ❨580❩ ❛ Everything bad in the world already did happen. ❜ ❨581❩ ❛ You’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? ❜ ❨582❩ ❛ Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened. ❜ ❨583❩ ❛ Homesick for a place I've never been. ❜ ❨584❩ ❛ Worries find you easily enough without inviting them. ❜ ❨585❩ ❛ It is always consoling to think of suicide. It's what gets one through many a bad night. ❜ ❨586❩ ❛ Do you understand this is serious? ❜ ❨587❩ ❛ Sometimes it feels good to fuck with something. Instead of always being fucked with. ❜ ❨588❩ ❛ How could you kill something you cared enough to name? ❜ ❨589❩ ❛ Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs. ❜ ❨590❩ ❛ We have the same chemicals in our blood: shame, anger, greed. Unjustified nostalgia. ❜ ❨591❩ ❛ I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. ❜ ❨592❩ ❛ The phrase fuck you may not rest on the tip of my tongue, but it’s near. Midtongue. ❜ ❨593❩ ❛ Nothing to it but to do it. ❜ ❨594❩ ❛ There are a lot of people who deserve a lesson, deserve to really understand, that nothing comes easy, that most things are going to go sour. ❜ ❨595❩ ❛ If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we’d all have a very Merry Christmas. ❜ ❨596❩ ❛ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. ❜ ❨597❩ ❛ What does it do to a girl who knows her mother is a murderer? ❜ ❨598❩ ❛ That mean old bitch across the street bit it. ❜ ❨599❩ ❛ Survival is a talent. ❜ ❨600❩ ❛ Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. ❜ ❨601❩ ❛ Who has the courage to burn themselves? ❜ ❨602❩ ❛ Is insanity just a matter of dropping the act? ❜ ❨603❩ ❛ Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? ❜ ❨604❩ ❛ You need to be well fed, clothed, and housed to have time for this much self-pity. ❜ ❨605❩ ❛ When I am supposed to be awake, I am asleep; when I am supposed to speak, I am silent. When a pleasure offers itself to me, I avoid it. ❜ ❨606❩ ❛ There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. ❜ ❨607❩ ❛ In a strange way we are free. We've reached the end of the line. We have nothing more to lose. ❜ ❨608❩ ❛ The world won’t stop because we aren’t in it anymore. ❜ ❨609❩ ❛ I can't answer the real question. All I can tell you is, it's easy. ❜ ❨610❩ ❛ I am lighter, airier than I’ve been in years. ❜ ❨611❩ ❛ I am not dead, yet something in me definitely is. ❜ ❨612❩ ❛ You meant that as an insult but I am taking it as a compliment. ❜ ❨613❩ ❛ What life can recover from that? ❜ ❨614❩ ❛ It's a fairly accurate portrait of me. It's accurate but it isn't profound. ❜ ❨615❩ ❛ Pull yourself together! There's nothing wrong with you. ❜ ❨616❩ ❛ It's quiet. It's like― I don't know. It's like falling off a cliff. ❜ ❨617❩ ❛ Once you start parsing a face, it's a peculiar item: squishy, pointy, with lots of air vents and wet spots. ❜ ❨618❩ ❛ I lost him. I did it on purpose. ❜ ❨619❩ ❛ It’s a mean world. There’s nobody to take care of you out there. ❜ ❨620❩ ❛ Reality is getting too dense. ❜ ❨621❩ ❛ I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favourite word. ❜ ❨622❩ ❛ I can't come up with reassuring answers to the terrible questions you raise. ❜ ❨623❩ ❛ A spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. ❜ ❨624❩ ❛ Twenty-five chocolate chip cookies would be the perfect dinner. ❜ ❨625❩ ❛ A thought is a hard thing to control. ❜ ❨626❩ ❛ Life demands skills I don’t have. ❜ ❨627❩ ❛ Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful. Most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them. ❜ ❨628❩ ❛ It never stops, even at night, it’s my lullaby. ❜ ❨629❩ ❛ Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. ❜ ❨630❩ ❛ This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes. ❜ ❨631❩ ❛ I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. ❜ ❨632❩ ❛ Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. ❜ ❨633❩ ❛ Hatred is easier. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love. ❜ ❨634❩ ❛ Potential has a shelf life. ❜ ❨635❩ ❛ Don’t move. Stay like that, let me have that. ❜ ❨636❩ ❛ I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over. ❜ ❨637❩ ❛ Never pray for justice, because you might get some. ❜ ❨638❩ ❛ It disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. ❜ ❨639❩ ❛ We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. ❜ ❨640❩ ❛ This is what I miss, not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. ❜ ❨641❩ ❛ I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly. ❜ ❨642❩ ❛ You are amazing. Amazing and agonising and almost lethal. ❜ ❨643❩ ❛ In my dreams of this city I am always lost. ❜ ❨644❩ ❛ I don't know where these feelings have come from, I don’t know what I've done. ❜ ❨645❩ ❛ I am not the centre of your story, you are.  ❜ ❨646❩ ❛ I’m mad because you’re an asshole. ❜ ❨647❩ ❛ It's enormously pleasing to me, walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will. ❜ ❨648❩ ❛ There is never only one of anyone. ❜ ❨649❩ ❛ I can't do this without feeling I'm acting. ❜ ❨650❩ ❛ I am prepared for almost anything; except absence, except silence. ❜ ❨651❩ ❛ I’m losing my appetite for strangers. ❜ ❨652❩ ❛ You wear your cravings on the outside, like the suckers on a squid. You want it all. ❜ ❨653❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people weakens you. You are forced to understand their reasons for doing things. ❜ ❨654❩ ❛ I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now. ❜ ❨655❩ ❛ Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing. It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by. ❜ ❨656❩ ❛ Whoever cares the most will lose. ❜ ❨657❩ ❛ Young women need unfairness, it’s one of their few defences.  ❜ ❨658❩ ❛ Time has gone on without you. ❜ ❨659❩ ❛ Don't let the bastards grind you down. ❜ ❨660❩ ❛ Who can remember pain, once it’s over? Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind. ❜ ❨661❩ ❛ Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some. ❜ ❨662❩ ❛ There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. ❜ ❨663❩ ❛ Remember that forgiveness too is a power. ❜ ❨664❩ ❛ I am not your justification for existence. ❜ ❨665❩ ❛ I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. ❜ ❨666❩ ❛ If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. ❜ ❨667❩ ❛ All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard. ❜ ❨668❩ ❛ Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. ❜ ❨669❩ ❛ I want everything back, the way it was. ❜ ❨670❩ ❛ You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave. ❜ ❨671❩ ❛ Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. ❜ ❨672❩ ❛ To want is to have a weakness. ❜ ❨673❩ ❛ There isn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. ❜ ❨674❩ ❛ The past is a great darkness, filled with echoes. ❜ ❨675❩ ❛ Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. ❜ ❨676❩ ❛ I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised. I wish it showed me in a better light. ❜ ❨677❩ ❛ The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. ❜ ❨678❩ ❛ By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you. ❜ ❨679❩ ❛ Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard. ❜ ❨680❩ ❛ Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. ❜ ❨681❩ ❛ Keep the others safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. ❜ ❨682❩ ❛ The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish, drying on sand. ❜ ❨683❩ ❛ The world is full of weapons if you're looking for them. ❜ ❨684❩ ❛ Nobody's heart is perfect. ❜ ❨685❩ ❛ One false move and I'm dead. ❜ ❨686❩ ❛ Watch out. I've got my eye on you. ❜ ❨687❩ ❛ Fear is a powerful stimulant. ❜ ❨688❩ ❛ I couldn't afford to lose you. ❜ ❨689❩ ❛ Name one hero who was happy. ---- You can’t. ❜ ❨690❩ ❛ I feel like I could eat the world raw. ❜ ❨691❩ ❛ We are like gods at the dawning of the world. ❜ ❨692❩ ❛ I could recognise him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. ❜ ❨693❩ ❛ There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw. ❜ ❨694❩ ❛ You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature. ❜ ❨695❩ ❛ He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. ❜ ❨696❩ ❛ Some men gain glory after they die, others fade. ❜ ❨697❩ ❛ I am made of memories. ❜ ❨698❩ ❛ Will you come with me? ❜ ❨699❩ ❛ I wish I had let you all die. ❜ ❨700❩ ❛ It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after. ❜ ❨701❩ ❛ Bury us. Let us be free. ❜ ❨702❩ ❛ Go. He waits for you. ❜ ❨703❩ ❛ Nothing could eclipse the stain of this dirty, mortal mediocrity. ❜ ❨704❩ ❛ I know I have told you of this. ❜ ❨705❩ ❛ I don't know how you remember them all. I swear they look the same to me. ❜ ❨706❩ ❛ Perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don’t fucking kill myself of boredom. ❜ ❨707❩ ❛ I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest. ❜ ❨708❩ ❛ There is no honour in betraying your friends. ❜ ❨709❩ ❛ There is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong. ❜ ❨710❩ ❛ Divine blood flows differently. ❜ ❨711❩ ❛ How is there glory in taking life? We die so easily. ❜ ❨712❩ ❛ This is what I will miss, I think. I will kill myself rather than miss it. ❜ ❨713❩ ❛ How long do we have? ❜ ❨714❩ ❛ Do you think we fight hopeless wars? ❜ ❨715❩ ❛ There is no law that gods must be fair. ❜ ❨716❩ ❛ I do not fear ridicule. I never have. ❜ ❨717❩ ❛ You were always better with words than I. ❜ ❨718❩ ❛ Who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? ❜ ❨719❩ ❛ When you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. ❜ ❨720❩ ❛ That's how the madness of the world tries to colonise you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. ❜ ❨721❩ ❛ The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear. ❜ ❨722❩ ❛ Silence creates violence. ❜ ❨723❩ ❛ Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough. ❜ ❨724❩ ❛ There are certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of it inside you. ❜ ❨725❩ ❛ Nothing that ever lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth. ❜ ❨726❩ ❛ We all live in a kind of continuous dream. ❜ ❨727❩ ❛ You can either waste time worrying about a death that might not come or concentrate on what’s left to you. ❜ ❨728❩ ❛ What can you do when your five senses are not enough? ❜ ❨729❩ ❛ We will neither be what we had been nor what we would become once we reach our destination. ❜ ❨730❩ ❛ Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable. ❜ ❨731❩ ❛ When you are too close to the centre of a mystery there is no way to pull back. ❜ ❨732❩ ❛ I long ago stopped believing in promises. Biological imperatives, yes. Environmental factors, yes. Promises, no. ❜ ❨733❩ ❛ I look not for shooting stars but for fixed ones, and I try to imagine what kind of life lives in those celestial tidal pools so far from us. ❜ ❨734❩ ❛ I hesitated for just a moment. Some part of me wanted to see the creature, I think. If so, it was a very small part. I ran. ❜ ❨735❩ ❛ I don’t require any of this to have a deeper meaning. ❜ ❨736❩ ❛ All of this speculation is incomplete, inexact, inaccurate, useless. ❜ ❨737❩ ❛ We don’t have real answers, because we still don’t know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish. ❜ ❨738❩ ❛ This part I will do alone. Don’t follow. ❜ ❨739❩ ❛ People my entire life have told me I am too much in control, but that has never been the case. I have never truly been in control. ❜ ❨740❩ ❛ Has there always been someone like me to bury the bodies, to have regrets, to carry on after everyone else was dead? ❜ ❨741❩ ❛ I loved them, but I didn’t need them, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. ❜ ❨742❩ ❛ Places can impress themselves upon me, and I can become part of them with ease. ❜ ❨743❩ ❛ There is no one with me. I am all by myself. ❜ ❨744❩ ❛ Pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic. ❜ ❨745❩ ❛ I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction, and they're very different. Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct. ❜ ❨746❩ ❛ What did you eat? You had rations for only two weeks. You were there for nearly four months. ❜ ❨747❩ ❛ Something here is making giant waves in the gene pool. ❜ ❨748❩ ❛ I need to know what’s inside. ❜ ❨749❩ ❛ These aren't decisions. They're impulses ❜ ❨750❩ ❛ What do you think I do when you’re away? Do you think I’m out in the garden pinning, looking up at the sky? ❜ ❨751❩ ❛ If I know what’s happened I can save their life. ❜ ❨752❩ ❛ They either went crazy or something in here killed them. ❜ ❨753❩ ❛ Something is coming through the fence! ❜ ❨754❩ ❛ Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny. ❜ ❨755❩ ❛ People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. ❜ ❨756❩ ❛ Happy endings are still endings. ❜ ❨757❩ ❛ We believe in all sorts of things that aren't true; -- we call it history. ❜ ❨758❩ ❛ Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? ❜ ❨759❩ ❛ In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realise it is far more common for men to turn into rats. ❜ ❨760❩ ❛ Girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise.  ❜ ❨761❩ ❛ Love makes hunters of us all. ❜ ❨762❩ ❛ There is much to hate in this world and way too much to love. ❜ ❨763❩ ❛ You confuse not speaking with not listening. ❜ ❨764❩ ❛ As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. ❜ ❨765❩ ❛ The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say. ❜ ❨766❩ ❛ Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. ❜ ❨767❩ ❛ We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. ❜ ❨768❩ ❛ The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness. ❜ ❨769❩ ❛ I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! ❜ ❨770❩ ❛ Even at the very worst - there is always choice. ❜ ❨771❩ ❛ Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it. ❜ ❨772❩ ❛ Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on -- or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the entire universe is changed. ❜ ❨773❩ ❛ That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness. Life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same. ❜ ❨774❩ ❛ I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without. ❜ ❨775❩ ❛ It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new. ❜ ❨776❩ ❛ Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Always the godfather, never the god. ❜ ❨777❩ ❛ The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew. ❜ ❨778❩ ❛ Evil is an act, not an appetite. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal. ❜ ❨779❩ ❛ How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table?  ❜ ❨780❩ ❛ Even God used silence as a strategy. ❜ ❨781❩ ❛ I learned failure early and mastered it. ❜ ❨782❩ ❛ It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all. ❜ ❨783❩ ❛ This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is a very wicked distraction. ❜ ❨784❩ ❛ Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery. ❜ ❨785❩ ❛ Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience. ❜ ❨786❩ ❛ Such brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly. ❜ ❨787❩ ❛ I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can. ❜ ❨788❩ ❛ Tell me to mind my own business, tell me to go fuck myself, to piss off, go on, say it, but don’t tell me nothing’s wrong. ❜ ❨789❩ ❛ The truth isn't a thing of fact or reason. It is simply what everyone agrees on. ❜ ❨790❩ ❛ One can't make peace with another by force. ❜ ❨791❩ ❛ I am a forgettable leaf on a tree. ❜ ❨792❩ ❛ That's all I want; --- to do no harm. ❜ ❨793❩ ❛ I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is. ❜ ❨794❩ ❛ Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. ❜ ❨795❩ ❛ You’re too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and thanks to that we manage to endure the burden of the past. ❜ ❨796❩ ❛ Love, no matter what else it might be, is a natural talent. You are either born knowing how, or you never know. ❜ ❨797❩ ❛ Whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life. ❜ ❨798❩ ❛ There is no God worth worrying about. ❜ ❨799❩ ❛ The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love. ❜ ❨800❩ ❛ Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good. ❜ ❨801❩ ❛ Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the very end in itself. ❜ ❨802❩ ❛ Only God knows how much I love you. ❜ ❨803❩ ❛ There is no greater glory than to die for love. ❜ ❨804❩ ❛ Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies. ❜ ❨805❩ ❛ Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life. ❜ ❨806❩ ❛ Today, when I saw you, I realised that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion. ❜ ❨807❩ ❛ I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century. ❜ ❨808❩ ❛ I want to be myself again, to recover all that I was obliged to give up. ❜ ❨809❩ ❛ The only thing worse than bad health is a bad name. ❜ ❨810❩ ❛ This soup tastes like windows. ❜ ❨811❩ ❛ Why do you insist on talking about what does not exist? ❜ ❨812❩ ❛ One has to live a long time to know a man's true nature. ❜ ❨813❩ ❛ No, not rich, I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing. ❜ ❨814❩ ❛ My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse. ❜ ❨815❩ ❛ That may be the reason he does so many things, so that he will not have to think. ❜ ❨816❩ ❛ Love if it exists, is something separate: another life. ❜ ❨817❩ ❛ Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you. ❜ ❨818❩ ❛ There are things you do only for love. ❜ ❨819❩ ❛ I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I die. ❜ ❨820❩ ❛ There is no innocence more dangerous than the innocence of age. ❜ ❨821❩ ❛ You treat me as if I were just anybody. ❜ ❨822❩ ❛ The symptoms of love are the same as those of cholera. ❜ ❨823❩ ❛ There is no law, human or divine, that you have not ignored. ❜ ❨824❩ ❛ Why is it that I feel I've known you so many years? ❜ ❨825❩ ❛ Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. ❜ ❨826❩ ❛ It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. ❜ ❨827❩ ❛ We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real? ❜ ❨828❩ ❛ There must be something, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing. ❜ ❨829❩ ❛ If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. ❜ ❨830❩ ❛ If you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore. ❜ ❨831❩ ❛ You can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. ❜ ❨832❩ ❛ It was a pleasure to burn. ❜ ❨833❩ ❛ I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? ❜ ❨834❩ ❛ Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? ❜ ❨835❩ ❛ Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays? ❜ ❨836❩ ❛ Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? ❜ ❨837❩ ❛ I don't talk things. I talk the meaning of things. ❜ ❨838❩ ❛ I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning. ❜ ❨839❩ ❛ I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. ❜ ❨840❩ ❛ That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want. ❜ ❨841❩ ❛ Someday we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in it and cover it up. ❜ ❨842❩ ❛ You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. ❜ ❨843❩ ❛ You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. ❜ ❨844❩ ❛ When they give you lined paper, write the other way. ❜ ❨845❩ ❛ The sun burnt every day. It burnt time. ❜ ❨846❩ ❛ We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing. ❜ ❨847❩ ❛ I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago. ❜ ❨848❩ ❛ I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. ❜ ❨849❩ ❛ Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life! ❜ ❨850❩ ❛ How do you get so empty? Who takes it out of you? ❜ ❨851❩ ❛ It must be right. It seems so right. ❜ ❨852❩ ❛ To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. ❜ ❨853❩ ❛ It's my game. And no one can help me. Not even you. ❜ ❨854❩ ❛ What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. ❜ ❨855❩ ❛ Death is a long process. Your body is just the first part of you that croaks. Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. Your anger and memories must die. Your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope. ❜ ❨856❩ ❛ Help me give up my addiction to hope. ❜ ❨857❩ ❛ Life is short, death is forever. ❜ ❨858❩ ❛ Hope is something really tough and tenacious you have to give up. It’s an addiction to break. ❜ ❨859❩ ❛ If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes. ❜ ❨860❩ ❛ We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired. ❜ ❨861❩ ❛ All the demons of hell formerly reigned as gods in previous cultures. No it's not fair, but one man's god is another man's devil. ❜ ❨862❩ ❛ I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful. ❜ ❨863❩ ❛ It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities. ❜ ❨864❩ ❛ You fucked up. Game over. So just relax. ❜ ❨865❩ ❛ The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul. ❜ ❨866❩ ❛ If killing you will end my existence as well, be it. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. ❜ ❨867❩ ❛ I might be a touch of a sadist and a little bit jejune but at least I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. ❜ ❨868❩ ❛ Dying seems like the greatest weakness, and in a world where people say you're lazy for not shaving your legs, then being dead seems like the ultimate character flaw. ❜ ❨869❩ ❛ Any concept of right versus wrong, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. ❜ ❨870❩ ❛ To prove that I exist I must kill you. ❜ ❨871❩ ❛ I'd say that my life has been a way-too-long case history of chasing rainbows. ❜ ❨872❩ ❛ The world is a battle for attention, a war to be heard. ❜ ❨873❩ ❛ Every garden looks beautiful in May. ❜ ❨874❩ ❛ When we neglect to fear such brittle monstrosity, we render it powerless. ❜ ❨875❩ ❛ My taste for power continues to grow, as does my ability to accrue it. ❜ ❨876❩ ❛ Such language! Why don't you just take a dump in my ears? ❜ ❨877❩ ❛ You’d be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. ❜ ❨878❩ ❛ Depending on her mood, she can be more frightening than any demon or devil you might ever run across. ❜ ❨879❩ ❛ Cross your fingers! Maybe death won't happen to you. ❜ ❨880❩ ❛ Do not die while wearing cheap shoes. ❜ ❨881❩ ❛ Old habits die hard. ❜ ❨882❩ ❛ It's our attachments to a fixed identity that torture us. ❜ ❨883❩ ❛ What do I think I am? In a thousand words; I don't have a clue. ❨884❩ ❛ If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me. ❜ ❨885❩ ❛ All I wanted was to be loved for myself. ❜ ❨886❩ ❛ I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer. ❜ ❨887❩ ❛ Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? ❜ ❨888❩ ❛ You have a heart that can hold the entire empire of the world. ❜ ❨889❩ ❛ Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you. ❜ ❨890❩ ❛ Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. ❜ ❨891❩ ❛ You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! ❜ ❨892❩ ❛ Are people so unhappy when they love? --- Yes, when they love and are not sure of being loved. ❜ ❨893❩ ❛ Your soul is a beautiful thing. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight. ❜ ❨894❩ ❛ Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! ❜ ❨895❩ ❛ Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a life like everybody else. ❜ ❨896❩ ❛ You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. ❜ ❨897❩ ❛ I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased. ❜ ❨898❩ ❛ I am going to die of love, I am dying of love. That's how it is. I loved you so. I still love you so. ❜ ❨899❩ ❛ I am dying of love for her, I tell you! If only you knew how beautiful she was when she let me kiss her. ❜ ❨900❩ ❛ He fills me with horror but I do not hate him. How can I hate him? ❜ ❨901❩ ❛ Holy angel, in Heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest. ❜ ❨902❩ ❛ Nothing is colder or more dead than my heart. ❜ ❨903❩ ❛ I had loved an angel and now I despise a woman. ❜ ❨904❩ ❛ Our lives are one masked ball. ❜ ❨905❩ ❛ Why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing? ❜ ❨906❩ ❛ He would commit murder for me. ❜ ❨907❩ ❛ If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug, she is lost. But I shall save her. ❜ ❨908❩ ❛ We will go from here together or die together. ❜ ❨909❩ ❛ Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it. ❜ ❨910❩ ❛ Destiny has chained you to me forever. ❜ ❨911❩ ❛ You must never ask me that. ❜ ❨912❩ ❛ Are you afraid that you will change your mind? ❜ ❨913❩ ❛ You must come and fetch me in my dressing room at midnight exactly. ❜ ❨914❩ ❛ The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps. ❜ ❨915❩ ❛ I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts. ❜ ❨916❩ ❛ There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home. ❜ ❨917❩ ❛ I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head. ❜ ❨918❩ ❛ It’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to even mourn for it. ❜ ❨919❩ ❛ There’s nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion. ❜ ❨920❩ ❛ When did you become so weak? ❜ ❨921❩ ❛ I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it. ❜ ❨922❩ ❛ Let’s be honest: women are still only really valued for two things—their looks and their role as mothers. ❜ ❨923❩ ❛ Sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. ❜ ❨924❩ ❛ I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it. ❜ ❨925❩ ❛ I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep numbing it, it’ll never really go away. ❜ ❨926❩ ❛ I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some way. It’s as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move. ❜ ❨927❩ ❛ Who was it that said following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all. ❜ ❨928❩ ❛ It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers. ❜ ❨929❩ ❛ Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches. ❜ ❨930❩ ❛ I have to find a way of making myself happy, I have to stop looking for happiness elsewhere. ❜ ❨931❩ ❛ How did I find myself here? I wonder where it started, my decline; I wonder at what point I could have halted it. Where did I take the wrong turn? ❜ ❨932❩ ❛ Now look -- Now look what you made me do. ❜ ❨933❩ ❛ It’s okay, whatever you did, whatever you’ve done: you suffered, you hurt, you deserve forgiveness. ❜ ❨934❩ ❛ They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be. ❜ ❨935❩ ❛ You broke me and I broke us. ❜ ❨936❩ ❛ I’ve been the fool. If he does it with you, he’ll do it to you. ❜ ❨937❩ ❛ I’d never realised, not until now, how shameful it is to be pitied. ❜ ❨938❩ ❛ Sometimes, I don’t want to go anywhere, I think I’ll be happy if I never have to set foot outside the house again. ❜ ❨939❩ ❛ I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. ❜ ❨940❩ ❛ There can be no greater agony, nothing can be more painful than the not knowing, which will never end. ❜ ❨941❩ ❛ Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point in denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are. ❜ ❨942❩ ❛ I feel a rush of gratitude so strong, it feels almost like love. ❜ ❨943❩ ❛ You don’t know how determined I can be. Once I’ve made my mind up, I’m a force to be reckoned with. ❜ ❨944❩ ❛ The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be. ❜ ❨945❩ ❛ You don’t have to be afraid of being alone. It’s not the worst thing, is it? ❜ ❨946❩ ❛ I have felt this way before. On a larger scale, to a more intense degree, of course, but I remember the quality of the pain. You don’t forget it. ❜ ❨947❩ ❛ If he thinks I’m going to sit around crying, he’s got another thing coming. ❜ ❨948❩ ❛ I don’t like to lose. It’s not like me. None of this is like me. I don’t get rejected. I’m the one who walks away. ❜ ❨949❩ ❛ I don’t remember anger, raging fury. I remember fear. ❜ ❨950❩ ❛ I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days. I hate it, hate insomnia more than anything, just lying there, brain going round, tick, tick, tick, tick. ❜ ❨951❩ ❛ Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. ❜ ❨952❩ ❛ I’m not beautiful, and I can’t have kids, so what does that make me? Worthless. ❜ ❨953❩ ❛ Failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under and I gave up hope. ❜ ❨954❩ ❛ It’s an odd thing to say, but I think this all the time; I don’t feel bad enough. ❜ ❨955❩ ❛ Some battles aren’t worth fighting. ❜ ❨956❩ ❛ I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I had to. ❜ ❨957❩ ❛ I never meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do? ❜ ❨958❩ ❛ What bothers me most is that I haven’t got to the end of my story, and I can’t start over with someone else, it’s too hard. ❜ ❨959❩ ❛ A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. ❜ ❨960❩ ❛ It isn’t only wickedness and scheming that make people unhappy, it is confusion and misunderstanding. ❜ ❨961❩ ❛ Falling in love can be achieved in a single word—a glance. ❜ ❨962❩ ❛ Though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you. ❜ ❨963❩ ❛ I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. ❜ ❨964❩ ❛ It might hurt, it is horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but it is what it is to be in love. ❜ ❨965❩ ❛ It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. ❜ ❨966❩ ❛ Come back, come back to me. ❜ ❨967❩ ❛ In my thoughts I make love to you all day long. ❜ ❨968❩ ❛ The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence and I don’t think I can blame the heat. ❜ ❨969❩ ❛ Beauty occupies a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, has infinite variation. ❜ ❨970❩ ❛ Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? ❜ ❨971❩ ❛ However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I’ve always been. ❜ ❨972❩ ❛ Hate is a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational. ❜ ❨973❩ ❛ I’m going mad. Let me not be mad. ❜ ❨974❩ ❛ Is everyone really as alive as I am? ❜ ❨975❩ ❛ Every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone teaches you something about yourself. ❜ ❨976❩ ❛ Something has happened, hasn’t it? ❜ ❨977❩ ❛ I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness. ❜ ❨978❩ ❛ Is it possible that I am, in the modern term, in denial? ❜ ❨979❩ ❛ How could anyone presume to know the world through the eyes of an insect? ❜ ❨980❩ ❛ Not everything has a cause. Some things are simply so. ❜ ❨981❩ ❛ I’ll be quite honest with you. I’m torn between breaking your neck here and throwing you down the stairs. ❜ ❨982❩ ❛ How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? ❜ ❨983❩ ❛ It was never meant to be read. ❜ ❨984❩ ❛ If I fell in the river, would you save me? ❜ ❨985❩ ❛ That was an incredibly bloody stupid thing to do. ❜ ❨986❩ ❛ I want to thank you for saving my life. I’ll be eternally grateful to you. ❜ ❨987❩ ❛ I’m very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused. I’m very, very sorry. ❜ ❨988❩ ❛ Don’t call me that! – Please don’t call me that. ❜ ❨989❩ ❛ It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine. ❜ ❨990❩ ❛ Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. ❜ ❨991❩ ❛ No one ever really gets used to nightmares. ❜ ❨992❩ ❛ I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. ❜ ❨993❩ ❛ Sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila. ❜ ❨994❩ ❛ Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it. ❜ ❨995❩ ❛ Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful. ❜ ❨996❩ ❛ The ruminations are mine, let the world be yours. ❜ ❨997❩ ❛ You will fulfil a promise I made years ago but failed to keep. ❜ ❨998❩ ❛ Darkness never satisfies. Especially if it takes something away which it almost always invariably does. ❜ ❨999❩ ❛ I want something else. I’m not even sure what to call it anymore. ❜ ❨1000❩ ❛ What can I say, I’m a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff. ❜ ❨1001❩ ❛ Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you? ❜ ❨1002❩ ❛ It’s just silent, no sound at all. It’s like something’s waiting. ❜ ❨1003❩ ❛ I guess I’m hoping the weapons will make me feel better, grant me some kind of fucking control. ❜ ❨1004❩ ❛ Oh and something else: – Fuck you. ❜ ❨1005❩ ❛ God I’ve never been afraid like this. ❜ ❨1006❩ ❛ I miss you. I love you. There’s no second I’ve lived that you can’t call your own. ❜ ❨1007❩ ❛ I’m so tired. Sleep’s been stalking me for too long to remember. Inevitable I suppose. ❜ ❨1008❩ ❛ Not seeing the rip doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep clear of the Hey-I’m-Bleeding part. ❜ ❨1009❩ ❛ These days fantasies flourish and die like summer flies. ❜ ❨1010❩ ❛ Yeah I know, I know. This shit’s getting ridiculous. ❜ ❨1011❩ ❛ ‘Fuck’ and 'fall for’ have very different meanings. The first one you do as much as you can. The second one you never ever, ever do. ❜ ❨1012❩ ❛ It’s a nice idea but it reeks of hope. False hope. ❜ ❨1013❩ ❛ It’s, well…one thing in two words: fucked up…very fucked up. Okay three words, four words, who the hell cares…very very fucked up. ❜ ❨1014❩ ❛ Do you think I could spend the night at your place?  ❜ ❨1015❩ ❛ Any fool can pray. ❜ ❨1016❩ ❛ I feel like I haven’t slept in months. My neighbours are scared of me. ❜ ❨1017❩ ❛ I’ve lost my mind? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe I’m just really drunk. ❜ ❨1018❩ ❛ Perhaps by cleaning out my system I’ll come to a clearing where I can ease myself into peace. ❜ ❨1019❩ ❛ I should be dead. Why am I still here? ❜ ❨1020❩ ❛ Fuck if I know. Your guess is as good as mine. ❜ ❨1021❩ ❛ You are my flesh. You are my bones. I know you too well. I read you too perfectly. ❜ ❨1022❩ ❛ Not all complex problems have easy solutions. ❜ ❨1023❩ ❛ Do you believe in God? I don’t think I ever asked you that one. ❜ ❨1024❩ ❛ We all create stories to protect ourselves. ❜ ❨1025❩ ❛ Are you kidding me? This place is scary. ❜ ❨1026❩ ❛ These days the only thing that gets me outside is when I say: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. ❜ ❨1027❩ ❛ You like that crap because it reminds you of you. ❜ ❨1028❩ ❛ You may suddenly realise things are not how you perceived them to be at all. ❜ ❨1029❩ ❛ The two hardest tests are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter. ❜ ❨1030❩ ❛ People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves. ❜ ❨1031❩ ❛ Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Be brave enough to live different. ❜ ❨1032❩ ❛ You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. ❜ ❨1033❩ ❛ God chose you to be different. ❜ ❨1034❩ ❛ Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude? ❜ ❨1035❩ ❛ You have two choices, to control your mind or to let your mind control you. ❜ ❨1036❩ ❛ Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to. ❜ ❨1037❩ ❛ Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death?  ❜ ❨1038❩ ❛ If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem. ❜ ❨1039❩ ❛ Nothing in this world happens by chance. ❜ ❨1040❩ ❛ I want to continue living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be. ❜ ❨1041❩ ❛ Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains. ❜ ❨1042❩ ❛ Collective madness is called sanity. ❜ ❨1043❩ ❛ Consider each day a miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences. ❜ ❨1044❩ ❛ You say they create their own reality, but what is reality? ❜ ❨1045❩ ❛ Many people don't allow themselves to love because there are a lot of things at risk. A lot of future and a lot of past. ❜ ❨1046❩ ❛ Death frees from the fear of dying. ❜ ❨1047❩ ❛ The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. ❜ ❨1048❩ ❛ The happier people can be, the unhappier they are. ❜ ❨1049❩ ❛ Life is always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act. ❜ ❨1050❩ ❛ It's best to accept life as it really is and not as you imagined it to be. ❜ ❨1051❩ ❛ You don't seem mad at all. ❜ ❨1052❩ ❛ We’re allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroys us. ❜ ❨1053❩ ❛ You’re what you are, not what others make of you. ❜ ❨1054❩ ❛ Am I cured? ❜ ❨1055❩ ❛ Real love changes and grows with time and discovers new ways of expressing itself. ❜ ❨1056❩ ❛ A lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right. Is that it? ❜ ❨1057❩ ❛ They think they're normal, because they all do the same thing. ❜ ❨1058❩ ❛ I didn't know that other ‘me’s existed inside me, ‘Me’s that I could love. ❜ ❨1059❩ ❛ I have no idea what's awaiting me. ❜ ❨1060❩ ❛ What will happen when this all ends? ❜ ❨1061❩ ❛ I know that you are capable of great deeds. ❜ ❨1062❩ ❛ A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. ❜ ❨1063❩ ❛ The truth is that everyone is bored. ❜ ❨1064❩ ❛ I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. ❜ ❨1065❩ ❛ If there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love. ❜ ❨1066❩ ❛ Who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for even a single moment's suffering? ❜ ❨1067❩ ❛ It's not easy. I've been thinking it over for years. ❜ ❨1068❩ ❛ While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. ❜ ❨1069❩ ❛ People are more often bad than good. ❜ ❨1070❩ ❛ I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned that it can be murderous. ❜ ❨1071❩ ❛ What interests me is living and dying for what one loves. ❜ ❨1072❩ ❛ In fact, nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. ❜ ❨1073❩ ❛ Nothing in the world is worth turning one's back on what one loves. ❜ ❨1074❩ ❛ Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. ❜ ❨1075❩ ❛ There are more things to admire in men then to despise. ❜ ❨1076❩ ❛ It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence. ❜ ❨1077❩ ❛ What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this? ❜ ❨1078❩ ❛ Your code of morals? What code, if I may ask? ❜ ❨1079❩ ❛ I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding anything. ❜ ❨1080❩ ❛ No doubt our love is still there, but quite simply it is unusable, heavy to carry, inert inside of us, sterile as crime or condemnation. ❜ ❨1081❩ ❛ I’m not happy to go, but one needn't be happy to make another start. ❜ ❨1082❩ ❛ I am incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that I am incapable of anything really worth while. ❜ ❨1083❩ ❛ I should have found the words to keep her with me. ❜ ❨1084❩ ❛ We can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody. ❜ ❨1085❩ ❛ The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. ❜ ❨1086❩ ❛ There are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live. ❜ ❨1087❩ ❛ The best protection against anything is a good bottle of wine. ❜ ❨1088❩ ❛ There is no peace without hope. ❜ ❨1089❩ ❛ It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment. ❜ ❨1090❩ ❛ There is always something left to love. ❜ ❨1091❩ ❛ A person doesn’t die when he should but when he can. ❜ ❨1092❩ ❛ Things have a life of their own. It's simply a matter of waking up their souls. ❜ ❨1093❩ ❛ Tell me something: why are you fighting? ❜ ❨1094❩ ❛ I've come to realise only just now that I'm fighting because of pride. ❜ ❨1095❩ ❛ One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship. ❜ ❨1096❩ ❛ It's better than not knowing why you're fighting. Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn't have any meaning for anyone. ❜ ❨1097❩ ❛ Holy Mother of God! ❜ ❨1098❩ ❛ A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground. ❜ ❨1099❩ ❛ I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1100❩ ❛ Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it. ❜ ❨1101❩ ❛ I plead youth as a mitigating circumstance. ❜ ❨1102❩ ❛ Get those bad thoughts out of your head. You're going to be happy. ❜ ❨1103❩ ❛ Children inherit their parents' madness. ❜ ❨1104❩ ❛ I'll turn to ashes in here but I won't give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing me weep. ❜ ❨1105❩ ❛ You would be good in a war. Where you put your eye, you put your bullet. ❜ ❨1106❩ ❛ Men demand much more than you think. ❜ ❨1107❩ ❛ Even the craziest and most persistent love is just a temporary truth. ❜ ❨1108❩ ❛ If we’re alone you can whisper in my ear any crap you can think of. ❜ ❨1109❩ ❛ You have taken this horrible game very seriously and you have done well because you are doing your duty. ❜ ❨1110❩ ❛ We have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect. ❜ ❨1111❩ ❛ What worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death. ❜ ❨1112❩ ❛ What worries me is that you've ended up as bad as they are. ❜ ❨1113❩ ❛ It is characteristic of men to deny hunger once their appetites are satisfied. ❜ ❨1114❩ ❛ Dying is much more difficult than one imagines. ❜ ❨1115❩ ❛ If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself! ❜ ❨1116❩ ❛ We have still not had a death. ❜ ❨1117❩ ❛ How awful, the way time passes. ❜ ❨1118❩ ❛ You may be in command of your war, but I'm in command of my house. ❜ ❨1119❩ ❛ I missed you every hour. ❜ ❨1120❩ ❛ You know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. ❜ ❨1121❩ ❛ I’ve risked my life for you. ❜ ❨1122❩ ❛ The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak. ❜ ❨1123❩ ❛ I love you, even the part of you that loved him. ❜ ❨1124❩ ❛ I’m sorry it took me so long to see you. ❜ ❨1125❩ ❛ I never really belonged anywhere. ❜ ❨1126❩ ❛ Thanks for being my best friend and making my life bearable.  ❜ ❨1127❩ ❛ Thanks for finding me. ❜ ❨1128❩ ❛ You and I are going to change the world. ❜ ❨1129❩ ❛ I’ve been waiting for you a long time. ❜ ❨1130❩ ❛ I’m not used to people trying to kill me. ❜ ❨1131❩ ❛ You’re shaking. ❜ ❨1132❩ ❛ There's nothing wrong with being a lizard. Unless you were born to be a hawk. ❜ ❨1133❩ ❛ Make me your villain. ❜ ❨1134❩ ❛ Just you and me. It’s always just you and me. ❜ ❨1135❩ ❛ Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every dumb thing I’ve said? ❜ ❨1136❩ ❛ Well, if it gets too bad, give me a signal. ❜ ❨1137❩ ❛ Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark? ❜ ❨1138❩ ❛ Did you miss me when you were gone? ❜ ❨1139❩ ❛ What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men. ❜ ❨1140❩ ❛ You’re interfering with my plan. ❜ ❨1141❩ ❛ Too much champagne? ❜ ❨1142❩ ❛ I hope you don’t expect fairness from me. It isn’t one of my specialties. ❜ ❨1143❩ ❛ There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings. Faith. ❜ ❨1144❩ ❛ All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how. ❜ ❨1145❩ ❛ What is she? She’s everything, you dumb son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1146❩ ❛ She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned. ❜ ❨1147❩ ❛ I wouldn’t make that mistake again. ❜ ❨1148❩ ❛ It’s a great honor, to save a life. You saved many. ❜ ❨1149❩ ❛ In this world, there are things you can only do alone. ❜ ❨1150❩ ❛ What seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else. ❜ ❨1151❩ ❛ If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price. ❜ ❨1152❩ ❛ Why should you be interested in me? ❜ ❨1153❩ ❛ I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times. ❜ ❨1154❩ ❛ It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. ❜ ❨1155❩ ❛ I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel. ❜ ❨1156❩ ❛ The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish. ❜ ❨1157❩ ❛ The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.  ❜ ❨1158❩ ❛ So once you're dead there's just nothing? ❜ ❨1159❩ ❛ If only I could fall sound asleep and wake up in my old reality. ❜ ❨1160❩ ❛ Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action? ❜ ❨1161❩ ❛ Nobody can shake off their own shadow. ❜ ❨1162❩ ❛ The silence is so deep it hurts. ❜ ❨1163❩ ❛ I may not look it, but I can be a very patient guy. ❜ ❨1164❩ ❛ Killing time is one of my specialities. ❜ ❨1165❩ ❛ You can't fight it. ❜ ❨1166❩ ❛ Tell me something,—do you believe in reincarnation? ❜ ❨1167❩ ❛ I can’t understand nothingness. I can’t understand it and I can’t imagine it. ❜ ❨1168❩ ❛ I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner.  ❜ ❨1169❩ ❛ I do have a few things wrong with me, but those are strictly problems I keep inside. ❜ ❨1170❩ ❛ I can't take it any more, I can't go on any more. ❜ ❨1171❩ ❛ You don't really have it together. ❜ ❨1172❩ ❛ Is it against the law for me to know it? ❜ ❨1173❩ ❛ I keep having the same dream. ❜ ❨1174❩ ❛ Are you asking because you really want an answer? ❜ ❨1175❩ ❛ I hate this! I don't want to be changed this way! ❜ ❨1176❩ ❛ No contradictions, no irony. They do everything according to numerical formulas. ❜ ❨1177❩ ❛ Want to hear the rest? If you’re not interested, I can stop. ❜ ❨1178❩ ❛ If I didn’t have these memories inside me, I would’ve snapped a long time ago. I would’ve curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. ❜ ❨1179❩ ❛ I don’t know what you’re feeling. I won’t even pretend. ❜ ❨1180❩ ❛ What are you doing here, honey? ❜ ❨1181❩ ❛ You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets. ❜ ❨1182❩ ❛ You don't understand me. ❜ ❨1183❩ ❛ All wisdom ends in paradox. ❜ ❨1184❩ ❛ It is love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. ❜ ❨1185❩ ❛ I have lost my gift. ❜ ❨1186❩ ❛ Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair. ❜ ❨1187❩ ❛ The seeds of death get lost in the mess that God made us. ❜ ❨1188❩ ❛ They're just memories now. It’s time to forget. ❜ ❨1189❩ ❛ The time has to be right and the heart willing. ❜ ❨1190❩ ❛ The world, a tired performer, offers us another half-assed season. ❜ ❨1191❩ ❛ Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy. ❜ ❨1192❩ ❛ Grief is natural, overcoming it is a matter of choice. ❜ ❨1193❩ ❛ I want out of that decorating scheme. ❜ ❨1194❩ ❛ With most people suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. ❜ ❨1195❩ ❛ You never get over it but you get where it doesn't bother you so much. ❜ ❨1196❩ ❛ Don't waste your time on life. ❜ ❨1197❩ ❛ I'm a teenager. I've got problems! ❜ ❨1198❩ ❛ Adolescents tend to seek love where they can find it. ❜ ❨1199❩ ❛ Obviously, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl. ❜ ❨1200❩ ❛ It was a mistake. ❜ ❨1201❩ ❛ It seemed like we were supposed to feel sorry for everything that ever happened, ever. ❜ ❨1202❩ ❛ Buffeted but not broken. ❜ ❨1203❩ ❛ Shit. What have kids got to be worried about now? ❜ ❨1204❩ ❛ If they want trouble, they should go live in Bangladesh. ❜ ❨1205❩ ❛ I can't wait until I get out of here. ❜ ❨1206❩ ❛ When she jumped she probably thought she’d fly. ❜ ❨1207❩ ❛ I do not think the patient truly meant to end her life. Her act was a cry for help. ❜ ❨1208❩ ❛ You're a stone fox. ❜ ❨1209❩ ❛ It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. ❜ ❨1210❩ ❛ Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. ❜ ❨1211❩ ❛ He broke my heart. You merely broke my life. ❜ ❨1212❩ ❛ I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is. ❜ ❨1213❩ ❛ Words without experience are meaningless. ❜ ❨1214❩ ❛ I loved you. I was a monster, but I loved you. ❜ ❨1215❩ ❛ Come just as you are. ❜ ❨1216❩ ❛ If a violin string could ache, i would be that string. ❜ ❨1217❩ ❛ Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again. ❜ ❨1218❩ ❛ What's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own. ❜ ❨1219❩ ❛ Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me. �� ❨1220❩ ❛ You took advantage of my disadvantage. ❜ ❨1221❩ ❛ I walk in a maze I cannot get out of. ❜ ❨1222❩ ❛ Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses. ❜ ❨1223❩ ❛ Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me. ❜ ❨1224❩ ❛ There is no harm in smiling. ❜ ❨1225❩ ❛ There is no point in staying here. There is no point in staying anywhere. ❜ ❨1226❩ ❛ There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child. ❜ ❨1227❩ ❛ I am so tired of being cynical. ❜ ❨1228❩ ❛ Come to live with me, and die with me, and everything with me. ❜ ❨1229❩ ❛ This is the only immortality that you and I may share. ❜ ❨1230❩ ❛ I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. ❜ ❨1231❩ ❛ I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! ❜ ❨1232❩ ❛ Years of secret suffering has taught me superhuman self-control. ❜ ❨1233❩ ❛ Solitude is corrupting me. I need company and care. ❜ ❨1234❩ ❛ I've missed you terribly. ❜ ❨1235❩ ❛ I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you. ❜ ❨1236❩ ❛ It doesn't matter a bit, because you've stopped caring anyway. ❜ ❨1237❩ ❛ What makes you say I've stopped caring for you? ❜ ❨1238❩ ❛ Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you want to be a killer. ❜ ❨1239❩ ❛ The sun climbs high in the sky, then starts down. People come, then go. ❜ ❨1240❩ ❛ Tell me, have you ever thought of killing me? ❜ ❨1241❩ ❛ I can not believe you are the same human being. ❜ ❨1242❩ ❛ Just how urgent is it? ❜ ❨1243❩ ❛ It is time for you to be going. ❜ ❨1244❩ ❛ How is it you know something like that? ❜ ❨1245❩ ❛ I don’t mind. Your mess is my mess. ❜ ❨1246❩ ❛ Everybody has one thing they do not want to lose. ❜ ❨1247❩ ❛ I’ll be late tonight, so don’t wait up for me. ❜ ❨1248❩ ❛ Nothing I’ve tried to do by myself has ever come off. ❜ ❨1249❩ ❛ I am not catching you in the middle of anything important, am I? ❜ ❨1250❩ ❛ Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die. ❜ ❨1251❩ ❛ My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. ❜ ❨1252❩ ❛ To get irritated is to lose our way in life. ❜ ❨1253❩ ❛ A friend to kill time is a friend sublime. ❜ ❨1254❩ ❛ I don't really know if it's the right thing to do. ❜ ❨1255❩ ❛ Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it? ❜ ❨1256❩ ❛ Most of everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories. ❜ ❨1257❩ ❛ Your fate is and will always be the fate of a dreamer. ❜ ❨1258❩ ❛ You’re loads better than you think you are. ❜ ❨1259❩ ❛ You’re only half-living, the other half is still untapped somewhere. ❜ ❨1260❩ ❛ The song is over. But the melody lingers on. ❜ ❨1261❩ ❛ You are extraordinary. ❜ ❨1262❩ ❛ We tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on. ❜ ❨1263❩ ❛ It could be five years or ten years or one month. It's all the same. ❜ ❨1264❩ ❛ I’m forever realising things too late. ❜ ❨1265❩ ❛ I’m not complaining when I say my life is boring. ❜ ❨1266❩ ❛ Weakness is something that rots in the body. ❜ ❨1267❩ ❛ Coming from your mouth, it has the ring of truth, but I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them. ❜ ❨1268❩ ❛ You can't expect something unreal to last anyway, can you? ❜ ❨1269❩ ❛ A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat. ❜ ❨1270❩ ❛ So, kill me. Tell the others I attacked you so you killed me. ❜ ❨1271❩ ❛ Should never have come here. ❜ ❨1272❩ ❛ Hard to guess my tastes. ❜ ❨1273❩ ❛ Can’t it wait until the morning? ❜ ❨1274❩ ❛ You’ll find temper tantrums won’t help you here. ❜ ❨1275❩ ❛ It must have taken courage to return. ❜ ❨1276❩ ❛ It all sounds grimly dystopian. ❜ ❨1277❩ ❛ I am not afraid of you! ❜ ❨1278❩ ❛ All this could be avoided! ❜ ❨1279❩ ❛ You consider me a murderer? ❜ ❨1280❩ ❛ Gross way to die. ❜ ❨1281❩ ❛ What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. ❜ ❨1282❩ ❛ My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? ❜ ❨1283❩ ❛ Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others. ❜ ❨1284❩ ❛ I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there. ❜ ❨1285❩ ❛ You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human. ❜ ❨1286❩ ❛ Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible. ❜ ❨1287❩ ❛ Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty. ❜ ❨1288❩ ❛ Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths. ❜ ❨1289❩ ❛ Dreams are all I have ever truly owned. ❜ ❨1290❩ ❛ Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. ❜ ❨1291❩ ❛ I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. ❜ ❨1292❩ ❛ By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. ❜ ❨1293❩ ❛ The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken. ❜ ❨1294❩ ❛ Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right. ❜ ❨1295❩ ❛ The weak are meat the strong do eat. ❜ ❨1296❩ ❛ Do whatever you can't not do. ❜ ❨1297❩ ❛ What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. ❜ ❨1298❩ ❛ I remain thankful to God for all his mercies. ❜ ❨1299❩ ❛ You can maintain power over people, as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power. ❜ ❨1300❩ ❛ Power. The ability to determine another man's luck. ❜ ❨1301❩ ❛ Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong. ❜ ❨1302❩ ❛ Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively. ❜ ❨1303❩ ❛ Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions? ❜ ❨1304❩ ❛ You can’t lie to your soul. ❜ ❨1305❩ ❛ Why would I want to do a thing like that? ❜ ❨1306❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. ❜ ❨1307❩ ❛ Better to make life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨1308❩ ❛ I’m not running away, I’m moving on. ❜ ❨1309❩ ❛ The reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨1310❩ ❛ Some people are easier to love when you don’t have to be around them. ❜ ❨1311❩ ❛ Love does not exist. ❜ ❨1312❩ ❛ Fuck that ‘regrets’ bullshit. ❜ ❨1313❩ ❛ How does it make you feel? ❜ ❨1314❩ ❛ It’s horrible how we always die alone, but no worse than living alone. ❜ ❨1315❩ ❛ Choose us. Choose life. ❜ ❨1316❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨1317❩ ❛ I’m more of a warrior than you’ll ever be. ❜ ❨1318❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. ❜ ❨1319❩ ❛ You don’t have to run away.  ❜ ❨1320❩ ❛ I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn’t. ❜ ❨1321❩ ❛ I’m not going to get crushed. ❜ ❨1322❩ ❛ I love doubt in a woman. It’s nearly as sexy as determination. ❜ ❨1323❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty. ❜ ❨1324❩ ❛ You’re a mess. ❜ ❨1325❩ ❛ I know that it’s never left you alone. ❜ ❨1326❩ ❛ Are you asking me or telling me? ❜ ❨1327❩ ❛ You just get used to all the shit. ❜ ❨1328❩ ❛ You can’t afford a conscience in this life. ❜ ❨1329❩ ❛ None of us are saints and scapegoats are always handy. ❜ ❨1330❩ ❛ Doing things doesn’t hurt you; you get hurt by avoiding them. ❜ ❨1331❩ ❛ What was that? ❜ ❨1332❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨1333❩ ❛ You can’t love yourself if you want to hurt things like that. ❜ ❨1334❩ ❛ What happens when people open their hearts? ❜ ❨1335❩ ❛ Nobody likes being alone that much. ❜ ❨1336❩ ❛ I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.” ❨1337❩ ❛ Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that. ❜ ❨1338❩ ❛ You need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. ❜ ❨1339❩ ❛ I want you always to remember me. ❜ ❨1340❩ ❛ Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt. ❜ ❨1341❩ ❛ What stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish. ❜ ❨1342❩ ❛ All I want in this world is you. ❜ ❨1343❩ ❛ I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning. ❜ ❨1344❩ ❛ No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. ❜ ❨1345❩ ❛ What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously. ❜ ❨1346❩ ❛ If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark. ❜ ❨1347❩ ❛ I’ve had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy. ❜ ❨1348❩ ❛ People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die. ❜ ❨1349❩ ❛ Stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. ❜ ❨1350❩ ❛ When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you’re in big trouble. ❜ ❨1351❩ ❛ When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. ❜ ❨1352❩ ❛ If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. ❜ ❨1353❩ ❛ Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven’t answered me. ❜ ❨1354❩ ❛ People are strange when you’re a stranger. ❜ ❨1355❩ ❛ The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living. ❜ ❨1356❩ ❛ You don’t get it, do you? ❜ ❨1357❩ ❛ I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than you ❨1358❩ realise. ❜ ❨1359❩ ❛ At least let me know whether or not I hurt you. ❜ ❨1360❩ ❛ All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. ❜ ❨1361❩ ❛ I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die. ❜ ❨1362❩ ❛ So I’m not crazy after all! ❜ ❨1363❩ ❛ I miss you terribly sometimes, but in general I go on living with all the energy I can muster. ❜ ❨1364❩ ❛ Will you wait for me forever? ❜ ❨1365❩ ❛ I don’t want our relationship to end like this. ❜ ❨1366❩ ❛ When am I going to be able to talk to you? I want you to tell me that much, at least. ❜ ❨1367❩ ❛ It hurts not being able to see you. ❜ ❨1368❩ ❛ I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. ❜ ❨1369❩ ❛ The world is an inherently unfair place. ❜ ❨1370❩ ❛ Life frightens me sometimes. I don’t happen to take that as the premise for everything else though. ❜ ❨1371❩ ❛ I’m a real bargain, don’t you think? If you don’t take me, I’ll end up going somewhere else. ❜ ❨1372❩ ❛ We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning. ❜ ❨1373❩ ❛ Don’t you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don’t know a soul? ❜ ❨1374❩ ❛ You’re not telling me anything I don’t know already. ❜ ❨1375❩ ❛ He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. ❜ ❨1376❩ ❛ If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. ❜ ❨1377❩ ❛ We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness. ❜ ❨1378❩ ❛ Until they become conscious they will never rebel. ❜ ❨1379❩ ❛ Power is not a means; it is an end. ❜ ❨1380❩ ❛ They are not interested in the good of others; they are interested solely in power, pure power. ❜ ❨1381❩ ❛ Now you begin to understand me. ❜ ❨1382❩ ❛ In the face of pain there are no heroes. ❜ ❨1383❩ ❛ Big Brother is watching you. ❜ ❨1384❩ ❛ Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. ❜ ❨1385❩ ❛ It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. ❜ ❨1386❩ ❛ The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better. ❜ ❨1387❩ ❛ Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind. ❜ ❨1388❩ ❛ Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. ❜ ❨1389❩ ❛ We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them. ❜ ❨1390❩ ❛ How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? ❜ ❨1391❩ ❛ You must try harder. ❜ ❨1392❩ ❛ Confession is not betrayal. ❜ ❨1393❩ ❛ What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. ❜ ❨1394❩ ❛ If they could make me stop loving you —- that would be the real betrayal. ❜ ❨1395❩ ❛ Of pain you can wish only one thing: that it should stop. ❜ ❨1396❩ ❛ To die hating them, that will be freedom. ❜ ❨1397❩ ❛ No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. ❜ ❨1398❩ ❛ What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself? ❜ ❨1399❩ ❛ To keep them in control is not difficult. ❜ ❨1400❩ ❛ So long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. ❜ ❨1401❩ ❛ The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. ❜ ❨1402❩ ❛ The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. ❜ ❨1403❩ ❛ Stupidity is as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ❜ ❨1404❩ ❛ I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones. ❜ ❨1405❩ ❛ The past is dead, the future is unimaginable. ❜ ❨1406❩ ❛ You know the answer already. Everyone knows it. ❜ ❨1407❩ ❛ You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself. ❜ ❨1408❩ ❛ It is not easy to become sane. ❜ ❨1409❩ ❛ No emotion is pure anymore, because everything is mixed up with fear and hatred. ❜ ❨1410❩ ❛ They say that time heals all things —- they say you can always forget. ❜ ❨1411❩ ❛ The object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. ❜ ❨1412❩ ❛ I sold you and you sold me. ❜ ❨1413❩ ❛ You do not exist. ❜ ❨1414❩ ❛ How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer. ❜ ❨1415❩ ❛ Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? ❜ ❨1416❩ ❛ Everything else we shall destroy – everything. ❜ ❨1417❩ ❛ Two and two makes five. ❜ ❨1418❩ ❛ Facts, at any rate, can not be kept hidden. ❜ ❨1419❩ ❛ The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. ❜ ❨1420❩ ❛ So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing. ❜ ❨1421❩ ❛ If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then? ❜ ❨1422❩ ❛ The lie became the truth. ❜ ❨1423❩ ❛ It is like swimming against a current that sweeps you backwards however hard you struggle. ❜ ❨1424❩ ❛ Turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. ❜ ❨1425❩ ❛ It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. ❜ ❨1426❩ ❛ I don’t want to die without any scars. ❜ ❨1427❩ ❛ This is your life and it’s ending one moment at a time. ❜ ❨1428❩ ❛ You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways. ❜ ❨1429❩ ❛ You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. ❜ ❨1430❩ ❛ You are not special. ❜ ❨1431❩ ❛ You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. ❜ ❨1432❩ ❛ The things you used to own, now they own you. ❜ ❨1433❩ ❛ Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. ❜ ❨1434❩ ❛ Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. ❜ ❨1435❩ ❛ Only after disaster can we be resurrected. ❜ ❨1436❩ ❛ Everything is evolving, everything is falling apart. ❜ ❨1437❩ ❛ We’ve all been raised believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. ❜ ❨1438❩ ❛ Don’t you have other things to do? ❜ ❨1439❩ ❛ Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. ❜ ❨1440❩ ❛ You have been warned. ❜ ❨1441❩ ❛ If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t. ❜ ❨1442❩ ❛ It’s not love or anything, but I think I like you, too. ❜ ❨1443❩ ❛ If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? ❜ ❨1444❩ ❛ Why did I cause so much pain? ❜ ❨1445❩ ❛ The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly. ❜ ❨1446❩ ❛ Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer. ❜ ❨1447❩ ❛ May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. ❜ ❨1448❩ ❛ Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head. ❜ ❨1449❩ ❛ We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. ❜ ❨1450❩ ❛ The girl is infectious human waste. ❜ ❨1451❩ ❛ I want to destroy everything beautiful I’ll never have. ❜ ❨1452❩ ❛ On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. ❜ ❨1453❩ ❛ If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? ❜ ❨1454❩ ❛ It is like you’re never really awake; but you’re never really asleep. ❜ ❨1455❩ ❛ Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave. ❜ ❨1456❩ ❛ A moment is the most you could ever expect from perfection. ❜ ❨1457❩ ❛ The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. ❜ ❨1458❩ ❛ You have to give up! ❜ ❨1459❩ ❛ Reject the basic assumptions of civilisation, especially the importance of material possessions. ❜ ❨1460❩ ❛ Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. ❜ ❨1461❩ ❛ You have to realise that someday you will die, Until you know that, you are useless. ❜ ❨1462❩ ❛ A tiger can smile. A snake will say it loves you. ❜ ❨1463❩ ❛ Lies make us evil. ❜ ❨1464❩ ❛ If you died right now, how would you feel about your life? ❜ ❨1465❩ ❛ You always kill the one you love. ❜ ❨1466❩ ❛ Maybe we should always assume the worst. ❜ ❨1467❩ ❛ Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains. ❜ ❨1468❩ ❛ Which is worse? Hell or nothing? ❜ ❨1469❩ ❛ A minute of perfection is worth the effort. ❜ ❨1470❩ ❛ You’re going to die, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. ❜ ❨1471❩ ❛ Lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. ❜ ❨1472❩ ❛ I don’t give a shit. I have a gun. ❜ ❨1473❩ ❛ I know who you are. I know where you live. ❜ ❨1474❩ ❛ Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life. ❜ ❨1475❩ ❛ My philosophy of life is that I can die at any moment. And the tragedy of my life is that I do not. ❜ ❨1476❩ ❛ Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. You can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you. ❜ ❨1477❩ ❛ There are a lot of things we don’t want to know about the people we love. ❜ ❨1478❩ ❛ We just had a near-life experience. ❜ ❨1479❩ ❛ If people think you are dying, they give you their full attention. They listen instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. ❜ ❨1480❩ ❛ I am nothing, and not even that. ❜ ❨1481❩ ❛ This isn’t really death. —- We’ll be legends. We won’t grow old. ❜ ❨1482❩ ❛ Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go. ❜ ❨1483❩ ❛ The amazing miracle of death, when one second you’re walking and talking, and the next second you’re an object. ❜ ❨1484❩ ❛ Only if we’re caught and punished can we be saved. ❜ ❨1485❩ ❛ I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one. ❜ ❨1486❩ ❛ Dreams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't. ❜ ❨1487❩ ❛ Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. ❜ ❨1488❩ ❛ A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger. ❜ ❨1489❩ ❛ A leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own. ❜ ❨1490❩ ❛ In the end, we are alone. ❜ ❨1491❩ ❛ It is like a piece of my soul is lost, empty. ❜ ❨1492❩ ❛ If my life on Earth must end, let it end with a promise. Let it end with hope. ❜ ❨1493❩ ❛ Sorry? Sorry isn't enough. ❜ ❨1494❩ ❛ Every single thing I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was. ❜ ❨1495❩ ❛ Will you stay with me? ❜ ❨1496❩ ❛ A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people. ❜ ❨1497❩ ❛ Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. ❜ ❨1498❩ ❛ It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. ❜ ❨1499❩ ❛ There is nothing between us but rain. There is nothing between us at all. ❜ ❨1500❩ ❛ I like a little chaos. ❜

[thecameronchronicles]

You Should Be Thanking Me

TW: Smut. Language. Degrading Language. Enemies to Lovers!

*This is obviously when he is not with Elaine, but also no hate to her! <3

SUMMARY: You hate him. Everything about him gets under your skin. At least it did until one night at a wrap party…

WORD COUNT: 2700

*Requested*

You Should Be Thanking Me

You couldn’t bring yourself to watch how every girl who met him simply threw themselves at him, all for a character he portrayed on screen. You fought the urge to constantly invade these interactions with the truth of how you really saw him. And yet you did not want to ruin the experience for the fans of the show that also served as a means to a paycheck for you. 

Even if you didn’t share scenes with him, you were forced to be at his beckon call as an assistant, just a stepping stone to the job you truly wanted as a producer, and one he made difficult to achieve as he pushed every single one of your buttons. It led for your reputation to feel these effects as you weren’t able to be in his presence for longer than sixty seconds without bickering about something so stupid that it sent everyone in earshot to roll their eyes in annoyance. And yet, you had a reason to celebrate as you would be free of him for at least another four months as you’d just helped finish wrapping the latest season of Outer Banks. 

You were already well into your second wine cooler by the time he arrived at the wrap party, the urge for something stronger worsening, as his eyes faded into frustration when finding you there as well. So without a care of judgement, you took the entire bottle of the closest liquor and made your way to the opposite side of the establishment to try and forget how enduring him was part of your job. If not for the fact your dreams were so close within reach, you would have allowed yourself the peace of his absence by resigning. And yet, you just couldn't give him the satisfaction. 

The morning after the wrap party had you stumbling through an unfamiliar hotel room that was a connection to the room in which the festivities had been held the night before. Evidence of released inhibitions created obstacles to your discombobulation until you were able to move successfully into the bathroom. With a renewed sense of self granted by a splash of water, your eyes fixated on the sight of a specific t-shirt set over your torso-a shirt you knew belonged to HIM. He’d worn it far too often that it had faded to such a degree it was difficult to tell its original colors, and it was now covering your modesty as the details of the last night remained fuzzy, you curved around the corner to find him sitting on the edge of the bed. 

Running his fingers through his hair and extending his wingspan into a stretch, your eyes caught onto his muscles flexing to his movements and those dimples drawing attention to his handsome features. It was one thing you could never deny about him, which made him even more intolerable-even if you would rather die before having him hear it from your lips, he was painfully attractive. But it didn’t make up for the way he’d treated you with such cold distance and cruel remarks, picking a fight just for the sake of it. And it was the reminder of this that brought you to look at him in disgust as he rose to his feet. 

“Most people would just say ‘thank you’, you know…” He shot in your direction as you sharpened your gaze in his direction. 

“For WHAT?” A look of amusement now came across his expression. 

“I knew you were drunk, but I didn’t think you were blackout drunk…I’m insulted…” He feigned injury by taking a hand to his chest as you suddenly noted a few details that sent your stomach into knots. The disheveled sheets on the bed, a pair of handcuffs set just off of the corner, and your lack of panties left all details pointing towards one thing. 

“We…we-you…we…” You couldn’t even attempt to bring the words to the surface as it was too unnatural for such words to exist. But all your attempts managed to do was widen his bemused expression. 

“Don’t worry, we used protection-” He teased as you hit hard against his chest, forcing him to spill the coffee he was attempting to make. 

“SERIOUSLY?!” He groaned, wiping the new stain caused from your shove from his pants before throwing up his hands. “Calm down, I didn’t fucking touch you so you can stop looking at me like that-”

“Then…Then why am I here?” He scoffed before pulling his phone to view. 

“Of all times you choose to be a jackass…” You muttered as he hesitated for a moment before pulling a video from the night before. As clear as day, your inhibitions were left at the mercy of the whiskey’s effects; your body forced in to him as you were relentlessly badgering him to ‘fuck the attitude out of you’, all while he didn’t feed into your line had instead kept you from making a fool out of yourself-at least more than you already had. 

“LIke I said-MOST people would have just said thank you…” He moved past you, back onto the bed as you paused for a moment before pointing to the handcuffs, a wide smile cresting on his face as he took a sip before offering you an answer. 

“Oh yeah…”

“Rudy!”

“Funny…you said it exactly like that night-but wore a bit less clothing-” 

“Fuck you.” You spat, turning to leave before the sound of your name spoken in exhaustion set you rooted in place. 

“Nothing happened. You got hammered and threw yourself at me. I brought you back here and you STILL threw yourself at me. Did you forget ALL of it?”

“Just tell me why I’m here and not at home…Please…”

“You can’t hold your liquor for shit. You threw up all over your dress and so I gave you my shirt…Then I tried to get you to shower, but you just kept touching on me so I left you in there. When I opened the door, you lunged at me and the only way I could keep you from being even crazier was to tie you to the bed. Eventually you calmed down and so I undid the handcuffs while you were sleeping…okay? So now you can go so I can enjoy my coffee…in peace…without you…” He moved to drink before you set  your hands on your hips. 

“Jesus Christ, what now?!”

“My…where’s my underwear?”

“I don’t know…You weren’t wearing them when you came out of the bathroom. A detail you made sure I knew…” Your glare worsened. 

“Just so you know, whatever that was had nothing to do with you, okay?”

“I can assure you it did. You’re just lucky I was a gentleman-” You scoffed. 

“YOU?!”

“If I wasn’t, you would be waking up unable to walk, okay?”

“Sure…”

“The way you were acting last night, the things you said, rubbing up all over me-anybody else would have taken advantage of them…But I didn’t. You should be thanking me not fucking interrogating me!”

“I would NEVER let you touch me-”

“That’s not what you said last night-”

“Oh really?! And what DID I say that was so damning?!” You came to regret asking this immediately as his eyes lit with mischief as he suddenly crossed the room, pinning you against the far wall with nothing more than his quick step and means of intimidation of a focused gaze. 

“You told me how wet I make you…How you touch yourself thinking about me…" After a moment of being overwhelmed with the heat of his words, you composed yourself enough to return to your rebuttal. 

"I must have been smashed, but I hate to break it to ya, you could have been anybody and I would have-" He leaned further into your body, his knee now between your thighs as he remained just far enough away to keep from making contact, but threatening to do so nonetheless. 

"Nope. Because you were VERY specific about how we met. The way you noticed me…how you wanted to, and I quote, 'learn if you fucked as good as you looked'-"

"I- '' You were quick to try and offer some secondary explanation as this was the truth. When you'd first met him he had entangled you with how he portrayed his role and managed to make friends with everyone in a matter of seconds. But a few ignorant remarks and misogynistic teases and you were left with this admiration soured into aggression. But you would be damned if you would let him know it. 

"You said how you wanted me to take you into my trailer and bend you over until your screaming got us both fired. But my favorite one was how you talked about what you wanted me to do to you…" His fingers traced down your arms, the initial rejection softening in silence at this point of contact.. 

"You said you wanted me to go slow at first…touching you until I would fuck you however, whenever, and as long as I wanted until you would make me come…" He smirked, eyes pulling from your body and back into your mouth left agape he continued. 

"And then you said you didn't hate me. You just hated how badly you wanted me. And you proved it in every touch since then and even more so in your denial now-"

"I was drunk!"

"Being drunk doesn't make you lie, it's actually the opposite. And I got to learn every depraved thing you wanted me to do to you…" He pressed himself close enough to your body to feel the raise of blood pressure leaving your skin warm with anxiety. 

"You-"

"You can lie to me all you want sweetheart…or at least try to…but I know exactly what you want…" He was impossibly close, nose resting on the side of your own with a breath testing your lips. 

"All you have to do is ask… real pretty for me now…" You silenced him by closing the space between you. 

You had imagined this more than you’d care to admit. You couldn’t help it when he was irresistibly charming to a fault. The way his smile lit up a room and his jokes lightened any conversation. The way you admired how he adored and committed to his craft no matter the role and to his fans even more. And you loathed how much you wanted him for all of these reasons and more. The tension, the passion, and the uncertainty would come together in this kiss before the feel of his hands through your hair had you within his control. 

“Is THIS why you’ve always been such a bitch?” You wanted to correct him for the name and yet a portion of your body reacted in having been made alight by its direction made to you. It was something he sensed as he scoffed. 

“THIS,” He led your hand to his cock, beyond intimidating as your small hand clasped around it in mercy. “All you need to stop being so tense? Hmm?”

“Rudy, I-” He would force you into quietude by that pull worsening in your hair as he used his body and this hold to lead you to the bed. 

“I have spent way too fucking long listening to you whine and complain,” He shook his head. “Now I’m gonna make you scream for me…” The dominance fell weak as he used his fingers to pull the fabric around your torso on the floor and you’d find him standing in almost in wait. 

“What are you doing?”

“Savoring this…” He explained while his eyes took in the way you’d been completely bare before him. 

There wasn’t an inch of your skin his fingers hadn’t found until you were pushed onto the bed and forced to look up at him. The way he stood between your legs, chest in a huff from your recent kisses and eyes blazed with a lust you’d only ever seen when he was in character, you almost trembled beneath him. He was always so lighthearted in majority, decadent in the darkness of his desires at this moment because of you…

“Play with it…” He ordered. 

“Now…” When you hesitated, mostly out of embarrassment, he lowered to you, pressing his hands into the bed on either side, but only allowing his breath to tease your lips. 

“You went out of your way last night to tell me how I made you want to between takes…how you wanted to slip away and suck me off because you wanted to see what I look like when I came-not to mention how you ran those dirty little fingers between your legs when we we were alone…So you’re gonna let me see what it looks like until I can validate everything else you said.” He moved back between your legs. 

“So play…” You obliged, swallowing hard, before raising yourself onto your elbows. 

“Faster…” He spoke rather shakily, his hand massaging himself as he was now bare before you. 

“FASTER….” He ordered through clenched teeth as you obeyed, your head falling slack as he took in the motions of pleasure across your body; toes curled, eyes screwed, and the most beautiful symphony of whines and whimpers to ever leave your lips now echoing just for his ears. 

“Two fingers-right fucking now, baby-” Again, you obliged, all to eagerly as he basked in your submission as well as your reaction. 

“Oh God…” You groaned as he nodded, your eyes opening just long enough to find his approval. 

“Did I say you could come?!” He charged, pulling you onto your knees with an abrupt positioning before his cock teased your folds. 

“Wet like the perfect little slut you are-all for me…” He smiled as you nodded. 

“Are you actually agreeing with me?”

“Rudy please!”

“I wanna hear you beg for it…” The idea made him all too pleased with himself to not savor it, wanting to hear just how badly you wanted it one last time. 

“Please!” You forfeited your stubbornness, too desperate for that teasing release to deny yourself it’s beckoning call. 

“One more time…just because I can?”

“RUDY PLEASE!” He licked his lips before finally filling your neediness. Your fingers pulled behind you to try and bring him closer, a handful of your hair taken in his hand now redirecting your grips to his hold. 

“You weren’t lying about how tight you are-shit!” He groaned, motions quickening with each thrust as you both built to that incomparable crescendo only an orgasm could allow, hands to your ass in sporadic assault before you were taken just slightly higher in a hold as he bent over you. 

“Is that attitude gone yet? You gonna keep being a smartass?” You couldn’t respond in anything but his name fading into a groan. Because of this, he’d pull you in a wrap to him, still keeping pace with each pound, while his fingers now moved to your clit and across your cheek to bring you into a kiss. 

“Answer me-”

“Yes.” You rebelled as he held your jaw apart. 

“Looks like we’ll have to shut you up another way then.” You were taken onto your knees, his cock angrily pushed past your swollen lips, as he projected a series of thrusts until you were crying and breathless before him. 

“How about now? Still wanna play with fire sweetheart? I can do this all fucking day-” You only took your hand in faster motions at his cock’s base, eyes narrowing beyond their tears, as he forced you even deeper by the hold at the back of your neck. 

“Swallow.” He supplied this caution before his ungodly pace sent your gag reflex into overdrive until your name left in his curses brought him to his climax. 

You weren’t even allowed to relish in this victory, however, before you were pushed back to the bed and you relgs were over either of his shoulders, his approval to your motions pulling your own orgasm between your legs and to his palate while you were left in nothing but tremors and sweat. 

“Say thank you.” He teased as smirked. 

“Thank you.” You obliged, this final act of submission before you would return to your normal hostility, now sweetened in knowing just how beautiful temporary relinquishment could be once executed. 

Taglist: @hopebaker @iovdrew @penny4yourthoughts @magnificantmermaid @pickingviolets @lovedetlost @trikigirl271 @my-baexht-Is @slut4starkey @pankhoeforlife

[toasterdrake]

The Julieta fic was so freaking cute, she deserves so much more love and attention! <3 I saw requests are open, so if you write for him, could I request some headcanons for Hiccup helping his s/o nurse an injured bird back to health, and it's just sickly cute and they start thinking about their future together? Thank you!!

A/N: ahh thank you! i hope you enjoy this! i've got a few more julieta reqs to write so keep a lookout for them if you'd like :)

i suggest listening to a pronounciation of the endearments to get a feel for the words but if you'd rather not please note "kjære" is pronounced as a "shar-ey" sound.

Feather Touch

Hiccup Haddock x gn!reader nursing an injured bird and thinking about their future - headcanons

Language key: kjære - honey/dear, elskede - beloved

You immediately know you can't leave the poor thing to die. Hiccup has no intention to argue; he wants to help it as much as you do.

When you get back home, Hiccup makes a tiny makeshift sling for its wing.

You make a nest out of one of Hiccup's old tunics.

You keep the dragons out of the room so that they don't give the poor thing a heart attack. Toothless is very curious and keeps trying to sneak peeks at what you're up to when the door opens.

Hiccup nearly breaks multiple things (bones or trinkets you decide) attempting to get Toothless' stone bed down the stairs.

He comes back up with a bowl of warm salt water and a cloth so that you can clean the blood from the bird's feathers.

You suspect it managed to escape a Terrible Terror, judging by the bite mark in its side.

Hiccup convinces Gothi to lend some of her herbs. You make a paste for the wound to keep it from getting infected and to speed up the healing process.

You're too nervous that you might hurt the little bird - it's nothing like handling massive scaly beasts; you're the one that has the ability to crush it - so you hold it gently while Hiccup applies the paste.

As he does so, you can't help but admire how soft he is.

His face warm in candlelight, you can tell his touch is no stronger than feathers. When the bird tries to move away he hums reassuringly, pausing his ministrations until it settles again, putting its state of mind before finishing the task quickly.

He's gentle with the bird in the same way he's gentle with dragons, with drawing, with inventing, with you, with loving you.

You think of the softness of his touch on your own skin. You wonder if he would care for your body the way he cares for your health and happiness. If his fingers would feather over your hand and the gold band that could rest there like they do the bird's wing.

You can almost imagine his eyes as soft as his touch, his face lit by the same glow that illuminates him now.

Then Hiccup is finished treating the bird, and he's going downstairs to wash his hands.

You help the bird drink from a dish filled with water and feed it a handful of seeds.

You wrap a rock heated by dragon flame in cloth and leave it in the nest to keep the bird warm.

When Hiccup returns you can feel his eyes on you.

In bed, he draws nonsensical patterns on your hip. You can feel his thoughtful frown on the back of your neck where he rests his head, practically hear the cogs turning. His stubble tickles your skin.

"Kjære?" you ask for his thoughts.

"Just thinking of the future, elskede," he murmurs.

You watch the bird sleeping in the makeshift nest. It looks so fragile. Hiccup doesn't speak more, and soon his breathing deepens to a soft snore. You let it lull you to sleep.

Over the next few days the bird clings to Hiccup's finger as he raises it up and down. It instinctively lifts its wings, pumping the muscles.

You're amazed at how fast Hiccup forms a bond with it in a similar way to a dragon. Maybe he simply has a knack for creatures of the sky, you muse.

The bird leaves you fully healed within the week, helped along by the herbs Hiccup applies every day along with his custom physiotherapy.

You wonder how long it will be before something new joins you, as you touch the medallion around your neck.

~[H]~

- love, Lynx

[plasma-packin-mama]

To be so real with y'all i don't like most of the art on this ref sheet anymore. But the info is pretty much accurate and hell if I'm redoing it right now.

Delilah is boisterous and kindhearted, good at making friends and terrible at thinking before they act. They're easily excited, a massive idealist, and love to feel needed by others. They're a gifted mechanic with a passion for funny robots and big lasers that make things explode. Other hobbies of theirs include prospecting, collecting things like old toys and cool looking rocks, tinkering with old broken-down tech, and saving the Mojave from peril on the weekends.

more info + art beneath the cut!!!!

They're mostly deaf in their left ear (lack of ear) and mostly blind in their left eye. They also avoid all drugs like the plague.

They're gregarious and make friends easily, but their staunch refusal to be vulnerable in front of others renders almost all of those friendships pretty surface level. They tend to smother the people they like in affection, gifts, and acts of service, sometimes to an overwhelming degree.

They're generous and always willing to drop everything and help out when needed-- sometimes a little too much so. They're pretty gullible and their tendency to believe the best in people gets them into hot water often. They also have a strong self sacrificial streak, often fully prepared to get themselves hurt in any number of ways if it will help someone else.

They're clever and quick witted but a pretty slow learner when it comes to anything besides machines. Also, they're prone to doing dumb shit they absolutely knew better than to do just because they never stop to think before they do. They're wholeheartedly convinced that they're an total incompetent idiot. Impostor syndrome.

their top surgery IS fucked up and crooked. one of their nips literally sits like. almost below their actual pectoral muscle. They no longer have nipples! Who has time for a nipple graft in the wasteland??? Anyway they love their chest theyre very proud of their body.

They get their tats sometime after the second battle of hoover dam. its ok to draw del without them.

I think thats all the info i have to include!!!!!! ill probly edit this post in the future if i get more lol. thank u for reading if you did read, and please feel free to send any questions about them!!

- Delilah's hair can be any color in the general mauve-purple area. It is canonically inconsistent, so just pick whatever looks right if you draw them.

- They have an underbite! And pretty wide-set eyes. Their face got put back together a little wonky.

- Their nose has a big dent in it bc they got smacked in the face with a shovel. It's also crooked to their right side (again, bc of the shovel.) The scar across their nose sits right in the dent.

- all outfits for them must show off either their pecs or their arms. They'd rather die than button a shirt up all the way. To cover up those tits would be a slight against god.

[sometipsygnostalgic]

The Problems of being a Techmaster (...or, Entrapta Forgot What Side She’s On Again).

Length: 1927 words

Characters: Bow, Entrapta, Catra, featuring Scorpia and Hordak

Bow tapped his fingers against the adorable little doodles on the paper, watching Travis spin himself back and forth in his chair out of agitation.

Travis was the guildmaster of the Makers' Guild. He was usually a nervous sort, nice enough, silently working on his prosthetics and the magazine most days, but this time he had called on Bow for help in quite a hurry. Travis had received a very strange letter.

It was scrawled in the messiest kind of handwriting, like the sender was impatiently trying to get their thoughts out way faster than their pen could move. The way it was clearly written in byro pen, rather than with a quill, already narrowed down who it could've come from.

When Bow squinted, he could make out the contents:

Hi Travin (I hope I got it right this time?)

I read your article last month about the problems youve been researching with keeping all the crops in Erelandia irrigated during the dry season, and I thought your solution with using a water arrow rainfall was very creative but also seems really inefficient!!! It would be more effective to just water the plants by hand at that stage?

There was a cute illustration of an arrow with a tiny water trail, and a big X next to it.

Bow frowned at this. Nevermind that the article on crops was written five months ago. He thought his suggestion was perfect! Exercise and agility training for everyone, while they help their food grow. But hey, what did he know!! (Okay maybe everyone had looked at him funny when he brought it up but THEY didn't have any better ideas now did they?)

I've been working on lots of exciting new projects recently, and over here they have an entire system that helps you store and use large amounts of water! There are towns with decent sewage systems, sure, but over here the water can be clean as well and people use it to keep themselves clean or drink. I think it's brilliant and it could improve so many things!!! But I've put together an early plan for how we can use a similar system to keep food healthy. They don't eat fresh food here, so I haven't tested this idea yet, but maybe you'll like it!

The notes detailed a plan of laying pipes and hoses around the crop fields, connecting them to a reservoir, and distributing water evenly. There were even very rough ideas for a conservatory, using heating and glass to keep crops warm during the coldest seasons. Bow wasn't so sure on using canisters full of incredibly flammable gas to power the system, but it was at least inspired. Bow had not been there for long, but he believed everything written down was based on the Fright Zone's gas and water technology. These plans were rushed onto paper, and the edges were covered in inattentive little scribbles, but everything important was laid out in incredible detail.

Entrapta had drawn further illustrations at the end with a tiny figure and a robot, probably herself and Emily, going “WOW!!!” at the new hypothetical irrigation system. Bow loved the energy. It was a shame they'd never gotten to bond over their love of drawing cute things before she switched sides. Maybe if he asked her to check out Tiny Bow and his other model figures the next time they were fighting, he could get her to rejoin the Rebellion---

“What can we do?” Travis whimpered. “The notes are crude and unrefined, but this really could change the outlook for Erelandia, I HAVE to post this on my name as a techmaster, but how am I supposed to publish research made by the Horde?! They'll remove me from the guild and then TOMMIE will take over, Bow, please make sure Tommie doesn't take over, he's a big jerk--” Travis's chair was rotating so fast that it flipped over and he fell onto the floor.

“--Whoah whoah, calm down, buddy!!” Bow got up and helped Travis sit back down, giving him a hug. “You're overthinking this. Probably? I'm not sure? Maybe you won't die?”

“And why is Entrapta still sending letters? With Horde secrets?!” Travis stared at him pleadingly. “That's weird. Do you think that's weird? Am I weird for thinking that's weird?!”

Bow scratched his chin. “To be honest I think she just forgets which side is which.”

“I'm... not surprised by that, actually.” Travis sighed and fell back into his chair. “Dammit Entrapta, why did you have to join the Horde!!! This would be so much easier.”

“Hey, uhh.... at least she knows about irrigation systems now? And is sharing that with us? That... almost makes it silver lining?” Bow read the notes again. Something was missing. When he realised what, a lightbulb went off in his head.  

“Travis, what proof is there that you're publishing a paper written by the Horde... when there won't be a name credited to it?”

Travis raised both eyebrows, and leaned forward on his hands, eyes piercing through Bow with sharp accusation. “Are you suggesting we plagiarize, Bow?”

“Wha-- no, of course not---”

“Do we have to re-educate you on the Ten Laws of Makers?”

“--I'm NOT PLAGIARIZING”, Bow squeaked. “there is NO NAME on the paper!!!”

“But there is literally a drawing of Entrapta on it and it's in her handwriting--?”

“That could be any random pigtailed person with, an incredibly messy writing style!!”  Bow met Travis's eyes, trying his best to calm down. “Look, we publish the submission and say it was sent anonymously, and everyone gets to learn something, and when someone asks where it came from, we have no idea, right? We suspect it was Entrapta, but can we know for sure? And we wouldn't lie, or turn away such a great submission!” Bow put his hands behind his head. “So, we are completely clean.”

Travis raised his goggles. “Bow, you are a beautiful, evil genius.”

Bow blushed and scratched his ear.

_____________________

Catra trudged towards the old prison cells after a long, hard day of carrying the entire Horde. Today, Kyle forgot to put the handbrake on a tank, which crashed into a wall that everyone had to repair. It was probably Kyle. He was blamed for it anyway. It took Catra eight hours to get the materials order and manpower in to repair both the tank and the wall. How this place had survived for 30 years was anyone's guess!

She was heading to Entrapta's “lab”. It wasn't because she wanted the company of her friends, not at all! They're not her friends, they're her co-workers. Nothing more! No more friends ever again!!! It was because she needed to hand some orders over to Entrapta for the next weapons shipment. She wondered why Hordak never did any of this busywork himself. All he did most days was growl and look intimidating. Okay, yeah, it was genuinely terrifying, but still pathetic-- wait what was she doing again? Right, orders, lab.

Catra entered the lab, and as usual, Entrapta was making happy noises and spinning around in her chair, while Emily chased her, and Scorpia cheered on from the sidelines, obviously confused as to what the good news was. Catra counted Entrapta's chaotic spins in her head, and on the seventh count, she stopped the chair with her foot as it passed her by.

“I need you to focus--” Catra flinched as some kind of notebook was flopped on top of her head. She ripped it off and nearly tore it to shreds but anything Entrapta gave her had a 50% chance of being either critically important or random trash, so she checked it first. “The Makers' Magazine...? What the--” Catra flipped through the pags. “Entrapta, is this your handwriting?”

Entrapta had been staring up at Catra, vibrating with an incredible amount of potential energy which needed to be released in small burts or it would probably destroy the room. It started to leak out. “They posted my paper!!! I spent ages thinking about that!! I'm so happy they liked it---”

“This is the fright zone shower system???? You're literally sharing Horde infrastructure plans with the Rebellion?”  

“Huh?” One of Entrapta's hair hands scratched the side of her face. “I didn't think the Guild was with the Rebellion. Is that a bad thing?”

Catra stared wide-eyed. “Yes??? They have a water princess? If she uses that then she can destroy our water system??”  

Entrapta folded her arms. “Well that seems mean, but we'd just have to put it back together!”  

Catra held back a scream.

Scorpia could see that Catra was at breaking point, so she hopped in. “Hey, I thought you did a great job! I loved the little drawings of you and Emily they were so cute! And also those plant things sound interesting?” She took the book from Catra. “Wait, did they not credit you? This was apparently sent in by 'a generous anonymous source'”.

“Aww crumbs, did I forget to write my name down again?” Entrapta shrugged with her arms and hair. “Oh well.”

“It's alright, maybe next time.”

“But hang on, that doesn't make any sense. How come Bow sent me a copy of the magazine with this?”  Entrapta produced a “thank you” note with a cute drawing of a chibi Bow waving back her.  

Scorpia squealed. “That's so cute???? I didn't know Bow was an artist too! I want to draw with him some time! Oooh, maybe he has Best Friend Squad drawings I could use as reference!!!”

Then suddenly the screen at the side of the room popped on, and Catra saw Hordak's shadow looming large.

“Force Captain”, he growled, “I trust you have delivered my orders on the next shipment?”

Catra and Scorpia bowed. “Yes, Lord Hordak. I'm briefing Princess Entrapta now. We were just facing a minor distraction.”

“What sort of 'distraction'? If there is something interfering with your work, then you must remove it immediately.”

“My letter got published!!” Entrapta replied cheerfully. “I posted an article on irrigation to the Etherian Makers Guild! It was inspired heavily by your work, Hordak!”

Catra slapped both her hands hard against her face. What the hell, Entrapta? Do you want to die?

Hordak grunted and lowered his head. “Very well, I trust we can... discuss your research later. In a way that can benefit the Fright Zone.”

Entrapta smiled and nodded happily.

“If that is all, get back to work. We require seventy five cannon renovations by tomorrow morning.”

Hordak disconnected. Catra stood in place, losing the will to live.

“Fuck it”, she said. “If you all are going to let this place burn this place to the ground, I'm grabbing some snacks. Scorpia, help me get some white ration bars.”

“Roger that!!!”, said Scorpia, picking up a yelping Catra and leaving for the canteen.

Catra and Scorpia came back with a mountain of mixed ration bars and bunked the night in Entrapta's lab while she tinkered with weapons.  

Entrapta spent only a few hours actually renovating cannons, because she was planning the next project to send to the Makers' Guild. She was brainstorming a way to make arrows deadlier and more aerodynamic, able to travel further with a heavier load. She added lots of drawings to make her point. Bow probably wouldn't find much of a use for a variant of the “sonic arrow” that was rocket-powered and could travel so fast it broke the sound barrier naturally, but the concept is really cool, isn't it? That's what science is about!

[willowedwisteria]

⁂~The Wrong Heir to the Throne~⁂

Summary -> An imposter shows up before you, changing your arrival from a dream come true to a nightmare.

Warnings -> Minor cursing, worshipping, fourth-wall-breaking, torture, public humiliation

Note -> I kept seeing so many yummy fics of this AU, so obviously, yours truly had to join in the fun. Thank you to @nicebonescomrade who kept reblogging so many good fics for this. (My goldfish brain can't remember the name of the writer)

Your eyes shift past the flight of stairs and who... or what sat on the throne above those stairs, a crown embedded with jewels blinding you, appeared to be an exact replica of you.

Your hands pressed against the cold, hard ground of the cathedral. Your knees are red from kneeling to a copycat of you, making them ache even more when you tried to make your escape in vain.

'Your' shoes clank against the floor while slowly making 'your' way down to you. A smug smirk planted onto their face. Your gut twist and turn at the sight of that wicked smile, you can't believe you're so disgusted at the sight of... yourself.

"How amusing. I'd never imagine looking so beat down and ugly." 'You' remark, balancing 'yourself on one knee and using one hand to force you to look at the spinning image of yourself.

'Your' hands are cold to the touch, too cold to be the hand of a human. What does that really change? There's no way the carbon copy in front of you is human after all of the torture and public humiliation you were forced to endure.

Leaving you in rags, letting passersby cut up your face to their absolute liking while you're held still for a whole day, engulfing you in water, even letting kids draw on you. You've experienced it all and all of the ideas mentioned were from none other than 'yourself'.

You hiss, pulling your face away from the lookalike and biting their hand. You would rather die by their hands than be in their presence any longer.

"Ow! You barbarian!" The doppelganger backs away from you, falling off of the one knee they were balancing themselves on and clenching onto the hand that you bit, your bite marks still showing on their skin.

You had already been restrained by the hands and knees with rope, and they weren't the most gentle with it. However, to add insult to injury, Venti aimed his arrow at you, the Anemo infused arrow striking you right at the leg.

You could see healers immediately rushing over to where you and well... 'you' were, but you knew that those healers weren't there to help you.

You fall to the ground, inaudibly sobbing as you glare at the healers trying to help the "creator". There's someone with a severe injury and the first person they rush to is someone who got bitten?! The "creator" isn't even bleeding!

Absurd. Insolent. Unscrupulous. Immoral. All of them.

"I'm not supposed to even deal with trash." 'You' stand up, smiling at the healers, signaling that you're okay. 'You' turn around, not willing to look at such an unsightly scene, and head back to your throne as you snap your fingers, looking at Ei and Zhongli.

Ei and Zhongli receive the message relayed, nodding. The pair rushes over to you accordingly, following the orders they've been given.

Zhongli pulls you up and tugs at your hair, causing your scalp to ache. Ei summons her sword, pushing the tip of her blade to your throat as you begin to sweat.

"Any last words, imposter? The divine creator has given you your last chance to speak."

You nod, maintaining eye contact with the "divine creator", a hint of glee in you.

"Fuck you all, to hell and back."

Enraged by your words, the crowd screams and shouts at you and 'you' scoff at your confidence.

"Your poor choice of words says a lot. It explains why you would dare mock me." 'You' sigh. 'You' take your hand, pulling it near your neck as you cut it across, signaling for Ei to cut your head off.

You feel the sword dig into your skin and you press your eyes shut, not wanting to stare back at 'you'. At last, you've been freed, you don't have to be in this hellhole of reality.

Well... at least you thought.

You wake up in a cold sweat, Albedo next to you, injecting something into your shoulder.

"Al... bedo?" You could barely speak, your throat hurt, everything hurt. Wait... your throat? Weren't you beheaded?

"Your grace, you shouldn't speak too much. I just found you in an old ruin and your body temperature was extremely low."

Your eyes widened as you pushed yourself up to lean against a wall behind you. Your brows furrowed and your memories come back to you again.

"I didn't see you in the crowd when I was going to be beheaded."

Albedo returns you with a look of confusion, placing a cup of warm water next to you.

"Beheaded? I'm quite sure we recently beheaded an imposter."

Albedo's face twists from confusion to fear, placing both of his hands on your shoulders, one for each, he asks you worriedly.

"Do you mean... that you were the one being beheaded? I was not present during the beheading, but I was confident in the archon's abilities to distinguish your grace apart from the imposter."

You nod at his question as he pulls his hands away from you and apologizes profusely. The method of your revival still remains a mystery, but you suppose you can thank Albedo for bringing you back to his camp, you would have died a second time if it wasn't for him.

Smiling, you pick up the cup and stir the cup with the spoon that Albedo provided for you. You turned your head to him and you insist that he did nothing wrong. He might have been the one to bring you to Teyvat, but he caused you no harm.

You pat him on the head, your fingers running through his golden locks and undoing any tangles in his messy hair. You push his hair aside after putting the cup of warm water down.

Cupping his cheeks in your hand, you softly remind him.

"This means that there's still an imposter taking my throne, isn't that right, Albedo?"

[munsonxmayhem]

Torn Between Two Lovers

Part ii of The New Girl (Final Chapter.)

Based on the song “Torn Between Two Lovers” by Mary Macgregor (maybe listen while you read)

Summary:Being the new girl in town is never easy, and tends to draw a lot of attention. But what happens when she receives the attention of two vastly different men, who both want the same thing? Her.

Warnings: angst? kissing?

________________________________________

You’re sat in your car, door open, listening to music, surrounded by your newfound group of friends. Eddie, Steve, Robin, and Dustin. You turn the stereo down, and fan yourself because of the heat. “Jesus, it’s way too hot.” you announce, turning the car off and getting out. “I’m gonna die of dehydration.” you laugh as you step over to Robin, who’s sitting on your steps. “You want water?” Eddie asks. “I-“ you’re cut off by Steve, “I can get it!” He practically jumps from his spot against the car. “I was kidding!” you laugh, concerned. Looking at both of them, who quickly send a glare at each other. You shrug it off, boys, you think to yourself, shaking your head.

You and Robin are deep in conversation when you hear a heated conversation in the distance. “No, dude! I’m telling you, (Y/N) would much rather watch romance than a horror movie!” Steve exclaims, waving his hands around. Eddie rolls his eyes, “Nah, you’re wrong, man. Horror is definitely her favorite.” “No bu-“ “Boys!” you yell from the steps, “Relax. Horror is my favorite. Romance comes in second.” You express, holding your hands out in a ‘enough’ sort of way. Eddie smirks, and Steve pushes his shoulder, Eddie is about to retaliate when you throw a newspaper at them, “Dustin! Handle that!” you shout, taking Robin’s arm and dragging her inside.

Robin gives you a strange look as you shut the door, turning to her. “What the hell is that all about?” you cross your arms, taking a seat on the couch. “I’m gonna be straightforward, they like you, (Y/N).” You raise your eyebrow, “Who?” “Eddie and Steve” she pleads. You groan, then roll your eyes. “Yeah right! They’re my best friends, Robin.” She folds her arms, looking at you with a ‘are you serious’ look. “Ro-“ she stops you, “Look, all I’m saying is that they both definitely like you! They’ve been doing this for months, nonstop fighting over you, always trying to one up each other, and just to point out, you and I are best friends, too and you don’t see me taking part in the pissing contest! It’s because. they. like. you.” she rambles on emphasizing the last few words. You send her a glare and she throws her hands up in surrender. You roll your eyes, “What?! No! C’mon..” you quickly say back, in disbelief. She looks at you “You’re joking, right? (Y/N) tell me you’re joking. There’s absolutely no way you don’t see that those two boys-“ she points to Steve and Eddie who are standing outside the trailer with Dustin, “have it so very bad for you. Like so so bad.” she finishes. You glance out at the boys, a sad look on your face. You’d be lying if you didn’t think something was up, but you’d brushed the thought away weeks ago.

Always catching Eddie staring at you, and when you’d look he’d quickly look away, cheeks red. Eddie was always affectionate with you, placing a hand on yours, hugging you, or giving you a kiss on your cheek, even teaching you guitar on his most prized possession. It was always something. Then Steve was more bold, he’d always be flirting with you, putting his arm around you like the first night you’d hung out at the party, being a bit possessive whenever Eddie was around. Both constantly trying to see who knew you best, which ended up in minor arguments that you’d eventually have to break up before they turned serious. Both sweet, yet both very different in their own ways. You’d also be lying if you said you didn’t feel something for them.. as selfish as it is. You can’t have both. You love them both, but they each give you different things, different love. You don’t know what to do, but you know you have to do something.

“You have to talk to them.” Robin snaps you out of your thoughts. You nod, looking down at your feet. “I know I just.. I don’t want to lose either of them.” You sigh, placing your hands over your face. “I know, they’re both great. I don’t know.. how do you feel about them? Be honest.” She pries, but you know she’s just trying to help. “I like them both, Robin. I know that’s selfish, and I know I need to choose but it feels impossible to pick one without hurting the other, and I don’t know what to do.” you feel sick with anxiety at the thought of losing one of them. Robin comes over, taking a seat next to you on the couch and puts her hand on your shoulder. “You’re not going to lose them, (Y/N). They’re big boys, well.. big stupid boys, but they can take it. It’s better to figure it out now than to string them along, even if you’re not meaning to.” You nod, and groan in frustration. “Who do you feel like is better for you? Who do you find yourself daydreaming about when you’re alone?” Robin pushes. You stop and think.

“Hey, I picked this flower today.” he hands it to you, “it reminded me of you.” You smile widely, taking the flower. “Thank you so much, that’s so sweet.”

“Okay, what are you staring at? Watch the sunset!” You question him, looking at the sunset you both came to watch. “It’s just not nearly as pretty as you.” An embarrassed smile on his face as the words come from his mouth. You giggle loudly, lightly pushing his shoulder, “Oh my god, how cheesy!”

“(Y/N)! Look what I found today!” a boy stumbles into your room, holding up a t-shirt. You cock your brow, eyeing the shirt in his hands. “Is that the one I have?” A huge smile on his face, “Yes! Now we match!” he exclaims, flopping onto your bed.

Then you know.

“Eddie..” A singular word, barely above a whisper, but has enough meaning behind it to change your entire life. Robin nods, giving you a sympathetic smile. Before she has a chance to speak, you grab her, pulling her into a hug. She gasps, confused. “Thank you” you mutter before pulling her back and holding her shoulders. “Thank you so much.”

“I-“ before she can finish, you’re out the door.

“Steve! Can I talk to you?” you yell from the step of your trailer, he turns to you, a smile big enough to break your heart plastered on his face. “Yeah! We’re just about to head out, what’s up?” He strolls towards you.

You take his arm gently, and bring him inside to your room, closing the door behind you. He sits on the bed, as you pace around with shaky hands. He looks confused, “uh.. what’s up?” he speaks up, getting nervous. You turn to face him, “Steve. You know you’re one of my best friends right?” you manage to get out. He nods slowly, unsure of where this is going. You take a deep breath.

“Look-“ you sit next to him on the bed, “You know I care about you, and I never want to lose you as my friend, ever. And I don’t want you to hate me..” you begin. He looks intently into your eyes. “But-“ He cuts you off. “But you like Eddie..” the words come from his mouth like he’s taken them directly from your head. You look down, putting your head in your hands. “I’m sorry, Steve. I’m awful.” He places a hand on your back, reassuringly. “(Y/N), no.. you’re not awful. It’s okay! This isn’t your fault, I know this is hard for you. Him and I haven’t made this very easy for you, I know that. I respect your decision, as hard as it may be for me because.. well.. c’mon it’s Eddie.. but” he laughs lightly towards the end, “but I could never hate you.” You turn and look at him, and he could see the sadness on your face. “Oh c’mere.” he pulls you into a gentle, and caring hug.

When he finally breaks the hug, you both stand. “Look, I’ve gotta get Dustin home, but I promise you everything’s okay.” You look up at him, “Yeah? So, friends?” He laughs, putting his arm around your shoulders as you walk out of your room, “Friends.”

Steve leaves the trailer, to grab Dustin, and before Robin leaves she turns to you, “So everything went okay?” you nod, “Yeah, just make sure he’s okay for me alright?” “Of course, but Dingus will be okay.” she nods, exiting the trailer.

____________________________________

A few minutes have passed as you stare out the window at Eddie, who is leaned against your car, smoking a cigarette.

You smile to yourself before making your way to the door. When you open it he’s flicking the cigarette away. “Eddie!” you call out, making him turn to you. “Yeah?” he says, a bit confused. Before you know it, your feet have left the steps, running to him. You fling your arms around his neck, and pressing a gentle, yet firm kiss to his lips. Butterflies erupt in your stomach. His eyes widen at your sudden outburst, then his eyes flutter shut before he kisses back passionately, like this kiss is what he needs to stay alive. Wrapping his arms gently around your lower back, pulling you close. When you finally pull away, he smiles, “What was that for?” You shake your head, looking down, and then back up at him. “I just needed to do that.” you tell him and his smile gets bigger. “I’m glad you did.”

As you two make your way to your bedroom, hand in hand, you can’t help but smile up at him. Laying on the bed, he flops down next to you, pulling you into his side. You put your cheek and hand on his chest, tracing small shapes into his shirt. “So what made you do that?” he inquires, softly. You look up at him, a small smile on your lips. “Someone asked me who I daydream about when I’m all alone..” he smiles, “and it’s you..” He just smiles in return, grabbing your fingers and placing them to his lips, peppering your hand with kisses.

You lay there in comfortable silence for a while, just holding each other. You listen to his heartbeat, and he matches your breathing. “Do you ever wanna leave Hawkins?” you mutter out, nervous. He just looks down at you, brushing your hair from your face “Yeah, of course.” he whispers, gently. A smile creeps on your face, “Where do you wanna go?” He just smiles, “I’ll go wherever you go, sweetheart.”

You made the right choice.

-

I hope y’all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! I do apologize it wasn’t super long but I think I did the request I received justice. Apologies to Team Steve.

Tags:

- @deefool

- @griffienn

- @iwillduckyou-up

- @ajeff855

- @harrys-tittie

- @peachteastudiess

- @pearlstiare

[bakumu-archive]

you already have me

bakugou x reader

wc: 1.8k

summary: you expect to spend the night relaxing while bakugou spends time with his friends, until game night gets cut short and you become the center of his attention

cw: porn with little plot, daddy kink, praise kink, creampie, unprotected sex, a lil cum eating (idk if it counts but just to be safe), he carries the reader (he’s strong, he could carry you), a lil fluff as a treat, aged up characters, established relationship

a/n: posting for third time hoping to show up in the tags ✌

“DIE, YOU NERDS!”

Chuckling to yourself as you hear Katsuki scream obscenities from the game room, you continue your work in the kitchen making dinner. Standing by the stove and waiting for the water to boil you can’t help but miss his presence, even if he’s only a room away.

Your thoughts drift through various ideas: what are you going to do for the rest of the night, if your favorite fanfic has had an update come out, what Katsuki’s schedule looks like next week… Your thoughts always drift back to him, the love of your life and you can’t help but be jealous of his keyboard right now.

Gaming night with the boys was—as much as he would never admit it—one of Katsuki’s favorite things. He missed seeing his friends every day like back in their UA days, but since becoming a pro hero, getting engaged, and buying a house he has had to shuffle his priorities around. Usually, you spend the whole evening trying to relax as his shouting soothes your eardrums from the other room, but tonight is different as his footsteps suddenly sneak up behind you.

Grabbing your hips, he pulls you back into him. “Hey princess, I’ve missed you.”

His voice is huskier than normal, sending vibrations right to your core. His hands grip your hips tighter and you push your ass back into him.

“Katsu! I thought you were playing games tonight?” Your question sounds whinier than you intended but right now you couldn’t care less.

He hums behind you, grinding his growing erection into you some more before muttering, “Denki had to stop, early patrol tomorrow.”

He turns you around and picks you up so you are sitting on the countertop, hands skimming down your sides until he is gripping at your hips again. Stepping between your thighs to get closer to you, his eyes rake up your body taking you in. Your breathing is heavy, making him chuckle.

“You’re so worked up already, have I been neglecting my pretty girl?”

If you weren’t so turned on, you would have rolled your eyes at him, but all you do is whimper. You pout as he smirks at you, moving his hands under your shirt to rub your soft skin with his thumbs.

How he is able to turn you into a whimpering mess with just a few actions is always a surprise to you, but it has been a few days since he’s given you this much of his undivided attention.

His mouth is just a breath away from yours as he stares at your lips. “Guess I’ll have to make it up to you.”

Ghosting his lips over yours, toying with you, trying to drive you crazy. Surging forward, you try to capture his lips, but he pulls away just out of reach. As you beg him with your eyes to kiss you already, he licks his lips and lets out a deep groan before crashing his lips onto yours.

Tongue and teeth clashing into each other, he reaches one hand around your back, pulling you closer to him, while the other traces up your body to your neck. Angling your head, he kisses you deeper. A moan you didn’t even know you were trying to keep down emerges, breaking the kiss.

Feeling entirely too hot, you grab the bottom of your shirt and pull it over your head, quickly following it with your bra. Sucking in a breath as you expose your chest to him, he follows your lead, throwing his shirt across the room. Your eyes watch your fingers as they ghost across his abs before they move slowly up his body, bringing out a shudder from Katsuki. He’s holding his breath, waiting for you to make the next move. When your hands make their way up to his neck, you meet his gaze. His eyes are hungry, consuming your soul. It feels suffocating, but you can’t look away.

He moves his lips back to yours needily. He peppers kisses down your face before starting his assault on your neck. He starts out lightly kissing your skin at your pulse point, but as you moan more, he can’t hold himself back. He sucks and bites at your weak spots, intending on leaving his mark. His lips start to ghost down your chest as he moves his palms from your waist to your breasts, kneading them before attaching his mouth to one of your nipples.

Moans escape from your mouth as your hips move on their own against his cock. You can feel how hard he is through his jeans and your mind goes numb at the thought of him. Your hand reaches down to rub him through the fabric and you feel him pulse under your palm.

“F-fuck. Keep doing that, princess, and I’m gonna cream my pants,” he whispers breathlessly. He must be as frustrated as you if he’s already this close.

Looking down at him, you bat your eyelashes and whisper, “I’d rather you cum in me, daddy.”

A guttural moan leaves his throat. He suddenly turns to the stove - shutting off the burner that you had completely forgotten about with a slam before moving his hands back to your body, gripping under your thighs. You wrap your arms around his neck as he effortlessly picks you up off the counter. Wrapping your fingers into his hair, he resumes his assault on your neck as he makes his way to the bedroom.

He places you down on the edge of the bed and you stare up at him. His body looks like it’s glowing. A thin sheen of sweat on his skin, fiery eyes roaming all over your body, and with some of his hair sticking to his forehead, you think he looks like a god. He slowly starts to take off his jeans, dragging them down his hips slowly. He’s teasing you, knowing that you are getting wetter from watching him.

His cock springs free and you gasp, realizing that he wasn’t wearing any underwear. The sight of it makes your core clench. You desperately wish for it to be in your hands, your mouth, your cunt, honestly anywhere on you at this point.

“If you see something you want, you know you just have to ask for it,” he says as he closes in on you. His body encompasses yours. Looking down from above you, surrounding you in all of his heat, he places his hands on either side of your hips, waiting.

“Please, Katsu. I just want you.”

He lets out a small “tch” before reaching down to pull off your pants and underwear.

“You already have me, dumbass,” he says affectionately.

Your eyes meet and bask in the tender moment before his lips are on you again. Scooting you back on the bed, he climbs on top of you. Your lips meet in a frenzy, swallowing each other’s moans before they can escape. Both of you lose yourself to the kiss, tongues meeting in unison. He pulls away from you and you groan at the loss of contact.

His hand runs down your body, before dipping between your folds. A groan leaves him. “Fuck, baby. You’re already so wet for me.”

He gathers up your slick on his fingers before he brings them up to his mouth. Keeping his gaze locked with yours, he places his fingers in his mouth and moans. His eyes flutter as he sucks them clean. “You always taste so good. Mmm. If I didn’t need to fuck you so bad I’d eat your cunt out for hours.”

You can’t help but feel your empty hole flutter at the thought, but you agree. You are way too needy right now.

“Please, Katsu. Fuck me already. I need you, daddy.”

You can feel his body shudder when you drawl out those last words. He’s losing his composure and it’s exactly what you need right now.

He slowly spreads your legs out wider for him. He slides the tip of his cock against your clit and through your folds, drawing out moan after moan from you. And from the looks of it, Katsuki looks like he isn’t faring any better. He’s concentrating on not cuming already and he’s not even inside you yet. He places his elbows on the bed next to your head as the tip of him slides inside of your wet cunt, stretching you so deliciously. You missed his cock so much, even if it’s only been a few days. He pushes in you slowly and when he finally bottoms out, you both release a small, “fuck.”

His lips move against yours as he slowly pulls out before slamming himself back in, hitting that perfect spot inside of you. You break the kiss, arching your back, not being able to concentrate on anything except how he feels inside of you, as he keeps a steady pace fucking you expertly.

Your walls already fluttering around him and he moves his hand down to thumb at your clit. “Gonna cum for me already? That’s my good girl.”

At his praise, you feel your whole body tense. Your orgasm races through you, causing you to cry out his name like it’s the only word you know, vision turning black as you see stars, and your head swims in your high. His hips stutter as he lets out a string of curses before he pushes his cock deeper into your dripping cunt, spilling his cum into you.

He stays inside of you as he relaxes his body, putting some of his weight on you. Both of you are trying to catch your breath, as he looks down at you and smiles.

“I love you so much, you know that?”

You grin back at him, looking into his eyes that are so full of love and tenderness. “Yeah, I know, Katsuki,” you reply.

You kiss his nose, causing him to blush and you laugh. “Really, you just fucked the life out of me, but one kiss on your nose has you blushing? You’re so cute.”

He pulls out of you, rolling his eyes, and retorting, “Shut up, dumbass.” He climbs off the bed as you laugh. You roll to your side, watching him and following his ass with your eyes as he picks the discarded clothing off the floor. He reaches out a hand to you to pull you off the bed. “Lets get cleaned up and figure out dinner.”

You accept his help, using his hand to anchor yourself while your legs return to their non-jelly form. He kisses your forehead once you’re stable and as you make your way to the bathroom, he slaps your ass.

“Keep doing that, Katsu, and we’re gonna have to go for round two,” you tease.

He pulls you back into his warm embrace and wraps his arms around you. “Oh yeah? If we order takeout, I bet I could get two more rounds in before the food gets here.”

You laugh while he goes to find his phone to order from your favorite restaurant. You can hear him yell from across the house. “They’ll be here in 40 minutes, get back on the bed!”

God, you were in for a long night, but with Katsuki you wouldn’t have it any other way.

[imaginesbygrace]

Nobody Else(TASM!Peter Parker)

Part Two to Murderous

Masterlist

You clutched your sheets to your chest, your breathing hadn’t fully calmed yet, but your tears had finally stopped. There was a scratch at your throat, begging for water. It had been a few hours since you left school, your parents still out at work. Normally, you loved being home alone, but today the silence was deafening.

The knock at your window surprised you, your heart jumped and eyes went wide. You relax at the sight of Peter in his suit, before the anger and hurt returns. You storm over the window, and rather than letting him in, you shut the curtains. “Come on, beautiful, let me fix this,” he pleaded through the window. “I promise you, what you think happened didn’t happen. It looks way worse than what it really is, just please.”

You don’t answer. “Y/N, hun, please. I hate seeing you this sad, it’s breaking my heart, just let me in.”

“It’s not locked,” you mumble quietly knowing he would hear you anyway. You shuffle to bed as Peter slides the window open and steps in. “What do you want?”

He pulls his mask off his head and his eyes sadden as he looks over your face. “I am so sorry, Y/N,” he reaches for you but you scoot back on the bed and ignore the hurt that flashed across his eyes.

“So?” You played with your nails, “Is that it? Cause if it is, can you leave?”

“Uh, no,” he shook his head and pulled his backpack off. “I was with Gwen yesterday,” he admitted. “But it was for this,” he reached into his bag and pulled out a glass dish of chicken parm, the most amazing smell filled the room. “She was helping me prep the dinner I wanted to make for you,” he reached in again and pulled out a smaller plastic container, “And she made those cupcakes from the bake sale? The ones with the little pearls in them you liked?”

“You cooked?” You raised your brows in shock, and he chuckled lightly.

“Yeah, I did.”

“And you didn’t start a fire?”

“That was one time,” he defended. Peter kneeled in front of your bed, grabbing your hand and sighed softly when you let him. “Gwen asked me to help her draw something for her art class in exchange for the cupcakes and teaching me the recipe.”

“Peter, you still didn’t answer your phone all night, I was worried sick.”

He cringes, “I don’t have a phone anymore.”

You furrowed your brows, “What do you mean?”

“I kinda dropped it,” he nodded, “Off the Empire State Building?”

You stare at him, eyes red and cheeks covered in dried tear stains, and laugh. Peter’s heart swelled at the sound, his cheeks red as he stared at your smile. He’d die to see that smile.

“Peter, why didn’t you just tell me this morning that that’s why you were with Gwen?”

“I didn’t want to ruin the surprise, I was meant to finish everything in time for dinner yesterday, but I kinda burned the food so we had to start over.”

“So you did start a fire?”

“A small one, yes,” he agreed sheepishly. Peter reaches forward and cups your face in his gloved hands, “I’m truly sorry, Y/N. I never meant to miss our anniversary last night, Gwen stayed to help me fix the burnt dinner and by the time we were done it was almost time for school.”

“It’s okay, Peter,” you sigh quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“For just assuming the worst in you,” you rest your hands on his shoulders, playing with the hair on the back of his neck, “I should’ve trusted you.”

“You have no reason to be sorry, hun, I’d be just as upset if I were you.” He pressed a kiss to your nose. “I’m just happy we’re okay now.”

“More than okay,” you promise. You pull Peter into you and he doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around you.

“I just want you to know, there is nobody else,” he shook his head. “Nobody out there is as good for me as you are, nobody I want more than you, this is it for me. I knew it when I met you on the playground and you pushed me down the slides, and that was it.” He buries his head into your neck and holds you as close as he can.

“God, I love you so much Peter Parker,” you whisper into his ear.

“I love you, forever.”

You pull away, “I still have to give you your gift.” You move to reach under the bed, “Close your eyes!” Peter chuckles, but still covers his face with his hands. “Okay, open them.”

Peter’s eyes open to a new skateboard in your hands. “Are you serious?” He gasps excited, taking it from your hands.

“Flip it over,” you encourage shly. He does so, a smile comes across his face. It was a hand painted image of Spiderman’s back swinging off between buildings, holding onto a painted image of you.

“Where did you get this?” He gaped, tracing over the image.

“I hired someone to do it custom, and told him my boyfriend’s a real big fan of Spiderman,” you winked. “I have something else too,” you added while lifting a smaller bag.

“Come on, you’re spoiling me,” he shook his head.

“Only because you deserve it,” you shrug.

He reaches in and slides out a new camera, one he’d been eyeing in the window of a vintage shop for months. Peter had told you a thousand times about the kinds of pictures he could take with it, how cameras like these weren’t even made anymore. “Y/N-”

“Before you say anything, I promise it wasn’t a lot. I got the owner to lower the price, I just had to take his weird kid to homecoming,” you explain.

“You took someone else to homecoming?”

“Don’t worry, he was 12 and wanted to make some eighth grader jealous,” you chuckled.

“Thank you so much, you didn’t have to do this, really I-”

“I wanted to,” you admitted, “The rest of the world might need Spiderman, but all I’ve ever needed is Peter Parker.” Without another moment, Peter lurched forward and captured your lips on his own. You’re smiling into the kiss, happy to have Peter there and close. The kiss ends too soon and Peter looks at you with every bit of love and adoration he could muster.

“You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I’m so sorry that I let you think any differently.”

“It’s okay, Pete, I should’ve trusted you.”

“I shouldn’t have made you think you couldn’t,” he told you. “I have a gift for you too, it’s not nearly as nice as the ones you got me-”

“I’ll love it no matter what it is,” you remind him. He pulls you up to your feet and turns you away from him. Peter’s nervous as he pulls the necklace out from his bag, it was gold with three small circular pendants. One pendant had his name engraved into it, another with yours, and the third with your anniversary date and New York engraved on the other side. He takes a deep breath before laying the necklace over you, struggling to clip it in place with the gloves of his suit still on.

“Peter,” you gasp looking at the necklace.

“It’s not much-”

You turn around quickly, “It’s absolutely perfect.” You launch yourself into his arms, and Peter doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around you. “Please get out of this suit and let me hold you.” You pull away first, “I have some of your clothes in the drawer over there. I’ll go get some plates and forks for the food. ” You move to leave, but Peter shoots a web and pulls you back in.

“Kiss me before you go,” he smiles sweetly.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” you leaned up and pressed your lips to his. Peter relaxes at the contact and completely melts into you. He pulls away hesitantly and smiles at you, wondering how he got as lucky as he did.

[jingyismom]

Time for more sex-cursed Lan Wangji!

a messy, self-indulgent spree imported from twt and lightly edited

explicit, wangxian, 9k, canon divergence fix-it

mild dubcon because of the nature of sex curses (but like, they do their best to communicate around it), and cw for brief thoughts of self harm, no other warnings

This curse's origin is mysterious, perhaps politically guided. Someone is trying to throttle Gusu Lan's alliance prospects by removing Lan Wangji's stellar marriageability after Sunshot. It works, after a fashion.

Wei Wuxian is in the Burial Mounds, farming and hardening his heart as the resentment worsens his health, subsisting on memories of Lan Wangji's single visit.

Lan Wangji is at home in Gusu, pining away while they rebuild the Cloud Recesses.

One day, he begins to burn up with unexplained fever.

The healers examine him quickly and thoroughly and determine first that he's been cursed. This is not entirely shocking, but it of course angers the entire sect. Next they test for the curse's nature. It turns out to be a very classic, very coarse type of love curse.

The afflicted will burn up, losing all their sense and senses, and eventually die, if their body's “needs” are not satisfied by the one it craves most.

The healers are disgusted. Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren are outraged. But Lan Wangji becomes very calm at the news.

Before, he felt anxiety. The urgent desperation of a dying man waiting to be told how to live.

Now he is just waiting to die.

For you see, the choice between throwing himself at another human being—no matter who they may be—and meeting death with dignity, is an easy one.

Everyone else privy to this information disagrees. The argument that follows is short, but heated:

"Well, Wangji?" Lan Qiren begins once the initial furor has died down. "How do you wish to...go about this?"

Lan Wangji, over-warm and aching, looks up at him from the examination bed. Gusu Lan funeral rites are ancient and immutable. He does not understand the question.

Lan Qiren purses his lips and glances around. "We must find the person first," he prompts.

Ah. The person responsible. Yes, Lan Wangji does have business with them before he dies. He stands, only swaying slightly. "I am well enough to exact justice. Let us cast the rebound."

Lan Xichen steps forward then, and gently pushes him back to sitting. "It has been cast. However, justice can wait. Your health must come first."

Lan Wangji looks between his uncle, his brother, and the one doctor allowed to be present. Surely they would not be joking at a time like this.

"I do not understand," he says.

The three exchange a look. "Breaking the curse must be our priority," says Lan Xichen.

Lan Wangji is not sure he heard correctly. But it would be cruel to give him unfounded hope. "I was unaware there was another way."

"...There is not," says Lan Xichen, his gentleness unfailing.

Lan Wangji experiences a moment of deep confusion before the horror sets in.

"You cannot mean this," he says through his shock. "Surely you cannot mean to cast aside so many disciplines at the whim of a base villain."

"The disciplines are a guide," Lan Qiren says, hands behind his back, looking into the distance, "to ensure a life well-lived. They are not meant to inspire martyrdom."

Lan Wangji's mouth falls open. He stares at his uncle, mute with betrayal. He has never heard of any such leeway before, not in regards to disciplines of such a serious nature.

"You can understand, can't you?" Lan Xichen says. "That no rule is more important than your life.”

Lan Wangji disagrees vehemently. "I would not buy my life with such behavior."

Lan Qiren huffs in irritation. "We may perform a marriage in haste, if you wish."

Lan Wangji balks at him. That his uncle should speak so flippantly of...such a thing. It is unimaginable. And besides, forcing a marriage on Wei—on anyone in this way is surely only adding insult to heinous injury.

"I refuse," he says.

Lan Xichen exchanges a look with the doctor, and sits beside him. "Perhaps the other person should be allowed part of that choice."

Ridiculous. "There is no such person." Preventing this course of action is worth one lie, Lan Wangji reasons.

"With respect, Hanguang-jun, if that were true, the curse would not have been able to take hold," says the doctor.

The use of his title feels uncomfortably ironic from a woman who helped deliver him at birth. He glares at her. She smiles tiredly in return.

"Wangji," Lan Xichen says. His tone is beginning to grate on Lan Wangji's raw nerves. "You will at least try, won't you?"

Lan Wangji stares at him in disbelief, in anger, in righteous indignation.

"Never," he says.

A hand slaps his shoulder. "Apologies," says the doctor, and the world goes dark.

-----

Lan Wangji wakes to dark wood beams dappled by lacy sunlight, and a faint smell of char in the air. His head is heavy, his limbs full of lead. He swallows around the dry thickness in his throat.

"Water," comes a familiar voice.

With effort, Lan Wangji sits up. His stomach is roiling, his mind fogged from the coma and the curse both. The doctor, crouching beside him in the carriage, offers him a bowl of water.

He takes it, and asks, "What have you done?"

She sighs.

"My duty," she says, "with the help of your brother."

She draws back the curtain at the carriage entrance, revealing a sea of black, twisted trees and gray tumbled walls.

Lan Wangji's blood freezes in his veins. He just barely stops himself from asking how they knew.

"Why," he asks instead, a much safer question.

She considers him. "Your brother said if he was wrong, he would beg forgiveness afterward. But it couldn't hurt to have an expert in resentment and curses look at you anyway."

A stab of sick embarrassment makes Lan Wangji’s stomach clench.

Has he been so obvious? Is he such a lovesick fool that anyone with eyes can see his shame?

The doctor pats his shoulder gruffly and he flinches, expecting more needles.

"Ah he's your brother, he's bound to know things you don't want him to," she says. "Come on. Out you get."

He allows her to tug him out of the carriage and onto solid ground. The air is stifling with resentment, but he is glad to be free of his bonds. Now he can look for his chance to get away.

There are six Lan disciples flanking them. He eyes them warily, wondering what they know. When the doctor pulls him out of earshot, and pitches her voice low, he is satisfied that they have not been fully informed.

"Your family and I agreed to give you a chance first," she says. "You have 24 hours to take care of this yourself. After that, I will personally tell Wei-gongzi of your brother's message. I have been assured he will not jeopardize your well-being if fully-informed."

Lan Wangji gapes at her. He does not know what he expected to happen, but it was not this...this...mercenary attempt at...forcing...

The curse has weakened him such that he cannot fly his sword. He can hardly walk in a straight line, let alone run. He has very little recourse now that everyone in his life has gone absolutely mad. His heart is racing with the adrenaline of upheaval, of fear, of impending death.

He wrenches his arm from her grasp and stalks off of the road, into the brush. She calls after him, but he does not mean to escape. He cannot manage that alone. Instead, he sits. He takes a deep breath. He sinks into meditation.

"Hanguang-jun," she calls. She approaches, hands on her hips. She sighs. "Well, if it's like that, then there's nothing stopping me from telling him right now."

She turns, and Lan Wangji feels a lurch of helplessness, when a new voice rings clear through the fog.

"Tell what to whom?"

Lan Wangji's eyes snap open. Wei Wuxian is standing on the other side of the carriage, the child A-Yuan in his arms, eyeing the Lan delegation with suspicion. Wen Ning is with him, and the Lan disciples shift nervously just looking at him, but Wei Wuxian sets A-Yuan in his arms, and he leaps away up the mountain.

"Might I assume this little party has come for me?" Wei Wuxian goes on, twirling his flute. His eyes are shrewd and cold, similar to the way they had looked when he had first returned during the war.

At the sight of him, at the sound of his voice, the curse...reacts.

A horrid, uncomfortable shiver of need runs through Lan Wangji's body alongside his own simple relief and joy at seeing Wei Wuxian again, looking relatively well. He fights it, keeping still among the weeds, hoping against hope to go unnoticed.

"Yiling Laozu," the doctor greets him with a deep bow. "We have indeed come to humbly beg your aid."

"I see," he says. "And what will you give me in return?"

The doctor hesitates, clearly discomfited by the context Wei Wuxian is currently unaware of. "We may...discuss that. Once we have informed you of the details."

Wei Wuxian hums, considering. Cold. Detached. "And if I am disinclined to—"

He breaks off. The doctor has moved so that she and Lan Wangji are both in Wei Wuxian's line of sight. Lan Wangji closes his eyes rather than see the moment of recognition, rather than feel the weight of Wei Wuxian's eyes on him, like this.

"Lan Zhan?"

Lan Wangji clamps his jaw shut. It is a struggle not simply to crawl to him.

The renewed ice in Wei Wuxian's voice when next he speaks makes Lan Wangji aware of the warmth with which he had said his name. His curls his shaking hands into fists on his knees.

"What have you done to him?"

The doctor sighs. "We have done nothing. He has been cursed, which is why we brought him here. If you—"

"Daifu," Lan Wangji interrupts, his voice thin.

She stops speaking.

Lan Wangji opens his eyes, but does not look at Wei Wuxian, not yet. If he is careful, and uses his remaining strength correctly, he can perhaps...perhaps guide the situation. Toward escape. With Wei Wuxian's help.

He may have to lie to him. He hopes he will be forgiven, all things considered.

Lan Wangji stands slowly, carefully, considering each movement so as not to reveal the state he is in.

"I will speak with him," he says to the doctor.

She eyes him. "24 hours," she says.

He does not acknowledge this. He thinks they both know it will not come to that, though his idea differs greatly from hers. He judges, from the time they have allotted and his own weakness, that he has perhaps a day and a half, total, to wait them out. Doable, if he is careful and intelligent about it.

He can manage.

He walks over to Wei Wuxian, careful to keep two arm's lengths between them. This close is already too close: a fine, constant tremor has made a home in all of his tightly-locked muscles. He feels the moment his fever begins to rise further. The sides of his throat hurt, the interiors of his ears. He wonders if his hearing will go first, or his eyes.

"Allow me to explain," he says to him.

"Of course," Wei Wuxian answers.

He sounds strange. Cold, still. Lan Wangji wants to look at him, and almost slips, but manages to stop himself. He follows him up the hill, past the wards, through the resentment that clings to them both, now. He keeps his careful distance, following behind.

"What happened?" Wei Wuxian asks, as they walk.

"A curse," Lan Wangji says carefully. "Origin unknown. The rebound has been cast. I did not wish to burden you with this, but they are...they will not listen to reason. Wei Ying, if you would but help me, I would deal with this on my own."

"Oh?"

"I...wish to seek justice. They will not allow it. But you understand. If there is another path off the mountain, if you would show me the way past them, I could—"

Wei Wuxian stops dead, and Lan Wangji, with his eyes in the ground, runs into him. 

For a blazing, agonizing moment, he is touching Wei Wuxian, clinging to him, every element in his body sighing and crying out at once in satisfaction, in the torturous need for more.

He tears himself away, stumbling back, almost falling. Wei Wuxian reaches out as if to catch him, but falters.

"Lan Zhan, you can hardly stand," he says, alarmed, "and you want to go and fight someone?"

Lan Wangji draws himself up taller again, trying hard to stop his shaking. He cannot look at him. He cannot look. He is already dying, now, just from not looking. "It is my right."

"...It is..." Wei Wuxian says at length, watching him closely. "And it still will be once you're well again. Your doctors really couldn't tell what type of curse it is?"

Lan Wangji says nothing, trying to think past the way every inch of his skin feels as if it is burning clean off. The pain of it screams through him, worse than anything he has ever felt. Wei Wuxian is still speaking, but it is hard to make sense of it. When Wei Wuxian begins walking again, slowly, it is all he can do to both follow and stay away from him. This, here, now, is worse than death. If it lasts, he certainly will not be sane when the end finally comes. He lets go of any thoughts of a dignified death.

Fortunately, by the time they reach the cool dark of the cave Wei Wuxian calls home, the pain has subsided to a distant roar. Unfortunately, he hoped never to reach this point. He tries his only play again, unable to think of any new tactic.

"Please show me the way off the mountain," he says without preamble.

Wei Wuxian is quiet for a beat. "You really don't want my help that much?"

Lan Wangji is so confused by this question, and then struck by the irony of it, that he almost begins to laugh. A shivery, jittery feeling fills his chest, and he leans against the nearest solid surface. He wishes he were wearing a loose outer layer over his blue travel robes, the better to hide his shaking. He does not know how to respond.

"You haven't so much as looked at me once since you got here," Wei Wuxian goes on, digging through strange pots and objects on a table, "so I get it. But you'll have to forgive me if I disregard your objection to the kind of work I do, when it comes to your life."

"My life, my life," Lan Wangji mocks, accidentally out loud. Why is everyone suddenly so obsessed with his life? He was ready to give it freely in the war, but chance let him keep it. What difference does giving it now in the name of keeping himself clean of shame make? Why will nobody allow him this choice?

"What shame?" Wei Wuxian asks.

Lan Wangji buckles at the realization that he has said all of this out loud. He goes to the floor, to his knees.

"Nothing," he says. "The shame of not having warded off such a simple attack."

"Lan Zhan...you want to die because you didn't defend against a curse you didn't know was coming?"

Lan Wangji lapses into silence. He has said too much already. He does not know how to get out of this. He can only...he can only stay quiet. Refuse to speak or move.

"Lan Zhan...I feel like I'm missing something here. I only want to help.”

Lan Wangji grits his teeth and stares hard at the floor in front of him. He has rarely ever felt so trapped, so utterly helpless. The extended, full-body pain is dulling his mind by the moment. The hems of Wei Wuxian's robes come into view, and it takes everything in him not to fall forward into him, to plead, to beg. His breath is hitching at random intervals now, his heart tripping as it prepares to fail entirely.

There is a soft gust of air, and an odd prickling sensation across his face.

"Now let's see—oh," Wei Wuxian says. "I...oh."

Lan Wangji wilts at his stilted, awkward tone. He knows now, surely. Can see him truly.

"So that's why you want to leave, and why they won't let you. They want me to find another way to break it, to stop you from...ah."

Lan Wangji sorts through the words, trying to comprehend them.

"Sorry," Wei Wuxian goes on. "I...it's unbreakable, otherwise. A very old, airtight spell. You...will Gusu Lan start a war with me if I do just let you go...ah, handle this the old-fashioned way?"

Comprehension dawns. And with it, a way out.

Lan Wangji rushes to agree. "They—" He cuts off. Will they? If they think Wei Wuxian has willingly let him die, rather than...

He takes a breath. Another. Forces his mind past the endless litany of pleas for relief.

"Show me the way " he says, his words breathless and short, "and then tell Lan-daifu what you have done. And why. But give me time to. Get away. And you will be safe."

Wei Wuxian pauses. "How...ah. How far—how much time?"

Lan Wangji tries hard to come up with an answer for that. His progress will be slow. But he need only find a place to hide.

"Half a day," he hazards.

Wei Wuxian seems to vacillate. "Are you sure you can make it on your own?"

Lan Wangji wants to rage. To weep. To curse himself to the heavens for being so depraved toward so endlessly kind a man. His heart hurts, even as his body strains toward him.

This lie may be the worst he will ever tell.

"I will be fine,” he says.

"Alright." Wei Wuxian sounds unconvinced. "I trust you."

Lan Wangji nearly convulses, holding back a sob. How will he ever be forgiven?

He cannot think of it. Only this, only what comes next. Only keeping Wei Wuxian safe from this mess.

"Lan Zhan?"

"Mn," he manages.

"Would you look at me, now? I haven't...used any demonic cultivation on you. It's safe, I promise I won't. I just. Can't we say goodbye properly?"

Lan Wangji has not moved from the floor. He does not move. He should try. A parting gift. Just one look.

But if he is going to leave. If he is going to succeed. He cannot.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says again, frustrated now.

Lan Wangji does not look. He is so close to freedom from the horrible pull, from the way his very veins are trying to tear themselves free to wrap around Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian steps forward, and Lan Wangji's breath leaves him all at once. Suddenly, there are fingers beneath his jaw, kind but firm, tilting his chin up. He has no choice but to look.

(Inspired by this art.)

Wei Wuxian is there. Tall and strong and perfect, tiredness mixed with something bittersweet on his lovely face. Lan Wangji's entire being melts toward him, a deep, sharp tug from inside his bones, a mindless, helpless, straining need that pushes a low, wanting sound from his throat.

Wei Wuxian snatches his hand away and backs up half a step, staring at him.

"Sorry," he says, blank. Confused. "I thought it was...I didn't realize...sorry."

Lan Wangji, now that he has looked, cannot look away. He has overbalanced without Wei Wuxian's support, fallen forward onto his hands, but he cannot stop looking at him. He will look at him, and keep looking; he prays Wei Wuxian is the last thing he sees before he dies.

The most shameful part of this is that none of it is the curse twisting his thoughts. None of this is. All the curse is doing is making the way he always feels impossible to ignore.

"Wei Ying," his voice implores. He does not mean it to.

Wei Wuxian takes another step back and looks down at the bowl of powder in his hand, confused. "I was certain it was that curse," he says to himself. "If I was wrong, then maybe I could break it..."

Lan Wangji tries to scrape his composure back together. He tries. He tries. His fingers scrape on the rough stone floor. He does not reach out for him. That is something.

Wei Wuxian looks at him again, then hastily away. Lan Wangji does not ever want to know what it is he sees.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says, as Lan Wangji shakes, and shakes. "Where...where were you trying to go? I thought you...I thought you were, ah, thinking of a certain someone."

Lan Wangji's arms are weak. They are going to give out. He cannot answer him.

"I'm confused, and I...may have made a mistake," Wei Wuxian goes on, still backing away slowly, "but I just want to help. Can you tell me what was happening before, and what's happening now?"

Lan Wangji shakes his head, and the motion shatters his fragile balance. He falls, and curls tightly around himself in the dirt.

"Lan Zhan!" Wei Wuxian says, suddenly close.

Lan Wangji sees his hand reach out, then pause, and he can't stop himself from taking hold of it, just to be touching him. His body screams for it, and he gasps raggedly at the contact.

Wei Wuxian wrenches his arm free. Lan Wangji wishes he were dead.

"Fuck," Wei Wuxian mutters to himself. "I...I'm sorry. I made this so much worse, I..."

"No," Lan Wangji rasps. He cannot hear Wei Wuxian berate himself thus. His dignity has now died, and he himself will soon follow. This is all that matters. "Not your fault."

Wei Wuxian huffs, crouching beside him. "It is...at least partially my fault, at this point, I'm pretty sure. You wouldn't be...reacting. Like this. If it weren't. Is...can I...do a few more tests? To check what I got wrong, and maybe—"

"You were not wrong."

He does not mean to say it.

His need to reassure has overridden his sense, and his mind is too slow now to piece together what it will mean before it leaves his mouth. The regret once it does is instantaneous. He tries to curl himself yet smaller in the dirt.

Wei Wuxian is silent. Lan Wangji cannot stop making small, pitiful, pained sounds in the back of his throat. Everything hurts. Everything.

"I don't understand," Wei Wuxian says quietly.

Lan Wangji lies shivering on the floor, arms locked around himself to prevent any more untoward behavior. He cannot take it back. He cannot try to explain. There is nothing he could say, regardless.

"Lan Zhan...but you..."

He can hear Wei Wuxian thinking, but it only registers in the far back of his mind. The rest of his consciousness is taken up by pain, and by ruthless restraint.

"You wanted to leave to get away from me," Wei Wuxian says, finally.

Lan Wangji does not answer. He wishes he had his sword. He would use it now to end this.

Wei Wuxian begins to back away again, and Lan Wangji’s body moves without his permission. He grips the skirt of Wei Wuxian’s robes in his fist and drags himself closer, pressing his cheek to Wei Wuxian's knee.

Shameful. Wanton. The small part of himself that is still aware berates the action. But he cannot let go. He cannot move away. The only part of him that is not howling with pain is the side of his face pressed to coarse fabric.

"Lan Zhan, you…," Wei Wuxian is trying to gently pry Lan Wangji's fingers from his hem. "You wanted to leave, remember? You don't want...you don't."

"Want," Lan Wangji croaks, pressing closer. "Wanted to spare you."

"Ah, Lan Zhan...I...I'm still not sure it's that specific curse, it could...there could be other..."

"It is," Lan Wangji says, half-crawling up Wei Wuxian's leg. He wants to stop himself. It is impossible.

"Lan Zhan...you...you shouldn't—"

"Stop me," Lan Wangji pleads, nuzzling against Wei Wuxian's thigh, "Wei Ying, I can't...please. Stop me."

There is a long near-silence filled with harsh breaths, in which Lan Wangji is almost certain he imagines the light touch of fingers brushing his mussed hair back from his forehead. Then Wei Wuxian speaks.

"No," he says. "You'll die, if I do. Lan Zhan. I won't let that happen."

He touches Lan Wangji's face. Lan Wangji whimpers into him.

He knows this will break the fragile repairs they have made to their friendship. He will likely never see him again, at least not on good terms. The thought makes him feel ill. He should protest. Refuse. Flee. He can do exactly none of these things. He reaches for Wei Wuxian's wrist, to hold his hand to his face, but Wei Wuxian flinches away.

"You can't...Lan Zhan. I'm going to help you," he says, "but you have to...you can't...you can't touch me."

Lan Wangji feels another tight clench of shame. He nods against his leg. He understands: he knows any small part of this is too much to ask, let alone bearing his unwelcome, curse-fevered grasping.

"Okay," says Wei Wuxian. He slides his fingers beneath Lan Wangji’s chin again, tipping his face up.

He looks so uncertain. So beautiful in the dim light. Lan Wangji wants to weep with it.

"Lan Zhan, I know it doesn't count for much like this, but you have to tell me. You have to tell me what you need."

Lan Wangji turns his head, pressing his face between Wei Wuxian's thigh and stomach, trying to reach into him, to feel more of him, to stop hurting just enough to think. It does not work.

"You," he breathes, into the scent of earth, and stringent soap, and Wei Wuxian.

A harsh, uneven breath ghosts across his hair, and Wei Wuxian's hands grip his shoulders. He thinks he is about to be pushed away again, but instead Wei Wuxian pulls him up, pulls him close, folds him into his embrace.

Lan Wangji sobs into his shoulder, trying at once to get closer and to hold himself apart, instinct demanding, even now, that he try to conceal his obvious, disgraceful hardness. His muscles quake under the strain of doing both and neither, and Wei Wuxian smooths one hand down his back, pressing him close, pressing them flush. Lan Wangji chokes back a shocked sound.

"Shh," Wei Wuxian soothes. "It's alright."

It is not alright. It is the end of the thing Lan Wangji holds most dear.

But he does not have it in him to argue. He is shifting against him, his overheated body begging for touch, indeed for ravishment. He is mindless with it. The pain is not subsiding but slipping sideways into something more, something different, something necessary.

He is on his knees on hard stone, breathlessly held in the arms of his beloved. He has dreamt this: sweetly, hazily, with and without hope. But never like this. Never sick with remorse, with need, dying and demanding and defiling. His deepest desire twisted into a nightmare.

He whimpers again, his lips finding the soft coolness of Wei Wuxian's throat. Wei Wuxian jerks away again, and Lan Wangji fists his hands tighter at his sides, trying, trying not to overstep again.

"I—sorry," he gasps out. He will never be able to apologize enough. But he will try.

"Don't apologize," says Wei Wuxian. "I—"

He cuts himself off. Lan Wangji does not have enough sense to wonder why. In the same moment, one of his thighs gives under the strain, and he falls against him heavily. They tip over, to the floor, and he reaches out on instinct to brace them both. When he is again conscious of himself, Wei Wuxian is lying on top of him, breathing hard, both of Lan Wangji's wrists pinned to the floor in one hand. Lan Wangji arches against him inadvertently, and turns his face into his own bicep.

"Sorry, I...so sorry," he pants, his hips flexing, searching for friction. "I have...no control...”

"I know," Wei Wuxian says, "I know, I shouldn't have..." he swallows hard. "I'm going to keep you like this. Can I?"

Lan Wangji nods frantically, his eyes shut tight. He does not care. Anything that he can do to make this any less invasive for Wei Wuxian, he will do.

Wei Wuxian pulls away then, his hold still firm on Lan Wangji's wrists. Lan Wangji squeezes his eyes shut and tries to stop moving, to stop searching for touch, to stop making such a disgusting spectacle of himself, but to no avail. What feels like centuries later, he hears the telltale sounds of talisman activation. He is too far gone in his pain to look up, to see what they are. He simply lies there, pinned and writhing, his breath catching in his throat. The sounds it makes are small, pitiful, desperate.

Just like him.

Eventually, Wei Wuxian leans back over him, a considering look in his eye. His hand hovers at Lan Wangjis belt.

"I—should I..."

"Yes," pleads Lan Wangji.

He needs Wei Wuxian's skin on his skin. He does not know how discerning the curse is about what happens now, but it feels as if he will die without it. Wei Wuxian takes what looks like a fortifying breath and unties the belt. Lan Wangji, unable to help, instead hinders the process with his ceaseless movement. But Wei Wuxian manages it with deft hands, and immediately unties each layer of robes in quick succession until Lan Wangji’s chest and stomach are bare.

The cool air of the cave does not soothe his burning. It burns like ice instead. Lan Wangji shivers, an ugly whine escaping him.

"What," Wei Wuxian asks, pausing, "what is it?"

Lan Wangji shakes his head. He will bear it. He will not make demands.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says, "you need to talk to me, I...I don't want to make this even worse, or, or draw it out longer."

Something small and dark crumples in Lan Wangji's chest. He does not want that either. He will need to speak. To ask.

"Hurts," he says, rough and thick.

"Where?"

"...Not...not touching me."

Wei Wuxian makes a distressed noise and lays both his palms flat over Lan Wangji's ribs. Lan Wangji groans, pressing up into them.

"Please," he whispers, helpless. "Please."

"Oh, Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian murmurs, something sad like regret. He leans closer and slides one hand down. Lan Wangji shudders under him. "I'm just going to..."

Lan Wangji nods again, holding his breath to stop the whines from escaping the back of his throat.

Wei Wuxian unties Lan Wangji's trousers and slips his hand inside. Clever fingers wrap hesitantly around him, and he bucks up into them with an obscene moan. It is minor relief from the most consuming pain he has ever felt, and it is simultaneously the most intense pleasure he has ever experienced. All of these sensations, coexisting in his fallible human body, feel likely to rip him apart.

"Wei Ying," he moans again, when Wei Wuxian moves his hand.

He gasps for air, his body twisting into it, his whole being searching for Wei Wuxian. He makes another piteous sound, the torment of it all overwhelming. Wei Wuxian leans down against him then, his own robes open, pressing them skin to skin.

Lan Wangji sobs. It is something. It is something. The pain abates somewhat, and he sighs, turning toward him, his mouth brushing Wei Wuxian's hair. He has the wherewithal now to fight the urge to kiss his head properly, his face, anything he can reach. He holds himself still beneath him instead. And Wei Wuxian touches him, and touches him. The incomprehensible pleasure builds, and builds, until Lan Wangji cannot breathe. But it does not break.

Something almost like soft lips brushes his throat.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says into his ear, "this, is this...will this be enough?"

The pleasure is just another kind of pain, now. Lan Wangji shakes his head as sweat rolls off of him, as he tries and fails to get enough air to speak.

Wei Wuxian clears his throat. "What, then?"

Lan Wangji's body knows what it needs. But he does not want to tell.

"Come on, Lan Zhan, after all this? Don't get shy on me now."

He misses the joking tone he is aiming for, but the pure, unmistakable Wei Wuxian-ness of the tease sends a surge of genuine desire through Lan Wangji. He wraps his legs around Wei Wuxian's hips and pulls him down. Wei Wuxian breathes in sharply.

"You just...you want...but only..."

"Please," says Lan Wangji, barely voiced. "In—" he cannot say it. "Please."

"Ah," Wei Wuxian whispers, into his skin. "If—are you sure?"

Lan Wangji whines. He wishes he were not so very sure. He wishes he were not asking Wei Wuxian to do something so intimate, so extreme. He wishes Wei Wuxian had let him die before it ever came to this.

"Alright Lan Zhan, just hold—hold on," he says, and is gone.

Lan Wangji clamps his mouth shut on a scream as the agony slams back into him, worse even than before.

Not soon enough, Wei Wuxian returns to divest him of his boots, socks and trousers. Lan Wangji fights him without meaning to, trying to keep his knees curled up to his chest, trying to minimize the hurt. Wei Wuxian is briskly patient, handling him with aching care he does not deserve.

And then he is upon him, chest and stomach, hips and thighs, smooth and hard and exquisite. Lan Wangji almost forgets the pain in the rush of gratitude, of solace. Their robes trail off them both, gathering dust as they move together in halting fits and starts.

"Don't let me hurt you, Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian grits out, a strong hand lifting one of Lan Wangji's thighs by the back of the knee.

It is nonsense. He could not hurt Lan Wangji any more than this. And Lan Wangji could not stop him now if he did.

But the kindness. Even in this. Tears prick at Lan Wangji's eyes. He will miss him. He will miss all of Wei Wuxian with all of himself. He will never stop missing him. He will never move past this regret as long as he lives. How could he? Every breath he draws will be by the grace of Wei Wuxian.

Suddenly there is slick pressure against him, against his most private of places, and he gasps, loud and wretched. Wei Wuxian exhales, uneven and deep, and pushes in, in, in. Slowly. So slowly. Lan Wangji bites down hard on his lip to keep from begging for it. His arms are pinned, as are his hips, Wei Wuxian holding him steady, holding him still. Lan Wangji loses all sense. There is only the weight of Wei Wuxian, the full, stinging press of him, the searing pain, the devastating euphoria of being this close, and yet so very far in every way that counts.

Ages pass before Wei Wuxian is fully seated inside him. By then Lan Wangji's breaths are wet and shallow; scraping, desolate things. He does not know any longer what hurts and what feels good. It is all one and the same. He only knows he needs more, in some primal, wordless way.

He asks with the arch of his back, the squeeze of his thighs. He tries, somehow, to keep quiet, but fails more often than not.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says tightly, "try to relax, I'm going to move. Tell me if it...if it's right."

Lan Wangji manages a loose nod, though he barely understands.

And Wei Wuxian moves. He rolls his hips against him, shifting inside of him, and Lan Wangji groans. Each deep, short thrust pushes air from his lungs, and he lacks the strength to catch it again. It is beyond pleasure. It is ecstatic. To have Wei Wuxian around him, inside him, panting above him. A deep, villainous part of him wants it never to end. The rest of him howls for release.

He is dripping now, steadily, onto his own stomach. He can feel it pooling on his belly, unpleasantly cool. He whimpers between desperate, panting breaths, beyond words.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says, breath shivering across Lan Wangji's collarbone, "I can't...can't keep this up, you feel too—" his breath catches, and he pauses. "I'm going to finish. You need to come."

Dimly, distantly, the idea that Wei Wuxian should derive pleasure from this, no matter how perfunctory, gives Lan Wangji a perverse sort of satisfaction. It snuffs out like a candle at the nebulous thought that perhaps in another world, they could have had this for real.

In this world, the fact remains that this has gone on far too long. But Lan Wangji can do nothing about it. He meets Wei Wuxian's thrusts, leans into the pleasure, tries to gain the momentum to go over the edge. He should be able to. It should be easy. He has been so hard for so long, has been given more now than in his absolute wildest and wettest of dreams, and yet he hovers, scant inches away.

Wei Wuxian loses patience, his head dropping to Lan Wangji's shoulder. He grunts softly and fists Lan Wangji's wet cock, quick and merciless. Lan Wangji cries out, shuddering violently with the extended, expansive stimulation, worked both inside and out, helplessly, utterly unmade by Wei Wuxian's touch.

And still he does not crest. He is sobbing steadily now, ugly and jagged, and Wei Wuxian kisses his shoulder, his throat, his cheek.

"Were we wrong?" He asks, breathless. "Lan Zhan please, tell—show me, I...I can't...you...I can't lose you. Lan Zhan?"

Exhausted, Lan Wangji turns his tearstained face toward him, blindly seeking. Perhaps they were all wrong. Perhaps he will die now, like this. And perhaps it is selfish of him, but having heard those words, he finds his regret to be less than it should be. Everything, everything hurts. But Wei Wuxian will miss him, too. Of course he will. They are zhiji. This, miraculously, will not erase that. It is more than he deserves. Wei Wuxian has always been more than he deserves.

Lan Wangji heaves, and writhes, and cries.

Wei Wuxian kisses him. Soft, gloriously cool lips on his.

An odd, fleeting, hollow feeling.

The dam breaks. The pain goes suddenly quiet. Roaring to fullness in its absence is the killing swell of such a long-delayed climax. It is possible that he calls Wei Wuxian's name. It is impossible to know.

The world, again, goes dark.

-----

Lan Wangji wakes to gray light and distant birdsong. A sharp edge is digging into his shoulder. He shifts, then goes still at the deep ache in his entire body.

He remembers.

"Hanguang-jun should drink this," says a brisk voice to his right.

Wen Qing sits there, watching him. His heart skips a beat and he looks down. But he is fully clothed once more.

Her smile is wry as she holds a cup out to him. Laboriously, he sits up to take it. It is bitter, but familiar. A restorative. He thanks her formally.

She shakes her head. "No need.” She turns to go.

"Wen-guniang," Lan Wangji says. She pauses. "How long has it been gone?"

She turns to stare at him. He knows she knows what he means.

"How? When?"

She looks away. "You'll have to ask him."

The pang of loss he felt upon waking with Wei Wuxian gone speaks for him. "Will he let me?"

 He lies on the slab of rock that serves as Wei Wuxian's bed for too long. It is difficult to tell the passage of time in the Burial Mounds, but it seems slightly brighter than it had...before. He reasons that it could well be the next morning. He wonders if Wei Wuxian slept beside him, then tosses the thought away as gross indulgence. He wonders instead, as he has many times since his last visit, if Wei Wuxian sleeps at all.

First, his excuse to tarry is meditation. He works at it, simultaneously restoring his drained core and healing himself, until the discomfort fades from his every movement to just a specific few.

Once that is done, he has no reason to be idle. But the voice in his head, Wei Wuxian's blisteringly cold one that had called him his proper name all those months ago, keeps him in place. He hears it saying all manner of things in response to seeing him now.

"What more could you possibly want of me?" Wei Wuxian sneers in his mind. And he would be right to do so.

But Lan Wangji does not intend to ask anything of him ever again.

And there is the other thing. The fact that his robes should be uncomfortable, filthy, but they have been cleaned, dried, and arranged back onto his body properly. Comfortably. Almost as if—

He dares not imagine. But at the very least it does not speak of utter contempt.

So he rises. He follows the path Wen Qing told him of. And he does something foolish. He hopes.

After no short while of walking, he comes to a slightly darker, more silent corner of deadened forest. He rounds a bend and sees Wei Wuxian crouched a little ways off, and then hears high, lilting notes as if through water. The energies are strange here, and Wei Wuxian is speaking to with them in their own language.

Lan Wangji approaches until he sees Wei Wuxian go still. He says nothing. Wei Wuxian drops his flute from his lips.

"Are you well?" He asks without rising or turning.

"I am."

Wei Wuxian nods. "Your people are waiting for you."

It is a dismissal. Lan Wangji recognizes this. But he will impose just a little bit longer.

"Your core," he says. Wei Wuxian stands abruptly, still facing away, gripping Chenqing. "Can it be replaced?"

Wei Wuxian whirls to face him, anger and fear warring with the questions on his face.

Lan Wangji has other questions, too. But they do not matter. He is intelligent enough to piece together the cold, empty space where Wei Wuxian's core should be, the tired guilt on Wen Qing's face, and...

"Your scar," he says, dropping his gaze to the scorched earth.

He should not know of it. But he does, now, and he also owes a greater debt than he can ever repay. Wei Wuxian does not respond. How dearly Lan Wangji wants to see his expression. But he will not infringe on any more of his privacy.

The wind howls. He waits.

"You won't tell anybody," Wei Wuxian says uncertainly.

Lan Wangji stiffens. "I will not."

"Nobody told you?"

"Nobody.”

Wei Wuxian pauses, momentarily satisfied.

"You're not going to ask how? Or when?"

Lan Wangji would like to. He would like to know everything of Wei Wuxian, even his sorrow, his pain. But he is not entitled to those things. There is only one point that matters.

"Can it be replaced? Can the procedure be reversed?"

Wei Wuxian sighs. Lan Wangji can tell he does not wish to speak of this.

"So single-minded, Lan Zhan," he scolds, then shakes his head. "The chance of success would be small; the chance of finding a donor, much smaller."

But this is all Lan Wangji hoped to hear. It is enough. He goes to his knees, arms circled in front of his chest.

"Allow me," he says.

"Lan Zhan!" Wei Wuxian darts forward, trying to pull Lan Wangji up from the ground. Eventually he gives up and goes to his knees in front of him, pushing at his arms. "Lan Zhan, stop this," he says, panicked. "Don't be stupid, stop—Lan Zhan, you can't be serious."

"Please allow me," Lan Wangji repeats, eyes downcast.

"Stop this!" Wei Wuxian shouts. "It can't be done, and I wouldn't take it from you anyway!"

Lan Wangji flinches bodily. He had not considered...but yes. Everything in him is sullied. He bends at the waist, bowing further.

"Apologies for the offense," he says, then snaps his mouth shut. His voice is too obviously strained.

"Lan Zhan?" Wei Wuxian says, still alarmed.

Lan Wangji needs to leave. He has already overstayed. But he...he has not tried hard enough.

"This debt is too great to repay in one lifetime," he says. "Please inform this one of what he may do to begin."

Wei Wuxian sags, dragging one of Lan Wangji's wrists with him. "Lan Zhan, there is no debt between us."

Lan Wangji only just stops himself from glancing up. He does not understand.

"I owe you my life and more," he says. "You took great pains to save me, even as the situation proved me unworthy of it. I owe—"

"You owe me nothing," Wei Wuxian insists, shaking Lan Wangji's arm. "There were no great pains. Nobody is unworthy. Well...you aren't."

Lan Wangji opens his mouth to protest, but Wei Wuxian speaks over him.

"People have...desires, Lan Zhan. There's nothing unworthy about it."

"But you—"

"Stop," he says. He sounds so, so tired. "If you hadn't been...dying. If we—" He stops. "Just keep my secret," he says, and lets go of his wrist. "And live well."

Lan Wangji closes his eyes. The thought of going back to his home, his life, after this, had not yet occurred to him. It sinks him from his knees to the ground. How can he do this? How can he leave him this way?

"Wei Ying," he pleads. "I must...I must do something. I cannot...I..."

"Why, Lan Zhan?" Wei Wuxian asks, not unkindly. "You have responsibilities. People to protect, just like me. Live well, and count things even between us. Why not?"

Lan Wangji’s chest caves in. He does not make the sound clawing up his throat.

"You...truly, you must know why," he says. "After... you must know. I would not leave you in need. I could not."

"Ah, Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says sadly. He shuffles forward. Lan Wangji startles at the feel of fingertips on his cheek. "You're too good. But all I need is," he huffs, "political asylum for me and 40 friends? It's not your burden."

Suddenly yet slowly, like the first burst of sunrise, an idea reveals itself on the horizon of Lan Wangji’s mind. It is unorthodox. And likely unwelcome. But it is all he has.

"My uncle made a suggestion," he says. "When my affliction became known. It is true that he did not know what it would mean, but I would hold him to it. If it is not...hateful, to you."

"I don't know what you mean," Wei Wuxian says warily.

Lan Wangji steels himself. "You are perceived as the head of a sect. A proper alliance could protect your people, and Gusu Lan is in need of hands for rebuilding. The person who cast this curse upon me has given the perfect excuse, and made themselves scapegoat. If you would...I would not ask anything of you, if you agreed. It would be a marriage in name only, as you wish it."

Wei Wuxian's silence turns to spluttering. "M—Lan Zh—marriage?? What—how—"

"If the idea is odious, I will not mention it again. But as I said. My uncle suggested it. And under the circumstances, he cannot refuse."

"Your—he—Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan, look at me. Look at me, please."

Lan Wangji looks at him. His eyes are wide. Disbelieving. Concerned.

"Your uncle would qi deviate if you even hinted at such a thing," he says. "Gusu Lan is in a precarious enough position, you don't need...I have nothing to offer in return." He pats his lower stomach, empty of spiritual energy, emphatically. “Nothing. Don't be ridiculous."

"It is not ridiculous," Lan Wangji argues, certain now that he is right. "You can offer more protection for us, and we can offer legitimacy. The person who cast this curse can be seen to have forced our hands. Has—has forced our hands."

He stops himself. He should not push this. Wei Wuxian is looking at him as if he does not know him.

"You don't want to marry me, Lan Zhan."

This gives Lan Wangji pause. It is a confusing objection, to say the least. He stares, trying to comprehend. He clears his throat. Takes a breath.

"If you are under the impression..." he stops. Drops his eyes once more. "...that the...impetus of the curse. Is the whole of the way I—”

"Demonic cultivation," Wei Wuxian interrupts. "It would be unhealthy. For you. And your elders! They wouldn't let me, not if I were...attached to your sect. To you.”

A fair concern, and one Lan Wangji has been turning over in his own mind as well. "Is this your only objection?"

Wei Wuxian casts about. "Ah..."

Lan Wangji takes one last plunge. "The elders can be reasoned with, compromises can be made. I am not concerned for my health: being near you could never be harmful to me." He hears himself, then, and amends, "Though you need not. Be near me. That is not a condition."

"You would defend this?" Wei Wuxian asks, bemused.

"Defend what?"

"My cultivation path. You..."

Lan Wangji resists a sigh. "I understand the reason, now. And I believe...if you did not object. We could work toward making it safe, without stripping you of what your hard work has created."

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says. He reaches out, then stops.

Lan Wangji stares at his hand, hovering between them. His heart is beating so hard he can feel it in his eyes, in his tongue.

"Wei Ying."

"You would let me, though?"

His tone is gently mocking. His head is cocked to the side, the edge of a smile playing across his lips. It knocks the breath from Lan Wangji's chest.

"Let you?" He asks, dazed.

"Be near you."

Lan Wangji's heart stops. It is a moment before he can respond.

"I would. Always."

Wei Wuxian takes his hand, and sighs. "You don't owe me this," he says again.

"I do," Lan Wangji counters, off-kilter. "I owe you. And I want to. I would want to, even if—"

He loosens his tight grip on Wei Wuxian's hand. He is saying too much, taking too much, being too much. He settles himself. Finds the words that matter.

"It would be a thing happily given, with no strings attached, should you wish it."

Wei Wuxian laughs strangely. "Lan Zhan, you really..." He shakes his head. "I'd marry you in an instant, you know," says.

Lan Wangji's neck hurts from the speed with which he looks up at him. Hope, warm and liquid, blooms through his limbs.

"But I can't make this decision on my own," Wei Wuxian goes on. "It's not just my life. We have to talk it over with everyone."

"Yes," Lan Wangji says, surprised, and eager now that he sees the possibility of success. Of doing something of use.

"Alright," says Wei Wuxian, a smile hidden in the corner of his mouth. "I can't promise...but it...it could work."

"It will," Lan Wangji says, certain that the strength of his conviction alone will carry them through if need be.

He feels strange and dreamlike, confused but heartened by the turn in this conversation. That Wei Wuxian can stand the sight of him, let alone wish to ally with him personally, seems too wonderful to be true. Another Wei Wuxian hallmark.

"But Lan Zhan, no more talk of strings," Wei Wuxian says.

Lan Wangji sobers and nods. It is unseemly. Of course their understanding must be a tacit one, now.

But his hand is suddenly in both of Wei Wuxian's.

"You need to stop feeling guilty," Wei Wuxian says, looking down at it. "If I were your husband...if I were. We could try all that again, but without the impending doom. We could try it again any way we like, any time—all the time—and we'd—"

"Wei Ying," Lan Wangji interrupts, strangled. His heart is in his throat. He cannot comprehend what he is hearing. His ears, his face, are on fire.

Wei Wuxian smiles down at their hands, one part shy, one part mischief. "I think we could get really good at it, if we had the chance, don't you?"

Lan Wangji stares at him. "You..."

"Mn," says Wei Wuxian, meeting his eyes.

He shines so bright, even without any core to speak of. He takes Lan Wangji's breath away.

"I take it back," Wei Wuxian says, his voice suddenly urgent. "I like strings. Mine is that if this happens, I want to be your real husband. In name, in practice, in bed, and in your heart. Because you would be, in mine."

Lan Wangji's voice sticks in his throat. He feels...he feels unreal. He does not know what to do, to say. Perhaps they never broke the curse at all and he has simply gone mad. But Wei Wuxian's fingers stroking his palm, the root-knotted dirt beneath his shins, are real. He sways, unbalanced.

Wei Wuxian reaches out. Catches him. Folds him into his arms for a second time. Lan Wangji's breath shudders out of him.

He is on his knees, breathlessly held in the arms of his beloved. He has dreamt this many ways. But never has it been so real, so full of hope. He wraps his arms around Wei Wuxian in turn, buries his face in his shoulder.

Wei Wuxian huffs. "Jiang Cheng is going to be so angry."

Lan Wangji comes back down to earth. It is true he had not thought of this. He makes to pull away. "How should—"

Wei Wuxian clutches him tighter. "I don't care," he says, "I don't care, we can manage him." He pauses, then speaks more softly. "Maybe...I could see shijie's wedding after all. Or—no. It's too soon, I—"

"Yes," says Lan Wangji. "You will. We will go together."

Wei Wuxian takes a deep breath, and lets it out into Lan Wangji's hair.

"Together," he says.

It takes several serious, and at times uncomfortable, discussions, but in the end, Gusu Lan’s Second Jade is indeed thoroughly removed from the marriage pool of the great sects. The curse caster is found and punished. And everybody else lives happily ever after.

The end.

-----

(Thank you for coming on this wildly self-indulgent journey, I hope you enjoyed it. If you’d like to read some actually nicely-polished, fleshed-out fics by me—including another sex-cursed LWJ—check out my AO3.)

[1kook]

commercial break: thirteen

this is part of my netflix & chill series

SUMMARY Because for as much shit as you let him get away with, Jungkook is certain you’ll draw the line today.  WARNING jk ventures into puppy play a lil,(he makes her fetch) ITS A VERY LOOSE INTERPRETATION OF PUPPY PLAY, not even close/as intense as the real thing. also he wants to lick oc. and wants oc to lick him MISC just nc jk being nc jk WC 1k

NOTES testing da waters 😐 barely proofread n will probably fix later </3

He wishes he could lie and say it happens by accident, but the truth is, Jungkook has been sitting on this idea for weeks. 

“Fetch,” he says, tossing his popsicle stick across the room. 

It’s dead silent. The air conditioning, which usually fills in any silences between the two of you, is turned off today, as well as every other electrical appliance in the house. There’s maintenance going on this week, so the entire street is powered off. Among those appliances was Jungkook’s freezer, recently stockpiled with ice cream and popsicles meant to keep him cool through the hellish summer heat. Now melting, he had honestly just considered throwing them out, restocking next week. 

But, as always, he’s forgotten one critical bit of information— he’s dating you. You, Jungkook’s cherished other half, who would rather die than let him toss out perfectly good ice cream, forcing the two of you through brain freeze hell as you begin on your mad dash to finish all of the frozen treats. And it’s somewhere between his fourth popsicle and his fifth ice cream sandwich that the idea decides to show itself at the forefront of his mind. Disclaimer, this part is entirely your fault. 

There’s corny animal puns written on the popsicle sticks, the punch lines only accessible once you finish them completely. Honestly, Jungkook hasn’t been reading his. He knows you are, because occasionally you’ll randomly laugh mid-conversation upon learning pampered cows produce spoiled milk. But for all intents and purposes, he’s totally reading them (no, he isn’t) and finds them super funny (no, he doesn’t), before passing them onto you to enjoy. 

(He doesn’t care for them at all, but your laugh is really cute and Jungkook is really in love.) 

Anyway, before he can perform his regularly scheduled laugh, his grip falters and he drops the now popsicle-less popsicle stick. Without missing a beat, you reach down and pick it up, placing it back on his thigh. 

Flash forward a few minutes and approximately twelve inner monologues later, and he’s here, asking you to fetch. Like he said, dead silence. He can’t even bring himself to look at you, really. Because for as much shit as you let him get away with, Jungkook is certain you’ll draw the line today. 

His skin feels hot, and he’s not really sure if it’s from the sweltering heat or the nerves that climb up his spine the longer your silence drags on. From the corner of his peripheral, he can tell you're looking in the direction of the discarded stick, sweat glistening down the length of your own neck as well. He wants to lick you clean— it’s so filthy, he’s so filthy —but he also wants you to lick him clean. Run your tongue along every inch of his skin like an overexcited… puppy greeting its owner after a long day.

Maybe he should just cuddle you and pretend this never happened, hide his blushing face against your shoulder until you eventually let it go. 

Just as he’s resigned himself to his rather humiliating faith, you move. Carefully, as if you’re also trapped in your own deep, inner monologue. Knowing you, you probably are. The popsicle stick is retrieved slowly; you don’t even bother to crouch down or anything, just swipe it off the ground quickly. And then you’re back, carefully setting it against his thigh once more. 

In less than thirty seconds, you’ve opened the door to an entirely new world. 

“Good girl,” he exhales quietly, picking up the stick carefully between his fingers. You linger in front of him for a second, just as unsure as him about how to proceed. Should he give you another command? Another treat? Jungkook doesn’t know, Jungkook is just as knew to this as you are. 

Before you can sit back down and possibly close that door once more, Jungkook’s brain fills in and has him tapping the wooden stick against his knee. Your eyes instinctively flicker down towards the object, the sound, lips pursed together. 

Slowly, he lets it slip between his fingers purposefully, watching as the sticky stick quietly lands on the carpet right between his feet. “Pick it up,” he commands, tries to shake the excitement from his voice, but his dick nearly jumps in his pants when you obediently sink down before him. (He didn’t even have to ask, you’re just so good for him.) You give him one final look, one that shakes him to his core, and then place both hands flat on the floor. 

Your behind comes up, your face disappears down below, and when you return, the stick is carefully held between your teeth. 

Oh, this was bad. It takes everything in him to keep from surging forward and enveloping you in his arms. “Wow,” Jungkook breathes instead, carefully taking it from your mouth. You part your lips, let your mouth hang open for a second too long, a second that has Jungkook’s cock straining beneath his clothes. 

He’s a little startled by the hand that comes to rest on his thigh, too caught up in the pretty gleam in your eyes. “You know,” you purr, hand crawling up his thigh. “I know a lot of other tricks too.” It settles over his bulge, gives him one teasing squeeze that has all the air leaving his lungs. 

Jungkook wants it so bad. Your mouth is always so warm and inviting, fits around him like a glove. 

But today, he can’t. He can’t falter. The popsicle stick is discarded, tossed across the room, and your gaze follows it in confusion until his hand comes forward to rest on your neck, squeezing and squeezing until your eyes roll backwards. “I didn’t know dogs could talk,” he spits, leaning forward to brush his lips along your cheek. A strained breath escapes you, but it sounds so good to his ears. Still, he knows when to stop, loosening his grip until you’re gasping to regain your breath. 

“Bark,” he says then, doesn’t doubt for even a moment that you won’t— you’re so good for him, always good. “Bark for me.” 

And you do. 

Copyright © 2021, 1kook on tumblr

[dreaming-roses]

°˖✧ submit ✧˖°

Human Dom!Osial x sub!Zhongli (NSFW) - Request

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!!

SUMMARY: Osial exacts a unique kind of revenge on Zhongli.

WARNING(S): Tentacles, overstim, oral, anal, non-con, size kink, creampie, cum inflation, mentions of exhibitionism

CHARACTER(S): Human!Osial, Zhongli

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Damn. I- Damn. I have sinned.

It was a rather uneventful day at Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. Not that Zhongli wanted people to die, but so far, literally nothing had happened.

Zhongli sighed, halfheartedly organizing the record books on his elegant wooden shelf. He paced back and forth in his office, wondering if he had enough time to take a walk around Liyue Harbor before the customer arrived.

He glanced at the clock. Nearly four hours until the appointment; cleaning his office had taken less time than he'd hoped it would. Yes, it would be enough time for a stroll.

Zhongli was just shrugging on his jacket when a voice rumbled behind him. A voice that brought back memories of endless battles, of days that bled into nights that bled into his nightmares.

"So this is the mortal role you have assumed, Morax?"

Zhongli whipped around. Few things could startle the ex-Archon, but he had been alone in his office, he was certain.

Well, he was no longer alone.

There was a... a thing standing behind him, looming over Zhongli. It had the upper half of a well-muscled man, but its lower half was made of watery blue tentacles . There were more tentacles protruding from the creature's shoulders and back. Some of the tentacles had dragon-like heads, white eyes glowing in their aqueous skulls.

Its pale blue skin was made of fish-like scales, shimmering as if coated in water. It—he—had intense sky-blue eyes and indigo hair. Tiny oysters and corals dotted the man's upper body, as if he had been sleeping in the sea for eons.

In the sea...

"Osial?" Zhongli blurted. "How—"

"Your precious harbor is not in danger," Osial rumbled, swiftly crossing the room toward Zhongli. His horde of tentacles followed, reaching toward the consultant. "Only a tiny, insignificant portion of my power is here. The rest lies under the sea."

A tentacle slapped over Zhongli's mouth. "Mmmf!" he cried, thrashing as more tentacles took hold of his wrists and ankles. They lifted him into the air, pulling off his shoes.

"In fact, I cannot summon hard or sharp objects," Osial mused, watching Zhongli struggle against the onslaught of tentacles. "I can only summon soft, watery, harmless things." He stepped—or rather, glided—forward, ripping Zhongli's shirt open with his bare hands. "But there are ways to inflict without drawing blood."

A dozen small tentacles, each as thick as Zhongli's thumb, snaked their way toward his naked chest. A few began to circle around his exposed buds, gently brushing the tender pink skin.

Zhongli's eyes widened as he realized what Osial was doing, and his thrashing grew wilder and more desperate.

"Look at you, Morax," Osial laughed. "Helpless." Zhongli arched his back as soft tentacles began to stroke his neck. Some of them had little O-shaped mouths that attached to his skin and sucked.

"Mmmf..." Against his will, Zhongli could feel himself getting hard. His head started spinning from the tingles of pleasure, and he writhed harder, trying to resist.

It was hopeless. All four of his limbs were kept firmly apart from each other, and he could do nothing as the seagod tore off his pants. Zhongli tried to press his knees together as Osial's gaze raked over his naked body.

"Already hard!" Osial sneered. "What was that you used to say, Morax? You shall suffer the wrath of the rock? Well, let us see how great that rock is."

The tentacles lifted Zhongli's hips so he was horizontal. Several thick tentacles slid around Zhongli's thighs and waist, making escape impossible. The ex-Archon let out a muffled scream as Osial leaned forward, his lips brushing the tip of Zhongli's cock.

"You are already throbbing and dripping," Osial said mockingly. "I did not know it took this little to weaken the Geo Archon." He began to suck on Zhongli's cock, curling a long, serpentine tongue around it.

"Mmmmf—mmmh—nnngh—hnnnngh..." Zhongli's muffled shouts of protest turned to moans as Osial stimulated his cock. "Mmmmgh..." Zhongli shuddered, his eyes rolling back in his head from the pleasure. The tentacles began to suck on his chest. "Mmmmf!" He felt tentacles brush up and down the insides of his thighs.

"Mmmmf—MMMF!" Zhongli's hips spasmed as he came, the stimulation proving too much for even an ex-Archon. Osial chuckled, pulling his mouth away and watching with amusement as Zhongli's cock spurted thick, long, ropes of white cum. Zhongli's hands and feet trembled as he came down from his high.

"Mmmmf..." Zhongli lifted his head, trying to catch Osial's eyes. He caught a glimpse of his own thighs and stomach dripping with his own cum. "Mmmmf! Hnnngf!"

"We're not quite done yet," Osial smiled as more tentacles lunged for Zhongli. "Almost four hours until you're wanted, yes? Four hours is not a lot... but it will do."

Zhongli writhed helplessly as his cock was engulfed by a tentacle. It began to suck on him, tiny tentacles stroking his slit and tip. "Mmmf! Mmmf! MMMF!"

"I am well aware that you just reached your peak," Osial said. "But once is not enough, Morax. After all, you struck me down twice, did you not?"

Zhongli could not reply, for he was in the grasp of a second orgasm, his cum shooting into the tentacle. His eyes crossed from the overwhelming pleasure as the mouth-like appendage milked his cock.

Zhongli screamed through the tentacle over his mouth as he felt a tentacle probing at his hole, his body already extra-sensitive from the two orgasms. The tentacle smeared its wetness over him before plunging in.

"Mmmf—mmmh—mm—mmmgh..." Zhongli moaned, nearly sobbing from the sensation as the tentacle found his sweet spot. "Mmmmmh!" Another tentacle pressed just below his balls, pressing his prostate against the first. He bucked from the pleasure, his knees shaking.

"Ah, yes... those are the spots you like," Osial mused, sending a second tentacle into Zhongli's hole. Each was the girth of a finger. "I wonder how long it will take for me to render you speechless by touching those parts of your body."

Zhongli wailed as the two tentacles massaged his prostate, the overstimulated sweet spot throbbing as Zhongli came again. His cock twitched pathetically in the grip of the tentacle-mouth as Osial smiled.

Osial uncovered Zhongli's mouth. "Let us hear you, Morax. I would like to know what effect this has on you."

"No! Stop! Stop!" Zhongli cried, feeling a fourth orgasm build. "Stop it! No! No more! Please! No more, Osial! Please! I beg of you, no more!" He howled as he came, his body jerking wildly.

"A-Ahh..." Zhongli whimpered as the tentacles held him in the air by his waist. They let go of his legs, which twitched and dangled uselessly. His cum slowly dripped down his thighs. He moaned as a third tentacle entered his hole. He was helpless against the unending waves of pleasure.

Zhongli came again, shuddering, too weak to do anything other than moan softly. He closed his eyes, a tight knot throbbing in his core from all the pleasure. "O-Osial... p-please... no more..." His hole was throbbing and clenching around the tentacles. Osial watched this with great interest.

"Hm. Perhaps you are ready now," the seagod rumbled.

"Ready for what?" Zhongli asked. Osial ignored his question.

The tentacles turned Zhongli around, positioning him so he was on his hands and knees, facing away from Osial. The three tentacles pulled out of him, leaving him fully exposed to the seagod. Zhongli felt something wet splatter abundantly against his hole.

"Yes, that is enough," Osial murmured. "Good."

Zhongli suddenly realized what was happening. "No! No!" he cried, trying to twist away. "Not that! Anything but that!" Osial put his hands on Zhongli's lower back, gently spreading his cheeks.

"No! No!" Zhongli shouted, thrashing wildly as Osial lined up with his entrance. Zhongli couldn't see how big Osial was, but he could guess. "No! Please..." He writhed against the tentacles, but they only tightened their grip on him. "No..."

"You'll be alright," Osial said amiably. "You're the great and mighty Morax, yes?" He pressed his tip against Zhongli's hole, gently stretching him.

"Ah... ah... t-too big... please..." Zhongli felt tears fall his eyes as Osial pushed the tip in, his hole spasming around him. "A-ah! Can't..." The ex-Archon gasped as Osial pushed in further, Zhongli's body burning from the strain. He whimpered, his hole clenching pathetically around Osial.

"Relax," Osial rumbled. "Or you will surely not enjoy what comes next." He gently squeezed Zhongli's hips.

"N-Next?" Zhongli rasped. "W-What do you—ahh—AHHH—" Osial pushed in deeper, every ridge of his cock sliding deliciously against Zhongli's body. The seagod sighed happily, letting Zhongli dangle there for a while. The ex-Archon quickly realized that squirming would only stimulate himself, so he stayed as still as possible, whimpering.

The pain of the stretch began to fade. Osial purred as Zhongli stopped tensing up, his hole relaxing a little. "O-Osial," Zhongli whispered. "If you're not here to hurt me, then... then what are you..."

He broke off with a gasp as Osial pressed Zhongli to his chest, his cock nudging against his sweet spot. The consultant's eyes rolled back in his head, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. He panted, a delirious smile edging his lips.

"I don't intend to hurt you," Osial whispered. "But I will make you submit to me, no matter what it takes."

Osial began to bounce Zhongli gently. With every slight movement, his prostate throbbed with pleasure. It was too much, too much, Osial's gentle thrusts that made his body hum with bliss and the tentacles slithering around and squeezing his cock. Zhongli arched his back, unable to form words as euphoria surged through his body.

"I—I—ahhh—" Zhongli cried out weakly as he came again, cum spurting all over his thighs. Osial chuckled, watching Zhongli's fingers twitch. He slumped forward, his hair falling over his eyes.

"Your stamina is commendable," Osial remarked. "The perks of being divine, I suppose." He continued to overstimulate Zhongli, who barely heard a word.

Zhongli lost track of time. After his fifth, or maybe sixth, or maybe tenth orgasm, Osial suddenly grunted and sped up, pulling out further before slamming in.

"Ahh... no..." Zhongli whimpered. "T-Too much..." His legs spasmed as Osial fucked him through yet another orgasm, tears sliding down his cheeks. His cock was sliding in and out so fast, Zhongli thought he might go insane. His lower half was a mess of throbbing pleasure, tired numbness, and cum. "Too... much..."

Tentacles hovered over the ex-Archon's face and chest, their watery tips shuddering slightly with each of Osial's frantic thrusts. Zhongli could see a white liquid rising in each of them.

"Hrngh!" Osial growled, slamming all the way in. Zhongli gasped for air, the wind knocked out of him from the impact. He came just before Osial did, the seagod's cum exploding deep inside him.

Thick, hot seed burst from every tentacle, coating Zhongli's limp, trembling body. Osial roared from the bliss, grabbing Zhongli's hair and pulling his head up to arch his back.

"Please..." Zhongli breathed, barely audible. He moaned, feeling his body grow heavier from the added weight of the seagod. He pressed his hands to his belly, realizing with a jolt of fear that he could feel Osial's cum.

"We're not done yet," Osial growled, slapping Zhongli's ass. The ex-Archon shuddered as Osial gripped his hips again.

After hours of excruciating, agonizing orgasms that left Zhongli feeling like a hollow shell, a mere cocksleeve filled to the brim with cum until he felt like he would burst, his cock dripping pathetically, Osial finally stopped and pulled out with a satisfied grunt.

Zhongli would have collapsed if not for the tentacles that held him up in the air, his hole wide and gaping, his throbbing pink cock trembling, his body splattered with white. Cum poured from his hole, making a large puddle on the floor. Zhongli moaned.

"Mmm... very good." Osial tilted his head, admiring his work. "Now, time to clean up," he said, smiling. "Your appointment is in ten minutes."