#and the next one and who remembers how many more this is a decade ago :///

[scottstiles]

is it possible to get actual ptsd on behalf of a tv character?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Keeping a suspense file gives you superpowers

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

Two decades ago, I was part of a group of nerds who got really interested in how each other managed to do what we did. The effort was kicked off by Danny O'Brien, who called it "Lifehacking" and I played a small role in getting that term popularized:

https://craphound.com/lifehacksetcon04.txt

While we were all devoted to sharing tips and tricks from our own lives, many of us converged on an outside expert, David Allen, and his bestselling book "Getting Things Done" (GTD, to those in the know):

https://gettingthingsdone.com/

GTD is a collection of relatively simple tactics for coping with, prioritizing, and organizing the things you want to do. Many of the methods relate to organizing your own projects, using a handful of context-based to-do lists (e.g. a list of things to do at the office, at home, while waiting in line, etc). These lists consist of simple tasks. Those tasks are, in turn, derived from another list, of "projects" – things that require more than one task, which can be anything from planning dinner to writing a novel to helping your kid apply to university.

The point of all this list-making isn't to do everything on the lists. While these lists do help you remember what to do next, what they're really good for is deciding what not to do – at all. The promise of GTD is that it will help you consciously choose not to do some of the things you set out to accomplish. This is in contrast to how most of us operate: we have a bunch of things we want to do, and we end up doing the things that are easiest, or at top of mind, even if they're not the most important things.

GTD recognizes that you can be very "productive" (in the sense of getting many things done) and still not do the things that you really wanted to do. You know what this is like: you finish a Sunday with an organized sock-drawer, all your pennies neatly rolled, the trash-can in your car emptied…and no work at all on that novel you're hoping to write.

You can't do everything, but you can control what you don't do, rather than just defaulting into completing a string of trivial, meaningless tasks and leaving the big stuff on the sidelines. Organizing your own tasks and projects is a hugely powerful habit, and one that's made a world of difference to my personal and professional life.

But while good to-do lists can take you very far in life, they have a hard limit: other people. Almost every ambitious thing you want to do involves someone else's contribution. Even the most solitary of projects can be derailed if your tax accountant misses a key email and you end up getting audited or paying a huge penalty.

That's where the other kind of GTD list comes in: the list of things you're waiting for from other people. I used to be assiduous in maintaining this list, but then the pandemic struck and no one was meeting any of their commitments, and I just gave up on it, and never went back…until about a month ago. Returning to these lists (they're sometimes called "suspense files") made me realize how many of the problems – some hugely consequential – in my life could have been avoided if I'd just gone back to this habit earlier.

My suspense file is literally just some lines partway down a text file that lives on my desktop called todo.txt that has all my to-dos as well. Here's some sample entries from my suspense file:

WAITING EMAIL Sean about ENSHITTIIFCATION manuscript deadline 10/24/24 WAITING EMAIL Russ about missing royalty statement 10/12/24 WAITING EMAIL Alice about Christmas vacation hotel 10/8/24 10/20/24 WAITING EMAIL Ted about Sacramento event 8/12/24 9/5/24 10/5/24 10/20/24

WAITING CALL LA County about mosquito abatement 10/25/24 WAITING CALL School attendance officer about London trip 10/18/24

WAITING MONEY EFF reimbusement for taxi to staff retreat $34.98 10/7/24

WAITING SHIPMENT New Neal Stephenson novel from Bookshop.org 10/23/24

This is as simple as things could possibly be! I literally just type "WAITING," then a space, then the category of thing I'm waiting for, then a few specifics, then the date. When I follow up on an item, I add the date of the followup to the end of the line. If I get some details that I might need to reference later (say, a tracking code for a shipment, or a date for an event I'm trying to organize), I'll add that, too, as it comes up. Creating a new entry on this list takes 10-25 seconds. When someone gets back to me, I just delete that line.

That is literally it.

Every day, or sometimes a couple of times a day, I will just run my eyes up and down this list and see if there's anything that's unreasonably overdue, and then I'll send a reminder or make a followup call. In the example above, you can see that I've been chasing Ted about Sacramento for months now (this is a fake entry – no plans to go to Sacto at the moment, sorry):

WAITING EMAIL Ted about Sacramento event 8/12/24 9/5/24 10/5/24 10/20/24

So now I've emailed Ted four times. Maybe my email's going to his spam, and so I could try emailing a friend of Ted and ask them to check whether he's getting my messages. But maybe Ted's trying to send me a message here – he's just not interested in doing the event after all. Or maybe Ted is available, but he's so snowed under that he's in danger of fumbling it, and I need to bring in some help if I want it to happen.

All of these are possibilities, and the fact that I'm tracking this means that I now get to make an active decision: cancel the gig or double down on making sure it happens. Without this list, the gig would just die by default, forgotten by both of us. Maybe that's OK, but I can't tell you how many times I've run into someone who said, "Dammit, I just remembered I was supposed to email you about getting that thing done and I dropped the ball. Shit! I really was looking forward to that. Is it too late now?" Often it is too late. Even if it's not, the work of picking up the pieces and starting over is much more than just following through on the original plan.

Restarting my suspense file made me realize how many of the (often expensive or painful) fumbles I've had since the pandemic were the result of me not noticing that someone else hadn't gotten back to me. In essence, a suspense file is a way for me to manage other people's to-do lists.

Let me unpack that. By "managing other people's to-do lists," I don't mean that I'm deciding for other people what they will and won't do (that would be both weird and gross). I mean that I'm making sure that if someone else fails to do something we were planning together, it's because they decided not to do it, not because they forgot. As GTD teaches us, the real point of a to-do list isn't just helping us remember what to do – it's helping us choose what we're not going to do.

This is not an imposition, it's a kindness. The point of a suspense file isn't to nag others into living up to their commitments, it's to form a network of support among collaborators where we all help one another make those conscious choices about what we're not going to do, rather than having the stuff we really value slip away because we forgot about it.

I have frequent collaborators whom I know to be incapable of juggling too many things at once, and my suspense file has helped me hone my sense of when it would be appropriate to ask them if they want to do something together and when to leave them be. The suspense file helps me dial in how much I rely on each person in my life (relying on someone isn't the same as valuing them – and indeed, one way to value someone is to only rely on them for things they're able to do, rather than putting them in a position of feeling bad for failing you).

Lifehacking gets a bad rap, and justifiably so. Many of the tips that traffick as "lifehacks" are trivial or stupid or both. What's more, too much lifehacking can paint you into a corner where you've hacked any flexibility out of your life:

https://locusmag.com/2017/11/cory-doctorow-how-to-do-everything-lifehacking-considered-harmful/

But ever since Danny coined the term "lifehack," back in 2004, I've been cultivating daily habits that have let me live the life I wanted to live, accomplishing the things I wanted to accomplish. I figured out how to turn daily writing into a habit and now I've written more than 30 books:

https://www.locusmag.com/Features/2009/01/cory-doctorow-writing-in-age-of.html

A daily habit of opening a huge, ever-tweaked collection of tabs has made me smarter about the news, helped me keep tabs on my friends, helped me find fraudsters who were trying to steal my identity, and ensured that all those Kickstarter rewards and other long-delayed, erratic shipments didn't slip through the cracks:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/25/today-in-tabs/#unfucked-rota

Daily habits are superpowers. Once something is a habit, you get it for free. GTD turns on decomposing big, daunting projects into bite-sized, trackable tasks. I have a bunch of spaces around the house – my office, my closet, the junk sheds down the side of the house, our tiki bar – that I used to clean out once or twice a year. Each one was all-day, sweaty, dirty job, and for most of the year, all of those spaces were a dusty, disorganized mess.

A month ago, I added a new daily task: spend five minutes cleaning one space. I did the bar first, and after two weeks, I'd taken down every tchotchke and bottle and polished it, reorganizing the undercounter spaces where things pile up:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=37996580417%40N01&sort=date-taken-desc&text=tiki+bar&view_all=1

Now I'm working through my office. Ever day, I'm dusting a bookshelf and combing through it for discards to stick in our Little Free Library. Takes less than five minutes most day, and I'll be done in about three weeks, when I'll move on to my closet, then the side of the house, and then back to the bar. A daily short break where I get away from my computer and make my living and working environments nicer is a wonderful habit to cultivate.

I'm 53 years old now. I was 33 when I started following Getting Things Done. In that time, I've gotten a lot done, but what's even more relevant is that I didn't get a ton of things done – things that I consciously chose not to abandon. Figuring out what you want to do, and then keeping it on track – in manageable, healthy, daily rhythms that bring along the other people you rely on – may not be the whole secret to a fulfilled life, but it's certainly a part of it.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/26/one-weird-trick/#todo.txt

[bat-boys]

forever, my love

pairing: Azriel x fem reader

word count: 4.3k

warnings: 18+, mentions of battle and war, references to depression, smut (fingering) but it's romantic, angst but also fluff.

summary: you and Azriel had seen many battles over the centuries but when something goes wrong and has a lasting impact on you, Az promises to take care of you.

a/n: thank you so much for the love on the first fic! here's another one! I promise next time I'll write something happier haha, suggestions are welcome! I hope you enjoy.

The cruel, unyielding symphony of battle swelled in you as you continued to swing your sword at the enemies in front of you. Grunts of pain and screams of frustration left your lips as you continued to carve a path through the soldiers in your way, desperately trying to hold the line as Cassian had commanded. 

Your body moved automatically, thanks to the centuries of muscle memory drilled into you from the intense training and the many battlefields you had found yourself on during your long life. In recent decades, you may have taken a step back from helping to command the Night Court armies and turned your attention to training the next legion of warriors and aiding your spymaster in more covert missions. Still, your body would always remember the steps needed in battle. It would never shrink from charging head first.

Once, you had been told you were beautiful to watch in battle—second only to Cassian himself as you danced your way through enemy hordes. But now, as you cut through another bottleneck of soldiers, you could only focus on keeping yourself alive, so you were extremely exhausted. 

Step, swing, push, slash, pivot, hit. 

As you managed to gut the last soldier in front of you, you allowed yourself a small moment of reprieve to collect your thoughts and take a gulp of air. The sound of battle raged around you, and you could faintly see your friends and allies around you, diligently fighting for a future you had only just battled for a mere handful of years ago. You sent a pulse down that precious thread, tucked deep within your heart and nodded your head in relief when you felt a responding pulse from the male on the other end. Alive. He was still alive. That's all that mattered at the moment. 

You heard a shout close beside you and watched an Illyrian soldier, who had been grounded due to semi-shredded wings, fight off a group of soldiers starting to swarm around him. Taking a deep breath, you sheathed your long blade and palmed the knives strapped to either thigh.

Winnow, slash. Winnow, stab. Winnow, swing. Your High Lady herself had taught you this particular move after you had seen her yourself face enemies from a different war, a different conflict. You kept the image of your friends smiling at Feyre as she had embarrassingly walked you through how she did it, blushing furiously at your instance in teaching you at the forefront of your mind, and you continued to dance to the sound of the battle's symphony. 

That was the future you continued to fight for, and you were determined to protect it. 

…

Your entire body heaved as you shoved your blade through the chest of the last soldier in front of you. The sounds of battle were quietening and dying out as the last of the enemy horde were tied up or killed. 

A groan left your lips as you yanked your blade free and used the last of your power and strength to winnow to the edge of the battlefield. You stumbled as you landed, cursing yourself for letting your power drain so thoroughly during battle. Az would chastise you about that later. Speaking of which…

Where are you? You sent down the bond, waiting for the familiar calm voice to reach your mind. A frown fell on your face as the minutes stretched past, and you didn't hear a response from him. 

Az? 

You refused to panic just yet. While this was unusual, you knew the moments after a battle was the most crucial for a spymaster as he gathered up defeated enemies to spirit them away for interrogation. He was probably just busy, you reasoned with yourself.

But a small part of your brain also whispered that he always kept the precious channel between you both open and always responded when you called. 

You trudged through the mud towards the huge fortress in front of you. It may have been dilapidated and crumbling, but it provided a place where Rhys could gather his allies and forces and not be constantly caked in dirt and mud from his war camp. Once, it had probably been beautiful, home to some illustrious High Fae family, but now it was home to tired soldiers and had clearly seen much better days. 

Azriel. You tried again to reach your mate through the bond, your heart thundering louder in your chest when you didn't receive a response. This time, you stretched your consciousness along that bridge…and slammed into a cold stone wall on the other end. Panic began to claw up your throat, but you refused to give in. He was probably busy with Rhys or Cassian; you desperately tried to reason with yourself as you sheathed your heavy blade into the scabbard strapped to your back and walked up the stone steps to the bustling entrance of the fortress. 

"Injured that way, please!" You heard the familiar voice of your High Lady directing her people from inside the entrance. She turned around, and you saw her face relax in relief as she spotted you, "Y/N. Oh, thank the cauldron, you're alright." 

Feyre was wearing her Illyrian leathers, her hair windswept and looking just as tired as you felt. She walked towards you, and you hugged her tightly, grateful to see one of your dearest friends safe and sound. You gently manoeuvred around the bow strapped to her back as she hugged you back just as fiercely. Much to everyone's surprise and yours and Rhys' amusement after the war with Hybern Feyre had mastered the notoriously tough Illyrian bow - why anyone doubted her after her past in the human realm you were still confused by. You had seen her sweeping over the battlefield today and dispatching enemies, saving your life more times than you cared to admit. Her flying wasn't strong enough to join in with the Illyrian legions yet, but she had become invaluable on the battlefield once again.

"You looked awesome up there today." You both grinned at each other, warriors recognising each other, "where is everyone?"

"Amren and Mor are in the war chamber, exhausted but ok. Cassian was dropping off a soldier to the hospital wing."

"Az?"

"I thought he was with you?" A quick shake of your head had her face falling, "Ok, he's probably busy with clean up - let me see if Rhys can reach him."

"Thank you," you whispered, and she squeezed your shoulder and kissed your cheek before going back to directing people coming through the entrance. 

You jumped as you felt a bigger, wider hand fall on your shoulder but relaxed when you turned to see Cassian grinning down at you. Not the Illyrian warrior you were desperate to see but still a fucking welcome sight. 

"You saved our asses out there, as usual, tiny angry one." You rolled your eyes at the nickname he had given you hundreds of years ago as you let him pull you into a bone-crushing hug. 

"Glad to see you survived another battle, General, and without getting yourself torn to shreds."

"Yeah, yeah, shut up you." He teased as he gently pushed your shoulder. You may be Az's right-hand woman with his spy network now, but you were Cassian's second in command first. A formidable warrior whose name struck fear into your enemy's hearts, renowned for being utterly ruthless in combat and undefeated. How long ago it now felt when you and Cassian had first led the armies in that war hundreds of years ago.

"Have you seen Az?" You hated how quiet your voice sounded, but you struggled to keep the panic at bay. 

"No," Cass frowned, "is he still out there?"

"I don't know, I can't reach him." You whispered, and immediately you felt Cassian shift, ready to head back out there and find his brother - could see the panic that settled in his eyes at the thought of finding him dead on the battlefield.

"Let's not panic yet. We'll go find Rhys, and we can set up a patrol-"he continued to talk to you, laying out a plan before you, but you couldn't hear him. Couldn't hear over the sound of your own panic as you tried to not give in to the fear that was eating away at your heart. You absolutely refused to even think for a minute that he was dead. But why was the bond cold? Why hadn't he gotten in touch, and why hadn't anyone seen him since the battle ended?

You turned your head to the side, ready to throw up the small amount of food you had choked down earlier, when-

Y/N! You froze as you heard a familiar roar and couldn't place if it was something you had heard echoed around the stone room or through that precious bond you shared. 

Immediately, you turned from Cassian toward the sound of that shout, and your knees nearly buckled when you finally spotted Azriel walking through the fortress's entrance, bathed in his shadows. 

His eyes were wild as he scanned the room, looking for you. His hair was matted to his sweaty forehead, blood coated his face, and he was stalking forward with a slight limp. But he was alive. Alive.

"Az." You had barely whispered his name, but you watched as his eyes snapped to you, and something broke in his carefully carved facade as his gaze took you in. Pure, undiluted, raw relief settled on his face as he realised you were still here, unhurt and standing. 

Sobbing, you left your friend behind and ran towards your mate. He just stopped where he stood and held his arms out, catching you as you barrelled into him. He rocked ever so slightly back as he caught you, a testament to the exhaustion seeping through his body, but you felt that primal part of you that had been thrashing around your heart ease as his arms circled around you tightly and he buried his head in your hair - breathing you in.

"I thought I had lost you." You sobbed as you pushed your face into his neck, breathing in that comforting smell of night-chilled mist and cedar.

"I know, baby, I know." His beautiful, scarred hands gently stroked down your blood-soaked and matted hair as he continued to mumble, "I'm here. I'm safe. We're safe."

"What happened?" you asked as you pulled away ever so slightly from his body, letting your feet hit the unforgiving stone floor. Azriel's face was so tender, so soft, as his hands came up to cup your face. You watched, giving him a minute to scan your face for any injuries. A sigh left his lips when he noticed that you were largely unharmed apart from the usual cuts and scraps from battle. 

"Faebane," he muttered darkly, and you gasped. "One of the soldiers had some and threw it on my face when I got close. Clearly, they haven't got much, and it's a diluted solution leftover from the war with Hybern as it cleared quite quickly, but still…this is something we now have to factor in."

"I couldn't feel you down the bond." Your voice hitched.

"I couldn't feel you either, sweetheart, I didn't know if you still breathed. I was so scared." Another sob slipped through your lips, one of sadness but also one of relief as you gripped his Illyrian leathers and pulled him closer - unable to stand any distance between you. You rose up on your shaky legs and pressed your lips to his.

The kiss wasn't sweet or tender; it was demanding and all-consuming. It was a kiss between two mates who had been terrified that after their years of searching, they had lost each other. You felt the rumble of Azriel's moan as you tilted your head to get better access to his lips. His hand reached up to cup your head to hold you in place as he licked into your mouth, and his arm snapped around you as your legs finally gave out and caught you before you sank to the floor. 

You broke away gently, not going far as you rested your foreheads together. Your bodies heaved as you sucked in air for what felt like the first time since the battle ended. You closed the distance again to press your lips to his again, once, twice, thrice.

"I can't do this anymore, Az." You whispered, tears slipping down your face. Tears that Azriel captured with his thumbs as he looked at you with such devastation, "the wars, the battles, not knowing whether our friends are alive, not knowing if you are still alive. I have never felt so old."

"I know, sweetheart. I know." 

You both sighed as you felt the soldier hovering near you, waiting to catch your attention. Once, you would have known every soldier's name, but now you just had a vague recollection of his face. "Azriel. Y/N. I'm sorry to interrupt, but Rhysand has requested your presence."

Az pulled away slightly to nod at the soldier, who offered you both a respectful salute before leaving. You felt his scarred hand drift down your arm to grip your hand. You felt his squeeze, and you squeezed back, "Come on, love, let's go get this over with, and then let me take care of you."

…

The fortress was quieter now, as if everyone was holding their breath, waiting for the next attack; the next moment, you would all be dragged out onto the battlefield again to face your enemies. You and Az had been stuck in meetings for hours after that initial reunion, and you had felt so hollow as your friends recounted what they saw throughout the day, the tactics the enemies were using and how you stood a chance at defeating them once and for all if you hold strong. You hadn't let go of Az's hand the entire time, only letting go once he had told his story about the faebane and he had seen tears slipping down your cheeks again and had pulled you into his arms. 

A sadness clanged through your chest as you watched all of your friends that afternoon once the allies from other courts had left for their own war camps. Even through the exhaustion, the court of dreamers was still fighting, even though you had all been on the battlefield in a different war only a handful of years ago.

Azriel had made good on his promise. The minute Rhys commanded you to rest, Azriel gripped your cold hand and pulled you towards the room down the hall you were sharing. Immediately, he had asked a passing soldier to grab you a plate of food, something warm, before strolling into the room and firmly closing the door behind him. With such gentle hands, he had taken your frozen body and sat you down on the impressive four-poster bed in the centre of the room, your body sinking deeply into the comfy mattress. 

He firmly pressed a loving kiss to your forehead before moving away to stoke the fire that someone had forethought to start while you were in meetings. Once satisfied, he quickly looked back over his shoulder at you - to check you were ok - before moving into the expansive bathing chamber. You could hear his footsteps on the tiled floor and the water gushing out of the taps into the large bathtub, but you couldn't stop the fear from clawing up your throat. Panic began to settle in again because he was out of sight.

What your enemies would think at the mighty Y/N reduced to this quivering mess.

Just as you couldn't take the roaring in your head anymore, at the nausea swirling in your stomach, and were about to get up to run to his arms again, Azriel stepped back into the room. You must have been shouting down the bond again because he had a soft, sad look on his face. 

"I'm here, sweetheart." A whimper left your lips as you flew from the bed into his arms again, unable to get enough of the feeling of him, of being safe with him. His hand skated up and down your spine again, mumbling soothing words and pressing his lips into your hair: "I've drawn you a warm bath; come on."

You hadn't realised how much you had been shivering or how long you had been cold until the idea of settling into warm water felt so appealing. He smiled at you as he took your hands and guided you into the large bathing chamber. The bathtub sat in the middle of the room, large enough for not only you but also to accommodate wings, you realised. A soft smile fell on your lips at the thought.

In a comfortable silence that you and Az had always been able to enjoy, he gently began to unbuckle your damp and blood-encrusted leathers. With slow, methodical movements, he pulled the material from your body before throwing it into a basket in the corner of the room. You watched, your breathing shallow as Az ran his soft fingers up the exposed skin of your arms before hooking under the strap of your bra and removing it carefully from your body. Only then did his fingers skate down the soft valley of your breasts, over your abdomen, before slipping underneath the waistband of your underwear and slipping them down your thighs. Az had seen you in every state and had marked every inch of your skin with his lips and tongue, but this moment, him undressing you as you tried desperately to keep yourself from shattering, was the most intimate thing you had shared. It was warm and sweet, flecked with starlight.

That same warm smile was still on his lips as he took your hand and guided you into the warm water in the bathtub. An appreciative groan left your lips as your feet, legs, and body were submerged in comforting, warm water. 

You turned around and grinned at your mate as you watched him unbuckle his own leathers and shuck them off his body. You couldn't help gazing appreciatively at his body, that body you also knew as well as your own: the proud contours of his shoulders, the toned muscles of his arms, his chiselled abdomen, the thick, powerful thighs. He truly was sculpted by the gods themselves. 

Az silently padded over to the bathtub, slipping into the warm water himself before resting against one end and gently slipping his arm around your waist to pull you against him - your back pressed tightly against his chest. 

With a gentleness that you know would shock so many people, he reached to grab the washcloth and soap from the side before he lathered them up and softly washed the mud and blood from your body. He took his time, kneading his hands into your aching muscles. He even undid your tattered braid and carefully washed the blood and dirt from your hair. The moment was so loving and beautiful after what happened earlier in the day that you couldn't help the tears that silently slipped from your eyes and tracked down your cheeks. 

Once you were both clean, he pulled you flush against his chest again, letting you lean against him with your eyes closed as you enjoyed the feeling of being this close to him in the warm water. You idly traced the scars on his hand underneath the water where it was resting against your stomach whilst his other hand slid up and down your thigh, over your hip and up your body.

"I love you, Az." You whispered into the soft silence that had settled between you.

"I love you too, baby." You felt him press a kiss to your temple.

After today, after the horrors you had seen, after the panic that had coursed through your veins, you needed to feel something��more. He wasn't close enough; you needed to feel him. Without saying a word, you lifted your free hand to gently grip the hand that was trailing up and down your body, stopping it in its lazy movements to slowly place it closer to that now throbbing part of you at the apex of your thighs. 

"Sweetheart?" He questioned quietly. You could sense through the bond his willingness to touch you and feel his want with the way his erection was pressed against your lower back. But he needed to check that you really wanted this and that he wouldn't overstep some line, especially after today. 

"Please, Az. I need you." You whimpered as you felt his slender fingers skim along your inner thigh.

"Relax, sweetheart, let me make you feel good." He rumbled against you as he gently began to press kisses under your ear, at that sweet spot he had found on that first night all those years ago. Your chest heaved as you felt his calloused fingertips trace up your thigh, over the curve of your hip, and along your bikini line before sensually slipping down to trace your slit.

A soft hiss escaped your lips at the feeling of his fingers so close to where you needed him most, a whimpering, "Please," leaving your lips as he chuckled behind you. His breath ghosted over the shell of your ear and caused a shiver to run down your spine. 

"I have worshipped your body for centuries, love," Azriel murmured, his strong nose nudging the side of your head so he could begin placing open-mouthed, hot kisses down your neck, "and I never get tired of hearing those noises you make when I touch you." 

You whined softly when Azriel moved his hand, but it was quickly silenced when you felt him suck on the soft flesh between your neck and shoulder as his strong hand gripped your thigh to move it to the outside of his so he had better access to you. 

One of his slender fingers returned to your centre and traced your slit once again before gently swirling around that bundle of nerves. A curse ripped from your lips as your hips bucked at the contact, and another primal chuckle rumbled up Azriel's chest at your delicious reaction. 

Azriel continued to swirl his finger ever so gently over your clit, every now and then applying the smallest amount of pressure and causing a sharp cry to leave your lips as white-hot pleasure shot up your body. It wasn't enough; he was teasing, and you needed your body to shatter in a way you were familiar with.

"Use your words, love. Tell me what you need." You could practically hear the smirk in his voice, and if you weren't wound up so tightly, you might have called him out on it. 

"Your fingers, Az. Please." You whimpered.

"Because you asked so nicely." He mumbled into your skin as he gently slid one finger into your core. A sharp cry left your lips at the feeling of those scars creating the most delicious friction against your walls. 

He set a slow but deep pace as he pumped his finger inside you, his thumb still drawing figures of eight on your clit. You could feel the pleasure building inside of you, your toes curling as you felt Azriel taking you higher and higher. His hand that you had been gripping, resting against your stomach, slid up your body to cup your breast. Your eyes rolled into the back of your head as he expertly rolled your nipples between his fingers and tweaked them in the way he knew you liked. You could feel that familiar crest of your orgasm approaching, and he had barely touched you. So expertly knew your body. You threw your head back against his shoulder, unable to do much but go limp against him. 

"I love you so much, Y/N." He whispered, and you turned to face him and saw that raw emotion on his face again, an emotion that mirrored yours. As he slipped another finger inside you, curling his fingers to reach that spongy spot inside of you that had you seeing stars, you reached up to grip his hair and press your lips to his. 

You felt him grin against you as you kissed him, your hips undulating and rolling against his fingers to meet his lazy thrusts. The kiss was full of teeth and passion, and you felt the rising tide of your pleasure as you writhed against him. A cry left your lips as you felt yourself reaching the top of the wave, your mind turning foggy and hips bucking sloppily as you felt your orgasm approaching. 

"Let go, love, cum for me." His words, whispered lowly in your ear, his tone dripping lust and awe, and the soft thrust he gave behind you that had you feeling how much he was enjoying seeing you like this, caused that band in your body to snap and the pleasure he had been slowly building crest and shatter. Pure, white, hot pleasure sparked throughout your body, sending every nerve-ending alight as your orgasm washed over you. Chants of his name left his lips as your back arched and your hips thrashed as he continued to pump his fingers deliciously inside you.

After what felt like hours, the wave of pleasure began to subside and be replaced with a bone-deep satisfaction. A sigh left your lips as you slumped back against your mate, his arms catching you - as they always did - and pulling you close to him. You felt Azriel mumbling your name whilst pressing soft kisses to your temple, cheek and jawline. 

"Rest, love. There will be time for more later. I promise." It was that promise you clung to as you rested against your mate and let your body relax in the cooling water of the bath. 

[rs-hawk]

I don't think i can explain to you the near-boundless giddy excitement I got form seeing EJ on that creeptober list of yours. (If it's not obvious, he might just be my favourite, snort) Looking forward to all of em tho ~!!

He’s GREAT. I used to have so many head cannons about him since so little is actually known. This story is actually based off my hc about his origin. I hope you enjoy!

Creeptober: Day Three

Eyeless Jack’s Obsession

Yandere! Eyeless Jack x AFAB Reader

CW: horror themes, stalking, blood, pain, death (not of reader), hypnosis, breeding, etc

Eyeless Jack was once an ordinary spirit. He lived his afterlife the way most spirits do. Bored and alone. However, that all changed when you bought the mansion in which he resided.

You moved in without ever seeing the place in person, which you soon regretted. The entire place gave you a creepy vibe that made the pit of your stomach twist into knots. At all times it felt like something was watching you. Stalking you. Filling every room with its presence.

And he was. Jack was following you no matter where you went in the house. It was like you were a drug and he was an addict. Being around you made him feel almost alive again. And the more alive he felt, the more he could interact with the physical world.

Soon he was moving things. Taking things from you. You noticed but kept trying to brush it off. You hoped thought that you were going a little crazy. After all, you worked a remote job and lived in this big creepy house all by yourself. You were supposed to fix it up and sell it for your aunt, who hadn’t lived here in decades, but it was hard. Even with the money she gave you, you struggled to make up the remainder.

Eventually though, you did, and construction started. You still lived in the loft like area that was once an attic while the crews worked downstairs. Unfortunately for the construction workers you hired, Eyeless Jack wasn’t as enthused with the intrusion into your space as you were.

On the very first day, a ladder fell over, nearly killing one of the roofers. He was fine, but he refused to return as he said he was pushed. The next time a ladder fell, a few days later, someone did die.

You heard the screaming and the sound of a body hitting the concrete. It took you a few minutes to rush downstairs. Terror filling your body. Did someone really just die on your aunt’s property? Holy fuck. How would you be able to keep living here? That poor man and his family.

While you were panicked, Jack was ecstatic. He hoped now you would send all these other people away so it could just be the two of you again. All he wanted was to be able to have you all to himself again. As he watched you panic, and the other workers calling the cops or trying to scrape their dead friend’s body off the concrete, he realized that he had blood on his hands.

For a few moments, he just stared at it. Vague memories of being alive and kicking blood from a cut on his finger drifted through his mind, but nothing solid. It was too long ago. Too hard to remember. Yet, his tongue darted out to flick across his palm.

The blood in his mouth solidified some of the memories, and made him feel almost alive. In a frenzy, he licked the blood from both of his hands, the coppery and metallic taste filling his mouth. His eyes glazed over and all he could think of was getting more blood. How much could he touch then? Could he touch you?

The next few days were a blur for you as you worked with the company and your home owners insurance to work out the logistics of the worker’s accident. Everyone saw that he just fell. The ladder was properly secured. No one was messing with it. He was acting responsibly. He wasn’t impaired or intoxicated. It was a freak accident.

But you knew. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you knew. It was because of that disturbing presence in the house.

You decided that you wanted the renovations done as quickly as possible, so after getting some of your money back from the previous company, you hired another. And another. And another. Every time, someone died. It was horrifying. One man came to your house just to survey the land and came across a missing roofer. He looked like he had been ripped open with a man’s bear hands, and, to both your and the surveyer’s horror, all of his organs were missing.

That night you called your aunt and told her that you were done. In the morning, you were leaving. She didn’t even try to protest after you told her everything that had happened. Jack, having over heard your conversation, was furious. He couldn’t lose you.

Over the past few months, he had undergone a transformation. Every bit of human flesh he consumed made him more solidified. More tangible. More alive. However, his face has become mutated and disturbing. Where his eyes once were, were just empty chasms, dripping black blood. His skin turned to a disturbing shade of ashy gray. So, to prevent your terror as much as he could, he carved a mask out of a piece what used to be a blue shelf. Now there was no reason for you to rebuff his affection.

When he made his way up to your room, you were on your laptop. In seconds, he tossed it from your lap, and your phone was pushed off the bed. He was on his knees on the foot of the bed, leaning over you, caging you in with his arms.

A scream welled up in your throat as the black holes bore into your eyes, but a muttering voice soothed the fear away. Your brain turned fuzzy. It was like you couldn’t think for yourself. He tilted his head, which you mimicked.

“A pretty puppet,” he purred, stroking the side of your face with one of his hands.

You couldn’t think of anything. It was like his eyes had drawn every thought or ounce of individualism from your skull. When he told you to take off your clothes, you did. When he told you to lay down, you did. You couldn’t see his mouth, and his voice seemed to come from everywhere, but you knew that it was him talking.

“Make sure your pussy is good and wet for me,” he instructed, and you obliged.

You began to finger yourself, using your other hand to play with your clit. The soft whimpers and moans that escaped your lips had him gritting his teeth behind his mask. He wanted to take you so badly, but he also wanted it to be perfect for you. His little morsel. He wanted to be apart of you. For you to be apart of him. Forever.

Once your juices began to drip onto your sheets, he finally cooed at you to stop. You did. Despite the frustration and throbbing of your pussy. He was still caging you in with his arms, his form nearly engulfing you. After a moment of watching you squirm, your neglected cunt clenching around nothing, he eased back. Unzipping his pants, and pulling down his boxers, his hard and throbbing cock was shown to you.

Once his hypnotic gaze was broken, your mind began to flood back to you, and the sight of something so massive made you try to scamper back on the bed. However, your loving Eyeless Jack realized that his hold had been broken and grabbed your face, forcing your gazes to lock. Once again, anything in your mind seemed to melt away.

“Spread your legs,” he instructed. And you did.

He slowly slid inside of you, watching your face intensely as it contorted in pain and pleasure. He stretched you out to the point that you felt like you’d burst. Your walls were still throbbing with need, forcing you to clench around him. Clearly to his immense pleasure.

“There we go. Mine. So good for me,” he moaned as he finally sank his cock deep inside of you, his eyes flickering away from your face for just a moment to see how your stomach extended from his cock.

When his gaze returned to you, he saw tears in the corner of your eyes. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to me, won’t you?” he promised, cupping your cheek almost tenderly again. You nodded obediently.

He was only slow for a few thrusts before losing what little of his kind remained. It was clear he wanted to care about your pleasure, but the decades of death and isolation left him desperate for the comfort and warmth your pussy brought him. The tip of his cock slammed against your cervix repeatedly, making you wince. He muttered out apologies, but never stopped. Never slowed down.

His cock ripped you slightly, blood beading along your tender lips. He muttered out another apology about how he’d make it up to you, and all you could do was whisper out an “okay”. It took hours for him to finish, and when he did, he slammed himself deeply inside of you, his cum pumping directly into your womb.

“There we are. Now I’ll always be apart of you,” he smiled, pulling up his mask to press a kiss to your forehead before disappearing.

As your mind came back to you, you winced at the pain, but wondered with a twisted hunger if he would come back for you.

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[starlightsuffered]

Forget the Past

Info - angst Fic, some dub con, ascended Paul, unprotected sex, political marriage, technical cheating, yearning, Fremen reader, mention of having children

I spat blood out of my mouth as I was thrown to the floor of the emperor’s palace. Emperor, that very word sent chills through my bones. He was not my leader, not my king, and definitely, not my emperor. I had sworn it since that day he had declared it. I would not bow to him.

I tried to struggle to my feet. I didn’t think the emperor himself would deign to see a single lowly Fremen that had been caught, but I didn’t want to kneel regardless.

I was harshly pushed down every time I tried to lift myself on aching ankles. I was covered in muck and blood. Sand must’ve been in every crevice of my body. I wanted to wash off in the Fremen pools, and sleep, but my entire life was about to change. I’d been captured and there was nothing I could do.

“Y/n,” said a gasp. I lifted my head and locked eyes with him.

It had been half a decade since he’d taken Princess Irulan’s hand and declared a Holy War. He’d tried to contact me. He’d tried to send messages to me. I’d ignored everything he’d done. He would not be the saviour of my people. He was our next oppressor.

He was still beautiful though he was not the boy I’d once known. His dark curls and piercing eyes still made my heart pound a little faster. I couldn’t believe he’d known who I was under the blood and rubble. Yes, he’d tried to contact me, but that had stopped years ago. I assumed now he rested with his empire and his new wife.

“Take her to the bath house,” Paul said with a flick of his fingers.

“But your Greatness, Emperor, she is a traitor. She is one of the ones who does not follow your golden path to paradise,” argued the guard. They should have known better.

“LISTEN!” The bene gesserit gift of the voice echoed through the room. I hated that awful power. He was more foreign than he ever was when he used that manipulation tactic.

“Take her to the finest bath chamber we have. Give her a robe and clothing, but watch the doors. Do not let her escape,” Paul said, and with a flash of his robe, he was gone.

I was treated kindly. Their fingers did not dig into my skin. I was not shoved as I had been before. The fear and awe of the Emperor was great and fierce enough to have them obey even when out of his eye sight.

I remembered when he’d been a younger man. His large eyes and cautious ways had made me fond of him. He had let me teach him so many things. He had been so willing to learn. Now I assumed he thought that he knew all and saw all.

I bathed in the luxurious water. I couldn’t believe he’d wasted so much on me. I normally would have refused but men were stationed outside my door to make sure that I did as I was told.

I attempted to use as little as possible. It was not Fremen to use water so lavishly. I was disassociating though. I didn’t feel like I was truly in my body. All I saw was green eyes and sharp cheekbones.

I put on the silky pink robe. It was the softest thing I had ever worn. It was also short, and much of my legs were exposed. This too I was not used to. Baring your skin to the Arrakis sun was foolish, but here….. perhaps this place, this palace was more like Caladan.

I remembered how Paul told me it poured water from the skies there. He had promised that one day he would take me there and show me. There were a lot of promises he hadn’t kept.

I smashed my fist against the cold stone wall in defeat. I hated that I still thought of him. I hated that I gave him the time of day even in my mind. He had utterly betrayed me and I doubted he’d given it a second thought. He was the Messiah after all, they didn’t have regrets.

“You’re even more beautiful than the day you left me,” said a voice. It was calm and deep.

I turned to see Paul in the door way. He was in white robes. He looked older, though nothing much had changed about his face. It was his aura.

“I never thought I’d see you again my angel,” he said in a breath. It was the most unsteady he’d sounded this entire time.

He was rushing to me then as if he could not hold himself back. He had me in his strong grip even though I struggled. He was looking over every inch of me. I realised he was making sure I was okay and uninjured.

“Unhand me,” I snarled.

“Y/n, my love, my love,” he gasped. He was pressing his forehead against mine. I didn’t like how I was instantly pulled into his gravity.

“Y/n,” he crooned again. His hand curled into my hair.

“Let me breathe you in.”

“You deserve to breathe in smoke and choke,” I spat.

“My love, it’s me, it’s Paul,” he said. It wasn’t him. It was someone different. It was the Emperor, I didn’t know him.

“You are a married,” was what I raggedly said, though so many other things mattered so much more.

“You know I don’t love her. You are my only,” he told me earnestly.

“Yet there is a wedding ring on your finger.”

“She lives a life of celibacy, as do I. I have saved myself for you,” he whispered. His eyes still were trying to search mine. He was looking desperately for some part of me to tell him he wasn’t crazy for continuing to love me.

“Die,” I growled.

I turned around and made my way to the door. Paul let me go for a moment and then his body was behind me again. His hand was flat on my stomach.

“Paul,” I said with a warning in my voice.

“Please, she means nothing to me,” he promised. “She hasn’t known a moment of my tenderness, not like you have.

I thought of the Fremen lovers I’d taken to blow off steam, to release tension, to forget Muad’Dib, to soothe my wounds, to be held for once in a long while. I didn’t feel a moment of loyalty to them in this moment, but I wished they were here. I needed someone, something to distract me from the light that was Paul. I was an insect careening towards brightness though it was bound to be my downfall.

Had he really stayed loyal to my memory? Had he truly never touched Irulan the way he had me? If this was true, why could he not have loved me enough to not become what he was now?

“I will love you as long as I breathe,” he murmured into my neck. His hand moved lower.

A horrible noise echoed in the chamber. It was me. I was moaning. My body seemed to think it belonged with his. My brain screamed at me as I leaned back against him.

The heel of Paul’s palm was rolling against my clothed pussy. My trembling hand reached up and grabbed at the back of his neck.

“I could snap your neck right now,” I whispered.

“My love,” was all he said in response.

“Paul,” I tried to say. It came out as more of a warbling hum.

He was lifting my robe. I felt the press of his length. I was panting. I knew he’d stop if I used our old safe word, but I couldn’t manage it. How many nights had I craved one more touch from him.

“I never got to say goodbye,” he moaned. His lips were peppering along my throat. My pulse fluttered.

“Oh my darling, let me have you once more?” He pleaded.

“You’re despicable,” I huffed.

“You’re everything,” he responded.

I couldn’t help the way my body melted into his. I was rolling against his hand. I let him push down his pants and rub his member against my wet folds. I wore no panties under the robe.

“May I?”

“Who am I to turn down an Emperor,” I panted.

I was glad I was backed up against him. I didn’t want him to see my eyes as he pushed inside me. It was like every taste of him, every memory, every delicious feeling came back with him.

“You feel like heaven. You are bliss,” he murmured in my ear. He pumped inside me.

I closed my eyes and let go. I let the sounds I wanted to make fall from my mouth. I was keening as he held my hips possessively. He was snapping in and out as he mumbled praises against my skin.

“Perfect, what I was made for. You should be empress. Bare my children, be my goddess,” he pleaded. He didn’t use that harsh Bene Gesserit power on me, but he just pleaded.

Pleasure was erupting over me on chills. I imagined we were back in the dessert. We belonged to one another again. He was on the good side.

It was like we had never been separated. I was part of him again. We were one. I was shaking with the weight and glorious gratification of the connection. If I believed in connected souls, it would have to be us.

“Paul, Paul, Paul,” I repeated.

“I knew you missed me. I thought of you every night. Every time I chastely kissed her goodnight, I imagined it was you, and I imagined it was more than chaste.”

I felt tears fill my eyes. He had to go and ruin it. He had to bring the present into the past. I felt some of the warm light fade.

“Muad’Dib,” I sobbed, unable to call him his other name.

“Call me yours,” he pleaded. My mouth stayed shut.

I tried to lose myself in the lust again. I closed my eyes again and leaned back. I began to speak. I said all the things I’d imagined I’d say if things had been different.

“I stayed up nights thinking about how much I loved you. I didn’t mind the sunshine if I was able to wake up and see your face more clearly,” I mumbled.

“Y/n?” He asked.

“You made me giggle, smile, dream, and more. You made me feel home in a person and not a place.”

“Oh y/n,” he shuddered. He began to move faster. Despite myself, pleasure overwhelmed me. I arched and let out a whine.

“I love you. I never stopped, I never will!” He promised me. He rolled his hips and played with my clit to make it all feel more intense.

“I loved you like the moon loves the stars. I loved you like a flower loves water. You were part of my soul. I wanted to bare your children. I never wanted to imagine a life without you.”

“Yes, that is exactly how I feel. Oh, darling, I’m so close!” He gasped.

He was holding me tight and reverently as he pounded inside me. His lips were attached to my neck. He let out a pant of pure lust and need. His warm seed began to fill me.

I couldn’t help but fall over the edge too. I was doused in swirling stars once again. Once again the world was beautiful as we reached our heights together.

I heard the wetness as he pulled himself out of me. I stepped forward robotically and turned around. Paul’s eyes were glazed over with a film of pure love and satisfaction. This nearly dopey expression, the one I recognised from when we used to make love, fell when he saw the look in my eyes.

“Y/n?”

“Go back to your wife,” I said in a full tone. He was understanding now that everything is said had been past tense.

“Y/n!” His voice was shrill and worried now. He had truly become so haughty he hadn’t expected another rejection.

“Forget the past, Emperor,” I finished with a mock curtsy.

[ray935sworld]

I wonder what the retired riders think about Marc at the moment.

Like imagine, Dani Pedrosa sitting in the KtM facility working, analyzing how Pols bike is doing, keeping an eye on Acosta, Fernandez, Binder and Miller, comparing the data when he sees Marc overtaking Pecco, like he was overtaken by the Spaniard so many times before. He watches him fight his way up the standing and his celebration. He watches Alex pulling up next to him, to congratulate him, like he had congratulated when they were teammates. Does he remember their best races? Their shared podiums? Is he happy for him? Is he getting nostalgic?

Or Jorge Lorenzo being able to actually enjoy Marc's wins and podiums. There is no underlying jealousy that he manged to win instead of him or that he is on the podium when they are fighting over the championship lead. No nagging feeling that maybe one of that risky moved could have caused Marc going wide and losing points. He watches the Spanish hero, the man that has gotten up from a terrible injury, without a worry about his own racing career. He can interview him and finally mean his congratulations. He can finally actually enjoy seeing his home country on top. Especially in Misano of all places.

In Misano where it has always been a home race for Andrea Dovizioso. Did he watch Marc crossing the line and excitingly shaking his head? Did he laugh about him? "After all those years not a thing has changed" Does he remember the pain he used to feel at the sight of Marc's bike being parked at the P1 sign when it could have been him? Or does he forgot about it and moved on and now only focuses on texting Marc a quick 'congratulations 🎉 that was an amazing ride. Truly sick. You deserve it' because he think that he and Marc won't find each other in the chaos of the circuit.

And Casey... Does he watch the races? Some of them are in the middle of the night for Australia. Does he stay awake? Maybe not. So he wakes up, makes breakfast for his wife and children and suddenly the news reporter is at the sport part and he hears that Marc Marquez has won a race after 1043 days and then only took 7 days to secure his 2nd Ducati win. When he was new in retirement, had he been angry? Watching a rookie win races and a championship on a bike that could have been his. And now that Marc is 5 years older than he was when he won his last championship, does he wonder whatelse the used to be golden Honda rookie has up his sleeves at Ducati? Do they all? Or do they not care?

And when Valentino Rossi stands infront of the podium in Misano, trying to only look at the success of his academy, can he really ignore the dancing man who is the focus of the attention? Can he ignore the sun shining as bright as he used to do more than a decade ago? Can he really deny himself to remember the little bit of memory left of from the 2013/2014 Marc, when he was just a happy and successful rookie and Vale could still handle it? Can he really forget the feeling of happiness a shared podium bought them? Does he remember what it was like to stand up there, watching a smiling Marc, hearing his giggle while being the center of their world for just a few minutes? Or is all he feels the rage and betrayal he went through? Maybe he sees the darkness and demons that's hidden in the lights shadow.

[dflogerzi]

It has taken me an entire night and the next morning to gather my thoughts. I think most of the world is doing just that as well. And who we are will be shown in how we now walk forward as people and as individuals.

I was a very little girl just in school when JFK was shot. I remember the day clearly even though I was very young. They dismissed us and sent us home, which looking back would never have happened in these times. I was far too little to be walking home the three or four blocks in the middle of the day, with no parent waiting.

I also remember when Reagan was shot. Clearly. Many people have not connected the family that was involved... and whom they were close friends with. I do not speak of it much any longer, I have learned that it does not serve anyone to do so. For in these days people firmly believe what they do, no reason to banter on. But I am going to say this... The very same people who saw out Kennedy almost did the same with Ronald Reagan. And I do not care a bit who believes me or not.

I had in the past few years bowed out of my own searches, journeying, and going down rabbit holes in an attempt to find quiet spaces for my days. I suppose I had decided to succumb to what I see as the inevitable. I saw no way out. I grew up around diversity, I played with children of all colors growing up, and I served in a military that even in the 1980's had every type of person in every single shade you could imagine. I was ahead of my time I suppose. So seeing all sides of the coin was always easy for me. And I have always straddled the middle ground.

What each of us should be asking ourselves today is this... What are my goals? My personal goals for myself, my children, and my grandchildren? How do I want to see my neighborhood? My library? My places to walk, explore, use as recreation, and take pause in? The preservation of art, history, and relics from the past? What is of the most importance?

Anyone who is not seeing where the world is being led to is not truly observing without the severe propaganda that has been purposely thrust upon the masses. It was legalized more than a decade ago in the United States, and it has been a major success in it's efforts. Mankind is losing, and in my opinion, on purpose. And we are even being openly told so. It is not being hidden. I think it is part of the NWO belief system actually... that we are told outright and we accept it. Or never listen. Like the sheep we are often likened to be.

So another attempt was made to end a life yesterday due to politics. And instead of a country who goes to the polls, in real and valid elections where EVERYONE casts one vote, legally and lawfully, a different future was instead being thrust upon a nation as an attempt. I would have far less worry about entering into a socialist and global state if I felt it was a REAL and lawful vote from every citizen of the country I belong to. I do not believe our elections are safe. And I believe they have not been universally in a long, long while.

We are not just looking at the character of our leaders... but we are looking at the character of each one of us. I am so grateful today that I am on the other side of my life span. And I am so sorry for our grandchildren who may never know some of the beauty of this world. It has been heart breaking to watch the decline of our civilizations.

So much evil. And I will submit from the cheap seats, up in the peanut gallery, that the very same people attempted to take a life yesterday as they have before. Some still alive as accomplices...

This is not about political parties. Anyone who believes that is sleeping far better than I am. This is about humanity. And integrity. And love for our world.

Okay. I suppose I will post this. And then onward with the day. Which is all each of us actually have. Seize it. As I am going to. Love to my friends here.

[softer-ua]

I think Hori did a great job showing that societal changes can happen, the world has gotten better before and it can again, but that change isn’t always linear or noticeable in the moment unless you actively choose to see it and be grateful for it

Because the fight for change takes everyone consciously doing their part as well as creating systemic changes

It will be full of loss, big and small, in the end it may not even feel like much has changed and the accomplishments don’t always measure up to amount of grief accrued

because it’s the next generation and the generations after that really get anything from our efforts

Think of society as the field where we plant ourselves, and think of the oligarchs(rich fucks in charge) of the past who stole the people’s harvests, limited what was allowed to grow, and forced overworking the land to the point of poisoning crops

They do the same now stealing the fruits of our creativity passions and dogged work ethic, they limit where we can direct those efforts so we only grow in ways that benefit them, and they demand we drive ourselves to burnout and all creativity must equal profit

You see the land and your people dying, so you work yourself to the bone to turn the inhospitable over farmed land into something farmable again and you do your best everyday to inspire others to join the cause

In the beginning crop yields are still small and people are barely surviving off the rations, so much work for so little, but you beg they remember that what they grew is heartier than the failed crop last year, the effort wasn’t in vain

You have to work with a lot of shitty people, and they don’t all get less shitty, and those that do can’t undo the harm they caused. But over all less harm is being perpetrated, pieces of the cycle have been broken off giving room for something better to grow.

This is the cycle for a few years, only small sections of land have seen change and it’s a delicate balance because it could easily be over farmed and collapse again, it feels hopeless at times but a dedicated few keep inspiring others to keep going

Then a decade goes by, nights of going to bed hungry become a distant memory for the children, even while you go to bed haunted by the memory of those who didn’t survive the winter.

Some ghosts are leave a lighter touch, it’s unfair their bodies gave out but they find rest in knowing the world is changing and you held their hand the whole way.

The worst ghosts are from those whose soul fled long before the wasting took them, the ones who festered in fear/anger/resentment/isolation . Those whose suffering made them cruel and leaked rot on to the lives of others.

They claw at your nerves, demanding the unanswerable, why? Why didn’t change come sooner, why wasn’t this all prevented, why them, why not you?

Could you have given more of yourself to save them? They were hurting others, all your empathy couldn’t change that, so you hurt them and all our empathy doesn’t change that either.

B&W thinking, or nuanced gray. Both have their place, but neither replaces grief, you can’t intellectualize away a hit nerve.

Pain demands to be felt, but the future demands your present and to get through everything you closed that door and put so many locks on it

It feels like it was a life time ago, it was such a different versions of you, the one who closed the door doesn’t seem to be here anymore and what if you can’t recognize what’s left of the you that’s been locked up for so long.

There’s ghosts on both sides, how many are malevolent? All the benevolent ghosts bid adieu, so what if that old you has soured and become the most malevolent of all?

It’s been rotting behind the door with all your unresolved fears, bloated with your insecurities, everything about yourself that you didn’t believe could survive and yet it’s still there, but you have changed so completely so is it really still there?

Pain demands to be felt, the future demands that you are present, you must make space for the past, the past doesn’t exist, you can’t move forward holding on to all this, the future is NOW

You let some of the ghosts go, some don’t let you go. Some we wish we could have kept

Sometimes building the future means you never get to reconcile all of your past, sometimes closer is just time passed

You can never be the same again, some doors stay locked, you take whatever closure you can get, and you stay grateful for whatever the future brings

You serve the children hardier meals, they grow up strong enough to keep tilling the land with the knowledge you gave them about what greed does to the land and how we hope to prevent it.

And sometimes, every so often through your life, you get to greet a day that is so different from the world you were born into that you can feel lives being saved just because they were born in a world you held create

What’s more, sometimes, sometimes you do get everything you ever wanted, and you get to share that future with the people you loved through all of it

[saintsbuffy]

You’re an angel, i’m a dog.

Pairing: Lucanis/Rook Lucanis/Rook/Spite

TW: injury detail, heavy sexual references, abuse, grief, suicidal idolisation, implied non con, spite being a freak, possession, substances.

Word count: around 5000

Chapter: 2/?

2 - DEVIL LIKE ME

— Rook is injured, Lucanis tries to help.

Lucanis - Bold

Spite - Italics

We've been waiting for this haven't we.

Spites familiar voice echos in Lucanis's head, the feral creatures nails claw his mind as the shadow figure takes form beside him.

Rook tentatively approaches as Lucanis glances around the room before pulling over a large crate for him to sit on and gesturing for Rook to take the armchair opposite him. Even though the crate is slightly too small for him and a few inches shorter than the chair it manages to hold his weight and leaves him eye level with her.

She's watching him and he moves the equipment to one side, careful to pick up any glass shards as he piles tubes and viles into a corner and stacks the books clearing the space between them. His face remains a mask of ease but she can't help but notice the small bead of sweat that forms at his brow. When was the last time he had hosted a girl in his room? He couldn't remember. Come to think of it, when was the last time Lucanis had hosted anyone in his room?

Lucanis shifts in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his arms. He had always been bad at making small talk but now he felt like he'd forgotten how to speak entirely. After a moment the silence is broken by a low humming noise, some variation of a song his grandmother would sing to him many years ago. The noise fades in and out but Rook dosent react, Lucanis is the only one who can hear it.

Quiet.

The girl is studying he realises. Head cocked to one side she watches how he moves and breathes, her guard his up, her discomfort increasing and yet she dosent make a move to leave.

"So..." Rook rests her arms on the oversized chair, one knee crossed other the other, fingers tapping on the edge. "Are you going to tell me how you did that thing out there." She raises her hand and seems to be trying to project her power but all he sees is empty air.

He had felt her magic approaching of course, the thrum of power had given him plenty of warning. The spell she had encountered had taken almost a decade to perfect, he had spent countless hours working on it with his Cousin. The barrier could be locked to one room and only lasted as long as the creator was present. It was supposed to keep out any magic users that didn't possess the Dellamorte bloodline. Clearly it was faulty if Rook had gotten through. He'd have to ask Illario about that when he next saw him.

"I am not entirely sure." Lucanis takes in the way her eyes waver, she doesn't seem annoyed that the spell had managed to stuff her magic but curious, perhaps slightly hopeful? "I do not use many spells, my specialities lie more in weapons and potions. My cousin helped with this one, you might have seen him around.”

She can see that from the display on his desk to the objects that fill his room and line the shelves, a few swords hanging on rusty nails that stick out of the stone.

"Ah, the handsome one." Rook recalls, as he shoots her an unamused look. "So could you, create a spell or a potion to stop it?"

"Why would you want to stop it?" He queries watching the way her hand goes to a chain around her neck, the small opaque crystal attached to it resting just between her breasts, Lucanis moves his eyes away quickly. His gaze goes back to her face then to the wall behind her as he avoids her eye contact.

He had seen the necklace before but had never gotten a good view of it, in fact he could not recall a time he seen her without it. No bigger than a marble, the edges jagged but dull enough to not cut into her skin. Whatever it was it meant something to her. Another piece of the puzzle.

"I mean, to help control it. Like the way your daggers seem to hold power, I can't have another mission go sideways because of me." A half truth.

He does not have to look her in the eyes to know that's not exactly what she meant.

"Perhaps you should ask Emmrich about that kind of stuff, maybe he could make you some sort of object to hone your energy."

In his time here Lucanis had seen the man do incredible things with his gifts, he had even come to him for help occasionally to identify any objects found whilst out on missions.

"I don't think that would work." Her lips pull into a grimace as she continues to fiddle with the silver chain. "And besides i'm not really sure how to feel about the old man, he frightens me a bit." Rook was both equal parts unsettled and intrigued by the man and his skeletal companion.

Lucanis raises an eyebrow but lets her talk.

"Don't tell him I said that though, you two are friends right?"

She recalls the few times she had watched Lucanis enjoying himself over dinner and drinks, in the library studying whatever it was he was searching for. Out of everyone here the two men seemed to click, both quiet and strange in their own way.

"I do not know him that well." Lucanis does not have friends. He is here to complete his contract and keep his home safe, that’s all.

Misunderstanding his blunt reply as sarcasm, Rook laughs. It's muffled by a hand over her mouth.

His chest tightens, wondering what it would sound like to hear a full true laugh from her. He wanted to find out. There was no question that Rook was attractive. Her elven features mixed the human way she spoke and carried herself made most people find her off putting. She tried to make herself invisible, had spent her first weeks at the Lighthouse brushing off everyone's attempts of inclusion but Lucanis had seen the way she made their companions laugh without even trying, the way her smile lit up a room. She didn't even have to try, he couldn't stand it.

Had the room always felt this small? Of course it had he was sleeping in a dammed storage closet for gods sake.

The desire that coiled low in his stomach was not as easy to ignore now as it was when he'd first laid eyes on her. All it takes is one moment of wanting and a mirror image of Lucanis draped in shadows manifests through the table. The creature contorts and twits its body, limbs cracking into place until it's crouched beside Rook. Lucanis closes his eyes reaching deep inside to sever that tie between man and demon but it's already started to knot. The door a-jar.

Lucanis grits his teeth as Spite inspects her, but the more he tries to shut him out the more the demon takes form. His discomfort and Rook's distraction only seems to make Spite more excited as it moves from side to side head twisting like a starved animal about to feast.

I can see why you're so fascinated by her. Such a pretty little thing.

Spites hand is less than an inch away from caressing Rook's cheek, hand going, lower, lower, until it comes to rest just below where Lucanis can't see under the table. Lucanis lets out a disgruntled cough, clearing his throat then scoots his crate back from table.

Spite's eyes snap up at him, and it lets out a laugh the look of hunger fading into a feline grin.

Leave us. Do. Not. Touch her.

You can't make me.

If you're going to stay, be quiet and behave.

Spite lets out a whine and glares back at him but obeys hands up in surrender as those glowing eyes ablaze. Some days Lucanis could push him out if he really tried. It would take all his strength and then some but each day was different. Recently the active days seemed to be outweighing the quiet ones. It had taken him years to train his mind against the demon, to build up walls and keep the doors locked. But no matter how badly Lucanis wanted him gone he would always let Spite back in.

There was no one without the other, they depended on each-other for survival. He had wasted almost his entire life trying to find a cure for this curse placed upon him and had come to accept the grim fact that if he wanted to live, Spite would be along for the ride.

Fine, fine. She's all yours. I won't touch her...unless she asks us to.

Lucanis stands to his full height kicking back the crate, he moves through the shadow demon purposefully causing the the smoke to separate. As Spite's form reconstructs itself it watches him as he places two china cups onto the table, both different sizes and designs. Rook lets out a small yawn as she waits, utterly unaware of the domestic currently playing out between the demon and the man as she watches Lucanis. There's a clattering of boxes being moved and rearranged then he lights a flame under what appears to be some sort of homemade stove. After a few minutes he returns with a steaming pot and the smell of coffee fills the small room.

Rook holds out her cup for him as he pours out the dark brown liquid until it reaches the top then fills his own. Now that he's closer she can see the black power under his nails, a cluster of tiny white scars standing out in contrast against his tan skin. She wants to ask about the experiment he was doing when she had interrupted him earlier or pry more about her magic but it's late and she's exhausted. Shes beginning to ajust to the dim candle light, the subtle warmth the flames gave off as the occasional gust of cold air moved past her and the presence of the man sitting opposite her.

Sure, it was a bit awkward and she wasn't sure if he was utterly repulsed by her or just had invited her out of civility but Rook had been searching for a distraction from her restless sleep and she had found one. They didn't need to speak, to fill the silence, just being in each others presence was enough. Maybe it was the adrenaline wearing off that had made her feelings intangible but could swear she felt a strange sort of comfort when she was with him.

Instead of voicing the million questions she yearned to have answered Rook leans back in her seat against the worn velvet and lets the cup warm her hands as raises the it in a thanks then takes a sip. It's bitter and warm, not hot enough to burn but the taste leaves an unwelcome flavour on her tongue. The disgusted expression on her face forms because she can stop it. Lucanis is waiting for her reaction.

"What? No milk or sugar?" Rook's voice sounds strained as she gulps down the liquid mid sentence forcing herself to take another sip.

She'd had coffee before, at the training camp it was valued as much as gold. But that had been a watered down version, reheated and shared between large groups, whatever Lucanis had was strong and fresh. Perhaps this was another thing she'd have to adjust to.

The corner of Lucanis's mouth raises, those full lips forming an almost smile as he watches her drink before trying his own.

"I like it black." He states before refilling his cup.

Rook hides another nervous laugh and gives him in a look that says of course you do. She would not make a very good spy he thinks.

She coughs as she reaches the bottom of the cup wiping a hand over her mouth before placing it down and pushing it slightly away from her. A fake smile of gratitude plastered across her face.

"Thanks for the coffee, and the company."

Lucanis's doesn’t seem to register the comment, his gaze entirely focused on the spot just behind where she sits, eyes occasionally flicking to check that she hadn't moved then back again to not so empty space. The humming song starts again.

There an obviously tension between Rook and Lucanis but neither of them quite wants the moment to end. Lucanis had never been very good at making friends, hell, he struggled enough as it was to keep loose acquaintances. But since he would be staying here for the foreseeable future he might as well try to be civil with her. He couldn't leave now, not when he was so close to finding a cure, not when he and his cousin had a chance at freedom, not when this girl was before him could be the key to everything. Regardless of his intentions Rook had played a part in his rescue and he would be indebted to her until the contract was completed.

I think she's starting you like you. Thats a first, should we tell her what we really are?

I thought you were staying quiet.

How can I when I can hear all your thoughts. I wonder what she would say if you told her what you want to do to her-

Spite seems to forget what it was saying as the creature stops mid taunt, turning in a circle sniffing the air its hollow eyes turn from Lucanis to Rook and back again.

Oh, this is going to be fun.

Lucanis's temple is throbbing as he rubs the palm of his hand against it trying to mask the feeling with more questions. If he could keep her talking for long enough maybe he could gain back enough control for Spite to leave them.

"When you have these nightmares, what do you see. Tell me about them."

Straight to the point then. Rook thinks, it would be easy for her to lie about it but she has nothing to lose.

"You want me to help you or not?" Lucanis barks out when Rook doesn't immediately answer. He doesn't mean for his tone to come out like that, cruel and disingenuous. Every step he makes towards Rook feels like another two back into the dark.

"Sorry-" She starts only to be cut off by his raised hand.

"Stop apologising." He shuts her down. "Just start from the beginning, anything you can remember might help us to better understand your...situation. When did they start."

She should be sorry, she was a Mage who had killed tens, if not hundreds of innocent people. Even if she had been following orders, even if it had been an accident, she had killed, no man would ever mourn one less Mage in the world.

You have more blood on your hands than she does.

I take no pleasure in killing, unlike you.

It’s impolite to lie Lucanis. I know you get off on it as much as I do. Oh look you've made her cry…

Spites observation panics him for a moment but when he looks at her there's no tears present. The only evidence of sadness is a fait sheen to her pale eyes, that haunted look he had seen before in the mirror on his own face. Greif.

As Rook recalls her nightmares and the memories that interlinked them she wished, not for the first time that they had left her to die in that rubble. How was it fair that the gods got to pick and choose who gets the power of creation, of life and who gets that of death and destruction. How she longed to be able to bring her friends back from the dead, reach down upon the earth and feel the roots grow.

"I think they must have started when I was a child but I could never remember anything, only waking up to find myself screaming. The night after the first time my magic manifested there was a thunderstorm, I started dreaming about this woman, I can't recall her face but it was like she was glowing in green flame."

Lucanis's focus is wavering as he tries to hang onto each of her words, something about green flames, a wolf, the sound of thunder, demons and the veil. His time is running out. The pain was behind his eyes now, vision blurring as he blinked over and over trying to shut it out.

"Lucanis." Rooks voice brings him back for a moment. "Are you alright?"

Smells like blood.

Get out of my head.

Can't you smell it? Let us taste her, just this once.

I said, GET OUT.

But Spite was right. The metallic tang in the air was undeniable, he could smell it. A shudder of dread snapped him back into reality. He was looking at her how, really looking. Had Rook always looked this pale? Her eyes were hollow, sunken in slightly and ringed with grey. Her lips parted as she paused mid sentence.

"You are bleeding." Lucanis's voice startles her as she has a moment of confusion before the realisation sets in.

She shifts the seat back a few inches looking down at herself before placing her hand to where the black shirt was sticking to her side. When she brings it away her palm is covered with a fresh coating of blood. Her mouth forms a silent 'oh' as she places her hand back against the wet shirt and holds it in place.

Before Lucanis can stop her she stands up swaying slightly using her free hand to steady herself against the table as he rushes to her side, the crate he was sat on lets out a screech against the stone as he flys across the room towards her.

Told you I smelled blood.

"LEAVE US." He doesn't mean for those words to be voiced aloud. Lucanis's voice comes out through gritted teeth, if Rook notices him speaking to the air she doesn't react - too focused on trying not to pass out.

It's not the blood that makes Lucanis feel like he's going to throw up but what comes after. This is how Spite feeds, the demon can't touch her in its usual state but pain, death and bloodshed calls to it the way a holy man might call upon the gods. When in battle the bond between Spite and Lucanis is forged from violence, all it takes is for the first kill to commence and then two become one. Most days the demon can do little more than cause him headaches with taunts and mind games but in battle Spite can take over fully possessing him and using Lucanis's body as a vessel for violence.

He wasn't sure if Rook's injuries would be enough to let Spite in all the way there was no rule book for this kind of thing but he didn't dare send her away. Not when she was in so much pain, not when seeing her in pain caused him so much.

With one arm under hers and the one carefully hooked around her waist so not to touch the wound he guides her to the table and holds up her weight against his own until her legs secure against it, the table is low enough that when he pushes her back slightly she's able to sit on it without much strain.

"Keep pressure on the wound." He leaves her for just a moment hurrying across the room and pouring out something that look like water onto his hands then wiping them clean on his sheets.

Lucanis was not healer but had learnt survival young and patched himself up after many a battle. He had been nine the first time he'd had to fix a dislocated bone, thirteen when he learnt how to stitch his own wounds.

Rook winces as she feels the throbbing pain grow, her skin heating as sweat begins to coat her skin. She has no idea how long it’s been bleeding or when the stitches had ripped. It was as if until she saw the blood there had been no pain and now it felt like she had an arrow in her side all over again.

When Lucanis returns he's holding a pile of clean cloth and a bottle of clear liquid. "I'll need to redress the wound and clean it."

Rook continues to look down at her side fingers now slick with her own blood she acknowledges him with a faint noise that he can’t make out.

"I need you to look at me. I don't think Varric will forgive me if I let you bleed out on my table." That earns a pained laugh. "This is going hurt." He adds.

"Okay." She nods again this time meeting his eye as Lucanis hand holds her chin to look at him. Defiance lives in her eyes but she agrees to let him help her, this is a woman who does not want to be pitied or saved. He knows exactly how that feels.

Lucanis lets her go and pushes his sleeves up further until the material can't go any higher up his biceps. With little effort he rips the cloth into strips and places it onto the table beside her along with the bottle. Slowly, cautiously, he stands infront of her assessing the situation. Rook moves her body slightly so that she's turned half to the side giving him better actress to her and her hand beings to pull up the bottom of her shirt.

"Do you want me to stop, it's not too late. I can wake one of the others-"

"No it's fine." Rook cuts him off. "It really doesn't hurt that much." Her face says otherwise.

It would be easier for him to remove her top completely but the thin material leaves little to imagination, it's clear Rook wears nothing underneath. Instead Lucanis pulls a dagger from his belt and cuts away at the ruined fabric leaving only enough to cover her. The bulk of the bandages are almost completely soaked through. As he unbinds them from her ribs and throws them onto a pile on the floor Rook swears when the wound is exposed to the cold air.

We could have her right now, on this table.

"It's not as bad as I thought, but you're to need to sit still for the next part. Drink this." He holds the bottle up to her lips and lifts it so she can drink, one hand underneath to catch anything that spills.

Rook splutters and coughs as it burns the back of her throat but takes a few gulps as Lucanis lets out a loose a breath.

With the old bandages removed and blood wiped clean he can now see only three out of the eight stitches had torn open, and other than the irritated red skin around the wound there’s no sign of infection.

"That was fucking disgusting. Do me a favour and just keep talking. If I don't pass out from this, I might die if you serve me anymore beverages." Rook states, eyes closed as she lets out a low whimper whilst Lucanis begins to wipe away the blood. “And if I die.” As grits her teeth. “I will come back and fucking haunt you.”

Such dirty words for such a pretty mouth.

Don’t look at her.

Imagine the sweet sounds she would make.

"I'm not very good at talking." Lucanis confesses, undeterred by her empty threats.

He doubts very much that she would want to hear about how he'd spent almost his entire childhood being experimented on in a cage by the only maternal figure he'd never known.

"Oh i've noticed." Her eyes are wide and alert now, pupils dilating. "Seriously say anything, sing a song tell me a story, make something up. Tell me about possessed life, I bet he's here isn't he, the demon, is he here? Is he a he?"

Rook might not have been thinking clearly to start but now she’s racking her brain for everything she learnt about this man so far. Not only was she about to let an almost stranger - at best coworker, operate on her in a storage cupboard she was about to let a man possessed by a demon to do it. Other than overhearing Neve refer to the demon as 'Spite' once she had no idea if that was its name or what it even was.

Did demons even have pronouns?

"It's here, it likes the blood." If Lucanis was trying to comfort her he was failing miserably.

From the corner of his eye Lucanis can see spite crouching beneath the table, its slightly see through finger poking at the small pool of blood on the ground. Despite the finger going through the blood and stone floor Spite puts it into its mouth and pretends to lick the finger clean.

Delicious.

"Great, well there's plenty of that here. Sounds like a charming guy." Rook lets her head fall back and stares up at the ceiling as she waits for Lucanis to fishing threading the needle.

Lucanis bites down on his bottom lip as he finishes threading the needle then sterilises the wound with what smells like alcohol. He dabs at the blood with no warning and she clutches back as it stings sending shivers down her spine that make her want to kick him.

"What does it feel like?" She asks the corners of her eyes glistening but again, no tears fall.

"At first I thought my soul had been split in half. But now, it’s more like having two sets of hands instead of one, eyes in the back of my head. The power is…unimaginable."

He pulls her skin together holding the flesh with a forefinger and thumb as the needle pushes through for the first stitch. Over rooks deep breathing he swears the faint sound of thunder booms overhead.

"I have heard sories of demons that can possess men. The Grey Wardens knew a lot about dark magic. How did you come to be this way? I mean what happened to you. You weren't born like this, were you?" Rook seems to be sitting straighter now, the tonic kicking in and numbing some of the pain.

"That-Is none of your concern."

"Does it hurt?" Rook knows she should probably change subjects from the strain in his voice but when she looks up at him the answer is written all over his face.

"Yes and no." The look of agony is gone in seconds and he's back to concentrating on her wound.

His hair despite being tied back falls over his shoulder as is long enough that she feels it brush against her bare skin. She can feel his warm breath against her torso and the occasional faint tickle of his beard as he gets too close.

"Does it hurt right now?" Rook wonders looking around the room as if she would find a demon spawn hiding in the shadows, but she sees nothing.

"You don't have to worry about me. You are the one bleeding."

The second stitch is though.

"I'm bleeding all over your bedroom and you won't even tell me how you got possessed by a creepy demon, wow." Rook tries to make an exaggerated gasping sound but it's cut short as the third stitch goes though and the wind is knocked out of her. "Fucking ouch."

"You are very dramatic." He was glad she couldn't see his faint smile as he continued to work.

This was good, if she’s was coherent enough to make jokes and swear at him hopefully she wouldn’t pass out anytime soon. Lucanis makes a mental note that Rook often uses humour as cover when she's hurt.

The pain has faded to a dull ache now, Rooks body already starting to feel a bit stronger with each passing moment but her mind is still hazy. She’s trying to stay awake but all she can think about was how wants him to never stop talking. Each word keeps her tethered to this plane. That accent, she could listen to it forever.

“We are almost done.” Lucanis moves closer to her - his large body is almost completely covering hers as he leans so that he can tie the bandages around her back. He stops half way realising he can't quite reach it without the possibility of hurting her. Rook feels his hand lightly touching her shoulder indicating which way she needs to move as she swings her legs back round to give him better access.

Now Rook sits on the other side as he leans over, legs hanging over the table, back facing him. He doesn't mean to stare when he looks down at her exposed back but there's no helping it as his eyes travel from the bottom of her spine to the top of her half ripped shirt and the array of scars that covered almost every inch of skin in between. Some more faded than others, the freshest couldn't have been more than a year old. Each one thin and precise line, this had been no accident, she had either been forced to take a beating or let someone do this to her.

"Arms up." He instructs as she strains lift them with little protest but manages to keep them held in place long enough for him to loop the cloth around.

He begins to tie the fresh bandages around her, one hand laying flat across her ribs to keep them in place. The rough contrast of the tips his fingers brush against the exposed skin above her bandages. Once he's sure the bandages are tight enough he feels himself moving without thinking. Rook doesn't react as a finger traced the outline of a particularly deep bit of scar tissue that falls almost directly in the centre of her spine.

He had seen this kind of torture before, often inflicted on disobedient soldiers or deserters. It was possible to get rid of most scars and wounds with certain kinds of magic, for cosmic or personal reasons he had seen it done more than once. But some were not as easy to remove as others and perhaps she had chosen to keep them as a reminder for what had been done to her. He shouldn’t care, it was none of his business.

He could feel the demonic energy that ran in his veins drumming under his skin as he flexed his hand by his side. He was only human-ish after all.

Who did this to you? He wondered. I will make them beg for my blade. He should have no right to care. He had done that and worse to his own enemies, what made seeing it on her so different? Spite who had had been suspiciously dormant the entire time Rook had her wounds tended to was now flicking in and out of existence behind her. The demon Rook from its crouch by her side and for once the demon had nothing to say.

They were both thinking the same thing.

"These are not from battle." Lucanis states as he pulls the cut up edge of the shirt back down to cover what he can see of her side.

"No, they are not." Rook answers as she moves off the table to stand. Her cheeks have more colour to them now he notices as she refuses his help when she steadies herself. "Thank you, I think i've ruined your night enough. I should get going now."

Lucanis accepts her thanks with a nod not sure what to do now. He wants to ask her to stay. Only so he can keep an eye on her incase the wound gets worse of course. He couldn't exactly offer up his bed, a girl like her deserved to sleep on beds of silks and feathered mattresses.

In his first week at the Lighthouse he had been given a large room in the north wing with a plush four poster bed and a dozen pillows. It had felt like he was suffocating in the comfort of that bed, he had tried removing all the bedding on the second night. Placing the mattress on the floor on the third then welcoming the cool stone against his bare back on the fourth. None of it had worked. He felt like a dog without the comfort of its cage. It had been years since he'd slept on anything more comfortable than a couple of crates pushed together with a blanket over the top. Not that he slept much as it was.

As Lucanis begins to put away his things he can feel eyes on him as Rook stands as if she's waiting for him to say something. "Right, of course." Lucanis clears his throat then grabs something off his bed and passes it to her. "Get some rest if you can, i'm no healer so you should probably get somebody to look at that in the morning if you can."

Rook takes the shirt from him and begins to pull her old ruined one over her head with one hand as Lucanis turns to give her some privacy. He can feel his blood heating as the awareness that she’s half naked in his room sinks in. She places the discarded top on the pile of bloody cloth and bandages and cringes as she takes in the mess around the room. Dried blood on the floor, glass on the table, the door hanging on its hingers. After today she didn't think she would ever be able to face him again.

His cream collared shirt reaches her mid thigh, the size of it looking ridiculous on her. She was shorter than the average elf and even though Lucanis was tall for a human he only had a few inches on her but his build had made the shirt seem least thrice her normal size. When she finishes dressing Lucanis is still facing away from her - arms resting against the table as he tried not to think about what Rook might look like in his shirt. He can hear Spites perverted thoughts begin to pile up in his mind making him want to flip the table and its contents scores the room. Instead he re arranging his work and places the books back onto the table as he finishes cleaning off any trace of blood, any trace of her.

"Goodnight, Rook." Lucanis mumbles.

The way he says it sounds like goodbye. So this was it then.

"Goodnight."

Rook waits a few more seconds to see if he will turn back and then, she’s gone.

end chapter notes -

everyday i learn something new about his family and backstory (thanks twitter)

this chapter was only meant to be 3k long but i ended up writing about 6k and cutting it down a bit, their dynamic is so fun to write. anyone has information, head canons or theories about him pls share id love to hear them!

do we hate grandma or not? (i think we do)

as always @/saintscain on twitter, hope you enjoyed

[mariacallous]

I recently watched a YouTube video of a Ukrainian performance on “America’s Got Talent.” A friend sent me the link, promising it would amaze me – and it did. You can find the video by searching “Amazing holographic 4D cube show AGT.” However, when the show’s host, Howie Mandel, said, “America’s got love for the Ukraine,” I cringed. The phrase “the Ukraine” implies it’s a territory, not a sovereign country. It’s just Ukraine – the largest country in Europe, an important nation in its own right, and sadly, a place the world still knows too little about.

Ukraine is often branded as a place of corruption and gangsters, and Hollywood doesn’t help when it makes the villains Ukrainian. After living in Kyiv for years, I’ve experienced something very different. The country I know is filled with talented, hardworking, and warm people who possess an incredible sense of humor. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, too many people think Ukraine is nothing but a war zone.

I recently heard Mstyslav Chernov, the director of the Oscar-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” say that Americans often ask, “Is there more to Ukraine than the war?” I’ve had similar frustrating conversations abroad, with people asking, “Is that war still going on?”

Before the pandemic, I hosted many foreigners visiting Kyiv, often to explore IT opportunities. Questions like “Is it safe there?” or “Do they have the internet?” were common. Even more surprising are comments from the Ukrainian diaspora. In Canada, home to the largest Ukrainian community outside of Ukraine, some people who left decades ago have no idea how their country has advanced. “They have shopping malls in Kyiv?” or “Do they have electric cars?”

Yes, Ukraine faces challenges, and many people live on modest salaries. But there is a growing middle class, and the big cities capture imaginations. Every guest I hosted in Kyiv was blown away.

One misconception that always made me giggle is when people ask, “What will we eat there?” The food scene in Kyiv is incredible. There’s been an explosion of amazing restaurants, and dining out here can compete with New York or London any day. Even during the war, new places are opening, and the food is phenomenal. If you want to have a laugh,  stand-up comedy clubs are popular – even in English. Where there’s laughter, there’s hope.

I had a friend from California visit twice, and when he returned to Los Angeles, people teased him, asking if he’d visited the land of Borat. He said Ukrainians are just like people in California – trying to build businesses, raise families, and live their lives. That’s the thing: Ukraine is not some backward nation that craves war.

Before the full-scale invasion, Kyiv was on track to become Europe’s next hotspot, and I’d have bet anything on that happening. This brutal war has set everything back. Ukraine is not about war. It’s about modernity, freedom, and new culture. It’s a country brimming with energy.

Ukraine has suffered from a poor reputation for as long as I can remember. I first discovered Kyiv nearly 17 years ago, and I’ve been saying ever since that Ukraine needs to work on its brand. Of course, now that we’re in the third year of the full-scale invasion, things are different. Air raid sirens can go off at any time, and it can be scary when Ukrainian air defenses shoot down drones and missiles. During those moments, you head to the bomb shelter. But life continues.

One of the biggest misconceptions about Ukraine is that everyone here is poor and miserable. Most people don’t have easy lives, and yes, poverty exists, but that’s true in many places. I’m originally from South Africa, where poverty exists on a different scale. In Ukraine, no one lives in shantytowns. When millions of Ukrainians fled across the borders, the European host nations were often surprised to see modern cars, fashionable clothes, and the latest smartphones. It’s a high-tech nation, and the level of online convenience here would surprise any foreigner.

There’s also a wave of innovation happening. Ukraine is poised to become a global leader in military drone technology. Artists are creating, entrepreneurs are developing cool tech, new restaurants are opening, and foreign investors are exploring opportunities. Ukraine is a miracle. Even as hypersonic missiles and kamikaze drones rain down across the country, many have decided to stay, continuing their lives, albeit in a very different way. The economy needs to keep running. Life needs to go on to keep the wheels turning.

Many passionate, dedicated people are working on projects to benefit and support Ukraine. Some have been involved long before the full-scale invasion, driven by a deep belief in the country and its people. Since 2018, I’ve been part of a team of artists — Ukrainian and international — creating a storytelling film project that captures life in modern Kyiv. “We Are Ukraine” is a story about extraordinary people in an extraordinary time — people who have chosen to continue to work, live, get married, have children, and laugh, against all odds. It’s not a war story, a story about death and demise. It’s a story about life, a love letter to Kyiv, which shows us what the world would miss out on if Kyiv would cease to exist.

Freedom, independence, and identity are the culmination of modern humanity, forged over centuries through struggle, creativity, and resilience. Everything else in civil society flows from these values. Russia’s war in Ukraine is a global wake-up call – a reminder that these values must be nurtured and protected. Ukrainians are showing that not only can they defend these values, but by continuing to live, laugh, and love, they are defying those who seek to destroy them.

[izvmimi]

All Roads Lead to Love? - Chapter V

cw: none. please see general fic warnings. Masterlist

When you sit down in front of Izuku, face to face and attention solely set on him for the first time in years, your hands set around a warm cup of coffee, you find that instead of being unsure of what words to say to begin your story, you have possibly too much to say.

How have you been? What has this life been like for you? You’re now more than human in the eyes of so many, how do you still find the time to protect your privacy and cherish your loved ones?

Have you changed? Who are you now that you’re an adult and no longer the scrawny, smiley kid with too much on his shoulders I once loved?

Izuku has a double espresso, the cup tiny in his large hands, and is waiting intently for you to speak. He’s outgrown so much of his old self, third year of high school having already done such a number on him he was practically unrecognizable, and now with age and responsibility further sharpening his features. Remarkably, his eyes are still the same. You see them constantly, in newspapers, on tv and phone screens and billboards, and had spent a lot of time blurring him out of your peripheral vision, up until a child came out of the blue and presented you five routes that led unwaveringly to the same path -

- those eyes, constantly looking at you with love. 

Right now, as Izuku watches you, lips slightly parted with bated breath, they appear soft with a warm hue to them, like a grassy meadow in springtime, and you wonder if it’s just a reflection of the sunlight through the window next to which you’re seated. Maybe the narratives you’ve read have gotten to your very core and painted him with just enough affection, softened your heart into longing. This is a man who loves other versions of you. 

He’s handsome, he’s sweet, and yet you don’t know him anymore, and that’s of your own doing.

Izuku says your name again, gently as though he’s not allowed to utter it without permission, and you bite your lip in nervous anticipation. You blink, then laugh to yourself, your hands tight around your cup.

“If you feel uncomfortable, maybe later-” Izuku starts, letting his voice trail off once you shake your head. 

“It’s better if I just spill now,” you insist. 

He nods and takes a sip of his coffee. You clear your throat.

“I’m not sure if you’re aware, but I run a clinic for unmanaged Quirks.”

He knows that very well; he’s had more than a few rescues be sent to your hospital plus you’ve been featured in a few news articles and publications yourself, even if you’re humble, even if you stay out of the limelight.

“Mm,” he offers. You continue. 

“A little boy came in and his Quirk was kind of incredible really,” you pause, and you remember how the two of you would get excited when discussing the strangest of Quirks, having silent competitions of who could find out the weirdest thing that’s ever happened, poring over his notebooks together. You wonder if he still has the ones with your markings in them, your imperfect circles and scribbles. 

“He generated what looked like five clones of me.”

Izuku nods again, but nothing you’ve said is surprising. Cloning is a relatively common ability, in fact it was one of the most terrifyingly prominent ones during the meta war over a decade ago.

“The issue with these clones is that they weren’t… perfect copies, and they seemed to be-” you pause, then twist your mouth to the side. Izuku has leaned in, and you can see he’s concentrating on every word on your lips. “- versions of me from other universes.”

“Huh,” is all he says, and you can feel yourself growing embarrassed. If he thinks this is ridiculous already, what you have to say next won’t be at all palatable. He shifts, and his hand is now around his chin as he thinks. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of something like that, but I guess anything’s possible.”

You nod. “I’m guessing you’re wondering what this has to do with you,” you start. Your throat dries up slightly as you say the next part and then you cough slightly, and Izuku quickly presents you with a napkin, resisting the urge to lightly tap your back.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yes.”

Izuku watches you recompose yourself.

“So, the reason why is, in all five universes, we were… somewhat romantically involved in various ways.”

Izuku’s eyes grow wide suddenly, and you look away, your heart pounding and you imagine you look a mess, immediately flustered by the thought of essentially admitting you have a crush, or at least at some point did or have the capacity to, to this man you barely know now.

“I know it sounds really strange and it doesn’t mean anything-” you mumble, but he suddenly speaks up, and you look at him.

He’s… excited? His eyes have lit up in a way that almost unnerves you. 

“That’s so fascinating,” he practically chirps. You look at him in surprise, and he grins. “What an amazing Quirk, and how different were their lives, how do you know that they were all you?”

You blink, your body cooling as you watch him in awe.

He doesn’t care, you realize. Not in that way, anyway. A different type of embarrassment washes through you quickly as your blood turns cold, like you’ve been dunked in water, but you don’t gasp. Instead you force a smile on your face.

“I had them write about their lives up to now and compared them painstakingly. They… really are me, just with slightly different lives… some of their temperaments were different, but I can truly honestly say, they were me from different branch-points of time up to now.”

“Could I potentially meet one, or the kid?” His eyes sparkle with the question, fingers twitching practically as he rests them on the table.

Izuku has always been odd, but this is somewhat endearing, if unexpected.

“Well I.. I don’t think I can have you meet the kid for privacy reasons, and the clones disappeared after an hour.”

He frowns, rubbing his chin again, then lets his thumb rest against his lower lip. You notice the nails are bitten down to the quick, irregular nail beds in addition to the swollen knuckles. He hasn’t gotten rid of that habit, even though you’d both promised to stop biting your nails as high schoolers after you’d teased him for being just like you. 

The last time you bit your nails was during your final year medical school exams.

“I’ll take your word for it then.” He pauses, then looks back at you.

“Were we married in one of them?” he asks suddenly. He says it so casually it almost stuns you before you eke out a ‘yes’.

He smiles. 

“I’m glad. I hope that me treats that you well.”

Your heart skips a beat, or several, and you have lost words to say again. He fills in the space for you with a chuckle.

“So I can imagine your boyfriend knows and doesn’t like that I married you in some other lifetime, huh?” he asks. His look is playful now, a very slight, almost imperceptible, mischievous curve to the smile on his face.

“Multiple actually,” you correct, but you’re starting to laugh too. It is ludicrous, completely, that you’re in this coffee shop together, based on a possibility. There are probably millions of lifetimes where you’re with someone else, even Akira, or potentially alone and satisfied. “It’s weird that they were all you, but I guess that’s just a freak coincidence.”

You laugh again, then notice that Izuku’s laughing a little less heartily this time. He takes another sip then sets the cup down again, slightly less carefully this time.

He takes a deep breath. 

“It’s probably not completely a coincidence, given the fact that I always…” he pauses, then pushes ahead anyway, “liked you back then.”

Your blood runs cold again as he watches you and takes in your discomfort. What registers on your face is one thing, but conflicting emotions swirl inside of you repeatedly, as you take in what he said.

He always did like you back. He must mean as a friend. You were good friends.

You decide to play along. “Yeah, I liked you too, we had so much fun together back then.”

You can see a flicker of a frown on his face, and then he smiles again. He knows you’re refusing to believe he means ‘like’ in the sense of someone who has chosen you in five separate instances, and he wonders if he should insist on it, if it even matters.

“Back then, I had wished it was me, ___. That you liked… That’s what I mean.”

Your breath hitches. Izuku himself can feel his heart start to race and the tips of his ears go warm and pink. His lips part, something left to say, and you can feel your stomach turn. 

He liked you the whole time, and yet…

You’re sixteen again, and you can see Izuku and Ochaco at the edge of a cliff, standing side by side. You’re seventeen, and you can see Izuku catching up to you and waving enthusiastically, his smile drooping as his eyes lower to your hand in Akira’s. You’re eighteen and you see his sad smile as you tell the group of freshly graduated seniors that you don’t plan to join a hero agency, at least not just yet. You remember a text you never answered because you wished you hadn’t seen her kiss him on the cheek, years ago.

Hey, let’s keep in touch, okay?

Your phone rings suddenly before you can ask him anything else, disrupting the pregnant silence between you two.

It’s Akira again.

“You didn’t answer my text,” is the first thing Akira says. He sounds annoyed but it’s smothered in a layer of honeyed speech.

“Sorry, I was busy. I’m here with a… friend.”

You look at Izuku apologetically, who smiles politely and bows his exit, leaving a wad of bills on the table, ignoring you as you wave for him to keep his money, and as your lip quivers, you wonder if you’re making a mistake.

—

For yet another night, Izuku’s brain cannot settle enough for him to fall asleep. Perfectly still, he lays staring at the ceiling, ignoring the latent soreness from overtraining this evening, his mind racing endlessly with thoughts. 

He should be thankful it isn’t a nightmare that keeps him wide awake this time; instead of the faces of people he’s failed to save or disappointed, he sees what can only be described as pure domesticity -

Exchanging rings with you. Picking out a home to live in, smiles on your faces and keys in his right hand. Feeding a chubby-cheeked infant that looks a little bit like him and a little bit like you who desperately wants out of a high chair. His mother braiding your hair…

The pangs of jealousy of a him, for a few hims that are far more lucky than he is right now, but he knows better than anyone else that love is not forced, no matter how hard you try.

He wonders if he should hold out some hope, dispelling the thoughts of married life with you and focusing on how you looked earlier today speaking to him.

Unsure, embarrassed, awkward, but with a little bit of longing.

There is some lingering affection and he can’t discount it no matter how hard he tries to convince himself he’s only projecting.

If the other universes know you could one day love each other, it can be true in this one too.

Someday.

[rouge-the-bat]

i think itd be really funny if hiei didnt realize who kurama truly was for a while after they meet. kurama introduces his name to him as just "kurama," and im sure theres More Than One demon kurama, so its not like hiei would immediately assume hes THE infamous youko kurama. and kurama doesnt tell him, because hes a silly lil fox with much patience and finds much amusement in waiting and seeing how long itll take hiei to realize.

and its not like kurama tries to be subtle either. he gets a fox keychain on his backpack, hiei notices it and asks its purpose. kurama says its just a fun decoration, which hiei dismisses as stupid.

kurama eventually mentions having a tail in his old body. hiei realizes he was an animal demon, but doesnt care which he may have been, because what would it matter?

kurama also does not keep quiet about the fact he was and still is a thief. there are a lot of thieves in the makai, though, things dont click in hieis mind yet.

hiei turns down much of kuramas attempts to "pry into his life" (as he sees it) at first, and doesnt want to pry into kuramas either. he wants to keep their partnership as just business, he has no interest in getting all buddy-buddy (he will also not think into at all why he likes looking at kurama, it doesnt mean anything if he doesnt think about it). BUT. he does end up becoming very curious, because how could he not with a demon in a human body, that has such an unusual situation and loads of knowledge and skill?

kurama told him at least that his soul had escaped to the body of an unborn human before he was able to perish. hiei wondered how long ago that happened, and asked kurama how old his human form is. "14," kurama tells him.

at this point hiei is still able to return to the makai, and he goes to retrieve some various seeds kurama needs for weapons/medicine and such. a good way he can be useful for their partnership- he doesnt want it to be one-sided after all- and plus kurama equipped with more items would defintely be helpful for him as well.

on one trip he eavesdrops on some bandit hideout he discovers- nothing interesting they got there, but information they speak about could come in handy. a very unimpressive-looking demon mentions that theyre gonna become the next youko kurama (hiei manages to keep himself from snorting, but not from rolling his eyes). another demon says that theyve been hearing rumors that youko kurama died for over a decade now, but they still dont believe it. says they bet he faked his death so he can catch some big shot off guard and take em for all theyve got.

this conversation doesnt make him question anything until later, when hes relaxing in a tree back in the ningenkai. its late, and his mind starts to wander and remembers the conversation. hes always heard a lot of tales about the king of thieves, but doesnt know how much may be factual. he offhandedly wonders if kurama happens to know any concrete details, since hes proven to be very knowledgeable about many things.

then it clicks. all the little details over the months fall into place in his mind and hes suddenly wide awake and rushing to kuramas house. he slams kuramas sliding window open, and kurama startles and halts from brushing his hair. he sternly tells hiei to be careful, that glass can break easily, and that sound could have woken his mother. shes a light sleeper and needs her sleep! hiei doesnt comment on that, and just urgently says "kurama. what kind of demon are you?"

kurama blinks for a moment, then chuckles. he gives hiei a wicked grin as he replies "youre just now figuring out who i am, are you?" "kurama," hiei repeats, "what are you?" he sees a mischievous glint in those green eyes that almost looked gold before kurama answers "why, a youko, of course."

[razrbladekiss]

okkkkk this might be a strange request, but i vaguely remember you posting an ahs apocalypse inspired piece, and i just wonder if you can do one for joel? like… reader is one of cordelia’s witches, and joel is the michael langdon of the bunch. 👀 your old ahs shit was amazing, i CRAVE this. it doesn’t have to be smutty, just the visual of joel being literal satan is hot enough. 🔥

hey! oh, you’ve been here a very l o n g time if you remember all of that stuff 🫶🏻 but, anon, your wish is my command.

TREACHEROUS | Joel Miller

PAIRING: AHS AU antichrist!joel miller x witch!fem!reader

SUMMARY: joel is dead set on getting underneath your skin. you’re dead set on ripping his off. after the death of your supreme, you make it your mission to make joel miller pay for what he’s done.

WORD COUNT: 2.5k

WARNINGS: i’ve literally lifted THAT scene from ahs here but tweaked it so that joel is just a horny, evil lil antichrist. AHS APOCALYPSE SPOILERS (even though it’s literal years old.)🫶🏻. most character’s names have been changed for reasons. MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. mentions of past sexual activities. lil bit of sexual tension. blood and blood loss. weapons. violence. some witchy magical shit. reader has hair long enough to push over her shoulder. not proof read, parts have been lifted from a previous unpublished work so sorrrrrry if there are little nicks. but enjoy, anon!

With Angelica, her downfall was predicted.

Whilst her powers had started to dwindle, to ebb away into something reminiscent of perpetual weakness, her expulsion into perdition was something that you had always predicted.

As much as you once admired your Supreme, she was a heathen. A wonderfully vindictive woman whose faculty had the potential to lay within the realms of moral righteousness, but instead nestled amongst decades of stewing villainy.

She was, by nature, evil. Completely and utterly freezing cold to the fucking bone. And you weren’t exactly sorry to see the back of her, then.

Angelica taught you a lot about the real world, how mortals viewed witches, and how warlocks had never seemed to be able to practice anything of upstanding value—which was remarkably rich, coming from her—but Sabrina was who truly bestowed any form of wisdom onto you.

She had always been the supreme, in your eyes.

Everything about the woman was completely and utterly indescribably perfect. Sabrina was the kindest, most adoring woman—let alone witch—that you had ever had the privilege of being in the mere presence of, and she could do no wrong, in your eyes.

So many sacrifices, so much she had lost to protect and care for her girls at Robichaux, and she had bounds and bounds to show for it.

Everyone passed into her care, each young woman that she was tasked with granting sanctuary to, had always walked away—or stayed—completely satisfied and ready to embark on their next endeavour with inexhaustible understanding of the powers that they beheld.

Sabrina was a perfect scholar, custodian, maternal figure.

And that was what maimed you.

“What’re you gonna do? Kill me?” Exhausted, you ask.

It’s a palpable fatigue, something that he can taste. Something that he’s feeding off because seeing you so forlorn, so hopeless is a notion so inexplicably delectable, Joel Miller struggles to reign in his lecherous urges.

“I’m fed up, Joel.”

“Oh, come on, cupcake. Don’t give in that easily.” He promises in that tone. That sweet, lustrous rhythm that’s dripping in an almost sickening sweetness. Saccharine, perhaps. “You’re more resilient than this. I know you.”

“You don’t know shit.” You defend. Snippy. 

“I know that you like sharp objects. And blood.” Joel twirls the blade—that Christine had stabbed him with some five minutes ago—between his thick, calloused fingers, and lets out a gentle hum. “You liked it when I choked and pounded you at the same time.”

Oh, Joel. Fuck—Joel.

You cringe at the thought. How he used to sneak into your room—through the fire escape next to your window—and fuck you senseless. How Joel would hold his hand over your mouth—still decorated with his spend and spit—and rut into your pussy, fast and hard. 

Many a night you would cry his name. Many a night Joel would stuff you full of his cock, and leave before you could wipe the tears from your eyes and cum from your stomach. 

And though you enjoyed it—at one very, very low point in your life—you shirk the notion. 

This is retribution. 

“The sex was good. But I’ve had better. With you, it was just stupid mistake, after stupid mistake. ” You snort a laugh. Histrionic, of course.

Joel gasps. He feigns offense, taking a step toward you for he knows that you’re lying. 

Nobody ever fucked you that good. 

“You’ve had better? All those nights were just…mistakes?” You nod. Joel licks his lips. “How come?”

“Because you’re the literal spawn of Satan, for fucks sake.” You spit, gesturing to his blood-sodden chest, hands, face. “You’re the antichrist, Joel, and you’re hellbent on destroying everything that anyone has ever loved, so why wouldn’t it have been a mistake?”

He just stands there with a small, sly smirk, dripping what seems like buckets of blood. 

“You killed everything.”

“I destroyed everything.” He corrects. “There’s a difference.”

He’s insufferable. 

You can’t believe that, once upon a time, you regarded him as high as what you did Sabrina. 

“You have killed Paris.” You ignore what he says. You’re the one walking toward him, now. “You killed my best friend, you killed Christine, and because of you—and whatever the fuck you did—my coven is dying!” 

Joel doesn’t care to figure out who is who in your little monologue. They were all just burdens, to him. Witches in his way from fighting the greater evil. 

“Baby—“

“Don’t you call me that, you bastard!”

Before he knows it, he’s being pinned against the stone-clad wall by a force so fervent, so unbelievably dominant, he struggles to comprehend that you’re the one behind it. 

This is so incredibly sexy. I wish I could just bend her over my fuckin’ knee and—

“Don’t look at me that way.” Your chest is puffed out a little bit, tits damp with blood and sweat, and Joel wants nothing more than to lick that crimson away from supple flesh. 

But he shrugs it off, hoping that he’s not appearing to be as desperate as he feels. 

“Sabrina’s favorite witch is fucking insane.” He muses, using his entire strength—every last morsel—to pull himself back to earth. 

Or, at least, to the ground. 

“Believe me, I am no match for you.” You pant, still spent. “You’re as unbalanced as they could ever possibly come.” 

Condescending, he tilts his head. “Are you flirting?”

“With you? Absolutely not.”

You take another step toward him, pushing maroon-coated strands over your left shoulder.

“With death?” You exert a soft, subtle smirk. “Always.”

“Angelica taught you well, hm?”

At that, you can find it in yourself to chuckle. Because you suppose that it holds some semblance of truth. 

Danger—the concept of fucking dying—hadn’t been much of a thought before you came face to face with your first supreme. 

You were once so mindful, so careful not to dance along the thin line separating life from death, and you’ve always been remarkably successful.

Up until today. 

“She really did.” With a sick, toothy smile, you confirm. 

Out on a complete limb and, with the power of telekinesis, you strive to snatch Joel’s weapon of choice from the confines of his fist. 

It happens too quickly. You don’t have enough time to calculate the angle with which you should catch the blade, and it cuts deep into your palm. 

You hiss at the blood loss, but you’ve got it. 

He licks his lips. 

“Angelica was a wonderful teacher.” Mimicking his earlier action, you skillfully spin the knife in your hand. “But Sabrina really taught me everything that I know.”

Joel snickers. It’s derisive. Cold. Seductive. 

“She warned me.”

“About what, baby?”

“You.” Without reluctance, you blurt. You’re mere moments away from lunging forward and slitting his fucking throat.

But you remain poised. You apply some equilibrium. Something that Sabrina had always ingrained into your mind.

“Paris did, too.” At that, Joel stills. 

What could Paris Montgomery possibly know about him?

“Well, it wasn’t so much a warning. More a divulgence of past activities.” You tease, watching the man start to fucking sweat.

Beads of perspiration fall from his temple to his cheek, glistening wickedly beneath the sparse light within the space. You notice it.

Is he getting turned on? Or is he shitting his pants?

“What you did to your poor grandmother, firstly.”

“I’d tread very carefully, if I were you.”

“Why? What’ve I got to lose now, Joel?” Your words are doused in venom, tongue blanketed with vitriol spite. You’re spitting his poison back at him.

Not many would be ballsy enough to contest him. To regurgitate his wickedness. 

But Joel’s baby is.

“She killed herself to get away from you—all the shit that you put that poor fuckin’ woman through—“

“I said enough!” He barks, stalking toward you. You can almost sense where it’s going. “Do not fucking talk about her.”

The two of you are toe to toe, now. Almost chin to chin. 

Plump lips smirk, raising the knife to rest over the placket of his shirt. Slowly, you lift it—glide it—toward his partly exposed chest.

“Why not?” Your qualm is tangled around a soft, dulcet whisper. Something that resembles comfort, almost. “You’re gonna kill me, anyway. So, what difference does it make—“

“All of the difference in the fucking world.”

You both still. Your arm drops, the blade resting against your side. Simply stunned.

“Sabrina.” Joel greets, stepping away from you. He makes his way toward the supreme, only stopping when he feels a hand tug him backward. He shrugs you off, though doesn’t dare to get any closer.

“Sabrina, I have this handled.” You—the youngest witch in the clan—plead, understanding what’s brewing.

What this means.

“Go back to Melissa.” Almost completely desperate, you state.. “She needs you—“

Sabrina’s gaze is penetrative. It seldom flickers away from Michael as you strive to reason with her. 

“She’s fine. Bloody, but fine.”

He snarls. He hadn’t succeeded with killing off the entire council quite yet.

But, with his rival before him, Joel cannot afford to waste any more of his most valuable time. 

“How did you think this would end?” Each syllable crushes you.

You can feel something ripping through flesh and bone as he shows absolutely no mercy.

“Prophecy is inevitable. I was always going to win. Miss Supreme.”

Sabrina looks between you two, watching your wounds weep and heart visibly shatter within the confines of a wickedly palpitating chest.

“Not on your own.” She exerts confidently, about to drive her claws as deep as they could possibly go. “You’ve been led by the hand, coddled the entire way. By your father, the warlocks.”

With each flying comment, Joel’s blood begins to boil. It bubbles, sputters like wildfire. But he has to take it.

Listening to what she has to say is the very fucking least that he can do.

“I look at you and I don’t see a man. I see a sad, scared, pathetic little boy so pathetic he couldn’t even kill me with a thousand fucking nuclear bombs.” 

“But I never expected to.” Almost instantly, he declares.

The depletion, the absolute fatigue riddling their bodies is painfully evident to you as you can do absolutely nothing aside from watch—and wait—for the ending that you have so desperately tried to put off.

“Like a cockroach, I knew you’d survive the nuclear fallout. I wanted you to.”

His fists clench, rings scraping against bloodied and bruised palms. Your cunt throbs—remembering when his knuckles were deep inside of you—but it’s not the right moment.  

He makes you fucking sick, now. 

“And now I’m gonna have the satisfaction of watching you die, knowing you failed.”

“She has not failed.” You speak up.“She will never fail, either. And when she dies, her legacy will live on for fucking ever. Which is a hell of a lot more than what can and will be said for you.”

He turns his head to heed the snark, the sheer irascible complacency written on your beautifully withered completion, and scoffs.

“The world is over, sweetheart.” Joel tells you. “When Sabrina dies, then so do all of you other witch bitches—“

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Fed up of exhausting the same point over and over, Sabrina rasps. “Even now. You think there’s only winning and losing, success and failure.”

Tears begin to brew, to roll downwards and toward the apples of her cheeks.

“But failure is when you’ve lost any semblance of hope.”

Your breath hitches, rhythm becomes sporadic.

“You will get to watch me die.” Says the supreme while her voice cracks, and Joel Miller watches her begin to crumble from the inside out. 

He’s enjoying it too much.

“But you won’t find it satisfying.” Sabrina finishes, snatching the bloodied knife from you. 

Her throat closes up, heart slows down.

“Satan has one son, but my sisters are legion, motherfucker.”

And before you have time to wrangle your thoughts, to produce a reaction, you’re watching as your supreme—the one woman that has cared for you since you embarked on that beautiful spiritual journey at Robichaux—plunges the blade straight into her heart.

“No. No—“ Unable to produce anything aside from a mere whisper, you rasp. 

Joel is just as shocked. Devastated, perhaps. Because he isn’t the one driving a dagger into Sabrina’s chest, or ripping her head from its place on her neck. It’s her. Just how he had feared from the start.

She’s gasping for air, but there’s a smirk creeping toward her face as she stumbles backward—fist perpetually curled around the blade protruding from her chest. 

“Sabrina…” You mumble, breath breaking into a sob as your supreme—your best friend—mouths I love you before falling—flights—toward the ground.

“No!” Joel yells, sprinting toward the ledge. “Fuck!”

But then your eyes light up. 

“You were never going to get the last laugh, Miller.” 

“It isn’t over.” He pants. His chest heaves as he watches blood ooze from the body that lay atop the concrete ground. “It is far from fucking over.”

He turns on his heels to see you there in the doorway, draped in black, somehow even more vibrant than when you arrived today. Your skin gleams, it glows and you smile because you are certainly aware of what will happen over the course of the next sixty seconds.

Sabrina is dead, so a new supreme must rise.

“It’s over, Joel.” Your nails dance along the crimson jacket, inching closer to his throat. “You failed to execute whatever the fuck it was that you had planned, and now its over.”

You’re teasing as always, stifling a wicked little snicker.

Joel wishes that he could fuck the smile from your face one last time. And maybe he will. When you’re both rotting in purgatory for eternity. 

“We had fun though, don’t you agree?’

“I thought you regretted it?” 

“I have only one regret in this life.” 

Licking your lips, Joel’s eyes search your face for an answer.

“And, tell me, what would that be?” His habitual cockiness returns for one final jab, though he is simply no match for you, now.

Your telekinetic energy—ardent power—is being put to the test once more, summoning that fucking knife from its residual position lodged between Sabrina’s ribs.

It flies into your grip—by the handle, this time.

“Not trying to kill you sooner.” You snort, thrusting the overworked knife into the toughest, hardest part of his spine and he drops to the floor.

Blood pours from his back, saturating the already red-stained blazer, and you’re simply unable to do anything aside from laugh. 

Because this is the end. It’s all over and fucking done with, now. 

And though—once upon a time—you enjoyed fucking his brains out, watching him die a slow, painful, death—at your hands—is a lot more satisfying. 

Will he end up coming back? Who knows. With the antichrist, anything is possible. But for now, you’re reveling in the idea that you—a mere witch bitch—is the reason for Joel’s unruly demise. 

You can’t help smiling as you get to the ground—hands on your knees—and rasp; “I’ll see you in another life, baby.”

[anotherwatchedninja]

I feel like people forget Time Lords are the same person across every incarnation.

like, ‘14’ even says that it’s not dying. Same memories, same thoughts about people, sometimes expressing something they can’t, not being able to say something they used to.

Think back to you 10 years ago.

You're probably a very different person now compared to then, but you're also not at the same time.

You probably talk differently now, you see the world differently, you might believe different things.

When The Doctor regenerates, that's the level of change that is done but in a few seconds instead of a decade.

Fundamentally you’re still the same person, and you’ve probably retained most of your core beliefs and interests, but you’ve also grown and learnt more about the world; altering many of your less integral values, and even possibly some of you more integral ones.

you could attribute it to a line from one of the novelisations, where the doctor attributes his lack of control over regeneration (and as we can imply, how bad of a post-regen situation he has) is because he didn’t pay enough attention in regeneration lessons.

I think for the Doctor it's like if you woke up and were suddenly 8 again, with all your 8-year-old impulses and personality and likes/dislikes, but your current memories.

The Doctor is always the Doctor. There's no "2nd Doctor" or "10th Doctor" or "14th Doctor." they're all the same person. Just because someone gets clobbered on the head and wakes up from the resulting brain damage knowing fluent German doesn't mean they disappeared and a new person took their place. His brain gets a shake-up, and his appearance changes, but it's still the same person all together.

I think all the media hype about the actors playing the role, and this weird regeneration for the 60th, kind of make it hard to remember that. For the Doctor, it's one continuous line of consciousness. 10 didn't die and wake up again with 13's memories, because there is no 10, there is no 13, there is only The Doctor. We number their faces but they're one person.

And it's confirmed by what he said immediately after the regeneration. He didn't say, "I'm alive!" or "How did I get here?" or something along those lines. He said, "I know these teeth." He realises that he's reverted to an earlier form, but he hasn't forgotten the intervening forms.

It seems to change not just from writer to writer, but Doctor to Doctor. 9 didn't seem to think of his 'death' as the end by any stretch. 10 considered them different people that shared memories, while 11 seemed to see more continuity and connection from incarnation to incarnation. 12 similarly was refusing to regenerate because he wanted to end it, a pointless position unless he saw 'the next Doctor' as still being him. 13 seemed to lean more towards the individual incarnation view, as she felt in necessary to say goodbye to Yaz.

And this is just the Doctor, a single Time Lord. We've seen extremes from literal dissociation from incarnation to incarnation with the One through Union (aka the collective, but that’s due to their condition), to Romana trying on new faces line a human would a new outfit, or how the monk tries to act like their past selves are different people to shift the blame and get away free from the consequences, or how six was post-regen

I just really don't like the idea of them being separate people, which unfortunately does seem to be RTD's interpretation from 10's line of regeneration feeling like dying, and a new man sauntering away. To me that devalues the idea of the Doctor being the same person from 1963 until today. They're the same person, who have been through the events of every single episode, and remember them and all the companions there travelled with.

If they were different people, them meeting former companions just doesn't have the same weight either. 10 for example becomes someone who just knows of Sarah Jane instead of being the same person who travelled with her.

But that doesn't mean it can't still be confusing when an old face returns. It's something that's never happened to the Doctor before, and perhaps it's something that he's never heard of happening to other Timelords either. So when it does happen he's very confused because he immediately knows who this new version of himself is, instead of having to go through the usual self discovery at the start of each incarnation.

I remember from an audio story (I think Sirens of Time), one of the Doctors (i say DOCTORS because time travel) said something along the lines of this: Take every trait of their personality is like a bar graph. Kindness, courage, alienness, anger threshold, etc. each have their own bar on the graph. Each regeneration is essentially the same personality but the bars could be altered with some traits more emphasized in a new face than the previous one.

Some examples of what I mean.

10 and 11 are examples of the alienness trait being skewed in opposite directions, where I feel Smith is more alien-like in his physical behavior than Tennant is. 12 and 13 still have this trait but it’s viewed more subtly through social interactions.

6 and 12 were less on the kindness scale but increased over time. 10, 11, and 13 seemed to have that kindness trait more emphasized.

Anger threshold /emotional control can get thrown multiple ways if a respective Doctor is impulsive and expressive vs bottling it up and letting it simmer. I feel like there are many examples to pull from off this alone.

There could be more obvious ones I’m missing but these spring to mind. I do like this interpretation since it lets you know it’s the same person but just aspects can be more emphasized than others across their different incarnations.

I like to think it’s just the same person at different points in their life - hell, we aren’t the same person at 18 that we are in our 30’s, or even the same person we are in our 40’s that we were at 30.

Life changes you, sometimes you’re goofy, sometimes you’re callow, and sometimes you’re stern. In DW terminology: you’re a quirky thief, then a person who has to kill everything they know, and then you become a person capable of finding some solace in life… then to a whole new person.

From the doctor’s point of view I believe they think they are the same person, they don’t differentiate between selves. Think of 12 near his start when 11 phoned Clara, he says he didn’t need to eavesdrop because it was him talking and that she looks at him but can’t see him.

Now this doesn’t mean the doctor doesn’t remember the traits each regeneration has, and this can manifest in their subconscious as talking to their different regenerations; but that’s no different than you talking to yourself in your head.

like, it’s even implied 14 will eventually become 15

[baronessblixen]

Fictober Day 22: In The Line of Duty

Prompt: "Why are we doing this again?"

For the anon who asked about Mulder buttoning his shirt wrong and Scully fixing it: Skinner needs Mulder and Scully's help with a case—but first, Mulder needs help getting dressed properly. Rating: T, wc: 892.

Tagging @today-in-fic @xffictober24

He stumbles over his running shoes, kicking them away. It’s too early, too dark. He could switch on another light, but that feels too easy—his brain's still waking up.

It’s a wonder he and Scully didn’t trip over his shoes last night. That could have ended badly. They fell into bed anyway but for sexier reasons. He smiles to himself, remembering it. Or the night before that.

By now, there have been many nights. And the occasional daytime nookie. They’re making up for the last couple of years and he’s not complaining.

However, Scully is complaining – at least this morning. They’re running late and it’s his fault. But who can blame him for stealing another kiss after they brushed their teeth? Scully wasn’t complaining half an hour ago.

“Are you done?” she asks, walking into his bedroom with a cup of coffee. Good thing she came prepared last night—since they have to catch the first flight out, there’s no time for her to go home and grab a change of clothes.

Skinner couldn’t have known that when he called, asking them to help out in North Carolina. Mulder had made a noncommittal noise when their boss asked him to contact Agent Scully. Said agent, stark naked, had been lying right next to him, listening in on the call.

“I’m ready,” he says now, reaching for the cup of coffee. The rim’s painted with her lipstick and it makes him smile. He takes a sip, needing the extra rush of energy. He’s convinced Scully will fall asleep on their flight to North Carolina, but he doubts he’s that lucky.

“Oh, Mulder.” Scully looks at him, laughing. He stares back with big eyes and a questioning expression on his face.

“What? Do I have something on my face?”

“No.” She’s still laughing.

“What is it?” Her laugh is too infectious and he can’t help but laugh too.

“You buttoned your shirt all wrong.” Her voice is as soft as her nimble fingers. She opens each button again, and his sleepy body starts waking up in all the wrong places.

“Um,” he says when a fingertip grazes his chest.

“Sorry,” she mumbles.

“I’m not,” he says. “Just sorry that we don’t have time to get undressed now.”

“We’ve only just got dressed. Well, one of us did.” She’s smiling as she’s re-buttoning his shirt and so is he. He can’t be sure she’s doing it on purpose, but every now and then, her fingers touch him. Too bad there’s an undershirt in between her skin and his.

“I tried to be quick.”

“You’re better when you take your time.” Her chuckle is deep and sensual, causing him to sweat and be on high alert. They simply don’t have the time. Maybe he can try something on the plane. Before she falls asleep on him. As soon as she’s in a moving vehicle, Scully is ready for a nap.

“Why are we doing this again?” He doesn’t want to sound like a petulant child, but with her fingers playing him expertly, and him half-dressed, it’s difficult.

“Skinner asked for our expertise,” Scully reminds him. “He needs our help.”

“But does it have to be such an early flight?”

“Mulder, Skinner has helped us more times than we can count. Don’t you think we owe him?” She’s not done buttoning his shirt, but now she glances up at him. Her eyes are serious and he knows that she’s right. He nods and accepts his fate. If only her fingers weren’t so talented. Or her skin so soft. Her scent so intoxicating.

“I know where your mind is,” she says. It’s not difficult to guess, he figures, when he half groans after her hand accidentally – or not – brushes against his penis.

“Can you blame me?” His voice hasn’t been this high in decades. “This is torture, Scully.”

“There’s always later.” It sounds like a promise. Judging by how flushed she looks, he doubts she’s as unaffected by touching him as she pretends to be.

She finishes with the last button and gently pats his stomach. As torturous as it has been, he misses her fingers as soon as they’re gone.

“Am I presentable?” Mulder asks.

“Almost.” Scully points at his shirt, motioning for him to tuck it in.

“You don’t want to do it?” He winks at her before neatly adjusting his shirt, her eyes following his every movement. He wonders if they ever stray below the waistline. Once he’s done, they exchange a look. It’s not even light out, but they already look like their professional selves.

“We should get going. We can’t miss our flight.” He carries both their bags while Scully locks the door behind them. It occurs to him how normal this it. Getting ready together in the morning – or in the middle of the night, as it were – and leaving the house. Together. He leans down, taking the time to press a kiss against her lips.

“What was that for?” she asks, surprised, but happy.

“Just because I-” love you. But that’s not what he says. Instead, he smiles at her. “Because I wanted to. Now let’s get going.”

“What is this case about again?” She’s yawning. So much for the planned hanky-panky on the plane.

“Something about a biochemist that died under mysterious circumstances,” he explains, shifting into work mode.

[carpentersghost]

Champ of Pain [One] // Sam Carpenter

Summary: Over a decade has passed since the last Woodsboro murders. This time around, Ghostface brings back more than just violence and bloodshed. He brought her back.

Word Count: 2.6k

Author’s Note: This takes place during the events of Scream 5, so there are no spoilers for Scream 6! There's no explicit sexual content but I'd prefer for whoever reads this to be 18+ especially since Scream 5 is already rated R. It's going to be split into parts, so enjoy part one!

Warnings: Violence, language, sexual references, drug/alcohol use

Two / Complete Masterlist

It didn’t take much for you to hop onto the next direct flight to Woodsboro. The minute after you heard the words “Ghostface mask” was the minute you booked the ticket. As you rode the plane to your hometown, you tried your best to distract yourself. Flicking through the pages of your book or the movie selections was virtually useless. The last time there was a Ghostface attack you were merely a freshman in high school. And though you didn’t personally know any of the people that got attacked, it impacted the way you saw everything after. Now even more, especially because the first of the latest attacks was on Tara Carpenter, the younger sister of your former best friend. At least that’s what you settled on calling her since you weren’t sure where you stood as of five years ago.

The drive from the airport was everything but silent as Chad and Mindy caught you up on the rest of the attacks on the way to their house. Because of the several years that you lived in Woodsboro, and being friends with Sam at the time, you had gotten the opportunity to help babysit Tara and her friend group– which included the Meeks-Martin twins. After graduating from Woodsboro High, you didn’t keep in touch with anyone since you weren’t particularly close to your parents, opting to start a new life in New York. You promised Sam that you’d come back to visit her, but that was before she left without a goodbye; leaving crumbs of abandonment. That is until you remembered them, the twins and their mother. You got so close that you flew back to your hometown almost every break during college to spend time with them. It soon became obvious that they became your family.

As the car came to a halt in their driveway, Chad informed you everyone was meeting up there at the request of Sam. Your heart sped up knowing that in just minutes you’d be face to face with not only your former friend, but the truth. The truth that’s been kept buried in your heart since the day you heard she left. Surely, you thought, the feelings are all gone. You weren’t in love with Sam anymore. You couldn’t be. Besides, this should be the last thing on your mind considering she was attacked just last night by the same person who attacked her sister.

There was no time left to think about anything as the group started to pour in. And you made sure to hug them each tightly, not exactly sure how they’re all feeling with all of these attacks. After settling down you sit down next to Wes, complimenting his new look. “Thanks,” he smiled gently, as you ruffled his hair.

“So, how do you know so much about the Stab movies?” a voice questioned from the hallway.

“Runs in her family,” another voice responded, this one more familiar than the one before.

That’s when Mindy comes into view. “Randy was our uncle,” she explained, blowing a kiss to the portrait of her late uncle on the mantle. A side of your lips perked up at her action, hearing many stories about Randy throughout the years from his sister. Your eyes soon wander to the person following Mindy. “You said to bring everybody,” the twin gestured to all of you on the couch as two other people followed after Sam. One of them being a Woodsboro legend, and your former neighbor from when you still lived here.

Amber didn’t seem pleased to be there, Chad sent a wave, Liv tried to follow suit but fell short, Wes’ attempt at looking comfortable felt awkward, and then there was you. A glint strayed across your eyes as you took in the woman before you. Just as you expected, Sam looked as gorgeous as ever; causing you to unconsciously smile. That was until the two of you met each other’s gaze. Analyzing the older Carpenter’s face, you could have sworn the uneasiness was replaced by joy for a second. Unfortunately, you blinked so you weren’t too sure.

“Hey,” her gaze traveled through the group, voice shaky. It was obvious to everyone that she was nervous.

Martha came in not a second later, sporting a tray of popcorn and snacks. “Ooh, suspects!” a cheeky smile betrayed the words pouring from her lips. She put the tray down as she said, “My brother would be so proud.”

Dewey leaned forward a bit, catching the woman’s attention. “Hey, Martha,” his smile appeared for the first time since his arrival at the Meeks-Martin residence. 

Her already present grin grew even bigger at the sight of the familiar face. “Dewey! Hi!” She greeted him with a quick hug as she took in his features. “You look…” the mother of two couldn’t think of a kind word, opting to end the awkward silence with a tight-lipped smile. 

The former cop didn’t want to make it worse, simply replying with “yeah.”

Unlucky for him, Martha felt the need to overcompensate. “How’s the wife?” You hid your eyes behind your palm while others groaned. 

She then whipped her head towards you, seeing as Mindy and Chad were the ones to pick you up from the airport. Her hands reached out to you, helping you stand up, and then enveloping you in the tightest of hugs. “I haven’t seen you since you graduated last May, you look great!” 

You could feel your neck start to heat up at the words. You were never good at taking compliments. “Thank you,” you whispered as the hug was still happening, your eyes wandered over to Sam once again. Her eyes met yours, as she sent a small wave in your direction. As Martha let you go, you sent a nod over to Sam. It wasn’t a grand gesture but there are bigger things at hand right now. 

“Okay, mom, we’re good,” Chad interrupted with a thumbs up. “Thank you.” With that, she got the hint and left the room; but not before throwing daggers at her son. 

It didn’t take long before all eyes were on the older Carpenter sister. “I asked Mindy to call everybody here, because there’s something I have to tell you.” Sam’s eyes are planted on you; even though her instinct told her to be dodgy. In all your years of knowing her, she’s never had to force herself to keep eye contact more. It’s like she was trying to prove something to herself, and to you. 

After a quick debrief, and video reminding you all about the 1996 Woodsboro murders, the news that Sam shared hadn’t sunk in. 

“So, let me get this straight,” Chad stole everyone’s attention away from the picture of Woodsboro’s infamous killer that was sitting on the television screen. “You’re saying you’re the daughter of Billy Loomis,” he pointed at the raven-haired woman, eyebrows furrowed. “And what?” he continues, “that one of us is the killer?”

Sam’s gaze traveled across the group from where she was sitting, though never fully meeting yours. “The killer told me he knew my secret,” she remained firm with her theory. “He attacked Tara to lure me back here,” her mind remembering last night’s attack on her in the hospital.

“But then why immediately go and murder some douche-nozzle that was stalking Liv?” Chad countered, admiring his girlfriend for a second. 

Before anyone got a chance to answer, Wes chipped in. “Why does it have to be one of us? What about Deputy Dewey here? Maybe he’s the killer.” Now all eyes were on Dewey. “No offense.” 

“None taken, but what’s my motive?” He straightened up, the former cop was intrigued by the theory. Without skipping a beat the blond fired off more than enough reasons why Dewey would be a safe bet to suspect. And it was safe to say that Dewey felt every one of those reasons hit straight for his heart. “Well, maybe you’re the killer, because that cut deep.” And he went back to slouching on the couch, recovering from the words. 

It was then that you noticed Sam reaching for the hand of the guy next to you. An unfamiliar feeling began brewing in the pit of your stomach. You shoved the emotion away. With Sam’s shoulders losing their tension at the hand holding, the remaining inkling ceased to exist almost immediately. It was clear that he was Sam’s new safe space. You couldn’t help but be happy for her.

“That douche-nozzle is connected,” Amber announced, “I googled him. His mom is Leslie Macher,” she trailed off. “Stu Macher’s sister.” 

At the newfound information, you rub your eyes, trying to piece together a broken puzzle.

“Who’s Stu Macher?” You and Sam shared a look at Liv’s question. 

A whispered “Oh my god,” slipped away from Mindy’s lips. 

“He’s Billy Loomis’ accomplice, a real loony tune” the former sheriff explained before Mindy could tear her a new one. 

A spark hit Sam as her brain went to work. “So, the first three attacks are all on people related to the original killers.”

The same spark that hit the elder Carpenter, now hit one of the Meeks-Martin twins. “Oh, my god,” Mindy lifted from her seat, sitting upright. “He’s making a requel.” And with that, she lost everyone. “Or a legacyquel. Fans are torn on the terminology,” but that wasn’t much better as everyone continued looking at one another hoping someone understood. 

The other twin spoke up, “Please, speak English.”

After Mindy’s explanation of what’s occurring ends, Sam’s hand balls into a fist before falling apart. “Are you telling me that I’m caught in the middle of fan-fucking-fiction?” 

The twin slowly approached the woman, wanting to hide her enthusiasm for the horror genre. “Not just in the middle, Sam.” 

“You’re the star.” You finished off Mindy’s sentence staring blankly at the floor, missing the way Sam analyzed you from top to bottom. You also missed Richie doing the same; his mind ran laps on who you were and what business you had doing there.

Liv, wanting to get back on track, probed for the requel rules. “Going by the pattern, whoever it is has to be connected to someone that came before.” 

All signs pointed towards Dewey. “I’m starting to regret coming here,” he retreated back into himself. 

Wes grew frantic, seeing as his mom was a character in one of the Stab movies that the killer is desperately trying to recreate. “No one cares about the shitty inferior sequels, Wes. You’re safe,” Mindy reassured the boy sitting next to you. “With Randy as our uncle, though, you and I are probably screwed.”

With the monotone voice, you’d almost think she was joking. This caused Chad’s brain to short circuit, not knowing whether to laugh or go into hiding. “Or,” Richie redirected the conversation. “You’re the killer and this whole elaborate monologue is just to cover your tracks.” 

With clenched teeth, you attempted to subdue any violent thoughts you held towards the guy next to you. ‘How fucking dare he accuse Mindy of being the killer?’ you thought, hands balling into fists as you begin seeing red.

Before anything could happen, what Mindy said next sent chills down everybody’s spines. “I think it’s pretty clear who the killer is at this point,” she grinned as if it’s completely obvious to everyone but herself.

“Who?” Sam’s eyes spread wide, wanting to know the end-all answer to who sent her sister to the hospital. 

“You,” the horror expert informed. “It makes perfect requel sense.”

Looking for any room to breathe, Sam turned for someone to disagree but she found no one. Sighing, she stood up and bolted out the door. “Fuck this.” As she reached for her car door, Sam heard footsteps close behind her. “I’ll meet you back at the motel,” spilled out of her before she realized it was you that followed her. “Y/N,” your name came out gently, it was as if the raven-haired girl worried it’d break. 

“I thought you were…” Sam’s gaze turned to the person behind you. You followed suit. It was none other than her boyfriend. Her eyes traveled back to you, her features turned to stone after catching a glimpse of Richie. “I need some space,” she opened the car door, getting ready to speed away. If there was one thing Sam knew she had to be good at, it was that.

You nodded, making progressive steps to her until your hand rested on the door frame, near hers. “I know,” the reassurance landed softly on Sam’s ears. “I know you’re not the killer, I’ll make sure they know that too. You wouldn’t do that to her.” 

If there was one thing you knew Sam was good at, it was protecting her sister the best she could. She wouldn’t lead her in harm’s way, much less be the harm. The scowl she carried became weak. Her fingers made a reach for yours, before she stopped herself. “I’m sorry,” were the last words she said before pushing your hand away, getting in the car, and driving to who knows where. 

She didn’t even bother listening to Richie’s pleas to wait as you headed back into the residence. He gave up after shouting, “the first fucking rule of these movies is don’t split up.” Instead, he began making his way to the motel, groaning along the path. 

After two minutes of vouching for Sam’s innocence, almost everyone agreed that the woman had nothing to do with the killings. Amber was the one to hold her ground, only settling because she had to leave and you were blocking the exit. 

Once she left, the remaining five people, aside from you, glanced at one another. If they knew one thing to be true, it’s that you were nowhere near being over Sam. But they wouldn’t dare bring that up for discussion, knowing you thought you’d been secretive all those years before.

You and Sam had known each other since you were in diapers. During the early years of your friendship the two of you had almost everything in common; from wanting to be doctors when you grew up to realizing going to medical school was more schooling than you wanted. 

There was a time when being at Sam’s house became more natural than breathing. You were always over, not expected to return home after a certain point; either working on assignments, being hopeless romantics about your nonexistent relationships, or helping babysit Tara and her friends. It didn’t get lost on you when you noticed your heart began to beat for Sam. It was as clear as day to you. ‘How could I not fall for Sam?’ you thought. You didn’t just like her for everything you had in common, you loved her for everything that set her apart. 

This was proven when Sam found out the awful truth, the one thing she kept from you back then. The truth that caused her to sprout lies, pushing you away. No matter what deceit she planted, you always found the root to her heart. Sam used to believe she had one soft spot, namely for her sister. But every time you showed up at her door, she was reminded that she had two. 

Even then, the two of you convinced only yourselves that the feelings didn’t run that deep. That’s how it was until the raven-haired woman made away in silence. She knew if she stayed friends with you any longer, she’d fly to New York and have more than one reason for wanting to run into your arms.

reblogs, likes, and comments are always appreciated. thanks for reading!! <3