#anybody in this thread smoke whatever this is.

[technovillain]

what if we were both conjectural scientists and uhhhh. uhmm. that's it and nothing else.

[andivmg]

speak up andi, I beg of you, you have been mistreated the most here, I know it took shubble a lot of courage but she has helped so many people

i want to start this off by saying it is not a competition and i do not want to compare my experience to anybody else’s. shubble is so fucking strong and i admire her and everyone else who has spoken up about experiencing abuse endlessly.

DISCLAIMER 1

this is way longer than i intended it to be. i did not plan to go into as much depth as i did but the words just kinda kept coming and i kept thinking that if someone else is in a similar situation to the one i was in, it would be good to point out even some of the smaller details so that they can see that these behaviors are not something to be overlooked and could be a symptom of a bigger issue… idk. i apologize for how lengthy and wordy this is but i hope it all makes sense somehow

DISCLAIMER 2

a lot of you know who one of my exes is and i am asking you to please not make this about him. i am simply sharing my experience with some of my past relationships in hopes that they help someone else. i beg of you, do not go on twitter making threads speculating on whatever because it’s just going to cause me a bunch of problems and i don’t want this to be brought to his attention. if you share my story, please do not do it with the intent of starting drama. if you share my story, focus on the behaviors i am talking about instead of trying to figure out if it’s about him.

DISCLAIMER 3

this goes without saying but i’ll put it here anyway: i will be talking about toxic relationships, mention of self harm, mention of sex, implied violence. if any of these topics are triggering to you please scroll away, protect yourself.

I have been in a lot of relationships, but there are 4 that i would truly identify as the ones who had the biggest impact on me. Two of those i would consider emotional mistreatment. I don’t want to say i was abused for reasons that i will be discussing with my therapist this week, but i can certainly say i was mistreated. For the sake of privacy, i will be referring to these two dudes as 1 and 6.

I think the biggest difference between 1 and 6 is that 6 was obsessed with me to the point where i felt like i was being suffocated, whereas i’m not sure if 1 ever cared about me in the first place.

6 and i started out pretty normally. we had a bunch of friends in common and we were around the same people. so eventually, we became friends too. we would text and call all the time until feelings developed into a relationship. in the beginning he was really sweet and caring, saying all the right things that got me falling head over heels. now, something important to note is that i am someone who has always had a lot of guy friends. when i was little and in school, my mom made friends with a bunch of other moms and those moms were boy moms, so i grew up surrounded by boys. i bring this up because 6 didn’t like my guy friends. actually, i think he just didn’t like the fact that i had guy friends at all. so, whenever i would hang out with my friends, it was a problem. so this resulted in me never being able to go out or hang out with my friends unless he was there. then it got worse. before we started dating he had decided to cut back on drinking and to stop smoking. so because of this, i decided that i wouldn’t drink or smoke around him in solidarity. this was not enough for him. i had to stop drinking and smoking altogether. so once, when i was hanging out with my girl friends we decided to stay in and get wine drunk. we posted about it on our private stories on snap and once he saw, 6 called me arguing and yelling at me because i was drinking and posting about it on my story for “attention”. after this incident, i was no longer allowed to hang out with my friends because they were a “bad influence”. he also didn’t like the clothes i wore. sorry, let me reiterate: he didn’t like my clothes when he wasn’t around. it was perfectly fine for me to wear a short dress… if i was with him. i was not allowed to wear “revealing” clothing if he wasn’t around. mind you, none of the clothes i wore were revealing, it’s not my fault i’m hot yk? he took over my life. who i talked to, what i did, what i wore, where i would go, it was all up to him. my life no longer belonged to me. and at the time, i was okay with that. i didn’t realize that he had so much control over everything. i was young and naïve and he convinced me that he knew what was best for me. that he had lived more than i had and experienced more than i had and that he knew better. he was so good at making everything my fault and making him the hero or victim depending on the situation. i got catcalled on the street? “because you were wearing that fucking dress again, andrea you know how that looks. of course you got catcalled. this is why you can’t wear things like that when i’m not around to protect you”. I decided to have a fun night in with my friends and get drunk? “i just don’t understand why you would be posting yourself on your private story like that. you’re drunk and vulnerable. why do you want other people, other guys, to see you like that? and you know i’ve cut back on drinking so how do you think it makes me feel to see that? don’t you love me enough to do this for me?” the worst part is i believed him. because, in the beginning, he helped me so much and i looked up to him so much, surely he had my best interests at heart, right? this relationship went on for way longer than it should have. you may be asking yourself, how did you leave? if you were so in love with him and entranced by him to the point where he consumed you, why did you leave? he raised his hand. that’s what got me to finally leave. a year after we broke up, i found out that he was drinking, smoking, and doing all kinds of shit he told me he wasn’t throughout our entire relationship. he was awful, and i’m really proud of myself for being strong enough to leave when i did. i’m also really grateful for my friends, who stuck out that whole train wreck with me. who i lashed out against in order to protect him and defend him. they stuck by me through it all and i don’t know where i would be without them so shoutout to them lmfao.

1 was a bit more complicated. it started out in a similar way. we had the same friends, hung out around the same people, so it was only a matter of time until we became friends too. we would call and text every day until feelings were developed. at least i developed feelings, i’m still not sure he did. i told him this and i don’t remember how the conversation went but basically we had decided that we were talking as more than friends now. enough time went by where i was ready for it to become a relationship and i communicated that to him. looking back, i think he felt pressured into the relationship by me and by our friends. anyway we started dating and everything was fine. we would hang out and talk all the time but i felt like he was bored or disinterested by me, so i would constantly beg for his attention. i became this needy clingy version of myself that i hated. it felt like when we would hang out, he was always distracted by something else. i basically felt invisible to him. that is, when i wasn’t hanging out with my guy friends. similarly to 6, 1 did not like my guy friends or the fact that i had guy friends in the first place. i had a guy best friend at the time who is one of the most amazing people i have ever met. let’s call him S. S and 1 were acquainted with each other, hung out in the same circles etc. but 1 still didn’t like him. sometimes, whenever 1 was busy doing whatever he did when he wasn’t with me, i would hang out with S, we would watch shows together and just talk. Some days, it felt like i talked to S more than my own boyfriend. this did not sit well with 1. he would ask “why the fuck are you always hanging out with him?” to which i would reply “maybe if you hung out with me more, i wouldn’t have so much free time to spend with him” (toxic ik but what can i say? i was feeling neglected). so you can see what problems this caused. eventually i cut S off. I stopped talking to him completely and i haven’t spoken to him since. Back to 1. even after cutting off my best friend, nothing really changed. He didn’t spend much time with me and whenever we would, i felt like he couldn’t wait to go off and do something else. this got exhausting. at that point i was begging him to love me, to pay attention to me, to care about me. this led to us breaking up. he broke up with me over text. it read, and i quote, “i think we aren’t meant for each other. i think you deserve someone that will treat you better than i do. I don’t think i’m in love with you and i tried to force myself to love you because i thought that’s what i wanted but i really don’t think it is. we started this relationship when i was just tired of being alone and i really just don’t think it is right anymore. i don’t think i am attracted to you. I am sorry, i really didn’t know how to end this and this probably isn’t the best way to do it but it’s time”. The relationship went on for another six months after this. granted, i should have had more self respect and never gotten back together with him but it is what it is. so after he told me that he didn’t love me and that he wasn’t attracted to me, we stayed “friends”. which basically meant that we did everything that a relationship involved. without actually being in a relationship. that is, until one of his friends hit me up. there was some flirtation going on but nothing serious. i was still in love with 1 but, at the time, i was in desperate need for attention and his buddy was there to provide it. when i told 1 about it he flipped out, called me all kinds of crazy and decided he was done with me. his friend and i talked about it and poked fun at the fact that he broke up with me but got mad at someone else paying attention to me. when 1 saw this (he ended up forcing me to show him the screenshots of the conversation) he was even more pissed and even more done with me. the next day he called me and we were basically back together again.

however, this time, i was meant to earn his affection. because i did something so unforgivable and atrocious, he was basically in the clear to treat me like shit. and he did. he would cancel plans to go hang out with his friends. he would only come over late at night, even when i had class the next day. i was basically at his mercy. we only hung out when he decided. we only spoke when he wanted to. i honestly can’t even recall us going on any date after that incident, save for one dinner. in short, i was not a priority to him. this, combined with some other stuff, really took at toll on my mental health. i entered a deep depression and began self-harming after being clean for 3 years. i sought out help and found a wonderful therapist who really helped me. but, 1 only saw this as one more problem. when we hung out he would complain that i was too sad. important note: because of that text he sent me i was incredibly insecure. so, little arguments would always end up escalating because i felt like he literally did not care about me and he would just keep making me feel like shit about being depressed. whenever we argued (which was very often) it would end in me locking myself in the bathroom, sobbing, nearly throwing up, while he was on his phone. i remember one specific argument started because he asked me if i would leave him for harry styles and i jokingly said yes (i am not and have never been attracted to harry styles). that argument escalated to the point where we almost broke up and he said to me “you should warn people before they fall in love with you that you are so mentally ill. because you’re always going to bring down the mental state of who you’re with”. he used my mental health against me like that a lot. whenever i would bring up something i wanted him to do or something that i didn’t like, he would call me needy, clingy, and say that he was trying his best but that i needed too much, that i was too much. all i wanted was reassurance. looking back, that’s all i ever asked for. whenever i would ask him if he loved me he would say “well i’m with you aren’t i?”. this is the same man who decided to go to vegas with his friends on my birthday after he promised he wouldn’t. this is the same man who said that he didn’t love me. the same one who said he wasn’t attracted to me. the same man who i would catch looking at other girl’s (some being his “friends”) provocative pictures on twitter. (this is definitely tmi so i’m just going to put a bunch of asterisks at the end of the tmi so you can skip there if you don’t want to read it) but there was a long period of time in our relationship where we had zero intimacy, and it wasn’t because of me. this fucked with my head a lot because i had this idea that because i was so emotional and needy that i could compensate physically. but when that stopped, my thoughts looked something like “the only thing i was useful for was sex and now he doesn’t even want that from me”.************whenever i remember this, a part of me thinks he might’ve been cheating on me during that time, but i have no proof so i guess we’ll never know. also during that time period, we were arguing over the same things over and over “it feels like you don’t love me” “but i’m hanging out with you” “that’s not the same as loving me” “you’re so fucking needy. and then you wonder why i don’t like coming over”. it was exhausting. we had the same friend group. and even our friends got so sick of us that they would tell me to break up with him. this went on for months until one day, on our one year anniversary, he told me that his plans for the day included playing video games. nothing else. that’s when i broke up with him. that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. i just couldn’t do it anymore.

we stayed friends afterwards in order to keep the peace within the friend group. after about a month, he told me he was going to do better. he said he was going to start going to the gym, and maybe even going to therapy, that he was going to eat better and live a better lifestyle for me. he said he was going to plan dates for us and treat me the way i deserved etc. very much vibes from that one euphoria scene. but i was done. maybe i didn’t communicate that well enough to him and that’s my fault. but i was really confused at the time and i didn’t know what i wanted. eventually we had a conversation and that’s when i told him that i was no longer interested in a relationship. i think i just didn’t believe him anymore. i didn’t believe that he would change for me or anyone else for that matter. through the entire relationship he was mean to me, he neglected me, belittled me, and overall made me feel like shit at worst and invisible at best. even when i would offer to plan things or suggest activities for us to do together, he would be disinterested the entire time or just cancel and make plans with his friends instead. and of course it was all my fault for one, flirting with his friend that one time, and two, just not being interesting enough. he made it feel like i wasn’t good enough, and at the same time victimized himself. he would tell me “nothing i do is ever good enough for you” while i was the one putting in all the effort in the relationship. then he would go “well why would i put in effort with you? remember when you were flirting with [redacted]? I still think about that and it fucks me up”. mind you, he would only bring this up whenever i brought up any concerns or issues. anyway, as you can tell it took me a really long time to realize that this relationship was toxic and unhealthy and i’m really proud of myself, again, for having the strength to leave and never look back. i think one of the reasons why it took me so long to realize that i was being mistreated was because everyone around him loved him. and to me it was hard to see how someone that was so well liked could be bad. so i felt like i was the problem. i felt like there was something wrong with me and if i just fixed that, then he would treat me better and love me and care about me. it took a lot of therapy to realize that he just wasn’t that into me. i was like a toy to him that he could just pay attention to when he was bored but ignore me the rest of the time. but then, when someone else showed interest in me he would suddenly care and be like “no she’s mine, you can’t have her”. he didn’t want me but he didn’t want anyone else to have me and that was the bottom line. that was the base off all the problems and toxicity that happened while we were together.

in conclusion, both of these men were awful in their own unique ways. i hope that by sharing this, someone who is in a similar situation will see it and identify these behaviors as something to watch out for. i hope that someone will see it and realize that they are not alone, and that they are not the first person to go through it, and that it gets better. these events all happened over two years ago and now i am in a beautiful and healthy relationship, i’m studying something that i am passionate about, and i am surrounded by people who love, care about, and support me. i am in a much happier place now and you will find that too, whoever you might be <3

[sebastianswallows]

Nobody's Darling — 2. The Motel

— PAIRING: Benny Cross x F!Reader — SYNOPSIS: Benny comes across a girl walking alone in the middle of nowhere and offers her a ride to the nearest town. They stop at a motel. — WARNINGS: angst, a hint of smut (masturbation) — WORDCOUNT: 3k — A/N: Continuation of Part 1. After a couple of weeks I could finally work on this again! The story continues. I hope you enjoy it, my loves 😘

She wasn’t sure what she expected before she stepped inside. There were tables and dartboards, a pair of old jukeboxes, and a long bar all along the left side of the room. A few people were playing pool and a few more sat drinking, all wallowing in days-old sweat under the pale light. She almost stepped back out at the sight of all of this but he stood behind her. He eased her in with a hand around her waist.

“It’s ok,” he mumbled with the shadow of a smile. “Nobody’s gonna hurt ya.”

He led her in keeping his hand around her all the while. She scowled up at him, at his familiarity, but soon realised this was probably his way of making sure nobody else would touch her.

“Take a seat anywhere you’d like,” he softly said.

She took the table furthest from anybody else and hugged her purse tightly to her chest. Everyone else looked at them until, almost in unison, they stopped and went back to whatever they’d been doing.

“What do they have to eat around here?” she asked as he sat opposite from her.

“Burgers. Beer.”

“That’s it?”

He pulled his pack out and offered her a cigarette.

“No thank you…”

“They got peanuts at the bar, I guess.”

“Right,” she said with a scrunched nose. “So, where’s the bathrooms?”

He stared at her in silence as he lit another smoke.

“Well, I’d like to at least wash my hands before I eat…” In truth, she felt filthy head to toe after the night she’d had.

He braced his arms on the table and took a deep drag, then turned his head to gaze across the room. It gave her the chance to look at him in better lighting. He was deceptively young but aged around the edges — from the drinking and the smoking and a rough life in the wind. Every slip of softness was threaded through with something harsh. His lips were pillows surrounded by the blond bristles of a beard, his eyes were icy cold, fanned by thick long lashes, and although his hands were callused and beringed and heavy he held that cigarette as gently as if it were a lover’s dainty finger.

“In the back,” he muttered through a puff of smoke.

“What?”

“Ladies’ room.”

“Oh. Alright. I’ll, erm, be right back.”

And just as she got up he added with a smile,

“If there’s no soap left, try the men’s.”

She left him not thinking that she would ever do that, but she did. The ladies’ bathroom was well-used to the point she had to hop around to avoid dubious puddles. The men’s room was no better except they never seemed to use the soap. She dipped in and out of it as if the door could bite her.

By the time she returned to their table, he had already ordered and was chugging down his beer waiting for her. His eyes didn’t leave her as she sat down and started to inspect the meal.

“Is this it?” she asked with a curl of her nose.

The plate was chipped, the bun was shiny with grease, the pickles underneath were slathered in ketchup, and she didn’t have the courage to look further than that. He nursed on the bottle and hid a shy smile around the rim.

“I could ask them to get you somethin’ else.”

“You said they didn’t have anything else.”

He shrugged. “They could make it.”

“At this hour? The chef’s likely to —”

“They ain’t got a chef,” he shrugged. “Old guy, think his name’s… Tex. He tends the bar and the kitchen out back.”

“Yeah… All the more reason to stick with this,” she muttered to herself.

He chuckled and snuffed out the cigarette, and then his sooty hands grabbed hold of the burger, its insides dripping lazily onto the plate. She looked at him, and picked hers up, but immediately decided she’d rather try the beer first.

It was surprisingly decent, not too strong, flavourful… She drank until it sated her thirst and her throat was no longer burning. By the time the bottle was half-empty, the burger didn’t even seem so horrible anymore.

“What’s your name?” she asked with a sigh.

The boy raised his pale gaze to hers and slowed down his chewing. He seemed surprised that she had asked at all.

“Benny.”

“Benny,” she smiled. “Ben. Benjamin?”

He put the messy burger down and took another swig, looking at her over the edge of the dark bottle. “Just Benny.”

“I see…”

“How ‘bout you?”

She introduced herself but after that, the conversation settled into silence. They kept eating and drinking while the chime of the balls at the pool table filled the emptiness around them. She felt awkward sitting opposite him, trying to be polite, pretending that she didn’t quietly judge everything about him in spite of her friendly tone. Benny seemed to sense it. Did he just not like her asking about his name? She thought “Benjamin” to be quite dignified and she regretted not getting to tell him. But then again, perhaps he wouldn’t like that…

Or perhaps he didn’t like her staring at him. At his grimy hands holding those buns even as they seemed ready to fall apart, at how he held the bottle by its thin delicate neck, at his lips, his lidded eyes, the way his throat flexed as he swallowed. Soon she found herself quite uncomfortable and not because of the awkward silence anymore. He looked up when he was done, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and although she looked away he seemed to pause in thought at the sight of her. His chair scratched lightly across the floor as he leaned back to finish off his beer.

“It’s just oil and dirt,” he said with an awkward smile as he crossed his arms over his chest and started smoking “Ain’t gonna hurt me.”

“You’re probably sick of me, aren’t you?” she smiled. “You’d rather be over there at the bar, or playing pool.”

Benny’s arm tightened around himself and she tried not to stare at how nicely those muscles flexed. “And you’d rather be at home,” he said in a quiet rasp. “Takin’ a hot shower. Layin’ in a nice clean bed.”

She leaned back as well, her hand already reaching for the beer again. There was no meanness in his voice but she still felt guilty for wanting something better than… what his life seemed to be.

“So what were you doin’ out there?” he asked as he wiped the corner of his lips.

“I, er, got lost.”

He looked at her in that quiet way of his she’d already gotten used to.

“I fell asleep on my bus ride home,” she finally confessed, smiling sheepishly.

That got a chuckle out of Benny. “How long were you walkin’ for?”

“About an hour.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

“You look it.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Hey, you still look nice.”

“T-thanks…”

She twisted the bottle between her fingers as she cast her gaze across the bar, at the slowly rolling smoke and swaying patrons getting drunker. And from the corner of her eye, she could see Benny staring with those sad blue eyes, hunched over, lips pouting while the cigarette slowly burnt away, and there was such a pleading in the way he looked at her that she wanted against her better judgment to just go ahead, invite him home, and ask him to stay… But she knew better than to get involved with a troublemaker in a motorcycle club, even one that drove her back to town, even one whose voice was soft and tender.

“You said they had rooms?” she said after a while.

He nodded.

“Who — I mean, where do I —”

“Come on,” he said as he got up. “I’ll show you.”

“What about dinner?”

“What about it?”

“Should I just leave some money on the table or —”

“Don’t worry ‘bout that,” he smiled. “Tex owes me me.”

She somehow doubted it but before she could say anything Benny had gone around the bar, taken two keys from a shelf behind a canopy of glasses, and was on his way up the stairs. She wondered if this was his way of getting away from her for the night. Perhaps by morning he’d be gone, leaving her there to figure things out for herself.

The floors felt rickety and noises from the bar followed them however far they went. In a symphony of creaking and chirps from the cicadas outside Benny led her to a room at the end of the corridor on the second floor. A lone lightbulb came on to bathe the room a sickly yellow, cramped with a veneer of stains and spots and each surface looking a bit uneven. The mattress on the bed looked a bit caved in. The door to the bathroom was ajar and crooked. The little square window by the door was black with soot.

“Right, so, er… You good for tonight?” Benny asked, his face turned to her in worry.

“Oh, yes. I’m sure it’s fine,” she said and took a cautious step inside. “Thank you.”

He didn’t seem convinced and his frown turned a little sad. It made her feel bad for seeming so ungrateful.

“Beats walking in the wilderness at night,” she added with a smile.

“High praise,” he chuckled. “Water runs alright. There’ll be towels in that drawer there. It’s… Well, g’night,” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. Just as he turned to leave he added, “If you need somethin’, I’ll be in room 5 just up the hall.”

“Alright,” she said as she wrapped her arms around herself. “Good night…”

And with one great stride, the lean tall shape of him was gone, closing the door after him.

She knew she couldn’t expect the kind of cleanliness she had at home but it was still uncomfortable to navigate this temporary bedroom. She put her suit up nicely on a wooden chair to be ready for tomorrow morning and laid out her stockings nearby. There were no slippers anywhere so she walked with her beaten dusty shoes into the bathroom and managed to clean herself up a bit before bed. Every surface seemed dubious to her, but Benny had been right that the water ran well. There was soap and towels too, and even if she could hardly call it a shower she managed to make do.

“I can’t wait to go home,” she whispered to herself on the verge of tears.

After checking twice that the door was properly locked, she laid down on the bed still in her slip. The pillows were thin and the springs of the mattress were noisy, but she curled up and made her best attempt to fall asleep.

Every now and then the popping sound of balls hitting each other at the pool table would reach her, and in between that the singing of crickets and the buzzing of flies filled the air. She tossed and she turned, breathing in the unwashed scent of musky pillows, rotting wood, old cigarette smoke and ashes… And even though she was exhausted and full after her greasy meal, she just couldn’t fall asleep. It wasn’t the pain in her back and shoulders, it wasn’t her feet aching from the walk, it wasn’t even how dirty she still felt or the fear that any moment one of those drunken men from downstairs would try to sneak in and rob her — or worse. She turned from side to side feeling at odds with herself.

This wasn’t the kind of bar she went to and it wasn’t the kind of place she spent the night. And Benny… Well, Benny wasn’t exactly the kind of guy she went for — but why was she thinking like that? He was only supposed to give her a ride home. That is if he didn’t just leave her there. He’d be entitled to, after how coldly she’d treated him all night. He’d bought her dinner, he’d gotten her that room, and still she couldn’t get over the fact that he was in her eyes a vagabond. A vandal, as said his jacket.

“I just have to make it through the night,” she told herself. “I wouldn’t even have to see him again tomorrow. I’ll wake up early and… and… he might not even still be around.”

She rolled onto her back and stretched with nervous energy, her arms covering her face. The thought of not seeing him again drove her strangely restless. Something about that boy made her want to touch him gently. She wanted to run her fingers through his hair, to look into his eyes for hours, to hold him and be held... Yes, he wasn’t her kind of guy, but underneath that cold hard leather and the denim and the dirt, she had seen a trace of sweetness, innocence, and hurt. And before she knew it she’d pulled the pillow down before her, tucked it between her legs, wrapped her arms around it, and held its tattered end to her neck as if it were somebody’s face. It comforted her just a little, made her feel less alone — like she’d felt when she held onto him on the back of his bike.

Her eyes opened in the dark, her own thoughts shocking her, but she had enough courage to admit that it was true. Sure enough, as soon as she stepped foot inside that ugly bar or laid down in that bed she only wanted to go home — but in the dark her deepest thoughts turned to how lonely, how harsh, how empty her life was... She’d never thought she struggled with living all alone, not until she’d wrapped her arms around Benny and he drove her through the night. She’d been afraid to hold onto him at first but by the end of their ride, she didn’t want to let him go. And now her arms felt empty and her head felt full and whichever side of the bed she turned on wasn’t right because nobody else was there.

With a sigh, she pushed the useless pillow away and sat up on the side of the bed. The cold floor soothed her feet but there was an itch inside of her, a restlessness that would not be assuaged by anything less than the real thing.

“You’re crazy,” she mumbled to herself. “I shouldn’t. I really, really shouldn’t…”

But she did. She got up, put her shoes back on, and wrapped the blanket around herself like a shawl. And before her mind could catch up with her body she was out the door.

The sounds were softer than before, more stilted, less precarious, and the noises from the distant bar had dimmed together with the light. Blackbirds were singing in the trees that swung beside the balustrade. The moon was dim and fogged with shallowed clouds but if she focused she could see the numbers on the door. When she finally reached room 5, she paused. What if he was sleeping? What if he wasn’t there? What if took this the wrong way? And most terrifying of all was — what if he wouldn’t care?

Her hand was poised to knock but stopped just short of it. No light was coming from inside but there was tension in the air as if the silence was still filled with something. It had a deliberate quality to it that made her hair stand on end and nearly scared her back to her room. It’s him that I’m afraid of, she thought to herself. What he would think of me. What he would say… But she refused to let herself feel that way and be scared of him again after she’d just gotten over it earlier that evening. He’s just a boy. A stupid, dirty little boy with blue eyes and long lashes…

Her fist tightened but she still didn’t dare to knock. And as she stood there caught between her fear and longing, something called to her from the other side. It was a stilted sound, almost a voice, but not quite something wakeful. He must’ve been asleep… Rather than knock and risk waking him up she chanced turning the handle and to her surprise the door gave way. Of course he’d sleep with it unlocked…

If he’s not awake I’ll go back to my room, she thought. I’ll let him rest. I’ll —

She opened the door enough to peek inside. It was dark but she could still make out something. Benny was on the bed. That’s where the sounds were coming from — quick breaths, low moans, and a sticky wet sound on repeat. A slow and languorous melange that made her body warm. There was a rounded sheen of muscle that moved in the shadows and each tug was coloured by a whimper vulnerable and loud.

She gasped quietly, mouth agape, and just then a bike rolled by outside. Its rumble drowned him out and its lights shone past her into the room to give her just a glimpse of Benny. He was lying in bed propped up against the pillow, messy head leaned back, full lips parted, lidded eyes. The jacket must’ve been somewhere else because he was left in a white tank top that strained against his chest. He was still wearing those dirty jeans but they were bunched low on his hips, and his hand was closed in a fist around —

He stopped moving.

“I-is that you?” he rasped.

The light from the bike outside was gone but she could feel his gaze on her, could hear in his strangled voice a weak, frail shiver, so at odds with how carefree he’d been.

“Yes?” she wanted to say but all that came out was a choked whisper.

“Come inside…”

[chronicangel]

be cute, be dumb, be wise, be young

Link to this fic on AO3. Words: 3009 Date posted: October 20, 2024 Summary:

“Pacifica, tell me you didn’t get a tattoo just to seduce me,” he groans. “I didn’t,” she says, extremely matter-of-factly. “I got a tattoo, and now I’m seducing you.”

This is based on @flxnce's tattoo artist/barista AU, which is so so good and you should check it out!!

“Are you sure you want to put this on your body forever?”

“Oh shut up. You and Mabel have practically been harassing me to get a tattoo for the last six months and now the first idea I come to you with, you try to change my mind?” Pacifica glares at him, and it’s not quite as intimidating as it was when she had black hair, but he holds his hands up in surrender anyway.

“Not trying to talk you out of it!” He says, and his face flushes at how fast it peeps out of him. So it’s still a bit intimidating. “I just don’t want you to regret it and get mad at me or anything.”

She rolls her eyes and blows a cloud of smoke in his face in what he guesses is supposed to be a retort, but it’s hard for him to be anything but mildly annoyed about it because that was his cigarette a few minutes ago. “Look, I’m not gonna get into the whole tragic backstory or whatever to make this make sense to you. I thought it was a cool idea.”

Dipper wonders if there is a tragic backstory or if she’s just speaking metaphorically. He’s noticed that she doesn’t talk about her family. He figured they just weren’t close and didn’t think prying much further would be polite, but now that he’s been presented with the possibility that there’s something messed up about it, it connects some dots.

Before he can ask, she holds the cigarette back out to him, half-gone with the filter covered in her lip gloss. “I thought you were quitting,” he grumbles, taking a long drag while she just smirks at him. There’s not much left after that, and he puts it out on the railing. There’s no ashtray and he doesn’t want to litter, so he stuffs the butt in his pocket, where he’ll probably forget about it until it’s time for laundry and Mabel yells at him. “Why do you want me to do it, anyway? Wouldn’t Mabel be better for that sort of thing?”

“I’ve seen the tattoos you guys do. Mabel’s art is amazing, but your lettering is better.” Somehow, she manages to say it like none of that was a compliment, though she doesn’t make it sound like an outright insult either, so it’s at least better than it would have been a few months ago. He knows that she thinks his art is good, anyway, because he’s seen the way that she stares at his arms when he’s in short sleeves and he can’t think of any other reason she’d do that. “Do you not want to do it?”

She looks vulnerable in a way he’s never seen. She’s not making eye contact with him, and she picks at a loose thread in her ripped jeans, threatening to make them look a little less intentional and a little more ruined.

“Yeah,” he says somewhat absentmindedly. Then, realizing that that’s the wrong answer to the question she actually asked him, he adds, “I mean, yeah, let’s do it. Why not? I think my book is a little tight this week, but—”

“Oh, there is no way you’re getting me on that table during daylight hours for this,” she says, and he stares at her for a second.

“Uh, what?”

“I am not doing this in front of Leo, let alone a bunch of strangers. Don’t you have a tattoo gun at home or something?”

“Well, yeah, but my apartment isn’t exactly up to code for—”

“Don’t care, didn’t ask.”

He snaps his mouth shut, cutting off his lecture about sanitization and how he could lose his license if anybody heard about this. It’s not like he didn’t do his own tattoos in his bathroom when he was 18 years old and thought he knew better than the health department, and it’s not like his apartment is some sort of crack den or anything. Mostly, though, he just doesn’t want to have this argument with Pacifica when she’s clearly determined to do it no matter what he says.

It turns out that his apartment is within walking distance of hers. He shouldn’t be shocked, since most of Gravity Falls is within walking distance of most of the rest of it, but he is, a little. It feels like they should have met sooner.

Mabel isn’t home, which is a blessing. There is no way that she could be normal about this. He doesn’t know where she is, though, or when she’ll be back, so he gestures for Pacifica to follow him to his room.

This is the first time in his life that he’s ever regretted not listening to Mabel when she lectures him about tidying up his room. There’s all sorts of papers and soda cans at varying degrees of fullness littering the surfaces of his desk and his dresser, and he’s got various articles of clothing strewn about the floor.

“Wow, you live like this?”

His embarrassment immediately gives way to annoyance, and he shoots her a glare over his shoulder. “Okay, I don’t have to give you a tattoo just because you’re in my apartment.” Still, he picks up a few pieces of laundry and tosses them into his hamper as they pass. He knows the gun is on his desk somewhere amongst all of the mess.

It takes a few minutes of digging, but he manages to find the tattoo gun his great uncle had bought for him to practice with when he was 17 and decided that he wanted to go into the profession. His parents had not approved, but since when did his parents approve of anything Grunkle Stan did? And it worked out in the end, didn’t it?

Of course, he almost drops it when he turns around to see that Pacifica has taken her jeans off, standing in his room in a t-shirt, underwear, and a flannel she’d stolen from him about two hours ago like it’s the most natural thing in the world for her to be doing. Fortunately,  he’s fumbled a lot of things in his life, so he’s able to catch it before it hits the floor and breaks.

“Um,” he says, his voice at least an octave higher and his face so red it burns. “I guess you can lay on my bed?”

If he wasn’t prepared for the sight of Pacifica half-naked, he’s definitely not prepared for the sight of Pacifica half-naked and laying on her stomach on his bed, her arms folded under her cheek, face turned so she can look at him over her shoulder. “Is the staring a part of the tattoo?” She asks, with a raised eyebrow and a tone that says she definitely knows it is not.

“I’m mapping it out,” he bluffs. He keeps that excuse in the back of his mind as he runs his eyes up and down her legs. Pacifica is not especially tall, but her legs are proportionately long. He can understand the appeal of the tattoo she’s asking for, at least in an abstract sense. If he was her, he’d want to draw attention to his legs, too. And it’s definitely going to draw attention.

He grabs her ankle and pulls her leg into his lap, or at least, he tries to, but she lets out a single snorting laugh and jerks her leg away from him. He raises his eyebrows at her, and she turns her head to hide in her arms and his pillows. “Sorry. Ticklish.”

“Are you sure you wanna do this?” She doesn’t answer him out loud, just nods against her arms and settles her leg in his lap. When he grabs her ankle this time, her muscle barely flexes under his fingers. “This isn’t going to feel great,” he warns.

To Pacifica’s credit, she doesn’t seem to react to the pain very much. When the needle first makes contact with her skin, he hears her hiss through her teeth, but after that she lays as still as anyone who’d gone under the gun a thousand times. The other thing he’ll credit her with is that the design she’s chosen for her first tattoo is extremely simple, all lines and letters. She didn’t give him a specific font, so he writes it in his own handwriting, and he tries not to think about the fact that his handwriting is going to be on Pacifica’s body forever.

When he gets up to the back of her knee, he offers her a break, but he’s a little surprised when she takes it. “Can you get me a glass of water?” She asks, and when he stands, she adds, “Or maybe a beer?” He laughs, which he knows is what she really wanted. Pacifica knows him and Mabel both too well to think there’s beer in their apartment. Mike’s Hard, maybe.

She sits up to drink her water, bending her leg so her calf isn’t against his sheets. He appreciates it, though mostly because he doesn’t know what kinds of germs are on his sheets to cause some sort of infection. When was the last time he washed them?

“Maybe you should let me wash and wrap those before we get started on the second half?” He suggests.

“You’re the expert,” she says with a shrug, and something about it strikes him as odd. It’s only when he gets back with the stuff for it that he realizes she hasn’t made a snarky comment since she took her clothes off.

“Are you doing okay?”

She tilts her head at him, flexing her leg like she’s testing out the muscles. “Yep, everything seems to be working fine,” she confirms. He just stares at her for another second, and he’s not sure if her face falling is because she realizes what he means or she realizes that she can’t pretend she doesn’t know what he means. “I’m okay,” she says.

“But?” He asks. There’s something about her tone… He doesn’t have the words for it, but he can hear it. There’s something wrong.

She heaves a dramatic sigh. “Well fuck, Dipper, can I just say I don’t want to talk about it?”

“Of course you can,” he says, faster than he means to. She doesn’t have to tell him anything that she doesn’t want to. But he’d like her to talk to him.

She stares at him for another second, and then her eyes drift over to his desk, and he feels another surge of embarrassment. He should have tidied it up after he found the tattoo gun, but he was so eager to get back to her, and then she wasn’t wearing any pants and he kind of forgot about everything else. “I still don’t want to get into the whole tragic backstory,” she says with a warning tone, and he holds his hands up in surrender as if he’d asked. “But my parents were—are the worst. And I guess this kinda feels like taking my body back from them. It’s… cathartic. It’s weird.” She laughs.

“I think a lot of people feel that way,” he says. Of course there are always the people who never thought that hard about it, the people who come in on impulse, but more often than not, he sees people who are very conscious of their bodies.

She looks down at the marks on her leg, twisting it around experimentally. “Is this the worst of it?”

“I can’t lie to you, the back of the knee is gonna suck. Like, one of the worst parts of the whole body to get tattooed suck. But it’s all uphill from there.”

“Guess we’d better get it over with then, huh?”

“No going back now,” he agrees. She sets the glass of water down on his end table, still half-full with marks from her lip gloss on the rim.

He holds her leg down against the bed while he works on the back of her knee, and he can feel her push up against it a couple of times. The only thing that keeps him from fucking the tattoo up is his own expertise, but he’s not about to scold her about it, not until it becomes a real issue anyway. That’s the reason that she asked him to do it, anyway, isn’t it? Well, this and his handwriting, he guesses.

He gets so absorbed in the work that he almost doesn’t notice the fact that he’s working his way up Pacifica’s leg, his fingers sinking into the flesh of her thigh. The room is quiet—just the soft buzzing of the tattoo gun and their breathing. Well, mostly Pacifica’s breathing. Dipper’s breathing is never more steady than when he’s working on someone, but his ears catch on every sharp breath and gasp she makes.

“Almost done,” he says in a way that he hopes is reassuring as he works on the last of the lettering under the swell of her ass. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been here—he thinks it can only have been an hour or two. All lines and letters, it seems impossible that it could have taken any time at all. He knows the only reason it feels like any time has passed is that it’s Pacifica he’s working on.

When he pulls away and immediately sets about getting it cleaned and wrapped, he glances up at her face to check in on her again. “Still doing good?”

“Do you worry this much about all of your clients, or is it just because we’re friends?”

“You know, I think that might be the first time you’ve ever admitted out loud that we’re friends,” he teases.

She gives him a curious look—not curious as in she looks curious, but curious as in he has no idea why the fuck she’s looking at him like that. “We’re friends,” she says, voice soft. Something catches in his chest. His breath? His heart? He’s not sure. “Of course we’re friends,” she adds, and he’s suddenly very aware of his hand against the back of her thigh.

He clears his throat and pulls away from her. “I think that’s, um, pretty much all taken care of,” he says, looking anywhere but at her while his cheeks burn. “You can remove the bandage after 24 hours, but make sure to moisturize it whenever you wash it and—” She reaches out to rest a hand on his arm, and his eyes flick over to her.

“Dipper.” She’s sitting up now, her leg bent up again to keep it off his sheets again even though the tattoo is all bandaged up.

He watches her leg slide around so she’s on a knee instead, and he barely has time to look up at her face before it’s right up against his and oh. She’s kissing him. She tastes like coffee and cigarettes and lip gloss, which are all flavors he’s extremely familiar with—some moreso than others. After a second of hesitation, he slides a hand up to cup her jaw while he kisses her back, and she doesn’t waste any time in climbing over him.

“Mnh… Mabel. I didn’t hear Mabel get home, but I don’t know when she’s—”

“She’s not coming home tonight,” Pacifica says hurriedly, her mouth hardly an inch away from his, and he blinks a few times.

He pulls away even though she whines about it. “Pacifica, tell me you didn’t get a tattoo just to seduce me,” he groans.

“I didn’t,” she says, extremely matter-of-factly. “I got a tattoo, and now I’m seducing you.”

“Then how do you know that Mabel isn’t coming home tonight?”

“Because I texted her while you were getting me water. Will you stop talking?” And, well, she doesn’t exactly give him a lot of room to argue. He doesn’t especially want to argue about it, anyway.

When he wakes up in the morning, closer to noon than usual, he hears the shower running in his ensuite bathroom, and it takes him just half a second to figure out who’s in it before he remembers, shit. Oh, shit. He gets up and scrambles to start putting his clothes on, whatever’s closest to the bed regardless of how dirty or clean it might be. He’s got boxers and one leg of jeans on before the bathroom door opens and steam comes rolling out of it.

She’s wrapped up in one of his towels, and that visual alone is enough to make his cheeks flush. (It shouldn’t be. He’s seen her naked, now. He’s done things to her. But it is.) “I was starting to think I killed you,” she teases, and he blinks a few times.

“Huh?” He says dumbly. Then, “Oh. Right. Because I…” He gestures vaguely at the bed behind him, but trails off. He’s staring. He should stop. He doesn’t.

She just stands in the doorway of his bathroom for a long minute, and he wonders if he’s supposed to be doing something here. He doesn’t… It’s not like he’s got no experience here, but he doesn’t have an abundance of it. “Do you like it?” He eventually manages to ask.

She looks confused for a second, and then her eyes drop down to her leg. “Oh.” She turns to let him see it, and the whole thing is visible with the length of the towel. She already took the bandages off, but he can’t find it in him to scold her.

Trailing up her leg are a series of lines with labels like “prude,” “flirty,” and “slut.” When she had told him about the idea, she explained this picture she’d seen circulated on social media a decade ago that had stuck somewhere in the back of her mind since. It was like a reclamation, she’d said. He’s not sure he gets it, but it’s hard not to let his eyes trail up her legs.

“Yeah,” she says eventually. His eyes snap back up to her face guiltily. “Yeah, I think I like it.”

[gilverrwrites]

Meet Cute Uglies

GN!Reader/Black Mask, ≈800 words >[Bruce | Dick | Jason]<

CWs: Swearing, implied threats of violence, mentions of: cheating & messy break ups, vandalism.

There’s a hostage situation taking place with Joker down at the peer, no cop is gonna care about a tiny bit of vandalism. At least, that’s what you tell yourself as you thread your keys through your fingers and ‘casually stroll’ across the street towards your ex’s car.

The lying POS had been cheating on you the whole relationship, sneaking around with the one co-worker he’s told you not to worry about, taking them on dates and fucking them in your shared bed when you were out of town. You’d wanted to keep the break-up amicable, if only to avoid the stress, but he’d been set on making it as messy as possible; airing your dirty laundry, trying to turn your friends and family against you, showing up at your work and causing problems until you snapped and told him that if you ever saw him again; you’d make him regret it.

It had been weeks since you’d last seen him, so you were pretty certain he’d gotten the message. Until today, when you’d spotted his car parked up outside your apartment building. You’d done a double take at first, but no, that was definitely his car. You could recognise it a mile away, a black 79 Mustang, it was a rarity in this day and age, his pride and joy, and it made a very satisfying CREEEAK noise as you dragged the tip of your key along the driver's side door. A sadistic sort of joy washes over you as you circle the vehicle twice over, destruction in your wake, but it’s not enough, not yet. You’re two letters into carving the word ‘CHEATER’ on the bonnet when a voice calls out to you, stopping you cold.

“What the fuck are you doing?” The voice does not belong to your ex. It’s angry, gravelly, Gothamite through and through, and kinda sexy, but you don’t turn to look at them. If it’s a cop, you’re already busted, and if it’s anybody else they should mind their own business.

“Keep walking.” You instruct as you continue on with your masterpiece.

“I don’t fucking think so.” The voice is closer now, you can sense the presence of its owner close behind you, close enough to touch you. Who the hell does this guy think he is?

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you the golden rule of Gotham?” You ask, making light work of the ‘A’. As you move on to the ‘T’ you wonder if you can make it look like a penis. “If you see something; No, you didn’t.”

“I think the only person that needs to be taught a lesson here, is you.” And then he grabs you, a firm, leather-clad hand clutching onto your upper arm and spinning you around to face him. Your keys clatter on the hood of the car.

“What the fuck is your prob- ” Your sentence is cut short as you comprehend who you’ve been arguing with, who currently has you locked in the palm of his hand. It’s an unseemly sigh up close, the mask, skull-shaped and pointy. Its expressionlessness only serves to strike more fear into your heart, but what the hell does Black Mask care about you vandalising your ex’s car for, it’s not like he hasn’t done worse things for less.

“My problem…” He jerks you closer, using your captured arm as leverage until you’re pressed against his chest, his mask inches from your face. Up close he smells like wood and smoke, like fine whisky. “is that’s my car.”

Shit. Shit shit shit.

“No.” It’s a stupid, instinctual response. Your brain is trying to deny your impending doom. If only the ground would open up and swallow you, that would probably be less painful than whatever he has planned. He nods, pointing at the license plate which you hadn’t checked in your moment of rage, and you struggle to peek at it over your shoulder. “I’m sorry?”

It’s a pathetic little squeak of an apology, a pointless plea for leniency that makes him laugh. “Oh, you’re sorry huh?”

“Yeah, see, I didn’t know it was your car. I thought it was my ex’s and he’s such a jerk and… you don’t care.” He neither confirms nor denies, he just continues holding you close. You can see steely eyes boring into you through the eye holes of his mask. “Are you gonna shoot me?”

He laughs again, realising your arm. Before you can make to leave, he presses forward, caging you between his body and the aesthetically destroyed car. Somehow the new position makes you feel just as trapped but more relaxed than the previous. “Haven’t decided yet.”

You’re not sure what he’s debating between, you’re not sure you want to know, but you ask anyway. “Why?”

“Been a long time since anyone had the guts to talk to me like that. It’s cute.” He’s nodding at you, or maybe to himself. “I’m kinda into it.”

[ratsarecute4]

🖼 artsy-arodeth Follow

If you're attracted to halflings you're literally a p3do. I don't care if they're fifty years old or whatever excuse you freaks wanna make. Why are you as an adult attracted to people who look like children?

🎆 furryfeetandbigmeat Follow

Of fucking course its an elf saying this. Also h@lfling is a slur. We're called hobbits you racist shithead

🖼 artsy-arodeth Follow

I'm not a "racist shithead". You realise you're the one who sounds racist, right? What does me being an elf have anything to do with this?

🎆 furryfeetandbigmeat Follow

You just gonna ignore the fact you used a slur? You know what fuck this and fuck you. Hobbits are not children just because we are short. We experience discrimination from big folk all the time who mistake us for children. Every time I leave the Shire I have people like you telling me I can't smoke or drink or have sex. I am 47 years old and I'm tired of being infantilised. I am an adult and I deserve the right to be treated like one. Let hobbits have autonomy

🐎 rohirrimming Follow

LET👏 HOBBITS👏 HAVE👏 AUTONOMY👏

🌅 ficwriterfaolin Follow

Hobbits are literally minor coded, but go off

🐎 rohirrimming Follow

Aren't you the guy who writes incest rpf about the stewards of Gondor?

🌋 cock-and-balrog Follow

LMAOOOOO

🏞 t4tree Follow

OP is a kinslayer btw

🛠 thornlingoldhammer Follow

Anybody in this thread smoke pipe weed?

[aclockmaker]

WIP Wednesday Thursday because if I don’t post something I might die :)

Based on this post

steddie, cw drugs

Find another weed guy, I can’t fuck with you… uhhmm nothing personal I can’t fall in love with another straight guy and you’re Everything I love so if I see you again i’ll never let go of your hand so yeah

Eddie types out the text with one hand, flat in bed, despondent. His other hand is busy laying across his eyes dramatically. He’s squinting out from under it to type. He deletes the message without sending it. Again. He knows he’s going to see Steve again. Aside from everything else, he needs the money. He doesn’t have that many customers. It would be stupid to not go.

Hey man, you free to come by tonight? Steve had texted. Like he was talking to a buddy. Eddie usually sold Steve weed, sometimes shrooms. Sometimes his roommate Robin was there and that made things a little easier. Usually Steve asked and Eddie stayed to smoke and that made things a little worse.

Steve asks today. And Robin isn’t home.

“God, work was—never mind, I don’t even want to bore you with the gory details,” Steve says. He does something in finance, like his dad, and he hates it. Eddie wishes he didn’t know this. “But anyway, I really needed this. Thanks for coming over.”

“You literally pay me,” Eddie reminds him, the last threads of his sanity wearing thin in the face of Steve’s unnecessary niceness, “so.”

“I know, man, but still,” Steve says, pops off his baseball cap and fixes his beautiful hair underneath, tugs it back down. He looks like even more of a jock in the hat and unfortunately it does nothing to kill Eddie’s boner for him. If he’s honest, it’s part of the appeal. Sometimes he literally plays basketball right before calling Eddie, and he answers the door sweaty in low-cut tank tops, thick chest hair on display. “You want a beer?”

Steve drinks terrible beer. Unfortunately Eddie would like to tease him about it and kiss the side of his mouth while introducing him to something decent. “Sure, why not,” Eddie says, because it’s still free beer and also he’s an idiot.

Part of being a dealer is seeing inside people’s lives. Just briefly, though. That’s what you have to remember—you’re the interloper. Eddie delivers all over downtown Indianapolis—does it to put himself through school, slowly. He doesn’t want anybody else like he wants Steve. Has maybe never wanted anybody this much and he’s had his fair share of ill-advised hookups with people he was half in love with who didn’t care about him enough.

It makes it worse (better) that he knows nothing’s ever going to happen with Steve.

Steve hands him a Sam Adams without a trace of embarrassment and Eddie sighs internally, takes a pull.

He gets out the lunch box he deals from out of his bag and puts it on the table. Steve doesn’t like it when he does it right away, like he’s trying to make it fast and get out of there. He’s never said anything, but Eddie can, like, tell. Doesn’t like to make him sad and shit. It seems like his life is kind of—Eddie doesn’t want to say sad, but he never talks about his parents except to say that his dad did such and such new shitty, annoying thing at work, pressured him and made him feel not good enough. He doesn’t say it exactly like that, but Eddie gets the picture. He wants to tell Steve he thinks he’s good enough, and all kinds of other ridiculous shit.

Steve clinks the neck of his beer bottle against Eddie’s and takes a grateful sip. It’s the middle of summer and hot, and even the central air in Steve’s building is struggling to keep up.

“Anything good?” Steve asks, eyeing the bags of drugs Eddie’s pulling out.

“This is decent,” Eddie says, flicking one. “Mostly sativa, but it’s like… friendly. I’ve gotten good feedback.” To be more accurate, one person had texted and asked for the same thing as last time. But still.

“Whatever you say,” Steve says, like always. He’s very easygoing about his drugs. With him it really seems to be more about the journey than the destination.

[kiigan]

Regarding Itachi's illness: (reposting & tweaking from the old blog)

ㅤNothing really ever confirmed in canon, as far as I'm aware? Kinda just called a mysterious illness/possibly a chakra illness whatever that is?? We all know it was just Kishimoto realizing he had to kill Itachi because otherwise he was gonna go toe to toe with Madara and Obito and single-handedly settle the whole mess. Thankfully for us, the fandom is filled with incredibly dedicated people and some have come to a reasonably plausible and evidence-based theory on what this illness could actually be. Disclaimer: none of this is my original work and I'm simply adapting the idea as a headcanon. Sources can be found [here].

⇾ Microscopic Polyangiitis (MPA)

I'm not going to bore anybody with medical jargon, so here's the main points and what's relevant to my portrayal:

MPA is an autoimmune condition. It’s the result of blood vessel inflammation, which can damage organ systems. 

People who have MPA may feel generally ill and fatigued, have a fever, or a loss of appetite and weight. When MPA affects the lungs they may have shortness of breath or cough up of blood. 

Medications that suppress the immune system form the foundation of treatment for MPA. As such, there’s an increased risk of developing serious infections and susceptibility to other diseases.

ㅤIn general, MPA is treatable and, with adequate monitoring and care, may even achieve remission. In other cases, symptoms may fade and return recurrently. In my canon verses, because Itachi was determined to die by Sasuke's hand, he only bothered with minimal care and to keep himself alive for as long as needed (also, let's be honest, it's kinda hard to get proper meds and healthcare when you're a wandering S-ranked criminal). In my canon-divergent and modern verses, Itachi still has to do regular check-ups but he keeps an eye on his meds/treatments and, save for occasional flare-ups, he's at least mildly healthy.

ㅤNote: In my canon verses, I headcanon that Itachi occasionally smokes opium when he is in particularly severe pain from MPA. If the use of drugs for medicinal purposes (or in general!) bothers you, please let me know beforehand and I'll keep this detail out of our threads.

[transandor]

mianite yeah mianite yeah yeah. mianite yeah mianite the indescribable feeling of wanting to belong and then finally finding it and living and thriving and then slowly and horribly realizing you are growing out of it and making the choice that takes you away and now all that is left is the ache of wanting to go back but even if you go back to that place you have changed and they have changed and you cannot fix what time has done for you and you want to go home but home isn't just far away by place anymore, it is years in the before, and you are something and someone different now and so are they and you used to belong. you used to belong, and now you are scared you don't. and whatever that guilt is, that fear, that doubt, that keeps you thinking that it was for the better that you left, because if it happened while you were still there, then you never would have had the good to look back on in the first place. never ending cycles, eons upon eons. you want to belong. you never ever will, because that is what happens when a god brings you back to life, chooses you above the others, gives you a heart and soul in the first place.

anybody in this thread smoke weed

[darlingshane]

under your spell

Joe Teague x F!Reader

Rating: 18+

Warnings/Content: Explicit. 1950s. Smut. Vaginal Sex. Oral Sex. Safe Sex + Unsafe Sex. Smoking. Smoking Weed. Getting High. Breeding Kink. Mention of War. Mention of Murder. Mention of Jasmine. Free Spirited Reader.

WC: 4,5k

Summary: When you woke up a few hours ago, this is the last thing you'd thought you'd be doing. You're always open to adventure, however it presents itself in your life, and today it came in the form of Joe Teague. A beautiful quest you welcome between your legs. 

-- Read below or at AO3.

A/N: I feel like this was going great until I decided to have them smoke a joint, then it got weird, sorry! Still, this is one of my favorite pieces I've ever written.

Detective Teague takes his job back on robbery-homicide after three miserable years dealing with the aftermath of his actions. It's a new decade and Joe is determined on making something better out of himself when he's sent to the boardwalk in the afternoon to investigate a series of robberies that have been happening for a few weeks. The file just landed on his desk and today a new thread of pickpocketing has been reported since early this morning. After taking the statement of three victims and a few witnesses, he lights up a cigarette and leans against a bench, keenly observing the busy activity of the boulevard, checking out the new businesses and houses bringing life to the coast.

You’re the last person Joe expects to see there, mostly because he’s only seen you in the little, gloomy office you work at in the basement of a restaurant. Not the prettiest place to keep a girl like you during the day; it’s what he thinks anyway every time he goes by the office to talk to your boss. You light up the place, though, unlike that little yellow tinted window above your desk that goes directly into an alley. He’s liked you since the moment he set eyes on you. As strange as you could be sometimes, you’re not like anybody he’s ever met. You’re quick to laugh, tease, and speak your mind regardless of consequences, which has gotten you in trouble several times. A real maverick, that’s what he called you once.

Joe is friends with your boss, a private eye. Friends might be a strong word, they've helped each other a handful of times, and they’ve always been friendly. In those few times Joe's been in the office, he’s built a rapport with you while he waited at the reception where your desk sits. A good rapport, he'd say.

Out here, by the beach, as bright as the sun is, you steal its shine, making his day brighter in your skimpy outfit made out of short shorts, a blouse tied at your waist with the top buttons open, showing some cleavage, and a pair of wedges. He has to check you out twice to make sure that’s you. There’s a camera strapped around your neck, and you're very concentrated in taking pictures of your surroundings. A tiny dog on a leash interrupts you when its owner stops nearby and the little thing starts licking your ankle. It puts a smile on his face, seeing you laughing out loud and crouching to pet the dog.

When you come back up, your head swivels, searching for something else to shoot, and you start pushing one foot after the other, aimlessly.

Joe puts his cigarette out on the pavement and watches you delighted as you walk in his direction, albeit unaware of his presence.

“Say, sweetheart,” he utters as you get closer, “did the boss finally let you out of that dingy office?”

You stop in your tracks, snort, and glance at the detective as he takes off his hat.

“It's my day off, detective,” you shrug and close the distance between you and him, “I can do whatever I want. What brings the likeness of you here?”

“An investigation.”

“Hmm.”

“You know how to take pictures?” he points at your camera

“Uh-hmm.”

“Come here often?”

“Not really. Why?”

“There's been a series of robberies. Though I ask if you've seen anything.”

“I wouldn't know… I've only been here a few times,” you pause, and quip, “but who knows, maybe I like to rob people in my free time. Have you thought about that?”

Entertained by your idea, his lips curve up shyly, “with that outfit? I doubt it. Where are you keeping your stash, sweetheart?”

“What’s wrong with my outfit?” You huff, quickly glancing down at your body.

“Nothing, but it doesn’t have much space to tuck anything other than that set of keys you got in your pocket. And I don’t see you carrying a bag.”

True, he has a good eye, you only have a set of keys in your right pocket.

“So you’re saying you like my outfit, Detective Teague?” You playfully raise a brow. You really can't help yourself. Teasing him like that comes out so easily that you don't even think about the words your mouth produces.

“It suits you better than those pantsuits you wear for work,” his eyes run up and down your body.

“Didn't know you were such a fashionista. Why do you care about what I wear?”

His little smirk gives away part of his thoughts. He is utterly taken with you and would rather see you with no clothes at all.

“You always bring your camera with you?” he changes the subject.

You nod. “Are you going to put me to work on my day off?”

“No, sweetheart, but maybe you could show me your pictures? See if you've captured the perp? I got a description, but it'd really help to have his face. You take photos of people?”

“I do… I guess you could see them, but I have one condition.”

“Of course, you do. What's going to cost me this time?”

“Nothing. You just have to let me take your picture.”

“Why?” He scoffs, turning his head bashfully to the side for a beat.

“I like your face,” you respond without hesitation.

“This old mug with a broken nose?” he gazes at you, raising his brow.

“It's a good nose,” you assure him, and as you do you check him out using the viewfinder of your camera to figure out the best shot of the defined edges of his face. It's very characteristic, you believe; a rough kind of handsome. He has texture on his cheekbones, deep creases on his brow, a sun spot below his left eye, and a small healed cut at the bow of his lip. All of it is just equally beautiful, but not as much as his brown eyes that bleed war, compassion, and mystery. They sometimes spark up when you quip, and crinkle at the corners when he laughs. He doesn't do it often, but when he does, it makes your heart flutter.

Joe swallows nervously and turns his head to the side, showcasing his profile. He has the ocean at his back now, framing the picture perfectly.

“Stay there, detective,” you order, and he stays still as you center your shot before capturing him in film.“That's it. See, it wasn't so bad,” you finish, covering the lenses of your camera.

“Guess not,” he scoffs, placing the hat back on his head, pulling the brim low.

“It's gonna be a great addition to my wall, you'll see,” you add, casually hooking your arm around his elbow, holding his bicep with your opposite hand.

He lets you guide him through the crowd, heading towards the parking lot.

His car follows yours as you take him to your apartment downtown. Then he climbs up the staircase behind you, watching the slinking of your hips and the beautiful shape of your ass, hugged by the fabric. He notices a little birthmark at the back of your thigh that looks like an anchor. He wants to reach out and touch it, just for the sake of feeling your skin on his palm. Something tells him, you wouldn't mind if he did.

“I'm not a slob, I swear,” you excuse yourself for the mess of your apartment when you open the door, “I had some friends over last night for a little soirée.”

It's not even that messy, but lived-in, and bohemian. Unlike Joe's apartment, that's all white and grey basics, yours is like stepping into what he imagined your mind would look like— disorganized but honest, vibrant, and full of wonders. The air smells like incense. There are colors everywhere, pillows on the floor around a coffee table, over a huge green rug. There's a few empty glasses and a bottle of wine almost empty. A dirty ashtray. A guitar on the armchair. A few plants in the corner underneath the window. Strange pieces of suggestive art, from photos to paintings to all sorts of trinkets, to a bust of a woman sculptured in a metal alloy as a centerpiece on the dining table. Behind that table, there's a wall displaying a wide selection of your photographs. It's mostly a hobby, but you’ve sold some to a few publications.

“It's not that bad,” he glances around with wonder as you take off your wedges, “where did you get all this?”

“Flea markets, rummage sales, traveling souvenirs… you name it,” you explain as you take his jacket and hat from his hands, and tuck them in the closet, “some are gifts. You like them?”

He shrugs, lacking a response. He's still taking it all in. He does like it, but he doesn't quite understand it yet. It's like he just traveled into another country and is taking his time adjusting to a new culture.

You let him stare while you tidy the place a little, picking up the dirty glasses and ashtray from the table and taking them to the sink. Afterwards, the pillows are stacked on the couch.

Your mouth curves into a grin, seeing him thoroughly scanning the painting of a semi-naked woman riding a crescent moon across a starry sky.

“You like that one, huh?”

“I've never seen anything like it,” he utters under a heavy breath, without looking at you.

“You need to go out more and work less, Joe,” from behind, you prop your chin on his shoulder to stare at that same piece of art.

“I go out plenty. I've gone to a burlesque twice.”

“Business or pleasure?”

“Business,” his head sinks into a shrug, “okay, maybe you're right. I need to get out more.”

“You didn't come here to look at pictures, did you, Joe?” you gather.

He turns around slowly, as you move your head away from his shoulder.

“I uh, no, I don't know why I said that. I just… I wanna see what you do anyway.”

“You could've just said you wanted to get some trim,” you express boldly, “I wouldn't have minded.”

“It's not just that.”

“No? What feels better than having sex with someone you like?” you dangerously tighten the distance, intimidating the broad detective a little.

It's fun to see him shaking in his boots at your hauteur. You knew you’re one of Joe’s weaknesses, you just didn't know how badly he wanted you.

“Guess I thought I could take you out for a date first,” his head leans to the side, quickly running his tongue over his bottom lip.

“Oh, I don't date. I'm way past that. You don’t have to butter me up, detective. You want me? Just say so.”

“You're not like any girl I've met,” he smirks, cupping your face, eyes darkening by the second.

“I bet. What kind of girl do you think I am?”

“I’m not sure… but you're bold and honest. You're not afraid of saying what's in your mind. You're not scripted like every damn fool in this town. You're passionate and smart. I love how you can laugh without any worry in the world… looking at all this, here, it seems that you've lived nine different lives, like a cat,” hearing him say that makes you brightly smile, “and you're so, so beautiful, sweetheart. It hurts looking at you. What kind of girl do I think you are, you ask? I don’t know. I didn't think someone like you existed.”

“What are you gonna do about it?”

He mumbles some sort of “dunno” in between breaths, and gazes at your lips before having the tip of his nose nudging yours as he leans closer to steal a kiss from your lips to prove that you're not something his imagination has concocted. You must be real, cause his mind doesn't expand that far to create something as exquisite as you are. Even in his travels during war, he never got to see the wonders of the world like some of his fellow soldiers did. He stuck to his task, and that kept him and his platoon alive. If he hadn't, he wouldn't be here on this particular day, getting to explore the warm surface of your delicious red lips. It’s your tongue that misbehaves after a moment to poke at his mouth. He welcomes you with hunger, massaging your tongue as you blindly undo the knot of his tie with practiced ease.

This is far better than he ever imagined. The taste of your kiss and the way your hands tug at his clothes makes his cock swell and twitch in his pants harder than when he’s left to his own devices. Joe can’t help but sigh heavily against your mouth, and you smile to yourself at how easy it’s having wrapped around your finger like that. You want him wrapped around your legs instead. So, you part from his lips and order him to take off his shoulder holster and shirt, and he obeys. He carefully places his weapon on the table, and tosses his shirt on the chair along his tie. Left with a white tank top, you smooth your palm along the USMC tattoo adorning his bicep.

“Wanna see my tattoos?” You ask, and his head quickly responds with a nod.

Across the beaded curtain hanging over the archway separating the living room from your bedroom, colors flow naturally from one space to another as you turn to him and start unknotting your blouse under his most curious stare. His Adam’s apple bobs as you reveal the stunning Goddess tattoo that guards your rib cage. She’s kneeled right between your breasts, wearing her signature headdress, with her arms and wings spread wide, highlighting the shape of either of your boobs. There’s no bra covering your chest, just her and your skin turning into goose flesh as you toss your shirt aside.

“Now you,” you stand determined, in front of him, half bared and excited for what comes next.

He swallows, taken by the beauty of your body, and resumes revealing the rest of his torso, pulling his undershirt over his head.

Piece after piece, you unveil each of your bodies like an unspoken invocation between your sex and his. He’s already hard, you’re already wet.

He reaches gently to brush his thumb across the second tattoo he discovers printed on your hip of a small rose.

His gaze, pulled low, is drowned in lust and warmth that spreads over the surface of your skin as he asks, “and who is this lovely lady?” touching softly the beautiful companion inked to your skin.

“That is Great Mother Isis, ancient Egyptian Goddess of fertility and motherhood,” you let out a shaky breath, as he traces the lines across your stomach, “protector of women, bringer of magic, healing, death and rebirth…. Among many other things,” you state facts, half shivering at his touch, “some believed she was the queen of the universe.”

“Do you believe any of that, sweetheart?”

“No. I just like what she represents. She makes me feel strong and capable and beautiful.”

His eyes are lifted to yours, “you’re all that and more, you know?”

“Oh, you have no idea, my sweet, Joe,” your face splits into a grin before having him laying down on your mattress.

You climb on top of him, extending his arms above his head, pinning his wrists beneath your palms as your sexes meet in the middle. He groans at the slickness of your folds covering the hard velvet of his hefty length. Holding his hands and leaning closer, you rotate your hips–   grinding, rubbing, and stimulating that little, hard nub tying your folds with passion.

In sex, you like taking charge, at least the first encounter, and discover how men respond and grow weak to your irresistible charms. Some resist your dominance and prefer showing you who's boss instead. Not Joe Teague. He's already under your spell, and welcomes anything you wanna do with him. You could eat his heart for all he cares.

There's a red box of Trojans tucked in one of the drawers of your nightstand. Extending one hand, you open the drawer and collect one rubber. Joe glances at your hands as you straighten your torso, and free the condom from the beige band keeping it folded.

“You don't wanna tempt the Goddess of fertility, huh?”

“Not just yet,” you scoff, and scoot backwards to sheath that alluring full length that Joe shows with pride, throbbing in your hands.

When you woke up a few hours ago, this is the last thing you'd thought you'd be doing. You're always open to adventure, however it presents itself in your life, and today it came in the form of Joe Teague. A beautiful quest you welcome between your legs. You brace your palms to his chest, after letting him breach your opening, and move your hips tentatively, exploring how deep he can reach as you sink slowly onto his stately erection that fills you up to the hilt. It's a strange sensation at first, and it takes you a moment to get used to his size before letting your hips rock back and forth.

Joe holds your hips, and watches you, enraptured by the sensuality of your moves. He's never seen or felt anything quite like it. Not even at that burlesque show, yet again he wasn't paying much heed. Unlike now, you earn his undivided attention. It's surprising to him, he hasn't spilled out yet after months without getting his cock wet. He doesn't wanna disappoint you and focuses on your beauty instead, trying to commit to memory the way your body curves, arches, and chases that thrill stuck in your center coiling like a serpent, wanting to get out of its trap.

He adores the way your mouth turns into a perfect O, and the symphony of moans that freely escapes that same shape between curses and pants. He loses his mind when you bring your hands to your breasts and touch yourself with unrestrained devotion for your own body. God, if only his mouth could be one of those hands, he'd suck on your perfect puckered nipples until there was nothing left of you and him.

Lust consumes you, and as you reach that sweet point he watches your fingers trail down your stomach and slip between your folds to massage the crucial spot that takes care of having your walls flutter around him, and force a strangled moan out of your throat. As you hold yourself from crashing on top of him, he ejaculates in the rubber with a deep grunt, shutting his eyes, squeezing the hell out of your hips as he's overcome by one of the best orgasms he's ever experienced.

Joe doesn't register for a moment when the weight of you moves away from him to lay by his side. He’s in cloud nine, basking in the joy that freely runs through his body. It's only when his eyes open that he finds you resting on your back, staring at the ceiling with one satisfied smile.

He catches his breath before framing your chin and kissing your cheek, warmly and sweetly. No one has ever made him feel this way, not even his ex-wife. As you pointed out, he doesn't get out much these days, let alone date. He wants to, though. He’s been alone for way too long. Three years since he put Jasmine on a train. One year since that hookup with that waitress from the diner near his apartment. And now you. Wonderful, Goddess, you, that easily tore apart that wall and took him to a higher place.

“I'm gonna get some water. Want something to drink, hon?” You prop yourself on one elbow and caress his jaw, “I got coffee, tea, juice, wine…”

Joe clears his throat and nods, “water's fine. Thank you, sweetheart.”

As you leave the bed to gather your much-needed refreshment, he removes the rubber of his softened length, ties it up and lets it fall on the floor near his side to pick up later. Unable to move much from that position, he drags a sheet to cover his lower half, bringing one of the corners up to his nose to inhale the scent of you left on the fabric.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he raises his voice slightly for you to hear from the kitchen, “can you get the  pack of smokes from my jacket?”

You decide to go against his request to have him try one of yours instead. You hand him a glass filled with water and ice as he slightly reclines against the headboard. Then, you collect a small metal case from your dresser. It's half filled with a very special kind of cigarette made out of weed.

You light one up, and pass it to Joe, “try this.”

“Is this a reefer?” he pegs you a stern look, holding the thing as if it was about to explode in his hand, “you know I'm a cop.”

“Shoot, sometimes I forget that you are,” you crack up, kneeling on the mattress between his legs, “c'mon, try it out. It's better than that crap you smoke. Besides, you work on robbery, right? What does it matter? Are you going to narc on me?”

He shakes his head, amused, “you're full of surprises, sweetheart.”

“I know,” you shrug nonchalantly, then lean closer to his hand and take a slow puff from the joint to show him how it's done, “hmm, are you going to join me or not?”

His brow creases, looking at the cigarette between his fingers one more time as the distinctive smell infiltrates his nose before bringing it up to his lips.

“You're a bad influence,” he exhales after a moment, letting the smoke out.

You press your teeth to your bottom lip, watching him take another hit.

“How does it feel?”

“Dunno. You tell me, how’s it supposed to feel?”

“It’s meant to relax you and make you feel good,” you take it from his hand and have another puff.

“I feel the same.”

“Give it a moment.”

You adjust your position, ending up straddling his lap, with a sheet shielding his body from yours. You pass the reefer back and forth, sharing the same breaths and smoke from one mouth to another in between kisses, until he’s high as a kite.

He’s having a moment of intense joy as he brushes his lips along one of your arms, inhaling deeply the scent of your skin, intoxicating himself further from you.

“I wanna marry you,” he hums, reaching the crook of your neck, making you laugh.

“You’re high.”

“Yeah, but I’m still going to wed you, so I can kiss you, and fuck you, and eat you, every day. What do you say, sweetheart? Do you wanna marry me?”

“Hmm, no. I won’t ever ever be tied to you or anyone, Joe.”

“I thought you wanted me?” his head pulls back to look at you with a dopey smile.

“I do want you, but I don’t wanna belong to you.”

“You won’t.”

“Yeah, that’s how marriage works, hon.”

“But I love you more than anything in the world,” he insists, gripping to that fixation his mind is latching to.

“You don’t, baby. It’s the love weed talking. Ask me again tomorrow when you’re not high, okay?” You prop your forehead against his, and his stare saddens the longer you say no to him.

You know the sentiment quite well. It takes longer to affect you, but it’s starting to get a grip of you, too. You’d have said yes, had he asked three minutes later.

“Tell me a secret, Joe,” you whisper, trying to get out of that marriage trap he’s set.

“I uh… I don’t know,” he swallows, floating between the sea of thoughts tangled in his brain, picking up the first one he sees, “I killed somebody in cold blood.”

“Did they deserve it?”

“Probably not.”

“Why did you do it?” you wedge his ears between your fingers.

“He was going to get somebody killed. Somebody I cared about.”

“Then he deserved it.”

“Yeah, he did,” his mind changes. “I’d kill for you, too.”

“I know you would,” you breathe out, enticed by the passion in his statement, “wanna find out how good it feels to fuck like this?”

“Yeah,” his lips beautifully quirk up, “yeah, I wanna.”

You let him take the reins this time, and he places you down on your back, so he can worship your body with his hands and lips. He bathes you in kisses and caresses, licks your nipples with ardor before having his tongue deeply exploring every inch of your center. He then sucks your clit between his lips and steals an unexpected orgasm that has you floating even higher than you are right now. The ceiling spins as he climbs to your side, and claims your lips with such hunger it almost hurts.

“I wanna put a baby inside you,” he breaks the kiss and places a palm on your lower abdomen.

“You can’t ask me that,” you snort.

“I’m not,” one of his fingers points at the tattoo between your breasts, “she’s the one asking. The Goddess of motherhood is telling me you should carry my baby, that I should protect you both with my life.”

You shake your head, remembering the first time you got fucked up like that, or parts of it at least.

“Listen,” he utters quietly, “she’s saying it again.”

You look down at your stomach, that magically swells under his palm. Oh god, you’re totally out of it right now.

“You hear her?”

You nod, and press your nose against his cheek for a long moment, feeling your heart racing, before letting your lips meet again.

Navigating those feelings that come attached to smoking weed usually come easier than today. It could be the effect Joe has on you. He was already in your heart, the drug is just enhancing that emotion, making you feel things strongly the longer he kisses you and touches you like that.

This you might regret in a few hours when it passes, but as you get lost in the depth of his mouth you let him nestle between your legs, slip inside you without a rubber, and he slowly makes love to you with such raw intensity you tear up, seeing how desperately he needs this right now.

“Are we really doing this?” he pants over your lips, “are we making a baby?”

“Yeah, hon, we are,” you moan at how good his bare length feels inside you.

“Oh God, I love you so much, sweetheart” he says back, overcome by the rush of procreating with you.

“Love you, Joe,” you close your eyes as your walls start fluttering again.

“I promise I’m gonna take care of you.”

“I know… I know…” your breath comes out strained as you give into the third orgasm that runs wildly through your body. You shudder and cling to him harder than before as he coats your tender walls with his seed, “shh, don’t move Joe… stay right there, honey,” your palms are gripping on his butt, keeping him deeply buried inside you, letting yourself soak in his load.

[jenohi]

Let Me Love You

"Smoke and Mirrors keep us waiting on a miracle."

“My cousin Y/N is transferring here to SMU. My parents asked me to stay with her and take care of her, so she and I decided to share an apartment. I know we planned to stay here for all 4 years of college but my parents were adamant.” Taeil said to his friends apologetically.

Yuta got up from the table and scoffed. He would never openly admit it to anybody but in the past year he had gotten really attached to his friends, the members of their new secret society, NCT. After their first semester, they had agreed to rent a house together on the edge of campus that they would all stay in for the next seven semesters of university. “How old is she? 12? She’s a university student, why does she need to be babysat by you?”

The other members eyed Yuta wearily, he definitely had the shortest temper out of all of them. After a long pause, Taeyong decided on a resolution. “That’s okay Taeil, we understand. Just remember we’ll always have a room open for you. You’re still a member of NCT. Every Sunday at 8 we’ll still meet here if that works for everybody?”

Taeyong looked around the table and was satisfied when everybody nodded, the last person he saw was Yuta. Yuta wasn’t happy about this, but he knew it wasn’t really his place to tell his friend not to move out. So eventually, he nodded his head in agreement as well and Taeyong smiled. He didn’t see it but Taeil smiled and breathed a sigh of relief as well.

‘In all 21 years of my life, I have never met someone as infuriating as Nakamoto Yuta.’ You thought as you tossed the left over trash from your cousin and his teammate, friend? You weren't exactly sure what their relationship was. When the Moon cousins had initially agreed to share an apartment together in the city just outside their university, the last thing You expected was to have to deal with a constant stream of rowdy boys constantly going in and out of their apartment.

After piling all the leftover dishes into the sink, You turned on the faucet and began to start washing the dishes. You only looked up and smiled when Taeil spoke to you, about to leave their place “Hey Y/N, thanks for making us dinner. It was really yummy!”

Yuta didn’t say anything. He could sense that You always had some kind of edge against him. It bothered him a little bit, but not enough for him to do anything about it. Whenever he came to hang out with Taeil at his place, you usually stayed out of the way so although your presence may have been uncomfortable. It had never outright inconvenienced him.

Once the two had left, You made your way to the balcony of their apartment. You shrieked when you breathed in the remnants of the cigarette smoke in the air. You looked down to see two cigarette butts in the ashtray that had not been properly snuffed out. You picked them up and tossed them on the ground and stomped on them to snuff them out.

You didn’t have an issue with smoking, you even smoked a cigarette or two in the times you were most stressed out but there were few things you hated more than the smell of cigarettes. After snuffing out the butts, you stormed back into the apartment and picked up your phone to call Taeil.

“Hey, I thought I told you to make sure you take care of the cigarettes and the smell when you’re done smoking them!” You yelled into the phone as soon as your cousin answered. “Look, I don’t have an issue with it, but I don’t want to accidentally burn down our entire apartment complex and you know I hate the smell when you smoke too much.”

You stopped your rant when you realized your cousin hadn’t said anything. Taeil was sweet and usually he would have said something to apologize by now. You looked down at your phone, his name was on the caller ID. You brought the phone back up to your ear “Taeil?”

“Not Taeil. This is Yuta.”

“Yuta? Where’s Taeil? Why are you answering his phone? Can you put him on the line?”

There was a pause, You could hear vague mutterings from the phone before Yuta’s voice was back on the line. “Taeil’s busy right now.”

You heard a groan that sounded like someone got hit and then a bunch of voices that followed in an ‘ooh’. Then you heard a voice that sounded suspiciously like your cousin scream. “Is that Taeil? Is he okay?”

“I’ll let him know you called. I gotta go now. Bye.” Yuta said quickly, trying to end the conversation.

“Wait!” You shrieked before he could hang up. “What’s going on? Where are you guys?”

You narrowed your eyes as you heard Yuta scoff into the phone “your cousin Taeil is a grown-ass man. You don’t have to worry about him alright?”

“But-”

“Are you busy tonight?”

“What?”

“There’s a party tonight at my house. Come, starts at 11:30 PM.”

“No, I don’t want to go to a party. It’s a Tuesday! Is Taeil okay? That sounded like him earlier.”

“If you want to check on your beloved cousin, come to my party. He’ll be there. Loosen up a little bit, it’ll be fun.”

“Um, I’ll think about it.”

“Great.” Yuta said, hanging up before You could say anything else. You stared at your phone, what in the world had just happened? You looked at the clock to see that it was 10:30. You had an hour to decide if you would actually go to the party or not. Who else was going to be there?

You didn’t know very many people since you had just transferred to SMU, so maybe it was a good idea to go to this party and socialize a little bit. You could take the opportunity to potentially make some friends.

Just as You was about to finish touching up your make-up, your phone pinged. You picked it up to see that it was an address from an unknown number. You tapped on the address to see where it was, as you were doing so, you saw a notification of another message. ‘This is Yuta btw.’

The house was on the very edge of campus and close enough that you could just walk there. You were surprised to see that there were already crowds of people both inside and outside the house. There were colorful lights flashing from outside the house.

‘How the heck am I actually supposed to meet anybody like this?’ You asked herself. You took a deep breath and made her way up the stairs and into the packed house. You threaded through the crowd of people dawdling in the foyer, pushing her way to find some space. Eventually, you made her way into the kitchen and breathed a sigh of relief once you had some space to herself.

There was a whole bunch of opened bottles of alcohol and stacks of cups laid out on the island in the middle of the kitchen. You moved closer to the island and started reading the labels of the bottles. In Germany you didn’t go to very many parties, if you wanted to drink you would just go to the bar and order a beer. But you didn’t see any kind of drink you recognized here.

“Do you need help?” a melodic voice asked her. You turned around to see a fairy like girl approach her. You didn’t say anything as the girl grabbed the cup from her hand.

“Do you like Coca Cola?” the girl asked. You nodded and you grabbed a large glass bottle and started pouring the liquid into the plastic cup and then you grabbed the large bottle of Coca Cola resting on the island and poured it into the cup before handing the cup back to You.

“I’m Selena by the way.” Now that You could see her up close, she really did look like a fairy. You didn’t comment on the fact that her hair seemed kinda messy or that her lipstick was obviously smeared.

“Nice to meet you Selena, I’m You.”

Just as Selena was about to respond, a pair of arms wrapped around her waist effectively cutting off the conversation. You were shocked to see that it was Taeil who had his arms wrapped around Selena, he was currently whispering something into her ear that made her giggle.

When Taeil looked up, his eyebrows jumped up to see You standing there. “Hey Y/N, I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Uh yeah, it was kind of last minute. Yuta invited me actually.”

At this, Taeil’s eyebrows rose even higher. He knew that the two had always been at odds with each other. “Yuta?”

As if he were summoned by the devil himself, Yuta appeared in the kitchen. He strode over to the other side of the kitchen island and started digging through the bottles. Cursing when he couldn’t find whatever bottle he was looking for. He paused when he spotted the drink in You’s hand.

“What are you drinking?” he asked. His eyes looked up, one side of his lips pulling up into a smirk when he recognized You. “So the prissy princess finally decided to show her face to the lowly commoners.”

“I’m not a prissy princess.” You said. You looked down at your cup and then over at Selena, you had no idea what drink the girl had made for you.

“Sorry Yuta. I used the last of the rum to make her a rum and coke.” Selena said, a smirk painted on her face. You tried not to appear too nosy when you looked over at Selena to see her leaning into Taeil. Did Taeil have a girlfriend that You didn’t know about?

It was obvious that Yuta was dissatisfied. He stared you down and when you finally turned your attention to him, he looked down at the drink. “Are you going to drink that?”

You looked down at the cup again, startled, then looked back up at Yuta. “Uh, yeah but you can have some if you’d like.”

You handed him your red solo cup over the kitchen island. Yuta plucked it from your hand and took a slug of it before dropping it back into your hand. “It's good. Try it.”

He drank a lot, half of the cup was empty. You lifted the cup to your face and took a sip, you tried not to make a face as you tasted the bitter rum. This is what people drank at parties?

“What do you think?”

“It’s alright.” You said. It tasted horrible and you didn’t want it anymore. But you didn’t want to offend Selena.

“Liar.” Yuta said, he scoffed as he grabbed the cup from your hands and drank the rest of it.

“I’m not lying!” You said, looking over to make sure you didn’t offend Selena. You were shocked to see that Selena and your cousin had disappeared. “Okay, maybe I lied a little bit.”

Yuta tossed his head back and laughed. “Loosen up. You look so uncomfortable. This is a party, go have fun.”

“I’ve never been to a party before. Everyone is already so...drunk.” You said.

Suddenly everything made sense to Yuta, why the darn girl was always so uptight and prissy all the time. He made his way around the kitchen island and stood in front of You before placing one arm on each side of you and leaning down “they didn’t have parties back wherever you came from?”

What was he doing? You thought. You leaned back as far as you could, the expression on Yuta’s face was smug and you weren't sure what he was going to do. Out of all of Taeil’s friends, you heard that Yuta was the wildest and most spontaneous. “In Germany we just go to bars and drink beer. I’ve never gone to an event so...wild.”

“You think this is wild?” Yuta asked. “Have you checked out the basement yet?”

You shook your head. Yuta grinned, almost maniacally and grabbed one of your wrists and tugged you behind him, pulling you through crowds of people. Unlike how you had to push your way between groups of people earlier, the crowds seemed to part for Yuta and wherever he went eyes followed him.

Instead of pulling you downstairs like you expected, he pulled you up a set of stairs and pulled you into an empty room. You took a few deep breaths to calm yourself down. Both You and Yuta could tell that you had been tense and uncomfortable since you had stepped into the house.

“Pick your poison.” Yuta said, pulling open a fridge he had set aside in the corner of his room. “These are all my drinks. This is the good stuff that we don’t share at parties.”

“Wow, you’re letting me have exclusive access?” You said, in an almost mocking tone. Yuta raised an eyebrow.

You bent down to look to see what was in the fridge. You smiled in delight when you saw your favorite brand of beer. You grabbed a bottle and held it against the edge of the fridge and smacked the top with your hand to take off the cap. Yuta didn’t say anything but he was impressed, this was the first time he had seen You behave this way.

Yuta couldn’t say anything when You tossed your head back to take a sip of beer. You made it look like a beer commercial. After a couple more delicate sips, Yuta grabbed one of your arms and pulled you close so that you stood in between his legs and your ear was right up against his mouth.

“Chug it.” he said. You looked at him with your eyebrows raised. Yuta raised his eyebrows in return.

You shouldn’t chug it. That would be unclassy. You thought. But why did you kind of want to? You looked Yuta in the eyes and narrowed your eyes, what was he playing at? The corner of Yuta’s lips pulled up into his trademark smirk as he opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of the same beer and used his teeth to pop the top off.

Yuta pulled the bottle you drank from out of his hand and replaced it with the one you just opened. He put your already opened one on the desk and grabbed another one before biting on the cap again and spitting out the cap. He clinked the two newly opened bottles together, and lifted his bottle up to his lips.

“I’ll do it with you.” Yuta said.

With the bottle at his lips, Yuta gave you the most taunting expression. He was challenging you, and You never refused a challenge. You brought your bottle to your lips and started pouring the beer back down your throat.

Yuta was both mildly surprised and mildly amused to see how quickly You had finished your beer. In fact, you had finished your bottle before he had finished his. As soon as you finished your first bottle, he picked up the bottle you drank from earlier that was sitting on his desk and handed it to your.

You gave him a look before placing down the bottle you had finished and taking the one you had drank from earlier and tossing it back down your throat as well.

Two beers wasn’t enough to get you blackout drunk. But it was certainly enough for you to start feeling a buzz.

Yuta waited for you to finish your second beer and once you did he took the bottle from you and grinned at you. You grinned back like a loon and with a satisfied grin Yuta grabbed your wrist again and pulled you behind him.

This time, he did pull you down to the basement. And it was wild. It was dark and the lights were colorful. There were people everywhere and this time people did not part for Yuta. People were dancing, or wobbling goofily. The sight was amusing.

You didn’t even notice that you had let go of Yuta’s hand. You found yourself swaying along to the loud beats of the song. You didn’t know who was around you or exactly where you were but you were having fun. Honestly, it was kind of gross as it was super hot and there were at least 5 people pressed up against you but never had you let herself experience this kind of situation.

Yuta cursed when he noticed that You were no longer with him. You would be fine on your own right? He needed to find Taeyong and take care of some things really quick.

You spotted Taeil near a makeshift bar and grinned, you pushed through the people and made your way over to him grinning. He grinned back and waved at you. When you were close enough, he approached you “are you having fun?”

You nodded, dancing along to the beat. “I didn’t think I would but I’m actually enjoying this. I could use a drink though, it’s kind of hot down here.”

Taeil nodded and brought out another red solo cup. “The only thing we have down here is jungle juice. It’s pretty much just cheap wine with juice, but it does the job.”

You took a sip and was delighted to find that it tasted pretty much just like juice and you drank the rest of the cup and before handing it back to Taeil for him to refill. The surprise was evident on his face “I didn’t know you liked these kinds of events. I should have invited you earlier.”

“No it’s okay. I’ve never really been to an event like this before and I don’t think I’d like it. But today I am loosening up.” You declared. You grabbed the cup and wandered off into the crowd of people.

The alcohol was starting to hit you and the people around you were starting to blur. You suddenly felt nauseous when you felt someone grab you by the wrist and jerk you around. When you looked up you saw that it was Yuta.

“Yuta!”

“What’s that in your hand? Where did you get that?” he asked. He tried to grab the cup from you but you kept moving it away from him. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to accept drinks from strangers? Are you stupid?”

You shoved him away, shocked into sobriety by his words. You moved to walk away from him. You thought maybe you had read Yuta wrong and maybe he wasn’t so infuriating but actually he was infuriating and a jerk.

Undeterred, Yuta followed you and grabbed your again. This time he did manage to grab the cup from your hands and he tossed it in a trash can that was sitting in the corner of the basement.

“Hey! What are you doing?” You shrieked.

“What are you doing? Where did you get that drink? It could be roofied.” he yelled.

“What is your problem? I got that from Taeil. You know? My cousin?” You yelled back. This time Yuta had no words. You rolled your eyes and scoffed, you placed both hands on his chest and leaned close to speak in his ear.

“Get lost.”

You used both hands to push him back into the crowd and stepped away from him. You found the staircase that led you back to the main floor and made your way up. This isn't fun anymore. The party was over. Taeil was fine.

“What’s your problem?” Yuta yelled from behind you. You whirled around him and stomped back to him and stood so that you were standing right in front of him nose to nose.

“No. What’s your problem? You invited me to this party. You gave me a drink too! Why are you overreacting over Taeil giving me a drink?”

He followed you out of the NCT house. “Aw, did I make the prissy princess upset? I’m so sorry. Whatever will I do?”

“What’s wrong with you?” You screamed once you were both far enough from the NCT house. You were incredibly irritated, tired, and frustrated.

“What do you have against me? Ever since you’ve arrived at SMU all you’ve done is be such a bitch. To me. And specifically me. Trust me, I’ve noticed.”

You paused. You didn’t realize that Yuta had noticed. You looked away and tried to think of what to say. You couldn’t come up with the right thing to say so you just settled with “sorry.”

“Sorry? You think I’m gonna let you get off with a sorry?” Yuta scoffed. He walked up to you this time, and looked down at you.

“What do you want then?” You asked, not backing down.

“You.” Yuta said, and for a moment it was dead silent. Then Yuta threw his head back and cackled. “That’s what you thought I was gonna say right?”

He didn’t even notice that you had turned around and stormed off back towards the direction of your apartment. He followed you back to your apartment, but he didn’t bother to chase after you. He strolled casually back towards your apartment jingling your keys in his pocket.

As soon as you reached your apartment and reached into your pocket for your keys you cursed when you realized they weren’t on you. You patted your other pockets and fished out your phone hoping that Taeil was still awake. You dialed his number.

“Looking for these?” You heard Yuta say from behind you as he jingled your keys in front of your face.

Just as you reached up to snatch them from him, he moved to hold them behind his back.

“Give those back to me. I want to go home and sleep. This night sucks.”

“No.”

You whined. “Why?”

“Tell me what I did wrong.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m sorry for being a bitch can I have my keys back?”

Yuta looked unimpressed.

“Fine. I’ll tell you why I’ve been rude to you, but can we do it inside? You’ll probably think it’s really stupid once you hear.”

“Okay. Move.”

You moved away from the door, and watched as he unlocked the door and pushed it open. You stepped inside when he gestured for you to go in. He stepped in after you and shut the door behind you both as you both took off your shoes and stepped into the apartment. Once the two of you were situated on opposite ends of the couch facing each other you spoke.

“The first few times you visited our apartment I got the impression that you were upset with me. That you didn’t want me around. So naturally, I decided to act back. Plus, whenever you come here you and Taeil leave this place a mess. The other guys either clean up after themselves or it’s not so bad and Taeil cleans it up himself.”

Yuta didn’t say anything for a few moments. “The truth is, I didn’t want you here. At first.”

“Great.” you said, turning away from him and getting up from the couch. “Get out.”

“Wait.” Yuta said, grabbing your hand before you could leave. “At first. At first, I didn’t want you here. The truth is your cousin is awesome, before you came we and a few other guys lived together and they’re the closest friends I’ve ever had. We were, we are a brotherhood. And I was concerned about what you coming here and Taeil moving out would do to the dynamic of our friendship.”

“So what?” You asked, turning around to look at him. “What changed?”

Yuta didn’t answer and you were getting annoyed. So you tried to tug your hand out of his. But he didn’t let go. Instead when you tried pulling your hand out of his a second time, he pulled you forward, so hard you fell into his lap.

“I realized I was being really dumb. I realized that Taeil’s cousin is really cool and I started to get jealous that she treated all the other brothers better than me. Then...I started to develop feelings for Taeil’s hot prissy cousin from Germany.”

You didn’t say anything as you were straddled on Yuta’s lap. His forehead was pressed against yours and you could feel his eyes looking at yours, trying to make eye contact you. But you were unsure of how to feel, you kept your eyes looking downward. How had things shifted so suddenly? What was this feeling?

Before Yuta could second guess himself he leaned forward and pressed his lips against yours. He stayed like that, holding his breath and hoping you wouldn’t push him away. When you lifted an arm around his shoulders and moved your lips against him he breathed a sigh of relief and wrapped his arms around your torso and pulled you in so that your bodies were melded together.

When you ran out of breath you pulled your lips from his and leaned back to catch your breath. Yuta moved one arm from your waist up so that his hand held the side of your head. You leaned your head into it and he leaned forward and began to kiss down from behind your ear to your collarbones.

“I-, we should stop.” you were confused and you were tired. How had things escalated so quickly?

Yuta stopped and lifted his head up. He moved his arm back down so that both arms tightly gripped your waist, holding you against him. You moved your hands to his biceps and tried to push yourself out of his grip. “Let me go.”

“Don’t you think that we should talk about it?”

“No. I want to sleep.” You said, still looking away from him and avoiding his gaze.

He lifted you up wordlessly, you gave up on trying to fight out of his grip and wrapped your legs around his waist and your arms around his shoulders. You tucked your face into his neck.

“Don’t fall asleep.” Yuta said as he fell back on your bed, still carrying you. “The way we are, we still have a million miles ahead of us.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Please, Yuta. I need to sleep and I need to think.”

You were saying one thing, but your face was still tucked into Yuta’s neck and your limbs were still wrapped around Yuta’s body.

“Can I stay?” Yuta asked quietly. The truth was, he was nervous and worried that he had come on too strong, that he had played his cards wrong. But he breathed a sigh of relief when he heard you say.

“Yeah.”

The last thing you heard as Yuta lifted both of you up and under the covers was “don’t you give up. Let me love you.”

[m0srael]

For @hp-fearfest’s day 2 prompt: From Beyond the Grave. Thanks 4 the beta @corvuscrowned. CW: spooky vibes and graphic depictions of corpses.

(on Ao3 | T | 2.5k)

Making a Family Makes a Home

“Happy anniversary, love,” Harry pants into Draco’s wet, open mouth. He thinks he can make out the chirping of morning birds over their slowing breaths, and the warm lamplight in the room is slowly being suffused with cool grey from the dawning sun. They hadn’t slept at all that night.

Harry has never felt happier. He’s loved Draco for so long, and now, finally, he’s allowed to show him. The fact that Draco loves him back makes him feel incandescent, like he’s flying.

Draco hums tiredly in response, hands stilling in Harry’s hair. “‘Spose we can tell everyone to settle their bets on whether we’d make it to a year or not. I think Longbottom is the only one who went in our favor.”

Harry laughs gently and captures his boyfriend’s kiss-swollen lips in his teeth. “Fancy shocking everyone even more?”

“Always.”

“Let’s move in together…” Harry whispers into the dip between Draco’s collar bones, where sweat has pooled and started to dry. He darts the tip of his tongue out to capture the salty tang.

Draco goes stiff underneath him and says nothing.

Harry pulls back to gauge his expression. It’s firm, unreadable. “It’s just, we’ve been dating for a year and you’re here just as much—if not more—than you’re at home. We don’t have to stay here, we can find a place we both want to live, somewhere new. You talk all the time about how much you hate still living with your parents. We could… We could really start our life. Together. The way we want.”

Draco’s enigmatic expression breaks a little. “Oh, Harry, love. You know I want that. Of course I want to build a life with you. It’s just… I know I complain about mother and father, but they’re getting old. They need me. I’d… I’d worry about leaving them all alone in that big old Manor.”

“Yeah. I get that, I do. But…They have house elves, don’t they? To look after them? It’s not like you couldn’t visit whenever you want.”

“We couldn’t afford to pay the elves, after the trials. We had to let them go.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. Well, I don’t want to pressure you into anything, so—”

“Harry. I… Want to. I do. Just. Let me think about it a little?”

“Yeah. Of course. Of course, love. Take all the time you need. I’ve already got more of you than I ever thought possible. I’m happy.”

“Sap.”

*

“You promised you weren’t going to pressure me, Harry,” Draco snaps as he drops their dinner plates into Harry’s sink with a clatter.

“I know, I know, and I don’t mean to. But we’ve been together for nearly three years, Draco, and you still refuse to even stay the night half the time you’re over here. Is it… Do you not love me anymore? Has something changed, have I—”

He watches the shutters fall behind Draco’s eyes, like they always do when they have this conversation. He’s tried so hard to respect Draco’s request for time and space, but lately it’s like a chasm has opened between them, and Harry doesn’t know how to bridge it. His gut reaction to the feeling of impending loss has always been to hold tighter, to grasp and pull. He knows how suffocating that can be for some people, but he can’t help it.

Draco sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Harry, no, of course not. I love you more every day, you know that. It’s just... not that easy. My parents—”

“Oh, sod your bloody parents!” Harry bites back, sharper than he intended. “I mean—I’m sorry—but I feel like you’re sacrificing your own happiness for them. Again! I know you love them, but after everything they’ve put you through. Everything they asked of you. You deserve the chance to make your own choices and live your own life, Draco.”

“I… I know that. I do. I just feel so guilty, sometimes…”

“Look. We can look into some care homes, maybe. Neville says his Nan loves her community. Or—” Harry raises a hand to cut off Draco’s interjection, “—we can interview some live-in Healers. I can help you, you won’t have to do it alone.”

Draco’s face twists into an ugly frown. “No. How dare you—I’m not dumping my parents into some disgusting care home to be ignored and overlooked by overworked nurses. And I’m certainly not allowing a stranger into my home, Harry! Haven’t you heard of elder abuse? How could I do something like that to them?”

“Your home…”

“What?”

“You just called the Manor your home. I thought… I’d hoped you considered this your home.”

“Oh...well I—”

“Forget it. Look, I just need some space. I don’t want to say something in anger that I’ll regret later. Your feelings are valid, I just...feel a little hurt right now, to be honest. I’m going to Ron and Hermione’s for the night. Feel free to stay. Or not. Merlin knows you never do.”

“Harry—” Draco pleads as Harry turns toward the Floo.

*

“What do you want, Potter? I’m terribly busy.”

“Pansy, you don’t have a job.”

“And?”

“Nevermind, look. It’s about Draco…”

“Isn’t it always?”

“Please, Pansy. You know I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t serious. I...need your help.”

Pansy sighs, settling herself and her glass of scotch on the chaise in front of her fireplace, which Harry had just tumbled out of unannounced several minutes earlier.

“Fine. Make it quick.”

“Right. Well. Draco won’t move in with me.”

“Mm,” she hums, taking a drag on the cigarette in her other hand. “Sounds normal to me. I don’t see why anyone would want to live with you.”

“Fuck’s sake—” Harry hisses, beginning to pace across the hearthrug. “I know you don’t like me, you wish Draco were with someone else, whatever—can you please just take this seriously for like, one second. Please.”

Pansy exhales an exasperated cloud of spicy smoke into Harry’s face and sits up straight.

“Potter. Draco’s relationship with his parents is… complicated.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

Pansy eyes him sharply over the rim of her rocks glass for a long moment. “No, I don’t think you do, really. Not the whole of it, at least.”

Harry throws his hands up, frustrated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

A series of emotions passes over Pansy’s face as she eyes him. Amusement, then scorn, then sadness, and finally pity.

“Pansy,” Harry says, slumping down onto the chaise next to her and letting his head fall into his hands. “I love him so much. I…want to marry him. But, I can’t if he won’t be honest with me about why he won’t live with me. I’ve done the best I can so far, but I can’t envision a future where my husband won’t even stay the night with me, let alone share a house with me. And I definitely can’t envision a future where we move into the Manor together.” He shivers involuntarily.

“No, I don’t think that would do anybody any good. Harry… I can’t say any more. I know, I’m sorry, but I just can’t. If you really need to know why Draco won’t move in with you, and he won’t explain it himself, you need to go see them. Lucius and Narcissa. I think you’ll find your answers there. I just hope you’re prepared for them.”

“He’s never asked me to go home with him. I haven’t… I haven’t been to the Manor since the War.”

“Mmhm,” Pansy hums, lips pursed condescendingly.

Harry stands and takes a palm full of Floo powder, gut twisting and thoughts racing.

“Harry—” Pansy says, stopping him as the flames flare green. “If you really love him—”

“Pans—”

“—You’ll let this go. You won’t go to the Manor.”

“I don’t… I don’t think I can do that, Pansy.”

Pansy draws her worried eyebrows down between her liquor-glassy eyes. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

*

Harry never received a reply to his owl to Lucius and Narcissa asking if it’d be alright to visit that afternoon. He isn’t surprised; he knows there’s no love lost between them even now, even after he’s been with their son for years.

He’d considered sending owl after owl until one of them responded—even if it was just to serve him with a restraining order. In the end, he knew he would never be at peace if he didn’t talk to them face to face. He needs to settle this once and for all, so he can move on. So he and Draco can move on, and move in, together.

After deciding that he’s given them enough warning, he apparates to Wiltshire.

When he lands outside the Manor, he’s confused. For a minute he thinks he’s apparated to the wrong location. The once-gleaming gates are rusted and bent, hanging from their hinges. Ivy creeps across the damp stone pillars and flagstones, eating into every fracture and crevice. The footpath beyond the gates is thickly overgrown with weeds and brambles, as though no one has walked it in years.

He pushes past the gates and begins fighting his way through the underbrush. His breath catches in his throat when he comes around the final bend in the path. There’s no way Draco has been living here for the last six years. There’s no way anyone has been living here in a long time.

The entire house seems to sag. The stone walls are covered in a thick layer of black muck. The same ivy that threads through the front gates has all-but consumed the lower half of the building, making it look as though the Manor is scrabbling up from the depths of the earth. All the windows Harry can see are coated in a thick layer of dusty grime; some are broken and grimace at him like mouths full of jagged, glass teeth. The once-resplendent gardens are now buried under thick snarls of thorns and wild, venomous tentacula that wave menacingly at Harry, welcoming him. To what, he doesn’t know.

Dread settles into the pit of his stomach like a heavy stone. His breathing becomes sharp and ragged, and he knows—beyond the shadow of a doubt—that something is very wrong.

When he finally picks his way up the crumbling front steps, he finds that the stately front door is cracked open. From the look of it, the lock fell from the moist, rotting old wood at some point.

He pushes the door open more fully and is hit with a wave of the thick, sickly-sweet scent of decay. His shocked brain finally jumpstarts into action. He jogs into the foyer, the clacking of his dress shoes muffled in the thick layer of dust on the floor. Despite the blood rushing in his ears and his short, wheezing breaths, he can hear the sounds of voices coming from a door down the hallway to his left. He recognizes one as Draco’s.

He moves quickly but cautiously toward the sound, pausing just outside the open door.

“Mother, I’ve told you a hundred times, you can’t have milk in your tea anymore. It upsets your stomach for days. Here, let me—”

“Oh, stop fussing, Draco. I’m an old lady I can do what I like,” comes Narcissa’s high-pitched, croaky voice.

Draco chuckles warmly, and Harry can hear the clink of teacup on saucer.

“So, Draco, my boy. How is your Mister Potter?” Lucius asks. Harry had forgotten how alike he and Draco sound, though Lucius’s voice is a touch deeper.

“Oh, well. Don’t tell him I told you, but I think he’s going to propose soon!” Draco replies, sounding genuinely pleased.

Harry’s stomach flips, despite his overwhelming unease.

“Oh, my love, that’s wonderful. I know you love him very much. Perhaps now you can invite him to come live with us? We’ve got more than enough room, you know,” Narcissa’s reedy voice cracks a little, and Draco clears his throat.

“Mother. No,” he responds sternly, almost shouting, “We’ve talked about this many times. You know I can’t bring him here. As much as I would love—” Draco sniffs wetly, as though he’s crying, “—to have all of my family together, he would never want that. He could never understand. He’s not...not like us.”

Draco sobs, then, and there’s a clatter of china as though he’s shoved his teacup away from himself.

Harry can’t take it anymore. He takes a deep breath, sets his shoulders, and moves around the doorframe to face them.

Draco glances up from the opposite side of the small table, startled. He looks like a rabbit caught in the gaze of a hungry dog--hunched and shivering, eyes wide and darting erratically. But then a smile cuts across his pale face. His pink lips curve up at the edges, but the expression doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Oh, Harry. We were just talking about you. You’ve come just in time for tea. Sit.”

It’s then that Harry looks to Lucius and Narcissa, seated in chairs on either side of Draco.

Neither of them move, and it takes Harry longer than he’d like to realize that’s because they can’t.

Their bodies are stiff and cold-looking. Their skin is waxy and grey, and both of their skulls are swathed in wisps of white-blonde hair that looks to have been tacked on with a hasty sticking charm. Harry shifts one step to the right, enough to see that Lucius’s eyelids are gone and his eyes have been replaced with shiny, black marbles.

He cuts his eyes frantically over to Narcissa, whose ivory teeth look too huge in her face. Harry realizes on a wave of nausea that her lips have rotted, exposing fleshless gums.

“Yes, Harry dear, Draco has told us so much about you, please sit. There’s so much we need to talk about. To clear the air.”

A manic laugh rips from Harry’s throat as what he thought was Narcissa’s voice drips out of Draco’s mouth like the chime of discordant bells. He takes several stilted steps backward toward the door.

Draco shoots to his feet, a soft, pleading look on his beautiful face. He moves toward Harry carefully, extending pleading hands until he can grasp Harry’s shoulders.

Harry wants to scream. He wants to run away from that place and never look back. But here’s Draco, his Draco, jarringly pretty among all this rot. Draco places a soft kiss on Harry's trembling lips.

“Harry. Please. Join us.”

The snick of the door echoes in his ears as it’s spelled shut behind him.

[daddyd0nt]

I’ve said this before but please just respect my wishes and stfu about me in the Luna slater thread I woke up to like 10 DMs that y’all screengrabbed some harmless compliment I left on a piece of her art to make fun of me and did I want to comment and my only comment is just please stop, I’m tired, I’m not trying to get anything or trick anybody, I’ve been permabanned from posting for almost a year, and I really don’t want to give y’all more traffic in your harassment crusade against a mentally ill woman who scammed a few people when she was still a literal teenager and has not lived it down since. Y’all are vile, you’ve literally committed multiple sex crimes in this bullying campaign and it’s not even like you have anything worthwhile to talk about all you do is make fun of her for being a little on the thicker side, accuse her with no proof of looting baby graves, make fun of her hygiene (wow a mentally ill person struggling with hygiene who ever heard of that) and wrote nasty comments about her art/writing like y’all could do any better. She’s a casual acquaintance with a few mutual IRL school friends who I’m not going to stop being kind to because of bullies. Stop screengrabbing my completely uninteresting comments to her like it is some kind of milk because it’s not and it is fucking annoying to have a bunch of people in my DMs trying to get me to respond to it like my brother in Christ I have not posted on that website for a year I want nothing to do with bullying and wishing Ill on a mentally ill disabled girl in the process of beating a heroin addiction that she’s had since her teens. I’m proud of her and happy for her, that’s a major accomplishment, that deserves positivity, not “lulz she’s not really sober because she still smokes weed and takes bars” as if quitting literal fent cold turkey while living as a member of the hidden homeless in a property with multiple active addicts and opportunities to obtain drugs isn’t impressive. Like boo hoo she buys too many skincare products and scammed some people when she was 19 that shouldn’t be open season to ruin the rest of her life and make 40 threads committed to bullying a suicidal girl, that’s literally the actions of some kind of teen lifetime after school special antagonist, how can y’all convince urselves that ur still morally in the green at this point. Like I said y’all committed literal sex crimes in the process of all this. You’re all ugly and you need to leave me out of ur ugliness because at this point I’m just done either at the very least take me off postblock or keep my name the fuck out of ur mouth but stop dragging me into this. Do not come to me seeking information about Luna slater. Do not screengrab my innocent compliment on her art and swarm on it because the gossip is slow today. Do not try to convince me to join in the harassment or send me anons trying to turn me against her. Leave me out of your gross bullshit, our interactions are the farthest thing from interesting, if u have shit to say to me my inbox is open but it’s annoying to wake up to a dozen DMs announcing with no further context that I got brought up again on lolcow or to have had at least as many people hit me up trying to sniff out Lunas new account when she deleted before the farms found it themselves like for Christ’s sake leave the poor girl alone but if you won’t do that at least leave me out of whatever fucked up Brittany Spears corn harvest sacrifice this is that you’re attempting to pull off. Like literally just fuck the entire way off. Crawl out of my asscrack. Stop acting surprised and scandalizes when I leave a nice comment on another girls art or selfie, I try to do that whenever another girl posts a selfie or original art because I like to spread positivity. We’ve established it’s something I do, and u can think it’s spergy or cringe or whatever but you don’t have to screengrab every comment I make and meditate on it as a collective as if it were the first time I’ve interacted with one of her posts. Find something better to do with ur spare time.

[sleepyowlwrites]

find the word tag CCLXXXX

I am posting so much today. must be a green moon or something. I am wearing green. I like the moon. those two things don't correlate but I can connect whatever dots I want, bro. @diphthongsfordays

tragic (dirt in the doing, 2022)

“The person you’re looking for. The one who just inherited a fortune and a dirty company. It’s me.”

The gang seems too stunned to be angry. They’re all still staring, stuck in place.

Rune turns around and faces the board. “These are my parents. They’re dead, obviously. Tragic accident. Actually, not really an accident, I’ve discovered.” She points at each picture as she talks, voice clear and unashamed. Rune has never shown an ability to deliver information falsely or with embarrassment, and she’s not showing it now.

entry entrance (beating hearts, 2021)

“Alright,” Wu Xie says from behind them. “Let’s go.”

He and Pangzi tug the door open the rest of the way and all four of them walk through the entrance. The hairs on the back of Liu Sang’s neck are all at attention but he has no explanation for it beyond the uneasiness he always feels when his hearing is compromised. There’s a lurching in his gut that gets more forceful as they go, but he chalks it up to the heavy beat of white noise on his eardrums. It’s making him sick, of course it is. Still, he feels he ought to say something.

Liu Sang moves his tongue around in his mouth, trying to find the right words and the right order to put them in. The river becomes more deafening as they gradually descend, clinging to every inch of his skin like a buzz that wants to cut him in half. It hurts, but he’s used to that. There’s nothing wrong with the river, nor the sound of its rushing, only that it’s so loud that it’s hurting him.

bland (summon story d0)

Dair moved his mouth around again, this time looking like he was attempting a smile and just didn’t quite have the energy for it.

Zan smiled at him instead, trying to defuse the rest of the tension lingering in Dair’s limbs. “Don’t listen to her. I don’t make lopsided arrays.”

“Erin said you did just last night,” Dair said blandly, looking at the array in question. “And she’s intimidating so I have to believe her.”

“Just because she’s intimidating doesn’t mean she’s right,” Zan grumbled.

unnatural (summon story supplemental)

“You’re also mad to put new arrays down exactly where an old one was without properly cleansing the ground first. Even an inactive array can attract unwanted power and attention.”

Shae couldn’t help flinching at the sound of the creature’s voice. It wasn’t horribly guttural or threatening, but it did sound very unnatural, like gravel being laid down as road.

“Thanks for the advice,” Shae said warily, slipping a hand behind her back to grip the handle of her knife.

The skeleton seemed to catch this action and Shae had no idea how it was able to convey that it was amused by this - perhaps the way the smoke moved in and out of their skull - but she certainly felt like it was about to laugh at her. It? Them? Shae had no answers. And no defense if she were to be attacked.

fall (the sleepy stash, 2022)

I can’t fall asleep, can’t fall asleep I have lost my dreams, lost my dreams When the night creeps in, it creeps in And I find myself back here again, back here again

Some mountains aren’t for climbing But this one I’ve taken on Some hopes are built on nothing But these days I fish alone For a thread to connect me to the only things I’ve known I’ve ever known

I've taken to including at least one poem since you like them, Sounding. walk, under, bridge, vessel. BONUS: crawled, beckon. @ellatholmes @writeblrfantasy @quilloftheclouds @homesteadchronicles @vellichor-virgo OR ANYBODY or nobody

[star-anise]

I don't know if this is crossing boundaries to ask so feel free to ignore, but do you have any advice for someone with rejection-sensitive dysphoria, an intolerance for ambiguity and a history of social ostracization / access to the In-Group being dependent on Some Unsafe Shit for figuring out where one stands with an online social circle? Like, if one really feels like they're being neglected / put on a shelf, but doesn't know how to address it without receiving platitudes that it's not

(insecurity ask cont.) Really that bad / wasn't intentional / sure they still LIKE one they just kept happening to be busy at the time - etc. Basically figuring a way through the situation if one doesn't want to do what the Anxiety wants, which is cut run and self isolate, but doesn't find the allistic normative reassurance of "oh no we really do want you around sweaty : )" reassuring or helpful in the least.

This is a live topic of discussion in my friend-groups, since my close social circle is like 95% people with a history of being bullied, serious brainweasels* around social shit and rejection, ASD and/or ADHD, and seriously geeky social skills. So my response is not like, “We have a Method! It works! I’m patenting it!” nearly so much as “Um... this is what seems not to have exploded too badly so far.” And I’m answering this publicly rather than privately because other people have useful things to contribute too. 

*(Brainweasel = little nasty thing that eats your brain)

(Like seriously if anyone DOES have A Method I’m all ears because I still do the self-isolation self-destruct way too easily)

Anyway. THE GOOD STUFF (which got really long):

I’ve personally found that it helps to make it really clear to people that if something is wrong, I want to know. I literally say, “My personal definition of Hell is when I think I’m having a happy fun time with a friend who is enjoying themselves, but in reality, I’m annoying them and they secretly resent me for it. Please don’t put me in that situation.”  It’s kind of the opposite of asking for validation--it’s trying to reduce my own emotional hypervigilance, and also shifting the burden of dealing with the problem to the other person. Now, if they find me annoying, they have to do something about it--either spend less time with me, or let me know what’s up.

Asking for things and saying “No is an okay answer!”

Being open about my wants and needs while also letting people know how much I’m willing to compromise. “I don’t know what anybody else is feeling, but for dinner I have a mild preference for pizza,” or “I’m in the kind of mood where I basically want someone to talk to about this creative project for an hour in a really intense, informed, and interested way that also doesn’t step on my creative vision’s toes, or I don’t want to talk about it at all. So unless someone really wants to talk about it, how’s the weather?”

If you can find people who are geeks about feelings and have done a lot of introspection and can be very honest, and basically didn’t think that Twitter thread about asking friends for consent for emotional labour was a bad thing? That’s probably going to help, since when you’re all in the middle of dealing with moderate-to-severe brainweasels that is the kind of wrangling that needs to happen.

Hacking into Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, if you can do it. I’ve had to explain to several people now: DBT is fundamentally about trying to unlearn you from a system of If I Only Behave A Certain Way, Life Will Finally Work Out, to having a more flexible, more adaptive set of skills that you can see in a kind of pro/con fashion and decide which of life’s sucky parts you’d rather deal with because it gets you your preferred set of upsides. The problem is: DBT kind of presents itself as a system of If You Only Behave A Certain Way, Life Will Finally Work Out! So especially for my Autistic friends, doing DBT, while useful, involves considerable arguing with the system, deciding which of it works for you and which of it doesn’t, and hacking it apart and rearranging it in your own idiosyncratic way. This isn’t actually failing to do DBT, it’s using the methods DBT teaches you on DBT itself. 

Finding a therapist who can treat baseline-neurodivergent LGBTQ+ nerds with complex trauma IS difficult, but not impossible. Not every therapist can do it. (I personally am considering giving up finding one in my city, and making use of the temporary relaxation of restrictions on distance practice across jurisdictional boundaries thanks to COVID-19 and phoning up my old therapist a province over.) If you can’t get a personal recommendation, I recommend literally cold-emailing about a half-dozen likely suspects from Psychology Today or Theravive and asking them, “Do you have any training or experience in treating [geeks/adults with complex trauma/queer people/whatever has made therapists act like cats with boots on around you before]?”

To wildly veer back to your original question

Imagine something that someone could do for you that would make you feel warm and loved. Something that would take a minute or less to do. When you’re feeling unloved, say “I’m feeling down, could anyone do [this thing] for me?” That’s literally why I ask people to show me cat pictures--I have times when I feel sad and alone and like the entire world hates me, and that’s a VERY big feeling for anyone to step in and fill, so instead? I ask for cat pics.

This, I should add, required going back into my trauma memories and deprogramming the origin of my Nice Things Are Evil Poison If I Asked The Person To Be Nice To Me brainweasel. Which is part of why I’m so insistent on asking people not to put me in my personal Hell situation.

Like, sometimes with my clients, we literally create a restaurant menu of Things People Could Do If They Wanted To Be Nice To Me, ranging from cheap $5 items like cat pics and memes to $200 bottles of wine that would be getting married and taking out a mortgage together. Sometimes we talk Love Languages just to go through several different sensory modalities. Then, if creating that menu wasn’t scary enough, they start telling their friends what’s on the list. “I really like things with dragons on them” or "I love to know when somebody’s thinking of me even when I’m not there” or “I really wish I had someone to watch movies with”. This reduces the cognitive load if somebody wants to reach out to you but doesn’t know how.

Relatedly: If you’re in a bad mood and doing something to self-regulate, you might consider letting people know what’s going on. People who are merely being civil might interpret “I’m feeling terrible about myself today” as “You are now socially obligated to blow smoke up my ass”; moderating the statement with a positive attempt to make things better, like “I’m focusing on my shoes a lot today because I feel like crap but they make me happy” or “I’m going to go try to shake this awful mood with Netflix” removes that pressure because it’s a problem with a built-in solution, so they’re not socially impolite if they ignore it. If people want to be emotionally closer to you, it opens the door for them to either ask about your problem, or contribute to your solution (”Oooh, I do like those shoes”) (”Have you seen this new series?”).

Okay so

Here’s the other thing

When you’re used to the one being rejected, you can spend SO much energy trying to make relationships work, and when they don’t, you just kind of shut down and fall over

What if (if you scraped together enough spare Cope) you said to yourself, “Whatever is going on--whether it’s them, or me, or whatever--I am not getting my needs met, so I’m going to back away from them a bit and focus on finding something new? They may not be evil or bad, but I’m going to downgrade them on my priority list.”

Like I’m just saying: Think about it. Every once in a while it’s possible it isn’t your fault, but the other person... just isn’t up to being the kind of friend you need right now, and no effort of yours can improve them at this time, so you’re going to let them shape up if they can but start focusing your attention elsewhere.

I realize that’s like the social equivalent of asking a homeless person to dip into their savings and start a business. But, just... sometimes you just need better friends.

Okay, it’s 2am and I’ve run out of ideas. Anyone else?