#anyways. it was a church trip back when i still went to church

[so-very-small]

i can’t go on amusement park rides anymore but as a teen i loved them, specifically because it was the closest i could get to feeling what a tiny might feel when being moved around by a giant

like, once i went to a place that had a ride that took you up 200ft in the air and dropped you straight down. all my friends hated it. it was the only time i ever heard my youth pastor curse. but i rode that thing a billion times that day because in my head i was just like “hehehe this must be what it feels like to be dropped by a giant”

[inkedinfusions]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐞𝐲 | eren jaeger chapter 11

⊱𖣂⊰ | In which you fall into a fictional world with the key to Pandora's box.

── ★ ˙ ̟ . 🗝 .ᐟ.ᐟ masterlist

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𝟏𝟏 | 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤

chapter word count: 3.7 k

content warnings: floch forster jumpscare warning, blanket warnings

a/n: Last chapter of the year! Happy New Years everyone. Sorry Floch lovers I really did try to be nice to him but he started being an asshole outta nowhere. He is still Very traumatized from Shiganshina part two and still holds the grudge against the volunteers, because he isn't yet at his Eldian Restoration arc. So, you know. Anyway. Also longest chapter to date! Idk how I went from thinking I wasn't going to finish this in time to writing a ton more of what I expected. Like always, special thanks to my beta reader for proofreading my stuff and picking out the name of the chapter when I ran out of creative juice :) edit: WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME I WROTE THE WRONG NAME LMAO

Thanks for reading!

𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐁𝐎𝐓𝐇 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 way back to the tent barracks when the sun starts to poke its form over the horizon, turning the dark void of the sea into a mixture of gold and water. Loose rocks crunch underfoot as you make your way around the small alcove, tracing back the path you had taken before in your erratic state. 

You are much calmer now than before, even if the conversation with Eren mainly served to confirm your greatest fears. The explosions, the church, someone – Sasha, probably – lying dead on the floor, the gruesome march of the Titans. Even so, you know that panicking won't help you at this moment. 

It was frustrating before, because you’ve known this for quite some time now, and yet the incoherence of your half formed thoughts wouldn’t stop flowing no matter how much you tried to rationalize them. 

That is, until you found something else to focus on, someone else to share it with. 

So you trot along the wild grass, which sways gently in the morning wind, shaking off the remnants of the cool morning dew. Insects begin to wake up, buzzing all around, and the birds begin to sing from the trees, some more awake than others. 

The camp is already bursting with life, a completely different landscape than the day before, for now there were not only a few scattered soldiers here and there, but a brigade of people walking around. 

As you crane your neck around to see, you notice that a handful of them seem to be on break or in between tasks, as they walk leisurely around the structures. Others are hauling what seem to be a couple of crates onto a cart, and several more are tending to some horses. 

“This isn’t the way to the barracks,” you tell Eren, after realizing you are severely off the path that arrives there. 

“I figured you wanted to eat first,” he says. “You didn’t wake up for lunch yesterday. Or dinner.”

Oh. You really have to fix that – it's only when Eren says this that you feel the emptiness of your stomach, only fueled by the smell of food emanating from the ever approaching canteen. 

It is a temporary structure, just like all of the others in the camp, and so it carries with itself the flimsiness that is only present in things as fleeting as passing thoughts. Yet the canteen lingers just like many of your thoughts seem to do, providing all weary soldiers a hot meal and a chance to socialize with their fellow peers. 

You still attract some glances here and there, mainly from soldiers who didn’t get the chance to gawk at you yesterday, only knowing of your existence from the rumors that you're sure have already circulated back to the Walls. 

“What's for breakfast today, then?” you ask.

“Porridge, I think,” he says. “Get ready to eat the same thing almost everyday,” he continues, cracking a grin.

“I can live with that,” you say, pausing briefly before going on. “Back home, my parents left for business trips at times, so I just learned to do basic dishes and ate the same thing everyday.”

Unlike past instances where you have talked about your life before the whole… incident, you don’t feel a gaping hole inside your lungs, where all the air you attempt to take in leaves suddenly. There is nostalgia and longing in your voice for sure, but the hurt you had experienced at first when you tried to remember them had lessened in might. 

You noted this with satisfaction, not wanting to be chained by emotional thinking. Before you stood a road that would probably span for a few years, and you needed to think as logically as possible in order to traverse it. 

Eren nods and you both continue walking, until, to your surprise, he shares his own story about his own mother, Carla. 

“My mom used to make me and Mikasa little loaves of bread for us to take when we went out to look for firewood. We used to cup our hands around them in winter to keep warm.”

“Oh,” you say. “I'm sure she had a wonderful spirit.”

“Yeah,” he says. “She did.”

You aren’t sure why he brought up his mom at that moment. You know that the death of Carla Jaeger is one of his principal motivations in what he deems his goals to be, but it is also a deeply personal part of his past. While it would not be weird for someone to relate with their own story, it is unusual for him to share so. 

You resume your comfortable silence, enveloped by the sounds of the lively camp. Your steps aren’t coordinated by any means, but there is still a harmony to be found in the way your feet strike the earth. 

Eren steps to the side to let you in first, although you still have to wait for him to come in before you move forward in any direction. You could adapt to a certain point, having seen the series and thus knowing many of the protocols used – also a courtesy from Zeke who had transcribed some of Reiner’s reports. It was fun to memorize them, less so to watch them burn and disintegrate on the stove after you finished. 

You aren’t sure if you are lucky or not that you were dropped off in such an era. On one hand, it could definitely be worse; you could’ve appeared right when Eren activated the Rumbling, or at least months before, when there was not much you could do. You could have been found by literally anyone else but the Volunteers and your safety in Marley could’ve been in jeopardy, and that was not even touching on the opportunity to sail to the island presented by the faction. 

Could be better though. You could’ve never stepped foot in this world, nor the horrors that accompanied it. But now you are here, and so now you would do your best to ensure their happy ending – or at least one where genocide wasn’t the endgame. 

“So do I just take a bowl…?” you ask, unsure, as you approach a line you assume is meant for people who want their breakfast. 

“Yeah, and a spoon. They’re right there,” Eren says, pointing to a tray. “And then after we are done you just put any dirty dishes on that cart over there.”

He gestures to your left, and sure enough, there is a cart half full of dirty dishes just beyond where the line ends and the soldiers in queue are given their food. Although the vibe is definitely military, it still reminds you of a school cafeteria. The young median age of the soldiers definitely has something to do with it, and if you were feeling more pessimistic you would definitely dwell on it for longer than necessary. 

But today hunger triumphs it all, so you follow Eren to the queue, awaiting your turn. The line moves quickly, so it is not long before it's your turn to grab a bowl and spoon. 

The porridge is simple, beige, crumply. Not particularly appetizing but definitely better than you expected. It was similar in consistency to the oatmeal you used to prepare when Zeke went away on missions and you couldn’t muster up the energy to make anything more complex.

“This way,” Eren says, guiding you to thread around the occupied tables. 

On the other side of the canteen sits a table filled with the only people you recognize in the sea of soldiers; the members of Squad Levi. 

From where you were standing a few moments ago, and even now as you’re approaching, they look like any other teenagers during a lunch break, laughing and chatting and eating. But there is a weariness that hangs around them all, one you presume to be mainly because of the recent battle. Yeah, a year had passed, but you know that what happened there was something that clung to oneself. 

It is different from seeing them on the screen. There you couldn’t make sense of the atmosphere, but here it is clearer than ever that these are just teenagers forced to grow up fast in order to survive their world. 

As if sensing your gaze, Armin turns around to look at you, waving you over when he realizes who you are and who you are with. 

They are not in the corner, per se, but they are still hidden by a few full tables. Just as you approach, one of said tables empties, its former occupants chatting as they walk towards the exit. Now you know why you hadn’t seen them when you first entered; they blocked the view from where you stood. 

Eren greets them with a smile as he sits next to Mikasa. There are two other empty seats, one next to him and another one right in front of it, next to Jean. You hesitate for a second before choosing the first option. Jean was nice enough to you yesterday, even if he was kinda wary of you, but you don't want to make him more uncomfortable so you take a seat to the far right, sandwiching Eren between you and Mikasa. 

“Uh, hi,” you offer, a bit lackluster. 

“Hello!” Armin says, as positive as ever. He puts you a bit more at ease, and you hope that your eyes convey that to him. 

Sasha, seated in front to the far left, greets you in similar fashion, although she doesn’t speak because she is currently too preoccupied with scarfing down her porridge. Next to her, Connie raises a hand in greeting, and Jean, seated directly to your left diagonally, nods at you. Mikasa, on the other side of Eren, nods at you too. 

You feel like the new girl that has been taken in by the popular clique at school, if the clique consisted of humanity’s best soldiers and the school was their military branch. You felt severely out of place – like with Reiner, you knew too much about these people, yet also too little. You had seen their most vulnerable, their most raw moments in 4k, and still you didn’t know how to start a conversation with them. 

“Did you settle in okay? I know it's not the most welcoming environment,” Armin says. 

You suck in a breath, thinking back on your panic attack in the early dawn. “Yeah,” you lie. “The cot was nice after staying a day in a storage room. I don't recommend it if you're a fan of having a working spine.”

Connie chuckles at your half assed attempt at a joke. “Speaking of, we saw you disembark from the side, like…” he trails off, before pointing at you with his spoon when he finds the word he's looking for. “Like you were sneaking out. Were you?”

Sasha elbows him, almost sparking a fight between them, before Jean slaps both of them on the back of the head. “Stop squabbling,” he says. 

“Never thought I’d side with Jean,” Eren mutters, low enough for only you and Mikasa to hear. 

“I was… undercover? Yeah, undercover. I don’t have the age to pass for a soldier, so we had to get creative.”

“Oh!” Armin exclaims. “Undercover? Like a detective?”

“Much more boring than that, I promise you,” you say, forming an x over your chest with your arms. “I just did nothing for a day. I wasn’t allowed to leave the storage room, and even if the door wasn’t locked I’d be way too nervous to do that.”

“You were locked there?” asked Mikasa, her brows furrowing just a fraction. “What if the ship sank?”

“Uh,” you say, blanking. “I’d… figure it out? That’s actually a great point.” You mutter the last part, bringing a hand to your chin. It was great indeed that the ship did not sink. You weren’t sure if you would have been saved if it did. 

“It sounds to me like you were more of a prisoner there than an ally,” pipes up an unknown voice behind you.

You turn around to meet the owner of the voice, and you come face to face with a redhead with the most atrocious bowl cut you had ever seen. Almost everyone seated at your table groans at the unexpected arrival, and you squint at him, trying to figure out if you do know him. 

“Get lost, Forster,” Jean says, irritation clear on his face. 

“I'm just getting to know the new recruit,” he says, sitting in front of you. “So?”

“Sorry, what?” you say, hanging onto the last name Jean uttered. 

As far as you know, there is only one character with that last name; Floch Forster. And you are no fan of his. Worse, he was one of the only people you were glad to see gone. Now, though, that he was just another teenager, and a traumatized one at that, you feel a little guilty for smiling at the wake of his death. 

But let it be known that Floch Forster was one annoying little prick. 

“Your allies?” he repeats. “They locked you in a room?”

“Where are you going with this?” you ask.

Floch shrugs, clearly ignoring the glares he gets from certain people at the table. “Just wondering about your role in all of this. If you are as important as they say.”

“Can you leave?” Eren asks, although it's not really a question. “She’s–”

“Yeah, yeah, the reason you remembered Marley’s ship came yesterday and whatnot,” Floch interrupts. “So? Do you have the answers to all of our problems, new girl?”

You twirl your spoon in your hand, swirling the porridge while you’re at it. You would love to snap back at Floch with an equally snippy comment, but the truth is that you don’t have the answers to all their problems. If they were calculus problems you would have some of the formulas required to solve it, but the results are still an unknown variable to you. 

“I don’t know what my place in all of this is yet,” you say, moving your gaze upwards to look at Floch dead in the eye. “But I am being honest when I say I want to help. Even if you choose not to believe me.”

“You’re right,” he says, notably not even taking your words into consideration. “I don’t. You’re seen as the enemy here, new girl. I suggest you get with the program.”

You sigh as Floch gets up and walks away, presumably to wherever he’s assigned to in the morning. “Well, that went well.”

“He’s been an ass since Shiganshina,” Connie says. 

“Oh, he was an ass way before that,” Eren pipes in. “He just changed targets from Armin to Y/n today.”

Armin gives you an apologetic smile at the mention of his name, but you wave him off, not wanting to imply that Floch’s behavior was somehow his fault. 

“It's fine,” you repeat for what is like the third time in these last two days. “I get it.”

“Do you really?” Jean asks, with strikingly less antagonism than Floch. If asked, you would say that his tone carries more curiosity than hostility. 

“I know things, remember?” you say, strangely confident. “That’s not something everyone would be comfortable with. And I can deduce that that guy’s personality is not one of understanding.”

“You can say that again,” Sasha says. “By the way, are you going to finish that?”

Sasha points at your half finished porridge, forgotten in the midst of Floch’s arrival. To be honest, you aren’t very hungry anymore, but you make an effort to finish the meal, not wanting to go hungry in the middle of the day. You mouth a sorry towards her, and finish your breakfast. 

After leaving the canteen, you part ways with the others, finding yourself once again alone with Mikasa. You walk with her towards your tent, and you debate on bringing up what happened last night. 

“Hey, uh, Mikasa?” you start. “I’m very sorry about what happened last night.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” she says in that unwavering voice of hers. “We all get nightmares from time to time.”

“Oh,” you say, taken aback. “Still, though. Sorry.”

Mikasa nods, and while others would take offense at her cold gesture, you instead see the almost imperceptible friendly tone. If she really did hate you, or at the very least didn’t care in the slightest, she wouldn’t have woken up Eren to go after you. 

You smile, entering the tent you share with the girl. The blanket you vaguely remember tripping over is still on the floor, so you pick it up and fold it over your cot. 

“We are leaving for Mitras in about an hour,” Mikasa says behind you. “I left some clothes for you to change into there.”

Sure enough, there was a small bundle of garments at the foot of your cot, which you had somehow overlooked when tidying up. 

“Thank you,” you say. “Is there anything else I need to bring?”

“No,” Mikasa says. Then she turns to you, pausing her packing. “Do you know how to ride a horse?”

You are only half surprised at the question that seemingly came out of nowhere. “I just know the basics. I've never actually ridden a horse before.”

Writing and reading the Eldian alphabet, self defense, gun safety, lies by omission, horse riding. Those are all things you had to master before Zeke officially agreed to let you go to the island, citing them as indispensable things every young lady should know. Hell, he even threw in some etiquette lessons for if and when you met with the queen. 

Mikasa nods, turning back to her belongings. “You’ll be riding in the cart then. Even so, it was improbable for you to get your own horse in the first place, since you aren’t part of the regiment.”

“Is that a thing?” you ask. “Like, you get into the military so you get your own horse?”

“You could say that.”

“Sick.”

She frowns, pausing again. “No, we aren’t sick. Are you? Do you need me to show you the infirmary?”

You feel heat rush to the tips of your ears and you splutter, head reeling from her unexpected answer. “No! No, no, uh– it's just an expression. It means it's cool, you know?”

“I didn’t,” she says, schooling her expression. “But I know now. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“I’m all good,” you quickly amend before correcting yourself. “I mean, not all good, cause I get headaches from time to time, but like, good enough to be… yeah. I’m good.” You cut yourself off when you realize you are ranting, but add a smile at the end to seal the deal. 

“Oh,” Mikasa says. “I get headaches too. There are some teas I’ve found that help.”

“Yeah, thank you,” you say, not wanting to shut down her way of helping you, even if you know that her headaches aren’t something that can be dealt with in the physical world. “They did?”

“Here,” she says, handing you a few packets of tea leaves. “I leave that brewing for five minutes and the headaches subside. You could also chew on them if there is no time to boil water.”

You nod, taking the crinkly packets in your hands. The leaves move downwards when you turn them around, staying within the confinements of its bundled pouch. “Is each packet a portion?”

“Depends on how you like your tea,” Mikasa confirms, zipping up her things. “Yes, if you like it strong. Otherwise, no.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks again.”

Mikasa leaves the tent, and stands outside for a moment, giving you some privacy to change your clothes. The dark colored bottoms pair well with a sort of cream top, flowy enough so that the texture doesn’t bother you, given it is rougher than what you are accustomed to. When you are done, you follow behind her with your gathered things, ducking under the flap of the tent as you exit. 

“All done,” you say.

She simply nods, going back to her usual silent self as she directs you to a far corner of the stables, where everyone who would be going to Mitras stood. Some were getting the horses ready amongst the smell of hay and animals, others were double checking items in carts, one less full than the others. 

Armin spots you before the others and he walks towards you with a smile. You can see the other members of his squad in the background, each doing their own tasks in preparation for the road, already accompanied by their horses. You are even tempted to make a Jean-horse joke, but you contain yourself in time, knowing the boy would not appreciate it. 

 “Hi!” Armin says, with that cadence of his. “Are you ready for the road?”

“I guess so,” you say. “Uh, should I tell the Volunteers I’m leaving or–” 

“They’ve been notified you will be unavailable,” cuts a no nonsense voice behind Armin. Levi flanks the boy, stopping right in front of your little trio. “Ackerman,” he continues, “go help Jaeger with the boxes. His efficiency leaves much to be desired.”

Mikasa nods and walks towards Eren, who stands next to a big pile of boxes. You hear him groan when Mikasa starts helping him, but quickly silences himself at her glare. 

“Anyways,” Armin starts. “I’ll be going with you on the cart, so feel free to ask anything!”

“Don’t try anything,” Levi says.

“Yeah, thanks Armin,” you say, a bit hesitant, before nodding at the captain, so that he knows that his message is clear. 

Someone in the background shouts something, spurring everyone else to their own stations. Armin taps you in the arm when you get distracted, and guides you to the wooden open wagon, where you take a seat in one of the two benches that line the sides. Armin starts chattering about something, and you nod and smile when it is appropriate to do so. 

After a while, the wagon lurches forward as the horses begin walking, and you start on your journey to Mitral, capital city of Wall Sina.

taglist:

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@yuuuumii @kermittears @binluvsu @luvsymai

ask or comment to be added!

[wol-fica]

Brom. I just had the perfect idea for a oneshot but idk how to write it so I'm gonna ask you 💪

Ok, so Jenna x gp reader where she recorded us having sex one time and she was showing someone some pictures on her phone and she accidentally scrolled to that video 😭

gotchu bby @deep-fried-egg (ik this is old don’t remind me)

“And that is when Aliyah slipped face first into mud.” Jenna chuckled, showing the photo to her older sister.

“Damn I wish I could’ve gone hiking with you two, looks like you had a lot of fun.” Mya said, smiling at the photos her younger sister kept showing her.

“We would’ve been so chaotic.” Jenna replied, her mind wandering back to when she went on that trip with her younger sister.

While lost in thought, she completely forgot she was scrolling for more photos and accidentally stopped a few seconds too long on a video no one should have ever seen.

Jenna wasn’t one for watching porn or anything of the sort, but she won’t lie saying she doesn’t get horny missing you when she is across the country. So, she sat down with you and asked if she could take a few videos to keep her awake and alive whenever she is filming far away from home.

This was one of those videos, what you liked to label as a sex tape. Jenna were on her back, her hands handcuffed to the headboard behind her. With her arms up, her chest was on full display, breasts bouncing beautifully to each thrust from your hips. Farther down on the screen, her legs were spread wide open with you in between, your cock buried in her soft heat while you fucked her and stretched her thoroughly.

Jenna remembered that time like it was yesterday, because it was. After her day trip with Aliyah, she was exceedingly desperate for you, hence why she came home and asked you to film another video for her folder labeled away-from-home-collection. She remembered how you handled her, rough and straight to the chase when she politely asked you to rail her.

The video played for only 3 seconds, but that was enough for one to see the way your cock slid back and forth easily through Jenna’s cunt. How her abdomen muscles tensed when she came, and how your dick got covered with a new layer of her cum. One could also see how Jenna was being practically manhandled, her wrists cuffed, her legs forced open by you while you pounded into her. What a sight to see.

“Oh my god!” Jenna almost yelled, pressing her phone to her chest.

Mya looked aghast, eyes wide with disbelief while her stare followed the phone. The audio was still playing from the video, Jenna’s moans filling the now quiet kitchen. Jenna quickly shut her phone off, staring straight ahead in pure embarrassment.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, clutching her phone like it was a bomb.

Silence.

Then a wolf whistle from her right.

Jenna snapped her head to her younger sister, gawking when she saw how she was laughing.

“Oooo Wee! I didn’t know you and Y/N filmed porn!” Aliyah yelled, cackling while clutching her stomach, “Is that your new genre? Can’t get enough of horror?”

“Aliyah.” Jenna said through her teeth, face flushed red.

“Maybe she had to take a step up from X.” Mya said from her left, causing Jenna to now look at her with the same gawked expression.

“Who’s the church mouse turned bad girl now?” Aliyah joked, laughing and slapping her knee at the reference.

“Good one Ali.” Mya quipped, sipping her drink daintily, “You already know Jenna has more of those vidoes.”

“Guys!” Jenna cried out, letting her head fall into her hands, “This is so embarrassing.”

“Nothing to be embarrassed about ReeRee.” Aliyah said, wiping tears from her eyes, “I’m sure Y/N is great in bed anyways.”

“You should’ve seen how big she is. Jenna is lucky.” Mya mumbled loudly enough for both girls to hear.

“Mya!” Jenna shouted, throwing her hands up in exasperation, “Cmon!”

“Don’t get mad at us, you pulled up the video.” The oldest sister said, smiling behind her wine glass.

“Bet it was in the away-from-home folder.” Aliyah snorted, giggling like a school girl.

Jenna groaned into her hands, a small smile on her face from her sisters laughter filling the room.

“I’m never going to show you anything on my phone again.” She said, stuffing it safely into her pocket.

What a story it will be to tell you when she gets home.

———————

[janeyseymour]

La Cosa Nostra- pt 15

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11. Part 12. Part 13. Part 14.

cowritten with @schemmentis - we're gonna try to revive this story, and y'all better buckle up because it's gonna get so good

WC: 3.1k

You manage to get the girls up and fed before Melissa stirs on the couch. It must be a groggy Schemmenti morning considering the girls haven’t swarmed her and woken her up themselves nor asked you why Mommy was sleeping on the couch all weekend. You gently shake at your wife’s shoulder once the girls have their shoes on, remembering how upset she’d been when you’d taken them to school without waking her. Plus, you don’t exactly feel generous and worried about making sure she gets enough rest after your fight. 

You roll your eyes at her groggy ‘what’ when she cracks her eyes open. “Your daughters want to say good morning and goodbye, is what.” You mutter, stepping aside and wave the twins the okay to hurry to Melissa.

You step back towards the front door as Melissa kisses them each multiple times. Tuning out the goodbyes and I love yous. You’d thought after not speaking aside from the essentials over the weeknd you might feel less upset; you don’t. It’s the same as before you went to sleep the night you fought. Mel’s decision over you, her standing by it, and worst of all her hitting you in all the worst places. You can’t let any of it go, not first, anyway.

You force a deep breath when you feel your little girls running back to your side, opening the front door. “Let’s go, littles, before you’re late.” You mutter as you usher them out.

“You didn’t kiss Mommy again,” Rosie states once you get into the car.

“We were running late,” is all your response is. 

Once you’ve seen them off to their class safely, you leave the girls’ school. Your eyes roll when you hear your cell phone ring for the third time in the short trip to drop them off. You know without looking it’s Tony just like it was the last two times, no doubt to ask again for the ledger which you still have no intention of giving him directly. You don’t trust Tony as far as you could throw him. Still, you know you’d better have it in hand soon for when he produces whoever he answers to. It wouldn’t be good for that to happen and you to not have it.

You sigh as you slip back into the car. Which means you probably have to break your silent streak with your wife and ask her to talk to Barbara to get it back. You really don’t want to do that though. Your pride and your stubbornness wants you to hold out for Melissa to at least admit she was being an asshole the other night. Even if she won’t admit she was wrong about the rest of it. 

You don’t have Barbara’s number but you do know where she’ll eventually turn up. You pull the car from the school lot, driving to the church. If Mel intends to be in early at the restaurant today; you don’t feel that bad about making her walk this time.

You slip in just after the morning service. Thankfully, you still spy Barbara’s head in the usual back pew. You genuflect at the side, crossing your chest before slipping into the seat next to the older woman- the one your wife would usually claim.

“Good morning, Y/N.” Barbara greets you quietly once her head raises from her prayer. “Another bit of prayer needed, hm?”

“A little bit.” You hedge. You’re not fully lying; you do think it might bring some relief after your fight with Melissa. Which, now that you’re sat next to her, you realize you may have overlooked your wife telling Barb all about. “I was also hoping to see you.” You add.

“Oh? Well, that’s sweet of you. You know I’m always glad to see you or Melissa and your girls in the Lord’s house.”

You flash a smile, one you’ve flashed the Feds and other Family members alike to be as charming as you can. “You know our whole family is always happy to see you. Especially the girls.”

“Oh, I can’t wait for next weekend. They were positively a joy at Sunday breakfast, yesterday. Though you and Melissa were rather quiet.”

“It was…a long week, last week.” You admit. “Mel and I haven’t exactly been seeing eye to eye lately.” You hadn’t meant to share that last part but you lean into letting it off your chest in some way, at least.

“I’m sure you two will sort it out. You always do.”

“I hope so.” You answer truthfully. You might still be angry, and definitely hurt, but you still love Melissa with all of you. You hope the fact she’s been dealing with being relegated to the couch for a few days is a sign she still feels the same, too. Since she hasn’t disappeared to her Ma’s or even Kristen Marie’s.

“Are things okay between the two of you? Would you like to chat about it, perhaps over brunch?” Barbara offers.

You take her up on that offer, and you find yourself bringing her back to your house- just in case the Feds are still watching you. You mill about the kitchen as you prepare a few things before settling at the table with her.

“So,” Barbara hums. “What’s got you turning up at church more often than usual lately- both you and your wife?”

“Could use a bit more prayer these days,” you sigh softly as you take a bite full of your breakfast.

“You didn’t pray today though,” the woman points out. You just shrug at that. “So what made you really come to the church?”

You throw around the options in your head. You could break your silent streak and speak with Melissa, or you could ask the woman herself for the ledger.

Deciding to bite the bullet, you say softly, “I was hoping I would run into you. I need the book that I know Melissa gave you.”

Barbara blinks once, twice. “What book, dear?”

“Barb, I know Mel gave you the book for my salon.”

The woman’s face flickers through quite a few emotions before settling on a neutral face once again. “Oh. I still don’t know what you’re speaking of? What your wife gave me was not a book.”

“Babs, I need the goddamn book,” you sigh.

“Do not take the lord’s name in vein,” Barbara tells you sternly.

“Barbara, I need the damned book. My life is on the line here,” you plead. You don’t mean for that last sentence to slip out, and you have to do everything you can to hide it on your face; the severity of the situation. For all she knows, you’re exaggerating and just using it as a hyperbole.

“And why would that be?” Barbara raises a brow. “It’s just the simple finances for the salon.”

“It is,” You hastily agree with her comment. “But I…” You take a breath, forcing out the familiar lie you gave Valentina when she first noticed Melissa’s extra stress, just modified a bit. “I’m trying to work out selling the salon so I need the book with all the finances in it to go through with a potential buyer.”

“Selling it?” Barbara repeats, a hand pressing to her chest. “Why on earth would you sell? You’ve worked hard for that place, Y/N!”

“I know but it hasn’t been profitable since…well, since I don’t even know when, Barb. I thought I could juggle it and put it back in proper working condition but the clients just aren’t coming in like they used to.”

Barbara suddenly drops the hand at her chest held in shock. “Y/N, surely you know I’m no fool.”

You blink. “Of course you’re not, Barbara. Why would I think you were—”

“The book I have is not for your salon.”

“Yes, it is.” You say, brow furrowing in confusion. Because it is for the salon, both books, and you don’t know what else Barb could think it belongs to.

The older woman sends you a long suffering look, the silence between you drawing out for a moment. “Not for the legal business of your salon though, is it?”

Your face drops. Like, actually drops- jaw open and everything. “What?”

“I’m well aware of what I possess,” the woman tells you in a monotone.

“Shit.”

“What on Earth are the two of you thinking; getting mixed up in all of this- and with your two girls!” Barbara admonishes you sharply, and you feel like you’re being reprimanded by a principal.

You search for words, but none come.

“You two are so lucky I haven’t turned it in, and I nearly did!”

“Y-you didn’t?” you whisper out. 

“Of course I didn’t, and the only reason I didn’t is because of Cat and Rosie!” Barb states. “Otherwise, I would have!”

“I- thank you,” you say softly.

“The two of you better get yourselves out of this mess, before it destroys your lives,” the woman tells you lowly.

“The only way out of this mess is prison… or death,” you inform her. “And at this point, if either of us goes to prison, or something happens to Mel, I genuinely fear I won’t survive. When it comes down to everything, Melissa is the matriarchal figure in the family.”

“Neither of those things can happen,” Barbara tells you. “And that is not true- the both of you have the most equal partnership I think I’ve ever seen.”

“Listen, I really do need the ledger back,” you try again.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Barbara.”

“Your wife entrusted me with it, and while I do not agree with what I hold onto in the slightest, I am not breaking my promise to Melissa.”

“I’m sure she told you not to open the book though, right?” you press. At her nod, you continue. “You broke that promise. So, give. me. the. book.”

“I have to go,” Barbara states. “Thank you for a lovely breakfast.” She makes to head out, and you follow her.

“Barbara!”

She climbs into her car, and speeds off. 

You’re left standing on the porch of your townhouse, staring after Barbara’s car even after it’s definitely peeled its way out of your neighborhood. You honestly didn’t know she could drive that fast. Melissa loves to call her a grandma whenever she drives the lot of you anywhere. Barbara would throw back that it was only being safe and God forbid she get into a wreck because your wife wouldn’t stop back-seat driving. 

“Fuck.” You curse, briefly covering your face. “Fuck!” You repeat as you pull your hands away. You lean back into the doorway just enough to grab your keys from the hook by the door. You slam your front door shut, not even bothering to take the time to lock it. You won’t catch Barb at this rate, but you’re fairly certain you can catch your wife. 

You’re certain, at least relatively so, Barb won’t turn you both in. Not if she hasn’t already. But it sure sounded like she was just waiting for Melissa to ask for the book to confront her herself first. You just happened to ask before your wife. You know though Barb isn’t likely to be going to Twelve Tables to have that confrontation with Melissa. So, instead, you are.

You speed your way there, not really worried about the reds or stop lights or any possibility of getting pulled over. A ticket was nothing compared to what all hung in the balance now. You make your way into the restaurant as fast as your feet will carry you.

“Hey, Y/N, how’s—”

“Not now Val,” You interrupt your wife’s right hand. “Where’s Mel?”

“She’s in the back, but—”

You wave a hand at her, muttering a half hearted ‘thank you’ as you hurry through the kitchen toward the back office. You don’t even stop to worry about knocking at the closed office door. You’re throwing it open with practically all your weight behind it in your haste that has you stumbling into the room.

“Mel, we need to—”

“What the fuck?” Melissa grouses at the slamming open of the office door. Her mood doesn’t exactly improve when she looks up to see you, a glare from green eyes sent your way. “I’m in the middle of a meeting.” She says, the end of it coming through her clenched teeth with a nod to the man standing at the desk in the office with her.

“I really need to talk to you. Right now.” You rush out.

“Ya don’t talk to me all weekend, and now ya want to? Now? I told ya, I’m in a meeting. Get out.”

“Melissa Ann Caterina Schemmenti!” You nearly yell, stepping into the office and gripping her wrist and fighting to physically pull your wife from the office.

“God…damn it. Fine!” Melissa huffs, agreeing to go once she realizes you aren’t going to let her actually work until she does. “‘Scuse me a minute.” She says to the man before following you out of the office and shutting the door after her. “What the fuck is so damn important you have to try and literally pull me from work? One of the girls’ better be hurt or the world better be endin’, so help me God, or it’s gonna be you on the couch now, Y/N!”

“Our world might be ending,” you sigh quietly, eyes down. Then your eyes meet her own. “Barbara knows.”

The redhead has the same face that you wore when Barbara revealed that she knows what she possesses. “What?”

“Do you see why it’s so important now?” you ask her.

“Fuck. Fucking shit.” She runs a hand through her hair. “We’re fucked. We’re going down, and we’re taking all of-“

“She said she hasn’t turned us in because of the girls,” you whisper. “But we have to figure out what to do before something terrible happens to either us, or Barb and Gerald. They cannot get involved.”

“Fuck!” Melissa shouts.

“I know,” you sigh. “I know. I- I don’t know what to do.”

“How do you know she knows?” your wife implores.

“I was at the church earlier,” you tell her. And you recount the earlier events before, “and then she told me that the binder wasn’t for the legal side of the salon. She knows.”

“God dammit,” Melissa whispers. She runs a hand over her face. “Fuck. Okay, uhm… let me handle this meeting, and then I’ll meet you at home so we can figure out what to do.”

“I’ll be sitting in the back waiting for you,” you tell her. “And don’t forget that we do have to pick up the girls today.”

“I know,” she says. “I know. Okay. We’re gonna- we’re gonna be fine, and I- fuck.” You watch as red curls whip around and head back into the office.

With a sigh, you head for the back exit again. Valentina looks at you curiously, but you don’t acknowledge it. You just continue on your way. You pull your car closer to the back door, idling as you wait for your wife. She’s quickly slipping into the passenger seat in less than five minutes.

As you pull out of the lot of Twelve Tables and head towards your home once more, Melissa runs her hand through her hair as she glances at the clock. “Okay, we still have a few hours before we have to get the girls, so we can figure this out.”

“Figure this out?” You echo, glancing at Melissa. “Babe, we have what, four hours? We’re gonna figure this all out and fix everything in four hours?

“It’s just Babs.” She says, trying to convince the both of you. It’s clear she knows how much power her church friend holds at this moment, and it terrifies her. She takes a deep breath, rolling the passenger window down enough for wind from the drive to whip her red locks out of her face. “She didn’t turn us in because of the girls…we can, we can buy time.”

“How? How are we gonna buy any time?” you implore. “We got the Feds still digging into shit; who knows what part of the Family they’re eyeing right now? But it doesn’t matter. Any part of it goes, you know the rest is screwed.”

“That’s only if somebody flips. Nobody would flip.”

You take the risk of holding your eyes off the road a little longer than you should to give your wife a look. You both could likely think of ten people each from your respective sides that could, under the right circumstances, absolutely flip.”

“Fuck, I know!” She says, waving your glare away from her as she looks out the passenger side window. “Look, they ain’t got anywhere yet, huh? That means we still got time. We just need to make sure Barb really ain’t gonna do nothin’.”

“She wouldn’t talk to me past tellin’ me she promised you to only give it back to you and then that she knew.”

“Oh, sure, she can stick to that part of the damn promise.” Melissa grumbles as she gets out nearly before you can put the car in park in the driveway. She turns back just as you catch up to her on the front porch. “Ya didn’t even lock the door! Aduzipach!”

“We do not have time for another argument!” You toss back as you reach the top step, gently ushering her inside with you as you pull the door shut again. This time you do lock it behind you. “We have to be on the same page, okay? We really have to be or we’re definitely screwed. I’m still pissed, and hurt but whatever. It doesn’t matter right now. Right now what matters is you, and me, and the girls. That’s all that matters, which means we have to figure a way out of this bullshit.”

“Amore, you know there’s only two ways out of the life. Neither one lets us be there for the girls- at all.”

“And both I’d preferably like to avoid entirely.” You add, sighing as you slump into your couch. “So..w we have to literally do the impossible.”

“I don’t know how we’re going to do that,” Melissa groans as she leans into your figure.

Barbara Howard speeds off, and she doesn’t necessarily know where she’s going. But after a bit, she figures that you aren’t following her, and she stops at a local diner to pick up takeout for a lunch date with her husband, the senator.

TAGS: @thesapphictimelady @marvel210 @itisdoctortoyousir @morgana-larkin @thesamesweetie @doesthatsuggestanythingtoyou @marvels--slut @gwennybriggs @megamultifandomtrashposts @lemz378 @http-sam @melissaschemmentisbranzino @imaginesmultifandoms @sexysapphicshopowner @lilfartbox1 @maybe-a-humanbean @imlike-so-gaydude @sapphicxrat @a-queen-and-her-throne @sunsol-22 @notinmyvocab @melanielaufeyson @dvrkhcld

[salternateunreality2]

More Bodyguard Beefa AU

Zack is a pediatrician, which is why he can't be there 24/7 for Cloud, and also why he gets to go ham when Cloud works himself into shock or exhaustion, or burns his hand before a recital.

Cloud is shy and embarrassed about the doting, but between Tifa raising her eyebrow as a threat to take over, Aerith gently pushing and teasing him, and Zack's puppy eyes, he gives in and lets it happen.

Aerith has nurse and bodyguard training, so she can picks up shifts to match Zack's and keep an eye on him at the hospital.

A year or so ago (before Sephiroth and Tifa), Cloud's playing attracted a different kind of stalker, one who would curl up under the church window (where he practices) and listen for hours...until one day his coughing gives him away.

Cloud finishes his piece, then looks out to see if he's still there; it's Denzel, who runs away at first. Cloud keeps playing and ignoring the coughing, but leaving little gifts for him on the windowsill; water, snacks, his own lunch.

It helps Cloud because he tends to get swept up in the music and forget to cook, so now he has someone else to take care of, he remembers more often, even if he starts giving his whole lunch to Den, he at least makes it and has enough for dinner.

Den's cough doesn't get better, but Cloud eventually gets him to come inside to listen and sets him up with a little nest.

One day, Den isn't coughing, he's sitting outside the church door pale and unresponsive, and Cloud panics and brings him to the hospital close by.

He meets Zack there, finds out that Den is homeless and alone, and that Den has the same geostigma Cloud does, but a more acute case due to his living conditions.

Denzel is fostered by Barret and Myrna. Zack signs off on Den leaving the hospital to listen to Cloud when it's safe, and often is the one to bring him on his lunch break since the hospital and church are close by.

Zack also can't get enough of the prickly chocobo ;)

Anyway, Zack doesn't know about Cloud's geostigma, or that that's why Cloud won't let him too close--until one day when he swings by after work so he can offer Cloud dinner.

He opens the door to the church and sees Cloud shivering and sweating, not up by his instrument like he usually is, but down at the entrance near Zack, holding an odd paper swan.

Zack: HEY CLOUD! Cloud?

Cloud startles and trips over himself, landing in a heap with his shirt riding up to show a geostigma sore, but he doesn't notice, he's too shocked and scared.

Zack: Whoa, easy, easy bud, it's Zack. Can you hear* me?

(*hallucinations are a common stigma symptom in this AU)

Cloud: *nods*

Zack: Ok, do you know who I am?

Cloud: Z-zack.

Zack: That's great Cloud. Can you see me? And can you see anything else that shouldn't be here?

Cloud: j-just you and th-the *whispers* swans

Zack: Ok, is it ok if I help you up? I'm tougher than the swans, and you'll watch my back.

Cloud: *whispering* Ok

Zack helps Cloud up and sits him in a chair in the entryway, making sure the church door is closed. Then he gives Cloud a quick exam and sees that he's feverish and disoriented, and a bit malnourished. He can see the tell-tale spasms of geostigma in Cloud's muscles and the way he fixes his watery gaze on things that Zack can't see.

Cloud: They're fading... sorry

Zack: No worries man, I understand. You're sick, it happens. Did you hit anything? Your head looks ok, but does it hurt?

Cloud: No more'n usual *slurring a bit*

Zack, cringing internally--another symptom: Ok, ok good. I'm gonna give you a ride. Nope! No arguing, I'm a doctor and can't not. You're either coming to my place, letting me spend the night at your place, or I'm taking you to the hospital.

Cloud: No! No hospital! *Breathing picks up*

Zack: Shh, easy, ok, no hospital. Promise unless you get a lot worse. No hospital. My place or yours?

Cloud: ...

Zack: I have a spare room and just went grocery shopping, maybe you can motivate me to try my new recipe, yeah?

Cloud: o-ok. Sorry. Sorry, don't mean to bother you. S-

Zack: No bother, bud, I was going to see if you wanted dinner anyway. This bag all you got? What's that little paper?

Cloud pales dramatically and sways. Zack quickly steadies him.

Zack: Whoa! Whoa whoa, hey, Cloud, still with me?

Cloud: s'nothing

Zack: Obviously it's something, but if you don't want to tell me, you don't have to. But maybe telling would help? Up to you.

Cloud: ...*shoves the paper into Zack's hand* It's probably nothing. Just a fan. It's just...I found it inside...but I didn't notice anyone come in...

Zack unfolds the swan to find a note written on it.

"From your greatest admirer to a true prodigy; your spirit moves me in ways I have not felt in years, my dear, my love, my treasure. Sing, sing through the keys and pipes, all for me, I know. -Your Swan"

Zack: Ok, Cloud...

Cloud looks at him through hazy, scared eyes, shaking and swaying.

Zack: ...let's go home first, ok? This is weird, but I think we need food and rest first. I got your bag already right here, anything else you need?

Cloud shakes his head.

Zack: Ok, then up we go and I'll take you out to my car, then we can go to my place and work on that dinner, yeah? Alright...*hauls Cloud up and practically carries him out to the car*

Later that night, Zack finds out this isn't the first swan letter. He also finds out that Cloud's been forgetting meals since Denzel doesn't need him anymore, and when he remembers, he's often too stressed from the notes. All this stress and lack of care have led to a geostigma flare-up, complete with sores, fever, mild hallucinations, and muscle spasms. This is when he gets the idea to call Beefa.

Next

[daryltwdixon]

The Promise of Us: Chapter 54

Daryl

He strays behind the group following behind the priest–Sasha, Bob, Michonne and Rick–as he holds his crossbow tightly in his hands, scanning the area. He’s always found it hard to concentrate on runs like this without her next to him. Hell, the days he went without her were like hell, the screaming in the back of his mind, the need to know where she was drove him nearly insane until the closeness with Beth had snuffed it to at least a whisper. Bob is up ahead talking to Rick, something about Washington and Eugene’s cure. He wants to believe it, of course, but something in his gut knows it must be too good to be true. He catches the last few words of the exchange.

“We’re gonna be back in the real world,” Bob says

“This is the real world, Bob,” Rick says seriously, his voice hoarse.

“Nah, this is a nightmare–nightmares end.”

❥・・❥・・❥・・❥・・❥・・❥・・❥・・❥・・❥

You

You’re walking alongside Carol, each of you lugging heavy water jugs from your trip to the stream. The silence is thick, the weight of recent events still lingering between you. You steal a glance at her, noting the drawn look in her expression.

“I get not wanting to tell Daryl, or anyone else, you know,” you say quietly, trying to keep your tone gentle. “You okay, though?”

Carol’s lips curve into a faint, weary smile. “Gotta be,” she replies simply, her voice matter-of-fact, as if there’s no room for anything else.

You nod slowly, feeling the heaviness of it all settle in. “We can start over, with each other. You saved us, Carol. You know that, right?”

“We all got lucky,” she says, her eyes distant. “Sounds like you did the other half of the work anyway, back there. We should be dead.”

The two of you fall into a pensive silence as you keep moving, until a car comes into view ahead, half-hidden by overgrown brush. “Let me check it,” you offer, setting your jug down.

You move quickly, trying the keys in the ignition, but the engine doesn’t even sputter. A lost cause. You let out a sigh, then try the trunk instead. As it pops open, your eyes catch a glimmer of hope—mini generators, tucked neatly inside.

“We should leave it here for backup,” Carol suggests, moving closer. “In case things go south at the church.”

You nod in agreement, picking up your water jugs again to make your way back. As you both start making your way back, Carol breaks the silence again, her voice lighter this time. “So, what’s goin’ on with Daryl? He’s been all over the place lately—moody, thoughtful, then suddenly all affectionate. You noticed?”

You shake your head, a mix of confusion and amusement. “Yeah,” you admit, your voice carrying a hint of exasperation. “But I’m not sure what it is. He’s always been hot and cold, especially when he’s got a lot on his mind.”

Carol’s eyes twinkle with a playful spark. “Hmm. I don’t know. Seems like there’s somethin’ serious on his mind,” she says, a teasing lilt in her voice. “Just needs the courage to make up his mind about it.”

You narrow your eyes at her suspiciously, catching the subtext in her words. “What’re you gettin' at?”

“Just thinkin’ out loud,” she replies, but her grin is unmistakable. “He’s stubborn as hell, but he’s got a way of coming around when it really matters.”

You roll your eyes, but there’s a warmth in your chest, even if you don’t want to admit it. “Guess we’ll see,” you say, trying to play it off. But the thought lingers, a mix of anticipation and uncertainty swirling inside you.

Carol watches you with a knowing smile, her expression softening. “You two’ll figure it out. You always do.”

“Maybe,” you murmur, “If he ever decides to spit it out.”

Carol’s laughter is light, the sound of it bringing a brief sense of normalcy back to the moment. “Oh, I think he will,” she says. “Just might be workin’ up the nerve to say it.”

❥・・❥・・❥・・❥・・❥・・❥・・❥・・❥・・❥

Daryl

“We’re here,” Gabriel says warily, pointing to a white brick building up ahead. “This was the food bank. It served the whole county.”

Rick opens the door swiftly, his movements sharp and purposeful. The rest of the group follows, weapons raised. Daryl holds his crossbow tightly as they make their way inside. The interior is littered with discarded clothes, shoes, and broken belongings scattered across the floor. The sight of shredded garments sends a flash of anger through Daryl, reminding him of Y/N’s torn clothes after the attack on the road. He pauses briefly, tugging a few clean shirts off hangers and stuffing them into his small pack, his jaw clenched.

The group presses forward with a quiet urgency, footsteps echoing in the eerily silent space. Suddenly, from the far side of the room, a splashing sound echoes up from a hole in the floor. Daryl’s eyes narrow as they approach, peering down into the dark pit below.

The stench hits hard—a noxious blend of rot and decay. Swollen, putrid walkers shuffle through a grimy pool of stagnant water.

“If a sewer could puke,” Bob mutters, covering his nose with his sleeve, “this is what it’d smell like.”

Daryl glances up at the ceiling, noticing large holes punctured through the rotting wood. “Water’s been comin’ down them holes for a while,” he grunts.

“Slimed this place up good,” Michonne agrees, her voice grim. “But we can use the shelves to block them.”

Rick nods. “That’s our way in. The shelves, lets go,”

With that, everyone moves toward the narrow staircase leading into the muck below. The water is colder than expected, and as soon as they hit the bottom, chaos erupts, the walkers immediately snarling as they push the shelves against them.

“Go!” Rick commands. Three of them surge forward, arms outstretched, knocking cans. Daryl drives a bolt into a walker's skull with practiced efficiency, while Michonne and Sasha thrust knives into the heads of others.

From the corner of his eye, Daryl sees Gabriel backed into a wall, his face pale and panicked as a walker lurches toward him. It’s bloated and grotesque, waterlogged fingers clawing at the air.

“We gotta get Gabriel!” Rick shouts above the din.

“What happened?” Bob asks, his voice strained.

“I don’t know!” Rick replies, his gaze locked on the walkers closing in. “We’ll push the shelves down and fight through. I’ll grab him.”

The group obeys, shoving the nearest shelf down with a violent splash. Walkers flail in the waist-deep water, but the group remains relentless. Daryl keeps his movements quick, plunging his knife into skulls with swift precision. The water is thick and murky, making every step a fight against the weight of the filth around them.

As Daryl slashes through another walker, he catches a glint of something shiny. A ring, tarnished but still catching the light, sits on the rotting finger of a walker reaching for him. He grits his teeth and drives his knife into its skull, the ring’s dull sparkle disappearing beneath the churning water.

Rick reaches Gabriel just in time, grabbing the walker by its head and smashing it against the wall with brutal force. The skull cracks, splattering the wall with gore. Gabriel collapses into the water, sobbing uncontrollably.

Daryl exchanges a quick glance with Michonne and Sasha, their expressions mirroring his own mix of confusion and frustration.

Then, suddenly, the water erupts violently. Bob, who had been reaching for a stash of cans on a nearby shelf, is yanked beneath the surface by a walker’s skeletal arms.

“Bob!” Sasha screams, her voice raw with panic. She rushes forward as Bob resurfaces, wrestling with the walker. Its waterlogged flesh peels away as Bob shoves it back, its grip relentless. Sasha dives in, her machete coming down hard on the walker’s skull. The creature falls limp, sinking beneath the murky water.

Bob pants heavily, his face pale but determined. “I’m fine,” he manages, trying to catch his breath. The group’s eyes dart around, wary of any other threats lurking below.

Rick’s voice breaks the tense silence. “Everyone good?”

There are nods, tired but resolute. Daryl’s grip loosens on his knife as he scans the room, muscles still uncoiling from the tension. But the worst is over, and the quiet returns, the water settling around them as they begin to collect the hoard of supplies surrounding them into boxes.

[somehow-a-human]

Whose POV is it Anyway?

1941

DO NOT ASK NEIL ABOUT FAN THEORY

Alright you lot! I wanted to post this days ago but it proved to be a more difficult bit of writing than I was expecting! I'm not sure why but I just had a tough time finishing this one. The other POV posts I've done have been pretty straightforward, but this one was a little tricky.

As always, for reference & context, I recommend reading these previous posts:

Whose POV is it Anyway? - Introduction

Lens Filters

POV "Your 'Something's Wrong' Voice"

POV a Trip to Hell and a 25 Lazarii Miracle

POV a Companion to Owls

POV The Dirty Donkey & I think I Found a *Clue*!

POV Bodysnatchers & Cosplaying a bookseller

Let's take a trip to Soho during the Blitz....

We open Episode 4 with Aziraphale driving back from Edinburgh in the very late hours of the night or early hours of the morning. Shax stops him and gets herself into the Bentley. The lighting is cool and misty and since we're dealing with Shax, my guess is we're looking at Hell's Black Pro Mist filter (BPM). Shax reminds Aziraphale of 1941 by mentioning Furfur, and we're drawn into the 1941 minisode.

SO enter 1941... we're in the church, and the bomb has just exploded.

I went back and decided to watch this opening scene from both season 1 and season 2 side by side to see if there were any noticable differences and the HUGE one is the difference in the color grading of this scene between seasons. It's the same footage, though season two's is spliced with bits of nazi's dying, but the footage in season two is so much more green than it was in season one. Take a look at these screenshots, season 1 on the left and season 2 on the right.

These are unedited, same computer screen and everything, season 2 is just so green. We know green is associated with Hell, so I'd posit a guess we're getting the green from the nazi's (Hell's) POV being added in here. We're shown they're still alive for a few moments of this scene. Crowley's sideburns are short in this scene but it is reused footage from season 1 so I'd just disregard it.

Then we move on to the drive home from the bombing, Crowley's sideburns are still on the shorter side, which according to our previous theories would indicate we're likely to be matched with Crowley's POV. However I'm sure you'll agree deciphering a filter from this scene is very difficult, given they are driving through a bombing sequence. We are supported though by the demons snippy tone toward Aziraphale, something we've previously observed him don when in his POV filter with the accompanying short sideburn/hair length. Ex: switch inside the coffee shop & switch outside the pub.

They pull up to the Windmill Theater, there are lovely glowy warm halos around the marquee lights, so I'd say we're looking at Aziraphale's POV now, or the Bronze Glimmerglass (BGG) filter. Crowley's sideburns are also long here, which would fit the narrative that these are connected. Inside the theater the coloring is still warm toned. Inside the bookshop, the lighting remains warm and likely the BGG filter as well.

When we cut to outside shots of the bookshop we see that the lighting outside is again extremely green, reminding us that the agents of Hell are lurking.

We move into the magic shop and I believe we're still in the BGG filter & Aziraphale's POV, evidenced by the fact that after Crowley and Aziraphale leave the magic shop, and the zombies enter, the warm hue disappears as the magic shop owner is attacked.

Cue the magic show. The lighting of what we're shown on stage is warm and hazy and likely still the BGG filter.

In the backroom of the theater Crowley's sideburns remain long and the lighting is hazy and warm, I think we're seeing Aziraphale's POV here as well.

In the backroom of the bookshop however, when Crowley and Aziraphale enjoy their wine together, Crowley's sideburns are short again, and he tells Aziraphale he's terrible at magic. He's being snippy which indicates Crowley's the narrator, but the lighting is still warm.

I'm reminded here of Finney's characterization of the different filters from the VFX article. He specifically described the Black Diffusion FX Filter as "Crowley's Present Day Storyline". Does this mean there isn't a filter change for Crowley as a narrator in flashbacks? The filter is definitely helpful for deciphering who's our narrator in present day but maybe that's why Crowley's hair also seems to be correlated with the POV? Because it isn't a hard and fast rule?

Aziraphale arrives home from the trip, and when Crowley brings his plants out of the bookshop, his sideburns are still long.

NEXT POV The Ball

[anthrofreshtodeath]

untitled drabble

clearly I’m still thinking about Jane and being bad.

—-

Jane lumbered out of the confessional booth in St. Joseph’s, her boots heavy against the well-worn tile as the wood of the seat creaked beneath her. Everything about the moment was so damn old, including her, she thought. She refused to think about the physical aches and pains that came with her exit because Maura had a concussion - a fucking brain bleed - and Nina had just gotten out of surgery, but she couldn’t block out that ancient catholic guilt, belonging to the generations of parishioners here before her and settling on her shoulders now.

Not her guilt - to be quite fair. No, she felt something far older, something that tingled in her fingers, dragging them to the holster on her hip. Perhaps that feeling was catholic, too. But the absence of guilt told her that here was where she needed to be. 

Told her she might be too far gone, and so she’d better get her ass to church, because she’d felt this way before, and it’d caused her to do some stupid things.

And forty years of guilt other people told her to feel, it aged her. If not in body, in spirit. How many times had the tang of vengeance singed the back of her tongue, only to be cut down by the icy deluge of admonishment? How many times had she been told that she felt too much, too often?

Now the tang was all she could taste, and the best she could do was stand before God ahead of time. Because like she told the priest, she hadn’t been to confession in years, and there was a lot to confess, but perhaps her grandest sin was standing in defiance of regret.

Not for what she planned to do now, anyway.

She marched right past the pews on her way out the heavy double doors, only breathing in when that chilly fall air settled on her face.

It’s not what I’ve done - it’s what I’m going to do.

She’d left an important part out. And that I might not make it to the other side of this. 

That, however, was a sin for another confessor, and Jane, craving nothing more than the Newports she used to chain smoke in junior college, prepared herself for more penance on her way to her car. 

Beacon Hill had been aptly named, because it called her. 

She released herself into the driver’s seat of the unmarked with a thud. When she closed her eyes for a bit of peace, to quiet the raging of all those thoughts before she turned the key in the ignition, she exhaled. Loud, unsteady. 

God she needed sleep.

But first, she needed to get to Maura.

So, she buckled up, blinked herself into wakefulness, helped by the light of the moon, and drove west to Beacon Hill from the North End. 

She’d made the trip a thousand times over the last five years; she barely needed eyes on the road. She used most of the time to think of what to say, or rather how to say it. She thought she’d just about got it right when she pulled up on Pinckney street, but it left her when she shuffled through the courtyard and turned her key in the lock.

Maura was standing there, back to Jane when Jane entered, still in the day’s black blouse and pink trousers. Still with the butterfly bandage on her head, in front of a sink with dinner’s dishes still soaking inside. Maura herself stared out the window, gripping the lip of the counter.

“H-hey,” was all that Jane could muster. She closed the door with respect, the latch clicking softly. The warm light of Maura’s front room caressed her, such a sumptuous affront to the dimness of St. Joseph’s. It almost burned away the murder in her. 

Almost.

“Hi,” Maura answered, but she never turned. “Where have you been? Your mother’s been looking for you.”

“I… hmm,” Jane did not expect the emotion that stifled her. She pushed through. “I went to church.”

“To church? What for?” Maura began to scrub.

“Confession,” said Jane when she brought herself over to the granite counter. She placed each hand on it, key ring still looped on her index finger, teeth biting into her palm as she pressed. She licked her lips - that is how the moment should feel, yes. Again, penance. The discomfort met the mood.

“Oh,” Maura acknowledged. There was a beat, like she would be too defeated by her own pain to ask about Jane’s. But then she cleared her throat. “Am I allowed to ask what you confessed?” It was quiet, timid.

And Jane hung her head.

Where was her Maura who, at the start of those five years, had winked at her and asked did you have a lot to confess to? Who had put sex into every syllable of that question? Sex and unequivocal joy? 

This Maura, run ragged by circumstance, by the violence in Jane’s orbit, barely allowed herself space in Jane. 

And that angered this Jane, hollowed out and filled up with nothing but rage and the animalistic fear of losing whatever iteration of Maura she could get.

She walked over to the sink, dropped her keys in her pocket, and put her face to the crown of Maura’s hurting head. It still smelled like flowers and fruit. “You’re allowed to ask things of me,” Jane whispered. She hoped Maura felt it like Jane felt strands of hair against her wet lips. The walls fell. “You’re allowed to demand things of me.”

Maura stiffened. There were long moments where she only tightened her grip on the counter and Jane only froze in place. But then. Then. “Tell me what you confessed.”

“That I wasn’t, hmm,” Jane found herself struggling to find the right words in light of Maura seizing her opportunity. “That I’m gonna-“

“That you’re going to kill Alice Sands,” Maura said.

“No,” Jane replied.

“Then tell me,” Maura ordered.

Jane’s old, tired heart thrilled. It beat faster, sending another impulse to her fingers. This time, she obeyed, wrapping them in Maura’s hair and tugging. 

Maura hissed when she went back, but Jane knew.

Jane knew that it wasn’t from pain. She moved her lips to Maura’s temple. “I���m gonna feel no regret when I put a bullet in her head,” she murmured. “I confessed that I’m gonna kill her and I’m gonna enjoy it. But there was somethin’ I left out.”

“Don’t make that mistake twice,” Maura turned her head so that her mouth danced on Jane’s as she spoke.

“Wasn’t a mistake,” Jane returned the favor. “I was savin’ it for you: I might have to give myself up to get that. To end her. But it’s a price I’d pay every time.”

Maura’s gaze narrowed, and Jane’s grip loosened, but they stayed close. And when Jane’s fingers, still in her hair, settled on the nape of her neck, she uttered one last command. “Well, make sure you don’t have to. Because I’m not god. I won’t forgive you if you do.”

And Jane, reinvigorated, nodded. 

[amimochi]

Fellow Travelers Prompt Ideas

Anyone who knows me knows that I can't write at all so I just post all these imaginary fic ideas every day on my Twitter, figure I combine them here in case people want to read them (or write them *wink*) Enjoy!

Milan Post AU

Hawk got the promotion to Milan that he wanted and took Tim to live there with him. They go out to eat at restaurants, walk along the canal, and take a trip to Lake Como living their best aesthetic life.

Bonus Point: Tim is all love-struck with Hawk's fluent Italian skills while taking baby steps to learn Italian himself. Tim insists he wants to visit all the churches and Hawk just goes along with him even if he has 0 interest in church.

Time Travel AU

Hawk died miserably alone and thought to himself if he could re-do everything one more time. He then wakes up again in his young body, Manwha heroine style. It's 1954 and he just told Skippy he's going to marry Lucy Smith.

Skippy went to the army anyway and he couldn't save Sen.Smith. Hawk starting to doubt if he could evem make things right and then he start fixing his past mistake,cut off his engagement with Lucy. Save Lenny. After everything he sits down to write, write to his boy in the army.

At first, it was radio silence but after a year he got a letter back. Hawk confesses his feelings and they get together shortly after that. Hawk was able to use some future knowledge to keep his job after his engagement call-off scandal. Things were hard but they stuck together.

But since this is Hawk, things are bound to fuck up eventually. the fight in the late '60s tore them apart when Tim wanted to settle down in SF. Hawk knows full well what's gonna happen in SF in a few years, there's no way he will let Tim go there but how could he tell Tim that and they got in a big fight.

WWII Spy AU

Spy AU where Hawk is a CIA agent in Germany during WWII undercover as an SS officer there he met Tim who's an informant or secret agent for the MI6 undercover as an unsuspecting writing duty officer at the Nazi party headquarter.

Modern AU with BDSM

Hawk and Tim in a modern setting doing kink negotiation together before a scene. Hawk is a pro in the BDSM scene while Tim is a newbie. Tim is probably into spanking, and nipple play and Hawk is into bondage and orgasm control play. I can't decide who has praise kink but I think both of them???

Tim blushed prettily when he learned about Hawk feet worshipping thing but he's eager to learn like a good boy.

Happy Ending AU

Hawk fails the polygraph test and his life full of lies falls apart. Lost his job, lost Senator Smith's trust and Lucy ended things with him. He spirals down into deep depression (probably suicidal as well) but he's not alone as he still has Tim.

Tim was able to help him through and they slowly built a new life together, moving to San Francisco in the '60s An eventual happy ending in the 70s where they are holding hands in the first pride parade surrounded by friends.

[on-my-way-to-the-woods]

Anyway, uh, it's been busy so here is a brief (lies, it's not brief, but I promise I'm only giving the highlights) summary of the last month.

Break for very long post

The Last Month - Abridged

F & I are splitting up (sorta). The hardest one to write, but it's going up top 1. because it came first and 2. because if I don't start with it I simply won't write it out. It's been slowly moving towards this for awhile now, but it's real now. Mostly, it's a case of conflicting needs and conflicting disabilities, so it's been rough on both sides. We're still living together, and planning to continue that way (even if we weren't though, who could afford the rent?) so it's still family of a sort, but not like it was

I uncovered a major issue at work (~2 days after F had me start sleeping on the futon) and it was a mess but we got it resolved within two days

Less than an hour after finding the issue mentioned above, I got the call that the relative I was planning on visiting in a week died

I figured risking air travel was probably a bad idea. It'd probably end fine, but I've not yet been trapped somewhere with one of the worse perfumes and a metal box hundreds of feet in the air with no ability to leave for several hours seems like a poor place to risk seeing exactly how far these reactions can go. (I don't want a joint funeral, I'm not catholic). So I chose to drive through the night instead - which is also a bad idea, but what can you do? Packing with no idea about how things are going to go was it's own mess.

The drive went surprisingly well. I took as few stops as possible and I have a new odor reducing respirator that is helping a lot - so it was only a handful of reactions & I was ready to stomp them out each time (yay albuterol & xyzal). Pretty much drove straight through except for gas and a 30min catnap here and there (don't try this at home kids, I'm setting a bad example). My good friend driving-though-the-dark-alone-listening-to-a-horror-podcast kept me awake just fine (I love you Left Right Game) (but again, don't try this at home)

Did the funeral things, got super sick in the church but was alright at the other venues. I must have looked really bad in the church though because my family didn't make a single snide remark about me bringing my dog on the trip during the entire time I was there.

Helped out with moving things around the house and dispersing some possessions. I drove a bunch of clothes (fragrant 🤦 but I had them in trash bags so it was mostly okay) back with me to donate to the various queer orgs around here. They'll appreciate the old natural fiber clothes more than the goodwill where most of it was going.

Made a detour specifically to bring my dog to the Atlantic. She had a blast. Nova has now officially crossed the country (W->E and also S->N).

On the drive back I went hiking the farthest I've been from a city in a long time and I felt so fucking alive. On the one hand, stunning experience - did 7mi (11km) in snow no problem as a short hike (since I was trying to make it back to bring F to a medical appointment) and I would have stayed out all day if I could. On the other hand, it's a little concerning if the only place I feel like myself is that far away from people. I can't afford a house & land in the middle of nowhere…

Also stopped by a place we used to live and walked our old neighborhood route. Nova was excited, but confused.

Wound up in a different park after hours and it might have been haunted

Made it back the day before F's appointment. Slept. Discovered that the one provider I liked less than the others (despite them all being equally friendly) uses perfume so I've just been allergic to them instead of disliking them for no reason (I kinda suspected so, but it was proven this time)

Had a rheumatology appointment to see if they had ideas about what my issue might be. This is the first time I have seen a doctor realize what it means when I say I'm having these reactions to fragrances, you could see it play out on her face: oh shit, fragrances are everywhere. Several times throughout the appointment she'd pause as she had a thought and then ask questions that were clearly checking in on my life outside of just the symptoms (e.g. "how do you get groceries?") which is something I haven't seen since F's GP (whose interest was in public health) moved away. I think it went well. She's running the usual bloodwork, partly just to check and partly because she knows that having ruled out some things already will make it more likely for me to get care from an allergist.

Toured more houses for rent, it just made me incredibly sad. You can see traces of someone's beloved home in some of these old houses, but landlords own them now and they just don't bother. Rotting garages, fences in pieces, trash in the yard, holes in the walls, doors that can't open all the way anymore. 'Just let the tenant do the work and foot the bill, people are desperate, we can let the house rot around them while they pay for the privilege and just buy another when it pops up.' (I have feelings on the matter)

Finally got my covid & flu shots. I had timed it specifically for when our favorite pharmacist works, but I hadn't considered the holiday rush would mean they have two on duty. I instead got our least favorite pharmacist (she does not like F) and it was an impressively bad experience. Sure love it when you tell a provider something has given you side effects every time and they tell you it won't do it 🙄 /s

Rheumatology bloodwork is back, I love receiving results online. I'm very interested in what she'll say at the follow up this week. By my read (science nerd, but no relevant medical training), it's… odd. A little contradictory, but it's indicating some shit is up - however, none of the main contenders would explain my fragrance reactions.

Got to volunteer with a conservation group in a safe area for me.  Had a fantastic time, was able to be around people and move and do something productive and satisfying.  Went back again and will continue trying to do these as I can.

Went with F to her allergy appointment and, ironically, had reactions myself the entire time.  Not just in the waiting room, but everywhere in the building.  Maybe it was their disinfectant? Hoping it was just a fluke because I used to be able to go there, even while dealing with this.

My allergy appointment went poorly, there's another (long) post about it, but the gist is that I now have VCD in my chart (despite the fact he said he doesn't know what is wrong with me and said maybe I should go to Mayo Clinic) & tests he didn't mention

I am currently arguing with insurance over >$10k and I'm not having fun

[thehypnone]

Hi Hyp, I'm currently scared for Copia and crying about it and I was wondering if we could get some kind of little Phantom comfort from Copia?

You can ignore it if you aren't feeling it but I thought I would ask anyway 💜

Phantom was shaking.

He, and all the ghouls, were already in costume, waiting to get on stage. The opening act has already finished, Copia's little pep talk too. They were just waiting.

And Phantom was shaking. His brain fuzzy as he fiddled with a pick.

Everyone in there expected to see Aether.

Most of them knew they wouldn't see Sunshine, Ghost's social media undercover agents, as Swiss called them, took care of it. With Aether it was a last minute situation.

Phantom had so little time to learn everything. Life Topside, his guitar parts. He was terrified.

And his brain decided to shut off now?

How was he supposed to perform, his first ever show too, when little? He wasn't tiny but he was still to small and-

What if he regressed further? What if he fucked up the first song? What if he fucked up all the songs? What if he tripped and fell on stage? What if he fell off stage? What if the fans didn't like him? What if-

"My ghoul?" Papa's voice made his racing thoughts come to a halt, aw hine escaping his mouth. The quintessence ghoul's head snapped in his direction, thankful for the dark lenses obscuring his big, teary eyes. "Everything fine? You seem like you're shaking."

"Uhm... Papa, I-" he started, voice cracking, too little words in his fuzzy head.

"Come with me," Copia said and reached out for Phantom's hand. He could do nothing but grip it too and stumble after the human.

They didn't walk far, just far enough for the rest of the ghouls and people running all around to not hear the two of them, "What are you scared of, little ghoul?"

"Papa, I- I don'- i's-" how did Papa know? Did someone tell him Phantom went small sometimes? Did he just notice? Was the ghoul that obvious?

"Shhh, deep breaths for me," Phantom tried, first one, two, inhales and exhales shaky. Copia nodded at him with a soft, proud smile after each one and soon Phantom could actually breathe.

"What are you scared of?" he repeated. Phantom did know the answer, it was very simple. Very embarrassing, too.

"Everythin'," the quintessence ghoul mumbled, shoulders slumped, head dipped so low his chin nearly touched his chest.

"Oh, my sweet, little ghoul," Papa cooed with a sad sigh. He opened his arms after a few heartbeats of silence, "Come on."

Phantom hesitated it was... it was Papa Emeritus IV, leader of the Church of Satan and he was... offering him a hug? This could not be-

"Come here, little one," he repeated, more sternly. Phantom looked up and saw nothing but comfort in his Papa's eyes. He gave up.

The ghoul all but fell into Copia's arms, they immediately tightened around him. He was... a good huger. Phantom had to hold himself back from purring, he felt so safe in Papa's embrace.

"I know you're a bit small now, yes?"

Phantom tensed, letting out a small whimper.

"It's okay," the human spoke quietly, "everything's going to be alright, my ghoul. You'll do your best, I know you will. And that is more than I, or everyone else, could ever wish for, yes?"

"Yes, Papa," Phantom whispered. It was hard to believe but... but maybe, just maybe, Papa was right and... and it would all be alright.

"Doesn't matter if you're big or small, you are a good ghoul. Everything will be alright. I believe you can do it, I believe in you."

"You... you do?"

"Absolutely, my little ghoul. I do now and always will," he chuckled, rubbing Phantom's back. "Now let's have some fun, yes?"

[bluepotion85]

The Golden Ratio - Chapter 6

(The following story contains male weight gain, food play, BDSM, kidnap, encouragement, and feeder/feedee scenarios. If that's not for you, then go to church or something vanilla dude.

This takes place during and after the events of the One-Piece film GOLD. For a better experience see the film on your local streaming service.

This story is written in collaboration with @bee-wg)

Tesoro

He tried to stand up fast after I told him to follow me out of the cage, but the floor was coated in so much liquid he tripped with his step. That cactus syrup did a number on him. 

His stomach roars so loudly even I can hear it, but I don't want him leaking his ass pussy juice all over my ship. The smell of it is also strong, a sweet scent that entices me to grab him by the side and take him to my quarters. I resist my urge though.

“We are getting a bath first, then you can stuff that needy belly of yours,”

“I’ve never been so keen to shower before,”

“I have something even better than a shower.”  

While the idea of seeing his fatten-up body demolish a restaurant menu or two is enticing, I can’t deny the idea of sharing a bath with him sounds way more rewarding. I will see the fruits of my work in all its glory.

He remained restless on the way to the bathhouse.

“Is it close by?” he asked.

“Close enough, why? You don't want to be seen?” 

“I don't care about that, I'm just hungry. The sooner we deal with this the better,” 

“Don't worry, after this, we will have a proper meal,”

When we got to the bathhouse, he went straight to the changing rooms. He started to strip right there and there, with no snarky remarks or questions. He just went with it. The guy was hungry, that's for sure.

He speeds for the water right after the last of his clothes hit the floor. I saw him jumping into the water, splashing everywhere while I removed the rest of my clothes. 

When I entered the water, he was standing up to leave.

“That was refreshing, now to the restaurant,”

I grab him by the side and throw him back into the water.

“You haven't bathed in weeks, clean properly, you pig,”

“Pfft, fine. I thought you wanted me to be a pig,” he said before diving into the water.

He re-emerges shortly after, floating lazily with his eyes closed. I move closer to him while he relaxes, and I take my time marveling at his body after almost two weeks in the cage. 

Where there used to be abs, there now lies a belly that floats over the water. It spills to his sides, taking up more of his frame. I'm hypnotized by it, slowly rising with every breath he takes.

The definition on his arms and legs banished, leaving supple thick sacks of meat decorated by stretch marks. 

And yet the one thing that keeps growing bigger than anything is his tits. As big as they were already, from the muscles that he worked for years, they now ballon with a thick layer of fat. They led his step, weighed down by their sheer size, but now they fighting for space with his belly above the water. 

He must have gained at least fifty pounds, mostly focused on his chest and ass, a few days of indulgence, and nobody will be able to tell he ever set foot in a gym.

My eyes go to his dick still in its cage, and I wave my hands to take back the ring for now.

He stirs from the movement and looks down to find his released privates. 

“Are you going to give me my dick back?”

“You don’t use it anyways, but yes, you can clean it up better this way,”

He smiles at me and sinks back into the water. I immediately pulled him out and said, “You are not allowed to cum. If I see you trying to, I will get you back in the cage with human portions for real,” 

“Okay,” he said with a blank face.

To anyone else, he is acting as always, but that glimpse of fear was clear as day for me. 

I released him from my grip, and he continued to soak in the warm water. 

“How is Luffy and the crew doing?” He asked.

I was surprised he hadn't asked earlier. The straw hats have remained busy thanks to the several missions my team had saved for them.

“They are in Zou. No matter what we ask of them, they keep getting into deeper problems,”

“And-?”

“And then we lost communications with them. Someone forgot to feed the Den Den Mushis,”

“But they were okay?”

“Of course, besides they are the Straw Hats, they will be fine,”

He looked at me inquisitively and sighed.

“They are a handful, but I'm sure they will be fine.”

I have no clue if the Straw hats are even alive or not, but this will keep him calm in the meantime. 

“Could you help me wash up my back?” I said.

He looked back at me and replied with squinted eyes, “Can't you wash yourself with your golden hands or something?”

“I don't have golden eyes on my neck. Come on, I will help you afterward.” 

“Uggh Fine,” he said.

He moved behind me fast. I don't know what surprised me more, his speed even after gaining so much weight or the fact he moved this fast to scrub my back. 

He stays behind me silently. Most likely admiring my wide, muscular build, then he says, “How did you get that star mark?”

This son of a bitch.

“Not everybody knows I came from poverty. I worked myself to the bone to get this far, and that star is the mark that shows I’ve been reborn,”

“I prefer to remember my mission through the scars of battle, but this is also cool,” 

His movements are slow and deliberate, scrubbing carefully around the area of the scar. He is transfixed by it, and weirdly, I appreciate this reaction. The scar was there to cover a story of shame and abuse, but he is looking at it with reverence. 

Once he moves lower on my back, I can feel his touch change. It lingers longer on my skin, allowing himself to explore the definition of my muscles.

There is an element of conquest in making another man desire you, to crave you in a carnal way. For me, the idea of someone as prominent as Roronoa Zoro, the pirate hunter, the second in command to the Straw hats, reduce to a hedonistic pig that only craves my cock is the ultimate sexual conquest. If he hadn't met me, he might have been a dominant partner. That's why this is the highest testament of my ability to corrupt and please anyone I set my eyes on. 

When he’s done, I turn around offering to clean his back. He accepts, and I admire the subtle ring of fat that his chest forms toward his back, it lightly touches his arms in a soft embrace. His rolls are starting to form, pulling down at the base of his back. His flesh molds to my touch, while I run my hands around them. I squish the tender fat and he jolts for a second, as I continue to rub his skin he relaxes letting me continue. These soft rolls of fat might be subtle now, but not for long, pig. 

His breath is laborious as he leans back against my embrace. He is enjoying the attention, allowing me to indulge and all I wonder is, how far can I go, how far will he let me push? My first instinct is to grab his side and shake the supple flesh, feel its jiggle under my fingers as he holds a moan that makes my dick stir to life. 

I could go further, push him to what I know we both want. It's evident by the smell of the thick liquid emanating from his ass, the smell even here is strong enough to make my body heat up. But there is still more for him to learn before we cross that bridge, the last thing I need is to mess things up if he gets scared from a rushed opportunity.

Grabbing a bucket I splash his back with water and he turns to look at me, his eyes are flooded with need. For almost a week he has been needing release and soon enough I will give it to him. For now, we get out of the bath, dry up, and start to change. I got him a bigger size of the green crop top and sweatpants he had worn before.

"Were you trying to make me do sex back in the cage?" He asked as he put on pants

I couldn't contain my laughter as I replied, “You are really the most innocent man I know, Roronoa Zoro, how could any of that be sex?”

“Because it's supposed to feel good and I cummed.”

“Only you would conclude anything that feels good and leads to cumming would be sex,”

“Then what was it?”

“It's how real men release stress, usually people learn when they're teenagers."

“I was busy learning how to be the greatest swordsman in the world,”

“That's why you've always seemed so stuck up. At least you're more familiar with it now.”

He looked at me, finished dressing up,  waiting for me to do the same. While I button my shirt he asks, “Can you hurry up, I'm starving here,” 

“Don't rush so much pirate hunter, I will make it up to you for the wait,”

We got into the limo and drove to the Golden Pearl. When we entered the VIP section Zoro sat at the same table we used the first time we came. He is a man of habit, I will give him that. 

The waiter takes our order and we wait for the food to arrive. In the meantime, Roronoa attacked the basket of shelled nuts that was placed at our table. At the start, he bit the shells and spit them out as soon as the center was consumed, but as the basket drained he spent more time playing with the shells in his mouth. Could he have an oral fixation? 

When the food arrives he goes to town, eating everything in front of me, while before I had to encourage him to indulge he now takes the wild in the gluttony. Belches, groans, moans, and whimpers for more food, become the only sound emanating from this room until Roronoa eats the last plate of food. He seemed to forget that I was even here.

“I ordered something you might like,”

“What would that be?”

“Dessert”

“And what type of dessert?”

“It's mochi, a new recipe that one of our chefs engineered. It holds its texture and flavor for hours,”

“Is that even possible?”

“Everything is possible with money!” I shout enthusiastically. 

“Everything except making you discreet,” he said.

He lay on his chair, resting a hand over his belly, and waited for the dessert to arrive. 

Minutes later, the waiter came back with the plates. Both our plates have a ball of colorful smoke swirling slowly. The smoke is kept in place by a bubble that the waiter pops with a needle once I signal her. The fumes pours out, revealing the mochi inside. 

Roronoa remained bored on his side of the table until the aroma enticed him. The cloud carries the scent of strawberry, cherry, pineapple, watermelon, and more, all in a fruit punch of sorts. 

“Good presentation, isn’t it?”

“It’s interesting,” he replied.

He keeps trying to play cool, but I can see him swallowing the drool that pools from his mouth.

“This smoke is just for show. It’s a mix of all the flavors the mochi could have, every piece has a different set,”

“A different set? Shouldn't it be one per piece?”

“Give it a try and see for yourself,” I reply, biting on the mochi.

“The flavor changed,” he said, surprised.

“Every so often, the flavor of the mochi will change. Try to guess each flavor while you eat it.”

His chewing sped up, savoring the soft texture. We stayed there for a while, allowing Roronoa to point out some of the scents in the food. Once his stomach wasn't as full we moved out of the restaurant.

His demeanor is calm during the drive back to my office. He continues to chew on the mochi, his head facing the buildings outside. He is so quiet for once, you could think he is sleeping.

“snore. . .munch. . .snore.” 

Wait a minute, I touch his shoulder to see the bastard is asleep, how is he still chewing into the mochi? Is his oral fixation this strong?

“I didn't expect you to enjoy it this much,” I said quietly. 

Zoro

At some point on the drive back to his office, I fell asleep, the mochi still fresh in my mouth. I'm impressed with how it retains the same texture since dinner. The flavors it had so far were mostly fruit-based, cherry, and melon, but when we entered the building, it started to change again into matcha. 

When we entered his office, I noticed something sitting at the corner of the room. He walked to his desk and started to work while I stood there waiting.

“Aren’t you going to put me back on the wall?”

“Do you want to get back in the wall so soon? I thought you would enjoy to use your legs for a little longer,”

”Cut the crap, you know what I mean.”

“I wanted to reward you since you finally admitted your true nature.”

“The best reward you can think of is not torturing me as much.”

“Would you rather be in the wall?”

“I didn't say that.”

“Perfect, I also got you a new bed, you can sleep there instead of the wall,”

He pointed at the thing resting on the corner. I approached it, and any expectations I had were thrown out the window. It's a plush dog bed the size of a futon.

“You couldn't give me a futon like any normal person?!” I shout.

“This is more in line with you, now be grateful for my generosity and be quiet,”

I am about to retort when he spits his mochi into the baggage bin under this desk.

“Why did you spit it out?! Mine is still feeling fresh,” 

“Of course it does. It's supposed to last over eight hours, but I can't wait for that long, and I would choke if I tried to swallow it whole. So the best thing is to get rid of it now,”

He could have given it to me instead of eating it halfway. What a waste.

I throw myself on the dog bed and leave him to work. The bed was so fluffy on my back. I won't say it out loud to him. It's already embarrassing enough that I had to admit I'm a pig, to now also admit I like the dog bed.

While I try to get a nap, another problem becomes apparent. Ever since Tesoro removed the cage, I've been fighting my lust, but my dick hasn't gotten the message. Even when the beads are standing still, when the only food in my mouth is the mochi and my nipples are left alone, my dick remains rock hard, tenting my pants and leaving a dark spot of precum. 

My hands drift inside my pants, now saturated with butt juice, drawing closer to my butt cheeks. My ass has also been on overdrive, gushing more liquid as the itch inside me continues to grow. Even when I'm off the wall and out of that damned cage, I’m tormented by this. At least I’m not being starved to death.

I’ll have to take my hands out of my pants, or else I might lose control and cum in front of the golden perv. His threat is still fresh in my head to just ignore it.

“You are not allowed to cum. If I see you trying to, I will get you back in the cage with human portions for real”

Fucking bastard. I can't just go back to the cage. I try to keep my mind focused on the mochi, drawing more of the flavor, ignoring my aching dick. But each bite makes me feel more in need. Fuck what is wrong with me?

“You seem to be pretty frisky,”

“It's all your fault,”

“Is that so?”

“Of course, you got me hooked in all types of weird shit to now leave me hanging,”

“I just showed you stuff everyone already knows. You are the one who can't get enough of it. Let's get you a massage, maybe that will help you relax,”

“Wait, you are just trying to get me back in the cage.”

“What? No, why would- “

He sniffs the air for a second and starts laughing, “Are you so pent up you fear of cumming from the massage?”

“Anyone would be like this after having that cock cage for five days,”

“No, you are like that because your needy dick is just like its owner, it has no satiation,”

I grit my teeth with anger, not only because he is right, this is my fault, but also because If I take his offer, I risk going back to hell. I've been craving those massages for a while now, and this bastard must imagine as much. He is just playing with me after all.

“What about this, if you cum because of me, I won't punish you,”

“Won't count if the massage table makes me go over the edge,”

“It does count if I'm the one who does the massage, besides I think you need more than the massage to cum at this point.”

Unfortunately, he has a point. The last days in the cage proved that I needed more than one type of stimulation to cum. Even in that, my body has turned greedy.

“Fine, let's get this over with.”

With a snap of his fingers, the massage table appears from the floor. The arms are nowhere to be seen. 

“You haven't had a massage in a while, you must have a lot of stored tension,” he said.

While I started to undress, my eyes caught Tesoro’s shirt and jacket flying across the room to his desk. When I'm done, I see his shirtless body beside the table, taking away his rings.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“I'm getting ready for the massage. What does it look like?”

“You know what I'm asking!”

“Oh right, you are a poor ignorant pig. Most masseurs use their whole bodies to relieve tension, of course, the table can only use its arms, so get ready for the real deal,”

I roll my eyes and get in position over the table.

He puts the same oil I got used to, but as soon as his hands touch my skin, I notice the difference from the golden hands. 

His warm hands move firmly over my feet and calves, releasing all tension. As he goes up to my thighs, he says, “These are bigger now. Is that because of the squatting on the dildo, or from all the food you guzzled at the trough?”

I try to reply, but he grips my thighs, and I have to close my mouth to hold a moan. 

“I can't even close my hands around them. Just imagine how much they will grow if you keep eating like that, pig,” he said, gripping my thigh.

The grip on my flesh is strong, rubbing along my leg, slowly moving up until he gropes my asscheeks. He slaps one of them before applying pressure in circles.

I yelp before he says, “And these two, they have fattened up nicely. It must be from all the time you spent sitting on your ass, eating like there was no tomorrow. They already looked great when I saw you hunched over the trough, but now they are even better,”

The more he plays with them, the more I feel the held-back energy in me rising, my penis continues to leak against the table while Tesoro adds, “Maybe this is why your butt has been so hungry for attention, It's grown so much it has an appetite of his own,”

He moves up my lower back leaving my asshole alone Damn it! It does crave more attention. Why am I like this?

Suddenly he climbs over me, his legs at the sides of the table with his pelvis resting over my ass.

“What are you doing? You are going to crush me!” I say, feeling the weight of his body.

“I have easier access to your back muscles and stop complaining. I know you are loving it from how much you are leaking,”

“That doesn't mean anything,”

“It does, just like a dog’s tail when it's happy, you leak profusely the more excited you get. You can't deny it when it's gushing out of you this much,” he says, slapping my butt again.

I can feel him again groping my ass, and the next time he touches my skin, I hear the splash of liquid against my back.

“Did you hear that? All of that was your butt's juice,”

Before I could reply, his elbow crashed against my spine. I feel a crack when his full body applies pressure on me. A wave of stress leaves me, and I can feel my body melting under his weight. 

The motions are so strong it makes my body rub against the table, teasing my nipples and cock. Every time he leans forward, I can feel his bulge rubbing against my ass.

“You have a nudge of tension here, or is it just a fat roll? I'm not too sure,” he says, grabbing my belly by the sides.

“It does feel like fat to me, doesn't it pig?” 

He leans in closer to my head as he continues to grope and jiggle my flesh. I bite on the mochi, focusing on the flavor and texture, but his words ring in my head all the same.

“You are a natural pig after all. This new flesh must feel good. All of it was made from pleasure, meant to give pleasure,” he says.

He continues to explore my body from behind. Resting more of his body against mine. He gropes my chest, saying, “And these jugs, ready to be milked! they are so fat and juicy, Do you have any idea how they bounce as you walk?”

His fingers flicker the stamps on my nipples, and I moan deeply.

“Your nipples seem bigger. Who would have thought they would adapt so well to the nipple stamps,” he says before he pulls on them.

I huff for air after a loud moan escapes me. He removes his hands from my chest, moving away from me before rubbing his palms over my neck. My body is almost at the tipping point when he moves his hands lower on my body. He parts my butt cheeks, and I feel his fingers teasing my entrance. 

“Your pussy is so lubricated, it doesn't mind me just entering,”

“Pussy? what are you talking ab-?”

My words were cut short when his fingers entered me in a single shove. I felt the shot of pleasure making me see white.

The cold touch of the golden hands pales compared to this. I whimper, feeling the need for him to go deeper, to scratch that itch in the deepest of my being.

While the golden hands massaged me, slowly pushing against the flesh like a simmer. Tesoro goes for a more aggressive approach, going straight to boil. His fingers go in and out of me, taking their time rubbing the deepest point inside of me.

I feel my ass contracting against his fingers, yearning for him to touch more, to go deeper, to make me cum sooner. My brain starts to go haywire, looking for the chance to cum, and before I notice, my ass is pushing back against his hand.

Suddenly, he stops and I continue to push myself until he says, “Tell me you want it,”

I'm brought back to reality with that, and I chew on the mochi as I try to fight the need. But I can feel his fingers so close to the point that makes me jolt with pleasure, if he just pushes just a little more, I would cum. So, in the silence of the room, with no other witness but ourselves, I said, “Please, make me cum,”

At that, he immediately assaulted my ass like nothing ever before. I yelled as his fingers ravaged that spot, rubbing aggressively. The flood of heat from my ass and the flavor in my mouth were too much to take. It doesn't take long for me to feel my balls rise and my ass clench as I cum against the table. 

Between mouthfuls of mochi, my moans flew out. They were so loud and deep that I wasn't sure if someone could hear them outside the room.

When my body finishes trembling from the pleasure, he pulls out of me. 

“Let me know whenever you need help, and I can give you another one of those,” he said as he licked his fingers and moved away from the table.

My body feels so relaxed, so empty of all worries or stress, that I end up falling asleep at the massage table. When I wake up, Tesoro is already cleaned up and back in his usual clothes.

“Finally awake, I thought for a second that you would sleep there for the rest of the night,” he said.

“Of course not, I still have to finish my mochi,” I replied.

I see Tesoro left a towel beside the massage table, using it to clean the excess oil off my body. I put my clothes back on and drop on the dog bed. 

I spent the rest of the night chewing on the mochi, my mind lingers on the reality of my situation. My body has gotten used to the constant barrage of stimulation, the release of energy, and the touch of the miserable golden bastard. 

Every second of it makes me seethe with anger, but what irritates me the most is how much my body craves it. 

I have allowed my stomach and dick to take control of my decisions. At least I can keep some pride in winning Tesoro's challenges. Eventually, I fell asleep, waiting for him to finish whatever he was doing.

My eyes open, and I see the floor moving underneath me. As my eyes refocus, I see Tesoro is carrying my limp body over his shoulder. But I'm so tired, my eyes close again thinking it must be a dream of sorts.

When I open them again I'm back on the dog bed, but looking around me, I notice this is no longer Tesoro’s office. The golden finger did move me.

“Where did you take me? isn't it late already?”

“We are in my quarters,” he said calmly.

A part of me was annoyed at his audacity, but the bed was fluffy and my eyes were heavy. So I decided to worry about this tomorrow. As I continued to chew on my mochi, I leaned my head against the plush of the bed and let sleep take over. After so many restless nights in the cage, I can finally have a good night of sleep again.

<< First Chapter / <Previous Chapter /

[etraytin]

Swiftly Flow the Days

As promised, the weekend was low-key, volunteeringwise. We also stayed home from church because our church has a lot of senior citizens and even with masks on it felt better to not chance it. Instead I watched the service on my phone from my bathtub, which was admittedly far more comfortable than a pew though the acoustics were worse. Still no COVID symptoms at all though, so I'm thinking we're good.

Even so, kiddo and I wore masks today as we went out volunteering again, this time delivering food and water from the United Way building to people who can't get to distribution centers. They didn't have as many deliveries for us to make as I would have hoped, but it felt good to be getting stuff where it needed to go. We also went over to the World Central Kitchen mobile HQ, which was an absolute anthill of activity in the middle of downtown Asheville. They're running a massive operation down there! We were just there to pick up some food for the volunteers at the distribution place, but it was stressful because it was so very busy and there were cars and people absolutely everywhere. Very efficiently handled, I will certainly give them that, but I was glad to grab our food and skedaddle!

With volunteering done for the day, we decided to support our local businesses and go to our favorite sushi place for lunch. We sat out on the patio for safety and got our sushi rolls and it felt very much like normal except for all the people at the church across the street stopping to get potable water from the hose and pump setup they had there. Water and power are back in most of my town, and it is very busy with people from Asheville coming up for a bit of a break and a trip to the laundromat, as well as volunteers from other places staying wherever they can find a spot. No tourists, now is very much not a time for tourists, but it still feels like high season.

While we were eating, I suggested to Kiddo that we should go visit the escape room place, because I learned that it is opening again at the end of this week. We've done most of the escape rooms they have, but there is one left that we kept meaning to get to but have not yet. He liked that idea. We talked about how he's keeping up with his boyfriend and his friends from school, and I suggested maybe his boyfriend would like to come along to the escape room. Kiddo liked that idea too, but it was only later at home that I realized Kiddo really liked that idea, but he wanted to do the escape room with his boyfriend and _not_ his poor old mom. I said that was fine and even agreed to foot the bill and drive the car, but I can't help feeling just a little bummed. Escape rooms were a thing kiddo and I did together, after all, and now things are changing. Change is important, and I think it's really important for Kiddo to socialize with his peers and develop relationships and all those vital things that are maybe even more vital when the world is turned upside down. None of that keeps an extremely bathetic cover of "Sunrise, Sunset" from playing in my mind every so often. Sigh.

Anyway, more volunteering tomorrow, back at the water distribution place. It's going to be much more chilly than last week, but we have our sweaters! I also got a pair of spooky pajama pants on sale from Walmart that arrived in the mail today (along with a whole bunch of other stuff as the post office untangles its deliveries!) They are soft and have ghosts on them and they are wonderful.

[what-gs-watching]

“Because  what is a coincidence but a form of accident?”

So I went home for Christmas for the first time in like four years, which was really nice. Sometimes it’s good to be surrounded by family. But try as I might, I couldn’t convince a room full of adults who have never actually seen Doctor Who to watch the new Christmas special. 

Clearly, my family is a little bit lame. 

Which means I was late to watching The Church on Ruby Road, but finally got into it the other day and y’aaaaall, that was cute. 

15 is gonna be his own whole thing, and I’m climbing aboard, for better or worse. Are we pandering to gen-z a little bit? Yes. But I think I’m okay with it. Sometimes you need to shake shit up. 

Wherein the Doctor meets Ruby Sunday, a ‘foundling’ born on Christmas Eve, that has been having a ton of weird accidents and/or coincidences. Hijinx and numerous outfit changes ensue. 

Everyone is talking about the fashion, and I love that 15 is just like ‘I’m gonna do whatever, why are we always wearing the same damn thing?’ Amazing kilt? Yes. Gorgeous leather jacket that seems like a callback to something Donna had worn with 10? Absolutely. Weird little zip up sweaters? For sure. 

Baby boy, you are gonna be SO interesting. 

Okay so, Ruby was a baby abandoned on Christmas Eve, and then adopted by her foster mother. Once again we get like a tiny baby companion, this girl is 19 because of course she is. But she’s just living her life and dropping shit and tripping over things and weird things are happening to her and she thinks it’s all good but we can see weird little hands causing all of her mishaps and the Doctor is following her a little bit because he’s got an inkling something weird is happening. 

My favorite part of his lurking is obviously when he runs into her in the club - beauty is DANCING IT OUT. I absolutely love it. He bi-generates and is like ‘yo I know what i need’ and he just tears up the dance floor. Sometimes you need to get sweaty and let your brain drift away because there’s pulsing music and people everywhere. ‘Dance it out’ is one of the best ways to get over things, to remember you’re alive. I felt that so hard. I haven’t danced it out in FOREVER. 

Anyway, we find out that she and her adopted mother are still fostering children, and on Christmas Eve, Ruby’s birthday, they get assigned another foundling baby who was ALSO just born that day, what a coincidence! All about coincidences, this episode. 

So Ruby gets left with the baby while her mother pops out for something and SURPRISE! The baby gets taken through a window. Ruby obviously follows out the window, up to the roof, and sees little weird aliens taking the baby up a rope ladder, which she immediately starts to climb. Gotta love a new companion going for it. 

The doctor sees her, and starts jumping from roof to roof to follow her, and he jumps onto the rope ladder too and they’re suspended precariously in the air. This little smartie pulls out a set of gloves - he says he invented them because he’s always hanging off of things. Each of them put one on, and they take the weight and the pressure and let the two of them dangle off the rope ladder, easy as anything. 

This dude comes out swinging with these gloves - gloves that would have let Rose hang on and not been sucked into the other reality. Righting wrongs all over the place, it’s sweet. 

So they climb up the rope and to a super weird wooden ship in the sky - we learn the creatures are goblins, and they’re immediately caught and tied up. But the Doctor can get out of that, obviously, and he’s saying that the goblins are gonna eat the baby and that coincidence is what makes the baby tasty, because that makes sense.

He says that the goblins went back in Ruby’s timeline and started weaving in her accidents and coincidences, entwining her and the baby, making a tapestry. He says it’s the language of luck, and it’s a new science to him, and he’s so excited by it. I always love how excited the Doctor gets when he comes face to face with something he doesn’t know. 

Ruby calls the goblins time travelers and he gets so offended, saying “They are not time travelers. Excuse me! Time travelers are great. Like, the best. Like, wow.” It’s adorable. But he doesn’t tell her he is one. He also doesn’t tell her he’s an alien, at any point in their adventure. And she doesn’t ask. Which is interesting. 

So they need to get out of the little hold they’re in to save the baby, and the Doctor realizes the ship is tied together with knots, so he has to learn that language too, and he does. They escape into some equivalent of ventilation shafts, and they stumble upon the main area of the ship where a ton of goblins are getting ready to devour a baby.

But FIRST, they’re gonna do a musical number? The lyrics of which explain what’s going on, and introduces the Goblin King? Because that’s something we’re doing now. I told you, I’m climbing aboard. So it’s hilarious when the Doctor and Ruby drop down from the rafters and the Doctor is like ‘I’m going with it’ and he joins in on the song, Ruby too. Like fuck it, this is weird and we’re DOING it. 

So they use their part of the musical number to distract everyone and get their hands on the baby, and the Doctor reverses the power of his new fancy gloves to pull them down out of the ship, and back to Ruby’s apartment. 

Nice and clean, right? Back in the house, the Doctor says he doesn’t think the ship will try to invade, that they thrive on accidents instead so they start running around the house making sure that nothing can go wrong. In the middle of it, Ruby’s mom comes home and they’re trying to explain the Doctor and reassure her that everything’s fine and the three of them are in the room with the baby and they’re talking about all the kids that Ruby’s mom has fostered, 33 including the baby. 

The Doctor says “I’m adopted”, so we really are going with the timeless child thing, but the point is it’s a coincidence and there’s a weird storm brewing outside and then there’s a loud CRACK and the roof of the apartment has a giant seam running through it and the Doctor runs through the house to make sure everything is alright, he thinks that maybe the goblins have gone and wrecked the apartment as a parting gift, but when he makes it back to the bedroom, there is only the baby and Ruby’s mom. Ruby is gone. 

And her mom has completely forgotten her. The pictures of all the foster kids she had on her refrigerator are gone, and she’s complaining about needing to  foster this random baby on Christmas Eve, she’s clearly not the woman she was, and the Doctor realizes the goblins have gone, but they’ve gone back to the night Ruby was left outside a church, and have taken her instead. 

Out to the TARDIS he goes to intercept them. And they’re there, the night Ruby was abandoned, singing again about how they’re going to eat her. So he uses his gloves again, he gets a hold of their rope ladder and he starts to PULL. Down, and down, and down. And the ship is directly over the church that’s got a nice pointy little steeple. And it gets impaled. And we see the steeple go directly through the Goblin King, and then boom, the entire ship disintegrates.

Super helpful, those gloves. Finding positivity in past trauma, and all that. 

So the Doctor grabs baby Ruby and puts her outside the church door like she’s supposed to be, and she gets scooped up exactly the way she had been meant to. And the Doctor sees her mother walking away, and Ruby had so desperately wanted to know who she was, but he doesn’t go after her. I can’t help but think that’s going to be a thing, later. That sort of situation is always a thing, later. 

Back in the present, the Doctor returns to the apartment and Ruby is fine, if a little confused. He tells her that they went back and she was gone and she doesn’t understand it but then he’s popping out again because he needs to help a woman who had gotten caught up in Ruby’s accidents and coincidences. Once that’s done, he’s  out on the street again, about to go back inside but he stops and he says “maybe I’m the bad luck” so don’t worry y’all, not all that trauma is gone. He’s still doubting Doctor a little bit underneath. 

Meanwhile, Ruby is putting it together a little bit. The stuff he had said about time travelers and how the goblins went back and how he mentioned spending a summer with Houdini and she grabs her coat and runs out to the street. And there’s the box. With its door open, just a bit ajar. And she peeks in, and then she circles it, touching the sides. She doesn’t SAY it’s bigger on the inside, but her face implies it. 

And then she gets in. And she asks, “who are you?” and he just smiles all debonair and he says “I’m the Doctor.” 

Basically, I’m bought in. Even if it was a little bit silly, and I never got an explanation about what the goblins really were or where they were from. Even if we’re using random gadgets now. Because each of them are their own thing, and that’s what’s so good about it. You have to let the last one go a little bit. You have let each one of them go, a little bit, and embrace whoever the Doctor is now. Which I’ve struggled with in the past, after Matt Smith I was devastated for a while and ended up just binging 12 and 13 a little begrudgingly, but I’m gonna follow 15 along his way, and it’s gonna be different and weird and good. It’s always good. 

15, let’s get it.

[queenlucythevaliant]

Heartstrings

Written for the @inklings-challenge Christmas Challenge 2023.

It is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

The string was still there, knotted beneath Rose’s left ribs. She was driving 75 miles an hour down the freeway in her ten-year-old Carolla, the radio on at a buzz. Outside the window, miles and miles of monotonous New York forest passed by. 

Her sister Joan was asleep in the passenger's seat, medical gauze still visible beneath her pale pink blouse. She dozed uneasily, turning her head occasionally from side to side, or else sniffling faintly. Rose hummed along to the radio and tried not to focus on the pulling sensation in her chest. 

Everyone has a heartstring that leads them home, which for Rose meant Eastledge Church in the Massachusetts town of the same name. Heartstrings are thick and fibrous, made of many smaller cords all twisted together. Rose's string had been wrapped round her heart in many tight loops over the course of her childhood, constricting her cardiac muscle while simultaneously holding it safe and secure. She didn’t know if her heart could beat without it. 

So: she drove. Exit in 143 miles, rest stop in ten. 

Eastledge Church was rotten. It had black mold in the walls and liars in the pulpit. Rose knew she should cut the string that tied her there. She wanted to. Joan had managed to yank out her own heartstring, but it had bled and bled and she’d needed two trips to the ER before it was safe for her to travel. Even now, she was pale and weak from the bloodloss. 

Still, Rose knew she should cut the string. She kept a pair of scissors in the glove box, in case she ever got up the courage to do it. 

“Where are we?” murmured Joan. She stirred a little, carefully shifting her weight away from the left side of her body. 

“You missed the Erie Canal– or, well, the picnic area anyway. There’s a rest stop with an Arby’s in like ten miles if you want dinner.” 

They arrived at their hotel in Buffalo just after two in the morning. Rose had an ache in her hamstring from working the gas pedal, but it was nothing compared to a chest wound. Both she and Joan had forgotten to call ahead from the road, so they had to wait while the front desk concierge went to find the manager and ask if he could still check people in once they’d started the night audit. The manager appeared at the front desk a few minutes later and told Rose curtly that it would be a while yet. 

“It’s standard practice at hotels.”

“I know,” said Rose. “I’m sorry. There’s a problem with my heartstring, see? And my sister’s got ripped out. We had other worries. I’m sorry.”

“Yes,” the manager answered dubiously. “Well, make yourself comfortable in the lobby and we’ll let you know when we can check you in.”

It was three by the time Rose finally stumbled into the room and collapsed onto the hard mattress. Joan came in behind her, barely coherent through the fog of her exhaustion. The light in the bathroom was flickering, but Rose didn’t care. Her heartstring hummed with promises of rest. Turn around, it seemed to say. You know you won’t be able to sleep the night until you’re back home.

“Screw you,” Rose said aloud. 

“Hmm?” 

“Not you. The church, Pastor Mark, and this stupid string in my chest.”

“Hmm,” agreed Joan. 

Rose indulged herself for a long moment in imagining the violent demise of an elder who had taught her to play Go in the welcome room once, and who had made excuses for the rot in the walls many years later. Her heart thrummed like a violin string. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. 

The next day, they drove as far as Gary, Indiana. Rose could feel her string getting tangled whenever she got on another exit; she worried about it even changing lanes. 

“Mind if I put on something a little more upbeat?” said Joan when Rose winced on a long merge. “I think we could both use it.”

“I don't think it'll help, really.”

“Alright, but maybe it'll get us singing along?”

Rose waved her hand in a way that meant “fine.” She bobbed her head to the peppy pop song her sister selected and tried to enjoy the drive. It was pretty country, a sunny day, and they kept passing signs for different scenic lakes along the way. 

“Finger Lake, Elbow Lake… do ya think we're building an arm?” she quipped, feeling lighter. 

But when Rose tried to start the car outside the diner where they’d stopped for lunch, her key wouldn’t turn in the ignition. Joan was paying for parking, but when she slid into the passenger's seat, careful not to jar her stitches, Rose threw her head down on the steering wheel and sobbed. She turned to her sister, questions about oil cans and engines on the tip of her tongue, but right then her heartstring yanked so hard on her heart that all she could manage to say was, “It hurts.”

“I know Rosie. I know it does,” Joan said back. “Mine does too.”

Fortunately, there was an Ace Hardware half a mile away. Rose left Joan with the car and walked there, then paid for the lubricant Google said she needed and headed back. There were still so many miles to drive that day, so much string left to unspool.  

On the way to St. Cloud, they changed time zones. Rose felt it deep in her chest when they passed from Eastern to Central time: a jolt on her string, like lightning down a kitestring. 

“Did you feel that?”

“I didn’t feel anything,” said Joan. 

“No, I guess you wouldn’t.” Rose stared at the glovebox a long moment before she remembered to keep her eyes on the road. There was only an hour difference between Eastledge and here, but with all that time pulling steadily against her ribs, Rose could feel every minute of it. 

Joan suggested calling their parents when they reached their hotel that night, before both sisters remembered that they would be asleep by now. Rose wondered if Pastor Mark was sleeping too. She hoped he had nightmares. She hoped he woke up with guilt pressing hard on his chest. 

They drove past Chicago in a heavy drizzle and spent two hours sitting in traffic. Joan tried calling their parents again, since there was nothing else to do. “I don’t know how you and Dad stand it,” she murmured. “Staying in town with your strings half-frayed. Isn’t it killing you?”

“Sometimes,” said their mother. “But your father and I have spent our whole lives reorienting our hearts. We've had to do it many times, and it never gets easier, but we get better at it.”

“Do you blame Rose and me at all– for leaving?”

“Of course not. But we'll miss you at Christmas.”

That night, Rose and Joan snuggled up together on a hotel room queen bed and watched the second half of some Julia Roberts movie that was playing on cable. Joan cracked jokes about the female lead's neuroses and by the time the credits rolled she was lying half on top of Rose. Their hearts were beating in time, and suddenly Rose was grateful, so grateful not to be alone with this grief.

They'd been traveling for days now and Rose's heartstring grew more and more taught by the mile. Now, if she touched it, blinding agony would shoot through her chest. Even just the glancing brush of a fingertip over the fibers squeezed her heart until all she could think of was the place under the stairs where she’d hidden for hours once when she was eight, sleeping bags spread out across the sanctuary floor, or sneaking into the kitchen during summer VBS. 

“Do you remember those lantern light picnics they used to do for a while? Right as summer was ending, you know, and the whole congregation came out for it, and it was just kind of magic?”

“Yeah. I also remember ditching it that one time and running out to the creek with Olivia and Liam.”

“What about that tea and testimony women’s event when they asked me to be on the panel?”

“Don’t remember that one. I didn’t think you ended up doing it?”

“I didn’t. Prior commitment. But it felt nice to be asked.”

“Mmm. I felt the same way when they asked me to do the layout for the new photo directory.”

“Teaching Sunday School. Nursery. Organizing the craft closet and going crazy with the label maker.”

“Mmm. Food drives, clothing drives, and silly little theatricals.”

“Remember when I got to sing ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’ at the Christmas pageant? And the year you were Mary? And that one play after I aged out where you spray dyed your hair gray?”

“Some of it. I was pretty young for the first one. And I’m trying to forget as much about church plays as I can. Mr. Pierce directed them all, and I don’t want to think about him at all if I can help it. Not after what he said to Mom.”

Rose sighed. 

“Yeah, that's true. It's a bad lot, top to bottom. Anyway. How’s your heart?”

“It’s doing better, I think. The wound’s not seeping anymore. Sometimes, it barely hurts at all.”

It was Christmas Eve when they arrived in Helena. A Wednesday. Rose pulled into their aunt’s driveway and parked, then they both went inside to greet the extended family. Joan called their parents to tell them she and Rose had arrived safe. 

They had dinner with the family, but then the sisters went and sat together on the guest bed for an hour trying to figure out what came next. Rose pulled at the string beneath her left ribs until she could barely stand it, trying to decide if she could bear the Christmas Eve service her aunt and uncle attended. Joan just sat scrolling mindlessly on her phone, trying to forget for a while. 

They both wanted to go to church on Christmas Eve. That was maybe the cruelest part. Rose’s heart longed for carols and Scripture readings with a tender ache altogether different from the ever-present, stripped-raw yanking of the string. Joan was healing, and didn’t want to dwell on losing Eastledge any more than she’d already done. 

“I’m going, I think,” Joan said finally. It was nine p.m. and the service began at eleven. 

“I’m not,” whispered Rose. “I just can’t. It hurts too much.”

She made an apology to her relatives while Joan went to get dressed, gesturing vaguely at the place beneath her left ribs. Once the house was empty, she resigned herself to the tinny sound of carols played over her phone speaker and a few whispered prayers. When she prayed, Rose heard Pastor Mark’s voice as often as her own. Sometimes he told the truth, but most of the time he lied.

Oh God. This time back home, they’d be singing “The First Noel.” They’d be lighting candles soon, and the upstairs sanctuary under whose stairs she used to hide would glitter when they turned off the lights. 

When the churchgoing party got home, half an hour after midnight, Joan found her sister in the guest bath. She was sobbing and covered in blood. 

“I cut it,” Rose whispered. “I cut my heartstring. I couldn’t bear not being at the service–not the one here and not the one at home– so I cut it out of me. I took the scissors and I just– I– I think I’m bleeding.” She looked up. “I am bleeding, right? This is all my blood.”

There was blood oozing out of the wound in her chest, but it was on her hands too. It was on her lips, her nose, and how had even that happened? “I’m bleeding,” Rose said again. “I don’t think I’ll ever stop.”

Joan called an ambulance, but first she reached back and unzipped her dress. She pulled it over her head and stood there, in her bra and black tights and nylon slip in front of her bleeding sister. “Mine stopped,” she said, slowly peeling back the gauze that covered her heart. The wound was shut, though the scar was still red and angry. “It hurt a lot tonight, Rosie, but it’s not bleeding. Yours will stop too. I promise.”

They spent Christmas night in the ER. “It’s a busy night in this ward,” one of the nurses remarked. “Lots of people pick tonight to tear away their heartstrings. It’s the worst night of the year for people who can never go home.” 

The Sunday after Christmas, Rose felt light-headed as she stepped into her aunt and uncle's church. She’d missed the carols, but some of the decorations were still up. The altar cloth was still white and gold, and so it would remain for a few days yet. 

Everything was either an echo or a contrast to Eastledge. “I wish they wouldn’t sing this song,” said Rose in her sister’s ear, pressing a hand to the place beneath her ribs where her heartstring had been. 

After the service, Rose went up to the front of the church and stood in front of the altar. She reached out and ran her fingers over the scalloped edge of the cloth, wanting to salvage some Christmas joy but instead only able to imagine the corresponding cloth a thousand miles away in Eastledge, Massachusetts. 

No, no, none of that. Rose screwed her eyes shut and she forced her thoughts back into something like order. She thought about Christ Incarnate leaving his home in heaven. Which way had his heartstring pulled him, she wondered. Had it tied him back to the Father, or had his heartstring led him straight to the cross?

“Eastledge Church broke my heart,” she didn't quite whisper. “You broke my heart, God, and I don't know what comes next.”

There was no immediate answer, but the gold threads against her fingertips were rough and scratchy. They ran along the white cloth in embroidered images of starbursts, crowns, and crosses. Her fingernail caught on a loose end, which unraveled a little when she drew her hand away. 

Before Rose quite understood what was happening, that loose end of golden thread had disentangled itself from the altar cloth and was hanging in the air before her eyes. As she watched, one glittering end wove its way towards her chest, underneath the bandage and through her skin. With a strange gentleness, the thread wound its way past her left ribs and tied itself, she was certain, in a knot around her heart. The string gave a little tug, but it didn't hurt her; Rose felt only a delicious warmth that began in her heart and seemed to radiate all through her body, from the hairs on her head to the tips of her toes. 

For an instant, Rose assumed that the other end of the thread was still embedded in the altar cloth; that this was God's way of telling her that she belonged here, at this church. Yet as her eyes traced the length of golden thread, they found themselves gazing up, where a faint shimmering was just visible high up in the rafters. 

“It doesn't end there,” she realized. With that, Rose turned and sprinted down the aisle and out of the church. 

The gray December sky was dotted with snowflakes. When Rose raised her head, they fell in her lashes and she had to blink them away. Yet there, high above her, she could see her golden heartstring vanishing into the clouds. 

“It leads to the Throne Room,” said a voice beside her. Rose turned and saw Joan standing beside her, with Rose's own coat draped over her arm. “I think it must.”

“Yours too? I mean, did your heartstring–”

“Yes. Christmas night, in the hospital with you. I looked up and it seemed to be unfurling down from the ceiling like Jacob's Ladder.”

“You never said.” Rose sniffed hard, not sure if it was the cold or the overwhelming emotion that caused it. 

“I don't think it's the sort of experience you can talk about, much. Put on your coat, Rosie. I won't say let's go home, not now– but the car is warming up, and I bet I can get Auntie to make us some cocoa.”

[galacticxangel]

Wait I saw your comment on the meeting your mutuals/stranger danger post. You said you married your mutual? That's so cute. Have you shared that anywhere and if not would you share it here?

I’m pretty sure I’ve shared it passively, but I never shared the full thing just on its own, so I’ll do that here!

So back in Ye Olde Days (13 years ago), Ask Blogs were a big thing on Tumblr, and also, so was Minecraft! And wouldn’t you know it, I was running a little Minecraft ask blog. And then I came across another, which had amazing art and characters and I adored what I was seeing, so I followed, they followed back, I sent little asks, and we communicated that way! The blog I found was run by two people, @cosmic-anchor (Silvia), and her friend Lazzy (boyo where’s your blog). He’s still a mutual bestie today, as are a few other folks we met via ask blog shenanigans, like @knightlymoon and @ragnarode .

ANYWAY. We get to playing on a server together (we actually use a Minecraft version release date as our meeting anniversary, because it was right around the prerelease of Beta 1.8: September 9, 2011. How do we remember? Well, that’s when they released Endermen! And anyone familiar with Minecraft aakblogs knows just how popular those are today. But back then? HOLY crap. Everyone and their grandma has a Sexy Broody Enderman or a Sexy Broody Enderman Hybrid. It was. A lot), take to each other like a church on fire, and become besties! We have a little house together.

Long time passes, and we’re on pretty much daily communication, still playing games, etc. I went through basic training and she was one of the folks I sent letters to while I was there. We played D&D together (This was an entire fiasco where we lost one bestie due to an abusive relationship. She’s back now tho! Love you Lynn <3). Even in the military, when I got DEEPLY depressed, she was there for me and helped me out (I credit her for being alive today. I’m not sure I’d be here if she hadn’t talked me down and convinced me to see a mental health specialist). I get out of the military, get my own little apartment, and go ‘wait a minute. I can do what I want. I have a best friend I’ve known for like six years now. Let’s invite her down!’ And so we start planning our first

‘Down’ is an understatement. See, I live in Texas. She lives in Kentucky, literally a thousand miles away. And while I’ve got all my documents and paperwork and driving skills and travel under my belt, she… doesn’t. As the older sibling of a special needs person, and not from a very high income household, she didn’t have this stuff. So it’s up to me, and I’m too fired up about taking my bestie to a renaissance faire (yah we. Really nerdy lol) to consider anything but!

We get her costume ready. Her plane tickets. Her ids and everything, sorted. It comes to like. Two weeks before the flight. And I get a call at work. It’s Via. Now, this is weird. Over the years, we’ve kinda fallen into a system. Common communication falls into just a message (Skype at the time iirc, Discord didn’t exist just yet). Something kinda urgent gets you an alert ping (like @ing someone). Dire is a call. And my phone’s ringing.

Not good.

So I hurriedly excuse myself from the office to take it, and she’s in tears. Her dad’s gotten cold feet, and won’t take her to the airport like he promised because ‘what if I’m an internet predator’. I mean. I get it. I have a Southern Style family, too (This will come up later). But damn it, she’s an adult. We’re BOTH adults. Also, I just bought a round trip plane ticket! Also, at this point I know more about her than he does. He still thinks she’s straight. But he won’t take her because we’ve never met face-to-face.

It’s Wednesday. I look at my office door. I have my best friend, current queerplat partner on the line, sobbing apologies.

“Hey. Tell him to pick a place to eat. Dinner on Friday. My treat, okay?”

“What?”

“Tell him to pick a place for dinner on Friday. I’ll see you then.”

Thus begins the trek that cements me as ‘most unhinged friend when others need something’ in our friend group to the day. I go into my office, spinning a sob story about how some nondescript family member just passed and funeral and blah blah I need to go but I’ll be back on Monday.

Green light acquired.

I go home, and immediately go to sleep. I wake up around midnight, pack my bags into my little Kia, and off I go. 1000 miles. Now, remember when I said my family would come up later? Here’s later: I didn’t tell them. There was NO WAY they were going to just sit idle while I drove a thousand miles, ALONE, to meet someone I’d never met in person. I’d never driven quite that far, either. Not to say no one knew, I would plot two hours on my gps, send the path to Lazzy and Via, and check in when I hit the next stop. If I didn’t check in, they were told to call my parents if I was over an hour late. Which, obviously, I never was, because I’m typing this and not like, dead or anything.

I roll up to her local Cracker Barrel at 8pm on Friday, after easily one of the best experiences of my life (was out between cities on a clear, late summer night, got to see the Milky Way for the first time, got ‘adopted’ by a bunch of truckers at a truck stop I paused for a nap at). My hair’s a bit frizzy and I’m wearing a shirt that says ‘Watch Closely: I’m About To Do Something Stupid’. But her dad gets the firmest, friendliest Texan handshake I can give, and a bright smile.

Apparently, he never expected me to show. According to Via, I humbled him that day. I don’t pay for dinner, despite offering. I even stay the night.

She’s on a plane for Texas two weeks later.

(Bonus: it’s at the point I send a picture of the big ol ‘Welcome To Kentucky’ state line sign to my parents. This. Was not a good idea lol. But I had my big Texas meat swangin my ego and I was damn proud to be functionally unhinged. My dad scolds me and then gets me a hotel room in Little Rock, DEMANDING I stop half way on the way back. My mom calls me, yells at me, and then hangs up on me. Calls back an hour later to apologize because she wasn’t mad I went, she was mad that I was right when I told her ‘you’d have tried to stop me’. Ultimately fine, in the end).

There’s at least one other travel adventure (much easier this time! We were supposed to go to PAX South but were too lazy that morning so we ate pizza and played video games.

I move out of my apartment and start renting a house. I have extra room. And I think about my friend, who’s only left her tristate area twice now, both because of me. And I think ‘that’s my best friend! I wonder if she wants to move down here!’

Another 2k miles on my poor little Kia (who’s STILL KICKING BTW), and she now lives in Texas. This was about five years ago. We live in my little granny house that’s older than both occupants combined. You heard that right, though. Oh my god, We Were Roommates.

It’s about this time that apparently Via starts Getting The Feelings but BLESS HER she’s being SO GOOD because at this point I’m defining as Aro/Ace. Turns out it was just some anxiety/aversion because my previous relationship was turbo unhealthy! But I really like this chick, and I’m like ‘you know what, I’m scared I’ll mess up our friendship, but I’ll try these things. We already go on ‘dates’ and I buy you flowers occasionally just because I was thinking of you and we already snuggle every night because it helps us go to sleep’ yeah I was. Hm. Dense.

Anyway it takes off HARD and within the year, we’re married on the coast where I took her to see the ocean for the very first time, on September 9, 2023.

Our first anniversary is soon. 💕