#at least with my mom i know her parents were fucking nuts

[femmesday-addams]

shit i almost forgot about that incident. damb no WONDER talking to him now makes me feel like garbage!

[lacrimosathedark]

THAT'S IT! This is a Janet Drake Defense Post

As may be obvious, I spend a lot of time reading fanfic. And there's this trend that drives me nuts, and it's villainizing Janet Drake.

I'm not gonna say she's an A+ mother. She's not. She chose her career and adventures over spending time with her child much of the time. But fandom portrays her as some rich pompous ice queen, which is never shown.

Janet Drake mostly appears in the story Tim's introduced, and in the story she dies.

So, let's start from the top: Haly's Circus.

This event is the only time we see her really interacting with Tim before her death, but it shows that at least when he was young, she was an active part of his life. She was worried about bringing Tim because it might scare him. And then rightfully scolds her husband for being sexist because Jack Drake actually IS a jerk.

...I don't like the art in this comic. Or that the writer doesn't know how kids speak.

But Janet is being supportive of Tim's clear interest in Dick's performance.

And then tragedy strikes and she acts like, y'know, a mother.

Her priority is getting her son and herself out of there.

Also worth noting that the Drakes sent a copy of that final photo of the Graysons TO Dick, which is how he has it at all. If both of them were stuck up pricks, would they even bother sending a photo to a grieving child performer they hardly know? I can't imagine Jack really bothering, but I don't see why Janet wouldn't.

And then, by the time she's dying, we know that Tim's parents have been away for a very long time, he never knows where they are, but they've communicated enough that he knows that they've been fighting.

They're passive aggressive to say the least. This marriage is clearly not working anymore.

EDIT CUZ I REMEMBERED A THING:

It's worth noting that this is a time before smartphones. This comic was released in 1990, which was when pre-paid mobile phones had just started existing. Coverage isn't universal NOW, so back then it was even less, and Jack and Janet are archeologists (or archeologist adjacent?) so they're going to be in less developed and populated areas most of the time. It's unlikely they'd have consistent access to a functional phone that could call the states to talk to Tim regularly.

This isn't to defend their absence, because fuck that, but it's to give it some context. I don't think they were trying to ignore or abandon Tim. Communication was just not readily available and Janet seems to get wrapped up in work...and Jack's an asshole.

Also for note, Janet is probably the one sending Tim postcards in the first place. It being signed "Mom and Dad" is what makes me think that. Jack would have put himself first if he wrote it, it woulda said "Dad and Mom". That's admittedly pure speculation, BUT IT FITS SOOOOOO

My thought is if this were made modern, Janet would be sending extremely scattered texts and Tim would get next to nothing from Jack unless Janet prompted him.

END EDIT

(Fair warning, this story is a few levels of Yikes, but I'm gonna stay on topic)

Bad guy Obeah Man does...something? to the pilot, and they crash, and he has a group of people kidnap the Drakes and their assistant Jeremy.

Danger really puts some things in perspective, for Janet, at least. And that continues for her. Jack is a bit delusional and in denial, thinking he has any control of the situation.

They are tied up and filmed for ransom, their assistant killed right in front of them.

Jack just keeps raging, but Janet is having regrets. Notice how she doesn't cry until Tim is brought up. Could be nothing, could be something.

And then she dies.

Her only other major appearance is when Tim is having a fever dream from the Clench and everything is kind of okay for a minute.

Tim very clearly loves his mom. And we may not get a lot of characterization for her, but she's not cold or callous like people write her constantly.

And now, we finally have a little more about her as of Batman 134.

I haven't really been keeping up since the Gotham War stuff because What The Fuck Was That My Guy, but I recently saw this specific comic.

The multiverse is fucked up again, some way some how, and Bruce is lost (again) and Tim has to get him back (again). This time, Tim is going in after him. But he doesn't end up going straight to Bruce.

He goes to see an alt of his mom.

Tim missed her so much that he ended up going to her before Bruce.

And her immediate reaction is to run up and hug him. Does that look like a mother who doesn't love her son?

"Do you have anyone to take care of you?"

"I don't know how this happened, this miracle...but I just know, in my heart of hearts, it was to show me...that every version of my son is a good one."

Tell me again that this woman is heartless and didn't want her son, I fucking dare you.

And we get more meaning to the name "Robin" and a little crumb about Tim's grandmother. As a treat.

This is all to say, please stop writing Janet Drake as a cold, heartless bitch.

Small final note though: Jack Drake is, in fact, a shitty person and a shitty father. He does still love Tim and Tim loves him AND THAT IS NOT UP FOR DEBATE, but the relationship is a mess. If either parent is actively abusive, it's 1000% Jack "smashed a TV because my son wasn't listening to me and threatened Bruce Wayne at gunpoint" Drake. Probably part of why the marriage was falling apart.

Anyway, yeah, let's retire the "Jack and Janet Drake are Bad Parents" tag and replace it with "Jack Drake is a Bad Parent" and "Janet Drake's C+ Parenting" or something.

[waitmyturtles]

Unknown: The Final Episodes (Episodes 10, 11, and 12)

(*CAVEAT!!!!* I wrote this screed before the producers of Unknown cut a different version of episode 11. I have only watched the first version, the version that the Taiwanese BL gods had originally intended us to watch, hmph. My commentary below only reflects my thoughts on this first version. I'm gonna allow myself to be old and crabby and say, "BAH! We didn't revise episodes back in *mah* day!" to excuse myself from watching it and I'm an old mom, I have no fuckin' time to watch a revise, so so sorry fam lmaooo ok byeeeee)

So -- I'll repeat what I think a lot of us have thought about the final arcs of Unknown, and where I could have used more of the delicate, thoughtful exploration about family roles and boundaries that the first nine episodes of this show displayed. These are the elements that drew me to the show, as well as Yuan's general spiciness and empathic intelligence towards Qian.

Anyone who reads around here knows that themes that I'm driven by include Asian intergenerational trauma and Asian family systems and dynamics. This show (here, here, and my tag) -- oh lordo, this show tackled expected, internalized, and externalized roles and responsibilities within families head-the-fuck-on, at least for the first nine episodes.

Let me state the obvious first: this show veered off the highway a bit too early to demonstrate that, WOW, Qian really is the

HORNIEST MAN ALIVE, WOW, EVER --

(dang dude, you really needed to get down EARLIER and MORE OFTEN, because that IN-OFFICE AFTERGLOW, MY MAN, like, listen, I'm down for the post-nut vibes! all support and celebration and respect, but also, we need to delegate these tasks, we're on the clock, you are a co-owner of this company, back to work! chop-chop)

and MAN, could I have used a quick wave of a flag or hand that his deficit for love, care, and tenderness would hit at THAT SPECIFIC angle (HEH HEH) so very quickly and VERY INTENSELY at the start of episode 11. That took me out. I had to just scream at @lurkingshan. I watched that episode IN PUBLIC, PEOPLE!

We were missing some steps there. It was a FABULOUS actual love scene. But I could have used more of

1) Yuan contemplating the reality of what was going to go down BEFORE that scene began, and

2) To see Qian enter that moment as well. Instead, we hit the sheets, and had to process that very intense scene WITH flashbacks, which, whew, was a whole thing, all while I was just kinda literally screaming.

Those flashbacks were supposed to tell me that Qian had come to terms with Yuan's lifelong longing, but the down-dirty confirmed that for me before I was ready to get to the same mindset that Qian had started that scene with. The very important timing and pacing of the emotional exploration and reveals that we had been presented with in the previous episodes was jettisoned for the booty.

So, yeah. That was out of order.

What I also missed in these episodes was, as I stated earlier, the previous and very intentional exploration of family roles and boundaries that this show was playing with prior to the last three episodes.

With this emotional line concluding in episode 10, Qian showed us consistently that his struggle with negotiating his older-brother-and-fatherly responsibilities was his biggest burden, alongside the lifelong processing of the abuse he had received at the hands of his mother, and his further processing of her death.

Qian and Yuan get together in episode 11, literally go out on a date, and Qian woos Yuan.

Qian's continued resistance to being open about his health to Yuan is extremely reminiscent of a parent (I think of Asian parents, but I think this is common to global parenthood) hiding a health status from a child. This part of the story was still an important one. Qian was STILL holding onto his understanding of his responsibilities to Yuan and Lili as a parent/older sibling figure. If he didn't get out of that surgery in perfect condition, he worried about their futures -- regardless of the facts that Yuan was self-sufficient, and Lili was both self-sufficient and supported by a loving partner. Because that's how so many parents are: no matter the stability of their children, parents will see children as their children.

What I liked about this storyline, and what I could have used a bit more of (ideally in an extra episode) WAS HOW YUAN'S FAMILY ROLE CHANGES AUTOMATICALLY BY BECOMING QIAN'S PARTNER.

Lili calls Yuan a "sister-in-law," but he also becomes a

brother-in-law, AND a stepdad, AND THEN ALSO BECOMES A VERY NOT TECHNICAL GRANDPA, ALONG WITH GRANDPA/UNCLE/OLDER BROTHER QIAN

AND, AND!

We see Yuan THEN CARING FOR QIAN as the younger brother he's always been, AND

AS QIAN'S PARTNER

which they're calling wife or sister-in-law in the show, which, bleh to gendered terms, but

THEY WERE GOING THERE WITH YUAN

but we didn't get enough of it.

THAT IS A HUGE CHANGE FOR YUAN.

HE IS EQUAL NOW!

We just didn't get enough exploration there. Because the show was centering Qian's narrative (which I don't blame the show for at all), and mans was in his post-boop vibe the whole time, that we didn't sit enough with the changing of these roles FOR THESE TWO MEN, and while Lili hinted at it, I would have liked just a few more minutes at the macro-high level to explore what this meant for this entire, wonderful family unit. This is just huge Asian family dynamics stuff regarding who has power, and how that impacts how Qian interacts with Yuan, how Qian has to internally process the growth of his "child," as it were, to be LITERALLY EQUAL to him as his partner; and also for Lili to contemplate as she regards Yuan now as someone partnered with her caretaker. Yuan now would kind of step into that role, as well. THAT'S HUGE for dynamics changing and rebuilding.

Let's also remember that San Peng transcends these boundaries, too, but it's a bit easier for him, because he hasn't lived in that house. But he's the family's benefactor, in a way, which both Yuan and Lili acknowledge. And his turning into a partner into the family is also a significant boundary-crossing.

Finally, Qian's concern for Lili. Yes, he was concerned for her career. He didn't want Lili to turn out like his mom.

I would have liked to have proof in that concern, literally. I say this as a mom.

Qian was missing something big. Lili's baby was going to be born into a nice big family unit that Qian was the creator and anchor of.

At least they had Qian and Yuan sitting on baby toys to end the series. Lili, truly, had nothing to worry about. The gay uncle-grandpas were going to be there to help raise the baby, because as an Asian viewer, I am going to assume the extended family's participation

(NOT ASSISTANCE! ACTIVE PARTICIPATION!)

in the raising of that child.

I'm not sure why Qian missed that, except for the very real reason of familial PTSD and intergenerational trauma from his mother. But San Peng was right there as Lili's partner and as the actual dad. And Qian was valid to have a concern. But that could have been a moment where Yuan, also, as a new equal "elder" of this newly readjusted family, could have reassured everyone that this baby was going to be born in a wonderful, close-knit, loving extended family.

These readjusted roles were not fully named and explored. If I were Lili, I know I'd be having that baby in the good hands of all of the men around me that would help me raise the kiddo in a happy and supportive environment.

One more point about the baby. We need more babies in BLs. We need to show men becoming fathers, people becoming parents. This is a right that all people have. We need more of it to emphasize that all people are deserving of the families that they want to create -- and truly, it was so BEAUTIFULLY SYMBOLIC that Qian would be such a good caretaker as to be blessed with further generations, because he literally cared so well for Yuan and Lili that they could bless him back with growing the family he tended to. We just didn't get enough sitting with that.

Finally! TF was up with that office vibe in the end. The tops, the bottoms, the public kissing. That we got that instead of the role explorations -- k, but the tone of all that was a little off, if it was meant to be comedic. And yes, I definitely took away that I was meant to ship Dr. Lin and Le Ge. I have NO IDEA why they were talking otherwise. Doc and Don are meant to, ya know, YA KNOW? Right? Ummm, lol.

All of this together is enough to put a touch of a damper on my memories of this show. I didn't end with a high.

But I ABSOLUTELY LOVED what this show accomplished through the first 10 episodes. All these complicated, delicious boundaries and roles and responsibilities being explored! It's a joy, as an Asian, to watch this being explored in a queer Asian show.

We ended on some tropey bumps, but I'm going to remember this show overall with fondness, and I'm ultimately very happy that this was my first Taiwanese BL. I can't wait to catch up in this space more in due time.

[vaguely-concerned]

Random Assortment of Ghibli’s Howl’s Moving Castle Thoughts

Because I rewatched it today for the first time in many years and it’s one of those miraculous works that not only remaine as magical as I remembered it through childhood eyes, but if anything was even more magical as an adult and in more complex ways. I’ve finally got words for at least some of the things I was processing only subconsciously as a kid, so here we go. 

- The sneaky underlying theme of deeply flawed mother figures in this movie. Drives me nuts. The narrative doesn’t go out of its way to condemn these characters, it takes a characteristically phlegmatic nonjudgemental view of them, but it feels like this is low-key a stealth Mommy Issues story. (Making it go 🤝 with Dragon Age 2 in my head lol) Sophie’s mother does not seem to be consciously malicious but is intensely smotheringly self-absorbed and immature to the point where it has clearly been neglectful, and on the other side of the ‘Overly Permissive/Neglectful to Overly Authoritarian/Controlling’ scale of shitty parenting Suliman is controlling and invasive and heedless of boundaries. (Notice that her real complaint about Howl entering the contract with Calcifer and thus losing his heart seems to be that it means she can no longer control him and his grasp on magic, more than actual worry for him as a person. Her presence in his life is largely, ironically, paternalistic. She even frames it as something he blundered into incompetently — phrasing as him having had his heart stolen, rather than the mutual agreement we see Howl and Calcifer make even if they couldn’t know all the consequences it would have.) In the end Sophie breaks the circle by managing to be an engaged and responsive mother figure to Markl and making an actual home with the people closest to her. 

Interestingly Howl at his worst seems to be much more like Sophie’s mother than like Suliman — he leaves Markl to handle things he really shouldn’t have to alone all the time and is noted to barely be home anyway, in the beginning especially he’s flighty and vivacious and evasive (not to mention aggressively blond haha) in some of the same patterns we see her mom exhibit. Since Lettie is quite like their mother in terms of looks and sociability, we might infer that Sophie takes more after their father (including in choice of spouse lol). But crucially when the chips are down Howl is ready to protect Sophie and their home with his life rather than abandon her, in sharp contrast with her mother. I like that the movie doesn’t vilify Sophie’s mom for what she does, as such, it’s a pretty impossible position to be in for anyone… but it is just an extension of what she’s apparently been doing for a long time anyway, privileging other parts of her life and her own comfort over her daughter’s wellbeing and happiness. (Adds a certain spice and heartache to how scared Sophie is that Howl is going to leave them, too. And her fear that it would be because she’s fundamentally not good enough, beautiful enough, clever enough for anyone to choose her and stay with her. Ooof. Girl he’s been looking for you everywhere girl he thinks you’re the most beautiful thing in the world girl it’ll be okay)

- Relatedly: the unspeakably sinister vibes and implications of Suliman’s fucking… army of little Ersatz Howl page boys. When I was younger I sort of bought that he was just being a coward in refusing to go back, but honestly looking at all those kids with smiling empty eyes like painted marbles — you know what maybe it was good he got out of there when he did and in whatever way he could, huh. I don’t feel like there were wonderful things ahead here. Between that and the Witch of the Waste — who must have been much, much older than him when they seem to have sort of had a thing, since he seems to be like… mid-twenties-ish? at the time of the movie — there’s some really uncomfortable subtext going on if you want to read into it that way. I don’t think it’s the only way to read it by any means, but there’s something icky and clandestine sticking to Suliman’s whole deal that makes some form of grooming feel potentially relevant, especially taken along with the shame and fear that seems to cling to Howl around it and the recurring symbolism of him being stuck at a child state beneath it all — he slipped away from Suliman one day but never really grew up. (I’ll readily admit this is some fully Vibes based ramblings on my part, so YMMV on how convincingly you find this present in the text vs. how much is conjecture in my overthinking overheating noggin lmao)

- The fact that the first thing that allows Sophie to heal is to get to be angry — to finally get to say ‘this is all such absolute fucking bullshit *aggressively scrubs all the shit away about it*’. So much of her arc is about reclaiming the full spectrum of her emotions instead of having to make herself small, to prioritize her own inner experience and expressiveness above the need to be acceptable or pleasing to someone else's gaze. It’s not doing quite the same thing as the book in this regard (which if memory serves does more complex work around societal dynamics around gender and sexuality and aging vs. the more internal personal approach the film takes), but what it is doing is very interesting in its own right. The castle being a space (a home!!!) where all the inhabitants can eventually express themselves freely, including Howl dropping the uncannily imperturbable smiling facade to show the sad wet pathetic drama queen beneath (deeply affectionate) and Markl just getting to be a kid running around having fun. And Sophie makes that home for everyone possible by being herself unfiltered for the first time in her life. What the fuck I’m not crying don’t look at me — 

- The little one-room cottage in the fields being the forerunner to the castle… 

- Something so pleasing about the irony that Howl is said to eat hearts when really he seems to have basically had to tear his own heart out and set it on fire to keep it safe. And then after people have tried to get their hands on it to possess it (the Witch) or dictate how he uses it and who he gives it to (Suliman) for the whole movie, Sophie gives it back to him without a thought at the end; it’s more important to her for him to be whole than to own his heart. Hmnngh. (also so funny that the first thing he does upon waking up is plaintively whining about it fhdasj. Yeah having feelings again can take a person like that) 

- Howl’s bad dye job freakout is still very funny and silly, of course, never change you giant drama queen slime the place down, but there’s something about the fact that he’s apparently been dyeing his hair the colour Suliman seems to favor/uses to mark ‘her people’ all this time even when he hasn’t been able to face her, especially since the flashback shows black is his natural hair colour, and how badly it freaks him out to not meet that standard anymore… Huh. Hm.Hah.

(This time I actually wondered to myself if part of the reason he made the deal with Calcifer was to be able to get away from her and the plans she had for his life (and that he clearly would have hated, if their fundamental philosophical disagreement about warfare is any indication!). I think it says some very sad things that his happiest childhood memory is of a secret place where he got to be entirely alone because it was the only place he felt safe. Howl’s Moving Giant Coping Mechanism Metaphor. You see the castle is the Flight response made. Well not flesh. Timber, I guess. The Flight response made timber. In this essay I will etc.)   

- It hurts me that Howl brings Sophie’s old bedroom into the castle. He wanted so badly to make her happy and he seems to assume that because his memory of childhood solitude is a… if not happy then comforting thing to him, it would be for her too. But to her that’s just a reminder of the stagnancy and loneliness and… indignity? of her life before, and makes her feel like he’s treating her like a housekeeper, relegating her to that tiny room all over again, unwanted and ignored. Augh. At least she seems to understand what he meant to do for her when he shows her the meadow, though, and he doesn’t stop trying to communicate it to her even though his gesture didn’t land the way he’d hoped at first. This movie is so quietly kind about people trying to learn how to understand and love each other. Everyone is allowed to stay at the castle in all their imperfections, even the Witch. 

- Something something the Witch curses Sophie with not being able to tell anyone what’s happened to her… and in the end that doesn’t even really matter because the people around her either grow to understand without having to be told by actually paying attention to her (like Howl) or just accept her exactly as she is anyway, age yo-yoing and all, no questions asked (like Markl). And in the same way Sophie immediately recognizes Howl in his monster form and isn’t afraid of him even when he tells her it’s too late. Suliman warning her about ‘what he really is’ and Sophie immediately hugging him in his full monster form because he came home and that’s all that matters to her. Howl thinks her white hair is the most beautiful thing in the world and worth coming back to the world fully for. Sobbing. 

- The implication that part of the reason Calcifer wants out of the contract (other than just being stuck in the hearth of a place slowly falling into depressing disrepair and neglect around him) is that he’s genuinely terrified of what Howl is doing to himself. There’s something kind of sad and very funny about that. What if you went into a deal with a demon and the demon had to keep telling you ‘uh. Uh bro that’s kind of fucked up you know that right. Hey are you listening to me you’re molting monster feathers onto the carpet Sophie is gonna LOSE IT and don’t come crying to me when she does’. I wonder what would have happened to Howl’s heart if he turned completely — it seems that their contract has kept it safe and unchanged in every other way, if frozen in time, so presumably it would just… keep going the same way? (Calcifer telling Sophie that ‘it’s still the heart of a child’ got me so bad this time around. Bawling all over the place haha.) The idea of being stuck burning around a homeless heart forever is — well Calcifer I guess I get where you’re coming from here

- Of interest only to a very few people, I suppose, but the Norwegian dub of this movie fucking rules, I’m glad to find my childhood self was right about that. Calcifer is so cute in it it almost makes me dizzy sometimes, Aksel Hennie went ham on this one. Also an incredibly calming and charming performance for Howl — whenever I hear the English dub I just start laughing b/c like uh okay that’s Batman, takes me right out every time, that is not my lil guy fhsakjd. (I suspect his characterization is a bit different and softer in Norwegian too, just from the differences in translation I’ve seen?) 

- The first time Howl takes Sophie flying he holds her hand through it the entire time and guides her, the second time he takes her flying he lets her steer the flying machine for a while under his supervision before he goes off to make the distraction (there’s something so sweet about it as much as he’s being a little shit about it, honestly, he believes in her in such a quiet undramatic way even as she’s freaking out), and then after walking away from Howl’s childhood memory she walk-flies confidently on her own exactly like he showed her at the beginning. At the end the whole castle flies, with all of them safe and comfortable within it. Thoughts. Feels. Agony.

- There’s something so… weirdly achingly beautiful about the non-linearity of love in this movie. To properly meet each other as themselves here and now, Sophie and Howl have to flicker through polar opposite ends of life where they’re both stuck: old age and calcified (ahaha) childhood, resigned depression and overwhelmed fear. The promise Sophie makes at the end that is the beginning for Howl and probably kept him going in the meantime — love and a feeling of home that echoes even through the part of your life when it wasn’t there yet, love as hope. He finds her in the future, she finds him in the past, their hearts call to each other across time and space and they both work so hard to be able to actually meet in the now. The castle is kind of a wheezing overwrought monstrosity, the result of having to keep your heart outside of yourself and be constantly running from everything… but how can you begrudge it for it, when it works so doggedly to keep you and all you love safe while you look for that home? (To me Calcifer is basically a metaphor for dissociation, for what it’s worth, and he always has been)

TL;DR One of my fave movies of all times and touches me to the soul, I can't help but be distressingly earnest about it

[ladykailitha]

The People That See You Part 3

The next week saw Eddie carrying a white paper bag to D&D. He tossed it at Brian with a wink. “Just a thank you from Steve,” he said with a grin.

He had talked to the guys about his friendship with Steve and how even though he couldn’t say why or how, Steve had saved his life. So Jeff and Gareth had grudgingly agreed not to make fun of the former king of Hawkins High.

Brian reared his head back in confusion until the smell hit his nose. “Holy shit.” He ripped into the bag. “He didn’t.” He pulled out a soft cookie dusted in cinnamon sugar and took a large bite.

Gareth and Jeff looked at each other in confusion.

“What are those?” Jeff asked.

“Snickerdoodles,” Brian mumbled around a mouth full of cookie. “Like only the best cookies on the planet.”

He dug another one out and broke it in half for Jeff and Gareth to share. He offered one to Eddie but he declined.

“I’ve been eating them nonstop for days...” he said with a grin.

“Official taste tester?” Brian asked with a wink.

Eddie blushed and shoved a large strand of hair into his mouth.

“Holy shit!” Jeff said. “It’s soft and buttery, but not too sweet.”

“Yeah,” Gareth agreed. “You say Steve made these?”

“Yup!” Eddie said, popping the ‘P’.

Jeff looked down at the table. “Do you think he’d be willing to make brownies for the next session?”

Eddie grinned. “I don’t know, I’ll have to ask.”

Jeff looked up. “But you’ll ask?”

Eddie just winked at him.

*

Steve came thundering down the stairs. “Hey, guys, I hear you requested brownies?”

The entire Hellfire Club was there including Steve’s nuggets.

“Steve!” came the chorus from the party and Corroded Coffin. The three that were strictly Hellfire just looked at him in amazement.

“Sorry, I’m late,” Steve said with a grin. “I was trying out something fun with walnuts and caramel.”

There was another chorus this time of oohs and awws. All but one.

The other girl of the club other than Erica, folded her arms and glared at him. “I’m allergic to nuts.”

“Tiffany, right?” Steve asked and she nodded tersely. “I gotcha. I’ll be right back.”

Steve set the two large plates he was carrying on the table with the other goodies (no food food near the character sheets) and turned back around to hop back up the stairs.

Tiffany raised an eyebrow at Eddie who just shrugged. A moment later Steve was back down the stairs another plate in his hands.

“I made these for Robin,” Steve explained, handing the plate to her, “but I can always make more for her later and I would hate to see you left out.”

Tiffany lifted the tin foil and gasped. Underneath was a plateful of the most delectable chocolate chip cookies.

“Did you make these first?” Tiffany asked.

Steve smiled. “Sure did. It should be all safe and if it’s not, bill my dad.” He winked at her.

She laughed as did everyone else.

Steve looked around at the cramped space and winced. “Not a lot of room in here, is there?”

Gareth frowned. “We make do.”

Steve waved his hands. “Oh absolutely. I’m just saying you don’t have to.” He half shrugged.

Eddie tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I have a large finished basement, no parents, and full kitchen,” Steve said. “You guys could have it at my place. At least it would see some fucking use.”

Everyone turned to look at Eddie.

Eddie smiled. “Let’s vote. All in favor of having D&D at Steve’s?” Eddie laughed when all of the junior members raised their hands as well as all the Corroded Coffin bandmates, thereby absolutely killing the majority.

“The ayes have it,” he said turning back to Steve. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a deal. When can we invade your home?”

Steve thought for a moment. “Not next week, Robin’s got a band thing, so the week after?”

Everyone nodded.

“Great!” Steve said and then waved goodbye.

Gareth turned to everyone else. “What just happened?”

Dustin sighed. “You accidentally activated mom mode. He loves taking care of people. And his house is huge. And it has a swimming pool out back, too.”

Even the ones that would have voted against it were starting to see the benefits of having it over at Steve’s.

Eddie smiled and if he went a little easier on them as a result, well that was his secret to keep.

*

Their first session at Steve’s they were greeted by the smells of something warm and hearty coming from the kitchen.

He ushered them into the front room. “Hey, Dustin, can you show them where they can set up? Eddie’s already down there fussing with his throne.”

“Will do!” Dustin said and motioned for everyone to follow him.

Tables were laid out for the to sit as well as for snacks. And everyone who could contributed to the snacks and drinks. So the table for treats started to fill up and then the main table where Eddie was waiting at the head.

Just as everyone was getting settled Steve came down to check on them.

“I’m glad everyone made it okay,” he said in lieu of greeting.

“Aren’t you worried the neighbors are going to call the cops?” Gareth asked.

Steve shrugged. “I’ve had full on ragers without a peep from the cops, so...no?”

Everyone shared impressed glances.

Steve walked up to Eddie. “When do you guys usually break?”

Eddie shrugged. “Depends on how far they get in the story.”

“Do you think you could give me a heads up of about twenty minutes?”

Eddie pursed his lips. “Could do, I suppose. Why?”

“I’ve got a lasagna in the oven and will need to pop it back in for twenty minutes so it’ll be warm for whenever you guys are ready.”

“Like Stoffer’s?” Tiffany asked.

Steve blinked. “What’s that?”

Even Dustin raised an eyebrow. “You know, the pre-made stuff from the store?”

“Oh, I’ve never had that,” Steve said looking uncomfortable. “I used my grandma’s recipe.”

Brian turned to Eddie. “If you don’t marry him, I will.”

Eddie turned bright pink and hid his face behind his hair.

Steve leaned over and whispered in Eddie’s ear. “You’ll have to ask me out first.”

Eddie dropped the hair and looked up into Steve’s eyes. Yeah, he knew that Steve liked boys. Even had a crush on him, if Brian was to be believed. But it was quite another to be on the receiving end of the Harrington charm.

So before he could answer, Steve was already back up the stairs.

“Did Steve just hit on you?” Will asked.

Eddie cleared his throat. “Previously our intrepid party was traveling down a treacherous mountain pass, with large rocks on either side, towering above them like stone giants, silent and stern.”

Part 1 Part 2 Part 4

Tag list: @itsfreakingbats @colorful565 @swimmingbirdrunningrock

[medusapelagia]

Raisins and nuts

I 'm trying to stretch my Stommy's muscle so here it is a little something with a tiny touch of enemies to lovers if you squint. (I know… four fluffy fics in two weeks… who am I? I don't recognize myself anymore!!!)

written for @stommybang Prompt: Food/Cooking Rating: Teen and Up Relationship: Steve/Tommy TW: none Words: 2273

Read it here or on AO3

Sometimes food is just food. It’s your body’s fuel. It’s a series of things you eat to keep yourself healthy and alive.

Other times food has a deeper meaning. It’s not the thing you’re eating, it’s the fact that someone cooked that thing for you, knowing that it's one of your favorites, without thinking about calories or nutrients.

Steve’s Nonna used to ask him what he wanted for lunch while he was having breakfast, and Steve always gave her a very annoyed reply, complaining that he couldn't think about lunch at that hour in the morning. Nonna Rosa never got offended, she used to nod quietly, pinching Steve's rosy cheeks, another really annoying habit of hers, and return to the kitchen where at least three boiling pots and pans were waiting for her.

Nonna loved him, and the only way she knew to express her feelings were Parmigiana, Crocché, and cheeks pinches, but Steve didn't understand that till the day she died and his parents started to hire nanny after nanny.

None of them ever asked Steve what he wanted for lunch, or even if he liked all the plates they cooked for him. They just make these flavorless but nutritious plates and give him raisins and nuts for a snack.

Everyone at school laughed at him and his raisins and nuts snack, but even if Steve tried to ask for some cereal for breakfast or a donut to eat during the break, the nanny of the month always denied him, condemning Steve to a life of raisins and nuts, hidden in the back of the cafeteria.

At least until Tommy moved.

Tommy H, as everyone called him to differentiate him from Tommy Bennet and Tommy Ramos, preceded Steve in the alphabetical order, which meant that Thomas Hagan Jr and Steve Harrington were destined to be friends, whether they liked it or not. 

Every time the teachers made them work in teams, Tommy and Steve were on the same team. When they had a school trip, Steve and Tommy were sitting side by side. Even during PE, their team was always the one with the boys whose surname started with the letter A to the ones whose surname started with L.

Even their houses were close, and Steve's nanny started to drive both boys to school and back.

One day Tommy's mom was busy, so she asked Lauren, Steve's new nanny, if she minded keeping an eye on both kids for a few hours, offering to pay for her services. Lauren, who was smart and knew perfectly well that both the kids were old enough not to cause too much trouble, immediately accepted and that was their first official playdate.

Once they became friends, Steve's snacks, usually made of raisins and nuts, finally transformed into every kind of snack Tommy had in his school bag. Whatever it was: chocolate, chips, crackers, or candy bars, they always shared them. And if Steve had a bad day, his parents didn’t call or he didn’t pass a test, Tommy was always ready to come to his place to cheer him up, bringing some snacks.

That's probably why, just a few hours after Nancy Wheeler dumped Steve in front of everyone, Tommy is at Steve's place, holding a six-pack.

Steve’s first instinct is to tell him to fuck off. Their friendship started to crumble since he fell in love with Nancy and he’s not in the mood to be morally beaten by his ex-best friend. They stare at each other in complete silence for a long moment, then Steve clenches his jaw and crosses his arms, ready to face Tommy’s attack.

"Are you here to gloat?” he snarls, “Because if it's so-"

"If it's so, what? Huh? Are you going to punch me in the face?" Tommy chuckles, leaning against the wall with the same self-confidence he always had. "Come on. Let me in." Tommy asks, pushing Steve out of the way.

The house is exactly as it always was: huge, cold, and empty. 

Tommy makes himself comfortable on the cream couch, grabs the television remote control, and puts his feet on the coffee table just to piss Steve off, giving him a bold stare, but Steve has already had an awful night, so he sits next to him, snatches a beer from the beer pack and puts his feet next to Tommy's. He cracks it open, not caring about the golden liquid that spills on the Persian rug.

"What happened?" Tommy inquires, picking a beer while in the background some fake laughs from the television fill the uncomfortable silence.

"Didn’t you see? Nancy dumped me."

"Why?" 

Steve is handsome and rich, no girl in her right mind would dump in. And surely not like that, in front of everyone.

"Because she's smart," Steve replies, gulping down the beer and throwing the can against the television like an angry old drunk.

"If she dumped you she's not that smart." Tommy simply states, sipping his own beer.

"What do you want, Tommy?" Steve asks, his eyes are red and puffy and he’s slouching on his mother's expensive couch like he has all the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Check on a friend?" Tommy replies, lifting an eyebrow.

This time Steve and the television laugh simultaneously.

"We're not friends anymore. And I saw you with Hargrove at Tina's party," he replies, snatching another beer.

"What, do you demand to be my only friend? Like when we were kids? Sorry to break it to you, Harrington, but you're the one who chose a girl instead of me."

"What about Carol? Huh?" Steve hisses, projecting all his venom into those words, trying to make Tommy bleed and retreat. But he doesn’t.

"We were a fucking trio, Steve. You, Carol, and I. We were invincible. Then you fell head over heels for Little Miss Perfect and everything went to hell." Tommy growls back, crushing the tin can in his hand.

It’s the truth. They were a trio. They were always together. Carol was the only constant in their life. Tommy and Steve fought and made peace so many times, but Carol was always there, popping a Big Babble annoyed and pushing their foreheads one against the other until they didn’t get into their thick skulls that they were best friends.

“I man up,” Steve replies, his stare pinned on the TV show to avoid looking at Tommy.

The light flickers and the television cracks for a moment. Power outages happen a lot in Hawkins, but Steve can’t avoid shivering in his seat looking at the wall with terror.

"You man up, huh?” Tommy mocks him, bumping a fit in Steve’s shoulder, then he adds, in a soft voice, “You ok?"

"I..." Steve rubs a hand through his hair, "I'm a bit nervous I guess." Steve lies. 

Monsters are gone, Steve reminds himself, they made sure of it. Still, every flickering light makes him jump.

"I got a couple of Musketeers.” Tommy says, fishing a couple of candy bars from his jacket, “I hope they're still your favorite because I had to beat a kid to get them." 

Steve lifts an eyebrow, unimpressed, "Did you beat a kid for real?"

"Nah, but I scared the shit out of him." Tommy chuckles, while Steve unwraps the candy bar, breaks it in two, and gives half to Tommy. It’s a reflex. They always splitted everything.

"I have another one." Tommy reminds him, staring at the half-candy bar.

"I know."

Tommy snorts, and then he asks, "Do you remember when you used to come to school with those stupid raisins?" 

"Of course I do. I fucking hated them."

"I didn’t.” Tommy replies, biting his candy bar, “That's how we became friends. Real friends, you know? The kind of friends who can tell each other everything. The kind of friends that spend all the time together. That sleep in the same bed.” 

There was a time when Tommy and Steve experimented with one another. It was normal, they used to say to each other. If they were always the last ones to leave the lockers was just because they kept making pranks, not because they took advantage of those few minutes to steal a kiss or a rushed hand job against the sink.

For a moment, Steve stares at Tommy’s profile. The dim light of the television emphasizes all his freckles, the same freckles Steve tried to count so many times, only to lose count and start kissing his best friend. He turns his head toward the television, "We're too drunk for his kind of discourse."

"We're the perfect amount of drunk for this kind of discourse," Tommy replies, turning toward him. Their legs are so closed that Steve can feel the warmth of Tommy’s leg against his and the stare he’s giving him leaves no space for misunderstandings.

"I had a girlfriend, Tommy. And she dumped me." Steve reminds him while he drinks his beer.

"I have a girlfriend too. But I'm here. We're here. Eating candy bars and drinking beer. And I'm wondering… Do you miss it? The intimacy we used to have?"

“It’s not… I like girls ok? I like boobs and-”

“I like both.” Tommy simply states, taking a last bite of candy, “I like both. Women and men.”

“So Carol…”

“She knows. And she’s the one that kicked my ass and told me to come here. That this could have been my chance.”

“Your chance to do what?”

“This.” Tommy’s hand moves to the back of Steve’s head, getting them closer enough that they are sharing the same air. Steve’s warm puffs of breath hit Tommy’s lips when he stalls for a moment to give him the time to pull back, and when he doesn’t he closes his eyes and kisses him.

They both taste of cheap beer and melted chocolate, but the electricity that runs through them is the same they felt that first night they kiss in Steve’s bed during a storm. 

Steve's second can of beer falls on the rug, spilling everywhere, but Steve doesn’t care, he opens his mouth and moves his tongue gently, licking Tommy’s lips like he was asking permission before kissing him with a passion that Tommy reciprocates.

“We shouldn’t…” Steve says, pulling back, “It’s the alcohol. You know it makes me horny.” he says, trying to escape from Tommy’s tight grip.

“Do you want to know what I think, Steve? It’s not the alcohol that makes you horny. It makes you free. No more mental walls, just desires that want to be fulfilled. Am I wrong?”

Steve stares at Tommy, ready to tell him that he’s wrong, that Steve is not like that. Only… only maybe he is. Maybe he fought with Nancy because he saw Tommy with Billy. Maybe…

“I have one condition.” Steve says, seriously, “Don’t leave. After… Don’t leave.”

“Did I ever leave?” Tommy snorts, but quickly promises, “I won’t leave. I swear.” 

Steve takes his hand and guides him upstairs, to his room, the same room where they have played, and slept, and kissed. And shared everything.

Even raisins and nuts.

Permanent taglist: @katyawriteswhump

[melrosing]

I’ve seen your Joanna headcannons. What about lyarra stark? Part of me thinks she could be really wild but the other part thinks she could be a patriarchy enforcer like Rickard was. Then again my mom was a ceiling glass breaker but started to deter my sisters and I from that sort of behaviour as we became teens which oh course didn’t work we were tough nuts and party girls.

She's another tricky one... I'd love to know more about Lyarra but for whatever reason we know less about her than almost any other notable dead lady. Which is pretty fucking odd, given this is House Stark we're talking about - we know about ten times as much about Joanna and Rhaella (and they're a pretty low bar) - Lannister and Targaryen are the other two of the big three houses in the story, so you'd think we'd know about as much about the Stark matriarch as we do Joanna and Rhaella. but no lol. There are at least some sketchy details to work with with the UPOD (and she doesn't even have a name!!), and we even have more for Cassana Baratheon née Estermont and Minisa Tully née Whent - granted, no more than the fact that Cassana died in a shipwreck, and Minisa is vaguely remembered in Cat's chapters, but at least they're in the books. Lyarra is never even mentioned on the page - her name comes from an appendix, there's nothing else to go on. And this is really annoying to me lol

So I guess anything I imagine about Lyarra has no real basis besides my own tastes, but I do picture her as another parent who had favourites, and that hers were Brandon and Lyanna. I imagine her as having a bit of the wolf's blood in her as well, and she was proud to have children who shared it. We don't know how she died so I just hc her passing away of an illness (surprisingly few dead people in ASOIAF have just 'sickness' as cause of death lol it's like GRRM you don't have to say 'in childbirth' every damn time) in Ned's early-to-mid teenage years.

But yeah I don't imagine her as a perfect benevolent matriarch... this is definitely headcanon territory, but I picture Ned as having been a little bit of an odd one out in his family, where he ends up kind of pushed to the back behind all the big personalities, and with Brandon soaking up all the limelight and their parents' attentions. It's interesting to me that Rickard (and Lyarra?) worked hard on good matches for Brandon and Lyanna but seemingly never made one for Ned, so he was very much a second son.

And yeah the feeling I get about Lyanna is that she was a version of Arya who grew up with more validation and less judgement for the ways she didn't conform (hence why Ned is largely accepting of Arya's non-conformity as well) - so Lyarra was maybe an outdoorsy type as well who wanted to share her hobbies with her daughter.

Ultimately I don't imagine the prev gen Starks chafing much amongst themselves, and that Lyarra, whilst having favourites, wasn't ever unpleasant to Ned - but her preferences were obvious enough that it led to some private hurt on his part, and resentment towards Brandon, that then turns to guilt after Brandon's death (more thoughts on the Ned/Brandon r/ship here). However, I also hc Ned and Lyanna as very close in their youth, so being Lyarra's least favourite son is a little made up for in being Lyanna's fave brother uwu

[whole-bunch-of-hcs]

Family HCs

I'm having Family Angst atm so we're writing about Coop and Remer's families (or rather the versions of their families I invented to project Issues onto lmao)

Coop

He seems 'parents are divorced' to me

His dad is nominally around but in actuality he only shows up on the odd holiday or birthday to ruin everyone's day and then split again

Once or twice he'll even stick around for a full day to a week, promising "this time it's for good, I'm gonna do it right Joey I promise." But it never lasts.

And his mom raised him with the help of his grandparents and an aunt/uncle so he was hardly starved for love or attention right?

And yet he still felt painfully lost growing up

Having even one person just completely Not Care about your existence when you're that young and vulnerable really fucks with you.

He loves his mom, his grandparents are cool and all (though he's definitely had his issues with all of them at some point). He routinely decides he hates his dad, he misses his dad, his dad was doing his best and he should be a little more forgiving, nevermind his dad is a piece of shit

Remer has been a big help in all this through the years to a point that Coop can't imagine having done this without him, and can't imagine anyone else knowing all of it.

Coop and his grandfather were really close growing up. They watched games together and all that.

Coop probably knows how to do small 'grandma task' type things like mend a small rip or something.

Just in general, big 'my grandparents were an important part of my childhood' vibes

Once when his dad was around, he took Coop and Remer to the game where he caught that ball and started the whole thing.

Coop's mom is a terrible cook. That's why that psyche-out didn't work, it's just kinda true and he knows it. Insult his uncle's cooking on the other hand? Excuse me? That man was the only reason he didn't live off of McDonald's growing up, you take that shit back

As an adult, Coop talks to his mom a lot and goes home for alternating holidays etc. His dad sometimes shows up to ask for money (especially now that he's a sports star) but other than that... they don't talk much.

Remer

His parents are NOT divorced. But tbh they should be.

His mom's not super loud or controlling or anything but she IS hard to get along with. She pretty much only likes Remer.

His dad's more silent about his loathing of all other people (except Remer) but it's definitely there.

Basically his parents like him a whole lot but more or less nothing and no one else which put a lot of pressure on Remer to earn his 'only good person' title but other than that he's fine.

He hates how they can't be in the same room for more than five minutes without his mother deciding not to talk to anyone anymore and his dad blaming random faults on her but whatever. At least they both exist.

He lived like a child of divorce: only hanging out with one of them at a time, constantly reassuring them he didn't love the other more, etc. Only they were 'together.'

He wasn't really in conflict with either of them but it was still a pretty tense environment so he usually just hung out on his own.

He doesn't want to get married because he's only ever seen it work out with one of them splitting randomly or them both hating each other.

His parents are both only children and his dad's parents hate his mom and his mom's parents hate his dad's parents so his family always felt even smaller than it was because none of them could ever be in the same room together.

His mom also probably hated all his girlfriends. (Also I have this hc that Coop's dad slept with one of Coop or Remer's gfs at one point shortly after Baseketball took off and it was a whole ordeal and almost caused a scandal)

His dad hates Coop and it drives Remer nuts. Like the only real fight he ever has with his dad is the 'what is your issue with Coop' fight.

There were a lot of times when Remer was like 'oh this is gonna be it for sure they're totally done' but they just didn't get divorced or even separate for more than like a week and he was losing it

As an adult he literally could not care less. He sees them Enough and that's as far as that line of thinking goes.

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Yellow City, Chapter Eleven - a Malevolent AU

Where were his parents? Wait, no, they wouldn’t be there anymore. Cloud City, he lived in Cloud City, not there, not for a long time. But his parents should have been there, in the village, smiling, working. Where were mom and dad? No, he knew they were gone, this was all wrong, this was—

Vertigo. All he could feel right now was vertigo. He made a small, soft sound.

Chapter eleven of Yellow City. Warning: this fic is explicit, though this chapter is not.

AO3

-----------------------------

Arthur had never been in a room more dangerous.

He walked slowly, trusting his partners to stay on his heels, to have his back. And he needed his back had here.

Everyone who was anyone in Cloud City was in this place, wearing fucking cufflinks worth more than Arthur’s rent. People who killed, and people who schemed. Gowns that sparked like painted depictions of the unseen night sky. Jewels like rain dangling from eaves. Thieves and owners of thieves. Those who claimed to uphold the law and also broke it.

People Hastur used to work with and call his peers.

This had to be awkward for Hastur at best, and awful at worse. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to bring him. “You good, partner?” he said, turning to look up (and his leash was long and thin like golden thread and there was plenty of slack and so it did not tug and bother him when he turned).

“Of course, little detective,” said Hastur, and he was slurring. “Why would I not be?”

Arthur gasped. “Are you drunk?”

Hastur laughed, low and terrible, and stroked Arthur’s hair. “Silly little detective.”

“Hastur!” Arthur hissed. “We need to be on our best game right now! What were you thinking?”

“That this is not the threat to me that you seem to think it is,” said Hastur, adjusting Arthur’s (fine golden collar) white bowtie.

“Fuck,” said Arthur, and looked to Parker. “Are you drunk, too?”

Parker stared at him. “No.”

“Good. Because we gotta pick up the slack.” He gave Hastur a dry look, then shook his head. “I get it, I guess. Just wish you’d told me it would fuck you up so much to see your old cronies.”

“My old cronies, you say,” said Hastur, delighted and slurring.

“You’re lucky he’s this sensible,” said Parker. “He’s been a nut for days. Ever since you—”

Arthur heard tied the knot, and some part of his mind hurt, and deep in his chest hurt, but both stopped at once and he felt fine.

“—didn’t even put you down for one fucking second. Carried you around like some kind of doll,” Parker complained.

“It’s a honeymoon, Parker. I don’t know what you expected,” Arthur said a little defensively.

Parker stared. “It was not a fucking honeymoon! He stabbed you through the heart.”

Arthur was a grown man, and only colored a little. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Parker covered his face with his hands and screamed, close-mouthed, into the meat of his palms.

“Grow up, Yang.” Arthur said. “Well, as long as we make it through the performance, we should at least get out alive.”

“Performance?” Parker said weakly.

“All is ready,” Hastur said, tentacles rising, many eyes glowing briefly golden behind his mask.

“Yeah,” said Arthur, looking around. “There’s Lauren Darling. I gotta talk to her.”

“Who? Why?” Parker said.

“The vote,” said Arthur simply.

“You’re remembering that all the time,” said Parker softly.

“It’s important. We’re the only hope those kids have,” said Arthur, as if that explained everything.

“His memory has improved,” said Hastur, eagerly. “Lead the way, little detective. I have your back.”

“That’s just what I wanted to hear.” Arthur checked his hand, where he saw a ring (so many rings) that matched the hammered gold bands (beauty) on Hastur’s tentacles. His heart did a happy little skip. “First job as a married man. Let’s get this done.”

Hastur’s laugh was deep and pleased.

Parker’s leash had plenty of slack. He hung back. Lauren Darling was Pers, Hastur’s half-sister, a horrible bitch Parker did not care to go anywhere near, and he wondered if Arthur would crazy his way into her graces, too.

He hated this place. Knew it well. Had spent nearly four fucking years here, suffering. Suffering. Unable to appease his god.

His god, whom he’d been sure would free them from all other gods. He’d been so sure.

The floor was slimy, and the walls were slick. Insects squirmed in the corners. The dais and throne—which he’d never seen the Defiler use—gleamed dully with whatever awful slime grew all over it.

He’d have to fucking burn the skin off his feet once they left here if he wanted to feel clean again.

He crossed his arms over his chest. Hastur was happy, clearly—his tentacles all undulated, the edges of his robe fluttered without breeze, and his crown somehow cut the air in a way that even Parker couldn’t parse without feeling like his brain was being stabbed. Paker let them get so far away that the leash was almost taut.

He couldn’t hear them. Pers (in all her freakish pink glory) was being threatening, leaning over, tentacles pointed like knives, but Arthur didn’t seem to see—or possibly didn’t care. It’s not like she’d try anything with Hastur right there. Probably.

He could admit to himself he didn’t know for sure. In this moment, surrounded by towering gods who paid only enough attention to him to avoid stepping on him, he could admit he didn’t know a lot.

He used to know. He used to see, to feel. To wield magic by will, channeling power he thought he’d earned in pursuit of his goal. He’d been so close.He’d pleased his god. Then, he’d failed.

Hastur laughed. The room shook; gazes turned his way. Even when it wasn’t his fucking party, he had to make it about him. Parker rolled his eyes.

Arthur was working his own magic, though, whatever it was. Pers’ body language had calmed, her pink tentacles lowering, and she was laughing, her nearly human guise almost smiling right, though the eyes were too wide, and she had too many teeth.

Parker shuddered. Turned. And found himself facing sagging flesh, puckered skin, the pocked and oozing putrefaction of the one he’d once called lord.

He had never been one who startled, who spooked. He went stiff, but neither cried out, nor stepped back. Instead, he looked up.

There was no head. Parker looked there anyway. He’d determined, in the nearly four years of unending torment, that regardless of the putrid and melting form taken, Y’golonac always watched from that place.

Silence. Y’golonac dripped onto the tiles, and his smell twisted the air.

Guilt, fear, hope chased each other down Parker’s throat, clogging it. He had never been good with words.

“Having fun with the Peacock King?” the Defiler finally said through his disgusting left hand.

The smell of rotten meat carried those words. The sheer yellow fabric Parker wore began to sort of wilt, like flower petals under intense heat. “It’s fine.”

“You’re miserable,” said the Defiler with his right hand. He produced another arm with too many fingers, each of them with tips torn off, oozing something pink from the shattered bone tips. This is what he used to touch Parker’s leash, pinching it between his fingers. “Do you want to come back?”

Yes, Parker wanted to come back. Not to suffer more, not to hurt, but to regain acceptance. To unearth the favor he’d lost. To find the… he wouldn’t call it love (it had never been soft or fond), but the approval.

It was the tone that tipped him off, though: mocking. Beyond teasing. Cruel. “You’re not offering.”

“No. I’m not offering.” The Defiler said.

It wasn’t as though they’d Contracted; Parker couldn’t host him. Y’golonac’s servants had come, or there’d been signs in dreams. And the power; there’d always been such power, strength, healing, health. Parker never got sick, even when the whole department did. By the time Arthur had been chosen as vehicle, by the time Parker was many murders in and blindered, he’d felt fucking invincible.

More importantly, though, he’d felt approval, and that had been his drug.

It was all gone now. His heart hurt. “What’s it gonna take to make up for it? If you’ll just fucking tell me, I’ll do it.”

“He’s going to give you back soon,” Y'golonac said. On either side of his pinch, the leash lost its gold, began to darken and grow stiff.

This was bad. This was good. This was complicated. “He say that?” Parker managed, both terrified and hopeful.

“No. But I know him. Flighty; distracted. He’ll want his favorite happy, and…” Both the Defiler’s hands laughed, spraying Parker with saliva that stank, that burned. “How happy do you think he’ll be when he learns just what was traded for you?”

Not happy at all.

It seemed like the one consistent thing left in Arthur’s shattered brain, and no, he would not be happy. He’d never blame his precious Hastur. No. Parker knew how it would go down.

The Defiler was getting him back. It wouldn’t be a joyful reunion. He wanted it to be, but it just was not.

So many things twisted under his tongue, in his head, but only one came out of his mouth, out of nowhere, bad. “Do you hate me?”

“Yes.”

Even when being tortured or sent on endless, punished errands, he hadn’t been told that.

Hard to breathe around the weight of what he’d lost. Crying would be so fucking dumb. “I can make up for it. I can.”

Y'golonac said nothing.

Behind him, gods laughed. Arthur had done something entertaining, and the laughter was followed by light applause. Well, that figured. Arthur had always been… likable. Even at his lowest, grouchiest, most self-destructive.

Parker had never been likable, even at his best. Words were too fucking hard.

Parker tried: “I’m sorry I failed you.”

“I don’t care.” Light tone, flippant, almost covered by the voice behind, by Hastur’s booming pleasure.

“Yeah, you do,” Parker dared.

Y’golonac studied him, face unseen, and the mouths in his hands smiled. “I don’t hate you because of your failure.”

Hastur’s voice rose, some questioning prompt. Arthur replied, and their audience cheered again.

Parker couldn’t find words.

“I hate you because you’re everything I hate,” said the Defiler almost kindly, as the leash began to crackle where it had blackened, the rot climbing toward Parker’s throat. “I’ve always hated you. Virile. Strong. Healthy. Smart. I hated everything about you from the very beginning.”

Parker staggered back one step as if that had been a physical blow.

Was this happening? Really? Laughter danced over his shock, pressing his sinking heart deeper into drowning. “But you… kept me that way,” he finally said.

The floor beneath them darkened, foul. “I had to. You had to serve me, didn’t you?”

Hated by his god. By the one he’d done everything for. It hurt. It hurt. Parker clenched his fists. “Why are you talking to me right now, huh?” he choked out.

Y’golonac shrugged, and the sound was like wet leather being twisted.

Parker looked at the leash. The darkness was a foot from his throat.

He should cry out. Step back. Something.

There didn’t seem to be a point.

Always hated him. There’d never been approval. Only tolerance and manipulation. Like all of them. Like the ones he’d dedicated his life to ending.

Parker stayed still and did not raise his voice, but he decided at least to ask. Why not? There was nothing left to lose. “What would you have done to me if I’d succeeded?”

“Let you die.”

Said like a cheap gift.

Said like an unimportant thought.

Says like an already-faded bouquet.

Parker couldn’t find his words anymore.

“I won’t let you die now, though,” said the Defiler. “Not after what you cost me. I’m keeping you. I hate you.” The rot was nearly at the end of the leash. “You failed me. With all the power I could give you, all the tools, all the time. I’ll keep you so long, you won’t even remember why I hurt you. I’ll find new ways. You’ll never adapt. You’ll never know joy or peace. Anybody who fails me will know—”

An inch from Parker’s skin, the rot stopped crawling up the leash.

“Back away from him,” said Arthur from behind the enormous god of rot.

Surprise made those puckers tighten, squirting a little unidentifiable fluid, and the Defiler turned.

Arthur. Holding a… something like a gun, pointed right at the Defiler’s midsection. “I said back away from him, or you can fucking say goodbye to your kidneys.”

Behind him, Hastur. Chuckling. So amused. “Brother,” he said.

“Brother,” said the Defiler. “That’s a dangerous toy to give your pet.”

Arthur’s thumb moved. Parker thought he might have “cocked” whatever he was holding. “You deaf or just stupid?”

“You’re making a mistake,” seethed Y'golonac like boiling shit.

“I suggest you step back,” said Hastur. “I will let him use it.”

Whatever that black thing was, it apparently was serious, because the Defiler took a single, wet, heavy step back.

“Parker,” said Arthur, hand and eyes still steady on Parker’s fucked-up god. “You good?”

“Yeah,” said Parker, aware now that he stank, aware that his yellow frothy gold had withered, fried, turned crackling and sticky.

“Come on over here,” said Arthur. “I’m covering you.”

Hastur tsked. “My, my, what have you done?” he said, and his tentacles slid over Parker, and the stench was gone, and the tiny bits of burning, and the leash gleamed, and the fabric frothed like golden mist and reformed perfect and sheer and pointless.

Parker knew he should say thanks. The only words he could find were angry. He clenched his jaw shut.

“You have some balls,” said Y’golonac, calmly, “pulling this at my gathering.”

“I don’t care if it’s your mama’s kitchen,” said Arthur. “Stay the fuck away from my partners.”

Hastur chuckled.

Y’golonac made no sound at all.

“Fuck, shut up, Arthur!” Parker whispered.

“I’ll remember this. Do you think you can get away—” The Defiler stopped. The Defiler stared. “You marked him?” he bellowed.

Voices dimmed.

Parker looked around. Everyone was staring. His eyes went wide. It was that big a deal?

“Yes, I did,” said Hastur bombastically.

Y’golonac leaned away as if Hastur was the contagious one. “You’ve gone crazy.”

Hastur chuckled. “Just because I have better taste than you hardly means that.”

Arthur didn’t seem to be hearing this. “Deep breaths, man. You’re safe now.”

Parker stared at him. “What the fuck did you antagonize him for? He’s dangerous!”

“You needed it,” said Arthur.

“I’m not your fucking friend,” Parker snapped, and thought that would work.

“You’re my partner,” said Arthur. “And I’m your friend because you fucking need one. Now, listen: this party’s a wash. I’m doing the music number, and we can get out of here.”

It was whiplash, talking to this guy. “What? What number?”

“Arthur Lester,” said Y’golonac. “Your owner traded his vote to me for the sake of your new friend.”

And every single being around them went quiet and still.

Parker’s stomach turned. Bile filled his mouth, made his eyes water, and he struggled not to throw up.

Arthur stared.

The Defiler laughed, a wet sound, unpleasant. “He didn’t tell you?”

Parker couldn’t stand straight; the cramping in his stomach—

Arthur looked up at Hastur. “Is that true?”

Yeah, it was true, and it was over. That’s what the Defiler had been doing, talking to him. Building it up, marinating his meal, getting Parker ready to be traded back.

It just… there was no way out. Parker covered his eyes.

“Yes,” Hastur confirmed.

Arthur sounded so… hurt. “Why? Why would you do that?”

“You asked for him,” said Hastur, all calm.

Such heavy silence, bored gods waiting to see how this played out. Parker knew how it would play out. He bent almost double. He didn’t want to see Arthur’s betrayal, Arthur’s sorrow, and finally, Arthur’s hardening accusation. Weak, pathetic, he thought, because the kindness Arthur had given him had somehow become precious. I’m a fool.

“Your vote?” said Arthur.

“Yes,” said Hastur.

“You…” Arthur stopped.

“So fix it,” said Y’golonac. “Make your pet happy. Trade back. Now.”

Had it been this quiet in this room three minutes ago? Had there been so many eyes, such weight of attention?

“Why would you do that?” Arthur whispered.

“Because that was what he wanted,” said Hastur.

The Defiler laughed. “He didn’t even try to bargain.”

“I knew there was no bargain,” said Hastur. “He said what he wanted.”

Here it came. And suddenly, Parker decided he’d say goodbye. Goodbye to this absolute lunatic, a guy he’d respected, a guy so crazy he probably wouldn’t even remember.

A guy he’d helped break by fucking around with knowledge of his daughter’s murder.

A guy he’d thought would never break.

The last kindness he would ever know had come from this guy. He owed a goodbye. Parker stood and faced him.

Arthur wasn’t hardened. He was frowning, deep in thought. Looking back and forth between the huge deities. He stopped, looking at Hastur. “I believe you.”

Parker swallowed more bile. What?

“I wish you’d fucking told me,” said Arthur. “But I get it.”

The Defiler had not expected this. “I said he traded his vote!”

“Yeah, I heard you,” said Arthur.

Parker felt slow and stupid. “You’re all about votes. This is suddenly fine?”

Arthur looked at him. “It’s not fine, but look: if we can’t swing enough votes that Hastur’s matters that much, we were fucked anyway, because they’ll just roll a second vote and win. It has to be decisive. But more important… Parker, we had to get you free. This is about people. The vote’s about people. I’d be a hypocrite to trade a life for a vote in the name of more votes.”

Parker gawked at him, mouth hanging open, throat closed.

(How many people had he killed, all for the greater good?)

There wasn’t another sound in this room.

(How many times had he violated his conscience, saying the one for the many, like the many weren’t made of ones?)

Everyone stared.

“Right,” said Arthur, handing the not-a-gun back to Hastur. “Time for my number. How do I look?”

“Perfect,” purred Hastur, and by gods, he sounded like he meant it.

Arthur nodded, moved as if removing a non-existent jacket and handing it to Hastur, then headed for the dais at the other end of the room.

And Hastur had to ruin the moment with himself. “You thought that would be a deal-breaker, didn’t you?” he said so smugly that Parker almost wanted to be returned out of spite. “You don’t know my little detective. I do.”

“You’ll get tired of it eventually,” Y’golonac snapped. “When your pet forgets him. You haven’t marked that one, and you won’t.”

No, Parker would definitely not be marked.

“I don’t have to mark him for him to be mine,” said Hastur, making no damn sense, and then Arthur’s musical number began.

Instruments blared out of nowhere, human percussion, human brass. Bright and syncopated, jazzy and fun, and Parker startled. “What the fuck?”

“The music is his arrangement,” said Hastur, ignoring the Defiler while standing in his house. “From his mind. He’s been working on it for days.”

It was lively as fuck, and Arthur was no tap-dancer, but he moved his feet on the dais as if it were a stage, conducting with his whole body, not just his arms, leading the sound of an invisible big band. Then, still conducting, he turned to face the room and sang. “Well, it's a marvelous night for a moondance / with the stars up above in your eyes / A fantabulous night to make romance / 'neath the cover of October skies.”

Parker stared. “What the fuck is this song?”

Hastur laughed darkly.

“That’s…” said some god Parker didn’t know. “How does he know that? He can’t know that.”

“He dreamed it!” Hastur proclaimed, raising all his limbs, and Arthur’s whole body shimmered. Suddenly, Arthur wore a white tux and tails, top-hat included. Suddenly, there was a spotlight, and numerous shadows as if dozens of musicians rose in tiers behind him.

Parker might never find words again.

Arthur tapped in time, swaying his hips, directing the unseen orchestra he imagined in place of a putrid throne, and sang again. “And all the leaves on the trees are falling / to the sound of the breezes that blow / You know I'm tryin' to please to the calling / of your heartstrings that play soft and low.”

The gods were dancing.

Parker felt insane.

They were… lurching, or tapping, or… he recognized that. Fucking jitterbugging?

“But that song was never written anymore,” somebody protested.

Parker could believe that. He’d never heard anything like it. Jazz? Sure, it was jazz, but utterly unfamiliar. Some future-age jazz, unknown. He stared.

Arthur spun. His eyes sparkled. His hair, slicked back, shone in red-gold waves. And this time, still directing an orchestra that didn’t exist, he sang… to Hastur. Arm out, eyes fixed, a smile on his face. “Well, I wanna make love to you tonight / I can't wait 'til the morning has come / and I know that the time is just right / and straight into my arms you will run / And when you come, my heart will be waiting / to make sure that you're never alone / There and then all my dreams will come true, dear / There and then I will make you my own.” And he spun back around and directed with his whole body, white tail-coat dancing with him, unseen instrumentalists following his every move as they changed key.

The place was in an uproar. Almost all of the gods were moving now, and while they didn’t have faces, they were… they were…

Happy?

Parker had never seen happy gods apart from Hastur. It hit him like a brick to the head, that thought. He turned slowly on his bare-footed heel, jaw open, staring at wriggling, tapping, dancing gods, and felt completely out of his mind.

Was insanity catching? Had he really fucking lost it? Was—

His collar gave a terrible yank, a nasty pull that slammed him right onto the slimy marble floor, and he hissed in pain as something in his shoulder cracked.

One of the Defiler’s lackeys sneered at him. “Oops,” it said, ears dripping with puss that bubbled and popped.

Hastur smacked it.

One tentacle, casual as anything, smacking the lackey right down, and it crunched beside Parker and cried out.

Had that been… equivalent exchange? What the fuck just happened?

Something in his shoulder was broken. The shock was done, and pain was catching up, rising, climbing. Unfair, that dead people could feel pain. Unfair.

Hastur picked him up. “Silly little traitor,” he said, and he healed that shoulder.

The pain vanished. The crunching stopped.

I’ve lost it, he thought, because the fuck?

The orchestra of Arthur’s mind followed his direction, ending at last with a screaming-brass dissonance and glory, a chord that felt like rising sun and jazzy joy and life, and in Hastur’s grip, Parker panted.

Arthur jogged down the dais steps to wild applause, somehow not slipping on the slime everywhere in the Defiler’s house. His white tux shimmered, disappeared in golden mist, became his little sheer yellow drapes of ownership. He was beaming.

Parker had to admit some grudging amazement. Hastur really did manage to take over any situation. Well. Whose fault was that? Y'golonac shouldn’t have invited him, if he didn’t want that.

“Well done, little detective,” said Hastur in a low and hungry voice.

“I figure we can go now,” said Arthur. “Obligations done. And I don’t think we’re getting more votes tonight.”

“Likely not,” said Hastur, picking him up, too.

Parker thought he’d get more, but he wanted no reason to stick around.

“Gotta watch it,” Arthur said, low. “Kissinger’s gonna get us back for this. Not that I regret it. Just saying.”

“He will try,” Hastur agreed, heading for the door.

“You promised,” said Pers, “and you delivered. Magnificent.”

“I told you,” said Hastur.

“Ma’am,” said Arthur, tipping a hat he did not have.

She purred, a higher sound than Hastur’s, almost trilling. “Lovely.”

“Yes, he is,” said Hastur, and at last, they were free.

Parker hadn’t believed he’d actually get out of there. But they were out. They were out. Somehow, he’d gotten out.

He lost it, great big gulping sobs like some rube, and couldn’t rein them in.

“Hey, man,” said Arthur. “Hey. Come on. You’re okay.”

“Fuck,” whispered Parker, wiping his eyes. He couldn’t stop.

“You have done so well, my little detective,” Hastur rumbled.

Arthur looked at Hastur like he’d hung the moon.

Parker hated Hastur. He did. But alongside guilt, alongside the heavy weight of failure, he could not kill the tiny seed of gratitude that now grew like deep-rooted weeds.

#

Hastur made them eat.

Arthur didn’t wanna. “I don’t—” A bite of stew chewed and swallowed, meat and root vegetables and herbs boiled soft. “I’m not hungry.”

“Eat,” Hastur said, not giving him a choice.

Parker picked at his own stew. The taste of bile was long gone, and all the muck cleaned off. Hastur had let him share the enormous in-ground pool, hot and scented. Had focused on Arthur and let Parker scrub himself red, scrub himself bleeding, not stopped him from crying into his hands or repeatedly punching the water.

Parker couldn’t understand any of this. He tried to find some words. “Hey. Hastur.”

“Hmm?” More stew, which Arthur obediently chewed and swallowed.

“Why did you stop him?” That wouldn’t be clear enough. “You hate me, too. Like he does.”

“I don’t hate you, little traitor.”

He had words for that. “I sleep on a damn table.”

“That is because it’s funny.” Hastur kept Arthur occupied, little touches, mouth full. “I don’t hate you personally, viscerally. I just don’t feel better yet.”

Parker frowned. “Better yet?”

“Hastur, I’m tired,” said Arthur, and looked it.

“A little more,” said Hastur.

He couldn’t mean… “What, from when I fucked him?”

“Yes,” said Hastur. “He listened to you instead of me.”

That’s what this was about? Parker stared. “Years ago!”

“Yes.”

Gods were stupid. Stupid as mud, all of them. “He did that because you made him mad!”

Hastur said nothing.

Parker bared his teeth. “That’s who he fucking is. Make him mad at you, and he runs in the opposite direction just to spite you, even if it’s into a damn wall!”

Hastur’s response was both infuriating and unnerving: “I don’t feel better yet.”

Parker gripped his head in both hands and leaned on his elbows. What in hell was he supposed to do with this?

His afterlife was over. Being brought back was a big thing, disruptive; whatever was meant for him in the Dark World would never come to pass. He had to make this work. He didn’t want to just go completely crazy like Arthur (whom he’d never thought would). There had to be another—

“Hey,” said Arthur all of a sudden. “We need to talk about Charlie.”

Parker looked up at him very slowly. “What?” he said in a small voice.

“Curious,” said Hastur. “I seem to have visitors. Well. You both need to rest, anyway.”

Arthur yawned. “Sure. But we need to talk about him.”

Parker's voice was vicious. “You don’t know nothing about Charlie.”

Hastur was carrying them toward the enormous bed.

“Hey,” said Arthur. “I gotta talk to him a minute.”

“As you wish,” said Hastur, and for a moment, held Parker over the little table as though about to drop him on top of it. Instead, he put them both in the enormous bed, and had the gall to chortle as he tucked them in.

“What the fuck?” said Parker, hackles up.

“Need backup?” said Arthur.

“No. This is a request from the Mother,” he said.

Arthur translated. “Security. Oh, yeah. You handle that.”

“You’re just leaving me here?” said Parker, freaking out. “A trap?”

“No,” said Hastur. “He’s mine, now. Marked. You could never take him from me.” And Hastur left them there while Parker gawped after him, and Arthur snuggled down into the enormous sheets and against the enormous pillows that made them both look like children.

If he hit Arthur, he wondered if Hastur would hurt him. Or throw him out.

Parker didn’t want to hit Arthur. Arthur, who lay there, looking at him, deadly serious and absolutely crazy.

“Charlie,” said Arthur.

Parker nearly hit him anyway. “You didn’t know Charlie.”

“No. But I know what he was to you,” said Arthur.

Parker curled up and lay with his back to Arthur. “What do you know?"

“You loved him. He made you happy,” said Arthur.

Parker was not at all prepared for this today. He curled tighter. “Maybe crazy’s easier. Has to hurt less,” he muttered.

Arthur ignored that. “I heard something tonight, Parker. I know you never caught who killed him. I heard—ended up down by the docks without his head, full of white worms. Right?”

Parker didn’t answer. That…

That had been the worst day. Of all his days, even the day he’d failed, that had been the worst day.

“I thought maybe you’d killed him for a while,” said Arthur.

Parker clenched his hands so tightly his nails bit into his palms. Through his teeth, he said, “No.”

“No. I know. I heard.”

“You heard,” said Parker, bitterly. “You dreamed, probably.”

And he didn’t know how he knew it changed. Didn’t how how he could tell, or what was different in Arthur’s voice, but in that moment, Parker knew that Arthur was sane: “Yeah. I did," said Arthur. "But I’m right.”

Parker turned to face him.

The ordinary, focused look was gone. Arthur looked aged, strained, almost ragged. “He made you happy. Charlie.”

“Yeah.” Words sucked. Happy. Yeah, Charlie had done that. He’d made Parker actually look forward to the remade world, instead of focusing on taking it away from the gods. Charlie made him feel like there was a future.

“It pissed Kissi…” Arthur shuddered. Closed his eyes. Opened them, and the strain of sanity added wrinkles to his skin and red to his cheeks. “The Defiler. It pissed him off. He had to put up with you being… fucking healthy, but happy was too much. He had him killed, Parker.”

No.

No, that wasn’t it.

That couldn’t have been it. “He did not,” said Parker.

“He did.”

No. “He kept me fucking motivated. There is no damn way Y’golonac had him killed.”

Arthur sighed. “What seems more his taste, huh? Acting out of hope, in faith you can build a life? Or out of bitterness that eats away at you, driving you with anger and burning you the fuck up on the way?”

Parker stared.

The sanity flickered in Arthur’s eyes like a dying light bulb, and in the next blink, it was gone again. “Fuck of a night, right? That room was as dangerous as the fucking Wastes.”

“You’re not wrong,” said Parker in a voice he didn’t recognize, because he had to parse this, because if Y’golonac hadn’t said what he said tonight, Parker would have dismissed this information, just laid that murder and loss at the feet of the gods like he did all Cloud City’s sorrows, but (I hate you) it seemed more likely, now, didn’t it, and such a seismic shift  ground Parker's thoughts against each other, crushing rock and causing quakes.

The temple doors opened.

Hastur hovered there, backlit by the double suns. Behind him, several dozen witches stood in silhouette, gathered. Quiet. Solemn.

Parker sat up. Every instinct he had said something had just gone real weird.

“Come to me, Arthur,” said Hastur.

Arthur slid out of the bed, yawning, and padded to him, nude and uncaring.

Hastur picked him up.

No one said anything to Parker. He slid out of bed and followed, anyway.

Hastur carried Arthur and traveled to the edge of the city. He was silent, leading a train of silent, grim women.

Asenath was here? Yeah, Asenath was here, looking kind of serious, marching along.

Fuck, Parker did not want to talk to her. He’d never liked her, never liked her attitude, and she was just on top of the world here, even if he had gotten to kill her. But likely, she knew what was going on. He sighed and edged his way toward her. “Hey.”

“Hello, trashpanda,” said Asenath.

Trashpanda? The fuck was… Right. That was a distraction. “What the fuck’s going on?”

“Dreamlands changed,” said Asenath. “Connected to Arthur.”

That was such an insane couple of sentences that Parker laughed.

Asenath did not laugh.

“Sure, Asenath. Right. Tell me another one.”

“Dreamlands changed,” she said. “And it is connected to Arthur.”

This was baloney. “Okay, one,” said Parker, “they don’t change. There aren’t enough people. And two, why would Arthur have anything to do with it, and three, why would anybody know he did?”

They’d reached the outer wall. Nobody went beyond the outer wall of Carcosa. It would be like stepping into a raging sea, a blender, a whirlpool. Here stood the tall, black gates which would only ever open to Hastur’s command. No one was going to the gates; they were just lifting up, flying to see over the wall.

Parker couldn’t fly. He eyed the wall, considering how to climb it.

“Fuck’s sake, you could ask,” said Asenath, and grabbed him by the back of his neck like a young dog. Suddenly, they were airborne. Parker did not startle easily, but this one came pretty close to getting him.

“Right, so,” said Asenath. “The perimeter guards spotted it, so.”

They reached the top of the wall—high, so high, higher than the tallest buildings in Cloud City, and so wide that all six of the police force’s cars could ride along side-by-side. And past the wall—

Past the wall, madness, swirls of color, lightning jumping into the sky, sideways rockstorms, shrieking that tore flesh and remade it, ground that was not for no reason and closed over the falling again at random, and—

There was a little town out there.

There had definitely not been a little town out there before, but here it sat: quaint, cute, orderly. They were high enough to see over its wall; it had sweet little thatched-roof cottages and neat little stone-paved streets. Organized, with a well in the center, it would have been idyllic if not for that wall, which looked gouged, which looked burned, which looked like giants had taken bites out of the tops of it.

“So,” said Asenath. “That’s Harper’s Hill.”

Parker had to think for a moment. “That’s where Arthur’s from.”

“Yep.”

“What… wait.” This made no sense. “The fuck is that doing here?”

Asenath made the I dunno sound, exaggerated and shrugging.

Wait. “That can’t be here,” said Parker.

“Yeah, I know,” said Asenath.

Hastur was holding Arthur so he could see the place.

Why? What did they all think was going to happen? What, he’d explain where it was from, or the thing would grow legs and walk away, or—

“That’s… familiar,” said Arthur dreamily.

“Yes,” Hastur prompted.

Arthur shook.

He stared at it, stared, and an odd stream of dust rose from the place as if it were disintegrating into the wind.

Arthur shook harder.

“I do not care for this,” Hastur said mildly.

“Arthur,” said one of the witches. “Do you have anything to tell us?”

“No.” Arthur turned and hid his face against Hastur’s cowl.

“I told you there was no point,” said Hastur.

“The Mother has questions,” said another witch.

“The Mother will have answers,” said a third.

“Chill,” said Asenath, hovering closer and still gripping Parker by the back of his neck. “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay.”

Arthur shuddered.

“Too big a day,” she said. “Take him back. We’ll monitor this. She might want to see him again.”

“I don’t know if I care to allow that,” Hastur growled.

Asenath’s eye-roll was incredible. World-class. Devastating. “Nobody wants your woobie. We were kind of hoping he’d see it and respond with, like, information. If he does say anything, you need to tell us.” She points. “That is unknown. That could be dangerous. If it had appeared in the fucking wall instead of outside it, we’d all be exposed.”

“Fair.” Hastur clearly wanted done with this. “We are going home.”

“Yeah.” Asenath sighed. “Tell us the second he says anything relevant.” She dropped Parker.

He shouted—only to find himself floating gently down, like a feather.

The witches laughed. Not cruelly, but… not really nicely, either.

Well, he didn’t like them, either, and stayed for a moment on all fours in the lush grass, breathing hard.

“Home,” Hastur commanded, and flew back that way.

Parker did not want to be caught out here, left out here, vulnerable. He ran after.

#

Arthur kept his eyes shut and tried not to remember home, which hadn’t felt like home since he was a small child, which he didn’t even know he’d recalled in that level of detail. It felt wrong being completely empty, even though it had been mostly empty by the time he and his parents left, and seeing it…

Seeing it felt…

Where were his parents? Wait, no, they wouldn’t be there anymore. Cloud City, he lived in Cloud City, not there, not for a long time. But his parents should have been there, in the village, smiling, working. Where were mom and dad? No, he knew they were gone, this was all wrong, this was—

Vertigo. All he could feel right now was vertigo. He made a small, soft sound.

Hastur liked his whimpers. Hastur was under contractual requirement to see him suffer. Had that been why this happened?

“Sleep,” said Hastur, and Arthur had to obey, did not even try to fight, and slid with gratitude into a quiet, dark rest magically and gratefully free of dreams.

Notes:

The song Arthur is doing. Decades after his time.

[ahaura]

yellowjackets s2e9 lb

"the wilderness chose" I DONT THINK IT DID BUT OK!!!!

I RECOGNIZE THOSE CHORDS? GUITAR? HELLOOOOOOOO ITS BEEN YEARS

ZOMBIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

ok but like. the wilderness"" might have gotten into them but they CHOSE to do it that way like they CHOSE to let javi drown/freeze to death i think thats more them devolving into "survival on the only way know how to justify it to themselves" mode

also how insane is it that they were all willing to eat natalie 10 minutes ago and theyve all been starving and just like that your team turns on you bec "the wilderness chose' thats nuts

"give it a hunt" is this when my girl lisa dies. i will beat up misty for lisa idc

i dont mean to get personal on main but lottie's desperation...for lack of a better word... reminds me of me when i **** ** **** ***** and at that time i was just. so desperate to believe in [redacted] i was DESPERATE i was so far down i was just clawing at the pit walls like. god.

"make sure none of your people are here for this" NOOOOOO LISA

"we got over it" LIIIIIIIIIIIES

"i didnt want this" "you started this" LETSGOOOOOOO

oh this is so fucked

shauna butchered them... alone... it was her duty.... no wonder shes so fucked up

WALTERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

SO GOOD TO SEE HIM

jeff.... the cops.... bleh

NATALIE TRYING TO SAVE LISA BUT WE KNOW HOW THIS GOES

"youre not like them" "im worse" OH NAT NO NO NO NO NO

"im glad im alive" van says to travis whose brother just died because the team is starving and it was supposed to be natalie but misty saved her so javi died in his place and theyre going to eat javi and travis will have to eat his brother to survive. insane people.

"let your brother save you, travis. after everything he went through out here. dont you at least owe him that?" INSANE INSANE INSANE INSANE INSANE INSANE FUCKING THING TO SAY VAN HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT FUCKING CRAZY

walter i likeyou so much please stick around 4 life youre so funny

"youre being awfully judgy about mom considering this all started because of your lame attempt at blackmail" CALLIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE LETS FUCKING GO

i feel so bad for her. her parents suck so fucking bad her mom is fucked up and withheld love from her and doesnt love her like her dead baby brother and her dad is a pathetic dude who is like, trying his best but hes just sO pathetic and not even in a fun way. he has the spirit tho. shes gonna be sSOOOOO fucked up when shes grown up

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAH WALTER YOU LEGEND

walter and misty match made in heaven TBH

OH GOD

JAVI'S LITERAL HEART? OH GOD

is that... buffy sainte marie singing?

I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I CALLED IT KNEW IT LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOO

OH MY GOD? MAYBE CALLIE?

CALLIE OR LISA WHICH IS IT

LET THE COP DIE IN THEIR PLACE DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT

jesus christ

they really never left huh

WALTER TALTERSAL YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKING PSYCHO YOU ARE SO MUCH FUN

walter fucking over this smarmy little shit cop is SOOOOOOOOOOOO fun

oh my god lottie

the wilderness left lottie...?

NATALIE????????

IS NATALIE THE ANTLER QUEEN

OH MY GOD THAT INSANE

I LOVE IT

HOLY SHIT

HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!

what is a god to a nonbeliever etc etc oh my GOD NATALIEEEEEE

"you were always its favorite" OH MY GOD???????????/

LISAAAAAAAA MY GIRL LISA LISA LISA LISA

"we tried to kill you and it wouldn't let us"

INSANE INSANE INSANE INSANE INSANE

THE ATHEIST WHO MEETS GOD THE NONBELIEVER THE TRUE RELUCTANT SAINT THE UNWILLING APOSTLE ET CETERA LETS FUCKINGGOOOOOOO?

lottie kissing natalie's hand is insane im goi g insane INSANE INSANE INSANE INSANE

the girls allow javi to die in nat's place (or the wilderness kill him in nat's place) > shauna offers travis javi's heart to eat as first dibs in honor/waiting for permission > travis eats his brother's heart > natalie is named lottie's successor as the unwilling apostle the reluctant saint the cursed etc etc > travis places her hand on his heart

NAT BEING "CHOSEN" ALL THOSE YEARS AGO

NAT THROWING HERSELF IN FRONT OF SOMEONE WHO GAVE HER FORGIVENESS TO SAVE LISA

aaaaaand radiohead to send us off eh?

NAT IS DYING OH GOD

nat :(

WHAT DO YOU EAN WE'LL SEE?

CALLIE???????

COACH TRIED TO BURN THEM ALIVE?

OH I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO HIS DEMISE

[chaosvents]

i hate election years living with my parents, man. the world is burning, the arctic is melting, the wealth gap is spreading, wages are stagnant, cost of living is skyrocketing, and rights are being taken away and regulated at the whim of old men with hearts full of hate. meanwhile i have to gently talk my mother through an explanation of why it's bad that donald trump said he'd be a dictator, but only on his first day. she also said if biden loses he will also incite an insurrection? and that idk what makes her think that but she also yelled at me for saying trump is a convicted criminal. "so is joe biden" not... not for attempting a coup in response to losing an election though. but she doesn't see the difference. granted my mom kind of revels in her stupidity, i don't really understand her. she's proud of not knowing things, but i'm very much the type of person who is trying to learn every minute of every day, i jokingly call it 'need to know everything disease' and it is a blessing and a curse. the curse is Knowing How Bad It Really Is, obviously. but the blessing is knowing wtf is going on with the world. but she's proud of not knowing anything i'm ever talking about. she's been married to my dad for almost 30 years and she jokes nonstop about how her eyes glaze over when he talks about his work (that he's been doing for 40 years). like... that's not the flex you think it is?

anyway. all rants end up with my mother because she's the root of most of my trauma. my point here is that i was telling her i was anxious about the election and she decided to spend a couple hours arguing. and her point just drives me nuts. basically, she's not voting out of protest ("i'll vote when i see a good option, im 55 and i never have"). no amount of gentle slow explaining can convince her why that's not the protest she thinks it is. her secondary point is that all politicians are vicious criminals who hate you. which, like, yeah, but she uses it as an excuse to play dumb. she's proud of not knowing literally anything at all about politics because the depth and breadth of her knowledge is "politics is boring and politicians are bad". like please. please. the anti-intellectualism is killing me. why do you hate learning.

and that's another thing she does that makes me insane! she's one of those "i make fun of you because i love you" people and bringing it up will just get you a fuckton more teasing. i've spent a decade begging her not to constantly make fun of and bully me because it makes me feel like im in school again. but every time i bring it up she asks "if i didnt tease you how would you know i love you?" as if i wouldn't feel so much more loved if she listened to me. anyway one of the things she teases me about is that i like to learn. i will bring up something cool i learned and she immediately bursts into laughter. i've asked her questions afterwards and she always answers like "i don't know, i wasn't really listening". i'll tell a story and she'll respond with something completely random in a way that shows she wasn't listening even a little bit. that happens especially when im excited and telling good news and she responds with "oh, it'll be okay, hopefully tomorrow is better". like???? okay not only were you not listening, you also see my excitement and joy and assume you need to comfort me? what the fuck is wrong with her.

my sister is a nurse and her and i talk about this all the time. my mom acts stoned constantly. she takes 30-60 seconds to respond to any question and her response is "...what?" at least 1/3 of the time. the rest of the time it's a toss-up whether her response will be a random sentence she pulled out of her ass, or something that has anything to do with the topic being discussed. she doesn't do drugs either! no weed, no pills, not even alcohol. i swear to god she's proud of being stupid and slow. like she's doing it on purpose. she never used to be like this. it makes me want to slap her. wake the fuck up! react to something! join a conversation! learn something about your kid or husband! fuck!

[awholelottayeehaw]

15 questions 15 mutuals

Got tagged by my babygirl @yourcoolauntie a month or so ago but I'm finally getting to this.

1. Are you named after anyone?

My dead name was a reference to my mom's favorite celebrity's niece or godkid, but my legal name is based on a legend in my culture. Billie just gives me gender euphoria while also protecting my identity as a teacher since I have no idea where my students lurk on this hellsite.

2. When was the last time you cried?

I'm not a huge crier, even if something is really touching or makes me sad. So I had to really think about this but I'd say the last time I really cried was in November after deciding to go No Contact with half of my family.

3. Do you have kids?

Do 6 younger brothers and a dog count? If not, no. But I am the proud honorary parental figure of my students and former students so I have at least a few hundred kids right now. Father's and Mother's Day are fun.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

Who, me? Never. Who told you that. Are you a cop?

5. What's the first thing you notice about people?

Their presence. Not even from body language, like just their energy. I had a coworker say they know when I enter a room without me having to say or do anything cause I have a big presence. So that's what I'm alluding to, how someone's presence comes off based on the energy they bring into the room/group and what they leave behind/take away when they're gone.

6. What's your eye color?

Everyone in my family has these pretty reddish brown eyes but I inherited my Elisi's deep green eyes. She once said that any animal that has bright colors and patterns is one that uses its colors as a way to advertise the fact that they would make a horrible snack and our eyes say the same and I didn't know how to tell her that she just implied we would be spicy disasters in modern slang. For the record, I'm a whole fucking meal with how fine I am.

7. Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy movies with scary endings.

8. Any special talents?

I once watched a documentary about a dude who got his hands cut off in the racist parts of the south where my family is from and it scared me so badly I learned to write with my feet so I have that going for me.

9. Where were you born?

My mom was really bad at planning so I was born on the side of a road in the middle of butt fuck nowhere.

10. What are your hobbies?

I like to tinker with cars, write fanfiction that I pray my students don't find, restore antiques, hike, cook, and scream into the void. I also like to collect rare books and ironic novelty items.

11. Have you any pets?

6 little brothers and a dog.

12. What sports do you play/have you played?

Soccer, baseball, I once competed in dodgeball, every rez/NDN kid had at least one year of fighting lessons from that One Uncle so I got to do some boxing... archery. I've done almost everything you can think of but I suck at Basketball and I'm salty about it.

13. How tall are you?

5'1

14. Favorite subject in school?

When I was in school I loved history and lit classes. We had one teacher who dressed up for the unit and another let us protest in front of the school. We had to choose a historic organization to be a part of and that was fun. Until my brother and his group pretended to blow up the school as part of The Weather Underground. He's still on the No Fly list.

15. Dream Job?

I work as a teacher but I wanted to be a coroner when I was a kid. Is there such a thing as a traveling mortician?

15. Sunsets or Sunrises?

Sunrises.

I have no idea who to tag for this so go nuts.

[tricktster]

so i’ve been baking bread pretty regularly since sayyyy april 2020. you know, when we were waiting for this whole kooky covid thing to die down in a few weeks, but in the meantime some people had taken the very rational step of buying out every store’s supply of EXTREMELY PERISHABLE goods, including the extremely sad 100 calorie sandwich rounds favored by my parents.

now me? I’d read enough zombie very serious survival books to have ventured to the co-op on March 10 to stock up on dry bulk ingredients, and I’d included yeast and bread flour among the necessities - not because I thought that they’d ever get used, really, it just seemed practical if things got a lot worse than anticipated. And then? Well. You know.

So I joined the club of the tens of thousands of americans who had always viewed leavened dough with a healthy skepticism and the deep sense that these things were best left to the professionals. With the circumstances now unimaginably altered, we were now very cautiously dumping yeast into bowls of warm water, all the while doubting that this would actually work. So, obviously, that sense of accomplishment I felt when, after all the proofing and kneading and rising and punching down and rising again and venting and egg washing and etc etc etc, I actually pulled two relatively respectable loaves of bread out of the oven? Fucking intoxicating.

I’ve gotten medium good at bread over the intervening years, insofar as I can produce a sandwich loaf without needing to find a recipe, I’m pretty comfortable with adding cheese or garlic or raisins and nuts or whatever if I’m feeling like an Interesting Bread, i’ve forced a few loaves of sourdough into existence (though both I and the dough were kicking and screaming the whole way), and I recieved the ultimate tool of convenience for my birthday last year, when my parents gave me the dutch oven that finally permitted me to finally skip kneading altogether (if I so desired).

Except like.,. I didn’t ask for a dutch oven. I actually asked for something much cheaper and by all accounts more convenient: A bread machine. When I did, though, my mom (who has baked precisely 0 loaves of bread in her life) said “oh, you don’t want a bread machine.”

“I don’t?” I asked, already halfway swayed by her confidence on the matter.

“oh, no, nobody ever actually uses bread machines, they just take up space on the counter.” my mom, a woman who owns two instapots, assured me.

I considered her reasoning, and very firmly replied with a defiant “oh, okay, yeah. that makes sense, and I guess I’ve gotten this far without one, so like, it’s silly to get one now.”

I know. I have a will of steel.

So like, another year has passed since that exchange, and a week or two ago i finally decided that since counter space is no longer at a premium at my new place, i could at least try out a cheap bread machine? I went on ebay, got an open box deal on a decent entry level model, and took it for a spin yesterday.

And, for what it’s worth, uhhhhhhh HOLY FUCKING SHIT IT COULD HAVE BEEN THIS LOW EFFORT THE WHOLE TIME?????

LIKE I COULD HAVE BEEN JUST DUMPING INGREDIENTS IN A PAN AND WALKING AWAY THIS WHOLE TIME?????!?!?!?

it’s making brioche for me right now. It’s almost too easy. I’m actively furious.

This feels exactly like the day I finally bought a game genie so i could get Mew to finish out my red dex. I’ve been grinding and learning helpful strats from youtube and there was a fucking cheat code that would have let me skip the bread making side quest while still gaining xp this whole goddamn time.

[mylittleredgirl]

Last night you tagged something about a diplomatic incident with Romania and I kind of want to know about that.

this is definitely a partial story because my information on this was obtained at the dinner table like twenty years ago and i have not independently verified it with historical research (my historical knowledge of the cold war era is also like twenty years old), but i can tell you what i remember!

at the risk of doxing myself for those willing to deep-dive into international canadian politics from the 1970s, my parents were both classical musicians in the era where canada was working Very Hard to promote and celebrate canadian arts. my parents were part of a chamber music group that sometimes traveled internationally with the canadian diplomatic corps. this was during an era of the canadians breaking a little bit with the united states' hardline cold war approach and making diplomatic inroads with communist countries.

so, sometimes they got to play concerts in the eastern bloc and other communist nations, traveling with diplomats (or at least escorted by diplomatic envoys??). at the time of this story, they were touring in romania. part of their shtick when they played in non-english-speaking countries was that one of the musicians (not one of my parents - i think it was the clarinetist) would learn a few phrases in the local language from their diplomatic escorts to say to the crowd before they played. hello, we are [music group] bringing best regards from canada to your fine country, hope you enjoy the show kind of thing.

but this night in romania -- probably specifically in transylvania, given what happens next -- my dad says right before the show that he wants to do the spiel, and the clarinetist is like ok fine i guess? so they go out on stage, and my dad starts saying hello, we are X music group bringing goodwill from canada to romania, etc.

before the end of the sentence, the crowd goes fucking NUTS. like completely wild. screaming and cheering for like fifteen-twenty minutes. nobody on stage understands what's happening, but my dad is like ok cool and keeps talking -- nothing especially problematic or anything, just "the country is so beautiful here" kind of stuff, because my dad is a showman and the crowd is going bananas and they haven't even played a single note. i don't know if the diplomatic escorts had to shut the concert down right there on stage or just clean it up afterwards, but this is a PROBLEM.

see, the reason my dad volunteered to introduce them to the crowd and was able to keep talking is because he was in the bathroom before the show and heard some people speaking hungarian. my dad speaks hungarian, because his mother was from hungary and he grew up in one of those ashkenazi families where every person at the dinner table speaks a different language.

the problem here is that speaking hungarian on stage in romania in the 1970s is kind of a seditious act, and for representatives of a foreign nation to speak hungarian in a DIPLOMATIC CONTEXT was a huge fuck you to the ruling government of romania, which at the time was engaged in a policy of romanianization: using pretty heavy-handed political means of assimilating ethnic minorities in romania. the crowd is going wild because this looks like canada is giving official support to hungarian minority interests in romania.

i genuinely don't know what happened after this, but i imagine my dad was not allowed to speak on-stage again. which did not prevent him from causing other problems, because i remember my mom telling me that at some point my dad snuck out of the hotel to go and meet with / get some kind of smuggled note or something??? / from a soviet musician who was trying to escape to the west, because my dad can't resist ~intrigue~. she also told me that a romanian diplomatic function was one of only two times in her life that she saw my dad get roaring drunk -- entirely by accident. i don't know if those two incidents were related.

update: an anon from transylvania provided some broader historical context

[omg-im-such-a-masochist]

MR. REIGNS

Prompt: Requested by nonny

Word Count: Long-ish

Pairings: Roman Reigns x Reader

Warnings: +18, smut, degradation (name calling), flirting, daddy kink, sir kink, age gap

Editor: @thenightmareismyreality

Tag: @ziasaph , @theworldofotps , @sophiewolfheart-blog , @wickedsunfire , @akiko-tanaka , @aerynscrichton , @sassymox , @waywardwrestlewritingwaif , @reigns-5sos , @lustyromantic , @auawdo , @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch , @nicolewoo , @writtingrose , @bayley-no-friends

Notes: Disclaimer - For respect purposes, I’ll be using a fictional name for Roman’s daughter on this fic. If you’d like to check out my other works, you can find them on my Masterlist

It’s finally Senior Year - and what a fucking relief that is! No more stressful and endless studying hours, no more busting our asses off for mediocre grades, no more shitty frat parties “and last - but certainly not least- no more breaking up with asshole boyfriends at said crappy parties!

I don’t like younger guys. They’re inexperienced, get flustered easily, and don’t care whatsoever about reciprocating pleasure towards their girlfriends or hookups! I like older men...there's something about them that’s just perfect. “When I first met Amber Reigns, I never imagined that I would be blessed with such an amazing best friend. That’s why I knew it was wrong to have the hots for her father, but c’mon! Have you seen the man? He’s delicious! And I’m made of flesh and blood, therefore I have my weaknesses too. And Mr. Reigns is one of my biggest weaknesses.

“Y/N” Amber peeked her head inside my dorm room “Are you ready? My dad’s waiting for us in the parking lot”

“Yeah, I got everything I need” I said while putting on my backpack

“Do you mind going to the car? I’ll be right behind you, I just need to leave some books at the library, because if I don’t they’ll fine me like twenty dollars” She rolled her eyes in annoyance

I giggled “Sure. But don’t take too long flirting with the library boy” I responded in a teasing tone

She stuck her tongue out and left.

I made my way towards the parking lot and saw him standing there, leaning sexily against his pickup truck. He was wearing an extremely tight black tank top, which did nothing but accentuate his rippling muscles and tanned skin that were on full display. The intricate patterns of his tattoo could be seen from afar, the way the black lines molded to his skin like a shield never failed to turn me on, and a pair of black joggers caressed his strong thighs beautifully. His long, black, silky hair was tied up in a tight knot at the back of his head....the man was a fucking sight for sore eyes!

“Hello, Y/N” He greeted with a smile

“Mr. Reigns” I said shyly

He grabbed my backpack and placed it in the trunk of his car “How are you?”

“I’m good, sir. How are you?”

“Better now” He winked and smirked. And I almost came in my pants

“Where’s Amber?”

“She went to the library to return some books, sir”

“Don’t I get a hug?” He smiled

I awkwardly hugged him as I felt the smell of his cologne filling up my lungs and this weird feeling of wholesomeness took over me

“Let’s get inside the car, it’s too hot out here” He laughed

Amber had invited me to spend this holiday weekend with her family, and since I wasn’t feeling much in the mood to go home, I said yes. The only thing I didn’t know was that she planned on going to Mr. Reigns’ house instead of her mom’s house. Before I could fantasize in my daydreams for too long, Amber had returned from the library and hopped into the vehicle.

“Who will be spending the weekend with us?” Amber asked as she fastened her seatbelt

“Your uncles will be coming tomorrow afternoon with your cousins. Your brother decided to go to his girlfriend’s parents, and your sister is coming over on Sunday” Mr. Reigns replied as he turned onto the highway leading to his home.

During the two hour long ride, Mr. Reigns and Amber spent most of the trip conversing animatedly, occasionally asking me a question or two to keep me from feeling too left out, but I let them mostly catch up amongst themselves.

When we got to his place it was the end of the afternoon, and Mr. Reigns went to the kitchen to cook us dinner. I took the opportunity to shower and change into some clean clothes, nothing fancy though, just a pair of yoga pants and a gray tank top. While Amber was taking one of her famously long baths, I got bored and decided to go downstairs to see what Mr. Reigns was cooking.

“Y/N, to what do I owe the pleasure?” He smirked

“Amber is taking a bath” I rolled my eyes in fake annoyance

“Oh great” He grunted, but a smile danced on his lips “That will be quick” He joked, and I laughed in response

“So when is your girlfriend coming?” I asked nonchalantly and leaned against the kitchen island as he chopped some carrots

“Girlfriend?” He chuckled “I know nothing about that”

“How is that possible?” I asked in disbelief

“I don’t need someone in my life in order to be happy, Y/N”

“I’m not saying you do, Mr. Reigns. I’m just saying I find it hard to believe that a man like you doesn’t have a girlfriend”

“And why aren’t YOU spending the holidays with your boyfriend?” He teased

“Boyfriend? I know nothing about that” I mocked

He cackled “And why not? Maybe a boy in college wants to be your boyfriend?”

“I don’t like young guys” I shrugged

“Oh really?” He scooted closer “What do you like then?”

“I like older men”

“How old?” He flirted

The vixen part of my brain woke up once I saw the fire in his eyes “Around your age”

“My age?”

I nodded

“And what does a twenty two year old little girl like you know about men my age?” He licked his lips

“Oh Mr. Reigns...I know a lot” I smirked

………………………………………………………………………………………..

We went to sleep late that night, so the next morning I didn’t even hear Amber calling for me so we could go to the grocery store. When I slowly opened the door of the guest bedroom, I heard Mr. Reigns saying:

“I’ll stay here with her and you go to the store, because God forbid if I forget to buy whatever is your addiction at the moment” He chuckled

“Dad, stop!” She giggled “You’re making me sound like a terrible person, AND it’s Twinkies, ok?”

“Again? I thought it was chocolate with nuts”

“Nope, it’s Twinkies now, and just for that, I’ll buy an extra box just to piss you off” She laughed deviously and left out the door.

When her car left towards the highway, I saw Mr. Reigns going up the stairs and coming towards my guest bedroom. I quickly went to the bathroom so I could brush my teeth.

Mr. Reigns slowly opened the door of my room as I was leaving the bathroom.

“So you’re awake?”

“I woke up when Amber was leaving”

“Why didn’t you go to the store with her?”

“Wasn’t feeling like it. Why are you in my room, Mr. Reigns?”

“I came to check on you”

“Why? Do I need someone watching over my sleep?” I laughed

“I just wanted to make sure you were ok, Y/N”

With a smirk on my lips, I said “So you had no other intentions AT ALL?”

“Would you like me to have other intentions?” He chuckled

“Who wouldn’t?”

“You know this is wrong, right?”

“If I heard it correctly, Mr. Reigns, you were the one who wanted to stay behind, and you are the one who came up here” I shrugged

“Touché” He pushed me down on the bed, and covered my body with his

“If it’s so wrong, why are you doing it, sir?”

“Because” He licked his lips “Everything that is forbidden tastes sweeter, don’t you think?”

I giggled while my hands dipped inside his white t-shirt “That’s your shitty excuse?” And chuckled “C’mon, I know you can do better than that”

He cackled “Maybe...or maybe it’s the truth” His hands pulled my satin shorts down “I’ve thought about this ever since I first saw you”

“So why did it take you so long to do something about it?”

“I wanted to make sure you felt the same” His lips brushed against mine

“We better hurry up before someone gets here”

“It takes two and a half hours to get to the store and back, baby. We’ve got plenty of time” He smirked and kissed my lips deeply.

His full lips tasted like caramel coffee, something he drank every morning without a fail. I undid his perfect bun and let his black, silky hair fall upon his shoulders as we kissed. Moaning into the kiss, I pulled his hair while I wiggled my hips, which made him groan.

“So eager” He slapped my ass “I like that. Makes me wanna fuck you even harder”

He took my wrists and locked them on top of my head while rubbing his bulge against my core.

“Please, daddy” I moaned “Please fuck my pussy”

He growled at my pleading and pulled his joggers down quickly. Roman teased my clit with his tip, sliding it up and down my folds, applying more pressure every time he hit my little nub.

“No more teasing, Mr. Reigns... Please...”

Roman smirked and slid in me with one soft thrust.

“Fuck” We moaned together

My eyes rolled to the back of my head as he filled my core like nothing else. His size was beyond perfect to me and I couldn’t hold back my moans of pleasure any longer.

“That’s my good little slut, moan for the one who owns this pussy” He pulled all the way out, until just the tip was in, and then he went in again with a rough thrust

“Oh yes, Mr. Reigns. Keep going please” I moaned loudly

He gripped me by the neck and chuckled “Such a needy whore! I love seeing what I can do to you. The power I have over you...How you lose yourself while I fuck you” He slapped my ass vigorously “You’ve been waiting a long time to have me in you, haven’t you, my sweet whore?”

“Yes, sir” I panted

“Then tell me! Who’s my filthy little slut?”

“Me, daddy”

He snarled before fucking me faster “Say it!”

“I’m your filthy little slut, sir” Tears started to gather in my eyes, as I could feel overstimulation being so close

“Then cum for me, like a filthy, little, slut” He whispered in my ear, while pinching my clit.

It didn’t take him long to reach his high, and Roman quickly pulled out and spilled his seed on my mound.

He leaned down and captured my lips in a sweet kiss

“C’mon, let’s get cleaned up” Roman looked up at the clock and continued “And if we’re quick enough in the shower, we can have another round before someone gets here”

He picked me up in his arms, bridal style and whispered

“I still need to taste this pussy or else I’m gonna become a mad man” He smirked when I gasped

And ran towards the bathroom.

Please, if you’re comfortable with it, let me know your thoughts on this? Feedbacks are always appreciated ❤️😘

[blackenedwhite97]

Coming Out [Poly! Erasermic x {Fem}Reader]

Hello! this was a requested fic from like before Christmas. I'M A MESS I KNOW I'M SORRY! I’ll be catching up at some point, I'm in my final sem at uni and have MAJOR senioritis. Me no do unless me have to. Instead, now I just spend my time staring at the existential abyss the threatens to swallow my ceiling and think about everything I'm procrastinating. But I digress...

Content Warning: This story is of a negative experience coming out as poly to your family, this deals with rejection from the reader's mother, father, and a grandparent. This story demonstrates Homophobia, xenophobia, traditionalist and conservative values and attitudes and may be triggering to some folks.

This story includes a Polyamorous relationship

Polyamory: the practice of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the consent of all the people involved.

Word Count: 3.7 K (A baby story)

Y/N --- 4:06pm

Hey can my roomates come to dinner?

DAD --- 4:06

You mean the gays?

Y/M --- 4:08

Please don’t call them that. Neither of them are gay anyways, there’s more than just gay or straight.

DAD --- 4:10

Yeah whatever. Let your mom decide.

MOM --- 5:12

Sure, they can come.

Mom --- 5:23

Gma might be coming dinner tho. Maybe talk to them?

That conversation should have been enough of a warning for how the evening was going to transpire. At news of your grandmother attending dinner, you panicked and tried to back out of your plans. You had been growing steadily farther apart from your parents anyways, barely seeing them more that once a year if that. It’s not like they didn’t have their suspicions anyways, to them you were a single woman living in the big city sharing an apartment with two gay men. Not that they’d ever been to the apartment. If they had they might have notice that one of the two “bedrooms” was being used as an office. Earlier on in the relationship you were so deeply uncomfortable being around your parents alone, that you had Shouta come with you every visit because you were so paranoid you were just going to come out on the spot.

At first your parents were sure that you and Shouta were together. He had subconsciously cleaned up quite nice the first few times he met your parents anyways, wanting to make a good impression on them if you finally did tell them about your polyamorous relationship. Then as time went on you got busier and started to see them less. Shouta’s parents lived in the suburbs and you saw them on holidays, plus Shouta had come out to them as being bisexual a long time ago and hadn’t felt much pressure to hide the polyamorous nature of your relationship to begin with. Hizashi’s mom was still a city dweller in her 60’s and on top of doing the cute mom things like baking fantastic cookies and handing down family jewelry to the daughter in law, she’d also taken Hizashi and Shouta to their first pride in Tokyo and had an in-home recording studio where she recorded for local punk bands. She was, quite literally, a cool mom.

You gnawed vigorously at your thumbnail, not quiet biting the whole way through, instead riddling it with dents and cracks. Chewing your nails wasn’t a habit you’d always had, it became a sort of silent worry thing you started to do when you got to your agency and had to remain still and quiet during briefings, no matter how terrible the news was. Your ruined nail beds were an atrocity to Hizashi, who had paid several times for you to get a manicure to get your nails short and evenly trimmed so you could manage them on your own. You still somehow found a way to gnaw on the short squared off nubs of your nails though, and it drove him nuts. Shouta cared less, his hands were in ridiculous shape, he was callused and bruised, cracked and flaking all over the place and Hizashi would regularly force moisturizer on them. Shouta cared more about figure out the root stress, it’s not that Hizashi didn’t, he just didn’t know how to, so he settled for pampering you.

“It’s dead.” Hizashi huffed from the bedroom door. “Obliterated, actually.”

“Hmm?” You looked up from your phone, you hadn’t been reading any of the messages in the chat for a good few minutes and just let your eyes unfocus instead. You yanked your thumb from your mouth and hid it below the table like a child caught with a sweet they’d snuck from the kitchen before dinner, you knew he saw.

“Your nail.” Hizashi gently patted the end of his hair with his special fluffy towel that he’d convinced you and Shouta he needed to control his frizz (which he didn’t have) and padded towards the kitchen table where you sat. He placed a kiss on the top of your head as he strode around you.

“What’s up, love?” he murmured softly, leaning against the table next you. One of his legs propped up on the chair to your right and leaned down to look at your phone screen.

“This is going to go horribly.” You breathed, panicked as you set your phone down on the table.

“You don’t know that.” Hizashi looked back up at you and smiled sweetly.

“Not everyone’s mom is a cool rocker lady in her 60’s who lives in the heart of downtown still and is fully supportive of her child’s bisexual polyamorous relationship with their childhood best friend and an ex-small-town girl with an ultra-conservative family.” You huffed out in one long breath.

“That was oddly specific.” He chuckled softly. “What about Sho’s parents, they’re conservative?”

“Yeah, but his parents are at least polite and send us both Christmas gifts every year and keep any and all of their shittier opinions to themselves because they want their son to be happy.” You groaned dramatically, dropping your head onto his thigh, using the extra meat to muffle the noise.

“Y-your-” Hizashi’s leg twitched from the vibrations of your groan. “Your parents want you to be happy too, Y/n.”

You groaned into his thigh, trying to explain the difference between your parent’s and Shouta’s. Hizashi laughed and gently grabbed the side of your face, lifting it so you were no longer muffled by his leg.

“Try again.” He instructed.

“They only want me to be happy if it fits into their rigid frame of what acceptable happiness looks like.” You explained again.

“Hey,” Hizashi ran his thumb back and forth across your cheek, “have faith, baby. They’re your family, they love you.”

If only he’d been right.

Shouta was the know it all, the one that way always right. Hizashi on the other hand was quiet used to being the one that was not always right, he had no hubris about his intelligence what-so-ever. So much so that sometimes you and Shouta had to remind him that he was intelligent and offered a lot of knowledge and wisdom in many many ways: public speaking, social relationships, radio scripting, he spoke two languages fluently as well. However, this one-time Hizashi wished dearly that he had been right, that he was an insufferable know it all who never got it wrong. It was a different twisted feeling in his gut, sitting the back seat watching you try to keep it together in the front seat, than the usual mild embarrassment that faded after a couple of minutes when he was wrong about something. That was damn near luxurious compared to the painful knot tearing into his stomach.

The silence in the car was so dense and absolute that it almost physically gagged Hizashi and Shouta, the two of them were too afraid to say anything and break it. It felt as though the heavy silence was keeping you from breaking, as if it were applying enough pressure at all sides to keep the thin veneer of composure you were managing together. You felt it too, along with the heavy weight that was nearly crushing your chest, the thick doughy lump clogging your throat and the tremble in your lips. You took a deep breath, it getting caught halfway and freezing in to an unrealized sob that you pushed down.

Shouta huffed and pulled off to the side of the dark country road, slowing into the gravelly shoulder. He turned in his seat to face you, undoing his seat belt so he could fully turn his body. You kept your eyes out the window, trying with all your might not to let the tears that clouded your eyes to fall. You knew you’d need to cry about this, about your parents and their conditional love. You knew that this was something you would need to deal with, but you didn’t want to at this moment. You wanted to go home, take some sleeping medication and go to sleep, you wanted to wait until the open wound in your chest had stopped bleeding to begin treating it.

Your father was being facetious about your living arrangement as usual, whenever he was faced with Shouta and Hizashi his first reaction was to constantly point out that fact that you were a woman living with two men and that if they weren’t gay that one of them should have married you by now. Shouta and Hizashi had taken these comments like water rolling off of a duck’s back, Hizashi even grinned and mumbled something about your father tempting him. You could have kept your mouth shut, you could have kept your cool but Shouta’s hand was brushing against your thigh and you felt it tense into an annoyed fist. Something about Shouta’s minimal reaction lit a fire in you, more like an explosion. It was a surge of very sudden and very ferocious courage that lasted a split second and no longer. You’d practically shouted it, the ringing in your ears drowning whatever words you’d used out.

You were met with complete and utter silence, shock and fear thick in the air. You’d almost believed for a moment that you hadn’t done it, that you’d just shouted randomly and just scared everyone. But then your dad stood up, his shocked open mouth flattening out into a hard straight line, this jaw swelling as he clenched it.

“W-what?” he growled, stepping back from the table as if you were a threat.

You were ready to backtrack, you were so ready to just laugh and pretend you were fucking with him. But you spared a glance to Shouta and Hizashi, their faces pale and guilty. They, regardless of what you could say in an attempt to cover up what you’d just said, were basically admitting to it already. You instinctively shrunk back into your chair like you’d do when you were younger at the dinner table whenever something uncomfortable would come up. You could tell everyone was at a loss for words, the difference was that you were scared and at a loss for words, Shouta and Hizashi were shocked and at a loss for words and your father was steaming angry and at a loss for words.

Your mother, who had always been the least confrontational of the two turned away from you and almost in a show of disgust immediately went to comfort your grandmother. It was as if you were an afront to goodness, an act of moral atrocity being committed in front of them. Your father began to barrage you with passive aggressive questions and accusations towards Shouta and Hizashi. He was trying to understand while at the same time refusing to give you a chance to explain. You stopped listening after the first few sentences that came out of his mouth, falling back into an internal monologue filled with regret. He must have said something exceptionally terrible because in an instant Shouta was standing, his arm reaching out to separate you from him and he was shouting. Shouta never shouted, he barely voiced any form of annoyance or frustration in general when it wasn’t a learning moment for his students, but here he was on his feet volleying harsh word with your father.

Hizashi, you realized was attempting damage control, his hands raised and his voice lower than either of the other two men’s. You blinked back into the present, as noise filled your ears, you mother was crying, your father and Shouta were shouting and Hizashi was rambling panicked. You took a couple of deep breaths and stood up on shaky legs, gripping Shouta’s protective arm for support, and looked your father in the eyes. He faltered at the direct eye contact and you saw an opening where there was less shouting to contend with.

“Stop,” you hissed through gritted teeth. “this is why I never wanted to tell you! Why I was perfectly okay with living away from you guys for the rest- This is why I haven’t been home.”

Your mother gasped a ragged, tear-filled breath. She’d expressed before that she’d wished she could see you more often, that she’s noticed you’d been coming home less and less. You’d been good at covering it up, saying you were busy with work and simply couldn’t get the time off. You knew that what you’d just said hurt her, not in the way it should have. It hurt her because you’d just told them it was their fault that you felt unwelcomed here and not because you were afraid of your own parents.

“How long?” she breathed.

“Three years.” You sniffed, hand tightening around Shouta’s wrist.

“THREE?! THR-” your father bellowed in disbelief. “For three years they’ve been brainwashing and forcing themselves on you?!”

Suddenly you understood why Shouta had leapt up, you had just now caught up with the conversation. Red hot anger flared up in your chest, the mere insinuation that you were being forced in anyway to be with your partners filled you with utter rage.

“No!” You growled, for the first time in your life matching your father’s volume. “For three years they’ve been by my side, showing up at the hospital when I got hurt at work, celebrating my promotions at the agency, helping me make a home that I feel safe in and actually fucking caring about me!”

There was silence again, this one was thin but not light in anyway, like it was a delicate thread barely holding a great weight from falling and crushing you.

“We care for you.” You mother said darkly.

“No,” you swallowed hard, “you haven’t for a long time.”

“Get out.” You father growled.

Hizashi was already moving, grabbing your coats from the back of the chairs and pulling Shouta by the arm away from the table. It took you a good long second to move, even then it was because Shouta latched onto your shoulders and Hizashi tugged him along.

“I’m sorry.” Shouta whispered, his hand finding yours in your lap. You kept your eyes focused out the window at the pitch-black fields with barely visible for off golden dots of light. You couldn’t talk.

You heard Hizashi shuffling around in the back seat, scooting closer to you and his hand joined Shouta’s, pulling up onto the storage compartment between the seats. It was cracking, that veneer.

“It’s not your fault.” Hizashi murmured.

You sniffed hard, biting int you bottom lip. Of course, it wasn’t your fault that your parents didn’t accept you, that you weren’t good enough or right for them, that you weren’t on par with the apparent morality of the rest of the family. It wasn’t your fault that they were backwards people with terrible ideas of how a person should be. It still didn’t hurt any less that you couldn’t meet those backwards ideals, that you couldn’t be the right kind of person for them.

“Y/n,” Shouta whispered, gently grabbing your chin and turning your face towards them.

They were looking at you the way a mother looks at her crying baby in the first few months, the desperate need to connect and nurture glowing in their eyes. They were filled with worry, with pity, with understanding but also, with fear. No doubt, what had just happened had been traumatic for them too. Looking into their emotion filled eyes you felt that veneer shatter, falling away and unleashing that mournful sobbing that had been trapped inside.

Shouta pulled you towards him, holding you firmly to his chest placing his head atop yours. You vaguely felt Hizashi disappear from you for a moment, but you were too preoccupied with the trembling muscles seizing violently in your chest. Then you felt him sliding in behind you, only now realizing he’d stepped out of the car and slide in through your door as he shut it behind him. He draped himself over you rubbing circles into your back.

“It’s not your fault.” He murmured into your hair over and over again.

At first you didn’t really focus on it, thinking it idle words of comfort but the more he said the more it sunk in. The more your realized that you were holding onto the hope that there was something about this, about you, that you could fix. With every repetition of those four words that false hope chipped away and that heavy weight in your chest began to fall away. It was still painful, it still felt like you had a pen festering wound that you’d never fully heal from, but it also felt lighter. It felt as though a burden you’d believed was yours to bear was suddenly the responsibility of the many.

“You don’t have to change,” Shouta whispered softly as your sobs ebbed into weak beaths, “they do.”

That reignited some tears, to hear what you needed to said so plainly. Shouta was good at that, putting those intangible thoughts and feelings into plain words. You cried until the tears and the worry and the late hour caught up with you, until your head felt heavy and waterlogged and you slumped backwards into Hizashi sniffing. You cried until your wavering breaths evened out and your tired mind fell to silence. Hizashi pulled you into his lap and cradled you against him like a parent holding and oversized child, running his hand slowly through your hair.

When you awoke you were swaddled thoroughly with the fuzzy blanket from the couch Shouta hated because it shed and sandwiched between the two men who snored away. As you blinked in the early morning light that just barely peaked through the blinds you noticed the red rims around Hizashi’s eyes and deep-set circles under Shouta’s as if they both been awake all night. Shouta was still in his dress shirt and Hizashi had stripped down to his boxers and pulled his hair back into a sloppy bun. Neither were properly snoring which told they hadn’t been asleep for very long.

You tried to ignore what had happened last night, what had led to the heavy feeling in your head and crusty dry eyes and tight cheeks. You tried to pretend that they had stayed up for work, that they you had swaddled yourself up in the blanket nor because you were sad but because you just wanted to be cozy. Then you heard a phone vibrate on the nightstand and any and all work towards denial washed away as you dreaded checking it. It could just be a work thing, it could be Hizashi’s phone even though he’d never had it on silent even once since you’ve known him. It could have been Shouta’s vibrating against the wooden table even though you could see his slightly peeking out of his back pocket.

You sighed and sat up, daring the smallest of glances at the nightstand. It was your phone screen that was lit up, several notifications on the screen. You groaned and laid back down, scrunching your eyes shut begging for sleep to suddenly and miraculously take you. It buzzed again and you huffed. Fine. You’ll check it. I guess someone could be dying. I do stop that from happening for a living.

You very cautiously crawled over Hizashi and reached to get your phone, electing not to look at it until you settled back between your boys. You scrolled though your notifications, weather, news, a work email, a second email from a contact that made your blood run cold and three missed calls and two answering machine messages from the same contact. Grandma. Your hands trembled at you unlocked your phone and typed int your voicemail password. You held the phone up to you ear and listen to the first message which was more or less just some frustrated grandma noises and mumbles about the inconvenience of technology, followed briefly by a set of hellos. If you hadn’t been ready to shit yourself, you’d have laughed. Then the second played and you had to take a deep breath to hold yourself together enough to keep listening.

“Hello? Hello? Y/n? Oh shi- well this is just ridiculous. Y/n, I don’t know if you can hear me, or maybe this is your answering machine, I don’t know I can’t hear too well but-” her soft worn voice said into the phone, “I want you to know that I love you. Your parents love you too, even if they did not act like it tonight.”

She paused and your eyes welled up with tears, a lump forming in your throat. It was this strange feeling of pure sadness but also happiness and relief.

“Those boys,” she continued, “probably would have killed your father last night if they had the chance. I’m not saying I get it, but they sure do love you, sweetheart. I quite like the blond one he is very-”

The message cut off and the automated voice asked you what you wanted to do with the message. All you could do was laugh, laugh and cry. You were still sad, still in pain, but it was already starting to feel less life-ending.

“Hey,” Shouta mumbled blearily, “S’okay. I’m here.”

He wrapped an arm around you and pulled you close, trying to pull himself from sleep. You hugged him back and massaged the back of his scalp gently.

“Listen to this.” You sniffed.

He nodded and you pressed repeat, listening to the whole second message through again. You watched as a smile spread across his sleepy lips and he laughed softly. He pouted suddenly when it ended, his eyebrows pulling together as much as his drowsy state would let them.

“What?” you asked, worried he’d heard something you‘d missed.

“Why does she like Zash more?” he grumbled, barely awake now.

You smiled and curled into him, electing not to answer knowing that he wouldn’t like being told that Hizashi is more sociable than him. Besides, you smiled to yourself, he’d be asleep in a matter of seconds.

You were still hurt; you still had that big open wound in your chest. But with Shouta and Hizashi at your side you knew you’d heal; you knew they’d give you anything you needed. You knew that your grandmother was right, that these two boys loved you very much.