#branch out in a new direction

[goldensunset]

this normal young man shows up at the function and starts talking to your dog wyd?

^comment that won’t leave my brain

[vaguely-concerned]

I feel that during the first coffee date walk through the market, rye has a fraction of a millisecond's kneejerk trauma freakout of '...wait. wait. am I really catching feelings for a rich boy again. with how that went down last time. am I truly that stupid' (once derogatorily referred to quite openly at a party as 'young master anaxas' pet mortalitasi' to which the young master anaxas only grinned and shrugged and STILL you don't break up with his smug controlling ass for good for six more months because you have a desperate bottomless yearning pit where your self respect should go, twice shy lol). and then he actually looks at lucanis standing next to him getting harding spearmint to help with bad dreams and generally being so quietly thoughtful and sweet through the prosaic yet necessary medium of grocery shopping it makes me feel a little unwell to truly contemplate. and rye is like '*the softest fondest eyes anyone has ever turned on anything* ...you know what. I suspect we don't have to worry about that repeating, I think we're probably safe. I am comfortable being this level of stupid. (slowly dawning marital intent even at this stage)'.

(part of the reason rye buys NONE of illario's bullshit at all right from the beginning is that he's basically vaccinated against this exact type of dude after that relationship lol. charming suave guy who in the beginning pays you a lot of lavish attention and takes pains to make you feel special every time you're in a room with him -- but shallowly and mostly, it slowly dawns on you, when there's something he wants from you (and he's often doing it at the expense of someone else, raising you up to put someone else down and you won't believe this... it can turn into a seesaw at a whim. yay). and beneath that there's just a seething pit of resentment and inferiority complexes and bitterness left to fester until he can make it everyone else's problem and that IS going to start to bubble up between the cracks with you too if you stick around for long enough. no thank you been there done that wasted my youth and potential on it and all I got was this lousy shiny set of new emotional intimacy issues haunting me for life! trust me illario I HAVE, as it were, chosen the wrong dellamorte before, which is exactly how I know I didn't this time. go get him lucanis I've got your coffee

hilarious mental image: rye and illario sitting quietly together while everyone else is busy milling about during a cursed dellamorte family dinner (the vibes are so bad. you know the vibes are bad. sitting as still as you can and hoping for calm skies is your best bet without lucanis or teia favourite child privileges to work with) and rye out of the blue gazing thoughtfully into nothing over the edge of his glass with half-lidded eyes to go 'you know. you remind me a lot of my ex. not in a good way' and illario with absolutely no shame and hilariously also something that's the closest he ever gets to real sympathy going 'yeah, I get that a lot'. best talk those two ever had, unironically. their bond leveled up to its final form that day. *soulsborne boss defeated text* MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING REACHED)

[brutal-out-here]

Favorite singer poll here!

[deus-ex-mona]

s. s ave me, meoto…

[nickmpreg]

i feel bad for animators at pixar who poured hours of their lives into something that they more than likely weren’t fairly compensated for just for their movie to come out and get absolutley obliterated by both critics and all five people who went to go see it . that being said i won’t be seeing it either

[icewindandboringhorror]

Recent sky photos 

[arolesbianism]

Ok so I need to rework my Wendy skilltree concept because klei heard ppl complain abt the combat and went alright then time to completely rework combat but very slowly one update at a time so no one realizes until we straight up give Willow spells

[oatmealaddiction]

Okay but the weirdest thing about the whole "Brotherhood is better you should skip 03" discourse that's become commonplace now, it sort of forgets the world Brotherhood came out in and why you should watch the original Fullmetal Alchemist. When Brotherhood came out, the original Fullmetal Alchemist was one of the most beloved and most watched animes of all time. Brotherhood assumes you the audience have already seen it because of course you have, everyone has seen it, so it skips important information and speeds the story up because it doesn't want to bore you with things you already know. Have you ever wondered "hey why does the first episode of Brotherhood kind of suck, and why am I being introduced to like 50 new characters, and why are they acting like I know what the hell an alchemist is?" It's because Brotherhood thinks you've seen 03.

The first 7 or so episodes of Brotherhood constitute dozens of chapters in the manga, and the first 25 or so episodes of the original Fullmetal Alchemist. The Nina Tucker episode in Brotherhood, in FMA 03 takes up nearly three episodes. Yoki gets a backstory in 03 and it's genuinely one of the best episodes and taken directly from the manga and Brotherhood glosses over it because: duh, you've already seen it. And so if you skip the original you miss out on dozens of really great character building episodes like Ed and Al meeting Hughes for the first time and getting to spend a whole episode helping him free a train from terrorists, or Ed and Roy having a duel that expands on the relationship they have, or episodes where the brothers just help out random people in towns before the major story gets going.

The original also paces itself quite a bit better than Brotherhood and is more in line with the mangas storytelling. In the manga we don't find out about The Gate until nearly two dozen chapters in, and the same goes for the original anime. Like, that's a twist reveal in those stories, and it's weird that the most watched series is the one where they tell you all about The Gate in the first two episodes because they assume you've already seen the original show.

What's more, people don't know that Hiromu Arakawa helped write for the anime while she was still in the middle of writing the manga, and as a result was inspired to write scenes in Brotherhood that the anime did first. That scene of Edward getting impaled by a falling beam? Directly inspired by a similar scene in the original anime. There's a lot of little instances of that and they're great when you can recognize parallels and things in Brotherhood that are direct references to the original anime, but people don't notice any of that anymore. Because the original anime is just an automatic skip these days, and it's a bummer because people don't realize what a giant it was back before Brotherhood was released. They treat it as *bad,* not realizing it was one of the most beloved anime of its time and the problems people take issue with have a lot more to do with personal taste than any kind of actual flaw in the writing. Brotherhood was never meant to dethrone it, and the original anime was always supposed to be part of the viewing experience which is why those first few episodes of Brotherhood are so fast paced. So like, please stop telling people Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 is a skip, or it's bad, or you don't need it because Brotherhood is better. Regardless if you think Brotherhood is better or not, the original wrote Brotherhood's check. It was huge, it was beloved, and Brotherhood is *banking* on the knowledge you've seen all of it and loved it. And trust me when I say there is so much to love about the original series. It's still my favorite branch of the FMA franchise, and it's worth your time, I promise you.

[my-silly-poker]

gaza scam warning

I'm locking this post because it was about the original wave of gaza-scams and is now outdated when it comes to recent real fundraisers that have been appearing on Tumblr. Please don't pass up people in need because you're afraid of scams. Identifying scams from the real fundraisers is easy.

@el-shab-hussein does a lot of vetting on Tumblr. @nabulsi is another reliable user who has done vetting (but as of this time is not vetting new posts). @90-ghost is a real palestinian person but they don't do a lot of in-depth vetting.

el-shab-hussein and nabulsi have a vetted fundraiser google sheet. el-shab-hussein has a list of direct contacts in gaza/yemen who are certifiably real people. operation olive branch is a coordinated effort to gather certified crowdfunding campaigns both for families and humanitarian provisions.

When you receive an ask, check any of the above resources to see if they're there. Some also have pre-existing social media accounts, such as Instagram, that they certify as theirs and prove that they are a real person in Palestine. Scroll down their blog, look at the notes in their post, and look for confirmation that they are verified anywhere (do not trust their claims until you see the confirmation yourself).

Then if you see confirmation that they are a real person in Palestine who needs help, reblog their post and maybe donate $5.

Feel free to message me about anyone who sends you an ask that seems suspicious and I'll tell you if they resemble any scam archetypes I've seen.

Original post:

Hey gamers, recently there have been a number of scam blogs on tumblr claiming to be Gazan victims. They've been making a number of iterations of the exact same blog and story but with different names and sometimes different PayPal links.

Thus far, the content of these scams are being stolen from 2 real fundraisers. Please lend your aid to these people who need help instead of the disgusting scam farm

Help Haya Orouq's family escape Gaza

Help Rawan AbuMahady's family escape Gaza

These are examples within the past month which have been deleted.

Ma22ya

Khalilhan

jovialsuitdonutai

miniaturepostkingjaiur

Donation scams on tumblr are extremely common and anyone who has a tumblr account will encounter them at some point. You have likely encountered them before and not realized it. They throw together a brand new blog with a story of needing aid, then use bots to go through follow lists and post notes to send messages to random users. Scambusting blogs like kyra45 do a lot of work to track and call out these scams when they surface.

Scam Spotting Tips

They send an ask often accompanied with a follow despite having never interacted with you before. Ask yourself: How did you find your blog? These interactions usually come out of nowhere when you have no original posts or interests they could've found you through, because they're just going down the lists of random blogs.

They reblog just enough posts to make you think that their blog is in-use when it is actually only a day or a few old. Enable timestamps and try find the blog's oldest post; if a blog seems old but still seems suspicious, be wary of post backdating

They often disable or delete comments on their donation post to hide comments that call them out. Open the notes and see if it says "some replies have been hidden, blocked or removed." Blocked/hidden comments sometimes still appear in reblogs of a post but not the original, so open a random reblog and see if telling comments appear there.

It isn't unusual for the story and the ask to either be exact copy-pastes of each other, or otherwise have very telling suspicious details, such as: using different names, having different goal amounts, contrasting story details, etc. Pay attention to and trust the suspicion of details that stand out as odd.

Like many of the above examples, they often use an automatically generated username consisting of random words

Reverse image searching can be a helpful giveaway if it works, but don't trust it entirely - scammers often steal images from private Facebook groups/profiles or alter the images so that people don't find the source. An image not having a source should also be suspicious, as you should wonder why this person's social media presence is exclusively a 3 day old tumblr blog

When you receive an ask from a blog like this, reporting them for spam or phishing and reporting the PayPal account for fraudulent activity does help get these accounts taken down.

In name of the situation, here are great verified resources to support real people who need help:

Many organizations and gofundmes for Gaza

Verified fundraisers for individuals in Gaza put together by @palestineasdiqa on Instagram and Twitter

Click to donate for free using ad revenue

Participation and political resources for US, UK and Canada

USPCR's toolkit

[tojbnuy]

cupcake (1)

mechanic!toji x baker!reader

art by @_jtvll

there was a child grabbing your pant leg. your hands were full to the brim with trays of cupcakes, all freshly iced and ready to be placed into neat rows to serve. you usually hate this part of your job and the small hand stopping you from walking was not helping.

‘hey uhm could you maybe let go?’

you still were unable to look down at the person/thing(?) grabbing a hold of you as the trays in your arms were stacked far too high.

‘right well okay’ and you had to resort to placing the cupcakes on a nearby shelf. upon looking down you saw.. a baby? well a toddler? you didn’t know many kids, with only one niece you would assume this kid was around about her age. 3 maybe 4? he still had a firm grip on the leg of your trouser and was smearing left over icing onto your pants from his sticky fingers.

‘cake.’ he said with pink icing stuck to his lips and chin. the boy was adorable. big sparkly eyes and black hair sticking out in every direction. he was wearing a shirt that said ‘dad’s best friend’ and tiny blue sneakers.

‘you want more cake?’ you replied and he was quick to nod his head vigorously, his hand Still gripped tightly onto you.

‘alright buddy i can give you a cake. but you really shouldn’t be behind here this is staff only. where’s your mum?’

you bent down to his eye level after retrieving a cupcake from your fresh batch and waited for any sort of answer. either he had no clue what anything you said meant or he was too entranced by the cupcake you were wielding in his direction but the boy said nothing, just stared at you with his massive eyes.

‘god now what do i do?’

you were fairly new to this bakery, it was a busy branch with a computer cafe joint on so there was always a large amount of people in store. and now you had to match one of them to this baby.

‘well you eat while i think.’

and the kid watched with a great level of focus as you peeled the wrapper of the cake off and handed him the little treat.

‘what’s your name baby?’

‘megumi’

‘wow that’s a cute name’

he clearly didn’t speak much and resorted to simply staring at you with his cheeks full of cake and even more icing decorating his lips.

you opened your hands to him in a way of saying ‘i’m going to pick you up now’ and when he didn’t seem to object you picked up the tiny boy and placed him on your hip.

‘don’t worry i’ll make sure you get back to your parents.’ again met with radio silence.

‘dada’

‘oh you came with your dada?’

‘dada.’

and only then did you realise the boy was staring out the window at a black haired, clearly frazzled man.

‘megumi? megs buddy please come back now, fucks sake.’ the back door was shoved open and by instinct you clutched the small boy to your chest.

‘megumi oh my fucking- thank god’ and as the man reached for the boy you gently tucked him into your neck. the man immediately frowned and looked you up and down as you did the same. well clearly the boy must be his judging off megumi recognizing him and there was also the fact that they looked exactly the same. except this man was tall and handsome and built like a marble statue. but you still wanted to make sure.

you watched as said man eyed you up and down and for some unknown reason you were incredibly thankful you had worn makeup and washed your hair this morning. your work uniform was bland, a pink half apron and the same baggy jeans and white top you usually wore when you knew you’d be icing cakes instead of serving customers.

‘listen kid, thanks for finding him but i am his dad, look i’ve even got pictures.’

and sure enough he was whipping out his phone and showing you his lockscreen of the boy you were holding in the same shirt with a black puppy in his lap. he then proceeded to open his photos app and show you a few more, some dating a few years back to when megumi was only a newborn.

‘dada’

‘yeah look see i’m his dad’

you believed the man the second you saw his face.

‘right okay i believe you, i don’t even know how he got back here i just turned around and he was grabbing me asking for cake. oh and also im not a kid im 22.’ you felt the need to clarify.

he smiled at that and took his child out of your hands.

‘sorry about that, but i’m glad it was you he bumped into not some creep. i was holding his hand and then i look down and he wasn’t there. the things this boy does when he sees cake’

you laughed and went to pick up your trays again when a large hand grabbed your arm and turned you back.

‘ah wait doll i’ve got to you pay you for the damage this little brats done, and to say thank you.’ he stuffed a few notes into the pocket of your apron.

‘it was just a cupcake it’s no big deal’ you said as you tried to hand them back to him without looking incredibly flustered at the use of a nickname.

‘no i insist, you really saved my ass. you work here often?’

‘yeah i’m usually at the counter but sometimes i just bake and ice the cakes.’

‘well clearly this brat thinks you do a good job’

‘so that means you’ll be back again i’m assuming?’

he smirked at that and your eyes were immediately drawn to the scar decorating his lip. his presence was intimidating, you could feel your cheeks flushing at his intense gaze.

‘yes definitely, i actually own the mechanics down the road so if you ever have any trouble make sure you let me know i’ll do you a nice deal’

‘i’ll keep that in mind uh?’

‘toji’

‘i’ll keep that in mind toji. i’m y/n’

he swapped his son to his other hand and stuck his right hand out for you to shake. you palm felt small in his large veiny one, his skin warm to the touch.

‘pretty name.’ he was checking you out again and you felt so small under his gaze. this was wrong, he was older than you and most likely had a wife or a girlfriend or a long term ex. this was definitely not going to become anything. but that didn’t stop you from giving him a few cupcakes for the road.

[mvth3r]

daryl doesn’t think he’s anything special. he never has. but to you? he’s everything.

or

5 times daryl feels your affection down to his core and the many 1 time he unconsciously returns the favor.

cw: 18+ MDNI, p-in-v, mention of injury, swearing, mostly fluff, 4283 words

a/n: this draft got the most votes in the poll, which was surprising tbh! next up medieval au, princess reader, forbidden romance?? hmmmm

one.

daryl hears you coming before he sees you. he knows it’s on purpose, so you don’t startle him (“and get an arrow in the tit or something, i don’t know!” you had explained, laughing). he’s long since taught you how to be quiet when walking over leaves and branches.

his eyes drifted in the direction of the noise, watching you melt out of the trees, water bottle in one hand and knife in the other. you had a bad habit of speeding through or ignoring your own duties in favor of tracking him out into the woods while he was hunting. the teasing looks from rick and carol when they saw the gates open in the evening, revealing the two of you instead of just him, were enough to have him blushing up to his ears, but he couldn’t find it in him to stop you. if anything, daryl found himself lingering closer to the prison when he was first setting out for the day and making his tracks a little easier for you to follow as he went on. he liked to think of it as a teaching moment, encouraging you to follow his lessons, but he knew what it really was.

he liked having you here with him, away from prying eyes and ears. daryl wasn’t big on pda, he’d never been, and you knew that, but you could be as affectionate as you wanted out here.

the smile that split you face when you saw daryl was blinding, creasing your eyes and cheeks, “hey, handsome.”

daryl felt his heart start to pound immediately in his chest and warmth radiate through his belly and down his limbs. he had the distant, bizarre thought that any walker for a few miles would probably be able to smell his blood as it rose rapidly to his face, coloring his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

he scoffed quietly to keep the words he really wanted to say from spilling unbidden from his throat as you caught up to him, instead deadpanning, “handsome? really?”

you hummed, raising a hand to card through his long bangs, eyes tender when they met his, “mhm, very handsome. don’t i tell you every day?”

you leaned up to press a sweet kiss to his lips, no longer than a moment. you hand drifted from his hair down to cup his jaw as you did, and daryl found himself leaning into your palm, his own hand coming up to grip your wrist loosely.

you pulled away with a smaller, more intimate smile, one that daryl had only ever seen directed at him. and, if you had felt the pounding of his heart through his shirt or seen the intensity of his flush, you didn’t say a word.

two.

daryl was distracted.

this council meeting was dragging on much longer than intended. what was initially supposed to be a quick conversation about planning a run to get supplies for judith and a few of the other kids had turned into a heated debate about possibly opening up the council to a few of the people from woodbury. he could understand why. there was still a stark divide between their group and the new people, but daryl had been content to sit back and let the situation mend itself, so long as it didn't escalate.

the discussion was split down the middle. or.. maybe there were more in favor of maintaining the current council? daryl couldn’t tell because he couldn’t focus and he couldn’t focus because every time he tried to lock in on the conversation, he could feel your fingers brush over his knuckles.

earlier, when the meeting started, you had sat yourself right next to daryl, reached under the table, and grabbed his hand where it was resting on his knee. no fanfare, no lovesick gazes, just your fingers intertwined with his calloused ones like they belonged there. which, he mused to himself, maybe they do.

and so there your hand had remained as the meeting went on. every so often, you would brush your fingers lightly over his knuckles, or give his fingers a squeeze if you happened to catch his eyes… which would lead to you chuckling quietly to yourself when his neutral expression would warm over with a blush.

the meeting had been going on for at least an hour. god.

“daryl, what do you think?”

glenn’s voice cut through daryl’s thoughts like a knife. he jerked a little, almost dislodging your hand when he looked across the table, meeting the expectant stares of the council.

“uhh,” he grunted eloquently, “‘bout bringin’ some of them folks on?”

hershel nodded expectantly, his voice thoughtful, “don’t you think we could afford their input? after all, this is their home now just as much as it is ours.”

your fingers brushed again over his knuckles and daryl willed himself not to lose focus. not to allow his mind to run on with thoughts about the softness of your fingers and how much he liked the feeling of your palm against his. how comfortable-

no.

daryl blinked and cleared his throat, “we don’ even have rick on the council right now, i’on think it’s a good idea.”

glenn nodded along with maggie and, reluctantly a moment later, hershel did too, though his mouth had settled into a thin frown.

daryl felt your hand squeeze his twice, taking it as a nonverbal ‘good job!’, and paused only a moment before squeezing back his own nonverbal ‘thank you’. he saw a small smile flit across your face out the corner of his eye.

before the debate could start up again, you were leaning forward and speaking up, saying, “alright, let’s table this for next time then. the run is already planned for the baby stuff, so—?”

hershel’s eyes swept across the table and he nodded, “meeting adjourned, i suppose.”

three.

the woods were clear as daryl looked out over the gate. he could see everything from the watchtower, as was intended, but for once the calm darkness was not a comfort.

instead, every moment that passed heightened the panic that had been swirling in his gut since earlier that evening.

it had been roughly fourteen hours since you had left on a run with glenn and maggie. there was a small gas station a little ways out that looked to be mostly untouched, and you had been pulled to fill in daryl’s usual slot since he was already slated to go hunting.

he was regretting it now, though, as he continued to watch the road leading up to the gate for any sign of maggie’s headlights.

while the general rule of thumb was to be back to the prison before dark, everyone knew that sometimes shit happens, whether it be walkers appearing at the worst possible time, or not being able to secure the haul. hell, shit happened more often than it didn't, as far as daryl was concerned.

maybe the haul had been much larger than the three of you had planned for, and you had to hide some of it away for a return trip.

maybe y'all had come across a herd large enough to block the car's path and had to find a way around it to get home without leading them back behind you.

maybe the gas station had been a bust all together and you’d gone further out in hopes of not returning empty handed.

the thoughts swimming through his mind sent daryl pacing across the small area of the watchtower. back and forth he went, eyes flashing over to the gate of the prison every few seconds.

“you’re gonna wear out your shoes like that.”

oh right. daryl isn’t even on watch, not officially at least. he’d joined carol a little after the sun went down and been up here ever since.

carol continues on despite his brooding silence, “they’re okay. something probably held them up, it happens.”

daryl turned to face carol, scrubbing a hand down his face. he opening his mouth to respond, but before he could, the sound of wheels crunching across gravel made him whip back around.

he barely registered that it was maggie’s car before he was yanking the floor hatch open and climbing down. rick, who’d been poking around the farm despite the late hour, unwilling to admit his own anxiety, was already pulling the gate open to let the car in.

daryl stopped further up the hill to meet you, and, as soon as you popped the lock on your door, he was tugging it open with one hand and reaching for you with the other.

you went willingly, a sheepish smile on your face as you let him turn you this way and that, checking for any injuries or bites, neither of which you had.

“sorry i’m late, handsome,” you whispered, “i didn’t mean to worry you.”

daryl grunted in response, resisting the urge to press himself against you and feel your heart beat against his skin. he understood that you were capable, and that you had lasted just as long in the apocalypse as he had, but he can't help but wonder if he'll ever get used to this, or if he'll spend any moment you aren't within his reach on the edge of a panic attack.

by then, rick had made his way up the hill to the car and was helping unload their findings from the boot. all things considered, the three of you had brought back a pretty decent amount of stuff.

“everyone alright?” rick questioned, eyes skirting over the contents of the trunk to scan the three of you instead. "what held y'all up?"

maggie shook her head with a smile, “nothing like that. we found a good bit at that gas station, but there was a map of a small trailer park a little ways away, and we thought it was better to go for it while we were right down the road.”

“and we had the space anyway. didn’t make sense to waste a second trip, but it took a little longer to search than we thought,” you added. you had turned to face the group and, under the cover of the dark, you leaned back just slightly into daryl’s side.

carol, who had followed daryl down from the watchtower, hummed, and rick nodded thoughtfully. they both followed behind maggie and glenn, grabbing as much as they could carry from the car and heading up to deposit it for sorting tomorrow.

now alone, daryl took a moment to breathe you in, but he was moving soon as well, heading for the trunk to grab what was left.

he didn’t notice you coming up next to him until he felt your fingers slipping into his pocket.

“found something for you,” you said quietly, standing at his side.

daryl patted his pocket, feeling the dented box of what he assumed to be cigarettes and looked over at you, brows furrowed in confusion.

“i noticed you ran out the other day,” you answered his unasked question, a small smile lifting your cheeks, “combed through every trailer looking for ‘em.”

with that, you turned away from him and back to the trunk.

daryl stood speechless, his heart building up to that rapid thrum he only seemed to feel in your presence.

you had brought something back for him. had spent the daylight rummaging through dirty trailers on the off chance that you’d find a pack of cigarettes to replace his empty one that he himself hadn't even bothered to go searching to replace.

he wanted to think he didn’t understand why you would do something like this, why you would care, but he did. he’d done the same for you, time and time again on the road, if only to see you smile. he understood exactly why.

“‘preciate it,” he grunted, thankful that the darkness surrounding you kept his blush from being too obvious.

you hummed in acknowledgment, and daryl could your small smile growing out the corner of his eye.

four.

having sex in the prison was no easy feat, mostly due to the lack of privacy. a sheet could only provide so much, and even then it did nothing for the noise echoing constantly off the concrete walls.

as far as most were concerned, maggie and glenn had found the best spot early on, making the most unused watchtower their designated private retreat, but you and daryl knew otherwise.

deep in the tombs, which were no longer a threat as they had long since been cleared and sealed, there were a few tucked away offices that had sat empty even after the woodbury residents had been moved in. noise didn’t escape the tombs, and no one ever just wandered in, especially not in the middle of the night, so despite the cell that you and daryl shared, you both much preferred spending your more intimate moments here.

well, daryl did. you weren’t picky, and could be quiet when you really tried, but it made daryl more comfortable.

he’d like to think it was just because he was wary of any listening ears, especially with all the children roaming around, but he knew the truth of his resolve.

daryl had never been a selfish man, and certainly not after the world fell. everything he had, everything he was, he would give to his family in a heartbeat.

but this.. this was just for him.

your body arched beautifully under his, legs falling open to accommodate his weight settling against you. daryl’s hand left your heat, fingers dripping with wetness, to squeeze your hips, using them to guide you as your moved against him.

you were already bare, both of you having stripped each other of your clothes between heated kisses while you stumbled in the office. you hadn’t even made it to the double-stacked cot in the corner, daryl instead pushing you firmly down on the dusty desk and leaning in to mouth at your neck.

you moaned under him now, a breathy sigh of his name, and the sound sent a shiver down daryl’s spine.

“needy girl,” he grunted teasingly, reaching down to grasp his hardness. he dragged the head of his cock up your slit, collecting your wetness and smearing it over your clit.

your head knocked back against the desk and a loud groan burst out of your throat. your knees tried to close around daryl’s waist as if to keep him away, but you arms came up to wrap around him, pulling him closer to your body, and he leaned into you willingly.

your voice trembled when you spoke into his ear, want dripping from every syllable, “please, baby. need you inside me so bad.”

and god, daryl wanted to make you beg for it. he wanted to wait until he could see the desperation in your eyes and then wait some more, but he couldn’t. not when you looked so pretty spread out beneath him and your hands were petting over his shoulders and neck just how he liked. he almost thought you were doing it on purpose, but he knew better. this was just you.

you couldn’t stay off him when he was in you, always tugging at his hair or rubbing his chest, hands scrabbling for any skin you could reach. it used to send him reeling, flustered and blushing bright, but now he looked forward to it. he could feel the want in your touches like physical imprints of your affection.

daryl pushed into your slowly, groaning deep in his chest. your slick walls felt heavenly around him, but daryl was more focused on you right now.

soft whimpers fell from your lips as your hands drifted over his sweat slicked skin. daryl’s thrusts were slow but purposeful, and he ignored your legs squeezing around his waist, trying to urge him to speed up.

“relax, peach,” he soothed, hands drifting up and down your sides in pace with his thrusts, “i’ma take care of you.”

“kiss, please,” you whispered, voice floating past daryl’s ear. he would have missed it if you weren’t pressed together like this.

daryl would not describe himself as a selfish man. he might have had his moments in the past, but now, with the dead walking and a prison full of survivors to protect, it was virtually out of the question.

but as he leaned down to press his lips to yours, feeling your hands finally make their way up into his long strands, daryl thought that he might be a possessive man.

he’d sooner spread you out deep in the woods than have you where anyone could see you like this or hear the noises you make.

no, daryl thought, tongue sliding in your mouth to tangle with yours, this would always be just for him.

five.

daryl came into awareness slowly and then all at once. he startled, trying to sit up, but a searing pain made itself known in his abdomen. the pain clouded his senses, blooming out across his torso and down his limbs. he flops uselessly, feeling like the wind has been knocked out of him.

hearing bits of voices above him, daryl wills himself to focus. he’s hurt, obviously, and it’s pretty fucking bad, but he’ll have to suck it up and figure out a way home if he’s in bad company.

the voices start to filter in. the volume makes his temples throb in rhythm with his abdomen and his heart as the situation starts to force adrenaline through his body.

“—harder! put more pressure on it!”

daryl relaxes just a bit. that’s rick. frantic, angry, but rick all the same.

“what the fuck do you think i’m doing?!” the other voice, higher, snarls in response, “just drive the damn truck!”

and daryl feels his body try to relax all together. he would recognize your voice in his sleep, and this milky haze of pain is no different. he can feel your hands pressing a wad of something soft into his abdomen.

he can hear your panicked breaths and feel the way your fingers flex continuously against his skin. whatever’s wrong with him must be bad, and it definitely hurts like hell, but daryl takes comfort in the weight of your body against his. you won’t let anything happen to him if you can help it, you’d sworn that fiercely, and if you can’t help it then he doesn’t think anyone could have.

daryl can just barely make out the creaking of the gate being pulled open over the sound of rick laying on the horn.

as they pull in, the gravel of the path rocks the truck and daryl feels the ache in his abdomen bloom again, distracting him from his thoughts, but here, knowing he’s safe and back with his family, he allows himself to drift away.

—

this time, when daryl comes into awareness, the first thing he feels is fingers carding through his hair, tugging gently as if to untangle a couple of knots and snarls.

without even opening his eyes he knows it’s you. he can feel the heat of your body settled next to him and smell the soap you like to bathe with. daryl leans towards you, chasing the warmth of your hand against his skin.

the bandages on his stomach are wrapped tight, but it’s more annoying than anything and the pain has finally, thankfully, subsided to a dull ache. daryl stretches on the cot, trying to loosen him limbs from their inactivity, but what he focuses on is your fingers immediately pulling away.

“daryl?” your voice prods quietly, “you awake?”

he opens his eyes slowly, squinting at the sunlight that streams through the bars of the cell. the privacy sheet isn’t down, actually there’s no sheet at all, daryl notes as he looks out. he must be in one of the cells near hershel’s.

“‘m up,” he grumbles, a cough working its way out of his throat. before he can attempt to clear the dryness, you’re standing to grab a bottle of water off some boxes stacked nearby and pressing it into his hand.

your fingers linger against his wrist as you pull away, but you’re resuming your previous position anyway, in a chair brought right up to his bedside.

daryl hasn’t sat up yet, staring instead at you as one of your hands return to his hair and the other rubs down his arm.

a few quiet moments pass before you speak again, head bowed and voice a little choked, “we almost lost you. i almost lost you.”

“didn’t though,” daryl croaks. he feels your grip tighten on his arm and just knows. knows that you’ve been sitting right here every moment that you could since he went down. knows that you probably haven’t had your hands off him. knows you’ve spent the time, however long it’s been, agonizing over what went wrong and how to keep it from happening ever again. he knows.

“i didn’t,” you agree with a barely restrained sniffle. you refuse to allow the tears beading your waterline to fall, but daryl sees them all the same.

oddly, he feels that familiar warmth blossom in his chest. he hates to see you upset, but to see your love, your heart laid so bare for him? daryl thinks he can finally understand the depth of your affections.

plus one.

to anybody who knew what to look for, it was obvious that you and daryl were.. something.

you remembered when the woodbury residents had really began to settle in, how they began to whisper about ‘the hunter and his lady’.

it had confused you at first. the group knew, of course, nothing could be kept a secret from them for too long, but for strangers? it was odd, given that you weren’t very public with your affections.

regardless, with an entire prison to secure and almost triple the amount of people to provide for, it was nothing to think too hard about. there was always something that needed to be done or something bigger to think about. you couldn't afford to think about it now.

eventually, though, you ended up mentioning it to carol, and the older woman had laughed, a teasing edge to her smile as she considered you.

“i think it has less to do with you and more with him, if i’m being honest,” she said.

“more to do with.. daryl?” you said slowly, raising an incredulous eyebrow, “nah, no way.”

carol hummed, her smile turning knowing, “just watch. he’s more affectionate than he gives himself credit for.”

you’d left the conversation feeling like carol had no idea what she was talking about. later that evening, though, when you were sitting with the group for dinner and daryl was sliding a couple pieces of meat from his plate to yours despite your multiple protests, you understood.

your face must have been the textbook picture of a lightbulb going off because carol sent you a wink from across the table, lips twitching like she was hiding a laugh.

it wasn’t that the woodbury residents were over analyzing the very minimal physical affection that passed between you and daryl in a day, no. instead they were observing his quieter, more unconscious actions.

they saw the way that daryl always took care to come and find you before leaving for a run, even if it meant holding everyone up a little.

and how every so often they could find daryl sharpening a knife that was far too small for him to be wielding safely while you sat nearby, watching with a grateful smile.

and how whenever you were in the same room, you always had his eye. daryl had been adamant about keeping you within his sights while you were on the road, and the habit hadn’t left him just because you were behind walls now.

even now, months later, the newer additions to the prison were starting to catch on quicker and quicker.

they overheard daryl talking to glenn about taking your place on the run later today because you’d overdone it in the sun earlier and he wanted you to get some rest.

they saw you gush excitedly every time daryl brought you back any kind of gift, whether it be a pretty rock that he thought you’d like, or your favorite animal to cook into the stew.

they watched him watch the road every time you left for a run, regardless of who was with you, and also saw him come back to be the first to greet you when you returned if he could help it.

daryl was a quiet lover and a private man if you didn’t know what to look for, but if you did, you’d see that his affections ran just as deep as yours.

your thoughts brought a sleep smile to your face as you stretched out on the cot in your shared cell, waiting for daryl to shut off the lantern on your makeshift nightstand in the corner.

you could barely make him out in the dark, but the weight of him settling in next to you sent you right into his arms, your head pillowed on his chest while his arms came up to wrap around your back.

you tilted your head up to place a small kiss to the bottom of his jaw, mumbling a quiet, “love you.”

daryl’s arms tightened around you momentarily before loosening again. you felt him lean down to press a kiss to your hair in turn.

just over the steady thumping of his heart against your ear, you could hear him whisper back, “love you too.”

[sayruq]

Dozens of Google employees began occupying company offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California, on Tuesday in protest of the company’s $1.2 billion contract providing cloud computing services to the Israeli government. The sit-in, organized by the activist group No Tech for Apartheid, is happening at Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s office in Sunnyvale and the 10th floor commons of Google’s New York office. The sit-in will be accompanied by outdoor protests at Google offices in New York, Sunnyvale, San Francisco, and Seattle beginning at 2 pm ET and 11 am PT. Tuesday’s actions mark an escalation in a series of recent protests organized by tech workers who oppose their employer’s relationship with the Israeli government, especially in light of Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. Just over a dozen people gathered outside Google’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale on Tuesday. Among those in New York was Google cloud software engineer Eddie Hatfield, who was fired days after disrupting Google Israel’s managing director at March’s Mind The Tech, a company-sponsored conference focused on the Israeli tech industry, in early March. Several hours into the sit-ins on Tuesday, Google security began to accuse the workers of “trespassing” and disrupting work, prompting several people to leave while others vowed to remain until they were forced out. The 2021 contract, known as Project Nimbus, involves Google and Amazon jointly providing cloud computing infrastructure and services across branches of the Israeli government. Last week, Time reported that Google’s work on Project Nimbus involves providing direct services to the Israel Defense Forces. No Tech for Apartheid is a coalition of tech workers and organizers with MPower Change and Jewish Voice for Peace, which are respectively Muslim- and Jewish-led peace-focused activist organizations. The coalition came together shortly after Project Nimbus was signed and its details became public in 2021.

You can read No Tech for Apartheid's open letter here.

[reignpage]

Frat Boy!Gojo

Estrella Damm: don't drink and run

Contents: general dumbassery, cursing, slight sexual language, violence, lots of cursing, wrote this high so idk if this even makes sense, I'll reread it and let you know whether its bs lol

It’s the same scene again. 

Three guys are circling you, laughing so irritatingly, and you’re just sitting there, doing your very best to shrug them off. The park is empty, it usually is at 3pm and especially these days with the nippy weather. Whenever Gojo strolls along the place to get to campus, he sees you resting on a bench, watching the tree branches sway above the pond. 

You’re hard to miss. 

A mass of black like an omen amongst the peace of nature, a blob of ink on a Monet, and he sees you everywhere. It’s funny, he thinks, how prior to the announcement of the engagement during the summer, he had never seen you on campus before. 

He can’t fathom how it was possible that he missed you. You stand out so badly, all eyes are on you everywhere you go. What with your lace frocks, thick platform boots, and terrifying piercings. 

You’re rolling your eyes at the lanky guy in front of you, thin lips curling over yellow teeth to snarl insipid insults that the other two chortle at. You just wanted a peaceful break in between your lectures, to take in the fresh autumn air, and watch people pass. But then again the universe has never really liked you. That became abundantly clear when your parents threw the news at you.

Was Nietzsche right?

So now you’re stuck watching disgusting idiots pick up a layer of your dress, mocking the fabric as if it’s something cheap. Little do they know.

“Where’s the funeral, hot stuff?”

You cringe. It’s the repulsive roll of his tongue, the way he flashes you a grin as if he’s such a catch and you should be happy he’s giving you any kind of attention. He probably thinks of himself as something akin to a wolf, wild and feral in the sexiest way, but from where you’re sitting, he more closely resembles a rabid hyena, slobbering all over itself. 

His breath surely smells like it too. 

Exasperated, you stand, snatching your dress from their grimy hands and sneer, “Don’t touch me, you ugly trolls.”

They don’t like that. 

Just as you’re stepping away, someone grabs your hair with a harsh pull and you gasp, tears brimming in your eyes from the burn on your scalp. Whoever has your hair drags you back to him, his face too close to yours, and you can see every pore, every hair, and you resist the urge to gag at the feeling of his breath skimming your skin. 

“Who the fuck do you think you are, you prissy little pri—“ 

Before he can finish his sentence, a hand is gripping his wrist, wrestling it back at an awkward angle, forcing his body to follow suit. He yelps and you stumble back on the bench, rubbing at your head. 

Your heartbeat is galloping like crazy, air robbed from your lungs and you’re rearing back to see a white-haired man looming over all of you with a menacing grin.

Gojo looks terrifying. 

A shiver claws up your spine, fear prickling your skin, and it feels as if the park had just become colder, dropping into the negatives. There’s something devoid of light in his eyes and it knocks you off balance. You’re dazed and his withering look full of disdain and contempt isn’t even targeted towards you.

"You guys again?"

The sheer revulsion, the abhorrence and loathing seeping through his words creates a flurry of shame through you all. You see it in the flush that reddens one’s guys face, and in the deep gulp the second one makes. It’s as if you’ve committed a fundamental wrong, like the whole affair was an abomination that he had happened to stumble upon.

He’s still twisting the guy’s arm back and ignoring the broken moans coming from him, choosing instead to direct his ice cold stare at the other two guys. They stand uneasily, glancing between each other as if deciding what to do. Seeing the resolve in the newcomer’s eyes, and the promise of pain, they grab at their friend and hastily walk away, not sparing a glance back. 

Not even at you, like you were never there to begin with. 

Huffing, you stand up, brushing imaginary dirt from the skirt of your dress and muttering a reluctant ‘thanks’ to Gojo. He’s studying you, sunglasses hanging low on his nose bridge so he can look at you over them. 

What kind of idiot wears sunglasses when there's no sun?

He doesn’t say a word and you begin to feel uncertain. 

The man before you is a mystery. You don’t know what he’s thinking. One minute he hates you and has declared you public enemy number one and the next he’s defending you from slimy perverts.

What is wrong with him?

Sure, you’re glad he didn’t just leave you to fend for yourself but you also wish he just left as soon as he came so you wouldn't have to deal with the awkward aftermath. Now, you’re left staring at him waiting for a stupid comment to come. 

But it doesn’t. 

“Got something to say?”

Your voice is snarky, but wavers just ever so slightly, the effects of the shock still coursing your veins. Gojo doesn’t flinch, he just shrugs and gives you one final look over, before he’s stalking off, long legs carrying him away like he was just strolling past to begin with. 

One step for him is like three for you. 

You begin walking too. And you scowl when he looks back at you over his shoulder, his hands tucked into his trouser pockets, swinging his crazy long legs like a giraffe.

Why does he walk like that?

“You following me?” 

His tone is so disgustingly arrogant you feel a sudden urge to whack him over the head with your boots. But you don’t. Because your boots are limited edition and much too pretty to scuff up with his ugly face.

Not to mention your parents would kill you, and so would his, probably. And maybe even the entire campus. 

Because according to the 'Bulletin' and this so called ‘List’ Gojo introduced you to, your fiancé is apparently the most beloved man in EdenU. Known for being friendly, approachable, charitable and charismatic, everyone either wants to be friends with Gojo, date Gojo or be Gojo. 

Having read every single piece written by some girl with poor tastes in men, clearly, you realise that there must be something wrong with the entire student population-- and even the staff, if the blushing some lecturers do when he passes is anything to go by. There are direct quotes from people detailing first-hand experiences with Gojo’s ‘kindness’, with how he took the time out of his day to give directions, helped an old lady cross the street, claps at the end of lectures as an expression of gratitude.

Classic bourgeoisie propaganda.

How could anyone consider him as a) a good guy, and b) a hot one?

That question has been bothering you for about a week now. And it continues to do so as he looks at you like you're bothering him.

You speed walk, pumping your legs as hard as you can so you can glide by him. Who’s following who now?

It’s petty, you know that. But for whatever reason, the guy just brings out that bitter child inside of you, the one that wants to be mean, to spit back as good as you get, and to put him in his place. 

Because clearly, the campus gossip has gotten to his head. 

You hear him scoff before he starts speed-walking beside you. It looks effortless on him. What a prick. 

His jacket brushes against you and you recoil, aghast that his bacteria touched you. With a new wave of determination, you begin jogging. It’s the most exercise you’ve gotten in years but it’s so worth it to see him jog as well. 

“Give it up, I’m way faster than you.”

Wordlessly, you jog a little faster every time he does.

“Surprised to see you sober enough to walk in a park,” you voiced with a taunting tone.

Gojo retorts, just as quick, “And I’m surprised you’re out in broad daylight.”

Dodging fallen branches and puddles, you leap and clutch your dress, lifting the thick skirt so your legs can push and push. There is no way you'll lose to the likes of him. You just need to reach the park edge, where grass meets concrete, and once you pass it, you'll claim victory.

Huffing, you barb, “I’m sure you like the weather just fine, right, Periwinkle?”

He snorts. “That must make you Vidia.”

“She’s hot so I’ll take that.”

Throwing you a side glance, he rolls his eyes and maintained, with a singsong voice, “Silvermist is hotter.”

Eventually, you’re both running through the park, overtaking each other in a give and take, and you grin every time you get the best of him by cutting corners. You know this park like the back of your hand. The cool wind doesn’t even register on your skin, adrenaline urging you forward, winding along the path and dodging bystanders who look on with half confusion and half amusement. 

This is probably the most excitement this park has seen in years.

Gojo doesn’t seem the least bit embarrassed. 

"Move, you're in my way, Eric Draven," he jab, not even slightly breath.

You sneer.

"No, you're in my way, Johnny Bravo."

You screech when a sudden force knocks you into a hedge. Sharp twigs poke at you, you struggle to gain footing against the mud, and you flail your arms. Your hair is caught, so is the lace of your dress, like a moth trapped in a spiderweb.

The motherfucker shoved you.

He actually shoved you.

Gojo's staring, with his mouth gaping, at his hand and then at you and then back to his hand, like he didn't mean to push you, like his body just moved on its own. And you see him take a step, hands stretching out to reach for you.

The fucking dick is so childish you don’t feel any guilt when you grab him by his jacket and yank. He falls with laugh like he had been anticipating your revenge, a light and airy sort of chortle, so childlike and youthful it almost makes you smile. Almost, because then you're both going quiet when he lands on top of you. 

That wasn't very well thought out.

You’re both angled slightly back on the thick hedge, so out of breath, the tiny branches prick at you both, leaves no doubt catching on your dress. Gojo’s holding his body weight, trying to find his footing on the wet grass but struggling to press his hands on anywhere concrete. Your legs are tangled, hips pinned to each other, and your hands are clinging to his jacket so you don’t fall deeper. 

“Woah,” he breathes out, panting slightly, “you want me this badly?”

Your frown deepens until you’re sure your lips will stay stuck in that position. He really just can’t help himself. It’s like it’s in his DNA to say something stupidly arrogant just to avoid the silence. With a grunt, you try to push him off you, feet kicking. The fucker is heavy. And he doesn’t even look like he’s trying. 

Gojo smells clean and you hate it. He smells like fresh laundry and sea salt and fluffy clouds. With every movement you make against each other, you become more aware of his broad shoulders and narrow hips. It’s like he’s got a sleeper build. His chest is firm beneath your palms and  your face is buried in his neck, feeling his Adam’s apple bob. 

“Move, fat ass,” you say through gritted teeth. 

He makes a sound of indignation, “Fat ass? Me? How dare you! I don't calorie count for nothing.”

Always fucking joking, the little shit.

You shove at his chest. “Move, Gojo, I swear to God.”

"Yeah, yeah. I'm trying," he huffs and puffs, clambering away, and then he adds, like he just cannot fucking help himself, "Siouxsie Sioux."

With awkward shuffles and uncomfortable twists and turns, you both manage to free yourselves. There’s a blush on both of your faces, yours is certainly from anger, raging at the sudden turn of events and the sheer humiliation at falling, and ashamed that you had stooped to his level and raced him, like a toddler. 

What the fuck is wrong with you?

You were raised better. For goodness sake, your mother would keel over and die if she saw you sprinting in a park, almost pushing an old lady out of the way just to beat your fiancé. God, you hate calling him that.

And you hate to admit even more that you might have actually enjoyed it.

Catharsis, that’s all it was.

Just a physical and mental need to let out the pressure building up from months of the most restrictive schedule, with the frequent dinners with stuffy guests, the constant handshaking and ass kissing, the indignity of it all.

Sometimes you wished you could be Murakami's Ice Man, maybe then you could rise above these petty emotions and let nothing bother you. But you aren’t free of your past. You’re defined by it.

Gojo isn’t meeting your eyes. He’s settled on adjusting his clothes and sunglasses, plucking leaves from his jacket, mouth opening and closing like he wants to say something. But you don’t let him. You dash past and ignore his existence, like you should have done from the beginning, and head to your lecture. 

Your hands are clenching and unclenching, neck creaking as you try to relieve the tension wound so tightly in your body you’re afraid you might combust. Everything about this is wrong. 

An engagement with Gojo is one thing, but to like the feel of his body on you, is a whole other thing. It’s stupid and it’s dangerous. Just like your mother said, emotions have no place in a marriage. You only need respect, and sometimes not even that. And as much as you hate her Machiavellian attitudes to life, you understand. You need a husband who'll mind his own business. Gojo is not that kind of man.

The guy refused to be friends, despite the many opportunities and chances you had granted him, so you won't do yourself the disservice of seeking a friendship.

You will not let the ‘hottest guy on campus’ sway you. His charming grins and arrogant comebacks will not warm your chest, and his muscular frame will definitely not haunt your dreams. There’s too much riding on this arrangement, on you. You cannot be distracted.

Man might be condemned to be free, but that doesn't apply to women. Not women like you, anyways. Thanks for nothing, Sartre.

Those are the thoughts you come away with from the encounter. 

Gojo, on the other hand, is still standing where you left him, hand rubbing his chest whilst lost in thought. His head is tilted, sunglasses hanging low on his nose bridge again as he watches your retreating figure. 

It’s kinda hard to see your features through the pile of black clothing and accessories, but having been close enough to rub noses, he realised, you’re pretty. The kind of pretty that would inspire art, not that he knows much about that.

He licks his lips and he swears he can taste the sweetness of your scent lingering, and when he looks down on his chest, he also swears he felt the unmistakable sensation of small metal balls scraping at him through his thin jacket. 

A Cheshire grin pulls at the corners of his mouth. He stuffs his hands in his pockets once more and carries on walking at a leisurely pace, a slight pep in his steps gained from a victory over a game he didn’t even realise he was playing. He strolls to class with just one thought filling his mind. 

My future wifey’s got nipple piercings.

[theveryworstthing]

time to learn a little bit about the Yells. i've been writing a few lore posts for a while and instead of continuing to let they grow and fretting over them, i think i'm just going to throw a few out there and try to finish up the rest this week.

The Yells

Despite their imposing size, strange behaviors, and mysterious keepers, the Signallusc (or The Yells as most rabbits call them) are considered just another part of the island landscape. These towering faux trees serve as the island version of radio towers, and make all radio communication above and below ground possible.

Though the 2 largest of the naturally formed Yells are still upright and active (and heavily protected so that their natural life cycle can be properly studied), these days rabbits prefer to cultivate the towers so that they don’t grow in problematic areas or do…other things.

Wild or free growth Yells make their homes in dead rotting wood as natural decomposers, and many live out their lives as simple slime molds (or as simple as any slime mold can be). Certain conditions must be met to trigger the drastic color change and vertical growth that make them viable for communication use, and so wild Yells are usually found growing in small clusters in or around the resources they need to sustain their new forms. Dead trees or stumps with roots still in the ground are prime hosts for these slime molds and they’re actually seen as beneficial since they stabilize potentially dangerous dead trees and kill diseases or especially destructive insects that might harm surrounding living trees. Once inside these dead trees the slime mold eats them from the inside out, taking the branches first, and then devouring the mass from the top down.

Compared to other slime molds they can handle direct sunlight quite well, but wild yells still tend to favor hosts in shady areas and from the way these trees are devoured they seem to try and keep some sort of shell around them for as long as possible. This wooden shell not only serves as food, but also gives the growing Yell a moist, dark, home until its outer membrane is thick and strong enough to handle being constantly exposed. When wild Yells “die”, it’s usually because they’ve run out of host tree long ago, and have stiffened into a rigid structure that eventually cracks (usually due to being struck by lightning) and crumbles, releasing clouds of spores. The remains of a Yell dissolve in the first rain after they fall and tend to leave the area around the strange lotus pod-ish pit in the ground where “roots” used to be spotless, but smelling very metallic with a hint of foulness. Almost like not so fresh blood.

Through the observations recorded by island botanists and the specific botanical sect known as the Antenna, rabbits (and hares, as they were the first to investigate and made great strides in understanding the process before they left the island en masse) have learned exactly what triggers Yell vertical growth and have used this knowledge to cultivate Yells quite successfully. A combination of owl feathers, metal ore (mainly bog iron), charcoal sticks and or ash (best if created by lightning strike, wood preferred but animal remains like burned out hawks are perfectly acceptable), and a little starter wood are fed to the slime mold, and after it’s broken everything down it begins its transformation. It is then introduced to a host plant sprout, a type of fast growing, woody, creeping vine in the Grasp family bred specifically for this purpose (wild cultivars work fine but they’re half as hardy and the bond has a greater chance of triggering very upsetting mutations. These are different from the upsetting mutations, which are fine and harmless). From then on the slime mold seems to guide the host plant’s growth, forming a shell from the vines that is constantly growing and shedding. This serves as both a home and an ample food source.

The botany world is torn on whether this forms a mutualistic symbiotic relationship or whether it’s straight up parasitism. And yes, plant nerd blood has been spilled over this argument. Not a ton of blood, it’s not like this is the great lichen wars, but still.

The Antenna

All yell care-taking is done by the Antenna sect. This is a mysterious group of witchy botanists and engineers who, like the previously referred to upsetting mutations, are harmless despite their entire vibe. Well. Harmless enough for botanists anyway.

Not a lot is known about them by the general public but they keep things working smoothly and show up quickly when something isn’t.

Members of this sect haven’t had a set “look” or uniform for about a generation and a half due to the ending of a lot of the the founding member’s bloodlines, but each Yell site has it’s own culture that attracts certain kinds of people. Despite their differences, there are a few things that make Antennae easier to pick out of a crowd if you know what to look for. The skin of their inner ears develop thin branching markings or wave-like ripples depending on how they interact with Yells. Some have obvious hare ancestry and sport roughly branching horns that grow quite long and shed every year (these shed horns are fed to the Yells). Newer members wear a lot of lightweight ear jewelry to help pick up important signals and behavioral quirks from the Yells, but the longer they stay in the Antenna the less tolerant they are of this. Things get…loud. Behind their eyes. Inside their teeth. Seasoned members usually can’t stand wearing any metal jewelry at all. The head botanist of one of the most remote Yells wears ear plugs almost 24/7 because of left behind shrapnel from an accident in his youth.

He is deaf.

He says he’s not really blocking anything out, just sorting it properly.

No one really knows what he means. It’s fine.

[glazecake]

Palestine فلسطين

x / x / x | x / x / x | x / x / x

My goal with making this post is to use my platform to raise awareness and encourage solidarity and action for the people of Palestine. Over the past few weeks, I have felt powerless to watch the destruction of Gaza before the world's eyes. However, I realized that I still have a large platform despite this blog's inactivity. With this, I would like to share information about Palestine and what you can do to help.

In the above post, I have sought out videos of Palestinian food, culture, art, architecture, and nature to share. Israeli propaganda is trying adamantly to dehumanize the population of Palestine in order to further justify their genocide. Regardless, no matter where you are in the world, humans recognize and understand what it is to be human. What it is to make art, to share food with your loved ones, to travel, and laugh, and sing. To experience heartbreak and hardship, and to experience joy. To dream about the future. To stand up for what we believe in, to fight in the face of injustice.

If you are an American citizen, use your voice to stand up for what's right. Contact your representatives. Demand a ceasefire in Gaza. Boycott companies and celebrities who voice their support of the Israeli settler state. Protest. Donate. Organize. Fight. We are strongest when in community with each other. Our US tax dollars directly fund the murder of Gazan civilians. Make it known that we will not stand idly by while news outlets and propagandists lie to our faces about the atrocities enacted by the IDF and the Knesset.

Here are some links for information on Palestine, as well as places to donate:

decolonizepalestine - A website aiming to educate and dispel myths about the Palestinian people, ran by two Ramallah residents.

US Campaign for Palestinian Rights - You can use this website to find groups organizing near you.

Palestine Action US - The US branch of a directive aiming to dismantle the Israeli military regime, directly funded by the US.

Hirbawi Kufiya - The last and only Kufiya factory in Palestine, as featured in the gif above. You can pre-order a kufiya which will be shipped once the blockade has been lifted.

Let Gaza Live: Ceasefire NOW - An easy way to send letters to your representatives to demand ceasefire in Gaza.

The Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries by Rosemary Sayigh - A good introduction to the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Click to Help - One click a day can help raise donations for the UNRWA.

baitulmaal - Donate to fund relief.

anera - Donate to provide hygiene kits for displaced Gazans.

As of October 27th, 2023, Gazans are losing access to the internet. It is imperative for us to share their stories, to continue to remain active and aware of their martyrdom. The IDF will utilize this information blackout to their advantage. We must do all we can. Do not forget the plight of the Palestinian people. Do not allow their voices to go unheard.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. 🇵🇸

[ceilidho]

take me home, country road

[ao3]

You have nothing on your person apart from a hastily packed suitcase and the dress you came into town wearing, on the run from trouble back home. Too bad John's missing a bride that matches your description. Or: the 1800s (mistaken) mail order bride au (part 8)

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7

-

Now a nocturnal animal emerges into the daylight hours.

A week becomes two and your shoulders untense. It’s not something you notice at first because you’re used to an ever present strain between your shoulder blades and an ache in your jaw from grinding your teeth at night. Then a fortnight goes by without so much as a missive with your name on it floating across John’s desk or a stranger appearing in town after tracking you down, and you wonder if maybe the world really is big enough to hide in. 

It sure feels that way at times. The woods beyond the bounds of John’s property stretch out farther than the eye can see and even walking it feels like you could disappear into another realm. Old spruces shoot up high into the clouds, and deeper into the woods, huge rock formations grow more and more prominent as you near the mountains. John takes you through the woods on horseback, following the rough trails carved into the dirt by a century of wagons and carts using the same path. The footprints of a different time. 

Up in the trees, birds warble and chirp, talking to one another in songs that you’ve never heard before. A woodpecker drills into the side of a tree. Pinecones snap out of the upper branches and drop to the forest floor. 

There is only a single trail and it’s easy to lose. You grow a bit nervous when John takes you off the trail and deeper into the woods, but he does so with the confidence of a man that knows these woods like the back of his hand. You go quiet when he stops Buttercup to let a herd of deer wander by, the stragglers hurrying to catch up with the group, throwing the two of you nervous glances before they disappear into the thicket. 

“Should we be out this far?” you ask in a whisper, reluctant to disturb the silence. Though the woods are full of animals that bleat, chirp, chatter, and hoot, the sound of your own voice feels preternaturally loud and shrill. 

“We won’t get lost, darlin’. I know my way around,” John reassures you, curling an arm around your waist to hold you to him. These days, you hardly worry about tumbling off the horse. Not with him at your back anyway. 

“That wasn’t really my worry,” you mumble, trailing off.

“Then what’re you getting all worked up about?”

“Aren’t there wolves out here? Or bears?”

He snorts, the sound making you jolt. You don’t topple over because he has such a firm hold around your waist. “They don’t usually come this close to town. They’re more scared of you than you are of them.”

“That sounds like something mothers tell their children to stop them crying,” you say flatly. You draw your legs up automatically when John directs Buttercup through a shallow basin, a shortcut back home. It makes you anxious for a moment, but the water barely goes up to her ankles, so you relax when you realize that you’re in no danger of being swept away by the current.

“That doesn’t mean a bear or wolf can’t wander by, but it’s rare.”

“And there it is.”

You can feel the heat of his glower on the back of your head. “We could spend the night out here if you want to see for yourself.”

At that, you shut your mouth. Even if he were to prove his point, you have no interest in camping out in the woods now that you’ve become accustomed to the luxury of a soft bed. Granted that you’re forced to share that same bed, still you’ve never slept half as well as you do these days. You wake up rested after nine hours of blissful shut eye, a sleep so deep that your dreams only come in half-remembered flashes. Often they involve the man you wake up wrapped around, and for that you’re grateful that they remain submerged. 

A new desire has started to burrow its way into the back of your mind in recent days. It starts out as a thought so brief that you hardly notice it before it skitters away. 

And then it lingers. 

You wake up in the middle of the night hot, sweat dripping down the nape of your neck and a fire burning in your loins, a red-hot coil wound around itself, fit to burst. Pulsating. At some point throughout the night, you must have thrown a leg around John’s waist because it rests there now, your hand planted in the middle of his chest and your sex all but rubbing up against his thigh. Under your hand, you can feel his heart pump strong and steady.

You hold very, very still, waiting for him to wake. But John sleeps on, his palm loose where it rests along the curve of your hip, fingers curling into the flesh of your backside. 

You can hardly look at him these days without shaking. You’ve come to fixate on the sway of his hips when he walks and the flecks of silver in his beard. The grooves in his weathered hands. The way your head fits in the palm of his hand when he cradles it to his chest. The fond glimmer in his eyes that shines the brightest when he puts his hat on your head and it slips past your eyes, too big for your head. 

When you tip it up in order to see, the folds around his eyes become more pronounced with the force of his smile.

“There you are, bug,” he says, taking the hat off your head to set it back on his and reeling you in for a kiss. 

Bug, love, honey, darling. The constant flux of endearments makes your head spin. John never calls you by the name on your marriage license. It’s like that name means nothing to him, cast away at the first opportunity and replaced by an endless stream of pet names.  

He hasn’t touched your sex since making you come on the porch swing the week before. He pulls you into a chaste embrace at night, the only evidence of his own desire being the stiff shaft nestled against the small of your back in the early morning hours, which he takes care of on his own in the bathroom downstairs after pressing a kiss to your cheek. You feel robbed of something, though you don’t know quite what. 

You’re tempted to offer your help, but you don’t know exactly what that would entail. Inexperience and fear of rejection hold you back, stay your tongue. In the two weeks you’ve been married, he hasn’t once tried to pin you down and rut between your thighs like you expected and dreaded that very first night. 

Now that that time has passed, you don’t know how to initiate that moment again. 

John promises to teach you how to ride a horse. You can’t see a reason to protest, much to your chagrin. Despite your apprehensions, even you can’t deny that it would be a helpful skill. A train only goes one way after all, confined to a single track. A horse has no such laws to obey.

The thought stays nestled at the back of your mind as the days continue on.

You flounder around in the kitchen on the day that John invites his deputies over for supper. You’ve met the big one—Simon—now a small handful of times, each encounter marked by a silence that sucks the air out of the room when he turns his gaze on you and holds it. Perhaps you’ve simply ascribed too much importance to his person, given that every time you’ve seen him, your life has changed irrevocably. His presence is always followed by revelation it seems. The archangel of vicissitude. A harbinger of uncertain times.

The other two are new. John introduces you to them when you bring out the cutlery and crockery to set the table, and you nearly go cross-eyed when they reach across the table at the same time to offer their hands. You go to meet them halfway, but flinch when John brings his hand down on the table with enough force to make the silverware jump.

“Sorry, darlin’,” he apologizes to you first before turning his glare on the other two. “That ain’t proper, boys. You wait for the lady to offer her hand first—you don’t treat a woman like she’s a mutt you’re teaching to shake.”

“Ah, sorry, hen,” the one on the left says, his voice a thick Scottish brogue like a purr. He’s possibly the handsomest man you’ve ever met, but there’s something dangerous and wild in his eyes. When he smiles, it curls up in a roguish sort of way that makes you falter, like he’s in on a joke that you aren’t. “Dinnae mean to offend. No’ often we get ta meet such a pretty lady.” 

“Sorry—” the one on the right apologizes in a voice far more earnest than his counterpart’s. “And sorry for him. We think he was raised by wolves.”

“What’s yer excuse then?” the Scot sneers, knocking his knee into the other man’s under the table. “Dinnae see ye waitin’ for her fuckin’ hand like a gentleman—apologies, hen.”

“Christ,” John sighs, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling. 

Simon stays silent at the other end of the table, but the whole table jumps when he aims a kick at the Scott’s leg. He hisses and blurts out a word in a language you’ve never heard before, the word unmistakably vitriolic. He clutches at his shin and shoots a nasty look at Simon, though he doesn’t make a move to retaliate. 

“Name’s Kyle. Kyle Garrick,” the other introduces himself, and you finally reach across the table to offer your hand. His hand is warm against yours when he takes it, dark skin burnished in the candlelight. There’s something inviting about him; something about his eyes, so dark that you almost fall into them. Thick lips curl up into a smile. “And this here is Soap.”

You frown. “Soap?”

The man in question runs a hand down his front, emphasizing the cut of his shirt and the way it clings to the muscle of his chest. “‘Cause of how well I clean up.”

Simon barks out a laugh at that. The sound comes so sudden and sharp that it startles you. “You got it ‘cause your mum had to wash out your mouth with soap.”

It’s the most you’ve ever heard out of him and you can only stare wide-eyed at the lot of them as they dissolve into bickering and squabbling after that. It’s almost a relief to head back into the kitchen to finish cooking. 

Dinner is a similar messy affair, punctuated by the sound of Soap practically gnawing the meat off the bone. He only apologizes when John barks at him for making a mess, more food on the floor around him than on his plate, but his table manners don’t last very long. John doesn’t seem so much embarrassed on their behalf as annoyed, but it’s an annoyance that comes with an aftertaste of warmth. You can tell without asking that they’ve known each other for years. 

There’s room enough in you for food and envy. Back home you had friends. Never close friends, but acquaintances at least. Maids you could recognize by face. Small talk while ascending single-file up the servants’ staircase. Perhaps little more than that. You’d never been particularly close to any of them, but how could you? You worked from morning ‘till night, up and down the stairs, moving in the shadows. Never making too much noise lest your employers take notice of you. 

Like he did.

You shake it off. That’s no matter now. You’re hundreds of miles away and living under a new name. A married woman, to the county sheriff no less. It only sometimes hurts your heart to think of how lonely you’d been. 

When they leave, you stand at the window and watch as they disappear into the black of the night, Simon at the front of the pack, his torchlight leading the way. The sound of horse hooves beating against the dirt recedes the farther they get. 

His hands warm your shoulders. You don’t know how long he’s been there, standing behind you while you stared out the window after the boys. All you know is that his hands are warm, and the kiss he presses to the back of your head makes you arch back into him, unconsciously gravitating closer to him. Needing to be near. 

In bed, you curl your fingers against his chest. On a rough exhale, you wake. You dream still of something terrible that happens somewhere else, in another city, in an old life. His heartbeat lulls you back to sleep.

John takes you to the local seamstress to have you fitted for a pair of pants and suddenly you’re out of excuses. They fit you comfortably, like a second skin, and you find yourself pulling at the legs at your final fitting as if to stretch out the material. The seamstress nearly jabs you with a pin and glares up at you until you stop fidgeting. 

You come to terms with it when he brings you into the stables and makes you fetch the saddle from where it rests on its stand. It’s heavier than you expected. You stumble back over to where John now has Buttercup standing in the middle of the stable, holding her by the lead fixed to her bridle. 

“I don’t know if—” you start, trepidation climbing up your chest until it grips you by the throat. For as many times as you’ve ridden her, you’ve never done it alone. 

John fixes her lead to a post and walks over to you, taking the saddle from your hands and letting it drop to the ground. He cups your face in both hands to tilt your head up. “Hey, honey. We’re not doing much of anything today, alright? Just a walk around the paddock so you get used to sitting on Buttercup on your own. I’m not gonna smack her ass and send you down the trail at full tilt..”

That gets a laugh out of you. “You promise?”

He smiles. “Promise, darlin’.”

And he keeps it. The only thing you do that day is learn how to tack a horse and how to properly mount and dismount her. The latter part of the lesson is devoted to you trying to find your balance while John leads the two of you around the pen at a leisurely pace. He calms you down when he sees you grow too stiff, stopping to coo and rub your thigh until you gradually relax. It’s heartwarming until Buttercup begins to tense up too for a reason unbeknownst to you and you watch in righteous fury as John calms her down the same way.

John gets you a hat to keep the sun from beating down on you, but there’s little he can do about the soreness between your thighs and the stiffness in your legs the next day. All you can do is hiss and moan in pain, hobbling around the house until he forces you down into a chair and hikes up your dress in order to apply an arnica salve to your inner thighs. 

It’s a relief and an affront at the same time. The duality of man. The salve soothes much of the ache, but you twitch nervously around John for the rest of the day, the memory of him pinning you to the chair and forcibly spreading your thighs haunting you. The lingering ache in your core is just the salt in the wound. 

It rains another day. A light drizzle while the sun is still out.

Every day you sit and you think, will it be today? And then the wash basins are emptied out in the field, the horses are taken out to the paddock, you pin the laundry up on the line to dry, and John presses a farewell kiss to your forehead when he leaves you with Kate and nothing happens. Every inch of you waits for more, anticipates more. Throbs when he leaves you wanting, only a chaste kiss and a squeeze around your waist before he’s off. 

You can feel it coming to a head. An itch you can’t shake. 

That day comes with another ache you can’t shake. 

“Please,” you beg, clasping your hands in front of you. “One day of rest. That’s all I’m asking. I can’t do this anymore, John.”

John snaps the lead in his hands. “Let’s get a move on. We’re burning daylight.”

You hang your head low on the march over to the stables, John taking up the rear like he expects you to bolt. An executioner’s walk. The thought of escape has never seemed further away—not even because of its feasibility, but because all you want to do is lie down and rest.

“You can quit your moping,” he says as you tack up Buttercup, a pout on your lips. “Got something special for you today.”

That makes you perk up, regardless of the fact that he doesn’t specify what that is. Anticipation mounts in you when he helps you up onto Buttercup and then climbs up behind you himself. He steers her away from the paddock and towards the trail leading into the woods, the sun at its zenith now, illuminating everything as far as the eye can see.

You’ve ridden this trail before. A week ago, with John at your back as he is now. Through the fields and over the hills until the trees start to number in the tens and then the hundreds, no clear delineation between plain and forest. Simply there and then everywhere.

By now, after hours of sun beating down on the path, the trail is mostly dry, yesterday’s rain long since having sunk into the earth. You think it’d still be a tough hike on foot, but on horseback you cover acres of land at a brisk pace, Buttercup hardly breaking a sweat. You cross paths with a small group traveling by horse and wagon, but John breaks off from the path not too long after that, steering Buttercup deeper into the wilderness, where the only gullies are the ones carved out by years and years of rainfall. 

You only see it when the land begins to dip and you’re forced to hold onto the horn and tighten your thighs around the fenders to keep steady. At the bottom of a hill, a small stream opens up into a larger river, narrowing out at the other end where the land rises again and the water can only trickle over the pebbly riverbed. On the other side, a rocky outcropping cuts the stream off from view.

“Is this where you used to come to bathe?” you ask, recalling an earlier conversation.

John sighs. “Thought I’d take you for a swim as a treat, but if you’d rather just tease me—”

“Well now, let’s not be hasty,” you say, already trying to dismount on your own, eyes glued on the stream glimmering in the sunlight. John chuckles, keeping you pressed to him until he guides Buttercup under a tree for shade and dismounts first, helping you down after him. 

All you want to do is wade in the stream up to your ankles, so that’s what you do. Boots kicked off, Buttercup relaxing in the shade of a tree, John standing by the water’s edge with his hands on his hips and watching you tiptoe over the smooth rocks below. You roll up your pant legs, but eventually you feel the ends grow damp as you venture farther out. At its deepest, you would probably sink up to your waist.

“Don’t you want to swim?” John asks from somewhere behind you.

You splash around a bit, kicking your feet through the water. “Hard to do that with clothes—”

When you turn back around to face him, your eyes dart down momentarily at the sight of skin before you squeak and whirl back around, sending up an arc of water. Twice now you’ve seen him naked. 

“You’ve no clothes on,” you state, bluntly enough that it almost sounds stupid. 

You hear the water splash and ripple when he takes his first step in. “Right—you better think about doing the same if you don’t want to ride home soaking wet.”

“I was perfectly fine just getting my feet wet,” you say indignantly.  

“We came out here to swim, not get your feet wet,” John laughs. You stiffen when his hand comes down on your shoulder, conscious of the fact that your husband is standing right behind you, entirely divested of his clothes. “So best get to steppin’.”

“You can’t make me.”

“Oh, honey,” he says pityingly. “Yes, I can.”

You squeeze your eyes shut as you make your way back to shore, careful not to allow yourself a glimpse of him. Your boots are stacked beneath the shade of another tree, John’s clothes folded neatly beside them. You strip slowly, attentive to the world around you; though unlikely, it’s not impossible that someone might wander by. Your only consolation is that John is still within sight, though you keep your back to him because in recent days, you’ve developed a hunger for him that even now makes your stomach hurt.  

Though the air is warm, you shiver. When you turn around with your arms crossed over your breasts to hide them from sight, you find John wading in the river up to his waist. You’ve seen him like this once before, the hearty body of a man in his prime. Sturdy and strong. The hair on his chest is darker than that on his head, wet too from the dip he must have taken when your back was turned. His hair is slicked back too, a wet hand combing it back. 

“Come on, darlin’,” he calls, beckoning you forward with his hand.

The water is a cold shock when you step in past your ankles. Ice cold tendrils wrap up your legs, sucking the warmth from you. 

You suck in a soft breath when he pulls you into his arms and heaves you up, big hands gripping under your thighs. Your breasts press against the wet skin of his chest, nipples already pebbled. The river is deeper than you assumed; John pulls you deeper in until it pools around your waist and then your chest. Cold enough that you shiver until John dips his head down and the kiss he presses to your lips melts you from the inside out. 

You can’t escape the intimacy of water-slick skin. When John drags you up his chest, your nipples brush over his and the shudder that passes through you is violent, toe-curling. You know that he can feel the heat of your core even underwater. With your legs wound around his waist, every inch of you is plastered to his front. Even your fingers play with the ends of his hair, arms draped over his shoulders. You can’t look away.

“C’mon,” he murmurs, breath hot on your face. “Eyes on me.”

As if you could look anywhere else. 

He reaches down under the water to readjust himself and you gasp when his shaft is suddenly right there, trapped between his belly and your heat. It’s the closest you’ve ever gotten to coitus, his glans nestled between your folds. You’d only have to shift slightly for him to slip right in. The thought makes your breath quicken. 

He doesn’t make a move to take you though, even knowing that he could. How easy it would be. How it’s due to him. Your husband that’s waited a fortnight to take you as his own. John kisses you until each slick pass of his lips grows sloppier, clumsier—his lips barely parting from yours before they’re on you again, rendering you a creature of base needs. 

But his hands don’t shift from your backside where he holds you in place. His fingers dig into the flesh hard enough to bruise, but they don’t move to part your folds to make room for his manhood. You expect him to—practically yearn for it and squeeze him around the neck all the harder when he subverts your expectations, doing no more than letting you grind your heat against the base of his shaft. 

“John—John, please,” you beg, mindless for what. You don’t know what you’re asking for. 

“What d’ya need, darlin’?” he asks into your mouth, stealing your answer with another kiss. 

You fall under the swell of another wave. When the root of his cock glides over your clit, your core clenches on nothing, a sob half-bitten off in your mouth, ripped from your chest. 

It doesn’t matter how close to him you get—he gives you nothing. The heat could very well burn you from the inside out. Cold water caresses your skin as it flows past, but the center of you runs so hot that you hardly notice it. 

When he hikes you higher up against his chest, you clench your fingers in his hair, whining when he takes your nipple into his mouth. Your gasp comes out sharp and hurt when the coarse bristles of his beard rub rough against your breast. He sucks at your breast tender at first, gentle, eyes half-lidded like his mind has gone somewhere else, but there’s a glint in his eye that grows wild and dark, that turns him rough. You don’t know what to do except shake and let him use you how he wants. 

Desperation nips at your heels, urging you up the length of him. If you had more nerve, you’d reach down and grasp him under the water, notch the head of his member against your sex and sink right down on him. You need him like you've never needed anything before. Every part of you aflame, searing hot under the sun at its highest point; right overhead, right on top of you. 

His teeth sink delicately into your areola, tongue lapping over your nipple to soothe the hurt, and suddenly, you break.

“Please—” you gasp, wrenching his mouth away from your breast and whimpering when he resists at first, glaring up at you like he might bite. “Please, John—I can’t take it. I need you.”

His eyes darken, the pupil swallowing everything up. “Need me where, wife? Here?”

A hand dips between your thighs, pointer finger gliding over your sex, plump with blood. So tender that your mouth hangs open on a whine when he touches you. 

“Y-yes,” you whimper, gaze swimming. 

John’s breath comes out in a harsh, ragged pant. Completely undone in a way you’ve never seen before. “Get out, darlin’. I’m taking you home. Gonna give you what you need.”