#but for now it looks Ambiguously Twenty-Five

[roosterr]

white flag ✹ ch 2

note: thank you all again for the support on this series im seriously so grateful <3 not sure how to feel abt this part but pls enjoy anyway <3

pairing: ghost x gn!reader

wc: 3.0k

no use of y/n readers callsign is 'stingray'

summary: the gang goes out to the pub, and against your better judgement you decide to tag along. you end up having far too much to drink and ghost has no choice but to look after you.

warnings: ghost is less mean (but it's still ghost), the usual angst, hurt/comfort, arguing, some ambiguous drunken confessions, mentions of throwing up but i kinda skipped over it

ao3

【prev】 || 【next】

the relentless buzzing of your phone next to your head wakes you from your slumber. you groan, squinting at the screen to see soap's name on the caller id. you answer and lift the phone up to your ear, rubbing your eyes with the other hand as you pull yourself up to sit.

"hey! where are you?" soap's voice is almost deafening in your ear as soon as you pick up, you have to hold the phone away from you to save your hearing. "y'are still comin', right?" the faint noise of a crowd can be heard in the background, reminding you of what soap's question means.

you check the clock on your phone and wince at the time; it was almost nine, and you were supposed to meet them at the pub at eight.

"ugh," you clear your throat, your voice croaking from having just woken up, "yeah– yeah, i'm coming. just gimme, like, fifteen minutes."

"awright, l.t. said you was still asleep," soap chuckles, clearly amused by your sleep-addled state. you sit up and throw the blankets off your legs, swinging them over the side of the thin mattress and beginning the search for some clean clothes.

you hadn't gotten out of bed all day, opting to stay in your comfy pyjamas and barely leaving the living room except to briefly eat and use the bathroom. after the the disaster that was yesterday, you felt you deserved to have a lazy day for once.

"oh, so he already left without me? why am i not surprised?" you grumble, balancing your phone between your cheek and your shoulder as you pull on some trousers.

"he said he didn't wanna wake you!" soap is half laughing as he replies. you have to hold back your scoff as you put him on speaker and drop the phone onto the coffee table as you quickly put your shirt on.

"yeah, okay." your voice is dripping with sarcasm, and you can't help but roll your eyes, even though he can't see it, "i'll be there, hanging up now, buh-bye."

you just about hear his muffled 'bye!' before you press the red button and shove your phone into your pocket. 

you really didn't feel like being social right now, but maybe being around your friends and letting go is what you need right now. you could just ignore ghost – it's not like it'd be hard, you were fully expecting him to completely avoid you all night. knowing him, he'd probably make you walk home by yourself again.

the walk to the pub is uneventful, thankfully dry, and it takes you twenty minutes instead of fifteen. you feel a little bad for making them wait, but they've been there over an hour already, an extra five wouldn't hurt.

the noise of the crowd hits you as soon as you walk into the old building, and you hope it isn't noticeable the way you frown at the sight of how packed it was. you were feeling even less like socialising now that you were actually here, but it was too late to turn back now. your eyes scan the room, searching for your teammates in the sea of people. you spot a familiar mohawk fairly quickly, and begin pushing your way through the crowd to the booth he and gaz are occupying.

you glance towards the bar and price and ghost both there, too locked in conversation to notice your arrival. you'd have to find price later to say hello.

"sting, you made it!" soap's cheery voice brings you back to the present. he pats your shoulder as you slump into the seat next to him, and gaz slides your usual order across the table to you.

"ordered for you a minute ago." gaz smiles, leaning forward on his elbows, "figured you could use it."

"you're legend, gaz, honestly." you chuckle in response, taking a drawn out sip and relaxing in your seat. as much as you would rather still be in bed right now, you couldn't deny you needed it.

"you okay? you look a bit worse for wear." gaz asks, his gaze turning serious as he takes in your exhaustion.

did you? you hadn't actually looked at your reflection before you left the house, you simply hoped that you didn't look too dishevelled and didn't think twice about it. you suppose the bags under your eyes must be quite heavy after the nosedive your life seems to have taken lately.

"charming, thanks for that." you mutter, teasingly raising your brows at him as you take another sip of your drink.

"sorry, sorry," he and soap both laugh, before he regards you with a more concerned look, "but seriously, you doin' alright?"

"i'm fine, just tired, you know how it is." you dismiss his question with a wave of your hand, hoping he'll drop the subject and you can get started on forgetting about the events of this week. "sorry for being late, by the way."

"make it up to us with another round?" soap wiggles an eyebrow at you, tilting his empty glass at you and nudging your arm. 

"since you asked so nicely," you say with a lighthearted roll of your eyes. they both give you a triumphant 'thanks!' as you slide out of the booth and begin making your way through the crowds of people to the bar.

as you approach, you see ghost standing by himself at the bar, a black surgical mask cover the lower half of his face, and before you can stop yourself your legs are already leading you to the empty spot next to him. as usual he doesn't acknowledge you, but you can't find it in yourself to care through the buzz of the alcohol in your system.

you flag down the bartender and order the drinks for the three of you while adamantly trying to ignore the large presence next to you; you'd barely started on your first drink, but you were going to need more than that to get through this, especially if you and ghost were going to be dancing around each other all night.

the next couple of hours are filled with you downing drink after drink, steadily becoming less and less intelligible as the night progresses. at some point gaz excused himself to go chat with price at the bar, leaving just you and soap at the table. though you couldn't see ghost when you looked over, you had no doubt he was lurking in some shadowy corner somewhere, just watching.

"he's just so…" you wave your hands around, willing johnny to somehow understand your point as the words escape you, "...y'know?"

"do i know?" he laughs, obviously very amused by your drunken state.

"mean! he's rude and uncooperative, and it pisses me off." you groan, pressing your fingers into your temples. venting to someone about ghost was somewhat cathartic for you, even if that someone was his closest friend.

"aye, that's not how you really feel though, is it?" soap raises his brow, that insufferably teasing smirk on his lips as he gives you a light nudge.

"wha–" you gawk, freezing in the motion of downing your drink – you'd lost count of how many you'd had at this point. you narrow your eyes and glare at him, "garrick… he grassed didn't he?"

"you think i needed him to tell me?" soap laughs again, and you feel your cheeks heat up at the thought that you were really that obvious. "but seriously, you should talk to him."

"i should, right? i mean… we live together, it's not unreasonable to ask him to be civil."

"exactly!" he exclaims, making encouraging gestures at you with his hands. "maybe you two can get a bit more than civil," he grins mischievously and wiggles his eyebrows at you, earning an embarrassed groan from you.

"oh, shut up soap." you hiss, gulping down the rest of your drink in one go. "i'm not drunk enough for this…"

after that conversation, your concept of time truly left the building, along with any reservations you had about moderation. eventually you do find time to say hi to price, though you think he was probably laughing at how out of your mind you were rather than the hilarious joke you told him.

you're not sure what time it is when gaz, soap, and the captain track you down to say goodnight, leaving the pub with much more coherency than you when ghost drags you out with him.

the freezing temperature hits you as soon as you step over the threshold, but thankfully there's more than enough alcohol in you to keep you warm.

you started the night fully intending to give ghost the cold shoulder, but that was hours and however many drinks ago; now you were long past the fun part of being wasted and the depressive nature of it all was hitting you hard.

"i wish you– you didn't hate me…" you mutter, dragging your feet as you follow behind ghost. he's not walking as quickly as he did yesterday, but even in your inebriated state you can tell he's making sure to stay ahead of you.

"i don't." he replies dismissively, evoking an exasperated, albeit rather dramatic sigh from you. of course he was going to argue about it, owning up and apologising would be far too mature.

"y–" you hiccup, "yeah you do," frustration lacing your voice. you slow your pace until you completely stop walking, staring at the back of his head with narrowed eyes.

"i don't hate you, sting." he sighs, half turning his body to look at you. "come on, keep walkin'." he gestures with his head.

"ugh…" you groan, but comply and stumble forward catch up to him again "then why're you such a fuckin' prick all the time?" you glare at the side of his masked face now that you're walking next to him.

he says nothing, doesn't even look at you. if you didn't know any better, you would doubt he even heard your question.

"i don't hate you, y'know…" you mumble,  crossing your arms over your chest. "even though you're so– so horrible to me all the time." the urge to cry overwhelms you, your eyes falling to your boots as you shuffle along.

"i'm n–"

"you are!" you interrupt, throwing your arms out to the side and stopping in your tracks again. "every day you say shit to me, i don't– i don't get it! i don't know what to do…" you sniffle, dragging a hand over your face and taking a wobbly step backwards, away from ghost. "why can't you just be nice? like everyone else?"

the night air is cold, and so tense you can almost feel it. ghost's hands curl into tight fists by his sides as he stares you down. 

"i'm your lieutenant, sting, not your mate." he states it like a common fact as he reaches an arm out to you, stepping towards you. "you're drunk, come here."

you don't let him get close, however, and take another few steps backwards. "but you're friends with soap, and gaz, and even the captain!" your eyes well up with tears, and despite your best efforts to stop them, you feel the hot sting of them rolling down your cheeks. "what did i do wrong? why can't you like me too?"

again, he does nothing but stare at you. he blinks once, then twice, in what you might call shock – if you could see his face through the way the world spins around you.

"i like you!" you cry. "i always have, and you– you don't have to like me back, but please," you close your eyes in an attempt to alleviate your sudden dizziness, "just stop being such a dickhead to me! you make my life so difficult, and– and miserable!"

"sting…" ghost mutters, watching as you crouch down on the pavement with your head in your hands. he steps closer again, reaching a hand out to awkwardly pat your shoulder. "is that why you got yourself hammered tonight?"

"yes!" you whine through your tears, your head still swimming and causing you to sway slightly. "like you care!"

"listen," he begins, but you quickly cut him off by lurching forward onto your hands and knees on the harsh pavement.

"i'm gonna throw up–"

✹✹✹

"i'm sorry," you blubber, feeling rather pathetic where you're slumped next to the toilet, "please don't kick me out," tears still fall into your lap, but you gave up wiping them away a while ago.

"what?" ghost mutters from next to you. his calloused hands were keeping you upright from where he's crouched beside you on the bathroom tile. "why the fuck would i kick you out?"

"be– because i'm annoying, a– and you hate me…"

he sighs, "do you really think that lowly of me? how many times have i gotta say it before it gets through your thick skull?" he gently raps his knuckles against your forehead, "i. don't. hate you."

when you only sniffle in response, he sighs again before shifting to sit with his back against the bath next to you.

"well you could've fooled me…" you mutter, letting yourself lean against his side when the effort of keeping yourself up gets too much. you feel him flinch slightly and tense underneath you, but he doesn't move.

"i'm not good with…" he pinches the bridge of his nose, his head tilted downwards and his eyes squeezed shut. "i'm not kickin' you out, alright? no matter how much you piss me off." he pauses, and all you can do is watch him with your mouth slightly agape; this is the most he's ever said to you in one go since you met all those months ago. "and i shouldn't have run off last night. i just… i didn't realise you actually wanted to be friends… with me."

"bu…" your voice trails off, train of thought completely abandoned when he looks over and meets your gaze with his rich brown eyes.

"you're… you– i, er…" his eyes dart away from yours, finding a spot on the wall behind you to stare intently at. a sudden wave of exhaustion floods your senses, dropping your head onto his shoulder and allowing your eyes to fall closed, interrupting whatever thought he was trying to articulate. "fuckin' hell, alright… you're drunk, let's just get you to bed, eh?" his voice is just about audible as he manoeuvres your arm over his shoulders and lifts you to stand with practically no input from you.

he all but drags you out of the bathroom, and if you had any shred of coherency left within you you'd be mortified that he had to take care of you like this, but that's something for you to deal with in the morning.

you're pulled into the the living room where ghost drops you rather unceremoniously onto the sofa-bed, tugging the blankets from underneath you and settling them on top of your already half asleep form.

"night ghosty…" your sigh is muffled with your face buried into the pillow, but he pauses in the doorway when he hears it.

"goodnight, sting." he mumbles, before quietly shutting the door and letting you drift to sleep.

you wake up the next morning – or rather afternoon, since it was already one o'clock – with an absolutely splitting headache. it was expected, obviously, but it didn't stop you whining in pain as you sat up and clutched your head. how much did you end up drinking last night?

last night. right. it was all coming back to you now. you'd cried at ghost again, for the second night running, and even though he said he wasn't kicking you out, you would seriously prefer living on the streets to facing him right now.

you reluctantly emerge from the living room and squint at the bright daylight, groaning pitifully when your head pulses. maybe you should save yourself the trouble and just go back to sleep.

"so, you survived the night." ghost's voice calls from the kitchen, sounding incredibly unimpressed. you cringe at his words, naively hoping that he'd pretend the night before didn't happen like you so desperately wanted to.

"did i?" you grumble, walking through the doorway to find him sitting at the kitchen table, clad in his usual balaclava. you lean against the counter and massage your temples, "feel like i've been shot…"

"maybe you'll keep your head on straight next time. i don't want a repeat of that."

you purse your lips. "right…" you mutter, no energy left in you to come up with a retort.

"i had to drag you home, cryin' your eyes out." he gets up as he speaks, grabbing his cup and skirting around you to place it in the sink. he keeps his distance, but you see him watching you from the corner of your eye. "anyone would'a thought i was kidnappin' you."

"oh god…" you bury your face in your hands, your face heating up with the humiliation of the memory, "i'm sorry,"

"s'alright." he mumbles, still opting to gaze out of the window rather than meet your eyes. you blink in surprise at his short dismissal, but before you can formulate a response, he speaks again. "have a shower, sting. you stink."

you open your mouth to argue, but quickly forget about that idea. he was right, of course. without another word, you scurry out of the kitchen and lock yourself in the bathroom. you drag your hand over your face, willing the floor to just swallow you whole already.

you might as well have just died in your sleep, because you can't see ghost letting you live any of this down for as long as you live; though, as you stand there contemplating fleeing the country, you notice that he hadn't been nearly as pissed as you'd expected him to be this morning. you'd anticipated him grilling you about how careless you'd been and how irresponsible it was to drink that much, but the light teasing you'd endured just now felt more like the kind of banter you witnessed between him and soap, or gaz.

you can't help the giddy smile that overtakes you, your killer hangover nearly forgotten in favour of the thought of him finally letting you get close to him.

taglist: @sofasoap , @siilvan , @mockerycrow , @i-love-ghost , @projectdreamwalker , @achelois-is-here , @adamsloverboy , @thatchickwiththecamera , @chickensandwich69 , @batmanunicorns523 , @tiny-kasper , @dezibou , @pampeop , @cumbermovels , @goth-boi-atlas , @berryjuicyy , @guiltgoreglory , @postmodernrevolutionist , @ghostlythots , @untoldshortsofthefandoms , @isseisslvt , @prodyng , @neteyamsb1tch , @delilah-grimes , @sunflowerqueen1416 , @luvssemma , @ghostslittlegf , @imonmykneessir , @dimitriene , @kenz-ee , @eistro-phobia , @rzmarona , @alanalanalanalanalanna , @dommmymommy , @carolelacroix , @1234ilikecowsthanyoumore , @cathnoneofyourbusiness , @madsothree , @geisterfvhrer , @lazyninjaphilosopher , @aliilium , @koi-feish , @chaoticgoblindev

if your name is crossed out, i can't tag you for whatever reason, sorry!

[deakyjoe]

Stormy Skies

Pairing: Din Djarin x Reader (no pronouns used I think)

Category: friends to lovers

Summary: Din breaks you out of an Imperial prison (loosely based on chapter 15).

Warnings: angst, fluff, touched-starved Din, helmet is off, prison, nasty guards, restraints, bad men, talks of death, separation, loose implication of what bad men can do, pet names (cyar’ika), canon-divergence (I guess??), when I say loosely based I mean very loosely based

Word count: 5.5k

A/N: Sad, brown-eyed, pathetic love of my life. (He's not pathetic but I’ll make him pathetic.) Din is slightly out of character but only because he's head over heels in love and feeling all soft and squishy inside about it. He's also a little insecure. Poor guy. It's purposefully ambiguous about how long reader has been imprisoned, so guess however long you'd like.

Consider buying me a coffee :)

It took three weeks, four days, sixteen hours and twenty two minutes before you realised that the inside of this Imperial prison would be the only thing you saw for the foreseeable future. The three walls and one row of bars now being your home. After that you resigned yourself to the idea that you'd be there forever so you stopped counting the days, the weeks, the... months? You didn't know how long you'd been there and you didn't want to know how long either.

All you knew is that you wanted to leave. Not because you were scared of death or scared of never seeing the outside world again. But because you missed two very important people in your life. The big, scary Mandalorian who had hired you just under a year ago as his mechanic and his strange green son who had weird superpowers who you sometimes babysat. The both of them meant the world to you and the idea of never seeing them again hurt you. You feared for the child's life as he had also been taken at the same time as you but had been imprisoned elsewhere, probably to be experimented on. And you feared for the state of your Mandalorian who would be lost without his kid.

"Food."

The announcement made your stomach lurch as it knocked you out of your thoughts. A small plate, with a pile of something in the middle, was pushed into your cell - probably the most unappealing thing in the galaxy but your only source of nutrition. Your mind strayed to nicer things as you desperately tried to ignore the revolting taste.

You thought of days spent in the Razor Crest, your Mandalorian's ship, as the three of you travelled from planet to planet in order for bounties to be collected. The memories of attempting to teach the child to speak some words in Basic but only getting baby babbling in response, it didn't matter as his eyes always shone as if he knew what you were saying to him.

You ached for your clan of three to be reunited, but realistically you knew that was unlikely. If anything, you just wanted Grogu to be safe. Back with Din and safe. And there was no place safer for him than under the care of Din Djarin.

A guard walking into your cell had you scrambling back against the wall as he took your plate from you and laughed, slightly muffled by his helmet. He kicked at the chain bound around your feet and walked out again, locking the bars behind him.

He was your least favourite of everyone who served in your section of the prison. He didn't seem to like you very much, and wasn't afraid to show it. You feared that one day he'd use the power he had over you to do something awful. So, for now, you tried to play as nice as possible with him.

The sound of low chattering caught your attention, the unmistakable noise of Stormtrooper armour bashing against itself making its way down the corridor. Plastic against plastic made an unbearable racket. You looked up to peek through the bars of your cell and crawled towards the sound, hoping that they weren't coming for you. If you could guess from the sound of them alone, you'd say there were about three or four of them. Definitely more than two and probably less than five.

Your assumption was proven correct when three Troopers turned the corner at the end of the hallway. One was clearly in charge, leading the other two. You thought his name was... you didn't know actually. And you didn't care either. But he was their superior. But the other two... They were low ranking officers, obvious by their uniform and the way they looked around as if they'd never seen the inside of a prison before. Maybe it was their first day on the job? Boy, were they in for a surprise.

The bald one seemed vaguely familiar, although he looked like pretty much any other guy in the galaxy so you didn't dwell on it too much. The other one, however, held no resemblance to anyone you'd ever seen before. He had sad eyes.  That was the first thing you noticed about him. Sad, brown eyes. Along with a strong nose that matched his face. Golden skin. And messy hair along with unkempt facial hair. Very un-Trooperish. You wondered how he managed to get away with it. He was rather beautiful to look at. You pushed the thought away with a reminder of what he was - Empire.

As they got closer, you began to overhear their conversation. They were talking about some battle that had been fought a while ago, lots of soldiers lost. Baldy appeared mildly upset as he disclosed that some of his friends had died. Brown eyes wasn't listening and clearly searching for something. And he seemed to find it when his eyes landed on you.

He paused for the smallest fraction of a second before he carried on walking with the other two. He stared at you but you didn't back down, staring right back through the cell bars. You wouldn't let a Trooper intimidate you, especially not a new one. A sense of achievement hit you when he finally looked away, swallowing thickly and averting his gaze as far away from you as possible. He nudged the bald guy next to him with his elbow and tilted his head in your direction.

What the fuck did these guys want with you? You shivered at the thought, a million horrifying ideas running through your brain. You relaxed slightly when they disappeared around the next corner.

The rest of the day passed slowly, as they all did, and soon enough the lights were going out and all prisoners were warned to stay silent for the next few hours. You shifted to get your body in the most comfortable position possible, pretty difficult when you had chains restraining your limbs, and laid down, resting your head in the crook of your elbow.

You drifted off easily, the low drone of the power running through the walls and the floor lulling you to sleep. With nothing to do all day, zero access to natural light and limited portions of food you were tired all of the time. And the little energy you had was reserved for keeping your defences up when guards entered your cell on rare occasions.

Your dreams were full of Din and Grogu, as usual, and you often wondered during your conscious moments whether your brain was reminding you of happy moments to keep you sane or telling you what you'd had and what you'd lost as a way of punishing you.

What you didn't expect was to be awoken a short time later by your cell door being unlocked, the clanging of the metal shocking you out of your dreams. You sat up instantly, freezing when two looming figures walked in, whispering to each other in hushed tones.

The two Troopers from earlier.

You felt sick.

They were both wearing their helmets now and their heads snapped towards you when your chain scraped across the floor painfully. The broader one, who seemed to be leading the team of two, stalked towards you slowly.

"No, no, no, no!" You kicked at him as he went for your ankles trying, and failing, to fight him off. The breath spilling from your lungs was panicked as you failed to notice the other guy groaning and sticking his arms out to tell you to be quiet.

Your name came through the Trooper helmet in a familiar, reassuring voice. It was Din. Your Mandalorian. You'd never felt such a sense of relief race through your body as you relaxed underneath his touch.

"Mando?" You avoided using his real name around other people, as you'd agreed when he first told you. It was a small price for such a wonderful gift. His name. "You're here. You came for me?"

"Yes." He fumbled with your restraints, managing to get the ones off your ankles and moving to the ones on your wrists.

You looked at the other guy who had slipped his helmet off at some point. The bald guy. "Hang on. I saw you earlier. You walked through here with that guy in charge and-" Your eyes snapped back to Din. "That was you."

He was looking at you through the helmet, you could tell. "Come on, we don't have much time."

"B-but... you... your face." Your voice was weak, mind scrambling back to the memory of him. Brown eyes. Sad eyes. Messy hair. Unkempt facial hair. Strong nose. Golden skin. Beautiful.

He faltered. "I know. I did what had to be done."

"You broke your creed." You were almost crying. "To save me."

Hesitation. "Yes, of course. Come on."

The shackles finally fell from your wrists and you launched yourself at him, embracing him even if you were in a life or death situation.

"Thank you."

He seemed uncertain at the gesture as his arms slowly wrapped around your waist. "You don't have to thank me."

You pulled away quickly, not wanting to push it and make him uncomfortable. "Yes, I do." Looking back at the bald guy as you stood up, you squinted at him. "You're familiar."

"Mayfeld." He had a smirk on his face as he watched the interaction between you and Din, sticking out his hand in greeting but you ignored it. "You're welcome for this, by the way. I'm the main reason we're here right now saving you."

His name reminded you of who he was, a scowl settling over your face. "I appreciate it. But we're not out yet. They have people guarding everywhere. And I mean everywhere."

"It won't be a problem." Din's voice was low as he straightened up.

"How do you know so much about this place, hm?" Mayfeld asked you, stepping slightly closer.

"I may have attempted an escape... once or twice." You shrugged and kicked your restraints away from your feet. "That's why I was chained to the wall."

The two men were silent as they stared at you, Mayfeld looking surprised and Din's gaze burning into you despite being obscured by the helmet.

"I know their rotation schedules, how long of a gap there is between shift changes and which Troopers like me best so will leave the handcuffs a little looser." You looked between the two of them. "What? I had time to plan."

"And what have we got now?" Din questioned, glancing back at the open bars. "Anything scheduled to happen?"

You thought it over for a moment, glancing at the clock just outside of your cell. "Shift change in about six minutes. There will be a thirty-three second gap where the doors are unmanned."

"We can work with that." The Mandalorian replied, producing a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket.

A sick feeling settled in your stomach at the sight of them. "Ah, so I'm fake prisoner. Right?"

"In case we come across anyone." Mayfeld explained, a smug grin on his face. "Need to make it believable that we're moving you to a new cell."

With a nod, you looked back up to Din. "Be gentle, okay?"

"Of course, cyar'ika."

You sighed, storing away the nickname to ask about it later. "Where's Grogu?"

His fists clenched by his sides, the leather of his gloves squeaking. "They still have him."

Bile rose in your throat. "What?"

Why was he here if the child was still missing?

"Maker, why are you here?" You asked him, pushing at his shoulder. "You need to save him!"

"I'm here to save you." He was already bored with you again, you could tell by the lack of emotion in his voice. Maybe he was regretting saving you.

"I could have waited! Grogu's a baby!" You cried, worry settling in your stomach at the thought of your poor, poor Grogu possibly being tortured and experimented on whilst you were swooning over Din rescuing you.

"They had information on the kid's location here as well." The Mandalorian offered.

That made more sense. "Ah, so it wasn't just to save me."

"I would've come for you even if they had nothing on him." He sounded annoyed now, frustrated at your questioning.

"Grogu's priority." You turned to Mayfeld. "Why did you let him come here when the child is still missing?"

His hands raised in surrender. "Hey! Don't turn this on me!"

"Be more grateful." Din stated as he walked towards you and turned you around, pulling your hands behind your back to secure them in place with the cuffs. "I could have left you here forever."

You didn't want to admit out loud that what he had just suggested was your worst fear and something you truly believed until he'd showed up. A part of you thought you'd be there for the rest of your life. But you couldn't tell him that. So you offered a weak joke.

"You know what they say... third time's the charm. I'm sure my next attempt at an escape would have worked." The cuffs clicked into place and you tried not to focus on the feeling of being restrained again. You'd spent too long like this, and here you were about to escape and you were back in the same position. It was almost funny.

Din could sense your unease and placed a gloved hand on the small of your back in reassurance.

"Let's go." Mayfeld chimed and marched out of the cell in front of the two of you.

You swallowed the lump in your throat and followed behind, Din's hands locked around yours to make sure the restraints didn't pull too harshly. Weaving in and out of corridors was dangerous, especially with the guards constantly patrolling. Unfortunately, it didn't take long before you bumped into a couple of them.

"Halt!" They shouted, raising their weapons to the three of you. "What are you doing with prisoner five six one?"

There was probably too long of a pause between the question and the answer that was finally given, setting off the initial seed of suspicion.

Mayfeld stepped in with his sly smile. "We were instructed to move the prisoner to a new cell."

The two guards bowed their heads together, mumbling a quick debate. Your hands twitched with nerves behind your back and you felt the Mandalorian trace a thumb over them in comfort. It somewhat worked.

"We'll need you to come with us to confirm." One of them said, straightening up and re-aiming his blaster right at you.

"I'm sorry, cyar'ika." Din grumbled with a sigh behind you before there was a slight squeeze on the side of your neck and you were out.

When you awoke you were surrounded by the sounds of a humming engine and the whirring of the inside of a ship. You jolted up and almost hit your head on the top of the bunk you'd been placed in.

Wait. A bunk?

You looked around you rapidly to suddenly realise that you weren’t just in any bed. You were in Din’s bed. On the Razor Crest.

You jumped out of it and stumbled once you landed on your feet, leaning on the wall for support.

“Woah, woah! Slow down, take it easy.” A modulated voice appeared behind you as strong arms wrapped around your torso to keep you steady.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” You slurred, still slightly groggy from being unconscious. “How long was I out?”

“A few hours.” Din replied, letting you turn to look at him. He was back in his Beskar armour, looking as shiny as ever. The sight of him made you smile.

“You knocked me out!” You cried but there wasn’t an ounce of real anguish in your voice. In fact, it was rather playful.

He didn’t seem to pick up on that. “It was necessary.”

You waved your hand at him, showing you weren’t really bothered by that. So you approached the subject you were really affected by. “You saved me.”

“Yes.” His voice was a gentle rasp as he spoke the singular word. He was never much of a talker. But you hung on to every word.

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?”

“You removed your helmet to save me.” You frowned at him, like you were annoyed at him for breaking his creed.

Another rasp. “Yes.”

“But-“

“But what?”

You laughed like it was obvious. "I don't understand why. I'm just me."

"And it's just a creed."

Your head reared back. "Just a creed?"

"Just you?" He answered back, imitating your tone and inflection.

"That's- Din, it's your life. Being a Mandalorian is everything to you.” You cried, hands waving in emphasis. “Why would you risk that? For me?"

His head tilted to the side in his usual expression of emotion. Or lack of. "This is the Way."

"No.” You snapped. “The Way is not showing your face under any circumstances. And you- you showed your face!"

"To save you."

"Yes!"

The helmet tilted even further. "What part do you not understand?"

"I'm not worth it." You said, hands wringing together in front of you. And you truly believed what you were saying.

"What?"

"Why would you do that for me?"

"I'd do anything for you."

Your mouth snapped shut, the protest you had prepared dying in your throat.

"You and the kid. I'd tear apart this galaxy for the both of you. You're... you're part of my clan."

A part of you wished he'd left you in that prison. If he'd done that then your head wouldn't be spinning and you wouldn't be overwhelmed with emotions at what he was throwing at you in that moment. His clan. You were a member of his clan.

"Din..."

His name was soft from your lips and he sighed slowly at the sound.

"The only way to explain is-" He cut himself off and inhaled, taking a step closer to you. Placing his hand under your chin, he tilted your head up to face him and lowered his helmet so your foreheads rested together. The cold of his armour sent shivers down your spine. Although it might have also been caused by the action of what he was doing, what he was saying.

Din had explained this to you before when you'd asked about affection between the people of Mandalore. It was a way for Mandalorians to kiss without having to show their faces. It was... intimate, to say the least.

Your eyes fluttered shut when the reality of what he was telling you dawned. "Din..."

Another soft whisper of his name had him sighing again.

Unfortunately, he took it the wrong way and pulled back. "You don't have to- The kid and you are important to me. That's... that's what you need to know. About why- why I did this."

You shook your head and smiled at him, hooking your hand around the back of his neck and tugging him down towards you again so your foreheads touched. "And I was willing to die in that prison to keep you and the child safe."

"They... they were planning to kill you?"

"I kept refusing to teach them how to get the kid to use his wizard baby powers. And I wouldn't tell them where you were either. Or how to contact you."

"What did they need me for?"

"See you as a threat. Or to use me as bait. I'm not sure which. Maybe both."

"It would've worked. You as bait. If I didn't already know where you were, of course."

"Of course." You grinned at him and hoped he was smiling back. You tended to guess what his facial expressions were, normally hoping that he was returning whatever you gave him but usually settling on the fact that he was probably bored and his face would show it. "I missed you."

"I missed you too, cyar'ika."

Your stomach flipped at the Mando'a. "What does that mean?"

"It's Mando'a."

"I guessed that. I'm asking for a translation." You rolled your eyes, finally pulling back from the Mandalorian kiss to look at him properly again. "I hope it's something nice."

You could tell he was smiling when he said his next words. They were hesitant, but tender. "It means darling or sweetheart. A term of endearment."

"Oh... that's- that is nice." Mentally berating yourself, you bit on your lower lip to hold back an excited giggle. Nice? There were so many words that were better than nice. "I don't have anything like that where I'm from. If I did I'd-"

He cut you off with a hand cupping your cheek. "I know, cyar'ika. I know."

There was a moment of silence as the two of you just looked at each other. It was broken when Din sighed suddenly and dropped his hand from your cheek.

"I never wanted you to see my face that way."

Oh.

"Din, I-" You cut yourself off to contemplate your words. "I'm sorry that you had to reveal your face. And that I saw. If I'd known... I wouldn't have stared at you."

"No, I didn't mean it like that." He exhaled loudly. "Do you remember? What I look like?"

The memory of his face flashed in your mind. Of course you remembered. Every single detail. And you'd probably secretly treasure it for the rest of your life.

"Yes..."

His head dropped for a second, helmet aimed at the floor, before it suddenly shot back up to meet your gaze. "And?"

"And what?" Having no idea what he was asking of you, your brows scrunched together.

He was so close now that you were sure you'd be able to hear his breathing even without the modulator. "Was I- was I a disappointment?"

"What?" Disbelief ran through you. How could this wonderful, gorgeous man ever be a disappointment? With or without the helmet obscuring his face he had always been and would always be perfect to you.

"Well, you must have had some... some image of what I'd look like in your head."

You immediately disagreed with him. "No, never."

"Don't lie. It's okay. You can tell me."

"I'm not lying. And I am telling you."

"Cyar'ika..."

Your heart did somersaults in your chest. "No, I never conjured up some fantasy of what you'd look like. Because this here-" You gestured at the whole of him, hand waving up and down his body. "-is my Din. This is you to me. Why would I ever warp who you truly are for some made up version?"

"You must've been curious."

You shrugged. "Maybe at the beginning. But who you are on the inside is all that has ever mattered to me."

"So what did you think when you saw my face?"

Your eyes snapped away from his on instinct, embarrassment crawling through you as you recalled your immediate thoughts of him. Thoughts you'd pushed away at the time because you thought he was a Trooper. Thoughts that had resurfaced when you found out that it was really him.

"Oh, no thoughts." Your voice was weak, barely coming out as more than a squeak. It was clear you were lying. "Just that you were a man..."

"Cyar'ika..."

A flush racked through you at the use of the term of endearment. He knew how to make you weak in the knees, how to make you break, you were sure of it.

"Calling me that isn't fair."

"Don't avoid the question." His head tilted to the side. "Tell me. What did you think?"

Unsure at how he'd turned from insecure, sweet Din to a version of Din that had you swooning, you shook your head at him. "I told you. No thoughts."

"And I can tell you're lying. Look at me." He placed his fingers under your chin to angle you to face him. "Tell me."

You started with a small truth. "Your eyes were sadder than I thought they'd be."

He seemed slightly taken aback by that but didn't hesitate too much in answering. "I was scared I'd lost you."

"But I thought you said you didn't know they were planning on killing me?"

"It was always a possibility." He shrugged. "We were getting towards the end of the cells when I saw you. I was... getting nervous. Thought maybe they'd transferred you somewhere else and I'd never find you. Couldn't live with that idea."

If it were possible, you softened even more under his touch. "But you did find me. And I'm here. Safe. Because of you."

"Hmm." He just hummed in agreement, shifting his hand so it moved to cup your jaw instead. "What else?"

You huffed, hoping you'd got out of the line of questioning about your opinions on his appearance. Whilst having openly admitted a whole spout of feelings for each other, you weren't quite ready to declare how absolutely breathtaking he was.

"Don't make me say it."

"Say what, cyar'ika? Hm? I'm just asking."

You leaned into his touch, the warmth from his palm along with the sound of the Mando'a pet name set off a spark within you. When his gloved thumb swooped over your cheek gently you were sure that your brain short circuited.

"You're beautiful, Din."

The statement was breathless but held certainty in it. The Mandalorian didn't reply, too shocked by your confession. He honestly hadn't been expecting you to be so open. And to say that of all things.

So you kept going. "It was never going to matter to me what you looked like underneath the Beskar. Because who you are as a person is the only important thing. But I have to admit that I thought you were gorgeous when you walked past my cell. And then I immediately felt guilty because I thought you were a Trooper." Your head dipped in shame for a moment. "You are beautiful, Din Djarin. Inside and out."

He still said nothing, hands just lifting to the bottom of his helmet.

When you heard the hiss of the seal, your hands slapped across your eyes. "Ah! What are you doing?"

"Taking off my helmet. What are you doing?" He sounded amused.

"Covering my eyes so I don't see obviously." You scoffed and scrunched your eyes beneath your palms.

"Cyar'ika, you've already seen my face."

"So? I might have remembered details wrong."

"Thought you said I was beautiful?"

You huffed, not liking how he was turning that against you. "I did but revealing your identity is a big no-no, Din! That's what the Way says, right?"

"Right." He was holding back laughter.

"Exactly! Doesn't matter if I've seen you before. Might not remember you completely correctly." You remembered him completely correctly. "So we cannot risk you revealing yourself a whole other time."

The way you were so respectful of his creed, no matter how ridiculous you were being at that moment with your hands pressed tightly over your eyes, had Din tingling inside.

"I don't think it's a risk if you've seen me before and you're a part of my clan, hm?"

You grumbled something underneath your breath. "I can't argue with you on Mandalorian culture because you're the expert. But I feel as if you're finding loopholes here."

"Perhaps. Just look."

The sound of his helmet hissing and the dull clang of it hitting the floor had you hesitating before slowly peeling your hands away from your face.

He was exactly how you remembered.

Every line, every scar, every eyelash, every inch of skin, the deep brown of his eyes, the angle of his nose, the unruly tufts of curls atop his head and the uneven patches of facial hair peppered across his jaw and down his neck. This was your Din Djarin. Stood in front of you, everything exposed and exactly how you remembered him. Exactly how you wanted him. Perfect. The whole of him was perfect.

With a stifled sigh of relief, you reached out your hands to cup his face, hesitating for a moment when you realised he might hate that. "Can I?"

He nodded, his eyes looking sad yet hopeful - an improvement from the last time you saw them.

Your palms settled on his cheeks, thumbs swiping over his cheeks and across his bristly stubble. A smile broke across your face when his eyelids closed and he leaned in your touch.

"Oh, Din..." Tears sprang to your eyes yet you couldn't exactly explain why, the flood of emotions was overwhelming.

"Cyar'ika..." He breathed against the skin of your wrist, turning slightly in your grasp to plant his lips against your palm.

You took a step closer to him, encouraging him to duck down and rest his forehead against yours. A Mandalorian kiss, stripped of the barrier between the two of you. He let out a shaky sigh as you made contact, his hair tickling your brow.

"When was the last time someone touched you? Skin on skin?" You needed to know, he was acting like he'd never felt the warmth of physical contact before.

He hummed lowly in his chest as he thought about it, eyes shut tight in contemplation. "My parents, I think."

Your heart ached for him. It had been decades. You wanted more, to give him more, but worried that it might be too much too fast. But you yearned to touch him, to show him how good it could be.

Broken out of your thoughts by a rustling noise between the two of you, you glanced down without breaking away from him to see that he was removing his leather gloves and throwing them to the floor beside you.

You stared at his hands, scars littering both the palms and the backs. You'd never wanted someone to touch you with their hands more.

Din appeared to have the same thought as he hovered them over your sides, fists clenching open and closed. "Can I?"

"Can you what, hm?" You wanted- no needed him to say it, to be as clear as possible between you.

"Touch you. Can I touch you please?" His eyes were still closed but you could see he was restless behind his lids, almost worried even.

"Of course you can."

You expected him to just place his hands on your hips or waist, which he did technically. What you didn't expect was for him to slide his hands underneath the hem of your shirt and place them directly onto your skin, squeezing slightly when he made contact.

You hummed contently in acknowledgement to tell him that it was okay and stepped closer to him, your chest pressing up against the Beskar now.

“Can I kiss you?” The question was sudden, hushed, almost unsure.

You didn’t hesitate in tilting your head upwards and reassuring him of how much you wanted exactly that. “I’m so glad you asked.”

Then his lips were on yours, a relieved sigh exiting him and a content one leaving you.

You moved together in time, like you knew how the other worked and what they wanted. And maybe you did. Maybe you knew each so well, or knew that the other wanted the same thing you did. Din’s thumbs stroked gently at the skin of your waist and yours swiped over his cheeks, brushing away a stray tear that had fallen from his eyes. His sad, brown eyes. You hoped they’d be less sad in the future.

He broke away for a moment to mumble against your lips. "I was so scared I'd lost you."

You shook your head and kissed him again. "I thought I'd never see you again."

“I wouldn’t have left you there.” He promised, hands gripping you impossibly tighter. “There isn’t a single thing I wouldn’t have done to get you back.”

You just nodded at him, believing every word he was saying, and pulled him closer to kiss you again. The way his lips melded against yours and the way your tongues curled together had you convinced that this was meant to be. It was so utterly perfect that it felt as if the stars had written it centuries ago, always destined to happen.

“Cyar’ika…” He hummed to you when you both broke away again for some air.

As much as you wanted this moment to last forever, a thought suddenly re-entered your mind. “Grogu!”

“It’s okay. We know where he is and we’re on our way to get him back.” He smiled at your concern for the child, understanding it completely. He felt the same after all.

You nodded gently, relieved that the child would be back and safe soon enough. Then things really would be back to how they should be again. The three of you - you, your Mandalorian and your green child. Perfect.

A/N: this has been under works for agessss… hope you enjoyed!

[star-girl69]

Ultraviolence

Natalie Scatorccio x Fem!Reader

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a/n: the reader is described as having mid-length hair. the reader isn’t a member of the team, in order to keep everything inclusive. hair color, eye color, and weight, etc., is not described and i try my best to make everything as ambiguous as possible.

i apologize in advance if something i write isn't inclusive. we are all humans and we all make mistakes! please feel free to tell me if you have any suggestions as to how i can cater this fic to the most people possible.

comment, send me an ask or a private message if you would like to be added to the taglist!

also available on ao3!

my ao3 is: star_girl69

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Before the plane crash, the wilderness never called to you. You lived in Rhode Island, went to Wiskayok High School, wrote for the school paper. You wanted to do things with your life and make an impact. But when you’re stranded in the woods, and so much suffering and deaths befalls on you- and the way you see life, the way you live it, is changed forever. Before the plane crash, the wilderness never called to you. But now it sings to you, wants you there, while it buries itself inside your soul.

Years after the plane crash, you’ve given up on everything you once held dear. You live quietly in the city, in a small apartment, far away from the wilderness. But the wilderness is in your soul, hidden, and now it’s decided to come out again.

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Ultraviolence

Chapter One - Deadly Nightshade

Chapter Two - Call Me Poison

Chapter Three - Either Way

Chapter Four - We All Fall Asleep

Chapter Five - Give Me a Reason to Love You

Chapter Six - Prayers

Chapter Seven - In the Before

Chapter Eight - Ever Since the Lake

Chapter Nine - It Feels Right

Chapter Ten - She Looks at My Lips

Chapter Eleven - This Hunger Has No End

Chapter Twelve - Amoureuse

Chapter Thirteen - Wild Side

Chapter Fourteen - She Used to Call Me Nightshade

Chapter Fifteen - No Return

Chapter Sixteen - Mad Woman

Chapter Fifteen - Lose the Mask

Chapter Sixteen - Chemtrails

Chapter Seventeen - Doomcoming

Chapter Eighteen - Everything

Chapter Nineteen - The Horses are Coming

Chapter Twenty - A Union That is Happening Again

Chapter Twenty One - Friends & Foes

Chapter Twenty Two - Hard Day’s Night

Chapter Twenty Two - Counterproductive

Chapter Twenty Three - Angel Cake

Chapter Twenty Four - Between

Chapter Twenty Five - Crown of Bones

Chapter Twenty Six - Savior

Chapter Twenty Seven - Looking Over My Shoulder

Chapter Twenty Eight - Empty Life

Chapter Twenty Nine - Visionary

Chapter Thirty - Cult Leader

Chapter Thirty One - Like When We Were Kids

Chapter Thirty Two - Loving Her Was Never Enough

Chapter Thirty Three - It’s You From Whom I Learn (coming soon!)

Chapter Thirty Four - Soccer Girls (coming soon!)

Chapter Thirty Five - Queen of the Bees (coming soon!)

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[blog-name-idk]

The Plot Twist | 01

Summary: Once upon a time you would have jumped at the chance to live the idol girlfriend life. The cameras, the action, the whirlwind romance. But what was once a dream has now become your worst nightmare, and you fully intend to fight the universe as it repeatedly conspires to set you up with your seven perfectly good soulmates from Bangtan Sonyeondan.

In which we punt Y/N into all the fanfiction tropes and you do your feral best to subvert the love story.

Because nani the fuck, you are The Plot Twist.

Pairing: OT7 X Fem!Reader

Genre: Soulmate!AU, crack, humor, idol!AU, light angst, slow burn, romantic comedy, just a fun silly old time

Rating: 18+

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AN: Hello all!

This is a fic that is being co-written by @blog-name-idk and @eserethriddle (who also has their own crack/soulmate subversion AU which is INCREDIBLE and HILARIOUS go read it). The inspiration for this fic was that one meme about the anime protagonist avoiding their fate, and then it became a monster. We are having a great time writing this and we hope you enjoy it as well!

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Chapter 1: "What are soulmates, even?"

A prevailing belief amongst the aging population of overbearing parents is that an unattached woman, of average birth and social standing, professionally situated in one of the high-rise buildings in modern-day Seoul, must be in natural want of three things the very morning she turns twenty-five: an envelope of birthday money, a spa coupon, and a blind date prospect. Society’s elders allege that the advent of the twenty-fifth age prompts the rightful transition of the child-minded miss into a full woman, the barest hints of her girlish whims to be cast aside for her foray into the next, imperative stage of life.

Ha! Whatever the hell that next stage is, you have absolutely no care, no inclination to find out. Altruistic as they pretend to be, those very same elders are possibly bored, amateur matchmakers, or worse: aspiring grandparents.

You have your own priorities. You're living the good, simple life of binge-eating all the snacks you can now afford, buying questionable decorations for your single-bedroom loft, and, with undeniable consistency, sleeping in and gaming at ambiguous hours. Half-baked attempts at health fads and investments in miracle under-eye creams notwithstanding, you're barely halfway through your twenties but already living the dream!

Whatever that happens to you after this point? Unimportant. You have all the time in the world and your inner child to appease.

Heavy footfalls thump across the wooden floor of your bedroom, abruptly pulling you from the safehaven of your subconscious. The shrill, scraping noise of your floor-to-ceiling curtains being pulled open flag your internal alarm, but the matronly scolding that greets your senses, voiced in a too-familiar hometown dialect, subdues it just as quickly as it comes.

Burying your face into your pillow with a weak groan, you resign yourself to the loss of another wonderful morning spent in bed.

You should have known this would happen. As long as this woman breathes you will never know true peace.

“Eomma.” You scowl, throwing your blanket to the side as you sit upright on the bed. “This is exactly why I moved out.”

“Bah! Look at you!” your mother scoffs as she takes in your bedraggled appearance. “I booked you an appointment at The Deluxe and instead you want to waste it?” Busying herself all over the room, bending over and picking up litter – the remains of your night's valiant efforts – she crows, “And all these junk food wrappers on the floor! You pigged out, playing those games all night again!”

Well… yes, there was no denying that. It had taken you until early hours of the dawn (and three much needed, middle-of-the-night, rage-reducing convenience store trips) to reach your current savepoint in-game. Although it seems highly unlikely that your mother would be impressed by your latest feat at Super Mario – Kaizo, because somewhere inside you rests an unlovable, masochistic monster – you still cannot find it in yourself to want to change the way you had spent the previous night given half the chance.

Your mother, bless her old-fashioned heart, is simply predisposed to worry about your dubious gamer-slash-working-girl lifestyle, which, not only being within her rights, is also completely understandable! So as long as you kept up visible effort at maintaining the “beauty sleep and charm regimen” she swore by, she usually fell somewhere between unbothered and complacent.

But no. Not today.

"What did you threaten the landlord with to get the key this time?" you query under your breath, too quiet for her to hear. Sleep-addled as you are, you still have some sense of self-preservation.

It just… doesn’t help that your whole face looks as puffy as it feels. Judging by the tight set of your mother’s mouth also reflected by your bedside mirror, her slanted eyes pinned on you, you're sure she’s set to try and advertise the benefits of gua sha within the next minute.

Clearly, getting your own apartment had afforded you more freedom, but not the complete detachment you had been hoping for. And that was fine – every so often you do have the solo-living blues and miss her grapevine chitchat – it just isn’t apparent to you now in your half-comatose state, berated even before you have a chance to obtain caffeine.

Sighing in defeat, you move up and lean against the headboard. Your swollen eyes try to peek past the door frame, to no success. There’s an undeniably hopeful lilt to your voice when you ask, “So appa’s here, too?”

“Ha! That man drank himself silly, crying all night long!” At the mention of your father, your mother’s tone transitions from frenzied to fond, soft mirth dancing in the brown of her eyes. “‘Starting tomorrow she won’t be my girl no more,’ he’d said! It was a right mess! Your uncles had to help me carry him home…” she prattles.

Rounding the bed as she makes her way to you, she pulls you close to her chest, surrounding you with the comforting, familiar scent of her – and your – favorite laundry detergent and the faint smell of the kimchi she had for breakfast. She places a doting kiss on the top of your head then assures you in a rather soft murmur, “Sorry, sweetheart. He’s not here. He was so down he couldn’t even get out of bed, but he’ll call you later when he feels better, I’m sure.”

“Alright,” you concede, melting into her embrace and choosing to let her love bloom in your chest instead. Sometimes you complain about her lightning-fast mood changes from holy terror to loving mother, but after twenty-five years of being your appa’s girl, you figure you can give her this one morning. You snuggle into her. “Thanks for coming over, eomma. I can already smell the seaweed soup.”

“Of course, dear. I heated it up. Happy birthday.” She angles your face upward and pinches your cheeks.

You groan and paw at her to fight her off, but the playful moment is broken when she holds your face hostage and threatens very seriously, “If you don’t make it to the appointment, I’ll drive you to that speed-dating event in Hannam myself. I know for a fact they’re taking walk-ins tonight.”

“But eomma…” you whine, feeling like a fool for letting her motherly love lull you into a false sense of security, “I’m the birthday girl! Shouldn’t I get to decide my itinera–”

A familiar gleam flashes in her eyes and you immediately pinch your lips shut.

You may have gotten your father’s dimpled smile, but the stubborn fire in your spirit, the fierce glow of your gaze… These are the attributes that make you a famed corporate demon and Nintendo speedrunner.

These traits are also definitely, absolutely, undeniably from your mother. And alas, she has had more years and recognition in perfecting her technique.

With the Hyundai car keys twirling around her index finger, you just know she’ll make good on her threat. Your mother, dramatic as she can be, is bull-headed enough to follow through on every ridiculous warning she makes.

Another quality you yourself have inherited.

Glancing at the clock, you scramble off your mess of sheets and pillows and hastily set your feet onto the hardwood floor. Chuckling nervously as you avoid the course of consoles and controllers strewn about the room, you wonder aloud, for no reason at all, “The appointment has a fifteen-minute grace period… right?”

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You don’t know what happened after stepping into The Deluxe, not exactly. Scrambling past the morning rush on foot, desperate to avoid all kinds of traffic in your anxious, sleep-deprived state, you barely even recall getting to the spa’s reception area in time.

Upon confirming your appointment, a chic lady handed you a satin robe and ushered you into a private room, pointing you to your assigned spa bed with a gentle, amicable smile. Hypnotizing oils and calming tones sang to your senses, beckoning you to slumber with the promise of warmth and safety. The moment the lights dimmed and the massage therapist placed her hands on you, kneading your stiff shoulders, total exhaustion had taken over and you’d blacked out. An instant, indisputable K.O.

When you woke up it felt like you had re-spawned. Misplaced and mistakenly rearranged, put back together in a whole different body. You weren’t even sure if a body spa was all that had happened… You wonder for a moment if you might have been secretly brainwashed and implanted with a trigger command to kill an unsuspecting prime minister somewhere down the line, but you figure the gods have something else planned for a plain shut-in like you. Surely something less cinematic?

Seeing your reflection in the mirror, your split ends gone and your hair somehow now highlighting your best features, your face made up… Well, now it's clear that a lot more had happened to you. Your skin feels creamy to the touch and smells like rich patchouli, your nails are trimmed and painted ballet pink. You doubt their in-house aestheticians had taken one look at you – dehydrated and soulless to the brim – and voluntarily offered their services… Perhaps your mother did splurge and book you the full blowout package.

In that case, considering the luxurious upkeep of The Deluxe, you send your mother a heartfelt message of thanks followed by a cheerful selfie before finally stepping out to stroll through the nearby streets of Yongsan.

Unlike your usual self, you actually feel good. Very, very good. Beautiful, and rested.

Who wouldn’t love turning twenty-five if this was all it entailed?

As you make your way across the uptown plaza, the phone in your tote bag vibrates suddenly, chiming its innocent, dulcet tones. You stop, retrieve the gadget, and stare at the institution-registered number on the display screen of your phone before clicking to accept the call.

“Hello?” you answer tentatively, hoping you're not about to get called for jury duty.

“Good day. Is this L/N F/N?”

“Yes, but who…?”

“I am Junior Liaison Officer Choi Mijin from the Ministry of Korean Domestic Affairs. I understand you turned twenty-five today, L/N F/N-ssi. In accordance with Republic Act 134340 promulgated January of this year, this is your mandatory communication from the Soulmate Registry Department. May I proceed with the orientation, or is this a bad time?”

“Huh?”

Did she just say soulmate…?

You blink once. Just ten meters from where you stood, a squealing toddler startles and chases away a flock of unsuspecting pigeons perched on the brickstone plaza, wings fluttering against air and cobble. The cacophony washes over you in a raucous echo.

You blink again, stupefied. “Sorry, what?”

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“I understand this must be confusing for you. Although our record here indicates that your parents are soulmates, L/N F/N-ssi?”

“M-My parents?” you stammer. There was that word again!

Despite your obvious bewilderment, Junior Liaison Officer Choi Mijin remains unfazed. Not missing a beat, she draws in a quick breath and launches into a clearly scripted monologue: “Historically speaking, the Soulmate Phenomenon was first observed to affect a significant percentage of the adult human population by sociological groups and academic societies. Throughout the years, in tandem with the discoveries of international research institutes and medical community programs based locally, the national government has authorized a domestic agency to advise the public on matters that directly concern their health, relationships, and cosmological well-being. The current research consensus theorizes this phenomenon to be amplified by genetics, meaning that those with parents who are soulmates are highly likely to experience the phenomenon themselves. On these grounds, to offer you a better civilian life, we at the Soulmate Registry Department would like to confirm if you, L/N F/N-ssi, have been experiencing symptoms relating to this phenomenon…?”

You don't reply, locked in a cage of dumbfounded silence. Junior Liaison Officer Choi Mijin simply continues as response, “If so, I am pleased to report that cosmic interference will now rise to thirty-eight percent, with a ten percent margin of error per day, per soulmate–”

“Cosmic interference?” you interrupt, still quite lost in disbelief. "Per soulmate? What?”

"It's possible to have more than one soulmate," replies the desk worker, matter-of-fact. In rehearsed evenness, she elaborates, "It is the department's official advice for soulmates to initiate friendship at first introduction. Otherwise, aggravated cosmic interference can be expected, and may even escalate to public duress."

“Aggravated…? Duress? Uh, give me a second.” You pinch the flesh of your arm. “Ow.”

Eventually, after getting some of your thoughts in order, you manage to ask, "But what if I answered that I wasn't experiencing any of the symptoms? That I don't have a… soul-mate?" The word slides weird and heavy off your tongue.

"Ah. In such cases, please do not be alarmed. The natural implication is that you may continue to live life as usual," the girl's tinny voice reassures. "If you do not have a soulmate then you will not be subjected to visual, somatic, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, or gustatory anomalies. This kind of life is plain, but also advantageous, in its own way."

…Too much. This is just too much.

“But what if I do? What if I do have a soulmate, but I don't want to acknowledge it? What if I want to keep my life as it is?"

Choi Mijin pauses, not having a prepared response for the first time.

"Hm? Let me look that up." After audible typing noises and the near-infinite scrolling of her computer mouse carrying over, she finally speaks again. "Hmm. Nah. Nope. Not in our F.A.Q.’s. I wouldn’t not advise against that, no.”

Those were so many negatives you don’t even know what had been implied in the first place.

“I could forward the call to my supervisor," Mijin suggests, trying to be helpful. “The average standby time is one hour and forty minutes. Do you want me to?”

Massaging your temple with your free hand, you attempt to ignore the blooming headache ruining your prior good mood. "I… guess not? I’m not experiencing anything, Choi Mijin-ssi. That just means I don’t have… a soulmate… right?”

Mijin makes a grunt of assent. "Correct. If you did have a soulmate, you’d have to submit forms DR-2a and FS-3c to our main office in Hongdae. There are housing subsidies, minimal tax deductions, and life insurance programs that can be applied for.”

You do not know what else to say. Of course bureaucracy would somehow be involved in the systematization of the soulmate phenomena. You clear your throat and settle for, “Ah.”

“For now, L/N F/N-ssi, your status with us is PR - Pending Registry. Please confirm your status with us in person within the year, else the aforementioned benefits are considered irredeemable. Late registration is prohibited by the Ministry of Korean Domestic Affairs. This is only to ensure civilian and public safety, you understand?”

“Um.”

You look down, stare at your sandaled feet.

You can feel your toes, yes. You're alive, yes. You look at your hands and see all five fingers.

This is real life, yes.

“Yeah, okay. I understand… I think. Hmm. Yes.”

“Great. And, ah, happy birthday. I guess. Twenty-five sure is… something.” Ever since the beginning of the conversation, it is only at this moment that the liaison officer’s tone betrays her professional disposition. Despite your inner turmoil, you do feel for the girl on telephone duty as she sighs and says, “I’m really not paid enough for this.”

The line goes dead, and you’re left to pretend your world has not just shot off its axis.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Kim Namjoon loves the chaos that is his fucking life.

It’s just. He constantly struggles to be the pillar of peace in the middle of it all.

"What are soulmates, even," whines Namjoon. "People who share the same taste in music? People who finish each other's–"

"–sandwiches?" Jeon Jungkook suggests, throwing a hopeful look at the snack in Namjoon’s hand.

Namjoon sighs in defeat and tosses the gremlin his sandwich. It’s gone in seconds.

No, really. Namjoon loves his life. Despite the near-chronic muscle ache and subtle paranoia that comes with baring his artistic, musical persona at a global scale on the daily, Namjoon still truly believes his life is wonderful. It’s meaningful, it’s spontaneous, and he never feels stuck. In fact, he gets to wake up assured that the world has something new planned for him. He gets to navigate life with a profound sense of purpose each day because he gets to rise from bed, head to the bathroom, take a look in the mirror and complain, “Which one of you did this bullshit?!” in countless, exasperated variations.

Because he is truly, utterly blessed.

Namjoon collapses against the plush armchair and rests his legs on the coffee table (yes, like a neanderthal), reinvestigating the faint bruising he’d found this morning on his limbs. Reaching over, he presses on his blemished skin and feels nothing.

“Taehyung’s been practicing cartwheels again,” he realizes.

The entirety of it had overwhelmed Namjoon, at first. Despite his height, he’d acted like a giddy kid about it, because nobody else in his family had – or even seriously regarded the concept of – soulmates. The library books he’d consulted said he was unlikely to experience the phenomena for himself, and so he’d thought what was happening to him was some type of ghost experience, shamanistic punishment, or hallucination that accompanied the grievances of becoming older. That his mind had finally reached its breaking point. Since he was, after all, for the past ten years, what people would refer to as, overworked.

Mm-hmm. Indeed.

From Ilsan to Seoul, desperate only to chase his dream and share his love for the written cadence, he’d found six of the most precious, talented, hardworking, beautiful people he would be happy to maim and kill each godforsaken already-late-for-our-schedule morning instead. It had been a running joke amongst the staff that the group only survived their initial years in the industry through their unmatched chemistry, but once the youngest of them all – Jungkook – turned twenty-five? Everything clicked.

The team wasn’t just a team.

Namjoon still thinks about it a lot. The evolutionary metaphysical logistics of it all. How, upon turning twenty-five, the human “cosmologically matures,” and with the prefrontal cortex of the human brain fully developed, its high cognitive reflex for recognizing patterns in daily life is traded for identifying patterns in the amalgamation of the universal consciousness instead.

It’s some high-level, fucked-up, oddly wholesome matrix shit.

Along with its regulations, the national registry for soulmates had only been established earlier this year. And though Namjoon would have appreciated any primer on the shared experiences he’d soldiered through with the boys, it was nothing short of a miracle that they had all met, grown, and gotten this far together since the beginning. In place of scars they had anecdotes of each other, kept and cherished all the same. Mountains of memories, good times and bad…

A decade. Ten years since they had shared their first greetings at a rundown garage, bright-eyed with the single aspiration of producing heartfelt, healing music.

Ten whole years.

The matter at hand is what happens now. With their original ten-year contract fulfilled, all the shows and radio stations only seem capable of talking about (read: dissing on) Bangtan Sonyeondan. So-called “experts” and industry seniors hinging on their disbandment. Like the seven of them had made it to the top, and now was high-time to let the accolades go and freefall.

Namjoon wants to scream and curse and tell them all off and yet…

All seven of them are at a standstill. One wrong move could push all seven of them off the ledge, off the pedestal of their own making. Their contracts are hybridized now, solo and group opportunities taken into serious consideration. Clauses had been inserted for mixed agency projects, brand endorsements, business ventures, and, most importantly, well-earned rest.

The immense physical and emotional battery of being in an idol boyband, the relentless media scrutiny, the hardship of being isolated and away from home – none of them wanted another ten-year repeat. The legal discussion of it had been fruitful, but in the aftermath the grueling effort had sucked the – bear with him on this – soul out of them.

And it wasn’t just Namjoon. At the latest dinner everyone had admitted to feeling… off. Petty bickering had been frequent lately, uneasy afternoons as well as uncharacteristic detachment. Moodiness. Namjoon’s afraid to put a name on it, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

Could depression be shared through their soulmate bond? God, Namjoon hopes not. So many things could happen, and this time, no amount of planning makes it seem possible to control. It feels like something else. Something familiar but new and oddly foreboding.

Well. Whatever the hell it is, Namjoon doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like it one bit.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Instead of attending the blind date event for dinner, you find yourself standing at the porch of your parents’ diner instead.

Your father hurriedly shuffles to the doorway to usher you in, struggling to hide his excitement with the bogus scowl he plasters on his face.

“Young lady, why are you here?” he admonishes. Deciding to act preoccupied, he starts wiping down the tabletops, grumbling all the while, “Shouldn’t you be at that event in Hannam? Your mother said you wouldn’t have the time…”

You want to march over and hug your appa. You know what he’s really asking, why he’s glancing nervously past your shoulder. You’re here? Does that mean you’ve met the one who will replace me as your most important person? The government people nagged us about registering and they said in the future you might find yourself in this soulmate business too and you’re my little girl but… are you still?

You playfully nudge him by the shoulders with a bump of your own. “Naw, but don’t tell eomma I skipped it.”

Your father's lips twitch but then settle into a secretive smile. You both know that The Madame would drag you back by the scruff of your neck if she knew. And possibly send your father to the doghouse.

For some reason you can’t fathom, it frightens your mother to see you living the bachelorette life so well. Despite their being soulmates, her opinion is at complete odds with your father's, who basks in the joy of being the most important man in your life. And while you can kind of understand where your mother is coming from, chasing after boys… filling your heart with sweet nothings and butterflies… You’re not thirteen anymore. You're past that phase now. You know better than to put all of your romantic hopes and dreams into something that will inevitably let you down.

“Maybe that kind of thing isn’t for me, appa.” you admit. “You and eomma found each other, that’s good enough for me.”

Your father glances at you as he flips the store sign from open to closed, and says, solemnly, “Wildflower, you never know what the universe has planned.”

You take a deep breath, shoulders pinched. “But…”

“But what? But you don’t want love?”

“Appa…”

Your mother walks in through the backdoor. When she sees you next to your appa, her eyes shine with happiness.

They’re your eyes, too.

Your father hums. “Look at you. The best of both of us.”

Because It’s fine. You’re fine. You don’t need a soulmate. Your happiness couldn’t possibly be dictated by a cosmic phenomenon. Your life is beautiful, and simple, and enough. The things that you have, the love around you – they’re already more than what you deserve.

You pluck off a spare apron and help out with the rest of closing. Your father brings out his special blend of makgeolli and leaves you in-charge of hotpot prep for dinner. Drunk in just two bottles of soju, your parents compete about who had cooked the better seaweed soup, crooning absurd versions of the happy birthday song until you yield and promise to stay the night.

Chatting with them, laughing yourself to tears, you completely miss the double-decker bus that passes out front.

Unlike most city buses, this one has its exterior gorgeously laminated in purple, black, and gold. The vehicle is sleekly rendered with congratulatory greetings for the tenth anniversary of an all-male idol group, along with well-wishes of their fans upon the announcement of their individual pursuits as artists.

Your mother squints quizzically at the fan-made bus as it passes, an arm lifting to point it out to you. In her drunken haze though, she barely manages a garbled whine before her head bows and drops onto the table with a soft thunk.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

In the backseat of his custom-interior Palisade, Park Jimin groans, letting his face fall into his palms.

How is it even possible to get stood up at a speed-dating event? When he’d gotten there, everyone had already been paired up, and sure, work had held him up and made him late, but weren’t people supposed to turn up no matter what? Damn. Maybe the organizers were right. Maybe he is at the age and status nobody wants to be matched with anymore.

God, Taehyung is going to make so much fun of him for this.

The only silver lining is that this means Namjoon and Sejin can't chew him out for being "irresponsible" and "putting himself in danger." But come on, no one would believe that a member of BTS would have to resort to a speed-dating event. When he's bare-faced the worst that could happen would be for someone to say he kind of resembles Park Jimin. Probably.

Yes, he has six great soulmates he loves with all his heart. But he loves five of them like brothers. He does want something more, and it's gotten to the point where seeing an old man pushing his wife's wheelchair brought him to tears. Or as Jungkook would say – he wants a soulmate that makes his privates happy, not just his heart.

Is it that so much to ask for? He knows he’s already lucky. So lucky, far luckier than most of the world. He's blessed to have one soulmate, let alone six. The success of BTS wouldn't have been possible without everyone's hard work, but there are many groups that work just as hard and never see the light of day.

Maybe he just needs space. Maybe he should get his own apartment, spend some time outside of the house he shares with his six partners in crime. Somewhere he can just be Park Jimin, a boy looking for love, and not Jimin of BTS.

With a renewed sense of purpose, he grabs his phone and starts looking at listings.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Masterlist | Next

[uhzuku]

𝐂𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐊 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐓𝐇𝐘 𝐇𝐎𝐓 𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐎𝐒!

welcome to kinktober losers, hope ur ready to get fucked by ur faves.

this year’s theme is age gaps. every fic’ll have a minimum ten year age gap between the reader and the character, so prepare yourselves for that. as always, all fics in the five part fic set will contain cursing and nsfw themes, with potential dark content. all characters are age 30 or older. all works contain age gaps. not your thing? click off now.

please block the tag — kinktober_23.♡ if you don’t want to read any entries.

♡┊𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝟏, 𝐨𝐜𝐭. 𝟑 ; 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 [ 𝐆𝐈. | 𝟐.𝟔𝟏𝐤. ].

𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐄𝐅 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐒 𝐒𝐄𝐗𝐘 𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐓! ( 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋! ) | 𝐟𝐭. 𝐧𝐞𝐮𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞.

𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: “You’re nothing but a filthy temptress,” he groans, pressing his forehead against the soft skin between your shoulderblades. “All you do is beg for my cock — is there nothing else in that empty little head of yours?”

𝐭𝐰: previously established relationship, age gap, breeding kink, reader is neuvillette’s assistant, secret relationship, workplace relationship, degradation, creampies, office sex, mentions of future pregnancy.

♡┊𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝟐, 𝐨𝐜𝐭. 𝟗 ; 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐬 [ 𝐇𝐒𝐑. | 𝟑.𝟏𝟐𝐤. ].

𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐖𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐃 ( 𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐮𝐫 ) | 𝐟𝐭. 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐭 𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐠.

𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: “You’re everything I’ve ever wanted and more, everything I ever searched the stars for…” he whispers in your ear through a pleased sigh, “I love you.”

𝐭𝐰: age gap, creampies, previously established relationship, reader and welt have been together five years pre-caelus and have known each other at least fifteen, oral sex ( fem receiving ), riding, choking ( male receiving ), marriage proposals, reader catching feelings.

♡┊𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝟑, 𝐨𝐜𝐭. 𝟏𝟕 ; 𝐜𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 [ 𝐀𝐓𝐖𝐎𝐖. | 𝟒.𝟏𝟗𝐤. ].

𝐒𝐄𝐗𝐘 𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐒 𝐅𝐀𝐓 𝐃𝐈𝐋𝐅 𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐊! | 𝐟𝐭. 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐢.

𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: “Soon, I will make you my wife,” he promises softly, holding her hands to his chest, and Y/N looks up at him with eyes that reflect a million stars as she smiles.

𝐭𝐰: age gap, soft dom tonowari, mentioned past bottom tonowari, romance-oriented, reader is besties w neteyam ( they’ve had some sexytimes tho so besties w benefits real ), bi neteyam supremacy, bi reader too bitch, cockwarming, previously established relationship, secret to not-so-secret relationship, reader and neteyam are twenty, canon divergent world building ( metkayina olo’eyktans commonly have multiple wives, etc ), jealousy.

♡┊𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝟒, 𝐨𝐜𝐭. 𝟐𝟑 ; 𝐝𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐲𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐚 [ 𝐁𝐍𝐇𝐀. | 𝟗.𝟑𝟎𝐤. ].

𝐇𝐎𝐓 𝐕𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐘 𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐎 𝐂𝐎𝐂𝐊! | 𝐟𝐭. 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐚 𝐚𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐰𝐚.

𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: “If I see that stupid bitch touch you again, I’ll kill her,” you growl, then yelp when he suddenly flips you, your chest and cheek against brick and his chest to your back. // “If she ever pulls that shit again, I’ll let you.”

𝐭𝐰: age gap, previously established relationship, jealousy, canon typical harrassment, heavy miss joke bashing, death threats, fem reader, villain reader, possessive reader, reader is just a bad person chat idk what else u want me to say, discussions of trauma ( but aizawa refuses to call it that ), morally ambiguous aizawa, ngl he’s also not a great person but he’s hot so it’s okay, villain/hero, femdom, maledom, teasing, biting, nipple sucking, oral sex, slight choking, switch reader, switch aizawa, dacryphilia, fingering, pussy slapping, tit slapping, spitting, creampies, daddy kink, marking, hickeys, also a cat, tko = tofu knockout, class 1-a are little shits.

♡┊𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝟓, 𝐨𝐜𝐭. 𝟑𝟏 ; 𝐞𝐱𝐡𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐦 [ 𝐍. | 𝟑.𝟎𝟔��. ].

𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐉𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐍 𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊 𝐈𝐍 𝐏𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐂 𝐁𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐒 - 𝐍𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐘 𝐂𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓! | 𝐟𝐭. 𝐤𝐚𝐤𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢 𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞.

𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: “Y’gotta shut that pretty mouth before you get us caught,” Kakashi moans, his callused hands grasping at your hips as the water sloshes around you. “F-Fuck, that feels good…”

𝐭𝐰: age gap, jonin reader, spoilers for season 2 of naruto, teen death mentions, kakashi & reader are friends, exhibitionism, public sex, bath sex, spit swallowing, biting, creampies, minor cockwarming ( briefly ), y’all nasty af idk what else to tell u homie, previously established relationship.

[literatecowboy]

The Rattlesnake County War

Following a botched cattle rustling job, a lone surviving outlaw finds herself thrust into a conflict between ranchers bigger than any she'd been embroiled in before. A Sheriff!Price x Outlaw!Reader fic; MDNI please; reader is AFAB and she/her pronouns are used but should otherwise be ambiguous (if I can be more inclusive/there is somewhere where I can improve on making her more "friendly" to readers let me know pls!) Warnings: hanging, angst, death, stabbings, references to guns and shootings, execution, etc. Smut. I intend to write 2 versions of this fic - more information can be found in the masterlist.

5. Twenty-Five

The only noise on the ride back to town was the baying and stomping of steers. 

Price fumed at the head of the pack and the others gave him a wide berth as they herded the cattle back to Mr. Marshall’s ranch. Once the gate was closed and all of the livestock were accounted for, Price waved off his companions and clomped up to the porch to join Mr. Marshall. He was greeted not by the rancher, but by the man in pastor’s vestments that he had seen before. 

“Hello, Sheriff,” the preacher said, nodding stiffly and offering a smile. “Mr. Marshall has retired for the night, I’m afraid.”

“Thank you, sir. I suppose I’ll have to return in the morning,” Sheriff Price said. His anger had waned and he was exhausted, the weariness evident in his voice. 

“Might I trouble you for a talk?” the preacher asked.

“Of course, sir. What troubles you?” Price asked. The preacher smiled wanly. 

“I am more interested in what ails you, Sheriff. I cannot help but notice that your pretty companion was not with your men when you arrived,” he said. Price stiffened. 

“We have parted ways. Her services are no longer needed,” he said. The priest tutted. 

“A good choice, sheriff. Some sinners are…beyond saving. Undeserving of god’s love,” he echoed. Price’s head snapped up. 

“Surely a man of God would not say such things?” he asked. The pastor’s smile vanished.

“It does not take a man of god to know the true nature of the human race. The true question is this: why would the lord send such a sinner to you? Why would he embroil you in such troubles? A man as knowledgeable and honorable as you surely has no love for a god that allows his children to suffer without intervention?” the preacher asked. Price rose. 

“I am wary of what you speak. My faith in God is unshaken. Goodnight, sir.”

The preacher watched him go until he disappeared into the distance. A rattlesnake slithered out of the bush he stood before and coiled around his boot before slithering up his side and curling around his torso. 

“In due time,” said the preacher.

—

Price was surprised to find Simon, Johnny, and Kyle waiting for him when he got back to the office. Before he even made it through the door, Kyle had risen and strode toward him. 

“Joanna is devastated. Had to break the news to her, so thanks for that,” he said, folding his arms over his chest. 

“That was a bad move, mate,” Johnny piped up, slinging back the last of his whiskey before pouring himself another. Price scowled and yanked the bottle away from him, plopping down in a chair before drinking directly from it. 

“She’s too dangerous. Almost got herself killed. It’s just better if…if…” he trailed off with a sigh, taking another swig of the whiskey. It was quiet for a moment. 

“You’re a fool,” Simon said from the corner of the room. “Saved your life twice, and you push her away because you’re scared she’ll get hurt. She’s out there right now, chasing down Gimley on her own. Still chasing danger, still might get hurt. And you’re on your ass here.”

“Fuck,” Price choked, tossing the whiskey bottle away. He looked out the window at the moon, mulling it over. 

“Go get your girl, John.”

—

You hadn’t bothered to make camp that night. 

Following Gimley was easy enough. He hadn’t gotten that much of a head start and you were hot on his heels. At some point he’d passed through a town and you were fortunate enough to find he was wanted there with a bounty worth $25. You snagged the poster, intending to turn his body in for a tidy profit once you put him down. 

It was noon when you found his camp. You rode up on him without caring for stealth, so he watched as you approached. 

“You’re worth twenty-five, Gimley. Dead or alive. Normally, I offer bounties a chance to choose, but on account of the fact that you shot me, well…” you trailed off as you dismounted, hitching Whiskey before approaching Gimley slowly. He rose as you came near and you circled each other warily, hands over your holsters. 

“Don’t have to be this way, miss. You could come work for me. Could work for those who could pay you a lot more than twenty-five per man,” he said, his duster fluttering in the wind. In a heartbeat you drew and put two bullets into his chest. He staggered backwards, gurgling, before falling to the ground, dead. 

“They couldn’t afford me,” you scoffed. 

—

After dumping Gimley’s body in the Sheriff’s office back in town, you collected your pay and stepped onto the plank walkway to drink your sorrows away. You scarcely believed it was possible, but this place was even seedier than Rattlesnake Point. It was so seedy, in fact, that you were startled to see a man in a pastor’s vestments coming toward you down the plank walkway. 

“What was the price of that man’s life?” he called. You lit up a cigarette. 

“Twenty-five. But I don’t have a habit of wasting money tithing to churches,” you said, taking a drag and turning to walk away. 

“And what is the price of your life?” he asked. You paused. 

“I’m a pardoned woman, if that’s what you’re asking. You won’t get a dime from hauling me in,” you said with a chuckle. 

“In the eyes of god, there are no pardons. Your soul is worth its weight in gold to Hell,” the pastor said, a thin smile crossing his lips. 

“Don’t really know about all that, mister,” you said, the disinterest evident in your voice. 

“God punishes sinners. He will punish you. Do you believe that to be fair, Wildcat? Why should such a god be worshiped as he is? Should people not turn their backs to such a god?” the preacher asked. 

“Leave me be, you old coot,” you said, waving him off as you mounted Whiskey and took off, deciding not to drink after all. This place gave you the creeps. 

—

Price followed your tracks for as long as he could, but lost the trail when he entered the town. It didn’t take long for him to learn of the death of Gimley, and he learned from the sheriff the direction that you had gone following your collection of the reward. 

Once outside of the town again, he was able to pick up on hoofprints once more. Hoping they were Whiskey’s, he followed them down the Colorado for a time before ending up in a lightly wooded canyon carved out by the river. A fire flickered across the canyon walls, smoke drifting up to the stars. He dismounted, not wanting to startle the camper if it wasn’t you, and called out. 

“Wildcat, is that you?” he asked. You were startled from where you were dozing by the fire and sat up, reaching for your gun. 

“It’s John,” he called. Your body relaxed but your chest tightened at the thought of him being around you once more. 

“What are you doing here?” you called, standing slowly and padding to the edge of your camp. John approached from the darkness, having hitched his horse beside Whiskey. 

“I couldn’t leave you, not after those things I said. I was wrong, Wildcat. I’m sorry,” he murmured. 

“Come, sit down. It’s late,” you said with a sigh. John joined you beside the fire and you sat in silence for a minute. He reached up and gently caressed the wound on your cheek. 

“You took a bullet for me,” he murmured. You laughed. 

“Not really. It’s just a graze,” you said. 

“You saved me life. You’ve killed for me. You’ve been nothing but loyal and helpful. I’m sorry, I really am,” he said, leaning forward. 

“John,” you breathed. “Shut up.” 

You closed the distance, leaning forward and pressing your lips against his. He seemed surprised at first but kissed back, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you into his lap. You shifted to straddle him, deepening the kiss, and could feel the hard bulge in his pants pressing up against your clothed entrance. As you started to grind down against him, John pulled away and took your hands, leaning back to look at you. 

“Do you want this?” he breathed, squeezing your hands as he gazed into your eyes. 

“More than anything. Ever since we sat in the shade in the barn together,” you murmured, leaning in to kiss him again. He kissed you back and stood up with you in his arms, making you gasp and giggle as he carried you back to the tent. 

He laid you down on your bedroll and you tugged off your shirt, grateful that you were already undressed for bed, and tossed it to the side. John did the same before crawling on top of you and kissing you, slotting his hips in between your legs and grinding down against your core. You wrapped your legs around his hips and he growled into the kiss. 

His fingers fumbled at the hooks of your bra before undoing it and pulling it away, your nipples hardening as they met the cool, desert night air. John leaned down and pressed a kiss to one before wrapping his lips around the other, making your head fall back as you gasped from the stimulation. 

You fumbled at John’s waist, managing to pull his belt off and unbutton his pants. You whined, unable to get the zipper down and he took the hint, yanking his pants and boots off before tossing them to the side. 

You kicked off your pants and wiggled out of your panties, laying before him. He looked up at you, his eyes hazy as they searched over your body and took you in. 

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he murmured, sucking in a deep breath as you playfully parted your legs. 

“Come here and do more than just look at me, John,” you said with a smile, heat rising to your face. He was on you in an instant, kissing you almost ferociously on the lips before trailing kisses down your body.

He wrapped his powerful arms around your thighs, pulling you closer to him and spreading your legs as he kissed down to your core, leaving one lass gentle kiss on your clit before licking a long stripe up your entrance, savoring your wetness. 

You moaned, your head falling back as he lapped up your wetness, circling your clit with his tongue before gently sucking on it. His eyes were closed and his blush reached from his cheeks to the tips of his ears, making you smile as you ran your fingers through his hair. 

He was distracted, though. One of his arms had left your leg. You bit your lip, heat rushing through you as you realized he was palming himself through his underwear. 

You pulled away from him and as he looked up in surprise you took the opportunity to push him down and pin him on his back, kissing his cheek gently. 

“Poor thing, you must be so hard. Let me help,” you purred. You threw one of your legs over him and wiggled back until you were comfortable, slowly lowering yourself onto his face. To your surprise he grabbed you by the waist and yanked you down, pushing his tongue into you and making you moan. 

You reached forward, rolling down his underwear slowly until his cock sprang free. You licked your palm and took hold of it. It throbbed in your hand, thick and heavy and you pumped it gently, making John moan, which sent vibrations through your lower body. 

You leaned forward and took the head into your mouth, moaning around John’s cock as he pulled his tongue from your pussy and lapped at your clit. 

“You taste so good,” John grunted, giving your hips a squeeze before slipping a finger into your entrance. You groaned, pausing from bobbing your head up and down on his cock. 

“Give me more!” you gasped. John bit your thigh with a growl and hefted you off of him, tossing you back into the bedroll and climbing on top of you. You parted your legs eagerly for him, wrapping them around his waist. 

“Impatient little thing,” he murmured huskily, sliding his hands up and down your body, squeezing your curves and teasing your clit. 

“Brat,” you whispered, capturing his lips in another kiss. He notched the head of his cock at your entrance and pushed in slowly. You dug your nails into his back, groaning into the kiss. The stretch of him was delicious, and you bucked your hips up to meet his. 

“Give it to me or I’ll take it,” you growled into his ear, biting at his neck. John growled, burying his face in your neck as he set a slow, deep pace. You raked your nails down his back, hissing in pleasure as he reached down to rub your clit in time with his deep thrusts. 

“Insatiable, impatient… you’re feral,” he murmured, his hips snapping forward, each punctuated with breathy grunts and moans. “Feel so fuckin’ perfect, love.”

Blinded by pleasure, you were unable to respond. John kissed your open mouth, swallowing your moans of pleasure and savoring each one. He kept rubbing your clit as your pleasure built until you were sent over the edge of orgasm, twitching and writhing beneath John. He slowed his thrusts after you came, gently petting your hair and kissing your sweaty forehead. 

“Okay, love?” he asked, peppering kisses to the side of your neck.

“Perfect,” you breathed. “Don’t stop on my account.”

John picked up the pace once again, but you were still unsatisfied. You pushed him up and off of you and climbed on top of him, straddling him and shoving his cock back inside of you. Steadying yourself with your hands on his chest, you rode him at a fast pace, using gravity to achieve deliciously deep thrusts that made you moan with each buck of your hips. 

“Wildcat,” John hissed, thrusting up to meet you halfway. “I’m close.” You didn’t slow your pace, panting and moaning as your second orgasm built. You and John came at the same time, hips stuttering and bodies seizing.

You collapsed onto his chest as you came down from your high, feeling warm spend drip from between your legs as he gently pulled out of you. You laid together on the bedroll, catching your breath as John held you close to him. You were almost asleep when he spoke. 

“I hope that - I hope I mean something to you, Wildcat. You mean a hell of a lot to me,” John said, stroking your hair tenderly as he pulled the thin blanket over you both. 

“Most meaningful man in my life. Don’t plan on being chased off ever again,” you murmured, tracing the scars on his chest. 

“Good,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to your forehead as you slowly fell asleep.

---

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

figured i'd ask you since you're like, The Flash Fam Expert, but do you happen to know the rough ages of the flashfam? like i know irey and jai are nine, ace is somewhere in his late teens, and wally has to be late twenties at the youngest but i can't find many specifics on other characters and wasn't sure if you might be able to help!

OOF. That's a rough one buddy. You don't understand what you have just unleashed upon the world.

God. Alright.

Irey and Jai are nine physically and mentally. Chronologically speaking, they're still toddlers but don't worry about it.

Ace is around 17? Not yet 18 but older than 15. I would bet on 17 but 16 wouldn't be crazy either. Avery is the same age.

Jay and Max are over 100 but by how much, I couldn't tell you. They play their age close to the chest. Physically they look 50-60 though.

Here's where it gets tricky.

Barry, Wally, Jesse and Bart.

So, Wally would've been in his early 30's when his children were born. Definitely by the time Barry came back Wally would've been at least 30.

However, during the N52 reboot everyone got deaged around a decade younger, Wally included. Wally came out of the Speedforce wearing his Kid Flash costume, indicating that he was physically 19 at the oldest. It's been a few years since Wally emerged, so physically he would have to be around 21 at this point.

Wild! I know!

So yeah, Barry would've been... late 30's? Ish? When he died. He came back at roughly the same age and chilled for a bit. He would've had to have hit 40 at least by that point. But speedsters also don't really physically age? So he looked like he was in his early 30's.

The N52 reboot hit, putting Barry at... late 20's- early 30's. I would say, by now, that the man is at least 30. Potentially even 35. But he looks 25 because speedsters don't age. (Iris would be around 30)

Bart is going to be the most wild one here. Alright. I'm speedrunning this one, so if you don't understand what is happening, I'm sorry but it is too late for you.

He exits the time portal at physically 12, ages to 14 before stabilized. He ages to 16 at which point he disappears. He comes back as an adult for a year but is killed. He comes back, again, back at 16 and is allowed to chill for a bit (potentially a year), bringing Bart to 17 years old (physically) when Flashpoint and the N52 reboot hit.

Bart was somehow spared the ~10 year deaging but he wasn't spared the deaging entirely. Bart pops out looking around 12-14 years old again. He runs around for about a year ish, which brings Bart to physically 13-15 years old currently in comics.

HOWEVER, it must be stated that, like Wally and Barry, Bart's mental age has never been reset. His mental age did not reboot with his body, so mentally Bart is around 19-20 years old.

Jesse... Jesse is weird. DC likes to keep Jesse ambiguously young. When in doubt, Jesse is around the same age as Wally. So, currently she would be around 21. The same applies to Linda.

So yeah. It's weird because Barry was a guy in his 30's with a little baby ten year old Wally and there was at least a 20 year age difference there. And now it's maybe 9 years? But also Barry looks 25 because he's a speedster, so it looks like Barry is only 4-5 years older than Wally.

Honestly if you went off looks alone, it'd be Jay (50), Max (50), Barry (25), Wally (21), Jesse (21), Avery (16), Ace (16), Bart (14), Irey (9) and Jai (9). Which is WILD?! Their family looks like two gay dads adopted 8 kids. Other than Max and Jay, they all look within five years of each other. It's wild.

Speedster aging man... They just... don't. They don't age. They live on Neverland time 24/7.

[devirnis]

WIP Wednesday

tagged yesterday by the lovelies @disasterbuckdiaz @wildlife4life @jeeyuns @try-set-me-on-fire @honestlydarkprincess @loserdiaz 💜💜💜

here are some of the many sentences I owe for money laundering au. the math problem itself and conversation surrounding it is borrowed from this moment on the off topic podcast

Chris groans. “I know mostly how to do it. I times 230 by 9 and then divide by 25 to get 82.8. Then if I take that away from the starting area, that’s 147.2 square feet.” He takes the paper back from Hen and scowls down at the question. “But… which of those numbers am I supposed to use? And then how do I find the dimensions? Do I have to keep the patio the same ratio?” Buck scoffs in his booth, shaking his head. Chimney winces as Eddie bristles and straightens up. While Chimney is reasonably sure that Buck is just amused that five adults couldn’t figure out what should be a relatively simple math problem, Eddie has always been a bit overprotective when it comes to Christopher. Eddie takes a few steps towards Buck. “Something funny about my kid’s math homework?” he asks, arching an eyebrow. Buck blinks a couple times at Eddie, like he can’t believe Eddie is actually addressing him directly. (Chimney doesn’t blame him; other than when he’s playing waiter, Eddie seemingly goes out of his way to avoid talking to Buck.) “Sorry, no, I’m not laughing at him. It’s just… that question is so frustrating, and it’s stuff like that that made me want to become a teacher.” Eddie falters, all his tough don’t-fuck-with-my-kid energy gone. “What do you mean?” “Why is the question worded so ambiguously?” Buck asks, looking genuinely annoyed. “Reducing by nine twenty-fifths could mean that you want your final result to be nine twenty-fifths of the original size, or are you supposed to take away nine twenty-fifths of the original size, or you could even argue the question is asking you to take away nine twenty-fifths of a square foot!” Buck’s on a roll now, waving his arms as he works himself up into a rant he’s clearly passionate about. “Like, why make a question that’s designed to trip him up instead of testing to see if he understands something? He clearly understands the concept of what he’s supposed to do, but not what weird answer the question is looking for!” Buck slumps back in the booth, taking a few deep breaths. He grins bashfully at Eddie. “Sorry. I can get a little carried away sometimes. It’s just stuff like that that made me hate school when I was in it.” Chimney watches, fascinated, as a blush starts creeping up the back of Eddie’s neck.

if you wanna @bigfootsmom @homerforsure @shortsighted-owl @spaceprincessem @sibylsleaves @bvckandeddie @dijkstraspath @carnivalsofthecity @giddyupbuck @housewifebuck @princessfbi @mysteriouslyyounggalaxy 💜

[cellarspider]

Qunlat 4/12: Phonology

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Qunlat pronunciation has varied widely between voice actors, and it seems likely to continue to do so. I’m of the “follow your heart” style regarding this--if you like a certain pronunciation, go for it.

…But if your heart tells you “follow someone else!”, then I’ll try and help out here. You’ll just have to sit through a bit of linguistics history first, while I explain how Bioware has made this complicated.

So. The spelling of European languages started to fossilize with the arrival of the printing press, at about the same time Europeans started inflicting themselves on more people who didn’t use alphabets. How do you tell people how to pronounce “開顛窗”? If you’re writing the first Chinese dictionary published in Europe (c.1670), you spell it “Çai tiēn h'oâm”, based off of how Portuguese was spoken when an Italian jesuit tried to write down Chinese  in the mid-1500s, then you define it in French as “ouvrir une feneſtre du toi🙲 ou une lucarne.”: “open a roof window or skylight”. For the French, you use a ligature variant on "&" so old that some default fonts on modern computers don't include it anymore (hello mac users! You might be staring at a little square that says "01F672" right now, I swear it's supposed to be a C with a fancy hat).

Also you don’t write down “開顛窗” at all, because obviously that wouldn’t help anyone.

These days, if you run into Chinese written in an alphabet, it’ll be using the Pinyin standard. How does it spell “Çai tiēn h'oâm”?

“Kāi diān chuán”. Would you get that from “Çai tiēn h'oâm”? Hell, if you don’t know Pinyin, do you know how to pronounce “kāi diān chuán”?

Pinyin and our ad-hoc 1600s-French-1500s-Italian-Portuguese model of spelling Chinese encounters the problem of attempting a phonetic transcription of a language, trying to write down what they hear so that others can speak it. They also have the challenge of romanization, using the Latin alphabet to write out a language that doesn’t normally use it.

So. Qunlat, arising completely separately from English The Common Tongue, doesn’t use the Latin alphabet, doesn’t use–uh. The Common Tongue’s writing system, I don't think we actually have a canon name for that.⁽¹⁾ So all Qunlat we’ve seen written down is using a romanization. But is this romanization actually phonetic? Romanization doesn’t have to be. If I show you “Meraad astarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun”, do you know how to pronounce that?

As discussed previously, the voice actors for qunari have all given it their best shot, but come up with different results. We don’t know what the scripts they’ve read from have actually looked like, but we have one potential answer.

And now we have to go back to World of Thedas, volume 2, and meet with my nemesis again.

“MARE-awed a-STAR-eat, MARE-awed it-WAH-seat, ab-AWN AH-kyoon.”

Hooboy. 

This is possibly useful. It’s attributed in the fiction to Philliam, a Bard!, so it’s not reliable, but the fact that it’s been written out implies that the IRL writer behind them was attempting to give people a real pronunciation guide regardless.

This is what we call a pronunciation respelling, where words with ambiguous pronunciation are rewritten to act as a guide to the reader.

…But here’s the problem: How do you pronounce “a-STAR-eat”? It depends entirely on your native language, dialect, and accent, and unless we know who wrote this, we can’t tell what they meant. If you, dear reader, don’t have the same accent, you might come up with something completely different. Just for English alone, wikipedia lists twenty-five different systems, with not a single sound having consistent spelling between all of them.

How do we get around this? How do we write down not just words, but unambiguous sounds?

Welcome to the wonderful world of the International Phonetic Alphabet!

Originally created in the late 1800s, the IPA (no relation to the beer) is a system that assigns letters to sounds based off of how and where sounds are formed. It allows linguists to accurately record the sound of a language, as long as they have a good ear. And from that, other linguists can reproduce the sound of a language, as long as they know how to read IPA. It helps capture accents too: "Car" might seem like a simple word, but in IPA, it's spelled /kɑː/ if you're using RP British English, /kɑɹ/ for General American, [kʰäɾ] for the Scots, and [kʰaː] for Bostonians.

It’s not 100% perfect, but it’s a reliable way to transfer sounds through text. Hell, there’s now ways to plug in IPA to a website and have a little robot voice read it out for you, though they have limitations.⁽²⁾

I, personally, have a hell of a time remembering parts of the IPA. I’m always opening up the IPA Consonant Chart on Wikipedia, because that includes little sound samples of every consonant. The vowel chart is even more helpful, because I can never remember the poxy little bastards.

For a bonus: the vowel chart is mostly pronounced by a single wiki contributor, who speaks loudly and clearly. …But then there’s ɞ and ø̞, which appear to have been recorded by people who were far more shy about it, and ɤ̞ is provided by someone who pronounces it three times, and seems to die a little bit as they finish up. These are the things you entertain yourself with when you’re learning the IPA.

Anyway! If we want to make this pronunciation of Qunlat equally accessible to everyone,⁽³⁾ we should try to translate this guide into IPA.

We’re just going to assume that the writers, when constructing their pronunciation guide, were aiming for a General American or the similar Standard Canadian accent. Those are the regions Bioware is mostly based out of, and they’re the easiest to find phonetic pronunciation. So, for example, “a-STAR-eat” would be transcribed as /əˈstɑɹ.it/, or possibly /æˈstɑɹ.it/ depending on what they mean by “a-”. Already, you can see we have some uncertainty here because of our starting point, but we can take these IPA transcriptions and throw it in a speech synthesizer to get pretty unambiguous pronunciations!

You'll notice that most of the letters line up with how they're spelled in English, though some of the sounds don't line up with how you'd first think to pronounce them. That's especially true around vowels, so always be aware of that when reading IPA.

Now, one might ask, if it was relatively easy to convert this from a generally readable pronunciation guide into the unfamiliar and technical IPA, why bother? Well because I did in fact start with the easiest word to convert. The rest of these were a lot harder. 

How do you pronounce the Qunlat word “ir-vah”? Because according to Philliam, a Bard!, it's “ihr-vawh”. Does that actually make you feel confident you can say it right? “Aw” has a known pronunciation in English, but what's “awh”? What's the distinction? Is there a distinction?

I'm going to have to make assumptions here, informed by my own background with this stuff. It will, by definition, be an opinion rather than an authoritative source. I’ll go with what I think is the most uncomplicated solution, and we can see whether it sounds like what we expect.

So, to start with, I’ve made a breakdown of the sounds found in this text, and what IPA pronunciations they match up with. When the respelling has included english words as pronunciation guides (ex. “a-STAR-eat”), I’ve directly referred to the General American IPA transcription. When the respelling uses nonce words (ex. “AH-kyoon”), I’ve referred to the Oxford English Dictionary respelling system, as it was one of only two that contained the majority of the nonce word respellings. This allowed me to be consistent, though sometimes the text itself was not. Check out the “Phonetics - WoT2” sheet in the workbook linked below:

Note that some words have multiple pronunciations listed. This can sometimes be contextual (ex. “The” can be pronounced at least two different ways in English), but in some cases the context was identical, but the pronunciation was different. If we want an in-setting explanation for this, we can say the transcription was taken from people with different accents. Even different energy levels or moods can affect pronunciation. But honestly, I do not know if this was intentional. There are phonetic spellings that also work their way into the Qunari romanization as well in multiple places, even with words that were previously established under other spellings.

To hear the sentences spoken, plug one into an IPA synthesizer, though be warned: it’ll be a little janky, and a little jarringly American. I don’t actually think this is what the writer had in mind, but this is what they gave us, so I’d like to make it clear why we prefer using the IPA.

I’ve also created an inventory of the sounds in these excerpts, formatted as we would for phonemic and phonological inventories: a chart of the IPA used, and a list of what letters make which sounds. When the list includes something like /x~y~z/, means that the letter can be pronounced as x, y, or z in the wild. When there's a letter with no pronunciation, it means that it's in some sort of Qunlat somewhere, but it wasn't in these examples.

And I have to reiterate: I've reproduced the implied pronunciations from WoT vol.2 as faithfully as I can, but these pronunciations do not accurately reflect the actual way the words have been spoken in the games! You can compare performances to phrases or words in here, and note the difference in pronunciation and stress patterns. 

So, as before, I say to you: if you prefer a different pronunciation, use it. If you want to systematize that pronunciation, organize it and save it for reference, then use the IPA to help you. I can speak from experience, it will save you a lot of trouble if you note down your language work in IPA, rather than assuming you’ll remember your own pronunciation later. Go forth, and have fun with it.

Next time! Finally, the meat of a language: grammar.

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Footnotes

(1) Okay. I don't have enough material to make a full post on Qunlat scripts, so I'm going to just throw it in here, with a further digression about Common as a bonus. In brief: We have no consistent script for Qunlat. There's one in Those Who Speak which... it's okay? Reminds me a bit of Lontara or an Ulu script, but it doesn't have aesthetic cohesion. Inquisition uses another possible script on decorative horn coverings, which... It exists. I'll tell you right now, I'm working on creating a written script for Qunlat for personal use, and I'm not using either of these.

With regards to Common: the games usually seem to indicate that the Common Tongue is written in a runic script, which is not meant to be read by the players.

In Inquisition we have a weird split, courtesy of Varric's romance novels: Tales of the Champion, which the wiki says is "written in Orlesian", is just in English, and... backwards English on the facing page. It's in tiny squint-o-vision, but it is actually about Kirkwall's history and Hightown, and doesn't seem to be a copy-and-paste from anywhere else in the games. Cool!

But there's another book in the series with Aveline on the cover, which is very different. There's a new runic script there, which is mostly composed of rotations on actual runes, but they don't actually line up with any historical runic script. but there's not enough text available to see if it translates into anything. There's a bit that looks like it's supposed to be Varric's name that might give us the letters "V Te(th)ras", but none of those letters are in the title, so we have nothing else to compare to. The script is okay, but there's some letters I'd alter for visual consistency--runes were generally written using different combinations of just three line angles that remained as consistent as possible throughout a text. There's a letter in here that's just a triangle, and it doesn't fit the angles of the other letters at all. That triangle haunts me.

Here's the thing, though. There's also a couple books from Inquisition that I can tell were just straight-up written in an Anglo-Saxon rune font, then flipped upside down, which reminds me quite a bit of a certain web series I could mention. It's a short, non-canon English text repeated in different paragraph format, with some gibberish thrown in. I wasn't going to bother reading any of it once I realized it wasn't anything canon, but then I noticed there's a rogue "c" that appears to have survived the font change. Most runic scripts have no equivalent of "c", but Anglo-Saxon does, so I realized that had to be a capital C. And that's when I read:

"...that this is *not* the Cirth (Certhas) but the..."

Cirth is the writing system Tolkien made for Sindarin, Khuzdul, and Westron.

I think what we're looking at is part of the setting documentation, basically saying, like, 'we want the Common Tongue to look like Cirth, but not actually be Cirth because the legal department told us not to'.

(2) Many of these IPA-to-text things are language-specific. They’re only loaded with the sounds that are used in the language they were created for–so for this one, stick to english text-to-speech IPA synthesizers. Also, you will definitely note accent differences between different synthesizers, even when given the same input! Some of that is due to dialect-specific restrictions on what sounds they pronounce, but there's also smaller distinctions that the IPA is capable of reflecting, but in practice we don't transcribe things with 100% precision.

(3) Of course there’s the caveat that the IPA is based off of the Latin alphabet to begin with, so it makes the most sense to people who already use some form of it. One of the problems is that alphabets are actually uniquely suited to the task of phonetic writing, for reasons I’ll eventually get into. But I’m not actually aware of any equivalents that have been constructed for use with other alphabets or scripts, beyond a number of neography hobbyists (for Kannada, Arabic, etc.), including that one tumblr user who scared off an insufferable dude in a coffee shop by talking about the IPA equivalent they were making that was somewhat based off of the Georgian alphabet. That person is incredible.

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[voxofthevoid]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by my one and only Jesus @eusuntgratie

I recently cleared out all the ask/tag games in my drafts because I realized I'd reached the pile-up stage of putting things in there and not doing shit. Thanks to everyone who's tagged me in those the last couple of months and sorry I didn't get to any!

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

148

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

2,005,606 (crossed the 2 million milestone recently and am still buzzing about it)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I'm only writing for Jujutsu Kaisen, but I'm posting for Jujutsu Kaisen, Bleach, and MCU.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

I was so sure it was going to be all MCU, but nope, it's a mix of MCU and Hannibal. God, that was my first Ao3 fandom, and my Hannibal fics are from 2014. It's surreal people are still reading/enjoying them.

if you're looking for jesus (then get on your knees)—MCU

i'm a ghost, you're an angel (one and the same)—MCU

A darkness seen and shared—Hannibal

Ways and Means—Hannibal

the hand you want to hold is a weapon (and you're nothing but skin)—MCU

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do! I enjoy the interactions and discussions. Plus, since I'm not a Discord (or group spaces) person, it's how I find fellow fans to chat with, especially during my initial foray into a particular fandom. I do have a huge backlog of some 1.1k comments from 2020 to mid-2021 because I didn't have much time for fandom in that period. I'm chipping away at it slowly, but I'm pretty prompt about replying to everything on my post-2021 fics.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmm, this Hannibal fic, I'd say: Till the bitter end

Let's just say I predicted the series finale in some weird way.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Most of mine end happily—a few are ambiguous, while others are dark.

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Oh yeah. It's only happened with MCU and Jujutsu Kaisen, and they're mostly cases of overgrown children unhappy that I didn't write the ships or dynamics they want.

9. Do you write smut?

It's my specialty now 😎

10. Do you write crossovers?

Nah. I've done fusion-style AUs, but full-on crossovers aren't something I'd like to write. I'll read them, but I'm picky.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Multiple times (MCU and YoI, iirc), both within Ao3 and offsite.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Multiple times, for multiple fandoms! It's always a delight.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I did write one(1) fic that way, but it got yeeted into the void when my co-author deleted her entire Ao3 account. I have a copy, I think.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I'm the kind of person who's most devoted to whatever is eating my brain at the time, so right now, it's Yuuji/Gojou from Jujutsu Kaisen.

15. What’s a wip you want to finish but probably won’t?

My writing superpower is that if I lose interest in a WIP, I also lose all desire to finish it and any guilt about it. And these days, I tend to start a fic and work on just that till it's done. So the answer is—none.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I write some smokin' hot porn, and I'm pretty good at threading character study through it. The porn is the plot, in most cases. I also enjoy doing background worldbuilding that serves to give the narrative a sense of depth despite the focus being on characters and relationships.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Fight scenes, ensemble casts, and sustained plotty plots.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Ah, I can feel my Hannibal-era Google-translate Lithuanian judging me.

In general, I avoid it, but when I write for anime set in Japan, I tend to work in honorifics. My mother tongue has those too, so I know from experience that there are no English equivalents that capture the same vibe.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Hunter x Hunter, I think. That account no longer exists. On Ao3, it's Hannibal.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

I tend to be biased toward my newer works, so this keeps changing. At the moment, it's (let me be clear) every version of the story ends with you being slaughtered (JJK, goyuu).

Tagging (no pressure) 20 people because why the hell not: @possibleplatypus, @actualalligator, @joeys-piano, @cursedvibes, @backwardshirt, @m34gs, @naamah-beherit, @dragongirlg-fics, @crossroadswrite, @spacebuck, @jenroses, @calamitouskings, @knivash, @lo-55, @bookwyrmling, @sorrythatwasamistake, @ddelline, @lilyfarseer, @roughkiss and @deunan306

[dr-albertwesker]

[WESKER'S REPORT II / FEMALE TEST SUBJECT]

Female Test Subject 1978.7.31(mon)

I first went there during the summer at 18-years-old. This is the story of twenty years ago. I still remember the scent of the wind stirred by the helicopter's rotors when we landed. Though the mansion looked ordinary from above, there was something repulsive at ground level. As usual, Birkin, who was two years my junior, only seemed interested in the research papers in his hand...

The two of us would assume our positions there, having been informed two days previously on the day they decided to shut down the executive training school we attended. It all seemed both carefully planned, and at the same time, mere coincidence. Perhaps Spencer's the only one who knows the truth.

At the time, the very place he himself had constructed to serve as the base of "t-Virus" development in the United States was there, in the Arklay Laboratory.

As soon as we disembarked the helicopter, the "director" in charge of the facility was standing in front of the elevator. I don't even remember the name of "that man." Whatever the formalities, the Arklay Laboratory belonged to Birkin and I from that day on. We were entrusted with full authority over the research there in our roles as chief researchers. That was Spencer's intent, of course. We had been chosen.

We ignored the director and stepped into the elevator. I had memorized the facility's entire structure the day before, and Birkin, no offense intended, was blind to others.

People who worked with us typically felt resentful after the first five seconds. The director, however, didn't react at all. I was a conceited young man at the time, so I paid the director no heed. After all, during my time there I was merely dancing in Spencer's palm, and he understood his boss Spencer's intentions better than I.

The elevator carrying the three of us shortly descended into the basement, with Birkin not taking his eyes off the papers in his hand. Birkin was looking over records of Ebola, a new strain of filovirus that emerged in Africa two years before. Even as we speak there should be a great many people throughout the world studying Ebola. Although their goals can be divided into two. To save people, and to kill people.

As we know, the mortality rate of those infected with Ebola is 90%. Its immediate effects destroy human tissues within ten days, and even now, neither precautionary measures nor treatment methods have been established at this point in time. If utilized as a weapon, it has the potential to be a terrifying force to be reckoned with.

It was of course illegal for us to study it as a weapon, since the "Biological Weapons Convention" had already come into effect prior to this point. But there were no assurances that someone, somewhere, wouldn't use it as a weapon, even if we ourselves did not. For such cases, conducting research in advance is legal. The dividing line's extremely ambiguous. The reason for that is, how they might be used must be investigated when studying defensive measures. There's no difference whatsoever between weapons research and researching cures.

In other words, it's also possible to study weapons under the guise of studying treatments. In either case however, at the time, Birkin had no intention of looking over Ebola's records themselves for research purposes.

The virus had too many shortcomings. Firstly, it can survive only a few days outside the body and is easily eradicated simply by sunlight (UV rays). Secondly, since it kills the host organism (humans) so quickly, there's scarce time for it to move onto its next host. Thirdly, host-to-host transmission requires direct contact and protection is relatively easy. But, as an example, consider the following.

What if a person who contracted Ebola could stand up and walk around, with a steady rate of virus replication within the body? And what if that person could actively seek out uninfected humans, in a diminished state of awareness, to infect them?

What if RNA, Ebola's genome, could influence the human genome? And imagine, the human body endowed with monstrous stamina so it couldn't easily die? Couldn't it become a "Bio Organic Weapon" that spreads the virus within its body to other living organisms while in a now clinically dead state? It was fortunate for us Ebola exhibited no such properties. For from that point on, only we could continue to maintain exclusivity over viruses with those traits.

Umbrella was founded mainly by Spencer and was nothing short of an organization for developing viruses with those very traits. Ostensibly it was a pharmaceutical company specializing in viral treatments, but in reality, it was a manufacturing plant for Bio Organic Weapons. Its origin is said to have been the discovery of the "Progenitor Virus" that can recombine the genes of living organisms. In order to manufacture Bio Organic Weapons from the Progenitor Virus, variant viruses which enhanced its properties were being developed.

That was the t-Virus Project.

The Progenitor Virus was an RNA virus prone to mutations, thereby making it possible to enhance its properties. Birkin's interest in Ebola was for strengthening these properties by incorporating its genes into the Progenitor Virus. The Ebola sample had already reached this lab by that point.

Changing elevators several times, we arrived at the facility's highest level. There, even Birkin peered up. That was the first time we met "her."

No one told us anything about her beforehand. She was this lab's greatest secret and the data was never taken outside for any reason. According to the records, she had been here since this lab was founded. She was 25-years-old at the time. But we knew neither her name, nor her reason for being here. She was a test subject for t-Virus development.

The experiment began on November 10th 1967.

She had received experimental virus injections here for eleven years. Birkin mumbled something. I wonder whether it was to curse, or perhaps words of praise. We had come to a point of no return. Would we succeed in our research, or wither away like her? There was of course only one choice. Her body, bound to the pipe bed, stirred something within our minds.

Was this part of Spencer's plan?

(The record continues three years later)

[nanabrainrot]

I don’t know if you could write a story about this, but what do the other Salamancas (or just Lalo’s family) think of his wife ? Ty <3

I’ll write abt the first time everyone went “wait ur married.” like two years into the marriage it kills me

SORRY FOR THE WAIT tumblr ate this draft literally 4x and then my connection would blow the moment i hit post look at me im on my knees. here's some blurbs about the moments they feel for hmmc though and then author notes about the general consensus on the poor thing

cw for hmmc and lalo's relationship imbalance

A Moment in Passing: Salamanca Style

A Moment with Marco and Leonel

The emotion is pity.

The candy slips in your hand and the grin crosses your face and it’s the smile that Marco realizes this was wrong. The problem with being a Salamanca is you knowingly do things that are wrong or at least ambiguous. But this feels strange, Leonel commented in the car. You had been his wife for five years now, only seen in passing and looking more content every time which was unnerving. When they had first met you, you were shaking in the courtyard of Lalo’s brand-new hacienda style house. You were nervous, like a dog that wasn’t socialized yet (and you were). The fridge was stocked with healthy things on the left, ingredients galore, and beers on the right. You ate portioned meals and drank water and juices. Lalo did not allow for much more.

After five years you suck on the lollipop with so much childish joy. A brief spark in your eyes. Lapping at it once, twice, before mumbling, “Thank you guys.” It is blue raspberry. You suck it, glancing around nervously if Lalo were to catch you taking an earthly pleasure that was not him.

It feels like pity for twenty-four years. Even when you greet them with a smile and hang off Lalo’s arm. It is watching a dog on its chain of 14 karat gold.

A Moment with Tuco

The emotion is confusion. It is like wondering about if a dog loves its life.

You had cried that day, much to Lalo’s dismay, when Tuco had come around and the boys were drinking too much. Firing shots at beer bottles, you startled from the kitchen. Two plates of birria sit there on the island, in the pretty Tuscany-styled kitchen. You peer around the corner with a wet face, with wet eyes, with a watery gaze. Lalo comes to you, sighing and rolling his eyes as Tuco watches, brows cross with confusion. His wife of three years is scared. He had seen you in passing, cooking, before scurrying to another room, tugging Lalo’s sleeve and not making eye contact. It was tender, the moments, but it looks worse when he sees it up close. Your glazed eyes are so trained on him, refusing to meet Tuco’s eyes.

You wept every time Tuco came around, he noticed after the third visit, probably because Lalo drank when he came around more than usual. The drunken ministrations and come-ons from Lalo in front of his cousin made you sniffle in embarrassment, still newlywed to him after those three years. It escalates every time he rolls around and the memories collect dust from the late 80s, the 90s, and today in 2003.

You don't weep when he comes around, not today. Lalo is plastered, sipping off the decanter like it's water, and you sit unmoving on his lap as the men chatter. Unacknowledged, as common as if Lalo had a pillow on his lap. Your head lulled into his shoulder, Tuco wonders when the grew to love Lalo.

Pulling out of the driveway, the emotion is wariness. Wondering if a dog so disciplined is bound to react one day and bite.

A Moment with Hector

The emotion is gratefulness, wariness, it's a sinking sadness in the belly.

When he met you twenty some years ago, he scoffed. There was no real reason to keep a wife after they had a baby and according to Lalo, you weren't even fertile so there was no reason to keep you. But it was twenty-four years since Lalo wed you, twenty-two since Hector met you in the hacienda-style house all silent and shaky. You loomed around corners like you were an intruder despite the house being built specifically for you.

You were focused on a vase, sitting by Hector and Lalo as they spoke. He wondered how long it would last, your silence, as you scribbled into the paper. A vase. You had drawn a vase full of faux poinsettas as they spoke on life or death matters, on business, on betrayal, and the rest of every other ungodly topic and you sat in a sundress doodling a vase. Sheepishly, you showed Lalo and, beside him, Hector scoffed. A fucking vase.

The emotion then was agitation, but today it was wariness. Something adjacent to gratefulness that your silence lasted twenty-four years in Casa Tranquila, Lalo toting you over the border like a rich woman's purse dog. Doodling today, in your sundress, dragging the shitty nursing home marker over the paper as Lalo consoles him with a grin, slipping liquor from his flask into the shitty drink. Scribble.

"And we'll get you home right, tio?" he grins. Clink.

A marker on the table, and it's silent with no drag of a felt tip on the paper but a slight noise. The wobble of thick construction paper as it's moved through the air. A vase. You drew a fucking vase again.

The emotion of agitation looms again, but then the gratefulness surges just a bit. Never a word means never a word of pity left you, your sheepish grin the same as when he could walk and talk. A good dog is a quiet dog.

-

tldr everyone knows their relationship definitely has awful undertones because its lalo 1 and 2 hmmc is extremely withdrawn and quiet. shes usually likened to a dog like in companion dog due to the way she follows lalo and his orders. she didnt meet the family for two years because lalo had her isolated in a ranch home training her to be a meek and mild wife. everyone feels bad for her but also like its lalo and since family is first everyone turns the other way on the topic

[star-girl69]

Keep Me Ablaze

Jake Sully x Neytiri x Fem!Reader

—-

complete!! book two: here!

a/n: reader is grace’s niece, and is described as having mid-length hair. reader is a human during some portions, eye color is not described, hair color, weight, etc., and i try my best to make everything as ambiguous as possible.

i apologize in advance if something i write isn’t inclusive. we are all humans and we all make mistakes! please feel free to tell me if you have any suggestions as to how i can cater this fic to the most people possible.

also available on ao3!

my ao3: star_girl69

—-

The only mother you have ever known is the forest. Yes, you have Grace, other women at the base. But they are not quite your mother. It’s hard for your Aunt to talk about her- but how can you blame her? Alone and drifting through the world, a fire burning inside of you that threatens to snuff out, Grace teaches you alongside the Omaticaya at her school. They call her sa’nok, and sometimes you wish you could call her that too. But you feel like you would be betraying your mother. Neytiri is your spark, even while you’re young, shy when Grace pushes you to play with her and even shyer when the two of you form a tentative friendship. But it grows, and she grows into the woman you know now.

Life without her is miserable, but at least you have something new to explore in the form of your Avatar. You run through the forests and help Grace, and soon you are 20 years old and looking out onto your life like it is a prison. You could leave. Go to Earth. But you couldn’t leave the forest, your Aunt, the memories of your mother and father.

Then, Jake Sully comes, a warrior with no legs, who holds the same spark as Neytiri does. But with the weight of impending war looming on each of you, death everywhere, you don’t know if they can keep you ablaze.

—-

Keep Me Ablaze

Chapter One - Josephine

Chapter Two - Savior

Chapter Three - New Blood

Chapter Four - Face It

Chapter Five - Moment

Chapter Six - Just For You

Chapter Seven - Dreams

Chapter Eight - So Blue

Chapter Nine - Burn

Chapter Ten - Clean Kill

Chapter Eleven - You and Yours

Chapter Twelve - Look and Touch

Chapter Thirteen - Change

Chapter Fourteen - We Burn Bad

Chapter Fifteen - Ache of You

Chapter Sixteen - Mothers & Fathers

Chapter Seventeen - Betrayal

Chapter Eighteen - I Know Loss

Chapter Nineteen - After

Chapter Twenty - To Die For

Chapter Twenty One - Love

Chapter Twenty Two - Keep Me Ablaze

Chapter Twenty Three - Cursed

Chapter Twenty Four - Watercolor Eyes

Chapter Twenty Five - Demons

Chapter Twenty Six - Born to Die

—-

headcannons for this series:

the early years (grace edition!)

the early years (neytiri edition!)

[riahlynn101]

Whumptober Day Twenty-Two: "Vehicular Accident."

Trigger Warnings: Blood, major character death, mentioned car accident (of sorts), children in distress, mentions of needles, and implied kidnapping and murder.

Summary: (Young) Mike is hit by a car.

Open/ambiguous ending :))!!

--

The sky is blue today. The same color blue as his mom’s eyes. Clear and bright. Not a single cloud in sight, which kind of annoys Mike. When Garrett was still here, they used to watch them go by, and call out what they looked like. 

Garrett’s go-to was always, “Fredbear.” No matter what the shape was. 

Not that Mike was any better. His go-to was “Springbonnie,” or “rabbit.” 

It was predictable, but it was fun. Mike misses it every single day. 

It’s cool today. It’s the middle of fall, and the leaves are all kinds of pretty colors. Reds and oranges and dark greens. 

It’ll be Halloween soon. 

This will be their first holiday without Garrett….

He wanted to be Spider-man this year. Mike’s sure it’s only because he wants to go as Spider-man, and Garrett just has to copy everything his older brother does. Mom says that just means he loves Mike, but it frustrated him to no end. Especially when it seemed like mom and dad encouraged it. 

Now…Mike would do anything to have him back. 

Anything. 

He groans, tears run down his face. 

“Mommy!” He wants to call out, but there’s something in his throat. Something warm and wet that tastes like old pennies. 

His head throbs, and his body feels strangely numb. Like all his limbs have fallen asleep all at once. 

People move around him. Mom tries to reach out for him, but a police officer holds her back. Dad holds her, as she sobs loudly. 

Mike hates that he’s the reason she’s crying. 

He tries to move his arm, so he can get her attention or call her over. He could really use one of her hugs. They’re warm and make him feel safe. Mike needs her.

“Mike…?” 

His head is shifted to the side by a person in a navy blue uniform. Another person flashes a light in his eyes. 

Just behind them, Mike sees his little brother. 

In spite of how scared he feels, Mike can’t help the wave of happiness that overtakes him. He tries to smile, but his lips don’t move. (Why can’t he move them?)

Garrett looks sad, staring down at him. “You’re hurt,” he says, pointing at Mike. 

Mike can’t summon the words to speak, but he wants so desperately to. He tries to wriggle around, but it doesn’t help. 

Garrett comes closer, kneeling down in between the two EMTs. He tilts his head. “If you go to sleep it won’t hurt anymore.”

All the alarm bells go off in Mike’s head. That’s the exact opposite of what the EMTs told him just five minutes earlier. And he has a feeling if he closes his eyes, he’ll never wake up again. 

“Nothing bad will happen,” Garrett murmurs. 

Mike coughs, chest constricting. The people hovering over him become more frantic. He’s lifted onto a stretcher.

He winces, or at least tries to. Just like everything else, his body doesn’t seem to want to listen. Tears run down his face, mixing with the blood smeared across his neck and chest. Garrett sits next to the EMTs. He watches them work, eyes sad. 

“Go to sleep, Mikey,” he whispers, voice like a lullaby. “You won’t hurt anymore if you sleep.”

Mike is poked with a needle and then another. He can’t tell if they’re IVs, tetanus shots, or if the EMTs are collecting blood, but he feels all of it. The needles poke through his bruised skin. But he can’t do anything about it, besides quietly groaning. 

His little brother frowns. “They’re making you hurt worse.”

Mike ignores him, eyes rolling up to the ceiling. He does his best to separate himself from the pain, trying to imagine that he’s home, watching TV dramas with his mom. They’ve been watching a new one, and there’s supposed to be a new episode tonight. He hopes he doesn’t miss it. Mom would be so upset if he did. 

Three months ago, it used to be something Mom, him, and Garrett used to do. Every Thursday night they would settle on the couch, Garrett on one side of their mom, and Mike on the other. A fresh bowl of popcorn on her lap.

Thursdays are the days that their dad works late, so mom lets them stay up extra late to see him. But they both end up falling asleep, heads resting in their mother’s lap. 

Mike inwardly sobs. 

Another poke. 

“It’ll hurt less if you close your eyes, and when you wake up, we can play together. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

He hates this. 

Hates how his brother sounds reassuring and right. 

Hates how he knows what’s going to happen if he shuts his eyes.

Hates that-despite how scared he is, and how much he wants his mommy and daddy-he wants even more to see and play with Garrett. 

Mike shuts his eyes. Just for a second.

But when he opens them again, he’s sitting next to Garrett. 

A machine off to their right beeps loudly, and the two EMTs look panicked. They shout out things that Mike-with all his years of watching late-night medical dramas-can’t understand. 

“That- that’s my body. Why?” He turns his head. “Garrett, what’s going on?”

His brother grabs his hand. “You’re asleep now.”

Mike shakes his head horrified. “No, this- I don’t like this. How do I wake up? I need to wake up.”

“You can’t.”

Garrett pats him on the shoulder. The world becomes blurry for a moment before returning to normal. 

They stand in a densely-wooded forest. 

Mike blinks rapidly, trying to wake up. Whatever this is, it can’t be real. He slaps himself in the face.

He feels….nothing. 

Mike digs his nails into his skin,  scratching at it. 

But again, he feels nothing. 

He feels panicked, terrified even, but his heart rate hasn’t picked up. In fact-Mike presses his hand over his heart-he can’t feel it thump against his ribcage. It’s quiet and still, like it’s not-

“I’m dead.”

Garrett grabs his hand. “But it’s okay, because I’m here.”

Pulling his hand away, Mike shakes his head frantically. “No! No! No!” He tugs at his hair.

His brother hugs him. It feels warm and safe and…and just like their mom’s. It feels like home. Mike hiccups, leaning into the hug. He closes his eyes, ignoring (for a moment) everything that has happened today. 

Being hit by a car. 

Glass shattering and people yelling.

Mom crying.

….Dying….

Mike tightens his hold. 

He’s safe. 

Of that, Mike is certain. 

Unseen, head resting on his older brother’s shoulder, Garrett smiles. 

[medusapelagia]

Eddie's Month: day 4

written for @eddiemonth 

Prompt: Rejection | Arsonist’s Lullaby - Hozier | Lost

Rating: Mature Character: Eddie Munson WT: murder, violence, threats of violence, drugs, angst with feels, ambiguous ending WC: 1505

The first time the social worker comes into the squalid apartment in Indianapolis, Eddie is not surprised. 

He might be five years old, but he sees the other families from the windows: they go to the park together, they have clean clothes and, the most important thing, they don’t walk on the streets at night as he and his mother do.

His mum works strange hours, she works by night and sleeps by day, and when she wakes she always searches for Johnny, or Uncle Johnny as he asked Eddie to call him more than once.

Uncle Johnny is the one who gives the medicine to his mum, so she can sleep quietly and doesn’t scream all day.

Sometimes Uncle Johnny can’t give her the medicine she needs, and those days are hard. She can’t work, so they don’t have any money for groceries, and until she gets a little better, it is Eddie who must take care of her. 

But that’s normal, right? She is his mum. He loves her and he takes care of her.

That’s why he learns quickly how to steal bread and fruits to feed both of them until she gets better and goes back to work, and then back to Uncle Johnny.

Eddie doesn’t like Uncle Johnny. He smells bad and is always too tactile with him. But Eddie has a knife. A pocket knife. His mum taught him how to use it. How to open it quickly and use it to stab someone in the stomach “It’s the softer part.” she has explained to him.

Eddie knows that his normality is not really normal, and knows that the social worker that has taken the cup of coffee from his mother’s hands but doesn't dare to drink it, is studying both of them.

“Do you go to school, Eddie?”

Eddie doesn’t even know if he is old enough to go to school but he lies easily, he tells her about schools, friends, and lunch breaks. All things that he learned from television.

The social worker doesn’t take notes but seems somehow satisfied with his answers.

His mum is so proud of him that she takes him to eat burgers and milkshakes in a seedy place next to their home, and it’s not even his birthday!

Eddie is the only kid, so he entertains himself by looking at the water leaking from the ceiling and counting the drops while his mum goes to the bathroom.

One.

Two.

Three.

He can’t really count after twenty so he starts again. And again. And again.

Someone screams and he keeps counting.

Eighteen.

Nineteen.

Twenty.

One.

Two.

There is more screaming, his mum's burger is getting cold and a police car is parked outside of the diner.

He doesn’t like the police. They took away his dad and he has never seen him since.

One of the policemen gets closer to him.

“Hey, kid.”

He doesn’t respond. He is not supposed to talk to strangers, is he?

“Can you tell me your name?”

Fuck. He lost count. Now he has to start again.

One.

Two.

Three.

“His name is Eddie.” someone says from behind him “It’s Moira’s son.”

“Moira?” the policeman asks.

“The woman in the bathroom.”

“Oh.”

Eddie lifts his eyes, that’s not a good oh.

“Son. I’m sorry. Your mum… she is not feeling well. Why don't you come with me?”

No! They are not going to take him away as they did with his father.

He runs toward the bathroom, screaming “MUM!” he is so small that he easily avoids the adults who are trying to stop him, and gets into the bathroom.

His mum is on the floor, her eyes open and unfocused toward the door, red signs around her neck, and a syringe on the floor.

He will find out, years later, that Uncle Johnny gave her a dose and she didn’t have enough money to pay for it because they just had burgers and milkshakes, so he killed her in that lurid bathroom, but for the moment the only thing he knows is that his mum is gone.

He doesn’t know where, or how, but she is definitely not there.

***

Everything after that feels like a blur: one moment he is in the lurid bathroom and the next a man he has never seen before is taking him inside a trailer in a town he doesn’t know.

He said he is his uncle, but Eddie doesn’t like uncles, the last one he had killed his mother.

Thank god the little voices in his head arealways with him, whispering that everything will be alright, that he has his pocket knife hidden in his shoes, that if this strange man tries anything at all he will stab him in the stomach and run through the woods.

But the strange man never tries to touch him. 

He offers Eddie his room, he buys a Garfield’s mug just for him and some new clothes, and slowly the voice starts to fade in the back of his mind.

For the first time, he attends school. For real. 

He learns how to write his name and starts to write it everywhere, sometimes even on the trees with his pocket knife.

Wayne, that’s the name of the man he refuses to call uncle, doesn’t know that he has a knife. Adults don’t want kids to have them, Eddie doesn’t know why, so it’s a secret that he shares only with a kid he met at school.

His name is Garreth and he has a twin sister, a little miss-perfect with blond hair and blue eyes that easily capture everyone’s attention.

One time Eddie proposes to poke her with his knife, just a little. Just enough to make her cry.

Garreth thinks about it for a long moment but in the end, they decide that it’s not worth it. This is their secret and they don’t want to share it.

One afternoon, when Wayne is at work and they are playing in the woods, they cut their palm and shake hands, becoming blood brothers.

That’s the first real friendship that Eddie has ever had and it will last for years.

***

Garreth is the only one that gets him.

Everyone else avoids Eddie like he has the plague.

He tries to make friends with other kids, he even shares his secret showing his knife at recess to be cool, but the only effect is that the school calls Wayne who has to come to pick him up and scolds him for having such a dangerous tool. 

He will never see it again. 

The only thing that his mother left him, is gone.

The demons that live in his head, because now he knows that they are demons, not simple voices, are never satisfied. 

He smokes more and more, trying to shut them up.

He decides that if he has to be an outcast, he will be the fucking king of the outcast.

The goblin’s king.

He is not a freak. He is the freak.

Eddie the Freak Munson.

He is in a band, he is the DM for his little nerd group, and he doesn’t care if everyone at school despises him.

He is different from them.

He has demons, like all of them, but he knows their names.

His demons are fear, rejection, and loneliness, and he knows them well enough to give them just the right amount of leash.

People who don’t know their demons end up like his mum.

That’s why he is not too surprised when a blond cheerleader, the queen of Hawkins High, comes to his place to buy something stronger than weed.

He knows he should offer her friendship, it’s cheaper and it’s nicer.

He will, maybe not today.

He invites her to his place, and when they get there he starts to look around, searching for his little bag, when he notices that his demons are quieter than ever, like dogs scared of a bigger dog.

He turns.

Chrissy Cunningham is on the ceiling.

He screams her name, trying to bring her back from wherever she has gone, but deep inside he knows it’s too late. Her eyes are empty, like his mother’s. 

All he can do is run away from an invisible monster that’s hunting him.

He hears him call his name, as killing Chrissy was not enough for him, but Eddie is faster, he has lived on the streets, and he knows how to avoid problems and demons.

He runs toward the house of his dealer, hiding where he thinks no one will ever find him.

But he is wrong. There are voices. And people.

He tightens his grip on the broken bottle and gets ready to jump.

He has never felt so lost before.

He jumps, pushing the bottle at the neck of the intruder, a chestnut boy with wide eyes full of fear.

He sees the boy's demon in his eyes and lowers his makeshift weapon.

Eddie Munson may be a freak, but he is no murderer.

[shebeafancyflapjack]

When Snow White met Sleeping Beauty

(Set in @idiotwithanipad 's Gore AU, tried to keep it ambiguous so as when it's placed but some time before my fic The Wolf and the Witchling)

Despite being a five star hotel with an overflowing stream of guests, there were several rooms in Button House that were largely out of use. They had either been sealed off, such as the one in the East Wing where a young woman had unfortunately died recently, or fate just rarely seemed to have anyone placed there. Higham Suite was one such room. People were rarely checked into there overnight, except for the woman who had inherited the house from her ancestor briefly before selling it on to the golf resort.

Mrs. Cooper had claimed to have always felt something special in that room in particular, a connection to her distant family who she'd never known until after the death of Lady Heather Button. In her words, it felt like the "beating heart" of Button House.

Unbeknownst to any of the staff, or even Alison Cooper herself, the room was always occupied.

On the bed, forever dressed in a heavily layered Georgian party frock, lay a woman of twenty-two years. Rarely was she aware of the few people who would come in and out of the room, even the beautiful woman with brown hair who reminded her so much of her sister. Most of the time, she slept.

Kitty's eyes flickered open, her hand itching terribly once again. Ellie would no doubt visit her bedside soon and mayhaps she could ask her sister if she wouldn't mind creating one of her herbal remedies into an oil for her hand.

She felt ever so poorly. All the time. Her skin was moist with sweat, every inch of her feeling terribly hot. Her governess refuses to open the window for her, claiming the 'bad air' from outside will only make her sickness worse.

Oh, how she misses her family. The last thing she recalls hearing Papa say after he pressed his hand to her forehead was his promise to return with a doctor. The messenger must be delayed or the doctor very busy because they're taking an awfully long time to arrive.

Sometimes she'll have a small burst of energy and find the strength to climb out of bed. Her room is one of the largest so there's plenty of space to play, and yet all her teddy bears and dolls and dresses and books seem to be missing. Every time she wakes, there seems to be new decorations or paintwork or strange objects she doesn't recognise.

And, even more strangely, sometimes she'll awake to a person in her bed. That person, a pretty woman, looks so much like Eleanor. Kitty doesn't like it when she brings her husband with her as it means Kitty needs to rest upon the floor. Sometimes there will be a child with them, who is cute but Kitty would much prefer the woman to come alone. She could sit and watch her read or brush her hair or listen to her sing in the bathroom all day. The woman is her best friend, even though she has never once seen or spoken to Kitty. That's okay.

The woman, the Not Eleanor, is all she has, at least until her father and sister return. Oh, how overjoyed they shall be when they see she's still healthy, just a little tired and fighting off a cold. She wants to return to the party, hoping there will be some more pineapple left to consume.

Until then, she is alone.

Well, that's not actually fair. She has Carruthers, her governess, though she claims her name to be something different now. Lady Button, yes, that's it. How similar to her governess she is, as much as Eleanor and Not Eleanor.

Lady Button may dress differently but she's very much the same. Strict, cold, harsh, but carried with a subtle care for her charge. Kitty trusts that the Lady, who says that she is her ward for the time being, knows what it best for her while she recovers.

Having only said a curt goodnight to her an hour ago, Kitty struggles to sleep. Probably because she's been asleep for most of the day and feels one of her bursts of energies.

She sits up and makes her way to the dresser, sitting herself down and practicing her smile in the mirror. Just as she's adjusting her feather, a figure stumbles through the wall beside her.

"Okay, this has to be the one! Hello? Fizzy Girl, you here?"

Kitty blinked at the strange urchin who had just entered her room. A giggle escaped her and she covered her mouth with her hands.

By God, the child was practically naked!

"Is that...me? Is that how I sound to others?" The girl with black and pink hair frowned.

When she turned in Kitty's direction, she stopped her laughter immediately when she noticed the girl's pale eyes. Oh, dear.

"...Is someone there? Amy, is that you?" The blind girl reached her hand out, fingers fluttering close to Kitty's forehead.

"Who is Amy? And who are you?" Kitty asked, her voice a little weaker than usual. She rarely had a chance to speak with others and Lady Button wasn't one for conversation.

The girl's eyes widened and now it was her turn to giggle. Her smile stretched unnaturally wide, even for Kitty's opinion, and she always tried to smile.

"New person?! Oh my gods! I'm guessing I got turned around in the corridors. Sorry, my first time sneaking in here, it's all new and my ecolation doesn't seem to work as well here as in my forest." She seemed to realise she was babbling and cleared her throat; "Hehehe, sorry! Just wasn't expecting this, I was searching for my other friend - or potential friend, hopefully - and she doesn't talk, bless her! Anyway, let's start over. I'm Silver! Are you from the living world or beyond?"

"I..." had no idea how to answer that, or make sense of the strange girl's ramblings.

Silver, as she called herself, reached forward and gently patted Kitty's shoulder before pulling her hand back.

"One of us! Awesome! Sometimes the livings can see and hear me, briefly. Not sure how it works, most of the time when I try they ignore me but when I really, really need them to - when the moon and the stars are just right- I can chat with them! Crazy, right? I must get it from my mummy. Her and our friend can even touch livings when they wish...but that usually doesn't work out well for them. Hehehe!"

Kitty was dumbfounded. The girl reminded her of Peter Pan, a character which she and Eleanor had never heard but Lady Button sometimes told her to help send her to sleep. A mischievous imp from a fantasy land intruding into a young lady's room.

"What are you?" The question sounded so rude once it left her lips; "Gosh, my apologies!"

"Hehehehe, honestly I get a lot of that. I think if I was ever a normal girl, I'm anything but now. That's what happens when your mother is a great enchantress." She grins; "Like I said, my name's Silver Ravenstar Guppy. I live in the forest outside the house with my mum and our furry guardian. What's your name?"

"Katherine Higham. Though my friends and family call me Kitty."

"Ooh, like a kitty-cat?!"

"Yes! I loved cats so much, Mama told me the first house I lived in had a a couple when I was in Jamaica. But sadly we couldn't have one when we came here as my father is allergic."

"Aww that sucks. We had a couple of cats when I was growing up. And a dog, who I loved as well. I never got it when people say you're either a dog or cat person, because-"

"Why not both?!"

Both women said the words in perfect unison. Silver gasped, those grey eyes suddenly sparkling with life.

"Did we just become best friends?!" She asked.

"I think so! Quick, come over to the bed!" Kitty jumped up and took Silver by the hand, leading her to sit with her on the duvet.

"Wow, your hands are wet. Sorry, I didn't disturb you when you just got out the bath, did I?"

Kitty shook her head; "Oh no, sorry about that. I'm a little under the weather so am sadly sweating constantly, it's quite unseemly."

"Damn, what is with this house? My other friend is sick as well! Her daddy doesn't even want her leaving the room." Silver tutted, looking in Kitty's direction though not quite meeting her eyes.

Her words were fuelled by concern even though her face still held that immovable smile.

"It is the same with my governess. I'm not to leave my room until my father returns with the doctor."

"Oh..." Silver reached for Kitty's wrist and squeezed it; "Can I tell you a secret? Seeing as we're now friends?"

"Of course!"

The girl seemed to look around despite it being pointless before leaning in to confess; "I'm not supposed to leave my home either. Well, I can wander outside the forest, so long as Mummy or my guardian is with me. But I'm forbidden to enter this house. But I really wanted to find my friend's room. So I just decided to come anyway!"

"You broke your mother's rule?! That's so naughty!"

"Hell yeah it is!"

Blaspheming, too! Kitty was mortified, and yet all she could do was giggle with the other girl. It reminded her of when her and Eleanor would sometimes sneak down to the kitchen to look for leftover cakes after bedtime. Her heart would pound with fear of being caught, but it was so exhilarating, especially with Ellie there at her side promising all would be well.

And it was, until Carruthers would find crumbs sprinkled all over Kitty's bed and knew what she had been up to. Never Eleanor's bed however, but there was no way Kitty would snitch on her sister.

"Won't your mother punish you if she finds out you disobeyed her?" Kitty asked.

"Oh, she'll be furious. At worse she'll give me one of her doom and gloom speeches about how witches were tortured and how that will happen to me if I'm not careful, maybe send some scary visions into my head. But she's a soft touch, really. I'll just turn on the waterworks, say 'sorry Mummy' a few times and she'll melt like butter. She'd never actually hurt me, y'know, hehehe."

"Neither would Carruthers. Mama and Papa were always against corporal punishment. At worse, Ellie and I would get a light slap to our wrists but nothing more. Her scalding tone and shouting is bad enough!"

It felt like a weight off her chest to have someone to vent about the older woman to.

Silver tilted her head; "So weird. I didn't think people had governesses anymore?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well...what year is it for you?"

What an odd question!

Kitty sniggered; "Why it's seventeen eighty, silly!"

A grim realisation seemed to dawn on the younger girl's face. She blinked, her brow crinkling, her smile seeming to twitch.

"Right...."

"Did I say something wrong?"

Silver shook her head; "No, no of course not, babes. Uhm. My head gets a bit dizzy and confused sometimes, is all. Do you really just stay in this room all the time? Don't you get bored?"

"Sometimes. But I have my own little games I make up and when Car...Sorry, when Lady Button visits me she'll check on my health, then sometimes she'll tell me stories or try to teach me things about how to be a proper lady, all that. But most of the time, I'm asleep. And when I'm dreaming I'm never bored."

Silver gasped; "....You too, huh? How often do you sleep for?"

"Well, I can't be certain, and as you say it all gets a bit confusing. I struggle to stay awake for more than an hour each day, around lunchtime. Funny...that's the time on the day of the party when I first began to feel ill...."

"Oh. Wow." The other girl squeezed her hand; "You sleep as much as me. I didn't think that was possible."

The girl proceeded to tell Kitty about the curse of her existence. How she only awoke for the three nights a month around the full moon and the rest of the time slept in the forest amongst the blue cornflowers.

"Proper pair of Disney princesses, aren't we." Silver chuckled as she finished.

"What is Disney?"

"Never mind. Just....something I think you'd really have enjoyed." The girl's eyes crinkled with sadness; "I wish I could bring you to meet Mummy. You'd love all the magical worlds and palaces and balls and dresses she could make us!"

"That sounds wonderful! You're so lucky that your mother is an enchantress! I had no idea there even was one. Lady Buttton has warned me of an evil witch but-."

"That's a lie. Trust me." The girl suddenly turned defensive; "My mummy only seems scary sometimes to protect me but she's the most beautiful and kindest woman ever. Or at least..." She looked down at her dirtied skirt; "I thought she was perfect until..."

Kitty felt a touch of sympathy for the girl. It was hard to reconcile her story about her mother giving her such wonderful gifts when she appeared so filthy and barely clothed to her eyes.

But she knew how it felt to want to only see the best in your family even when they do things that seem hurtful.

"I do think I've seen you before..." Kitty frowned.

"Really?"

"Yes. Often times I hear singing on the field when I peek out I've seen a girl spinning on the lawn near the trees. I thought I was delirious!"

Silver giggled; "No, no, that was me. Sorry if I disturbed you."

"Oh, don't be daft. I quite enjoyed watching you and wishing I could come join you."

"Maybe next time you can."

"Maybe...I especially enjoyed that song you sang last month. How did it go, uhm?" Kitty's face creased as she concentrated, before mimicking in tune; "Hasaa...Man-yana....Always be miiiine!"

"Viva forever! I'll be waiting! Ever lasting, like the sun!" Silver continued, "Spice Girls! I used to love them when I was a kid. Not quite my genre anymore but, you know, nostalgia and all that."

"They sound amazing! Can you teach me more of their songs?"

"Sure. Those I can remember." Silver giggled with excitement before wincing; "Shit...Aww, man I feel awful."

"What's wrong? Are you sick too?"

"Yes. No. Hahaha. Bit of both. I meant I feel awful because I'm supposed to be looking for my other friend. Don't get me wrong, I'm so glad we found each other too!"

"Me as well!" Kitty gushed, feeling a twinge of jealousy at the thought of the strange girl leaving her to play with someone else.

Couldn't she keep her for herself? Just have a long sleepover until Papa returns and then Silver can return to her mama?

"But...I did meet Amy first. And I think she's still struggling with being here and her daddy being overprotective and other things..." the pink haired girl sighed; "Maybe when I find her, I can bring her here and we can all play together?"

"I...Yes. Yes, of course." Kitty let go of the jealousy. She'd been alone for far too long, better two new friends than none at all.

At least these two could see and talk to her, unlike Not Eleanor.

"Thanks for understanding. I promise that when I'm back, if you're awake, I'll sing you every song Spice Girls song I know-."

Silver's head turned at the sound of two heeled shoes against the floorboards.

"S-someone just came in?"

Kitty looked to see Lady Button walking through the door, her neck bent, glaring furiously at Silver on the bed.

"HOW DARE YOU ENTER MY WARD'S ROOM WITHOUT PERMISSION?!" The grey lady shrieked; "ARE YOU TRYING TO WORSEN THE CHILD'S SICKNESS WITH YOUR HEATHENRY?!"

"Woah, woah!" Silver got off the bed and raised her hands up; "I'm sorry, okay! I stumbled in by accident, I meant no harm!"

"It's true, Lady Button! We met by happenstance! We were only talking!" Kitty tried to defend.

"Katherine, do be silent and don't exhurt yourself. Let me handle this young harlot."

Silver scoffed; "Uhh, excuse me, who are you? The posh mum from Titanic? Who are you to call me a harlot?! My mother is the witch of the woods and she's not gonna be happy about you slagging me off!"

Kitty shrank back against the pillows of her bed as she watched the grey lady square up against the blind witchling.

"I know perfectly well who your mother is, child. But she has no power here. I am the last true Lady of this house - it belongs to me!"

The half-naked girl crossed her arms and looked incredulous.

"Well, my friend's daddy is also the Lord of the manor-."

"Yes, when it was Bone Hall. Now it is Button House and as Lady Button, it is under my rule. Now return to your forest, you scandalous little imp. My ward needs to rest." The grey lady demanded.

Silver shook her head.

"It's not fair. You keep her trapped in here. You're as bad as the headless one, and my mummy. You should let her make friends, let her be free-."

"I am doing what is best and keeping her safe! All my children and grandchildren have left, she is the closest to kin that I have and I won't let her be corrupted by the likes of you. Now leave."

Silver glanced in Kitty's direction. The young Georgian just looked tired and defeated, her eyes telling her new friend that it would just be best to do as her surrogate mother said so.

The witchling took a step towards her bed and reached out her hand. Kitty raised hers too.

"I said LEAVE!"

The booming sound of Fanny Button's voice hit Silver like a cannonball, hurling her into the air and towards the window.

She landed on the driveway in a heap, the sting of her palms and knees colliding with the gravel stones only temporary, but enough to make her wince.

The tiniest cry of pain. It was all that was needed.

"Darling girl!"

The tornado of black smoke and embers appeared in an instant. Strong but bony arms lifted her up off the ground like a small child and, before she could blink, she was whisked away from the house and back to her forest.

The arms set her down on her feet as the tornado dispersed. Mummy hugged her tight.

"I was worried sick! You weren't in your bed and I thought you'd gone for a walk with dear ally, but then I heard you-."

"Why did you lie?" Silver asked.

Mummy stilled. Then she pulled back from the hug, hands on Silver's shoulders as she gazed down at her daughter. In Silver's warped vision, two faces flickered before her, one a chilling skull with flecks of charred skin clinging to the bone, the other the soft and round face of her loving and beautiful mother.

"Little'en, what lie d'you speak of?"

"Is there more than one?"

Her mother was silenced at that. Silver sighed, she wasn't looking for a fight, not tonight.

"The girl, Mummy. The other sleeping girl in the big house. Kitty."

"You went inside the house?! Without my permission?!"

The smoke was rising again, Silver could smell it. This time she didn't buckle.

"Amy's daddy said I could visit her, remember!"

"Yes, when she's well and when I agreed-"

"So I decided to go a little early and on my own. Big deal. You gonna punish me or you gonna be honest with me, Mother?!"

It was the first time she'd ever called her something other than Mummy. It seemed to pierce the witch's invisible armour.

She sighed; "What does thou wish to know the truth about?"

"Kitty. Kitty Higham."

"Oh. Hers." For once, her mother really did sound rather sheepish for a great and powerful witch.

"You told me there was no one in that house for me. At first I thought she must be new like Amy but no. She's been there hundreds of years!"

Mummy sighed.

Waving her hands, she cast a glamour over Silver's gaze, transforming the mundane woods around them into a fairytale grove, complete with an ivory bench beneath a willow tree.

Mummy beckoned Silver to sit with her. She complied.

"T'is complicated, my love. Sweet Kitty...her affliction be worse than your own." She explained, gently; "She is much weaker and the Mistress of the house keepeth her under close supervision. When Annie be here, she used to frequent the child and tend to her, long before 'er Ladyship did die."

"And you never....?"

Mummy looked down at her lap.

"Annie oft' encouraged me so but I be afraid of scaring the poor child when she already suffers from fevers."

"Why would she be scared of you, Mummy?"

The witch gave her a sad smile, touching her cheek; "My magic don't work in that house, someone did set wards to protect it from me many years past. And not all see with as innocent eyes as your own, daughter. I not be as pleasant to look upon without my mask...."

Her daughter didn't reply to that. She was too angry. Betrayed.

"You should have told me the truth, Mummy. I could have snuck in there many times without the Lady knowing." She tutted; "I could have had a friend...and so could she. Poor thing."

"I know. I'm sorry, my lovely." Mummy went to stroke her hair but Silver ducked.

"....I just don't get it. You said that if you thought Amy was being mistreated, you'd rescue her. Why can't we take Kitty away so she can be with us?"

"Because she cannots leave her room, darling girl."

"What, because some jumped up fancypants bitch says so?!"

"No. Listen to me, daughter." Her mother squeezed her hand; "Kitty cannot leave her room."

Silver blinked as the words sunk in.

"Oh..."

"Yes. You understand now?" She asked and Silver sadly nodded; "You has your curse and she hath hers. Believe me, Annie tried all manner of ways but whenever she venture too far from her bed, she be pulled back onto it."

"That's awful..." Silver wished her fucking mouth could display how unhappy it made her feel for Kitty; "....I guess I am a bit lucky. I have you, and our friend, and our enchanted kingdom."

Even if it were only for three nights and two days a month.

Mummy's fingers stroked her hair and this time she didn't move away.

"I am sorry, darling girl. I thought I was sparing you more harm from getting close to her only to be made to leave. Trust me, were I free to enter that abode, I'd have more thans a few words to say to Missus Fanny Buttons!"

Silver grinned and shuffled closer to her mother, leaning against her side and resting on her shoulder.

Perhaps it was twenty years of induced hallucinations and warped memories, or maybe not, but she never liked to stay mad at Mummy.

"I will sneak in to visit her again. Don't care how many times she pushes me out." Silver muttered.

Mummy scoffed and kissed her brow; "Yous sound just like Annie."

Despite never having met the woman, it made Silver proud to hear that.

"And I don't care what anyone says, Mummy. You are the most beautiful woman there is. Even without the mask."

"...But when do you see-?"

"Enough." Was all Silver said, wrapping her arms around the witch.

Were her tear ducts not burned shut, Mary would be shedding tears as she held her darling girl close, once again ignoring the discomfort against her crisp skin. Just when she thought it wasn't possible to love her little'en more.