Seven Sentence Sunday
(yeah I know I'm late, but I slept all day okay)
His movements start to stutter as their fingers brush up against the waistline of his boxers once, twice, and then a third time. And then his fingers are shaking as he curls Tommy’s thumb inside the elastic, his own breath hitching in his chest because it feel too tight and like he can’t get enough air and-
“Evan, stop.”
He snaps his head up and looks over at Tommy. Tommy slides his fingers out from under Evan’s, bringing them up to rest in the center of his stomach.
“That’s not what I meant,” he continues.
Evan’s brow furrows as he stares into Tommy’s eyes in the darkness of the room. Tommy’s other hand comes down from where it’s wrapped behind his own head, brushing through the curls on Evan’s head.
“I thought you wanted to touch me,” he rasps, confused.
Tommy’s entire expression wilts, and his hand slides away from Evan’s torso, removing contact from his body. His fingertips are barely on Evan’s hipbone when Evan grasps his wrist, squeezing so tightly that the bite of his nails in Tommy’s skin are likely to leave marks.
“Please don’t stop,” he requests, his voice choked with anxiety. “I know I’m broken now, but-..”
“Evan.” Tommy’s voice is commanding. Something about the way his voice sounds in that tone always cuts through the static in his head and straightens his spine; like Tommy really wants him to hear what he’s saying.
22 notes
·
View notes
Imagine if the GIW started gunning for Jason without the Batfam ever meeting Phantom. Like, Bruce has to figure out on his own that the guys in white suits with Lazarus guns are 1. a legitimate government agency, and 2. are perfectly within their rights to hunt Jason like an animal, because 3. there's secret government legislation that says that since Jason's body processes ectaplasm, he's classified as non-sapient and has no legal protections.
Bruce calling up Clark like
Bruce: I am currently in the process of breaking into a government facility in order to dismantle their operations.
Clark: Okay? Do you need... help?
Bruce: Yes.
Clark: Sure, I'll be right there.
Bruce: Not that kind of help. Oracle is sending you the files now. I'd like you and Ms. Lane to make these people wish they were never born.
Clark: [speed-reading the documents] Oh yeah, can do. This is truly disgusting. If the public is half as outraged as I am, we'll get this sorted as fast as the courts can manage.
So Clark Kent acts as a whistle-blower, the Justice League publicly condems the Anti-Ecto Acts as inhumane, the GIW is disbanded, and Batman gets pardoned for all of those crimes that he technically did by assaulting federal agents. And after all that gets sorted, some white haired kid pops up in the Watchtower like "haha thanks for that I really didn't want a war between Earth and the Infinite Realms" and the League are like "wait what"
6K notes
·
View notes
at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"
like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.
"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."
... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.
and i'd still keep writing.
i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.
i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley
"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"
and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.
it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.
you create because you're greedy.
18K notes
·
View notes
The day his deal comes due, Sam goes missing.
Dean tells himself it’s nothing, that he’s gotten caught up in some research, some last ditch, hail mary nonsense and that he’s just turned his phone off and everything’s fine, that he wouldn’t do something stupid, that he wouldn’t break his promise.
He tells himself that for the first two minutes after he cracks his eyes open and sees the empty bed across from him, and the first time his call goes straight to voicemail, and not much after that. Sam’s broken his promises over things significantly less important to him than his brother’s life.
Dean is dressed and in the Impala five minutes later, heart thudding wildly in his chest. He calls Bobby, Ellen, everyone he can think of, but none of them have heard from Sam, none of them have eyes on him. Sam was with him last night, even if he boosted a car, there’s only so far he can get.
He keeps calling, keep searching, desperate to stop whatever he’s trying to do, to find him, to see his brother one last time before he’s dragged to hell. To make sure Sam is going to be okay after he’s dragged to hell. But the hours tick down, the sun sets, and he can’t find a trace of him. He’s so exhausted and heart sick that when he goes to call Sam again it takes him a long time to read the number on his phone, eyes swimming, the time not making any sense.
1:03
That’s not possible.
That’s not –
His phone rings, blocking out the time with Bobby’s name across the screen, and he answers it but his throat is too thick to say anything.
“Dean?” Bobby says tentatively. “Are you – I got an email from Sam. It just said, I mean, did–“
“What did it say, Bobby?” he asks, even though he’s sure he knows.
Bobby sucks in a breath at his voice, because he knows just as well as Dean that he should be screaming in hell right now, not answering his phone. “To take care of you.”
Dean drops the phone, hears Bobby still talking as he grips the wheel and presses his forehead against the back of his hands. This is what he’d been afraid of. This is why he hadn’t wanted to mess with the deal in first place. This is the one thing he’d begged Sam not to do.
It's easy to find a crossroad.
The demon is laughing at him when it shows up, wicked grin in a pretty face. “That didn’t take you long, boy.”
It’s a different demon than the one he delt with, obviously, but Dean figures they all know the same shit, since demons are a bunch of gossips. “This wasn’t the deal. My brother lives and I die.”
“You traded your soul for your brother’s life,” she corrects, so amused by all this that all he wants to do is kill her, to exorcise her, to make her scream. “Just like your father traded his for yours. There’s no reason Sammy can’t make his own trade. Man, but is your family fucked up. Maybe if you’d just settled down like little Sammy wanted, you wouldn’t all be bargaining for each other’s lives like haggling at a flea market.”
“Untrade it,” he snaps. “My soul for him alive, come on, no year, no waiting, you bring him back and take me to hell right now.”
She laughs in his face. “You don’t have anything to bargain with, boy.”
“My soul,” he repeats, “That’s what this is about, isn’t?”
“Oh, it’s what it’s all about,” she says. “But Sammy’s a clever boy. You know that, don’t you? He didn’t trade his soul for your life, he didn’t have to. You didn’t die. No, he traded it for your soul. Sorry, honey, but your credits been declined.”
At first he doesn’t understand. Sam traded his soul for Dean’s, exactly, so there’s no reason he can’t trade it right back. Then he gets it.
She sees the exact moment it clicks, the moment despair and horror sweep across his face too quickly for him to stop them. “That’s right. Little brother owns your soul now. For some reason he didn’t think you’d take proper care of it. You have it because that’s where he wants it, but no one will be making any deals with you, Dean Winchester. You can’t sell a soul you don’t own.”
“You can’t,” he has to clear his throat, “you can’t just come in and change things at the eleventh hour-”
“Eleventh hour?” she interrupts. “Sammy made his deal eleven months ago.”
His mouth is so dry he can’t speak.
“Isn’t it funny?” she asks, head cocked to the side. “All this time, the deal he’s been trying to get out of wasn’t yours, but his own. Maybe the two of you might have even managed it, except you just wouldn’t help, would you? Insisting that he not research, that he not look for a way out, and he spent so much time trying to convince you, coaxing you to talk about your feelings when he knew you were safe, all he because he thought it would make you feel better when he was gone, because he couldn’t tell you the truth and talk about how scared he was, so talking about your fear was as close as he could get.”
Dean’s going to be sick. “Don’t – please, please, I’ll give you anything-”
“You don’t have anything,” she says, gleeful. “You want to know why I agreed? The thing that made it just too delicious to refuse? Sammy’s down there, just starting in on an eternity of torture, and all he has to do get out of it is give up your soul. It’s his, after all, and he can put the original deal back in place any time he chooses. Just one moment of weakness on his end and his beloved big brother will be on the rack instead.” She sighs happily. “It’s almost as good as anything we’re doing to him down there, the knowledge that if he slips up for even a moment then it would all be for nothing. I couldn’t have found a way to twist the knife deeper if I tried.”
There’s vomit crawling its way up his throat and he has to swallow it down before he can speak. “I can’t – I’ll do whatever you want, please, there has to be something.”
She leans forward, cruelty and delight shining in her eyes. “The only thing you can do is what you’ve been telling your precious baby brother to do for the past year. Accept it. Move on. Live a good life so his sacrifice isn’t in vain.”
God. How can she – how can Sammy expect him to –
He’s doubling over, finally upchucking what little he’s ate today, and he’s dry heaving on the dirt when he hears the fading sound of her laughter.
This can’t be real. This has to be Hell, he has to be in it right now. He has to be.
522 notes
·
View notes