#but it's like. when you KNOW something makes sense and there's not /real/ reason why you should object to it

[pretentious-blonde]

realisation

pairing: steve harrington x reader

summary: it’s a feeling he hasn’t touched in years—something selfish and dangerous and impossible to let go of

warnings: therapy, big big feelings from steve, migraines, anxiety

a/n: soft steve always has my heart <3

series masterlist

Steve never liked the quiet, that’s part of the reason he loved his job. The noise in his classroom was gentle, filled with curiosity—excitement. It was an odd definition of peace, but he never questioned it. Kids brought out something within him he thought was lost, he liked that about them.

That’s also why he never enjoyed going back to his own place. It was the kind of quiet that felt too suffocating. When he first signed the lease after leaving his parents' house, he thought the isolation would be a blessing—a sanctuary where it was just him, no drama, no outsiders.

No threats.

But as time went on and memories resurfaced, that same quiet began to feel heavy.

He found himself remembering what it was like when he first moved here, when progress was just beginning—because in a way, it was again.

Slashed, back to fucking zero.

He could no longer move forward. Couldn’t talk about it anymore—not in the way he needed to.

He couldn’t safely open up in his therapist’s office, couldn’t make you understand now, not really.

All he had left was Robin—the same Robin who had nearly fallen apart trying to hold him together at the start of all this—and he couldn’t do that to her again. Wouldn’t.

That is why he has to do this. 

It’s late afternoon, and he’s got one sock on, one sock half-off, pacing across the tiny stretch of kitchen linoleum with the phone pressed to his ear. His free hand scraped through his hair, again, again—like maybe if he does it hard enough, he’ll comb away all the thoughts circling in his head.

He hasn’t slept. The therapist’s words from yesterday rattle in his mind, reverberating through every breath. 

Intervene. 

He’s replayed the warning all night, half expecting someone to burst through the door and threaten him again. It churns in his stomach. All the guilt and fear—he can’t figure out which is louder. 

He just knows he’s been lying in bed, eyes wide at the ceiling, again. 

The excuse he comes up with is a simple one, not really a lie. Because in a way, his head does ache. It’s not the blinding kind of pain that used to knock him off his feet after a particularly bad episode, but the pressure’s there, right behind his eyes, throbbing in time with his pulse. 

He might as well call it a migraine if it keeps you at arm’s length—keeps you safe from whatever might be going on inside his mind. But that’s not really true anymore.

The threat is, once again, in the real world.

He closes his eyes the moment he hears your voice on the other end of the line. He tries to answer in a steady tone.

“Hey,” he begins. “I—hey. Um. I don’t think I can make it tonight.”

It’s quiet as he waits for your answer, like you're feeling out the tone of his voice. 

“Why?”

Didn't take much to sense something was wrong. You were observant. 

Too observant. 

That’s why he had to create this distance. 

“I’ve got a migraine coming on,” he manages, voice unsteady. “Just… sort of crept up on me. Thought it was gonna pass but… doesn’t feel like it.”

He can picture the worried fold between your eyebrows, the way you’d tilt your head if you were standing in front of him. 

“Is it bad? Y’know… like last time?” 

You ask it so gently, and he bites the inside of his cheek. 

Last time.

The last time—when he nearly lost everything you had built together.

The last time he left you scared.

The last time he really fucked up.

“No,” he speaks quickly. “Not that bad. Just a bit of pressure. Thought I should stay home—sleep it off.”

He hears you exhale, a soft sigh that says you’re not convinced. 

“Steve…”

“Sweetheart,” he counters, trying to keep his voice light, “I’m alright. I just… need a quiet night.” He punctuates it with a half-hearted laugh, like it might sell the story better.

“Okay.” There’s a pause on your side. “Well—I’m coming over.”

His chest constricts. 

Of course you are. 

He knew you would. It’s one of the things that scares him most about letting you in: you show up. 

Always. 

“No—no, you don’t have to,” he blurts. “Really. I’ll just be in bed. It’s not exactly good company.”

“Good thing I’m not looking for thrills,” you tease, voice warmer. “Let me take care of you a little.”

He almost loses it right there. The phone cord wraps around his wrist as he paces in a tight circle, sock skidding on the tile. 

He thinks you’re too good for him. So he says it out loud, in a voice that cracks just a bit. Hopefully he can blame it on the “pain.”

“Maybe,” you answer, and he can practically see your small smile, the tilt of your lips. “But I like you. So that’s kind of your problem now.”

He can’t fight it anymore. He'll say it's his lack of energy.

“Okay,” he concedes. “Door’s unlocked.”

He hangs up too fast, like if he stays on the line a second longer, he’ll give up the entire game. The phone slips from his hand onto the receiver with a dull clack.

He just stands there in the fading sunlight, staring at the pattern of the kitchen countertop. He can’t figure out if he’s more relieved that you’re coming, or more terrified that you’ll see the cracks he knows will soon show. 

He moves into the living room, collapsing onto the couch. The cushions sink under his weight like they’re trying to swallow him whole. He feels like an idiot as he scrubs his hand over his face. He should’ve just faked the entire day, come up with an ironclad excuse—maybe said he had to run errands or something. 

But then you’d ask questions, you’d want to help him, and he’d buckle anyway because he can’t say no to you. Not when you sound like that. 

Not when your first instinct is to care.

He glances at the stack of second-grade spelling tests on the table and pushes them aside, annoyed at the very sight of them. He was trying to keep busy, to put a pen in his hand and shut off his brain. But the weight in his chest is too big, too heavy to ignore, and nothing about marking a dozen attempts at the word “elephant” is going to clear the images swirling in his mind.

Last night was bad. 

Worse than usual. 

He’d tossed and turned for hours, drifting into shallow snatches of sleep that delivered him into the Upside Down, or a half-memory of it. The vines. The pulsing lights. And you, off in the distance, looking at him like he was a stranger. 

He’d woken with a jolt, drenched in sweat, heart hammering. Spent the morning sipping lukewarm coffee with no music, no TV, no noise at all—just the sound of his own heartbeat roaring in his ears.

He knew this would happen, especially after his last appointment, but it still hurt all the same. He hadn’t had a dream like that in weeks, proof that all of his progress feels like it’s been ripped from under him. 

Everything about this is too much and not enough. He’s tiptoeing on a razor’s edge of fear and yearning, wanting to protect you but also wanting to crash into your arms. He doesn’t deserve how you look at him, the way you always ask if he’s okay. 

And now you’re on your way over, and he can’t stop you. 

Doesn’t truly want to stop you.

Because in the back of his mind, he knows this feeling. He knows it all too well.

Knows what it does to a person.

It always starts slow—just a ripple, a toe in the water—until suddenly the tide’s pulling you under and there’s no surface left to reach for.

He knows what it means to drown—in both senses of the word. But this time, it’s worse. This time, it’s not his choice whether he comes back up.

This time, it’s yours.

And all he can do is hope that if it comes down to it, he’ll be the one sinking. 

Not you.

The front door swings open quietly, you don’t bother waiting for an invitation. By the time Steve looks up, you’re already stepping inside with that urgency in your eyes—like you’ve come prepared to handle any crisis he’s trying to hide. 

He hates that he can read your body language. Hates that he can see how cautious you are, bracing yourself for whatever version of him you’ll find.

And he hates even more that you’d still come anyway.

For a moment, he just stands there in the middle of the living room, unsure of what to do with his hands. He was halfway through tidying up, something to move his stiff body. Make you think that your boyfriend can at least seem to hold his life together. 

He’s in his usual knit jumper and a pair of plaid pyjama bottoms, hair a little mussed from the nervous nap he never took. The lighting softens him, makes him look more fragile than he feels, it traces the curve of his jaw and the soft downturn of his mouth. 

He’s tired. You can see it instantly—the weighted slump of his shoulders, the slight effort in his exhale. Maybe there’s a pang of guilt in his chest at being so transparent, but he can’t quite fix his expression into something more reassuring. 

Not tonight.

“You look rough,” you say, raising your eyebrows in that gentle, teasing way.

He can tell you’re worried. It’s there in the careful tone of your voice, the way your gaze flicks over him like you’re scanning for damage.

“Yeah…” His lips twitch in what might be an attempt at a smile. “I know.”

Before he can stumble out a courtesy greeting, you close the distance, slipping your arms around him and drawing him into a hug. The warmth of your body presses flush against his chest, and he stiffens for half a heartbeat—like he’s not quite sure he has the right to accept this comfort. Then instinct kicks in, and he melts. The tension drains from his shoulders, and he drops his head to the curve of your neck, inhaling your scent. The one he never knew he would crave so deeply. 

His arms rise to wrap around your waist, palms splayed against your back as if to steady himself.

“Hi,” you murmur into his hair, voice muffled against his temple.

He breathes you in, a tired sigh slipping out. 

“Hey,” he answers, almost inaudible.

The quiet in the room no longer feels suffocating—it feels like a shared breath, something that belongs to both of you. Your fingers slide into his hair, combing it back gently, and his eyes flutter shut. 

He thinks about how a hug like this might’ve been a luxury in another life—before nightmares and secrets twisted everything into shadows. 

But with your arms around him, he lets himself believe it could be simple. 

Just for a moment. 

He’ll give himself a moment. 

When you finally pull back to look at him, there’s a softness in your expression he’s not sure he deserves. Your attention drifts over his shoulder, landing on the small table behind him. Paper after paper is scattered there—spelling tests, wobbly handwriting, even a few crayon doodles. You tilt your head, curiosity nudging your brow. 

“What’s all that?”

He steps out of your hold, just enough to glance at the mess over his shoulder. Reluctance flickers across his face. 

“Just… some papers I needed to get through,” he says, swallowing. “It’s nothing. Spelling stuff.”

“You can’t possibly do that when your head’s hurting.” 

He’s dealt with worse. 

He shrugs one shoulder in a half-hearted gesture. 

“It’s not so bad,” he tries, though the hesitation in his voice betrays him.

You don’t buy it. He can see the resolve in your stance, the way your chin sets. 

“Trying to concentrate on eight-year-old handwriting is not how to cure a migraine,” you say flatly, giving him a look that shows your playful exacerbation.

“Honestly, it’s fine,” he insists. But even as the words leave his mouth, they sound weak. 

He’s still holding onto that white lie, and guilt gnaws at him from the inside. You’ve already started marching past him toward the table, your gaze determined. 

“Why don’t you sit down and relax?” you say, lifting one stack of papers. “I’ll do it.”

He follows, hand raised in a weak protest. 

“No—hey, that’s my job,” he says, trying for a laugh that doesn’t quite land. “Like, my real actual job.”

The one he needs to keep. 

Your grin appears, brightening the mood without effort. 

“I think I can handle some spelling tests,” you retort, eyeing the pages in your hands. “Pretty sure the complexities of second-grade grammar won’t defeat me.”

He sighs, a smile finally curving his lips for real. It’s small, but it’s genuine. 

“Am I gonna convince you otherwise?” he asks, half-rhetorical.

“Nope,” you say simply, lips shifting smugly as you slide into one of the dining chairs. It’s a look that tells him you won’t budge on this. 

Stubborn as always. 

He stands there for a second, torn between wanting to help and wanting to give in. There’s this warmth building under his ribs, relief and something else—something so dangerously close that he daren’t name. 

“Okay,” he finally murmurs, stepping back. The tension in his spine eases a fraction, and he can almost feel the exhaustion settling in now that he isn’t forcing himself to keep going.

“You gonna stand there or go lie down properly?” you ask, not looking up from the first spelling sheet you’re scanning.

He runs a hand over the back of his neck and drags his feet over to the couch, sinking down into the cushions with an exhale that betrays how tired he truly is. 

“Here’s fine,” he says quietly. 

The idea of vanishing into his bedroom feels unbearable right now. 

Too far. 

Too alone.

It’s selfish—how much he needs to stay near. Near enough to hear your voice, the soft scratch of your pen, proof that you’re there.

He rests his head against the arm of the couch, turning just enough to watch you from across the room. You spare him a glance, understanding flashing in your eyes. 

“Okay,” you accept. .

You stand abruptly and move to the lamp in the corner. A soft click and golden light spills into the room, bathing the scuffed hardwood floors in a gentle sheen. The overhead light blinks off with a flip of the switch, and suddenly everything feels softer, quieter—like you're tucked away in a little sanctuary, a space carved out of the world, just for two.

He shifts, propping one arm under his head, blinking against the change in light. 

“Hey now,” he jokes, words a bit slurred with fatigue, “it’s bad for your eyes.”

“Maybe,” from over by the lamp, you look at him and shrug. “But your head.”

His mouth twitches—he can’t help it. The weight in his chest lifts, just a little. 

“Right,” he mutters in agreement, the fight slipping out of him. 

He’s not sure if he wants to keep up the migraine ruse anymore, but it’s too tangled in everything else. Better to just let you have this small comfort. 

You deserve it.

You’ve been way too good to him—and because of that, he’s dragged you into this mess.

And the worst part? 

He knows he won’t be able to let you go, half-truths are going to have to be enough to compensate for his carelessness. 

You go back to the table, pulling out a chair and settling in with the stack of papers. Your face furrows in concentration as you pick up a pen—his red marking pen, the one he’s been avoiding all day. The faint sound of your writing tip against paper is a soothing background lull.

He watches you, eyelids heavy. He just lets his gaze linger on the shape of your face in the lamplight, the slope of your shoulder as you lean over a misspelled word. He breathes, in and out, feeling a tug in his chest every time you shake your head in mild amusement or scribble a little note in the margin. He closes his eyes, so filled with longing he cannot figure out where to put it all. 

Just let him have tonight.

Let this be all he feels tonight. 

Seconds bleed into minutes, and he’s not sure when his breathing slows, or how his tense muscles start to loosen. Eventually, he feels the calm settle over him, the quiet that used to feel like a noose around his neck. Now it’s more like a blanket—soft, encompassing, safe. He exhales as his eyelids droop.

His mind drifts in a liminal space between wakefulness and the pull of sleep, cocooned by the low lamplight. 

You clear your throat and tap the tip of a red pen against a test paper, amusement lacing your words. 

“One of your kids spelled kitchen like kitchin. I kinda like it,” you say, a small laugh escaping. “It feels… softer.”

He murmurs a response, voice thick from exhaustion. 

“Yeah,” he manages, eyes fluttering open just enough to find your silhouette at the table. “Bet that’s Jackson. He says breakfirst too. I never wanna correct that one.”

His words slur slightly, and he barely registers that he’s smiling. You lift your attention from the paper, your own playing at the corner of your mouth.

“Breakfirst makes sense,” you tease, the pen still in your hand. “It’s the first thing I think of when I wake up.”

He chuckles softly, shifting against the pillow. The motion tugs at his shoulders, reminding him how tight his muscles are. 

“Mhm,” he drawls, eyes sliding shut again. “He told me last week he wakes up thinking about pancakes. Said it just… appears in his brain.”

You snort a laugh, then set the test paper aside, leaning back in your chair. 

“I think I’d like him,” you remark, mock-serious. “He’s got the right idea.”

It’s so easy for him to picture Jackson—a scrawny seven-year-old with an overbite and an endless supply of energy. The image floats into his mind and settles there, a soft spot in the midst of his own troubles. 

He can almost see the bright classroom, the crayons and the whiteboard, the echo of little voices calling him. It feels like a life unshadowed by therapy sessions and the secrets choking him from within.

He lets the moment linger, a comfort in the back of his mind. Then a memory surfaces—one he rarely shares: his mom, the aroma of melted butter, the slowness of an early morning without his dad. It nudges at him, stirs something bittersweet in his chest.

“My mom used to make pancakes when my dad was out of town,” he hears himself say, the words spilling out so softly he almost isn’t sure he’s speaking aloud. He feels you pause. You don’t respond right away, giving him space to unravel the memory if he wants to.

Like you always do.

He swallows, blinking slowly at the ceiling. 

This is a safe one to share.  

“He traveled a lot,” he continues, voice quieter now, each syllable steeped in nostalgia. “Work stuff. Sales, I think—always sounded vague. But when he was gone, it was like… things relaxed a little. She’d let me sleep on the couch, and we’d have pancakes in the morning. Not the box kind, either. She did the whole thing—batter from scratch, butter in the pan, bubbles on top when they were ready to flip. Real old-school.”

Your pen lands gently on the table. He can feel your eyes on him across the distance. He knew you’d appreciate another piece of his past, no matter how small.

What scared him was how much more he wanted to give you.

How easily he’d hand it all over—just from the look on your face.

“That sounds nice,” you say, your voice subdued, maybe to match the mood he’s set. He wonders if you can tell how vulnerable he feels, laying this out for you. 

“She’d put bananas in them sometimes,” he murmurs. “I hated it—but I never told her. Didn’t wanna mess it up. It felt like… I don’t know.” His voice wavers, and he breathes out carefully, as if exhaling might scatter the memory. “A good thing.”

For a moment, all he hears is sound of his own breath. Your voice comes softly across the room. 

“You didn’t want to change it.”

“Yeah.” He nods, eyelids heavy, almost speaking more to himself than to you. “Exactly.”

He slips deeper into the cushions, a sort of melancholy peace settling in his bones. Remembering those mornings—milk and flour and eggs whisked in a bowl, the hiss of the stove, his mom’s rare, relaxed laugh—feels comforting and too big to hold onto. 

It reminds him of being a kid, back before entire worlds twisted into nightmares and scars. Before he had to figure out how to keep people safe by keeping them in the dark.

Outside, the sky is darkening, casting shapeless shadows across the walls. You rustle the papers again, returning to your marking with diligence. That rhythmic scritch, pulls him back from the edges of old memories.

There’s a moment of silence before he speaks again, barely conscious, his words filled with drowsiness. A little piece of anxiety wells in him suddenly—intrusive. 

It’s about the kids—about whether they notice the days he can’t quite summon his usual energy. The way he knows he’ll be tomorrow, when the smile won’t come as easily, no matter how hard he tries.

He hates asking you this. It’s the kind of thing he’d usually save for Dr Avery, but that isn’t an option now. It feels cruel—testing the waters just for his own peace of mind, leaning on you to give him the direction he can’t find on his own.

His voice is small when he finally asks. His eyes half-lidded, drifting toward you, too tired to stay open all the way.

“D’you think the kids…"

Fuck, this is hard.

"D'you think... they know when I’m having a bad day?”

You pause for a moment, shaking your head as your eyes meet his, looking at him like he just hung the moon. It undoes him utterly, the way you let out a gentle sigh,

“I think…” you speak slow, perhaps to allow his exhausted mind to keep up, but the words end up hitting him twice as hard. 

“I think they know you’d still show up for them anyway. It’s… just who you are, Steve.”

It's just who he is...

Is that how you see him?

He absorbs the statement slowly, like it needs time to settle in his bones. There’s a kind of weight to it—the raw honesty behind every word you offered, like you handpicked them with care, laid them down gently just for him.

It loosens something deep in his chest. A knot he didn’t even know he was carrying starts to unspool.

He doesn’t feel like he’s a failure.

Maybe he is a mess. Maybe he’s always been a little broken, stitched together with stubbornness and guilt and whatever scraps of hope he can still find—but he’s here. 

He’s trying. 

He’s still showing up.

That has to count for something.

His eyes drift shut at last, sleep too heavy to fight. Maybe he can let himself rest a little. Just for now, with you close by. He breathes out, chin dipping into the pillow, and finally gives himself permission to fall.

As his consciousness fades, he holds onto one stubborn wish: later that evening, when he opens his eyes, you’ll still be there, still close enough to chase the doubt out of his mind—at least for a little while longer.

When Steve’s eyelids flutter open, it takes him a second to remember where he is—or why everything suddenly feels this peaceful. 

The living room is draped in darkness, the overhead lamp turned off in favour of a single warm light coming from the kitchen. For a disoriented moment, he hears nothing. Then a soft clink of metal on ceramic reaches his ears, followed by a faint hiss and the gentle scrape of something in a pan.

He pushes himself upright, blinking the last traces of sleep from his eyes. The couch creaks and the fabric of his jumper feels slightly rumpled from dozing. He rubs the back of his neck, rolls his shoulders, wincing at the dull ache there. 

A quick glance at the window tells him night has fully settled over Hawkins—streetlights glow faintly outside, their beams catching on the air.

The heaviness he’s carried around for days has receded, at least for the moment. His head doesn’t throb. His chest feels looser, the anxiety dulled. 

That sure as hell isn’t just from the nap. 

Slowly, he stands, letting the blanket slide off his hips, and runs a hand down the front of his jumper. His bare feet touch the floor with soft thumps as he pads toward the kitchen, one sleeve pulled over his hand like a restless kid, not even realising he’s doing it.

The closer he gets, the more the smell of butter wraps around him. He’s struck by how surreal it all seems—like stepping into a memory. Except it’s not some dusty recollection from his childhood. 

He stops in the doorway, half-hidden by the frame, and sees you standing at the stove. You’ve rolled your sleeves past your elbows. There’s a mixing bowl on the counter, a spatula in your hand, and the sizzle of batter hitting hot butter is the only real noise besides his own breath. 

Plates are stacked on a small portion of the counter you’ve managed to clear. A current of tenderness runs through the space—through him—that has little to do with the heat of the stove.

“Hey,” he says softly, still a little groggy. His voice is low, reverent, like he’s afraid speaking too loudly will shatter the spell.

You glance over your shoulder, a quick smile flicking across your face as you meet his eyes. 

“Hey,” you answer, tone hushed not to hurt his head. “How’re you feeling?”

He swallows, stepping into the kitchen a bit more, hand trailing against the wall. 

“Much better,” he admits. 

And he realises, in that moment, it’s true. 

The tension in his spine has eased. When he looks at you, all sweet in his space, the last of his fears feel like they’re retreating into the corners of his mind. 

“What’re you doing?” he adds, voice soft, curious.

“Making dinner,” you reply with a casual shrug, turning back to the stove.

You slide the spatula and lift it, revealing a perfect golden underside. As you flip, the batter sizzles, sending up a little puff of fragrant steam. You nod toward the mixing bowl. 

“Figured something simple might do the trick,” you say quietly. “And, y’know, you mentioned them.”

He lingers a step longer, breath catching in his chest as he’s catapulted back into the memory he shared with you earlier. The smell of a hot pan threads nostalgia through his core, tangling with the gratitude he feels in this moment, watching you do something so unexpectedly thoughtful. It renders him speechless.

“Pancakes,” he manages finally, the word falling from his lips, soaked in wonder.

You glance back, giving him a small smile. 

“Don’t worry,” you say, catching the weight of that memory in his eyes. “You don’t have any bananas.”

You really were something else. 

He exhales a shaky laugh through his nose. It’s almost real—almost. It slips out unsteady, because there’s something about the simplicity of it all. The way you act like the world could be set right with just this—this one small, human thing.

And what floors him, is that for a second—God, maybe longer—he believes you.

Believes it could be that simple. 

You gesture with the spatula toward the small dining table. 

“Go on,” you suggest, “sit.” 

There’s a gentle command in your tone, like you’re used to looking after him—even if, not so long ago, he would’ve insisted he didn’t need it.

He obeys, walking over on slightly unsteady legs. 

Obeys.

The word sounds strange, but it’s accurate: you speak, and he follows. Not because he’s weak, but because you make him feel safe. You make him feel seen. And in that safety, he allows himself to lean on you more than he’d ever planned.

Drawing a chair out, he settles into it with an exhale, placing his elbows on the tabletop. The wood is cool through the knit material, and he can feel the faint vibration of your movements through the floor. Figures form in gentle arcs along the cabinets, as if the night outside has pressed its nose to the windows but hasn’t dared to intrude.

He’s spent a lot of time alone here, pacing the small perimeter while his mind churned with old memories. 

He wonders if this is what normal looks like. If other people get moments like these all the time—moments where the person they trust wanders into their space, rummages in their cupboards, whips up something simple that tastes like childhood. 

If so, he thinks he’s missed out for too long. 

Please let him keep this.

Just for a little while.

He’s not sure how long he watches you. He’s content to let the seconds stretch, your quiet movements hypnotising him. The whisk tapping the side of the bowl, your gentle footstep shifting weight. 

When you finally switch off the burner and turn to face him, plate in hand, he’s still staring. You serve the pancakes on the two most similar plates you can find—he doesn’t exactly have a matching set. You slide one in front of him, the other in front of you, the only sounds are the dull scrape of forks cutting through soft batter, the occasional drip of syrup pooling on porcelain.

He lifts a bite to his mouth, nodding in faint approval as he chews. His jaw still feels tense, like it’s absorbing some leftover stress. Beneath the table, his leg bounces with restless energy, but outwardly, he tries to keep calm. You watch him, noticing the slight furrow in his brow. Neither of you speak until you finish the first few bites; the tension in the air is subtle, but it lingers.

“You going into work tomorrow?” you ask, casual enough that someone who didn’t know him might think it an idle question. But he senses the concern under your tone. 

You’re not prying, exactly—just checking in.

“Yeah.” He nods, quickly swallowing. “I’ll drop you back home after this, don’t worry.” 

The words come out automatically, as if he’s already set a plan for the day: take you home, show up, teach the kids. Everyone safe and accounted for.

You carefully set your fork down, the faint clink slicing through the atmosphere. Your gaze holds him a second longer than normal. 

“I’m not leaving,” you say softly.

“What?”

“What if…” Your voice takes on a cautious edge.  “What happened last time… happens again?”

Last time?

Oh.

Angel, don’t do this to me. 

He goes rigid. The memory knifes through his mind like a jolt of cold water: the flash of your startled eyes when he’d woken gasping, his fingers clamped around your arm before he even registered he was awake. The shame of your worried face as he stammered an apology, trembling with leftover panic from the dark corners of his sleep. A strangled feeling clutches his chest, and he drops his gaze to the plate. 

“It’s not gonna be like that,” he murmurs, his voice guilty.

“I already packed my pyjamas.”

He sits back in the chair. 

The effect you have on his is downright dangerous. 

A part of him wants to argue—he doesn’t deserve this level of care, not when his baggage bleeds into reality and threatens to drag you with them. 

“No, seriously,” he presses, voice quieter now. “I’m gonna be just fine.” 

There’s a self-loathing edge to the words because he knows it’s not true. You sense it in an instant.

“I’ll take the couch, alright?” you say. That softer note creeps into your voice, the one that tells him you’re not afraid of him—you’re just concerned. 

“Won’t be able to sleep if I’m worried about you.”

Something clenches in his throat, and he drops his head into his hands. His fingers thread through his hair, gripping it lightly as if that might keep his thoughts from spiraling. Another ragged breath escapes him. 

“You’re not taking the couch,” he mutters, muffled behind his palms. The image of you spending the night curled in discomfort while he’s holed up in his bed feels all wrong.

“If you’re feeling rough,” you insist, “you need your own bed. Please just… let me stay.”

He can’t look at you right away, eyes still trained on the dark space between his knees. The weight of everything squeezes his stomach. He drags his eyes up. And there you are, watching him with genuine concern—no pity, no judgment. 

He sees it in your eyes—there is no budging on this.

“Okay,” he says, voice barely above a whisper.

A small smile crosses your features, one he has no right to feel pride at. You pick up your fork again, like this decision was the easiest thing in the world. 

He glances at the swirl of syrup pooling around the edges of the plate, but he can’t bring himself to take another bite. 

All along, he thought he was the selfless one.

He lies in bed, sheets tangled around his hips, trying to convince himself that stillness might bring sleep. 

One arm is flung over his eyes, pressing down as if he can block out the cacophony of thoughts that refuse to be quiet. The dark presses in, broken only by the light of the clock—each minute passes in silence, ratcheting up his restlessness. 

He rolls onto his left side, then back onto his right, shutting his eyes as hard as he can. 

Come on, breathe in, breathe out… 

His therapist’s voice echoes in his memory, urging him to focus on his heartbeat, to ground himself. But his brain crackles with tension, refusing to comply.

The advice feels fake now, anyway.

He flips again, this time onto his stomach. It doesn’t help. His jaw is clenched so hard he can practically feel the ache up into his temples.

When the sheets start to feel suffocating, he snaps upright and shoves them away. His legs swing over the edge of the mattress, feet meeting the cool floor. A hiss of breath leaves him—everything feels too loud despite the silence. 

He drags a hand over his face, scrubbing at his chin like he’s trying to scrape away the anxiety. He stands, letting the duvet pool behind him as he pads barefoot out into the hallway.

The living room is dim. He notices the lamp's still on, a small puddle of light that silhouettes your form on the couch. You’re curled up, fast asleep under an old throw blanket, one arm tucked beneath your cheek. Your breathing is gentle, the rise and fall of your shoulders almost imperceptible. 

You looked so soft.

He tells himself he should go back to bed, not disturb you, let you have your rest. But there’s a stronger voice in him—the one that urges his forwards. 

It’s a jarring realisation that knocks something loose in him.

You’re becoming the next point of call when things get rough. The person he turns to now, instinctively, without thinking. And what unsettles him most is knowing you’d be glad to hear that. You’d take it as a sign of closeness, of trust.

But it feels cruel.

Cruel that you’d take pride in being his safe place when you still don’t know the full extent of what you’re stepping into. Cruel that he’s letting you play nurse to wounds he hasn’t even shown you yet.

He shouldn’t need you like this.

But he is going to be cruel, just for tonight. 

He brushes a strand of hair off your forehead. The small touch makes you stir, and your eyelids flutter open. Confusion flickers across your features until you register it’s him crouched there, face etched with concern.

“Steve?” You mumble, voice foggy with sleep. “Are—are you alright? Did something happen?”

You’re panicking because of him, and it makes it ache even worse.

“Hey—hey, it’s alright,” he murmurs, voice soft as he tries to soothe you. “Nothing happened. I promise.”

You start to push yourself upright, the blanket sliding off one shoulder to get a better look at him. The shape of your arm emerges, goosebumps prickling from the cool air. He swallows, feeling another wave of guilt that you even have to sleep out here. 

On the couch for God's sake. 

“I just… can’t sleep,” he admits, voice dropping. The confession tastes vulnerable on his tongue. 

It sounds pathetic—like a kid who never figured out how to function.

“Bad night?” you ask, still blinking sleep from your eyes. Your hand finds his forearm, thumb brushing lightly over his skin. Even that tiny touch feels like a lifeline.

“Yeah. I don’t know.” He nods as he lets out a shuddery breath. “Everything feels… loud.”

His request is simple, but the desperation laced in his voice betrays just how badly he needs the answer.

“Will you… come to bed with me?”

You still. The air between you tightens. He can see the caution in your eyes, the trace of a memory of the time before. He hates that he’s the cause of that worry. 

“Steve, I—I don’t know.” Your gaze drops to your lap as you recall his grip on your wrist, the way he shot out the door without so much as an explanation. “Last time, you were so out of it, and I didn’t know what to do, and you—”

“I know,” he interrupts, leaning in just enough that you feel the warmth radiating from him. “I know. And I’m sorry—I really am.” His voice wavers, and he takes a shaky breath. He wants to reach for your hand but forces himself to keep still, give you space. 

“But—but it’s not gonna be like that tonight. I’m okay, I just… I don’t want to be alone right now.”

You search his face, like you’re checking for any sign of doubt. Your gaze wanders over the weariness lining his eyes, the way his shoulders slump, the vulnerability in his expression. 

“...Are you sure?” You ask softly, a thousand questions and concerns pooling behind the simple words.

He’s sure. 

He wouldn’t put you in that kind of danger. 

“Yeah. I just—please.” 

He doesn’t care that it sounds like begging. Right now, he is begging. 

Your eyes dart between his, and you sigh softly. In the low light, he looks worn down—like that earlier nap had only skimmed the surface of whatever’s been dragging him under. 

It doesn’t take long to decide. The fact that he’s asking at all tells you everything. He wouldn’t, not unless he was sure. This isn’t casual. It’s something close to desperate.

“Okay.” Another short pause, your hand still on his forearm. “Okay. Just give me a sec.”

You shift the blanket aside and stand, the couch springs creaking as you move. He rises too, unfolding himself from his crouch. There’s an awkward silence where neither of you speaks. He feels like he should apologise—but where to start, he isn’t quite sure yet.

He extends his hand, fingers itching to hold your own. He leads you down the hall, every step slow. At the threshold of his bedroom, the air cools, and he can feel your hesitation in the slight drag of your feet. It sparks another pang of guilt. 

He nearly drops your hand, ready to say it’s okay, you don’t have to do this. But you tighten your grip, an assurance that you’re choosing to stay.

The bed is still rumpled, blankets half on the floor from where he stormed out. Silently, you both gather them up. You toss one over the mattress, smoothing it down just enough to make room to lie on.

When you finally slip under the covers, he follows, gingerly settling next to you on the mattress. He keeps to his side at first, giving you space.

The moment stretches—two heartbeats, three. 

The tension is palpable, and he regrets getting up in the first place. You turn onto your side, facing him, catching his eyes with your own. They’re wide, and beautiful. 

So fucking beautiful. 

There you go, looking at him like that again 

You look weary, and he bets he does too, so he can blame the sleep when he reaches out. He slips an arm around your waist and waits—just waits. Allowing you to choose how close to him you will get. 

He doesn’t let out his breath until you nestle closer, allowing him to tuck his chin over your head, the long exhale that seems to pour into the darkness. 

“You okay?” you whisper.

“Yeah,” he answers.

He hopes he will be. 

He senses your small smile, lips curving upward against his jumper, a subtle shift in your posture as you settle down. 

“Get some sleep,” you murmur, reaching curl your arm around his waist, mirroring his position. 

“I will, angel,” he murmurs into your hair. 

He will, but not yet. 

First, he waits for your breathing to slow, for your shoulders to uncoil, for sleep to settle over you. Guilt weighs on him for putting you through this—sleeping beside someone you believe isn’t okay. 

He isn’t, but there’s a sick sixth sense inside him that warns when a night will be rough. Tonight won’t be, though. 

He’s sure of it.

What he’s just done feels like a trial, a test of whether you’d follow him, stay with him. It troubles him the more he thinks about it, but there’s no other way to explain it. 

He needed to know if you would—because if you did, it’d mean you feel for him what he feels for you.

He might be hopeless when it came to saying how he felt—couldn’t talk to his parents, had to be cornered by Robin, nearly let it all slip through his fingers just trying to name what was going on. 

But that didn’t mean he didn’t feel it.

Steve felt things—deeply, messily, all at once. Always had. He’d felt this particular emotion before, or thought he had, in flashes: in borrowed bedrooms, first relationships, and soft pink roses. Young and dumb, sticky and sweet, like he saw in the movies. 

But it was never like this. This was bigger than him, something that carried a risk—like most things now did. 

Everything in his life felt more intense now. 

This was no exception. 

He felt it in every part of him. For the first time in years, he was glad he could still feel that much. That he hadn’t gone numb to it.

He held you, a secret he needed to keep. Even if he couldn’t give you every word of it, Steve Harrington knew what this was.

He knew what love felt like.

He’d fallen into it.

He knew better, but he chose to anyway—damned the fallout, and damn the cost.

It meant he could keep you to himself, just a little while longer.

taglist: @daisy-is-a-writer @chiliwhore @kvroomi @just-lilita @negomi123 @catluver02 @tinythebunni @everythinghasafacee @irrelevantbutembarrassing @almostfullstarfish @aurora-austen @yourgirlfriennd @purpleeyeswithgoldensparkles 

[mochinomnoms]

Two's Company, Three's a Crowd, and Six is a Riot

iii. Royal consort to the wild usurper

[wc} - 6,261

[notes] - idk how i feel about Leona in this but it is what it is so that's what's happening! I was trying to balance this with a bit of mild angst but also make sure that the romance part was still there? i think it worked for the most part though. also, very excited for the poll i have a bias for one option in particular...

tags: @rosieboop @aliasrising @alienlatteinspace @wishicouldart @cottage-clockwork

edit: i notice I missed a few things regarding the ages and stuff so I fixed that. Also the timeline I realized isn't obvious, so here it is since it's more important here than in the others: Leona and Mousy have been together for 12 years, married for 6, acting as king regent and royal consort for 8 months but officially crowned 3 months ago. I hope that makes sense looool (as me more about this pls I worked hard on it....)

make a choice at the end...

back to chapter list

iii. royal consort to the wild usurper

Listen to: “Like Real People Do” by Hozier

The heat of the savannah that the dorm’s magic replicated reminded Grim of the trip he and (Name) took to the Cloudcalling Festival though considering the dorm’s patron Seventh, it made sense.

It wasn’t quite as colorful though, everything in Savanaclaw was in muted browns, yellows, and orange. It was just as hot though, something Grim detested with his fur. At least they had the pool in the lounge, though it was quiet. 

Grim looked around with confusion, sniffing at the air for your—or Mousy’s—scent. It wasn’t too far off from what you usually smelled like, but Mousy had an underlying scent of rain, like where’d they’d just been had a storm growing.

He’d come to learn that the weather of the dorms remained the same year round, no matter the weather on Sage Island, so it wasn’t hard to pinpoint your scent. 

Grim followed after it, still put off by the lack of activity. To be honest, the dorm was running the same as it usually would, nothing was out of the ordinary. Which is exactly what was throwing Grim off! Sure, Heartslaybul is always a bit more lively with Ace and Deuce, and Riddle did throw an unbirthday party last minute, but Grim expected that Savanaclaw would do something for Mousy. 

They revered their dormleader as much as the other dorms did, even if he was a slothful lion, so why wasn’t anyone freaking out about their partner?

Did Leona keep it quiet? Was he hiding you somewhere? Grim couldn’t have that, you’re his henchhuman no matter what timeline. Disrespect on you was disrespect on him! And why can’t he find you?!

“Mmm…where’d they go? They did come back to the dorm…right?” Grim huffed, padding around as he wandered the halls, the scent of rain coming closer as he approached a familiar door.

Leona’s room. It was closed, though Grim could hear shuffling behind the door, which was enough reason for him to slam it open and point into the room with rightful fury.

“HENCHHUMAN—”

“GAAAH! GRIM!”

Ruggie let out a high-pitched shriek as he clutched the laundry basket in his hands to his chest like a shield. Upon realizing that it was just Grim, he relaxed, ears flattening against his head as he scowled at the direbeast.

“Dammit Grim, what’s your deal? Don’t you know how to knock?” Ruggie grumbled as he threw a brightly patterned cloth into the basket, one that smelled like you mixed with rain. “You know I won’t cover for you if you damage something of Leona’s, I ain’t getting stuck with that bill.”

Grim let out a soft mewl, surprising both himself and Ruggie, as he zeroed in on the patterned cloth that was on top of the laundry pile. It was the cloth you had wrapped around you earlier, gold and black striped as it fell off your shoulders and held together by a dark orange and deep rich brown striped wrap and beads at your waist. 

Now that he really thought about it, it looked a lot like the clothes everyone had been wearing when you two visited the Sunset Savannah.

“Hey wait! That smells like my henchhuman! Why’d they take it off? I thought they’d be here…”

Ruggie let out a sound of realization as he looked between the cloth and Grim, bringing it up to sniff it closer.

“Oooh, (Name), that explains why this shuka smells so different. Though, it’s waaay too nice for someone like them to have lying around, where’d they get it from, Grim?”

“Hmm? Didn’t Leona tell the dorm about this morning?” Grim questioned, walking forward and reaching for the cloth—a shuka Ruggie called it—to smell it again. Maybe with a closer sniff Grim would be able to locate you. “Give it, I was followin’ Mousy’s scent, I need a refresher!”

Ruggie obliged, though he raised a brow and flicked his left ear curiously at Grim. 

“Leona hasn’t told any of us ‘bout anything. Heard there was some sort of explosion, ‘n who’s ‘Mousy’?”

Soft footsteps and a gentle knock on the doorframe caught both Grim and Ruggie’s attention, the former perking up at the sight of you at the doorway.

Even without the vibrant patterned cloth and emblem, it didn’t take away from the rest of your outfit. 

Your top was black and sleeveless, no doubt to accommodate the heat of your home, with a high neck and a thick band tied at the back of your neck. The shirt was tucked into your black pants, which looked thinner and flared at the ends, and it was covered in a gold geometric pattern that shimmered each time you moved. 

Simple, like Tart’s was, but it looked much more expensive, even the wide band sandals you wore looked like they were expensive leather, and the various bands and beads around your wrists and neck looked a lot like Leona’s jewelry. 

When you uncrossed your arms, Grim noticed a tattoo on your left (rather muscular) arm. A lion, like Leona’s, though it was a bit less extravagant and didn’t wrap around. 

“W-wha…(Name)?” Ruggie gaped at you, looking you up and down as you approached, making him clutch the basket to his chest and back up slightly. “Why are you dressed like a royal? ‘N you smell different too…”

The hyena opened his mouth again for a moment, before shutting it and scrutinizing you further. 

Grim could barely make the words out from under Ruggie’s breath, as his ears flicked while you let you a wry chuckle. 

“Yeah, I didn’t think he’d tell anyone, Leona’s never been one to share. Accident with a looking glass and time travel things this morning is all.” Your eyes and dry smile softened as you noticed Ruggie’s tense posture, gesturing for the basket. 

“He’s hiding from me in one of the nooks around here. Thought I’d give him some alone time, you want me to help with that?”

Ruggie’s ears perked up, his tail slightly wagging as he thought it over. 

“I mean, as long as I still get paid for the laundry…I won’t say no. I still gotta make Leona’s lunch.”

You smiled, taking the basket from Ruggie’s hands as you stared at him for a moment, making him freeze. Surprising both him and Grim, you reached up to ruffle his hair and cooed at Ruggie. 

“Sorry, it’s just been a while since I’ve seen ya, you’ve been busy with work back in my time.” Letting out a tired sigh, you pulled away to rub the back of your neck. “We’ve all had a hectic time, actually.”

Ruggie nodded, eyes lighting up in sudden understanding as he looked down at your clothes once again. He winced, making Grim tilt his head, still confused as he heard him mumble something under his breath. 

“Yikes, no wonder he’s hidin’. Okay, yeah. I’ll get the lunch started, I already had the detergent ready to go. Though, this is your shuka right?” He gestured to your clothes on the top of the pile. “That has to be hand washed you know?”

You waved him off, finally glancing down at Grim with soft eyes. 

“No worries, Grim here will help me. I’m sure we have a lot to talk about, huh?”

Grim pouted, his ears flattening as he whined, “I don’t wanna do chores though…”

“Ruggie will make you a sandwich too.”

“OKAY!”

“What?” Ruggie exclaimed, halfway out the door as he spun on his heel and glared between the two of you. “I ain’t doing extra work—”

“I will have Leona pay you triple for your work today.”

“—without getting your food order!” A big grin on his face, Ruggie got down on his knees and titled his head at Grim. “What kinda sandwich you want? Want a drink and side with that?”

“Tuna! Fancy tuna with fried pickles! And, um…” Grim looked up at you and tugged at your pants. “What’s that drink Ace always gets us at lunch?”

You hummed to yourself, thinking until you snapped your fingers. 

“Ah! The iced sweet tea. Can you get him that Ruggie?”

Ruggie nodded and gave you two a salute, walking off as he happily hummed a tune to himself, singing “gonna get paaaaaid~” as he did. 

You let out a chuckle looking at Grim from the corner of your eyes and nodded your head to the door. 

“Come on, let’s go. The faster we finish, the faster we can go to Ruggie and make sure he doesn’t eat half of your sandwich.”

Leona was hiding behind the waterfall, where there was a warm resting nook that most of the dorm was unaware of. You knew about it though, you’d been there numerous times towards the end of Leona’s third year. 

Still, he’d left to it right away, telling you to go drop off your shuka in his room to have Ruggie wash it. Grim’s spell had summoned you during a walk in the palace gardens with Leona and Cheka at the time, the pain from the cracks on your skin making you collapse into some of the foliage and mud as a terrified Cheka stared in horror. 

“Uncle! Nini? What’s happening?!”

The poor thing has already been through so much. As much as it was fun to see Leona young again, you were really hoping that Malleus would find you away home soon. 

It was nice to see Grim little again. 

“And I totally coulda beat Ace with my super duper great fire spell! But I went easy on him, so he got the higher grade.”

Grim was yapping your ear off as you hung the damp clothes on the clothesline, rubbing your clothing between your thumb and finger.

“Yeah? Which class was this again?”

“Umm, it was…Magical Dueling! Yup!” Grim put his paws on his hips and let out a confident chuckle. “Yeah, the Great Grim is a real mer-mercial?”

“Merciful.”

“Yeah! That!”

“Right. Grim, you do remember that we take all our classes together, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So you know that I know that we don’t have a Magical Dueling class, right?” 

Grim paused, squinting his eyes as you cocked your hip and tilted your head in amusement, waiting for his excuse.

“...We take it during our second year?”

You laughed, reaching down to pat Grim on the head, who gave you a displeased look. Still, he gave a small smile as you two walked back into the dorm. It was hot and windy, so it wouldn’t be long until the clothes were dried. 

Plus, it’d been about an hour since Ruggie left to make the sandwiches, which meant he should be done cooking by now, and Grim’s stomach had been rumbling for the past few minutes.

“Let’s just go eat. I’m sure Ruggie has your sandwich done by now.”

The dorm was still empty of most students, though you could hear someone walking on the wooden ramps and bridges every so often. It made sense, it was still the early afternoon and most students were in class.

Part of you wished that you could see Jack again, but he definitely was in class at this time, and wouldn’t be back for a while if you remember correctly. You kinda wanted to drop at Heartslabyul and see Ace and Deuce, but you didn’t want to add to the chaos with Tart already there. 

Epel and Ortho were also probably preoccupied with your other Yous at their dorms. Sebek was out of the question, he was stricter about his schedule than Jack. 

You just wanted to talk to someone else, you wanted to talk to your husband. At this point in time, you two were never far from each other, or for long. But the Leona of this time didn’t seem keen on talking, or even looking at you. 

He absolutely recognized your clothes and what they meant. 

“Maybe I’ll take his meal to him…get him to talk to me…” You mumbled under your breath, making Grim look up at you.

“Get who to talk to ya? Ruggie?”

“No, Leona.”

“Mmmrph?” Grim trilled at you, narrowing his eyes as the flames in his ears grew brighter. “Leona? What, he’s not talkin’ to ya?”

You shook your head as you both entered the kitchen, where Ruggie was finishing cleaning up and placing a cutting board and knife into the sink. 

“Oh, hey! The food’s done—”

“Well that’s rude!”

Both of you jumped at Grim’s cry, an angry pout on his face as he hopped onto the counter.

“If Leona’s not gonna talk to you, then he shouldn’t get food!” Grim’s pout suddenly turned into a sly grin as he eyed the steak sandwich on the counter, next to his own. “Which is why I should take it! Give it here!”

Right as Grim leaped for the tempting plate of food, Ruggie quickly swiped it and held it over his head, making Grim dive face first into the counter instead. 

“Hey!” Ruggie let out a growl as Grim returned one in annoyance, now jumping up in vain for the food. “I used his card to buy all this! I ain’t gonna lose access to it just because you ate his food, eat your sandwich instead!” 

Noticing at how Grim got on all four paws and wiggled, you rushed over to snatch him midair as he jumped right for Ruggie’s face, the latter stumbling back. Miraculously, he still managed to keep the sandwich on its plate. 

“Hey! Let me have it, Mousy! He doesn’t deserve it! He doesn’t want to hang out with you so he doesn’t deserve a yummy snack! GIVE MEEEE—”

You wrapped a hand around Grim’s snout, his demands for more food muffled as he still longingly reached his paws out for Ruggie as he cautiously lowered the plate back down. 

“Geez, what are you on about?” Ruggie huffed, wrinkling his nose at Grim as he asked, “Leona didn’t just leave you here, right?”

It wasn’t often couples in the Sunset Savannah stray from one another, much less royals, they were almost always seen with one another. Granted, this time’s version of Leona wasn’t technically yours, and you not his, you were reminded each time you tugged at one bracelet in particular among the many around your wrist. 

“...I think you can understand why he might not be particularly enthusiastic to see me.”

You gave Ruggie a dry, tired smile as you gestured at your outfit again, making him flush red and nodded, muttering to himself. 

“Right, right…Well, you know where he is right? I need to deliver his food before it gets cold, is he in his usual spots?”

You doubted that Leona wanted to be bothered by anyone right now, but you were a bit tired of waiting around for him to come out hiding.

“No, you won’t be able to find him. It’s a spot that only he and I know about, so far as I’m aware.” Ruggie’s ears drooped as huffed, murmuring something about getting paid, making you chuckle. “I can take it to him for you.”

Ruggie squinted at you, eyeing Grim as he was dropped to the ground, the latter crossing his arms and stomping his feet.

“No fair…”

Rolling your eyes with an amused smirk, you bent down and gestured for Grim to come closer as you whispered in his ear. After a minute, Grim perked up and stared at you with an open-mouth. 

“Really?”

“Really. Go on, Azul will be very weak against his ‘Angelfish’, so he’ll get you whatever you want if Angel asks for it.”

Grim eagerly nodded, reaching his arms out for his sandwich as you handed it to him. Shoving most of it into his mouth, Grim ran off as Ruggie titled his head at you in a curious confusion.

“What’d you tell him?”

“A secret, don’t worry about it.” You sighed, rubbing the back of your neck. “Let me go get my shuka back on and then take his lunch. Grim does have a point, Leona can’t avoid me forever.”

The furball was always loud and annoying, but Leona dealt with him because of you. He let you bring him around because the stupid little guy made you happy, and he liked you.

He liked you a lot. Leona might even bring it in himself to admit that he’s fond of you, fancies you even. He’d been momentarily delighted when his little ‘mouse’ popped up in the classroom, you’d grown into a pretty thing with his family’s crest plastered on your chest.

And by the ancient kings themselves, you grew to be utterly breathtaking, the circlet on your head wrapped in the braids on the crown of your head decorated with dangling charms that glittered each time you moved, while the rest of your hair flowed down just under your chin. 

Then he looked closer at the eerily familiar circlet, and down your body. The clothes you were in were nearly all black, and you wore his sister-in-law, Niah’s, necklace. Big, beautiful, and intricately beaded to hold the Kingscholar crest, he knew you shouldn’t have been wearing that. 

It belonged to the queen consort. You shouldn’t have been wearing that unless Leona became King. It clicked quickly for him, then, when you’d made eye-contact back in that classroom. You looked older than the others there, and your eyes spoke of sorrow.

You were in mourning clothes, and in your future, he’d finally become a king. At the expense of Falena and Niah’s lives. 

He didn’t even want to think about Cheka. Did something happen to him too? After all this time of loathing and self-hatred, of cursing those who looked down on him for being second-born, he got what he wanted.

Did he want that? Did he want his family dead? Did he want to never see Falena, Niah, or Cheka again?

In the future that his Mousy came from, did he do something to them?

If his mother were here, she’d be pulling at his ear, reprimanding him for abandoning his mate to sulk off in his ‘hidey-hole’ like she would say. She’d always been by his father’s side growing up, like bonded mates were meant to do, up to the point of her untimely death. His father followed soon after.

He was still young when she passed, but he could still hear her voice, chastising him and urging him to go seek you out.

And he would…eventually. He wasn’t a coward, Leona’s pride wouldn’t allow that, but he just needed some time to think. To figure out how to ask you what happened, if he did something. Would you even know? Would you even tell him if he asked?

“Ugh…damn you Furball.” Leona grumbled to himself, tossing and turning in the blankets and pillows he stashed behind the waterfall. “You shouldn’t have been messing with ancient magic.”

There was a naturally formed window in the rock that let in fresh air as the sound of the falls and the occasional student walking past gave him some white noise, and yet he still felt stuffy.

It didn’t help that he could still hear Grim occasionally, your own voice just gentle enough to be out of hearing range. Leona’s pretty sure he was yelling something about sandwiches to Ruggie. 

Whiny as ever, and a little shit like always. As much as your presence has thrown him into a mental spiral, Leona does wonder if the little guy followed you to Sunset Savannah with him. And how exactly you convinced him to agree to housing Grim.

Maybe you turned him into a playmate for Cheka or something. 

Leona inhaled sharply at the thought of his nephew again, turning back around to face the waterfall. He froze at the sight of you, peering at the gap between the water and the stone wall, holding a plate of food in your hand. 

You carefully reached above you to grab the indent along the wall, and slid your body through, carefully pressed against the ledge as you stared down at the pool below you. You did it with precision, like you’d done this many times before, over and over. 

Until your foot slipped on a part of the rock that was wet, making you stumble and Leona bolt over. He didn’t even register that he was holding your waist and the hand that clutched at his shoulder until you huffed and looked up at him with a sheepish smile. 

“Ah, it’s been a while since I’ve done this, I forgot how slippery it got back here.”

Your scent was one of rosemary and rain, though he could tell that you spent a lot of time with his future version. You reeked of his magic and musk, though there was something soft there, like sweet oranges, that reminded him of Cheka.

Leona swiftly let go of you once you were on steady footing, backing up and putting a healthy distance between you two. Though, the disappointment on your face made him falter as he sat down on his makeshift bedding. 

Both of you stared at each other, neither of you speaking, waiting for the other to break the silence first. 

If Leona was going to give future him credit for something, it’s that he did a damn good job in claiming you as his. The jewelry you were covered in was in his colors. Falena was assigned gold and red as the heir, which was traditional. Leona got a dark orange and sepia, also traditional for the second-born, but they were never his favorite. 

But they did look very nice on you. 

“Aw, staring at a little herbivore like me?” You gave Leona a teasing smile and walked closer, holding out the plate to him. It looked like a steak sandwich, the usual that Ruggie made for him. “Don’t eat me now, I’m offerin’ you a meal.”

Leona continued staring at you as he took the plate in your hands, his ears flicking and tail curling close to him as you decided to take a seat on the pillow next to him. He watched as you crossed your legs, resting your hands between them and traced one of the bracelets on your wrist. 

It looked old. It looked familiar. 

“You kept that?” You looked up in surprise. Leona was realizing it was the first actual sentence he’d spoken to you since you’d arrived. “It looks like it’s gone through it…”

“Ah,” You looked down at the bracelet, red, white, and blue with golden spacers between the beads. “Well, it’s been a long time since you gave this to me. I think…almost 12 years by now.”

You smiled down fondly at the jewelry as you continued.

“This one you gave me after your graduation,” You tapped a leather band with a protection spell engraved on it. “Said I needed it for all the trouble I got into.”

You moved onto another one made of braided strings that resembled a sunset. “This was for my graduation, same day you asked me if I wanted to come home with you”

Smile growing, you let out a soft chuckle as you pointed out a fourth, crudely made rainbow bracelet that looked more like something a kid would make for their friends on the playground. 

“Cheka made this, used any and every single bead he could find. It was my 20th birthday present I think. It's been a while, but that sounds right."

Voice softening, you moved to your left wrist, which was decorated with a pair of bronze bangles and a matching cuff with an engraving of a rising sun. 

“This wasn’t you actually, funny enough.” You had a smile and looked at him from the corner of your eye. “Falena and Niah gave it to me as an engagement present when you proposed with this—”

Holding up your hand, you presented him with a wedding set on your ring finger. A thick bronze band accompanied by a simple topaz ring.

“That’s not in the royal jewelry collection.” Leona cut you off, though you looked relieved that he finally started speaking. “Looks too new.”

“Yep. You had this made just for me, and a matching set for yourself as well.” 

Your smile faltered as his eyes were drawn back to the necklace, specifically the crest on your chest.

Both of you went silent again for a few seconds, before you sighed, clutching the crest in your palm, as if to hide it.

“Ask. I know you want to know.”

“...That’s in Falena’s colors. It’s Niah’s, it’s the queen’s.” Leona hissed the last bit, his ears flattening as he stared at your face, watching as you turned away. “Why is my spouse wearing the consort’s necklace?”

Leona’s voice rose as he continued speaking, making you whip your head around and glare at him. For some reason, that look you gave him made Leona freeze. It looked a lot like the ones Niah and his mother would give him whenever he got in trouble.

“Leona. Did you just raise your voice at me?”

Clicking his tongue, Leona leaned back against his pillows and took a bite out of his sandwich, ignoring your pointed look.

“Tch, at least I know where Cheka got his attitude from.”

Leona choked mid-swallow, coughing as reached over to pat his back, freezing as he grabbed your hand to stop you. Though, as his coughing became more hoarse, he let go to pound at chest, allowing you to use one hand to rub a soothing hand on his back and pull his hair away from his face.

It took him a few moments, but he finally managed to breathe normally again, throat feeling rather raw. Leona looked at you from the corner of his eyes and asked, “Cheka’s okay?”

You furrowed your brows and nodded furiously, moving closer to sweep his hair over his shoulder and cup his cheek.

“Yes. Of course, Cheka is safe. He’ll be turning 17 in a few months now…he’s safe and doing as well as he can be right now.”

Leona closed his eyes, trying to imagine what a 17 year old Cheka would look like. A lot like Falena probably, though he had Niah’s eyes. 

“...What do you mean by ‘right now’.”

His eyes met your own as you thinned your lips. You opened your mouth, before closing it again, and gently responded. 

“Leona, I think you know what I mean.”

Taking a deep breath, let his gaze meet yours and asked, “How’d it happen?”

You took in a sharp breath, leaning back and clasping your hands together. 

“Are you sure you want to know? I don’t think it’s a good idea with time traveling rules and all—”

“Yes. Tell me.”

Letting out a sigh, you nodded, swallowing and licking your lips before you spoke.

“It happened at the end of last year, Falena and Niah were meant to celebrate their anniversary at sea. They took a handful of servants onto a ship and had a private yacht set up. It was only meant to be a week, so you, me, and Neji were left in charge of regular duties while they were gone, but while out at sea…there was a storm.”

Leona watched as you paused, wringing your wrist in your hand. 

“It happened about halfway through their trip, it was a freak storm that even had the merfolk surprised. It took two weeks for it to finally calm down enough for us to send search parties, but they couldn’t find anything…”

You shut your eyes closed, bringing a tightly closed hand to your lips as you took a shaky breath, continuing in a trembling voice.

“We thought that they might have sunk, even the Atlantica Royal family sent their own to search for the wreckage…but they couldn’t find it.”

Whispering the last part under your breath, you took a deep breath, wiping the corners of your eyes, before looking up and frowning. 

“Oh, Leona, sweetheart…”

Bringing a hand up to wipe his cheek, Leona barely realized that tears started growing in his eyes. Despite himself, he relaxed into your touch, letting you rub your thumbs across his cheeks and squeeze, bringing him down to your level to press your forehead against his own. 

“...Both of them?”

“Yeah…we held the funerals a month after. And…you were crowned three months ago as king regent.”

Silence fell over you two, Leona looking down as he processed everything you’d just said. 

King Regent. Him, a king in his future, all because his brother died. Gods…he didn’t want his brother dead. Was Falena an idiot sometimes? Yes. Was he pampered and groomed while Leona was thrown off to the side and ignored? Yes. But he didn’t want his brother or sister-in-law gone, among the ancient kings in the stars.

“You became the royal consort then. That’s yours now.” 

You nodded, letting Leona go, reaching down to squeeze at the necklace again. You didn’t look comfortable with it on, like the weight was a strain on you. Leona looked down at the plate in his lap 

“Originally, my Leona and I were only going to rule for a few years, as Cheka was only 15, just about to turn 16 when it happened. But he didn’t want to take the throne just yet at 18, so the two of us will be taking care of things until he’s ready.”

Silence resumed between you two as you decided to lean against the wall, blankly staring at the waterfall. Both of you didn’t speak for what felt like ages. Leona looked down at the plate in his lap still, and tossed it to the side to shove himself into his pillows.

You let out a small gasp, giving him a disapproving glare as you crawled over pick up the plate, ensuring that the food wouldn’t fall to the floor. 

“Don’t do that, this meat is probably expensive, Rugs would probably have an aneurysm if he saw you throwing it around.”

“Hmph,” Leona scoffed, raising a brow at the nickname. “I can afford it, it’s fine. He doesn’t care as long as I pay him.”

“Yeah? Well that reminds me, make sure you pay him triple for today’s work, I told him you would so he would make Grim some food.”

“Eh? I didn’t agree to that, why would I pay for the Furball’s—” 

You waved a hand dismissively, though you had an amused smile on your lips. 

“Oh shush, I thought you said you could afford it?”

Gods, you really did grow to be beautiful. Leona never was one that particularly cared about looks like a certain blonde did, but even he could appreciate how well you took to his homeland’s style. He wonders if the future him helped you with your hair: grooming each other was an age old tradition for close families back home, he saw Niah often braid Falena’s hair. 

Even Cheka’s, though he was so little that they would get messed up after playing. 

Cheka…you smelled quite a bit like him as well, but it was a lot fainter than his own. Hypothetically, especially with the death of his parents, his nephew should be attached to future you and Leona’s hips.

“Oi, you said Cheka was going on 17, but he wasn’t going to take the throne at 18.” Leona’s ears flicked as he asked, “How come my brat—”

“Nephew.”

“—Brat of a nephew, isn’t taking the throne? I know he’d been groomed for it.”

You perked up, smile growing as you leaned in closer, gesturing for him to follow suit. He did, with a fond warmth growing in his cheeks. 

“Oh yes, but after all was said and done…he decided to accept the letter that Night Raven sent him and attend school. Cheka said he wanted to wait and explore the world outside the palace before taking the throne, so the two of us will be ruling for a bit longer now.”

Leona let out a scoff, though he couldn��t help that the corner of his lips quirked. “Seriously? NRC?”

You smiled and nodded. 

“Yes, our—” Leona liked the way you emphasized that. “—nephew even took to your dorm. You tried your very best to talk him out of it, complaining about your time here and how awful it was, he shut you up when he brought up the two of us meeting at school.”

Leona let out a hum, resting his hand on his palm as he leaned against his knee. He still had questions about the kingdom, if there were any opposition to his coronation, why Cheka decided to run off to the school of all places. 

But, he also had a golden opportunity here. 

“And what exactly did you tell him?” Leona watched as you perked up, your smile growing big as you leaned in and cooed. 

“Oh? Trying to get information out of me, hmm? Shouldn’t you try and woo your (Name) on your own?”

“Do you think the others are leaving it up to chance?”

“Ha, fair enough, though I hate to say that you already seem a bit behind if you’re asking me that at this point in the year.”

Leona frowned, ears pinning to his head and tail swishing in frustration. He didn’t like the sound of that.

“You saying I need to get moving, huh?”

You shrugged, your bangles jingling as you waved your hand. “Maaaaybe. I’m assuming that you didn’t piss me off in this time back during the whole contract stuff with Azul, so the me in this time didn’t try to wack your head off with your broom.”

“You did what?” 

Leona couldn’t help himself lean in closer as you let out an embarrassed laugh, covering your smile. 

“Ah, I ask you to help me and you told me to deal with it on my own. When i threatened to keep you up all night if you didn’t, you actually tossed me and Grim out of the dorm and told me to not show my face again.” 

You laughed harder as you told the story, eyes crinkling.

“I was sooooo pissed off that I went back in, made Grim distract the dorm in the lounge, snuck into your room while you were distracted, and tried swinging it as hard as I could into your head when you walked in. We got into it after that, bruised each other up. I even gave you a black eye, though you gave me a massive bite to my arm.”

Leona straightened as you pushed your shuka further past your shoulders, revealing your matching Lion’s Guard tattoo. The second born was always assigned as the leader, though you were a rank lower than him based on it. You tapped it, gesturing for him to move in closer. 

As he did, Leona noticed that right under the black ink, was the faintest prescence of a scar. He could just barely make out where his canines had dug into you skin, no doubt drawing blood. 

“Hm, not a good idea for a little mouse to pick a fight with such a big carnivore.” Leona couldn’t help but drawl out a teasing remark, though you too it in stride as you covered the tattoo and scar again. 

“Oh, don’t you worry. This Mousy packed a bunch, and back then, you gave me respect for holding my own against you, so you helped me out with Azul. We just got…closer after that.”

You smiled fondly as you reminisced, looking up at him and reaching you hand out to his face. This time, Leona didn’t flinch away and let you cup his cheek, rubbing a thumb just under his eye, where the tip of his scar lay.

“We took our time, it was natural. I can’t really say too much other than that.”

Natural, huh? He didn’t have a fight with you in this time. Maybe he was already screwed. Maybe he just needed to get that fiery part of you out. 

Leona’s never been one for fate, he’s always desired making his own way through the world. Maybe he’ll just have to do that with you too. And…with Falena and Niah too…

“Hmm. Well, I have to wait until my own little mouse is back from where the Fur—”

“Grim.”

“—Grim sent them. I’ll come up with a plan, a nap’ll help with that.”

He didn’t wait for a response, instead opting to move over and stretch his body so that his head was in your lap, face looking up at you. 

You took to it naturally, like your own Leona did this often, hands immediately smoothing his hair away from his face, combining through it with your fingers. 

“...You really do look look so much younger like this.”

“...Yeah?”

“Yeah…” Leaning back once again to rest against the pillows and stone wall, stretching your legs out under his body to get more comfortable, you ran a soothing finger along the ridge of his nose. Leona wondered if you got that from him as well; he’d do it to Cheka when he was bothering him to coax his nephew into a nap instead of bothering him.

“Go on, take your nap. We can talk more when you wake up, yeah?”

Leona didn’t respond, though his tail wrapped around your leg as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“I’ll hold you to that Mousy. You’ll be helpin’ me scheme for my own (Name).”

He didn’t need his eyes, he could hear the smile in your voice as you responded. 

“Of course. Just for you sweetheart.”

comments and reblogs appreciated 🩷

[fairestbeard]

Something in the way she waits

I keep trying to flesh out the reason we, and me in particular, feel such a discomfort with the presence of Claire. And, yes, I have no problem with admitting that I'm biased against her because that is the truth. But I try to make my judgement based on the general flow and pacing of the show and how Claire kind of brings a mostly unwelcome disruption to it.

Now, just to be clear, there's nothing inherently wrong with just being there for someone or being "available". Some people read it that way but I don't. I think her behavior could work and even be useful with certain kinds of people (and who knows whether it's even written to work with Carmy) but it doesn't work with most of us. And it's deliberate in my opinion.

She gives that energy of I'm not going anywhere and not in a good way (to us at least). There has always been this feeling of going somewhere in the show and there's always movement happening. It could be break-neck fast, it could be a slow and easy flow but there's always movement. Carmy, especially, doesn't wait for anything and for someone who accuses other(s) of being impatient, he seems to be the most impatient person. So you would think that someone appearing to stop him in his tracks, as it were, would feel more becoming. But with Claire it feels more stall-y than taking a breather. Now, that's not her fault. I repeat, it's not her fault . She is who she is, but it's Carmy's interaction with that notion that makes it disorienting.

As a not so much of segue, one hilarious bit in their interaction on their initial meeting is this part where she declares, "because you're the bear and I remember you", it gave wanting to take it somewhere big. Somewhere ta-da! She looked like she was going for that aha moment from her body language the way I read it

but his reaction was the embodiment of and nobody moved...

I always burst out laughing anytime I get to this part because I've seen a lot of clairecarmy fans hail this moment as him being so deeply touched and even shook by that reveal of hers but the way his face screams

"the fuck does that even mean?"

After this bit, when she gets no real reaction from him, she awkwardly moves to the next goal- getting his contact info. In a perfect world, it would be more enthusiastic since she just rocked his world but here it just felt like painfully gnawing for somewhere to go. Then he gives her a fake number and we know the rest of the story.

BUT THE END OF THE SCENE... She finally gets what she wanted; his contact, even though she didn't know it was a fake one. Then she just... stays there! This was a chance meeting right? She did come there to get something or for her own needs right? So why does she just relax more in that waiting position like she had nothing else to do? Especially with the finality to Carmy's "okay" delivery which to me looks like a polite dismissal. In an ideal scene after she (or they) reach that point, she'd promise to reach out and go about her business- the business that brought her here in the first place, while he looks on or contemplates or whatever. But she just hangs there after what seems like a conclusion with that "bingo!" smile.

This image of waiting pervades every interaction they have. The way she, even though she's supposed to have a chaotically full life, seems to be developing her whole persona around waiting for Carmy to choose her, to go there with her. And there doesn't feel like where Carmy really wants to go? It's like that person that doesn't actively push you in one direction but does, in the sense that, they quietly wear you down with their presence till you choose anyway and usually what they want.

I've heard a lot of people say "if the roles were reversed" Yes! If the roles were reversed it would stick out as more grating and more sinister. Because if it's a man it should be more grating because it is more sinister. If the roles were reversed we would immediately fear for Carmy's actual life but we know in this case we don't have to in the visceral way we would. Nobody is expecting Claire to wait around a corner for Carmy with a scalpel in her hand or anything like that. And even if she did mention it and Carmy could be said to have taken it at least a little seriously (with the way he initially looked spooked by Sammy's appearance in season 3), no one is expecting her to actually sic the Faks on him. Not that these things can't happen but we don't expect it. Naturally.

But that doesn't make her any less annoying or unnerving. I always react to Claire scenes with a tired sigh or an eye roll or an exasperated laugh. She wears me down. She tires me out. She straight up bores me. No matter how much I try to watch her scenes with understanding, that coy, expectant gaze drives me up a wall. The way she always has different versions of that look, even in Carmy's panicked flashbacks.

For some reason, her whole presentation feel like a parody of something. Like a cheesy highschool romance flick you only see once. Like that cheesy highschool romance flick where the pretty temptress-esque classmate at the party gives a (usually more enthusiastic) naive plain boy sultry inviting looks, while he, enraptured, slowly follows her down a dark path to a corner where he is suddenly mercilessly gutted with a scalpel by a masked assailant and you quickly realize you were actually watching a horror movie.

(I'll circle back to this imagery in a different meta)

I don't think Claire was written to be taken seriously. And if we are watching her from Carmy's point of view, I don't think he ever took her seriously in any capacity. Because the way she seems to have no depth at all even though she's supposed to be this bad ass, big deal, life changing character in Carmy's life. The way she feels kind of like a caricature. It's almost unfair. But there's a reason she's there, and I don't think she was brought in just to scare the sydcarmies. I have a feeling she plays a bigger part in Carmy's story and we'll have to brace for it. It might even be interesting.

Hopefully it's not anything silly like an endgame.

[blazinghotfoggynights]

There is so much going on this season

A- Eddie did not need to buy that death trap he calls a house and move to El Paso. All he needed was a week and Buck to help drive. Go down there, tell Christopher he can hate you, but he will be doing it in LA, and tell the Devil...er Diaz parents if they don't butt out, you will cut them completely out of your life. Threaten restraining orders if you have to.

We all know Buck is a mess but Eddie is probably worse. The man has blown his life up how many times in the past two seasons? He did so because he lacks impulse control. He acts without thinking. He immediately goes to the most ridiculous course of action possible.

Eddie is just as, and I say MORE, messed up than Buck. He just hides it.

Didn't Eddie go to our favorite golden retriever disaster for advice and a pep talk? Exactly. Advice? From Buck?

B- That is huge. Why? Eddie Diaz, war hero and guy who has his shit together, is his totally messed up, out of order, confused, all over the place self in front of Buck. No one else in the 118 has a clue how mess that man's life is. But he doesn't hide it from Buck. He wouldn't even let Shannon see him break, but he doesn't hide from Buck that he is already broken.

C- Food and couches. Eddie and Buck. Even I can't deny it now.

D- It makes sense that Buck will not consciously admit he feels something for Eddie. Why? Everyone he has loved has left. I know this is crazy, but it's Buck, so his logic is illogical. If he doesn't love Eddie, Eddie will not stay gone. He won't lose him.

E- Buck admitted to having feelings for Eddie without knowing he admitted it. Freudian slips are real, yall. "I don't have to sleep with everyone I have feelings for and I don't have to have feelings for everyone I sleep with."

That idiot didn't even realize he was saying he has had feelings for someone but didn't act on them, but will jump into situationships with people without feeling anything for them. That second part is all his damn relationships on the show! Abby was just after he lost Devon. Allie was convenient and met during a tense moment and after just meeting Eddie. Taylor was after Eddie was shot. Tommy was after Eddie began dating Marisol AND Eddie began focusing on Tommy.

F- Buck telling Eddie he has to stay could have two reasons. Buck wants Eddie to be with his son. Buck also needs time to make sure he doesn't have feelings for Eddie.

G- You think this is a coincidence?

Eddie is bookended by his son and Buck who look similar. Buck and Christopher happen to be wearing almost identical colors? Look at the lighting. Eddie is in a darkened environment but Buck is surrounded by light and his background is home. It was like that every time in this episode. Eddie is calling his light and his home. But Eddie is not well.

H- Which leads me to this one. Mentally stable people do not quit their jobs without having another, buy a dump without seeing it in person, sink all their money into that dump, sell their truck to buy a used heap (isn't that the check engine flashing?) and drive for Uber. They also don't buy PS5s when they are broke to try to buy their child's love when they could have simply told Mommy and Daddy to get out of their house and their child to go be mad in his room. Edmundo Diaz is having a mental crisis and has been for a long time. I believe Buck subconsciously knows but he doesn't want to admit it. In his eyes Eddie is perfect and he won't let anything taint that image, BUT he will do everything in his power to keep that man happy and help him get better.

I- You know? Like you do when you love someone. What have the 118 said about love? Now look at these two. Seeing someone at their worst and loving them anyway? It means stepping into their mess?

Hmm. 🤔

J- It's only platonic because Buck did not know he was bi and Eddie thinks he is straight. They just didn't know. That happens. It isn't always repression or lying. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know.

But let's see if Minear is setting the stage for Buddie or, the only other option, the biggest queerbaiting in the history of television.

[dimitriblunt]

okay. so if we were take the incident at the grove with the black tide to be like the disaster in nagazora.......

"i'll also try to... heal the world."

what if he actually Did pursue medicine before becoming a sage himself and founding nousporist?

with what the livestream mentioned about anaxa, he's trying to uncover the ultimate truth to amphoreus. using his chance with cerces as merely something akin to a stepping stone in his path to said truth, even if it doesn't align with his beliefs or ideals - because he doesn't care for that. doesn't care if people shun him out for being a heretic or bizarre.

adding a line now because i am once again talking A Lot

su is Still alive. spiritually rather than physically, and has been playing chess or whatever with an unknown entity.

user dimitriblunt will begin to sound a little insane now; imagine if anaxa is literally just Su. like flat out. and somehow, someway, he's turned into anaxa and got shipped off to amphoreus or something. there have been theories that this entity is actually nous, aeon of erudition. that wouullld tie into nousporist - if we were to look at this from a "amphoreus is cut off from the rest of the cosmos and doesnt know about the aeons" type of way. like, aside from the Actual anaxagoras and not-the-aeon nous. because yeah, that makes sense with his character since he is literally based off of the guy. and it would also give at least SOME context as to why anaxa's ultimate looks suspiciously like the dimension su entered at the end of his physical death (that is, IF the entity su got roped into playing games with was actually nous the erudition. which to be honest, i would hope so but that hope is very small)

as cool as that would be, yet still farfetched, i do think this is just another parallel to su, rather than him legit being su. the real su is still likely playing games in that dimension since we don't have any updates on how he is currently, other than him just being spiritually alive. anaxa would likely already know the fundamental truths beyond amphoreus, too

parallel to su, in the sense that yeah. maybe anaxa also got roped into some weird ass dimension at one point. perhaps when he pulled that "inverted horizon" hsr equivalent and sealed the black tide creations in the grove away, giving away his soul to warn others, and died physically, then got brought back to life by cerces. which perhaps would sort of explain why his body is so???? voidlike????? and cracking as if some porcelain doll. rather than just his actual corpse, william afton fnaf style or whatever

much like how the entity had told su, if you can win against me, then i will tell you what you want to know - cerces told anaxa if he could help them figure out the truth to the "what exactly are we?" question, then they would return willingly return his body and dissipate. so perhaps his void-dimension-like body is a result of cerces implanting the coreflame into him; like a result of them sharing his body for now, that dimension is the common mortal plane for them to converse

and anaxa seems highly confident he can uncover it soon, despite the encroaching (second???) end he'll face soon because his body is decaying

taking me to this lovely post, which talks about a small theory regarding anaxa potentially holding the truth of amphoreus inside of him.

perhaps it's possible that when he does uncover the truth, likely while he does the trial of reason, it WILL be inside of him. he'll have the answers for himself; the truth of amphoreus, and what that means for humanity there

[playstation-dreamcast]

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Character Select: Werewolf Chris X Hunter Reader

Synopsis: An Au that takes place outside of the Resident Evil canon. You've been hunting Chris for the better half of a decade now, or maybe he was hunting you. Did it really matter when neither of you ever had any intention of actually killing each other? You'd taken a break off to try and heal an injury (and your ego) and Chris wasn't taking your absence well. He decided it was time to get your attention

CONTENT WARNING: This book contains explicit sexual content, including monster fucking, knotting, and a slightly dubious amount of consent (even if you're having the time of your life.) Viewer Discretion is advised!

Song Rec: Howl by Florence and the Machines

Authors Note: This was written to actually celebrate one of my mutuals birthday!!! She knows who she is, sorry it's like, a months late lmao. it's HERE NOW THOUGH!! WEREWOLVES RIGHT?! CAN I GET AN AMEN?!

This had Chris Redfield’s fingerprints all over it. A small village away from any quick help suddenly has a wave of missing persons reports? Check. Most of those missing people are corrupt cops or otherwise known criminals? Check. 

The people start finding the desecrated carcasses of these criminals at the edge of the woods? On or near the night of the full moon?

Check. 

You’d been hunting this bastard long enough to know his M.O. and long enough to know when he was trying to send you a message specifically. Normally, Chris was content as a passive player of the game, always happy to see you and your knife, but rarely- if ever- going out of his way to catch your attention. What kind of werewolf would he be if he spent all his time trying to get noticed by a hunter? It would have been embarrassing, quite frankly. 

This time though, he brought it to your doorstep. The small village he chose to terrorize this lunar cycle was your home village. And while you hadn’t been back in…well, since you left, he knew your old stomping grounds. He knew your connection to that land, and the only reason he would so brazenly use it as a feeding ground would be to get his “Favorite Chew Toys’” attention. Still, you couldn’t figure out why. 

Maybe he was bored. No, that didn’t make sense. Chris was an animal, but not a mindless one. Even at his most savage, he was never fully feral, that you’ve seen at least. He kept a surprisingly tight grip on himself. For a werewolf. You wondered if maybe his pack had something to do with it. Maybe they had picked it out? But, that made even less sense. From everything you knew about him, you didn’t take Chris to be the kind of Alpha that would just let his pack run amok. 

You looked up at the clear evening sky. Waxing gibbous. You had one more night before the final rampage against the settlement. You looked down as you approached a decline, and a steep one at that. You grimaced, not sure if your leg could handle that, all things considered. You really should have taken more time to recover before going back out on the field. Having your own wooden stake turned against you was a real blow both to your legs' ability to function, and your ego. 

Still, the trail led this way. And backing down had never really been your thing, even if it was against your own body. You took a step down, putting all of your weight on your good leg. You took a moment to brace yourself, taking a deep breath and holding it in your chest. 

And then you stepped right back up to the top of the incline and turned around. There were other parts of these woods you could go hunting for him in, there was no point in possibly leaving yourself prone to the enemy. 

“What, scared to fall?” A familiar gruff voice hit you like a sledgehammer. You whipped your head to the right, only to find Chris leaning against a tree- his neon yellow eyes burning a hole into your soul, glowing in the night. When did he even get there? 

“You don’t have to be, you know.” He smirked, pushing himself off the tree, “I’d catch you.” 

You immediately readied your weapon. “I’d be careful who you went around saving, Redfield,” You warned as you aimed your flit lock at him, “You never know who might have a silver bullet with your name on it.”

He rolled his eyes dramatically, shoving his hands into the pockets of his navy blue jacket. “Do we really have to do this every time?” he complained. You took a moment to study him. dark cargo pants, jacket, and a navy turtleneck. His body would almost entirely blend in with the night, if not for the stainless steel dog tags glinting around his neck. 

“Do what every time?” You asked, lowering the gun ever so slightly. 

“The threatening, the fighting, the dancing around the sexual tension,” he grinned at that last one, “Can’t we just talk for once? I’m starting to think you only want me for my body you know.”

You aggressively rolled your eyes back at him, deeply annoyed with his nonchalant attitude. “You’ve been terrorizing my fucking villiage Chris!” You snapped, “What is there to talk about?”

“Oh, It’s your village?” He asked flatly, cocking his head to the side, “You’re one of the leaders? I didn’t see your name on it.”

“Chris.”

He raised his hands up in mock defense. “What?” He asked, “I’m not even terrorizing it. I’m helping it.”

You growled as you threw your limbs down in an almost childish display. “Murdering people is not helpful, Redfield! We've been through this!”

He smirked slyly, taking a step toward you. “Oh, but that’s the catch Pup,”

“Do not call me that.”

“I’m not murdering people,” he continued, “It’s just monsters killing monsters. It’s not my fault I have an advantage.” 

You grit your teeth. You hated how calm he was. You hated how he always treated your encounters like a game- or worse- some sort of fucked up date. He tried to banter with you, knowing he had killed your people!

…Those people being murderers or worse, in some cases, but that wasn’t the point! The point was he dragged away from your medical leave, kicking and screaming, back to a place you fucking hated, out of obligation, and he had the audacity to try and play cat and mouse with you! 

“Where were you?” He suddenly asked, taking another step closer. He seemed to smell something, something that genuinely caught him off guard. His face only showed it for a split second though, before he went back to his regular stone facade. You noticed he took a step back though. 

You shook your head in confusion, “What are you talking about?”

He scowled, the playfulness from earlier all but gone. “What do you mean what am I talking about? I’m talking about the fact that the last time I had any eyes on you, you were at the Kennedy estate,” He kept tabs on you? “And then nothing! You vanished into that fucking shack-”

“I’d hardly call the Kennedy estate a “shack.”” You scoffed, nearly sneered really.

He got angrier, continuing with a growl, “You were gone. For three. Fucking. Months. I thought you died, what happened?” He demanded. 

You fought back a smirk. Was that jealousy you heard? Maybe even a little concern? “Nothing happened,” You shrugged, “Leon’s a very considerate host.”

No he wasn’t. The truth of the matter was that you very nearly did die there. You’d hoped that if you struck in the daylight the ancient vampire would have been weakened. And to be fair, he was! It made the utter display of power as he manhandled you even more terrifying. It hurt when rammed your stake through your leg, but not nearly as much as the plummet from the third story window to the ground you took trying to get out of there. 

You had managed to limp your way to the home of a doctor that was known for helping hunters, broken- and ego more than a little bruised, and that’s where you had been for the past three months. Even now Rebecca had demanded you not go out, insisting you were not ready for combat yet. You ignored her. Your home had been attacked. Meaning your pride had been attacked. It had already been hurt once, you couldn’t just sit back while it happened again. 

Chris laughed as he shook his head, but there was no humor to it. “No. no no no no no, You weren’t at Leon's. I know. I looked. Personally.”

Your blood ran cold. There had been rumors that an ancient vampire had been slaughtered, but you assumed they were just rumors, made with the intent to rub salt in your wounds. You’d never thought it would have had anything to do with Chris. He made a point of leaving the vampires to their own devices. At least you thought he did.

“Did…did you kill Leon?” You asked.

Chris’s eyes darkened. “Who had you.” He wasn’t asking anymore. He was demanding. 

You almost took a step back. In the near decade that you had been hunting Chris, you’d never seen him so…

Possessive. You took a second to reassess him, this time taking into account the purple circles under his eyes, and his unkempt stubble. You wondered when was the last time he got a decent sleep cycle in. You hoped it wasn’t three months ago.

“I was with a doctor,” You explained slowly, trying to ignore the ice crawling up your spine and spidering across your body. “I needed to nurse a wound-”

“That son of a bitch hurt you?” Chris growled, stepping forward before his nose scrunched and he backed away again. 

It was an absurd question to ask. Of course he fucking hurt you, he wasn’t apart of whatever fucked up game you and Chris had going on, and he damn sure wasn’t looking to join. You wanted to snap back at him just how ridiculous of a question that was. Any other night you would have. Tonight though? Tonight his temper was rising at a fast enough rate, and you didn’t want to make a bad situation worse.

“Yeah, yeah he hurt me,” You finally spat the words out, biting back the obviously that threatened to come out with them.  

You saw something flash in his eyes, a feral crack of insanity. Somewhere between protectiveness and bloodlust. “Where?” Chris asked, “How?” 

You thought for a second. You couldn’t run if Chris chose to attack you right now. You’d have to fight. Chris was an Alpha Wolf, meaning he was twice as big and twice as strong as a typical werewolf. You’d been banking on trying to catch him off guard tonight. You’d been banking on him being normal. Maybe that was foolish in hindsight. You’d have to be careful here.

“Answer me Pup.” He demanded, the emphasis he put on “pup” somehow stinging more than any traditional derogatory term ever could. 

You shook your head, “He staked me through my thigh.” You said flatly. He took an instinctive step to you, before stopping to cover his nose, holding it and physically cringing. You knew his nose was better than yours, but for something to be affecting him that much surely you would be able to smell it too. 

Right? You sniffed the air, trying to catch a whiff of whatever it was he couldn’t get near. “What?” You finally asked, “What, is someone watching us? Some other monster? Is there a dumpster fire, what are you smelling?”

He shook his head aggressively. Like he was trying to shake something out of it. “No.” He groaned, not looking at you, “That’s not the problem.” He took a minute to think, or at least try to. Finally he looked at you, something unreadable in his eyes. “You’ve never come after me this close to a full moon.” He noted.

You blinked at him, not entirely sure where he was going with this. Chris was normally far more composed and coherent than this, something had to be going on. Of course you typically avoided him around the full moon, that was when he was at his most powerful. Typically you avoided hunting not just him, but any werewolves around the full moon. During the new moon or waxing crescent, sure, but never after the first quarter. 

You shook your head. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.” You deadpanned.

He scoffed, annoyance rolling off him in waves. “Of course you don’t. Mortals never do.”

That struck a deep, raw nerve with you. You weren’t entirely sure where he got the fucking audacity to act like you were the one acting strange here, but you knew you weren’t a fan of it. The implication that you were somehow beneath him because of your mortal status was the final straw. Fuck getting answers, you just wanted him to shut up. 

Before you could realize what you were doing, the gun had fired. Chris jerked to the left, avoiding a silver bullet to the head by a hair's width. His eyes narrowed as he realized the game had started. He bum rushed you while you threw the gun down and tried to pull your second weapon from its holster, picking you up and tackling you against a tree. You felt the wind rush out of your lungs as you slammed against the bark, Pounding your fist into his solid back as if that was going to do anything.

If you had been paying any attention, you might have noticed the way he pressed his face against the crook of your neck, and the low growl that left him as he took a deep breath of your scent. You hadn’t been paying attention though, you were too focused on grabbing your silvered dagger from its sheath and digging it into his shoulder.

He howled as he ripped himself away from you, turning to wrench the metal from his back, no doubt causing more damage than you had. His eyes darkened, and a sick smirk found its way onto his face. You took these few precious seconds to grab your second flint lock and-

Jammed. Of fucking course. He pounced, his growing claws digging into you as he pressed you into the dirt. You swore you felt his teeth graze your jugular vein, and his already vibrant eyes looked brighter than the sun. You think he was going to say something, but you didn’t give him the chance. You grabbed a conveniently placed rock and slammed it into the side of his head instead, dazing him.

You managed to roll him off you and scramble to your feet. You noticed the way he lurched forward, and the twitching in his back. He was turning. You looked up at the nearly full moon and cursed. While Alphas could technically turn any night they wanted, their power grew with the moon. Their animal instincts intensified with lunar lunacy. A turned werewolf on a full moon night was at its most deadly. And while it may not have been the full moon yet, it was close enough that you knew you didn’t want to deal with a Transformed Chris.

And Chris was transforming. Fast. You watched the way his muscles contorted, his bone structure changed, and his skin ripped, only to show shiny black fur hiding underneath. 

Okay, new plan: Run. Run like hell as fast as you can. Logically you knew this was fucking stupid. You weren’t going to outrun a werewolf, and activating his prey drive was probably the worst possible thing you could have done in this situation. You knew that. But in your hubris induced rage you had come to this encounter woefully unprepared. 

You’d gotten too comfortable with the idea that Chris wouldn’t kill you. You had both had countless opportunities to end all of this in the past. To finally take the other one out. And you never had. You’d hurt each other of course, left your respective marks and scars littered all over the other's body. But neither of you had ever pulled the metaphorical plug on the whole operation. 

But that look. That darkness that clouded his normally vibrant eyes. You’d never seen that in him before. And it terrified you just as much as it excited you. Much to your dismay. Much to your extreme dismay. You really hoped this whole experience wasn’t going to awaken anything in you, but that was going to have to be an issue for future you.

If you survived tonight that is. You heard a shrill howl pierce the relative silence of the forest, and you forced your legs to run faster. You could hear him tearing through the foliage behind you, a predator locked in on its prey. You made the mistake of glancing back, only to see a mass of black fur, snarling teeth and hunger in hot pursuit. You involuntarily let out a yelp as you took a sharp right turn, hoping to lose him.

You heard the unbearably loud crack of a tree snapping behind you as he no doubt ran into it, going far too fast to make a turn as quick as you did. The odds of that stopping him were slim, and you knew that. You forced yourself into a full on sprint, ignoring the burning in your lungs and the stitch in your side. Ignoring the sounds of snarling that only seemed to get closer, and the tightness in your chest.

What you couldn’t ignore was the sudden, intense pain of your leg muscles seizing up, the improperly healed injury forcing you into submission. You screeched as you collapsed to the cold ground, cursing Leon, Chris, your body. Yourself. You tried to get back to your feet, only for your leg to refuse any amount of weight you tried to put on it. You were going to die here. Mauled to death by a creature you vowed to kill, but got too comfortable with instead.

Maybe you deserved this. Maybe this is what you got for breaking the Hunters Vow, and refusing to kill Chris Redfield when you had the chance. You wondered if he’d at least have the decency to kill you before devouring you. 

The air was knocked out of you for the second time that night as an animal crashed into you. Chris. He grabbed you, manhandling you into a position under him despite your weak attempts to fight him off. He pressed you flat on your back, towering over you and caging you in his arms. You’d taken a moment to look at him. You’d seen his wolf before, normally in the middle of a fight, but this looked…different. 

He was bigger, and looked feral. His elongated face snarled down at you, shockingly white fangs gleaming in the moonlight. You found it almost comical that the dogtags still hung from his neck, albeit fitting much more like a collar now. You locked eyes with him, refusing to show fear even in your final moments. You weren’t sure what made you sicker, the cloud of hunger you found there- or the lucidity that was behind it.

He growled and lunged down. As determined as you were not to show fear, you flinched- closing your eyes and jerking your head to the side. You braced for the feeling of teeth ripping muscle from bone, but it never came. Instead you heard him inhale sharply, and felt a soft tongue lap at the side of your neck. You forced your eyes open, looking at him as best as you could with your head forced to stay in place.

He nuzzled into your neck as if it was home. You felt a little lost here. You had expected murder feel more painful and violent, less…Intimate. You definitely didn’t expect it to make you stir the way it did. You’d press your thighs together if there wasn’t a giant, bowed leg keeping them apart. So this was going to awaken something in you. Great.

 “Stupid bitch,” he growled, low, and in the back of his throat, “coming after me smelling like that, knowing she’s in heat.” You were reasonably sure you weren’t supposed to hear that, despite him rambling literally right next to your ear.  You were caught up on what he said though. Heat? Humans don’t go into heat, surely he knew that. The closest they got was ovula-

Oh. Everything fell into place. Your breath caught in your throat as you realized what he was after. You squirmed, trying to get out from under him only for him to hold you tighter. Surely you could at least have a conversation about this first, but the more you tried to claw your way out of his grasp the more insistent he seemed to get, growling as he held you in place. 

“Chris,” You forced the word out, still out of breath from your struggle before, not to mention the strain on your neck. You felt his clawed hands caress your side, felt him lick your neck again, sending a whole new wave of embarrassing heat rolling through your body. He dragged his teeth across your jugular, the threat of violence loud and clear.

He pressed his hips into yours, and you gasped. You’d be lying if you said you’d never imagined what he might have been working with before, both out of and in wolf form. Even at your most generous, you couldn’t have predicted what was pressing into you now. He bucked his hips again, chasing any friction he could get, undeniably desperate for you.

You bit your lip. You shouldn’t want this. It was one thing to fail a hunt, it was another to willingly be fucked by one of these monsters. It went against everything you were raised to believe, everything you had dedicated your life to. To covet Chris was to covet damnation itself. Maybe that was why it took you eight years to admit you’d wanted him since the first time he dug his claws into you. 

As sinful and impetuous as it was, you could beg for forgiveness later. You rolled your hips up into his, and you swore you felt what might have been a laugh in his chest, but it came out distorted and wrong. “Knew you wanted me,” He groaned.

His mouth covered yours, forcing you into a kiss that was all teeth. One of his hands found its way to the small of your back, pressing you up and as close into his chest as he could get you. It was like he was trying to crawl into your skin, as if no matter how close you were it would never be close enough. 

You reached up to pull at his fur, looking for any sort of leverage you could get in this exchange. He groaned and bit your lip hard enough to draw blood. You yelped at the sudden pain, and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, desperate to taste every inch of you that he could reach. You moaned helpless against him, lungs burning but unwilling to try and pull away. You were a little embarrassed by how quickly you gave into him, but in your defense Chris was incredibly warm, and surprisingly soft compared to the cold hard ground he had you pinned too.

His claws cut through your pants like a warm knife through butter, the sound of denim shredding reminding you just how sharp those claws were. The same claws that gripped your now bare thigh, hiking it up on his side to give him access to you. He rolled his hips into you, dragging his tent- hardly contained by his own barely existent cargos- against your heat. You yelped, equal parts excited and embarrassed as he reached down and ran the pads of his fingers along the damp spot in your panties.

He moaned, something dark and possessive making itself known, mixed with his lust. You were so wet for him already, and he’d hardly even touched you. He shouldn’t have been shocked. You were his mate after all, even if you didn’t know it yet. Of course your body was ready for him, of course it wanted him. Still, a little ego boost never hurt anybody.

He cut a slit in your underwear, and sucked in a sharp breath. He felt almost dizzy, drunk off the full force of your scent with nothing left to hide behind. You had to have known what you did to him. You had to have known what you were doing, showing up smelling like honey and sin. You had to have known it was going to end like this. 

He felt what little self control he had left in him try to flee. He held onto it by a thread, reminding himself that you were still just a delicate little human. He had to be careful not to rip you apart. He pressed you deeper into the mud, lowering himself between your legs. 

You let out a yelp as he licked a strip along your slit, collecting your arousal on his tongue. “Cute.” He chuckled. Your pathetic slap against the back of his head was even cuter. Even when you were writhing under him you still had it in you to try and fight. He licked you again, separating your folds and pressing his tongue against your weeping cunt. You moaned above him, rutting your hips into his muzzle like the needy bitch you are. 

He pulled you closer, claws digging into your hips, leaving blood to trickle down your body in his wake. He easily pushed his tongue into you, groaning as you clenched around him, imagining that same clench around his cock. Your head fell back against the ground, hands scramblings to tangle themselves into his hair. 

Chris was able to reach places inside you no human mouth could even dream of, easily lapping at your g-spot. the sensation sent you reeling. You tried to ride his face, buck your hips against him to chase your high; but his grip on you held strong, leaving you to whimper and beg for him pathetically. 

You felt light headed, climax building on itself faster than you could have predicted. It was like Chris instinctively knew every soft spot your body had to offer him, and was more than happy to bully the hell out of it. To twist, turn, and mold you into exactly what he wanted you to be, to get exactly the reaction he wanted out of you. He growled, pulling you closer to him. You pulled his hair in return, earning you a deep moan from him.

He pulled back enough to become more targeted with his snout, the padded skin now rubbing your clit with intention. Your legs started to tense up, the coil in your stomach tightening to the point of snapping. You let out a truly embarrassing sound. Luckily, you didn’t have to hear it, the feeling of euphoria washing over you and drowning out anything that wasn’t bliss or Chris. He licked you through your high, dragging it out for as long as possible, and leaving you a shaking mess in the aftermath.

You looked at him with hazy eyes as he finally pulled fully away, muzzle slick with your arousal. Your heart caught in your throat as you realized what you’d done. It was unforgivable to lay with the beast you were supposed to kill. He didn’t give you much time to think about the deeper implications though, before he careened down, pulling you into another facsimile of a kiss. Your taste was still thick on his tongue, mixing with his own and leaving you breathless.

You’d hardly noticed him all but ripping his pants down, until you felt him pressing into you. The stretch was enough to leave you screaming. No matter how prepped you were for him, you were only human, a fact that your body was actively trying to remind you of. “Chris!” You shrieked as he shoved himself inside you, with zero care to take things any slower than he already had. “Chris, it’s too much, I can't-!”

“You can.” He started moving, leaving you with zero time to try and adjust to his size. Tears sprung to your eyes as you desperately tried to accommodate him. “You were made for me, you can handle it,” He groaned, relief rolling over his shoulders as he finally got to feel you around him. He lapped your tears away, positioning himself to hit the sweet spot inside you he’d discovered earlier.

Slowly your body started to welcome him, the pain of being ripped in half ebbing away in favor of the mindless pleasure of being so full you swore you could feel him in your throat. He fucked you as if he had a map of your body, like he instinctively knew exactly where to push to make you see stars. Your cries morphed into moans, and before you knew it you were rolling your hips in time with his.

“That’s it Pup,” Chris groaned, completely lost in you. He was overwhelmed; your decadent smell, your pretty sounds, the divine feeling of your warm little cunt quivering around him. For all the times he’d fantasized about you, even his wildest dream couldn’t come close to the real thing. “You’re taking me so well, feel so good. You were made for me.” He praised.

His words went straight to your core, a storm building up inside of you faster than you’d care to admit. Every animalistic thrust of his hips managed to hit you exactly where you needed him too, and you could feel your second orgasm of the night coming on. A heat was mounting between your trembling thighs, and it only intensified as Chris’s hand fell to where the two of you met, using the back of his knuckle to massage your clit. 

It sent you over the edge, a crack of lightning so intense you felt the aftershocks pulse from your center to your fingertips. Waves of euphoria capsizing your little boat and drowning you in the ecstasy. It pulled Chris over his own edge. The smell of your arousal mixing with the feeling of you clenching around him, trying to pull him deeper had him spilling over and painting your insides white as he growled your name. 

You were still catching your breath, waiting for the world to stop whirling around you and for him to pull out when his voice finally cut through the fog. Rough, low, and still thick with need. “Still with me Pup?”

You nodded, and were treated to a growl in response. “Yeah,” You finally said, “I’m here.”

You felt him lick your pulse point before he started to move again. “Good,” He grunted as he folded you in half. It was only then you realized he was still rock hard inside of you, and your heart rate picked up again, “Cause it’s gonna take more than that to knock you up.”

You considered protesting for a split second. But, before the thought could fully form he had you folded into a mating press. And at that point he could have told you the two of you were going to burn your entire village to the ground and fuck on the ashes and you would have been down. Wasn’t all that unappealing of an idea actually. He was pressing against places you didn’t even know existed in you, he could do whatever the fuck he wanted at this point.

Chris set a ruthless pace, seemingly lasered in on his personal mission. Every relentless rut of his hips had his cock massaging your g spot and kissing your cervix. Every movement sending an overwhelming shock of pleasure through you, so intense it almost hurt. You were thankful you were in the middle of the woods, because if you were anywhere near civilization and the entire settlement would know. 

You hadn’t even realized you were crying until Chris licked the tears from your cheeks. You didn’t realize you’d been gripping his fur so tight, trying to pull him impossibly closer to you. You felt so small under him, left to his whims and helpless to do anything while he ruined human men for you forever. Nothing was ever going to feel like this again. 

“Pretty little Pup,” He groaned, rocking into you so perfectly you knew you weren’t going to last long. “So good for me, feels so good. Gonna take my knot like a good girl?”

You didn’t even think twice. “Yes, Chris please, need it.” you gasped. You wanted so badly to be good for him, to be whatever he wanted you to be so this happened again. 

You barely registered how dangerously close to your neck his fangs were. You were too focused on the feeling of his knot swelling, somehow stretching you more. The lewd sound of him fucking his cum back into you almost drowned out his growling. Almost.

“Perfect little Pup, and all fucking mine.” The way he said it definitely went beyond dirty talk, but you were in no position to pick up on that. “All fucking mine, my mate, mine.” He was losing himself, the moon pulling him away from coherent thought and leaving him with little more than the animalistic fuck his mate into oblivion. 

“Knew it from the first time I smelled you, knew you were mine. Say it, Say. It.” 

“Yours Chris, all yours.” You were hardly in the headspace to fully grasp what he was saying, the dopamine and oxytocin drowning out any sense of reason you may have had. Your body felt like an electrical fire, every nerve ending alive with feeling. You were driving towards a cliff at 200 miles per hour and had no intention to stop. Your limbs were shaking with anticipation, you really felt like you might have burned alive if he stopped now.

And Chris was just as gone. The look of you alone, tear stained and breathless in his arms, could have gotten him off. He watched his bulge appear and reappear in your stomach with every thrust, watched your eyes glaze over with dazed pleasure, felt the way your warm cunt hugged him perfectly and fuck who needed heroine? This was better than any drug he could have imagined. 

He decided then that he was taking you home tonight. 

You pulled at his fur, the bliss building inside of you, twisting in on itself and threatening to snap. When it hit you, it hit you like a tidal wave, suffocating and all at once. You didn’t hear the scream you let out, barely registered the way your legs tried to wrap around the monster that was on top of you. Your head felt like it was full of cotton and your veins were full of stars. You watched galaxies be born before your very eyes.

What you did register was his knot locking you in place as he tried to fuck you through your high. Felt the way his already impossibly tight grip tightened, claws digging into your soft skin, surly leaving you bruised and bleeding. You felt him filling you again for the second time that night, and were a little ashamed to admit how right it felt.

You felt his teeth sink into your neck to muffle his own howl. Not deep enough to kill, but deep enough to draw blood. Deep enough to infect. You’d like to say that you yelled, tried to pull him off and went to immediately seek treatment. Time was limited after all, if you wanted to avoid lycanthropy. 

You wanted to say all of these things. In reality your hand found the back of his skull to hold him closer. You struggled to catch your breath and reorient yourself. Chris gently lapped the blood from your neck, trying to soothe the ache there. He was muttering something, but you were barely paying attention. You were more focused on the fact he was already rocking his hips back into yours.  

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

You weren’t sure when you fell asleep. And if you were being honest with yourself, you weren’t totally sure where you woke up, jerking out of bed with a sharp gasp. Your head jerked around, trying to get a grasp on your surroundings. It was a simple room, barely lived in. As if whoever had set up camp here didn’t plan to stay for long. You sat up straighter, listening to the bustling noise from the other side of the door. It sounded like a decently sized family was descending into chaos. It sound like-

It sounded like a pack of wolves. You went cold. You looked down, only to discover stainless steel dog tags dangling from your neck, and that you were wearing an oversized shirt you didn’t recognize. You could guess who it belonged to though. You had a sinking feeling. You took a closer look at the tags around your neck.

Redfield.

Chris J.

315-05-4075

O Neg

NO REL PREF

No surprises there, but just to be sure you reached up to your neck. Sure enough, you felt the unmistakable divots of a wolf bite, flinching at the fresh sting. So last night wasn’t an extremely vivid dream. Great. 

As if on cue Chris chose then to show up, slipping through the door with two cups of coffee in hand. You wished that seeing him filled you with rage, or revoltion. Or at least some deep sense of guilt. Sadly though, the only thing you felt when you looked at his adoring smile was a warm sense of safety. He looked mostly human again, a far cry from what mounted you last night.

“Hey, I thought I heard you waking up,” He said. Jesus, he had good hearing. He came over and settled next to you on the bed, handing you the mug. You’d ask how he knew your coffee preferences later. For now, you were just happy for the caffeine.

You nodded to him, taking a drink of the coffee. He gently rubbed your back, looking you over, carefully assessing the damage. “How you feeling?”

“Okay I guess,” you muttered, “A little sore.” 

“That’s to be expected.”

[burningcheese-merchant]

youll be fine merchant, after all i follow you because i like you saying things, you make things interesting in a way, im not sure how to describe it, but what i do want to say is that you dont need to feel that way, u doing fine and i hope you continue doing fine

I'm grateful for your kind words. I really am. I'm touched you took the time to say something to me. But... Idk.

I'm feeling very raw today. I want to be totally real just once. Just this one time. No sarcasm or joking around like I usually do. Be my therapist/blank wall to whom I address my words of woe for a minute. Then we can all go back to normal after that

I've been having a major crisis of self-confidence lately. Been feeling stupid. Useless. Good for nothing. Probably just the Big Sad talking but that guy hasn't shut up for an awfully long time and he's harder to tune out on some days

Writing was always an escape for me. A form of catharsis. I'm actually quite terrible at speaking to people irl. I'm very shy and awkward. Social anxiety on steroids. I always expressed myself better in writing as opposed to spoken words. Idk it just feels a lot less stifling to me. I feel more free. Less judged. More in control of my thoughts. If that makes any sense.

Bit the bullet and started posting fics on AO3 just to indulge myself. Never really expected to get any attention. There was a ship I liked and there weren't really any fics for it, so I became the change I wished to see in the world. That was all it was. You want something done right, do it your damn self.

Wrote more. Different things with different characters and different ideas. Gained a lot more traction. Caught another bullet in my teeth and made this blog. People seem to like my ideas for some reason. I start to think "hey. Maybe I really am a good writer."

Then I took a few story-shaped sledgehammers to the skull and remembered that no, I'm not. Lol.

Comparison is the thief of joy. I know that. Nobody needs to remind me. But it's easier said than practiced. Read biscuitlabyrinth's stuff and felt like a fraud. Read Jambound and felt like a skyscraper-sized fraud. It's hard not to compare yourself to others when the "others" are practically hailed as heroes by the fandom. When there are mountains upon mountains of fanart happily illustrating their work. When their story has the most hits and the most kudos and the most comments and the most bookmarks in the entire Cookie Run tag on AO3, and only receives more every passing day. When there are people who want to bind the fic and make it an actual, physical book, because they love it so much. No one has ever said or done any of that for me or my stuff. Never got even a fraction of that love or attention. Not even close. And I never, ever will.

Yeah yeah. Two cakes. Everyone has said that to me. But if you all had to choose. If you could only eat one cake while the other one went straight to the trash. You wouldn't pick mine, would you? You'd pick the other one. You'd pick Jambound. Everyone would. Even my friends on here would. Why bother wasting time and ingredients baking the thing if you know that's how it's going to be? What's the point?

I know I'm not owed success. Nobody is. It's earned. It just... hurts, I guess. It hurts to feel compelled to doubt yourself so strongly after finally allowing yourself to believe you've done a good job at something for once in your life. To feel like even when I try, even when I put my best foot forward, it's not good enough. Nobody actually cares. No one will ever think of you like they think of those other people and their work. No one will think of you at all. You're just a sad little wannabe loser, wallowing in their shadows.

I don't blame those people for these feelings. I don't blame anyone except myself. To think or do otherwise would be childish. No one is responsible for making me feel inferior/inadequate besides me. I accept that these thought and feelings are foolish. Whiny. Unfair. No one should pay them any mind. I'll sort through them on my own.

It's stupid, all of this. Oh no, some person's fanfiction is more popular than yours. Boo hoo. It's the end of the world. Stupid. It's all stupid. And yet, the feelings persist. It sucks. I don't want to feel this way. I'd rather just forget about it all and go back to being the loser who was content just writing for herself and nobody else, really. I don't look good in green, that's for sure lol. But it's hard. It's hard to let go of something that's got its jaws clenched around your neck so tight. Waiting for you to stop fighting and bleed out before it can finish its meal.

I always thought that writing was the only thing I was ever good at. That I was ever good for. Learned the hard way that that's not true. That my best was never anything but mediocre in reality. It's really no wonder Jambound is as beloved as it is. It's wonderful. Fantastic. It deserves all the praise it gets. I wish I could write half as well as that. But I don't. And now sometimes I wonder if anyone would even notice, even if I did.

I'm not happy writing anymore. Feels like it got snatched from me. The thing I love, that always brought me a measure of peace no matter how depressed I got. Gone. I can't draw worth a damn. I'm not funny. I'm not that smart. I never thought I had anything to give anyone except my writing. Now I understand that I don't have that, either. My cake sucks. No wonder everyone would rather eat theirs.

I'll get over it eventually. I'm stubborn if nothing else at all. I've got stories to tell and finish, even if they'll never mean anything to anyone except myself. Might as well. For my own sake.

There. Said my piece. Poured my miserable little heart out. Let's not talk about this anymore. Go back to enjoying the fancy, professional cake and celebrating the talented baker. Leave me to my cracked countertop covered in stale flour and rotten eggs and bland frosting. I never said anything worth listening to. I'm not sure I ever have.

No more self-pity after this, back to being a silly bozo as usual. Thanks for reading all this gunk if you bothered to for whatever reason. Y'all have a nice day. Better than mine, hopefully

[goldenboywrites]

Flynn tending to his wounds didn’t hurt. Dodger could only feel the heat of the slayer’s fingers as they brushed against his skin. However, he made sure to wince and close his eyes occasionally, hissing in pain when appropriate. Sometimes, it was hard to remember how to play human. He didn’t technically have to hide who he was unless he was on an assignment like this one. Darian had most of the city council members and police officers paid off, and they left anyone under his rule alone. However, Dodger worked with many humans, so their mannerisms were easy to pick up when he needed them. “I think I’ll go with an overly excited puppy,” Dodger whispered, his head tilted to the side, allowing Flynn easy access to his wound. His eyes quickly found the slayer’s, dipping down to his lips, then back to meet his gaze. “I’m more of a cat person anyways.” 

It was hard not to be mesmerized by the slayer’s movements and his caring nature, which Dodger now saw. No one had ever handled him with such care before, not in his human life, not as a vampire. He wasn’t something fragile, requiring careful hands and longing glances. Every hand laid on him had been born from violence. Sometimes, he feared it was all he had ever known, and maybe that was why Darian had changed him. He saw that in Dodger, recognized it, and needed someone with that nature at his side. Perhaps that was why he had grown so quickly into what he was. 

“That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.” Dodger bit his lip, watching Flynn rip the tape with his teeth. He wanted to feel those teeth on his skin; even more, he wanted to sink his fangs into Flynn. The time for that would come; Dodger had to be patient. He would be patient. There were more pressing things to discuss first. 

“No idea,” He said, brushing his fingers lightly across the bandage covering his neck. “Now that I know, everything makes a lot more sense.” He brought his legs up to his chest, hugging his arms around his calves. Dodger leaned the side of his head against the back of the couch. “So that’s the real reason you’re here? You fight vampires for a living? Is that something someone chooses or…?” Dodger closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. “Sorry, I’m trying not to bombard you, but the only thing I know about vampires is from Twilight, the movies, not the books, and after seeing that guy tonight, I feel I’m not completely up to date on my vampire mythology. I’m trying not to lose my mind, but I don’t even think I could walk down the street anymore and feel safe in this town. I don’t know what to expect. I’ve lived in this town my whole life and don’t know anything about it anymore. I, um,” Dodger bit his lip, willing his eyes to well up with unshed tears. “I’m scared. I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

He had to admit there hadn't been a rookie night like this in years and honestly, it wasn't awful. Aside from being attacked and the bruising starting on his face and body at that moment. He had to admit, this town was going to be the challenge he was looking for. He also understood why he'd been assigned here. That silent walk over allowed him to work out a lot of tonight's details. More so that he hadn't actually met whom he'd intended too and that miffed him more than he liked to admit. If there was one thing Flynn hated it was wasted time and effort. Though as he heard his new friend enter back into the room with him, he'd reconsidered what exactly wasteful meant.

His eyes danced on the different faces in the pictures once more before he turned to help his new found friend. "You're in luck actually." Flynn spoke in a smooth tone, his feet stopping just short of the couch and he bent in to look at what he had to work with. Definitely wasn't something he'd have picked up but it would work in a pinch. He doubted very much that the man across from him would mind considering the state of everything else in this place. It wasn't awful but you could tell there were very few activities taking place here past sleeping, eating and showering from the looks of it. Maybe that's why he wasn't shy at the bar. "I aced my field medic course in basic."

Flynn pulled out some antiseptic and gauze to start with. He sectioned off a few pieces and poured the liquid onto the pieces. "Don't jump." He told him as he took one of the squares in his hand and leaned in to press it on the two puncture marks. His brow furrowed feeling the holes again and he scoffed under his breath. Fuckin' piece of shit. He wiped again and again until he was happy with the lack of blood flow and dirt no longer in it. Flynn turned back and grabbed one of the wet pieces and another couple of the dry ones. "You can tell everyone a rabid squirrel tried to have it's way with you on your way home." He offered, slipping the piece with the solution on the puncture wounds first and then a couple of the dry ones on top. Flynn moved to take Dodger's hand and replaced his own but kept his finger tips atop the other's hands while he dug back in the box for some tape.

"Too much to wish for scissors, huh?" He asked, looking briefly over at Dodger before he slid his bottom row of teeth along the tape roll until he found it's beginning. The sound of the tape stretching free as the end wedged between Flynn's teeth and the freeing rip was one fluid motion. He bared his teeth more as he fought to keep everything in place and fumble the tape onto it's desired spot. Once he was somewhat happy with it at least holding the wad of gauze he went back for a second piece of tape. This time the attempt was much better not having to use his damn mouth to get it free this time. Flynn was careful when he applied pressure, ensuring that the piece of tape would hold he bandage.

"You really had no idea?" He finally asked after a moment. It seemed redundant after his mini freak out back at the bar but a part of Flynn had always lived for the innocence that humanity had always presented. It was the only real reason he was still doing this after all these years. It couldn't all be for naught. That just had never sat right with him and if there was still a wonder in humanity, an innocence that could still be, well, that was worth all of it to him then. "I guess I really do have my work cut out for me here then, huh?" He knew that making light of this was not going to help but the awestuck was still strong in his senses and honestly, he just wanted a reason for Dodger to speak again. If for no other reason than he just wanted to hear his voice. A human connection. Fuck.

[thatonesmartkidfromschool]

Dog got put down today and the saddest I've been all day is because of pokemon angst. What the hell is wrong with me. Why can't I care.

[connormoving]

i was gonna make a post abt how i dont rly like like. Genre changing covers of songs and then realized upon introspection is that i sort of just dont like rock covers of songs generally

[no1ryomafan]

I have said this before but me being self proclaimed number 1 Ryoma fan and that being possibly literal-bc even if this bro had fans before me I might’ve simply done the most for him by talking about him so much + being the first to write fics that are in depth studies on his trauma across canons-I gotta say if there’s one other character I rotate a lot that isn’t him it’s probably Kei. (Shocking it’s not Hayato even if I do think about him too- but it’s usually associated with Ryoma bc gays 🗿)

I’m not even exaggerating when I say Kei would be my favorite and only isn’t because she doesn’t exist in many other canons yet my brain rotates the endless possibilities of how to incorporate her. I’ve already written a fic where she’s in shin vs neo verse which worked surprisingly well but I’ve been thinking how universally she could appear in other things. (Whether it be fitting her into a idea of a possible Go team in New or just a new canon completely) I think what I’ve narrow it down to is that she could be like- in Michirus role? Like she’s the supporting female who isn’t a pilot but helps out the real occasionally which I think would align very well especially with the original manga role she has of being Hayato’s assistant. And even if Hayato isn’t grandpa mode yet he still very much is in Saotomes position at that point. Not sure if she’d Hayato’s biological kid to further parallel Saotome and Michiru given well Hayato already adopts the Go team and his wife is irrelevant LOL.

I have no idea if I’ll ever write this specific idea but I’m still- rotating it cause this is such a easy way to get around “picking between Sho or Kei as the 2nd pilot” since both of them can still exist even if one doesn’t get to pilot, idm my supporting females. (Granted there could always be like- plot line where Sho gets hurt so Kei is temporary pilot but I can’t remember if Getter ever really did this since “once your hurt your ass is basically replaced” lol)

[thaliagrayce]

just saw the barbie movie and honestly i can't believe there aren't more posts about Gloria??? like i understand that it was The Barbie Movie and Barbie is the main character and it's About Her, but it's only about her because it's actually deep down about Gloria

[todayisafridaynight]

I was thinking about this before I want to bed last night so I have no idea if it's anything, but do you think the fact Arakawa (allegedly) was still seeing women for (at least) more than half the time they knew each other would've made it harder for Jo to label whatever they had going on...

Like I don't know if he would've been bothered (or allowed himself to let it on if he was), but crossroads of imperfect communication, only being in one relationship prior, being somewhat old-fashioned, and knowing Arakawa met Akane through an "affair"... no idea where I'm going with this but makes me wonder...

it's a fair thought to have in this (alleged) timeline me thinks

jo wholly doesn't really have experience with other people, whether that's platonically, romantically, or whatever demon lies in-between those. i dont think he wouldve been explicitly bothered- not bothered in a way he'd be ready to acknowledge. just that weird feeling you get when something's off but you can't place it (or rather you don't really want to)

[libraford]

Today I was helping run the booth for the local queer non-profit at the farmer's market and a woman told me that she would like a flag, pointing to our little bucket of flags. So I picked up the bucket and I brought it over and asked her which one she'd like.

"Well, tell me about them!"

"Oh! Okay! This one is the inclusion flag- its for everyone, including allies."

"What's this one?"

"That's the bisexual flag: it represents people who are attracted to two or more genders."

"Hmm... what about this one?"

"That's the nonbinary flag: it represents people whose gender isn't strictly 'male or female.'"

"Hmm... what's this purple one?"

"That's the asexual flag: it represents people who may not feel sexual attraction the way that others do."

She put her hand to her chest and got this really curious look on her face. "Tell me more about that!"

"Oh, happy to! So like if you're out with your bestie and someone real fine walks by and she's like 'omg look at him' and you're like 'girl get a grip?' Or like you just don't get what the 'big deal' is about sex or why everyone is so weird about it? But there's also room for like- you don't fall in love with the way someone looks, you're attracted to the person- their sense of humor and their kindness, or there's something about their personality that just makes it click for you? That's asexuality, too!"

And she got real quiet and seemed to think about it for a minute. So I grabbed our little informational sheet about different queer identities and handed her a copy. "If you want to do some research, this is probably a great place to start."

She thanked me and took an ace flag, stuck it in her hair.

Sometimes when you're online all the time, its easy to think that 'everyone knows about (topic), there's no reason to keep talking about it so much.' But while the people on the internet are real people, the internet ISN'T real life. And there are lots of people who do need to know that they do have community!

One of the jokes is that I'm a lot of people's 'patient zero' for discovering that they're queer. This is why.

[snekdood]

really funny my abusive ex engages in invalidating my identity, especially since thats what they accuse me of doing to them. its almost like you made that up and just wanted an excuse to invalidate me.

[secondbeatsongs]

Food Crime: Frosty the Slawman

so a while ago, I saw this photo going around on tumblr:

at first, I thought this was photoshopped. I mean, "welcome new man in your life"? that feels like a translation error, or someone being silly on purpose.

but guess what! turns out, Frosty Slaw Man is real!

and soon...he will be mine. let's get cooking

(full disclosure: I crafted this snowman and took notes about it over a year ago. and then, like with many things in my life, I forgot about him, and let him drift into the ADHD void of Things I'm Not Currently Staring At, where object permanence is tentative and largely unrealized.

but here we are! and here he is: the slaw man. it's time to share him with you, so that you can suffer as I have suffered, and/or rejoice in my gelatin creation!)

so this recipe photo originally came from Mid-Century Menu (archive link), a blog that seems like one after my own heart, and which once tried to make the Slaw Man (with not much success; but we'll get back to that)! but it's not just that blog that has copies of this ad. I also found it on reddit, and in a few different places on ebay!

lookit that guy! he's a real guy!

both the reddit post and some of the ebay listings say that this is from 1963 (though I haven't been able to figure out which magazines it was printed in, to confirm this for myself). but in looking this up, I discovered something else fun! there's another version of this ad!

Best Foods is what Hellmann's stuff is called on the west coast, and the "this is no place for second best" thing makes a lot more sense when you consider that the ad was probably made for Best Foods first, and then just reused and rebranded for the east coast

the more you know!

anyway the benefit of finding this alternate ad is that the scan on this image is a lot clearer, and so the recipe is more readable! and in looking at it, I've realized something important:

when Mid-Century Menu tried this recipe, they got an ingredient amount wrong.

when they made their beloved Slaw Man, they had the water amount written down as 1/4 cup, but looking at this scan up close, it is actually 3/4 cup of water! something that might make a significant difference, considering we're working with gelatin!

(there's also another change I want to make compared to what they did, when I do this recipe. but we'll get into that in a sec.)

for now: we begin

so. there's no way I'm making a Slaw Man this large. I am just one person, and considering the ingredients of this, I don't think I'm going to be able to consume that much Slaw.

two entire heads of cabbage? three pounds of cottage cheese, a thing that I don't even like to eat? no. that's a bad idea.

so I'm starting small here and making this 1/3 the size of the original:

2 packets of unflavored gelatin 1/4 cup cold water 1 cup mayo 1 tsp salt 1lb cottage cheese 4 cups shredded cabbage

surely this will result in a reasonable amount of Man

...okay, I started chopping the cabbage thinking it would be easier, but I've given up and pulled out a grater. this is much better! and somehow more violent (affectionate)

the recipe says to soften the gelatin in cold water, and then stir over hot water until it's dissolved. I'm going to assume "stir over hot water" means a double boiler, so let's do that

hmmm, the gelatin is very foamy? it’s melted, but the bottom of the pot feels really....sticky

okay. after a couple minutes more and no change, I’m calling this good enough.

so one thing that others who have attempted this recipe have not taken into consideration is the cottage cheese. you see, the others used normal cottage cheese, but the recipe says to use "cottage cheese, cream style"

I’ll be real, I’m not 100% what that means, since we don’t have that here. but I can take an educated guess! so let’s blend the cottage cheese!

(with an immersion blender. I am not willing to wash an actual blender because of this)

mmm, yes. very smooth

...actually. why isn't all cottage cheese like this? the thing I hate about cottage cheese is the texture, so why isn't it all smooth and creamy like this?? I could eat this!!

a new discovery is made every day in this house.

okay, time to start mixing things together.

ah, frosty. I opened a whole new thing of mayo for you! do you feel special?

(I'd make a "pre-dinner snack?" joke, but sometimes I think I'm the only one that remembers Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time)

okay, the mayo, cottage cheese, and salt have been added to the gelatin. but as this cools, the texture is getting...hmm. less than appealing.

lastly: the cabbage

oh. oh this is not very nice

next it says to pack the "salad" into a one pound container, and two six-cup bowls, but since I made this recipe so much smaller, I'm going to uhhhh. uh. find some bowls that seem like they'd be correct...snowman? proportions?

ah. this bowl is too big.

hey, these'll work!

now I just have to let them chill for a while, and continue another day.

(edit from current!me: ahhh oh my god I forgot this was pretty soon after we adopted Jackie! look at these cat pics that I took while I was food crime-ing!

look at them having their little interactions! Knuckles was trying so hard to be friends with her! I love them)

hello! two days later and we are ready to assemble the slawman. and my sibling has started referring to him as "frosty: attorney at slaw", so that's fun.

I've done a thing where, as these set, I flipped them around in the bowl so that hopefully they'd be more round. we'll see if they actually stay like this.

I have also made some decorations for him out of peppers, olives, and carrots!

let's build our boy

oh he's so heavy. and wobbly

no no no he almost fell over!!

okay. he's fine. but more skewers were needed.

and...okay. he is complete.

behold!

gaze upon my beautiful man!

(he is not structurally sound! he wobbles unsteadily as I rotate him! there are already cracks forming in the gelatin around where his arms are! don't worry about it!)

 now it's time to stab him

and...to devour him

this tastes like...a bland coleslaw? and not even that. it's just sort of a salty, cottage cheese-y cabbage. the ingredients don't combine to become something greater, they simply...sit there. like this.

and the texture is...mmm. it's not a jello kind of texture, but it is a bit squashy in a way that's mildly strange.

it's very creamy once it softens in your mouth.

...I don't like this!

and look! taking just that one chunk from him was enough to destabilize him entirely :(

RIP frosty. now I just have to see if I can eat all of you before you go bad.

(note from current!me: I could not.

 I ate maybe half of him over the course of many days, often adding other stuff to him to try to add some flavor: bacon, frozen peas, cheese, etc. but even with that, I just couldn't stomach him.

after a while I stuck what was left of him in the freezer, hoping that maybe I'd find the will to consume the rest of him some other day.

do you know what a frozen-and-then-thawed mixture of cabbage, cottage cheese, mayo, and gelatin looks and tastes like?

bad. the answer is: bad.

I threw him out pretty quickly after thawing him.

do not try this recipe at home)