#but like goddamn. its all so. grating everything in the world all the time

[hitlikehammers]

regular-guy!Eddie absolutely did not expect the emotional gut-punch of the ✨RED CARPET INTERVIEW✨ from famous!Steve's movie premiere (or: Part Nine)

He kinda already knew that, and sure he feels exactly the same but…

Fuck if hearing it out loud isn’t something else.💛🎥

<<< back to the obligatory dose of lingering insecurity // back to the beginning

It’s a whole eight-and-a-half hours since Steve left, and Eddie’s opening the door to a delivery guy who’s holding a box from Eddie’s favorite bakery. Eddie didn’t even know they did delivery, but like—

He shouldn’t even be fucking surprised anymore. He’s not surprised by how his heart fills, and trips over itself for how clumsy it gets when it’s a giddy-lovedrunk fool like the rest of him, beating Steve-Steve-Steve through his veins, stumbling like it’s never moved before which is true in a way, maybe the biggest way, because this territory of loving his Stevie demands blissfully, and consumes entirely, all that Eddie is in a way he’s never known before, or feltbefore so yeah, yeah his heart can just shiver madly with it as long as it goddamn wants.

(And it wants forever, so.)

And this is apparently who Eddie is, now, what he’s be reshaped into for the love of Steve Harrington. And fuck, but he wouldn’t trade it; wouldn’t change it for anything.

His pulse does an extra little tumble when he unfolds the note waiting for him in the fold of the box:

you are what my heart is for

for always, if you’ll have me

~S <3 <3

He doesn’t fight the way his face stretches into a smile, so soft and just, just…so in love, right, and he laughs with the size of the warmth flooding him when he opens the box to see his favorite donuts—Boston Cream and chocolate glazed—nestled alongside enough varieties of the flakiest, butteriest croissants to feed a small army. He shakes his head and checks the clock: not too late for a coffee, so he goes to the machine and—

Finds it all set up, ready to brew. Cup set next to it and everything, complete with a post-it with another <3 scrawled in the middle, stuck to the handle.

Eddie cannot fight the way his eyes prickle as he switches the machine on and takes the note from the mug, holds it to his chest like it’s precious.

Because it is precious. This feeling, this…this this, is so fucking precious he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He doesn’t know how he found something this profound, this invaluable and dear to its core, to his core, he’s, he just…

If his fucking coffee gets a couple tears in it, he figures that’s just, like, the taste of true fucking love, so he’s actually really goddamn grateful for it.

Maybe it makes him heartsick a little, for how much it already feels like his home is empty without Steve, just for a few hours now, but…he thinks maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be, how he’s supposed to feel.

He…he’s not going to willingly sign up for this feeling way again, though. He’s gonna get over his bullshit and give in to what it feels like to love this big and complete, fuck his discomfort and his hangups, he’s never letting his world feel this dull and bereft again if he can fucking help it.

Maybe he googles tuxedos, then…maybe he googles ‘what do men wear to the red carpet’ because maybe it’s just really nice tailored suits, he doesn’t fucking know, he just knows he’s going to fucking get one, he’s going to buy it himself and have it ready for the next time Steve asks him to come with him, so he can show his Stevie that he’s in this in every way, no caveats, no heartbreak, even the little temporary going-to-work kind.

Then he looks at the clock, bites at his lip, and decides no, it’s not took early to search for the most unhinged network to have started their coverage of the premiere.

Because seriously. He was always gonna fucking watch his boyfriend be amazing, and beautiful, and just…

Everything.

—

Eddie nearly drops his pain au chocolat when he sees Steve’s perfectly swooped hair peek on-screen in the so-far-kinda-interminable premiere coverage. Like…Eddie knows he’s watching with a deeply single-minded goal, but seriously.

How are these other people taking up time that could just be Steve, instead?

Insanity.

“Steven,” the interviewer greets him in that over-friendly way the press has with celebrities, that Eddie always thought was weird as fuck because it’s not like those vultures were the famous people’s friends.

“I hate to say this because it feels cliche,” the woman smiles that sort of apologetic-but-only-because-people-are-watching smile that’s fucking nauseating; “but you’re looking exceptionally striking tonight,” she nods to his outfit, and ‘striking’ is an understatement but then she once-overs him head-to-toe and…

Fuck.

Fuck, but Eddie did not anticipate the welling of rage in his limbs, the protectiveness that surges in him laced with a potent possessiveness he should maybe be ashamed of but…no, he’s fucking not, because his Stevie isn’t a pice of meat and he’ll fucking fight anyone who treats him like a paycheck or a prize or a—

But Steve laughs, and it sounds real, so…Eddie can let it slide.

For now.

“Am I?” Steve asks, playful almost, coquettish—he’s got a handle on this, has these bastards eating out the palm of his goddamn hand and if his masterful command of the encounter from the jump, here, isn’t sexy as fuck, leads to something wholly different but just as red-hot as the protective ire in Eddie leaping through his blood all over again? Well.

Fuck him, then, because: dayum.

The interviewer laughs, comfortable, and Eddie gets the impression that maybe they’ve done this dance before; a lot of times, even. There isn’t camaraderie, there, but there’s a…collegiality.

Eddie will table his desire to key the interviewer’s car and…stuff.

For now.

“Is it weird to tell you you’re glowing?”

Steve does what Eddie imagines is the movie star equivalent of the snort that he lets loose so often, so freely, so unguarded in Eddie’s home, next to Eddie and it’s like his smiles that don’t reach his eyes versus the ones that do.

And Eddie’s fucking floored all over again at what a privilege it is, what a gift he’s living, to know the difference. To be able to hold the difference close.

“Maybe,” Steve huffs across the feed, and Eddie watches the little expressive quirks run across his face, framing that blinding smile because fuck, the man is kinda radiant, but then: Eddie knows for a fact that Steve is radiant always, so it’s not a surprise this lady’s pointing it out.

S’just obvious.

“But I don’t mind at all,” Steve adds as the interviewer ducks her head a bit, a little reticent all of a sudden though Eddie can’t tell how much of it’s an act, if it even matters: because Steve’s a master at reading people, at getting the body language and subtler cues just right—the number of times already that he’s picked up something’s off, from a frustrating work call to a headache from a coming storm, before Eddie even processes it for himself is unreal—but Steve always notices, so he leans in kind of conspiratorially as he grins, and invites her to share the energy:

“I’ll take it as a compliment,” and he winks, and she chuckles, and Eddie…

Eddie cannot help but imagine what it could be like to stand next to him. To brush his arm against Steve’s arm as he works the line of cameras. To smile at this woman and all these bloodsuckers and just…watch as they fawn over the man he loves, who loves him and who will go home with Eddie, and trust Eddie with all the intricacies of him that the world isn’t privy to, and Eddie could watch them fall over themselves and just…just know.

He wants that. He wants that…so much.

“Such a compliment,” the interviewer confirms enthusiastically, then tilts her head, her demeanor shifting ever-so-slightly:

“Anything different to credit as the cause? New skin routine?” she asks too innocent, and Eddie’s struck that this must be how the game is played, asking questions without asking the question.

He doesn’t think he could manage that. He’s in awe of Steve all over again if this is what’s demanded of him as a rule, on the regular.

Then he’s in awe of Steve—all over again, again—when Steve’s features soften and then, for the most blink-and-you’ll-miss-it second, Eddie sees the version of Steve that sits next to him on the couch, that strokes Eddie’s hair, that touches him gentle and reverent somehow, that shares his bed.

It’s gone in a second but, the idea that there’s feeling there that, knowing what to look for and how to recognize the known quantity, can leak into the careful public display that Steve allows the world to have of him?

It’s…it’s a heady, powerful thing. It’s fucking intoxicating to witness.

And then the man he loves speaks:

“I don’t think there’s a product money can buy that makes you glow from the inside,” and he sounds so tender, so genuine and fucking, like, just, luminescent with feeling and Eddie…Eddie cannot handle it.

Eddie needs him so much. Needs to reach for him. Needs to hold him. Needs to hold him to his chest and try to fit him inside, needs to make himself small in Steve’s arms to try and fit inside his chest and make a home there forever, he needs—

“Oh,” the interviewer is fucking, like, cooing; “oh, Steven,” and Eddie’s mouth twists instinctually because…okay. Okay, Eddie gets why Steve uses another version of his name for the masses and Eddie thinks he’s only going to use it for really really serious things, if only just to try and salvage the way he suspects this woman isn’t the first, or the worst, to simper around it like it has something to give, rather than exists as something to like…adulate.

Actively.

“You have to know that now I’m obligated to—” she says the words like she knows she’s required to, and maybe, maybe feels some degree of apology for prodding but…not nearly enough degrees.

Not even close.

But Steve just laughs, cuts into her words:

“Of course I knew,” he waves her prevaricating off with such a deft fucking hand, so hot; “I was counting on it.”

And he sounds sly, not quite like he’d played her but not exactly not, like he was pulling the strings all along and she moved exactly where he’d planned for her to.

More…just more sexy. And Eddie’s just really grateful he’s wearing sweats right now and there’s no one to judge him, basically.

“It’s not something I want to hide,” Steve’s saying all soft again, but burning like candlelight and Eddie melts for it accordingly because Jesus fucking Christ: “but you’re only getting the broad strokes, yeah?”

“Broad strokes, excellent,” the interviewer says, nodding like a bobblehead; “that is perfect,” and she’s clearly excited, and Eddie obviously knew Steve was private where he could be but to get this kind of reaction at the admittedly bare-bones he’s laying out as being willing to share?

It has to…mean something big. Has to be a little unprecedented. Maybe Eddie’s heart’s bouncing in his chest, pin-balling against his ribs more than a little for all the implications in it.

Heady, like he said: and then some.

“I met someone,” and Eddie, like: okay.

Okay, he probably could have guessed that’s where it was going via context clues, like, Steve was talking about something personal. Entertainment “journalism�� was always rooted in who was fucking who, and…well.

Steve’s fucking Eddie, so, yeah. Context clues.

But tell that to the way Eddie’s heart damn well stops still, freezing all it’s chaotic momentum in his chest in a fucking second once he realizes what’s happening. What is…

Happening, on cable fucking television. On Al Gore’s internet. Fucking…live.

In front of millions. For posterity.

(If Eddie still trusted himself to follow such things—which for the record, after the no-Steve-in-your-contacts disaster, he absolutely does not, okay?—but if he did, he can only begin to imagine the extent of the gifsets, because Eddie found fuckton of a lot of them for the actor-who-he-definitely-didn’t-think-was-his-Steve, and he always did have a pretty good eye for the kinds of events that a fanbase would eat up and make like five-hundred-thousand versions of the same 10 seconds from, and now-definitely-his-Steve is offering a goldmine here, but—)

But see, even if Eddie trusted himself with that sort of thing still, he couldn’t care about it right now, and that would be because his heart’s still decidedly in limbo, twitching maybe with disbelief, with overwhelm, with the gravity of what’s happening because Steve is, Steve is—

About him and—

“I’m with someone.”

And Steve says it with so much feeling, so much…delight and wonder at the fact of it, the mere prospect of it, that it makes sense that the full weight of it hits Eddie as his heart feels like it gasps for air after being held under water, holding so much more inside it in his moment than Eddie thinks, no: so much more than Eddie knows he’s ever felt before and that’s why the way his heart jumps back to beating again is a whole ass the earth-shattering production, because the force of it could crack his ribs or quake the ground beneath him, definitely rocks him where he sits and shakes through his bones because it’s such a, like, volumetric force that cascades through him, that feels like expanding with the breadth of all things and then slamming closed to expel them into the universe to be caught and held by the only person, the only heart and soul that you want, that you need to have your everything—

“I found this incredible human who is,” Steve licks his lips, and Eddie’s hyper-saturated heart probably shouldn’t be able to beat faster when it’s beating with this kind of unprecedented force but it does, somehow, it can because Eddie is that far in love and maybe that transcends all the probablys in the whole fucking world.

“Like, this is amazing,” Steve pivots, gestures at the spectacle around them; “and it’s a privilege, and you know how much I appreciate it, how grateful I am and how much I would never dare to even think about taking any of it as a given.”

“You’ve always been,” the interviewer considers for a second before deciding on her words, and delivering them wholly-honest, and Eddie tries his damnedest to process what she says over the deafening rush of his blood in his ears: “probably the most gracious of your colleagues that I’ve had the pleasure to speak with,” and she shoots him a little grin as she adds:

“Humble, really, which has never failed to be impressive.”

And Eddie feels this…tingling warmth come over him, bubbly and magical like champagne looks in a sunset: he’s so proud, and he’s so…fucking lucky that this man wants him, that this man loves him, that this man lets Eddie love him back, and is willing to…tell the whole goddamn world.

“That is so sad,” Steve grimaces at being called out for being decent as something other than a bare minimum, which Eddie gets but he also knows for a fact that Steve is so much more than decent, and he deserves to be celebrated for it whether or not his own coworkers fucking suck.

Eddie’s gonna make a point to celebrate him. For all that he is and all that he does, for how he is exceptional in all the ways.

Always.

“But, like, you’ve seen that,” Steve gets back to his point, and perks up, goes back to the blinding brightness that pulls Eddie’s heart wide to do the thing where it’s trying to defy physics, to pump the whole unfathomable depth of this feeling; “so you know what it means when I tell you I met someone who blows all of this out of the water. Who puts everything this town, this industry,” he glances around himself again, takes everything in in this encompassing way then shakes his head and grins so true:

“Everything this job has to offer, even at its very best? This person puts all of it to absolute shame.”

And the interviewer is just staring at him, holding her microphone, looking a little dumbfounded, definitely surprised—Eddie knows Steve doesn’t date much, hasn’t been attached to someone romantically for years since a very high profile breakup with the lead from the those 80s-throwback monster movies that Eddie refuses to name, out of solidarity with the man he’s gonna spend the rest of his life with. But the red carpet lady’s thrown for a loop, maybe largely by the subject itself, but maybe likewise by the feeling Steve’s infusing every word with. Unabashed and brilliant.

“They’re so much…more, than all of this, any of this, that I don’t know the word to describe it,” Steve laughs lightly to himself for a second then tacks on:

“If a word for this even exists.”

The interviewer seems to shake herself out of her baffled kind of stupor to nod a little, smile a little—not reluctant, but more kinda…confused.

“Sounds special,” she says, and it’s like she does mean it, but then she adds; “almost like a fairytale.”

And Eddie doesn’t think it’s just his own insecurities—difficult to hold on to in the waves of what his pulse is doing, how his entire body is reacting to Steve’s every word, to the undeniable revelation of just what lives in Steve’s heart in detail, public now and proud of it, kind of fucking unequivocal—but Eddie doesn’t think it’d just be him who picks up the unspoken implication there:

Almost too good to be true..

“I mean every word,” Steve doesn’t even pause to consider that implication, fucking unfathomable saint of a man that he is; “and I am so grateful, I don’t take a breath spent with them for granted,” and fuck if Eddie’s eyes don’t sting because yeah, he kinda already knew that, and sure he feels exactly the same but…

Fuck if hearing it out loud isn’t something else.

“But I found someone who enjoys my company, like, seriously and genuinely enjoys my company, and doesn’t mind at all that I am kind of obsessed with them and want to be with them always,” and if Eddie mouths at the screen same, Stevie-baby, exactly the same with his heart in his throat, no one could even blame him, and he wouldn’t give a shit if they tried; “someone who supports the fuck out of me, who laughs with me, who lets me be stupid and filled with, like,” and Steve grins so big then and chuckles a little buoyant and it’s clear the interviewer is taken aback, had never seen Steve the way Eddie always sees Steve���

“Just, silly joy at the most random stuff,” and Steve’s gaze goes a little distant, a little starry, and Eddie wonders what he’s thinking about, which stupid thing they’ve giggled over’s filled his head just now and Eddie’s chest hurts for how much he wants to reach out and trace those features, wants to kiss the little space between those brows and feel those impossible lashes brush his skin because he leans so close, because he can be that close.

“Someone who takes me out, cooks me dinner, writes me songs, treats me randomly for no reason like I just deserve it as a matter of course,” because of course that should be the standard with Steve and fuck everyone who came before and failed to understand that; there won’t be anyone to come after, though, not if Eddie has anything to say about it: and he’s never going to forget what it means to treat Steve Harrington exactly how he deserves.

“And they let me do the same,“ and Steve sounds so grateful for the give-and-take of them, the way they meet and match, and Eddie just…he wants Stevie next to him right now, and he really and truly knows that after he kisses Steve senseless and they fuck about how much they love each other?

He’s going to promise this man every movie release and awards show and random event he wants for the rest of their lives, if he’ll let Eddie have the honor.

“Doesn’t turn it into like a competition on either side, either, it’s just us both doing what we want to do most in the moment, any given day,” and Eddie is struck all over again at how little time it took, especially given Eddie’s laundry list of hangups, for them both to sink into an established status quo of…not a millionaire and his management-grunt sidepiece, or some fucked up accidental sugar baby, but two men who just…love. As a rule. And show it.

Eddie…kinda didn’t process just how much that was, is, until it’s spelled out: never a competition. Eddie never feels bought when Steve sends him his now-routine gifts whenever he’s away. Steve never makes Eddie feels silly when Eddie makes a point to bring him breakfast in bed just because; kinda makes him feel the opposite, makes him feel like a fucking superhero or something, because they’re just—

“Cherishing each other,” Steve continues, and that’s…that’s it, that’s exactly it; “celebrating, y’know, what it means to feel this way.”

And Steve pauses, a soft smile less curling his lips than suffusing his whole body, softening his features and making him so much like a sun, a brighter star than the event can stand and Eddie’d called it: the world can’t handle that shine all the time. Steve can’t smile with his mouth and his heart and the full force of his everything, lest lesser mortals fall in the face of the magnificence of it.

But then he starts speaking again, and Eddie…Eddie, for his part, maybe falls in a wholly different way:

“I found somebody I want to see tomorrow with, but all of them. All the tomorrows, y’know? Somebody who wants to make my coffee in the morning, just so we can watch the sunrise,” and Eddie sees it as it happens on the little balcony he has, where he’s actually started using the chairs that were mostly for show before but now, now he sits with Steve, and they drink coffee and wake up slow and it’s…it’s perfection and Eddie aches at how much he’s in love with it, in love with Steve and what they have, what they’re making and building and keeping together and—

“Knows just how I like it,” and Eddie does, he makes sure Steve’s coffee has just the right amount of milk, is the perfect temperature—it’s muscle memory now: the knowledge of Steve held sacred in Eddie’s head as much as in his heart; “lets me hold their hand, play with their,” and Steve’s fingers twirl a little and Eddie knows: lets him play with Eddie’s hair, because fuck if they don’t both love that so fucking hard and maybe Eddie reaches for a curl and it’s nothing like having Steve play with it but it’s…it’s something.

“Never waited to call, because why wait,” he says wryly, and Eddie chokes on something between a cackle and a sob because Eddie had feared so hard that he’d lost this, but in truth?

He’d had no idea what he was losing, what he’d have gone without, even when he knew deep down he was maybe losing everything.

So yeah: he hadn’t fucking wasted any time that second go-around.

“Why play games when you can, when,” and Steve stops himself, shakes his head ruefully before thinking better of giving more than he wants to the people watching; “and now we, we’re like,” and this time when he trials off he just kinda sits with it, stares off camera kinda unfocused for a second, but looking so content.

Eddie loves him so goddamn much.

“Yeah,” Steve shrugs, but not in a way that minimizes any of what he’s said, or any of the feeling behind it; “sorry if it disappoints your viewers,” but Steve doesn’t sound one bit sorry, he sounds sly almost and then:

“But I’m not sorry at all that I found them, this,” and Steve smiles to himself, private-like again when he stumbles upon a reason to underscore the the reality that it’s:

“Us.”

Together. Inseparable. A single entity made of equals given wholly to what it means to love, like this.

Fucking magical, is what it is.

By this point, the interviewer looks a little dewy-eyed herself, and her smile really does read as honest. Like she’s…no one could be as happy as Eddie is, in this. And Steve’s feelings seem…comparable, against all odds but undeniable, though Eddie doesn’t think anyone could be quite as overjoyed by where he’s ended up, and with who.

Like: even if Steve were inexpressibly thrilled about it, and he may well be, the look on his face isn’t vague, but then Eddie…well, he’d just have to be so inconceivably giddy it topples empires; parts seas.

“You’ll head home to them?” the woman asks, and oh.

Oh.

Steve’s smile at that…it reaches his eyes.

“Long as I didn’t piss ‘em off too much, with what I’ve said,” and Eddie absolutely does laugh through the heaving sobs of the sort he’s not sure he’s ever experienced before: like the sheer magnitude of feeling in him just has no option but to crest and burst out of him the only way it can, as he giggles at the absolute absurdity of this man, this man, as if Eddie isn’t tempted to sleep in front of the fucking door for however many days between now and Steve coming home—home—so he can leap into those arms and cling and promise him forever, forever, forever in no uncertain terms, making concrete and certain all that they’ve implied in every possible way to now.

“They value their privacy,” Steve sobers a little, serious with it and Eddie loves him, he loves him and he loves so much more and bigger than privacy, than whatever fear lives and breathes in him: it’s nothing compared to the fact of Steve.

“Our privacy.”

“You were impressively discreet, even by your own standards,” the woman reassures him, as if it’s a question, as if Eddie could ever be pissed at Steve for the fucking declarations he’s given, for the care he’s infused in the delivery, just…Steve.

“Even I don’t think I could track this person down,” the lady tacks on and Steve chuckles at that.

“That’s pretty good, then,” he compliments lightly, like maybe he appreciates her actual journalistic skills in a sea of stolen photos and who-wore-it-best.

“Congratulations, Steven,” the woman leans in and seems to think twice before patting his shoulder or something, but definitely looks like she wants to. “I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you,” Steve tells her then glances over his shoulder, catches something out of sight and waves before smiling not-quite-apologetically. “Looks like I’m needed elsewhere.”

And then Steve’s off and Eddie…

Eddie starts searching for someone who’s better at technology that he is, and has saved the interview start to finish, so he can watch it again.

💛💛💛

on to THE CONCLUSION // part ten >>>

✨or✨

<<< back to the obligatory insecurity // part eight

for @pearynice 🖤

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divider credit here

[maretriarch]

i hate being this irritatable it makes me such a miserable cunt in all meanings of the phrase but god wouldn't you be under similar circumstances

[evergreen-endo]

WE PLAY THE SAME KEYS AT DIFFERENT TIMES — r. kaji.

cw: 18+ mdni, f! reader, car sex, spit. wc: 0.8k a/n: unedited. thought about him on my drive home. enjoy. 

You and Kaji can’t ever just listen to music in the car together.

He really never intended for it to be like this at first— but once it happened the first time, it’s all he could think of the next time he got in his car. It’s the same every time; inviting you for a ride to listen to a tune that’s stuck in his head, one he claims he can’t get rid of until he hears it again. But with him, it can never just be one song. There are too many that make him think of you these days, despite his best efforts to press skip on those in particular. 

He drives around until night falls, and you’ve both shared everything you’ve had on repeat this week. As he pulls onto the highway, the low vibration of his car picking up speed thrums against your thighs, much like the guitar blaring through his speakers. The low light of the city falls on his hands as he steers with practiced motion, heel of his palm flat against the leather. Warm yellow light trails along the veins on his arms, dragging your gaze wherever it touches. It highlights the rim of his features for a split second, long enough to see the way he side eyes you.

He lets out a huff, leaning back against the headrest to hide in the dark, though it’s futile. As he whirrs past the overheads, the light guides your gaze to his thighs, spread lazily even with one foot on the gas, and up, up, up to…oh. It’s only a second that you see it before light rushes past, and you wait on the next street light to illuminate him. It takes its time, stretching slowly over the same path, fingertips to forearms to biceps. A flit of your eyes down, and the car leers onto the exit ramp, light changing its course and missing the bulge of his cock entirely. 

The both of you huff for different reasons, you in disappointment, and him in relief. Not that you can hear each other over the music, anyway.

You spend the rest of the ride bopping your head along and picking up your phone to add songs you like to your own playlist. He’s grateful that there aren’t as many street lamps on the route to your place, so you miss the poorly hidden smirk that plays on his lips. 

Pulling into your driveway, he thumbs at his wheel to turn the music down just as that one song comes on. The one you fucked to the first time he did this; the reason he keeps inviting you to do this. He pauses, sighing, and turns it back up again. You tense, thighs crossing as you hear the click of his seatbelt and squeak of the leather as he reaches over to click yours, too.

Kaji’s breath always comes out ragged— grits his teeth and hisses through them even as his chest heaves for more oxygen. He’s got you bouncing on his cock in his backseat, guiding you to some extent, rough grip on your hips because he really can’t find it in himself to be gentle. Not when you move so perfectly you hit every goddamn beat. 

You’re the perfect melody to him— he has half a mind to lean forward and turn the music down in favor of the sound of you. Ass clapping against his thighs, wet squelching from between yours, breathy moans and gasps and keens. He wishes he could isolate every salacious layer of sound— to savor it, ingrain it into his memory to replay over and over.

The beat of the song slows, just before he knows it’ll build up again. He takes the break to wrap an arm around your waist, effectively slowing the motion of your hips. You whine as he forces you to grind your clit against him, and he hums, captivated.

Using his free hand, he twirls his fingers through your hair, wrapping the strands around to get enough hold to pull you forward, the abruptness ripping a gasp from you. Perfect. Twisting his lips up, he tilts his head forward, letting a glob of spit travel past his lips and drip down onto your awaiting tongue as he plants his feet firm on the ground. With all the leverage in the world, he bucks his hips up into you as the beat picks up again, the heavy weight of his thrusts knocking the air from your lungs. 

It gets hard to move when you squeeze around him, ticks him off that you’re slowing down his rhythm. He just wants to give you what you deserve and you’re always holding him back with that fucking grip of yours. At least, he thinks, you’re giving him a chance to readjust his hips, so he can hit that spongey spot inside you until the song closes out, until all that’s left is the sound of your shared panting.

[nackrosor]

~ Childhood Sweethearts ~

[part 3/?]

Leon S. Kennedy x bestie!Reader

PART 1 | PART 2

warnings/tags: friends to lovers, roomates, pining, slow burn, eventual romance, eventual smut, reminiscing childhood memories series synopsis: You and Leon have been friends since you can remember. You've always been there for him, especially through the bad times. He's in a bad place again and he needs you. You're the only light in his pretty dark life. word count: 5k.

A smile lingered on your lips as you turned the corner and made your way to the kitchen. You could feel a newfound sense of joy pervading you at the memory of the excitement so plainly written all over Leon’s face when you agreed to let him move in with you. He did always look like a puppy when happy and you were sure that if you had squinted hard enough you could have seen his tail wagging enthusiastically back and forth.

“Heh”. You shook your head at the silly image, letting out a quiet giggle as you moved swiftly from one cupboard to another to get everything you needed to make breakfast.

He had never been able to mask his happiness, that much was true. Not when he was a child, not when he grew up. He could disguise any other emotion if he wanted to, and make it so hard for anyone to read him - sometimes you included - but he was so utterly incapable of masking his happiness. You’ve always wondered why… 

With a sigh you grabbed a tablespoon, put some coffee into the filter, added water and then leaned against the counter to watch the brewing start. A frown slowly crept over your features.

Perhaps… The answer was less complex than you might have thought.

Aside from the shared joyful recollections of your childhood years, there had never been much good going on in his life, even back then. There was no denying it: discovering that your parents are criminals, witnessing their murder, and becoming an orphan all at once couldn't be a healthy foundation for a happy life. As a result, when those rare instances of happiness do occur, they trigger such genuine and overwhelming emotions that one cannot manage to contain them. That must be the explanation.

Your fingers tightened around the edge of the counter as a vivid and powerful memory resurfaced to your mind.

One of that day. The day he was nearly taken away from you for the very first time.

You could still recall Leon’s blank face when your dad, a police officer at the time and the very one who had saved his life, brought him to your house to leave him in the care of your mother for a short while. You had no idea what had happened that day, you couldn't even imagine the trauma he had just gone through... But the instant you saw him, you could sense something was off, something was different. You dashed towards him and hugged him so tightly, only God knows for how long. And you were certain, even if you didn't realize it at the time, that he was quietly crying on your shoulder as he held you back. Yet, the image that had really carved its place in your mind and that you recalled the most vividly was how Leon pulled back from the hug and just… smiled. He smiled at you as if he was the happiest kid in the entire world. And you smiled right back at him. 

Hell. That memory always did bring back chills, every goddamn time…

“Sleeping with your eyes open?”

Leon’s voice caught you off guard and you glanced briefly up at him to see him enter the kitchen with a spring in his step, before you hastily turned your back and blinked the tears away. 

“Ha. Ha. I’m making you coffee, you should sound more grateful, you know?” you quipped back with a playful innuendo, hopefully masking the emotional trip you had just gone through in your head.

You busied yourself by staring down at the machine as if it would start brewing faster if you put pressure on it. You didn’t hear the rustle of clothes drawing nearer until Leon was standing right behind you, poking his head right over your shoulder.

You don't know what it was; the whole pot of coffee you drank to stay awake all night, the fact that you hadn't shut an eye in 24 hours, or the way that he was standing so close to you with his warm body literally pressing on your back... but your nerves suddenly gave up and you flinched hard, almost knocking the coffee machine off the counter. 

Leon promptly grabbed your shoulders to keep you steady, and even if you didn't look straight up at him out of embarrassment, you could tell he was concerned.

"Hey, I can handle it myself. There's no reason for you to stay up any longer."

His palms were so warm against your bare skin, his touch so comforting and familiar... The urge to simply lean into him and feel his soothing warmth was so strong, nearly unbearable. 

But, luckily, the machine beeped right then, and the brewing came to a halt, along with that awkward interlude you got caught up in. With a shake of your head, you took the bowl and focused on filling the Hello Kitty $1-deal mug you had purchased months ago but had never used; it was the only one you owned besides yours, so Leon would have to make do with it.

“You’re technically still a guest here, aren’t you?” you glanced up at him with a half-grin, grabbing the mug with both of your hands - just in case - and turned around to set it on the table. "So let me be the lady of the house and go sit your ass on that chair."

Leon shook his head with a silent chuckle and followed your orders opting for no rebutting, yet he couldn't pass up the opportunity to mockingly throw you a military salute. 

“Yes, m’am.” 

You gave him a pointed look, although the little smile playing on your lips sniffed out the playful nature of it. Turning your back on him again you grabbed the tray you had previously stuffed with all you could offer him for breakfast and placed it right in the center of the table.

“Bossy as usual, huh? Even when you’re about to collapse, you’re still hard as ever to reason with.” 

You could catch the affectionate hint in his voice and you couldn’t help but huff a chuckle through your nose. Once you grabbed the gallon of milk and a cup, you dropped on the chair opposite his and let out a long tired yawn.

“Especially when I’m about to collapse.” you eventually retorted, pointing the tip of your spoon at him as if you had just reminded him of a well-known fact before you smiled and nodded at the tray.

“C’mon, dig in.”

“I just want to make one thing straight-” he started and you glanced up from your half-filled cup of milk, taken aback by the sudden grave tone in his voice. He made sure to give you a long and meaningful look before he added: “I am grateful. For everything.”

You matched his expression, your stomach fluttering under the intensity of his gaze.

“I know.” you simply answered, no humor or mocking tainting your voice this time. 

Leon gave you a firm nod in return and then finally dug in his breakfast.

You joined him right away, grabbing some cookies, soaking them in the milk and shoving them in your mouth before they could flop and melt. All the while you kept on peering up at your friend, finding solace in the way he seemed to enjoy the food, munching and sipping with gusto as if he hadn’t had a nice meal in days. You wouldn’t be surprised if that was indeed the case.

“Mmm, this croissant is great!” he announced, giving it another good bite. “You made it?”

You almost snorted the milk straight out of your nose.

“Me??” Your eyebrows shot comically up to your hairline. You must have had such a weirded out look on your face that Leon couldn’t help but chortle and look away to avoid choking on his mouthful. “‘Sorry I burned the cake I made for your birthday and never tried baking ever since’, little ol’ me???”

You too tried to bite back a laugh as you watched Leon struggle to swallow the food and answer. 

“You were like 14…”

“Yeah and I’m still 14 in that regard. Me and baking it’s a no-no.” you quipped back, throwing him a sharp look that said ‘believe me, you don’t wanna know’. “The only thing I did to those croissants was stuffing them with nut cream.”

“Ah! That!” Leon animatedly wiggled his finger at you and nodded knowingly. “Yeees. That’s what it is, then. You stuffed it juuust right. And that’s a skill!”

You stared at him long and hard, a deadpan look on your face, until you couldn't keep it together any longer and burst out laughing.

“What a fucking dork!”

Leon seemed pleased with your reaction and grinned triumphantly at you. His eyes twinkled with amusement as he watched your laughter ease into a big smile.

“A veeery grateful dork who appreciates the efforts taken in putting together this breakfast.”

"Yeah. Yeah." You brushed off his attempt at flattery with a flick of your hand and resumed eating, although not before belting out another chuckle. “Kudos for trying, soon-to-be roomie. It won’t save you from all the future dish duty, though.”

You glanced up again mid-bite when you realized he was still staring at you. Your brows arched in an inquisitive look.

"What?"

“That sound…”

He smiled as your head tilted to the side in a perplexed twitch.

"Your laugh. I missed that."

"Ah."

You had to look away, afraid that the way his words had made your heart race would somehow show on your face. Sometimes your friend would say such touching things with such stark bluntness that you didn't know how to react. Especially without making it obvious how smitten you were with him.

“I haven’t heard it in a while.”

You grabbed your cup of milk and chugged it down in one big gulp merely to buy some time for your heartbeat to ease down.

“Well, you’ve been away for a while.” You eventually replied with a casual shrug and leaned back in your seat, arms lazily crossed over your chest. You focused your gaze on him, your expression turning a bit more serious. “Extra top secret mission?”

He just nodded, a dark look clouding his sparkling eyes and you knew not to ask any further questions. He wouldn’t have told you anything about it anyway. 

“The point is…” he started again and the clouds instantly faded back into a serene blue sky. “It brings back good memories. I've been thinking a lot about those recently."

You softly hummed along, your eyes roaming over his face as those heartwrenching words he had uttered earlier, made their way back to your mind. 

“I wish we could go back to the good days” he had said, “I wish it was always just you and me”, “ I wish that you were there for me all the time.” 

You could feel your chest grow heavy all over again at the memory of a distraught Leon whispering those heartfelt words to you and you had to force yourself to take a long, deep breath to regain some control over your body. You hadn’t had a minute alone since that serious and profound conversation you had with him, a moment to process it, digest it, take in all the very serious implications behind it. And thinking about it now, with your body working on energy saving and Leon seemingly feeling better, it wasn’t really the best of times. 

But… There was also something else that had kept swirling in your mind since you heard it escape his lips the night before. Something you just couldn’t shake off, no matter how hard you tried. You couldn't help but think that that very soft-spoken “I love you” he had whispered before passing out had sounded so genuine… As if he had truly meant it… And not in a platonic way.

Was it too pathetically delusional of you to hope he had truly meant it? 

“Y/N?”

Leon’s warm voice ripped you out of your thoughts and you hastily focused back on him.

“Hm?”

You were relieved to see the understanding look he gave you. You had been awake for a whole day now, you could be excused for zoning out for a moment without raising questions, after all.

“I asked you if… if you frequently think back to those times, too? To when we were kids, especially.”

“Of course I do. Everyday.” you admitted without hesitation, eyes widening slightly at how easily the words flowed from your mouth. Perhaps you had been too honest about it? Leon looked startled as well. 

No, actually… He seemed relieved by how direct and sincere your answer had been. 

He leaned back in his chair with a soft sigh, his eyes drawn to the tray in front of him. As his gaze grew distant, you dreaded what was about to come. Was he going to pour his heart out yet again, come up with some more gut-wrenching stuff that would most likely deliver the ultimate blow and send you K.O.? You would not withstand one more confession like the ones he had made already. 

Instead, you watched with a flutter in your chest as his lips curled up even further until a genuine smile bloomed on his face. His eyes twinkled with such vitality. That. That was a rare sight… and the most precious one to witness. You felt blessed and lucky to have seen it more than anyone else. 

"The cookies," he began, tipping his chin towards the serving plate of goodies. "They resemble those your mother used to make almost every day. I still remember that scent..."

He plucked one from the plate and brought it up to his nose to sniff it, as if he seeked to revisit that same aroma again. You grinned knowingly as his eyes widened and his entire face lit up with recognition. He looked at you with a silent query in his blue eyes, and you nodded, a cheeky grin spreading on your face.

“Yep. Mom made them. I’m quite honestly impressed you could still smell it on ‘em since they’re more than a week old. You have a bloodhound’ nose, I swear.”

“Heh. Comes with the job.”

“Huh-huh.”

No. It did not come with the job. He was born with it. You had seen it, and you remembered one time clearly when he had so blatantly made a show of it. You had spent the entire afternoon with a classmate, a nerdy boy who was forced to assist you with your math homework because you had been struggling that year. That same evening, when you met with Leon to play, he smelled that boy's scent on you, as if you had bathed in it. He appeared to be really upset about it. He sulked and moped and whined about it basically the entire time. That one memory always came back with a thrill of satisfaction buzzing within you. Leon had made such an uproar out of jealousy, that much had been obvious even to a very giddy 8-year-old you.

When you returned to the present conversation with Leon, you realized with a smile that he was still reminiscing about all the times you devoured those exact cookies for breakfast whenever he was at your place. You too remembered. You ate breakfast together at least twice a week. It helped to be neighbors on the outskirts; you could spend time together every day, multiple times a day, and you would always meet at your house, since his parents would leave Leon alone quite frequently. Much too frequently; at the time you still didn't know why. 

“-you ate them every day and yet whenever I had breakfast with you, you would always steal one of mine. Sometimes even two.”

You caught Leon throwing you a playful glare as he hit you with that nostalgic jab and you couldn’t help but giggle, a sly glint passing across your eyes.

It was true. You used to do that. But in your defense, you were a young, shy girl with a major crush on her best friend. It was always meant to be a very innocent way to grab your friend’s attention. Even then, all you ever wanted was to have his blue eyes trained on you at every waking moment. 

With Leon gazing down at the crusty pastry, seemingly lost in one of his reveries, you felt that it might be fun to relive that one memory just for the thrill of it. Leaning forward, with one quick flick of your hand you grasped the cookie right out of his fingers. The outraged gasp that he rewarded you with definitely made the childish deed worth it. But it was that look, that fond look he gave you that felt like the real reward.

“Like the good old times, huh?” You winked at him and bit back your silly grin as you popped the cookie into your mouth.

He shook his head, his lips pursed in a mocking, unimpressed grimace.

“Some people never change.”

And yet, he sounded pleased with it. There was something in his warm, humorless tone, in the way his sparkling eyes lingered on you as he said that, that caused your insides to flip and turn not once, but twice, with your heart missing a beat as well just because it didn't want to lose out on the fun.

You held his gaze for a few moments as you chewed on the cookie, until you felt your heart beg you to look away.

"Anyway…" You swallowed and cleared your throat, lazily settling back in your seat. Another yawn escaped you just as you reverted your focus on him, and you thought you caught him beaming affectionately at the sight. For your own sake, you decided to brush it off. “Now that you’re back, you should go pay my folks a visit. You know how my mom is. She’d bake you some of those cookies before you even have time to say hello. She'll give you a bag or two to bring home, too.” 

“Hm. It’s been quite a while since I last saw them…” He hummed and nodded along, a pensive look on his face. “We could go together.”  

“I g-guess, yeah…” you shrugged your shoulders and tried to mask the sudden raspiness of your voice by clearing your throat again. You hadn’t visited your parents together since that last lunch you had a couple of years ago at their house, when it really dawned on you just how serious your feelings for Leon were. You remembered that moment clearly, as if it had happened yesterday. Your friend was chatting amicably with your dad, making your old man laugh just as he always did. Your mom had that serene look on her face, that one she always seemed to have whenever Leon was around. And you? You were looking at the scene, taking in that precious image of a happy little family, soaking in the genuine love that oozed from each one of them… and your weak heart nearly combusted right then and there. You made a pledge to yourself that day: Leon or nobody. Because there was no one like him, really. No one that could make your dad so genuinely happy or your mother feel so safe and at ease. No one that would make your heart beat so violently in your chest. So you’d rather live your life with no partner at all than settle for someone who wasn’t him.

You just needed to find the courage to tell him. 

If only you weren’t such a big coward.

“But… since you’re moving in with me, you’ll probably see them soon enough.” you stated, trying to tune back into the conversation as if you hadn’t just gone on a mental tangent that had left your mind reeling and your heart aching. “You know, they have started to come visit me once or twice every month.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, but they don’t stay overnight or anything.”  you swiftly explained. Your tone took up a hint of humor as you added, “You won’t have to share one bed in three, don’t you worry.”

“Oh, I would leave the guest room to them anyway. I’d much rather sleep in your bed. It’s very comfy.” he quipped back with a smirk that made your stomach flip.

“Yeah… Dream on, boy.” 

To be honest, you had dreamed of that very same thing happening more times than should be socially accepted. There was no way you’d admit to that, though.

“They just come to say hi, anyway. To make sure I'm doing alright here by myself.” you said, veering the conversation back to a much safer territory. “But I’m quite sure they mainly come to these parts to get a taste of the city life, you know? They've been taking away some whim with dad’s retirement money, living it up a little now that they’re free and old but not that old.'' You paused to share a knowing smile with your friend; you both knew that if your parents had been there, they would have made such a scene over being deemed old. “They like to visit museums and exhibitions, mostly. They look like a cute elderly couple, arm in arm, bickering about the painting's meanings and all that. I know because I chaperoned them the first time.”

Leon listened to you with a fond little smile curling up his lips. Your parents had always been very dear to him for obvious reasons, even more so than your late aunt who had welcomed and taken care of him once he became an orphan and until he left for the police academy in his teens. He was so attached to them that you found yourself worrying more than once if he considered them his parents as well, and you his... younger sister. But you had always tried with all your might to shake the notion away from your mind. You'd get queasy just thinking about it.

“That’s good to hear. They should enjoy their life, now that they can.” He commented, fingers lazily fidgeting with the napkin on the table while he kept his attentive eyes fixed on your face. “We could do that too.”

Mild heart attack. 

“Huh? Do… What?”

“Go to museums, exhibitions and whatnot.”

Those words truly made you question whether he wasn't just messing with you, despite the fact that you hadn't picked up on any humor in his voice. Nonetheless, you tried to keep your heartbeat at bay while flashing him a skeptical look.

“But you don’t like any of that.”

"Sure. But you do."

Effortless answer, maximum hit to your heart. He had voiced it with such straightforward frankness that you were left genuinely speechless for a moment.

“I wouldn’t mind going with you.” He added, shrugging his shoulders, as if the answer was so obvious to him that it didn't even need an explanation.

“Huh… Riiight…” 

You eyed him curiously, warily even, ready for the punchline he must have been holding back. When none arrived however, your eyes narrowed and your lips pursed in a confused pout. "Have I fallen asleep? Am I sleeping right now? 'Cause that's not something the Leon I know would say." Your tone had a sardonic edge to it, for you were clearly retorting to humor to try to disguise the emotional turmoil he had caused within you with what he had said. Hopefully, it wasn't that evident to him too. “This must be a dream, or something…”

“Eh. Does that mean you dream of me?”

Fuck. You had walked straight into that one. You couldn’t even be mad at him for making your stomach flip like that or for flashing you that smug smirk of his.

With a half-groan, half-grimace, you slapped your hand in the air to ward off his joke and flopped on the table, laying your heavy head on your arms.

“Had a nightmare or two where you showed up, sure.”

That was a lame comeback, you knew it. Of course you knew. But, what else could you have said? You were too preoccupied with hiding your blush from him to come up with a better quip. At that point, you were also struggling to prevent your weary mind from blurting out something far more honest, which would inevitably ruin everything.

God. You truly were just too exhausted. And it wasn't only the sleep-deprived tiredness that was weighing on you, but also the 'I have to double-check every word I say and every little reaction I make so that my best friend doesn't realize I'm in love with him' load that was draining you. And to think this was only the first day of living together…

Well, actually not even the first day. You could only imagine what it would be like to go through this every day, for who knows how long. There was no way you could survive it...

You were too caught up in the webs that were plaguing your mind to register the strong pair of hands grabbing you by the middle before you were tugged out of your chair and lifted into the air.

When a shocked gasp escaped your lips, you were already securely enveloped by two massive arms as solid as steel.

Oh, you were certain. You were absolutely certain that your face resembled a tomato as you raised your wide eyes and met his lazy smile, given that you could feel your cheeks burning.

“The fuck-?!”

Leon snorted at your reaction, his eyes traveling across your face as if to enjoy your flustered state. "I thought you fell asleep," he joked, blatantly lying as he squeezed you playfully and started carrying you out of the kitchen toward your bedroom.

“Leon, god… really?”

That was so unnecessarily extra of him. He did that on purpose, obviously. As he had always done in the past. In fact, after his first year at the academy, he began to pick you up out of nowhere to flaunt off his buff and strong physique, and it only worsened over time. He would lift you up whenever and wherever he wanted, simply to annoy you... and make your stomach do a somersault.

“Don’t pretend like you didn’t always enjoy when I did this.”

“I always despised it with my whole being.”

Lie. Biggest lie you could tell. But then again, telling him that you adored how his large and muscular arms swallowed your frame, keeping you snug against his chest and carrying you effortlessly about, or how every freaking time he did that, he caused those stupid butterflies to wreak havoc in your gut, was definitely out of question.

"Huh-huh."

He smirked knowingly, seeing right through your snarky response. The amused glance he threw you compelled you to simply shut your mouth. At that point, you didn’t trust your voice anymore.

You tried to refrain from plainly staring at him the entire time. To not linger on his chiseled jaw, or admire his rosy lips, or the way they curled up in that familiar languid smile. You tried not to marvel at his focused gaze or his long eyelashes which made his eyes look even prettier from below…

You tried. But it was hard. Hard not to be dazzled by his effortless beauty, especially when his face had moved suddenly so close to yours, you could feel his hot breath blowing on your cheek.

You were locked in a daze as he eased you out of his arms and onto your bed. You couldn't tear your gaze away from him, even as he grabbed the blankets and tucked you in, ensuring you were well covered and comfy.

When your eyes met, you felt one of those all-too-familiar thrills rush through every cell of your body.

Oh, you were about to lose it. To do something crazy, something stupid…

Your breath caught when he leaned in again, his fingertips gently brushing a strand of hair behind your ear. He smiled at you, his eyes crinkling.

“Sleep tight, cookie.”

There was no way you could hold back the genuine grin that bloomed on your face upon hearing the nickname he chose to use. You had been calling each other in every way possible since you were kids; it was one of your favorite pastimes. ‘Cookie’ was a nice addition to the collection.

"Thanks, pup." you quipped back, eyes flashing with amusement and pure affection. "You gonna guard the house while I take a nap, yeah?"

"Like a good boy."

"Mhmm."

You exchanged one last lingering look that almost made you melt in a puddle - and you were glad you were already lying down because your knees couldn't have taken it - before he drew back and headed to the door.

"Dream of me." he teased you as he stood by the entrance, triggering a loud groan from you.

"Shut up-"

You rolled onto your side and hid your face in the pillow as he chuckled softly at your expense. You did not raise your head until you heard the door close. Only then did you let out a long, shaken breath. You could still feel your face burning, your cheeks warm to the touch, and your heart racing in your chest.

What a crazy day! And it wasn't over yet. You were both thrilled and nervous about waking up and spending more time with Leon. You'd need to help him move in, clear his room of your belongings, have a very serious roomie to roomie talk...

But everything would have to wait. Sleep was catching up with you and you had evaded it long enough. The coziness of your bed, along with the pleasant fuzziness still lingering in your chest caused your eyes to grow heavy within seconds. With a yawn, you rolled to the other side, where the sheets from the night prior remained unmade. Your hand lazily clutched the other pillow and pulled it closer. 

His scent. It still carried his scent… You nuzzled your cheek into the fabric and took a long breath.

A fond smile tugged at your lips as your eyelids fluttered closed and you dozed off.

MORE STORIES

[Also consider BUYING ME A ☕ if you particularly like what you read. Thank you! 🥀]

[mrs-snape5984]

“Take my mind and take my pain…”

“Like an empty bottle takes the rain. And heal, heal, heal….” (“Heal” by Tom Odell)

Nighttime is my favourite time of the day. Being surrounded by this natural darkness and silence (not in the way, in which I have to “mute” the world all day long by shutting the blinds and wearing noise cancelling headphones to avoid being overstimulated) makes me feel…safe. Almost content.

In some nights, I’m even strong enough to leave my room, so I can sit outside on my balcony, enjoying a fresh breeze on my face. The world is silent, there’s no car on the streets and all I see, is the Moselle glistening in the moonlight in front of me. Finally feeling human again…

During the phases of my crashes, I can’t even step outside to my balcony. Sometimes I’m desperate enough to crawl outside, when my legs are refusing to do their goddamn job even with the help of my cane! In these moments, I’m glad to be alone…without any witnesses to my humiliation.

Last night was a lost night. I passed out…again. It scares me to hell that these moments are happening more often nowadays. All I know, is that I sat down on my bed…crying from exhaustion and pain. And hours later, when I’m coming back to consciousness, I’m still in the same sitting position. There are proofs in my room, that my children must have been here…proofs like a drawing lying next to me on my bed…a plushie sitting on my coffee table, watching over me. And I know that my kids will tell me, that I didn’t wake up…no matter what they tried to do.

Yesterday a friend of mine wanted to visit me in order to enjoy a cup of tea with me in the darkness of my room. I was so excited to see her…to have someone here for a little while…to feel less lonely for a moment. My body ached so badly and my exhaustion felt like a truck, who was parking on me…so I passed out whilst I was waiting for my friend to come over. When I came back to senses, there were several text messages and several calls from her. She was upset, that I didn’t hear the doorbell, both of my phones and her knocking on the door. So, after a while, she left…and all what’s left for me is a feeling of being a total failure…a pathetic shadow of myself.

There’s still no cure for ME/CFS…and no one knows, if there’d ever be one. All I can do, is trying different things, and yet…nothing helped me. With each new crash I’m falling deeper into the void of darkness and despair. Each new crash takes its toll on me…takes a piece of me away! I’m so afraid of losing myself completely!

When I commissioned my friend @sleepybradipo for this meaningful piece of art, I begged him to make the trust between Severus and Julia - but also their despair - palpable. They’re searching for a way to heal Jules…to cure her body and her soul. Maybe the answer lies in the Dark Arts…who knows? These lovers will try anything possible in order to save her…just like I wished to be saved.

Ivano, when I got the idea for this project, I just knew, that you would be the best artist to make my dream come true. Your tender style makes my heart swell with so much love and gratitude. I adore your work and the dedication to all these marvellous details in this artwork…it’s everything, I hoped to see, when I described my idea to you. Thank you for helping me to soothe my troubled heart and mind with your beautiful art and your kind words. I’m beyond grateful that I met you here, my friend. You’re truly a blessing to me. Thank you for everything. 🥹

Oh, and please take my apologies for this chaotically worded post. My disease seems to rob the next piece of me by stealing my ability to create vivid images with my phrases (I already mentioned that in my last post).

I’m sharing my nocturnal view with you. Feel free to enjoy the Moselle at night.

🖤Severus & Julia🖤

🖤Sevy & Jules🖤

[thechillsquid]

Ford x Bill? Nah

Fiddleford x Ford? Nah

What if I present to you… Fiddleford x Bill

What then, huh? Like think how toxic that would be, espically if it’s post- falling into the portal yet pre full on blind-eye

They’re both so desperate to erase the past and to pretend everything’s fine with a fun little dash of mania and lack of self-care

Like imagine how batshit of a duo!

Here’s a writing of their first official meeting:

Fiddleford didn’t know what to with himself, pacing a hole in the floor as he tried to calm his unraveling thoughts. It had been nearly a week since last he’d even see Ford and he just, he just didn’t know what to fucking do!

He’d helped him, God, he’d helped Ford build a goddamned doomsday device! Who knows what damage had been done!? What could come out of that damned hole in reality! What if Ford opened it again!? What if— if that… that thing came through!

He, he couldn’t go home! He didn’t have a fucking home to go back to anymore! He’d given so much, for so fucking much and— and look where it had gotten him! Fiddleford thought, oh how he’d thought, that this would work out, that maybe he could, could what? The divorce had already gone through, he’d essentially run off with so many damned promises he could have never kept even if he wanted to…

He crumbled to his knees, clutching at his hair with ragged breaths, he— he just wanted to forget—

So occupied with his own spiraling, he didn’t even realize as his body gave into the exhaustion driving him for the last few days. As the world went gray and still. As someone— or rather something— else entered the room.

“Well, well, well!”

Fiddleford jolted, mouth dry. “H-Hello…?” His voice was barely a whisper as his heart skipped a beat. He turned and was met with something odd, and he almost felt glad for the absurdity of it, if it wasn’t so damn familiar.

It was a golden, little triangle… in a top hat and bow tie of all things…?

“What? Cat got your tongue?”

The way this thing’s voice carried, the sugar-sweet wrongness of its tone, that one ever-watching eye. Something in his subconscious withered away from it, his eyes widening. “I know you,” he said, and he hated himself for it, to even give this thing the time of day.

“Is that so, wise guy!”

The… floating triangle (at least it didn’t have any horrid claws or fangs from what he could tell) drifted down to be face to… face (?) with him. That one cat-slit pupil never glancing away for even a second, burning that blank stare straight through his very soul.

He shriveled in on himself, this felt wrong. Wrong and dangerous and…

Triangles… triangles with. With. With one eye.

Fiddleford wanted to throw up. He knew where he’d seen this thing before. Glass stained windows, prisms, statues, murals with symbols and markings too damn neat and tidy, carvings and drawings and—

A portal.

A triangular portal. With that. That one staring eye. Endless screaming, fires burning, things that were strange and horrible and wrong.

“You…” He scrambled backwards, “You’re the one that helped him m-make that damned portal! You’re the one— you’re—“

“The names Bill, Bill Cipher! Just don’t go and wear it out!”

Bill Cipher. So that’s what it was called. “W-What, what do you want!? I— I, I ain’t helpin, helpin’ with that damn—!”

It cut him off with a laugh, and oh, he flinched. It was such a grating, shrill sound. Wrong and cruel and joyish.

“Now, now! Chill out, pal!”

It leaned an arm against his shoulder, that eye narrowing.

“Yeesh! Would you look at those bags, ha, whatcha been up to there, buddy? I thought you meat sacks needed to sleep!”

The man didn’t respond, watching its every move tensely. ‘Bill’ seemed to grow annoyed with that.

“Hello? Am I talking to thin air here, specs? I said, whatcha been up to pal.”

Bill’s voice dipped low and something in him told him to answer, otherwise, things would go very, very wrong.

“I-I, I— I’ve, it’s, it hasn’t been, uh, b-been easy to, to sleep…”

“Aw, what a bummer! Well, lookey-here, specs, but it seems your little chit-chat with my star-A pupil’s gone a little sour, so how’s about we talk about that, hm?”

Who… “F-Ford…?”

The entity brightened, quite literally. The darn thing glowed like a star.

“Well would you look at that! You do still have half a mind rolling around in there afterall, though who knows how much longer that’ll last you! Ha!”

“W-What?”

The demon waved him off, drifting off to kick back and relax.

“Don’t worry about it, specs! Let’s get back on topic, because it seems you’ve gone and made poor ole Sixer go a bit… off the rails. Honestly, it’s like you told him it would be the end of the world or something!”

He rose, feeling somewhat defensive, “W-Well if, if you’re the lunatic that, that h-helped him make that damned portal, t-then good riddance! Go, go and bother someone else!”

It laughed, it fucking laughed at him. Fiddleford bared his teeth, “The hell ya laughin’ at you damned varmint! Don’tcha understand English! G-Get out!”

It turned to him, suddenly inches from his face.

“You know, I’d choose your next words very, very carefully. I’m offering you an opportunity here! You haven’t even let me talk yet! Jeez!”

The thing drifted back, small and cheerful once again, it waving its hand about.

“Fordsey’s practically a mess without you around! And not to mention… difficult. So how’s about we go over there and cheer him up, how’s about it!”

Fiddleford quietly shook his head, stepping back. He couldn’t— he couldn’t go back there, he—

“Ugh, fine. Be like that, I’ll just have to find a snake then…”

“W-What—?” He blinked, and he was once more alone in his room, staring at nothing. One trembling hand came to clutch at his head. He was fucking losing it.

[littlelesbinonny]

The Devil's Den

Chapter 47: In Which Pieces Get Set For Motion

You can read this also on Ao3 at: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46831621/chapters/150347506

You stood looking at the entrance to Alcina's city from the steps of the church's hall that lead to its underbelly. 

You knew the way. Sort of. You had your cell phone for a flashlight and figured there were really only so many ways you could get lost. At least until another vampire or lycan found you. Though you didn't know if that would be a good thing, either. But, it was also only 3 in the afternoon; shouldn't they all be sleeping?

"I've never been there myself," Father Sullivan said, now beside you with his hands folded neatly, "but you're welcome to stay here as long as you like if you're wary of the trek."

A soft sigh escaped your lungs and you glanced over at him, "this if my first venture by myself," you admitted, "I'm not really needed down there until tomorrow, but."

"Your nerves are getting the better of you?" He offered at your hesitance.

"Little bit."

Father Sullivan smiled and straightened his sturdy back, "Lady Dimitrescu does that for all of us here," he grinned wider, "though I don't think it's her you're so nervous about."

Your blush was muted but you felt the warmth, "no, not her... but she definitely has that immobilizing intimidation thing going for her though, huh?"

"Indeed!" He laughed, "though I am grateful for her potency. Effective should be her middle name."

"You know, I think it actually is."

"It would not surprise me in the slightest."

The two of you shared a laugh and then you took a big breath, releasing it with an even more embellished sigh.

"Good luck, miss," he nodded at you, "give the Matriarch my regards."

Welp, if you were looking for a nudge or a send off, that was good enough.

Goddamn it was dark. And eerily quiet.

It became progressively cooler as you made your way further and further down and you were glad you were wearing what you were. You could recall that it was chilly the last time you were here, but at the time you had enough adrenaline pumping through your veins it didn't bother you in the slightest. If Alcina wanted you to move down here, there'd be some serious accommodation issues to be addressed.

A hint of firelight from the torches you remember from your walk with Alcina finally leaked into the darkness, a bigger smile coming to your lips as you rounded the corner to this lit area that reminded you the entrance to the city was only 3 more turns away. 

As you stepped carefully through the tunnel mouth, placing your hand carefully on the intricately carved stone banister of the large stairwell down into the city, you took a good moment to really look at it.

It really was beautiful. In its haunting, quiet, and macabre sort of way.

Hundreds of years of hard work went into creating this. Uncountable hours making everything as beautiful and mysterious as the inhabitants therein. Humans used to make living art like this, but now everything was boxes and boring. It gave you nostalgia you'd never felt before. This place could almost feel like home.

Taking silent steps, you descended the many stairs and realized only when you set foot onto the familiar cobblestone streets that the bite of cold in the air was now very comfortable. You sighed pleasantly.

With no real rush to get to Alcina's manor, you took advantage of the empty streets and admired the many structures as you went.

Most of them seemed to be made of the same stone that made up the underground itself; dark and shiny, almost coal or obsidian like in the right light. While others were made of a lighter stone; a type of granite perhaps. And others, though very few it appeared, were made of wood that had been either stained or painted over with darker colors like forest green, ocean blue, and you spotted one or two further off that looked merlot in tone. 

Some homes, and what you assumed were gathering places like what would akin to a bar for the human world above, were 2 to 3 stories high. The architecture of many of them felt very much like the French Quarters one would find in Louisiana, others were very gothic-cathedral like, and some were as ornate and beautiful as a Victorian mansion you'd seen pictures of. 

There were only 3 buildings that stuck out apart from the rest in height; one you knew as City Hall which could be seen from every corner with its massive imposing, sharp domed peak, the Matriarch manor that was far to the left, and one in the far back that you hadn't noticed before. It stood taller and wider than everything else, had hundreds of tall glass windows, and had a most beautiful amber glow emanating from each of them. Another council hall maybe? A hotel? Your brain chuckled a little at that thought, but it really didn't seem so far fetched; while these beings were undead, they were still human, they still traveled, did most of the normal things you did, didn't they?

As your train of thought continued down the tracks, it was derailed quite loudly as you approached a very large familiar gate.

Fuck.

How exactly were you going to get in? You knew this thing was damn well locked, and you didn't have a key, nor any way to alert Alcina you were there.

Your hands carefully pressed to the thick heavy metal but all you got was defiant resistance in return.

Fuuuuuck times two.

Perhaps your wild hair to show up early could have used a little flat-ironing.

Dropping your gaze to your feet in a bit of sheepishness, the idea of sitting like a lost child in front of Alcina's gate until someone noticed felt pretty embarrassing. But, suddenly there was a disturbance in the air and a soft whoosh as you looked up to find a brilliantly smiling Cassandra right in your face on the other side of the bars.

"Hi," she grinned, "you're early."

"Uh - yeah, a bit, sorry - I hope that's -"

"You're eagerly awaited!" Cassandra smiled even wider as she opened the gate and waved you in.

Well she definitely seemed eager and you weren't sure how exactly to receive it, but you nodded shortly and stepped through, "oh, ok, well, thank you for let -"

"Of course." She cut you off, latching the gate and ushering you towards the manor, "mother hasn't returned yet, but my sisters and I are up so you can relax with us until she's back," Cassandra continued, a more devilish smile gracing her lovely face as you entered the house, "let me take your coat, and you can put your bag right here," she more or less instructed as the front door shut and she reached for your article before you'd even began removing it.

You were still registering the pace in which you got in here by the time two more bodies showed up behind you.

Bela, the blonde, was smiling much more warmly and comfortably than her brunette sister, and the redhead who was almost right in your face had the same devilish, although slightly more chaotic, grin slathered on her facade. She looked far too pleased to see you than you had anticipated and you swallowed.

"I hope you weren't waiting at the gate long," Bela chimed in trying to inch Daniela back a little, "we weren't expecting you for a while, but we're glad you're here."

You nodded through a short smile, "yeah, sorry, I guess I -"

"No need to apologize," the redhead beamed, "we can show you the rest of the manor and hang out until mother is back!" She bounced.

Cassandra snorted as she walked around the side of you to walk past her sisters with a wicked smirk, "I think I smell a little guilt in that excitement there, Dani," looking back and eying you pleasingly, "she's the one who found you and drug you to the club that night, you know."

Well that was one hell of a revelation. You'd not really considered how you'd ended up at the club for the longest time, and now you were half mortified and curious as all hell.

Daniela's entire demeanor plummeted into the ground, her face blank, eyes wide as she looked at you then shot her sight at Cassandra, "why would you tell her that?!" She blurted breathlessly, her hands now on her face in embarrassment, "I - We - I'm -"

"Jesus Christ, Cassandra," Bela stated starkly, moving in and wrapping her arm around Daniela, exasperatedly shaking her head as her sister disappeared down the hall then looking to you regretfully, "I'm sorry... and welcome to our home where that one," she motioned her head down the hall, "has no filter or any couth AT ALL, and the other three of us live in utter madness at all times when Cassandra's in a mood."

Ah. So Cassandra was ruthless. Duly noted. 

Daniela was still quite beside herself and unsure where to look and you felt so badly. Even if it was true, that was a sharp way to throw that information at everyone's feet. You'd never had siblings but you had heard plenty of stories of how brutal the relationships could be. Being undead probably allowed for a whole new level of brutality to ensue.

You reached your hand out to Daniela and touched her arm briefly but reassuringly, "it's all good," you offered with a warm smirk, "I guess by technicality I should be thanking you, really, for the new life I've got and whatnot."

Her eyes were flipped from upset to beaming hope in a split second as she stared at you, "r-really?"

You shrugged with a bigger smile, "pretty much. I'd never have met Alcina or had any of this happen if you hadn't... ya know. So, yeah. Thanks."

The haphazard hug you received from Dani was just tallying up the unexpected event points you'd had in the last 10 minutes and you just chuckled, hugged her back, and decided everything from this moment on was likely going to be just as unpredictable and giving into that would just be easier than not.

"Ok, good," Dani huffed, grabbing the sides of your arms hastily after releasing you, "if you hated me because of that I would be so upset, I mean, you have every right to be, but it wasn't intentional, I mean none of the choices are intentional for the most part so you were just more or less collateral, which sounds insensitive, but I don't mean it to be! You just -"

"Dani," Bela stopped her barrage of blurting thoughts, "maybe go find our guest a human drink, like one of those bottles of wine mother likes that doesn't have blood in it?"

The redhead looked at her sister briefly, then to you, flashed a humble smile, nodded and then dashed off in the same direction Cassandra had gone.

You, still processing, took a deep breath.

"I am so sorry," Bela offered once more, "she's not used to interacting with humans. Or any type of normal interaction, really."

You chuckled, "it's ok. But I sure do have questions, although I think I'll just save them for much later."

Bela smiled warmly and waved her hand down the hall, "that might be best... We really are happy you're here, though. But please take Cassandra with the most miniscule grain of salt. And Dani will calm down eventually, but until then, I'll play mediator as much as possible."

You had been given a glass or normal wine as the showcase of the manor began. Cassandra was mostly reserved through the adventure but added in quips as she saw fit while the tour went on. Daniela was the main storyteller and Bela was the stability you leaned on when those two got into it over whatever happened to come up at any given moment. You loved the banter and couldn't help but imagine what it was like for Alcina raising them back into the women they were today from where Mother Miranda had left them. You could see her strength, resilience, tenacity, and spunk in each of the girls, even though they were all uniquely themselves. It was warming. 

The 4 of you were now in the turret, your second favorite room in the manor, as the conversation and interactions had gotten much more smooth and comfortable.

Settling into one of the couches, Bela sat adjacent you on a plush leather sofa, Cassandra perched directly across from you on what you assumed was her chez lounge, and Daniela had hopped off to grab you another glass of wine. You really didn't need another one but she was so happy to be of service so you couldn't say no.

"So," you began tentatively, "have any of you ever been part of a grand council like what's coming up?"

Cassandra ran a hand through her long hair with a scoff, "god no," she chuckled, "and thank fuck, because to hear how mother tells it, they're fucking awful."

"They're not awful," Bela stated with a look thrown at her sister, "but taxing would be a better word. These councils are strictly for those in charge; leaders of clans; sometimes the heads of military, but never anyone else, so no, luckily we haven't. I bet you're not looking forward to it."

"I'm going into all of this completely blind, so I'm pretty hesitant and nervous."

"Ah, just zap 'em with your fae powers if they give you any shit," Cassandra grinned, "and believe me, there are several who will."

Bela rubbed her forehead, "stop trying to freak her out."

"I'm not! It's true," Cassandra rebutted, flinging her hand to her sister dramatically, "how many times has mother returned from the yearly meeting talking about how annoyingly confrontational that French bitch, oh what's her face - Margery, Margaret - "

"Marguerite?"

"That bitch!" Cassandra slapped the arm of the lounge, grinning at Bela, "she's always starting shit with mother - the biggest gossiper outside of Pablo - although Pablo is hilarious. He's the head of the coven in Spain," she went on, looking at you, "he's incredibly handsome, very vain, and so snotty, but he has comedic timing like you wouldn't believe."

Daniela had returned with your other glass of wine and handed it to you with a glimmer in her eye, "what'd I miss? Who's so funny?"

"Pablo," the other sisters answered in tandem.

"Ohhh, yeah. He's awfully self centered though." Daniela added, plopping next to you, "but god is he cute."

You couldn't help but chuckle, but as you were going to ask another question your phone dinged in your pocket. Pulling it out there was a text from Malka on the screen but you'd ignore it for now. At least, you could. There was a redhead within breath range of you as you looked over and you watched her gaze as it fixated on your phone.

Daniela's eyes snapped up to you, "oh my god, that's a nice phone," she smiled, "do you have any cool games on there?"

"Uh, yeah I've got a merging game on there I play from time to time." You replied unable to hide your amusement.

"Oooo, what's a merging game?"

You had to remind yourself they didn't have cell phones and games like you had at your fingertips everyday, so her childlike curiosity made your smile grow even wider, "want me to show you?"

"YES!" Daniela squeaked.

Cassandra rolled her head back on her headrest and groaned, "my god she's unbearable."

"It's no big deal," you said as you opened the app and leaned into Daniela's space, "here, it's called Merge Dragons."

You let her watch the load screen with awe at the colorful, cuter than necessary dragons and scenery unfold, and when the game started you just handed the phone over to her, "so, see these?" You pointed to a couple squares that had identical items, "find another one of those and place it in one of these squares - " Dani did just as you instructed and the 3 merged into a new upgraded item, "and that's basically the jist of it."

Daniela's eyes were even bigger as she pulled your phone screen closer to her face with utter glee, "THIS IS SO COOL!"

Her fingers started tapping and dragging away and you just chuckled, "well play away, I haven't been on that in weeks."

"Thank you!!" She squeaked one more time before huddling into the other side of the couch, continuing to play.

Bela smiled at you warmly, "she's obsessed with technology."

"But mother won't let us have any." Cassandra whinged.

"Yeah, so I've heard. Why is that?" You asked.

"Hell if we know; you'd think for her ancient ass she'd have kept up with times a little better, but no, apparently cell phones are the devil."

Bela rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time tonight, "mother is old fashioned, and it's not like we're hurting for it."

"She's boring."

"You just want a cell phone so you can hunt the easy way and be lazy," Daniela chimed in slyly, glancing over at you only briefly to resume the game, "dating apps, you know?"

You raised your eyebrows high at her comment but quickly regained your composure.

"Oh piss off Dani," Cassandra spat, "it's not being lazy, it is literally broadening my horizons in the vastest way possible! I have expensive tastes but sometimes I like fast food."

Cassandra winked at you and you so wanted to understand what the hell that meant but you also were pretty sure you didn't at the same time.

"ANYWAY," Bela cut off the conversation, setting her sight back to you, "the council meeting - I think you have little to worry about, really."

You took in a deep breath and nodded, "thanks, I've not heard much else from Alcina about what I need to do or who all these people are so... my overactive mind has been pretty occupied with it."

"Well, if my memory serves me, now that Miranda is dead, there's only eight clans with leaders, so... that leaves mother with ours, the Shadowed Dominion. Then there is Marguerite, from France, her division is called Les Chevaliers des Ténèbres, or the Knights of Dark. And then there's Pablo's faction; La Bella Damned. The Dutch lady, uhm, Belinda, with the Eternal Dominion. Escamillo and the Kiss of Shadows clan. Verona Giordano, whom you will love! She's from Italy, such a wild woman with a feisty personality, and her clan is called the Nightfall Legion. Then there's Ishaan, he's over the Moonlight Bearers - and lastly, Auguste with the Fallen Devil's clan... at least, I think that's all of them."

Cassandra leaned over languidly, "you got the Escamillo wrong, it's Emiliano with the Kiss of Shadows."

"Oh... yeah that sounds right; Emiliano."

"But yes, Bela is right; you'll love Verona. She's like our honorary aunt. Very loud. Very in-your-face. Love that woman."

"She sounds fun," you replied, "her I'm looking forward to."

"For real though, steer clear of that French bitch," Cassandra added, "she's a nightmare."

You'd take her advice and do just that, but likely with most of them, just for safety sake.

~

Karl stumbled into his shop with several full oversized bags slung over his shoulders, though he was met with the light already on and a figure in the shadows of the corner where his best comfy chair resided. Dropping the bags with a thud he flipped the rest of the light switches on aggressively to see who had invaded his space.

The person in question was certainly not who he'd expected.

"The fuck you doin' in my shop, murder mittens?"

Alcina dropped the book in her hands to her lap with a flump and arched her brow fiercely, "you want the truth?" She asked flatly.

"No. I love being lied to - the fuck you mean; do I want the truth - DUH."

She sighed heavily as the burly, disheveled lycan made his way over to her and uncrossed her leg, eyeing him with less scrutiny and more calculation, "this is the only place the clan leaders won't think to look for me."

Karl stopped dead in his tracks and looked blankly at Alcina. Then he started to laugh. Guffawing would be the better word.

"For god sake would you keep it down," she scolded, "this is why I hesitated to even tell you!"

He regained himself slowly, then plopped next to her on the neighboring stool and shoved his hands under his suspender straps, "oh damn Alci, you could not have hit me with a funnier mental image; big tall scary vampire hides from much smaller less fierce vampires in the lycans shop to avoid responsibility - I love it! You can hide here all you like, shnookie-ookums!"

"Oh dear Christ, Heisenberg, you're mental alright."

"Ah, c'mon, we rebels look out for each other, so don't get your titties in a twist - I got your back."

He was so crude, Alcina just rolled her eyes and closed her book, "you can leave my tits out of all of our conversations, if you please... have you had the pleasure of running into any of them yet?" She asked, referring to the leaders and changing the subject as fast as she could.

"Nah. Heard a gaggle of commotion as I passed around the back of City Hall so I assume Donna's got them all wrangled like the heard of gobbling geese they are. This week should be interesting, eh?" He nudged, "but I swear to god if they find out you're here and they start snooping 'round here all the time we're gunna have words."

Alcina blinked, "for both our sakes, I promise they won't find out." She leaned back and huffed once more, "and yes, this week, and likely many more will prove to be incredibly eventful. Dmitri, my men, and yours, are still pilfering through Miranda's labyrinth of chaos and uncovering more and more each night... I'd rather not deal with it at all, but alas, duty prevails."

Karl nodded and took off his hat, tossed it onto the nearby counter and shrugged, "I say burn the whole thing down, all of it. We already know she was psychotic, why keep any trace of it."

He had a point, but as much as she didn't want to admit it, she wanted answers just like everyone else.

"If it were up to you and I, I'd actually let you," the look of pure surprise and a cocky esteem boost made her choose her next words carefully, "however, it's not as simple as we both want, so cool your jets. But if burning it down comes to the surface, you'll be the first to know."

Karl smiled, "now that I like to hear." He reached for a beat-up metal box and opened it, plucked a cigar, lit it, and eyed the book on Alcina's lap, "whatcha readin', toots?"

"Twilight." 

His brows shot for his hairline, "don't make me have you committed."

Alcina actually snickered, "please, I'd rather gouge my eyes out with red-hot pokers," she smirked wickedly, "it's one of your machining books I found on the shelf in the back..." Peering down at the cover she sighed, "almost as eventful as Twilight - "

"Now hear hear," he grumbled, reaching for the book and grabbing it up, "them's fightin' words." He tossed it onto the counter and took a long puff, offering it in Alcina's direction, but after she softly declined he tilted his head, "hey, when's your better half coming back down here? Seems weird not having the spicy little fairy running around."

Once more Alcina's brow arched, "tomorrow night."

"Did you give her a prep talk for what's she's getting into?"

"Well, I suppose you could call it that. But I don't foresee her 'getting into' much. If someone decides to pick a fight, they will be sorely displeased at their choice..." she smiled broadly, "now that I've got blood on my hands, I'm not opposed to doing it again."

Karl just grinned, "feral you is so satisfying," he cackled, "it's always been my favorite version."

"I'm so pleased," Alcina mused, "but, I do suppose I should get home to my daughters. It's nearly nightfall and I'm sure they'll be readying to go out. Lucky shits get to roam freely while their mother is strapped to responsibility."

"Yeh, definitely not the funnest thing to be strapped to. Personally I prefer a four-poster bed with - "

"Well that's enough of this conversation!" Alcina said hastily, cutting him off none too soon, rising off the chair eying him stoutly, "good night."

He waved amusedly at her as she walked her way out and chuckled under his breath, "night, night! Get fae-bae to strap you down instead!"

Alcina's grumble was barely audible to him as she quickly made her escape but he continued to laugh as he began to go back about his business in his shop.

Getting through the city undetected was more difficult that she had anticipated, and having to act like she wasn't trying to go unnoticed by the passerby's was just as aggravating. But after her best calculated detours, she finally was far enough away from the hot spots of the city to move freely and get home.

The lights were on in the turret and she smiled warmly to herself as she slipped in through the gates quietly as possible. She was certainly tired, but knowing her girls were awake and she'd get to see them before a few hours of shut-eye gave her a much needed mood boost.

Alcina halted for a split second as she stepped through the threshold of her home; the undeniable smell and feel of you permeated her senses and she almost audibly sighed at the relief that you were here. And then a pang of anxiety thudded against her; dear god please let my daughters be behaving.

With silent swiftness and agility Alcina scaled the stairs to the turret, and with great relief found the 4 of you lounging in the middle of the room talking, laughing even. She folded her arms across her chest and leaned on the archway, admiring a scene she wasn't sure she'd ever see in all her years. You. Her daughters. Together. A whole new tidal wave of emotions she hadn't prepared for about bowled her over, but it was such a comforting sight she could barely breath, unwilling to shake the image in front of her.

Cassandra, whom she was most worried about, was doing most of the talking with you, and Bela was smiling from ear to ear, and Daniela... Daniela was... playing on a phone? Alcina narrowed her eyes at the girl and the intensity of the focus seemed to beckon her awareness.

Daniela's eyes shot up, and at the sight of her mother in the doorway unshuffled herself from the huddled ball in the nook of the couch with phone in hand and gasped; "mother!"

All eyes turned to the smiling matriarch and everyone rose to greet her.

"Well, isn't this a nice surprise," she cooed gently as her girls came to kiss her cheek, those silvery slate-colored eyes looking you over so fondly, "I hope the three of you have been nothing but hospitable to our guest?"

"Yes, mother," Cassandra drawled, "although Dani stole her phone and hasn't given it back since she got here."

"That's not true!" Daniela argued, warily handing your phone back to you, "she let me play on it, I didn't steal anything."

Alcina looked to you for confirmation, or something of that sort, and you obliged with a nod, "yeah, no it's fine. She leveled me up like 5 times, hell of a gamer that one." You smiled at Dani. She beamed.

"Mmm, I see," Alcina mused softly, "well she and I have quite a bit to discuss now that she's here... are the three of you headed out soon?"

Bela shrugged, "I'm in for the night I think."

Cassandra, in a less than obvious fashion, nudged her sister in the ribs with her elbow. Hard.

"U-Uh, uhm, actually, yes, yes I think we're all headed to the park tonight," Bela recovered, snagging Dani by the arm, "so, we'll see you two later."

Cassandra joined the link and pulled her sisters with her down the stairs, a jumble of 'byes' drowning out as the girls took off.

You were still shaking your head with a chuckle as you looked up at Alcina, feeling very out of place still, but happy and relieved to be with your vampire feeling less and less vulnerable as the seconds passed.

"You came early," she cooed as she stepped forward, grabbing the sides of your face gently, planting a tender, needful kiss to your lips.

Instinctually, your arms slipped around her waist and you sighed into her kiss, "yeah," you muttered, "was getting antsy up there above ground without you."

Alcina could feel the weight of her weariness pressing down on her now, having you here, the worries of you being away, gave her reprieve that she didn't know she was needing so badly until now. She sighed, pressing her forehead to yours, "did you have any trouble getting into the city?"

"No, it was pretty empty when I got here."

"Good. And the girls? They were nice to you?"

You giggled, "yeah, they were great. Cassandra is very feisty, Dani is adorable, and Bela is definitely the diplomat between the two."

Alcina laughed low and warmly, pulling back to smile at you, "there is rarely a dull night in this house."

"I can absolutely see why."

"Come," Alcina smiled through her sigh, reaching for your hand, "I want to change into something comfortable."

With Alcina now dressed down to a simple yet elegant white slip of a night gown, and matching robe to drape over her bare shoulders, you admired her from a far as you unpacked your bag and placed your things in the drawers next to 'your side' of the bed, as Alcina had pointedly told you. It was weird. But it was wonderful. Feeling like you had an actual spot for your own things here with hers; in her home; your heart swelled a little with how permanent this was all starting to feel.

The two of you had spoken about your afternoon with her girls, Alcina's busy day with Dmitri, Donna, and Gerard, all while successfully not interacting with any of the leaders that had made their way into her city, and how tomorrow would, hopefully, pan out.

"... everyone will be accounted for tomorrow, now when the meeting itself begins, will be another story," she explained, sipping on a glass of blood wine you'd silently escaped to grab her as she was changing, "but it will be simple; you will accompany me to City Hall, sit at the table beside me, introductions will be had, and depending on how the council converses, next steps will be had according to vote. I know the lot of them will demand to see Miranda's lair here, and likely her abode in Connecticut, which while I'm curious of myself, would rather not have to babysit these imbeciles without knowing what I'm also getting into."

Her sigh was heavy and you scooted closer to her on the lounge, running your fingers over her arm you could see how tired she was. She'd gone almost a full 20 hours without sleep and you could already tell she wasn't intaking blood wine in a manageable fashion to keep up her strength. You had a feeling you'd be babysitting her just as much as she'd be doing for them if this is how she was taking care of herself this far in.

"Well, I don't know how much real help I'll be, but whatever you need me to do, just tell me." You reassured her with a smile.

"Ah, draga mea," Alcina cooed, "you being here is the best help I could ask for already."

Taking initiative to act on your offer to help, you took her empty glass from her, placed it on the glass table in front of the chez lounge, and carefully straddled her lap, peering down into her eyes.

"You're wiped, I can tell," you said, stroking the sides of her face, "and if you've got to be at the ready here in about 6 hours, I think you should drink from me, and then we should cuddle and sleep while we can... then tackle those pesky leaders, hm?"

Alcina's hands grasped to your hips as she hummed over your suggestion, feeling her desire for you and your blood rising in her bosom, "just cuddle and sleep? I do believe I enticed you here early with my promise to ravish you in my bedchamber, dragoste... Did I not?"

Her wink made your cheeks blush, "ok, mmmaybe a little, but - " you tilted your chin up, "your wellbeing comes far higher on the importance scale than getting fucked silly... besides... I don't plan on going anywhere too soon, so... we have plenty of time."

Your smile made her absolutely weak, just as much as your admission did, "really?" Alcina asked airily, "you're not rushing above ground as soon as you get the chance?"

Shaking your head you leaned down and kissed her bare lips, plush and still as soft as ever even though they were missing their crimson paint, "my plants are watered; my crows know where I am; I'm here for a while, if you'll have me."

Alcina hummed low in her chest as her hands mapped their way further up your sides, pulling you into her as she peppered kisses along your collarbone, "I would like that very, very much."

Her lips crept further and further up your neck until your lips were pressed together again, breathy 'I love you's' exchanged as she wrapped her hands under your thighs, rising with you off the chez to drop you into the bed with her, languid, passionate, truly comfortable kissing commencing as clothes were removed and naked flesh pressed close as the two of you settled into a perfect fitting mess of tangled limbs. Not shortly after you felt the nip of her sharp teeth nibbling at your wrist, the icy prick of her bite causing your eyelids to flutter shut as she drank, the fueling sensations it bestowed both of you satiating the hungers within you. And then within the darkness, she wrapped you up in her arms and in such rhythmic perfection, the two of you fell fast asleep. The worries of what came in 6 hours shoved to the wayside.

[askinkiskarma]

lllicit Affairs | Chapter VI: Death by a Thousand Cuts

Pairing: Neteyam x Human/Avatar!Reader

Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X

Synopsis: You and Neteyam both have a dark secret that would change everything between you - and neither of you are willing to share.

Warnings: angst, some fluff, Lo'ak x reader, jealous!Neteyam, both main characters thirsting for each other, mentions of lab work, disease, blood, cursing.

Word Count: 7,2k words

A/N: Chapter 6 is the chapter that sets EVERYTHING in motion for what's to come. There is a LOT to come, a lot of drama and angst, maybe some smut (? 😉) and this chapter is meant as a stepping stone to the beginning of the end. Also, realised I forgot to ever mention, that if the dialogue is ever italicised, that usually means the conversation is in Na'vi, I don't know how I have never made it clearer, but here we are.

Thank you so much for everyone who's been reading and asking to be tagged, I never expected this to gain any traction and I am so grateful for people enjoying it x

My heart, my hips, my body, my love Trying to find a part of me that you didn't touch Gave you too much but it wasn't enough But I'll be all right, it's just a thousand cuts

One second. 

“Just one second, Neteyammm!”, you whined, as he was trying to remove the blanket from your currently very comfortable and very warm body. 

“It’s late, come on! Early bird catches the worm, isn’t that what you people say?”

“Nobody says that, I don’t know who told you this lie.” 

“It was you!!” he says, and he’s laughing at your whinging while trying to remove the blanket. He’s not trying that hard, considering he would make an easy job out of the task if he used a tenth of his actual force, but he couldn’t bear the thought of bringing you any unnecessary distress. You had enough of that in your life, and he wanted to be a source of comfort for you, a shelter in the storm. 

You scooted on one side of the bed close to the edge, and left a big gap which you brought to his attention by patting it aggressively. 

“Press the button on the audio player and lay with me, please? I don’t feel like going out today.”

He couldn’t say no to you, he realises. He would follow you anywhere in this world, do anything you asked of him, regardless how stupid or reckless or crazy it was. He would always follow you, for the rest of time, and he was happy about it. 

A song he liked came on, one that he’s heard you play before and there was no doubt in his mind that he liked it better when you sang it. He circled the bed and lay in it, next to you, in the dark. 

“Thank you, light of my life.” You attached yourself to him, arms sprawled across his bare chest and legs carelessly placed on top of abdomen and hips, and sighed contently. He could feel your warm breaths on his neck, leaving goosebumps in their wake. He turned his head to you and placed a small kiss on top of your head and listened to the soft tune filling up the room. 

“Oh, goddamn, my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand

Taking mine, but it's been promised to another

Oh, I can't stop you putting roots in my dreamland

My house of stone, your ivy grows and now I'm covered in you”

“You’re annoying.”

“I know I am, but you love me anyway.”

I do, Neteyam thought. I really do…

Things happen in life sometimes, and it makes you lose your ability to react. There was no reaction, definitely no overreaction. You stared at the vial of blood that shattered all across the floor, all across you and your mind was blank. Almost robotically, you made your way to one of the benches and got some paper rolls and the IMS laying next to it. You carefully cleaned all of it, and spit whatever made its way to your mouth to the floor to be removed. When you were sure everything was gone, you went to the sink and removed your goggles and gloves, and scrubbed yourself clean. You felt yourself moving, picking up a bucket of water with some floor cleaner, felt yourself adding disinfectant to it and moping thoroughly, but it was like an out-of-body experience. Like you were merely a puppet executing orders from above. Cleaning everything took about an hour, after which you made your way back to your room slowly, deliberately. 

You didn’t sleep. You spent the whole night looking over everything you and the rest of the scientists have ever found out about this virus. You didn’t know its way of transmission. Maybe you had nothing to worry about, maybe it’s not by blood. You knew it’s not by air, you’ve seen plenty of people infected whose family was fine. So even if you do get infected, the people at the lab should be fine. Your friends would be fine. He would be fine. 

Next, incubation period. That’s a tough one, in-vitro studies show it takes the virus anywhere from 2 to 12 months to show symptoms. You don’t know how that changes in humans. You don’t know any of this shit for humans. You could be perfectly fine, you could die within the month. The thought made your blood run cold. 

You sat in your chair for the remainder of the night. Unmoving, unthinking. 

That’s how Norm found you.

“Hey, Ace. What are you doing up?”

You scrambled for a lie.

“Just woke up, actually. Listen, if you are going to check on the boy, can you please bring my supplies to the tent and tell the Sullys I won’t be in today? I was too exhausted to run any experiments yesterday so I will do it today.” 

“Oh… is everything alright? You haven’t missed a day in the village since you got your Avatar.”

“Yeah, everything’s fine, just worried about the boy and want to get to the bottom of this sooner rather than later, if possible.”

“Alright, I can bring you back some of his blood to run as well?”

“NO!” 

Norm’s eyes widened in shock at your response and you knew you fucked up, you knew you slipped up. Calm yourself… 

“It’s just not necessary at the moment since I have other blood and I don’t want to overwhelm him, if it’s not imperative. I will retrieve some blood when I check on him tomorrow.”

Norm looked at you with a concerned look, but eventually relented.

“Ok, whatever you think, Ace.” 

“Thanks, Norm.” 

“Let me know what you find tonight. I’ll tell Jake, but they might not be happy with you.”

“You can explain it’s an emergency, I’m sure they’ll understand.”

 

You struggled to get up and get your legs to not want to collapse beneath you. Eventually, you made your way to the sink and washed, you scrubbed your face as hard as you could without removing a layer of skin, and your teeth until you felt the familiar taste of metal coat your teeth. You hoped that maybe you tried hard enough, the last 6 hours can just be erased from your life, from world. You hoped it could undo the damage that would plague you for the rest of your most likely very short life. 

Luckily, most scientists seemed to be out. Claire was teaching Na’vi kids English at Grace’s old school that Jake deemed fit to be reopened, Max left with Norm to check on the situation of the village, and most of the Avatars would be out on missions or training with Jake. You made your way to the quiet halls to one of the labs, and prepared for your long day ahead. This will be hard to do by yourself, but not impossible. 

First step, respiratory fluids. You remove a sterile cotton swab and swab your pharynx as thoroughly as possible and place it in a tube. That’s easy enough. Next comes the blood. Finding a vein has always been hard for people to do on you, and it’s not gotten any easier in time, so after poking yourself a few times in the wrong place, you manage to get enough blood to run experiments on. 

Hours of sample preparation, incubation, pipetting and running went by at an excruciatingly slow pace, like the universe was revelling in making every second of torture last forever. You thanked your lucky stars of the progress made in lab equipment and that you didn’t have to spent days on one PCR, like your mum was saying it had to be done back on Earth about a century ago. Regardless, it took most of the day for you to do everything you needed, check for all the proteins and markers you knew were deregulated with this virus, and by the early hours of night, you were done. 

Aș people were starting to return to the hub as another day was nearing its end, you retreated back to your bedroom to work on the data analysis. You did not want to see anyone, did not want to speak to anyone until you knew at least some things. The less you talked, the less lies that had to come out of your mouth, and that seemed ideal to you. 

Inputting the data and having to wait on some software to give you your literal death sentence felt so tragic is was almost comical, and you had to stop and ask yourself if you were some serial killer in a past life to warrant all the pain and misery life seemed adamant to throw at you. For the first time in so long you couldn’t even remember, things were going… well. You were strong, and doing well, and lived outside of the walls of this lab. You had a chance at something more, you had a chance at maybe one day healing and working through your issues and maybe even coming out the other side a better, healthier version of yourself. You had a chance at love.

And there it was… positive. One second.

THE FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF  STAGE I: DENIAL

Your blood became poison in the span of half a day, but at least you now knew it wasn’t transmitted through air. That means no one else would have to suffer because of you. The thought made you weirdly calm, and you realised you didn’t care about your own health all along. No, you weren’t sad anymore, just relieved. A wide smile appeared on your face at the results, and you jumped out of the chair with enthusiasm at the great news. Everybody would be ok. Norm, Max, they would all be ok. You will handle all the virus experiments and blood samples from now on. They wouldn’t have reason to doubt you or question you, not when it made most sense anyway, since you were always in the village and knew the protocols and techniques the best, anyway. You would go on the same way as you had, and no one had to know or suffer because of your mistakes. 

With those thoughts still floating in your mind and a Xanax on your tongue, you made your way to the comfortable bed and crashed without a dream in sight. 

You were up before dawn again, and ready to get started on your day at the village. You were looking forward to gun training with Jake, and finally putting those years of practice to good use. You found Norm deep in thought in the link room, and he didn’t register you walking in until you patted his shoulder and he jumped out of his skin.

 

“Jesus, Ace. You scared the shit out of me.” 

“I noticed. Why so jumpy, Norm?” 

He gave you the quickest look known to man then quickly busied himself with literally anything else. “No reason, just focused on the task at hand.”

“…turning on the linkpod?” 

“No one likes a smartass, you know?” 

“So how was the village yesterday? How is the boy?” 

“He’s alright, still not great, but his vitals are stable for now.” You noticed he did not answer your question about the village, and found slight panic rising in your chest.

“Is everything okay? Did something happen in the village?” 

“No, Ace, everything’s fine. You don’t have to worry about everything, you know. How did the experiments go yesterday?” 

“The virus is not airborne, it seems to be transmitted by blood, so we need to be very careful handling samples.” 

“We always are. But good work, good to have some concrete evidence finally. I’ll look over your analysis soon.”

“You know, I’m not quite done with it, so maybe wait and we can look over it together?”

“Sure, that makes sense.”

You didn’t buy Norm’s pathetic attempts at deflecting the subject of the village, but you did not want to fight him so early in the day, so you guess you had to find out what happened for yourself. You woke up in your Avatar body soon enough, and could already tell the village was already awake and buzzing with the perspective of a new day. The guitar sitting on the ground next to your sleeping mat caught your eye, and you smiled softly at the memory which now seems a life away. Your fingers lingered on the chords and you strummed it gently a few times, enjoying the sounds that seemed to settle in your heart. Adjusting your braids in the small mirror you brought with you a few weeks ago, you made your way out of your tent and straight into Neteyam’s chest with a loud thud. 

“What the fuck?” You say, indignantly and then look up to find Neteyam watching you with an unreadable expression adorning his beautiful face. 

“Hi.” He says, and tries to muster a small smile. 

“Hi…? Is there any particular reason you have decided to attack me first thing in the morning?” 

“I was just coming to get you, I heard the guitar playing. I didn’t think you would be running straight into me. Are you ready? We can spend the morning tracking a herd of Talioang that the hunter party spotted a few clicks south of the village. It will be good practice for you.” 

“…alright? Can I get some food first? I’m famished.”

Neteyam shifted uncomfortably in front of you and looked… nervous, you realised. What the hell was going on with everyone?

“I have food that Ma packed for us, we can eat in the forest? I’d really rather get a move on as soon as possible, this will most likely take most of today, anyway.”

“Is there a particular reason you seem so eager for me to leave? You and Norm have both been acting weird today, and you are both terrible liars.”

Neteyam gave you a hard look. “Let’s go, Y/N. Unlike what you like to think, you don’t need to know everything, and not everything concerns you. Let’s go, now.” Nothing’s changed, you realised bitterly. Last night was just a fluke and you hated yourself in that moment for letting your guard down. 

“You can be a real dick sometimes, Neteyam.” You said and took off without looking at him. 

You ran for about 5 clicks without checking behind you, knowing full well he was following you, your hearing being one of the many senses that heightened in this body. You stopped suddenly at the sight of a huge footprint, one you could identify as the Sturmbeest, or a Talioang, like it was known to the Na’vi. Soon enough, you saw the ground littered with them, and began carefully tracking the beasts.

“Alright. How far would you say they are and which direction?” Neteyam asked, approaching you slowly. He was back to teaching mode, and you tried your best to learn, instead of recoiling and telling him to go to hell, which is what you really wanted to do. 

You touched the ground and felt it with your fingers, trying to assess the moisture level and deepness of the mark. You thought about for a while.

“I’d say they’re quite fresh. Maybe this morning? Taloioang move slowly, about 1 click every hour or two, so I’d say we’ll find them about 2 clicks east?”

He didn’t even have to touch the ground to be able to assess it. He was impressive. 

“Good. Let’s go. We shouldn’t run, they have good hearing and the wind is blowing east, which means they’ll be able to smell us if we’re not careful. We will take a roundabout way and approach them from the south.” 

You both made your way through the forest and it was your turn to follow him, although you stayed close behind and tried to look around you and pick up on clues, tiny sounds and movements, trying to learn, trying to see. “Eyes on the tracks, Y/N.” 

You rolled your eyes, but did as you were told. Eventually, Neteyam let you deem the appropriate time to stray from the tracks and move south to avoid being spotted. Soon enough, you saw the herd of prodigious beings, bathing in a shallow lake. You made your way slowly, sneaking on the ground, with Neteyam close to you, and you felt his arms grazing your sides every inch of the way. 

The herd was protecting the calves, 5 in total, playing and splashing in the clear water. You watched in amazement, just enjoying the view of these seemingly ferocious beasts that in the moment, felt more like a family watching their children play at the local pool. You couldn’t believe the beauty and mild predisposition, the complex nature of these animals whose equivalents were long gone on Earth, long decimated by humans and their needless desire for wealth and acquisition, for mindless cruelty. You felt your stomach drop at the realisation that soon, this could be Pandora, if you didn’t fight will all your being in the upcoming war. 

You felt a sudden gentle pressure on your lower back, a pressure you quickly identified as Neteyam’s hand and you shuddered at the touch. He neared his mouth to your ears, and you felt his warm breath tickling your neck, a sudden warmth pooling in your lower abdomen. 

“You’re not allowed to kill anything yet, but I want you to show me how you would go about it. Show me your bow work, how would you aim from this position.��

You slowly removed your bow from from your person and sat up, in a now crouched stance, and loaded the arrow, doing your best to accommodate for the uncomfortable position you were in and the tight space you were sharing with another person. You held your breath, engaged your core, and aimed as if you were going to release your arrow on the target about 300m away. Neteyam’s large hand touched your upper thigh, by your left hip and squeezed gently. Your arm dropped suddenly and snapped your head in his direction. He didn’t react to your sudden snap, instead talking lowly, so as to not give your location away. “Your leg is not in a position by which you can maximise release. You will have more power in the shot if you place this knee on the ground and lean into it.” 

You wanted to take that hand and either break it or redirect it on other parts of your body that felt like they would explode if they didn’t feel him, have his touch provide the relief that was desperately yearned for, needed. You wanted to scream at him or make him coax the screams out of you like a war-cry, wild and desperate. You wanted to kill him, you wanted him to kill you, slowly and painfully, taking his time on your body until you were falling apart at the seams around him. You hated him, you loved him. You hated him.

You gave him a hard look, an angry look directed at your thigh, and he removed his hand from you. You wondered if he knew, knew what he was doing, wondered if he felt the same way, if he too was struggling to catch his breath at the torture of knowing he can’t have you, claim you, right now, right in this second, right here. You hoped he did, hope it ate him alive, the yearning and the desire. Because that’s what it was doing to you, what he was doing to you. You turned your attention back to the herd and adjusted your position based on his advice. He was right, you could tell right away, as you felt a lot more power when aiming the arrow this time. 

“Much better. We can go now, we will give the location to the hunting party and the will be able to secure us dinner for a couple of weeks from the back of a couple of Ikrans.”

 

You made your way out of their surroundings, and slowly started walking back to the village. After about half an hour, he stopped on a rock and removed the food he was carrying in a pouch. You didn’t join him, preferring to keep your distance and thus a clear mind, not being able to afford being weak around him anymore. 

“I thought you were famished.” He says, with a slight smile. You shook your head and turned around, taking in the views of the forest, distracting yourself with the flowers reaching out their neon green tendrils towards you. You kneeled next to one, and touched them gently, enjoying the way they cupped around your hand and tugged, like they were urging you to come closer so they can spill their long-forgotten dreams to you. You heard him sigh loudly.

“Sorry for being a dick. Just had a fight with mum and dad, and I took it out on you. I shouldn’t have, and I am sorry. Come eat, please? I don’t want you passing out on me, you’re not as easy to carry as you used to be when you were human.” 

You remained on your knees still, focused on only the plants and your gentle tug-of-war. You knew how much pressure Neteyam was under, has been for pretty much his entire life. A prodigy created… or made, no one could really know for sure, he began training when most babies learn to walk, and speak, and play. He has never had a childhood the way Lo’ak, or Kiri, or Tuk, or pretty much any other Na’vi children did, mostly fleeting moments of bliss in between a lot more moments of stress and struggle. He never complained, though. Not out loud, not to anyone else but you, once he realised you were a safe haven from the storm. You didn’t pass judgement, or make him feel bad for sharing his feelings, and he felt like he could tell you all the hardest truths his heart has always craved to speak out loud. You have always wanted to protect him from the world, a world that demanded so much of him, that asked for a sacrifice of which it was undeserving. Being Olo’yektan, leading the people, being the one person everyone relied on was a great honour, a great achievement - one you didn’t think he wanted, but was never given the chance to decline. 

“What happened?” 

You walked slowly towards the rock he was laying on, and sat at its foot, crossing your legs on the slightly damp grass. You grabbed a piece of jerky from the pile of food and slowly chewed through it, humming in appreciation at the smoky taste and rich flavour of the meat. 

Neteyam grimaced and didn’t look at you, choosing to focus instead of his arm guards, picking at something that was clearly not there. “More sacrifices I need to make in the name of the future, of the people.” 

“I see you still haven’t learnt to say no, even after all this time apart.” 

Neteyam’s hand froze in midair, his eyes widening slightly - it was the first time you brought up the year apart. He braced himself for what he thought was the beginning of the end, of you finally demanding answers he didn’t think would ever satisfy you, but no other words left your lips.  

“I can’t say no. I owe my parents everything I have, everything I am. This village, this life, is all I know. My dad gave up on everything he knew to stand up for our people, to make sure we’d get a future worth living, a family worth saving, a world still worth fighting for. He became Olo’yektan despite all that stood against him because he loved my mum, loved us, even then, even before we were born. My grandpa died defending this village, watching home tree get decimated in front of his eyes, with only the people’s safety on his mind and tongue. I see that bow that my mum cherishes like a gift from Eywa herself and I want to be worthy of it, someday. And if it means giving up some things, maybe that’s just how it’s meant to be.” 

“Maybe whatever you’re giving up is making room for something ever better, Neteyam. Sometimes we want something so bad, we can’t see the forest for the trees.” 

He looks at you confused for a second.

“That’s a saying. What I’m trying to say is maybe you are over focused on something you want right now, that you think is the best thing for you, but maybe you just are not focusing on the bigger picture. Maybe in the future, whatever you’re giving up now will make room for something that was much better for you all along.”

Disappointment filled his chest at your words. Neteyam looked at you with deep sadness marking his features, and he could see you were trying to think of things to say that could make him feel better. In all honesty, he wanted - needed - you to tell him to be selfish, and trust his gut, and follow what he knew was right in his heart, but he also knew that being selfish is not a trait that came naturally to you. You have always respected the deep bond Neteyam had to his family and his people and you always used to tell him how proud of him you were for how strong he was, for the lengths he was willing to go to to protect and nurture those bonds. 

You felt an overwhelming sense of grief at the realisation that you will never get to see him become Olo’yektan, see him become the man everybody knew he was. He would never be yours, and although that painful conclusion had settled in your soul and had time to scar in all the time you knew him, a new wound, deeper, bloodier, deadlier, tore your heart apart at the thought you would not even be able to watch from afar. You would have been satisfied with scraps, just watching him rule, and be, and love someone else and imagining it was you. You never thought you’d get more than that anyway, never had any delusions for more. The scraps would have been enough, and now even those were brutally taken from you, like everything else in this life. 

You needed to leave, now. 

“Should we head back? It’s getting late.”

You walked back in deep, uncomfortable silence. Eclipse made the nature shine and glimmer with colours your sadness dulled to muted tones. There was light coming from the village and you realise how badly you wanted to be alone, in your tent and read, or watch a movie or a show, and ignore this world for a little while while you licked your newly-opened wounds. Tonight was a communal dinner around the big bonfire in the centre of the village, and you felt grateful your presence would not be missed in such a crowd. You’ve come to love these dinners, another one of the many ways the tribe connected to the village and to each other, but tonight you couldn’t entertain even the thought long enough to count.

“Can you please tell your family I am sorry, but I will probably head to bed early. I’ll be early for breakfast tomorrow, I promise.” 

“I can do that. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You nodded absentmindedly and closed the flap of the tent shut.

Neteyam watched as you left him, still reeling from your conversation. Much like you, he just wished to hide in his family’s tent and pretend for a night things are different, that they are better. Actually, if we are talking about wishes, he wishes he could be in your tent. In all honestly, dealing with you on a day to day basis, seeing you, your body, touching it more and longer than he knew he reasonably had to, was making him think thoughts he knew he had no business thinking. In his wildest dreams, he’d be in your tent and making your eyes roll back in the way that drove him crazy. In his wildest dreams, he’d be coaxing sounds out of you that only he would ever hear. In his wildest dreams, your hands all over him would heal him and break him at the same time. He was desperately in need of some relief, and he loathed all decisions in his life that lead to you not being able to be the one to provide it for him. 

He made his way to the bonfire, and greeted all of the Na’vi that respectfully bowed their heads at his arrival. He saw his family at the centre of the crowd, where they normally sat, and joined them silently. They all gave him uneasy looks - all but one. Lo’ak was blatantly glaring at the older Sully, a look of disappointment and disgust marring his normally kind face that reminded Neteyam so much of their dad. 

“Did you tell her?” 

Kiri elbowed Lo’ak in the abdomen, but he didn’t flinch. He did not even bother to acknowledge Kiri, or the low hiss escaping their mum’s lips - his eyes were still boring into Neteyam, unwavering. 

“No.” Neteyam’s expression darkened and in a split second, he became the warrior his dad moulded him into. “And you will not, either, Lo’ak. Do you understand me?” Lo’ak had to look up to look at his brother who was now dangerously towering over him. 

“Oh, the mighty warrior giving out orders, what else is new?” 

“Lo’ak, that’s enough.” Neteyam heard Jake intervene, and he eventually had to physically put his body in between his two sons, who still refused to look away from each other.

“Fnawe’tu (coward).”

 

Neteyam watched his brother turn his back on his family and walk away from the feast, and although he wouldn’t admit it to himself, he knew deep down that Lo’ak was right.

 

You were almost robotically flipping through the directory of movies and tv shows on the laptop that you had with you in the village, not quite ready to go back to the lab and have to deal with the consequences of your newly acquired “condition”. You had all night to do experiments, and lie to yourself that you were fine until you eventually succumbed to a Xanax-induced blackout. You wanted to be in this body just a little while longer, because, in this body, it was easy to forget the realities of your actual life.

You saw a five-fingered hand emerge from the entrance to your tent, and you laughed incredulously at the clown you loved, who seemed to have a knack for improving your dour mood.

“I am here to bother you.” You got up and started making your way towards the entrance of your tent.

“Shouldn’t you be at dinner?” You say, laughing and pulling Lo’ak by the hand, so he stumbles unattractively into you. 

You wrap your arms around him and hug him gently. “Skxawng.” 

“I should, but I am here instead. We haven’t had movie night in so long.” He lay on your sleep mat and you hissed for him to move over. “You’re getting way too comfortable hissing at people.”

“Not people, Lo’ak, you!” You smiled saying that, knowing you were quoting Kiri, and he groaned exasperatedly. 

A few more weeks passed, and you felt the discrepancy between your bodies become more pronounced than it had ever been. It turns out, the incubation period of a Na’vi virus in a human is not long at all, and roughly around last week, you began displaying symptoms. You were taking every drug under the sun to try to soften them, but you had seen one too many good Na’vi people die due to this to know what was lurking underneath the comfortable cushion of drug-induced health. Despite all that, you felt on top of the world in your avatar. You were continuously improving, and, with a little bit of luck, will be completing your first kill soon - the first stepping stone to becoming Taronyu, hunter. If you do that successfully, you will be taking your Iknimaya with other Na’vi apprentices, and finally get your own Ikran. You were buzzing at the thought, and the image of you flying in the sky was enough to push any other worries out of your mind. 

After that weird day that ended with Lo’ak in your tent watching Friends together and teaching him the chords to a song you both loved, things went back to normal, sort of. You couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that the Sullys were hiding something from you. They exchanged looks, and avoided certain subjects, and you were starting to be worried they guessed you were ill, and were tiptoeing around the subject so as to not upset you. That was a good theory, although it could not explain the heavy tension between Neteyam and Lo’ak that also started that night. 

You saw them bicker and fight your whole life: two opposing personalities, both of whom had misunderstandings about the other. Neteyam could never understand Lo’ak, understand that, despite being the chieftain’s son and the grandson of the Tsahik and former Olo’yektan, people still looked at him like he was not quite full Na’vi. His eyebrows and five fingers made his appearance uncanny enough to always attract whispers and looks, and despite Lo’ak’s apparent devil-may-care attitude, he cared. Neteyam could also not understand anyone who wished to live freely and discover themselves, make decisions and choices that would lead to a happy, fulfilled life, rather than a proud and accomplished one. Finally, Neteyam did not understand that skill and tenacity doesn’t come easy to everybody, and the weight of living in his shadow was bearing heavily on his baby brother’s back. 

On the other hand, Lo’ak never tried to understand the burden Neteyam had to carry, because, in his desire to not appear weak, he took it in strides and never complained. Lo’ak never fully understood the downfalls of what being “the perfect son” brings: no freedom, no childhood, no time, no fun, no choice. He only ever focused on the positives: praise from his family and clan, skill and composure, the title of future Leader of the Omatikaya. He will also never be able to understand the depths of Neteyam’s love for him, who, despite all their differences, would be willing to sacrifice everything, even his own life, to make sure his baby brother would never having to experience these burdens.

This tension felt like more. More than you’ve ever seen, not mended in time, they were always glowering at each other and only speaking to each other if prompted or forced by their increasingly frustrated family. You tried to talk to both of them individually and ask, but you were promptly sent on your way each time. You could tell Lo’ak was itching to spit it out, but every time he got close, he flashed you a look of hurt and fear, and moved on. 

Eventually, you stopped worrying about it. It will come out in time, and you had better things to worry about. Your training became brutal after that day tracking Sturmbeests. Neteyam would come to your tent before dawn, sometimes having to wait for you while you woke up in your Avatar body, and you were always gone past eclipse. You were tracking, joining hunting parties to learn, working on shooting arrows while on Pa’li or in nearly impossible positions (he made you shoot targets hanging upside down from the branches of trees, seriously) and working on guns and practicing with Jake and his soldiers. Jake made you his second-in-command during these sessions, and you enjoyed having the roles reversed and having to watch Neteyam squirm every time you touched his arm, or waist, or thighs, in order to adjust his shooting form. You also taught Lo’ak, sometimes late in the nights, where he would sneak into your tent and ask you questions about guns that he hoped would bring him in his father’s good graces for once in his life. You loved teaching them, and you felt powerful with all the eyes on you, trying to absorb every piece of information coming out of your mouth. 

“In your hands, you are holding a sub machine-gun.” You said and you made your way through the 10 soldiers in your midst. “It can fire up 600 rounds per minute. You have a button on the side of the weapon, as you can see right there”, you stopped and show everyone on your own weapon, “that allows you to choose between semi automatic and fully automatic. What’s the difference, Lo’ak?”

“A semi-automatic guns fires one shot when you pull the trigger, a fully automatic gun fires continuously until you release the trigger.” 

“Tsantu (good guy)!” you said with an intimate smile. Lo’ak was making amazing progress, and you were proud to be even a small reason why. 

Neteyam gave Lo’ak a hard look as he answered your question. He was angry with his brother because of his recent attitude, he thought. That’s the reason. Not at all because you were smiling at him with that dazzling smile that used to be reserved for him years ago, definitely not because he knew Lo’ak was sneaking in your tent at night and doing Eywa-knows-what, a fact which kept Neteyam up nights with images he would do everything in his power to be able to erase from his brain. Neteyam was exhausted. He hasn’t slept since this thing started, not until Lo’ak returned to his tent after his meetings with you, and he was able to look at him in the dim light of the night and gauge for himself if his brother was flushed, or panting, or extra happy for one reason or another. Despite never seeing anything that he could deem suspicious, the images of his baby brother taking for himself what was his, what should be his, haunted him and made him sick to his stomach. 

Coward. Lo’ak words rang in his ears incessantly throughout each day, never being able to fully block them out. 

Neteyam saw you move from Lo’ak and towards him, and tried to remember what they were talking about. Sub-machine guns, right. 

“Now, SMGs are best used in tighter quarters or close to mid-range. The spread will make it inefficient for long-range. If you find yourself on the back of your Ikran shooting at a plane or Valkyrie, make sure you close the gap between you or use your bow, instead.”

“An SMG will have a lot of recoil, making it harder to shoot accurately, but there are a few tips you can use to make to improve your aim and accuracy.”

“First. Always fire in short bursts, if you are firing on automatic mode. A few shots at a time will make sure the kick is not unmanageable. Two, account for the kick and adjust your aim to compensate. Think of shooting an arrow and how you always take the wind, its direction, speed and power in consideration before you actually release. It’s a similar principle. The recoil will make the gun kick upwards, so always aim slightly lower than what you want to hit. Three, don’t aim for the head. Leave that for a bow or an assault/sniper rifle with a scope. Aim for the abdomen and chest, since that is a wider target and more likely to hit. Everyone on the same page?”

Neteyam was forever in awe of you, but it was particularly impressive watching you now. You were confident and powerful and knowledgeable. Neteyam felt bad admitting it, but you were a much better teacher than their dad ever was. Toruk Makto had many incredible qualities, but his patience was definitely not amongst them, and his lessons tend to get a bit derailed by his inability to understand that Na’vi are not predisposed to guns or understanding Sky People technology. You were calm, and kind, and funny, and you made it easy for everyone to follow your instructions. In the span on a few weeks, all of the Na’vi and Avatar soldiers training for the upcoming war became better at pretty much every aspect that they were training in, and I think everyone felt just a bit more comfortable about the conflict that was soon to befall them, with you by their side. 

After the lesson was complete, you left alongside Lo’ak, sparing one last look in Neteyam’s direction. He was already watching you, and you saw a fleeting angry look that was quickly replaced with an expressionless mask. He was getting good at that, you thought. 

“Do you want to do anything? If I have to listen to Kiri talk about all the new types of flowers and plants and shit she keeps finding in the woods, I will lose my mind.”

“Be nice.” 

Kiri has been particularly hyperfixated on her newfound discoveries recently, and you tried your best to pay attention to every time she was describing them, in detail, but in reality you were always so exhausted by the time dinner came around that you were only assimilating about a tenth of all the words coming out of her mouth. You felt bad, and made a mental note to dedicate a couple of days to your friend that you saw less and less each week. 

“Your Iknimaya is getting closer and closer each day, how do you feel?”

“Honestly I haven’t thought about it that much, just taking it one day at a time.”

“I think you should start thinking about it, cause it’s going to happen. You’ve managed to blow everyone’s expectations out of the water. It barely been two months since you got your avatar body, not even my dad did this so fast. You were made for this, Angel.” 

You didn’t know what to say to that. You were grateful for Lo’ak’s faith in you, but with everything happening in your human body, it felt pointless looking towards the future. 

“You will be one of us, soon. I’ve had dreams about this my whole life, you know? It’s like I manifested your Avatar, Norm should be thanking me.” 

“Lo’ak…” 

You didn’t like the turn this conversation took, and felt an uncomfortable twinge settle in your chest at his words. 

“There are perks that come with being an Omatikaya, you know? You can make your bow out of the wood of the Home Tree… and you can choose a mate.” 

Fuck. 

Neteyam was making his way back to the village with the rest of the soldiers, casually chatting to one of the Avatars returning with them. He wasn’t paying attention to the way until his body knocked into one of the Na’vi walking in front of him. Utsou was staring intently at a scene unfolding in front of him, a scene that turned Neteyam’s blood to shards of glass, leaving cuts and bruises along his entire body. It was you, smiling, running your hand up and down Lo’ak’s arm whilst his hand was cupping your face and caressing your cheek. It was such an intimate interaction, it felt wrong to everyone there to even be able to witness it, and Neteyam felt himself becoming nauseous. With the image now seared into his memory and rage turning his breaths to pants, he turned around and left everything - everyone - behind. 

Tag list: @nuhteyam @eywas-heir @fanboyluvr @mashiromochi @puffb4ll @sassy-persona @simp4ff @mommyneytiri @hayhay9091

[laurasauras]

rose lalonde. that's it, that's the question.

isn't it just! god i love rose.

it's that she's one of those girls who pretends she has it all together, who thinks she's worth more because she is witty and can come up with brilliant burns exactly on cue, but she's also the girl who pretended her cat could talk to her and who would pretend to have a magnetic W as a mustache and is 13 and was probably making potions in the mud with a stick last week.

she's as cool and calm as a forest pond, and you know there are depths there but you assume those depths are things like "can commune with gods (really)" and "maybe she's telling the truth when she says she's read proust". and then you're 14 and so is she and you're finding out that the depths are "she learned how to cope with being bored and isolated and doomed from a mother she maybe shouldn't have forgiven".

and oh, i have all the pity in the world for momlonde. how awful to be put on this planet to raise a child who will end the world before creating a new one? how could you make friends under those circumstances, knowing they would all die because of what the universe has planned for your little girl? how could you sleep at night knowing that at the very least she'll be traumatised, but it's much more likely that she'll just be dead.

but rose didn't know any of that.

rose just knew that her mother wasn't around, not even to make sure she had the capacity to feed herself, let alone making sure that she was.

she knew that if she screamed that she wanted to kill herself or jammed needles in a (dead) powerpoint, her mother wouldn't talk to her, but she might be given a pony or something.

she knew that the only time her mother was around was when she was drunk, and when she was drunk she would be able to tell rose that she loved her and that she was perfect, and maybe she was merry or maybe she was crying but whatever it was, it was fucking hard to trust. because being sober next to a drunk person's sincerity is unbearable. you know that if they weren't drunk they wouldn't be crying or saying all of that, so it doesn't fucking count. and if you were so perfect and loved, then why would she even need to drink. you're 10 years old and you're supposed to be the centre of your mother's whole life, but you're not and you never have been. you're just the inconvenient kid she remembers when her breath stinks and she can't pronounce your name anymore.

and when you're 14 and she's dead and you're staring at the code you found while trying to make apple juice for someone who is your family (but you can't express your love for him), you remember being 4 and standing in her high heels, your ankles barely poking out of the toe of the shoe. and now they fit pretty damn well.

you're on a journey you can't speed up, knowing that at the end of all this bullshit that doesn't matter the people closest to you might be hurt, might be dead, and the air smells just a little bit doomed ... and in that golden window after two drinks but before five, your mom was charming and funny and beautiful, and she could actually say what she felt. if you're going on your first date with a woman who might make the meaningless tedium worth it, maybe you could use a little of that.

BUT ROSE ISN'T JUST HER TRAUMA!

Rose Is The Flame I Am Drawn To. She Makes Me Feel More Alive Just By Glancing At Me. I Am Bewitched By Her Intelligence And Electrified By Her Humour And Devoted To Her, Just Her, Everything That She Is

rose acts like shes a princess and like the rest of us should feel grateful that she even notices we exist but when you get down to it no one carries a bit like her. she matches me every goddamn step no matter what and she gets what its like to care without making some kind of deal about it

rose is just kind of a dork. it's funny how everyone thinks she's scary. okay, so in a battle between chuck norris and rose lalonde, chuck is going home crying about his kicked nuts and his mommy issues, but just because rose is badass doesn't mean she isn't also the kind of girl who snorts milk through her nose laughing at me pretending to be a walrus with breadsticks. last week. we are 40.

(dear god i'm sorry about the inaccuracy of those text colours, it hurts me too)

so yeah. rose lalonde. that's it, that's the answer.

[tai-janai]

Reunite

Path 10: Validation

(Chapter Select)

Your head stings, even before your eyes open.

Voice of the Hero:

Sorry. I've been reaching more and more ends, quite a few have been making pairs.

"Then why does my head hurt?"

Voice of the Hero:

I mean, I'm in here. I'm kind of dying in all those worlds. It doesn't feel too great. Thought you'd be a little excited about all this.

You rub your forehead. You sigh dejectedly, then try to remember all the good you're doing.

"I am... I am. This is good, I'm happy for them."

Voice of the Hero:

And this is the last one, isn't it? Nobody else is after this.

You open your eyes to a rather reflective room. Everything is metal. It doesn't attack your eyes quite as much as the other shiny one, but it's a whole lot less welcoming. Even what you stand on seems like slabs of steel. A tilted table to the side holds the echo of the blade, blending in even more than usual.

You can tell this is the final imprisoned Being. You hope in vain that it won't be the hardest. You think about the large one with the eyes and chains. That one sucked. The stone one, the melting one, the first, nervy one.

But, you changed them. The outcome was different once you stepped in. It may be unfair on both ends, but you're working to even things out.

You feel everyone's support with you as you grab the blade's echo. As its weightlessness shifts in your grasp, you wonder if it is the last time.

You walk to the askew metal door. You are stopped before you grab the handle.

Voice of the Hero:

Hey.

Its tone is tender, and it soothes your growing worry.

Voice of the Hero:

I... I'm really proud of you. And even if - or when - this guy tears me out of your head, I'm always with you.

"And I'm glad you're there."

A happy glow warms your body as you and the Voice share a moment of serenity.

You take a deep, sure breath, and open the door.

The way down is decidedly not stairs. It seems to once have been a metal ramp, but had something carve down the middle of it. You try your best to take it slow, but everything is smooth, and any footholds are pointed and sharp. Everything smells like fire and metal.

You make it to the bottom, and you see the steely room. Right in the center of it, with the chain around its "neck," stands a bright, rangy Being.

Sharp, blood-red eyes stare at you. A pointed-toothed mouth is turned downward in a scowl. A heart beats behind a set of translucent ribs. Everything else is... a substance you can't quite understand.

Something between glass and metal, every part of it that was once skin is a jagged edge of a reflective, razor-sharp material. It looks like something that had been broken repeatedly, but continues to crash back together. Parts of this "skin" float around it in an orbit. Its fingers are very long and tapered, sharp like everything else, and stained with what you assume is blood. Beneath the beating heart is its legs, which seem joined at a single point on the ground, like it's balancing there at a pinpoint. Its head once had horns, but it is only shattered metal-glass.

Back for more?

Its voice is grating. Do you even want to fight this thing?

"More?"

It flashes its blade-like fingers and squints at you.

I had some issues with our first encounter. I'm glad you've come back so I can do it right this time.

"We've never met before, I don't want to fight."

Bloody liar.

With a disgusting screech of metal, it drags towards you, swiping with its claws. The noise is hell on your eardrums, but you dive out of the way just in time. Unfortunately, the floor is more jagged metal, and you cut your knee.

Voice of the Hero:

Shit, that was awful! Why's this one so angry??

With a crackle of bending metal, you turn and see the Being growing enraged.

Two against one!? You little demon, I'll tear you to goddamn atoms!

It extends a palm at you, and you feel the sense of something gripping you, holding you in place. You lock eyes with the Being as you are squeezed.

Voice of the Hero:

No, no! Stop- Agh!

With a sudden jerk, the constricting feeling falls, and you and the Other drop to the floor, separated once again. You hear a wicked laugh from the creature.

I'm the one in charge now, aren't I? I can finally get you back for all the bullshit you put me through.

You feel yourself convulsing, everything in you twitches and creaks. The Other at your side groans.

You grit your teeth, and your vision swims with rage.

You grab the echo once again. It had fallen when you were split. You can barely tell you have it in your grasp.

Though you ache, you rise to your feet, eyes fixated on the large creature.

"You think you're in charge? With that chain around your neck? Your heart is exposed, it wouldn't take much to get to it."

The Hero:

What?

In your mind echoes the same thought: What???

With a scraping growl, the Being charges again, swiping at you. You dodge one attack, but don't expect the second.

A shard of the metallic glass cuts into your arm.

Its the first time you've bled. Ever, even.

The Hero:

Stop! He didn't put you down here!

It slices at you again, and you deflect it with the, thankfully physical, echo.

What in the world are you on about?

It continues to clash blades with you and leave minuscule cuts along your limbs as it converses with the Other.

With a scrape, it leans away, and you catch your breath. What is this? You're fighting?

He put me here, and now he's trying to kill me. I'm just defending myself.

The Hero:

You are made of blades!!!???

Is the fight unfair? Does he have as much strength as he says?

What about your own?

You look at the echo you hold. It is nonexistent. What is deflecting the Being's attacks?

No, that's not right. It's there.

The Being lunges again, and you move beyond your own volition. You strike at its side, leaving a crack in its translucent ribs. The creature groans, a sickening sound of twisting metal.

You don't feel control over your own body. Do you have a choice? Why are you fighting?

"I want to free you."

The Being swipes at you, and you only barely evade its reach. It growls.

You're attacking me. Why won't you both just shut up!

It leans back and waves to the Other.

Better yet, why don't you try an' help me here? He wanted to lock you up too, just like he did to me!

The Hero:

I swear, he wasn't! I would know, I was in his head!

I'm sick of the lying!

With a swing of its arm, shards of its body go flying towards the other.

You shout in fear, but thankfully, it was only a warning, and the shards stick into the floor only a foot away from the Other's feet. He seems terrified, but okay.

You face the Being again. It is horrid. It has almost hurt the other part of you. You hate it.

You step forward.

This is what it's supposed to be, isn't it? You see the rage in its eyes. You want to plant your knife into its beating heart-

"NO!"

You fling the echo at the far wall, and the clang reverberates along the metal floor. The Being has flinched away from you.

You don't want to fight it, you want to save it.

Where are these conflicting thoughts coming from?

What's all this? You've given up? That's not a win!?

"I do want to free you. I do."

The Hero:

He isn't usually like this...

I don't care about being free, I want to win!

You see blades flash above you, and then they cut through you.

Not all the way, just across your front, leaving three large, disconnected streaks of red across your entire body. You don't feel it at first, the adrenaline numbing your body, but everything starts to sting.

Even if it isn't the worst, it is the most physical pain you've experienced. It is strange.

You fall to the floor, only barely able to catch yourself on wounded arms. Blood flows from everywhere. It is... so red.

Wh... Why are you so much weaker than you had been? What the hell is this?

You look at your bloody hands. It seeps through the indents of your scales. The fluid trails down your arm in lightning-shaped streaks. It hurts to bleed.

Your gaze turns up towards the creature, who scowls at you.

"I'm sorry. I didn't put you here."

Bullshit!

It screeches at you, but doesn't attack.

What is with this personality shift?? Get back up, if I'm gonna win, it's gonna be on my terms. You can't just throw in the towel once things aren't in your favor!

"You're right. But I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... attack you."

And what the hell does that mean?

You see its heart, bright crimson and pounding in its chest. Everything about the being is so dangerous, but its vital organ seems the least protected. You want to tear into it. But you want to hold it, and keep it safe.

The creature wants a fight, you have to give it to him.

No, you don't.

Your mind floods with the experiences from all of the other imprisoned Beings. You feel pulled along by a string, trying to force you to stand, but you kneel.

"Y-You must be in pain. After being trapped here so long, alone."

No shit it hurt! Get back up so I can cause you the same pain!

Your wounds bleed, but they don't hurt. You don't think that's what the Being is going for anyway.

The Hero:

Please, stop. Let us let you out of here.

Leave? Now that I've got power? Now that I... I can win!?

You combat the incessant thoughts. This creature has done nothing wrong.

With a shing of blades, razor-sharp fingers lift you by your armpits from your place on the floor. The sharpness cuts into you just enough to get a grip on you.

The win means nothing if you're not- If you aren't what I remember!

With bated breaths, you look into the creature's eyes. It is... quite a bit bigger than you. You see your blood trailing down its metallic arm.

You love this creature. You hate it. You want it dead. You want it safe. It hisses at you.

The moment I have power, you are limp and weak.

You are suddenly released, and you drop to the ground inelegantly. Your knees buckle and your head hits the metal. Its voice lowers, and starts to shake.

The moment I have anything, I...

With a heavy head, you lift yourself to look at it. It stares at its stained, sharp hands in horror.

You slowly bring yourself to your feet. Its pupils focus on you, and then follow the curved gashes across your body.

"I know you are angry. Your anger is justified. You deserve to kill me many times over."

Metal creaks as the Being closes in on itself.

Would that be enough? Would it ever mean anything?

"That's up to you."

Harsh scrapes bombard your eardrums as pieces of metal flare and swish through the air.

Are you what put me here? Why did I turn into this?

You step closer to it. Your steps are unsteady as your blood lubricates the smooth metal floor.

"I didn't put you here. I didn't make you this way."

With determination, you grab the creature's sharp, elongated fingers. You can feel their edge, but they do not cut into your flesh.

"We can change things. The pain can end. You can be free."

You can hear every thump of its heart, like a hammer to an anvil, concealed behind its veil of a ribcage. It speaks breathily. It sounds like it is far away.

I'm tired of waiting. I just want things to get better.

Pieces of it fall to the floor, clashing and shattering. You do not flinch at the jarring noise.

Why is everything different..?

The Being is weak. You are disgusted by it. You love it. You are afraid of it. You find comfort in it.

"To change in one way means it can change another."

The fingers you hold dig into you. You feel your skin give way.

Will it get better?

"It can."

You smile up at it. Your marred skin stretches.

"Isn't that incredible?"

Sparks fly as metal crushes and crumples. The horrid din rages through your mind, but it is soon joined by the familiar rustling of feathers.

You step back, releasing your hold on the Being's hand. You feel cool air where your skin was split.

Small hits of cartilage dragging against metal rise and fall. The being is shrunken down to a size like all of the others. A heavy chain clatters to the ground, and it echoes, the last of the noise.

You see a reflection of yourself, but this one is scarred and tattered. Its feathers are unkempt, its scales uneven and messy. It scratches at its skin. You exhale in relief.

The Other has rushed to your side, now that the danger is quieted.

The Cheated:

Maybe I... went a little too far.

"It's okay."

It winces and looks at your many bleeding wounds.

The Cheated:

Is it...?

With delicate hands, the Other feels your gashes. He mumbles under his breath.

The Hero:

I honestly didn't know if we could bleed, but I didn't want to actually find it out.

You place your bloody hand on the side of his face. He looks into your eyes, and you smile.

"Everything is fine. We should move on."

It steps out of your embrace, confused.

The Hero:

Move on? But, isn't this the end?

The Cheated:

The hell d'you mean, "move on"?

The Hero:

I've gotta- Well, I did, but- Um.

You look to the new one.

"There are other people we've managed to save. Would you want to meet them?"

It lights up, tattered feathers flaring with excitement.

The Cheated:

Others? Where? Why didn't you lead with that, not trying to stab me?

You blink, and remember. Your eyes dart around the room.

You feel watched.

The Hero:

Are you sure you're alright?

You nod. Your feet take you to the echo you tossed away. You grab it by the blade, so as to not get any of your blood on the hilt.

The Cheated:

And what's that for? Are you...

It quiets as you reapproach the Other. He hesitantly takes the echo from your grasp.

The Cheated:

I get to see the other people... But you don't? Even though you freed them?

You look at it, a little surprised that it pointed such a thing out, and then you grin.

"Your sense of justice is admirable."

It looks shocked in response. A wing flutters minutely. You look back at the Other.

"This is what comes next."

Your eyebrows furrow in determination. You don't want to die, but there is something that comes after. This isn't the end for you.

The new one pouts with worried discontent. You don't want to leave him.

The Other fiddles with the blade, and then comes to a decision. It mirrors your own look of determination.

You don't break your stare on the shining blade as it raises, and then...

The Other's empty fist hits your chest.

It shouts in confusion and pulls away, a spot of your blood from your other wounds is left on it. The knife is nowhere to be seen.

The Hero:

Huh? Where'd it go?

It looks around the floor around you, believing the blade fell from his hands somewhere in its arc.

The Cheated:

Did it just... Pop out of existence?

You stay frozen. You thought you were going to die. You should have died.

There is a sound. Some, undulating pulsation. Every open wound on your body gets a chill of cold air.

The Other finds your gaze again. His eyes widen in horror.

"Wait..."

Something grabs you. Your vision goes white.

[cerealandchoccymilk]

Trigun Bookclub: Trigun Vol.1, Chapter #03

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More Trigun annotations! I'm doing a deep-read of the Japanese original print (reread) and Overhaul 1.0 (first read) side-by-side, and writing down everything I notice from small details, version differences, translation differences, etc. (and being so so gay about the characters. of course)

As always, here are the non-analysis panels of my dear babygirl (+ memes)...

And the rest is under the cut. i am living in ur brain now <3

[link for if the images aren’t in horizontal rows]

Starting off with the chapter cover of our handsome boy, this is the first time we see him with his glasses! I've seen someone on Twitter make a guide on Vash's different glasses designs over the manga (sadly it either cost money or was only distributed at a con and I don't have it...), so I'll try to pay attention to that during this readthrough.

As I've mentioned in the previous chapter, his antennae used to stand straight up, but they're bent now! They pop back up once in a while but from here on, the default is bent.

I love how gently he sets the girl down, and also the way everyone waits in awkward silence (and confusion) for Vash to move the rubble.

I think this part works excellently as-is, but notes on the nuances of what Nebraska originally said (this was ridiculously hard and the translation is very rough):

①「絶対どこかで不都合を並べた奴を消して来てるのさ」 ②「なぜなら」 ③「現におまえは消される側にまわってねえ……！！」 ↓ ① There has to have been a time when you "eliminated" ("erased"/killed) someone that got in your way (/someone unfortunate enough to [be there]...etc). ② Because... ③ In reality, you haven't taken on the role ("side") of being eliminated...!!

This part's very hard... He's talking about something similar to offense/defense. In this case, it's that because Vash has been avoiding conflict/being in direct danger entirely, Nebraska is saying that Vash must have killed, directly or indirectly, someone who got in the way of Vash's fleeing. I think.

I'm not sure why, but the way this was phrased stuck out to me.

Also, Gofsef's fist had an extra knuckle for one panel.

A translation error - it should be something like "He shot every bullet into the same precise spot... And shifted its trajectory!?"

Vash says "JACKPOT!" in English here, in the Japanese version. also hes soooo handsomeeeeee look at him omgggg kicking my legs back n forth blushing giggling i need to be tranquilized.

Nebraska's straight-up being crushed into pieces here. goddamn.

Not sure if it was removed in one of the reprints or in Overhaul's cleanup process, but in my Japanese copy, there was a "thump" onomatopoea of the guy backing into a wall.

Milly and Meryl are the best comedy duo in the world... They're perfect... The tiny speech bubble actually says something like "They're goofing all over the place..." The word ボケ (boke) is the funny man in a manzai comedy duo (as opposed to the straight man), and/or the jokes that the person in that role makes.

YIPPEE!! (In Japanese, it's one continuous exclamation ↑ like so. Also, there are tiny music notes around the handwritten text in the wahoo speech bubble.)

Vash runs out of breath after celebrating (cleaned up in Overhaul). God he's so silly...

A small error - I would phrase Meryl's line as "[Now, now,] Don't get too ahead of yourself."

I love how in Japanese, Meryl calls Vash "a very dangerous person with chronic troublemaker disease (慢性トラブル症)." I'm saying this from now on.

She also sarcastically says that she's grateful of the stars' alignment that they were able to meet, while gorilla gripping Vash's hand.

Also, I never noticed how fucked up Nebraska's body was!? Maybe the memories just got rewritten by Stampede. but goddamn. gun for legs...giant mechanical hands...

Vash making a Kirby Ꙩ.Ꙩ face my beloved. just a little guy!! with some badass girls!!! The last line is 「…はい？」 which is like what??/huh??/alright?? etc. はい is a very versatile word ☝ lol

That's it for Chapter #03! As always, the Japanese annotations will be in the reblogs. I'll remember to write the post about Meryl's speech patterns sometime soon.

[havin-fun-imagining-twd]

Invisible, tugging strings, Pt. 1

When - chronologically after souls stripped bare, which means the Chupacabra episode of Season 2.

What - Daryl is hurt and hallucinating at the bottom of the ridge, while you are at the farm, wondering why you are overcome with really insistent dread that he’s hurt.

Relationships - why do the two of you feel like there’s a string tugging at your chests? (slow burn Daryl x Reader)

Perspective - Him 3rd, You 2nd

Pronouns - they/them neutral

TWs - language, description of pain and injury, and those signature crappy screenshots from the episodes the Slowpoke Series tends to have, and one poor pic from the internet of Patricia

What stories should I read first? - souls stripped bare! A measure of reverence Parts 1 and 2 came before it, but definitely souls stripped bare so you get what went on

Will reading this one take me all day? - no, slowpoke, about 15 minutes :)

Can I check out the Masterlist? - please do! There’s the official one here in purposeful nonlinear publishing, and the purely chronological one here. They both have the same Slowpoke stories, just in a somewhat different order. (Reader Requests are in the official one)

There’d been that damned snake, so the horse reared, and down Daryl went.

His neck should’ve gotten snapped, tell you what. For real, he should’ve broke a few fingers or something on his way slip-sliding down the world’s most painful fucking waterslide that was the rock ridge he’d tumbled down before finally crashing into the water below. Maybe he did break some shit on the way down but just doesn’t notice yet?

Whatever, he’s just grateful Y/N ain’t here with him. Because if they’d fallen too, with the injuries they already got going? The two of them would be in this shit instead of just him, and he has no idea how he’d be able to get Y/N out of it. He can’t even get his own damn self out of it.

All his lazy-ass has gotta do is just—fucking—ow! He can’t seem to get any higher, come on! He’s halfway!

It’s because the bolt notched in the top of his crossbow decided to move out and notch its damn self in his left side while he was busy careening his way down the goddamned ridge. Least he was able to fish out his crossbow from the pool at the bottom. And most importantly, he has the doll.

He found her doll! Yeah, that’s right, the one that little Hispanic girl—sorry, ‘Lila’ or ‘Liza’—the doll she gave to Sophia.

He’s seen it from the top of the ridge and was trying to figure out a way down, was walking the horse along the top to find the best spot to climb, when bam. There was a rattler, it scared the poor nag, she fucked off to who-knows all while Daryl crash-banged his way down the slope in record time.

And now, he can’t get any higher. ’Cause he’s a damned pussy.

Son of a bitch, and even now, he’s glad Y/N isn’t here to hear him call himself a ‘pussy’ because they wouldn’t like that shit. At least that invisible string that felt like it was tied to Y/N, whatever the hell that was, either snapped on his way down or he can’t feel it as much right now because everything else hurts so damned much.

Okay, Darylina, all you need to do is buck up and prove your balls dropped and get your ass up the rest of the way and get back to the farm.

He groans in pain and wills his nausea to go down.

“Oh, come on. You’ve done half. Stop bein’ such a pussy,” is his version of a pep talk, and with one final “Come on,” he uses all his strength to lunge himself up closer!

Yes!

Only — it’s the dizzy part he isn’t expecting, along with the way everything in his stomach lurches up, and the way the soil is far too loose and he can’t find a decent grip. Panting to help curb him from upchucking right then and there, he feels himself fail to find a root or branch to grasp.

Next thing he knows, his world is spinning again.

There’s a snapping sound, a searing pain in his side that spreads everywhere, and before he can think, his breath is gone an—

................................................

You

Daryl is hurt just jumped into your mind again and you have no idea why.

He’s gone out on his own before, why are you filled with dread all the sudden? Whatever happened late this morning to you two is really throwing you for a loop.

This morning, you don’t know, but after all happened with him, you feel like you’re welded together. You know it sounds weird.

Still, you do not like that he’s not here, that he’s alone. You know the feeling will ease, but it really sucks right now and you’re really not liking how that sudden dread just appeared in your brain, and loudly, way more loudly than when it happened the first time, like 30ish minutes ago? And the invisible string is still tugging away.

Maybe it’s just the caffeine crash after the espresso incident early this morning. That, combined with latent worries about the blood transfusion and how thoroughly exhausting today was. How the past few days have been…

“Carl, baby, how do you feel?” you ask to distract yourself.

“Creeped out that blood is going into my arm.”

Lori kisses her boy’s hand and shares a quiet laugh with Patricia. Rick cracks up, Hershel smiles politely from his chair.

“Does your back hurt or do you feel itchy? Cold?” Those are the things Patricia said to be on-alert for.

“Nope.”

“Are you out of breath?” Heck, you’re out a breath…

“Y/N, you’re making me nervous.”

Okay, fair, you need to get out of this room, you feel like you can’t breathe enough.

You stick your tongue out just in case Carl notices there’s something off with you (that punk notices almost everything). “Doct—Mr. Greene, would you like me to get more sweet tea?” you check, hoping you seem normal.

Genuine concern for him aside, it can’t hurt to be extra polite after Jimmy went on the search with Glenn today without consulting Hershel or being clear with his mother about it, turns out. And how Daryl…stole a horse.

Mr. Greene nods from the chair he hasn’t left since donating a pint of blood about 40 minutes ago. “I wouldn’t mind, in fact. Thank you.”

Slightly unbalanced from having your injured arm slung and tied to your side, you take his glass from the crocheted coaster with your free hand. Once in the hallway, you close the door behind you and start to hyperventilate. You aren’t really aware of walking there, but you end up at the kitchen counter pouring tea into the glass while tears pour from your eyes and you gulp down air.

Your hair’s still wet from the shower, so riddle you why it feel like it’s 105º in this place? What the hell is going on, dude? Why are you panicking over Daryl, he’s fine, he’s always fine! Just say a prayer and get on with it, you got shit to do.

Wipe, sniff, swallow. Okay.

With a final wipe for good measure, all you need to do is poke your head back in and put the filled glass on the counter. You’ll be nearby to help if anything happens to Carl or Hershel. Nothing should, but you never know.

After delivering the iced tea, you begin to make your way to the porch—but then pause, because don’t want Shane seeing you right now. Every heaving inhale makes your sore stitches burn and your shoulder/chest injury pinch, but you can’t seem to stop! This isn’t cool, this really isn’t cool.

There’s a side-door in the kitchen, you’ll use that. You need air.

two hours ago

“Sweetie, what happened to you two?”

“I don’t know.”

You couldn’t and still can’t shake off the feeling you’d gotten a glimpse into Daryl’s very soul. You didn’t want to take your eyes off him as he ran to—you weren’t sure, but probably to the stables.

There was a tugging in your chest as you watched him hurry away. You didn’t want him to go far.

You didn’t want him to go, period. It felt wrong that he was alone, that you weren’t going with him.

Carol asking you “What do you mean?” got interrupted when Maggie called from inside the house, “Y/N?” and ran out to the porch where Carol was escorting you in.

“Hey,” you panted, finally dragging your eyes from Daryl and looking at her frown. Her coloring matched her last name as she stared at the bloodstained part of your shirt.

“Did one of the infected people do that, Y/N?”

“No, it’s the stitches. Don’t tell your daddy? He already thinks I’m an idiot,” you asked, nervous.

Letting out an exhale and nodding, she said, “I’ll get Patricia,” before jogging back inside.

“This is why I changed my shirt before comin’ back, didn’t want no fuss,” you muttered to Carol.

She was crying softly as she continued to guide you inside. “Well, it looks like you bled through it.”

“Shane and Rick ain’t come back yet, right?”

“Not yet.”

“Good,” was all you could respond to that. You were in too much pain to be in any patient mood.

One, Shane not being back meant he and Rick might have come back with Sophia in tow, and two, it meant that you could get cleaned up before your brother saw what a mess you’d made of yourself.

If he saw you like this, he’d get angry, use it as proof about how you all shouldn’t be out there, then would go off about how there’s no point in searching anymore because statistics say that the little girl’s dead.

And you didn’t like how you were tiptoeing around him. That in itself was a red flag, he’s better than that, and yet…

 A final, exhausted glance to see if you could still see Daryl, and Patricia was there as you and Carol entered the farmhouse. “Come into this room to your left, let see what the damage is,” she directed, kit in hand.

“I’m sorry, Miss Patricia,” you whispered.

Carol took your backpack off carefully and murmured that she’d wash your bloodied shirt(s) and grab you fresh clothes from the line. Patricia has her take off your soiled top right then and there, Carol also takes Dale’s watch off you to return.

It was only Patricia in there, so it was okay, you didn’t feel too exposed without a shirt.

She sanitized the area and snipped the sutures. You did need new ones. They hadn’t popped, but the skin around them tore and pulled and bruised.

That her now-dead husband was the one to so expertly do the original ones hurt more than the actual physical pain, believe it or not. Maybe you were feeling too much elsewhere or simply felt too drained and numb from earlier to have that strong a reaction to more?

“Sweet pea, you didn’t do anythin’ wrong. Ain’t no need to apologize,” you heard her tell you. “Otis wouldn’t want you to be.”

There was a brief pause in the suturing process because you broke into a cold sweat and she worried you were about to get sick. “Once we’re finished, I’m going have you head upstairs to take a nice, warm shower again. There’s plenty of fuel left in the generator. Don’t worry, we won’t be shy about sending y’all out for more when the time comes.” She handed you the small emesis basin for you to hold with your good side, and continued.

Halfway into resuming the stitches you ended up needing to use it. As you did, Patricia made motherly shushing noises and cooed how it was okay, then took away the container and put it on the tiny shelf near the door.

You like how she talks, she’s twangy like you are.

“Alright, what happened to you out there, Y/N? Didn’t you go searchin’ with the, uh, Dixon—Merle Dixon from the prescription bottle—his younger brother? I heard the bike drive back.”

“We had a rough morning.” You stifle a sigh in relief and pain in as you felt her make the final suture. The snip of the scissors cutting the excess surgical thread was music to your ears. “Daryl d-drove me back ’cause I hurt too much.”

Daryl. Just the thought of him out there, alone, made your chest tug again and a lump grow in your throat. And you really hoped nobody noticed that he most likely stole a horse 10 minutes before.

“How’d it happen?” she pressed. Finished cleaning up what she used for the stitches, she stood to check your shoulder. “You weren’t like this this morning, Y/N, this mornin’ you were the energizer bunny.”

The front door opened, and a knock came on the door of the room you were in. “It’s me,” Carol spoke from outside.

“Come on in.”

She opened the door and slipped inside, carrying a complete change of clothes for you, and promptly moved to take away the container you’d just vomited in.

“No, Carol, leave that, I can do it. I just need my shirt on.” Having so much skin exposed isn’t your usual.

Granted, that’s when Patricia requested, “Let me get a look at your range of motion and all that first before puttin’ a shirt back on, it’s easier when I can press against the skin directly.”

“It’s nothing I haven’t taken care of before, Y/N,” Carol softly reminded you, and took the container away.

To be polite, you asked Patricia to grab the hand sanitizer from your backpack before she did her thing. Smelly underarms are caused by bacteria and sweat; you knew you’d gotten sweaty. You already felt so humiliated and raw, you didn’t have a damn shirt on, you just threw up in front of her, you were crying; smelling less offensive was something over which you still had some control.

Patricia then started to do similar movements to what Mr. Greene did last night. Everything ached worse than yesterday, so much worse.

“Now, how’d this happen? It weren’t this bad before, certainly not this morning.”

“I overdid it,” you mumbled.

“I’ll say.”

The pictures of the family you’d just buried started to pop up in your mind. The image of them in their grave, that big blanket over them, popped up, too, as did the sensation of carrying them in your arms to get them there. The tears fell harder. “I-I had to.”

“Sweet pea, I’m sure you had a very good reason,” the woman soothed.

Really, if you had a dollar for every time you’ve cried in the past four days (not that you could do much with it, but), you’d probably have a $50 bill.

The door opened a second time.

You were grateful it was just Carol again, not Hershel or Shane. She brought you a small glass of sweet tea, which you held in your free hand but didn’t drink.

“Y/N, I wanna make sure that Daryl didn’t hurt you or try to.” Patricia was blunt.

You weren’t offended on his behalf; that she asked meant she was concerned and wanted you safe. “The opposite, ma’am,” you responded softly.

“Hm?”

“He picked me up and carried me when I couldn’t get myself up.” You tried a sip of tea to help swallow back more tears. It was very sweet tea, you gagged at first. “He dug when I couldn’t no more.” A sob worked its way up as you coughed out “God, I r-really wish he weren’t all alone out there right now.”

Carol took the mostly full cup from you and placed it on the dresser, while Patricia’s hands slowed where she was examining you. “Why’d y’all dig?” she asked.

You slumped where you sat. “The family who’d boarded up their house, the ones from Mexico?”

“The Bardales?”

Your lips wobbled and you could only nod to tell her yes, that was them, then shake your head back and forth to try and relay what happened to them.

She understood. “All of them?” she whispered.

“Th-there’d been a break in, and they’d,” you had to wait until your voice stopped shaking, “they all caught the fever, besides.”

That’s when her hands stopped and you could feel her go rigid. “Was they dead or infected?”

You had no idea what she meant and were too tired to get clarification. “Both.”

“Patricia, I’m going to get you a glass, too,” Carol murmured, and stepped out.

You and the woman sat in silence. When you tried to put your shirt back on, she put a hand on your arm to stop you.

Carol came back and handed Patricia the glass filled with iced tea.

“How did you know they was infected if they was dead?” she finally voiced.

You looked to Carol because you didn’t know what to say or what Patricia meant. She returned your concerned expression and spoke up. “I think she’s asking, um…in what way you found the family.”

Patricia nodded.

“Turned.”

And the words “Infected doesn’t mean they were dead,” cursed from Patricia’s mouth in a tone of voice you’d never heard her use before.

Talk about feeling humiliated and naked and having your soul bared, you literally did not have a shirt on.

“That is what infected means,” Carol disagreed out loud, to your surprise.

Patricia countered, angry and quiet. “Infected means sick.”

But Carol remained gentle and even. “I know it hurts when you’ve lost a loved one to it, but there’s no cure because the person dies first.” She looks down and shrugged in her shy, unsure way. “That’s the one thing we can’t cure.”

“But they come back, we see it.”

“Not alive,” you were able to verbalize as your stress stutter decided to make an appearance. “Not even the CDC c-could fix it. All they found was that infected people die, and the virus takes over.”

“They ain’t found a cure yet,” the woman spat. “A lot of things can look like dyin’, the heart rate can slow—”

“—They die and you know it. What we see walkin’, it-it-it’s just their bodies, ma’am, just the basest part of the brain. The soul is,” there you went swallowing back another sob and failing, “gone because they died and are still dead.”

“We were there, Patricia,” Carol spoke up again. “At the CDC, we talked to the only man still there, we saw proof. There’s nothing left.”

“Don’t lie to me in my own home,” she warned her.

“Don’t insult guests in your own home,” you hissed back, furious that she’d accuse Carol of lying. You clenched your teeth, held back your groan as you stood, wiped the hot tears from your cheeks with your good arm, and tried to put on your shirt so you could walk out with Carol—who stopped you.

She hadn’t lost an ounce of her gentleness yet. “Y/N, don’t get angry. This family hasn’t seen what we have.”

“Well, w-we seen one who’s head got sliced off and it still tried bitin’, but they still think we’re stupid, heartless murderers for laying their bodies to rest!”

“Look what they’ve done for us.” Carol gestured to your stitches. “Look at what they’re doing to help us, what they’ve already done.” She then gestured outside to your group’s campsite, then toward where Carl’s room is.

You still fully expected to get thrown out, but Patricia sat there, lost in thought. She inclined her head to where you’d been sitting by way of inviting you to stay. You remained by the door anyway, you felt too absolutely-fucking-like-garbage to have sat down then.

“You saw one with their head cut off still tryin’ to attack?” the woman then asked, staring at nothing with her brows drawn close. “Wasn’t no nerve reflex, or, or…” she trailed off.

“They’ll keep attacking unless their brain is damaged,” Carol replied. “That’s where the virus, um—you know.” Her eyes turned wet again and she bowed her head as tears of her own fell on her lap.

After more silence, you whispered to Carol for help getting your shirt on. “I just want to lie down before Mr. Greene expects me.”

“No, sweet pea, come back. I wanna help you get some range of motion back, come on.” Patricia, who apparently could hear your whisper just fine, waved you over and patted the spot on the bed. “I’m sorry. Thank you for sharin’ with me. There’s some…things I’ll need to think more on, discuss.” To herself, she muttered, “I need to, I need to talk to Hersh about this.” She next locked eyes with the two of you. “But until then, any walkers you find on our property, tell us. Don’t do nothing, just tell us first.” Then, she pointed to you and made an apologetic smile. “And here,” she held out the mini tissue box from the far end-table. “You need one awful bad.”

The mood in the room improved. She gave an extremely thorough, long massage to your neck, shoulder, and arm muscle on your bad side. Homegirl must weight lift or something, because she gave you back so much range of motion that you created a false memory of having taken painkillers.

“You didn’t give me anythin’, Miss Patricia?”

“No, but I will before you head upstairs to shower off, maybe antibiotics, too, but let’s wait and see if you develop an infection first. Oh, and you’ll need a waterproof bandage, let me find one in here.” She rummaged around her kit, found one, and handed it to you. “Take it off the site once you towel dry.”

now

Daryl is hurt. He’s alone and hurt!

Use the walkie, brainless.

Those words snap into your (brain?) where you’re hyperventilating against the brick chimney in the back of the farmhouse. Carol has the pink one, Glenn has the yellow one; all you need to do is find one of them.

It crosses your mind that he might would’ve radioed if he was hurt.

Which in the next moment, flips into the idea that what if he’s too hurt to even use it?

Which then quickly devolves into wondering why you’re being such a dramatic idiot. He probably doesn’t even remember he has it, it’s probably turned off, and he would be too proud to use it, anyway…

…who cares, you still need to try, you need to know if your friend is safe.

You push off the wall you were leaning into and — ohh whoa.

What is — oh no, you remember this feeling.

You waver where you stand, then turn to press your forehead against the cool, rough bricks. Shoot, how are you gonna get out of this, how are you gonna get back inside?

Your body flushes with heat, your stomach turns cold, and a sensation in between pain and panic burns your chest and lungs as you try to catch your breath; you’re about to pass out for the dumb-ass mistake of not drinking enough fluids. Shittttt, why didn’t you drink that glass of tea, in the least?

“Y/N?”

Rick. That’s Rick’s voice.

“Ricky,” you slur, “don’t freak and don’t tell Shane, but I need f-faint for sec…”

................................................

Him

“Daryl, why aren’t you usin’ that walkie? This was the whole point of them, mangy hick!”

Y/N.

Y/N?

He tries to open his eyes. Did they get stitched up and have enough to drink? Is their shoulder okay? They probably have a sling again, he’d bet money on it.

“It’s okay, man, leave your eyes closed. I know you’re exhausted.” A nudge. “M’sorry, I should oughtn’tve chided you about the walkie.”

No, he wants to open his eyes, he wants to see Y/N! Everything hurts so fucking much but their voice makes him feel safer. The tugging in his chest is back full-force — Y/N is here!

“Dude, I ain’t really here, you know that.”

What? He tries to pry his damn eyes open so he can see them, he needs to see their face.

“But you do know that you’re gonna need to get up soon. Find the walkie if you can, call for help, okay? Please.” He feels their hand lightly touch his wrist. “I’m worried about you, so is Carol.” Their voice sounds like they’re smiling now. “And our Carl’s gonna want to see the doll you found. Daryl, you found her doll!” A giggle. “And you know I’m gonna wanna tease you about how you’ve ripped the sleeves off yet another of your poor shirts.”

He finally got his eyes open and saw…a blur. Green. Leaves, branches.

Y/N.  

Ugh, fuck, opening his eyes made his head hurt, though. “I can’t believe you were right about the damned walkie talkies,” he grumbles, cracking up as best he could but fuck, it hurt.

A strange static noise comes from his left. Is that the…that’s the walkie, isn’t it?

Y/N makes a face. “At least it’s nearby. I’m glad. It sounds funny, though, might could’ve gotten broken on the fall down. Maybe waterlogged.”

“I wish you were really here.” Hell, if they’re all in his head, he can be as big a pussy as he wants.

Their smile fades. As they trace their fingertips along his hairline, he could swear it felt real. “Daryl, you need to get up. I know how bad it hurts, and I’m so sorry you’re alone right now, but you need to get up. Please.”

He tries to lift his head. Pain and spinning and nausea.

So he tries to twist to his side instead and is met with more pain, that damn bolt is still lodged in there. Shit, he feels like he’s gonna hurl. “Y/N. I don’t think I can,” he admits, unable to hold back a groan.

“Quarter.”

He would have snorted, but it would make the pain worse. “Fuckin’ serious, I d-don’t—I don’t think I can—” Great, he’s starting to cry, which is making everything hurt worse because his breathing gets faster. “I don’t think I can, Y/N.”

“Bullshit. You can and you will. Now, honey — turn your head, you’re gonna get sick.”

Sure enough, he feels his mouth water, his stomach lurch, and there it comes.

Their cooing reaches his ears, just like earlier today when he was bugging out over some dirt.

It was only a second, and he was done. He turned his head back and rested it against the rock or whatever it was he was laying on. Just so damned tired…

“No. Daryl, you can’t do that, not now.” They sounded firm but still so gentle at the same time. “I-I think you need to get that thing out — I get leavin’ it in until you make it to help is the usual way of things, but it’s gonna do worse damage with it in there ’cause of where it is. You’ll be able to stop the bleedin’ better once it’s out.” They look him in the eyes again. “Do what you need to do to get yourself home to us.”

“Back there ain’t ‘home.’”

They huff. “Not with that attitude, it ain’t.”

He can’t help but smile. That’s how Y/N would’ve reacted, no damn doubt.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re not so bad at this imaginary stuff,” they tease him. “Maybe you should imagine yourself a chupacabra, encourage you to move.”

When he wills himself to open his eyes again, hoping to see them smiling, they aren’t. Instead, they look like they got the wind knocked out of them. They’re sweaty, drained, like they’d been when he’d left them back at the farm.

“This is goin’ to be rough as hell and it’s gonna hurt like it, too. But ain’t that just like so much other shit you been through? Now, you listen good,” and their finger pressed against his chest right where the tether between them was. “Don’t die, don’t get bit. I told you that as you left, Daryl. But if you don’t get up and get that thing out of your side so you can wrap it tight and come home, you are gonna die. Even if there weren’t dead people walkin’ and making things ten times more dangerous.”

How was it that he was strong enough to dig and carry and do so much just a few hours ago, and now he can’t manage turning onto his side or lifting his head? Even talking hurts right now.

“Just—Y/N, how do I get up?” he groans and winces, trying and failing again to sit upright even a little. “Why am I bein’ such a pussy that I can’t I get past this part?”

After grimacing, then mumbling for him to not use that word that way, they point behind themselves with their thumb. “I think he’s gonna have to help you with that part. I wish it could be me, but you know. Stitches and shoulder.”

“‘He?’” he repeats.

“As lost as you’ve felt without him—when he bullies you, if-if you can’t stand up for yourself, please try not to believe the lies, okay? Cruel don’t mean true, a lot of the time it’s the opposite.

He looks again to try to see who was there. Didn’t see nobody.

Y/N included. They were gone.

Upset to be alone again, and zapped from trying to lift his head and strain to see who was there, he lowers his head back down and rests his eyes.

................................................

You

“He probably doesn’t even have it on. Asshole.”

“You’re like, really upset, Y/N.”

“I guess!”

Glenn rolls his eyes. “What happened to you guys today, why are you like this? And with a sling again? And you literally fainted, Rick said?”

He’d been trying to recover an escaped chicken when he noticed Rick sitting with you on the ground, against the chimney out back while you glugged down a glass of sweet tea and a bottle of water.

“We j-just,” you don’t know how to describe it, “it was heavy, a-and I just want him back safe at home, is all. With Sophia.” You make one last attempt to contact him, lightly blowing into the walkie’s mic… before finally giving in and whispering “Daryl, please answer!” After a few moments in expectant silence that proves fruitless, you slide the walkie back into Glenn’s pocket and reach with your usable arm to pat the successfully-caught chicken he’s got snuggled in his arms like a football.

You lean back against the brick chimney and picture a teapot being taken off the burner. “And I passed out for only a mite, nothin’ exciting. Didn’t hydrate enough.”

Glenn nudges you gently with his tennis shoe. “Day’s not over yet. He’ll be back when the sun goes down.”

You inhale deeply, exhale slowly. “You’re right.”

“Tell me about earlier?”

You shake your head. “Later. Now, um, n-now’s not good.”

“Okay.” Glenn nods and looks down. “Sorry it was a bad day.”

“Maybe Sophia will come home and it’ll be a good one,” you mumble, not really believing it but wishing you did. “But we are pettin’ a chicken, so it can’t be all bad. Tell me about your day before I head back in?”

“I…tried talking to Maggie this morning. I don’t know what I was trying to do.” He rubs his face. “I brought the guitar we found on the highway over to the porch, and, I don’t know, was hoping she knew how to play so she could teach me, or something?”

Oh my. “You walked up to somebody’s front porch with an instrument you can’t play in the hopes she knew how?”

He gets red in his cheeks, forehead, and ears.

Good Moses, your face is warming on his behalf, too. “Glenn, is that where you were while we were goin’ over the day’s plans?”

“It gets better. I tried to act all tough, too.”

“You are tough, though.”

He mutters a quiet “thank you,” then stops stroking the hen in order to scratch his neck. “But, like, I tried to act all confident.”

“Confidence ain’t a bad thing,” you offer, albeit 100% out of your depth. You can offer objective advice only, not really anything from experience.

“Cockiness is, though…”

“Oh no.” Glenn acting cocky? That ain’t kosher. Maybe he’s misreading his own actions? “At least you tried? You weren’t rude or pushy or nothing, right?”

“I don’t think so? I wouldn’t want to be.”

“Did you say anythin’ that if somebody said it to you, you’d feel unsafe?”

“Ew, no.”

“Good.” You have to rub your chest for a moment to get rid of the tugging. Leave it to you to dramatize a caffeine crash and dehydration as a sign from heaven that something bad happened to Daryl. “I’m gonna head back in, Hershel donated a pint to Carl. Best make sure both are doin’ well.”

“He what? Shoot, let me find Jimmy, I’ll do more stuff around here to help out.” He helps you stand. “And hey, if Hershel brings it up—dude, I had no idea that all Jimmy’d told his mom was that he was ‘gonna help’ us, and that he didn’t end up asking Hershel.”

“That was way more on Jimmy than on you and the rest of us. You kept him safe out there, that’s gotta count in our favor.”

“Except Daryl stealing a horse is definitely not in our favor.”

You sigh and feel that strange tugging again. “We’ll make it up to them.”

................................................

Him

It felt so much better to keep his eyes closed, but someone’s standing over him now. Must be whoever Y/N said would help him get up.

What was that they said about ‘missing’ and ‘bully?’

He strains to get his eyes open so he can see whoever is above him.

His eyelids feel so damned heavy, man, he just wants to close them again.

All he can see is the green of the treetops at first.

The outline of a person’s head come into view once his vision stops being blurry.

Then it clears.

A smile finds its way to the corners of his mouth. He’s missed him. Felt so lost and out of place without him. His own blood.

“Why don’t you pull that arrow out, dummy? You could bind your wound better.”

Yeah, that was him alright. He’s missed him so much. 

“Merle.”

................................................

next part > here! <

> Masterlist link here <  

and our teeny tiny taglist :D

@spenciepoo338 @its-freaking-bats @whistlesalot @buffy-the-assbutt-slayer  @dreamingaboutthewonderland @kwazii-kat @darylsmavis​

(inbox is open if you would like on or off the taglist, slowpokes. Please don’t feel bad or nervous if you don’t want to be tagged anymore,  just let me know, we’re all friends here!) 

................................................

Bonus for those who survived til the end of Part 1:

This is why he doesn’t have any sleeved shirts left.

follow for more DIY shirt ideas #upcycle

[definitelynotshouting]

I’ve been trying to grasp why I’ve been so in love with hunger au, and it wasn’t until looking up the lyrics to ‘ibuprofen’ to try and spoil the next chapter for myself (I am very good at making things up) that I figured out why.

Your World building is beautiful and I’m a massive sci-fi fan I thought that was why I was originally so invested, but I realized that the entire story (as of rn) can be read as a metaphor for a type of personality disorder?

This isn’t me saying that the story MUST be a metaphor, or even that you intentionally wrote it like that, but goddamn it does click some button in me like oh!!

Sometimes w personality disorders it feels like all you can do is hurt people. You’re carefully restricting your actions and expressions so you dont ever get too comfortable and hurt someone, but you inevitably fail and all you can do is feel bad because you were able to be yourself and meet some kind of internal satisfaction but the result is other people being hurt and you still aren’t happy cause that’s inherently a bad thing.

And then the logical conclusion is that you should never speak or hang out with people (or like. Live.) ever again because it’s not right to be hurting other people with your mere existence.

Idk if anyone else has mentioned this before but yeah that’s this for me lol. But!! Help exists!!! and Grian will get help too with his watcher tendencies after he realizes that his existence isn’t inherently detrimental and that there are solutions for his problems if he uses his big boy words and asks.

And no one will forgive him for what’s happened overnight, and those who forgive him will still have been hurt, and some of his relationships will be permanently altered because of the way he’s hurt them. But it’s not the end for him and it’s not the end for anyone else!!

Sorry this is so long! Idk if I should tag anything sensitive in case you decide to respond so Ima leave that to you— I’m a tumblr lurker I’ve been here for years but never commented on anything lol. Ty for the story, keep living laughing and loving (It’s what Grian would want apparently) and have a good one!

placing some obligatory tws here for those with post filtering: tw for discussions of mental health, personality disorders, and minor suicidal ideation (in the ask)

alright with that out of the way this is actually really validating for me to hear bc a lot of what you're seeing in this has been inserted very deliberately. While its not intended to fully be a metaphor for having a personality disorder, a lot of what's been depicted does draw on that, so im really glad this resonates with you!!

At its heart and core, hunger au is about the raw process of recovery, and how grueling but ultimately rewarding it is to commit to getting better. Showing this process through the fic is, i suppose, my way of holding the hand of everyone who is struggling with their own recovery and saying "i see you. i understand. you arent alone."

I cant overstate how humbled i am by everyone who has taken the time to tell me how theyve seen themselves in hunger au. And the fic is just getting started!!! The fact that people are resonating this hard with it at only 5 chapters in just blows me away. Its everything ive wanted for this fic. Thank you for taking the time to tell me this, because im truly so grateful that i am making an impact with it, no matter how small or personal.

[thefringespod]

It has been a bit of an awful week but it's officially #AudioDramaSunday! Here is the list of shows that kept me from resorting to violence this week

Let's start things off with @thesiltverses which I am now fully caught up with and I just. I love it so much. The way it builds these religions and saints and whatever the hell Val is is just so fascinating and also fucked up (affectionate) Its so so so good

@re-dracula had a 2 hour (!!) long episode this week and my gods it was glorious. We're getting close to the end now y'all and it's gonna be so goddamn good

THE EELS HAVE ARRIVED!! @eelerschoice episode 1 dropped this week and I'm already obsessed! I want to know everything about this world and these big eels!!! The world building that was done in ep 1 has me gnawing on wood like a bidoof I can't wait to see what comes next

We are in the midst of Tiny Terrors 31 Days of Halloween and it's all SO GOOD

Favorite from the first week:

-The Wrong Reflection

-The Rot

-Boy in the Mask

-Men Only

But seriously all of the episodes have been stellar and Tiny Terrors is just so much fun to begin with

@doyoucopypod hurt me this week <3 which I have come to expect <3 This show is just a beautiful (and at times terrifying) depiction of grief and the different ways to handle it. It makes me cry but I love it so much

@kingmakerpod was back at it again this week and it was SO GOOD!!!!! Colette on her own is so much more confident than she was in the first season. She's killing people on purpose now and it is her right <3

Now that I'm caught up on TSV I'm fully diving into The Wyrd Side and I am loving it so much. Its like if true crime was actually fun, I love the style of the show and love every bit of supernatural mystery it uncovers

On the Fringes front I'm still working through editing and my cast is still making me cry with their immense talent. I'm also writing all of the very plot heavy episodes of season 3 currently and I think yall are gonna like what happens <3

And in case you missed it we've had our first 2 cast announcements for @forgedbondspod ! Tot and Tay are a joy to work with and im so grateful they've decided to put up with me for another show. Current writing episode 6 and very Sapphic things are afoot :)

That's all for this week! Things are a little rough on the day job front (someone quit out of nowhere and I've absorbed even more of his work than I had already been doing) but the busy-ness there just makes me want to throw more of myself into these shows <3

[littlegoopz]

26.11.24 - entry 003

there is this childlike part of me in which yearns and craves the approval, attention and praise of others and it kills me inside. i feel like i don’t necessarily have an inner child as opposed to being the child myself, like im a seven year old trapped in a twenty year old body and the only great thing about it is the perks of being an adult, you know ?

instead of having an inner child to nurture, i feel like there’s two souls within my body, that of a child and that of an adult. my natural resting place is the thin blended line between the two and i veer off to my childlike side when i watch cartoons and play/tend to my dolls, but not in an age regression sort of way, because i still swear and i watch the cartoons/shows that i watched as a child with a more critical lens in hopes of understanding the deeper meanings hidden within them. and then i’ll veer off into my adultish side during serious situations, like when im babysitting or completing important paperwork or anything of that nature, when i need to lock the fuck in, you know ?

but my resting place rests between the two and i feel i spend most of my time in a childlike state because of nostalgia and just wanting to be a kid again, free of responsibilities, and free of the trauma of the hardships that i’ve faced.

i enjoy certain things, be it games, music, books and all sorts of forms of media and it takes quite a lot for me to get into new bands or shows and stuff because im so used to the things that i like already, you know ? unless i find something really really cool, like a specific band/genre of music or a game, and when i do, i usually find the people who are fans of said piece of media, cool too, you know ? because of that fact, i get super excited to get into it, learn about whatever they’ve got going for them and stuff, but i feel that sick childlike sense of yearning for approval again. as if i want someone who’s a fan of, this specific band, let’s say, to notice me and say “hey you like them, too ? so do i! that’s so cool, you’re so cool” and it’s so grating.

i can’t make this feeling go away and it happens with seemingly fucking everything! and because of this feeling i feel like such a poser, like a fraud, like all of my interests aren’t actually mine and that i only like them or got into them because i subconsciously crave the approval of others, the attention of others in which i look up to, who rest on a tall pedestal that my brain has automatically forced them to rest upon.

but the thing is, i do genuinely love my interests, so incredibly much. whenever i try to get into something i think i would like that i end up not actually liking, i just leave it and move on. so the fact that all of my interests are still there, have kept me enticed for so long, is proof of my enjoyment of them. but this goddamn feeling, this sandpaper-like voice in the back of my mind won’t let me think otherwise. i just hate it so much because it’s all my fault. im just ruining everything for myself like, fuck, why can’t i just enjoy something without craving approval ?

it’s like when a child won’t stop yelling about something when two people are having a conversation and they just keep repeating themselves until someone gives them a short reply to satisfy their need for an answer before returning to, said conversation. yeah, nobody is giving that feeling, that voice of mine, a curt response, and it’s not taking any hints from the visceral cringe i endure every time it happens.

it’s not like i completely hate this childlike part of myself, i feel safe, comfortable enough to fully indulge in my childlike interests when in that state of mind but, the need for validation feels like a cross-contamination from my adult part of me, insecurities seeping through.

the feeling of my interests, my words, thoughts, opinions, my entire being and existence in this world, not being worthy enough on their own. it’s something i feel quite often and its tainting everything. i often feel unheard, it’s why i journal my feelings and vent online, because literally nobody listens to me, whether im sad or whether im happy about something and i want to show someone else because i get super excited. im always met with short responses and have been for my entire life. it’s not surprising why this feeling has blossomed within me, yet i hate it all the same, i want it to stop because it makes me feel so pathetic and small and i mean, who am i, right ? what makes me so important as to need attention from others ? praise and validation ? im just a random girl, you know ? idk. this sounds so “woe is me” doesn’t it, god, that’s not what it was meant to be, i just wanted to vent a little…whatever, anyway, that’s all.

- linus

[xxwelxx]

I’m finally reading Blacklight Lens Flare 😁 spoilers ofc

Live thoughts (and childhood experiences yaay) :3 I’m writing as I go !!! This is very long btw

I’m so happy they get to explore a movie setting, I love movie settings I’m giggling and kicking my feet over here (I used to be interested in becoming a movie director when I was younger :,D it makes me happy to see my fav unit so passionate abt smth like this too)

Having to retake a whole scene bcz of a bug is so funny, I think I would lose my mind if an extra did that but I’ve never worked with extras so I wouldn’t know :p (but I can assume that it’d be a bit of a pain)

Also my experiences in directing movies was all done as a child, I would get my friends and cousins excited to act in a movie and we’d film every scene right after the other with a script we make up as we go. So them talking about doing scenes out of order makes me rly wish I got to partake in a scripted film. Ofc I am eternally grateful for all the people who actually went along with what I was envisioning. Even if it was rly frustrating at times, we were all children and I knew this.

WAAHHHH THEYRE SO LUCKY BEING ABLE TO LEARN ON A LEGIT MOVIE SET 🥀🥀🥀fictional characters ur so lucky…

They mentioned The Best Film Wrap too oh wow that even story made me so so happy for Nene, (spoilers for that ahead) I was a little salty that the seniors won… as they always do… even if they don’t deserve it… (ig those guys deserved it but I’m mad at schools around the world prioritizing seniors always sigh) but hey at least someone saw their hard work and effort. I’m very biased coz I was only aware of what nene’s class did but she should’ve won 1st place just saying 😪😪 at least 3rd :(, I’m head canoning that the mystery judge told the other judges who their pick was and then the judges didn’t even include them in their own judgements…

LMAO intense director

Very intense director goddamn 😭😭

Omg Rui’s talking about lighting, a subject a lot of directors these days are too afraid of 😋😋 WHATT WHO SAID LOLLL the wind is soo loud today hahaha whattt (istg if they don’t start lighting up these sets so I can see idk what I’m gonna do)

HIS FACE IS SO SERIOUS PLSS

YAAYY differences between theatrical and and film perspectives I am eating this event uppp oh wow. This event means sm to me

Rui talking abt film directing this is like everything I could’ve wanted I’m gonna sob on the floor

He’s so lucky… fictional character u r so lucky…

Sickening sickening

“Everything” intense director #2 LMAO

Omg rui’s not like other actors, these guys r so funny relax a bit

Mr fictional character u r so.. so.. lucky….

RIN 😭😭

He’s missing lunches…. Not even like a nutrition bar or smth? This intensity is so unhealthy I hope they eventually address it goodness gracious, and not just for rui either.

Hajime leaving the way a cat does so it doesn’t leave you with grief of its death wow wow. I haven’t talked abt the movie being filmed itself coz there wasn’t much to say, but this seems like a nice movie.

Woah the voice acting in this alone is so raw and quiet, I’m having trouble figuring out the potential framing of a scene like this esp in a loud environment like an airport. I feel like there would be a lot of distractions they can add to enhance a scene like this but that’s just my thoughts on an x + y = 7 equation if that makes sense. This was so random if I were to actually direct a scene like this I wouldn’t be surprised if everything I said was irrelevant to a final product. Still tho I can’t rly imagine what they’re going for off of only the voice acting and explanation.

Omg being able to portray something wrong on purpose is so difficult, even thru voice acting I legit said “WOAAHHH” out loud n 3 seconds later it’s mentioned everyone felt smth was off LMAO so I’m glad to see I wasn’t just being super nitpicky and it was intentional. This happens to me A LOTT any movie or story that has a plot twist character always has that character so oddly played and it makes me feel like the writers, actors or directors don’t care abt those characters. Then a reveal happens and I realize it’s on purpose. The only problem I have with noticing that is the fact that it unimmerses me from the universe they try to build and it makes me criticize these people in my head throughout the duration of the medium. I think that’s not smth they should be striving for, this is a very difficult thing to pull off n I’m just a freak for directing so I notice it a lot more. Maybe a casual viewer wouldn’t lose immersion for smth like that. Idk u guys tell me if u experience anything like this as well.

If they’re able to still have adequate foreshadowing that doesn’t make me question the director’s intentions over a character’s, I think they did a good job. Otherwise I’m just sat there flaming a director I don’t know for an hour+ lmao. It makes me feel a little better for the character but again it’s just smth was still wrong, whether it was me or them idk..

AHEM anyways back to the story, this director makes everyone so nervous I think he needs to relax a little for everyone’s sake. Ya he produces good results but u can get the same answer with multiple equations.

Okay this is amazing to see 😭😭 it was quiet on purpose and I wasn’t just imagining things, I bet he’s not used to how quiet he actually has to be for a movie vs theater

I love being correct sometimes

Did they not rehearse this scene at all?? A climax scene?? No rehearsing b4 booking a set to not waste time?????? okay :3 I’ll believe it

This director is so silly.. plz take care of ur crew man..

Before I read the rest of this, I wanna see if I can figure out what the problem will be. The part where he mentions “I bet that’s not even your real name” was said with too much disbelief rather than with the anger it deserves. It still feels like a string of lines that can and should be said quietly, but they should also be said quietly with the right emotions. He ramped it up right before they cut but I feel like the part he ramped up to should have been the energy he used to ramp up to something more. That’s my prediction, I’ll tell u how close I am when I get there :3

BROOO THESE PEOPLE NEED TO EAT 😭😭💀 THEYRE OVER HERE WONDERING WHY THEY CANT PLACE THEIR FINGER ON WHAT’S WRONG AND THEY’RE NOT GIVING THEIR BODIES THE SUSTENANCE IT NEEDS TO EVEN THINK don’t piss me off bro…

Bro. Bro they’re rly pissing me off bro 😭😭 BRO EAT EAT SOMETHING EAT STARVING WONT HELP U THINK

UR ALLOWD TO THINK WHILE EATING LIKE ITS NOT THAT HARD PLEASE I’m so angry man..

Editing the footage of sloppy acting is definitely one choice but honestly I think they need to address the root of the issue which I believe to be the acting itself. Also I think they need to eat smth before they get even dumber.

Oh lol literally the next line was saying essentially what I did (minus the eating part coz they’re stupid)

WOAH WHO’S THIS

Inchresting, changing a scene to suit an actor more, now that’s something I’m used to, I didn’t think it’d be the answer tho. Since we were all children and we had no script, I had adapt and compromise EVERY SINGLE SCENE to make sure it was still fun for everyone in the end. Except for my first attempt with my youngest cousin, I think her siblings got rly mad at her when she was messing things up. It was literally the final stretch of the movie tho so I think we were just desperate to get it done. WAIT NO I REMEMBER WHY SHE GOT MAD. It was the first part of a “horror” movie coz they eventually had to leave, and she got mad that she was killed off 😭😭. Wow the memories of that movie, I actually learned so much from it and still hold onto principles that made themselves known to me when I first filmed that. It was utter garbage looking back at it now but it’s still near and dear to my heart. After that I forced more of my cousins and friends to film “movies” with me, I didn’t act in most of them but I hope I made it as fun for them as they did for me. I remember also editing one of them.

WOAHH INTENSE DIRECTOR RELAAAAXX

HE WATCHED ALL OF REKI’S WORK IN LESS THAN A DAY ARE U OKAY MAN BRO I SWEAR IF U EAT SOMETHING YOU WONT HAVE TO THINK THIS HARD MAN PLEASE JUST EAT AN ORANGE OR SMTH did he even have breakfast? Tell me why I don’t think he did.

HE DIDN’T EVEN SLEEEEPPP AND YOU EXPECT TO THINK. Strike me down with lightning if I’m ever this stupid bro. I get it I’m also an insomniac but not getting energy from food AND sleep is a recipe for disaster this is horrible. U can’t skip both skipping both is so beyond bad.

Finally he’s getting fed, ur so right emu, tell him.

Oh thank goodness he realizes he needs it.

Wow would u look at that, food was the answer in more ways than one 💀

DID HE STILL NOT EAT BRO BRO ISTG

The script sucks so I was wrong :3 omg it was a novel??? Idk if I was distracted or they hadn’t mentioned it til now but still, if it worked in the novel there’s a way to make the impact of it work in film so maybe I’m not completely wrong and what I said is true.

These directors r so deprived of food I feel like I’m listening to internet explorer speaking to itself abt what to do.

Intense director is a freak..

THERE’S THE ANGERRR RAAHHHH thank goodness, they completely removed the problem part and lent its anger to the beginning yaayyy also the way they were trying to shoe horn book words instead of portraying it was a little funny I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was a novel 😭😭 esp if the co-star had no significant impact from those words alone it was so unnecessary to keep in that’s rly funny 💀💀 im so so sorry. Maybe they should eat next time and avoid oversights like this

I wasn’t completely correct but I still feel like a winner 😋

Dang directing is so fun, I wish I was able to do it more often.

FICTIONAL. CHARACTER. YOU ARE SO. LUCKY.

This npc is so funny

Dang cant wait for that event.

Anyways those r my thoughts 😋😋 definitely my favorite event story and just event in general. Still very mad at them never addressed the food thing.. like………. Likeeee……… but wtv ig.. these stories rly make me wish I continued my path towards directing or acting or anything. Rn I can’t but I hope one day I can find that path again.

Thx for reading :3c