#but now I KNOW with RELATIVE CERTAINTY

[headslikekites]

finally figured out how to analyze dmp files and now I know that the mystery crashes plaguing me for months are because of a faulty gpu 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[rae-gar-targaryen]

darling, how could i fear any hurricane? [qimir/the stranger x force sensitive!reader]

Summary: Neither the backwater planet you’d chosen for yourself, nor the sanctity of your own mind, is safe from the nightly visitations of your dream stranger. Is he real, or just another trick of the mind? And what of the power he promises? Desire, he’d spoken of. Desire, desire, desire…

Pairing: Qimir/The Stranger x Force-Sensitive!reader [my reader is written ambiguously, but as with all of my reader inserts are written with a Latina!reader in mind]

Warnings: 18+ please – fingering, dry humping, the brief mention of choking, Qimir being a seductive motherfucker, relatively minor smut, all things considered. The briefest descriptions of violence; reader has female anatomy.

Word Count: 5.7k of sinful soliloquy and definitely no manipulation. No, you want this power, don’t you??

A/N: Breaking my writing drought with this. I don’t know if it’s any good, and no one asked for it. But I’m glad to be sharing my writing again. Please be gentle!! Also, if you’ve ever read my Mandalorian x princess!reader fic, there’s an easter egg in here for you!

--

The verdant planet of Vorduun was known for very little – A small, outer-world, far from the shiny Core planets that boast chrome, progress, and bureaucracy. Lush plantlife, a fertile place with brimming riverbanks, and jungles teeming and thrumming to life with flora and fauna at the turn of the seasons. Off the edge of the map. Off the edge of the world. A perfect place to hide.

To lose yourself. 

And the night is stifling, to say the least. Of all the Vorduunian summers you’d endured in your self-isolation, this one had to be the worst. The months’ long deluge of spring rains had made for a stiflingly humid summer, the green jungle steaming with sticky heat. If a saving grace was to be found in the swelter, it was that the night skies were unlike everything you’d ever beheld – a far cry from the fluorescent pollution endemic of your years on Courscant. 

Tonight's Vorduunian sky is no exception – a clear expanse of rich velvet, stars like diamonds crushed into the smooth folds of the expansive sky. Twinkling and winking richly down at you through the gaping slats of the shack you now called home. 

You twist, a serpent in your own threadbare bedsheets, attempting to find comfort in the sticky summer heat of the planet, chasing the elusive promise of coolness as you flip your pillow to the other side with a huff. 

Kind of a sick game, if you thought about it. That if you weren’t running from something, you were chasing something else. 

At present? Chasing a good night’s rest. Preferably dreamless, if you were honest. Your dreams of late are plagued with all sorts of incomprehensible flashes, feelings of being watched, feverish and hazy. Your subconscious’s foreboding certainty that if you’d only just turn around, you’d be met with a face that was not your own -– the disquieting sense of something, or someone, lurking just around a corner. Sprinting down echoing hallways with promises, greatness, a warrior's oath, all just out of reach, certain that if you’d slowed your pace, whatever was pursuing you might just snatch you, an unseen stranger.

Other nights, the dreams were different – the unflinching and unchanging grin set in a mask of metalloid teeth, baring themselves at you . Of ever-watchful eyes judging, as you forced yourself through training drills. The disapproving shake of your Master’s head, his disappointment palpable and always, always directed at only you . The seizing terror of being dropped into combat with no saber – of being skewered through by an unseen shadow with a red plasma blade. Of walls closing in on you. Of the Knights whom you had once considered your friends turning their backs on you while you fought tooth and nail. Of your lungs filled with your unreleased screams – of terror or frustration, you weren’t sure – pulling you down beneath the surface of your failure until you drowned in the disappointment of others’ unfulfilled expectations. Of hands on an unseen body tinkering with phials of something, producing poisonous concoctions of sickly green that the unseen stranger dripped down your throat, pouring them past your lips with sure, warm fingers pressing on your tongue. You swore you could feel the poison upon your waking, the phantom feeling of liquid shredding your veins with horrific heat, your heart thundering. 

Other nights the dreams were different yet, still. Of shadows shedding their inky cloak to reveal hands that caressed. Of hands that held you and wiped your tears. Of thorns falling from vines – leaving what once had pricked and scratched you to now soothe with velvety softness as the vines wound their way around your wrists, tugging you into an unseen embrace with whispers of promises humming in your ears like the tufty wings of insects. And you would go willingly. Of the warm breath of another in your ear, their body warm behind you, distinct in its softness from that of the sunwarmed cliffs the two of you would watch the sunset from, just you and your unseen stranger. Of those same metalloid teeth melting into a radiant smile of brilliant white, beheld in a sharp jaw – the critique of disapproving masters replaced by his balmy, sublime approval. 

Of the tease and taste of his cinnamon lips brushing your own, the fluttering fan of lashes along the peaks of your cheekbones. Of warm, wan whispers of want , desire , soothing your ears. Of warm, fine-boned, assured hands atop your own, guiding yours in a sensuous glide along your own skin. Promises of m ore, more, more as silken lips slipped their way along the column of your throat – your hitching gasps met with his rumbling hums of satisfaction that lasted in your ears for the duration of the following day. Of the gentle lapping of water over smooth-rocked shores, a hand grasping yours with a promise of power. Yet again of more, more, more, if you’d just … Well, you weren’t sure. 

What you were sure of was that it had been weeks of these dreams. Your exhaustion was tugging at the corners of your reality, manifesting itself into silly mistakes – a slipped knife while cutting your meals, or the prickling feeling of someone watching from the dark corner of your room. At times, you weren’t sure what was real and what was dreamscape. A slow descent into madness, torment that felt justified, somehow –-

This purgatory was clearly your penance for your failure. To atone for the fact that you could never be more than what you are now – a former padawan cast out of a renowned Order, thanks in part to her own passions and propensities, roiling rages, and lilting lust. A warrior stripped of all pomp and credential. A blistering reminder of something never to be, of someone you could never be. 

And so here you were. Piteous and exiled in the jungles of Vorduun with no one other than your occasional unseen dream stranger for company. And what of tonight? Had you slept? Were you asleep? The hazy jungle heat made it impossible to tell. When your days consist of the same, tedious routine maintenance to your little corner of jungle, purely isolated, save for irregular treks to the nearest settlement to barter … And when you tossed and turned your nights away in fitful fugue states of half-awake melded with oppressive dreams – well, who was to say what was really real?  

The ghost of a touch along your exposed shoulder didn’t merit a response … Until it happened again. Causing you to sit bolt upright in bed, eyes tracking the room for any disturbance – seen or unseen. 

That prickle, so like static rippling across your skin couldn’t be the Force. No, no. It was the trickle of sweat down the back of your neck, and nothing else. What reason would you have to feel the Force here, now? 

Just another heated night, just another heated dream….

And now, were your eyes deceiving you, or were the shadows in the corner of your room were moving, swirling into shape as a well-toned arm emerges from the darkness, raised in a gesture of … peace? And the rest of him follows, stepping into the muted illumination from your single gaslamp that sputters in the corner of your room, casting his shadow along the opposite wall, sinuous and slinking as he slowly approaches. 

You spring from your bed, eyes darting to the loose slat in your floor where you housed your ill-used saber, quickly considering the relative size of your room and how many steps it would take him to reach you, arms outstretched, to snuff the life from you before you could call the blade to your hand . 

His eyes track yours, clocking the floorboard, before placing both hands up in front of him now, a plea – 

“You don’t need that,” he murmurs, taking a tentative step toward you. And whether it was the room that shrank around you both, or that was just his presence in your space – so unused to anyone but you – you weren’t sure.

“Need what?” Play dumb, and he won't have any reason to harm you, leaving you an opportunity to strike. Your favorite trick, a minor deception for a tactical advantage.

He steps into the dim, flickering light of the gas lamp, a mild smirk blooming along his full lips, the lamplight warming his skin.

“Your Jedi weapon.”

You glance once more between the loose floorboard and the man slowly approaching you, cocking your head as his features became revealed to you, your mind tickling with recognition as you noted the sharp angle of his jaw and the baleful, syrupy darkness of his eyes –

“You,” you breathe. “I know your face.”

“Do you?” His eyes meet yours, searching. 

Yes. You had a good memory for faces, and his you had seen a few times before. Your trips to the nearest settlement every tenday for the open-air market to barter what you had cultivated from the land around your ramshackle home for fruit, thread, and other goods you didn’t often come by on your own. You had seen him at a stall selling tinctures and other apothecary-type goods. You’d never approached, of course. Hadn’t had a need for burn creams or toxins. But there was no denying the swooping lock of hair that would curtain over his eyes, the sharp angle of his features. The way his eyes would track the movement of the market, hawkish, despite the seeming ineffectual haze in them…

A minor deception, you now realize. But for what tactical advantage?

“The chemist from the bazaar,” you reply.

His lips quirk at your realization – the bud of the smirk now unfurling into a full smile. 

“You’re more observant than I gave you credit for, warrior,” he stands before you now, hands still lightly held up in a gesture of peace. “That’s good… A nice surprise ,” his voice taking on an almost-purr of satisfaction.   

You pause, lips parting lightly. What could he mean by that? 

“Qimir,” he gestures to himself by way of introduction.

Qimir. Likely not his real name. Still, you ponder, an interesting choice. Qimir. Like Chimaera, something ancient and unknowable. A monstrous creature signifying the parable of illusion – the promise of something only too impossible to achieve. You wonder if he knew what his “name” sounded like when he’d picked it.

And you hope your face hasn’t betrayed your whirring thoughts as you continue your assessment, hoping to keep a sweep of neutrality across your features as you address him again.

“If you say so. Business must be slow if you’re here to rob me, poisoner. I’m afraid you’ll be sorely disappointed,” your eyes flit around the relatively bare bedroom, gesturing with your chin to the equally Spartan main room of your little ramshackle cabin. “Not much here of value.” 

He crosses one foot over the other as he takes a step to orbit you, almost swordsmanlike. As though he were preparing to duel. You mirror his step, your back to your bed now, facing your doorway. His body between yours and your exit. 

“I wouldn’t say nothing,” he brings a finger to his chin as if in ponderment. “You’re here, after all. And why would I give you my name, show you my face, if I intended to rob you?” 

“Why you do anything means nothing to me,” you bite, “and you’ll have to forgive my manners if I don’t feel like giving you my name. Leave, now , while I let you leave, Qimir.” 

His eyes sweep your form, note your weight on the balls of your feet, bracing for a fight. You probably have weapons other than your laser sword stashed away, if he had to guess . He takes a tentative step toward you, a low chuckle escaping him at the fire in your eyes, trying not to smile any wider than he has already, to give away his pleased impression of your fury. 

“I know who you are,” you blink at his statement, trying not to let the surprise show on your face. “You don't have anything to fear from me, little Jedi.”

“I am no Jedi,” you snipped, rolling your eyes at the insolence of the man before you. If he cared at all about your rude display, Qimir said nothing.

“I am more than aware of that, too,” he murmured, his voice like silk in your ears as he takes yet another small step toward you, invading your space, close enough to breathe your air, a hair’s breadth from touch.  

Too close. You flex your fingers, calling your lightsaber from its hiding place under your loose floorboard into the palm of your hand in a flash, the cool metal meeting your palm like an old friend, a sense of relief. You surge forward into Qimir’s space, pressing the hilt of the saber into his abdomen.

“If you know so much, then you also know you shouldn’t have come,” you snarl. “I don’t know if you didn't take the hint, here at the edge of the world, but I don't take kindly to uninvited guests.”  

“You did invite me, little viper,” he insists, his voice never losing its even, dulcet quality.

At your furrowed brow, he gently brings his fingertips to brush the bare skin of your wrist that’s pressing the hilt of your lightsaber into his stomach. A familiar, prickling ripple bursts across your skin, causing goosebumps to stipple your arms. So familiar. So like the feel of lips from your unseen stranger. So like the Force. 

The dark eyes that met yours in the low light of your room were familiar for more than just an observation in passing at the market. 

“Y-you,” you gasp, the realization causing your chest to seize, to clench your teeth in the wave of seething anger. “You’ve been … in my head … for months …” 

He cocks his head at you, watching the emotions process along your face. He had seen your fears and failures, your heart’s greatest desires. He had seen it all …

“The quickest way to your heart,” he reasons. “Through your head. So you’ll have to forgive my intrusion. I wanted to know you.” Sweet words meant to soothe.  

You aren’t sure if that makes it any better. Perhaps the reasoning makes it worse.

“So like a poisoner,” you level his gaze with a steely one of your own. “To try to slip through the cracks unseen. But I know the quickest way to your heart.”

“You do?” He seems surprised at your rejoinder. As if he hadn’t expected you to play. To be so quick of wit as you were of reflex.

“Between your fourth and fifth rib,” you hum, your voice taking on an almost-seductive tone – a contradiction to the reminder of you pressing the hilt of the saber into him, precisely where you mean to. 

“I appreciate a good threat. Clever,” he smiles, placating. “But there’s no need for that, little warrior. After all… I wouldn't leave you to the dark, not like they did,” he assures, brushing his fingertips against the bare skin of your wrist, so lightly you would’ve thought you’d imagined it. Using the contact to connect to you through the Force once more – your shared memories dancing behind one another’s eyes. Of your fellow Padawans succeeding while your Master only saw failure. Of the dazzlingly white smile of your classmate with the bronze skin and twists in his hair, his yellow lightsaber flashing as you drilled together, his smile fading to frown with the rest of his features as you had used the Force to push him away a bit too hard – rage bubbling to the surface – in direct violation of your training ordinances. Of your departure from Coruscant, no one to bid you goodbye, not even your training partner who had once called himself your friend.

You make to turn your head, to break contact with his dark, glimmering, all-seeing eyes. Like tar pits, drawing you ever deeper. His other hand catches your chin between thumb and forefinger, drawing you back to his gaze, an orbit you cannot escape. Would you even want to?

“And do you believe you would have belonged? The Jedi are deceivers. They deal in abandonment … cloaked in empty platitudes,” he trails his index finger along the curve of your  jawline, an almost illusory brush of his skin against yours – the whisper of a touch, as though to illustrate the point. “The wisp of a  promise, like spun sugar. Sweet, but false, their promises of righteousness. Of importance.”

Your lips part, catching the barest bit of his thumb as it does so, your eyes now searching his, seeking motive.

“And what do you offer instead? That's what this is, right? An offer?”

He smiles wider now, nodding in the barest acknowledgment. As though you’ve finally asked the right question.

“I … make the intangible tangible.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning …” his hand leaves the curve of your jaw to touch his fingertips to your temple, pressing, rendering a vision to your mind. And what Force magic was this? To make you see beyond your own eye’s sight. Foresight? An illusion? A vision? A memory? A promise or a deception?

Whatever it is, you see it so clearly – an uninhabited plant roaring with ocean as far as your eyeline can perceive. Waves lapping gently along grey-stoned shores. Moss-covered alcoves where you sit with him, your stranger, the sunset warming your skin as he caresses your face, your hair, whispering praises just beyond your mind’s own comprehension into your ear – the tone sinful, syrupy. His arms securing you in the night as you rest, no more dreams of abandonment. 

Warmth, endless warmth… as his lips trail the shell of your ear, down your neck, bestowing belief of besotted brushes of lips. Adroit affection aimed right at the heart of you. 

“Hmmm … meaning …. Your feelings, your power, your talent all working, to manifest toward something real. Something you want.” His hand leaves your temple and rests on your shoulder, taking advantage of your state of ponderment to gently guide you, ever mindful of the still-unlit lightsaber pressed to his stomach, leading away from your bed to the wall just next to the adjacent doorframe, the patient waltz of a waiting predator. He brings his hand to rest on the wall, next to your head.

“Something I want,” you reply dreamily, coming back to yourself just enough to realize what he’d said, exhaling through your nose in an indignant little huff. “In exchange for … ?”

“Tell me something,” he replies, lithely lilting around your question with one of his own, flexing his fingers where they rest on the wall. “Why are you no Jedi?” 

“I … abjured,” you admit, a bit too primly, the lightsaber now feeling like an unbearable weight in your palm at your words, the weight of choices – both your own and those of whom purported to teach you. To guide you to something greater. Was it as he said? Were their promises so meaningless? “Broke my oath,” you suck your lower lip between your teeth, pausing before daring to meet his gaze again. “I couldn’t … suppress how they wanted me to. I didn’t want to fail anymore. I was so tired of failing. So, I … abjured. I was weak.” 

Your eyes meet his once more at your admission, yours shining with unshed tears waiting to fall like stars. Shimmering promises to slip down your cheeks, unkept and unchecked. Your fingers fumbled, seemingly of their own accord, unwilling to hold the weight, the threat, of the saber against him any longer. The hilt clattered to the floor, a clanging finality to punctuate your words. And when was the last time you had been so honest, so vulnerable with another?

How … unlike you. 

“Not weak,” he cups your cheeks with both hands, fine-boned thumbs tracing the peaks of your cheeks, as though to wipe away your unshed tears. “The same as me. Power searching for its other half. An unwaning, unflickering flame.” 

Your unseen stranger, now seen, takes your hands in his, the buzz of the Force still tingling across your skin at his words, at the recognition of his power.

“You asked what I want. You want the same as me, and I the same as you. A companion . A partner. Unlike them, I won't judge you for your feelings. Won’t judge you for your power …  You want – I can feel it rippling across your skin,” he closes his eyes, cocking his head, shivering as though to illustrate the point. “... Mmm, and I want,  too. We can want together. If you'd let us.”

The flickering light of your room seemed to dim in tandem with his syrupy words, cloying and dripping like honey into golden nettle tea. The swirling honeytar of his eyes appraising you as the Force connection prickled with hazy heat between your bodies and the damnable musk of the jungle air.

You press yourself further into the wall he’d leaned you against, tilting your chin to appraise him in kind, searching for veracity in his words. Something more substantial than the “spun sugar” he’d accused the Jedi of weaving. 

As though he could sense your trepidation before it could cross your face, he placed a hand on your hip, the contact searing you through the thin fabric of your tank top.  

“They kicked you out because you feel. I'd never do that. I want you to feel … to feel power. To feel what you’re capable of. Of what it can become. Rage. Fear. Loss. Desire. Train with me, you’ll feel it all. I want you to feel it all … to feel me.”

Desire, he had spoken of. The gentle roll of his low voice over the syllables echoing perfectly in your ears. Desire, desire, desire. That desire, so  like venom snaking its way through your blood, hot and purposeful. An all-consuming burn through your blood, befitting of a poisoner as he. 

“You felt it, didn’t you? When I came in,” he iterates, somewhere south of a plea. “All. That. Power.” The hand not resting on your hip comes to cup your face once more. “I can teach you.” 

You had read somewhere once, in the Archives, about creatures on long-abandoned planets with the ability to draw their prey in through vanity. The flash of feathers. Or shiny scales. Big, baleful eyes, perhaps. Only to sink their teeth in once their intended had come too close. 

You draw in a breath, searching his pleasing face for any sign of a tell. Of the flicker of eyes that would signify deception. Of hidden fangs beneath his beautiful, full lips. Of anything that would bely his true intentions behind your Force connection. You swept your eyes across broad, defined shoulders, down toned, muscled arms exposed through his sleeveless shift. A warriors’ weapon wrapped in a pleasing package, to be sure. But … with no discernable hint of false suggestion. 

You shift your weight once more onto the balls of your feet, away from the wall and into him . Continuing your appraisal as you tilt your head, allowing the scent of his skin – the tang of sweat from the humid jungle air commingling with something sharp and clean – to wash over you. 

You invade his space now, leaning into the hand that grips your hip and the other that cradles your head, boldly brushing your lips along his with the barest hint of touch, feeling his lips smile against yours.

You whisper, your lips silken against his, “Tell me, poisoner … You seduce me with lies, is that it? You wish for me to call you Master? Forsake all else to worship at your altar?” 

You catch the flash in his eyes as the word “seduce” leaves your lips.

“I haven't lied to you,” his voice is a hum. An attempt to provide reassurance as he couples them with what he hopes is a comforting gesture. His fingers travel from your hip to trail your ribs, a partial embrace.

“Do you consider not telling the entire truth to be a lie?” 

“Have I shown you any lies? No. Just dreams. The promise of what could be. What I –,” he pauses, “– we could be. I cannot fabricate the Force, little warrior. Everything you feel tonight is you . It’s me. What more could you want? ” 

Your once-steely resolve is crumbling under the weight of his insinuation … "everything you feel tonight” –  the honey in his words sweet to your ears, you wonder fleetingly if he'd be even sweeter on your tongue. 

And he knew you, didn’t he? By his own admission, he’d seen your faults and flaws for months … your desires. And he had shown you promises, premonitions, predilections… a future of power. And if there is power in two hemispheres – one of sweltering heat, one of blistering ice. Which were you? And which was he? 

Together you would surely melt…

“No more rules, little warrior,” he sighs, “just the power of two.” He slides his lips across yours, purposeful, before capturing your lower lip between his teeth, nipping once before releasing, admiring the way your expression flickered from defiance to desire before surging forward, pressing you back into the wall as his lips capture yours.

He swallows your gasp, bringing his fingers to wrap loosely around your neck while his other hand slips beneath the hem of your shirt. 

You break from his kiss with a gasp between swollen, bitten lips. But he gives you no reprieve, his lips trailing to your neck, where he sets about pressing hot-mouthed kisses. Molten lava flooding the column of your throat, chased with the scrape of nipping teeth. Soothe and scrape. Push and pull. Give, give, give, take.  

You thread your fingers through the silken hair tucked behind his ears, tugging him from his ministrations on your neck and forcing him to meet your eyes – to see if the blaze of want you felt scorching your skin was reflected in the liquid coal, ready to ignite. 

His lips twist into a smirk at your insistent tugging; if he was at all surprised, he didn’t show it. His face the perfect picture of pleasure. 

“What would we do with it?” You inquire, “This power?” 

“Hmmm,” he pretended to ponder, suddenly scooping you, a brief lift as he crossed the short distance to your bed, seating himself with you on his lap. No concession of dominance; merely placing you precisely where he means to. To allow you to feel him beneath you. 

“What would you like to do, little warrior, hm?” His fingers flicked the thin straps of your flimsy sleep shirt, exposing your shoulders, leaning forward to trail his lips along the now-bared expanse of your shoulder, your collar bones, your neck, his eyes glancing up to watch your face as he went. “Make them pay? Take what’s yours?” 

His hands feel their way down your form, down your sides, along your hips, the skin of his palms rasping against the smooth expanse of your thighs has his fine-boned fingers make their way beneath the loose fabric of the cropped pants you sleep in, dangerously close to the precipice of your desire , urging you to move. Guiding your hips in a rhythmic glide in his lap. 

You gasp at his attentions, at the combination of his promises and the heady feel of his skin along yours, bringing your hands to grip his biceps – desperately seeking a way to anchor yourself. 

And if it’s his poison that will bring you to the edge, would you regret it? You were starting to believe you could never regret him , not at the feel of his chest pressed against yours, the toned muscle beneath your fingers. His sharp angles caressing your soft curves, replacing the lonely ache in your bones with the lovely heat of him, both his promises and his attentions.

His mouth was keyed and intentional in its work of you, with pressed kisses like flower petals blooming along the skin of your neck, followed by the scraping thorns of his teeth. Brutish and beautiful, as his fine-boned fingers crept to the inside of your thighs, rubbing along your clothed center, intensifying the ache you felt. He shifts your weight in his lap, causing your legs to spread wider, straddling him lowly as he tugs the offending fabric aside, guiding your hips into a roll over his clothed lap and his growing hardness. Manifesting his delight at the choked gasp you emitted in the form of a teasing little buck of his hips, guiding you down as he guided himself up, delighting in the sharp gasps that met his ears as he continues to sway you to his rhythm. 

“Desire isn't a sin, little warrior,” he breathes the words into your mouth, lips a hairs’ breadth apart, the better to swallow your moans. “What we feel feeds our connection to the Force, gives you strength ... If you know how. Let me show you. Touch me.” 

It was as though electricity was crackling, popping beneath your fingertips as you took his instruction and began to explore the expanse of his body, slipping your hands beneath his tunic to feel the silken heat of his firm torso, the ache within you mounting at the heady combination of the feel of his skin beneath your fingertips – so long since you’d touched another, been touched – and his hardness between the cleft of your thighs. Smoldering, low-heat burned along your skin and beneath your fingertips. Or was it his fingers that were doing the burning? It was hard to tell where he ended and you began, one arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you bodily into him, an infinite loop of power and pleasure.

As you continue to touch him, you could feel it – his connection to the force, strong, volatile, like lightning striking the ocean – crackling and formidable like the man who contained it.

And Qimir – you had long since given up trying to determine if it was, in fact, his real name – rewards you with a gift of his own, the velvet rumble of a groan of pleasure emanating from his throat at your touch. A sound of syrup and satisfaction. 

Pleased that you could garner such a reaction from a being as powerful as he, you smile, boldly meeting his lips with a kiss, opening your mouth with a gasp, allowing him to slip his tongue into your mouth, to taste the zip of power that he had determined in his moths of observation was just you, a torrent of citrus drizzle, bold and sweet. 

Reluctantly, he parts his lips from yours, ducking his head to tug the straps of your top down with his teeth, exposing your breasts to the heated air of the room. And if your desire at the repeated rolling of his hips beneath yours wasn’t enough to do you in, you figured this might. Bathing in the celestial feel the press his lips to your nipple, tongue swirling over the peaking flesh. Pleased at the goosebumps that erupt now in the wake of his attention. 

While he continues to tease your breasts with tongue and teeth, Qimir guides his other hand along your thighs, slipping his practiced fingers beneath your shorts, delighting in the wetness he was met with, basking  in the jolting shiver the motion elicited from you, at the friction of his fingers rubbing along the seam of you – causing you to wiggle, to roll your hips into his touch. 

And oh, as he slips his fingers inside of you, your eyes roll back, tilting your head to allow Qimir to admire the curving, elegant slope of exposed throat – prey before a predator, gasping at the pleasure he wrought. Breathless. If you thought he was teasing you before, his fingers inside of you were their own type of mocking punishment, well aware of his effect on you and the way your cunt throbs as he strokes inside of you. You could do nothing but wriggle your hips, whimpering piteously and attempting to roll your hips to follow his fingers as they work you, as this crescendo builds.

“Say you’ll be mine, warrior, and you can have it.” he promises. A new oath. One you’d never forsake. For him, you’d never turn, never abjure. Not so long as his touch made stars erupt behind your eyes, not so long as his lips dripped syrup promises down your throat.  

Kissing you once more, golden and slow, molten and revelatory as he works his fingers inside of you, your thighs parting to accommodate him. His thumb rolls repeated brushes over your clit, delighting in the starshine burst as you reached your peak, a broken little moan that sounded suspiciously like the word “master,” passing your lips in a keening sigh. 

You regard him through bleary, closing eyes and the warm, citrus haze of your orgasm as he slips his fingers from you, guiding you down to recline in your bed, stroking your hair as he does so, lulling you as a lover would. 

“Sleep, warrior,” his velvet voice meets your ears, lyrical and lilting. “I’ll be back for you.” 

And like each night before that one, his figure slips from you… as though he was never there. It wasn’t a dream, was it? It was hard to tell after months of this teasing game. After his promises built so much only to guide you to this release. 

And in the silvery light of the jungle’s dawn, you awoke with that very question on your lips, met with the sight of your saber placed gently on your little bedside table as opposed to its usual hiding spot. You wake to the sweet afterache of something between your thighs, to the scraped marks of teeth along the expanse of your neck. 

And to the promise of something – of a future of power and partnership. If only you’d be so bold as to accept it. As you eyed the saber, you recalled the prickle of his Force power along your skin, increasing with his proximity. And by the time he arrived to meet you again, you knew what your answer would be … 

--

tagging:

@phoenixhalliwell @withahappyrefrain @inklore @spiderispunk @flightlessangelwings @joannasteez @gretagerwigsmuse @kalliravenne @mxgyver @princessphilly @s-u-t @ohmagawd-life @maryannsstrawberry @themultifandompictureshow @kallista-diune @crypt-keeper-soul @monlight-prose @joaquinwhorres @bobfloydsbabe @themarvelousbee @soulores @moonyslove78 @sio-ina-bottle @theradioactivespidergwen @drew-garfi @thegirlwhowritesfics @lady-morrigen @flordeamatista @forever-rogue @aphrogeneias @withmyteeth @superhoeva @pettyprocrastination @mortwig @petcr3

[clockwayswrites]

A Broken Sort or Normal, Epilogue

WC:1383, Masterpost

Danny glances up from his fight to fit the cufflink into the sleeve of his rich blue suit and smiles at what he sees in the mirror.

“You know, it’s supposed to be bad luck to see the bride before the wedding.”

Wally grins, easily, from where he leans against the door frame. “I’m the one in white so I think I’m the bride, in this case.”

“Oh, so putting the bad luck all on me?” Danny asks as he turns to appreciate how his fiancée looks. Wally really is stunning in his white on white tux. Danny hadn’t been able to stomach the idea of traditional black and white tuxes, not with Phantom still being such a raw wound. Wally hadn’t minded in the least going with a brighter color palette.

“Never,” Wally promises. “We’ll face whatever comes together.”

It’s a vow that Danny unquestionably trusts. Since the curse broke, Wally has been there for every step of it— and Danny has needed a lot of help with steps. Danny’s weakened core not only handicapped him as a ghost but as a living. Many days Danny is able to pass through it all relatively unaffected, other than the cold ache that has settled into his bones, but other days are harder. Other days Danny walks with canes braced against his arms. Other days Danny needs his wheelchair. Other days he can hardly get out of bed unless he goes ghost. And through it all Wally has done everything that he can to make things easy for Danny.

They have a house now, one story and carefully renovated so that on the days Danny needs the wheelchair he can still move around easily. There are electric blankets and soft pillows and this ridiculous massive bean bag that’s big enough for them to both sink into on the bad days.

And there are good days too. There are days where the aches are just a background note, days it all doesn't hurt so much, days where he can fly. Oh how Danny had missed flying. Of all the things that came with being a halfa, flying is what Danny had missed most– not because he could help or be a hero, he missed flying just for himself.

The first time he had felt stable enough to fly, Wally had whisked them out to that same field their first date was in and let Danny loose. Danny had flown for hours, darting around, doing tricks, and floating among the clouds. When he had come back down to earth, Wally had been there, picnic waiting and the biggest smile on his face.

So like everything in Danny’s life, it’s all a balance: the good, the bad, the effort… Danny loves it all.

He loves it not just because it reminds him of how much living means, but because of how deeply it shows that Wally cares. Wally’s love is one thing he can never question. It’s a certainty that Danny has needed through all of the aftermath.

Once Danny had been released from the Watchtower’s medical, he had started small dealing with it all. Coworkers were easy to reply to and he could trust that informing a few would spread the news to the rest. They didn’t push for more than he was willing to give, though he had known he would come back to questions and rumors.

Everyone else was harder.

He had set a video call with Sam and Tucker at the same time. It was maybe a little unfair to not give them each their own call, but he just didn’t have the energy for that. They weren’t kids anymore and hadn’t been for a long time.

“God, Danny,” Tucker started at the same time as Sam said his name.

He held up his hand and their mouths shut with a clack. His smile was tinged with sadness, but it was a smile. “Don’t. You two didn’t do anything horrible.”

“Dude,” Tucker said and for a moment Danny was back in high school. Tucker looked good, still in bright colors and with his hair expertly shaved on the sides with a little pattern. “We forgot about you.”

“We left you alone to deal with all that,” Sam said. Her hair was a more natural shade of black now and her smoky eye an expertly done wing. It was odd to see her lips red instead of purple.

“Because of a curse. You forgot because of a curse,” Danny said, “and then you just did what anyone does, you went on to have a future. It’s not like we had some big fight or anything, you both just moved on with your lives.”

“That still had to hurt,” Sam said.

“It did,” Danny said honestly. He didn’t see the point of pretending the past hadn’t happened. “But that doesn’t mean it was either of your faults. The last thing I want is anyone doing anything for me out of guilt, especially since in this case it’s misplaced. It’s okay that you both grew up. I did too.”

It hurt and it would always hurt, at least a little, but Danny didn’t want any false care now.

Sam chewed on her lip and Danny smiled a little at the sight of the old habit. “I’m still sorry.”

“Me too,” Tucker said.

“Thanks, that does mean a lot, but it’s okay, really.”

There was a level of peace from that talk. Sam and Tucker both asked if they could reach out sometimes, and Danny said yes but with zero expectations. They were different people than they were as children and Danny knew, because he had lived it, that without Phantom there wasn’t much for them to talk about. And Danny had no plans to talk about Phantom. That part of him had ended with a wish seven years ago. He didn’t want to rehash or relive it now, even with them.

Jazz… Jasmine was harder. Sam and Tucker losing touch was just part of growing up. His own sister ignoring him though, that wasn’t the same at all. If it wasn’t for his nieces, Danny didn’t know if he would even be trying with Jasmine, even as apologetic as she was. There were some things that were too hard to come back from.

“Are they here?” Danny asks and looks back down at his stubborn sleeve.

Wally steps forward and takes the cufflink from Danny. He’s gentle as he fits it into the slot and secures it. “They are. And all our friends are here too. Just remember that you don’t have to talk to them any more than you want to. It’s okay to be taking things slow. It’s okay to decide that you can’t do this with her. You know I’m with you whatever you decide.”

Danny raises Wally’s hands to brush a kiss across each set of knuckles. “I know. I’m so lucky to have you. Is it bad that part of me making an effort with them is so that my nieces have family other than their moms and our parents?”

“Nope. I think that makes you a really good uncle. I mean, where would I be without Aunt Iris? Family like that can mean a lot and if that’s the only reason you have for dealing with your sister, then that’s enough,” Wally assures him.

It helps Danny relax some.

“Okay, good. We’ll just… see how it goes. I’m not going to focus too much on them today, not when today is about me and you.”

“I think that’s all good. You’re just wrong about one thing though,” Wally says, his grin just a little mischievous. Danny loves that grin.

“And what’s that, Mister West?”

“Well, soon to be Mister West,” Wally says, “it’s that I’m the lucky one. I could have lost you so many times and so many ways and despite everything, today I get to marry you. I don’t think there’s anyone luckier than me today.”

“Well, not to have our first fight,” Danny teases, “but agree to disagree.”

“I think I can live with that.”

Danny laughs. There’s nothing funny about that, but the laughter bubbles up in him all the same, not from humor but from joy. “Living, that sounds like a very, very good plan.”

---

AN: Aaaaaah we are done!! Not everything is perfect, but Danny is alive and living and Wally is going to be with him for all of it <3. Thank you all for coming along for the ride on this! It's been unexpectedly delightful to write these two together and I'm glad to finally wrap it up with (hopefully) a nice bow.

And yes, this will be going up on ao3 but I need the brain functions to go back to the start and give it a good polish! I'll likely do it chapter by chapter weekly to give myself and my darling beta @mokulule time.

Until then or the next thing here, stay delightful, darlings!

[anna-hawk]

Hidden

Frank Castle x F!Reader

Summary: Frank is attending a party he was invited to by Karen and comes across you in a secluded room where the both of you retreated into to get away from the crowd. He's met you before, since you're Karen's friend, but you've barely spoken to each other. The only things he knows about you is that you used to work with Karen, and that you also seem to be attracted to him. A third person coming into the dark room you're hiding inside shows Frank just how much his presence affects you.

Rating: Explicit 🔞 // WC: 3,7k Tags and Warnings: PWP, dom/sub undertones, slightly mean Frank but Reader is down for it, fingerfucking, oral (m!receiving) A/N: I started writing this a few months ago but fell out of the mind space and picked it up the other day again. Maybe Frank reads a little OOC, but I felt like writing him with a slightly mean dom vibe.

Read it on AO3

Moving into a corner as light and loud music suddenly pooled in through the opening door, Frank's eyes lifted to check on who'd come into the dark room he had retreated into earlier tonight. Hidden in the shadows that the thick curtains of the balcony doors were casting, Frank was able to make out your silhouette without you noticing him in return. He watched as you peeked inside the room before you looked back into the corridor to finally enter the room and close the door behind you with an audible sigh of relief. Now, it was only the full moon and the dim light of the outside lamps shining through the balcony doors that illuminated you enough for him to see you move farther inside and take a seat on the large couch. He quietly observed you as you took a deep breath and leaned your head back. Frank didn't know a lot about you besides that Karen used to work with you at the Bulletin. You and Frank had met on a few occasions, mostly during evenings like tonight, when Karen would invite Frank to a party the press was invited to as well, suspecting that he could garner information on some people. You'd also run into each other at Karen's place a couple of times whenever Frank randomly showed up while she had friends over. He never stayed long on those evenings, no matter how often Karen encouraged him to, feeling too awkward to be around that many people he didn’t know. The few instances he'd stayed longer had been when Murdock had been there as well, and he and Frank had started arguing after a short while under your bemused and Nelson's exasperated expressions. 

You hadn't talked to each other a lot except for a greeting and a few short words, but then you seemed to be a relatively quiet person. Which surprised Frank, since it contrasted starkly with your job's description as a reporter. Not that Frank minded that. Whenever his gaze would fall on you, at Karen's or during parties like tonight, Frank noticed that your eyes were never still, always taking everything in. He guessed that this was your work method; less talk, more observation. He definitely liked that. 

“It becomes a lot after a while, huh?” Frank said, after a long minute of watching you slowly relax. Because he knew with certainty that you'd escaped the crowd for the same reason he had. You might be a reporter, but you didn't seem to enjoy too big of a crowd.

You gasped in surprise and sprang to your feet at the sound of his voice, your face moving towards the direction he was standing in. Frank walked into the light and felt glad to see you take a breath of relief after recognizing him. Frank knew that you were fully aware of who he was and what he did, but you never showed any fear or nervousness in his presence. A slight shyness and awkwardness, sure, but Frank had suspected for a while that you might be attracted to him and that this might be the reason behind your behavior around him.

“I'll leave,” Frank suggested with a faint smile. “You can stay and-” he continued, but you took a step forward, a hand outstretched toward him in a stopping motion. 

“No! No, it's fine — I — please stay.” You joined him at the balcony doors and looked at the New Yorker skyline. You sighed after a few seconds. “Yeah, it does become a lot,” you added, answering his earlier question.

Frank only nodded and watched you out of the corner of his eyes. The dress you were wearing tonight really looked good on you. 

“What kind of money do you gotta have to have two big living rooms?” you mumbled into the silence, which seemed to make you uncomfortable, as Frank noticed you playing with the hem of your dress. Frank tilted his head at your question and shrugged before replying. 

“Too much.”

The surprised laugh his answer got out of you had Frank’s lips pulling up to one side. 

“I guess you’re right,” you conceded with a chuckle this time. 

The silence stretched on for a while longer this time, but you seemed more comfortable now. Frank’s eyes, meanwhile, couldn’t stop straying to your face and body. While he’d considered you to be an attractive woman from the start, he’d never had the opportunity to really watch you from that close up. He quickly realized that he’d been missing out. 

“What?” you suddenly whispered, ducking your head before glancing at Frank furtively. 

There was enough light coming through the window for Frank to make out your flustered expression. It seemed like Frank hadn’t been as discreet as he’d thought while watching you. Or, your senses were keen enough to pick up on small details. Frank laughed through his nose and tilted his head towards you as he put his hands into the pockets of his pants. 

“You look real pretty tonight.” He shrugged, and felt something tug at his gut at the way your eyes widened briefly in surprise before you looked forward again. 

“Thank you,” you mumbled softly, as your fingers fidgeted where you were holding them clasped together in front of you. 

Frank’s eyes zeroed in on your mouth as you lightly bit over your bottom lip, only to look away from you forcefully as he felt something stir in his groin. You were so incredibly bashful about the compliment that Frank felt the urge to say something more to see how you’d react this time. Especially since you clearly were attracted to him, as he’d suspected. How would you react if he were to come closer? Speak right into your ear. 

He didn’t move or say anything, however, since he didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable by doing or saying too much at once, no matter if the attraction was mutual. 

However, that idea flew out the proverbial window as the door to the room opened again, and someone stumbled inside. You turned in the person’s direction, only to take a few steps back, as if unwilling to be found, until you collided with Frank’s chest. 

“Shh,” Frank softly hissed into your ear, as he pulled you back from the window and into a short and narrow passage leading to a small bathroom. 

Frank pushed you against the wall and stepped in front of you as he leaned towards the edge of the wall to watch what the person was doing. From the sounds of it, the man, Frank realized, was pretty drunk and looking for something as he mumbled about the lack of light. A second later, the whole room was bathed in bright light as the man hit the light switch. It was only your secluded spot that kept you hidden from the man’s view. As Frank moved back to face you, the words he’d been about to say died on his tongue as he caught sight of you. He could see you fully now, despite the shadows the small passage was casting over the two of you, and your expression took Frank’s will to not make a move on you away entirely. Your eyes, stuck on Frank’s face, were blown dark, while your parted lips were shiny and a deeper color from normal thanks to your repeated abuse on them. Your chest was rapidly moving up and down with your heavy breaths, and the sight of your hard nipples hidden underneath the light fabric of your dress had Frank’s dick coming to life. 

“You make it really hard for me not to touch you, you know,” Frank muttered darkly, his fingers twitching in the pockets of his pants. 

Your eyes widened, and your mouth opened further on a little gasp of surprise, which Frank was only able to hear over the music coming through the open door because he was standing so close to you. Frank slowly let his eyes trail over you, noticing the full-body shiver running through you at his perusal. He hadn’t even touched you yet, and you were already responding to him as if he had. Heat coursed down his spine at your reaction. It had been a long time since he’d found someone who so unmistakably wanted him. He took a steadying breath. He wanted to see how else he could make you react. 

“What’s turnin’ you on like that, huh?” He started conversationally, taking one of his hands from a pocket to trail a finger along the column of your throat, which had your head tilting to the side as your eyes blinked repeatedly. “The hidden spot?” He continued, drawing the finger over the swell of your breasts peaking out of the dress, making him feel the quick rise and fall of your chest. His nostrils flared as your chest instinctively moved forward into his touch. “Or do you like the idea of gettin’ caught?” He met your gaze as he spoke the words and simultaneously stroked a thumb over one of your nipples. 

Your eyes widened again, and you shook your head vehemently, while also moaning softly at his caress. This time, Frank lightly pinched your nipple and smirked as you gasped, but never pulled away from his touch. Using both hands now, Frank tugged at the soft material over your chest and pulled it down, revealing your breasts to him, your nipples hard and skin pebbled in goose flesh. He hummed contentedly and glanced back at you.

“You sure?” he teased, running his thumbnails around both your nipples before pinching and tugging at them. 

One of your hands flew to your mouth to stop the long moan of pleasure from becoming too loud. Frank chuckled lightly and drew your hand away from your face and placed it back against the wall at your side, where you’d kept both hands until now. 

“Frank,” you whispered in a tone that hinted at need and panic all at once, as he started a slow process of torturing your nipples again.

All the while, the drunk man kept looking around for something, the music too loud to tell what it was. It didn’t matter since he stayed at the other end of the room and Frank was too focused on you anyway. You kept biting at your lips as Frank worked his fingers over your breasts, fighting to stay as quiet as possible while breathing Frank’s name here and there. 

“You have no idea how fuckin’ pretty you look like this,” Frank stated in a gravely but steady voice, flicking at a nipple and enjoying the sound of your cut-off cry. 

He huffed out a fond laugh as you looked away at the praise but saw you squirming and pressing your legs together. Without another word, Frank leaned down to take one of your puffy nipples into his mouth and sucked on it with relish. 

“Frank,” you keened in a soft but still high-pitched voice, your head hitting the wall as you threw it back while thrusting your chest into his face. 

Frank groaned into your skin, biting and sucking alternatively at your flesh and feeling your legs tremble. In his stooped position, he reached the hem of your dress and slid a hand along the edge of your inner thighs. You moaned over him, and your legs immediately parted for his searching hand. His length pulsed in his pants as he reached your panties, finding them warm and soaked through with your juices. Pulling away from your chest, Frank stared at your face again, needing to see your expression as he slid his hand inside your panties from the top and stroked two fingers through your wet folds. You looked back at him with wild eyes, your lips parting as you moaned softly. Between your breasts being on full display, swollen and mouthwatering from his touch, and your shiny and bitten lips emitting panting breaths, it was ultimately the pleading in your eyes, the raw need in them that had him moving. He pressed his other hand against the wall beside your head as he slid two fingers inside you, only stopping when he couldn’t go any further. This time, both of your hands came up to muffle your scream of pleasure. He didn’t stop you, though, knowing that it would be impossible to stop your cries of ecstasy from reaching the drunk man’s ears without your hands. Frank felt a shot of smugness at that knowledge, his own arousal only getting stronger from watching you struggle to keep quiet while your burning eyes never looked away from his as Frank fucked you relentlessly. 

“Look at you, takin’ my fingers so well,” Frank rumbled in the short space between you, wanting to see your reaction to more praise. “Suckin’ them in and squeezin’ ‘round them. Bein’ so good for me.”

Sure enough, your lids quivered, and you broke eye contact while also tightening your walls even more around Frank’s fingers. 

“Shit, yeah, jus’ like that. Bet you’d feel so fuckin’ good ‘round my dick.” 

Frank smirked at your keen of pleasure and picked up the speed of his hand. One of your hands shot out to grab at his shirt, your fingers tightening and twisting in the fabric as you fought to keep your moans from spilling over your other hand. It was the first time you’d touched him, and the fact that you needed to anchor yourself to him to not lose it completely had Frank growling in satisfaction. He grinned wickedly as your eyes almost rolled back into your head as he crooked his fingers to apply more pressure right where you needed it. 

“Gettin’ close, hm?” he rumbled against your ear, drinking in your little sounds of desperation. “Wanna hear it, Sweetheart. Lemme hear how you come on my fingers.” 

Your eyes grew wide and panicked at his command, but your hand still fell to the side. Your eyes met Frank’s as you began to tremble, your channel spasming around his fingers as you started to come undone in front of him. Thankfully for you, a loud bout of clapping and celebratory shouts sounded through the whole loft as you cried out your pleasure, making it only audible for Frank, which he was more than happy with. 

Your eyes drooped, and your hand lost its grip on Frank’s shirt as you sagged against the wall with labored breaths. Slowly, Frank removed his hand from your panties and brought it to his face. His fingers and most of his hand were glistening with your essence. He groaned in delight at the first swipe of his tongue over his middle finger, which had your eyes snapping open. Disbelief and arousal shone in your eyes as you watched, mesmerized, how Frank sucked his fingers clean. 

“Good girl,” he praised with a satisfied hum once he was done with licking all traces of you off his fingers. And like before, while you’d just watched him licking up your juices without looking away once, it was the praise that had your eyes closing briefly and your expression turning shy again. 

Frank took a step away from you, giving him a complete view of your bare chest and rumpled dress. What a beautiful mess. His head tilted to the side with a curious smirk as your eyes dropped to his crotch, where the hard outline of his dick was prominent. At his low chuckle, your eyes shot to his again, before you looked away, embarrassed at being caught staring. 

“Somethin’ on your mind, Sweetheart?” He rasped, as he came closer again at the sight of you biting your bottom lip. 

Wide eyes stared back at him, and your tongue licked over your lower lip in a clearly unconscious movement. Just that sight had Frank's cock jerking behind the confines of his boxers and pants, knowing that you couldn't hide what you really wanted. He’d planned to stop there and send you on your way, but the way you kept responding to him, leaning toward him without noticing that you were doing it, had Frank changing his mind once again tonight. 

“Yeah?” He whispered roughly, tugging your lip down and sliding his thumb over the soft and wet skin. “Want me to fuck that pretty mouth?” 

Your sharp intake of breath as his words hit its mark had Frank almost reaching for his fly right then, but he took in a deep breath and leaned in to speak into your ear. 

“Then be a good girl and ask for it.” 

And fuck, that soft, pleading whine you uttered. The way you reacted to Frank was just… Hearing you beg for what you wanted while looking so damn shy was driving Frank wild with lust.

“P — please,” you got out through your labored breathing. 

Frank licked his lips and grinned, wanting to push you just that little further.

“Please what?”

You turned your head away from him and panted, expression torn between arousal and embarrassment. 

“Frank, please.”

“Hm?” Frank nosed along your neck, which had you gasping again. 

“Please … fuck my mouth,” you whispered, the words almost inaudible over the noise. 

That wouldn’t do. 

“Louder,” Frank said, his voice, which had remained mostly teasing, taking on a tone that brooked no argument. 

Frank felt you tremble against him, but he knew that it wasn’t from fear. Far from it. Leaning back just enough to be able to lock eyes with you, Frank saw your lips move quietly for a moment before you spoke again. 

“Please fuck my mouth, Frank,” you repeated, the words louder, although they remained low. You weren’t done, though. “I need it.” 

Frank grinned at your words, while his dick almost hurt with the need to be let out of its confines. “Attagirl,” he rumbled, stroking a thumb over your bottom lip before he took a small step back. 

Without further prompting, you fell to your knees and eagerly reached for his fly. Frank watched you opening his pants and lowering his boxers to let his erection spring free. You were both momentarily distracted as the drunk man finally found what he’d been looking for with a shout of satisfaction and exited the room before slamming the door. To Frank's delight, the man forgot to turn off the light, leaving Frank able to keep watching you in your half naked state. He saw your whole body relax at the knowledge that you were finally alone. A second later, you wrapped your fingers around his length and took him into your mouth without hesitation. Frank hissed as you didn’t waist any time with quick licks and small movements to find out what Frank liked. Instead, you made sure to slick the whole length with your saliva before you took him as far as you could. Frank growled at the sight of your stretched lips, trying to accommodate his size. 

“So fuckin’ eager for this,” Frank grunted in approval, but grabbed you by the back of the head and tilted it back to still your movements. 

With your eyes on his, you understood what he wanted and let your mouth fall open for Frank to push inside. Testing how far he could go, Frank pushed in to the back of your throat in a slow glide. You gagged faintly on the second pass, but you only surged forward for more. Frank cursed and snapped his hips forward, which had you moaning and him chuckling in satisfaction at your reaction. Now that it was only the two of you, you didn’t hesitate anymore, and openly moaned and keened around his cock with each of his slides in. Frank kept his hand on your head, but he wasn’t holding you in place at all. You weren’t going anywhere, more than content to pleasure him. 

“Frank?” suddenly called a voice from the corridor leading down to the room. You seemed to recognize Karen’s voice at the same time as Frank, since your eyes grew wide as Frank thrust into your mouth again. 

“We ain’t stoppin’ now,” Frank stated firmly, as his cock twitched with a fast approaching orgasm, while his hand tightened on your head. 

You moaned and choked briefly as Frank slid as far inside as you could take, your eyes conveying how turned on you were while also showing a hint of panic. Like earlier, it was the need in your eyes that pushed Frank’s buttons. He slid out of your mouth and started jerking himself off with quick strokes. 

“Fuck,” he growled as you shuffled closer again to press your tongue against the underside of his cock, telling him exactly was you wanted. 

He came with a tight groan as he shot all over your tongue, coating it with his thick and warm fluid. You closed your eyes as you moaned at the taste, letting Frank slide back between your lips for a lazy thrust. 

“Frank?” Karen called out again, her voice coming through the opening door just as you were swallowing Frank’s come. 

You stood instantly, tugging your dress back up with a frantic look on your face. Frank pressed you against the wall while he slotted a palm over your mouth. Footsteps sounded from the door and Frank felt more than heard your gasp. 

“Right here, Karen,” Frank replied with an easy tone that belied just how hard he’d just come. “Be out in a sec.” 

“Oh, sure.” The footsteps stopped before they retreated a few paces. 

Letting go of you, Frank quietly opened the door to the bathroom and reached for the faucet to open it, giving the illusion that he was just coming out of the room. 

“Oh, by the way, you haven’t seen my friend from the Bulletin?”

Glancing back at your surprised expression as you were fixing your appearance, Frank made a thoughtful sound before he answered. 

“The pretty one?” Frank wondered with a grin as your eyes widened before you looked away, shyness returning, much to Frank's enjoyment.

Karen snorted at that. “Yup, the one you keep watching from afar.” 

Your eyes snapped back to meet Frank’s equally surprised gaze. Karen really did see everything. Chuckling lightly, Frank leaned in to graze his lips over yours in a brief caress before he stepped around the wall and towards Karen, who was waiting at the door. 

“Nope, haven’t seen her.”

[horatiocomehome]

Hi my dream last night did something to me so here's a word dump I wrote immediately after waking up so I could get catharsis.

What if... instead of looping, Siffrin just came back to life?

~~~

You should've known it was too easy. No traps, only weak sadnesses, keys in relatively obvious places. It was so easy to get through the first floor.

But now there's a large sadness, and you've taken one hit too many.

As you fall to the ground you see your party close ranks in front of you. To protect you.

You see Bonnie, running up, with a crafted water.

Your vision is going dark.

There's a flicker, above Bonnie. It's…

The sadness it's arm above Bonnie it's attacking.

You tackle Bonnie. Something slams into your back.

You can't move anything except twitch your fingers you ca n't look up just at the floor

Bonnie's boots are there someone is screaming

You aren't g oing to make it.

You wanted more time w ith them you want to live you want t o stay with them you want to stay with them YOU DON'T WANT TO DIE YOU W ANT T O S T A Y W I T H TH

GAME OVER > continue > quit

You wake up from a deep sleep. You had a bad dream last night.

Someone's pulled the sheets up over your head. You toss them off.

Oh.

You aren't in your bed. You're back in your dream.

This is where you died.

It's quiet, now. No sadness. No party.

You look to the side, at the sheets you tossed off that weren't really sheets but your cloak, neatly draped over you where you were stretched out. Like a corpse.

Did you really die? But you're back here, so you couldn't have, right?

Maybe they gave you crafted water and it only just kicked in? But then where's the rest of your party?

There's a sickening certainty setting in to your gut.

You died, didn't you. And somehow you're back.

Your party left without you.

Good. They still need to kill the king.

Maybe… you can still catch up. You need to find them. You're okay! They'll be so happy to see you!

You stagger to your feet. You're a little light-headed, dizzy for a moment, then it passes. You put back on your cloak, grab your hat where it sits (right above where your head used to lie) and put it back on. Onwards you go.

There aren't any sadnesses, as you walk through the halls. Did they manage to defeat them all without you? Or was there some kind of reprieve after that large sadness?

You hope they got a bit of rest.

As you turn the corner, you see an open doorway, hear quiet voices coming through.

You don't know why you pause.

"—if we can't bring him with us, can't we bring him here at least?" you hear Mirabelle whisper, with a desperation that turns your stomach.

"I'm with Mira." Isa's voice is louder but still technically a whisper. He sounds so serious. "What if more sadnesses come? What if—"

You realize they're talking about your body. A shiver goes down your back.

"No." Odile's voice is steel in a way that makes you flinch. "We need to keep moving. We can't go back for them, or bring them with us. And sadnesses are just as likely to come here as that other room."

"BUT—" Mirabelle starts to protest.

You stop listening and force yourself to start moving forward. They don't have to fight! You're right here! You—

You freeze again as Bonnie walks through the doorway. They hug the wall as soon as they make it through the doorway, shooting a glance back over their shoulder before looking back down at the ground.

"Jus' need to make it to Dormont," they whisper so quiet you can barely hear. "I can do that. Just make it to Dormont. They'll all be fine."

They're sniffling as they shuffle along the wall towards you. Still not looking.

"I can make it back to Dormont. Then they won't worry about me and I won't hold them back like a crabbing baby and they'll be just fine and I'll freeze with all the other little kids and wait for them to—"

"Bonbon?" You ask.

They freeze, and turn towards you. Their eyes are dark and puffy.

When they lock eyes with you there's a beat and then they scream, terrified.

There's yelling from the other room. You ignore it. Your stomach is dropping like it's made of lead and you drop to your knees, stretching your arms wide. "Bonnie, no! See, look, I'm okay! I'm alright!"

They take a step back. "F-frin? Yyyou… died?"

"I got better!"

Bonnie tackles you into a hug and you don't have time to flinch as you fall back onto the tile floor, so you just wrap your arms around them. Over their head you see your other companions burst through the door, weapons at the ready.

"I HATE YOU," Bonnie is scream sobbing into your chest. "I HATE YOU I THOUHT YOU WERE DEAD YOU'RE A CRABBING IDIOT I HATE YOU."

Your heart twists but they're still holding you so tight, so you keep hugging them back. Your companions lower their weapons looking like they've seen a ghost.

Maybe they have.

You don't have time to think about it because then they're rushing in to hug you too, the warmth of their bodies pressing into yours, their tears dripping onto you—and you're crying as well, and even Odile, who hung back, has a glint on her cheek.

"I'm back," you say. Bonnie is still sobbing into your chest, but they've stopped yelling at you. "I'm alive. We're all going to be okay."

[tadpolesonalgae]

Can’t Bring Myself To Remember You

Azriel x Third-Oldest-Archeron-Sibling!Reader

a/n: I’ve thought about it a little and I don’t think this adds anything to the story—it really just feels like a trashy filler episode.

word count: 4,173

-Part 14-

——————————————————————————————————————————————

It’s not an unusual occurrence for you to open a book near dusk then pull out of your mental wandering after dark, frequently falling so deep into immersion, so consistently dragged under by lonely curiosity that time itself seems to slip through your soft, tender fingers. A shadow twirls a lock of hair about, a gentle approach so you know he’s there.

Even when his steps don’t subconsciously take on that soundless whisper, it was too often you’d startle at the sound of his voice, almost strangely so, spun around looking slightly flustered. Azriel had always assumed it a side effect of being stolen from your home all that time ago, being thrown about in the ocean of your life, only now beginning to settle back into relative calm.

You turn now, meeting his soft hazel eyes, shadowed by lovely lashes and defined by a strong brow. A mouth that appears so soft your heart aches at the faintly curved edges, appearing so warm and inviting. The steady certainty about the way he moves, so calmly assured of each step, unrushed but quietly determined, driven forward relentlessly by his unfaltering loyalty, the dedication to helping those under his brother’s rule.

A smile pulls your mouth apart, surely gleaming in your eyes, warming your cheeks as you meet his gaze. “What a surprise to see you here,” you say, closing the book silently, balancing the thick and heavy edge on your hip, the leather of its wrapping weighing comfortably into your waist. “Looking for something?”

He smiles, pushing off from the bookcase he’d been leaning against, dark hair flopping over his brow, as soft as silk and looking as warm as fur. How lovely it would be to run your fingers through, gently playing with it like how you would do when you were younger, sat before an open fire in a wobbly line, crafting intricate patterns with your sisters.

“I’ve found it now,” he replies, amusement written clearly across his features, more open than usual, your pulse increasing. His eyes drop away from yours, landing on the book at your hip, nodding to it with a faint smile. “What have you gotten your hands on this time?”

You reciprocate the expression with a little more enthusiasm, almost beaming as you shift the volume to present the cover to him. “It was tucked near the back here,” you explain, eyes darting to the shelf you’d been stood before. “It looked a little forgotten so I had to move some of the others around to get to it. It’s a book on botany, and the different plants that can be found throughout the courts. It’s amazing how such a range can be contained to such a small land mass given the shift in climates.”

His eyes twinkle, and your heart flutters in response, smile broadening a little. “Were there many books in your first home, or did your curiosity come from seeing your father’s study?” He asks, watching you calmly, gaze skating over the beautifully crafted cover of the book appreciatively. “There weren’t as many as there are here, but there were a few I could get my hands on,” you answer honestly. “Elain and I used to flip through the pages to look at the illustrations when we were younger, though they were mostly done in ink so only black and white. Sometimes when we found ones with colour in—there were some wonderful ones. I mean, really so full of colour and shimmery paints they really looked from another world—but we would fold the corners over at the top to show to Feyre later. Then sometimes they’d have diagrams with names underneath that we didn’t yet know how to pronounce, so would fold the corners over at the bottom to ask Nesta later since our mother wouldn’t want to be disturbed. Then later because she wasn’t there.” You come to a stop, lips drawing themselves into a thin line.

“Do you miss her?” He asks quietly, those shadows of his rolling like mist from his back, weighing to the floor to cover the boards in an inky black fog. “I…it’s complicated,” you answer, head dipping as you pull the volume back to your torso, as if it will act as a shield against the complex emotions you have no idea how to articulate. “You have plenty of time to figure it out—should you wish to,” he says gently, and you peer up at him, heart fluttering at the warmth in his eyes. The faint softening at the edges of his wonderful mouth.

You remember to respond, dipping your head in a subdued nod. Tongue swiping over your lips. “Is your…I mean, your mother…?” He blinks those lovely hazel eyes, so filled with swirling colour, and you inwardly cringe, seeing how he shifts to stand more upright, posture more rigid. That sweet curve of his mouth replaced by a polite smile, one he probably knows he should give to keep anyone from feeling bad. “Alive, yes,” he answers, his tone not inviting anymore questions, without being clipped.

Lips pursing into an awkward line, your gaze drops down to the book, to your feet, nodding in confirmation. “I…I’m happy for you,” you say quietly, hoping it’s the right thing and she isn’t a terrible woman. Female. That would be quite awful, if she turned out to be.

Azriel hums lowly, and your throat rolls, toes curling a bit in your shoes. You inhale, managing to look in his vague direction, “how was your day?” It comes out much more muted than you had intended, heat spreading throughout your features as you again dip your head, felled with embarrassment. A moment of silence passes, and you feel like you might crumble into a heap of sand, simply disintegrate right then and there.

But, “good,” he answers, chuckling lowly.

Peeking up nervously, you can make out the slight twinkle in his eyes, the relaxed softness to his mouth, and relief washes through you, crushing and sweeping in its intensity. “Training’s going well,” he continues unprompted, and you perk up more, shifting on your feet, attempting to straighten out your shoulders. “It’s becoming a nice, well-rounded group. Nesta seems to be doing well, too. They all are.”

You manage a smile, drinking in every word, basking in the richness of his voice, imbued with a tinge of royal blue emotion. “Sounds like you’re having fun,” you say, trying to match the mirth of his intonation, how genuine it sounds. You don’t really succeed. “Between the strain of practice and learning, I think they do,” he answers, still smiling faintly, and you pause to take a moment to try and capture what’s different about his features when he’s smiling. The curve beneath his eyes, how his cheeks round a little, the way his lips stretch out and curve. Something about his ears raising a little higher, too.

“Have you ever considered joining?” He asks tentatively, and you freeze up.

“Training?” You manage, forcing down the splutter, cowering at the thought. His features level out, but his eyes remain amused as he nods. “No. I don’t think… It’s not for me,” you stumble through the answer, looking away. Then heat warms your cheeks, embarrassment heating across your chest, meeting his gaze. “Should I be?” You ask, quieter than before, stomach tensing as you pull the book closer to your front.

He shrugs, “only if you’d like to. You might find it enjoyable.”

You manage a tight smile, not knowing what to say without sounding rude, so choosing silence.

“Nesta…she has friends there,” Azriel says hesitantly, and you can feel his gaze on you. “They enjoy reading, too. Maybe it would be good for you to go. Exciting.”

“Really?” You ask, managing to meet his gaze, shifting on your feet as you grip the book tighter. “What sort of things—do you know?”

“I could find out,” he offers, the edges of his irises softer.

But you shake your head, “it’s fine. I’m— I’m happy. Where I am, I mean. As I am.” You dip your head slightly at the awkwardness. Should you be saying something like that with pride? There isn’t much to be proud of. Hardly anything you can say for yourself.

It’s a bit worthless, if you’re honest, to only have that to cling to.

“You are?” He asks, gently.

Your stomach drops through your toes, heart plummeting deeper than the depths of the ocean’s floor. Shifting on your feet. Even he can tell… But you nod, head dipping further as you peer at the ground, heart straining for some reason. “Besides, I love getting to read the things in here,” you manage, clutching the volume a little tighter. “And, I’m not sure Nesta…her friends would be interested in reading encyclopaedias.”

“You don’t know until you try,” he says quietly, matching your level of volume. “Wouldn’t it be nice having more people to talk to about the things you like?”

You shift again on your feet, readjusting your grip on the bound book. “Maybe? I guess…”

“So why not try?” He asks, able to hear the slight smile in his voice, and you want so desperately to look at him. “Just one lesson, or even a few minutes to see what it’s like. The first step is usually the hardest.”

“I don’t know…” you hedge, discomfort lodging itself in your throat; between your ribs. “What are you unsure about?” He asks, leaning up against the bookshelves. You shrug, not meeting his gaze. “I guess…I don’t see the point in it,” you answer reluctantly, quietly. Knowing he won’t like that response.

Sure enough, you can hear the frown in his voice, disapproval sharpening into something bladed, disappointment in your lack of enthusiasm. “You should still try,” he says gently, wings shifting at his back, refolding themselves. But you shake your head, more firmly this time, “I don’t want to intrude. That’s her space that she’s made. I don’t want to contaminate it.”

“You wouldn’t be contaminating it,” he sighs, arms folding casually over his broad chest, and you feel like he’s telling you off for something.

Slightly desperately, you aim to switch topic to something he’ll be willing to move on to. You don’t doubt he could keep you here if he wanted, simply returning to the original topic of conversation, so you have to be careful with your new selection.

“Have you asked Elain if she would join?” You ask, not meeting his gaze.

You feel his pause, heart beating a little harder in the hopes he’ll go along with it. The irony of you being the one to bring her up isn’t lost on you—after you’ve wanted a conversation free of her for some time now. So it’s just the two of you, even for one discussion.

“Elain?” He asks, bemusedly, and you nod. “Do you think she’d be interested?”

“You thought I might be. Why not her?” You reply, wincing at your tone. Shifting again on your feet. But instead of tense silence, he chuckles faintly. “I understand the two of you are sisters, but you’re very different from one another.”

Your eyes close briefly, allowing no more than a moment for the condemnation to sink through you.

You’re nothing like Elain, and he can see that clear as day.

So you smile faintly, trying to bring some life into it. “Just a thought.”

———

It had felt like being tossed to the grimy, half-rotten wooden boards of the old hut in there.

They hadn’t bothered with chains—you were human, what could you do against them?

Strange, magic, powerful creatures, hewn from nature herself. Like gazing upon perfect marble sculptures and wishing for their cold grace, sacrificing flesh and blood for stone-cold immortality.

It’s strange how distorting panic can be. How acutely aware of the smallest hairs rising on mostly bare legs, yet forgetting the faces of the fae who’d thrown you into the deep dark of the cell. Warm bodies pressing tight to one another in the dim light of the stone cell, trembling hands gripping one another, grown out nails inadvertently scraping. Shaky breaths misting in the damp, winter deep air.

Few words had been traded in the perpetual night, a cold, spindly hand passing meals into the room through some method of magic. It had been good. Cold and plain yet disgustingly pleasant.

The first time Feyre had returned from Prythian and eaten human food she had gagged, it was unforgettable seeing how she’d changed. Such a small moment with such vast implications. Having then sampled the food, likely the worst of the worst of their own pallet, you could understand the insufficiency.

It doesn’t matter now though. Not now you’re trapped, locked away from the light.

Unknown time passes, and you never hear them coming. Like the night you’d been removed, they come on silent feet, utterly predatory and entirely invincible.

He’d appeared then, sat on a throne constructed of what you think vaguely reminds you human remains—long, stretching bones bound together to be sat upon, forced to serve long after death, condemned to relentless work, never to be lain to rest. The King you’ve been warned about.

At your side Nesta stiffens, observing something you can’t, struggling to remain alert after the numbing darkness of the cell. The strange isolation that had been enforced upon you despite company.

Even to human senses, the smell of blood is apparent, stark and piercing in the barren throne room. Though everything is secondary to the dooming thrum of pressure coming from the dais. Even the lives around you fade into something lesser when confronted with the concentration of Everything before you—a culmination of everything that has ever happened and everything that ever will across the four-dimensional planes, universes stretching and thinned, brought together before the Cauldron that sits, hunched on the stone floor. Watching. Observing. Waiting.

Words jumble from the king’s mouth, but you doubt even Nesta is entirely listening, not with the white-knuckled grip she has on you and Elain, pulled taut together, bound tighter than you’ve ever been before, a refusal to release one another. Even as numbing pain sets in, you don’t try to escape, each of you understanding the aches of the grip are small safeties, reminders you still exist with one another.

Grey-blue eyes catch yours across the hall, wide and fearful as they gaze upon the three of you. The youngest, yet the strongest. The strongest of your sisters, yet maybe the weakest in the room beyond yourselves. The power imbalance so stark the world tilts a little, as if nodding its head sadly in agreement.

Awareness is dunked over you like taking an icy bath, coming to in time to hear the damning words that have your heart jittering in your chest. Lurching and fumbling with fear.

“Who is the youngest, over there?”

And like a moth drawn to flame, your terrified eyes lock with his, singled out as a knowing smile tilts the King’s lips. “You.”

It’s a new terror, you understand. Being noticed by a being so incomprehensibly greater. How to rationalise and understand the fear in the fleeting seconds that tick faster and faster with each blink of your eyes. How time falls flat, and eventually pulls apart as a guard’s hand rips you clean from your sisters, a snarl of rage only adding to the ringing buzz that glistens though your ears, feet fumbling numbly over the cobbles, cracked and jagged in places.

The world fades in and out of focus as ice prickles from beneath your skin, at once hot and at once freezing the skin from your flesh, so cold it will start peeling back at any second, shedding until you disintegrate onto the floor. You’re helpless as you’re pushed onto the dais, far too close to the prowling beast of the Cauldron to ever come away. Even if they released you, the understanding is clear to you it would not allow the escape.

Noises break through the lilting haze of your world, vision clearing enough to pick out the wide, hellish eyes of your oldest sister, the conflict of terror and undeniable rage that blazes away in full view, and you wonder how she can sustain it. How she can muster up an emotion so overpowering your attention is pulled away from the Cauldron. From the King, and Queens.

Her teeth gleam in a snarl directed to the male atop the throne, and you wish for even an ember to take root in your soul. The inadequacies of your own self rising to the surface like bodies buried in muddy land.

“Put her in.”

Every muscle strings taut in your body, jaw nearly breaking itself from pressure, nearly vomiting the food you’d been given from squeezing your stomach in, every part of your being inherently recoiling from the eerily calm pool of black water before you, so still it looks like glass, contained in metal that reeks of something that should not be touched. Even borne witness to.

You’re lofted into the air, unable to so much as kick, terror taking control of your body, feeling as though you’re freshly dead, held stiff by catatonic shock while breath still whispers from your lips. Screams are choked back by the tightness in your throat, lungs burning with cries that would surely curdle blood, piercing shrieks that might at least serve to deafen their keen hearing.

But their large, spindly hands release you, and you slide into the yawning mouth. Gaping, and grinning.

Ice-cold water shocks your system, and you sink like a stone into the liquid. Sinking. Sinking. Sinking.

Dropping through the barriers of the realm. Falling off the edge of the world.

You drop further than possible, and nightmares resurface. Of rivers that swell and break their banks, flooding wetlands and tearing livestock from their home in the torrents of the winter melt. Rain lashing down day after day, heart pounding in your chest, hoping the rising water will never reach the already shaky beams of your rotting hut. In those night terrors there’s no escaping the rising tides, the currents gripping your ankles as you’re snatched from your feet, dragged away and under, swallowed whole and torn from your family in the blink of an eye.

Liquid like mercury surrounds you whole, submerged in the quicksilver of the Cauldron’s contents, dredging up long forgotten memories as though your life is passing before your eyes. Laying on the floor of your father’s study, flipping through books on food, plants, fauna and flora. There had been one nightmarish creature that had always stuck with you, lurking in the depths of your mind no matter what comforts Elain had provided, nor the goofy drawings Feyre had done in attempts to reduce the terror, nor the reasoning that such a small creature whose home was the deepest, murkiest parts of the sea would ever be able to find you.

And yet the Cauldron seems to seek it out specifically, conjuring the memory of the slimy pale blue paint that had been used, the ink that sharpened razor like teeth, the small spot of white on the page that illuminated the fish’s grotesque features.

Like an angler fish, you can’t help but feel now, sunken so far below, sucked in a whirlpool to the bottom of the Cauldron, that its icy surface had been the light, the power rolling from its dark metal the warm glow, and you’d been thrown toward it.

Now past the shredding ring of teeth, cast into its stomach.

The inky water pushes at your lips, squirming at your squeezed-shut eyes, wriggling like icy maggots trying to crawl beneath your skin, to worm their way inside and infest. It seems impossible to hold them out—everything had come from the Cauldron, how were you supposed to barricade yourself against that which you’d been born of?

You pull as tight as you can, wrapping in on yourself as blood recoils from your extremities, all you can salvage of yourself pulling taut and compact, stitched closer than rock, squeezed denser than ice that’s had centuries to compress. Air has long since lost its value among your turned around preservation instincts. Air is a pathway in, and you fear its intrusion with a conviction that spears deeper than any fear of death.

But the Cauldron is a prime creator, second you suppose only to the Mother, and has no concern for time.

No matter how long you keep it out for, minutes, hours, days, years, time is endless and stretching, a new metric confined to the swirling depths of horror contained within its malice-imbued metal. No matter how long you keep yourself walled off, hibernating deep within the parts of yourself you hadn’t even known existed, it waits just outside, prowling, circling, slowly squeezing and constricting. Until like even ice, or rock, you’ll split open. Pressure so steep it could cleave universes.

Even after the walls you’ve hidden behind, the only things keeping out the idle swirl of pure, liquid power, it’s not enough. Everything will fall to time, eroded and grated down to dust beneath the relentless drip of ticking seconds.

Your mind feels too numb to register as it creeps in, cold and deadening as it spreads calmly throughout your blood, filling you up from the inside out, infusing into your skin—numbed from slumber. Creeping and contaminating with cold, needle slim fingers, rearranging and knitting pieces together than should not be joined within a mortal.

It holds you with a familiarity that’s at once startling and reassuring, a puppet returned to the puppeteer, a dress returned to the seamstress, a splintered leg returned to the carpenter. All of them at once, without the care of a mother for her child. Cold and analytical, examining its past creation, exploring its functions with harsh fingers. Peeling back your skin, then your flesh, then your skull, retrieving the centre of your thoughts to discover your foundations.

Wishes and desires, tucked away secrets even you’ve forgotten, passing thoughts unworthy of being voiced, wants that deserved to be spoken but tied down by your tongue. Its ladle scoops you out, hollowing your mind and stomach, dipping a spoon into soup to retrieve a mouthful, except this space will be replaced with something else. Something to push the bounds of humanity and transform you into the sharp-featured creatures who had taken what scraps of your world had remained.

Something with the tremendous strike of lightening but worse fills the empty pockets it’s made. Capable of burning like the blazing rage contained within quicksilver eyes. Something slower. More insidious. You aren’t made for brute force, so a more subtle route will have to be afforded.

Like it had selected the nightmarish memories, so does it haul up the secret wishes. The wants so desperate they have heat kicking back against the icy touch of the Cauldron’s waters. To blaze like Nesta, to protect like Feyre, to soothe like Elain. But more.

A use.

If not a warrior, then a blade to be harnessed.

The Cauldron plucks the desire from your bones, and your body slumps. Skin without its stuffing, a heart without its thump. You could swear you feel it smile as it finds what it’s looking for, now conjuring up its match. The piece to fill the void it’s created by removing the wish, replaced with something sturdier, to lift your body to immortality.

With each possibility the prices rise steeper, and yet you no longer recoil.

The craving to have something—something entirely new, something entirely your own taking control of your mind and soul, driving you forward. How deeply you yearn to be someone with possessions that are your own. Not passed down, nor borrowed or shared, but your own. Something only you can have.

The desire is so acute you feel salty wetness push out from beneath closed eyelids.

To be sought after. Craved. Pursued.

Valued, treasured, fought for.

To have something that made you become both desired and capable of protection.

The cost would always be irrelevant for an offer like that.

Down to your roots, clipped at the foundations, an entirely human desire to be wanted. At whatever price, the yearning so innate and so acute your heart aches within the cage of your ribs. It runs deeper than a want, or a wish, or a need. So inherent to your ideal that now you’ve discovered its existence, returning without it would be a new death with every second, every breath drawn taking you further apart from the moment your could’ve had it.

The Cauldron smiles, dangling it before you, quietly hiding away what it’s already taken, not giving you a chance to consider what you will lose.

And with a still human heart, your soft, trembling fingers pluck the glowing green star from the inky darkness. Fooled by inexperience.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

general taglist: @myheartfollower @tcris2020 @mali22 @amygdtjhddzvb @sfhsgrad-blog @needylilgal022 @hannzoaks @hnyclover @skyesayshi @nyotamalfoy @decomposing-writer @soph1644

az taglist: @azrielshadows1nger @jurdanpotter @positivewitch @nightcourt-daydreaming @assassinsblade @marvelouslovely-barnes @v3lv3tf0x @kalulakunundrum @vellichor01 @throneofsmut @vickykazuya

[joannechocolat]

On Turning 60

When I was a child, someone told me: “Every life is a story.” I used to wonder what mine would be like; what adventures I would have. My favourite stories were from Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book, which my grandfather used to read to me:  thus I imagined my own story as a forest adventure in which I would run wild with my friends, and pick fruit by the wayside. I never imagined growing old, just as I never imagined the adults around me ever being young. And death, if I thought of it at all, was a monster that kept to the shadows, and never dared to show its face outside of the scariest stories.

I was four years old when I first encountered the monster. It was in France, when my great-grandmother died, having been taken suddenly ill as she and I were playing a game. I still remember that suddenness, and my mother’s tears, and the whispers of “not in front of the children”, and the various well-meaning relatives trying in their different ways, to explain to me why I shouldn’t be sad, how at sixty-five, Mémée was old, how death was completely natural, and that she was watching us from above. These stories varied considerably, from the fanciful to the macabre. Even at four, it didn’t take long for me to understand that the grown-ups were as much in the dark as I was about the whole affair. Children are analytical. They process information according to what they have been told. And at four, I concluded, both with certainty and a singular horror, that Mémée’s story was over, that death happened to everyone, and that I had more or less sixty years of life before it happened to me. For years after that, I would lie awake at night and think of the monster waiting for me in the dark, and tell myself that sixty years was a very, very long time, and that this suffocating fear would pass with age and experience.

Now I’m approaching sixty. At sixty, we’re meant to examine our lives, and think about mortality. And yes, it seems like a very long time. It also feels as if no time at all has passed since the night my great-grandmother died, and I first encountered the truth that lives at the heart of all fairytales. That was when I decided, with relentless, childish logic, that if death was the ultimate monster, then perhaps I could only hope to keep them at bay with stories.

And so I began to tell stories, first to myself, in secret, and then to anyone who would listen. Of course it took me a long, long time to understand that what I was really doing was trying to make sense of the world. In a universe of chaos, stories give a shape to our lives. They teach us to believe in love; to mistrust what is too easily won; to know that every stranger could be a deity in disguise. They teach us that happy endings exist; that kindness can sometimes bring reward; that life, like so many of the stories we read as children, is a journey through the woods, where anything can happen.

This is the advice I’d give my younger self, if I could. Life is like a story with a beginning, a middle, an end. It is not always as structured or as ordered as a story might be, and some are longer than others, but the journey is ours in part to direct. We can choose the paths we take, the places in which to linger. We can choose the people we travel with, the ones we make a part of our lives. Choose wisely, I would tell my younger self at the start of my journey; not everyone who seems friendly is a friend. True friends are not easy to come by; always cherish the ones you find. And bear in mind that the journey matters more than the destination. We live in a world where everything seems focussed on the future; events to plan; deadlines to meet; months and seasons flashing by. Time seems to accelerate as we get older; and yet there are ways to slow it down. We don’t have to rush through everything in order to rush through something else. We can exist in the moment. Stop. Pick the flowers. Feel the sun. Remember we only pass this way once, and that every step is a privilege.

These woods are filled with obstacles, and challenges, and wonder. Not all paths through it are easy. Stay curious, I would tell myself. Never stop asking questions. Wear your achievements lightly, and don’t be afraid of failure. Failures are a sign you tried; markers on the road to success. And as a teacher of 15 years, one thing I have learnt is this: There are no teachers, just pupils. We are able to learn from every angle, every stage of our lives. Elders may speak from experience, but some of the most important things I have learnt have been from younger people. Bringing up my son has been the lesson of a lifetime; I learn new things from him every day. So take your lessons where you can, and pay them back to others in kind. And don’t be afraid to make mistakes: mistakes are part of your story too, every one a lesson learnt, every one a challenge.

Nor should you fear the changes that time imposes on us. Change is what drives your story. Sometimes it brings grief and loss; sometimes, unexpected joy. And don’t be ashamed of the signs of age: in a world in which youth is prized far above experience, it’s all too easy to feel diminished by wrinkles and imperfections. But your body is a living map of everything you have experienced. Everything leaves marks on you. Childbirth; laughter; damage; grief. Be proud of those marks. They are proof that you have lived. When I look at my face now I see the faces of my family. I see my mother, my grandmother. I carry their stories inside me, coiled as tight as DNA. And I have told them again and again, just as they were told to me. We process the world through stories. We learn to live through stories. Through stories we connect with the past and understand where we came from. I mostly know my great-grandmother from stories my mother told me. The story of the day she died; her life in rural, wartime France; her recipes; her sayings; her jokes. Through stories, my son can know her, even though they never met. And of course, you know her too: she was the prototype for Armande, the fierce old woman in Chocolat. Through stories, people can live on, and be loved and understood. This is one of the things I have learnt on my journey through the woods; perhaps the most important thing: Remember to tell your stories.

Now, after many stories, I’m reaching that part of the forest where monsters lurk in the darkness. Three years ago, I had a brush with a monster I called Mr C - an aggressive kind of cancer, which luckily was found early. I survived that encounter, thanks to the care and vigilance of the NHS, but one of the lessons it taught me is that life is fragile, and precious, and short - much shorter than we imagine. Over the past few years I have lost too many loved ones to Mr C. One of them was my grandfather. Another was my oldest friend. Some were writers: Iain Banks, Jenny Diski, Graham Joyce. I have carried their stories with me, just as I carry the stories of my parents and grandparents. I hope my son will do the same. We stay alive through stories.

But right now, at sixty, I don’t feel old. I doubt anyone who loves stories really ever does. I remember Ray Bradbury telling me, at 81, that when he looked in the mirror, he saw a ten-year old boy with inexplicably white hair. And he was still writing–furiously, sublimely - till the day he died. I can relate: time is speeding up, and there are stories left to tell. I sometimes find myself trying to calculate how many I’ll have time to get down, especially as they’re still popping up like mushrooms all around me. I am more conscious of time passing by. I feel the change of the seasons in a way I didn’t before. But my walk in the woods has been beautiful. I have fulfilled my greatest dreams. I do what I love for a living. I’ve travelled the world, and had many adventures, and met many interesting people. I’m married to someone I love, who loves me. I have a son who makes me proud, and who I love more than words can say. I’ve faced down monsters, and survived. I’ve learnt a lot, sometimes the hard way. But as the French author Jules Renard (a favourite of my grandfather’s) once said: “Aim to die with regrets, not remorse.” I think I’m on the right side of that. And in spite of what I thought at four, approaching sixty is nothing to fear. There are still unwritten chapters to my story to be lived; places to discover, new things to learn. I mean to explore all those things, and more. I want to climb mountains. To travel through space. To see the depths of the ocean. Some of those things I may never know except in stories, but books are the way in which we live our many alternative, possible lives. I feel I’m just beginning to understand what matters to me; to find my equilibrium in this vast, bewildering world. For so many years, being sixty felt like the end of a journey. Now I see that it’s only another clearing in the woods. Maybe I’ll sit here awhile. Enjoy the sunshine. Pick the fruit. But soon I’ll be on my way again, picking up stories wherever I go. Because no story ever ends, not really. It just travels somewhere else, picked up by another storyteller. So, to whoever picks up my story, good luck with it. Maybe give me a wave. But for now, I think I’ve seen a path at the end of the clearing. It’s new, and therefore exciting, and promises adventure. I think I’ll follow it awhile; see what fruits are growing there. Stories flourish along these paths. Let’s see which ones I can find. After all, that’s what I do. And those monsters won’t defeat themselves.

[rambyol]

Analysis - The Joker’s cards for Bruce and what they suggest:

We shouldn’t take Handwriting psychology literally as it’s very subjective but it’s definitely fascinating what we can learn or pull from a characters penmanship.

1. The Card from the Church

Between the two cards, this one is my favourite because it has the most personality in it.

This card shows up after the events at Wayne Tower where Joker and Harley unleash the Virus (Gas Bomb) and during Batman, Iman, and Tiffany’s search for the next Bomb.

Right off the bat, the penmanship on this card is messy. The letters are jagged, some misaligned, and some have varying degrees of pressure to them.

Writing with a lot of pressure can be a sign of attention seeking behaviour and Joker is trying to get Batman’s attention, obviously, but more notably the pressure on the letters mimic Johns/Jokers speech. John has a habit of subverting and exaggerating certain words in his speech. For instance when talking about Harley potentially setting off the bombs on the bridge (if you choose to trust John), John describes that hypothetical as ‘exciting’. It’s no surprise that writing can reflect our speech but as I mention below it’s a sign of being unfiltered.

It’s evident that Joker isn’t dwelling on presentation here, much like his fashion sense, there’s a disheveled appearance to his writing.

The scribble in the bottom left corner where you can see Joker was checking to see if the pen was still working is kind of endearing since this letter was intended for Batman and the scribble indicated a lack of filter, as is observed through Villain Jokers personality. V Joker is arguably the least filtered out of all 3 in my opinion and naturally that would reflect in every facet of him down to his writing. I mean even his attempt to scribble out the joke at the end seems half hearted, because we can still see it clearly.

In addition we’ve got the doodles of a heart and a mystery doodle which Batman has his thumb covering (I wonder what it is 0_o). Doodles display playfulness and of course that childish is pretty consistent to Johns character regardless if he goes down the Vigilante or Villain route.

Jokers handwriting here is relatively ‘bad’ but without going into detail (I want to wrap this one up) we can see that theres a struggle for consistency in his lettering and strokes, which mirrors his personality in way. John was/and Joker is very muddled at times because his motives are all over place and it’s hard to determine what he wants. Now sometimes I think people see inconsistency in characters as ‘bad writing’ but I see it as making them more believable/complex. So yes, ‘unstable’ writing comes as no surprise.

2. The Card from Joker’s Funhouse

Now this one’s shorter but it’s much more presentable. The lettering is mostly level and although there’s the mix between capital and lower case letters within the same word it’s overall more thought out. Even the doodles of the diamonds (?) on top of the ‘i’ are consistent. There’s a bluntness to this that otherwise isn’t seen in the first letter, the sentence are short and concise almost as if Joker has more control here. And he does, Bruce sees this letter after being shocked unconscious by Joker. He’s not in his Batsuit and he’s being led towards the games that Joker is going to force him to play before ‘dinner’.

I know this is written with a different pen, clearly a marker and that can effect penmanship, I know I write better with a certain type of pen (thicker ball points) but I like to think there’s more certainty in Joker at this point in the story about what he’s doing, since before this, John was a part of other peoples plans.

Also this one reads more intimately than the other for obvious reasons like with the use of the term ‘our secret’ and the domestic connotations of ‘dinner’ but that of course goes into the bigger scheme of this being presented as a dinner party. What I think is most important in this letter is how the heart ❤️ has no arrow in it. Unlike the first card which did;

According to Google:

A heart symbol pierced with an arrow, symbolizing romantic love (being lovestruck, or the pain of lovesickness) A typical depiction of the Sacred Heart (often shown with other attributes, e.g. surmounted by a cross, pierced by nails or swords, etc.)

Okay maybe the first one was more intimate?

But from what I could find about a plain heart and what it could potentially mean, the closest I could really find was ‘unromantic but sincere love’. And with what we know about Joker’s determination and certainty that he is the ‘villain’ of Batmans/Bruces dreams (a term could definitely be a stand in for other things) I think that certainty comes off here too. Bruce never questions or entertains the thought that Joker would have taken his suit off in front of others or had his henchmen do it, it’s clearly implied with how committed Joker is to not exposing Batmans identity that it was HIM who removed the batsuit off Bruce’s unconscious body. Point is, there’s this mutual/unspoken assuredness between them that this is in fact THEIR secret.

End!

Phew! Idk if this made sense or even coherent but I just found the letters really cool and wanted to talk about them. Let me know if I should go into more detail or pls add to this in the notes I’d love to hear your ideas!

[izzyspussy]

anyway so seasons 1-early 3 mickey is a pessimist with a dash of nihilist (miserable), and because of that ian looks like an optimist verging on idealist to him.

the fact of the matter is that ian is not an optimist and he certainly is not an idealist. he's a little naive, sure, but less than what would be appropriate for his age. he's also not a pessimist or a nihilist (either kind). or a realist or a pragmatist or any of those.

no, ian is quite simply. unfathomably stubborn. and that is all.

he'll get into west point. he's absolutely certain of this. why? because he fucking said so.

he'll have a real relationship with mickey. they are in love and they are going to be together. this is true. how does he know? because. he. fucking. said so.

he doesn't have hope. he doesn't want things. that's pussy shit. there are precisely three types of things in this world: things ian isn't interested in, things ian already has, and things ian will have. that is simply that!

(which is obviously its own very specific mindset and is at least as extreme as pure optimism and pure pessimism, and is almost certainly just another fun little factor when the force of his will alone is not enough to change the reality of an ongoing traumatic event that contributes to the somewhat early onset of his bipolar disorder. but that's tangential.)

now. once again, disclaimer, these characters cease to exist past early season 5 for me, so there's every chance this next bit is exclusive to MY mickey and ian. there's just no way to know ❤️

that said. ian matures into a nihilist (carefree) - and i would say he's here-ish already in season 4, but in a maladaptive way at that stage - and then eventually matures further into a nihilistic (carefree)-leaning pragmatist.

mickey on the other hand - after a period of having no particular mindset of this type of thing at all which in effect amounts to a months-to-a-year long panic attack where his every action is fueled by emotional desperation and he has no solid concept of his own wants, needs, values, or future beyond the ever-present but totally incoherent certainty that he can't live without ian but ian can and will leave him with ease for even the slightest infraction or failure that terrorizes him like a weasel terrorizes a hen in his every waking moment - um. what was i saying.

oh right. mickey on the other hand, after All That, matures first into a sort of quiet idealism (kind of a pendulum swing maybe, but not quite not also progress, iygiygi), and then. into a less naive version of the old ian's way lmao.

there is no "that's how things are/go" or "that's how the world works" or "life is/isn't fair" or any fundamental human nature or any purpose or lack thereof to life or possible and impossible or likely and unlikely or anything else along any of those lines. there are only two types of things in the world: things that don't matter and mickey's next achievement. and that's that, baby!

and then eventually, mick finishes out at a relatively stable and sustainable realist-leaning optimism, heavily informed by romanticism of the Certain Things Are Meant To Be kind. like, he wouldn't necessarily express that or think of it in those terms. and he doesn't think it's a common thing, in fact it's rare and special and he's very lucky, and even if something is like that it still doesn't mean you don't have to put the work in for it to go well and end up Right. and he doesn't believe in a higher power or in Fate quite as such or in the will of the universe or a cosmic balance or anything like that really.

it's just, you know. sometimes. every now and then. there's just this one little thing that will continuously keep trying to happen without any heed to sense or logic or the incredible odds against it. just something in particular that will forever and always find a way to happen.

like say. for example. there's this gay kid, right? and he gets in this fight and he wins and he's about to bring down a tire iron and ruin this other idiot's pretty face and - for no discernible reason whatsoever - he just... doesn't. and maybe he'll think about it half a dozen years later and wonder why. that one tiny little thing that changed his whole fucking life, why did he do that? what was the reason? and there just. isn't one.

and that's not even all. see, these two dumbasses have no idea the other one is gay too, but some-fucking-how they don't have to say a word or even make any opening moves to just Know they want each other. it's like they read each other's fucking minds, even though he knows, he remembers, he didn't sense anything from ian. but for Some Fucking Reason he just never for a second considered ian wouldn't want him, and ian was in perfect time with him. and maybe he'll think back and try to find an explanation for this part too. was there some body language he read? was there some look in ian's eyes? but the answer is no every time.

and then after that, these two gay kids just can't be kept apart. they just can't. and it's not just that they inexplicably can't resist each other either. every time they're separated they find each other again, no matter what. even when they're the ones to separate themselves, situation after coincidence after happenstance after necessity keeps putting them in each other's orbits. secrecy and jealous exes and gun violence and imprisonment and infidelity and a fucking pathological fear of intimacy and conversion therapy and genuine threat to their lives and marriage to someone else and permanent life-altering illness can't break them up. at least not for long.

and then. somehow. SOME fucking how! after all that, and with the absolutely shit chances that they ever even hooked up in the first place, they actually fucking make it? they don't just get to be together, they get to be happy??

so no, he doesn't believe in god or destiny or soulmates or whatever the fuck. but at the same time, i mean. what other explanation is there?

[cosmicjoke]

The Psychological and Emotional Impact of Levi’s Early Childhood:

I don’t think Levi’s early childhood really gets discussed enough in the fandom, or the ways in which those experiences in his formative years had to have impacted him.  This could be because we don’t really get many panels depicting his childhood.  Just a few.  But those few panels show us enough for us to extrapolate plenty and form a pretty clear picture of what he went through.

First of all, it’s almost a certainty that Levi was born as the result of rape. 

That’s something that I think everyone should let sink in.

He was born in the brothel that his mother, Kuchel, worked in.  And “worked” is a relative term here.  Kuchel was driven into the Underground as a result of persecution by the royal family.  She was undoubtedly very young, she was alone, with no real resources or support or guarantee of safety or protection from anyone, in an environment of criminality and violence.  There were likely very few, if any options available to her in terms of her own survival.  Her becoming a prostitute wouldn’t have been any kind of a choice then, but rather a move made in desperation.  And so I think we can also safely assume that Kuchel’s experiences working as a prostitute were tantamount to forced labor.  In other words, a kind of slavery.  She was almost certainly paid a paltry sum by the brothels owner, evidenced by the sorry, squalid and destitute state we see her and Levi living in when Kenny comes.  She was likely afforded very few, if any rights or defenses against whatever her clients chose to do to her, as also evidenced by the fact that no one seemed to really know or care enough about her or Levi to even realize when she had died. 

It’s impossible for me to define any of what Kuchel went through working in such a place as anything less than rape, then.

So, Levi’s very existence is one that is a literal product of violence.  I’m absolutely sure that Levi himself is painfully aware of this, knowing that he was born out of his own mother’s pain and suffering.  Going into the implications of this on Levi’s psychological health, I think you can safely assume this realization had a very negative impact on his own sense of self-worth.  His mother was the only person in his childhood who we ever saw treat him with any kind of actual love or kindness.  The only person who ever, actually wanted him.  And yet, Levi would have seen demonstrated to him, every day, how his existence in his mothers life placed an increased burden on her, forcing her into increasingly more desperate circumstances, now having to feed two mouths instead of only one, and as a result, likely having to engage in increased, unwanted sexual activity with her clients.  So Levi would be aware that not only was his mother, (again, the only person who loved and treated him with tenderness) being hurt on his behalf, but he also would have been aware, after witnessing the particular ways in which she was being hurt, that he himself was the result of that violence.  Levi would have been shown that his very existence, then, was something which caused immense suffering and pain to the only person in his life who loved him.  I honestly can’t even imagine the negative implications of something like this on a young mind.  Only to say, it must have been horrific and resulted in lifelong trauma.  Trauma which, due to the desperation of Levi’s life afterward, he likely never had any opportunity or chance to even address. 

Now, moving on to something else.  There’s a tendency by many to paint Kuchel as this sort of perfect mother figure.  Someone who, through the power of her love for Levi alone, was able to overcome the trauma of their general circumstances, to negate the negative experiences he would have been exposed to, resulting in Levi becoming the kind and compassionate person he would be as an adult.  But I think this assumption about Kuchel and their situation is not only unrealistic and idealized in the extreme, but also in its way, undermines the actual bleakness of their circumstances.

Again, we have to remember that Kuchel was driven into the Underground, and essentially forced, through lack of any other options, to become a prostitute.  Calling her a prostitute is a nice way of saying she had to sell herself into sexual slavery.  Kuchel’s own psychological and emotional trauma doesn’t often get touched upon or acknowledged when people talk about her and her relationship with her son, nor does the desperate poverty of their living situation.  Kuchel died right in front of Levi, and we can assume with pretty good accuracy that she either died from a sexually transmitted disease, or that she died from malnutrition and starvation.  These weren’t two people, then, who were living a comfortable or secure life.  In fact, the very opposite.  Levi was starving to death when Kenny found him.  It’s easy enough to assume from his state of general neglect and starvation that Kuchel, at the very least, was struggling to provide for him.  Not just food, but any kind of comfort or care.  Clothing, warmth, protection, cleanliness, and very likely even, affection.  This isn’t a knock on Kuchel’s worth as a mother, or her parenting.  She was, undoubtedly, doing the best she could given the circumstances.  But, again, this particular aspect of their lives isn’t touched on nearly enough.  Kuchel died out of neglect, impoverishment, desperation and abuse.  Given what we can assume her day to day life was like, having to let men come and sexually assault her just to keep herself and her son alive, one has to also consider the emotional and mental toll this sort of existence would eventually have on her.  She had to have been exhausted, both mentally and physically.  You add to this the always uncertain and present reality of whether either her or Levi would even be able to eat on any, given day, whether she would be able to keep her son from starving to death, and you can start to form a clear idea of how things like “playtime” or “fun”, or freely given and enthusiastic love and affection, would be, tragically, low on the list of priorities.  Their situation was absolutely a situation of survival, first and foremost.  Luxuries weren’t a part of their lives.  Anyone who’s ever experienced extreme deprivation, poverty and desperation on the level in which Kuchel and Levi were living would know that those material realities absolutely have a negative impact on one’s ability to simply live.  To be happy.  To indulge in fantasy.  To indulge in luxury.  To indulge in any kind of relaxation or ease of living.  It’s nice to imagine that Kuchel was always able to show Levi love and affection.  To always be a kind, caring and generous mother to him.  But that perception of their lives together ignores the bleak and harsh reality of what was really going on.  More likely than not, Kuchel was often too exhausted and in bad, physical shape herself to play with Levi, to pay attention to Levi, to indulge in Levi.  It was everything she could do, after all, to simply keep Levi alive, let alone healthy and happy.  Kenny described Levi, when he first took him in, as the most unfriendly kid he’d ever met.  We rarely see Levi speak at all in those early days with Kenny.  That doesn’t speak to someone who is well adjusted socially.  That doesn’t speak to someone who received a lot of open love and affection in the formative years of his childhood.  Again, this isn’t to criticize or undermine Kuchel’s abilities as a mother.  It’s simply acknowledging the tragic reality, that someone in Kuchel’s position, living the kind of life she was living, wouldn’t have had the luxury of being for Levi everything he needed her to be. 

This also leads me into another point I don’t think I’ve ever seen discussed, and that has to do with Kuchel’s decision to have Levi at all, and how that choice is, simultaneously, both entirely selfless, and entirely selfish. 

Kenny tells his grandfather that he tried to talk Kuchel out of having her baby, trying to explain to her how bringing a baby into the kind of situation she was living in wasn’t viable.  It was only going to make, not only her own life worse, but in turn, the baby’s life was going to be awful too.  We later see, in Kenny’s memories, a scene in which Kuchel is holding Levi as a newborn against her chest and crying tears of happiness.  Kenny recalls this as part of his monologue about dreams, and the desperation of dreams, and the ability of dreams to corrupt us.  This is important to acknowledge.  Because again, while Kuchel’s intentions in giving birth to Levi were pure, and her love for him was absolutely pure and genuine, still, she DID bring him into a situation of extreme poverty, desperation and violence.  In a way, Kuchel prioritized her dream of motherhood not only over her own well being (this being the selfless aspect of her decision), but also over Levi’s well being (this being the selfish aspect).  She knew her own living situation was terrible, filled with suffering, cruelty and pain.  She knew this, and she was aware, from Kenny’s own words, that bringing a child into that situation was only going to make things worse, for both of them.  But she chose to do it anyway.  She chose to give birth to Levi, and to keep him, knowing the sort of deprivation and desperation he would be exposed to.  Knowing the kind of violence and cruelty and ugliness he would be exposed to, being born and raised in a brothel, in which she was working as a prostitute, relegated to a single room with him in it. 

Chances are high, extremely high, that Levi saw his mother raped.  Maybe she sent him out of the room when she was with clients.  But maybe she wasn’t able to.  We never see any evidence of Levi having ever left their single room as a child, and even if he had, the building they were in was a brothel, catering to men seeking and paying for the sexual services of women.  It isn’t an environment that is, in any way, suited to a child, friendly to a child, or even tolerant of a child.  It’s almost 100% certain that Levi was, at one time or another, exposed to sexual violence against women, whether it was his own mother, or someone else.  He would have been exposed to violence in general too, because men who sexually assault women are also very likely to physically assault them.  I don’t think it’s any kind of a stretch, even, to assume that Levi himself might have been on the receiving end of physical violence, at the least, in a place like that.  Men who wouldn’t want some little kid around while they force themselves on the women there probably would have little qualm with hitting Levi to make him go away. 

Again, going back to Levi’s “unfriendliness” when Kenny first takes him in, I think we can extrapolate that a lot of what Kenny was perceiving as unfriendly behavior was in fact just Levi being withdrawn.  He seemed sullen and mute to Kenny.  We see this in children who have been abused.  They tend to go within themselves and make themselves as unobtrusive as possible, not wanting to draw attention to themselves, because whenever they have, it’s always resulted in them somehow being hurt.  Levi’s body language when Kenny first meets him speaks to this as well.  He’s curled against the wall opposite his mother’s bed, literally making himself as small as possible, his knees hugged to his chest, his head bowed close to them, etc...  Like he’s trying to hide.  Again, it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to assume that Levi fell victim to the violence of the men who frequented that place.  The Underground in general was filled with violent and cruel men who made a living out of criminality, who in fact wouldn’t think twice about committing murder, etc... 

This is the world Kuchel brought Levi into.  A world of physical and sexual violence, a world of depravity and illness, a world of poverty and starvation.  Kuchel loved Levi with all her heart.  That isn’t for a moment in doubt.  But by choosing to have him and keep him, she also trapped him into a life of pain and suffering of his own.

Kuchel had to know, if anything were to happen to her, that Levi’s chances of survival were next to none.  He was helpless without her, and that too is evidenced by the fact that, when Kenny finds them, Levi is literally starving to death.  He’s just sitting there, resigned to his fate.  There’s no indication whatsoever that Levi ever even left their room to seek food, or help of any kind.  He just sat there, trapped with his mother’s rotting corpse, waiting to die.  And nobody there cared enough to even check on him or his mother in the span of time between when she fell ill and when she died.  Nobody there cared enough about either of their lives to see if they were okay, and we can assume, because Levi didn’t seek anyone’s help, that he didn’t think anyone would help him, which tells us all we need to know about how he and his mother were generally treated in that place.  Kuchel must have known, as she was dying, that without her, Levi was going to die too.  She had no way and no cause to know or think that Kenny would come by to rescue him.  And, indeed, if Kenny hadn’t shown up right when he did, Levi almost certainly would have died in that room with her.  I can’t even imagine the pain this must have caused her, knowing she was dying, and knowing as a result, that her son was going to die too.  It would have been unbearable.  But again, this is also the risk Kuchel took when she chose to give birth to and keep Levi.  She knew this was a possibility.  That her child would die a slow and painful death without her there to protect and take care of him.

So this sort of sunny, idealistic picture that tends to get painted of Levi’s life with his mother seems both unrealistic and unfair to them in terms of understanding their actual situation.  This wasn’t a happy or good life they were living together.  It was a life full of misery and pain.  Levi’s monologue later on to the 104th recruits, about not knowing if you’ll wake up and get to eat that day, or if your friends will still be alive, wasn’t just a reflection on their lives living with the threat of titans.  It was a reflection of his own life living in the Underground, living a life surrounded by poverty and violence and uncertainty.  That was Levi’s existence for the first 25 years of his life.  That was Levi’s childhood.  Violence and starvation, cruelty and deprivation.  Kuchel’s love, as pure and as genuine as it was, wasn’t enough on it’s own to overcome the scars of all that. 

One last note to end this on. 

There’s also a tendency to paint Kenny’s rescue of Levi as this very heroic and selfless act on Kenny’s part.  A moment in which Levi was pulled from the jaws of certain death and given a chance to live by his uncle.  And while, yes, Kenny certainly did save Levi’s life and give him that chance, I think it’s also important to acknowledge that Kenny’s treatment of Levi was abusive, and ultimately caused him more harm than good.  Kenny, we have to remember, went down to the Underground to rescue Kuchel.  He went to that brothel with the intention of pulling her out and bringing her to live back up on the surface, able to do so now that he had ended the persecution of their family through his connection with Uri Reiss.  But by the time he got there, Kuchel was dead, and she’d left behind her only child in Levi.  Kenny could have so easily brought Levi up to the surface with him, the way he’d been planning on doing with Kuchel, and given him a good and happy life.  He could have saved him from the hell of living in the Underground City.  A world of perpetual darkness, a world of constant danger and desperation and illness.  People talk about how Kenny gave Levi the tools to survive in such a harsh environment, and treat this as if it’s something to somehow be applauded and praised.  But Kenny shouldn’t have had to teach Levi to survive in a cut-throat environment at all.  He’d made it possible for those with the Ackerman name to live free of persecution up above.  He could have easily taken Levi with him and given him a good, traditional education, fed and clothed him, given him shelter, given him the chance to grow up in fresh air and sunlight, given him a chance to make friends with other children, to learn social skills and just live a normal existence with the opportunity to actually be happy.  But instead Kenny chose to keep Levi in the Underground, to teach him how to kill, to teach him to be violent, and not much else, before simply abandoning him there and never going back, forcing Levi to survive on his own in the most dangerous place inside the walls.  What Kenny did to Levi wasn’t a kindness.  A kindness would have been rescuing Levi from the Underground entirely and giving him a real life above.  A kindness would have been Kenny giving to Levi what he’d planned on giving to his sister.  But Kenny was too selfish to do that, and that’s the bottom line.  He didn’t want to have to take care of and raise a child.  He didn’t want the responsibility.  Whether that’s tied to Kenny’s own, negative perception of himself or not doesn’t matter.  He still chose not to take Levi with him and give him a real life because actually caring for and raising a child would have been too hard, too much work, too much responsibility.  By leaving Levi there in the Underground, he sent Levi the message, clear as day, that he wasn’t wanted.  And so Levi spent the entirety of his childhood, and a good portion of his adulthood, believing that, and living in the Underground, living a life of violence and desperation and suffering.

I don’t think the suffering Levi went through as a child gets discussed or acknowledged enough, or examined enough.  I don’t think people often look at it with enough objective realism to realize the extreme harm and trauma Levi experienced and was left with.  It’s genuinely a miracle that Levi turned out the way he did.  That Levi is as good a man as he is.  Nothing in his life growing up can really account for that.  Everything in his life growing up would evince that he should have become the sort of man Kenny was, selfish and cruel.  It’s truly against all odds that Levi became the exact opposite.  Selfless in the extreme, kind, caring and compassionate above and beyond anyone else in the series.  Someone who fights for and gives his life in dedication to the dreams and lives of others.

In many ways, Levi is, himself, the greatest miracle of all.

[twopoppies]

some words:

i don’t know if anyone here has ever lost a relative, or has ever lost a loved one. i’m sure some people have. but, to those who haven’t, i thought i might share some words. my mom died nine years ago, when i was thirteen. and about a year ago, i lost my dad, too. and the thing is, the grief that comes with losing someone really close is… man. the physical loss is loud. the physical aspect is really painful. it’s like something has been removed, torn apart, ripped from you. the absence keeps ringing, making itself known. to know that person existed and they’re now just gone, as in you’ll never hear their voice again, never see them laugh again, never talk again, never touch. the loss is so deep, so real.

but then, what happens when an artist dies? the physical aspect of loss is not there, because there was never a presence to begin with. so it is so different. it’s not nearly the same pain. but there is something.

i was never a fan of liam payne. i was never a directioner. i started to listen to their songs and care about their careers in 2016, when they were no longer. then i became a larrie, and i became a hardcore fan of harry, so liam was always… there. i was aware of him, i knew some lore, he was in the fanfic i’ve been reading for over five years. if it’d been any other musician, it would be a tragedy, a shock, yes, but it just wouldn’t have affected me. this one felt a little bit close to home. because, even though i’ve never felt a strong connection to him, i do know what it’s like to be a hardcore fan.

being a fangirl has always been a part of me. all my life. it’s the hours you spend in front of the computer, watching videos, interviews, shows. it’s the energy invested. for so many people it is the happiness, the joy, the pleasure of their lives. it’s a shelter from the reality of the world. it’s so important.

now that liam is gone, i feel like the shelter from has suffered a rupture. it’s like someone has dipped a bucket of cold water all over us. these last couple of days have given me the daunting realization that this shelter is not actually safe from the harsh world and its cruel ways. which feels wrong, because this space is supposed to be a protection.

for so many years now i’ve been fantasizing about meeting harry one day. talking to him. hugging him. and when i imagine it, when i picture it, i feel like it’s a real possibility. like it’s gonna happen some day, like there’s a chance. rationally, i know my chances are low. but emotionally, it’s a want, it’s a desire, and, in my daydreams, a certainty. and in my personal feelings, there’s no one else to dedicate these feelings to. he is the artist for me.

to imagine meeting this person, talking to them, hugging them, but knowing that there’s no real, concrete possibility of it in the world? it’s like the end of our deepest affections. i would be so torn. there’d be no one else to admire they way i admire them, there would be no longer a shelter from the world. being a fangirl is so much a part of who i am, has been throughout all my life, so i wouldn’t even know who i am without it.

all of this to say. there’s no physical pain, but there is pain. and it is so significant. my heart is with all of you who are hardcore fans of liam. music, theater, books, paintings. all art that is made in the world has a reason for being. it’s because we need it. we are humans, and reality is cruel. it’s not enough. we need something other, something that goes beyond, to help us get through. to have a rupture in something that is so inherently important is truly devastating. whatever you’re feeling right now is so, so valid. although the loss was not physical, something was taken. and that something runs really deep.

this thing that happened is horrible. i truly feel for liam. he deserved the chance to get better, and to go peacefully, when the time came, gently. this really is devastating. may the hearts of all the ones who knew him find peace.

Thank you so much for this. And I’m so sorry you lost your parents when you are still so young. 🩷

[wangxianficrecs]

Rebirth of a Wretched Mayfly by marikazz

Rebirth of a Wretched Mayfly

by marikazz

M, 15k, Wangxian

Summary: He sat upright and clenched his hands, numb from the cold. They felt as real as anything did these days. Wei Wuxian remembered 'yesterday' with relative certainty. They had planned an attack, Lan Wangji never leaving his side, spitfire eyes glaring and turning away in the end. Him, alone, coming down on the Wen's flank like a wraith. The stench of freshly raised corpses and the shrill sound of his own flute bleeding into the rush of blades and arrows piercing the clear air turned rancid. The ground churning into mud, an unknowable amount of fighting and bloodshed passing. Then, clear as day, the memory of an arrow to his back, of his sudden tumble and death. Not too terrible, but he felt there was no use dwelling on it for too long either. --- In the middle of the Sunshot Campaign, Wei Wuxian inexplicably repeats a harrowing winterday. Kay's comments: Incredibly painful Groundhog Day AU where Wei Wuxian lives a day in the middle of the Sunshot Campaign again and again. Either it ends with him dying or with passing out or Lan Wangji dies. It starts grating on his psyche sooner than later and eventually, he stars throwing himself at swords, too tired to continue. The angst in this was sooo good and the ending was so worth it. I really loved how it all wrapped up and how he finally found a way out of this, even though it was the most embarassing route for Wei Wuxian personally. Excerpt: For a moment Lan Wangji merely looked at him with a slightly wrinkled brow. "Wei Ying, why are you still here?" Wei Wuxian rolled his eyes. "I was meditating" Lan Wangji face became a little blanker at that, making Wei Wuxian snort. "We are leaving for the ambush shortly," Lan Wangji said and pursed his lips at Wei Wuxian's general unpreparedness. Wei Wuxian got a phantom sensation of those same lips, slick with blood, sliding against his neck. Fear suddenly clenched around his ribcage, making him recoil violently. "No," he spat. Lan Wangji lifted his hand aimlessly, but Wei Wuxian turned away and blinked rapidly at the ground. He took a bracing breath and choked out, "No, we are not" The frown was certainly noticeable now. "We are in a precarious position, it is unwise to remain here-" Acid curled in his stomach and he clenched his jaw. "We can't go, Lan Zhan"

pov wei wuxian, canon divergence, sunshot campaign, groundhog day, angst, angst with a happy ending, emotional hurt/comfort, death, major character death, suicide, mental health issues, graphic depictions of violence, war, trust issues, hurt wei wuxian, it gets worse before it gets better, miscommunication, misunderstandings, feelings realization, developing relationship, falling in love, getting to know each other, love confessions, golden core reveal, wei wuxian is not okay, wei wuxian whump

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

[beyondthesefourwalls]

This Love Came Back to Me (9)

Summary: You and Bradley hadn’t ended on bad terms; really, you stopped before the two of you could even truly begin. Still, in the last seven months, you had never completely left his mind. So when you suddenly appeared in front of him at the bar, asking for a favor and pulling him into a kiss, he thought maybe it was the perfect opportunity to see if this time, things could be different. But what neither of you realized was that there’s more going on than just rekindling a lost romance, and it might not be as easy as simply just wanting it. 

Pairing: Bradley Bradshaw x Reader (no use of y/n)

Warnings: second chance romance, language, allusions of smut and potential full smut, stalking, breaking and entering, unhealthy obsessions, delusions of feelings, unwanted attention.

Part Nine Word Count: 5.9K

Part Eight :: Series Masterlist

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-----

Bradley didn’t remember running out of the driving range or getting in the Bronco. All he could focus on was the sound of your crying, though he supposed that word didn’t do it justice. You were full on hyperventilating on the other line, sobbing violently as you tried to talk. He hasn’t gotten anything out of you except for your request to come get you, and he had to swallow the panic he was feeling himself now to focus on you. 

He didn’t know what the fuck happened, but he had an awful feeling that whatever it was would fundamentally change things because of the severity of it. You wouldn’t be responding so strongly if it wasn’t. 

God, he was so worried you were going to make yourself sick. He felt helpless listening to you, trying to offer any comfort that he could over the phone as he sped through traffic to get to you.

“Deep breaths, baby,” he reminded you, “just copy me, okay?” 

When he heard that maybe you were starting to catch your breath, even just marginally, he kept speaking. He didn’t even know what he was talking about, just hoping he could provide enough distraction to keep you relatively calm. 

He stayed on the phone with you the whole time, and by the time he was pulling into the parking lot, he felt like he was going to crawl out of his skin with concern. 

“I’m here,” he said. “Can you tell me where you’re parked?” 

Your voice still had a worrying hitch to it, but you had calmed enough to tell him what row you were in. It didn’t take long for him to spot your vehicle. He didn’t hang up until he was hopping out of the Bronco and jogging the distance to you. He didn’t realize it was possible, but his heart broke and his worry increased more when he finally laid eyes on you. 

“Bug,” he breathed, “come here, baby.” 

But you were already throwing yourself into his arms, clinging to him tighter than you ever have. You were still half in your seat and his knees were bent awkwardly, but he didn’t care as he held you. You were shaking and your breath was still stuttered, and now that he was here, he could tell with certainty that it was fear that was rolling off of you in waves. His natural urge to protect you flared - what in the hell had made you this scared? 

“B, he-I-he kn-” 

You were starting to hyperventilate again. Bradley shushed you gently, rubbing what he hoped were soothing circles onto your back. He did his best to keep his breathing steady in hopes that yours would gradually match it. When your trembling eased by a margin, he pulled back slightly, keeping one hand on your back while the other cupped your face, wiping away some of your tears. His eyebrows furrowed when he noted the small scrape on your chin. Instinctively, his eyes darted over the rest of you, scanning for any other injuries. His eyes widened as he gently grabbed your wrists to get a better look at your palms. They were scraped to all hell, skin raw in some spots. With a quick glance he saw your knees were in even worse shape. 

“Jesus. What the hell happened?” 

“Oh,” you responded, almost in a whisper. You were looking at the distressed state of your skin like you hadn’t even realized anything was wrong. He felt a new round of panic that you were physically injured on top of being scared, but that the latter was so strong, you hadn’t even noticed. 

“Bug?” he prompted, cupping your face again and drawing your eyes back to his. They were so wide, your pupils blown with fear, and bloodshot from the steady stream of tears. 

“I - I fell,” you croaked after a moment. “I was - I was running away, and I tripped.” 

You were running away? A million questions ran through Bradley’s mind. He wanted to ask them all, but he forced himself to settle on the most obvious. 

“From what, baby?” he asked as gently as he could, running his thumb over your cheek. He brushed away another tear as it fell. Your bottom lip wobbled and your breath hitched again, and at this point he was so worried about the stress your body was going through at the rollercoaster of emotions you had experienced in the last 30 minutes since you called him. But then you started speaking again, your voice so meak that he barely heard you, and he thought maybe he understood, because every emotion that he had skyrocketed, too.  

“Paul,” you said, your voice breaking on the name.

Paul. 

Of fucking course it was Paul. 

Immediately, Bradley felt the anger that had become familiar in regards to the man. It was one thing for the slimy bastard to put you through hell at work and to show up when he was there with you, but this time, whatever he had done had sent you running. You had gotten physically harmed in the process. 

He should have dealt with him when he had the chance all those weeks ago. 

“I wanted to go shopping after brunch and I was in the bookstore and he was there and he said he forgives me for reporting him like it was somehow my fault, and that he was sorry we haven’t been able to spend time together at work and he-he-” 

“Hey, hey, take a breath. You’re okay. I’m right here,” Bradley reminded you, trying to keep his voice gentle despite how furious he was. You were his priority right now, and you were starting to slip into a panic again. He was desperate to know what had happened that would cause such an extensive, visceral reaction. The possibilities made him angrier than he already was, but he could wait. Right then, he needed to take care of you. 

He wiped some of your mascara from under your eye and pushed your hair back from your face before leaning forward to press a kiss to your forehead. 

“Let me take you home, and we can-” 

“No!” 

Bradley startled at your sharp exclamation, not expecting it in the slightest. To further his surprise, your eyes had widened bigger than they had been. Your fear was so palpable that he started feeling it himself. His concern damn near doubled. Before he could even really process it enough to ask a question, you were off again. You were trembling so bad it was like your whole body was vibrating, your chest rising and falling at a rapid pace. 

“I can’t go back there, B. Please. I can’t -” 

“Bug,” he interrupted. He held your face between his palms, trying desperately to get your alarming frantic eyes to focus on him. 

“He knows where I live. He knows everything. He’s been tracking me. Bradley. I-I don’t want to go back!” 

Bradley could feel his own hands start to shake as his anger grew. He knew where you lived? He had been tracking you? What the hell did that mean? 

In his peripherals, he noticed that people were starting to stare as they made their way through the parking lot. It was crowded, so you were smart to come here, but at the same time, he couldn’t see everyone who may be lurking. And it seemed like that was a very real thing to be concerned about, even if he didn’t understand what exactly you were saying. He needed answers, but he needed you safe and calm even more. He took a deep breath in through his nose, letting it out slowly.

“I’m taking you back to my place, okay? Just you and me.”

To his relief, you nodded and mumbled an “okay” in response. It was jerky and quick, but it meant you were hearing him through your anxiety; that counted for something. He placed another kiss on your forehead and then one on your lips - he tried to ignore how the salt of your tears was more prevalent than the coconut chapstick he knew you had on. 

Bradley kept a tight hold on you as he grabbed your things and took your keys from the ignition. He’d worry about coming back to get the vehicle later. 

You didn’t say anything as he helped you into the Bronco, and you stared blankly ahead as he drove. A few silent tears fell from your eyes and he heard the stutter in your breathing on occasion, but you were quiet as you seemed to be settling into something close to shock. Part of him was glad that you weren’t in the same state you had been in when you called him and when he arrived, but the other part of him burned with questions. What had you meant? God, what the hell had happened? 

It was silent for a few minutes, both of you lost in your own thoughts. Your voice was so quiet when you uttered his name halfway back to his apartment that he almost didn’t hear it. He glanced over, but you were still staring straight ahead. 

“Yeah, sweetheart?” 

“He had my necklace,” you whispered, almost offhandedly, like you were trying to make sense of it yourself. Bradley’s eyebrows knitted together tightly in confusion.

“What?”

“The necklace I lost. I was wearing it when I got home that night. I know I was. But Paul…he had it. He…he was in my house,” your voice hitched and you raised a trembling hand to your mouth, shaking your head. “He was there when I was sleeping. Bradley. He-he was in my room.”

It took a second for the words to register in his mind, but then, all at once, they hit him like a freight train. 

Bradley thought that he knew anger. It was an emotion he was, unfortunately, intimately familiar with. But nothing…nothing had made him feel like this before. Red tinted his vision and fury swept through his body. It was like every fiber of his being was suddenly alive with the feeling. 

He was going to kill him.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” you warned, bringing him back to the present. Bradley navigated to the shoulder of the road in just enough time, as you had barely thrown the door open and leant out of the passenger side before you lost all the contents of your stomach. He unbuckled himself and slid over on the bench seat, gathering your hair up in one hand while the other splayed on your thigh. He listened to you get sick, the sound of it just fueling this ugly feeling inside of him. 

Paul had been in your house. While you were right there, laying in your bed fast asleep. The bed that Bradley had made love to you in earlier that morning and last night, and countless times before. You had been fast asleep and had never known, which means it could have happened other times that you didn’t know about, either. He had put his hands on you today. 

He had apparently been tracking you. 

Bradley needed to know the full story. He needed to understand everything that had happened thus far. But when you finally sat back in your seat and closed the door after throwing up one more time, instead of demanding answers, he pulled you into his arms. He held onto you as tightly as he could and you clung to him just as much in return. And as your tears dampened his polo shirt, one of his own slipped down his face and into your hair. 

——

You told Bradley everything right there on the side of the highway. He did his best to remain calm, despite the fact that all he wanted to do was yell and rage and go track down the man responsible for all of this. He knew you needed his strength right now, for him to keep a level head and not fall apart. And that’s why when you trailed off after detailing the events of the day, he didn’t take you back to his apartment right away. 

He kept his arm around your shoulder as you waited at the police station, and then held your hand when an officer finally took your statement. He rubbed your back when you had to write it all down. 

The older police officer had a gruff, stern appearance, but he offered you something resembling a kind smile when you handed him back the papers. 

“Without security footage or witnesses, any breaking and entering or trespassing accusations probably won’t stick. But we’ll look into it, as well as the stalking claims. You’ll have to file separate papers with the court about a restraining order, if that’s something you want to do.” 

Bradley was ready to insist upon it if he had to, but was relieved when you nodded, saying quietly that you’d do that first thing on Monday. 

You didn’t have any assurances of how things would work out when you left the station, which was frustrating in and of itself. The officer promised to call you with updates when they had them - Bradley already planned on calling back himself until they had some sort of answers and resolution. 

You were quiet the rest of the afternoon, not that he could blame you. He knew there was a thin line between letting you have time to think and letting you spiral into your own thoughts, but he liked to think he walked it well. He coerced you into eating something when dinner rolled around, and when you told him you wanted to go to bed when it was barely 8pm, he went with you. You looked grateful, like you were going to ask if he hadn’t volunteered. But then you asked him to double check that all the doors and windows were locked, snapping the hair tie on your wrist. He could feel the anger swelling in him all over again. 

When he came back to the bedroom, you were sitting on the end of the bed, your phone in your hand. You held it out to him with a trembling hand. 

“Can you check?” you asked him, eyes sad and wide with worry. “I don’t - I want to make sure I did it right. Please.”

God, he hated Paul. He hated him so fucking much.

Bradley sat beside you, showing you the screen as he went through and made sure that Paul’s contact was blocked and your location was completely cut off from him. He went one step further and double checked it from the Find My app as well, but you were still looking uneasy. 

“I can turn your location off all together,” he suggested softly, and your eyes snapped to his from your phone screen. You chewed on your bottom lip in consideration before nodding slowly. 

“From everyone but you,” you said, and his heart broke and beat faster at the same time. He pressed a kiss to your forehead before doing as you had requested. You turned your phone off when he handed it back to you, but he didn’t comment on it. 

Twenty minutes later, you laid facing each other in bed. One arm was tucked under your head, the other draped over your hip. He slipped his hand beneath the thin material of his shirt you were wearing to glide his fingertips gently along the skin of your lower back. 

“Is this my fault?” you whispered, so quiet that he almost didn’t hear you. But he did, and his heart broke at how meak and small you sounded; you were neither of those things. 

“No. Absolutely not.” 

You averted your gaze for a quick moment, but it’s enough for Bradley to know that you didn’t believe him. He said your name softly, waiting for you to look at him. Even in the darkness, it was obvious that your eyes were bloodshot, tired and weary. He had never seen you look so exhausted and dejected before. 

“You did nothing wrong.” 

“But my phone -” 

“No,” he interrupted sternly, his voice sterner than he had ever used with you. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Your crying, panicked face from earlier flashed in his mind and he shook his head, trying to rid himself of it. “This is not your fault. It was an accident. You didn’t mean to do it. And even if you did, this is still all on him. He was the one who made the decision to do what he did. Him. Not you.” 

You nodded slowly, but you still had a faraway, thoughtful look in your eye. Bradley sighed, bringing the hand that was on your back to your face. Your eyes fluttered shut and you turned your face just slightly, like you were trying to get closer to his touch. “Tell me that you know that, Bug. Please.” He needed you to understand this so badly, he practically held his breath waiting for you to respond. 

“It’s not my fault,” you finally whispered, and Bradley let out a rush of air. He nodded, and you scooted closer to tuck yourself against his body.

____

Bradley didn’t sleep well that night. Nightmares plagued you, and after the first time he woke to you screaming, he found that he was unable to fall back to sleep. Instead, he laid there with his arm around you, wondering how this could be happening. 

He had known something was off about that guy from the very first time he saw him that night when you had approached him in the bar. Even then, when Bradley’s mind was trying to catch up to the fact that you were in front of him, that you had just kissed him, he could tell. The look in the other man’s eyes had left him unsettled. He had looked at you like you were a possession. And then you told him more about him. Red flags had waved right in his face, but you had assured him that you had it handled, and that it would all be okay. You had honestly believed it yourself. 

Bradley had gotten caught up in being back together with you. He had let that happiness and that unwillingness to risk losing you again for being overbearing and overprotective blind him to the fact that there was this big of a threat. And instead, he risked losing you in a whole different way.  He was so pissed at himself for not laying the guy out flat when he had the chance. He knew after that second run in with Paul at the Hard Deck that this went beyond being a creepy crush from someone who couldn’t take a hint. He knew, and what had he done? But god - even when he imagined it could be bad, he never anticipated it would be at this level. This was something out of a nightmare. 

He gritted his teeth and clenched his fist so tightly he could feel his fingertips digging into his palm. His untouched palms, whereas yours were scraped up from running away from a man who had entered your home while you were sleeping. Defenseless. Alone. That was two weeks ago now; he wondered how many times he had done it before or since. 

Had he watched you change? Seen you in a way that no one should without your explicit consent? Did he watch the way that you put lotion on starting from the bottom and working your way up your body? Or the way you tended to hum the jeopardy theme music when you brushed your teeth? Did he watch the way you throw your mountain of throw pillows onto the chair in the corner before you crawled under the weighted blankets you slept with, no matter the temperature outside? He wondered where the despicable man had hid, waiting for you to fall asleep. How long had he stood there over your bed, watching you, seeing the rise and fall of your chest? What had he been thinking as he did? What had he done - 

He forced himself to stop. He feared that if he opened that box, he’d never be able to calm down, and that’s not what you needed from him right now. 

He glanced down at you, curled up against him. He could feel little puffs of air against his chest as you breathed. Your nose twitched and there was a wrinkle on your forehead. He couldn’t help but rub his finger over the line, trying to sooth it. He almost smiled when you seemed to relax at his touch, even just slightly. He buried his face in your hair, letting his eyes close as he breathed you in. 

You didn’t deserve this. You were his beautiful, vibrant, wonderful girl, and you didn’t deserve this. 

The sky was still dark on Sunday morning when Bradley slipped out of bed. You had just fallen back to sleep after another nightmare not too long ago, and he hoped you were able to get a few more hours of rest at least. He grabbed his laptop on the way into the kitchen, and after making himself a cup of coffee, he spent the next hour researching all of your options and finding all the appropriate forms you would need to fill out and take to the court house in the morning. When the sun had finally risen, he picked up his phone and called Phoenix. 

“You better have a damn good reason to be calling me so early in the morning, Bradshaw.” 

Her voice was groggy and he knew he had woken her up, but he would feel bad about that at another time. “That woman you’ve been seeing the last few months, Sadie, who you won’t admit you’re dating -” 

“We aren’t -” she tried to interrupt, suddenly sounding a lot more awake, but Bradley pushed on. 

“She’s a lawyer, right? Here in San Diego?” 

His best friend was quiet for a beat. When she answered him, her voice was slow and suspicious. “....Yes. Why?” 

“Can you give me her number?” 

“Rooster, what the hell is going on?” She sounded more than just suspicious now. Bradley knew it wasn’t his story to tell, but he also knew you were so overwhelmed and stressed that you were up half the night with nightmares. His mind flashed back to the near hour long panic attack you had yesterday; this wasn’t something you needed to do for yourself right now, not when he could handle it for you. So he told Phoenix the short version of everything, and when he was done, she was spitting out curses like a fresh recruit had just cut her off in the air. 

“Nat,” he called, trying to rein her in. “Her number?” 

She sighed and then let out a resigned groan on the other end. “I put you on speaker phone halfway through. I’m handing her the phone now.” 

It seemed the other woman really had been listening in, as she launched into questions right away, neither of them wasting time on pleasantries. Bradley went further into detail about everything, answering everything he could to the best of his ability while writing down the ones he couldn’t. 

“I’ll be honest, Bradley. Without concrete physical evidence, a protection order is 50/50. It’ll depend on what judge it gets put in front of. Purely technically speaking, it’s all just hearsay right now. But it will take a few weeks for a court date, anyway. I’d suggest she file for a temporary order, too. That’s more immediate - she’d find out the same day.”  

That wasn’t what Bradley wanted to hear. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “What are her chances for that?” 

“Stronger. Paul will be served with papers either way, so she needs to prepare herself for that, especially if the temporary ex parte is denied. He’d still be allowed to be around her. At work or -” 

“She won’t be going back to work.” 

He could practically see Sadie raise an eyebrow through the phone at how direct his statement was. He didn’t care if he sounded misogynistic or controlling. He wasn’t letting you go back there. Paul aside, they had put you through enough. And he was done letting people treat you the way they have been. Done. 

To her credit, Sadie hummed out a quiet “good” and continued on. 

He was on the phone with her for another 20 minutes. A lot of the legal jargon she was spouting off went right over his head, but she was patient each time he asked her to explain something. He took notes on everything to be able to answer any questions you had, later. 

“I don’t usually work on cases like these,” she told him at the end, “But that doesn’t mean I can’t. Talk to her, and if she wants to talk to me, tell her I’m more than happy to help. And if she’d rather someone who specializes in this, I can give her a few recommendations.” 

Bradley felt some of the tension in his shoulders ease at her words. That’s not why he had called, purely just wanting information, but he couldn’t deny the gratitude he felt at her offer. He knew he still needed to talk to you about it, so he thanked her, telling her he’d reach out soon either way. 

He went back and checked on you once he had hung up. You were still sound asleep, cuddled up under his duvet, your head on that stupidly expensive pillow case he hadn’t thought twice about buying. You were safe, and for right now at least, sound. 

He stood in the doorway and watched you for a minute. Looking at you always made him feel like his heart was going to burst out of his chest with how much he felt for you. He had never felt even close to this way for anyone else, ever. You were the first thing he thought about when he woke up in the morning and the last thing on his mind when he fell asleep at night, and more often than not, all the times inbetween, too. You were everything to him. All he wanted was to keep you safe. To support you and comfort you, and be by your side through both the good and the bad. 

To love you. 

He took a shaky breath and after one last long look, he turned and went back to the kitchen. He made another phone call as he poured his third cup of coffee for the day. 

“Hey, Mav. I know it’s short notice, but I need some time off.” He could hear the concern in his godfather’s voice when he asked him if everything was okay. Bradley glanced back to his bedroom again, and then over at his computer screen where there were over a dozen tabs open about different stalking and harassment laws in California. He felt a lump in his throat and swallowed thickly. “No,” he said. “Not really.” 

__

Bradley was glad he had moved back to the bed with his laptop after his phone calls, because when you jerked awake about an hour later, your eyes were wide with fear. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” 

Your frantic eyes darted around the room before settling on him. You seemed to relax once your brain processed that you were conscious and here in bed with him, and you gave him a small, if somewhat embarrassed smile. 

“Hi,” you whispered. Your voice came out as more of a croak, thick from disuse and he would guess all the crying from yesterday. You rubbed at your eyes like you were trying to rub away the remaining exhaustion you still felt. “What are you doing?” You gestured to his laptop and Bradley sighed. 

“Just some research, but we can talk about it later. You want coffee?” 

You looked like you were contemplating arguing with him, demanding whatever information he might have now. But in the end you just nodded. You went to throw the duvet off, but Bradley stopped you with a hand covering yours. He leant down and kissed you softly. 

You hummed against his mouth and when he pulled away, a genuine smile tugged at your lips. 

“Morning, Bug.”

“Morning, B.”

He told you about his phone call with Sadie after you had finished your coffee and the peanut butter and banana toast he made you for breakfast. You chewed on your bottom lip as you listened to him. He could see the wheels turning in your head and hated when your eyes started watering again, but you took a steadying breath and nodded.

“Thank you…for handling that for me. I’ll call her later, okay?” 

“Of course, baby.” 

A sudden knock at the door startled you, your eyes widening as your head whipped toward it. He winced, laying his hand over yours on the table and rubbing his thumb over the smooth skin of your fingers. 

“It’s just Hangman and Coyote. I called Jake earlier, and they stopped by and grabbed your keys. They went and got your car and brought it back here.” 

“Oh,” you breathed. “I - sorry.” 

Bradley sighed, standing from his seat. He stepped to where you were sitting and leant to press his lips to the top of your head. “Don’t apologize. Why don’t you go take a shower, and I’ll talk to them?” 

You nodded, and Bradley watched you retreat back to his bedroom as anxiety churned in his stomach. He understood why you were so skittish, but god damn if it didn’t make his blood boil all over again. 

The next few hours are spent filling out all of the forms for the restraining order you would be filing in the morning, and talking to Sadie on the phone again. You cried again when the woman, who you had never met before, said she was happy to help you without expecting anything in return. 

“I finally convinced Natasha to show me off after talking to your man earlier,” she had joked, managing to get a quiet snort of laughter from you, “So buy me a drink and teach me how to navigate getting all of these aviators to like me, and we’ll call it even, okay?” 

Bradley’s shocked when you’re the one who brought up going back to your place to get some of your things. You looked like you would rather be saying anything else.

“We can buy you new stuff,” Bradley offered, though he knew it was a weak option. By the huff you let out and the quirk of your lips, you knew it, too. 

“My work laptop is there,” you said, taking a deep breath. You snapped the hair tie on your wrist twice in quick succession before he reached out and stopped you, like he had done so many times before. “I have an absurd amount of paid time off accumulated,” you explained, voice quiet. “I should have used it before. But I’m going to email Gretchen and tell her I’m taking some of it. I…I can’t go back there right now.” 

Bradley felt so much relief that he didn’t have to talk you into it or force your hand - it was the last thing he had wanted to do. He decided he would wait to bring up you never going back there, regardless of having another job lined up or any remaining paid time off. This would work for now, and he would cross that bridge when you got to it, if necessary. 

Your breathing started getting heavier the closer you got to your house. By the time he pulled into your driveway, your fingernails had nearly torn the skin of his arm where you were digging in from your spot in the middle of the bench seat. 

“Bug,” he said softly once the Bronco was in park. “You don’t have to go in. We can figure something else out. Or you can just tell me what all you need and -” 

“No,” you insisted, swallowing thickly and shaking your head. You took in a deep breath through and let it out slowly. “I can do it.” 

You looked determined when you met his eyes, even if he could see the worry there, too. He wished more than anything he would never have to see that look in your eyes again. 

He kissed you there in the front seat, letting his forehead rest against yours for a moment. “I’ll be with you the whole time,” he reminded quietly. 

Bradley watched you closely once you got into the house. He held your hand tightly as you walked to your bedroom. You froze once you stepped into the room, your eyes trying to look everywhere all at once. He could tell your breathing was starting to come quicker as panic crept up. He took it upon himself to open your closet doors. Some of his own tension slipped away when he did, and he wondered if subconsciously you had both been bracing yourselves, expecting Paul to be waiting there in the small confined space. Still, Bradley didn’t want to linger here any longer than necessary. He grabbed your suitcase and set it on your bed for you, and together, you filled it and another duffle bag with enough to last you for a while. He could see your hands shaking as you collected your skincare and some of your makeup from the bathroom counter. 

All in all you were probably only in the house for maybe ten minutes, but he can tell it left you rattled, even if you tried to keep your composure. You were quiet on the drive back to his place and out of the corner of his eye, he saw you swiping a tear off your cheek. He settled a hand on your thigh, hoping it provided you some sort of comfort. 

Despite the fact that you had gotten one earlier that morning, after you sent the appropriate emails informing your awful boss about your time off, you took another shower. He had to swallow down his own emotions when you quietly told him that being back there made you feel dirty, knowing what you know. You were in there for over thirty minutes and Bradley nearly crawled out of his own skin as he waited for you. When you finally emerged, he could tell that you had been crying again. He watched as you pushed the chicken he had made for dinner around your plate, struggling again with an appetite. 

He wished he could take you away from all of this. 

“How do you feel about taking a trip somewhere?” he found himself asking, the idea only coming to him as the words came out of his mouth. You lifted an eyebrow in silent question. “Somewhere just the two of us. Away from the city.” 

“You have work,” you rebutted quietly.

“I put in for leave.” He could tell you were surprised by that by the way your eyes widened and that you were about to tell him it wasn’t necessary, so he continued on before you could. “I think it would be nice, even if it’s just for a few days.” 

You took a bite of your food as you thought it over. You were hesitant, but after a minute, you shrugged, offering him something of a smile and a small nod. “Okay.”

------------------

Part Ten :: Series Masterlist :: Main Masterlist

Notes: I think they've definitely earned some time away. I hope it's peaceful for them.

Likes/comments/reblogs are the best encouragement for posting more🖤

Thank you to Mak and Em for all of your help making this story come to life. And thanks to Mak for the AMAZING banner!

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[dennieshmany]

ᴛʜᴇ ᴏɴʟʏ ʀᴇꜰʟᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴡɪᴛʜɪɴ ᴛʜɪꜱ ʜᴇʟʟ ɪꜱ ɪɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴇʏᴇꜱ

-Chrollo holds onto your soul, even long into your demise-

-Word count: 800-

(Yandere!Chrollo X Dead-GN-Reader!)

There was an eerie feeling in the air, a pensive tension that couldn't be dismissed. Of course, you wished nothing more than for peace, for freedom from your current cage of hell. 

But with such sweet certainty, there was no way in hell you’d ever escape the grasps of who caught you. Not even death would allow you freedom. 

To your admission, you’d met Chrollo before. But by meeting, that meant a brief glance every time you passed him on the street, within the safe bounds of your street, your home, a place you’d never suspected to have criminal activity. You’d had no conscious idea of what he was capable of. 

Like a caged animal you’d soon become, prey to a looming predator, you were clueless. Meaninglessly brushing shoulders as you crossed the road that were forgotten on your mind were forever engraved into his. But like prey, it always dies at the hands of the predator.  

You’d never held a conversation with him, never once spoken a mere word. Exchanges of glances at most, just as you did with every passerby. 

To everyone else, it was almost as if you were a ghost, even long before your pitiful demise. 

Perhaps if you had been more attentive, more interested, you would never be caught in the mess you were in now. 

Chained to a post in a bedroom that you could not call home. 

At least the chain allowed for complete freedom within the bounds of those four walls. But the moment you stepped too close to the door, leading to who knows what, a burning sensation would break out along your skin. A tug would pull at your ankle until you were forced back into submission, back into the small convinds. 

You sighed softly, watching the steam from your breath disappear as if you’d never breathed in the first place.

A window was the only place you could dare to venture to. It was small, but it showed you a peace from the outside world that you longed for. 

Even if it was just cars passing by, looking like tiny ants from the high up apartment you’d been coddled into. It let you know the world was still going, still moving. 

Which in itself was a comfort. 

Chrollo had vanished a couple of hours ago, leaving you to your window with attempts of a sweet domestic goodbye, one you did not reciprocate. 

You hated him.

More than life itself. 

Death. It was the only path of escape reasonable, but with the baby proofing done to ensure your safety, you couldn't even begin to fathom a way for you to harm yourself in a way that would end your life relatively quickly. At least, for when you were alive you had hoped for such. 

Even then, hours of pain and suffering would be worth it if it would escape his bounds. 

“You stare out that window alot, my love.” You hadn’t heard him come home, or enter the room, but even if you’d been paying attention, what good would that do. 

You tucked closer in on yourself, holding your legs close to your chest. “Outside is prettier than in here with you.” Your words were soft and muttered, fear for if you lashed out, he would constrain you further, chains preventing you from properly being able to see out of your only source of freedom. 

“Oh dear, prettier than I,” he chuckled smooth like honey. “Prettier than you?” 

“How would I know?” You whispered, eyes slowly turning to him. “The only reflection within this hell is in your eyes.” 

He approached, reeking of washed off blood. Sharp and metallic along your senses. “Then why not stare until you see what it is you are looking for?” 

Your face pulled into disgust, though you were quick to whip it off. “Because I fear a monster like you would turn me into stone.” 

“A beautiful statue you’d be.” His words brought yet another bitter look to your face, head turning away. 

“Your vanity should be studied.” 

“I'd allow you to study me to your heart's desires.” You could feel a small heat radiating off him, indicating he was close, far too close. 

“I would rather study anything else.” You blinked, noticing his reflection within the mirror, but not yours. 

You sighed softly, looking over at him. 

“What is it, my love?” 

“You hold onto nothing more than a memory of me, Chrollo. How long will you allow these chains to rot against my skin.” You words were said with a ghastly air, in vain and in pain. 

“For even in your death you comfort me, my love.” His hand reached out for you, but it was all too evident that he would never touch nor reach you. 

“Then you will die of your own obsession as I did.” 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First time I've ever posted anything on Tumblr (lowkey shitting balls). Just a small dribble of something that I couldn't get off my mind! I hope to write more in the future <3

[endwersed]

WIP Wednesday

Tagged in last week by the amazing @eevylynn ❤️

I'm currently editing chapter nine of the poets are right, so here is just a li'l snippet of that! Full chapter expected out this weekend 😊

-

“Hi!” Eli says.

Derek’s jaw clicks as it works around his thick swallow.

“Hi,” he echoes back, the single word coming out more than a little bit breathless. “I... I’m Derek.”

“I know,” Eli replies breezily, twisting his neck to shine his grin back and forth between his fathers for a second, settling onto just Derek eventually. “So. Do you wanna come see the backyard? I got a new lacrosse stick for my birthday a few months ago, you can help me practice?”

Stiles feels as though he could say with relative certainty that Derek would say yes to doing literally anything that Eli wanted right about now. Tossing a lacrosse ball around, letting Eli kick him repeatedly in the nuts, a literal demonic summoning ritual out underneath the old oak tree. If it was on Eli’s to-do list for the day, Derek would probably be agreeing to it in a heartbeat.

Luckily for him, it seems to be just a little light sports on Eli's agenda.

Clearing his throat, Derek nods his head jerkily, transfixed eyes never leaving Eli’s grinning face. Stiles does not miss the way that Derek's trembling hands are slowly flexing and unflexing at his sides.

“Of course, that sounds – that sounds great.” Derek blinks rapidly, like he is trying to shake off the escalating intensity of his stare. With a small tip of his head, he finally manages to tear his gaze away from Eli, sliding it across the room and over to the Sheriff. “It’s, uh – it’s nice to meet you, sir.”

As soon as today’s visit was pencilled in, Stiles made sure to have a very stern and very frank conversation with his dad. A clear talk to assert that, no matter what either of their opinions on Derek might be, they are not allowed to behave in any manner but perfectly civil and passably polite while in front of Eli.

The kid needs a chance to develop a relationship with his other father without Derek and Stiles’ history coming into play. This is about Eli, his dad had agreed, grumbling and eventual, after a hushed and heated argument ended only by Stiles’ proverbial foot stomping down onto the ground.

Which is the reason – Stiles thinks, at least – that his dad’s reply to Derek is simply a quick and only slightly clipped, “Yes. Likewise.”

Stiles tucks an arm behind his back to lift a subtle thumbs up in his dad's direction. His dad huffs in vaguely grouchy response to it.

“C’mon,” Eli says, wasting no time at all in wrapping his fingers around the crook of Derek’s elbow and beginning to tug him over to the door leading out to the backyard. “I’ve been waiting to test this thing out for ages. Grandpa can’t play with me anymore because of his back, and pops just plain sucks at lacrosse.”

“Thanks, kid,” Stiles deadpans as they pass him.

Eli does not even pause his steps as he throws a cheeky grin towards his pops.

“Sorry,” he says, sounding anything but, just a second before he yanks the door open and starts pushing a still mostly bewildered Derek through it. “See you later!”

-

Low pressure tags ❤️ @raisesomehale @crownofstardustandbone @dear-massacre @hedwig221b @lucky-bishop

[wizardlyghost]

i'm very tired and a little pretentious so here have some thoughts about the secret life of walter mitty:

in the book, walter mitty is a guy who indulges in escapist fantasies to get away from his dissatisfaction with his life. from what i can remember, it's mostly a series of vignettes of the events taking place in his imagination, strung together with the depressingly boring events actually happening to him. ultimately, nothing really changes for him, and presumably this is just a relatively typical day of his existence.

in the 1947 movie, walter mitty is also a guy who indulges in escapist fantasies to get away from his dissatisfaction with his life. this time, however, he accidentally gets caught up in a real life caper, and the lines between his daydreams and his reality blur. in the end, he finds the confidence to solve the problems that have been driving him to escapism - he finally stands up for himself in front of his jerk boss and his overbearing mother and fiancee, becomes the hero, gets the girl, lives happily ever after, the end.

in the 2013 movie, walter mitty is, once again, a guy who indulges in escapist fantasies to get away from his dissatisfaction with his life. there's a big difference in this walter's circumstance, though. we encounter walter i on a day that could presumably be any day of his life; walter ii, similarly, at least starts off in the humdrum of his normal routine.

walter iii begins his story on the day his world starts to implode.

his workplace is shifting to a new format that leaves his niche skillset obsolete; his mother is moving into a retirement home that he can no longer be certain that he can afford; he's coming to the realisation that he has spent the majority of his adult life being small, and responsible, and cautious, and now due to circumstances beyond his control none of it matters. and at the end of the movie, his problems aren't really solved in the way we might want them to be. he and the vast majority of his coworkers are fired; the respected publication they worked for is hollowed out and turned into a website; he has to sell the piano that he's been holding onto as a memento of his father. there is no saving the way things were.

walter i endures his problems; walter ii fights them and wins; but walter iii? his problems are too big for him to fight, too destructive to endure, so what else is there to do but run?

faced with the certainty of everything he's built for himself dissolving, he takes the leap, because if the worst is already going to happen to him, what more does he have to lose? if life as he knows it is ending, why not become the kind of person he's spent his life wishing he could be?

and really, isn't the idea of doing that the ultimate escapist fantasy?