#but vaguely hearing about the way some people were/are really upset with some servers im just kinda like

[snickerdoodlles]

there's a lot of things people blame for why fandoms feel like ghost towns these days, but no one's really talked about the way discord's contributing to it

[cquackity]

sorry for bringing it up again when its over and feel free to answer privately/ignore me, i just wanted to explain why i find the eret stuff upsetting. i think its fair to think c!eret didnt need an apology from wilbur; thats just not the entire picture of what eret fans see when people go after her for that stream so we might be a little defensive.

i think to me the issue is that c & cc!eret crit cant be separated-- after the apology stream i literally couldnt be on here because people were being so awful about eret and consistently c!eret neg is tied in with people being assholes to the cc. also to me it reads as disrespectful to place all the blame for disliking that stream on eret when wilbur was on that stream, participated, and co-wrote that lore. i have never once had to avoid the dash due to cc!wilbur neg the way i have for eret, and thats pretty telling. not that ccwilbur deserves that, just that its interesting how bad eret gets it in comparison. even the post-utah stream didnt make me as upset as the way people talked about eret did and i am by far more of a wilburian than anything else.

to me, the apology was more for cc!eret for how poorly shes been treated for the last two years and because the fandom treats wilbur (c and cc) like the ultimate moral & narrative arbiter (despite the fact that a key element of his character is being an unreliable narrator); only his apology would make people actually think about how badly eret has been treated. and then it all backfired and everyone was so heinous about it that it was genuinely painful to be on here as a wilbur and eret enjoyer.

besides that meta element i genuinely liked that stream and felt like cwilbur did need a knock in the right direction, as i felt much of the apology tour was an empty gesture that externalized his need for self-forgiveness. not that he deserved to feel guilty or that his apologies were hollow, just that he wasnt going about his efforts to forgive himself in a healthy way, and hearing from someone who already got through it was super helpful.

im sorry folks sent you awful asks (and im also sorry for vagueing, i just couldnt figure out how to lay out my own feelings) but to me it feels really hurtful to see people shit on eret, c or cc, bc shes worked so hard and was the key to a really core moment on the server and gets very little recognition for it from other ccs (constantly being shut out of lore) and from the fandom.

sorry if this is a jumbled mess feel free to ignore it i just wanted to explain a little bit

hello bell! thank you for explaining i genuinely do appreciate your point of view! there is a reason i didn't unfollow you for vauging me lul, i find you to be a reasonable person who has reasonable standpoints on things. but like this goes for everybody who sees this: if you have an issue with me, just send me an ask like this! or a dm. or whatever. i'd also like to think i'm a pretty reasonable guy. i'm also pretty sure i tagged that post with the proper tags to be filtered too? at least i hope i did 💀

first off i'd again like to reiterate that i have literally nothing against cc!eret. i never mentioned cc!eret in my post, i have never posted cc!eret neg before, and the only point i made was that i don't believe c!eret deserved an apology from c!wilbur. i had more good things to say about c!eret in that post than negative. what other people are saying, that's not what i'm saying. i think it's unfair to group me in with people who have/are posting cc!eret neg. at the end of the day even if that's what you've seen that's not what i was talking about in the slightest. regardless of what content creator made the decision to have c!wilbur apologize i think it's a bad one. i stand by that.

nor do i think that it's entirely fair to treat that stream as some sort of meta on the cc!s lives instead of the characters. i've just never thought about that stream like that before, and it doesn't really make sense to me to do so. if either cc!wilbur or cc!eret have alluded to the apology being more for cc!eret i would be open to seeing a clip like that

i also disagree with c!wilbur needing to be "knocked in the right direction" mostly because i think there's several other more compelling turning points for his character post-revival, but i do respect c!eret fans wanting to enjoy a moment between the two of them.

tldr; i wasn't talking about cc!eret at all, and it's unfair to take my words that way when it was never the intention, and not separate them from their original meaning. please separate my discussion of the c!s and the cc!s

[christinesficrecs]

Lost Sterek Fics

So many lost fics!  Please comment/message me if you can help. :) 

***

- I’m pretty sure it’s kind of long but I could be mistaken, stiles and Derek have children and at some point their son becomes an alpha and the near the end of the book Derek and his son turn into these giant wolves and fight off a creature that I can’t remember and stiles is really upset about it cause they might never be able to turn back. 

- it’s of sheriff spanking stiles and derek is in stiles room listening. stiles goes back in his room and they have sex!!

- Derek was confused by the other bitten werewolves saying things like "the wolf wants" or "the wolf part of me" because he always have been one since he was born a werewolf and never divided himself like that? 

- Derek is drunk & thinks that his feelings are unreciprocated& stiles takes him back & tells him that they are not so Derek lines up his fingers with Stiles & counts them to 10,so basically he's saying that he is not dreaming& the feels behind that one!!!

- Derek is famous and powerful & he and Stiles start a relationship. What I remember is one scene in particular where they are being interviewed and they get some judgement because Derek and Stiles are versatile and werewolves consider an Alpha as a bottom a sign of weakness. I remember Stiles & Derek basically rolling their eyes at each other about the stupidity of that while being interviewed. 

- Sterek are in love, but so are their kids. So they never get married, (because they don’t want to hinder their kids love) but their kids end up married at the end. (might be a series)

- Werewolves growls all have different meanings. Some generic ones everyone can understand. But some growls you have to know the wolf really well to know what that growl means. Derek has this growl that Stiles doesn't know the meaning of.

- Derek and Stiles are fighting and Stiles says something like "we don't trust ech other" and Derek brings what happened at the pool ans say something like "that doesn't mean nothing to me" 

- Stiles is writhing the story of his life with Derek and at the end he write it as if Derek have died in fire and his last words with Derek is something like if I die I lose you and that scare the sh*t out of me or something then he stop writing because his husband -SHOCERK- enters the room and it is Derek

- Stiles and friends cheat at lacrosse to make their families happy. Because they were fired from Hale Company. And Derek and stiles are in a secret relationship?

- Stiles, and the others, end up befriending Erica while Peter is still going around killing people as an alpha. I only remember that Stiles and Erica, with some of the others, were at like a diner? And Peter attacks, and bites, Erica when they leave.

- i’m pretty sure it was a human au that was set in New Orleans. One of them, Stiles or Derek, worked at call center and the other worked at a diner. I think Scott was Stiles’ roommate." & "update i remember that Derek was a 911 call operator and Stiles was the one working as a server at the diner."

- Stiles is magic and when they were lilttleish kids makes Scott’s father go away, possibly forever.

stiles’ mother/grandma always made him a special soup, and he never knew what the secret ingredient was until Derek made it for him the same way, when he realised it was love.

- Stiles and derek are running away together to fight monsters. At some point there was a troll closing up on them and they hid on top of a tree and stiles got loopy? 

- Derek and Issac are cops who follows who stiles is an agent gone rogue. I think stiles kills the bad guys in frond of them and saves Derek's life. 

- Stiles and Isaac alone in a house and they hear a suspicious noise so Stiles is like we should call Derek but the suspicious noise actually ended up being Derek and he’s proud of them for thinking to call him?

- it's either a season1 or 2 au where stiles and derek enter an arrangement where they sex it up in exchange for derek to try to teach scott werewolfy stuff. i remember at one point danny and stiles talk abt the arrangement and danny later chews derek out abt being more gentle. 

- I vaguely recall a season 1 canon divergence where Allison tells the sheriff that Kate has Derek chained up under the Hale house  

- Stiles and derek are mates and Stiles goes out of town for a while and derek goes into his wolf form and sort of becomes a bit feral but then stiles comes back and helps him

- derek and stiles are at some sort of searching ceremony esque interview and derek unconsciously flashes his eyes at stiles. Peter explains later in the fic that derek was trying to pique stiles' interest (unknowingly). 

- Stiles is patient/test subject on somenkind of shady facility where they do experiments on humans and I think he's been there most of his life. Derek is a new doctor in there and is the first one who is kind to stiles.

- Derek only asked stiles out to annoy Scott, but actually fell for him, stiles over hears Derek and Issac talking about it and I think he leaves for college, I remember near the end that the wolfs did something to his jeep so stiles had not choice to stay at the house to talk to Derek because Derek made a huge mistake and wants stiles back. 

- to help defeat the alpha pack Stiles and Allison go to Derek. Derek says he can only do it if they join his pack. Derek proceeds to have sex with Stiles, while Allison has sex with Issac and Boyd. Scott gets pissed, and Allison has Boyd’s babies. I think it’s a series, 3 short fics.

- I'm looking for a fic that has Stiles at a party. I believe he is used as werewolf bait or turns out to be alluring to werewolves and didnt know it.

- I think Derek and Stiles are in a basement under the Halehouse, and because of some kind of moon Derek wants Scott to be in that basement. They make fun of Scott but he hear them and he lock the door when Derek and Stiles are inside. Smut happens 

- Stiles being a spark and just learning how to use his powers, Peter Hale is helping him learn when he discovers that every time that Stiles uses his powers he gets aroused and Derek helps him out through it, 

- Stiles and Derek are in the woods, and some type of creature makes both of them hallucinate. Derek then attacks Stiles thinking that Stiles is a monster. It was like a horror or psychological horror. 

- everyone has a secondary gender (omega, beta, alpha) but there are werewolves as well. Derek is Alpha-alpha, and Stiles is human Omega while Scott turns into Beta-beta. It followed along the first season of Teen Wolf and instead of Derek manhandling Stiles in the show, he grabs his hand and squeezes it. (1/2)(cont) It progresses until Stiles, Lydia and Allison are shopping for formal wear for the dance and Stiles starts to get his heat when Peter shows up and takes them hostage. The end chapter has Derek helping Stiles through his heat as he looks up at the moon with red eyes. 

- im looking for this accidental mating fic where scott and stiles are at dereks and stiles accidently mates with derek after he tries to run etc?

- stiles was helping derek with school I think and they got along and one night - stiles had a nightmare I think and was having a panic attack and called derek but didn't tell him about the nightmare and talked about something else and stiles got calmed by derek voice ..  

- derek is an alpha and like everyday people try to fight him in order to get his powers? i think they’re all in high school and that stiles is the new kid? 

- it’s where derek was at a clinic, and stiles was the one to ‘examine’ him — with sex toys, etc., — on the last chapter, it was established that they were already together and roleplaying. they were in the clinic that scott works at which stiles had gotten the keys to.

- It has two parts. The first involves someone poisoning the wolves so that they'll shift/go crazy. Stiles is in high school and he and Derek drink wine?? The second, the pack goes to college, and Derek breaks up with stiles to protect him. Stiles starts taking pain killers and gets depressed, the Alpha pack shows up, and Peter ends up being evil and trying to kill everyone??

-  Stiles kinda is hurting when he has his first time with Derek?

-  stiles Accidental Voyeurism on Derek showering and he is nervous because he is nervous to talk to him because he’s just that hot!

- stiles is adopted by the hales I think and Derek figures out he's his mate, I think there's growing up time skips, but the ending is Derek rushing home from college because the Argents are there to start the fire, stiles stays back with Talia to help defend their home.

-  it’s girl!stiles and it’s where she has hairy legs and arm pits and just owns herself and she goes on a camping trip with Derek and they’re both naked because they don’t really care for nudity,

-  I'm looking for a fic that had Stiles continuously flirting with other people to make Derek jealous after he realizes how good the sex is.

- There is a similar new fic called ‘User Error’ (first chapter looks great), it’s the troupe where Stiles is the brains behind the business and his partner (Scott?) tries to push him out/limit his input, Stiles is hurt but agreed to leave, but not before pulling out receipts of patents and just totally owning the situation, leaving but pretty much taking the rights to everything with him epically schooling those around him.

- stiles goes back in time to before the hale fire and tries to stop it, (fire is on night of a school dance) but he could only save Cora? I think he went be the name Cris or something similar

- Stiles had a boyfriend but he loved Derek and he thought Derek didn't loved him back so he would hide all his emotions from the pack, cause he was in so much pain. And they would fight a lot. I don't know if he was a spark or no.

- stiles and derek hate each other and When they lost their friends they were stuck together to search for them..

- Derek is in heat at the hale house and told everyone to stay away, but stiles didn’t and so Derek kisses him and makes stiles go into a pseudo heat and then they ride it out together.

- stiles finds out that derek has never actually gotten a good blow job bc his peen is that Big™ and he decides to rectify that, and i think stiles find out bc derek never lets him give him one im not sure

- It's an AU where the pack are all friends who are into surfing and are going down the coast (in mexico) finding small beaches and Sterek hooks up but then they get all awkward and depressed until Derek apologizes and clears things up. I remember it had some bi Erica and beach sex.

- I'm looking for a fic where Stiles has trouble accepting compliments from Derek and he buys himself a second-hand leather jacket to feel like part of the pack and Derek compliments it which Stiles thinks is sarcastic because obviously the jacket is old and damaged so basically he thinks everyone pities his loserness. low self-esteem drama ensues.

- I’m looking for a fic where Scott pushes stiles away for his own safety and then stiles befriends Boyd and one day Scott after a fight with some monster? Or big bad of the week? Scott tries to call stiles and his number has changed. Then it’s scott showing up at his house and basically trying to befriend stiles again..I think I remember something about Scott and stiles having plans to blow up stiles piece of crap phone

- a derek hale one shot. the plot is that the reader has a crush on scott and derek decideds to help her forget. i think the fic was called 'make you forget'

[kai-keda]

Oh great now I’m finding out that I’ve been blocked by someone who I had unfollowed not too long ago because I wasn’t interested in certain posts they were making but that I still liked on some level and that I THOUGHT I was friends with.

This is actually hurting me a lot because it’s riling up my social anxiety. This is just like Middle School all over again. Something about my personality is pissing people off and people that I thought I was friends with, it turns out, were just humoring me and talking with me out of pity and now they have me blocked and I’ll never know what it was about me that made them block me so I’ll be panicking about this for the rest of my life. I’ll never know what it is about me that pisses people off SO MUCH to have the person who I thought understood me block me.

Yeah, I started to disagree with them on points and ended up unfollowing them because of it but they BLOCKED ME. I only found out because they reblogged a post I made from my sister and when I clicked the notification on mobile to see if they had any tags, “NO POSTS FOUND”.

I go to there blog on the desktop to see if this was recent and I see them say something in the tags of another post along the lines of “I have 2 people on tumblr that I hate that I ended up blocking but they still end up on my dash”.

So I’m one of TWO people that this person HATES and that’s really messing with me and I’m really shaken up and I don’t understand. I never disliked them as a person, I just didn’t like their logic in their arguments and had to unfollow them because said logic was starting to annoy me.

I vague-blogged about them, sure and - oh - oh god.

I think I understand,

I had an anon come into my inbox after I vague-blogged and that was where I explained “this one thing this one person did upset me so I talked about why doing that one thing upsets me as a vent but it wasn’t worth a confrontation or a fight so I didn’t bring it to them directly.” and oh god that anon was them.

Why do people block others instead of either just unfollowing or at least confronting them about it before blocking them?

I always understood that the block feature was for when someone is harassing you. When they keep coming onto your posts or your blog and the only one to get them to leave you alone is to block them.

Why don’t people understand that the purpose of a vague-blog is so that you can vent about something in a way that can avoid hurting the person you’re talking about as much as possible?

You don’t tag them, you don’t bring it directly too them, you just vent for a second and then move on.

I understand that a lot of the time, when you vague-blog about something that person will see it and know it’s them you’re talking about but that doesn’t mean you did it with the intention of them finding it and leaving them in a position so that they can’t defend themselves.

If you disliked my logic, or if you were hurt by something I said, you should’ve said something to me directly. If my vague blog pissed you off because you knew I was talking about you, then please, come talk to me. We can work this out. Please. I want to work this out.

The whole idea of not tagging you or bringing the argument directly to you was that I didn’t want to hurt you. I just wanted to put my thoughts on the situation out there because writing out long posts like this is one way that I get my emotions out. It’s how I deal with stuff. It’s how I avoid getting into fights with people over stuff that doesn’t matter.

I never saw why people thought it was cowardly to vague-blog about something. It’s all about not wanting a fight and not wanting to hurt someone. It’s not about wanting to hurt them in a way that they can’t defend themselves. Nobody was stopping you from coming in IM - WHERE WE’VE CHATTED MULTIPLE TIMES - to confront me yourself if you wanted it. I didn’t want to force a confrontation on you because I had learned from my past discussions with you that you HATE confrontation.

What was I doing to you that warranted a block? That warranted you hating me as a person?

I’m sorry everyone for this long post. I just. Don’t feel good. I’m probably having a panic attack. I don’t know. It feels like the start of one. And my sister pretty much had one last night so I don’t feel good bringing it to her and all of my chats and servers that I’m in just recently had someone who was having issues like this so I don’t want to surround people and trap them in negativity.

I just want to talk with this person who has me blocked SO BAD but I’m SO SCARED to because I KNOW that they HATE confrontation and they’re very sensitive to it and I don’t want to hurt them. Then again, this all started because I didn’t want to hurt them.

God.

I can’t deal with this.

There is something wrong with my brain to where I don’t understand all these social norms. I never had. I’m always breaking societal rules and when people explain them to me, they don’t stick. They never stick. I can’t. I just can’t understand why so many people hate me. I don’t understand why people hate in when others are honest with them.

I hate the terms “brutally honest” and “honest to a fault” cause every time I hear them I’m reminded of how I don’t understand what’s so brutal about it or how it’s a fault. People will tell me “be honest with me!” but they don’t mean it because when I am, they act like I’ve been bullying them for centuries. When I tell people “be honest with me!” they never are. They never believe me.

I tried understanding it. That’s why I vague-blogged. Cause I knew this person was the type to not like it when people are honest with them. They don’t want that. They don’t want people to tell them what they don’t like about them. So I wasn’t going to do that. I tried so hard to understand this weird thing that people do and I still got it wrong and I still ended up with someone hating me.

I can’t understand people. I just can’t. I’ll end up dying alone without any friends because the only people who understand me are my brother and sister and the only reason they understand me is that living with me FORCED them to understand me.

If it weren’t for that, they probably would’ve done the same thing as everyone else.

And I wouldn’t blame them.

I can’t stay in an online group for a year, I can’t stick with a group of friends for more than a year, I always thought (and was told) that it was all bad luck but I don’t believe it.

There’s something wrong with me.

Something I’m not understanding.

And I just

I just CAN’T understand it. No matter how hard I try I just can’t and I hate myself because I try so hard to be nice to everyone, to be a good friend, to be open to everyone, but apparently it’s impossible.

I hurt everyone who gets close to me.

[elspethsunschampion]

Fact or Fiction: Chapter Fourteen

Rated M for abuse, sexual content, and discussion of rape/non-con.  Canon-typical violence.

Summary: It’s Ral Zarek’s sixth year at Hogwarts. And everything would be fine if Jace wasn’t totally occupied with his new girlfriend, to the point where it’s honestly kind of weird, and Ral’s starting to be concerned. Now if only everyone would stop telling Ral he’s just jealous and LISTEN to him…after all, he’s NOT just jealous, right? (Sequel to Send to Sleep.)

Ships: Jace Beleren/Ral Zarek, Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy, Luna Lovegood/Hermione Granger, Nissa Revane/Chandra Nalaar, Elspeth Tirel/Teysa Karlov

A/N: Many, many thanks to @paperclipminimizer for beta-ing and checking my timeline, as well as answering all my questions about Harry Potter. Thanks also to Juri, @dragons-suck, and everyone on Sketchydoodles’ Vorthos server for listening to me rant about this thing as it took shape.

Also available on AO3 and FFnet.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen: Mending Touch

           Jace poked at his food. He was huddled in his cloak in front of one of the many little alcoves in the library. Technically, food wasn’t allowed, but Jace didn’t give a fuck, and the teachers seemed willing to overlook minor infractions on his part right now. Which they damn well should, he thought bitterly, and then felt his stomach turn over. He didn’t deserve special treatment, no matter what anyone said.

           He probably should eat. He was hungry in a sort of distant way, but everything seemed so tasteless that it was difficult to get himself to eat. And Ral still wasn’t awake. He kept asking and asking, but every time he asked he got the same answer, “he’s doing fine, but the nerves aren’t healed yet, it’s better if he stays asleep.”

           How did they know? He’d tried reading everything he could lay his hands on about the Cruciatus Curse, but he’d had to stop doing that after he’d thrown up over a part of the Restricted Section he probably shouldn’t have had access to in the first place. He’d managed to clean it up and leave before anyone found him, but the books hadn’t been happy. Several of them had followed him around for the rest of the day, complaining in rustly, incomprehensible voices.

           Someone shoved a very garish image of a cartoon sandwich into his head. Mirko could have been subtler, but they seemed to be trying to make it easy for Jace to know when someone else was in his head. Jace was very carefully not thinking about the fact that, although it was true that Mirko could get under the protections of his cloak, he was pretty sure he’d heard snatches of other thoughts even from inside. That shouldn’t be happening. That shouldn’t be possible.

           “I’m not hungry,” Jace sighed, out loud. His stomach rumbled. The cartoon sandwich grew eyes and looked at him accusingly. “Okay, I am hungry, but I don’t want to eat.”

           Ral wasn’t eating, after all, Jace thought mulishly. Of course, he was in the hospital wing and getting all of his food magically, but it sounded suitably dramatic in Jace’s head. There was the suggestion of a sigh in the back of his mind, and a cold wind brushed against his neck like a not-quite-corporeal touch. The banishment had left Mirko somewhat less willing to take a solid form. Jace was just glad that somehow the boggart had managed to use their connection to hang onto his memories, in spite of the love potion clouding his mind at the time.

           “Jace?” Jace froze. It was Professor Lovegood’s voice. Pulling the hood of his cloak up, Jace felt for his wand, wondering if he should try out that invisibility charm he’d pulled out of Liliana’s head. Before he could make up his mind, Kallist shot up into the air, spitting lightning in every direction.

           “Kallist, no!” Jace hissed, but it was too late. Professor Lovegood poked her head around the bookshelf.

           “Oh, hello,” she said. “You know, if you get the books some rubbing alcohol, they’ll probably calm down.”

           “The books?” Jace echoed, trying to sound innocent. One particularly irritable one chose that moment to snap closed on his ankle, and he yelped.

           “Yes, I upset them earlier this year, so I’ve tried to make sure I knew the kinds of things they liked.” Jace hadn’t paid much attention during Herbology this year—or any class—so he wasn’t sure if Professor Lovegood usually had that wide, vaguely dreamy smile on her face.

           “Um, I see.”

           “In any case, Hermione—Professor Granger, I mean—sent me to tell you that Mr. Zarek is awake.”

           Jace stopped trying to surreptitiously nudge the book away and looked up at her. It was suddenly difficult to breathe. “He—he is? Is he—okay? Can I see him? Or—does he—want to see me?”

           Professor Lovegood smiled. “He’s feeling much better, although his nerves are just a little oversensitive still, so Madam Pomfrey is trying to get him to stay in bed. I think his exact words were, ‘Tell Jace to get his ass down here, or I’ll soak the entire Hospital Wing.’ You should probably go down, because I think Madam Pomfrey looked like she really wished she could give him detention.”

           Ral was bored. After his first waking hour of lying around in the hospital wing, most of the tingling pain in his nerves had subsided, leaving him slightly achey and very restless. Madam Pomfrey always seemed to force people to stay in bed about five times longer than they wanted to, and Ral was getting really concerned about Jace. Jace had already had issues that Ral didn’t really know how to help, though he thought he’d been getting better. But now—

           Someone knocked on the door. “Who is it?” he yelled irritably. If it was Madam Pomfrey with another foul-smelling potion, he might just “accidentally” have an electrical outburst and shatter the damn thing.

           The door opened a crack. “It’s me,” Jace said, so quietly Ral almost didn’t hear him. “Can I come in?”

           “Yeah, of course.” Ral wriggled upright. “How are you?”

           Jace stopped in the doorway and blinked. Kallist was hovering nervously over his head. “I—I’m fine. How are you?”

           “Aching a little, I guess. I don’t think I still need to be in bed, but you know what the teachers are like. Way too careful about all the wrong fucking things.”

           For another moment or two, Jace dithered in the doorway, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet in a way Ral hadn’t seen him do in years. Finally, he practically ran across the room to Ral’s bed and sank onto it. “I’m sorry,” he muttered into his cloak. “Oh god, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Something wet fell onto Ral’s hand.

           “What the fuck,” he said stupidly.

           “Do you, um—” Jace paused. “Sorry. Just—just a sec.” His voice was wobbling. “Do you want me to leave?”

           “What the fuck, Jace? No!”

           “I’m sorry.”

           “Jesus fuck, why?”

           “For ignoring you. For not listening to you. For not responding to your IMs over the summer, and being a fucking dick to you this whole year. For getting you—for—for—”

           “Oh my fucking god,” Ral said limply. “You were literally under a spell, Jace, what the hell? Do you really think I’d blame you for that? What the shit?”

           The little pile of misery under the cloak tugged at his hair. “You should,” he mumbled after a moment. “I should’ve—”

           “—thrown off the most potent love potion any of the professors have ever heard of, gone toe-to-toe with one of the most powerful dark witches in history, and nearly fucking killed her into the bargain?” Jace blinked at him. “Because you kind of did all that, you idiot.” A tiny lightning bolt from the cloud above him suggested that Kallist agreed with Ral’s assessment. “Now get over here.”

           “Are you—sure?”

           Ral rolled his eyes and felt that strange staticky sensation rise up along the back of his neck again. Ever since he’d woken up with his nerves still twitching and jangling and oversensitive, it had been all too easy to trigger. And for once, he’d discovered there was something he wasn’t in too much of a hurry to research. He really didn’t want to know any more about the effects of the Cruciatus Curse than he already did. Well. Not yet, anyway. He made a mental note to come back to it in a couple weeks. “Yes, I’m bloody sure,” he grunted, and a spark materialized at the tip of one flopping lock of hair and sizzled down onto the sheets near his hand.

           “Right.” Jace took a deep breath and slid down the bed to him. For a moment, he sat still, then he had a hand out and bunched in the hospital robes Ral was wearing. “Oh, Ral,” he said, wearily. And then he was pressing his face into Ral’s chest, and to Ral’s consternation and horror, he was sobbing. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Oh, fuck, I thought—oh fuck, what did I do?”

           You were supposed to hold people when they broke down like this, right? Ral gingerly put one hand on Jace’s back and tried not to think about the fact that he was stupidly oversensitive right now. “You didn’t fucking do anything,” he said, biting his lip because Jace was squirming and that was not fucking fair, universe, that was goddamn fucking cheating. Jace was definitely positively one-hundred-percent not in a good mindset to be dealing with Ral exploding romantic feelings all over him. It could wait.

           No, it can’t, caroled a particularly annoying segment of Ral’s brain as one of Jace’s hands brushed across his collarbone.

           Yes, it damn well can, Ral told it fiercely, but he did press his face into Jace’s hair, because he wasn’t a goddamn saint.

           “Shut up, we’re both fine,” he mumbled angrily. “Also, I have these sweet new stripes in my hair now.”

           Okay, so he actually had asked about those. Is that normal? he’d said to Professor Granger, fingering the long white streak as he stared in a mirror. I look like fucking Rogue, he would have said, except she probably wouldn’t get it.

           It’s been documented in other cases of the Cruciatus Curse, Professor Granger had answered. I don’t believe it’s exactly common, and, no, so far no one knows exactly what causes it. As you might imagine, no one has been exactly eager to do an in-depth study.

           “You look like Rogue.” Jace managed a laugh.

           Right, they’d seen the film together, hadn’t they? Because Jace was still huddled in his cloak, as if he’d never come out again, so he probably hadn’t read Ral’s mind just now.

           “Well, um, actually…” Jace sighed. “The cloak hasn’t been entirely cutting it since I woke up.”

           “Oh. Well, shit.”

           “It’s easier with people I’ve read a lot, and I can turn it off if I focus,” Jace explained. “But it is sort of there if I’m not thinking too hard.” He put a hand to his head. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay. I’ve dealt with worse shit.”

           “You mean like this whole year?” Ral tightened his arm around Jace. “Look, I’ll, uh, I’ll try to keep my thoughts quiet, okay?”

           Jace rubbed a hand over his eyes. “It’s fine. Really.”

           There were huge, dark circles under his eyes. “When’s the last time you slept?”

           “Uh,” Jace replied, staring vacantly for a moment. “Oh—I mean, I was in the Hospital Wing unconscious till a couple of days ago.”

           “Have you slept since a ‘couple of days ago’?”

           He looked to the side. “I tried,” he muttered. “But you were—I didn’t know if you’d be okay—and it was my f-f-f—”

           “If you say it was your fault again, I will punch you,” Ral said. “And then I’ll probably get detention, and that will be your fault.”

           Thank god, Jace laughed at that, though the sound was a little wobbly. “I haven’t really been able to sleep, I guess.”

           “Well, Madam Pomfrey keeps trying to tell me I’m not allowed to set foot outside of my bed, and you clearly need to be in bed way more than I do. So why don’t you stay here and sleep?”

           Jace gaped at him. “I haven’t been sleeping with you this whole semester and you—you want…”

           “I dunno if we’re quite at that stage in our relationship yet,” Ral grinned, getting a frustrated scowl from his friend. “Yeah, yeah, of course I do. How many times do I have to tell you none of this was your fault, I don’t blame you, you’re my best mate, and—and—” also I’m gay and have more than strictly platonic feelings for you and please don’t be reading my mind right now, Jace, because I don’t think I could deal with that on top of everything else, “—and that’s never going to change,” he finished, a little lamely.

           “Ral—I do not deserve you.”

           “No one deserves me,” Ral grinned. “I am too awesome for that. But if anyone did deserve me, you’d be on top of the list.”

           “R-Right.” Jace tugged his hood down, but not before Ral saw the easy blush rising to his cheeks. “Okay. Well. I guess I should try to get some sleep, huh?”

           “You should. You really should.” Ral tried not to reach too much as Jace laid down and slid back against him, but he was pretty sure Jace would have to be deaf not to have heard the low noise Ral made when Jace curled into his front. Thankfully, Jace didn’t say anything; he just took Ral’s hand and pulled it around to his chest so that they were spooning. Not quite how they usually spent the night together, but Ral was definitely not going to complain. Although he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to get any sleep at all.