#don't worry it's invisible when it's smaller

[ariadne-mouse]

I still haven't watched UNEND yet (no spoilers please) and instead spend the evening unwinding from my stressful work day by making emojis for the ship:

As with the previous emojis, feel free to use them on discord if you like! Just credit me if anyone asks where they are from.

[solarplanet2]

The Little Eldritch Creature

DCxDP Drabbles/Scribbles

Part 1(? Still undecided)

Danny had a lot to say.

Especially to Clockwork.

How dare he send him to another dimension without him knowing?! Especially when all Clockwork had said to him before being thrown into a portal is;

"Good Luck, Daniel."

Good luck? GOOD LUCK TO WHAT!?

Oh, once Danny comes home he will give that old man a saying to. And bit him. Yes! he'll bite his clocks! Let's see how he likes it!!

It's bad enough that he was thrown into a natural portal, but being reduced to a small thing at the size of a squirrel!?!?

He can't even do anything in this form!

Sure, he can use his powers but only to an extent. The only thing Danny could do was being intangible, invisibility and flying/floating.

Disgrace! He was supposed to be a king! A powerful being! He can't be reduced to small adorable thing!

Danny punched the ground in distress, already feeling the tears coming up in his eyes in distress.

Another thing he had noticed. Not only he was in a form of little creature, it seemed his mind and body is of a baby, a child!

He is FOURTEEN! almost fifteen! He can't act this way!

Danny let out a wail, punching the concrete floor in pure distress and helplessness. He wants to bite Clockwork! He wants to be mad at him and get him home! Everything is so big! He doesn't want to be small! He feels helpless! And weak! No! He wants to go home!

He wants to go home and see Jazz!

He misses Jazz...

°•°•°•°•°•°•°

"WWAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!"

Red Hood pauses in his step once he hears a...very squeaky wail?

But it also made his pit rage react.

What the?

"Hood. Come in."

"Yeah. What is it, Oracle?" Red Hood signed in as he jumped over a rooftop, heading towards the wail.

"The satalites detected something in your area. Just about a few blocks ahead of you. It causes a static in the frequency."

Welp. There goes his answers.

"I'm already on it. There was some kind of Wail in my direction. Already checking it out."

"Hood, Wait for back up." Oh great.

"I'm already here." Hood scoffed at B as he landed down in front of the alley way.

"Hoo...?" Static came in the comms, making Hood furrowed his eyebrows. Whatever this is, it's effecting his comms.

Hood knew something was wrong once he stepped in the alleyway. The pits suddenly felt weird. Not the bad weird but weird notheless.

Worried. Go. Now!

Hood groaned. Alright. He had an urge to shoot someone.

The more Hood stepped in the alley way, the more he could hear something. A small sound, like a whine? A squeaky whine in the edge of this block.

Hood froze once he saw a familiar green by the end of the dumpster. Oh fuck.

So that's why the pit rage is reacting.

Fuck.

Grabbing his gun from the holster, he slowly walked towards the dumpster. He looked over and....

What is that?

It's small, smaller than Alfred the cat. White hair and ..is that a green tail?

Okay, whatever it was, it's glowing.

And shaking.

And crying.

Why is it crying?

The pits instantly reacted. Bubbling in his stomach like boiling. But Hood knew he wasn't angry.

It felt like it was concern?

But for what?

What is this thing-?

And it's looking at him.

Hood felt himself freeze at the Lazarus green eyes. Big and wide Lazarus green eyes. And fuck are those tears??

Hood doesn't know what to do.

Chirp!

It chirp.

Fuck that was adorable.

Focus, Hood! This is not the time to think such thoughts. He needs to comm the others. Comm B and--

Wait why is moving!?

HOLY SHIT--

CHIRP!!

•°•°•°•°•°

This guy reaks of ectoplasm.

No. This ecto is not good. This ecto is dangerous.

He needs help.

(I am thinking whether or not this needs a part 2 so don't be disappointed if there isn't that means no tagging)

(Edit: it has part 2)

[capuccinodoll]

Honey love, dark eyes

♡ Chapter seven ♡

Summary: Joel's mind is a stormy place. WC: 14.5k A/N: Hope this part finds u well <3 remember that I no longer use the tag list, and if you want to receive notifications you can activate them on this blog or on capuccinodollupdates. Thank you for your lovely messages and comments, don't forget to leave feedback, it helps and motivates me a lot! love u <3

Joel met you on the night of your your twenty-second birthday, at a small, slightly chaotic party your friend Cassie had put together in her dimly lit apartment. It was one of those nights where the air felt like it held a secret, but Joel wasn’t planning to go. He didn’t know Cassie, or you, and the idea of spending an evening with Brianna’s friends felt more like an obligation than anything resembling fun. But Brianna had that way about her, the kind of charm that made saying no feel almost impossible.

“Come on, it'll be fun,” she’d said, her fingers brushing against his cheek in that practiced, easy way of hers. Her eyes sparkled, soft but insistent. “And I want you to meet everyone.”

Everyone turned out to be Cassie, her boyfriend Freddie, Paul, Paul’s younger sister Iris, and you. He didn’t know much about you, but Brianna filled in the gaps as she rifled through her purse for something or other.

“Well, it’s her birthday,” she said, glancing up with a small smile. “I told you about her—Cassie’s best friend from way back. It’s at her place.”

Joel frowned. “I don’t even have a gift. What am I supposed to bring? What does your friend likes?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got it covered,” Brianna said, already moving on to another task, as if his presence at this party were a foregone conclusion. 

He sighed, leaning back against the couch, watching her with the sort of resignation that felt familiar by now. “I’ll feel out of place,” he murmured.

“You won’t,” she said, dismissive, like it wasn’t even a possibility. “Do it for me, Joel. Then we’ll go to that bar you like after, okay?”

And so he found himself standing, shaking his head but moving toward the bedroom anyway. He picked up the phone to call Tommy, wanting to check on Sarah. It was always like this—this invisible tether that pulled at him, the need to make sure she was safe, that she wasn’t lonely or scared. Sarah’s nanny had quit a few weeks ago, and the new one, while kind, was still a stranger in their world. Joel had made it clear to everyone he wouldn’t tolerate anything less than kindness toward his daughter, but still, worry clung to him like a second skin. 

When he left the house, Sarah had been curled up on the couch with her fruit and a movie, looking happy enough. He tried to focus on that image, tried to let it soothe the part of him that always itched with concern. But the worry followed him, up the stairs and into Cassie’s apartment. 

The apartment was small, warm with the low buzz of conversation and the flickering light of candles Cassie had scattered around. Brianna took his hand, leading him through introductions. Smiles, nods, the blur of names until they got to you. 

You were perched on the armrest of a couch where Cassie sat, and the first thing he noticed was the way your gaze landed on him—sharp, assessing, like he wasn’t quite what you’d expected or wanted. Something tight curled in his chest, an instinct he didn’t know how to name. You didn’t say much, just offered a polite, somewhat distant smile when Brianna pulled you into a quick hug. Your eyes were tired, your posture restrained, your hands folded neatly in your lap like you were holding something in. 

Joel noticed the way your shirt hugged your frame, the soft sheen of your black stockings, the way your legs crossed at the ankle like you were trying to make yourself smaller. He didn’t like how quickly he cataloged all these details—how automatic it felt, like he was breaking some unspoken rule. He nodded politely, offering a faint smile, and then stepped back, unsure how else to exist in this moment. 

He stayed on the edges after that, with Brianna attached to his side, her hand slipping under his collar, her lips brushing against his temple in a way that felt like it was meant to remind him he belonged to her. But Joel couldn’t stop noticing you. The way your eyes flickered away whenever Brianna leaned into him. The barely perceptible shift in your shoulders when Cassie started recounting some story about your last birthday. Like the whole night was built on a kind of friction you were trying not to let show.

Joel wasn’t sure why, but the sight of you unsettled him. Maybe it was the way you carried your discomfort so carefully, as if you didn’t want to ruin the party. Or maybe it was because he knew that feeling so well. That ache of being somewhere you didn’t entirely want to be, surrounded by people who didn’t really see you.

At some point in the evening, Joel felt the weight of it all—Brianna’s hand on his arm, the too-loud laughter from the living room, the vague pull of unease he couldn’t shake. He shifted, leaning away from Brianna’s touch.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her tone lined with concern. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Joel replied, a little too sharply. “I’m just gonna check on Sarah. Be back in a sec.”

He disentangled himself from her and headed for the kitchen, his hand fishing for his phone in his pocket. As he closed the door behind him, the sudden quiet felt like stepping into a different world. The party was still humming on the other side, but here, in the stillness, he could breathe. 

He unlocked his phone and scrolled through the messages from Sarah’s nanny. They weren’t dire—just updates about Sarah refusing to sleep and crying because her movie had ended. Joel sighed, his stomach knotting anyway. Late nights made Sarah clingier, her emotions harder to soothe, and he hated not being there. 

He typed out a hurried reply: Put the movie back on. She’ll probably drift off in a few minutes. If not, call me—I’ll go back home.

From the living room, someone shouted, karaoke. The cheer that followed was met by Joel’s quiet relief at being tucked away in the kitchen. He let out a breath, leaning against the counter, when the door creaked open. 

You stepped in, freezing mid-motion when you noticed him. For a moment, you just stared, your expression shifting from surprise to something softer. The tension Joel had sensed in you earlier seemed to have dissolved in this quieter space. 

He straightened instinctively, a faint warmth rising to his face.

“Oh, hi. Happy birthday,” he said, his voice a little uneven. “Sorry, I didn’t  get a chance to say it earlier—”

You waved him off with a small smile, interrupting. “No worries. Thanks.”

There was something about the way you carried yourself in the quiet that Joel found disarming. The edges of your earlier wariness had softened, and for the first time, he saw you for more than a glance. You were calm, reflective, maybe a little tired—but there was something else, something Joel couldn’t quite place. 

He searched your face for a hint, for the thing that had inexplicably drawn his attention from the moment he saw you. But it eluded him, like trying to name a feeling he didn’t yet understand. He liked you—he realized that much instantly. And not just for the way you looked; you were beautiful, that much was clear. It was something deeper, more intangible. Something that felt a little bit dangerous to analyze, something he could discover if he allowed himself the time... and he couldn't. What was he thinking? 

Joel left that night without saying much else. Every time Brianna suggested they meet up again—usually with you in attendance—he found a reason to decline. Polite, noncommittal excuses. Work, Sarah, tiredness. It didn’t matter. The truth was, he wasn’t sure why the idea of seeing you again felt impossible, only that it did.  

It wasn’t long before things with Brianna unraveled. They hadn’t been falling apart so much as they’d never truly held together. Their conversations ran on parallel tracks that never quite met; their connection relied on superficial agreements that felt thinner every time they spoke. The breakup came naturally, quietly—no grand argument or dramatic gesture, just a mutual fading. Joel knew it was for the best.  

He told himself that the timing wasn’t right for anything serious. Not with Sarah so young, not with the weight of his responsibilities pulling him in every direction. Dating, he decided, wasn’t a part of his life right now. His world revolved around work and his daughter. There was no room for anything else.  

That’s why he didn’t expect to see you again.  

But then came that Saturday afternoon. Joel stood outside his house, his chest heavy with the tightness of panic, his breath caught in the raw edge of fear. Sarah was nowhere to be found. She had been playing hide-and-seek, though he hadn't known the game had begun... Apparently. His heart thudded in his chest as he drew closer. And then, the sun caught your face, illuminating every angle, softening the edges. You were holding a bundle of plastic flowers (why? he had no idea), their bright colors clashing with the quiet confidence in your smile.  

“Joel,” you said, your voice light, like the beginning of a melody. And there it was—the unmistakable spark of recognition in your eyes. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted you to remember him until that moment, when you did.  

He nodded, trying to muster an air of casual indifference, even as something in his chest shifted, calmed. 

“Hey,” he said, the word almost too small to hold the sudden rush of feelings he wasn’t ready to name. 

How could he name the feeling? The space between the last beat of his heart before he saw your face again and the next was a quiet, breathless eternity—because from that moment on, you would be the reason behind every quickened pulse, every ache and swell in his chest.

That afternoon passed like a blur. Sarah had invited you to stay for dinner before Joel even had a chance to think, let alone object. The meal was simple—chicken, vegetables, and bread that Sarah insisted she’d “helped cook.” You’d laughed, the sound light and warm, and Joel found himself watching you more than he should have. You didn’t seem to notice the way his eyes lingered when you reached for a plate or tucked your hair behind your ear. If you did, you didn’t let on.  

Two weeks later, you had dinner again, but this time Joel introduced you to his brother. And all those things that passed you by, Tommy picked up on instantly, impossible to ignore the unmistakable attitude of his smitten brother. And after you’d left his home, he leaned back in his chair and gave Joel a look that was all knowing smirk.  

“So,” Tommy drawled, leaning back with an almost smug ease, “are you finally gonna ask her out, or are we stuck with this whole pining routine forever?”

Joel exhaled sharply, running a hand over the back of his neck. The movement was unsteady, betraying the heat rising to his face despite his effort to appear unaffected.

“I dunno,” he muttered, his voice low and hesitant. “Not sure she—”

Tommy cut him off with a loud snort, shaking his head in disbelief. “She would, you idiot. Of course, she’d say yes.”

Joel looked up, his eyes narrowing slightly as they met his brother’s. He searched for any trace of teasing, waiting for Tommy to give himself away. But there was none. His younger brother’s expression was steady, his confidence unshakable.

“Go ask her now,” Tommy said, his tone nudging toward playful but still earnest. “She’s probably still awake. Probably thinking about you, you know.”

Joel let out a soft laugh, shaking his head as if to brush off the suggestion. “Oh, knock it off. I’ll ask her, alright? Just… when the time’s right. Not now.”

Tommy rolled his eyes dramatically, but he didn’t press the matter further. He knew Joel well enough to understand when to let things lie.

Joel, however, wasn’t brushing it off as easily as he seemed. He would ask you. Someday. Just not yet.

But that day—the day he’d finally say something—never seemed to come.  

The more time Joel spent with you, the harder it became to imagine risking the delicate balance of what you already had. You fit so seamlessly into his life, into Sarah’s life. It felt natural, effortless. You’d come over for dinner, sharing stories around the table that made Sarah giggle and Joel’s chest feel a little lighter. Sometimes, you’d sit on the porch with him as Sarah played in the yard, her laughter echoing in the quiet evenings. Joel trusted you with his daughter in a way he trusted almost no one, a rare kind of faith he didn’t extend easily.  

Your presence turned ordinary days into something brighter. There was a comfort in your company, a quiet joy in the small moments you shared—your easy laughter, the way your eyes softened when you looked at him or Sarah, the unspoken understanding that passed between you. Those moments felt like tiny gifts, precious and irreplaceable.  

But weeks turned into months, and every time Joel built up the nerve to say something, doubt crept in and stopped him. What if it changed everything? What if you didn’t feel the same way? Or worse—what if you did, but things didn’t work out? The thought of losing the quiet, steady friendship you’d built, the one that had come to mean more to him than he’d ever anticipated, was unbearable.  

Eventually, Joel convinced himself that friendship was enough. And in a way, it wasn’t a lie. He truly was happy in your presence, content with the moments you shared. He told himself he could live with the unspoken, that he didn’t need anything more.  

But sometimes, late at night, when the house was silent and the world felt still, his mind would wander. He’d think about the way your smile lingered when you thought no one was watching or the way your laugh seemed to wrap around him like a warm embrace. In those moments, he couldn’t deny the truth buried deep inside him: he wanted more.  

Still, he decided it was safer to push those feelings away, to bury them deep where they couldn’t surface. And so he did. He buried them so well, smothered them so completely, that he nearly convinced himself they were gone. Until, somehow, he forgot they were even there.

Well, he’d managed to bury it—convince himself it was gone—until that night, when everything shifted.  

It wasn’t exactly a surprise. Not really. Somewhere deep down, a quiet voice had always been whispering the truth to him, persistent and patient. But Joel had ignored it, pushed it aside like an overdue bill he didn’t have the energy to deal with, telling himself he’d face it another day. And yet now, there it was, no longer subtle or ignorable, staring him in the face with a weight that felt impossible to avoid.  

Because deep down, Joel had always known that if the two of you crossed that invisible line—if he let himself take even one step past the boundary you’d built—nothing would ever be the same. It wasn’t the intimacy itself that gave him pause. Joel wasn’t afraid of touching you, of holding you close, or of sharing the kind of closeness he’d once told himself he didn’t need. That wasn’t it. What unsettled him, what gripped him with both exhilaration and dread, was the certainty that after that moment, he’d never be able to step back. He’d never be able to pull away from you, not in the way he had before, not in the way he’d convinced himself he could. Because once he gave in—once he let himself have you, even for a moment—Joel knew with startling clarity that he’d never recover. You wouldn’t just be part of his life anymore; you’d become part of the very center of it. And that terrified him as much as it thrilled him.  

And then, he met Sienna. She entered his life at a time when he had successfully buried those feelings for you so deep that they rarely surfaced anymore, their edges dulled by time and avoidance. Her arrival was almost perfectly timed, slipping into the space he’d created in his effort to distance himself from emotions he hadn’t dared confront. And it wasn’t just convenience; he genuinely liked her. She wasn’t a substitute or a stand-in for something unresolved. She was her own person, someone who caught his attention and managed to hold it, filling his brief days with her with a kind of lightness he enjoyed. But, she wasn't you.

Sienna, with her warm smile and quick laugh, who was easy to like and even easier to spend time with. She was smart, kind, and effortlessly beautiful, the kind of woman who made you feel comfortable in your own skin. He’d met her one morning at the bank, a serendipitous encounter that had led, improbably, to him asking her out. It had surprised even him—Joel Miller, diving headfirst into something for once, emboldened by a rare flash of courage. 

The first date had been pleasant. A simple dinner, unpretentious conversation, and laughter that lingered. When he got home, he’d felt good—content, even. Tommy had stayed to watch Sarah, and Joel hadn’t mentioned the date to you. It hadn’t seemed important at the time. Just one night out, nothing more. Not worth bringing up. But later, as he lay awake in bed, the quiet of the house pressing in around him, he felt it—the faint, prickling weight of guilt. It wasn’t sharp or overwhelming, just a subtle ache that settled low in his chest, gnawing at the edges of his thoughts.

The second date was even better. Dinner had been just as easy as the first, and afterward, they’d gone to see a movie. Sitting in the dim theater, their shoulders brushing occasionally, Joel had felt a faint sense of familiarity, a hint of comfort that he didn’t expect. When Sienna invited him in for coffee after she’d smiled at him in that warm, open way of hers, Joel hesitated. Something inside him pulled back, and though his refusal was polite, it wasn’t just about needing to get home to Sarah. It was something else, something he couldn’t name.

On the drive back, his mind wandered. Passing your house, he noticed the soft glow of light spilling from your window and, for a moment, considered stopping by. Maybe he could sit with you for a while, let you bring some clarity to the restless thoughts swirling in his head. You always had a way of calming him, grounding him, even when you didn’t know he needed it. But he didn’t. Instead, he went home, crawled into bed, and left the lamp on as he drifted to sleep. Yet, even in those moments before sleep took him, thoughts of you tugged persistently at the edges of his mind.

By the third date, doubt had begun to creep in. Joel found himself questioning why he hadn’t told you about Sienna. Why he was keeping it to himself, why it felt so unsettling. It wasn’t as if you’d judge him, he told himself. If anything, you’d probably encourage him, tell him he deserved to be happy, that he should give it a real chance. That was who you were—supportive, unselfish.

But the thought of you knowing made something twist in his chest. It felt wrong, somehow, like it would shift the delicate balance between you. Admitting it to you felt too final, as though saying it aloud would confirm that he was searching for something else, something permanent, and he wasn’t ready for you to know that. He couldn’t untangle the knot of emotions tightening inside him, couldn’t put words to the unease that crept in whenever Sienna smiled at him or touched his arm. All he knew was that no matter how good things seemed with her, thoughts of you were never far behind.

Then came his birthday. You’d confronted him that night, quiet and firm, catching him off guard with your piercing gaze and steady voice.

“Why would you lie to me?” you’d asked, your tone a mixture of hurt and bewilderment. “We're friends. Why wouldn't you tell me you're seeing someone?”

And just like that, the truth he’d been avoiding stood between you, unspoken but undeniable.

You cornered him, and he didn’t handle it well. The anger Joel felt in that moment wasn’t just irrational—it was childish, unfair, the kind of emotion he’d scold Sarah for if it came from her. But it rose inside him, stubborn and hot, because deep down, Joel felt as though he was betraying you. The thought alone unsettled him; it was absurd. You weren’t his, and yet, the idea of you holding that kind of sway over him—being able to tilt the axis of his decisions—left him feeling exposed, furious. He knew, with unsettling clarity, that if you asked him to leave Sienna, he would. That realization burned, not just because of the power you held over him but because he was certain it wasn’t mutual. At least, he thought so.

“I know you too well to know you’re just jealous,” he spat, the words sharp and venomous, aimed more at himself than at you. He hated the way his own insecurities betrayed him, how they shaped the bitterness in his tone. The accusation was hypocritical; he knew that better than anyone.

The month before, when you casually mentioned that Travis had asked you out, Joel felt like the ground had been ripped out from under him. Your tone was so light, so unaffected, that it caught him off guard, knocking the air out of his lungs. His reaction was instant and visceral, jealousy surging like a tidal wave and gripping his chest in a vice. The mocking laugh that escaped him wasn’t intentional—it was sharp and bitter, a reflex from the worst parts of himself. Out of all the men in town, why him? The sting of it still lingered, the memory sharp and vivid.

Three years ago, Joel had first met Travis Dunn on a scorching Sunday afternoon. The kind of day where the sun bore down relentlessly, turning the air into a suffocating blanket of heat and making every movement feel sluggish. Joel was outside his house, organizing tools in the back of his truck, more out of habit than necessity, while the hours stretched long and slow.

Two houses down, across the street, Travis was in his yard, wrestling with an overgrown bush that refused to yield. Joel had noticed him before—a new face in the neighborhood—but they’d never spoken. Deciding to introduce himself, Joel grabbed a rag to wipe his hands and wandered over, his shoes crunching against the dry grass.

Travis straightened when he saw Joel approach, leaning on his shovel with an easy, welcoming smile despite the oppressive heat.

“That’s real kind of you, Joel,” Travis said after Joel offered to help, his voice friendly and conversational. “But I’m just about done here. Damn Texas sun’s brutal, though. Still tryin’ to get used to it.”

Joel chuckled, nodding in understanding as he wiped the sweat from his brow. “Yeah, it’s a killer. You get used to it after a while. Been working outside my whole life—kinda got the skin for it now. But if you ever need a hand, I’ve got the tools. Sometimes even the time.”

Travis nodded, brushing damp hair back from his forehead, and smiled sideways, an idea forming in his mind. “Actually, there is something.”

Joel tilted his head, curiosity piqued. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

Travis hesitated only a moment before blurting out your name as an invocation of the terrible, and the mention of you froze Joel’s easy smile in place, turning it into something tight and forced.

“You’re close to her, aren’t you?” Travis continued, his tone almost playful. “She’s something else. So sweet, beautiful too.”

Joel forced himself to nod, his voice flat. “That she is.”

“I like her,” Travis admitted, a nervous laugh bubbling up as he spoke, oblivious to Joel’s growing tension.

"No shit." His voice was low, flat.

“I mean, I was relieved when I realized you two were just friends. For a while there, I thought you might be, y’know, together.”

Joel’s brow furrowed. “What made you think that?”

“The way you act around her, and the way she acts around you,” Travis said with a shrug. “You’re together a lot. I dunno, it just... felt like a thing.”

Joel didn’t respond, but the silence between them thickened.

Travis, either unaware or unconcerned, grinned and added, “Anyway, you might wanna watch yourself, man," he said with a smug grin. "If you're not careful enough, I might just swoop in and take her off your hands forever. And trust me, I don’t do refunds—especially not with something as gorgeous as her."

Something snapped inside Joel. The casual arrogance in Travis’s tone, the smug smile—it was too much. He stepped closer, his posture rigid. Something as gorgeous, he said? Who did he think he was, strutting up and talking to him with all the confidence in the world, like they were old friends or something?

“What did you just say?” Joel’s voice was low, the Southern drawl sharpening into something dangerous.

The grin faded from Travis’s face, confusion flickering in his eyes. “Oh, sorry—”

"Y’ain’t gonna get anywhere near her with those words, Dunn," Joel growled, his voice low and thick with anger, his strong southern accent accentuating with emotion. "You better watch your damn mouth 'fore I show you what it really means to cross a line."

"No, listen—"

"No," Joel cut him off, stepping even closer. "You listen here, boy. You think you can talk about her like she’s some kinda prize to be won? Like she’s just sittin’ ‘round waitin’ for some fool like you to come swoopin’ in and steal her away? You’re downright dumb if you think you can underestimate her like that—like she’s some kinda damn manipulable thing you can just twist ‘round your finger."

“Joel, I didn’t mean—”

“You stay away from her,” Joel warned, his voice calm but edged with steel. “You hear me?”

Travis’s hands went up in surrender, his expression wary. “Alright, alright. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Joel stared him down for another beat, his jaw tight, before turning on his heel and walking away. His fists were clenched, heat simmering in his chest long after the confrontation ended.

For a while after, Travis kept his distance, careful not to overstep again. But three years later, when he reappeared, asking you out as if that encounter had never happened, Joel was flooded with a familiar anger—and something else. The possessiveness he thought he’d buried roared back to life, impossible to ignore.

“Why don’t you like him?” you had asked Joel that afternoon, your voice laced with curiosity as you leaned against the counter, watching him with that determined look that always made him feel like there was no escape. He had just scoffed at Travis invitation, brushing it off like it was the most ridiculous idea he’d ever heard.

Joel barely paused before spinning his answer, sharp and dismissive.

“I just don’t like the guy,” he said, his tone gruff. His hand reached for the coffee mug on the table, more to occupy himself than because he needed another sip.  

You didn’t let it go, of course. You crossed your arms, head tilted, waiting for something more.  

“He’s... weird,” Joel added with a shrug, avoiding your gaze. “Something about him rubs me the wrong way.”  

That was a lie, and he knew it. The truth was more complicated, and Joel hated complicated. He didn’t like Travis because the guy seemed too perfect, too slick, the type who could charm everyone in the neighborhood without even trying. Worse, Travis hadn’t done anything genuinely wrong, and Joel knew it. Hell, he wasn’t even all that bad of a guy—just the kind who could make you laugh, who could say the right things at the right time. And Joel? He wasn’t about to admit that every quip and joke Travis threw your way felt like a punch to his gut.

The real problem was simpler, though Joel would never say it out loud: he didn’t want Travis—or anyone—getting close to you. Because deep down, he was terrified that if someone did, you’d start to drift away from him. Slowly, naturally, like it was the most normal thing in the world. He could already picture it—the quiet evenings you two spent together fading into quick hellos and polite smiles as your life began to revolve around someone else.  

And Joel wasn’t sure he could handle that.  

You didn’t make it easy for him, either. You’d always talked to him about your boyfriends—there weren’t many, but enough to leave a mark. He listened like the good friend he was supposed to be, his face calm and unreadable. He even gave you advice sometimes, measured and practical, and he pretended to be relieved when things didn’t work out. But the truth? He was selfish. He couldn’t deny the ugly twist in his stomach every time you lit up talking about someone new.  

The worst part was the details. You shared everything—how they made you feel, the way they looked at you, the tiny, romantic gestures that made your heart race. Joel would sit there, nodding along, while his insides churned. Sometimes, he was almost convinced you did it on purpose, like you wanted to poke at the feelings he’d buried so deep. But then he’d shake that thought away because it couldn’t be true. You didn’t see him like that.  

Still, the possessiveness lingered, and it wasn’t one-sided. Whenever Joel mentioned a woman he was seeing, your posture would stiffen ever so slightly. He noticed the way your smile faltered, the way you suddenly seemed distracted. Joel kept his descriptions vague, never giving you the kind of vivid details you offered him. At first, he found a strange satisfaction in your reactions. If it bothered you that much to imagine him with someone else, maybe—just maybe—you felt the same way he did.  

But then you’d start listing their flaws with pinpoint accuracy, dissecting them in a way that left him wondering if you had a secret playbook for unraveling his attempts at romance. And you were always right. Every critique you made landed, exposing cracks he’d tried to ignore, as though you saw right through his attempts to prove he had control over his feelings.  

It frustrated him, how easily you could tear down the façade he worked so hard to build. Yet a small part of him—a selfish, conflicted part—was glad. Because it meant you were paying attention, and maybe, just maybe, you didn’t want to lose him either.

Sienna had taken him by surprise. She was unlike anyone Joel had encountered in a long time, and that unfamiliarity left him unsure how to talk about her—especially to you. He knew you were angry, and he couldn’t blame you. You had every right to feel shut out. Still, Joel couldn’t help but dig in his heels. His life was his own, and no matter how close you two were, some things felt too personal to share.

Yet, despite his stubbornness, the guilt lingered like a low hum in the back of his mind. He couldn’t stop replaying that night, the one you had so carefully planned, the kind of evening he usually dreaded but had come to cherish since you had entered his life.

It had been just the three of you: Sarah, you, and him. Tommy had bailed last minute, caught up in some errand or chore Joel couldn’t even remember now. But Tommy’s absence hadn’t dampened the warmth of the evening. It was perfect in its simplicity. Everything Joel loved most in the world sat around that small kitchen table, the faint glow of the overhead light softening the edges of the moment.

Joel wasn’t big on birthdays. He never had been, and neither were you, which was probably one of the reasons you understood him so well. For him, it was complicated. As a kid, he’d get excited—what child wouldn’t? But as he grew older, birthdays became a cruel reminder of time slipping away, of how life only seemed to grow more complicated with each passing year. 

The last time he had truly enjoyed the day was the year Sarah was born. He could still picture it vividly, like a snapshot preserved in his mind. He and Amelia had been newly married, their relationship rocky but held together by the promise of their daughter. Their apartment was small, the wallpaper peeling in the corners, but that night, none of it mattered.

Amelia had baked him a cake. It wasn’t anything fancy—a bit uneven, with frosting that leaned to one side—but Joel had loved it all the same. She had dimmed the lights and sung "Happy Birthday" softly, her voice barely above a whisper as he held Sarah in his arms. Joel blew out the single candle with a quiet wish: that this fragile moment of happiness might last forever.

After cake, he had sunk onto the couch, Sarah nestled against him, her rhythmic breathing lulling him into one of the most peaceful sleeps he’d ever had.

Joel hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but the next thing he knew, Amelia was shaking him gently awake, her fingers brushing against his cheek.

“Come on, Joel,” she’d murmured. “Go to bed. You’ve got work in the morning.”

The next morning, Joel was stirred from sleep by the sound of Sarah’s crying. It was sharp and persistent, cutting through the fog of his exhaustion like a knife. His eyes fluttered open reluctantly, his body heavy with the weight of another long day ahead. He lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling as the cries continued, loud and unrelenting. Something felt off, though he couldn’t quite place what it was.

“Amelia?” he called out groggily, his voice rough from sleep.

There was no response. The silence, save for Sarah’s escalating wails, gnawed at the edges of his unease. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Joel sat up, running a hand down his face as if to wipe away the lingering haze of sleep. His chest felt tight, a faint, inexplicable tension coiling there.

Pushing himself to his feet, he shuffled toward Sarah’s crib in the corner of the room. She was red-faced and wriggling, her tiny fists flailing in frustration. Joel bent down, scooping her up with the practiced ease of a man who had done this many times before.

“Hey, hey,” he murmured softly, rocking her gently against his chest. Her cries tapered off for a moment, replaced by hiccuping gasps, but it didn’t last. Soon enough, the wails returned, sharper and more insistent.

Joel recognized the sound immediately—it was hunger. The kind of cry that pierced through everything else, demanding attention. He adjusted her in his arms, cradling her close as he moved toward the kitchen.

“Amelia?” he called out again, louder this time, his voice tinged with irritation and concern.

Still no answer. His eyes scanned the dimly lit apartment, searching for any sign of his wife. That’s when he saw it—a piece of paper sitting on the kitchen table. Bright yellow, stark against the dark wood, it seemed out of place, almost glaring in the soft morning light.

Joel’s stomach twisted. A sinking feeling settled deep within him, heavy and cold. Shifting Sarah in his arms, he stepped closer, his boots creaking softly against the worn floorboards.

The note was short—just five lines scribbled hastily in Amelia’s familiar handwriting. Joel’s eyes moved over the words, his heart pounding in his chest as he read them.

She was gone.

The words blurred for a moment as the meaning sank in. She was gone. Amelia had left, abandoning both him and Sarah with nothing more than a half-hearted apology. The note was filled with excuses: This life isn’t for me. I need something more. I’m sorry. I can’t keep lying to myself. I can’t do this anymore.

Joel’s hand tightened around the paper, crumpling it as Sarah’s cries rose again, loud and demanding. The sound seemed to echo in the hollow space inside him, amplifying the storm that had begun to rage in his chest.

“Bullshit,” he muttered, his voice low and trembling with barely restrained fury. He tossed the crumpled paper onto the floor, watching it roll to a stop near the edge of the table.

The anger came fast and hard, crashing over him like a wave. It wasn’t sadness he felt—not yet. It was anger, raw and consuming. Anger that Amelia had been so cowardly, so selfish. She had left a note, five lines scrawled on a piece of paper, and walked away without looking back.

His fists clenched at his sides as his jaw tightened. She hadn’t just abandoned him—that, he could handle. Their marriage had been strained for a long time, both of them going through the motions more out of necessity than love. But Sarah? She had left their baby.

How could she walk away from their daughter, from the tiny life they had created together? Joel’s thoughts spiraled, his mind racing through every moment he had tried to make things work, every sacrifice he had made to ensure their family had a future.

Was it his fault? Had he pushed her too hard? Or had she been looking for an escape all along?

The questions churned in his mind, but Joel didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on them. Sarah needed him, her cries piercing through the fog of his thoughts. He held her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead as he rocked her gently.

“It’s just us now, baby girl,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. “But I promise you, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll take care of you. Always.”

And in that moment, his anger hardened into resolve. He didn’t have the answers, and he didn’t have Amelia. But he had Sarah, and that was all that mattered.

From the moment Joel heard Sarah’s first cry, the sound pierced through him like a revelation, sharp and clear. In that instant, his entire world shifted. It was as though the pieces of his life, fractured and disorganized, suddenly rearranged themselves around this tiny, fragile being. Everything else fell away—the struggles, the exhaustion, even his own doubts. There was only her.

When he first held her, she felt impossibly small in his arms, her body warm and soft, her head nestled against his chest. She opened her tiny mouth, her cries quieter now but still insistent, and Joel couldn’t help but smile through the exhaustion. Her fist closed around his thumb, her fingers barely curling all the way, and he felt his breath hitch in his throat.

That was it. That was the moment he knew. Nothing else mattered. Not his job, not his own dreams or fears. Sarah was his purpose. She was everything, and he would do anything—everything—to protect her, to make sure she would always be safe and never want for anything.

He threw himself into work with a ferocity he hadn’t known he possessed. Early mornings turned into long nights, and he pushed through each shift with a singular thought in his mind: This is for Sarah. He dreamed of a better life for her, one where they wouldn’t have to struggle. He wanted her to grow up in a house with a backyard, not in the cramped apartment they currently called home.

But his hours away from home weighed heavily on Amelia. She spent most days cooped up in the apartment, caring for Sarah alone. Joel knew it wasn’t easy for her. He saw it in the lines of exhaustion etched into her face, the way her shoulders sagged by the end of the day.

One night, after a particularly grueling shift, Joel came home to find Amelia sitting on the couch, her head resting against the back of it, her eyes closed. Sarah was asleep in her crib, the faint hum of the baby monitor the only sound in the room. Joel sat down beside her, placing a hand gently on her wrist.

"You'll see," he murmured, his voice soft but firm. "Time's gonna fly by, and before we know it, she'll be runnin' around, goin' to school, talkin' our ears off. So fast, we'll wish we could turn back time and have her be a baby again."

Amelia opened her eyes, her gaze tired but sharp. “That’s easy for you to say,” she replied, her tone edged with bitterness. “You’re nobody’s barf towel, Joel. Sometimes I wish she’d grow up faster.”

Her words hit him harder than he expected, like a quiet punch to the gut. Joel felt a pang of guilt and tried to see things from her perspective. He knew she was overwhelmed. He knew his long hours left her bearing the brunt of the daily grind at home. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t fully understand. For him, those fleeting moments with Sarah—feeding her, rocking her to sleep, holding her tiny hand—were treasures.

“I know it’s hard,” he said after a long silence, his voice heavy with sincerity. “But we're doing this for us, for her. So we can have more. So she can have more.”

Amelia sighed and stood up, muttering something about needing a shower. Joel stayed on the couch, his head in his hands. He was doing everything he could, wasn’t he? But the cracks in their relationship were growing deeper, and he didn’t know how to fix them.

And then, a week later, she left.

Joel didn’t care that Amelia had abandoned him—not really. Their relationship had been hanging by a thread for months, maybe longer. But the fact that she had walked away from Sarah? That was something he could never understand. How could a mother leave her own child?

Everything got harder after that. Joel had to reorganize his entire life. He adjusted his shifts at work, found a nanny he could afford, and learned to function on less than two hours of sleep. Every day was a balancing act, and every night he fell into bed completely spent, knowing he’d have to do it all over again the next day.

He was alone. Completely, utterly alone. His parents were long gone, and his friends were too busy with college and their own lives to offer more than the occasional word of encouragement. Tommy tried to help, moving in with him for a while to lend a hand. But Tommy was still just a kid himself, more often getting into trouble than out of it. Sometimes it felt like Joel was raising them both.

But no matter how hard it got, Joel never wavered. Sarah was his everything, his reason for pushing forward even when it felt impossible. And when he looked at her—her tiny smile, her bright, curious eyes—it was all worth it. For her, it would always be worth it.

Why would Joel want to celebrate his birthday? For years, the date had meant nothing to him. If anything, it was a day he preferred to forget. Even Amelia’s absence, once a source of raw pain, had dulled into something distant, like an old scar that no longer ached. He was better off without her, he often told himself. Why would he want someone in his life who could abandon her own child so easily, without a second glance?

Eight long years of birthdays came and went, each one passing without fanfare. That is, until you showed up.

It was a warm afternoon when Brenda knocked on Joel’s door, Ian trailing behind her with a small red-wrapped package in his hands. You stood next to them, your bright smile lighting up the quiet entryway as if it had been waiting for this exact moment.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday?” you asked, your voice full of playful reproach. You’d only been living next door for a couple of months, but you spoke as though you’d known him far longer.

Joel shrugged, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Didn’t think it was important.” His tone was casual, almost indifferent, but the way his eyes darted to the floor betrayed the discomfort he felt about the subject.

“Well, that won’t do,” you said with a firm nod, your excitement practically radiating off you. “We have to throw you a celebration.”

Before he could protest, you’d already begun making plans, dragging Tommy—who was lounging on Joel’s couch—into your whirlwind of preparation. In what felt like record time, you had organized a small dinner in your backyard, insisting on inviting the people Joel cared about most. Brenda, Ian, and of course, Tommy, were enlisted as guests, and Sarah eagerly volunteered to help with the preparations.

The two of you spent the afternoon in your kitchen, Sarah perched on a stool as she carefully spread cream over a sponge cake. It wasn’t perfect—some spots were uneven, and the red lettering that spelled “Happy Birthday Joel” varied wildly in size—but the effort was unmistakable. You even let Sarah place the single candle right above the word “birthday,” despite her giggles about it looking “a little crooked.”

In the backyard, you strung up Christmas lights, their warm glow transforming the space into something almost magical. A flowered tablecloth adorned the table, set with colored glass plates and matching glasses. It was simple, yet charming, and as Joel stepped outside to see what you had done, he felt an unfamiliar tightness in his chest.

You stood there, watching him expectantly, your hands clasped together as if bracing for his reaction. Joel scanned the scene—the lights, the table, the cake—and then his gaze settled on you. He felt overwhelmed, unaccustomed to this kind of attention, to the idea that someone had gone out of their way to make him feel special.

“Do you like it?” you asked softly, a hint of uncertainty creeping into your voice.

Joel cleared his throat, nodding slowly. “Yeah,” he said gruffly, his voice betraying a mix of gratitude and awkwardness. “It’s… it’s nice. Real nice.”

What he couldn’t say—what he didn’t know how to say—was how much it meant to him. No one had ever done something like this for him before. Sure, Tommy would swing by with a gift and some good-natured ribbing, and Sarah always crafted him heartfelt gifts, usually paired with a movie night of her choosing. But this? This was different. It wasn’t just thoughtful; it was intentional.

You had done it simply to make him happy, without expecting anything in return. And that was what stayed with him.

A few weeks later, when your birthday rolled around, Joel found himself returning the gesture. He spent the better part of the day barbecuing in his backyard, carefully grilling your favorite dishes and picking up a cake from the bakery he’d overheard you mention. He wasn’t the most expressive man, but he wanted to show you how much your efforts had meant to him.

The party was small but warm, filled with laughter and good food. Joel watched you closely, noting the way your eyes lit up when you saw the cake, the way you laughed with Sarah and Tommy, the way you seemed lighter somehow.

It was only a few days later, during a quiet evening, that you opened up about your own complicated feelings toward birthdays.

“You know,” you began, sitting on Joel’s porch with a mug of tea in your hands, “I’ve never really liked my birthday either.”

Joel raised an eyebrow, leaning back in his chair. “Yeah? How come?”

Your birthday was always a delicate subject, one you rarely spoke about. The day carried a weight too heavy for celebration.

When you were fourteen, just two days before your birthday, your father passed away after a year-long decline that left him a shadow of the man he had once been. Your relationship with him had never been easy. There was a distance between you, a lack of understanding that made every interaction fraught with tension. He didn’t understand you, and you couldn’t bridge the gap to reach him. So, when his illness took hold, it wasn’t just his body that deteriorated—it was also any chance of finding common ground. Watching him grow weaker day by day, his spirit worn thin, felt like mourning someone you had never truly known.  

When he finally passed, it was strange. The grief was there, sharp and biting, but layered with regret, guilt, and a strange hollowness. Your mother, shattered by the loss, withdrew into her own anguish, locking herself in a grief so consuming that it swallowed her whole. She became a ghost of herself, distant and unreachable, leaving you to navigate the loss alone.  

Somehow, you were left adrift. With your father gone and your mother emotionally absent, the world seemed colder. The rest of your adolescence blurred into a haze of solitude. Nights became long and heavy, filled with tears that no one heard. Birthdays, once a day of excitement, became unbearable.  

“It’s not worth celebrating,” your mother had said one year, her voice hollow. “What’s the point? It’s just a reminder of what we lost.”  

And you believed her. You let the day pass quietly, pretending it didn’t matter. But deep down, it did. Every year, the ache in your chest returned, as if your father’s death had marked you in ways you couldn’t escape.  

When you moved to Austin, Cassie was determined to change that. She insisted on throwing you a party, bringing her friends together and decorating her small apartment with balloons and streamers. She wanted to make the day special, to give you the joy she believed you deserved. But instead of feeling included, you felt like a stranger in the crowd. The forced laughter and cheerful chatter only amplified the loneliness you carried inside.  

Joel noticed it immediately. From the first glance, he saw something in you that mirrored his own quiet pain, his own complicated relationship with birthdays and loss.  

With the Millers, though, it was different.  

Joel had a way of pulling you out of your own head. He didn’t ask if you wanted to celebrate; he simply turned on the music, took your hand, and pulled you into the courtyard to dance.  

“C’mon, don’t make me look ridiculous all by myself,” he teased, his hand warm and steady on yours.  

“I’m terrible at this,” you protested, laughing despite yourself as he spun you clumsily.  

“You think I’m any better?” he shot back, making an exaggerated face of concentration that sent you into a fit of giggles.  

His other hand rested lightly on your waist, tickling just enough to make you squirm.

“Stop!” you laughed, swatting at him, but Joel only grinned, spinning you again until you were both dizzy and breathless.  

The weight in your chest began to ease. Slowly, the familiar sadness faded, replaced by something you hadn’t felt in years—a glimmer of happiness. The music, Sarah’s laughter in the background, and Joel’s insistence on making you smile wove together into a moment so genuine that you couldn’t help but let go, even if only for a little while.

With the Millers, you felt something you hadn’t in years: belonging. Joel, Sarah, even Tommy—they made you feel like you were part of something bigger, something that mattered. For the first time in what felt like forever, you were happy. And for once, your birthday didn’t hurt. 

On the afternoon of his birthday, Joel made it a point to leave work early, a rare indulgence. The day had been grueling, his body carrying the weight of hours spent hauling, lifting, and concentrating through a persistent ache in his shoulders and arms. By the time he pulled into the driveway, fatigue clung to him like a second skin.

But the moment he stepped through the door, all of that began to melt away. The warm, savory aroma of your cooking wrapped around him like a welcoming embrace, teasing his senses and making his stomach rumble in anticipation. From the kitchen, he could hear Sarah's laughter, a sound so bright and carefree it seemed to lift the heaviness in his chest. And then there was your voice—soft and melodic, weaving effortlessly into the rhythm of his home, a sound that had come to symbolize comfort itself.

He paused in the doorway for a moment, letting it all wash over him. The tension in his shoulders began to ease, his mind quieting in a way it rarely did. Home. It wasn’t just the place—it was you, Sarah, the life you all shared within these walls.

As he stepped further inside, Joel noticed something different about you that evening. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on but felt instantly. He always noticed you—more than he liked to admit. His gaze often lingered longer than it should, studying the way your lips curved when you smiled, the way your hands moved with quiet purpose, the subtle shifts in your voice when you were excited or uncertain.

Tonight, though, it was as if the world had conspired to make you glow. You wore that dress he liked, the one that clung just enough to hint at your shape without being overdone. The warm light from the kitchen seemed to catch on your flushed cheeks, making your skin look soft, almost luminous. Your hair was tied up, exposing the graceful curve of your neck and the delicate, fine hairs at its nape.

He found himself staring, his fingers itching with the desire to reach out and touch that spot just beneath your ear, to let his thumb trace the softness of your skin. He could already imagine the way it would feel, the warmth of you under his touch. But Joel stopped himself, swallowing hard and forcing his hands into his pockets.

His tongue betrayed him then. A slip—a small comment, laced with more emotion than he intended.

The three of you sat around the table, and Joel took his first bite of the stew, eyes widening, a kind of bliss washing over his face. He tossed his head back and groaned.

“Sweet Glory,” he mumbled, closing his eyes. “Thank you for this.”

“Oh, come on,” you teased, though part of you couldn’t help but feel a pang of something between irritation and flattery. “You say that every time I cook for you.”

He shook his head, smiling as he chewed, then spoke softly, his gaze slipping downward.

“I’m not exaggerating—I love everything you do.” A pause, and then a quick, awkward clarification. “I mean, everything you cook.”

You didn’t seem to notice, though, your focus elsewhere. But Joel felt the heat rise in his face, a faint flush creeping over his cheeks. He turned away quickly, clearing his throat as if that could erase the moment. Joel hadn’t meant to say it aloud. The words slipped out before he could stop them, his voice soft but heavy with emotion.

I love everything you do. It wasn’t just a compliment—it was a confession, unguarded and dangerously close to exposing everything he’d tried so hard to bury.

If someone had told Joel how that night would end, he would have laughed, dismissed the thought outright. It was unthinkable, a fantasy he’d never let himself fully entertain. But as the hours unfolded, something inside him began to shift—subtle at first, like a whisper at the edge of his mind, then growing louder and more insistent.

But then came the emotions, rushing in like a storm—anger, jealousy, desire, all tangled together in a mess he couldn’t untangle. The anger was irrational, sharp and sudden, a flash of heat that burned at the thought of you smiling like that at someone else. The jealousy felt even worse, a bitter ache in his chest at the mere idea that you might one day belong to someone else, someone better than him. And the desire... it was unbearable. It had been building for so long, so quietly, that he hadn’t noticed it until it was too late to ignore.

Something broke inside him.

“Fine. I’ll leave you alone, and maybe then you can run across the street and fuck Travis Dunn, if you want it so badly,” he shot back, impatience tinging his voice as he turned toward the still-open door.

The words hit you like a slap. You froze for a moment, the anger washing over you in a wave. Before you could think twice, you rushed up to him, gripping his arm tightly to force him to turn and look at you.

“What the hell did you just say, Joel?” you hissed, grabbing his shirt, fingers bunching in the fabric as you backed him up until his shoulders hit the wall by the door. “Go on, say it again!”

Your breaths came fast, chest rising and falling as the rush of anger pushed tears to your eyes. You couldn’t believe he’d actually spoken to you like that, cutting right through to something raw and vulnerable. He’d never spoken to you like that before. Maybe he was a little drunk, or maybe he was losing his mind.

But there was no softness in his gaze, no hint of the Joel you knew. His stare was sharp, almost wild with something simmering underneath, something you didn’t understand. To you, this whole argument made no sense, at least not his reaction.

Joel’s grip on your wrist was firm, almost grounding, as he pulled you closer, pressing your palm against his chest. “I can’t stand that asshole, but go ahead and fuck him if you want,” he spat, voice laced with frustration. “Go fuck the whole neighborhood while you’re at it. I really don’t care anymore.”

His words were harsh, designed to cut, but they only drew a laugh from you—sharp and derisive. A tear slipped down your cheek, uninvited.

“What, did you ever care?” you asked, your voice trembling on the last syllable, thick with emotion.

But Joel didn’t respond, and the silence ignited a fire in you, something that swirled beneath the surface, ready to boil over.

“Do you know why we’re friends, Joel?” Your pulse quickened, each beat like a drum in your ears. “Because it just works between us. There are no ulterior motives. You know why? Because I don’t like you like that. You’re not even my type, and you never will be. And no, I’m not jealous that you’re dating some woman you’ll probably dump in less than a month, so get the fuck over it and leave me the fuck alone!”

He wasn’t your type. He wasn’t your type. He wasn’t your type? The words echoed in Joel’s mind, each repetition a fresh sting to his ego and a sharper stab to his heart. But your eyes told him a different story. They mirrored his own intensity, and that unspoken connection was undeniable. 

In that moment, he surrendered to an impulse he had fought to suppress countless times before. He kissed you, a kiss laden with every restrained emotion, and carried you to your room. The world around him blurred; it felt surreal, as if he were watching himself from a distance. Every sense was heightened, every touch electric, his entire being focused solely on you.

You were perfection to him. The intoxicating scent of your skin, the soft texture of your lips, the sweet taste of you—all of it was exquisite, overwhelming. When he was finally inside you, he felt as if his heart might explode from the sheer intensity of it. The warmth, the sweetness, the way it consumed him—it was almost too much to bear, almost too beautiful to be real. Every sound you made unraveled him further, pushing him closer to a peak he had thought unattainable. The desire that coursed through you felt almost tangible, as if he could taste it on his lips with every kiss.

As you drifted off to sleep beside him, your face looked so peaceful, so heartbreakingly beautiful, that Joel couldn’t resist. He leaned in, brushing the gentlest of kisses across your forehead, your cheeks, your eyelids—each kiss a whisper of affection, as though trying to capture this fleeting moment. Only when the rhythm of your breaths lulled him into calm did he finally surrender to sleep at your side.  

But deep in the stillness of the night, he stirred awake. His emotions, once overwhelming, had quieted; his mind, no longer softened by the haze of passion, now felt sharp and cold. And then it struck him—a suffocating wave of fear.  

What had he done? What had he done? The question echoed relentlessly in his mind, each repetition laced with dread. He had crossed a line, dragging you into his chaos, disrespecting you in a way that made his stomach twist with guilt. He had shattered the bond you shared—a friendship he had held in the highest regard. He had taken something pure and irreversibly tainted it with his own selfish desires.  

Panic surged through him, relentless and unforgiving. How could you ever look at him the same way again? Surely, you wouldn’t want him in your life anymore. The thought of losing you gutted him.  

A storm of thoughts battered his mind as he quietly slipped out of your house like a ghost, each step feeling heavier than the last. The walk back to his own home was a blur of regret and self-recrimination. By the time he shut the door behind him, the weight of what he had done pressed down on him completely. He knew, with a sinking finality, that he had ruined everything.

He had ruined everything. 

And four days later, the dagger in his chest sank even deeper.

Swallowing hard, you tasted the salt of your tears, and it burned your throat like an unwelcome reminder of the turmoil within.

“I’m not sure I can be your friend anymore, Joel,” you confessed, your voice shaking with the weight of your admission.

He shook his head, disbelief flashing across his features as a weak smile broke through the hurt. It was as if he couldn’t quite fathom the words that had just escaped you.

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I do,” you asserted, each syllable a battle against the rawness in your chest.

“No, you don’t,” he countered, stepping back just inches, his tone laced with incredulity. The mocking sneer that crept onto his face felt more like a mask than a reflection of his true feelings, and yet, the moisture pooling in his eyes betrayed the battle raging within him.

You regarded him in silence, the atmosphere thickening with unspoken words as you watched his smile fade into something that was almost painful. It twisted his features, morphing into a look of discomfort that hung between you like an unsaid apology. He remained still, his gaze locked onto yours, waiting for you to break the tension with a word or a gesture. The sight of him like that burned inside you, igniting a longing to rewind time, to swallow your questions, to let him live his life free from the weight of your curiosity and the tangled feelings that had blossomed between you. But that wasn’t an option; the reality of your situation loomed large and unavoidable. You had to confront the truth: he didn’t feel the same way about you, and for him, sleeping with you felt like a transgression, a sin, a burden he couldn’t carry.

“Joel, please,” you began, your voice cracking under the pressure of your emotions. A tear slipped down your cheek, salty and bitter, tasting of the anguish that your words carried. “I can’t be your friend anymore. I can’t do this. I’m sorry, I really am, but you’re breaking my—” You hesitated, swallowing hard against the swell of grief that threatened to overwhelm you. “I think this is over.”

"She just needs time," Joel told himself, clinging to the fragile hope that things would eventually mend. But that comforting thought crumbled when he saw how easily you seemed to move on, as if he no longer existed in your world. You carried on with your life without so much as a glance in his direction, each moment of indifference cutting deeper. It felt like a deliberate erasure, and Joel's heart shrank under the weight of it, splintering all over again. Did you truly not want him in your life anymore?  

His decision to break things off with Sienna had come with a strange clarity. Her warmth, her charm—things he had once appreciated—now felt hollow, like they no longer belonged in his life. Joel couldn’t pretend otherwise. He couldn’t lie to her, tell her everything was fine, and carry on as though his heart wasn’t consumed by someone else. She deserved more than being a placeholder for feelings he couldn’t shake.  

In the aftermath of the breakup, Joel thought he might finally find the courage to come to you. To apologize, to face you honestly. He imagined himself laying it all out—his regret, his fear, and the possibility of something more. Perhaps, if you felt even a fraction of what he did, you could both explore the connection that had ignited that night. He had told himself he was ready to risk it all, to bare his soul if you would give him even a sliver of space to do so.  

The breaking point came when Tommy casually mentioned you and Travis. The words were innocuous, but the storm they unleashed within Joel was anything but. Something dark and bitter began to fester in his chest—jealousy, anger, resentment? He couldn’t quite name it, but it clawed at him, a toxic mix that he struggled to contain. It wasn’t his proudest moment. It wasn’t even close.  

“What’s this?” he asked, a note of suspicion in his voice.

Tommy leaned back, watching him with a faint smile playing at the edges of his mouth.

“Your girl next door gave it to me,” he replied, each word almost too measured. “Said it was yours.”

For a few moments, Joel just stood there, as if frozen, processing Tommy’s words. He looked down, finally lifting the lid and peering inside. There, neatly folded, was his sweatshirt—the one he’d handed you one chilly evening when he picked you up from work. Beneath that was his old Pearl Jam t-shirt, the one you’d borrowed after a swim in his pool last summer. His favorite coffee mug sat tucked in the corner, along with a few CDs, a dog-eared paperback he’d loaned you weeks ago. Each item seemed to carry its own little echo of the time he’d spent with you.

After a few seconds, Joel placed the lid back on the box, sliding it away from him with a muted thud. He kept his expression steady, but his jaw was set, and his eyes remained fixed on the counter.

“When did she give it to you?” he asked, his voice strained but steady.

“A few moments ago,” Tommy said with a shrug, holding back a smirk as he noticed the tightness in Joel’s expression. “Saw her walking back from Dunn’s house, actually.”

Joel let out a dry, sardonic laugh, a smile twisted in disbelief. "Right. Of course."

"Actually," Tommy said, savoring another spoonful of ice cream, "he walked her to the door, all sweet-like. Gave her the whole mushy goodnight routine—kiss, movie shit." His gaze stayed fixed on the bowl, though Joel could see the glint of mischief there, Tommy barely holding back a grin.

Joel’s fingers drummed on the counter, his gaze hardening. “She must be happy then,” he muttered.

Tommy didn’t look up, just continued with his ice cream, though there was a glint of amusement in his eyes. “Sure she looked that way to me.”

“Like I care,” Joel muttered, his gaze fixed hard on the box beside him, fingers curling against the edge as if steadying himself. “I can bet everything I’ve got she doesn’t even like him that much. That guy isn’t worth it, and she knows it.” 

Tommy’s mouth quirked with amusement as he leaned back against the counter.

“Too bad that’s not up to you,” he said, casually pushing Joel’s buttons, almost like he enjoyed watching his brother’s patience fray. “She looked happy. And for what it’s worth, in her own words, she does like him.” 

Later, in the solitude of his room, Joel tucked away the box—the one filled with memories and unfinished gestures. He couldn’t bear to look at it, to confront what it represented. Instead, he tried to distract himself, but the emotions that swirled within him refused to be ignored. But he didn’t. Fear, hesitation, and the unrelenting weight of what-ifs kept him rooted in silence.

What Tommy told him shattered any remaining hope Joel had of making things right with you. Whatever fragile intentions he had to mend the rift between you dissolved in an instant, crushed under the weight of his own assumptions.  

You had moved on, hadn’t you? It seemed so, as if you had turned a new page in your life without a second thought. Apparently, that night with Joel hadn’t meant as much to you as it had to him. The realization struck like a knife, twisting with every memory of that fleeting connection he had held onto so desperately. Anger bubbled up alongside the pain, a raw, bitter cocktail of emotions that left him reeling. He wanted to show you that he could move on, too—that he wasn’t as affected, that he could be indifferent.  

But the act fell apart every time he saw you with Travis. The sight of the two of you together hollowed him out. You looked happy, didn’t you? The way you smiled, the ease with which you leaned into Travis—it was more than Joel could bear. Each moment of apparent joy between you and this other man chipped away at something inside him, leaving him feeling smaller, more fractured.  

Still, the urge to seek your forgiveness lingered. It gnawed at him, the desire to bridge the gap and find some way to fix what had been broken. But every time he mustered the resolve to approach you, his feelings betrayed him. Anger surged to the surface, overpowering the vulnerability he had tried so hard to embrace.  

Instead of mending things, he withdrew, consumed by resentment and heartache. The man he became in those moments was someone he didn’t recognize—someone fueled by a mixture of longing and bitterness, too afraid to confront the truth of what he felt, yet unable to let it go. 

“That’s mine,” he said.

“What?” you managed, almost gasping, your eyes darting between his face and his hands, as if looking for something—anything—to explain this new, impossible tension. 

Joel didn’t move. He was still, a presence that loomed larger by the second. His gaze was steady on you, tracing your body and your face, slow and deliberate.

“The flannel,” he repeated, his voice dropping lower, rough around the edges. “It’s mine.”

You looked down at the fabric, the soft, familiar warmth of it, and felt a sudden jolt. God. He was right. It was his. But it had been yours for years. You'd worn it so often, so comfortably, that you'd forgotten it ever belonged to anyone else. Maybe he'd lent it to you once, a lifetime ago, on one of those cold nights when you both sat under blankets. But he’d never asked for it back, had he? He never seemed to care, and you never thought to return it. It had just... stayed with you.

When you lifted your eyes back to him, Joel had moved off the wall, stepping toward you with slow, deliberate steps, closing the distance between you. Too close. He was too close, and you could feel the heat radiating off his body as his presence engulfed you.

“What happened?” His voice was soft, but there was a simmering undercurrent, a teasing tone that made your pulse quicken, though you weren’t sure why. “Did you forget to include it in your little box when you gave everything back to me?”

You felt a bitter chuckle bubble in your throat, an angry little sound that you couldn’t quite hold back. You shook your head slightly, irritated, your chest tight as you opened your mouth to speak, but he interrupted you, his words coming fast, sharper than before.

“Doesn’t your little boyfriend mind you wearing another man’s clothes?” he asked, his voice dripping with something like disdain, like he had been holding that question inside for far too long. His eyes darkened, gliding down to the fabric again, then to your body, before he reached forward, his fingers brushing the edge of the flannel as if testing the boundaries. “Or does he already know this isn’t the only thing of mine that’s wrapped around you?”

Later that night, Joel’s fingers entwined with Clara’s, but her hand was cold, and the contact felt unnatural. When she wrapped her arm around his, an almost visceral rejection welled up in him. Her touch wasn’t comforting; it was suffocating.

The pair walked in silence as they left the Hoffmans’ yard. Joel kept his eyes ahead, determined not to glance back. But he couldn’t help himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw you resting your head against Travis’s chest, your body cocooned in his jacket. The sight made Joel’s stomach twist painfully.

This was his fault. He replayed the night in his mind, how he’d told you to take off his shirt, how he’d inadvertently pushed you closer to Travis. Regret pressed heavily on him, a weight he couldn’t shake.

“Do you like wine?” Clara’s voice broke the silence as they neared her house.

Joel turned to her, his gaze distant, his mind still lost elsewhere. His entire body felt stiff, as though rejecting even the possibility of being there.

“Actually, I should get home,” he said abruptly, his voice flat.

Clara blinked at him, her expression faltering. Her easy smile gave way to a confused grimace, but Joel didn’t try to read her emotions.

“Oh,” she murmured, awkwardly. Then, with a hesitant laugh, she added, “Why don’t you come in for a bit? We could… have some fun.” Her hand reached for the collar of his shirt, a playful but suggestive gesture.

Joel gently pushed her hand away, the discomfort etched across his face.

"I really don’t feel like it," Joel said, his voice sharper than he meant it to be, the irritation slipping through despite his effort to hold it back. "And if I’m bein’ honest, I don’t like the way you’re always throwin’ yourself at me, especially in front of everybody like that. It ain’t right, and it sure as hell don’t sit well with me."

The words hung heavily in the air, cutting and cruel. Joel knew his tone wasn’t fair—it came from anger that had little to do with Clara herself. But he didn’t care. If anything, it was a chance to end this farce, to kill two birds with one stone.

Clara’s face flushed, embarrassment washing over her features. She stammered, “Then… why did you invite me to come with you?”

"I wanted to tell you in private," Joel drawled, his voice low and steady, each word carrying the weight of his frustration. "I don’t like you, Clara. Not like that. It ain’t fair to either of us. So why don’t you just go on and find someone else, someone who actually wants what you’re offerin’?"

Her lips parted, as though to say something, but Joel didn’t wait to hear it. His feet were already carrying him away, his thoughts full of you. Always you.

He cursed himself silently, the same harsh words looping in his mind. He was always screwing up, always doing the wrong thing. Everything he touched seemed to fall apart, especially where you were concerned. It was as if he was wired to ruin everything.

He was screwing up, screwing up so bad that he kept hurting you. And he knew there was no turning back when that Saturday after the Halloween party, your eyes had locked onto his, sharp and unyielding, cutting through him like shards of glass. Your voice, heavy with pain, lingered in his mind, echoing with all the things he couldn’t fix.

"Do you think what you’re doing is right, Joel?" you asked, your tone sharper than before, slicing through the fragile quiet between you.

His brows knit together, confused, and he tilted his head slightly as if to ask what you meant.

"Do you think you’re accomplishing anything by sleeping with the women in this neighborhood?" you continued, your words rushing out faster now. "I mean, first you sleep with me—oh, the worst mistake of your life—then you sleep with Clara. And what about Sienna? What does she think of all this? You’re a selfish, irresponsible man, Joel Miller, so irresponsible." The words kept spilling, your voice trembling now, laced with both anger and something softer, something that felt like pain. "And as if that wasn’t enough, you’ve ruined us. Completely. And I hate you for that, Joel. I hate you because you’re not the man I thought you were. And i love you so much I—"

Your gaze dropped to the ground, unable to meet his eyes. The tears welled up before you could stop them, blurring the edges of your vision and leaving your cheeks hot.

You hated how raw it all felt. How exposed. And worse, how the alcohol that had loosened your tongue was no longer numbing enough to shield you from the reality of what you’d just said.

Before you could stop him, Joel’s hands came to rest gently on your arms. The warmth of his touch made your stomach flip, and it took everything in you to pull away.

“No,” you said firmly, shaking him off and turning on your heel. But you barely managed two steps before your foot caught awkwardly in front of the other, sending you stumbling.

You yelped as your palm scraped against the ground, but Joel caught your other arm before you could fully collapse. The heat of embarrassment rushed to your face as you stood quickly, brushing off your dress and refusing to look at him.

You marched toward your door with renewed determination, ignoring the sting in your palm and the sound of his voice calling after you.

“Wait,” he said, his tone softer now, almost pleading. 

But you didn’t stop. Your trembling fingers fumbled with the key, eyes fixed on the lock as if opening the door quickly enough could make him—and everything you’d just said—disappear.

The key slid into the lock on your first try, a stroke of luck you hadn’t expected. You stumbled inside, not bothering to close the door behind you. Maybe it was unconscious, or maybe some buried, foolish part of you wanted him to follow. Whatever the reason, Joel did, shutting the door softly as he stepped in, his footsteps trailing after your clumsy, rushed ascent up the stairs. His hand found your lower back more than once, steadying you whenever your feet betrayed you and your balance faltered.

When you reached your room, his presence pressed down on you, heavy and inescapable. Your chest felt tight, emotions boiling over with an intensity you couldn’t contain. The exhaustion—of everything—clawed at your insides, raw and relentless.

“Fuck you, Joel,” you spat, spinning to face him, your palms colliding with his chest in a sharp slap. The sound echoed between you, loud and angry. You hit him again, this time harder, though he barely moved, only stepping back an inch. “Fuck you. Fuck you. You’re a complete asshole, and I hate you. I hate you so much.” Your fists clenched, pounding against him now, the blows strong but harmless.

The pain in your eyes, the tremor in your voice—it shattered Joel completely. Every crack in your expression, every unsteady word, drove home the truth he had been avoiding: he had hurt you. Deeply. Irrevocably. And in that moment, the weight of his guilt became unbearable. He felt like he deserved every ounce of hatred and anger you could muster, every harsh word or cold glance. Hell, he deserved worse. He deserved every bad thing the world could throw at him.  

When you lay down on the bed, exhausted and emotionally raw, Joel felt an overwhelming urge to stay. He wanted to be near you, to watch over you, to be a steady presence even if you didn’t want him there. But your words had been clear, leaving no room for misunderstanding. Reluctantly, he obeyed, dragging his heavy feet out of your space. The weight of his body mirrored the weight in his chest as he trudged home.  

Once inside the dark silence of his living room, the self-loathing consumed him entirely. He sank into a chair, burying his face in his hands as the shame and regret clawed at him. How could he have done this to you? How could he have hurt the sweetest, kindest woman he had ever known? He replayed every misstep, every moment he let his anger or fear get in the way of treating you the way you deserved.  

Joel knew he had to make it right, no matter the cost. He had to apologize, to lay bare his mistakes and accept whatever consequences you chose to impose. Even if it meant watching you move on with Travis.  

The thought of seeing you with another man was agonizing, like a knife twisting in his chest. But Joel couldn’t ignore the truth: despite his disdain for Travis, the man made you happy. He’d seen it in your laughter, the easy way you leaned into him, the light in your eyes that Joel himself had dimmed. And wasn’t that what you deserved? Happiness, warmth, stability—all the things Joel doubted he could give you.  

He hated himself for the jealousy that still lingered, for the bitterness that coiled inside him like a serpent. But more than that, he hated himself for failing you. You deserved better. So much better. And if Travis was that for you, Joel would accept it, no matter how much it tore him apart.

But then, when you went to his house...

He would never have imagined the way your lips sought his again, desperate, hungry. Joel could hardly believe what was happening. The feel of your kiss finding him again, so warm, perfect—it was as if the world had tilted off its axis. For a moment, he thought he must be dreaming. Maybe this was all in his head, his mind playing tricks on him because he couldn’t bear the thought of you being gone. It was too perfect, too real. He convinced himself that any second now, he’d wake up and find himself alone again, lost in the hollow ache of regret.  

But no, you were there. Really there. Beneath him once again. The weight of your presence was grounding, pulling him back into a reality where everything felt possible, where maybe—just maybe—he could make things right. Your head resting on his chest, the soft rise and fall of your breath against his skin—it was everything he had wanted and more. For the first time in weeks, Joel felt at peace. His heart beat so strongly in his chest it felt as though it could burst, and for a moment, he forgot all the mistakes, all the pain. Nothing could ruin this. Nothing, least of all him.  

This time, he promised himself, he would do things right. He wouldn’t let fear dictate his choices. He wouldn’t push you away. He couldn’t. Not again.  

But just as quickly as that fragile peace had settled—

Sarah arrived, interrupting the quiet moment with a sudden presence that jolted him awake. The sound of her voice was enough to make him freeze, the peace slipping away.  

Downstairs in the living room, Joel forced himself to straighten, to steady his nerves. His hands were clammy, his pulse racing, but he masked it all. His posture was rigid, controlled, serious as always. Nothing about him would give away the chaos he felt inside.  

You looked between Sarah and him, your gaze flicking back and forth, and Joel noticed the shy smile that touched your lips. His chest tightened, but he couldn’t help but notice the softness in your expression. 

"C'mon, what do you wanna eat?" she asked. "You're staying, right?"

“I… sure, uh, I don’t—I have to do something first, okay?” you said, your voice a little unsteady, a little unsure, but there was a determination in your eyes that he couldn’t ignore.  

Sarah, ever the curious one, tilted her head, her face full of contentment, though it quickly shifted to confusion.

“What?” she asked, a hint of innocence in her voice.  

Joel, feeling the need to regain control of the situation, stood up from the doorframe. He walked over to Sarah, his hand gently resting on her shoulder, grounding himself in the familiar warmth of his daughter.  

“Why don’t you help me pick out dinner in the meantime?” he suggested, keeping his voice calm and steady, just like he always did. It was the easiest way to pull Sarah away, to give you space without making it obvious.  

Without another word, you left his house, your legs unsteady, your mind a whirlwind of thoughts, of questions. Joel watched you go, his chest heavy, knowing that what had just happened was different.

As he watched you leave, he knew one thing for certain: Sarah was going to wait for you for dinner. That, at least, was something he could count on.

[d0wnb4df0rf1cm3n]

don't give up on me.

Regulus Black x F!Reader

Summary: You're sick. Regulus knows that. But how can he convince you that you're worth saving?

Word Count: 6.5K

Warnings: IN DEPTH DISCUSSIONS OF EDS, WEIGHT LOSS, THROWING UP, FAINTING, HOSPITAL WING VISITS, ANY AND ALL ED-RELATED WARNINGS

AN: If this kind of content is triggering for you, PLEASE KEEP SCROLLING!!! nothing is more important to me than y'all keeping yourselves healthy - both mentally and physically! If this shit helps you then, here ya go :) (P.S. the summary is really bad sorry!!)

You ran back to the dorms, promising Pandora that you'd be back before breakfast. Lie.

Every day was pretty much the same: you weighed yourself on the muggle scale that you'd snuck into your bags behind your dad's back, and then based on that number, you'd eat. Or you wouldn't. It was easy to miss mealtimes - you'd make the excuse of needing to finish some homework or having forgotten something in the dorms. If you went to the hall during mealtimes, you'd put a little food on your plate and push it around to make it seem like you'd eaten loads when you hadn't touched anything at all.

If the number on the scale weren't acceptable to some extreme standard you'd set yourself to, then you'd spiral - only small amounts of food, you'd go on a run before dinner (strategically showing up late enough that there wouldn't be much left), calling yourself the worst names in the mirror.

It was a routine that you hated - you wanted to kick it, but you couldn't. It was a safety net. You needed control, and this was the only way to have it. It was your drug and you were dependent on it.

It had started as a need to look better, more like your sister. She was taller, skinnier, better at everything she did. You wanted that. So you started skipping meals, spending more time doing workouts - you'd bought one of those muggle aerobics DVDs, and you'd follow it almost every day. You lost a few kilograms in the first few weeks of summer, and the pride of achieving your goal outweighed the hunger pains and headaches. Your weight became an obsession to you and you weighed yourself after every meal and in the morning and night, and your diet to become healthier quickly became a desire to be smaller.

It didn't help that you remained invisible to everyone except your few Hogwarts friends. They owled you frequently, begging you to come up to London so you could spend time together, but you lived too far away for that to be possible. Your dad was busy all the time - it wasn't easy for him after the divorce - and your sister was busy with all her friends. They didn't like you very much, finding you odd as you went to school so far away. They left you alone for the most part - you only saw them when your sister agreed to drive you somewhere.

Not eating became natural after a while: the hunger pains stopped being painful, the headaches disappeared, and the desire to eat had all but disappeared. No one really noticed - you were pretty good at hiding your tricks - but your quickly shrinking body was noticeable. Your dad brought it up once, worried about how your clothes looked so big on your body: he offered to drive you to the doctors, wondering if being a wizard meant that you were more prone to getting sick. You shook your head, telling him that you were fine, but you made a mental reminder to buy much baggier clothes to hide the weight loss.

After that, you quickly went from loving your new body to despising it. You hid every inch of your skin even in the height of summer - hiding under baggy clothes, blankets, and behind pillows. You shoved your mirror to the back of your wardrobe.

By the time you went back to Hogwarts in September, your robes were far too big for you. You'd altered them sneakily: you kept the robes you had but they rested on your body better.

You'd avoided hugs from your friends, lying about an injured arm, but you'd happily reunited with them on the Hogwarts express. They all commented on how they were loving your new look - you smiled sadly at the reason. You remember getting off the train onto the platform - Regulus had helped you down from the train, gripping your hand tightly as you stepped off. As your friends dragged you away, you'd looked back at him. He'd looked almost concerned.

You came back to the Great Hall halfway through breakfast. You sat down with your friend, adjusting your collar where it was rubbing against your neck. You felt uncomfortable, almost like there was an emptiness in the back of your mind.

Pandora caught your eyes mouthing, are you ok? You nodded in response. You grabbed a glass of water and some fruit. Your throat was so dry and every single movement made you nauseous. It's fine, you told yourself, you can run it off before Charms. You're fine.

You were lying to yourself. You weren't okay, you had a problem and you knew it. But you couldn't pluck up the courage to go to Madam Pomfrey and get help. This was comfortable. You never wanted to go back to the way it was before - constantly hating your body for the way it looked in clothing, jealous of what others looked like. You'd take a few bad days like this over that.

You yawned. You were exhausted but your sleep wasn't restful or comfortable. Some parts of your body would always be sore when you woke up.

You felt someone move to sit next to you, and before you could turn to see who it was, they grabbed the apple out of your hand. You turned to protest, before seeing Regulus' pointed look and the knife in his hand. He began to cut up small slices and feed them to you, not giving you time to protest until the apple was finished and entirely consumed.

"Get a room lovebirds, someone from down the table called, but Regulus was quick to shoot them the finger. You smiled at that and Regulus let out a breath at the sight of it.

"It's nice to see you smile, canari. You don't seem to do it as much anymore," He said lowly, making sure his voice was only for you.

You pat his shoulder to reassure him, trying to hide your panicked mind behind gentle touches. He smiled at you before standing up to leave. He offered you a hand, which you gratefully took, and you both headed towards Defense Against the Dark Arts - your first lesson of the day.

That night, you had been planning on skipping dinner. You had convinced Pandora and Barty that you had an essay for Professor McGonagall that you hadn't even started, and they had believed you. They left you in the common room, promising to bring back one of your favourites - a Pumpkin Pasty. All was well.

You slipped out of your dorm room and down the stairs to the front door, heading out for a quick run.

"Where do you think you're going?" A voice cut through the cool air. You shut your eyes. Busted.

Regulus walked up to you, raising his eyebrows and waiting for an answer. "Tell me, Reggie, does growing up rich make you so entitled or are you just naturally a pompous ass?"

He laughed, throwing his head back, and grabbing your hand, "I'm going to let it go because you haven't eaten anything and you're probably hangry." He dragged you down to the Great Hall, even as you dragged your feet.

He pulled you in and sat you down by his side, piling your plate high with all the foods he knew were your favourite. If your anxiety wasn't spiraling, you would be touched that Regulus knew exactly what you liked and what you didn't.

People were sat all around the table, making small talk and eating. You took deep breaths as nonchalantly as you could, cutting up the food Regulus had piled on your plate. You didn’t want to draw any attention to yourself. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem - you’d have a few days of no one noticing you skipping meals, then you could comfortably eat dinner with no worries. You could prepare for that. But, after breakfast this morning was sprung on you, you didn’t think you should be eating this soon. I mean you had only just run off the apple you had for breakfast. How were you going to keep your weight down if you were gorging yourself on the most unhealthy food every minute of every day.

You tried to join in with the conversation every so often, pushing things around on your plate as you did so. You thought you were hiding it well, but you caught Regulus glancing at you in concern, every time you finished speaking.

Catching onto this habit, you worriedly stood up, grabbing your things and getting ready to go.

“Leaving again so early?” Barty asked, grabbing your wrist. He looked at the wrist almost concerned but you tugged your hand away. You looked around the table before your eyes landed on Regulus, concern filling his face.

You swallowed nervously, “Yeah, I'm going to head up to bed. Goodnight,” You stepped over the bench and left through one of the back doors. Regulus watched you leave. Something didn’t sit right with him.

As soon as you rounded the corner, you picked up the pace almost breaking into a jog. You made it down the stairs to the Slytherin common room, heart pounding in your chest and nearly threw yourself up the stairs to your dorm. You closed the door and locked yourself in the bathroom. You were usually methodical about this process, you had a system. But you were desperate at this point. You tied your hair up messily and filled up a hidden water bottle at the sink before chugging it and turning to the toilet. 

Back in the Great Hall, Regulus decided that he was going to go check on you. He excused himself and bid everyone a good night - just like you had - before heading in the direction of the Slytherin dorm. 

You were bent over the toilet, retching. You hated this so much. It didn’t feel good - it almost hurt - but you felt so relieved doing it. You couldn’t explain it. It was somehow the one thing that helped you feel better.

Regulus quickly made his way up the stairs to face your dorm. The stairs were enchanted to stop the boys from climbing up them, but Regulus was able to jump and skip a few steps to make it to the top. Nothing was going to stop him from getting to you. Not now.

Regulus knocked on your dorm door, to which he was met with silence. You couldn’t hear him. Not liking the feeling in his gut, he slowly pushed the door open. To his surprise, you weren’t there.

From the bathroom, he heard the faint sound of someone retching. Regulus furrowed his brows. You hadn't seemed sick this morning. Why didn’t you say something? You were going to go on a walk, for Merlin's sake! Closing the door behind him, he walked over to the bathroom door, pressing his ear to the door. That was definitely you retching. He knocked. You froze.

“Canari? Are you okay in there?” He asked, leaning against the door.

Shit. 

You scrambled to get up, quickly flushing the toilet and washing your hands.

"Canari?"

You splashed your face with water before replying, “I’m fine, Reg.” You cursed yourself for the wavering in your voice.

You turned to the mirror - you were a mess, your tear-streaked face red and splotchy. You washed your face, trying to get rid of as much inflammation as you could. 

You took a deep breath and leaned against the sink. How could you have been so stupid? How were you going to talk yourself out of this?

“Can you open the door, please?” Regulus said. He was half intending to break the door down, but he wouldn't violate you like that.

You sighed and opened the door with your head down. You tried to walk past Regulus, but he gently pulled you towards him, your head resting just over his heart. His finger tilted your face upwards, his eyes widening at your red eyes and face. 

“Why didn’t you tell anyone you were sick?” he asked.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” You tried to pry yourself away from him, but he wasn't letting you go so easily.

“You’re not fine if you’re throwing up. What's really going on?”

“It’s nothing. I had a stomach bug over the summer. Sometimes it acts up a little. It's fine. I'm fine.” you affirmed. Your solidness was almost more to convince yourself than him.

One look at Regulus told you he was not convinced. He pulled you back into his chest. "You sure that's all it is? You'll tell me if it gets worse?"

"Yeah, Reg, I'll tell you if it gets worse. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before."

"It's okay, Canari. As long as you are okay, it's okay."

You managed to avoid any more confrontations until Christmas. You decided to stay at school over the Christmas holidays, like you usually did, which meant no friends to worry about your ever-growing problem.

You woke up to a dry throat and a pounding headache. The usual. You coaxed your body into slumping out of bed and you brushed your teeth. God, you looked a mess. The dark circles under your eyes were prominent and your face was pale and gaunt. You almost looked like a skeleton.

The sun was pretty high in the sky - it was probably almost afternoon. Shit. How could you have slept half the day away? It's fine you'll just have to stay up later tonight to finish all your essays. You walked out into the dorm to be greeted with 4 other empty beds - everyone else had gone home for the holidays. You figured it was probably safer to stay at school than to go home looking so terrible.

Begrudgingly, you pulled on a pair of jeans and a Slytherin sweater you were almost sure wasn't yours, and slipped down to the common room. You'd left an essay for Professor Binns in front of the fireplace - you had rushed to the bathroom after Barty had practically force-fed you a few. You'd blamed it on the fact you got a dog food-flavoured one (you didn't - it was chocolate brownie, which was almost worse), but the side-long glance Regulus had given you made you retreat into your dorm room for the rest of the night.

Still, you needed to finish that essay and you headed down the steps, pausing halfway down to calm your racing heart. The common room was cold and empty - it usually was in the winter, given that most Slytherin students went home for the break. You shivered violently - the cold that nestled into your bones in early October had refused to leave. Now, without at least a jumper or two under your robes, you were constantly shivering.

You glanced at all the tables - there was no parchment or quills. There was no one still here that would want to steal your essay or your quills, so you were surprised to see all your stuff gone and the common room completely clean. You searched everywhere in case the house elves had moved it while cleaning, but you couldn't find it anywhere.

Tears started brimming in your eyes knowing that those were the only quills you had and there wasn't much chance that you could afford to buy a whole set of new ones and finish your essay before Christmas day.

"Good morning, Canari." You whirled around to see Regulus standing behind you, his obsidian-black suit perfectly ironed and immaculately clean. His hair was perfectly coiffed - as it usually was - and his face clean of the stubble you knew that he was able to grow. Not a hair out of place. Never a hair out of place. Why couldn't you be more like Regulus - perfect without trying. Skinny and pretty and fun to be around. Not always worrying about if you were trying too hard.

A lone tear slipped out of your eye and down your face. Regulus was there in an instant, his hands grasping your face, thumbs wiping away any tears.

"What's wrong, Canari? Why are you crying?" Regulus said, pulling you into his chest. You felt him stiffen against you, his fingers running over your protruding spine. But you nestled into his warmth, the chill in your bones just barely sated by his heat.

You looked up into his eyes, sniffling, "Someone took all my stuff."

"What?"

"I forgot my stuff down here last night - my essay for Binns and all my quills were on the table, but now they're gone," your breathing picked up as you began to panic, "And I can't afford to buy a whole new pack of quills, which means that I won't be able to finish any of my other essays and Professor McGona-"

"Canari. I have your stuff." Regulus interrupted, his arms running up and down your back, "It's okay. I took it to my dorm before I went to bed. Here." Regulus led you to the staircase leading up to his dorm and made you wait as he dashed upstairs and got your things. He handed them to you in a neat pile before leading you back to your dorm with his hand on your lower back. "Put your stuff away and then come down with me. Let's eat breakfast together."

Alarm bells started ringing in your head. Eat? Now? With so much to do? How could you waste your time? But you couldn't make Regulus more suspicious of your behaviour.

You head down to the Great Hall with him, pulling at your sleeves as he placed all manner of pies and treats on your plate. You felt nauseated by the smell alone.

It didn't skip your notice how Regulus looked at you as if you were going to break at any second. Hell, he probably thought you already had.

You turned the corner off the path to head into the Forbidden Forest. If any of the Professors found you out here they'd give you a detention. That coincidentally would mean that you missed dinner. Two birds, one stone.

You set off on your run, keeping to the border of the forbidden forest, but deep enough in that no one would be able to see you without looking. You kept a steady pace - you were used to this routine. If you overate, you'd run until you felt exhausted and then you'd slip back into the dorm and skip dinner.

Except the snow was never normally this heavy and with every breath you exhaled a puff of smoke left your lungs. The inhales were almost painful, the cold air rough on your fragile lungs. You could hear your heart pounding in your head and your ears were starting to ring but you ploughed on.

What a mistake that was. You feel your foot slipping before you can even grab onto something. The next thing you know everything was black.

Regulus was worried. He'd paid close attention to your ever-deteriorating health, and he was worried, to say the least. After you'd run from lunch with him and Barty, he'd followed you back to the dorm. You hadn't even noticed him trailing you as you almost ran back to the common room. You'd slammed your dorm door shut and hadn't left for hours. You'd finally left when you thought no one was in the common room, dressed in some sweatpants and a jumper that was far too thin for this ghastly weather. He'd grabbed his own coat and a spare jacket for you, before following you through the hallways. He'd contemplated calling your name once, but clearly, there was something going on. And Regulus wanted to know what.

You'd slipped out of one of the doors to the courtyard and set off on a light jog down toward Hagrid's hut. That's odd, Regulus thought, you didn't have detention. Of course, it didn't pass his mind that you may just be running. After all, who would willingly go on a run in the middle of December in Scotland. Still, he watched as you ran down the steps that led to the now frost-covered pumpkin patches. Maybe you needed to collect something from him, he thought. Yes, that's probably it. Far more likely than Miss 'golden-girl' having a detention. Professor Kettleburn probably needed something and sent you to go get it.

His confusion only multiplied when you bypassed Hagrid's hut and disappeared into the thicket of the Forbidden Forest. Regulus picked up his pace, making sure that he wasn't caught as he followed your footsteps. He tried to keep up but you were always a faster runner than him, always making it to class on time even if you were both running late. He quickly lost you, having to resort to tracking your footsteps through the deep snow. He was ever more confused as to why you were out here - if anyone caught you here, you'd have a month's worth of evening detentions. Not the best way to start the year.

When he finally caught up to you, his heart dropped to his feet. You were lying face down in the snow, clothing soaked through. He knelt beside you, his hands running over your face as he softly called your name. Your skin was cold to the touch, causing Regulus to panic. He quickly bundled you up in the spare coat he brought with him. He removed the scarf from around his neck and wrapped it around yours, before tucking your hands into the pocket of the jacket.

He hoisted you up in his arms, wrapping his arms securely under your body. He slowly started walking back to the castle, being careful to avoid anyone seeing him leave the Forbidden Forest - the last thing he needed was the both of you getting in more trouble. He carried you through the hallways to the hospital wing, rapping his knuckles sharply against the window while you remained unconscious in his arms.

Madam Pomfrey was quick to open the door and, at the sight of your unconscious body, ushered you both inside, helping Regulus to lay you on one of the free beds. She laid a thick blanket over you and dug out a heating potion to dispel the chill from your bones. Regulus just sat by your side and held your hand. It was ice-cold as usual, but somehow Regulus never wanted to let go.

"...Mr. Black?" Madam Pomfrey asked, but Regulus had missed the question while he was staring at you. He looked up at her questioningly, silently asking her to repeat the question, "I said, will you get some dry clothes for her? I trust that you have something you can give her."

Regulus nodded dumbly, leaving the hospital wing before breaking into a run. He ran upstairs and pulled a sweater and some sweatpants for you. They would be big on you but hopefully, they would keep you from getting too cold. His heart was pounding as he returned to the hospital wing.

He diligently gave the jumper and sweatpants to Madam Pomfrey, before turning around so she could change your clothes modestly. It was nothing he hadn't seen before, he wanted to tell Madam Pomfrey, but somehow he was sure that she wouldn't appreciate that sentiment.

Once she was done and you were nestled under two layers of blankets and in clean clothes, Madam Pomfrey turned back to Regulus.

"Mr. Black, I'm going to have to collect a report from this accident from you, if you would so oblige."

"Uhh, of course, yeah. Um, well," Regulus prided himself on being a good liar, but under so much pressure, not so much. "We found a - uh - salamander on the fifth floor by the library when we were studying there earlier. She said she'd go tell Hagrid so she headed down to his hut. I wanted to find her to finish my essay before dinner so I headed down to see Hagrid, but then I found her lying in the snow."

Madam Pomfrey nodded, "Did Hagrid find out about the Salamander?"

Regulus nodded, "Yeah, one of the third years told him. I heard them talking about it while I was looking for her." It wasn't a total lie. Two third years had found a Salamander by the fifth-floor boys' toilets. They'd told Hagrid, and Regulus had overheard them talking about it.

Madam Pomfrey nodded, sealing away the report and filing it away. Regulus stood up to go back to the common room when Madam Pomfrey stopped him.

"She's incredibly thin, Mr. Black. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?" Regulus shook his head, "It's worrying how underweight she is. You haven't noticed anything? Anything out of the ordinary?"

Regulus shook his head again before turning around to leave the hospital wing. He knew something was wrong. He just didn't know what.

When you opened your eyes, the first thing you could feel was heat. You were warm. After months of being on the edge of freezing all the time, it was nice.

The second thing you noticed was the smell of cologne. A familiar cologne. Regulus' cologne. It was an expensive one - the Black family was rich and they weren't scared to show it off.

You opened your eyes slowly, grateful for the darkness. You looked towards the window to see that it was nighttime. You furrowed your brow in confusion. You could have sworn that it was just past lunch. You pushed yourself up further only to realise that you were in the hospital wing.

Before you could push yourself up even further, a voice interrupted you, "And just where do you think you're going, young lady?" Madam Pomfrey walked up to you with a glass of pumpkin juice in hand and two tablets. "You're dehydrated. And possibly have a concussion. You should be glad Mr. Black found you when he did."

Regulus found me? How the hell did he know where I was?

You took the pills from her hand and swallowed them down quickly. You savoured the taste of the Pumpkin Juice - it had been so long since you'd had the calorie-filled drink.

You turned to the door just in time to see Regulus walk in. It was as if he had exhaled for the first time seeing you awake. His shoulders dropped, his chest relaxed and all the tension in his face melted away.

He sat by your side gently, letting you finish the juice. Madam Pomfrey spoke up again, "Now, young lady, do you want to explain that nasty little fainting spell?" She said, her eyebrows raised as she scrutinised you.

"Uhh, well - I was - uh - walking down to Hagrid's hut, and - uh - my ears started ringing, and I think I fell." You said, your voice hoarse from disuse.

"And it has nothing to do with the fact that you are underweight?" Madam Pomfrey pressed.

"I've just been nauseous the last few days." You lied quickly, slightly recoiling under her heavy words, "I think it's stress but it might be a bug. I remember Pandora complaining about her stomach the night before she went home."

Madam Pomfrey seemed convinced. Regulus less so. As soon as Madam Pomfrey left, he turned to you.

"You lied." You shifted nervously under his intense gaze.

"I didn't. I have been nauseous all week."

"If you were nauseous, why were you on a run?"

"I thought the fresh air might help."

"Fresh air in the Forbidden Forest? Bullshit." Your heart dropped. He'd followed you there.

"Why did you follow me?"

"Why were you there alone? If I hadn't followed you and you'd fainted, you would have been dead by the time anyone found you."

"Oh, so I guess that means I should thank you now, should I? Oh, thank His Lordship, Mr. Black for saving my life, even thOUGH NO ONE ASKED HIM TOO!" You exclaimed, seething. You threw his hands off you and tried to push him away but he refused to budge.

"Stop being difficult," Regulus said, pulling the blankets back over your frail body.

"OH I'M BEING DIFF-"

"JUST TELL ME THE TRUTH!" He interrupted, his blue eyes blazing with fury. You could just about pick out the lingering concern that was embedded in his gaze. You saw red.

"GET OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! LEAVE ME ALONE!" You pushed Regulus away with every ounce of strength in your body. He fell off the chair, crashing to the ground in an undignified heap.

You watched, in horror at what you'd done, as he walked over to the door. He cast you a longing glance as he left, almost as if he was begging you, pleading you to let him in, to not shut him out. To let him help you.

You sighed. You weren't sure if you could be helped.

On Christmas Eve, Madam Pomfrey let you go back to your own bed, with the promise that you'd visit her every day so she could check up on you. Regulus hadn't visited since you told him to leave, and a small part of you was glad that he hadn't. The rest of you had missed him dearly.

You felt him walk up to you as you lounged on one of the sofas in front of the fire.

"Room for one more?" He asked hesitantly, standing in front of you. You shuffled to the edge of the sofa to give him room to sit down.

"So how are you?" He said, hands toying with his wand as he tried to avoid staring at you.

"We don't have to do this, Reg. Can we just let it go?" You sighed, hoping that you didn't have to get into this conversation right now.

"Yes, we do. Tell me, Canari, are you feeling better?"

"I'm fine, Reg." You both sat in awkward silence, not exactly knowing how to approach this conversation. "I'm gonna - uh - go. Now. Uh - bye."

You stood up, trying to escape into your dorm room, but Regulus beat you to it - blocking you with his body. It wasn't fair that he was almost a whole head taller than you.

"No, what's going on? Are you sick?" Regulus insisted, hands coming up to brush your arms. You shuddered at the gentle touch, but he still didn't pull away.

“Reg-”

“Canari.” he insisted. "Don't lie to me."

You took a deep breath. "I'm sick," you whispered quietly, but loud enough for Regulus to hear it.

He shifted on his feet, “What do you mean?”

You looked at him, noting the tears building up on his lash line. Regulus never cried. More than once, Barty had joked that the 'snowman didn't have a heart'. You shook your head, "It won’t make sense."

"Then help me understand."

You took a few breaths, trying to get your thoughts in order. Regulus led you back to the couch, his large warm hands covering your cold frail ones. You tried to get your thoughts in order, tried to figure out where to start. Well, it's probably best to start at the beginning. “I don’t know what happened. I was just supposed to lose a little weight. I started eating less, doing some muggle workouts. And it worked. But now - now, now I just can't stop." you finished.

Regulus' face contorted to one of concern. You avoided his gaze, your eyes filled with tears at finally revealing your secret. Regulus pulled you into his lap, his arms wrapping around you, pulling you into his chest. You nestled into them, your head of his heart as sobs started to wrack your body. Regulus held you tightly, whispering that it would be okay. He breathed deeply and steadily, hoping you would fall into rhythm with him. 

Eventually, your heaving breaths slowed, and you began to calm down. After a few moments of silence, Bucky asked “How long has this been going on?”

"Since the summer break. But I think the problem's been going on a lot longer than that." You whispered into his chest, defeated.

Regulus took a deep breath, his mind relaying all the suspicious behaviour he'd picked up on over the past term. "Why didn’t you say anything?"

You shrugged weakly, "It wasn’t your problem."

You jostled in his lap as he turned you to face him. "Canari. Your problems are my problems. How many times do I have to tell you that I'm here? Because I want to be here. For you. I want to help, Canari. Please." You avoided his gaze because you knew what you'd find. Genuine concern. Something you weren't sure if you deserved. "You always help me or anyone else whenever we need it. Remember when Pandora had those nightmares for months and every night you'd hold her hand until she fell asleep? Or when Barty told us that he was afraid of the dark so you gave him an enchanted tea candle that would never go out? Hmm? If we were going through this, wouldn’t you want to help us?"

"Of course, I would," you said firmly, tears building up in your eyes again. You rubbed the way with the corner of your sleeve, but Regulus caught your hand.

"So why can’t you let me help you the same way?" he asked, his eyes shining with sincerity.

You shook your head lightly, "It’s not that simple, Reg."

"Why?"

"Because.”

"Because what?"

"It's just not the same," you said a little louder, pushing yourself off his lap. You had to put a distance between him and yourself, or you knew that you would break. You turned around heading in any direction that was not here, not in front of the only man capable of reducing you to tears.

"I don't get it. What’s the difference between me and you? Why can’t you-"

“Because I don’t HATE you!” you exclaimed, turning around to face him again. The pain in your eyes was evident as you tried to shrink further into yourself. Regulus was up in an instant, cradling your head in his hands as if you were a porcelain doll. You took a shuddering breath, "It’s not the same thing because I don’t hate you. I want to help you all, because you are good people, and I like you."

Tears streamed down your face as the confession spilled from your lips. You told him about everything, the loneliness, the self-loathing, the punishments, everything. Regulus stood there as you sobbed in his arms and confessed to him, taking every beating and tucking it away in the corner of his frozen heart that was reserved for you.

When you had finally settled, Regulus looked at you sadly. His gaze was heavy as if he was trying to see if there were any other secrets you were hiding. "Is that really how you feel about yourself?" he asked, saddened even more when you began nodding. "What did you do that was so wrong?"

You didn’t know. The loneliness that had plagued your childhood had melted into the insecurity that you didn't belong anywhere, and you never would. So slowly, you accepted that you never would. Your voice was weak when you spoke up again, "I'm sick, Reg. I know that. But I don't think this kind of sick can be healed by one of Madam Pomfrey's potions. People catch colds or break bones - those can be fixed. And once it's fixed, it won’t bother them again. But this," you gestured your body repeatedly, "this I don’t know if I fix. I don’t know how, I don’t know where to start. It’s me against me. It's a losing game. I’m not the kind of sick that gets better, Reg," you shrugged slightly and shook your head.

Regulus wrapped his arms around you tighter, "There's always a cure."

"Not for me."

"No. You're not giving up. YOU CAN'T FUCKING GIVE UP WHEN YOU HAVEN'T EVEN TRIED TO GET BETTER!" Regulus wasn't one to lose composure ever. In fact, Regulus wasn't one to show much emotion at all, but here he was, crying and yelling over you. Trying to convince you to get better. He tucked his chest into you, whispering, "Please. Please, you can't- you can't leave me here. Not alone, please, Canari."

You rested your face on his head, your cheek pressed against his beautiful curly hair. You stayed like that, you pulled into his lap, his head cocooned into your chest, your head laying on the top of his head. Both of you expended every last tear in your body before he spoke up again.

“Can I try to help?"

"Hmm?"

"I mean you want to get better? Right?" Regulus removed himself from your chest and looked into your eyes. His hands traveled to rest on your face. You nodded. "You can always talk to me about anything," You avoided his gaze, "you know that right?"

At the uncertain look on your face, Regulus stiffened. You quickly spoke up, "It’s not that I don’t trust you. I do, but-" You paused thinking how best to word this.

"Yes?"

"It’s just that I don’t want to disappoint you," you said, your voice trailing off as you spoke. "I don’t want to fuck up and end up hurting you because I couldn’t be better. I don’t want you to worry every bloody day. You don't deserve that." you took a deep breath and looked away again. "I don’t want you to leave because I couldn’t be strong for you."

"Is that really what you think I would do?" Regulus asked, his tone growing angrier. You cowered under his anger, and Regulus noticed. He tried to level his breathing as he continued, "I would never be disappointed with you, because you're trying your best. You said it: you're sick. And sometimes it takes time to heal. And you're healing for you, so that you can have a happy life. A long life." He paused, considering whether to add this next part, "No matter whether that life has me in it."

You leaned into him again, his arms wrapping you into a tight hug. Your life would always have Regulus in it, no matter how long, short, sick, or healthy it would end up being. Regulus made you promise to go back to Madam Pomfrey in the morning to tell her the whole truth.

"Promise you will be there the whole time?" you asked softly, nuzzling into the crook of his neck, and exhaustion washed over you.

His arms tightened around you, "I promise. As long as you promise not to give up. Even when it gets hard."

You smiled your first proper smile in what felt like an age.

"I promise."

fin.

[hexesandroses]

Stay by my side, eternally - Il Dottore x Reader

Something self-indulgent I wrote because I had a bad day and missed Dottore. It kinda makes no sense but you know, I had to put my feelings somewhere

"How do you feel?"

A large palm tenderly rubs your lower back as you make yourself comfortable beside Zandik. He is bare, warm where your head rests atop his chest, and his arms, wrapped around your figure, shelter you from the chill that clings to the walls of Zapolyarny Palace.

"Better now."

Indeed. You listen to his heartbeat - soothing, steady - and feel yourself being lulled to sleep. His fingers in your hair make it no better.

Zandik hums. His entire body is tense; you surmise you know the reason behind it but don't dare to speak of it yet. Zandik will tell you himself when the time is right.

He remains quiet, opting to run his long fingers through your hair, untangling a few knots along the way. Satisfied, you scoot closer, nestling your head in the crook of his neck. He is so warm; an entirely new person now that he has shed his intricate mask. Traces of the rigid scholar you once knew can be found in the awkward way that his hand rests on your back, in the way his breath hitches when your legs tangle beneath the duvet. Tender-hearted he never was, but Zandik becomes different with you: a strange, clumsy little creature that you've grown to adore.

Finally, Zandik says, "you should have sought me out sooner."

There's an air of regret about him that renders you speechless. You crane your neck and find Zandik already peering at you.

"You were busy," which is true: Zandik spent the entire day cooped up in his laboratory, skipping every meal that the two of you typically share. "I didn't want to be a nuisance."

"A nuisance?" Zandik repeats, his tone carrying a hint of surprise that you find entirely uncharacteristic of him.

It makes you feel foolish.

"As I said, you were busy."

"I would have made time for you," he murmurs softer than ever. It makes your cheeks flush. "you were in pain."

You wish you could have made yourself smaller, invisible where you lay. The folly of your own thought process has become clear to you now.

Sensing your embarrassment, Zandik decides to speak once more. "Why didn't you tell any of the segments?"

He asks like he does not already know; like this hasn't been brought up before. You trail a finger on the wide expanse of his chest absentmindedly.

"I didn't want to, that's all."

"Why is that?"

You puff softly. He really won't let it go, will he?

"I know that I sound ridiculous," you begin, biting the inside of your cheek nervously. "But I didn't want to. Being with your segments... It's not the same, even if they are part of you. I wanted you near."

You're not sure what you expected, but Zandik gingerly kissing the top of your head and holding you tighter against him never came to mind. It catches you off guard; rarely is he so openly tender with you, even in private. You happily bask in his affection, for it soothes you, makes you feel as though all your worries are meaningless.

"I am here now," he whispers, "I apologize for not being by your side when you needed me most."

Your heart flutters in your chest. You dare to look up a second time and are taken aback by the fondness with which Zandik's ruby eyes glimmer. It can't be helped: the warmth that spreads through your body as he gazes at you; the small smile that tugs at your lips.

"Stay with me, always. Whenever you can. It's enough for me."

Zandik cups your cheek and you lean into his touch, your pain all but forgotten.

"A simple creature, are you?"

You hum, raising a hand to cover his own. You want to savor the moment as best as you can; every detail of it, every feeling that courses through you as Zandik holds you so softly. Everything else will be dealt with in time - for now, this is all that matters.

"I love you," the words slip from your mouth so naturally, as though they were meant for him and him only. Zandik stills for a brief moment before smiling softly at you.

"I love you, too."

[terresdebrume]

"I won't let them touch you" for your dead boy detective agency boys

Thanks for the prompt friend! :D Sorry it took so long, I was at work and then I got plagued with The Insecurities

This fits the possessive side of things slightly better than the dramatic one? Idk. I feel like I've failed to comply with the rules, even though I like the snippet x)

Anyway, thanks again, and if anyone else wants to send a prompt the list is right there

The sun beats down on the town square, bright enough to hide the outside world behind a veil of golden light and turn cousin Katherine's dress into a blinding beacon of virginal purity. Whatever one thinks of the concept, Edwin admits to himself, there is no denying that summer weddings occasionally provide such vivid image as to at least explain how it may have come to be. Nevertheless, he stays away. Of his three cousins, Katherine is the one he always felt the most kinship for, and he would not have missed this ceremony for the world, and yet--Edwin's knuckles brush together, gloveless skin shot through with electricity at the realization, and Edwin jolts his hands apart again. He tries to shove them into his pockets, only to pull them out once more when he remembers not to break the lines of his navy suit. Trying to settle them at his side proves no more fruitfull: the pose feels unnatural and constrictive, as if his hands were pulling against some kind of invisible tie.

"Here," Charles says, stepping between Edwin and the aisle, the lean line of him neatly obscuring the sight of Edwin's hands. "Have at it for a minute, yeah?"

It takes a moment for Edwin to understand, and when he does hit throat immediately constricts with emotion. They have never truly talked about this quirk of Edwin's. Not in the way they perhaps should have, at any rate. It is largely Edwin's fault: for all that he has learned to pursue his interests more openly and unashamedly, there are some areas of his life he has yet to dare confront. Cut and dry is all well and good, but even he can be made to appreciate the value of ambiguity. And so: they haven't talked about it. The way Edwin's fists knead against one another without thought whenever he feels tense, the way he rarely wears less than three layers of clothing if he can help it. The way busy weeks at work make him come home impatient to shed them, the very contact of cloth against his skin so intense as to feel like pain. The way loud noises make him want to stick a pencil in his ears, sometimes.

They haven't talked about it, but Charles took note anyway, and never once expected Edwin to change. Edwin, almost overcome with gratitude, lets out a long, quiet sigh of relief, and leans forward until his forehead can rest against the back of Charles' neck.

"It's no use, you know," he sighs, murmuring to ensure his voice won't be carried out to where his paternal grandmother is slowly walking towards the door. "The minute they see--"

He does not stop himself from pressing his fists together this time. Doesn't try to ignore the tightness of his shoulder, or the beating of his heart--and because he doesn't try to pretend they aren't here, they grow smaller. More manageable, in a way, than they ever were when he was alone. Without quite meaning to, Edwin smiles down at the back of Charles' suit, red in a sea of greys and blues. Here, hidden behind Charles, Edwin knows no one will try to pull his hands apart.

"You don't worry about them," Charles says, quiet but firm. "I won't let them touch you."

Charles once slapped Edwin's father's hands in the middle of dinner at the Ritz, all for the crime of trying to stop Edwin from mashing his fists together. Edwin belives his latest proclamation immediately, and without reservation. Still:

"You cannot fight my entire family," he says, just for the pleasure of hearing Charles put on his cocky voice and retort:

"Just you watch. First one to look a little too close gets whooped on their bum."

Edwin, despite himself, finds himself chuckling, straightening up until he can look at Charles properly. The light from outside lines the edge of his cheek in golden light the hoop in his ear as bright as a halo. He is a flame in the darkness of the church, bright and warm as a fire in the hearth. Edwin, born and raised in the icy cold of a winter lake, can never get enough.

"Surely," he says, "you don't meant Granny Gladys."

"Especially Granny Gladys," Charles retorts. "I'm not gonna turn my back and let her get me with her rollator."

Edwin, with some difficulty, bites down on a burst of laughter. In front of him, Charles turns his head just far enough to flash a wicked grin, sharp and shameless in a way that makes Edwin's stomach expand into the warmest of feelings. Charles must see something in his face then, because he turns serious, hands coming up to frame Edwin's face as he looks into his eyes and says:

"I'm serious you know. If your father tries to slap your hands again, I really will send him down on his arse."

"I believe you", Edwin says, insides turning embarrassingly gooey at the fierceness of Charles' tone.

"Good," Charles says, still frowning in intensity. "There's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with your hands. I know I haven't been where I should have been--"

"Charles," Edwin interrupts, heart picking up speed with the alacrity of a racing car, "you don't--"

"No, listen to me," Charles insists, hands pulling gently at the sides of Edwin's face until their foreheads touch, "no more hand slaps. No more eye contact. I couldn't be with you these past seven years, and I'm sorry--but I'm here, now, and I don't care what anyone in your family says, as far as I'm concerned, unless you want to, you don't have to look anyone in the eye ever again."

Edwin stares, half feeling like he is about to liquefy. He feels so, so warm here in the coolness of that church, warm like the sun in spring after a long winter. Warm like a nice sweater on a winter evening. Warm like Charles' smile, like the way he only ever takes Edwin's hand in his with love, like the way the only thing he ever did with Edwin's fist was wrap his hands around them like a shield. Edwin stares, and swallows hard, and catches Charles into a crushing hug before he can do something absolutely daft like kiss him right here, where all his family could see.

[sapphireis]

I'd do anything for you, Mrs. Highness

ೃ⁀➷ TW/CW: Fluff?, 18+ (MINORS/AGELESS/BLANK BLOGS DON’T INTERACT), Bad English, GN Reader, a bit of Jealousy, Mentions of Aegon, Reader being friends with Aegon, OOC?, Wrong High Valyrian prob, Nothing Much, Spoilers for season 2?, let me know if I need to add more TW/Tags ♡ My blog contains dark content, be careful when interacting/following! ➳ Characters: Aemond Targaryen

⤠ Dark/Yan Aemond HCs ⤟ Masterlist (soon!) ⤠ None ⤟

smth that came to mind randomly and have decided to write it LMAO my sweet boy i understand your pain but doing that was a bit insane i wont lie...

"Aemond that's insane"

"It's not. I am doing this for us"

"For yourself you mean lord husband"

He just hums as he usually does and stays silent. He knew that telling you of his plan and his idea to usurper the usurper wouldn't please you in any way. You were too attached to his brother for his liking, always worrying about his whereabouts and his drinking like you were his mother. Of course, the idea of hurting the poor helpless Aegon would strike a nerve in you.

"Aemond, my dear husband..." You start, holding his bigger and colloused hand in your smaller ones closer to your face. "If we start to fight between ourselves we might just give the throne to Rhaenyra" You look at him in the eye, hoping to make him see reason. You always suspected he wanted the throne for himself, it was tempting. You understood much. But you couldn't even imagine that it was lusting after it so much he was more than willing to hurt his own brother... Just how much did Aegon push it until the breaking point?

"I cannot fathom to understand what you had to go through with your brother and nephews bullying. And I don't expect you to forgive him. But it's your own brother, your blood, your kin. Against Rheanyra. You must remember that."

He hated how right you were. Hurting Aegon, while beneficial for his ideas and plan, would mostly benefit the blacks and their claim to the iron throne. But. But. Can he really shake the idea of becoming the king? Can he do it for you?

"Issa gevie ābrazȳrys..." he says in high valyrian, looking at you in the eye with a small, almost invisible, smile on his face. "Skoros nyke sagon mijegon ao?"

This work belongs to @/sapphireis, do not repost, translate, copy, rewrite or share on tiktok without my permission. Reblogs are appreciated and encouraged♡

[nrdmssgs]

Spiraling

Masterlist Part 2 (in case you need a happy ending)

Very mild angst Pairing: Ghost x you TW: no Summary: Ghost understanding, something very important just slipped through his fingers. AN: this is kinda sorta songfic. Here is the inspiration.

The worst part is that Ghost can't even get mad at you. He was never there to show you true love, you were never there to break his heart. There were no promises, no occasional touches or stolen glances. There were these two evenings: each beautiful in its own way.

On the first one, the squad was resting after a successful operation, waiting for a transport to pick them up. A large group of soldiers gathered around you and Ghost came closer to find out what was going on. The southern sky was strewn with large, bright stars. Not a single cloud hovered over the desert, so it was a perfect opportunity for stargazing. Time to time you raised you hand up, searched for a next constellation and did this strange, unpractical move: you pointed on the constellation, drawing an invisible line between stars and then pretended to grab it. Ghosts mind blurted out some jibe about you obviously being too short to grab a star. So he sat on the ground behind others, to say it out loud, when you pause. Only to find himself alone on the ground, staring up at the sky. "Lieutenant? Ghost?" Your voice brought him back to reality. "Our heli is here. Are you alright?" He nodded and was ready to stand up, when you offered him a hand. He reached out automatically and you grabbed his hand. It was almost pointless since you were much smaller, but still you helped him. Grabbing his hand like one of those stars, you'd never reach.

The other evening happened much later. Ghost could say, he got used to seeing you around. There were still no chats outside work topics, no interactions at all as soon as any of you was off to home. It was the way it was supposed to be: clean and professional. Ghost was in his office tending to paper work, when you knocked and entered. "Lieutenant, I wanted to let you know, I'll be spending the next few months away from this base. Volunteered to train international corps." Ghost nodded, not even raising eyes from his papers. "There is one more thing. I like working with you and plan to keep it on. But lately I've felt distracted, when you are around." His hand froze, not even finishing signing the last form. That sounded not good. So he finally looked up on you, only to find your absolutely peaceful smiling face. "Don't worry, I won't let it grow. We are all adults here, and I am planing to work here, not search for any kind of informal bonds. That's why I decided to take this job. Just wanted to be honest, ok?" Ghost nodded again, much slower this time. "Ok. Now go show them, how it's done." You left his office, and he tried to remember, where was he. But after a few attempts he understood, it was utterly pointless: his mind was racing somewhere. And that rush felt easy, even joyful. It was a good thing, you two were colleagues and there always was this formal barrier between you. But it was also a good thing, you were so mature and honest. It made him feel safe. His borders were secure. Somewhere deep inside, he was smiling.

Two evenings, they weren't even filled with anything special. So why the hell he felt as if a white-hot sting was deepening into his stomach, when in a few months he got a short message from you.

"The problem is dealt with. I'll be staying here for a little longer. Staying frosty."

You come back in almost half a year. Calm, polite, effective and professional - Ghost couldn't wish for a better squadmate. He finds himself observing you from afar. In theory, he must like, what he not even sees, but rather feels: you are at peace, you are over this. But a traitorous voice somewhere deep inside chuckles, "That easy, really? A few months to erase me, a few more - to consolidate success - and that's it?"

"It's good to be back, Lieutenant." You give his hand a firm, short shake.

"You aren't back," hisses something from the back of his mind, but Ghost only scoffs at it.

Too little too late, Riley.

That day, he finishes paperwork earlier and locks in his room. He sinks on his bed and watches evening lights slowly crawling across the ceiling. Simons' mind begins to spiral as he lays there, heartbroken over a love that never even happened.

[steelthroat]

Can you write a funny little TFA MegOP thing where they're already together. Lets say cuddling in their berth, and suddenly Optimus has a thought.

"How did we even get together?"

"Hm?"

"No, I'm being serious. How did it happen? You are.. were? A war criminal. I put you in jail. How are we together right now?"

"..."

------

LIKE. IDK IT WAS FUNNIER IN MY HEAD. SO EITHER 1. Some otherworldly being (a fanfic writer) manipulated them and the world around them. Making them be together. But now the writer is gone after giving them their happily ever after.. But the characters revert back to how they were in cannon. Vaigely knowing what allowed them to get to this point, but not really understanding anymore how or why?

Or 2. Optimus forgot and wants Megatron's pov on how they got together. Either way, I know that even if you write little for this, it will still be hella entertaining :3

Ooooooh that's such a nice and cool idea tho! sadly, I'm not taking requests since I'm an INCREDIBLY slow writer, and life is also getting in the way ahahahah

Believe me, I would have done in other circumstances, and this idea has a LOT of potential! I am a sucker for the "how did we even end up here???" trope too, but you would either have to wait a long(immense) amount of time ahahah.

Hey if you want to write it yourself I could give you a couple ideas or advice if you'd like :3, otherwise I'd say see if there are other writers who take requests or commissions, I could redirect you to a couple of them :)

For now I can at best give you this little drabble for the second idea since it's really cute:

~~~~~~~~~~

"It just happened"

"Wake up" Megatron felt someone flicking at his nose and then shaking him when the action gave no response.

"Wake up!" This time that someone went for the helm, the bang of the collision rang in the otherwise quiet room.

"What?" Megatron opened one optic and glared at his disturber, Optimus Prime.

"How did we end up together?" He asked with an almost accusing expression

"Huh?" What did he even mean by that

"You heard me" Optimus scoffed

"What like... you don't remember?" He started going back with his own memory banks and backups, He would have been more worried about Optimus apparent amnesia if he weren't struggling to find an answer to that absurd question.

"Do you?" Optimus crossed his arms

Megatron stayed silent for a while... he couldn't pinpoint the exact moment they had become a thing. Centuries, no, millennia of circling around one another after signing the peace treaty, spending more and more time together, fighting, bantering, provoking each other, speaking about personal topics, binding while annoying each other to death had, at some point, led them to fall in berth together.

They had kept falling into each other's berth since then... and now they were here.

So there wasn't really an answer to that question, not a typical one at least.

Megatron cleared his vocalizer "I... I guess it just happened" he answered at last.

Optimus seemed to reflect on this answer before humming "are you happy with this?"

Megatron though about it, he really was, sure there were invisible limits they never actually crossed but at this point they lived like a conjunx couple, minus the status and the spark merging... but Meagtron found the though of Sharing his spark with Optimus not to be as dreaded as he anticipated... he almost- longed for it.

"Yeah..." he said smiling softly and bringing the smaller mech closer to him "a lot" and his servos started shifting over his lover's frame delicately almost in worship.

"Do you want more?" The question could be interpreted in two different ways and Megatron wanted to answer yes to both.

"When it comes to you I always want more" he answered looking at Optimus, his lover's gaze was so bright and full of love he felt like it would melt the metal of his frame.

"I... also want more. Everything." he whispered with his lips ghosting over Megatron's.

Megatron closed the distance between them and kissed him. "And you will receive it"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope you like it, it's incredibly short :)

[kaizoku-gary]

Fighting the darkness

Pairing: Buggy x gender-neutral reader

Genre: hurt-comfort

Word count: 693

Warnings/Tags: sad/depressed reader, emotional pain, lots of crying, cuddling, soft Buggy.

Summary: One morning you wake up and suddenly life is too much to handle. It hurst even trying to get up, but no matter how deep your wounds are, Buggy is always there to help you ease the pain.

A/N: a little hurt-comfort to satisfy your Buggy needs while I finish the second part to "Fair Winds and Following Seas".

Read it on AO3

----------- >> * << -------------

Getting out of bed isn't easy when you feel the weight of the world pushing you against the mattress. You want to close your eyes and fall asleep again; maybe a couple more hours will be enough to make you feel better. But you know how it is; sleeping longer never helps when you are exhausted, tired of overthinking, and regretting being born.

The sun shines brightly but the air is cold, matching the way you feel inside. Your is body heavy like lead when you finally try to get up. But you need him, despite the darkness growing inside you, you have to get out of bed and find him. Only he can chase away the monsters.

"Buggy?" you speak softly, entering the pirate's office. He is on his desk, actively sketching what looks like a complex map, the smell of hot coffee filling the room.

"Not now, my treasure. I'm kinda busy here," the pirate replies without taking his eyes away from his work.

"I'm sorry," you say, and for a brief moment, you think of closing the door behind you and going back to bed, but tears are already pooling in your eyes, and the ache in your chest won't let you move.

"Would you please… give me a hug?" you beg with a heavy sigh and a trembling voice, feeling the world crumbling around you, the air crushing you under his invisible hand.

Buggy drops his pen not a second after, and turns around to check on you, the expression on his face changing from mild annoyance to concern when he sees the tears pouring down your cheeks.

"What's wrong, my love?" He asks, hurrying to place his arms around you and pull you to his chest. His heart shatters into smaller pieces with every sob.

No answer comes as you cling to him and weep uncontrollably, trying to drain the darkness growing inside you. Your soul is falling to pieces, and happiness seems like a faraway memory. Even if you could speak, words wouldn't be enough to describe how helpless you are, how tiny and insignificant you feel compared to the thoughts nagging at your mind. And you hate yourself for dragging Buggy into your own hell.

"It's alright, baby. I'm here," the pirate reassures you before kissing the top of your head. Clear tears fall from his eyes, and he holds you tight, trying to snatch you from the bleak grip of sorrow before it drags you deeper.

"Come here," Buggy whispers moments after, taking your hand and guiding you to the couch.

Sitting on his lap, with your arms around his neck and your head on his shoulder you sigh, weakend by the battle inside your mind. Buggy's hands caress your back as he hums a quiet melody and suddenly the ice inside you begins to melt slowly.

"I love you, my treasure. You know that, right?" Buggy says, his voice warm like the spring sun. "I won't let anyone or anything harm you. I promise."

The pirate kisses your shoulder, your neck, your temple. You raise your head to look at him, and he kisses the tears from your eyes. "I love you," He repeats as many times as you need to hear it. Soon, shadows dissipate, and life recovers its bright colors.

"I love you too, Buggy," you finally say before leaving a soft kiss on his cheek. "Sorry to have worried you," you say, wiping off the tears on his face.

"It's ok. I'm here for you… I'll always be," he says, holding you tighter.

"Can we stay like this a little longer?" you ask.

"We can stay like this forever if you need it," he replies before kissing you softly.

*****

When did you fall asleep in his arms? You don't remember, but when you open your eyes, you're still cuddling with Buggy on the sofa, both covered by a warm blanket. He's still asleep, and you smile lovingly. No matter how often you tell him, he will never realize how important he is to you and how big is your love for him.

"Thank you, Buggs," you whisper before falling asleep again.

----------- >> * << -------------

[secret-bug-pain-blog]

The fun part about stress is that when you're under a particularly large amount of stress from a single source, it's really hard to actually buckle under that One Thing. Even if it's a really, really big thing, that is threatening to ruin your entire life in one fell swoop, it's hard to fully get yourself to wrap your head around it. Big Things, in our experience, almost always take a good chunk of time to chew on and fully digest. You don't give way under the weight, you simply have to chew on it. Work through it. Maybe not directly work on it, but you don't really shatter from it. It just sort of hangs over your head, like a single massive weight.

The thing about these sorts of weights, of course, is that this adds to the stress from other things. You don't break down about the Big Things directly. When it happens, it won't be the Big Weight of, say, that cloying medical problem. It'll be the little things. That big weight is too big to really wrap your head around, too heavy to comprehend in one piece - so what gets you is, instead, the little things. The stuff that reminds you of it, in a way that's ever so more tangible.

Because you don't just think about, say, your future potential inability to financially support yourself. You go on with your life. You keep acting as normal. You work as you are, for as long as you can. And then that straw comes along.

You go out to a club with your friends. You think of buying drinks together. All of a sudden, you remember your bank account. Every penny spent on gin feels like a risk, a waste. You're irresponsible. You're wasting your savings away. How long can you sustain this? Everything you buy, and everything your friends buy, feels like abrasions on an invisible plane. Thinking about it makes you feel sick, and the more you stay, the worse you feel.

It's not spending two dollars on a beer, realistically, that's causing you the stress. It's the looming spectre behind it. The problem, showing itself in symptoms, so much more easily grasped. Your phone slips from your hands, and you think of the nerve problems that will only compound, and all of a sudden the mere idea of picking it up and dropping it again makes you feel sick. Your friend texts you something just north of warm, and all of a sudden you're spiralling worrying if your continuing problems have finally alienated them.

It's easier to grasp the smaller things, you see. It's easier to have one little thing happen and realize that you'll have to grapple with that for the rest of your life than it is to go through the symptoms list, because it's simple and immediate. Thinking of your future is too big to wrap your head around, but thinking of having to rely on someone to hold your hand just to walk you to the bathroom, over and over for the rest of your life - that thought scares you, more than any thought of the underlying cause ever would. It's not she's dead, it's how will i water the roses without her? or what will i do on tuesday now that she's gone? or how do i ever care for her pets?

Small is easy to grasp. Easy to think about. Easy to worry about. Easy to have happen, and have the horrible, bleeding spectre of its underlying cause crash into you, and leave you shaking and struggling to pull yourself together on the floor. A forced windows update might not scare you, but the looming fear of forced obsolescence will, the horror of not even being able to choose to opt out on a should-be-optional update.

Which is to say: it's not being forcibly turned into a werebeast that really gets you. Not the blades at your heels, or the blood on the floor, or the immediate knot of emotions when you realize your teammate's just seen you behead someone without even meaning to do it. It's not the injury, or the inability to walk, or the burning like boiling oil trickling down your muscles hours afterwards. What really gets you, once everything's over and done with, is sitting down and realizing that your only pair of shoes has been slashed to ribbons because of your own cursed body's spur blades.

Because it might not be the boots, on their own, causing the problem. But that, in and of itself, makes it worse. Because even if it's not the core of the problem, it's still the part that you'll fixate on, because it's faster, because it's simpler, because it's so much easier to grasp than wrapping your head around all that's been done to you, and crying over something as horribly, horribly trivial as boots makes you sound - well, it makes you sound like an immature fool, doesn't it?

A cruelty, perhaps, that the emotional state at which you'll cry over boots isn't one where you can put the source of the problem together. But really, knowing that it's the werebeast thing doesn't make you feel any less stupid. Because now you're the kind of person who cries over boots, and stupid, material possessions, when you have so many more problems, when a slip of your sleeve could get you arrested. And that, more than anything, makes you feel a tiny bit more helpless than before.

They were good boots, too.

[belethlegwen]

What is a niche aspect of G/t that you dearly love that you don't get a chance to really talk about?

How it reflects on self-image.

I think that's the niche one that I don't talk about enough, though I bring it up a little bit in my works. The idea that, particularly in most media where you aren't used to being at the perspective you're suddenly in (you're small around people who are bigger, or big around people who are smaller, and it's something you've either never experienced before or haven't experienced much) how that will change how you see yourself.

Melanie in The Rescue for example has existing concerns about her appearance and how people see her to begin with, and that becomes wildly amplified when someone small is nearby. She covers her mouth while she's eating, she tries to keep her head and face pointed up and away when she's feeling extremely self-conscious.

If you hate the idea of constantly being noticed, judged, critiqued, scrutinized, etcetera, then suddenly being a Giant to someone else/other people has to be fucking hell. Any issues you have with your self-image normally aren't exactly put aside when your face is the size of a movie-screen and you know people's eyes don't usually come with those lovely hollywood-glam filters they put over actors in film.

As a Giant are you now more worried about being in the way? About being a problem for people? About causing damage or harm accidentally? Or are you being pressured to do more, be more simply because of how other people see you?

On the flip-side of that, if you're suddenly small, do you feel much more vulnerable? Do you feel like you're under significantly more threat? Have you lost a feeling of control that you desperately needed to keep a sensation of being safe?

Do you feel disposable? Do you feel useless? Are you more of a burden now than you were before, so reliant on others in a world that isn't built to help you? That might not feel like it's even interested in helping you?

Do you feel invisible? Easily forgotten? If you were used to being the center of attention before, does this absolutely shatter that or suddenly make that lifestyle feel like a waking nightmare? \

Do you feel like you're not enough?

If you were having those issues and feelings before, how are they amplified or changed now? How are they messed with, skewed, possibly erased in some cases?

I try to bring a good bit of these perspectives into my writing where I can, but it can be exhaustingly introspective and feel extremely heavy both to read and to write, but I can't say that I'm not fascinated by it.

Thank you so much for the ask, love! <3

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Mise en Place 1

Warnings: noncon, coercion, manipulation. Proceed with caution.

Note: thanks all for reading and I hope you’re excited for this one. All feedback is more than welcome and loved and appreciated. Reblogs are most helpful.

Part of The Club AU

You place the final sparkling glass on the cart and give a tiny smile at the accomplishment. Your work isn't particularly complicated or glamorous. As eager singles and lively coeds wait outside to invade the downtown club, you work tirelessly to ready the place; clean the dishes, sweep and mop the floors, vacuum the coatroom…

The work is draining but simple. You don't mind it so much. You mostly hide in the shadows and get it done, take your check, and retreat to your singulsr existence. Your co-workers more than make up for your invisibility.

You can hear the booming voice of the bartender as he chats with the other. His voice tends to carry over most other noises, even the music when its thrumming from the subwoofers. You always hear him coming whereas you are ever unnoticed by others.

Sonny, the cook, chops at the cutting board, the air vibrant with the the aromas of his simmering pans. The private rooms are ready for their guests, most of the plates will be sent there. Everything has its place in the club; the burly blond behind the bar, Sonny at the stove, and you wherever a mess arises.

"Glasses," the door swings inward, startling you as you carry the used utensils and bowls from Sonny's station to the sink, "ah, perfect."

Thor, the bartender, strides over, his immense size making the space feel even smaller. Yourself too.

He nears and grabs the handle on the cart. You barely have time to react as he lurches it too sharply. One of the highball glasses slides off and shatters on the floor as he stops. You barely keep several others from following suit.

"Oh, apologies," he grins guiltily at the glass shards.

"Thor, if you're not in here stealing apps, you're trashing the place," Sonny guffaws.

"I didn't mean to," the bartender says defensively, "I'll clean it–"

"I got it," you're quicker than him as you grabs the broom from where you left it, "no worries."

A hum catches in his throat as you return to the cart and slowly roll it towards him. He backs up with your careful advance. He grips the handle and slowly pulls it with him, this time making a show of doing so cautiously.

"No worries," he echoes you, "thank you."

He wheels backward through the door as you turn to sweep up the scattered glass. Sonny grunts as a pan hisses. He tuts as he sprinkles spice into one.

"Bozo, that one is," he chuckles, "makes a mean cocktail despite having the grace of a newborn elephant."

You nod and say nothing. You don't know Thor well, you see him around, like most of the other employees. Bottle girls, servers, bouncers. You only ever see Sonny or the other chef, Enid, often. Neither really seems to mind you and talk more to fill the dearth than make friends.

"Lucky his brother runs the place or he'd be paying for all the nachos. Never knew a man who could eat so much. Good guy but… insatiable."

You listen without response. The crotchety chef is used to that. You almost think he prefers it. He doesn't argue with you like he does the bottle girls or posture as he does around the bouncers. Especially the big one, August.

You scoop up the glass in the dustpan and dumb it in a box formerly used for the ready to serve cans. You set it with the recycle and go back to the task of scouring the dishes. Sonny whistles along to the softly buzzing radio, soon to be replaced with the coursing of modern pop music.

Employees drift in and out; servers bitching, bottle girls grabbing tall bottles, and a shuffle you can't keep order of.

The DJ puts on the first track and signals opening. You put your ear plugs in then, it's a bit too loud for your brain to focus. You linger in the kitchen, you'll sneak out to collect empty glasses once the place is a bit fuller.

Sonny sends his first apps and slips the pack of smokes from his front pocket. He signals that's he's going for his usual break and you nod as you go to peek through the window. Servers take the trays and crumple tickets as you look past them.

The flashing of colored lights reflect off sparkling outfits and add definition to attractive faces. You were never the club type. Never had much of a chance. No school, no parties, just work.

"Goddamn," Thor blusters in, the door bouncing off the metsl corner of the counter, "Loki… always…"

He stops his grumbling as the door shuts and reveals you just on the other side. He gives a sheepish grin and you stand dumbly watching him. You probably should try to look busy.

"Tequila," he declares, "I missed it in inventory."

You quick push away from the counter and beat him to the storage room. You're not sure what kind he needs but you recall an empty one with the gold cap. You grab that and come back to the doorway as he nears. He almost jumps back, as if he didn't expect you.

"Oh, fawn, you scared me," he smiles, his blue eyes gleaming, "ah, you are exactly what I need."

He takes the tequila from you and raises it to read the label.

"Clever," he muses, "perhaps you might do me another favour."

You stare at him. Well, you won't have much to do for a while. You nod.

"It'll only be me tonight," he declares, "so, I need some help. You would only need to be my assistant. Hand me bottles and glasses…"

"Oh, I don't… know if I–"

"You will not get any trouble for it, hm? I will speak to my brother should he try to give any. Besides, I am rather desperate."

He sticks his lip out, just a little, just enough to tweak your heart. It might not be wise to say no to the brother of the owner.

"Just for a little," you permit, "okay?"

[jelzorz]

176.

Soren has a dragon that he's had since he was three.

It's one of the few genuinely happy memories he has from his childhood. Most days he struggles to remember any at all—so much of it was posturing and conflict and useless efforts to win his father's pride. It was not the simplest childhood, certainly not the happiest, but Rexy is still in his quarters, and when Soren looks at him, he thinks of games and laughter and the warmth of his mother's arms against the winter cold.

He's still pretty fond of him, even now. He's dusty and old and beat to shit, his left eye loose, his dye faded, and Soren's not going to pretend he doesn't pull him down sometimes to defend him from invisible armies (a perfectly normal twenty-eight year old thing to do, thank you), but Rexy's definitely seen better days too, and Soren thinks of the twins that are supposed to be arriving any day now and thinks it might be time for a little bit of a makeover before Rexy goes back into the fray.

"That's so sweet," chuckles Callum, as he examines the loose stitching at Rexy's ear. "But I gotta be honest, Soren, I dunno that he's gonna make it even if I do fix him. Kids can be really rough."

Soren doesn't doubt it. Callum and Rayla's little girl is barely eighteen months old and she's a terror to anything in the castle smaller than her. "I still think it's worth trying," he says. "If he goes down, he'll go down in battle, and there's no nobler end for a toy."

"True," snorts Callum. He fiddles Rexy's loose eye and tugs it free. Soren tries not to wince. "You've had him forever though. I know he means a lot to you. Are you sure you wanna let your soon-to-be kids tear him up?"

"Mm." Soren shrugs, a little sentimental, a little heartbroken, but resolute all the same. "I don't really have anything else to pass on," he says quietly. "I've been thinking about it for ages, and I—" He huffs. "I just think that Rexy'll watch over them the same way he watched over me. Does that make sense?"

Callum laughs good naturedly and nudges his arm. "Yeah," he says. "I get it." He glances at Soren from the corner of his eye then, and Soren can feel the way Callum studies him, his mentality, his readiness to be a dad. "Are you okay?"

"Mm," says Soren again. This time he shifts uncomfortably, because the thought is terrifying almost more than it is exciting. "I just want to be a better dad than mine was."

Callum smiles and pats his arm. "You've got nothing to worry about there, bud. You're going to be just fine."

"Big assumption," snorts Soren.

"Call it more of an observation," says Callum. "You've done the work. You're always doing the work. That's half the job right there. The rest is just love. Isn't that right, Rexy?"

He raises Rexy then and pitches his voice up an octave. "Don't worry, Soren, I'll keep you in line."

"Good gods."

"Get used to it, man, funny voices are like ten percent of the job."

Soren swats at him, and Callum dodges it only to almost fall out of his chair. "So you'll fix him?"

"I'll do my best," says Callum with a chuckle. Then, more genuinely, he adds, "You're nothing like your dad, Soren. You're going to be fine. Rexy will make sure of it."

Soren barks out a laugh. "I'm sure he will."

(And he does).

[magebunkshelf]

Hello! Thank you so much for answering my previous asks, I am back again with more character questions that have occurred to me as I've enjoyed your audios!

Mitch = Given it's shown Mitch has somewhat of an eidetic memory, does that mean he absorbs and retains all the recipes he uses at the cafe? Does it make it easier for him to bake and adapt recipes as he's already got the ingredients, quantities and baking times lodged in his brain?

( Honestly, I am here for Mitch getting to grow in confidence as he proves his competence, getting to use his own natural skills to genuinely make life better for himself and others!)

Jackson the Incubus = If he gets a consistent high amount of energy from someone like he did at the party does this affect the size of his wings? I know in some folklore/demonology writings demonic 'attributes' like the wings, tail and horns grow larger the more power they absorb.

I also wanted to ask, when he's in human form can he still feel everything he's hiding? If so, he must have to sleep on his front all the time so his wings don't get in the way!

Last one!

Lochlan = does he need to go back to being in his merform in order to stay physically healthy or is it more of a mental health thing for him?

What's been the things he's loved most about the surface world and are there any things about his original home he really misses?

Thanks again for these fantastic stories, really enjoying getting all caught up! :)

!!! These are amazing questions, thank you!

Given it's shown Mitch has somewhat of an eidetic memory, does that mean he absorbs and retains all the recipes he uses at the cafe? Does it make it easier for him to bake and adapt recipes as he's already got the ingredients, quantities and baking times lodged in his brain?

He does! I hadn't considered him picking up recipes like this but yeah, that makes total sense for him! Mitch definitely knows his way around a kitchen, though he's used to making snacks for himself, the kinds of random things that you would never see a professional making but somehow still works (Red Dwarf fans, you remember Lister's hangover sandwich - things like that!). That said, he's definitely adapted fast to the cafe owner's recipes, and I'd see him experimenting at home to come up with his own stuff like Nem has. But yeah, show him how to bake something once and he'll remember it!

Jackson the Incubus = If he gets a consistent high amount of energy from someone like he did at the party does this affect the size of his wings? I know in some folklore/demonology writings demonic 'attributes' like the wings, tail and horns grow larger the more power they absorb.

Not immediately, but yes! The wings size aren't like an immediate display of how much energy an incubus has at that given time, it's more like - Jackson is very magically malnourished, and as a result he has smaller wings that aren't strong enough to carry him (demons don't fly solely from aerodynamics - magic wings). So since we first saw him his wings have definitely grown, his horns probably have a little bit as well, but it's a gradual growth from over time getting more energy "nutrition".

I also wanted to ask, when he's in human form can he still feel everything he's hiding? If so, he must have to sleep on his front all the time so his wings don't get in the way!

A little bit, but it's more like a phantom limb, when he transforms the extra stuff stops physically existing rather than just going invisible. But yeah he probably doesn't enjoy sleeping on him back while in human form, but more so as a psychological thing. He's probably worried about transforming back while in his sleep, it's probably happened to him in the past.

Lochlan = does he need to go back to being in his merform in order to stay physically healthy or is it more of a mental health thing for him?

Just a personal wellbeing thing. He could perfectly healthily live on land for the rest of his life, but it's like - Imagine you grew up on Earth, and then board a spaceship with the prospect of never setting foot planet-side again.

What's been the things he's loved most about the surface world and are there any things about his original home he really misses?

I imagine the abundance of technology was a colossal culture-shock! There's a reason he starts both audios talking about popular human media, films and music! The things he's probably heard about the surface are likely several decades out of date since most merfolk he knew probably never went up themselves. He probably most misses the freedom of the ocean that a lake can't quite cover, the wildlife and of course friends, and other demihumans.

[oliviax727]

Physics Friday #4: WTF is Dark Energy/Dark Matter? (Part 2)

Important Note: 50 people is a lot! (well after I blocked all the bots it was under that). And I never expected it to grow so quickly. But also I've noticed that a lot of people move in and out of following this blog. And I think one reason is because some people just want to see the physics/maths/astronomy instead of that plus random shitposts.

So what I'm going to do, is for all future posts like this, put this in a second blog to separate it from this one. And every time I post to that one I'll re-blog it here so that there's space for those who just like to see science-y stuff.

The second blog is @oliviabutsmart.

Preamble

Education level: High School (Y9/10)

Topic: Cosmology, Particle Physics (Astronomy)

This is the second part of three to the Dark Energy vs. Dark Matter post. In this part, I'm going to cover the possible ideas behind what dark matter is.

From the last part, what you need to know is that:

Dark matter and dark energy are completely different things, they're both dark because we can't see it

When we look at galaxies and orbits, what we expect is that most of the mass is concentrated in the centre (galactic bulge)

What we actually end up seeing is that there's a lot more stuff in the outer reaches of the galaxy, and we can't see any of it

This hidden matter, called 'dark matter' is what we have to use to correct our equations

Introduction: The chad MACHO vs. the virgin WIMP

Now unlike what this tile says, I don't actually think that MACHOs are better, it's just a play on- .... you know what I mean.

So, given what we know, we need to find a source for this hidden matter. The best place to start is to take a look at what we do know about dark matter:

It doesn't interact with the electromagnetic force (or if it does, it's very rare) - this allows it to appear as 'invisible'

It does have mass - as it affects the motion of stuff in galaxies

It needs to be plentiful outside of galaxies

It generally doesn't interact with other forms of matter

So now we have three different candidate groups for dark matter:

Weakly-interacting particles, including WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles)

Really big objects that happen to not radiate a lot (also known as MACHOs)

Modified theories of gravity on the large scale

We also need to worry about the way in which this matter is produced. Which is where the cold-warm-hot metric is introduced. It has less to do with temperature and more with speed, particularly in the early universe (see free streaming length for more details - I'm oversimplifying).

What's important is what this "free streaming length" does. Larger lengths corresponds to the formation of larger structures first, then smaller internal structures later.

A cold dark matter model corresponds to dark matter with a small speed in the early universe. In the current day, we think that this is the best model - as it allows for the formation of galaxies first, then clusters of galaxies later - something that we have observed.

Hot dark matter is on the higher end of the speed spectrum and is more equivalent to the formation of big super-galactic sponges before the individual galaxies appear.

The Jocks of the Galaxies: MACHOs

A MACHO is also known as a MAssive Compact Halo Object

Massive - it's heavy Compact - "self-contained" in a way, it doesn't interfere with stars and it doesn't radiate much Halo - it exists in the galaxy's "Halo", a region surrounding the galaxy

Small or Primordial Black Holes

The immediate thought, right of the bat, is to think of a black hole. I mean, it's heavy, and it sucks up literally everything. You may object because of hawking radiation but it's very difficult to see that. So what we get is effectively no radiation.

The problem comes with the fact that it's heavy. Where are you going to get all of this stuff into one place? And won't you be able to detect the effects of these objects on star systems?

The early universe was small, really small, and there was a lot of stuff all compacted into this area. Is it not possible that portions of space end up "pinched" and turn into black holes? Well, maybe!

These black holes from the early universe continue on into the modern day to form the dark, unseeable 'mass' on galaxies.

The problems come with hawking radiation (and not because of the aforementioned radiating) ... black holes naturally emit radiation. A topic I may cover in more detail in a future post. But for now, because of this radiation, black holes actually shrink in size over time and eventually disappear.

This puts a lower bound on how small a primordial black hole can be. As any smaller black holes would've popped out of existence by now.

We could also opt for using smaller black holes that formed more recently, but that also comes with the initial issue of how do we make them?

Red Dwarfs, Brown Dwarfs, Black Dwarfs, or Rouge Planets

Often stars don't go out with a bang. In fact, it's more likely that they simply fizzle out. Black dwarfs are what results from this. And because of it they're just dark solid spheres of material.

Some stars are just small and dim. Red dwarfs are incredibly, INCREDIBLY common in our galaxy. It might be possible that we don't see them because they are so dim.

Some stars don't even form, they just don't ignite. These failed stars turn into brown dwarfs. They are unusually large gas giants with a faint glow.

Some planets get knocked out of their system - for any reason. These planets, without light, wander the galaxy alone.

These four objects, are large, dark, and too small to really interact with anything. And it might be the case that these rouge objects are more common than we think! Enough to account for the missing mass.

The issue is just how we are able to find them so far out of the reaches of the galaxy. Hypothetically, we could say that because of the lack of abundant gas in the outer reaches we end up with failed or dim stars.

Dark Stars

This is both the most interesting candidate for dark matter, and also the least documented. Primarily because we're talking about objects made of shit we haven't even seen.

Dark stars come in two varieties, ones made of dark energy, ones made of dark matter.

Dark energy stars are effectively legacy candidates of black holes, that the dark energy in the universe 'pinches' like in our primordial black hole scenario.

Dark matter stars require us having some sort of particle concentrated in a star-like object. It is of course, a strange idea, and it additionally requires the existence of small particles contributing to dark matter.

There's actually a good PBS Space Time video on this. And I recommend you watch it as I do not have the chops to understand this stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUhOL38346Y

The Little Nerds: WIMPs, WISPs, and other particles

The easiest (and most likely) answer is that we're looking for some sort of small particle somewhere in the universe in big concentration.

The core idea is of the WIMP, a very large particle (large being relative i.e. as heavy as maybe an atom), which doesn't interact much.

We want larger particles because, well, then we can have less than them. It's easier to explain that then having particles that are incredibly numerous.

But there's also another type of candidate: WISPs. The S stands for slender. Maybe we don't actually require massive particles, maybe we can have a particle that doesn't interact with stuff. That in order to interact with it you have to be really close to it and so you just don't end up interacting with it.

Neutrinos

Neutrinos are the most obvious candidate. Because we already know they exist. And we know where they are produced.

Every time you undergo nuclear fusion, you actually produce neutrinos as a bi-product. When you have collapsing and exploding stars, this neutrino radiation becomes so numerous it could fry you.

The benefit of neutrinos is that they only interact via the weak force, which only operates when you're really close to the neutrino. This makes neutrinos a type of WISP.

So why do we not declare that this is dark matter? The issue is that neutrinos are hot dark matter. So if they made up dark matter it wouldn't fit with what we see when we look outside.

We could go for a new, yet similar particle, the sterile neutrino. However we end up falling into the same pattern of needing to find an undiscovered particle.

The Axion

Axions are a hypothetical WISP particle that interacts using either the strong force or the electromagnetic force. They are our best traditional candidate for dark matter. A particle that does exactly what we want it to do.

It's sort of like the "string theory" of dark matter candidates, the cleanest looking idea which we still don't have good evidence for.

Strangelets

Strangelets are particles containing the strange quark. They are candidates for dark matter because they fall more into the WIMP class than anything else.

The scary consequence of these particles is that they become more stable with more particles, so they could effectively turn other matter into strange quarks until an entire planet or star is consumed by them.

Fuzzy Dark Matter

Sometimes when you need a big particle, you actually should look for a small one. Fuzzy dark matter basically hypothesises that there are particles that are incredibly light, allowing them to form wavy fields of stuff that contributes to the mass of galaxies.

Quantum Weirdness and SUSY

SUSY, or supersymmetry, is a foundational component of string theory that states that force is directly translatable to mass. That for every fermion particle type, there exists an equivalent particle that acts as a boson. And every boson, there is an equivalent fermion.

You don't need to worry about the difference between bosons and fermions outside of that they are force carrying, and normal particles respectively.

SUSY, and other weird quantum effects are additionally proposed candidates to dark matter, as they can generate new and weird particles or forces that might contribute to the missing mass. But also, they have had a bad reputation in more recent years for returning negative results.

What if Gravity is Just Wrong?

So this is our last category. Forget the large black holes and the tiny new particles, maybe gravity is just wrong! That we got general relativity right on the scales of planets and stars, but not at all when it comes to larger masses like galaxies and clusters.

Modified Newtonian Gravity

Modified newtonian gravity, or MOND, is the idea that, when acceleration is low enough, the motion of particles stop following the rules dictated by newton's laws. Specifically becoming F=ma^2 instead of F=ma.

This, however, implies that ALL of newtonian mechanics becomes affected by this change, so it's often proposed that this modified newton's law affects only gravity compared to other forces like electromagnetism.

We can also develop this idea into our more fundamental understanding of gravity, General Relativity. Using what's known as Tensor-Vector-Scalar gravity.

The problem is that this is a pretty big change to make. Disproving gravity - it sounds less like a sound theory and more like a conspiracy theory. But of course, that's how we would've treated previous theories of gravity when they first came out.

Another problem is that the current proposed MOND theory still requires the existence of some form of dark matter MACHO or particle.

Entropic Gravity

Entropic gravity is another interesting theory, especially because it also acts as a theory of quantum gravity (i.e. solving the biggest problem in all of physics).

Basically, gravity actually doesn't exist, but is instead a cumulative effect of quantum disorder. Emerging in the same way that temperature emerges from the second law of thermodynamics.

This helps us solve the dark matter problem by demonstrating that gravity changes as we scale things up. Similar to how temperature looks different if we were, say, looking at whizzing atoms in a box compared to a warm block of metal. And MOND theories end up emerging if we extend the scales beyond that of stars and planets.

Yet, the problem still remains, that this requires us disprove the existence of gravity. It would take quite a lot to try and do that. Including accounting for how we get from the probabilistic world of the quantum to the tangible normal world.

Conclusion: So ... Which one is right?

Short Answer: None

We don't really have enough experimental evidence to prove any of these to be the true source of dark matter, or even a combination of different sources. There is experimental data of course, we've been looking for ages. But a lot these experiments either don't give conclusive results or just limit the possible ranges of their properties.

The search for dark matter is ongoing, and is still certainly under the works. It's one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in physics, and just like other theories, the ideas we come up with just end up getting disproven or are too hard to prove to begin with.

This post was a whopper! It took a lot more research and reading to wrap my head around all of the different concepts, as it is just beyond my area of knowledge. But hopefully, I at least explained it well enough for y'all to understand.

As always, feedback is much appreciated. I know I didn't cover things in too much detail, but what can you do when there's so many proposals. I more wanted to talk about the general base ideas of each one instead of getting into the nitty-gritty for a few.

Next week I'll focus on something related to computer science, and finally the week after that, cap things off with a discussion on what Dark Matter is!