#for us to live in and out possible to grow in

[timmydraker]

I made myself sad thinking about Tim being alone at his home when growing up and only having someone to talk to when he went to school and so I decided to make him a cat but because it’s Tim it’s not going to be that simple:

Instead:

Imagine Tim who accidently gets a witches familiar.

It starts when he’s six and his parents flight was delayed so he decides to use the extra time to go find some wild flowers in the backyard forest to bring them. He doesn’t know the space very well but he knows enough to make sure he can always see the manner he lives in and keeps a torch and a few snacks with him just in case.

When he first sees the shadow like figure in the corner of his eye the little boy freaks out but manages to calm down enough to take the dozen flowers he had and start heading back. He feels something watching him all the way home and that night when he looks out his window Dow he swears he see more movement.

He swears to leave it be because lords knows he’s too young to be dealing with ghost and monsters.

But there’s one problem that will never change in regards to Tim Drake: he’s too curious.

Once his parents leave again Tim is back on the border of the forest and calls out a cautious ‘hello?’ Into the small kingdom of trees.

Nothing happens and so the next time he brings an offering in the form of a pile of nuts, a pair of his mums earrings she had thrown in the bin because they were apparently unsightly after the turn of the century, as well as a marshmallow from his very secret and special stash.

The next day he found a four holed button the colour of one of the Aster flowers he had given his parents when he first felt the presence.

He made it into a bracelet and wore it proudly for the next few days before his dad made him take it off before a gala.

Luckily the thing in the forest didn’t seem to take offence and instead he found the charm he had left on his desk safely hanging from his window sill without his input.

Tim brought several gifts for his new mysterious friend, mainly marshmallows and bits of his mums jewlery she was didn’t wear anymore.

Whenever he left nuts or any other kind of food it was never moved, even other sweets and treats stayed where he left them.

It’s a year after this little tradition starts that Tim actually sees the presence that he had been calling ‘Curious’.

It’s from a distance as he’s going through photos of Batman on his window sill, legs tucked up and back pressed against the wooden frame that brackets the window. He looks up periodically to the small pile of marshmallows he’s left on a plate just where the woods start, waiting for them to suddenly vanish before he goes to bed, when he looks up and sees it.

It’s tall, as tall as the trees and cloaked in shadows and darkness, so much so it’d be impossible to miss even if the light of his room wasn’t shining out towards it.

Tim gasps silently but doesn’t look away or feel fear, because something in him just knows that this is his friend. This is Curious.

Instead he finds himself smiling, possibly beaming at the animated dark before him.

Curious doesn’t smile back or wave or anything and yet Tim can feel a relief and happiness that’s second to his own and yet feels like it’s his.

When Tim blinks the shadows have reached out to lift the marshmallows into its veil like form, long fingers that seem twice the amount of a humans curl like spider legs around the surgery sweets and then they are lost in the dark of its form.

Tim goes to sleep that night with excitement and hope in his heart, a burning curiosity in his heart as hundreds of questions and theories rattle his brain, but it’s all unimportant compared to the fact that he has a friend at home.

He has someone to, in a way, live with.

The next morning he wakes to his alarm and a heavy weight on his chest.

Tim opens his eyes to see a fluffy monstrosity of a cat, big golden eyes hidden in light brown and grey fur staring at him with so much knowing and understanding. It’s more than even Ives shows him when Tim brushes off questions about his parents.

He knows just as he did the night before that this is Curious.

His Curious.

He cautiously reached a hand to pat the fur and watches his hand disappear into the soft fur like its quicksand. When a loud purr, slightly echoing like its not quite real, rumbles through the little body Tim beams again and squeezes the feline shape as close as he can.

Curious doesn’t leave Tim’s side very often, only when Tim goes bathroom does he give him space. When Tim starts training to be Robin Curious shifts his body into Tim’s shadow so he can follow without having to deal with Batman’s security rules.

Curious follows Tim when he goes to train with Shiva, when he goes to space with his team, when he goes on his trip around the world to save Bruce, but it’s painful for the little familiar because Tim isn’t actually a witch.

Which means there is no power for Curious to draw from and so it’s unable to help at all.

It can change its form but the only physical contact it can make is with its master, it can’t fight with Tim or defend him when he needs it.

And yet Tim doesn’t mind.

While Curious feels like a failure for being unable to do anything for his master, Tim rewards it all the time. Constantly is he giving it new necklaces for its cat shape and marshmallows when they stay guard all night while he sleeps.

In the face of such powerlessness, Curious vows to find ways to help its Tim.

So, it’s a sentry of a sort. No one can sneak up on Tim Drake or Red Robin, because he will always just know that someone is there. No one ever suspects that it’s his weirdly attached cat or his own shadow alerting him with a soul like connection.

Everyone in the family knows that Tim has a cat, because one time Damian got all mopey at dinner and complained that the stray cat he found around the manner lawns wasn’t being his friend no matter what he did.

He ranted about how he brought it food and water and toys but the unnaturally fluffy cat would just stare at him before running off.

When Tim realises that he means Curious he snorts, making Damian glare at him and demand to know what he finds so funny.

Tim simply makes a ‘sst’ like sound twice and suddenly the big cat his waltzing out from under the table and into Tim’s lap.

Damian is furious but mostly embarrassed, acting like he’s upset that Tim didn’t tell him he had a cat when instead he’s upset that he befriended a cat Damian couldn’t.

Tim explains that Curious has been his cat for years and doesn’t like anyone else, so not to take it personally, and when they ask what the gender is Tim reply’s cryptically, “it doesn’t like gender.”

No one knows what to say to that as Tim leaves the room with the cat in his arms, but they all witness the cat lean over his shoulder and lick a long black tendril over his own face.

Bruce nearly sprains something with how quickly he stands up.

[aislinregin]

I don't like getting political anymore. I have too much to protect, too much that leaves me and people I love profoundly vulnerable in the current climate. But I feel like I have to say this, so I'm going to do something that makes me sick to my stomach: I'm going to censor myself.

I have always told myself, my partners, my friends, my children that when you're getting the measure of someone, you should definitely trust your gut. Or your pet, whichever gets there first. Animals have a keen sense for danger, and your gut is just the part of you that doesn't realize you're supposed to be a civilized human. But also, possibly even more importantly, people always tell you who they are eventually. It might take a while, they might put on a good show for years. But sooner or later, people always tell you who they are and what they want to do. That can look different in different people. Let me give you an example.

When I was seventeen I started dating a guy I worked with. He was 19, so only a little older, but where I lived he was a legal adult so there was definitely a power dynamic at play that I was not equipped to navigate safely. This guy said all the right things, made all the right moves, for months. And the whole time my gut was whispering "this isn't right, something is wrong." But I could prove it, not even to myself, so I told myself I was imagining it. I was not imagining it. One day I was riding in the backseat of a car with this guy and he wanted to go to a friend's party. But it had been a long day for me and I was tired and I knew his friends were the type who would want to drink a lot of beer and act foolish and I was just not in the mood. So I said that was fine but he could go by himself because I wanted to go home and read a book. He said "no, we're going to the party." And I said "No, you can go if you want but I'm going home."

And then he slapped me across the face.

He did it once. I think it surprised him how little I reacted (it wasn't the first time I'd been slapped, it wasn't even the hundredth). I looked him in the eye and I remember very clearly that my gut was suddenly louder than a bullhorn: "YOU KNEW THIS WAS WRONG, AND NOW HE'S SHOWN YOU HOW."

So I smiled, all coy and sweet, and unbuckled my seatbelt to scoot over like I was going to cuddle up to him and "apologize." Then I unbuckled his seatbelt, reached across him, opened the door of the car, and shoved him out of the car. It was moving, slowly through a neighborhood, and the driver was so shocked he slammed on the brakes while I closed the door and locked it. The now ex boyfriend was screaming like he'd been shot (he was fine, was barely bruised). I told the driver that if he didn't drive me home right then I was calling the cops.

All that to say that people will always tell you who they are and what they want eventually. If they're being honest, what they say won't change much over time, just as they grow and evolve. You can track those changes, be part of them. But if they're lying or putting on a mask, sooner or later they'll slip up and then you'll know. What you do next will tell them a lot: it will tell them if you're going to let them be who they really are, if they can continue to use and abuse you. Trump has never been anything but brutally honest about who he is. He has been telling us from the start who he is and what he wants. And the whole damn country or even world has been scrambling to assure us that it's fine, he can't do those things, we have all these things that protect us (Congress, police, the military, the Constitution). But I have been listening to Trump and his people. I've heard everything they've said. They've told us who they are. And when people tell you who they are, the trick is to take them at their word. Believe them. So you know what? I believe him. But I can't shove him out of a moving car. I can get out of the car though. It's happened before. It's happened before here. We have a secret history no one wants to talk about, one with mass graves under residential schools less than two hours from where I sit right now, chemically castrated queers, non consensual lobotomies on autistics and other neurodivergents, internment camps and forced migrations and outright fucking massacres. What Trump and his puppeteers want is not out of line with this country's soul. This is not new. This is what this country has always been. It's time to believe it. It's time to get out of the fucking car.

Let's connect some dots here

The Trump administration kidnaps and sends hundreds of people to a prison camp in El Salvador with no due process (meaning they never have to prove these people committed whatever offence the Admin claims)

The Administration sets the precedent that anyone, up to green card holder and naturalized citizens, will be subject to this for practicing free speech in a way the Administration doesn't like

The Administration puts out two Executive Orders, one which says they believe trans people and parents of trans children are all sexual offenders and another that anyone who criticizes Israel is a terrorist

The President puts out a statement, in public, saying he wants to find ways to send US citizens to those foreign prison camps

The Administration directly defies 2 different SCOTUS decisions that say anyone who is deported must get due process and (this one a unanimous decision) they must return a wrongfully deported man

The US President now tells the President of El Salvador, again in public, that they will need to expand their facilities because he wants to start sending "homegrown criminals" to El Salvador very soon

We aren't even in boiling the frog territory any more, we're in a flash frier.

Like I hate sounding like a fucking tinfoil hat nutjob, but it's clear as day, right? He's saying exactly what he wants to do. And no one is doing anything about it. They're just saying "hey that's illegal!" and then letting it happen anyway.

[mothmandalorian]

It's Just Dinner

Hello and welcome to my very first fic! This was inspired by a “Joel Miller x doesn’t know you’re dating” writing prompt. I’d hit the writer’s block wall pretty hard on another project but was encouraged to get some practice in by doing this. I’m so glad I did. This was really fun for me to write and I hope you have just as much fun reading it. And let’s face it, now that season 2 is out I think we all need to see this man happy. 

Huge HUGE thank you to the incomparable @djarins-cyare for lovingly forcing me to write this, being my beta reader, AND making the gorgeous header!

A quick note: This is mostly canon-compliant with TLOU with one very glaring exception: Joel doesn’t go golfing. This takes place after Joel’s talk with Ellie on the porch. My man can be traumatized but he will be breathing. 

No use of Y/N. Reader is female but there are no physical descriptions other than words like “pretty” (and yes, that does describe you if you’re reading this, I don’t make the rules). 

Tags: The Last of Us, Joel Miller, Joel Miller x f!reader, fluff, angst, fluff and angst, my precious traumatized Joel is just kind of an idiot sometimes, give the old man time he’’l figure it out, gratuitous mention of flannel shirts Word count: 2148

- - - - - - - - -

It’s not that you aren’t grateful to have a house in Jackson. 

When you’d first arrived here—after a horde of infected had attacked your group and you’d become its only survivor—you’d been under the impression it wasn’t even possible to have a house anymore. Maria handing you those keys had felt like a fever dream. 

You’re insanely grateful to have a house in Jackson.

But after the third consecutive leak in your bathroom sink, you’ve just about had it with houses.

“My brother Joel and his kiddo will be livin’ right across the street from ya. If ya need anything fixed, go bug him. He needs the socialization,” Tommy had said when he and Maria had helped you move in. You think they knew you’d be needing the socialization, too. A week of wandering the forest and convincing yourself that starving to death might actually be the least awful way to die out of all of your options will do that to you. 

You’ve seen Joel coming in and out of his house, taking note that he doesn’t do it nearly as often as your other neighbors do. He largely keeps to himself, aside from the young woman who appears to live in a makeshift apartment behind the property, who you assume is the kid Tommy had referred to. You’ve been too intimidated to walk over there yet. He isn’t nearly as approachable as the other people here, but then again, neither are you. You’re still a bit jumpy after a few too many dreams about gnawing teeth and endless forest. But when your bathroom floods for the third time, you get over it.

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

To say that Joel isn’t used to visitors is an understatement.

He’d had another night of fitful sleep. Even though they’ve slightly improved since moving to Jackson, he’s convinced he’ll never be rid of the nightmares. He has even more reasons for them now, after all.

His relationship with Ellie is barely getting off the ground again, but he’ll take what he can get. After their talk on the porch, at least she isn’t completely ignoring him anymore.

He still dreams of sheep being stolen in the night, hearing their cries from afar as he tries and fails to find them. The endless pit of regret grows and grows in his stomach until his eyes open and his heart is racing. Usually, he has to look around the room, count the number of panes in the windows, squeeze and release his fingers and toes–anything to help him remember where he is. 

Today, the knock at his door serves as a much quicker method. Grumbling but unable to not check it, he rolls out of bed and tosses the nearest shirt on. Eyes still bleary, he opens his front door. He blinks a few times, making sure he’s seeing it right. There you are, the pretty new neighbor, standing on his porch first thing on a Thursday.

“Can I help ya?” 

It comes out almost mumbled, his Texas drawl heavier in the morning. 

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

Oh, shit. 

You must have woken him up.

“I’m uh–god, I’m so sorry. Hi. I live, uh, over there…”

“Across the street, yeah?” Joel saves you, seemingly choosing to have mercy on you while your mouth stutters open and closed like a fish. 

“Yeah! That gray one. I’m um, I’m new here.”

“Only a couple’a weeks, right?” Joel asks, eyebrow quirking. He leans against the doorway with his arm above his head, and for a split second, you completely forget why you came over here. 

“Yup. Fresh off the…forest.” Oh, god. Really?

Joel chuckles, and you nearly want to thank him for it.

“I take it my brother told you to come bug me if somethin’ was off in your house, yeah?” 

You nod, trying not to make it any worse.

“I’ll come by later this afternoon.”

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

He keeps his word, and you make him dinner as payment.

He tries to refuse, but you insist, handing him a plate of the best-smelling food he’s had in years. 

“You can’t refuse. My house, my rules. Eat.”

He nods and obliges. It’s clear he isn’t used to this. What you’d originally thought was a coldness in his eyes looks a lot more like sadness this close, and you wonder if that’s why he doesn’t let people get close often. You don’t bring it up.

“I haven’t had someone else to cook for in years. And I’ve never had a proper kitchen to do it in. This is very exciting for me.”

Joel chuckles, a little bit of life briefly lighting up his face. 

“Don’t mind bein’ your test subject,” he says. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Oh god, ew. Please do not call me that, it makes me feel eighty years old.” Joel breaks into a full-body laugh. You catch a hint of surprise in his eyes before he settles into it, and you wonder how long it’s been since he’s gotten to laugh like that.

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

He keeps coming back for dinner long after the sink is repaired. He always finds something in your house to fix, but you still always end the evening eating dinner together. Joel is surprisingly funny, his laugh lines well-earned. You learn that he worked as a contractor with his brother for over a decade before the outbreak, and he tells you stories about some of the strangest things he found in people’s drains. He tells you a lot of stories. None of them go beyond a certain depth. You don’t push it.

Because you want him to keep coming back. Because you desperately like him.

You frequently get distracted by the way his shoulders shake when he laughs, how he rubs his chin when he’s thinking, the gray hair growing in at his temples. 

They’re so distracting that you start to tell him things about you. He catches you off guard, and suddenly, you’re being vulnerable. 

He listens. He doesn’t share a whole lot about himself, but boy, does he listen. He doesn’t try to placate you with the same sappy bullshit everyone else tries to give you. He doesn’t do a lot of comforting at all. It’s downright refreshing.

You think that, at some level, he knows how it feels to be pitied, and it probably makes his skin crawl, too. 

You think that’s why your relationship works so well.

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

This time, you’ve come over to his house bearing a pot full of something that smells heavenly. 

Joel watches closely as you take the cover off of it. 

“Chili,” you say proudly. “You said you grew up in Texas and ate stuff like this, right?”

His crooked, boyish smile makes all that effort crushing tomatoes and chopping onions worth it.

Ellie, who up until this point has simply been a person you know exists because you see her going in and out of her little apartment in the backyard, walks down the stairs, her hair wet from an apparent shower.

“I knew someone else made that. Nothing he’s ever cooked has smelled that good,” she says as she walks into the kitchen. 

“You wanna have some?” you ask. “I made plenty.”

Ellie looks at Joel.

“You haven’t even introduced us, and she’s offering me homemade food. This is finally the treatment I deserve,” she declares.

You chuckle.

“I like her, Joel,” Ellie’s sing-songy voice echoes as she walks out the door. 

Joel runs his hand through his hair.

“Your kid is funny,” you comment casually. “She must get that from you.”

He doesn’t correct you.

- - - - - - - - - - -

He knows he’s fucked up by the look in your eyes.

He doesn’t mean to hurt your feelings, he just wasn’t expecting…this. 

After dinner, as he stands up to start doing the dishes, you walk over to him and put your hands on each of his cheeks before tilting up your head and trying to bring your mouth to his. 

When he physically recoils, it really has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the fact that no one has tried to kiss him in years.

But you don’t know that. 

You curl in on yourself as you walk–more like scurry–out of his house. He hates every second of it, most of that hate directed at himself.

- - - - - - - - - - -

When Tommy opens his front door, seeing a shell-shocked Joel on his doorstep, he assumes the worst. 

“That’s it?” Tommy asks Joel when he explains the situation, trying to hold back a chuckle. 

“What do you mean, ‘that’s it’?” Joel snaps his eyes back up from the floor. 

“Your girlfriend tried to kiss you. It ain’t exactly news,” Tommy shrugs.

Joel feels like he’s been stabbed in the gut.

“My–my what?”

“Your girlfriend, Joel.”

There it is again, that feeling in his chest. The rising panic. The bile coming up from his stomach and scratching the back of his throat. The sweat in his palms. He stops talking for a solid minute.

“Please tell me you’re kidding.” Tommy chuckles incredulously.

If Joel thinks about it hard enough, maybe the floor will open up and swallow him whole.

“What happened?” Maria’s voice floats in from the hallway before she walks into the kitchen.

“Joel’s lil girlfriend tried to kiss him, and he freaked out and scared the poor thing off.”

Maria laughs. “No kidding? I told you she’d be the one to try first,” she says unceremoniously, giving Tommy a pointed look.

“Yeah, yeah, I owe you two loads’a laundry.” 

Joel wonders if he can vanish into thin air if he just concentrates on it really hard.

“But it’s just…dinner.” 

Tommy groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Do not say that to the poor girl.”

Maria pretends to look at a nonexistent watch on her wrist. “By my math, you’ve got about twenty minutes to apologize before she rightfully never talks to you again,” she advises. 

Joel thinks back to all the times you’ve spent together. The way you pay attention to which foods he likes. Your insistence on standing closer and closer to him. The way you light up when you look at him. How has he been this stupid? 

Even the way Ellie had talked about you earlier should’ve clued him in: I like her, Joel. 

“Did everyone know but me?” Joel asks, sounding pained. 

Maria and Tommy nod, a slight cringe on each of their faces.

“Shit, I gotta go.”

“Go get ‘em, tiger!” Tommy yells out the door behind him. Joel rolls his eyes and wonders if they’re already placing bets on how it will go.

- - - - - - - - - - -

It’s your turn to be surprised by a knock at the door.

You desperately try to wipe the tears from your face, but it’s no use. Joel gets to see you in your full, heartbroken glory. 

He’s fidgeting as he follows you into the living room, his hands clenching and unclenching. He takes a deep breath. “You may have picked up that I’m a little stupid when it comes to…this kinda thing.”

Your eyebrows furrow in confusion. What kinda ‘thing’? 

“I ain’t had anyone…interested in a long time. I think I forgot it was possible.”

He looks down at his hands, then back up at you. Wait, is he serious? There’s no way he’s just now realizing that you’re interested.

“I’m sorry, darlin’.”

Joel approaches you slowly, his hands out as if in surrender, until he’s just a foot away. You can tell that his mouth is moving and that he’s probably saying words, but hell if you know what they are. What is he talking about? Why is he acting like this? You’ve been dating for weeks. Right?

“Honey, you hearin’ me?” You snap back when his thumb brushes your chin. His hand is gently resting on the back of your head, the other around at the small of your back. 

“Y-yeah–sorry–what?”

“I asked ya if we can try that again.”

You’ve barely finished nodding when his lips touch yours. His flannel shirt smells like the laundry you imagine hanging from a line across the backyard of your shared home. You picture coffee in the mornings on the porch, getting a dog together, what kind of wedding dress you can find in an apocalypse, how it feels when he wraps his arm around you in bed on cold mornings…

You don’t even realize you’ve moved your hands to grab at the front of his shirt until he pulls away, an infuriatingly smug chuckle coming out of him.

“I ain’t gonna float away, sweetheart.” 

You relax your grip a little but don’t move your hands entirely. 

“So…does this mean we can keep havin’ dinner?” He asks, the usual sadness in his eyes replaced by something softer. 

“Yeah, Joel. We can keep having dinner.”

You tug him in by his shirt to kiss him again. He’s not about to complain.

[dcxdpdabbles]

Is there going to be more halfa Cass?

Danny tugged an island behind him, this one with various fruits that he used to eat in his childhood, dragging the large piece of land with a visible control over its gravity. It took him years to figure out how to turn his ectoplasma into something that could control the cosmos.

They were not quite the same - the strawberries were indigo, the blueberries were bright pink, and there were some glowing blackberries that he definitely needed to test. Still, many people would be happy to see something so familiar.

And for some, the kids born after the shift, it would be a first time. They had ice cream, but their resources were lacking many sweet things now, and Danny often found himself missing simple things like eating freshly picked berries from Mrs. Sandigo's garden.

She was a sweet old woman who allowed all the neighborhood kids to eat from her garden. Fruit or vegetables. She used to grow them for fun and saw it as a way to connect with the community.

She died in the third year of them being trapped. Lack of her heart medication.

Ever since his town was taken seven years ago, Danny had been desperate to find a way to take them all back. But forces he could not name, let alone defeat, were stopping humans from crossing over.

The only exceptions were Danny and Dani- Dan had escaped Clockwork and attempted to take over the town again, but Danny was having none of that, especially back then. They didn't even have a food source! So they tied Dan to the Keep, forcing him to be a guardian forever.

It was a bit tough at first, but Dan eventually calmed down enough to live peacefully with humans again. (Turns out the ghost regained his sanity when his mother yelled at him.)

Danny still felt horrible to watch his people nearly starve to death, and would go out into the human world to bring back as much food as possible from the local stores. He attempted to leave Amity Park's borders to request relief efforts, only to discover that he could no longer leave the town.

Amity Park's people were trapped in the Ghost Zone, and Danny was trapped in Amity Park. He could fly wherever he wanted in the Zone, but in the living world, he could only travel over the ruins of his once home.

Unlike before, Danny realized he had a time limit on how long he could be in the Living world, too. Since there were no humans to provide living energy in that town, there was nothing to help stabilize his core and allow his ectoplasm to solofied. Shifting into a human while in the Living World only resulted in Danny being zapped right back to the Ghost Zone, as all the human residents were trapped, including Danny Fenton.

Danny Phantom was the only one allowed to cross over.

He consulted multiple allies in the Ghost Zone- Clockwork, Frostbite, Pandora- but all told him the same. King Pariah had taken the humans, and only he could release them. As far as the Ghost Zone was concerned, they had been claimed as spoils of war, even though Danny won in the end, King Pariah wasn't defeated or killed.

He was merely put to sleep. Until Danny was strong enough to defeat him properly, none of the King's war spoils could be transferred to Danny, and thus he could not free them.

But it wasn't like Danny could beat King Pariah. If he attempted to release the madman, who's to say his luck would help him again? Even Clockwork admitted that he never once stood a chance against King Pariah Dark, and in nearly every timeline he peeked into, Danny always lost to Pariah.

Clockwork could not answer when, or if, the residents of Amity Park would ever be able to see the Living World again. It was the Zone twisting around them, clouding their futures in a way that not even time could tell what would happen.

Danny felt sick to know it was because they were no longer considered people. They were spoils. Property. As crucial to fate as King Pairah's office rug.

That's why Danny did what he did. He bent cosmos, he tugged islands together, he fought off invaders, he provided resources and hope so that one day he could let his people go home.

Danny welcomed other ghosts, but there had been times when those ghosts thought of the humans as property, too, and had to be escorted off his lands. Humans were seen as lesser in this world - a source of food at best - and his parents' attitude towards ghosts had shifted once they realized they spoke about the residents of the Ghost Zone in the same way.

Around the four-year mark, fractions began to appear among the Amity Park residents. The first were the ones who believed they would go home- they fought to live as closely as they did back on Earth, including using the same currency.

The second fraction was the ones who accepted they were never going home. They operated more on trade, shifting skills and manual labor, struggling to get everyone to adapt to the new laws and rules of Phantom's Keep.

The third were the ones who treated Danny's family like a monarchy. At first, the people fought against their control of the town, but it soon got out that Danny Fenton was Danny Phantom and that he literally ruled over the park island. He willed a castle into existence and houses for everyone. He could build and construct, and soon, with everything Danny tried to provide, he was given a more ruler-like role.

Not to mention the rest of the Fentons, that let their intelligence shine, putting society back in order and providing solutions for problems. They were the main reason everything didn't fall apart, and that the humans didn't tear each other apart to survive.

Eventually, Phantom was spoken to with the same respect as King, and they decided to let him determine what happened to them. Here or the Living world. Danny wasn't sure he was the right person to make that call.

The people need a hero. It's not fair, but it has to be you. We won't survive this if we lose what a hero gives us. We need hope. Jazz had told him at Mrs. Sandigo's funeral. The factions were fighting over how to properly set her to rest. Fraction 1 wanted to bury her in the park with a proper grave.

Still, Fraction 2 claimed that it would risk them turning the minimal living space into a worthless cemetery, and they couldn't risk the corpse affecting the land they were attempting to grow food on. Fraction 3 shouted that Phantom made the choice

He had her burned, and her ashes were put in a glass Urn under a statue of Freedom in the town's center, so no one forgot her in the Zone when they left. Over the seven years, more urns were lined up around her. It was a hauntingly beautiful sight when the few beams of light hit them, making the whole thing glow with multiple colors.

The Fractions were all comfortable with the solution. Still, Danny counted the urns day after day, unsatisfied, knowing his failure in defeating Pariah Dark had them dying away from their proper resting place.

"Dano!" His Dad called, flying alongside him inside a Fenton Hunting Jet once Danny had entered the very edge of his property. He had expanded the area that fell under Phantom's Keep fifty miles away from where humans lived.

It was an attempt to give them more space before he pulled the islands. The only ones it worked for, however, were the Fentons, as members of his bloodline.

"Hi Dad!" He cheers, waving a hand that wasn't wrapped around the ectopasm rope. "Look, I found fruit! Do you think you and Mom can test it for safe consumption?"

"Of course! I can test it alongside this." Jack responds with a grin, throwing his thumb to the back of the ship. Danny leans into the window to glance back, blinking at the hulking, dead boar ghost that his father had hunted.

If the meat was safe, they would eat well for at least a week or two. All of them. That thing was huge, bigger than the front draw bridge of their castle.

How did his Father beat it?!

"Wow! Great job, Dad!" He praises watching his father puff out his chest in pride. The image is ruined by the apparent exhaustion on his father's face, the years catching up to him. Although he has recently gained muscle, his frame still shook.

Jack always waited for his family to eat first back in those early days, when food was never a guarantee. He was much smaller than Danny ever remembered him being.

Danny was twenty-one now, and he was slowly watching his father lose the Superman strength he once wielded so easily as he wasted away, trapped in the Ghost Zone. A tickle of panic wrapped around his heart as the thought settled in the back of his head.

"Thank you, Danny." Jack laughs, his breath coming in short bursts as if he were running out, and Danny's heart leaped a little in fear before his dad managed to get it under control. "We best get back and make sure we can have a feast tonight."

"Is it a special occasion?"

"Yes. Your sister sent a message. Get this- Dan's brought a girl home! If things go well, I might have an in-law soon! Oh, can you imagine the wedding?"

Danny's smile becomes strained. If his brother is settling down here, then he will join the rest that have given up hope, and that's a bitter pill to swallow. He doesn't say it, though. Instead, he tugs more on the island with a fake laugh, "Then we best get back!"

He ignored the ache in his core as the Island slowly groaned, moving across his property line and towards the other linked-up islands. A series of ice-hot pain shot through his body, making him flatter a little, but thankfully, his father didn't notice, as he turned the jet towards the castle.

Danny was going to get everyone home. Even if it killed him.

[sturniololuvz]

hii can you make one where younger sister x triplets and she has been having severe period symptoms and they bring her to the doctor and they diagnose her with endometriosis and they help her? live your fics so much❤️

thank uuu

Absolutely. Here’s a detailed and emotional fic where the Sturniolo triplets’ younger sister (Y/N, age 15) has been silently suffering with painful period symptoms, and her brothers step in when they realize how serious it is. This one’s angsty, comforting, and full of that protective big brother energy.

⸻“It’s Not Just Cramps”

Y/N had always been tough.

She brushed off bruises, rolled her eyes at teasing, and handled growing up with three chaotic older brothers like it was nothing.

But lately, she wasn’t herself.

It started subtle—skipping meals, sleeping more. Curling up in a ball on the couch with her hoodie pulled over her head. She was quieter, flinching when she laughed too hard, snapping when they asked simple questions.

Then came the pain.

They started to notice her wincing when she moved. Pressing her hand to her stomach. Biting her lip when she stood up too fast. One morning, Chris found her hunched over the bathroom counter, pale and shaking.

“Y/N?” he asked softly.

She tried to wave him off. “I’m fine. It’s just cramps.”

But she didn’t look fine.

When she tried to walk past him, she doubled over—clutching her side with a choked-out gasp.

Chris caught her before she hit the floor.

“Nick! Matt!” he called out, panic rising. “Something’s wrong.”

⸻

They got her in the car, bundled in blankets, Chris in the back holding her hand while Matt drove and Nick talked to the urgent care receptionist on the phone.

She was pale. Sweating. Breathing hard.

“Did you eat today?” Matt asked gently.

“No,” she whispered. “I can’t. I feel like throwing up.”

“Is this your period?” Nick asked, trying to stay calm.

She nodded slowly. “But it’s not normal. It hurts so bad. It’s been like this for months…”

Chris swallowed hard, guilt creeping in. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because it sounds dumb,” she croaked. “Everyone says periods hurt. I thought I was just being weak.”

Nick looked at her, dead serious. “You’re not weak. You’re in pain. That’s different.”

⸻

At the doctor’s office

After an exam, a long conversation, and a few tests, the doctor came in with a calm but serious expression.

“Based on everything you’ve told us and what we’re seeing, it’s very likely that Y/N has endometriosis.”

The room went quiet.

“What… what is that?” she asked, voice small.

“It means the tissue that’s supposed to grow inside your uterus is growing outside of it. It causes severe pain, especially during your period. It’s not normal. And it’s not your fault.”

Chris squeezed her hand. Nick’s jaw clenched. Matt rubbed his eye.

“There are ways to manage it,” the doctor added. “We can try medication, lifestyle changes, and refer you to a specialist. But the most important thing is: you spoke up. That’s brave.”

Y/N blinked hard, tears threatening.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

⸻

Back at home

They made her favorite food (even though she barely ate it). Chris bought her heating pads and cozy socks. Matt researched every treatment possible. Nick sat with her in her room and let her cry without saying a word.

One night, she looked at the three of them and quietly said, “I thought you’d think I was being dramatic.”

Nick scoffed. “You are dramatic. But not about this.”

Matt smiled. “We’ve got your back. Period stuff and all.”

Chris nodded, pulling her into a gentle hug. “You’re not alone anymore. We’re gonna help you through it.”

And she believed them.

Because for the first time in months, she didn’t feel weak or broken—

She felt seen.

And that made all the difference.

⸻

l

[lscpu]

I wish I didn’t read that bc now I really, really need to see or read a fic like that.

Ok but John doted on Sam to the point that he didn’t want to involve him into the hunt or scare him to death by revealing that the nightmares are actually real. End result is Dean was not only parentified, but alsoseparated from Sammy by the knowledge of the hunt.

Sam got to watch his father and older brother disappear for days on end, Dean dropping out of school, turning to alcohol as a coping mechanism for something while the chasm between Sam and John&Dean grew due to the Secret.

Sam is done watching this secrecy. He’s always been a smart kid, so he knew all those excuses he was given are bs, but as he grows and gets more life experience he enters the denial stage.

The obvious answer is on the nose, but it’s so horrible he doesn’t dare acknowledge it.

He fights with Dad and starts fighting with Dean and he kinda loves him but also can’t help being afraid of them both, especially once he inevitably catches a glimpse of the arsenal that Dean LEAVES WITH IN HIS BAG in the middle of a night.

What other explanation could there be? They never actually hurt Sam but what will they do when they know he knows?

Sam ends up saying fuck it, can’t possibly live like this, and leaves even earlier than in canon — as soon as he’s 18. He finishes high school on his lonesome and goes to Stanford on a full ride still, but doesn’t tell Dad and Dean about it. (Might or might not realize he’s being stalked.)

Doesn’t tell Jess shit as long as he can help it. Maybe lets it slip out when he’s in a doomed-drunk state at some party.

When Dean shows up on his doorstep in the middle of the night, eyes glinting, borderline manic, way too excited, Sam puts himself between him and Jess, guards her even as he explains that this thief-in-the-night is his brother.

(Meanwhile Dean just looks like that because he’s worried about Dad and happy he managed to track his baby brother whom he hadn’t seen or heard from for 4 years. Eyes glinting not bc he’s crying no who’s crying you’re crying, Dean’s just G L A D to see his baby, okay? And also Giddy because he gets to actually tell Sammy what’s going on. MEND THEIR RELATIONSHIP by finally letting Sammy in on the big secret.)

Dean says Dad’s gone ‘hunting’ and ‘hasn’t been home in a few days’, and to Sammy, with all the little clues he has, this is straight up Dean admitting that he snapped and took their Dad out and is using the disappearance as a way to connect with Sam. For the past 4 years Sam’s been reading on true crime & serial killers as a hobby, because of course his family isn’t like that (still denial), and this is when the knowledge of an old classic trope ‘chick got groomed by her scandalously older boyfriend into helping him hunt and kill other girls’ kicks in and makes the dots connect.

Sam thinks, oh shit, my brother got groomed by Dad to be bait and his serial killer partner, a twisted modern take on Bonnie and Clyde, and now he broke free… only to what? Drag Sammy into it?

So yeah I just think that’s neat. Dean ends up manhandling Sam into the car, ignoring Jess calling 911, and driving off with him to follow Dad’s steps only to run into that ghost from the Pilot episode. They fight it, Dean explains that ‘yep, that’s what Dad and I have been up to all these years, monsters are real and we hunt them. Sorry kiddo, tried to give you a real childhood (ruffles Sam’s hair) but clearly Dad and I messed up. ‘

Bonus points Jess reported this, all of Sammy’s college friends are worried SICK about him, what do you fuckin MEAN his brother broke into your place in the middle of the night and kidnapped Sam, what kind of cult shit is that? Where’d they grow up? No legit is it a cult thing? Makes sense Sam never mentioned family! He probably ran away but now they found him!

Meanwhile Dean just drives Sammy back home once the job is done, like he insisted he would do when he ‘kidnapped’ him, fully aware that Sam’s a smart kiddo who wants to learn everything about everything and now that he knows what the fuck was happening with his family and that Dad’s gone, he’d wanna come with Dean to help search for him.

But Jess reported this, right. So Dean gets arrested the moment he parks by her and Sam’s place (while being extremely smug about it, freaking Sam’s friend out even more), and Sam just tells the cops his brother didn’t kidnap him, Sam went with him willingly, his girlfriend just misinterpreted the situation.

Cops do the whole ‘victim of abuse’ routine. Did your brother threaten you? Is he threatening you right now? Is there any reason you’d lie to protect him? But since Sam is insistent nothing’s happening, they have no reason to take Dean into custody and have to let him go on the spot.

Cue all Sam’s friend thinking this is some Stockholm Syndrome shit. Jess is upset & afraid, friends are wondering if they should stage an intervention, and Dean just up and leaves, still suspiciously smug about the whole interaction, not in the least freaked out by the cops (very much unlike ANY normal person).

Jess texts their friend group she’s legit concerned about Sam’s brother and can’t even go to sleep since he knows where they live and has already broken in once, and that cops won’t even do anything because Sam refused to report it. From what little she knows and got out of Sam throughout the years, it’s not as much abuse as the weirdness — and Jess suddenly remembers the ‘murder kit’ Sam accidentally mentioned Dean having in a bag with him (while they were both drunk. Obviously. So she dismissed it till now).

That same night Sam&Jess’s place goes up in flames. A bunch of eye witnesses confirm the weirdo brother’s car was in the vicinity. Sam talks to the firefighters, the police, makes a statement on the spot — and up and leaves with his brother without even talking to his friends.

(Dean told him this is exactly what happened to Sam’s mom — it was no ordinary fire — and Sam did have visions of Jess like this, too.)

(Sam can’t shake the suspicion that Dean could be involved, despite everything he learned about the ghosts and the demons.) There is still the air of broken trust between them.

Sam can’t help the fear that his brother really is a serial killer. (For a moment there, everything started making sense, Sam was able to admit that’s what he feared Dad and Dean were. Unfortunately, he put a name to it, ‘I thought my Dad and brother were serial killers’ — but the fear didn’t fully go away, because it took time and a lot of processing to actually accept that the paranormal is so common that hunters are constantly working to fight it.)

Anyway, remember that scene in Bugs where Sam says ‘no no [we aren’t serial killers]’ and Dean gets all sappy n grinning like ‘could be fun tho :)’? Yeah, Sam would pause and think, what if they are, though. What if DEAN is.

MORE BONUS POINTS/au to an au: during his years in stanford sam actually sat down to anonymously write his experience of growing up with a father&son serial killer duo, and his and jess’s friends find this blog/site/forum/journal/whatever and put two and two together. Dean ends up on an FBI MOST WANTED list so damn fast. Turns the TV on one day to see his face plastered on the news and Sammy’s face there with him on suspicion of kidnapping his baby brother, straight-A 4.0 GPA student, full ride scholarship at Stanford, and torching brother’s place and killing his girlfriend as some elaborate revenge/psychological warfare scheme. Sam’s friends give these short teary-eyed snotty interviews and one of them mentions ‘and then we found Sam’s BLOG…’ and Dean just turns to Sam, frozen in the other bed, deer in the headlights face, and goes: ‘what blog are they talking about, sammy.’

‘Uh, so, I thought you and Dad, uh, that you were… serial killers?’

‘…’

‘And so I kinda… was on this forum, ANONYMOUSLY…’

‘…’

(Meekly) ‘To process that.’

Dean would roll his eyes up in his skull so hard they’d actually hurt.

“In one of the many versions of the pilot script, Sam suspects Dean of not only being a serial killer but also murdering their father”

[deangirlsstuff67]

Her Biggest Fan

Jensen Ackles x Reader

Summary: Who doesn't love a good fantasy or escape from our normal lives. When Y/N started this online adventre she never dreamed it would land her smack dab in the path of her favorite actor. Is there a chance this fantasy might become reality? And will the reality live up to the fantasy?

Warnings: fluffy Jensen, talk about divorce, talk about trauma, language, some dirty talk

Authors Note: I love Jensen and his family. This is purely fiction and for entertainment purposes only. I am currently going through a divorce and I decided to pull from it and work out some trauma I have. I hope you enjoy, this is becoming a series so buckle up cause I have some wildly unhinged plans ;)

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Divorce is hard. Doesn't matter if you did it for your happiness, to remove yourself from a toxic relationship, or if you're like me and had absolutely no say in the matter what so ever.

The first few months you feel like your suffocating in your own house. The walls feel as if they are going to cave in and you aren't able to focus on anything what so ever. If you're like me then you went from what you thought was a loving marriage with two beautiful kids, to being a single parent in a blink of an eye.

Shit is rough!

Do I blame my ex husband for leaving me? Yes, in the beginning I did. However, as the months went on and I started to see him for who he truly was and how he treated people, lets just say my ex best friend did me a favor when she stole my husband and broke up my family.

Bitch can keep him now.

No matter how healed you are from the trauma a toxic marriage causes a person, when he has the kids and it's just you, the loneliness sets in.

We're human and all humans hate being alone with our darkest thoughts and demons. Sure I own a farm, work a full time job, and have an amazing best friend who talks with me daily and gets me out doing stuff. And yes I know I'm better off single than wanting my ex or anyone like him in my life.

But I still get lonely. I still crave someone who will put me first and wants to worship the ground I walk on. I mean who doesn't want love in their life.

That's the goal ain't it? Big beautiful family, love someone until you're old and gray, watching your kids grow up and start families of their own, and enjoy life to it's fullest.

Well I had that, for a little while at least. It was great and I will never regret my marriage, I just don't know if I want to risk it all again on the possibility it may go to shit on me.

So instead of getting out there and starting to date and find someone to be with, I did the oppisite. I started a second phone account and I created a fake identity for online purposes and created an OnlyFans account.

I have no one in my life that will get jealous, be offended, or cause problems because of it. I have always been the type of woman who not only enjoyed porn for my own personal use, but I never stopped my ex husband from watching it when he was away.

Look all you want, it was always the touching that pissed me off.

While I'm not ashamed of what I'm doing, I have a family and friends just like the next person and they don't need to know. I'm a grown ass woman and if I want to have some fun online so fucking be it.

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

6 Months Later.

"How much money have you made from it?" Yes I caved and I ended up telling my best friend, to be fair her and I have no secrets. I hate secrets, I'm a honest person and there are times when even that's a problem, more so because I don't care who's feelings I hurt.

Don't want the truth, don't ask me then.

Shockingly enough I've done very well, way better than I thought I would. Guess it helps that I don't have anyone but my kids to worry about so I can give mt regulars the attention the pay for. Most of them just want to get off, easy enough considering I have been named the queen of sexting with them all.

Some of them are just looking for a person to talk to and enjoy their company. Either way I'm happy with both sides of the business.

Sitting on her front porch as we watch our kids ride their bikes and play together has been the highlight of my week. I love this woman to death and will forever be grateful after my ex best friend detorying my family, I was sent an angel like her. She doesn't judge me, she listens, makes me smile and laugh, helps me out as much as she can, and s there for my kids as much as she is for me.

Couldn't ask for a better friend if I tried.

"I'm doing pretty good. Made about $2000 last month alone. Funny how a silly little hobby out of boredom blossomed into a second career." inhaling a puff of my smoke, i hear my kids laughing as they climb a tree in the field across from us.

She starts laughing, "look at you go. Soon you'll be able to tell that ex husband to keep his money cause you won't need the child support."

That is the goal. Always was. He has a funny way of thinking because he gives child support monthly that means he still has a huge say in what I am allowed to do and go. Honestly, he still wants me to treat him like my husband and well that's not happening.

Needless to say we end up in a lot of fights that eventually result in a phone call or text message from him saying how he over reacted and he is sorry. Same old shit just a different day. He walked away from me and for some reason that just hasn't sunk into his head, he figures he can have a girlfriend and wife, again I ain't that girl.

Don't get me wrong, should he pay child support absolutely, but I was raised to be independent and to provide for my family. Not to mention it will bring me so much joy the day I tell him to shove his money where the sun don't shine because I don't need it anymore. Making him feel completely useless in my life is my goal, I'm going to show him that I don't need him to survive.

Just then my work phone goes off indicating I have a text message. Smiling I respond to Jay.

Jay: Hello beautiful. How's you're day going?

Me: Well hello handsome. It's going well, just hanging out with my bestie on her porch enjoying a glorious summers day.

Is he handsome, I got no idea. Jay is one of the guys I text daily. While we definitely have had our share of fun at night together making each other cum even though we are in two different countries, he is one of those men who wants a friend just as much as he wants release.

He's sweet, charming, kind, funny as hell, and if I believe what he says then he's a Texan boy born and raised. He won my heart right there, this country girl loves her some Texans.

However, the internet is where people go when they don't want to be known. Is Jay his name? I don't know. I haven't asked for a photo, all I've seen is his large hard cock when I'm teasing him all day before letting him cum. I respect that he probably doesn't want me know who he is and I'm okay with that. Hell not like I'm using my real name anyways.

I've grown attached to him in a way. He's definitely my favorite client. Maybe in another life we could meet and it would be heaven, but this is what I get and I'm okay with that.

Man for all I know he's married.

"Oh uh, I know that look, Jay's texting isn't he?"

"Oh shut up woman! But yes he is."

"Still have no idea what he looks like hey?"

"No."

"Just ask for a photo." God this is why I love her, she's exactly like me. No sugar coating shit, straight to the point every time and I am so thankful for it.

"Why? This way I have my fantasy and he has his. Hell I can pretend he's Jensen fucking Ackles and I'll never know the difference."

She burst out laughing, "really, you think Jensen is texting with you and randomly found you're OnlyFans one day?"

I join in on the laughing, she's right it sounds stupid, but hey it's a fantasy and nothing more, "no I don't, I'm not that crazy, but the fantasy is fun to dive in to."

"Yeah, okay I give you that."

My phone dings again.

Jay: It's killer in Texas today, summer is not our friend here.

Me: Haha I can only imagine from what you've told me. I still think it would be fun to live there.

Jay: I think so, but I'm bais. So just porch sitting with the bestie today?

Me: Hell yeah, momma deserves a break every once in a while. What about you?

Jay: I'm going out to the brewery today and meeting some buddies to hangout. Nothing spectacular.

Me: Man who makes his own beer, add in a whiskey distillery and you'd be the perfect man lol.

Jay: I'll keep that in mind sweetheart. Whiskey girl huh?

Me: Oh 100% nothing better in my eyes. Sitting outside once the kids are in bed, watching the sun set, whiskey in hand and nothing but the quiet of the night.

Jay: Damn that sounds amazing.

Jay: Your ex giving you anymore trouble?

Yeah you've told him about your ex husband. Lately, he's been unpredictable and grumpy more than he's not. You aren't shocked and you can handle his mood swings like a champ considering the 12 years you shared together. Mainly it just annoys the living piss out of you now.

Me: Nah, I put him back in his place where he belongs. Fucker don't scare me and he knows it. I hold all the power as much as he doesn't want to admit it.

You'd agreed to be civil and so far for the most part he was. Then you started going out and having fun while he was stuck at home with her being bored. The anger and resentment started to kick into overdrive. He started to come to the realization that he gave you all the freedom he was craving in life, and all he did was dump you for a more controling woman.

I mean the man can't even text you with her wanting to know ever detail of the conversation. Not like he actually tells her. Yet another reason I won't take him back, he's literally doing the same shit to her that he did to me, and she's dumb enough to by all his lies.

Most of the time you just have to not so gentle remind him he has a criminal record that you can bring to light in a courtroom and he would instantly lose everything and that usually shuts him the hell up for a while.

He's only saving grace is our kids we have together, if it wasn't for them I would have taken him to the cleaners the moment he left me for her.

Jay: Good girl. He needs to remember who left who in this situation.

Me: You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink Jay. I knew what was going to happen with this divorce. I know who I married so it never shocks me.

Jay: You still shouldn't have to deal with it.

Me: We have a farm and kids together, I'll be dealing with it until the day one of use finally croaks. You're sweet though for checking in on me and making sure I'm okay.

Jay: This may have started off as a way to release pent up frustration for me, but sweetheart you have grown on me. I couldn't imagine going a day without checking in on you. I know how that sounds considering we don't know each other and you've only seen my dick.

Me: It's a pretty amazing dick ;)

Jay: Awe, thank you honey. I wish there would be a day where I could show you just how amazing this dick truly is. Cause the things I want to do to you with it will probably seal my fate into Hell.

Me: Naughty boy. I do like the sounds of that though.

Jay: Probably should show you my face before that happens lol. I'm off baby girl, I'll text you in a while. Have a fun day relaxing with your kids and friend.

Me: You too Jay! Xx

Just then all 4 kids come running over to you together screaming how they are starving to death. You look at your friend and you both chuckle. Guess that means we are done relaxing for a moment. Off to make some lunch for us all.

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Read part two here.

Taglist:

@impala67rollingthroughtown @bitchykittenconnoisseur @deansimpalababy @jayhalsteadfan-2417 @lessons-of-red @spnaquakindgdom @yvonneeeee @syrma-sensei @nancymcl @tspmoff @idontwannabehere78 @foxyjwls007 @senjoritanana @leigh70 @neii3n @maggiegirl17 @jamerlynn @mostlymarvelgirl @kimxwinchester @multiversefanfics @supershygirl @justwhisperingfantasies

[thirstkanaphan]

Mingi really is the best self-promoter

Writes, produces, and performs his own single Autobahn and collaborates with an artist he met at a Korean rock festival.

Uses his connections (his friend DJ Raiden) to make a EDM remix of Autobhan and stirs up speculation and excitement after he posts about the possibility of it being performed live at EDC Korea...

Not ONLY does he perform live...

But he also releases a special Dingo performance (secretly recorded, unbeknownst to us)

AND HE PROMOTES IT ON HIS IG PAGE WITH EMBEDDED LINK!!

I am going out o a limb to say that Mingi is primary instigator of all these events. I really admire his passion for making art but also his ambition for growing his celebrity image. He'll do what needs to be done, even if KQ can't keep up.

[maybege]

Lessons Learned

Summary: Someone accuses you of the most horrendous crime possible. Paz makes sure to prove them wrong.

Pairing: alpha!clan leader!Paz Vizsla x omega!fem!Reader

Wordcount: 6.0k | Rating: E (18+ only!)

Warnings: A/B/O dynamics, marriage of convenience, enemies to lovers vibes (but really it is just idiots to lovers), (unfounded) accusations of child harm, fluff, yearning, scenting,

Big shoutout to @mostly-megan who helped me bring this story to life! I am so excited to share more about etl!Paz, it really is one of those AUs that I constantly think about but very rarely do I actually write about it. I hope you like it as much as I loved writing it! Please let me know what you think in a comment or a reblog – they are the best things about sharing it with you. Happy Sunday!

masterlist | crossposted on AO3

Had anyone ever told you that you not only would wed Paz Vizsla, leader of your enemy clan, but you would live a somewhat happy life in the covert, you would not have hesitated to call that person a liar. Yet here you were, living a somewhat solitary but not necessarily unhappy life.

Sure, the mountain halls had needed some getting used to. You missed the sunshine on your face whenever you roamed the hallways, but the tunnels and rooms carved into the mountains kept you nicely cool in the summer and allowed the nature above to grow freely. You had heard from many people, independent of their clan, that the Vizsla territory was well-kept and well-protected. The flora and fauna were thriving and you had never seen so many butterflies as when you spent a few minutes outside.

Sadly, the glimpses you got from nature were through carved windows or courtyards that allowed you to gaze at the colours of the sky. You could not remember when you had simply lain down in a meadow, allowing the sounds of nature to soothe you to sleep. Your guards were quite strict, and though you had a feeling that they would not keep you from going outside, surely, they would report back to your husband and you were not ready to have to justify your comings and goings.

It was a pleasant surprise, then, when Maudii from the foundlings’ nursery asked you if you would like to help out in the classrooms. Teaching little ones was something you knew from your time back home and you enjoyed reading stories to them, teaching them the old legends and helping them improve their reading and writing.  

However, your favourite part by far was when Maudii announced an excursion out of the covert and into nature. The trips to the outside were an absolute success. You got to wander through the meadows, along the edge of the woods, carefully crossing small streams as the children took in everything with big eyes and even bigger grins. You knelt down in the bushes, showing them the difference between the delicious berries you could put in cakes and the ones that were only meant for birds.

Each night, you lay in your little guestroom, tired out from spending the day in the fresh air and sunshine and finally felt like you had found a place where you could belong. Your husband might not love you and your body might betray you whenever you saw him, but finally, you had people in the covert who did not sneer at you whenever you crossed their paths.

Of course, that was only wishful thinking.

“What is going on?” you asked the guard who had suddenly appeared in the midst of your lesson the next morning. Kroks was not a stranger to you. Dieko had introduced him as one of the warriors in training and the young man was always very cordial towards you. Which is why his worried gaze set you on alert.

“Will you come with us, please?” Kroks looked uncomfortable but the guard next to him did not wait for your reply. His grip on your arm came as a surprise and it hurt, the physical pain overshadowed by the betrayal that even after months in this clan, you were still treated like an enemy. Maudii looked on with helpless fear and shock as you passed her, but you knew there was nothing she could do.

The walk to the throne room was not an unfamiliar one but it felt longer than usual now that you were dragged through the hallways like you had committed murder. No one spoke to you, no one told you why you were summoned and you could not help the panic that rose in you. If you were summoned by the guards, it could only mean that Paz knew about it. And what could possibly cause your husband to summon you like a common criminal?

Images flashed in your mind of wars and battles, all of them involving Paz and your family at home. What if your sacrifice had all been for nothing? What if it had not been enough to broker peace between your clans and now you would be the first victim of the new wave of battles?

But even as you thought it, there was a trust in you that Paz would not harm you.

The heavy doors to the throne room were pulled open, and your eyes immediately settled on him. Your husband was sitting on his throne, legs spread, chin resting on his hand and your heart skipped a beat at the memory of how, not too long ago, you had joined him there.

The moment he spotted you was clear because he sat up, back straight and a deep frown on his face. Like he had not expected to see you. That was a good sign, right?

You were not the only ones in the room, of course, and after you finally ripped your eyes away from your husband, you recognised a few council members and some guards standing around the room. Right in front of your husband was a man you did not recognise.

“You interrupted my council meeting with empty accusations and now you drag my wife here,” Paz’s voice boomed through the room, sounding very bored, “Please enlighten us to what end you interrupt my very day, Roalm.”

“I am here because our guest,” Roalm spat out the word, “has committed the most treacherous and spiteful of acts.”

It took you a minute to realise he meant you. You were the guest. You were the one who had committed something so horrible, you had been dragged here to face the consequences. The frown on your face did little to also cover the anxiety that surged up. Your heart beat loudly in your chest and you got nervous.

What did he mean? What had you done? You were more than aware that although you were all Mandalorian, there were differences in your culture that you had not caught up on completely. All in all, though, you got the impression that you hadn’t done something completely stupid. Yet.

“It brings me no pleasure to say this,” Roalm continued gravely before pointing his finger at you, his eyes full of hatred, “She has poisoned the foundlings.”

His accusation sat in the empty room for a moment, the shock following soon after. His words kept echoing in your head as you tried to determine if all this was real or if maybe you were still dreaming. Maybe you were still asleep, curled up in your bed with blankets, and at any moment, you would hear one of Paz’s advisors enter his room, updating him on his daily schedule. Maybe you were close to your heat? You always had the most absurd and scary dreams then.

None of that happened, though, you were still standing on the stone floor, your eyes wide as you watched Paz sit up straighter, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees. The guard behind you seemed to understand what had been said earlier than you, because your knees suddenly met the floor as you were pushed to kneel in front of Paz.

“What?” you breathed, wincing through the pain, “No, I – I would never – I haven’t …”

“She's been taking the foundlings out to the fields for weeks now,” the man interrupted you, sounding so sure of himself, “And several of them have said they were being fed berries by her. Poisonous berries! Clearly, she has been sent here by her pack of traitors to cause us the most possible harm. Not only is she infiltrating us by being married to our leader, she is jeopardising our entire future.”

Tears gathered in your eyes. You wanted to be strong. You needed to be strong. But stars, you were so tired. You had done everything to make a good impression, to make sure that you were polite and kind to everyone. And you had been so happy to finally find a place where you could do something. Where you could be happy and useful and –

“I would never …” you sobbed, “I would never harm them. I didn’t harm them. Paz, please,” you looked up, finding your husband’s gaze on you, "Please. Please, believe me.”

Your husband always looked imposing on his throne. It was hard to believe that it had not been too long ago that you had joined him on his lap, letting his fingers explore parts of your body that resulted in ecstasy and now you were kneeling on the floor, teardrops forming a little pool in the grooves of the stone beneath you. Oh, how the mighty could fall.

“You know,” Paz’s voice was cool but it had an edge to it that you could not identify, “One might say that everything my wife does is a reflection of me. Would you suggest that your own clan leader has been conspiring to kill foundlings?”

“N-no, no! Of course not, m’lord. I was merely suggesting. I-it was –“

“Then you had better have proof of such things,” you watched with baited breath as the alpha rose up, towering over everyone in the room, even more so now that you were kneeling, “I hope you’ll be able to back up those claims when me and my guards join the trip tomorrow. Or else you’ll have not only insulted my wife, but you’ll have threatened her well-being. Now, everybody leave.”

*

You had never slept so badly, tossing and turning all night as you tried to give your panicked thoughts a rest. Not even the night before you had snuck out of your clan’s quarters to offer yourself to the scary enemy alpha, you had been this nervous. Maybe because you knew there was nothing keeping you from being killed if people thought you actually poisoned the foundlings.

You frowned, staring at the dark ceiling. None of the foundlings had been sick in the last few weeks (with the exception of one case of a cough which had turned out to be from too much dust in a carpet) and you trusted your abilities enough to know poisonous from edible berries.

Surely, your excursion today would prove your innocence.

Because if it didn’t …

Tears threatened to spill onto your cheeks again.

Hearing Kroks enter Paz’s room, greeting up, felt like a relief then. The day was starting and so was your chance to prove yourself.

You chose your prettiest dress to wear, made of long linen that had been dyed with flower petals. The children loved to find the flowers in the wild that had been used for the colours on your dress and with all the excitement of today, you wanted them to have as much fun as possible.

The sun was shining as your larger-than-usual group finally reached one of the hidden exits of the caves. There was not a cloud in the sky and you were greeted with a cool breeze that rustled the trees and made the meadows look like green oceans. Everyone was in a good mood, chattering happily as you made your way along the edge of the woods.

Well, not everyone.

The only people who were more serious than you were the few council members and guards that Paz had ordered to accompany you. Roalm was one of them.

You tried your hardest to ignore the man as you knelt in the grass, letting the children explore and run around to their heart's content. You had been scared that the unannounced guests on your trip would throw them off, but you should not have worried. The little ones were very happy with the extra attention they got, running this way and that way and picking berries to show the guards which ones were for them and which ones were for the birds.

The council members stayed back but you did not let yourself be tricked by their silence. You knew they were watching every move you made and listening intently to every word that left your mouth. There was no room for mistakes. No room for ambiguity.

Luckily, the children did not share your predicament and instead let themselves be distracted whenever they deemed the lesson too boring.

One of the distractions they found was their clan leader.

You would not have expected Paz to be as relaxed as he was. He let himself be tugged along by tiny hands, climbed on by the toddlers, all with the biggest smile and a deep laugh. You watched in awe as he carried them on his shoulders, making sure they did not fall, even as they hung from his arms with happy squeals.

Paz Vizsla, for all his talks about the importance of foundlings, had not made a particularly child-friendly impression on you. Clearly, you had been wrong.

The sight of him surrounded by the children made your heart flutter and you found yourself able to take one deep breath after another as you and Maudii pointed out new plants to your students. Your eyes met your husband’s on more than one occasion and there was a strange expression on his face, with just the hint of a smile on his mouth.

Maybe everything would turn out to be okay.

*

Lunch was taken on a meadow. No one had arrested you yet, which you counted as a win and when Maudii and some of the guards opened the baskets full of food, you had the first moment of today to just relax.

You were all alone when you sat back against a tree, right underneath the shade, and bit into a delicious berry bread. In front of you, you watched the children play with Paz, their little forms almost hidden by the tall grass as they tried to escape from the “monster”, a role your husband impersonated surprisingly well.

His roars and laughter and were interrupted by the children’s giggles as, one after the other, they were plucked from the ground and put on his shoulders. You could barely see him by the end, with all the children clinging to him as he slowly made his way to where all the adults were waiting. Maudii greeted them with a smile as Kroks helped her distribute the packed lunches the kitchen had prepared for them.

“But we are not done,” Lia pouted, “The monster hasn’t caught us all yet.”

“Of course, I did, little warrior,” Paz laughed as he lifted another kid off his shoulder, “I caught all of you hiding in the grass, didn’t I?”

Lia took a big bite of the bread, her words muffled. “You need to chase her, too,” she pointed to you and you could see Paz’s gaze darken as he followed her arm.

“Um, I don’t know …” you trailed off, highly aware of him now mustering you.

But Paz did not seem to share your worries. Your husband stood up, seeming taller than usual. “C’mon, ‘mega,” he chuckled, putting his helmet on, “It could be fun.”

Chancing a glance at the council members, you realised that no one really was paying attention. And it did sound fun, it certainly sounded like a distraction. Maybe that was exactly what you needed, right now?

You carefully stood up, smoothing a wrinkle out of your dress and looked up to find Paz's face fixed on you. Through the black visor of the helmet, you could not see his eyes, but you knew he was watching you. You could feel it, the tingle in your spine whenever this alpha focused on you.

One tentative step backwards by you was followed by one step from him, following you. The grass was soft under your shoes and the sun was warm on your skin as you left the shade of the tree.

There was something stuck in your throat that made it hard to swallow when he took another step.

Before you could debate your decision, you hurled around and ran.

The children cheered, and you swore you could hear one or two of the guards whoop as you raced around the meadow. You could not remember the last time you had run around freely, much less because you were playing catch. The wind in your hair felt freeing and you could feel a laugh forming in your chest.

However, you weren’t as fast as you thought you were because only seconds later, you could hear thundering footsteps behind you. And they were getting closer.

Paz really was chasing you and although you had simply wanted to indulge the foundlings’ wishes, you could not bring yourself to just … lose. You wanted to make him work for it, maybe even win, and you certainly did not want to put on a weak performance before the council.

Your hands gripped your skirt tighter as you lifted it higher, allowing you to lengthen your strides and you could hear Paz’s puffs of air as he ran behind you. Chasing you. Hunting you.

A shiver ran down your spine as you tried to ignore how your body reacted to him. Panic and something thrilling coursed through you when you could feel him at your back. The anticipation made your pussy pulse which had nothing to do with the fact that it was your husband behind you. Nothing at all.

There was a brush of fingers on your back and your heart lurched.

I’m not ready to go back, your head screamed, I’m not done yet.

And so, you did the only sensible thing: You stopped suddenly before sprinting to the sharp left, right into the woods.

Paz’s chuckle behind you made you feel all sorts of things (most of them which you tried to ignore because, again, your husband had no effect on you, whatsoever).

“You’re really making me work for it, huh?” he called behind you as you twisted around the trees, the trunks getting thicker the more you ventured into the forest.

Your response was only a laugh, jumping over a little stream that Paz must have just stomped through from the sounds of it. If you could just stay in this moment forever, maybe then everything would be alright. The kids would be safe and so would you because even if the council decided against you, there was no way they would find you here in the midst of –

“Oof!”

All the air left your lungs as you crashed against a tree trunk. You waited for it to hurt but nothing followed the slight discomfort of your sudden stop. Your back was against the tree but there was something between your head and the wood. His hand.

Paz had cushioned your crash, crowding you in with no means of escape while also cradling you to him like you were the most precious thing in the world. His body was huge, shielding you from your surroundings but instead of intimidating you, all you felt was safe.

Like this had been the goal of your run all along.

“Got you,” he rumbled and you watched as his chest rose and fell evenly. He wasn’t even out of breath, that bastard.

“And now?” you asked, your voice trembling.

He tilted his head and you hoped he would not ask you to elaborate. You didn’t want to admit that you like being this close, that you wanted to stay like this for as long as he would allow. The embarrassment would kill you, surely.

But then he tilted his head the other way and you realised he was listening for something.

When he heard (or didn’t hear?) what he wanted, you watched with baited breath as he leant back, putting an unacceptable amount of distance between the two of you, and lifted his helmet.

You knew what your husband looked like. You always had. For the longest time, you had convinced yourself that he was as ugly as your family had made him out to be. That his evil personality translated into an appearance that made him just as repulsive.

But now that you had spent time with him, that you endured his teaching and his cocky self-assurance and witness his joy with his friends and the foundlings and had him touch you – intimately – in ways no one ever had, you had to admit: Your husband was the most handsome man you knew. Inside and out.

(He was still annoyingly cocky, though.)

Watching his face be revealed to you once again, made your heart switch to an unusual pitter-patter, skipping every second beat and pumping so string, it almost hurt. The lines on his face, the crease between his brows, the crinkles next to his eyes, it all made your pulse run faster. And then he smiled at you, so softly, you were done for.

“Seems like I caught my prize,” he rumbled, his nose brushing against yours, “Wonder what I’ll do with her.”

“Oh,” you gasped, shifting against the tree, your hips bumping against his. His scent washed over you and you wished he hadn’t worn his full training get-up. You wished he had worn the soft pants he had worn that night, the ones you had been able to feel his hard flesh through.

Your husband seemed to be just as unhappy with your position because his helmet landed on the ground, cushioned by the grass, and his hands grabbed yours, lifting them above your head.

“Stay still and let me scent you,” he rumbled, one hand closing around both of your wrists, the other landing on your hip. His touch was hot, making you squirm even more. When his nose brushed over your scent gland, coating you in the smell of pines and smoke, you had a whole-body shiver. The kind that made you very aware of how wet your underwear was getting.

“Paz,” you gasped, tilting your head back so he had more access.

The only response you got was a growl. His hand around yours tightened and then his mouth opened against your neck and he sucked.

Was it possible to come from just this?

You wanted to touch him, you wanted to be closer to him, but his grip on you was steadfast, only letting you move however he wanted you to.

“You smell afraid, omega,” he praised you, the tip of his nose brushing all the way up to you just under your ear, “Am I scaring you?”

“No!” you protested quickly, eyes widening with fear that you had just pushed him away, “I’m not – not of you, I promise!”

“Shh,” he calmed you, dark eyes looking at you so warmly, “I know the only person you’d ever want to kill is me, love”, he whispered against your neck, “You’d never hurt any of the children and I believe you.”

You hadn’t realised how high-strung you were until his words registered in your head. Paz believed you. He had never doubted you. Even if everything went horribly wrong now, he was the one person in your corner whom you could trust.

The knowledge that he believed you lifted a weight off your shoulders you had not quite realised you were carrying. But now that it was gone, you could feel the fear and panic of the last 24 hours crashing over you.

“Oh, ‘mega,” he breathed as your body started to shake with tears. Paz did not loosen his grip. He stepped even closer, his front completely pressed against yours until he was close enough that you could tuck your head into the crook of his neck.

His hold on your hands went away and seconds later, he had you wrapped up in his arms, holding you while you sobbed into his neck.

“I didn’t do it,” you whimpered, “And I – I don’t understand what else I need to do to get them to trust me. I – they’re kids, Paz! I’d never hurt the kids.”

“I know,” he rumbled, “Let it all out, love. You’d never hurt anyone, I know. We’re proving him wrong today, you’ll see.”

“I’m just so tired of it,” you admitted, feeling your chest calm down, “I’m so tired of having to prove myself and no one believing me.”

Paz started moving and you realised he was slowly swaying you back and forth. “I believe you.”

And in that moment, it was enough.

*

This time, when you were called to the throne room, you felt hopeful.

Paz was sitting back on his throne, dressed in more casual clothes, and you could feel your cheeks warm at the heat in his gaze.

“Omega,” he greeted you, his voice filled with fondness that made your heart clench, “I called you here to convene with the council before Roalm comes in.”

You looked up, realising he had spoken true. The only people here were the council members who had accompanied you on your trip and Paz.

“Do,” you swallowed and shifted your feet, “Do you want me to defend myself now?”

“I see no reason for you to defend yourself,” Dieko said, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “The children seemed to have fun and were quick to identify which berries were good and which ones weren’t.”

“And when they were unsure, they approached you or Maudii to consult,” another one added, “And received the correct answer. You did a good job at teaching them, m’lady, and I am sure I am not the only one who would support our foundlings to have more trips to our lands.”

It was one thing to know that you would not be in danger of execution from the council; it was another to actually be praised by them. You were so stunned, all you could do was look at him, trying to find words of gratitude.

“C’mere, omega,” Paz called and you turned around, “I want you here for this.”

His hands rested on his thick thighs and you hoped no one noticed how nervous his request made you. Sitting on his lap wasn’t that extraordinary for them. You had learned from Maudii that that was how previous leaders had held court in this clan.

For you, it felt oddly intimate.

“This is less fun than the last time we sat like this,” he joked quietly as he helped you settle on his lap. Your ears burned at the memory of how his fingers felt inside you. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Oh, hush,” you hissed and he chuckled, his big arm wrapping round your back until you sat sideways on him. It was so much easier to focus on him than on the rest of the room.

“Let me tease you, love,” he rumbled, his nose brushing over your jaw, “It’s my favourite part of the day.”

You were about to retort something very smart, you were sure of it, when the doors opened and you were faced with Roalm. He looked worse for wear than the first time you had seen him in this room but his presence still made you tense, your spine stiffening until Paz’s nose was on your neck again.

“Oh,” you breathed, pines and smoke filling your nostrils, “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome, love,” his mouth moved against your sensitive skin, “Anything to keep you calm and happy, hm?”

You ignore the flutter in your heart in favour of melting against him, fully relaxing against his chest and letting yourself be encompassed by his scent.

“M’lord Vizsla,” Roalm started, his voice wavering as his eyes darted between you and your husband and the guards surrounding him, “I am so –“

“Since you did not give my wife the benefit of speaking in her defence, I will return the favour,” Paz’s voice cut through the hall and you flinched in surprise. Where did all that anger come from?

Your hand settled on his chest and you could feel his heartbeat, strong and steady. But there was something sharp and acid tickling your nostrils and you swallowed. Paz wasn’t only angry. He was furious. And all of this on your behalf.

“Did you see my wife poisoning the children?”

“Uh … well, not exactly, but that doesn’t mean –“

“Did any of the children feel unwell?”

“No, but …”

Paz’s hand squeezed your hip gently and you heard his sharp inhale, breathing you in. “So, you mean to tell me that my wife has been trying to murder innocent lives without having seen anything, without having any proof and even after seeing how beloved she is by them?”

“I am so sorry,” Roalm whimpered, cowering before you. You knew he must be scared. Stars, you would be, too, if Paz were this furious with you. Still, you couldn’t find it in yourself to feel sorry for the man who had accused you of the most heinous crime.

“It’s too late for apologies,” Paz hissed, “You implied my wife deserved to be executed for her crimes. Do you think you deserve that same fate?”

Your head whipped around, seeking your husband’s gaze. You were angry, yes, and you were not ready to forgive him yet. But did you want him to die in your name? No. You didn’t want anyone to die because of this.

Paz met your gaze, his frown softening. “He’ll be unharmed, my love,” he whispered, quiet enough for only you to hear, “But he will regret the day he dared to put you in danger.”

The determination in his voice made your heart sing and you turned around just in time to see Paz motion for the guards. “A few days in a cell should give you enough time to think about the consequences of your actions,” he announced, “Now leave my sight.”

Roalm’s wailing lasted only for a few seconds before the heavy doors closed behind him and the guards and suddenly everything returned to its usual business. People filtered through the doors, talking in small groups and you could see a few of the guards leave while the rest took their posts by the entrances.

Everyone acted like nothing happened at all but you could not bring yourself to it.

“Can … Can I stay here for a while?” you asked, not trusting yourself to look at Paz to face his rejection, “Just for a bit?”

His response was immediate. His hands pulled you even tighter to him and you could feel him shift in his seat until your head could comfortably lie against his chest. The way your body relaxed into him was not lost on you.

“You can stay here however long you wish to,” his fingers gently circled your scent gland, “And you can return tomorrow, too, if you like.”

*

“I want you in my bed tonight.”

The announcement came after dinner when you both had retired to your rooms. You were sitting on your bed, trying to subtly arrange the many blankets into a nest, discreetly sneaking your dress in there as well. Only because it was soft, of course, and not because his scent still clung to it.

You squeaked at his appearance in your doorframe. Paz usually spent his evenings in the parlour, sitting by the fire and reading notes before going to bed in the bedroom that was meant for the two of you.

Ever since you had married, Paz had made it clear he wouldn’t force himself on you. But maybe after the excitement of the day, he had changed his mind? Maybe his protecting you was bound to some sort of expectation that you now had to fulfil?

The fear on your face must have been obvious because the grin he sent you made your knees weak. “Not for any marital duties,” he winked, “Though I’m not opposed to it if you decide you want to know what a knot feels like.”

Do not think about taking his knot. Do not think about what taking his knot would feel like. Do not think about how he would praise you for taking his knot.

“Why then?” you asked, hands folded in your lap as you avoided his gaze, “Why do you want me … with you?”

Silence followed and you prayed to the stars that he could not smell how wet you were for him.

“I need to know you are safe,” he said, finally, “I would sleep better when you are close by.”

You would never admit it but it was the first time someone had voiced genuine concern for your well-being. The thought of it made your heart ache. After all, you had lived your entire life trying to serve your family’s – your clan’s – best intentions and all it got you was their rejection and life in a covert that you had been taught was enemy territory.

It was easy, then, to follow him back to his bedroom and carefully settle on one side of the giant bed while Paz settled on the other.

Despite its size, it did not take long until you reached your hand to the side and found him under the blankets.

“You probably need to visit the foundlings more often after today,” you said, a smile on your lips as you remembered how they had used him as a playground, “they really enjoyed themselves.”

“And did you?”

You turned to the side, finding him already looking at you. There was something so gentle about seeing him in the dim light of the embers, the lines on his face all smoothed over, the thin sheet pulled up only to his waist. “I did, too,” you confirmed, feeling out of breath for no reason at all, as you looked over his broad chest, “Although the thing you said today …”

“Which one?” he enquired, his hand reaching out to pull you closer. A warm feeling started in your chest when you cuddled up against him, his large hand swooping up and down your back, “I say many things when the day is long.”

You smiled. “You said, uh, you said that you know the only person I’d want to kill in the covert is you,” you recalled, rubbing your feet together for warmth, “Do you really think that?”

“Is it not true?”

The casualness with which he said it broke your heart. Did he really think you thought so little of him? Had the past few months not affected him at all, so he thought they hadn’t affected you either?

“I wouldn’t want to kill you,” you said firmly, needing him to hear you. “Maybe there was a time when the thought brought me comfort but it’s been a long time since then. I … feel comfortable here. With you and the foundlings and Kroks and Maudii.”

Hu hummed in acknowledgement and in a matter of seconds, you went from feeling like you needed to share your feelings to feeling like you had overshared once again. Paz may not be interested in you in that way … Were you even interested in him in that way?

The answer to that was clear.

“Can I scent you?”

“Yes.”

He rolled you around so he was on top of you, his eyes serious. Just like in the forest, his hand found your wrists, pinning them into the soft mattress. Your foreheads rested against one another and your breaths mingled-

His eyes searched for something and you wondered what it was, wondered if you could give it to him.

“I need you to know, little wife,” he murmured, his thumb brushing steadily over the scent glands on your wrists, “Everything I do these days is so you feel safe and comfortable. If I can’t offer you that,” you watched his throat bob, “Then maybe I do deserve to killed by you.”

Your brows furrowed in protest. Trying to free your hands was futile because his grip was so tight, so you did the only thing you could. You lifted your face up, right to his jaw and started scenting him. The shudder that went through his body made you smile and you continued, brushing your nose to the point right behind his ear.

His entire weight was resting on you now, making moving impossible but you didn’t care. You didn’t want to move anyway. You wanted to stay here and breathe him in – the familiar scent of pines and smoke making you feel at ease.

“I am right where I want to be,” you admitted into the quiet of the night, your eyes drooping closed, “And I want to be here with you, alpha.”

[frangipani-wanderlust]

Have you ever actually been to Indonesia? IDK if you have, but you seem extremely American to me. And I say this because it's a weird example to pick when talking to me since I lived in Indonesia growing up. But I didn't live on rich-people Java. Or tourist Bali. I lived on the other side of the country in Papua, and I've been out to the actual, proper jungle. I've met people who were scared of me because I was white. And I know, through the skin because I lived it, that all cultures have good and bad points. And that you can't rewrite another culture's morality, and it'd be weird to try, but it's actually okay to say the bad points are bad so long as you are willing to recognize bad points in your own culture. I'm familiar with Asia's major religions and beliefs because I actually interacted with people who believed in them and actually, most Asians do in fact believe in souls. They just don't use the English word for it because that wouldn't make sense in non-English-speaking countries.

As it turns out, humans are humans wherever you go and Asians aren't really so different from Americans. We're all just people. I learned to be multi-cultural through the skin growing up and discovered that it's really just being a normal human and taking other people as they come.

I don't feel satisfied that you've really explained why or how you're making a distinction between faithful/not-faithful here, so I'm not going to address that part. I feel like we wouldn't even be talking about the same things on that score. Instead I will go back to addressing what you said and doing so via the original direct quote I picked out.

we often see christian authority as a purely human problem. it's not softened by the possibility that maybe scripture has it right. we don't see holding onto that faith as a virtue.

Regardless of whether you, standing where you are right now and being who you currently are in this moment and having all the changeable traits you currently do (immutable traits are not under discussion here) would personally like at this particular moment in time all the fallout of the Bible being true, that is precisely what you posit in these three sentences. The possibility that Scripture has it right.

If that is so, if the Bible really does have it right, the logical consequence is that God as He is described in the Bible is, in fact, the only source of good and joy in the universe. There isn't even a "second best" option, it's God or nothing. In such a scenario, there's no possible choice but two: give over to God or intentionally choose misery.

If you are in a situation where Scripture has it right, it isn't only virtuous to become a follower of God, it's also the only way to be happy because everything else becomes a lie on some level.

And maybe that's where these supposed critiques of Christianity break down and why they're boring, perhaps? Because when you say, "Okay, sure the Bible is true and God is real and Jesus died for your sins and the cross is the only way to Heaven" but then also turn around and say, "But also, all of that is miserable and Heaven is bad" you've reached a logical impossibility. If the Bible is true, it's impossible for that to be miserable. Yes, the consequence to you will be that you have to give up some aspects of your life now that will be very hard to surrender, but that's true for everyone. And no, it isn't more true or more singularly true for "queer" people than it is for anyone else. God always demands that we die to ourselves so that we can live for Him. That demand is made of every person who follows God and it's always costly and it always hurts. But, much the same way that exercise is temporarily painful but results in deeper and more lasting health and strength, following God is temporarily painful but results in deeper and more lasting peace and happiness. To start from the premise of "Okay the Bible is true" and then go "but I reject it anyway" is the same thing as saying, "okay germ theory is true" and then saying, "but I'm going to get a terminal disease on purpose." In that story, the character is just carrying the Idiot Ball around the whole time and that isn't very entertaining.

@imissthembutitwasntadisaster, what do you think for this as a possible underlying explanation for what makes this a boring trope?

Sometimes I'm not even mad at something cause it's blasphemous I'm mad cause it's boring

[writersglockrambles]

The theme of Sacrifice in Star Wars: Andor.

Just a forewarning, this could get long.

Throughout both Andor and the greater Star Wars narrative: Sacrifice has been one of the major, if not biggest theme encompassing the Star Wars universe - as a whole.

which brings me to the main subject of this post: Tay Kolma. The childhood friend of Mon Mothma and possible pursuer of her affection during their childhood years. In regards to sacfrice, Tay seems to be a character that falls short of truly inhabiting what it means to sacrifice. In their first meeting in years, Tay says to Mon:

"Like I said, we've both changed. I've done more than grow weary of the Empire. I'm afraid you'd find my politics a bit strong for your taste."

Tay in this scene is sharing with Mon, a personal confession. In a way he's already sacrificing a part of himself. Mon could've turned around and informed ISB of his anti imperial apprehensions. But she doesn't. Mon in turn, returns her own sacrifice by revealing that she also harbours those feelings, though in her own admission, they're much stronger.

"Perhaps you find my politics a bit strong for your taste?"

Mon see's Tay as a fellow companion in her ideals for the greater galaxy. They both share anti imperial sentiment. But the problem between them is this: What are you willing to sacrifice to achieve your goal?

I think its clear to see that though Tay outwardly dislikes the Empire, he's not willing to truly sacrifice what he holds dear to attain the greater goal of dismantling it.

I do feel that both characters made a mistake here. Tay, because Mon's politics really were too strong for his taste, and that though he spoke of the issues regarding the regime, he was never truly capable or ready to sacrifice his personal comforts.

Mon on the other hand, i feel was too willing to find a way out, she's ready to make those big sacrifices but she chose the wrong person to assist her in that greater goal.

Which brings me to Lieda and Stekan's wedding. To make a long story short, Tay's investments have endured financial impacts, impacts that he isn't willing to shoulder for the sake of the greater goal. I feel that the scene where he asks Mon for monetary compensation is very revealing of his character. His sacrifices are surface level, his opinions on the Empire, are surface level. Once things got too real for him, he immediately wanted financial support.

To contrast this with Mon. Mon is someone who will sacrifice everything for the Rebellion, even her own daughter. She's so entrenched in the act of sacrifice that when it comes to betraying her ideals and values, she willing to do it.

So I wanted to use this a starting off point to explore the dichotomy between what those in the Rebellion sacrifice and what those in the Empire will sacrifice.

Within the rebellion, there are a vast menagerie of characters who sacrifice so much of themselves for the cause. Luthen sacrifices his own mind. Klaya sacrifices her personal safety to assist Luthen. Saw sacrifices living a life of comfort and warmth to lead his partisans. Even Cinta and Vel have to sacrifice their relationship, their love for one another - for the Rebellion.

Now when we switch our gaze to the imperials and the Empire. There is no personal sacrifice. I'll be using Krennic as my example for this: When delivering his presentation to the selected imperials, there is no personal sacrifice on his part. Instead its the Ghormans. A peaceful people who just wish to be left alone. He wants them to sacrifice everything: their homes, their history, their culture - their planet.

Even with the other imperials in attendance, he holds no personal claim to protect, or shield them if they fail, in their assigned tasks. He even states that if one of them breaches security protocol; they're on their own.

The Rebellion is built on hope and sacrifice.

The Empire is built on the blood and sweat of those who were sacrificed in order to keep the imperial war machines cogs turning.

[screechingdefendorpuppy-blog]

Title in progress....

Abby Anderson X Reader. Hurt/Comfort, you and Abby have been together since before her fathers murder. During the years you have watched as the girl you love let herself be consumed by the need to kill Joel Miller. This story will follow the games plot line. With the addition of reader and her refusal to join Abby and the others to Jackson. Plus the subsequent result of Abby's actions.

"I'm not going."

She freezes midway of packing her backpack. You see the tensing muscles of her shoulders. You had been dreading this conversation with her. Ever since that faithful day in the hospital. The massacre caused by one man, a monster.

The group fractured and lost on what the future would hold. An impossible journey to heal what had been broken. Her unwillingness to do so, to let go, to forget her father's killer, to move on. Now with a promising lead, she is getting ready for her hunt. A hunt you are unwilling to participate in.

She slowly turns to face you, her face unreadable. " What?" she asks. A single word, a simple question yet it strikes you to the core with fear and trepidation. You clear your throat and you try to stand taller and firm.

"I'm not joining you guys to Jackson." you answer. Seeing the confusion and anger in her eyes saddens you, but you had made your choice a while ago and you will not cave.

"I thought you wanted him dead like the rest of us."

"I did, but things have changed."

"How!? What could possibly have changed you stance in this." she asks her voice louder with a hint of disappointment.

"To be honest, everything has changed. Our life's, my purpose, my wants, and you." you tell her.

"Me?" she asks defensively.

"Yes Abby, you. This need for revenge has changed you the most. The anger you carried for this man has consumed you. I know he -"

"Don't.. Don't you fucking dare." she interrupts.

You look in her eyes as you slowly reduce the distance between you. "I know it's hard. To let go and move on." you reach for her hand with yours "But just because you move on doesn't mean you forget your loved ones. It means you allow yourself to live and to enjoy what you have. To love those with you freely and wholeheartedly."

You see her emotions battle behind her eyes. You had gone through thick and thin throughout the years. Every situation bringing you both closer together, making your love grow and grow. You don't doubt her love for you. It does scare you though that her hate for Joel Miller will over power her love for you.

After a bit of silence you watch as she shakes her head and pulls away from you. "After everything" she pauses "You were the last person I thought that would back out of this." A huff leaves her lips, she turns and finishes packing.

You stand still, your heart beating rapidly. Knowing that no matter what you say will stop her. It breaks you on the inside. She finally pulls her pack on to her shoulders. Abby turns towards the door to exit. Not sparing a glance to you, opening the door she stops after a moment she speaks.

"We're Done.."

The tone in her voice tells you that the words hurt her just as much it hurts you. With that she leaves, slowly closing the door behind her. Once the click of the door closing hits your ears.

Reality sinks in, and a sob falls out of your lips.

Notes: Have had this story line in my mind for a while. Mostly my go to bedtime fantasy before I knock out. but thought I would share it here for my fellow Abby lovers. Let me know if ya'll would like to read more.

[haelynzz]

what are we? and how would it explain shifting (a theory).

i don’t know if i should call this a theory, it’s just something i want to share with you guys. also i think soul = consciousness.

anyways, earlier this evening, i had an interesting conversation with my dad. i’d just come back from school, still in my uniform, and sat down to gossip about my teachers with my parents lmao, i just hate my teachers and need to make fun of them all the time lol. so the conversation led to death somehow (it’s a bit sad, i don’t think i should mention it).

anyways, my dad said, “why can’t we just die momentarily to know what happens?” and i was like—how has no one come back to tell us? just my usual childish questions going on and on.

so i told him: we aren’t our body, our thoughts, or our emotions and feelings. when we ‘die,’ our body dies—not ‘us.’ we can’t just be a body; we must be something else, like a soul or consciousness, we are our soul, right? so it’s our soul leaving. (i was speaking theoretically, of course.)

then he said: “think of a flower. to grow, you plant a seed in soil, water it, let sunlight reach it, and give it oxygen. when it dies, all the energy it absorbed from the soil, air, water, and light returns to the soil, air, water, and light. right?”

i was about to mention how we may be stardust, but he continued: “our bodies must work the same way. we need food (from the earth), water, light, and oxygen to grow. when we die, the same thing that happens to the flower happens to us.”

that brought us back to the law of energy conservation: “energy is neither created nor destroyed. when people use energy, it doesn’t disappear—it just changes form.”

but honestly, i don’t really care about the body/vessel. what matters to me is the soul— consciousness or whatever we truly are, so i asked him: “but what about us? not our body—us?”

he thought for a while, i know i ask him questions like he knows everything lmao, but he said: “we can live on earth but not neptune because earth has what we need. maybe, when your body stops being a good vessel for life, your soul just… leaves and finds somewhere better?” that really got me.

then i asked: “what if we leave without death? then we could go wherever we want without dying.” of course, he said it must be possible—and that’s when i got excited and said, “shifting” and began yapping about the theory of infinite realities and yadayadayada.

but the point here is, according to this theory my dad casually spun out… shifting is natural and according to that, we are immortal, not our body, but our soul or consciousness.

let me know your thoughts, anyways this is just a theory, i am not claiming they’re facts, for anyone who has different beliefs.

[twilightsumu]

Episode #3: The Sun Always Shines on T.V | tlou k. nanami au

Summary: The Nanamis’ and Yuji are falling into familial bliss - a game is played where Yuji and Nanami realize they both hope for the same thing. Later on when a shocking discovery rocks Nanami’s core, he realizes that their hope may just be feasible, but at the expense of Yuji and of his wife’s growing love for the young boy. 

Genre/Warnings: tlou au, post-apocalyptic setting, discussions of infection and virus outbreaks, emotional distress (guilt, fear, anger, grief), heavy themes of loss and survival, death, violence, some suggestive act goes on (mdni), talks of pregnancy, some cursing, depictions of violence done on a child, talks of blood, talks of vomiting. 

Director’s Note: What a chapter! This chapter was a lot and I fear that every chapter after is going to BE A LOT. I just love these little characters so much. Thank you for reading - your comments, likes, and reblogs mean so much to me. Can you tell that I work with children, haha? I wanted to make sure Yuji’s child-like wonder spoke to you through these words. 

Keep an eye out for a possible extra :)

Word Count: 9.1K+

The light coming in from the windows behind them almost makes them look ethereal. Soft. The orangery hues of the sunset highlights the boy’s pink hair, creating our own personalized sunset in the living room of our shabby village offered apartment. The halo of light contrasting with the glow of laughter emitting from her eyes. 

She’s sitting across from me at the dining table, something I’m still not completely used to. I miss the slight brush of our arms whenever it was just us two and I was passing the salt over. Or the way I could just bring her chair closer if I felt she was too far, she usually wasn’t. Yuji is sitting to the right of her. Both of them laughing at something that happened during their day - a shared memory they’re now allowing me to join. A little sliver of their own world. 

This is the twenty-third dinner with Yuji. There are remnants of a world that is so loud compared to our world, just for us two. It is splattered around our apartment; an extra toothbrush in the bathroom (and toothpaste all over the sink after he’s done), children's books and graphic novels scattered around the library table, and paint colors - really just smears of dirt and water - cover ripped out coloring pages on our beaten-up fridge. He never did leave. And watching them from then to now, I don’t believe she would’ve let him. And me, I’ve always had trouble saying no to her.

No one questioned the new addition to our home. No one seemed to care. This pink haired boy and his litter of questions behind him were able to fit in. No lingering glances. No memories dragged back to the failing south side fence. Just him, as my wife’s shadow. 

“Mr. Nanami?” Two pairs of eyes on me, one pair that I could get lost in for the rest of my life and another pair that questions me and I question back. 

“Yuji?” I questioned back. 

“Me and Mrs. Nan-,” 

“Mrs. Nanami and I,” she corrects him. Her voice is soft and calming. 

“Right, Mrs. Nanami and I came up with a game.” Yuji tries to hide the embarrassment from his voice from getting corrected - the tint of pink on his cheeks didn’t get the memo. “Actually, Mrs. Nanami came up with it and I liked it.” 

“It’s okay, Yuji!” She smiles. “You could take credit. I don’t think I would’ve thought of the game without you.” Yuji smiles back at her, big and bright. I swallow down that little bout of jealousy that crawls at the back of my throat when I realize just how much of a world they created. Just for them, just theirs. My invitation somehow got lost in the mail. 

“What’s the game?”

“I haven’t thought of a name yet,” she grins and my heart lunges. I feel a grin creeping onto my face too. “…but basically every night at dinner, we’ll go around and everyone will tell us something good and bad that happened during their day. And-“ 

“Don’t we do that now? When we ask how everyone’s day was?” I wondered.

“Mr. Nanami, there’s more!” Yuji bellows, earning a chuckle from my wife. Her hand reaches out to his arm that wants to excitedly pump into the air. Something I’ve noticed he does often. 

“I’m not done, Ken,” she hums. 

“Sorry, love.” I mumble, feeling the tips of my ears getting warm. 

“Okay, so we’ll tell everyone something good and bad that happened during our days. And then we’ll finish it off with a hope that we have. Make your hope be as silly - or in your case,” she pauses and points at me, the sunlight catching the gold of her wedding ring perfectly, “as serious as you want it to be.” 

I roll my eyes at her dig, hiding the chuckle that wants to escape. 

“High, low, hopeful.” Yuji hums, more to himself.

“High, low, hope,” I drawl. 

Yuji’s wide eyes meet mine, and for the first time since he came here, I see the same expression in his gaze that I see in my wife’s.

He nods so hard I’m afraid he’s going to give himself a headache before we even start the game. But I can’t stop the smile spreading on my face - Yuji’s widens as mine grows.

“Perfect name, boys!” She yelps, her hand reaching to give his pink hair a ruffle. Her eyes find mine, the most beautiful smile etched on her lips. “I’ll go first!” 

“Can I go last?”

“You’re okay going after me, Kenny?” She nods to Yuji before looking at me for my answer.

“Fine with me.” 

“My high would be…” There’s a sweet smile on her face, like she’s reminiscing on a beautiful day. “That Ken did not wake me up before I was supposed to be up.”

A laugh escapes my throat so abruptly that it surprises me, and she laughs too. Our laughs weave together like a basket of our love. I think back on the petty arguments we used to have whenever I couldn’t resist waking her before I left for work. Just to give her one more kiss. Just to see one more smile.

After we calm down, I catch Yuji staring at us. His chin rests in his (my) hoodie-covered hands, his eyes flitting between my wife next to him and me on the opposite side of the table, like he’s studying our movements, trying to learn our rhythm so he can join in on the jokes from our life. The way I catch myself doing with theirs.

“My low would probably have to be that I finished my favorite book earlier,” she hums. I remember seeing A Grief Observed tucked on her side of the shelf.

“For the hundredth time,” I tease. From the corner of my eye, I catch Yuji watching the exchange - his gaze moving from the side of her face to the front of mine.

“It’s a good book!” she shrugs.

“Anyways, I am hoping that, with some special force in the universe, my beautiful, sweet, kind husband might possibly smuggle more chocolate for our new friend and me.” She wiggles her eyebrows and nudges Yuji’s side with her elbow, making him giggle. “Your turn, Mr. Kento Nanami,” she declares, bowing her head in faux regality.

“I’ll see what I can do, my lady,” I play along, sending her a wink.

“My high today would be that I didn’t trip on Yuji’s shoes when I walked in.” I shoot a fake stern look his way, and the laugh he lets out vibrates the empty dishes on the table.

“I’ve been trying my best, Mr. Nanami,” he says bashfully, laughter still in his voice.

“It’s okay. I’ve learned to jump over them when you forget.” I make sure to send him a smile.

“Thank goodness,” my wife mutters, rolling her eyes. “Yuji, if this old man trips on your shoes again, he may just break his hip.” She throws her hands up dramatically while Yuji throws his head back in stomach-aching laughter.

I almost wish I had a camera to capture this. Proof of their tiny world, with me still lingering at the edges.

“My low would be my wife calling me an old man.”

“Are you like, super old?” Yuji asks genuinely, and now it’s my wife who’s doubled over in laughter.

I roll my eyes but can’t help the smile tugging at my mouth.

“I’m not old,” I huff. “She’s only a couple of months younger. So if I’m old, then so is she.”

She sticks her tongue out at me.

“Hope! Chop chop, Ken!”

“My hope would be…” I debate going the playful route. But then the weight of work climbs up my spine and settles there. This always happens, the loud reminder in my bones that we aren’t living in regular times. “For a cure to be found.”

There’s a stillness in the air. One I immediately regret bringing in.

“Mr. Nanami?” Yuji’s voice is small and uncertain. A strange tightness tugs in my chest. His voice is child-like, but something in it feels older than it should. “What do you need for a…” he looks up at the ceiling. I glance at my wife - her smile has turned confused. “...a cure?”

“We don’t know,” I murmured. His eyes are everywhere but our faces. “I don’t think we’ll know until we meet people who can fight the infection on their own.”

“What does tha-”

“Yuji,” my wife interrupts, her voice soft but firm. “Why don’t you do your high, low, and hope? We don’t need to get into a science talk at the table.”

She sends me a look, and I rub my hands down my thighs.

“My high is that I found a copy of a book I used to read all the time before I lost it!” Yuji’s voice immediately bounces back to his usual tone - light and full of wonder.

“How fun!” she exclaims, her excitement mirroring his.

“My low is that the last page is missing and I don’t remember how it goes,” he pouts.

“What book?” I ask.

“Oh, The Places You’ll Go.”

“Oh,” my wife shifts in her seat like she’s preparing to perform.

“‘Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way.’”

We both watch her in awe. Yuji smiles softly, and I feel one spreading across my own face.

“What?” she asks bashfully, her eyes bouncing from Yuji to me. “It’s a great book,” she mumbles, shoulders lifted in a shy shrug.

“We’ve got a librarian in the house,” I say to Yuji.

“Shut up,” she rolls her eyes. “Your hope, Yuji?”

“My hope…” Yuji looks down at the hoodie sleeves pooled around his small hands. “For a cure to be found.”

His eyes meet mine, and in that tiny shift, I feel it - that click. Like we’ve built our own little world now, too.

-

Journal Entry #456

Takuma Ino, average built, dark hair, friend, lower level lab assistant 

On a hunt, an infected was crawling in the long weeds - near the south side entrance. Ino didn't notice - no one else on the hunt didn't either.

Ino was bit near his left ankle, 

Infected was neutralized on the spot by Suguru Geto

Ino was taken immediately back to the lab where he is now being watched for signs of infection. 

No other reaction besides being afraid. 

Has asked if I could be the one to ‘finish’ him off when the infection overtakes him

1-6 Hours Since Bite:

Regular breathing patterns 

Fear - not talking much

Bloodshot eyes (could be because lighting - super bright)

Ino was offered food (rice, toast, tea, and fruit - strawberries) 

He does not have an appetite. 

Movements are regular, he is able to walk around the closed off room. No ultra quick movements happening

Also aware of bite, keeps looking at the bitten area

Listens to directions - able to place fingers where we tell him (nose, cheeks, stomach) 

Slight shoulder tremble (the left) - I believe it is because of fear. 

The area around the bite hasn't shown any signs of swelling, only the area where contact was met. 

No sign of tiredness

8-12 Hours Since Bite:

Eyes are even more bloodshot.

Ino has no desire to eat nor drink water. 

Trembling in his left shoulder is more persistent, harder. Right shoulder has started trembling as well. (Not from fear)

Hands are fidgety, left hand is rubbing the right hard - his fingers getting caught together because of how quickly he's rubbing them together. 

Area near the left ankle (bitten area) is red, braised, and slightly oozing a yellow substance. 

Mood has drastically changed - no longer fearful. Angry and short. 

Sweating profusely 

Movements around the room are fast, without any rhythm to them.  

Still able to communicate - knows who is talking to him and what we are talking about 

Still could follow directions given to him, however it is done sloppily

Has not slept yet

14-20 Hours Since Bite:

The swelling of the bite has spread, already reaching up to the middle of his calf. (Puss is a fragrant yellow, the bite area is a maroon red, like dried blood)

Ino still has not ate - no interest whatsoever. He was offered more toast, tea, strawberries, and chocolate. 

Still sweating profusely 

Super disoriented 

Suguru Geto entered the room to check vitals - Ino shielded himself away. Retracting into the corner. 

Geto was not allowed to get the vitals 

No sleeping yet

24-30 Hours Since Bite:

He has started slightly humming - to no rhythm just a low hum coming from the back of his throat

When asked about humming - he isn’t aware of it. However, he does not stop when we question it

Eyes are erratically moving - eyes quickly move from in side of the room to the other before narrowing down on one spot before quickly averting to something else

Communication has ceased - he understands what we are saying and would comply but he isn’t talking back. 

Hasn’t said a world since the 25th hour mark. 

Will only comply with things that Kento Nanami (me) says through the microphones. 

Does not react to other lab assistants

Sight of food enraged him - was offered the same food as before and furiously threw to the side

Skin had taken on a yellow/jaundice coloring. 

Lips are pale 

Eyes are cloudy and pupils are overblown - and his eyes are still bloodshot 

Hands can’t stay still, pulling at his hair, running along his legs, arms, anything he could touch on his body.  

48 Hours Since Bite: 

Ino Subject is no longer a reliable source of data

Subject has stopped responding to any stimuli.

The hum has gotten louder - like a swarm of bees erupting from his chest 

Subject’s entire left leg has swelled, yellow puss is leaking from pores, thick crimson veins are scattered from the bite up to his groin. 

Very sensitive to sound - screeches or bare teeth when a sound passes into his threshold. (Sounds as quiet as whispers from lab assistants passing by subjects room)

At any slight movement or sound - subject is ready to attack (pounces on walls, the door, the humming intensifies)

No form of life in eyes - very clouded, vacant look. 

Subject was neutralized by me and buried past the South Gate entrance. 

-

Ino’s hat is in my back pocket, a revolver in the waistband of my jeans, my journal tucked in my arms, and tiredness rattling the inside of my bones.

My wife is walking next to me, our hands together - mine holding on a little tighter. Yuji is a few beats ahead of us, kicking rocks as he walks. Every couple of steps, he steps into a light cloud of dust.

The sun is setting. The usual orangey skies are grayish, storm clouds rolling in and making the sky look almost ominous. Like it’s going to swallow us whole and not let us out. A few shops on the south side of the village are still open - their lights elongating our shadows, lighting up the path to the gray sky.

I’m so deep in thought that I don’t even notice we’re steps away from the gate. It looks even more shoddy in the nightfall - the fence around it is misshapen, and on the left, I can make out the little opening where Yuji must’ve been sneaking in. An opening so small to my frame, I can’t imagine how he maneuvered through without causing a ruckus… or even getting hurt in the process.

Help yourself help others, is scribbled on the failing fence. I almost want to scoff out loud now when reading the motto that is forced down our throats. I quickly avert my eyes back to Yuji’s opening. 

Since the lab assistants and I do regular patrols around this area beyond the gate, I assume that’s why it’s not as well maintained as the north side. Still, three days ago being a prime example - we’ve seen an influx of straggler-type infected laying low here. I’m surprised Yuji made it out on his own.

“You okay?” she asks, head tilted up to meet my face. Her hand is so warm, so soft in mine. It makes me forget about the three days at the lab. It almost makes me forget about losing a friend - no, a coworker.

I shrug, feeling more tired than anything. I reach in my back pocket, and the feeling of Ino’s hat makes my chest hurt a little. The sun is almost fully down now, the moonlight peeking through the storm clouds. If I train my ears, I can hear the low rumble of thunder rolling in.

“Mrs. Nanami!” Yuji yells, waving his hand in the air to get her attention. He’s standing a little ways away from us, the graying sky behind him clashing with his yellow hoodie, wide bright brown eyes, and pink hair. A happy sunrise melting into a storm-ridden night.

“Is it okay if I check this out?” He throws his thumb behind him, pointing to logs piled up against the leaning fence. Logs that are supposed to be used to reinforce this side.

The pile is stacked hazardously -  logs balanced on top of each other, basically making a narrow alley between the stack and the fence it leans against. Yuji looks so small standing next to it. The logs go up at least seven feet high. It looks daunting during the day, and in the graying sky it looks even more so. 

Yuji is bouncing on the balls of his feet, waiting for the okay to run off. His hands are fidgeting near his pockets and that usual boyish grin smeared across his face. 

“What is so interesting about a pile of sticks?” I whisper to her.

“I don’t have an answer for you,” she says, a light laugh leaving her lips. Her eyes are on Yuji, so I could only see the side of her face. The light breeze twirling her hair around her ear, shielding her eyes away from me even more. “He finds joy and playfulness in everything,” she shrugs, a content smile tugging at her mouth. “Or he’s about to climb and jump off of them and possibly break his leg or something. I don’t know.” A gust of wind brushes past us, carrying the concern laced in her voice around us.

“Sure, Yuji!” she nods, and Yuji is already turning to head over. “Just make sure you tie your shoes!” she yells after him. 

With that, Yuji runs off. Puffs of dust trailing behind him as he kicks off and heads to a makeshift playground that is most definitely going to be the creator of broken bones. 

She sighs next to me, a wistful sigh leaving her mouth. She quickly averts her eyes from the running boy and looks at me. Her eyes remorseful and the grip on my hand a little tighter. 

“You never answered if you were okay or not?” 

“I shrugged. Isn’t that an answer,” I answer, hating the tone that I am using with her. 

“No, that isn’t an actual answer, smart ass,” she huffs, rolling her eyes towards the evening sky. There isn’t any annoyance evident in her actions. 

“I’ll be okay, I guess,” I reply, watching her watch me - as if she's looking for another answer I know only she could coax out of me. “I’m just tired,” I finished, averting my eyes to the employee entrance. Where Ino and I last walked together, just a couple of days ago. 

“Physically or emotionally?” 

“Both,” her thumb rubs my knuckles. “I’m getting tired of watching people get taken by this…” I stop and just look ahead at the gravesite I’m about to walk through to get to Ino’s plot. 

“Want me to go with you?” 

“No, it’s alright,” I take my hand out of hers, reaching for the hat in the back pocket and shivering at the cold revolver pressing into my back. “I don’t want to smuggle you in,” I try to joke, earning a very stern look and another eye roll, one that has annoyance etched into it. “Also, one of us should be watching Yuji on that death trap.” I point my thumb to the log playground where we see Yuji trying to climb on the structure. 

“I’m pretty sure that boy could live through anything,” she laughs, a real one. Not one being masked with concern or the weight of my feelings, or the scary gray sky that wants to swallow us. A laugh like the days before there were infected crawling around, before we had to squeeze into this shabby apartment, or before that pink hair kid eased his way into our homes and her heart. When it was just us. 

“I’ll be here, even if you don’t need me,” she smiles, her left hand squeezing my shoulder as I start my walk out the safety of her laugh and deeper into the graying sky. 

“You know I’ll always need you.” 

“I know,” she says to my back, and I feel the warmth of this little interaction fighting with the warmth of Ino’s hat. 

As soon as I walk out of the gate, a light rain starts and I try to speed walk to Ino’s recently dug up grave. His is actually not that far from the entrance I am walking through, but with the heaviness of the day and the sludge on the ground below me, the walk is longer than I anticipated. 

There is a sort of peaceful eeriness weaving through the air. It is quiet, dark, and the light raindrops are starting to feel nice on my clammy skin. But at the same time, the quiet was that type that took hold of your bones and held you down, with a promise that something is going to happen. The quiet that keeps your head on a swivel because you're not sure what is going to catch you in its grasp. 

I make it to the unnamed plot - the one I dug up alone and the one where I had to set Ino’s infected riddled body into earlier this morning. I am not completely sure what to do here or why I even decided to come to his plot. I have seen multiple people be taken from this infection, I am aware that there are no words to be had before and after the ordeal. It happens and then they're gone. 

I am squatting right by the plot, Ino’s hat now in my hands and my journal laying by my feet. I do not know what to say, or do, or even think. Again, I am not sure why I am here. 

I place his hat on the plot, knowing by tomorrow, the wind might just flitter it away with his dreams and inspirations as well. 

“I’m sorry,” I say to the air, hoping that wherever Ino is, he knows how sorry I am. 

I stay there for a minute, a feeling of sorrow that I know we'll never escape filling my chest. 

Right before I hear it, there is stillness in the air. A bird flying by and giving a calling cry to warn others of the storm brewing. And then a scream, so bone chilling, I freeze for a second. Then, I hear it again and I register that it is my wife's voice. A scream I have never heard, from her.

My blood runs cold and I run as fast I could to her. 

I’m met with a bleeding Yuji, clutching his left arm. His eyes were so wide, even in the dimming evening sky I could make out his brown orbs. My wife is a few feet away from him, her back to me but I catch the fear that's radiating through her shivering body.

Coming out of that little alleyway is an infected - the person could not have been older than Yuji. In torn clothing, a purple graphic tee with a cartoon character I have no idea is, ripped up blue jeans and no shoes. Their matted hair is separated in two pigtails, obviously telling me someone cared enough to have their hair done. The infected is moving so slowly, like a slug on a very wet branch. Their hand grabbing into the earth and pulling their limp legs behind them as they crawl towards the three of us. A slight tremble in their movement, as if it hurts them to move at all. 

Their yellowish eyes are locked on Yuji, who is jumping away and still clutching his arm. The one that's bleeding, the left sleeve of his hoodie ripped. The infected’s face is riddled with grime and dried blood I would assume. Their protruding veins make the grime stand out even more. Their face in a permanent scowl, as if they are blaming us for the way they are. As if there is something we could do. 

The scene freezes me in place. I feel every ounce of blood drain into the puddle at my feet.  The infected was laying low, possibly even trying to find shelter - just like what Yuji did for three months before she smuggled him in. I don’t give much thought on how my heart sank, imagining this could have been Yuji’s fate instead. 

Yuji must have been caught off guard - bitten before he could even jump out of the way. The alleyway between the logs and the fence is a perfect breeding place for scary things to be hiding in the shadows. 

In one quick, but devastating movement, just as thunder rang out and shook the ground below us. I took out my revolver and shot the infected, talking them out of their misery but filling the air with more. A yelp rings out of Yuji, as his eyes filter down to the dead infected and his grip on his left arm tightens. I move my revolver to point at the pink haired boy. 

“Kento. Yuji needs help,” I ignore her. The duty of knowing what I have to do weighs so heavy on my shoulders, I feel like I'm about to be dragged down to hell. She starts to inch closer to him, her arms out. Like a mother to their child that just scraped their knee. 

“Get behind me,” I rush out, almost reaching out to drag her back. Her movement is quick but hesitant. She turns to me, fear in her eyes and she softly shuffles behind me. I feel her tug at my jacket. 

Yuji is watching us, like he does at the dinner table. His eyes wide and his feet shuffling from side to side. Whenever our eyes catch each other's, he skips the revolver being pointed to him and stares at me, as if he's trying to worm himself into my brain to see what I'm thinking. I feel sick, and I hope he can pick up on that. 

“We could help him,” she whispers. And at this moment, I realized I haven't heard a word come out of Yuji’s mouth. It makes me uncomfortable thinking about this boy who talks through everything being as quiet as the night sky. The gun feels wrong being pointed at him.

For the first time ever I don't want to use it - even if it's to protect her. 

“And how will we do that?” I say, my eyes are not leaving Yuji’s. The heavy rain is making the blood wash off him. 

“How are you feeling?” I call out to him. I ignore how stupid this all is, I know how he is feeling. I know what happens next. 

“I promise I’m okay!” He yells, he moves his hands above his ears. His wide eyes are bouncing from the revolver, my wife, and I. It's as if right at this moment, he understood the implication for what was about to happen. “This has happened before and I was okay,” he rushes out. 

Everything inside me slams to a stop. As if a wire has snapped in my chest. As if the earth, the rain, the boy - none of it makes sense anymore. 

“What do you mean this happened before?” I say, trying to steady my voice. I feel bile making its way up my throat. 

“With my Grandpa,” his voice is lower, his eyes quickly looking at his shoes, “I got bit before, when I was with him.”

“You knew about this?” I steady my voice, briefly glancing at my wife. She’s standing so still, I could mistake her as one of the logs from the death trap behind him. 

I do not know how to take this statement. Is he lying to get out of me having to kill him?

“No,” she whispers, finally moving by shaking her head gently. A huge raindrop falls on my glasses frame and the moment looks distorted before the drop slides down. “Yuji, what do you mea-“

“I could show you the other bite mark,” he whispers, his eyes filled with guilt rather than fear. “Is it okay if I move to show you?” His eyes are staring back into mine, as if this is the little world we created but instead of laughs and painting like the one he created with my wife - ours is overflowing with fear, questions, and the fact that neither of us would ever truly know the other. It brings me back to that little moment we had at the dinner table during our game. We thought we understood each other but here we are - questioning the intentions of the other. 

At this very moment, it’s as if she didn’t speak. As if we can’t both see her trembling, as if I can’t feel her breathe. It’s just our world - the pink haired alien and I. A world I never asked to be apart. One that was thrust into my home and etched its way into every little thing that I do. 

I don’t know what to do at this moment. The revolver feels heavy and my hands are so sweaty I think it’s about to slip out of my hand anyway. The rain is picking up and moving with the cold sweat dripping from my body. The warmth of Ino’s hat and my wife’s laugh from some time ago has disappeared. 

“Are you going to hurt me if I move, Nanami?” The informalness of the questions throws me off guard. His usual child-like voice is cold, hard, and wobbling with guilt. 

“He isn’t, I promise Yu-“

“Mr. Nanami, are you going to h-“

Words fail to leave my mouth, so I just shake my head no. However, I dont drop the revolver, it is getting heavier by the minute. 

Yuji moves slowly, not dropping his eyes from mine and it truly feels like we are the only two people on the planet. Just us two and his bites. 

He hikes up the leg of his right pants leg, and there it is - even in the light of the moon and the haziness of the rain falling in front of us. A bite, the veins protruding and the scar is enough to make my breath hitch in my chest and I feel like I need an asthma pump to help me get my breathing flowing again. 

“I just slept after and nothing happened,” he shrugs his shoulders. 

“Slept?”

“Yes, my Grandpa said I slept for fifteen hours after,” the child-like humor is in his voice, his eyes are still wide with guilt. 

“You don’t sleep after getting bit. No one we have studied sleeps after,”  I narrow my eyes at him. 

“Well I did,” he says back, a defensive tone I have never heard in his voice bites hard and I'm taken back. 

“I’m telling you I am fine,” the fear and guilt is starting to escape his voice. He wants to be understood, believed. 

“What else happened,” I pointed my chin down at his leg, “when you got bit?” 

“It itched,” he shrugs, as if we’re asking about a mosquito bite. “Nothing else happened. Not that I really remember,” his bloodied arm reached to scratch at the back of his head. Red streaks of blood mixing with his pink hair. 

“You’re telling me that your body fought this infection by sending you to sleep for fifteen hours and having the bite mark be itchy?” Work rushes to my mind. Is he what we need? Is this boy who my wife smuggled in the answer? 

“I guess,” he shrugs his shoulders again. I don't miss the eye roll, as if he is the one being bothered by the discovery of what this could do for everyone. 

“I could maybe find some ointment,” my wife’s voice from behind us brings us both back from our world. His eyes are questioning, as if he forgot she was here, as if it is hard to believe she would do that. "To help with the itchiness."

The domesticity she is bringing to this fucked situation angers me for a minute. I roll off the tension from my shoulders and keep my eyes trained on Yuji. 

“You don't have to do that Mrs. Nanami,” he smiles at her. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

“I know you would be Yuji,” she whispers back and I don't miss how Yuji’s eyes widen with trust, with love. Happy to be believed.

I ignore their little moment and think back to dinner a couple days ago, when we first played that game and our hopes. I think back to Ino and just watching this infection eat his body, mind, and soul for days. Think back to work and Geto, the fears of having to watch experiments be done on pregnant women for a cure. 

A cure. 

A person able to fight the infection. 

A cure. 

Instead of fear and confusion, hope starts to course its way into my chest. Mixed with guilt, because what does this mean for Yuij? What does this mean for my wife and her love for this child? 

“I just want to sleep now,” Yuji says, a yawn ripping out of his chest. The rain is pelting us hard. “Is that okay if we go home?” 

I want to tell him yes. I know she wants to tell him yes. We’ll take you to our home. But now, home is a battlefield too. 

-

The lights are off, the moon highlighting little things around the living room. A spotlight on Yuji’s blue backpack. His red shoes - the ones I tripped over this morning. A copy of an old Spider-Man comic and Oh, The Places You’ll Go that are tucked in the cushion where his head lays. The old, rickety fan wobbles on the coffee table in front of the couch where Yuji lies sleeping, the moonlight shining on him so brightly I’m shocked he hasn’t covered his eyes with the quilt. He looks calm - hands curled under his squished cheek, pink hair messily plastered to his forehead. He’s curled up in a fetal position. He looks smaller than he actually is. Somehow, there's still the feather of a grin on his lips.

Next to me, she shifts, and from the movement alone, I can tell she’s antsy. Either from what we possibly found out, the implication of what this means for us.. for him, or... everything.

I still feel numb, like I’m floating on a gray cloud that’s waiting to erupt into a storm. A cold sweat is still coating my back and making my hands feel slimy. 

“Kento,” she whispers, her hand grazing mine. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

I smile softly, hiding the chuckle that wants to escape at her childish phrasing. Her hand is fully in mine now, our cool wedding bands brushing as our warmer hands press together and the movement makes me feel grounded at the moment. Her question almost made me forget what we have sleeping in front of us. 

“If you’re referring to Yuji, then yes. We’re thinking about the same thing,” I whisper back. “How could we not?” My voice seems like it belongs to someone else, it sounds vacant and chilling even to my own ears. 

Her hand twitches in mine, the movement so sudden that I shift my eyes from the boy on our couch to her tense frame beside me.

“I don’t think we’re on the same page,” she admits. She’s still staring at Yuji. The rickety fan sends strands of hair swaying near her ear.

“What do you mean?” I keep my voice even. “What page are you on?” I bring our joined hands into my lap and look back toward Yuji.

“We’re not giving him to science,” she whispers so fast I would’ve missed it if I’d moved. “I know he seems like a breakthrough, but we can’t do that to him.” In the dim light, the sadness in her voice adds another layer to the eerie quiet of the day.

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“Both, I guess,” she says, letting go of my hand to rub both of hers down her face. “He’s just a child, Kento.”

“I know. You remind me every time we talk about him,” I say, my voice hard. 

From the corner of my eye I watch her turn to look at me. Her eyes filled with an emotion I don’t think I would’ve ever seen from her - distrust. I almost want to run to the bathroom and hurl. Her eyes are racking over the side of my body, the same side she wakes up too whenever we somehow end up in a different sleeping position than our regular one. 

The foreign look in her eyes throws me off because it's the first time I've seen it etched into her eyes. Eyes I have memorized, the way she has memorized the words from A Grief Observed. Even then, I don't think that the feeling shouldn't be running through her. I do not know if I deserve her trust when it comes to Yuji. Not if I'm sitting here wondering what we could trade him for. A cure? Safety? To go back to when it was just us again? 

“The world shouldn’t be placed on his shoulders just because he might be useful to someone’s plan.” Her words float through the room like a sad melody. “I know your loyalties lie with the sc-”

“My loyalties lie with you,” I cut in, a huff escaping me, annoyance melting into my voice. Her hand slides back into mine, palm to palm, and presses gently. I almost shudder at the touch this time around. 

Yuji shifts on the couch. A soft snore slips from his lips, and his left foot kicks the quilt halfway off. There’s no sign of infection threading through his bloodstream, nothing waiting to take his life - or ours. Just a kid. Just a sleeping child who makes you want to curl up beside him on the floor and fall asleep too. Bodies nestled together, warm, safe, loved.

“Ken,” she sighs. “If anyone finds out what he is…” She pauses. “We won’t get to choose what happens next.” Another sigh, but this one catches in her throat. “I don’t want to lose him too,” she confesses.

Her words gnaw their way into my chest. A part of me -�� the part that should be angry that she’s poked a hole in our little bubble - realizes it doesn’t want to lose him either. I don’t even know what to do with him, but the idea of him being gone. I know it’ll hurt her in ways I’m too selfish to understand. 

“But, thi-”

“No. I don’t care what ‘this’ is,” she shakes her head slightly, eyes still on Yuji. “…He deserves to climb that mountain.” And I smile faintly at the book reference from a few days ago.

“If he makes that choice?” I ask, the pressure of work and our discovery quickly washing the smile off my face. 

“He can make the choice, but…” Her voice trails off into silence. “…It’s not going to be given to him,” she says finally, gripping my hand tighter. “He’s going to be a child, and I want us to make sure of that.” 

“They want to start experimenting on pregnant women,” I whisper into the night. The conversation that has been haunting my thoughts since I had to take part of it finally entered the air stream to be heard by someone else. 

“That has nothing to do with him,” she whispers back. I don’t miss the shock that’s evident in her voice though. 

I don’t think I could hide the anger bubbling in my gut. The dismissal of others putting their lives on the line and losing their lives with an ugly infection. 

“Why do you want to save him?” 

“Because no one else would,” there’s no anger in her voice. She doesn’t want to fight. But her words are definite and filled with a hopeful tint and I can’t understand where it’s coming from. 

I know she is right. I know how it feels to fiercely protect something that is yours. But knowing, it doesn't make the anger any less suffocating. 

Not knowing what to say, we sat in a silence that crawled up my back - thick with the weight of today, my wife’s words protecting this boy, and the horrors of my job.

Eventually, she sleepily shuffled off to bed, and I stayed.

Just sitting there.

Watching the boy.

Sitting in the questions that kept brewing in my gut, the snores of the possible infected boy, and the waft of breeze coming from the rickety fan. Sitting there more infected with hope than I wanted to admit.

-

My eyes are heavy, like the curtains blocking the rosy colors of the sunrise trying to peek into the room. There’s barely any light - just the soft glow that creeps in under a doorway. Funnily enough, those thin streaks of light are hitting the boy on our couch perfectly.

If it weren’t for that light, I would’ve missed the way his eyes opened and how he immediately gripped his chest. Like he was in pain; not physical, but emotional. The kind of pain that makes you clutch your shirt like something’s trying to rip your heart out. His eyes are wide, his hands tightly gripping the hoodie.

I’m sitting on the couch across from him, so still I can’t even feel myself breathe. My thoughts are bouncing between my wife in the bedroom and the switchblade Yuji had, now tucked in the waistband of my pajama pants. I’ve been up all night, barely breathing, just waiting. Waiting to see if what he said was true. Waiting to see if I’d have to kill a child to protect my wife. Waiting to see if he’d be okay.

What kind of man am I, waiting for a child to prove that he deserves to live? 

Yuji’s fully awake now. His breathing is steady, and in the little light, his eyes look normal, just tired. His movements are exactly what you’d expect from someone coming out of sleep. He’s small, fragile. A child. His bedhead is almost laughable, and his fists are tight, one at his chest, the other rubbing sleep from his eyes. He opens his mouth in soft little yawns, one after another.

“Show it to me,” I say into the quiet room.

Yuji jumps a little and snaps his head toward me. His eyes are wide, lips pulled into a guilty frown. I ignore the way it makes my chest ache.

He lifts the sleeve of his left arm quickly, almost too quickly, trying to prove that what he told us was true. His arm looks too thin, too small. Like he never had a chance to fight back. The bandages she wrapped around his arm before he fell asleep are still tight, and underneath... It just looks like a regular bite. As if he got into a scuffle on the school playground and the other kid bit him. Swollen, but not infected. 

I check the clock. It’s almost been twelve hours. By now, it should be bruised, oozing pus. He should be trembling, sweating, short of breath. But he’s not. He shouldn't even be waking up from a nap.

Here is a boy, just sitting here. Afraid, remorseful, human. 

And I am the man who spent all night sitting here, hand on a weapon, his weapon- waiting to kill him if he twitched wrong. Waiting to see if we could use his body for some problem he did not create. 

The thought is ugly and crawls up my throat like bile. 

“Show me the other bite.”

He hikes up the right leg of his pants, and again, nothing. Just a scarred leg with a possible bite mark. The veins around it are slightly dark, the vine-like veins around the bite are protruding, but that’s all. No swelling. No pus. Nothing I’ve seen before on a recently bit or infected person.

Just the leg of a child who trusted us enough to fall asleep on our couch. 

“Where is Mrs. Nanami?” he asks, voice soft, childlike. Like a toddler asking for their favorite teddy bear.

I want to ignore him. I want to tell him he doesn’t deserve to know. That I don’t want him anywhere near her because he’s not safe.

“She’s in bed,” I say instead, jerking a thumb toward the bedroom. “She stayed up for a while to make sure you were okay.”

“I know.” He shifts upright, eyes still locked on the floor. “I know I said I didn’t get bit,” he says, his voice quieter now, almost shaking. “But I did. You know now. I should’ve just told you.”

I nod, even though he isn’t looking at me.

“I didn’t say anything because… I know what happens when people get bit.” He glances up at me, and I remember having to point a weapon at him. “I didn’t want to die.”

His voice is so soft I have to lean forward just to hear it.

“You could’ve told her,” I say. Because I know, and he knows, that she would’ve protected him. She believes him.

“I didn’t want you to be mad at her,” he whispers back. The realization that in his own little way, he was protecting my wife has me moving to readjust my glasses. He is not afraid for himself. He is afraid for her. 

We go quiet. The only sound is his occasional yawn, soft and sleepy. It hums through the room, warm and sad.

“Mr. Nanami?” he asks, eyes wide and searching. “Remember when we were playing that game and started talking about a cure?”

“Yeah,” I say, my heart already sinking. But my brain jumps back to that talk with Geto. My brain jumps to the possibilities he may be able to bring. 

“You think…” He shrugs, shoulders curling toward his ears. “You think since I’m okay… they could fix all this?” He gestures with a little circle of his hand.

“You should get more sleep,” I say, ignoring the question. Because the answer is too big, too dangerous, and too unclear. Because what he’s asking could change everything, or destroy him, maybe even possibly destroy my wife and I. 

This is Yuji and I’s world - a ticking time bomb of questions that neither of us could answer. 

“I’m sorry for lying.” He curls further into the couch, legs folded beneath him. “I’m sorry for knowing.”

That last part hits me hard. Like something’s slammed into my chest. It does not sound like a child apologizing for a mistake, but a confession. The anger and confusion are gone for a minute. Now I’m just sitting in despair. 

“It’s okay,” I say, finally. “You’re just a child.”

-

A couple days later…

Her legs are straddling my hips. One of my hands is tangled in her hair as I pull her face closer to mine. Our lips are locked in a fight of power. Hungry. Urgent. My other hand is not so gently gripping her hip, acting as a grounding act between us. I don’t miss the slight, teasing grind against me.

“Ken,” she whines, breaking the kiss. My lips, wanting to stay busy - starts trailing kisses down from her jaw to her delicate neck. “We have to be quiet,” she whispers. 

“Huh?” I mutter on her collarbone, already tugging my shirt up and over her head. She leans back to help, introducing more skin for my mouth to chase. “Why?” 

“Because we have a kid in our living room,” she mumbles. 

“We don’t have a kid,” I mumble, my lips finding their way back to her jawline. “And what? People with kids still have sex,” 

“Mrs. Nanami?” I hear the creak of the floorboard right outside our bedroom. “Mr. Nan-“ 

“One second,” we both yell in unison. I throw the blanket over myself - hiding a very obvious situation. My wife rushes to find the shirt we just discarded. Once found, she’s running to the door, sending me a playful wink before creaking the door open. 

“Hi Yuji,” she answers breathlessly, her hands smoothing down her hair. “Are you okay?” The warmth in her voice sends a little pang of guilt to my chest.

“I think so,” I can’t see him, but I could imagine that awkward, boyish grin etched on his face. “I think something is going on, though.” 

“Something with you?” I ask, harder than I intended. I start to inch out of the bed, looking for my own pants around the floor. My wife looks back at me, sending me a sharp look. 

“No, uh, not me,” he says softly and I instantly regret my previous tone. “Outside. I hea-“ before he could finish, I heard it too. 

A shriek.

Then another. 

Then several - shrill. All different tones and melodies to them, creating a soundtrack from a nightmare.

They sound far away. But close enough, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck start to prick. They shouldn’t be so close to our home. At least, the sound of how many are coming our way. 

“Hear what?” My wife shyly asks - as if she's embarrassed that she isn’t in on what we could hear. I don’t miss the waiver of fear that trembles at the end of her question. She turns around to give me a look, and she sees that my pants are on and I’m looking outside of our window. “Ken?” She whispers.

“Both of you,” I say as I start looting around our room. “Get dressed now!” I bark. 

I hear Yuji’s feet running back to the living room and it takes me a couple seconds to realize, I don’t hear my wife. 

I turn towards her and she isn’t moving.

Not even breathing hard like I am.

She is standing in the middle of the room like she forgot how to be a person. 

Arms crossed, hugging herself, nails digging into the sleeves. 

Shoulders hunched up around her ears.

Her hands are trembling so hard I can see them from across the room. Her lips are parted but no sound is coming out.

It's not fear. 

It's heartbreak. 

“Again?” Her whole body seems to ask before she lets it slip from her lips. “We have to leave and run again?” 

“Do you trust me?” I say, walking towards her. My eyes are not on her, as they are shifting through our room looking for things that are easy to pick up. I notice A Grief Observed laying on her bookshelf, and I make a mental note to grab it on the way out. 

All I hear is her breathing; shallow, uneven, like she's holding the world's weight in her lungs. A part of me itches to run to her, to take her face between my hands and make sure she is still here with me - here and real and willing. She is still mine. 

“Yes,” she breathes out. Yuji thrashing around in the living room and the chaos rising outside is louder than she is. 

I finally look over at her properly and for a moment, the fear vanishes. 

Just like that night five years ago, the moonlight catches her in a soft halo, outlining her trembling figure in silver. The way her knees slightly buckle, then stiffen, like she's fighting every instinct that screams at her collapse.

Even now, she looks so heartbreakingly beautiful that my breath catches at the bottom of my throat. The world outside howls. But here, for just a second, it's only her and me and the moon.

“We’ll be okay,” I whisper, closing some distance between us. On the floor between us, the moonlight reflects her restless hands, my arms reaching out both our shadows stretching and overlapping. “We made it out okay before.” 

“All of us. All three of us,” She says, her voice cracking as she avoids my eyes. “Will we be okay?”

I hesitate. Just a beat too long. Almost as if I forgot the weight that Yuji now carries in our lives. 

“Sure,” I say. “All three of us.” But even as I say it, I'm grabbing only two bags. Moving on instinct. Pretending I don't feel the weight of that slip between my ribs. 

“Two minutes,” I yell into the apartment, because if I stay in this moment, if I look at her again under that terrible, beautiful moonlight, I won't move at all. 

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[astoopidfool]

🫃🏼❄️🐆 please!

Thank you for the ask! I haven't worked much on this but I really want to write it, so I appreciate the push. Enjoy some Buckley sibling one on one time while Buck freaks out and so does Maddie but for different reasons.

----------

“What the fuck am I supposed to do, Maddie? I can’t be fucking pregnant.” Buck whimpers into the phone as he paces the length of his living room. The drive home from the clinic had been silent with his brain going wild. What was this going to mean for him? He and Tommy weren’t together anymore. Had their one night of fun really resulted in a pregnancy?

And how had this not happened before? If they really were fated, then it should have happened in the six months they were dating. They stopped using condoms within a few weeks of getting together because they’d gone exclusive. Had it been possible the whole time?

He runs his fingers through his hair for the umpteenth time. He’s pretty sure that he’s started tearing full strands out and with his clammy hands, they’re sticking to him but he can’t seem to stop. “Am I supposed to tell him? He was so pissed at me after what happened. I still haven’t called to talk to him.”

“Calm down, Buck. What do you mean you’re pregnant?” She asks calmly.

“What do you mean “what do I mean”? I have babies growing inside me. What’s there to not get?”

He can imagine her shaking her head as she says, “No, I get that but, you’re a man. I know that you’re an omega, but that doesn’t mean you can just magic a uterus. Your biology doesn’t just change.”  She pauses for a really long time as the gears in her head turn… “Unless… Buck. You don’t think…”

He groans as he plops down into the armchair and replies, “Maddie… There’s only one way that this is possible. You know that. This is why I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do. He… We… I’m meant to be with him but I think I fucked it up too much this time.” Putting his head into his hands his body begins to shake. He’s been lost before in his life, after he got the hell out of Pennsylvania, but he’s never felt as lost as he does at this moment. “I just don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.”

Another pause. “Not to backtrack but… Did you say babies? Are you pregnant with twins?” There’s some curiosity there now, the worry taking a backseat to Maddie’s love of babies and children.

Buck whimpers, again, and flops back into the seat, throwing an arm over his eyes and bears his teeth in a grimace. “It’s too early to tell for sure but based on early signs… The doctor is predicting three.”

Maddie squeals and Buck has to pull the phone away from his ear until she’s done. “Oh my gosh, Buck! I’m going to be an auntie to triplets?” Her enthusiasm is almost enough to make him forget his predicament. Almost.

“Mads, this is serious! Should I call Tommy and tell him?”

Still on cloud nine she hums contemplatively. “I think that’s something you have to decide for yourself. You guys aren’t together but clearly something happened, something pretty obvious, but you still haven’t talked anything through. Do you want to be with him? Do you want him to be a part of the kids' lives? Do you plan on keeping the kids? I can give you general advice but in the end, you need to be an adult and make some tough decisions.”

SIghing, Buck takes a moment to sit with his thoughts before he says, “Yeah. You’re right. This is something I need to figure out on my own. Don’t… D-don’t tell anyone, okay? I don’t think I’m ready for everyone to know.”

“Of course, Buck. This is your secret. I’ll be here if you need to talk, though, okay? I love you.”

“Love you, too, Mads. I’ll talk to you later.” They hang up and he takes another steadying breath. The world isn’t closing in around him anymore but his brain is so loud that it hardly matters. He’s supposed to go back to work tomorrow but he’s not sure if he has it in him. WIll he even be able to continue as a firefighter, knowing that he has three growing lives inside of him?

There’s too much to think about, and Buck isn’t ready to think about it, so he flops onto his side and pulls the blanket on the back of the couch around himself and shuts his eyes, hoping to drift off into a dreamless sleep. He would adult later.

[hysterical-random-things]

I was possessed (craving interaction) so yall get all 50 answers to both the lamb and Narinder ask game in one place. if anyone wants to know more about my au or versions of them 👀 send an ask etc

Narinder and Lamb 50 question answers under the cut lol

Lamb 50 questions and answers

Does your lamb go by any name other than The Lamb? If so, what?So my lamb does actually have another name, or i guess just a name, but they don't use it. They tend to view that that name, that person died when the axe fell, and they became The Lamb, the last lamb. Their role is now more important than what they used to go by. Almost no one knows it, no one calls them that, and it's what they prefer. But if you're wondering, their name was Bah. (Together their family was Bah, Bo and Bee)

How old was your lamb when they were sacrificed? 27

How long was your lamb held captive by heretics before their sacrifice? 3 days

Did your lamb kill anyone prior to their first death? If so, who? Yeah, I meantioned in a previous post but in my au the killing of sheep kind has been going on for a long while. By the time my lamb was an adult they already had a hand in directly and indirectly killing folks in order to protect themself and their siblings. Their little group honestly made a point to avoid people as much as possible because in the end of they had to decide between risking letting a stranger know they exist vs making sure they and their family were safe, that wasn't a very hard choice. They purposefully try to not think about it though, not because they regret it but because in the end it didn't even matter.

When your lamb mourns a dead loved one from their past.. who is it? Their siblings, but it’s been long enough they’ve started to forget their faces.

Who raised your lamb? My lamb was raised with their siblings with by their parents till they were about 6-7 after that they mostly traveled, staying with other groups and in villages for as long as they could without being caught/relying on the kindness of strangers till they were teenagers. After that it was just them and their siblings. My lamb doesn't really remember their parents.

Where was your lamb raised? A village? A prison? Constantly on the run? See above answer.

Did your lamb have any specific skills pre-sacrifice? Just survival related stuff, they got very good at living in the wilderness and supporting themself. Also melee and pickpocketing.

How or where was your lamb caught? It ended up being a freak accident that did them in.Their sister got hurt while foraging, and it slowed them down/stopped them for long enough they got spotted and captured. It was pure luck that my lamb was the last of the three to live, (their sister ended up dying while they were all being taken and their brother just happened to be executed first) and they had no idea they were some very last sheep left.

How did your lamb feel with their head on the pedestal? Afraid? Relieved? Angry? Resigned. when the axe finally fell it broke them a little Lot bit.

Does your lamb have any notable or unique features? Nothing that’s not just from being the type of sheep they are. And/or the red crown’s influence. They got red eyes now because of it

How tall is your lamb? They keep growing (at the time they and narinder get married their like 5’9-5’10 not counting the horns)

Is your lamb petite? Curvy? Fucking jacked? They got that ruminant bod. Endomorph they are strong and could take you out but they aren’t jacked. They’re just build like a tank.

Is your lamb’s wool pure white? No it’s an off white cream color.

How does your lamb prefer to keep their wool? Short and shorn neat? Wild and untrimmed? Be honest are there branches in that bitch? They have a negative association with being sheared, (the bishops robes and those of their highest followers/witnesses were made with and/lined with the wool from sheep they captured and sheared) so they kinda try to avoid it as much as possible/do half cuts with their wool so it's not nearly has usable for stuff as it should be. They do make a point to keep it as clean as possible though.

Do you base your lamb on any specific species of sheep? If so, which? My lamb is a Wensleydale sheep!

Do they use their own wool for anything? Nope. My lamb never had the opportunity to learn how to turn their wool into anything useful and even if they had, they honestly don't have the patience for fiber craft. .They Do need to be sheared though at least once a year and if the fiber is decent enough they'll give it to their own disciples to use.

On a scale of one to ten how floppy are their ears? Not really floppy, probably a 3 ? Wensleydale sheep don't have floppy ears lol

Do they bear any traits of forced domestication? Is their tail docked? Was their ear tagged? Do they have scars from being shorn (and nicked) against their will? Were they ever painted with or assigned a number rather than a name? Nah, they were shorn against their will before being sacrificed but they don’t really have any marks from that other than mental (blood and second cuts are bad for a fleece after all)

What do their horns look like? So wendsydale sheep are naturally pulled. So until they were about vessel they didn't have horns at all. Once they gain the red crown they gained a short set of horns that after ascending their horns started growing more. Eventually they may end up with a large set of curled horns or even multiple but they don't like to think about that.

Was your lamb born male, female, intersex, or do you have no opinion on their sex at birth? They’re amab

Does your lamb use pronouns other than they/them? If so, which ones! Nope only they/them

Are they capable of having children and would they want to have children? Complicated answer actually! So in theory yes, they physically could have children, however in my AU i'm going with the idea that cross mixing species lowers chances of conceiving considerable. Like it can and does still happen, but it's a lot harder and kids tend to take after the carrying parent! The only partner they even have they'd consider having children with is Narinder and so if they do want biological kids it's going to take effort. And leading into this, they have, Major hang-ups over children. The idea of having a child scares them A lot. (lack of control, the thought of losing them, something going wrong, not really having an example of a good parents themself or really having even been near a kid till after starting the cult etc) Part of them does long for that as an option, but even at their worst they're aware hey would not be able to handle being a parent/let alone a good parent. They need to grow and change before that. Getting with Narinder and kinda being slowly introduced to the idea of interacting with kids through his daughters does help.

If they were to be a parent or are, what epithet would they have their child use? Mom? Mama? Dad? Baba? Nony? Abba? Gonna be real they don’t want to think about this, whatever any hypothetical kids do end up calling them its fine.

Do they wear something other than the canon cloak? They only really worn my "version" of the Canon cloak when they first started crusading. Once they're a god they start indulging a lot LOT more in their appearance. Presentation is everything and they work very hard to look their part as the last god. When they go crusading to bring back the bishops they wear something similar to this piece, a lot more Armour etc. Also they do know how to dress down they just don't like being seen by any of their followers not fully decked out.

Does your lamb wear jewelry or makeup? They Love decorating their horns and ears and wearing makeup, they like being fancy. The world’s a stage and they have a role to fit.

Is your lamb flirtatious? No.

Did your lamb have any partners pre-sacrifice? Simple answer, but no, kinda too busy running for their life with their siblings for that to really be an option.

Did your lamb take any followers as a partner? Yes, pretty early on into the cult they took a couple partners because they expressed interest and my lamb was curious. They did break off most of the relationships if they started to want something more serious/as their devotion to TOWW grew even before freeing him. Once they became a god and brought Narinder in, it got a lot more complicated for them. we don’t talk about Poppy.

Who is your lamb’s second in command or closest follower? Thorarjul! He's probably the closest if I exclude Narinder. He's a good guy, one of the oldest followers, and joined before the lamb slayed leshy. He's pretty easy going and while it's not 100% clear how he actually views the lamb,(as in if he views them in a religious sense or just as a leader. Which is weird to think about since he is the loyalty enforcer) he does love the community and that's enough.

Is your lamb ever honest about their feelings or past? With who? they don’t even know how they feel 90% if the time, so as much as they can be? In general they are Not doing okay lol

Is your lamb merciful? Did they ever refuse to spare someone? If so, why? Is it a mercy to not allow one to ever pass on, to hold your folk in a gilded cage. To nuture with one hand and to control with the other. They are the one and only Lamb, the Shepherd of their flock and protector and guardian. Sent to keep all in their meadow hale and lively by their own grace. If anyone is to see the beast then they were never meant to see it’s light at all.

(Immortality cult were god had control issues and trauma and doesn’t know how to let go its their perfect paradise but at what cost)

Is your lamb trustworthy? ehhhhhh. I mean Kinda? They have their followers, and cult's best interests in mind but they aren't the type to actually talk about their own intentions or thoughts which leads to problems. And they have control issues. And they also tend to not view others as people, They are being forced to work on that and also communication, though. As long as your interests/goals align, yeah they're trustworthy. if they don't though it becomes a lot more complicated. They won't stab you in the back intentionally? But they might do it by mistake.

Is your lamb quick or slow to trust others? even they aren’t really sure.

If your lamb could pick a cult job other than leader what would it be? Don’t worry about it

Is your lamb a good cook? No not really.

Does your lamb let cult members cook or heal or do they restrict them from certain duties? No

What is your lamb’s favorite food or dish? Actual answer they stop eating once revived and refuse to actual eat. Everything tastes like ash and decay to them now.

Does your lamb eat meat/fish/eggs? Munch Munch we love some protein and calcium

What is your lamb’s stance on cannibalism? Some people’s only purpose is to serve others. And this is the best way to do so.

What about their stance on torture? It’s fine if I say it is and not if I don’t :)

Would your lamb ever kill a cult member? If they kill them then they weren’t a member to begin with. Only heretics deal with the beast.

How does your lamb deal with dissenters? Reeducation! But also we don’t have that problem here its paradise :) (meta answer is I’ve literally never had a dissenter in this save and also it’s kinda broken now because of the follower count that I don’t think the overall faith can fall under 100% lol)

What is your lamb’s favorite weapon? Their least favorite? They love the axe and don’t like they blunderbuss

Would they ever let a follower embrace their dark desire to eat poop? No.

What is your lamb’s favorite season? there aren’t seasons anymore, hypothetically spring though.

Is your lamb’s favorite color something other than red? It’s light blue.

How does your lamb really feel about death? They don't.

Does your lamb use substances? Are substance banned from cult grounds? Alchohol is allowed but nothing else. Followers are allowed to indulge but only when the lamb allows it.

Freebie! Tell us any headcanon you want! My lamb has a habit of kicking things when angry/frustrated, this started before their capture but has become significantly more common once they started crusading a way to burn off their negative emotions away from the cult. They tend to raze any area to the ground they're crusading in to get as many resources as possible, and to burn off steam.

Narinder 50 questions and answers!

When did your Narinder aquire the Red Crown? Was he born into the role or did the crown choose him for a particular reason? During narinder's childhood any potential crown bears were marked and then raise in their respective god's temples only interacting with those involved with the faith and other's marked. Once they came of age depending on the current state of their temple/god. They would be given secret trials related to the crowns' domain. If they passed but weren't chosen, they would be sworn to silence to become head disciples for the future god. If they were chosen they would ascend, If it isn't a trial season when they come of age, they are given the choice to become missionaries and leave their gods lands or be sacrificed. The crowns are sentient, so they have a major role in this. if they start tiring of their bearer, the crown bear is defeated by another god etc. a trial season would start, basically a show on its marked parts to see who is “worthy” The crown selects its bearer, if it doesn't like you will not gain its power. The bearer before him had died defeated by a pair of twin gods and death domain currently sat unoccupied. Death's trials were notoriously deadly and all the other candidates who were of age hadn't made it/weren't chosen by the crown. Narinder was actually a bit young (2 years off of becoming of age) when he began his trials, but they hadn't been going well, and he stepped forward. I'm not gonna go into it in detail since this is already getting long (and i want to do a comic about this at some point) but the scar Narinder has on his chest is from this time and related to how he was chosen as the new god of death.

Why does the red crown find him worthy as a bearer? Spoiler I wanna make a comic about this see the end of the last question

What did his childhood look like? Did he live with the other crown bearers? It was complicated. Narinder had a relatively humble life in the beginning, just his mom, aunt and little siblings. however at a young age around 7? he was marked as a potential crown bearer/priest and was taken into the temple's fold. He still had contact with his aunt since she was a lower level disciple of current god of the red crown but not the rest of his family and he doesn't really remember them much. He met kallamar a year later who was in a similar situation and a bit older and kinda latched onto him. He met Shamura some time after but they are significantly older than all the others so they kinda stepped more in as a mentor/guardian type position vs kallamar who was still a teen. eventually heket came into the picture when narinder was hitting preteen time and leshy is the family baby and came to the temple right before everything started kicking off as a literal infant (aka a war between gods, that eventually led to there only being them left)

Does the Red Crown give him any unique powers such as the power of rot (a la TROD AU)? As a god yes, he could see when people were “meant” to die (though stuff like accidents etc could change this) and could rot/age things. As a not god he’s mostly normal though he can still use his third eye if focusing to read followers minds and see their intended death (the cults whole immortality thing makes this a fucking mess)

How did he feel about Shamura pre-exile? They had more of a mentor/parental relationship to begin with since shamura is significantly older than the others. They were very close when narinder was young/when he was newly ascended and shit was a mess but drifted apart as they got older and their ideals started clashing. Shamura had an idea of who and what narinder should be and do and narinder kinda hated that a lot epessially since shamura would encourage him to experiment and then chastise him when he did it “wrong” of all of his siblings they drifted apart first/the most even before his exile but he never thought shamura would go as far as they did.

How about post exile? He feels pity for them, and grief but their relationship is cordial at most now. They don’t fight and he isn’t cruel but of all his siblings, I don’t think they ever really fix things since they kinda do just have conflicting personalities at the end of the day and don’t really understand each other.

Which sibiling was his favorite? Least favorite? Before exile, honestly Heket but in a detached way. They were similar people with similar ideals and also didn’t interact enough/have overlap in things for them to fight over it, so they mostly just got along when they do chat After its kallamar, after everything they have an understanding and he's the first that Narinder actually starts trying to fix things with. Mostly because kallamar both makes an effort and knows were and what to push on.

What weapon did he use prior to exile? He didn’t he mostly fights with magic and hand to hand, if he has to he would use a staff

Do you have headcanons about who his witnesses or ‘bosses’ would be pre-exile? If so, who are they? Not particularly i honestly think of Narinder having a different structure to his cult than his siblings and having witnesses as a defense wouldn't have been necessary or really wanted.

Did Narinder take any lovers before his exile? Yeah a few, nothing ever super serious though (kept in physical and casual) and generally people who weren't his own followers. He never liked the power dynamics and how they influenced his relationships.

How did Narinder feel about his priests, witnesses, and followers? Complicated, he tries to keep his distance. (Death god in the death cult during the old faith was not a very Open role to interactions) he wishes things were different even then.

Does he have a dedicated meow button? Narinder makes a Lot of weird sounds, but no dedicated meow button.

Does your Narinder have any unique features? other than the stuff that is just based on his species, see next question. He has a scar on his chest, on his lower legs and writes and is missing his left pinky and ring finger and all the claws except the thumb on that hand. Oh and he has marks on his face from where it can split.

Is he based on any particular breed of cat such as a puma or a British shorthair? He’s a jaguarundi, wild cat native to the Americas

Describe his fur. Is it unkempt? Well-groomed? Curly? Kept short? Short and tough? It just a thing with his species their fur is just like that he is well groomed though. He kinda hates feeling dirty after being trapped for so long. Fun fact jaguarundi are one of the few cats naturally occurring “ticked” coat pattern and also come in 2-3 main color morphs depending on Where they live (this is why Xotchil is tawny actually not because of whean lol)

Is, and I cannot stress this enough, his tail so, so fluffy? Hm not really but it is v long

How ears is he on a scale of 1-10? (This is not a typo) 2-3 he is not very ears

Was he born with his third eye or did he gain it later from the crown? Got it upon receiving the crown, it was the crown’s gift after proving himself to it.

Any notable scars post-exile other than around his wrists? Chest scar, and hand

Did your Narinder have any disabilities prior to his exile? No

Does he have any new disabilities upon being spared? He has limited mobility in one of his hands and chronic pain in his joints.

How does he pass the time in exile? Time moves very oddly in the veil and depending on many things can either seem longer or shorter. Narinder honestly spent most of them time fluctuating between sleeping, daydreaming doing his duties and dissociating. a part of him was still free "metaphorically" to help guide the dead to the afterlife which would involve walking them through their memories and sometimes he would take longer than necessary with that just to escape for a bit.

Are the kits, Aym and Baal, really his children? (biologically) Nope.

How does he feel towards Aym and Baal? Ambivalent? Caring? Annoyed? They came to him Young. They are is sons even if it's not by blood. He raised them and cares a lot about them. They're one of the things that helped narinder snap out of the headpsace he got in the veil and begin focusing. even if they are both adults by the time they get out of the veil, if they needed him he would be there immediately. He loves them.

Why does he wear the veil? Or does he forgo it entirely? He started wearing a veil as a bishop as part of his image as the god of death. He started doing this at first to help hide his emotions, keep himself seperate. Afterwards it became more of just a preference thing, he doesn't wear them often but sometimes he like the added protection for his eyes lol.

How and when was the prophecy that he would rebel against the others revealed? My guy was not really involved in that, there was already was distance forming between him and the others by that point so, my narinder found out about the prophecy when the other went to confront and imprisoned him. For when the others learned it varied, but for a couple years at least.

How did the others react to this prophecy before it happened? Badlhy

Did he feel doomed by the prophecy? Relieved? Offended? Vindicated? My guy did not really get time to process there even was a prophecy before shit went to hell so. Complicated my narinder really REALLy hates when people try to dictate what he should be and how he should act and that extends to stuff like this. He kind hates the idea of fate or people having a set path.

What exact rebellious act got him chained in the first place? He felt like life ended too soon for some people, he wanted to see if he could change that. See above but the way his cult working and the role it played in the old faith started to Grate on him. He didn’t like something even death was inevitable especially since he knew their were already exceptions to it (his siblings, the ducks, etc) he wasn’t even sure what he would do once he cracked resurrection but he wanted to prove he could. And he started drastically changing his cults teachings in a way that didn’t align with the others to go along with that.

What are some of the biggest emotions he feels about being chained? Anger. Hate. Bitterness. Grief.

Deep down.. does he agree that it was necessary? No.

Does he have any remorse for harming his sibilings? If so, does he ever show it? No. And if it happened again he would fight even harder. He thinks them acting on a fate and doing what they did was destructively pointless and everything in the end was their own fault. Their actions have consequences, and as gods they should have known better, and as a family…. No he does not feel remorse for it. Let the past die, he has to move on if he wants to move forward at all.

Does he care that an entire species and culture was ended because of him? Yes. Again he thinks the entire thing was dumb and pointless. It’s hard for him to fully conceptualize since 1. He was not a sheep nor was he raised/lived with them before 2. afterwards all he was able to learn was about their lives after they died while being trapped. Its the kinda loss that’s nearly impossible to comprehend but he does care

What was his first impression of the lamb? This thing is weird. Interesting but weird (they reacted oddly to dying/him lol)

When did he realize the lamb might turn against him? Was he blind to it until it happened or did he have a gut feeling long before then? He had no idea, he honestly thought they would be upfront with him. Their own behavior does not fix this

Does/Did he enjoy the lamb’s visits? It’s a break in the monotony and once the lamb starts opening up and acting more on their true self he does like him. He likes how honest they are, and enjoys their talks. It’s why he was willing to “marry” them before being freed.

How does he feel about the lamb after being spared? Confused. Their relationship is a hot mess. But mostly just confused and off if we’re focusing on just after spared period. It gets worse later! :)

Does he support or partake in cannibalism? Munch munch (this is a cannibal cult lol, they are all cats and waste not want not)

Does he take a lover other than the lamb after being spared? If so, describe them! WHEAN WHEAN MY BELOVED. Whean (he/him) started as friends with Narinder (he was involved with helping narinder's physical recovery and also is just a very hard to phase person so was able to deal with narinder's shit long enough to gain his trust) and became more during Narinders and the lamb's roughest period. He’s faithless and doesn’t have the same view of nairnder as most of the cult does and that helps a lot. He’s the biological father to the girls. It was a Hey, i've decided I want kids, would you be willing to be the other half in this equation if I tell you I want these kids to Just be mine.” Situation. and whean was down, he's not looking to be a dad personally, doesn't really like kids. But he loves narinder and was 100% willing to help with this. Win-win for both of them, narinder gets kittens without strings attached and whean gets to help his best friend.

What is his biggest struggle after being spared? Fitting in with the cult? Seeing the lamb’s face daily? Chronic pain? After being spared, he had a very long healing process. It took about 2 years for him to regain enough mobility and to become healthy enough (his immune system is very bad at first) to finally really integrate properly into the cult with duties and become more independent. Narinder is missing his pink finger, and part of his ring finger on his left paw. And his middle, and pointer on that hand are missing their claws. He has limited feeling and motion in that hand even after physical therapy.

Does your Nari use any pronouns besides he/him? If so, what ones? He simply does not care actually. Fine with anything but most comfortable with he/him just because of familiarity. He falls somewhere on the nonbinary spectrum but doesn't care for or about labels and just sticks to he/him pronouns. This cat does not care about you or how you perceive his gender or presentation, thank you.

Was he born male, female, intersex, or do you have no opinion on his sex? Intersex and has the ability to carry children.

Does he ever wear jewelry or makeup? Yeah started wearing jewlery as a way to express himself and makeup as a bonding thing with the lamb.

Has he ever used catnip? If so, what happened? Yeah but it doesn’t do much for him personally so he doesn’t bother.

Is identity kept a secret from the cult? If so, do any of the followers recognize who he really is? HAHAHA NO The lamb framed their ascension/defeat of narinder as an inevitable thing to the cult, but still spoke of narinder with a lot of respect and devotion as someone really important to the faith. They got getting "married" when Narinder was still a god as the lamb, giving themselves to him, and they very much did not make a secret of this. half the reason narinder was/is so confused because they do still seem to view him with a sort of religious devotion while also Not. And when narinder did join, they expected him to take a leadership role alongside them, even if their word in the end came first. And since literally everyone even from the start is there still are a lot of folks in the cult who treat Narinder with more than just respect he'd get if he was just a normal person. A lot of the folks in the cult have taken on the lambs weird view of Narinder as something different, special and deserving reverence. even if he's no longer a crown bearer. Doubly since Narinder takes his “job” very seriously and actually does try to act in a leadership role ( he acts more as the grounded one handling smaller things and interpersonal issues, talking and mediating since my lamb while excellent at appeasement really doesn't like handling people's “problems”)

Describe his personality. He's angry and proud and bitter but like a big thing to me is Narinder is patient, almost to a fatal degree imo. He's not fast to act and prefers to wait and watch before interacting. However he does have a bad habit of making assumptions about how the people he "know" will act preemptively and getting really thrown off when they do anything different that what he expected (his original betrayal, the lamb deciding to fight for their crown, the lamb banning him from leaving etc)

(i am going to fully admit i pull some of his character quirks and behavior from my own cat nugget, girl has… Issues but isn't aggressive unless really pushed she's just kinda a mess and I've decided my narinder deals with issues the same way) When he is thrown off he gets very defensive and kinda shuts down. Not violent but extremely guarded and not quick to trust again. Even if he knows he's "safe" he doesn't care. He's collected, he's put together, he's not even really rude but he will do the bare minimum for you if you've hurt him. He won't go down to your level and hurt you back but he makes sure you are Very aware he's not forgotten and at least for now he hasn't forgiven. If you do push his hand then be sure it’s not going to be something he ever regrets doing.

Is he shy about any topics? Does he enjoy talking about anything in particular? Once a book is closed on something. (Ei the prophecy and him being chained, injuring the others) it is closed. Don’t touch it, we move on. He likes talking about plants! He’s not great at growing them kinda average but knows a lot about what they can do, he know a lot about things that can harm you in general and kinda likes rambling about them lol

Does he ever rethink the concept of sacrificing followers now that he is one? My lamb isn’t even willing to let people die of old age, do you think they sacrifice people. If anything narinder’s gonna go up on the alter himself if that’s what it takes to have them get over it (this is a joke)

Is his favorite food anything other than fish? If so, what is it? Meat. He like rabbit.

Free headcanon space! He is so fucking fast.