#hell that must be why she's skinny; cause she starved to death

[musecheerios]

Something tells me Phanty doesn't need to eat on account of being dead, but she still 'eats' just for the giggles.

[trash0receptacle]

Headcannon

Before that however: I’m sorry for not being active lately I’ve been very, stressed, busy, and tired. Since school started back my mood definitely declined a shit ton. With that being said writing is a way of coping for me so this is really just gonna be what I need today. If it helps you then that’s wonderful too.

Tw: Deppresion, Anxiety, and Anorexia

Paring: Lucifer x f/Mc

Also the way I right Luke is supposed to be taken platonically.

(Mc’s Pov)

Life had been shitty lately a lot more shitty than usual. I suppose it started when I heard some of the other succubi talking about me in on the way to class.

“She’s so lucky!”

“I know why does that bitch get to live with the brothers?”

“What do they even see in her?”

Sure I shouldn’t have taken the comments so personally but hell I take everything personally. So thats when my self doubt started forming roots in my mind again.

Before devildom I already had a lot of unresolved trauma and pain but the brothers really helped me. They were there for me when I needed them and made me feel wanted however after Belphie escaped the attic things went downhill for me mentally. The situation caused me a massive relapse and I began my destructive habits again. It went unnoticed for the most part mainly because they didn’t know the full scale of my past. All they knew is that I struggled and was medicated but nothing else. Perhaps Barbatos knew but he never said anything and I don’t believe he truly knew what went on inside my head either.

Now in the present moment I am contemplating what the succubi were saying about me. They’re right, “what did they see in me?” Surely it wasn’t my looks. I’m decently smart but I have no work ethic. The only thing I know I’m good at is being kind yet I’m a bitch half the time. So that’s when it came back to my body. The thing I’ve always hated about myself because I was never skinny enough, tall enough, pretty enough, curvy enough. I was never enough for someone to care about me.

I started skipping meals here and there. I still ate 2 out of three meals but I figured losing weight couldn’t hurt but then before I knew it I was lucky to even eat once a day. I was always good at making myself lose weight but not so drastically that you could tell I starved myself. For the most part I seemed healthy. However since I was going unchecked it kept getting worse. First my curves disappeared, then it was my hips sticking out, after that my cheeks began to sink, and finally my hair began coming out when I brushed it. I knew what I’d done but I couldn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want to hurt them and in the past asking for help only got me ridiculed or hurt.

“No one wants to here about your problems mc it makes us sad.”

“You wonder why I don’t like you!”

“You always beg for compliments!”

“Your fat anyway.”

Those words just kept circulating inside my mind and wouldn’t stop. I wanted to get better I really did but it was hard to force myself to eat. However I couldn’t rely on anyone else for fear of hurting them or them hurting me so I stayed silent. That was until my ddd pinged and I received a text from Lucifer.

Lucifer: Please come to my study mc.

Mc: Uh sure... is everything alright?

No response.

This is unlike Lucifer whats wrong? Is he mad at me? I guess I shouldn’t keep him waiting otherwise he will get mad. I got up and walked to his study inside the library. On the way I noticed the house of Lamenation was eerily quiet. There was no noise besides the sound of my feet walking through the hallways. When I arrived at the door to the study I was surprised to not only see Lucifer but everyone else?

Simeon resembled a worried parent, Luke seemed confused and angry, Diavolo was most serious I’d ever seen him, Barbatos stared at me with what I assume was pity, Solomon looked at me like I was a ghost. However the brothers appeared in worst shape. Mammon seemed on the verge of crying, Levi had guilt written over his face, Satan like Luke was angry angry, Amso was for once frowning, and Belphie and Beel looked disappointed. However I couldn’t read Lucifer’s expression but I could tell something was definitely off.

“Uh hey guys... what’s wrong you look like someone died or something?” I tried to laugh off the uneasy mood in the room but it was to no avail.

“Mc if you could sit down we have some things we must discuss with you.” Lucifer spoke solemnly

They had to have figured it out. Of course I knew this would come out eventually but it still felt like a stab to the heart none the less. I sat down not even listening to the others words. All my energy was focused into not breaking down in front of them but I’d stayed “strong” for too long and tears began to silently fall down my face. The talking stopped and I felt them all look at me which just made the tears fall harder. I felt my wall crumbling down as the final straw on the camels back was placed. I just cried for what felt like hours. Once I began to calm down I finally spoke in between sobs and breaths

“I-.... I’m so-...sorry.”

The room became silent once more. No of them knew how to respond to the broken girl infront of them

“I just didn’t want to burden you guys.... you have your own problems and don’t need to put up with mine” “nor would you want to” I mumbled the last part but I didn’t go unheard.

Luke got up and ran over to me enveloping me in a hug. He just stood there hugging me as if he didn’t I would fade away. I just hugged him back feeling slightly better by the angel’s hug.

Simeon was the first to speak

“Mc we aren’t angry at you. I think I speak for everyone when I say we are worried.”

A silent agreement was exchanged throughout the room.

Diavolo spoke next

“While Barbatos wouldn’t divulge all of what he knew for the sake of your privacy he warned me that you needed an intervention.”

I chuckled halfheartedly knowing my hypothesis was indeed correct.

“Well I figured it would come to this eventually.”

*time skip*

“Can I go back to my room now?” I whisper

I wasn’t really asking rather I just said it and got up to leave. The others stayed still likely digesting the information I’d given them. I felt ashamed and exposed. I hated seeing how much my words affected them and I really needed to be alone at the moment. Eventually I made it to my room. Walking in I closed the door and just cried.

(Lucifer’s Pov)

No one bothered to utter a word after Mc left and no one went after her either. Eventually my brothers excused themselves to go where, I’m not sure. I couldn’t tell if it was minutes or hours that passed but Solomon, Simeon, and Luke left saying they should head back to purgatory hall. Which left Barbatos, Diavolo, and I alone in the study. For the first time since I’d known the prince I couldn’t tell what was going through his head. Barbatos eventually composed himself however and turned to me.

“I believe My lord and I should make our way back to the palace..”

I just nodded in agreement as the pair left me alone with my own thoughts. I’d never seen that side of Mc before. Of course I knew somewhat of Mc’s history either from her file or her own account but clearly things had been left out.

I eventually got up and left to go to my room knowing I wouldn’t be able to focus on my work even if I wanted to. On the way there I passed by Mc’s room and noticed the light was on. I debated knocking or leaving her alone when a voice called out.

“If your gonna stand at my door like a creep you might as well come in.”

And so I did.

“Hey Lucifer...”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Foot steps. I can tell who’s in the hallway by how they walk.”

“I see then.”

The room’s atmosphere felt awkward as neither one of us bother or start conversation. So I simply sat down on the floor across from Mc, who had her head in her knees. (The fetal position) Eventually she brought her head up to wipe tears from her eyes and said with a broken laugh.

“I’m sorry you had to seem me like this. I look pathetic right now..”

“Mc why do you say these things about yourself?”

“Why not it’s how I view my self Lucifer. I’ve heard it from your mouth before”

“I’m just a mere human.”

I cringed at the memory knowing she were right of course.

“Mc I-“

“You don’t need to apologize or explain I understand I pissed you off then. It was just an example”

Wanting to change the topic of discussion I asked her a question.

“Why didn’t you come to any of us?”

“Denial...”

“Denial of what?”

“That it got out of control.”

“Is that all?”

“Not exactly...”

“Would you care to elaborate?”

“I- just please don’t get angry...”

I silently nodded my head as a watched Mc loosen up a bit.

“I think it might be my lack of trust towards really anyone.”

Mc started looking into space as she continued.

“I’m terrified of needing people or letting people help me. Part of it is when I have in the past I ended up hurt and alone. So I stopped I started being the one to help others.... then I needed help and I was cast out like a piece of trash. According to them I was selfish for needing affirmation and love. So that was when I decided I didn’t need that again.”

I sat silently contemplating her words.

“I’m truly sorry mc.”

“I would say it’s fine but it’s not. It hurts like hell but that’s life isn’t it? You learn to love and trust then you get your heart stomped out like a burning ember. The people you love leave you or die and you can’t do shit about it.”

“Wait what do you mean by die?”

“You know this sounds awful but you should be thankful Lilith didn’t suffer... sure it hurts that she’s gone but you are able to remember her before then since her “death” was quick. Painless.”

“I’ve had to watch the people who were my Lilith for lack of better terms die and suffer for months or years. I watched their bodies grow weak and feeble. However I was a child then and couldn’t do anything.”

I didn’t know how to respond so we sat in silence until

“Why’d you tell me this Mc?”

“Honestly I don’t know. Likely it’s because my body is physically exhausted and my filter was turned off.”

I noticed the tiredness Mc was trying to hide for the first time.

“You should sleep mc.”

“That’s ironic coming from you Lucifer.”

“I’m being serious mc.”

“What are you going to do? Mak-“

She didn’t get to finish her thought as I picked her up and carried her to my room. I knew she shouldn’t be left alone and I wanted to make sure she would be alright.

We arrived at my room and I deposited her on my bed. I sat in on of the chairs by the fire figuring she’d want the bed.

“Ok but why is your bed more comfortable than mine? Like sis you don’t sleep wtf!”

I just sighed knowing she was probably out of it but she was kinda of adorable when pouty.

Eventually she quieted down and her breathing became slower.

Mc’s POV:

“Mc you need to wake up”

“Five more minutes”

“Mc wake up!”

I felt the covers being ripped off. A dick move really.

“Ahh I’m up I’m up asshole!”

Wait why is Lucifer looking down at me? Why am I in his room? Shit I cussed him out. Well death never seemed that terrible

“Well if you’re awake now you need to come downstairs to eat breakfast. No, you can not object to this either.”

With that he left probably to go make sure the house isn’t on fire. I walked over to his bathroom and splashed water in my face to wake me up and noticed how emaciated I appeared.

Where my cheeks always so pronounced? Or when did my eyes start looking glassy and dark? I brushed it off not wanting to delve deeper into my insecurities. So I made my way to the dinning room. When I got there all conversation stopped and 7 pairs of eyes shot in my direction. I awkwardly made my way to the table and sat down.

I tried eating breakfast but it’s always been something I’ve never been able to stomach. I honestly never feel hungry when I wake up and it’s not like devildom food is exactly tasty. I was about to get up to leave when

“Mc you need to eat more.”

“Lucifer is right mc.”

“Ok...”

I sat back down and tried to eat what was on my plate but couldn’t so I sat there looking at it. I looked over to mammon’s plate and noticed how much food his had compared to mine and figured at least one of them knew it was a process to get me to eat again.

“I really can’t eat anymore otherwise I might be sick.” With no objections I got up and took my plate to the kitchen.

As I was washing it in the sink slowly some of the brothers came in aswell. First Asmo offered to take me shopping but I didn’t feel up to it. Then Satan asked if I wanted to go to the library again I didn’t exactly want people to see me like this so I declined. So levi offered we could play video games or something and I took him up on his offer.

He made sure I ate lunch that day which I honestly forget about sometimes. By the end of the day the other brothers excluding Amso, Satan, and Lucifer were all piled in Levi’s room.

Belphie was passed out in the bathtub of all places. Mammon was trying to impress me with his video game skills and Beel was munching on snacks behind us. It felt normal.

Eventually I got tired of it and decided to have some alone time. I was on my bed watching tik toks. (But fr tho I do have a problem with tik tok) Laughing at some etc when a knock was at my door.

“Come in”

I said this without looking up figuring it was beel looking for snacks or even Satan wanting to come in here and read. When I didn’t hear anything I looked back up from my phone surprised to see Lucifer standing there.

“Is something wrong?”

“No. I just heard laughing and was wondering is you were alright.”

“Oh yeah sorry about that I’m just watching stuff in my phone.”

“Would you mind if I joined you?” He smirked

Damn not that smirk. Stop blushing Mc you got this. It’s just Lucifer.

“Uh... sure...”

Damn that wasn’t smooth.

End. (Unless I am asked to make a part two)

So I’ve been working on this for a while because I’ve wanted to make something actually decent. I wanted to do a happy ending and remind you guys that you’re amazing. And no matter who you are you’re loved and remember that.

- Caroline



[livingintheworldofstories]

forgiveness (can you imagine)

Genre: angst with a happy ending Word Count: 8273 Summary: After Beelzebub slams the door to Hell in his face, Crowley walks to Aziraphale's bookshop, but he can tell that something is off. He falls to his knees in pain - and then he realizes. She is making him Rise. It's painful. It's what he would never admit that he wanted. (Maybe now he can be loved.) ao3: forgiveness (can you imagine) If there is one thing Crowley is absolutely certain of, it is this: Once a demon, always a demon. However, what Crowley is absolutely certain of and what Crowley dreams of are quite different things. On lazy afternoons, he dreams he is a serpent and has always been a serpent. On good days, he dreams he is a demon and has always been a demon. But on the bad days, Crowley dreams he is forgiven. And loveable. And loved.

(Once an angel…)

Same side, he dreams voraciously. White-winged and golden-eyed, he dreams wolfishly. Untainted, unsullied, unmarked. Every blessed four-letter-word. Good, nice, kind, he dreams ravenously.

(You were an angel once.) And hungrily, hungrily, he dreams, a soft warm hand grasping skinny fingers. Yellow eyes and dark heart forgotten. What was once wretched. What was once wicked. Forgiven. Skin that has forgotten the shape of scales. I recognize you. I see you. We are the same. (Flames so hot they dance blue, licking up and licking down and licking everywhere as of yet untouched by pain.)

A Shakespeare play unwritten. Stars uncrossed. The sweetest love confessions, like poems, honey of the soul. He dreams so desperately. Two angels, side by side.

(Feathers burning so quickly, so easily, like they were meant for it. Stubborn flesh burns harder.) On worse days, at his weakest, Crowley dreams he is whole. He has never broken his wings. He has never disappointed anyone. He has never made a mistake so bad it can’t be forgiven. Pathetically, he dreams, I deserve to be loved.

(That was a long time ago.)

Crowley wakes up, and knows the nature of a demon, and knows to hold his tongue.

It’s just after the Nahpocalypse that he gets it a little mixed up and washes his dreams over into his carefully separated reality.

Demons, typically, do not hope. Hope is just a few technicalities removed from faith after all. It had been viciously burned out of them when they screamed during the Fall and no one came. Crowley, of course, has always been a rather terrible demon.

(This is where the sunset will take inspiration from. How beautiful, it thinks, watching white wings burn hot red, ardent orange, spiteful yellow. I will make those colors mine.) So for a few awful days after the world doesn’t end, Crowley is consumed with shameful, treacherous hope. His whole corporation is brimming with it. It’s brimming with idiotically composed hypotheticals. What if Heaven was holding him back? What if he lets himself have things now? Or some more pathetic ones. What if he will hold my hand?

(You do not land from a fall like this.)

But, of course, among all the things that changed, there are things that didn’t.

(You crash.)

Crowley is still a demon. It is intrinsic to his being that he can not be loved, certainly not by an angel. Unloved is woven into his pitch black feathers. Unforgiveable is braided into his fire hair. Maybe that’s what’s holding Aziraphale back.

(The crash is what leaves the life of what once was an angel hanging by a string. Any being with burning wings thinks it knows pain. But then their bones shatter. Then the fierce power of the impact knocks the breath out of their lunges. They would think, that knocked the soul out of my body, if they could still form coherent thoughts.)

Because Aziraphale knows. The very core of his being is rotten and wormed. There is no unseeing that. And hope dies a slow death in Crowley’s heart, as days pass, and everything is different and stays the same.

(You can only live through this if you convince yourself you do not have a soul.)

Maybe that is why he chooses to wander into hell, under thinly veiled excuses. No one bothers him on his way in. He makes it all the way to his office before he is stopped, two demons grabbing his arms and the Lord of Flies fixes him with an angry glare and crossed arms.

(In toxicity and heat, only the most stubborn beings survive. Maggots crawling up your calves, flies kissing your eyes, leeches clinging to your skin, a parasite disguises its greed as love and you reach for it without hesitation, without inhibitions. You let yourself be fooled with the hopeless desperation of a starving man.) “What are you doing here, Crowley?” Beelzebub asks, head tilted.

“I was just – ehh, y’know, clearing out my office -”

Beelzebub waves a hand, a cue for the demons to drag him through the narrow corridors of Hell. They ignore Crowley’s struggling and his shuffling feet and keep a tight grip. Outside the doors of Hell, they sent him on an undignified tumble with a shove. Crowley takes a moment to find his feet, but then he whirls around. Beelzebub and their demon bouncers are standing in the doorway.

“You can’t just – I mean, no hospitality, you people. I’m a demon too! I have rights! Worker’s rights, ever heard of it?”

“You’re no demon,” Beelzebub buzzes and slams the door in his face. Crowley blinks at it for a few moments, feeling oddly dejected.

(An apple that isn’t picked falls.)

Downtrodden, Crowley starts to walk somewhere, anywhere. He follows the familiar way to the bookshop almost automatically. He doesn’t know what he wanted in Hell, not really. He hasn’t belonged there for a long time. Perhaps he was looking for some familiarity. Perhaps he wanted to remind himself of what he deserves.

He breathes in the open space and lets himself think of Aziraphale. It’s not too late for lunch. Forget about what he can never have. Most dreams are best locked away. He just needs to put a lid on it somehow, the same way he has done for millennia.

Oh, he knows. There are some questions you do not ask. There are some strings you don’t pull. Not if you want to keep – not if you want to stay - He breathes in deeply, the smog-filled dirty London air, the free sky air, cold breeze air.

(But you do rise eventually. Sulfur dripping from what remains of your wings, every bit of you that can still feel aching, and strangely certain She doesn’t love you anymore, you rise.) This is how to carry on: You saunter forward. You keep your eyes ahead. On his way, he notices a total of four (four!) people who smile at him. It’s like the opposite of people staring because you have something on your shirt. It’s like everyone being very impressed with you because you don’t have something on your shirt. Crowley is thoroughly unsettled by it.

He does not expect the sudden piercing pain in his chest. It makes him crumble to his knees. The humans start sending him irritated glances now, so he scrambles to his feet and ducks into the nearest alley. Next to three black trash bags, Crowley lets himself be consumed by the ache.

Crowley has had his fair share of pain and millennia to feel it, but he has never felt anything like this before. It’s pain reinvented, like someone changed up the formula, just to make torture a little more interesting.

Fuck. Where the bloody Heaven is it coming from? Crowley’s knees buckle again and he props himself up by his hands, the rough asphalt digging into his palms. Fuck, is he dying? It feels like dying. He has never touched holy water, but he imagines this is what it must be like, like burning without burning.

It’s the mirror-image of agony. It’s pain in a different flavor. It’s death by – love. That’s what it is. Love. Bloody angelic fucking love. And there is something distinctly holy about it. It’s been an eternity since he’s felt like this, like this without the pain, like this but like it belonged in his body. But he remembers – fuck, he remembers and back then it was good, so good. (It’s a method of torture to put someone in a room for days and never turn off the light.)

He looks around frantically, searching for who did this to him, if it was Beelzebub and her demons, if it was an angel because only an angel could cause divine agony like this. But there is no one – he is alone in the alley with the trashcans – there is nobody but him, just like back then.

It’s everywhere, even in his toes, even in his fingertips. If he could feel pain in his hair or his nails, he would.

Maybe it’s Her. What if it’s Her? What if She is punishing him now, for saving the world or for asking too many questions or for not being good enough of a demon? Maybe She’s decided that if he doesn’t fit in the two categories she has carved out for them, he doesn’t deserve to exist at all. Maybe She’d decided he’d asked for too much. (He had. He’d asked for the world and for love and for nights spent stargazing and holding hands with an angel.) And She wouldn’t even let him say good-bye to Aziraphale. How is that for mercy? (He had never known Her to be merciful.)

He tries to grab his phone through the pain, but his hands are shaking and it slips through his fingers. Tremors roll through his body and he leans forward.

“It’s not fair,” he mutters, grinding his hands against the ground. He feels like he did in the burning bookshop, only this time he doesn’t have to lose his world. His world will stay, it’s only him who will be gone. That’s better. That’s almost something resembling okay. Aziraphale will be fine.

He’d thought he was dying back then, he’d really thought he would, back then he had still thought she would be merciful. Maybe this is Her finishing the job.

If he’s dying, why does it have to hurt so much? Couldn’t She have done it in his sleep, if She’s oh so powerful? (But he doesn’t deserve it, does he? He doesn’t deserve a peaceful exit. That’s what She’s always thought, that he should BURN BURN BURN) He screams

broken s o u n d s  tumbling out of his mouth

Drowning

It’s like DROWNING

He has died like humans do a few times he has never drowned but almost so he knows -

It is drowning and surviving. Gulping up water, have it fill your lungs, and it does, it’s everywhere, holy and everywhere, he is choking on it and gasping for air that won’t come and never being granted the mercy of death.

This is the holy water that will refuse to kill you. He is  n o t  dying, dying is easy, he has done it over and over, he is living and that’s worse WORSE Where is HER MERCY? Humans die, and they say it’s like walking toward the light at the end of the tunnel. Why do they get to have it so easy? Why does light burn burn burn like water does. . And his wings. They hurt so much, he has to drag them onto this plane of existence.

. !

? Blue, everything. is. blue. ?

?

?

? They move

drag

on their own accord

on SOMEONES accord

-

upwards

UPwards

u p w a r d s - but they drag down go up but drag down heavy as lead as a lead balloon as the beginning of the world But you fly anyway, impossibly, against each downwards drag of your wings. (It’s like falling upwards.) (It’s still losing. It’s always losing.) He flies with wings in agony. Drowning. Only there is no water to drown in. It wells up inside of him, invisible and not really water.

Tears, though. Those burn. Like holy holy water. Surviving. Even though you’ve run out of air long ago and all you breathe is water, wet and cold. And it is Good.

He could feel how very bloody Good it was. (And Goodness hurts and scathes and sometimes kills. And Goodness does not repent. Goodness leaves a trail of bodies after itself and does not glance back a single time.) Why does She want him so high? So She can drop him? So he can Fall again? And again and again?  Why is he surprised?

She brings him closer and closer – to Heaven – to what he once was - She will drop him - She will drop him out of the clouds - And worst of all -

He will never see Aziraphale again.

(Can She drag him up again by broken wings?)

He always thought he would die by love, all the love that has always consumed him and eaten him and devoured him and sustained him and nourished him and healed him – but Aziraphale is not even here, but Love is and doesn’t leave.

He doesn’t need Love with a capital L, he never has. He had love instead.

(And he was good at it, if there was one thing at all he was good at, it was this. He loved. Like a human. Like an angel. Like a demon with nothing else to live for. He’d loved, and it had been so, so good, and She would never take it away from him.)

And it had been so much. Too much. He had expected to drown in love, yes, but not like this. (He had expected a touch lingering too long.) (He had expected a gaze too intense.) (He had expected words too harsh.) (Those were the things he had prepared to die for.) (And oh, the love he had lived for.)

Higher, higher, he keeps shooting higher, he cannot stop his wings. (He will fly too close to the sun.) More than he would like to admit, I am scared. If this is dying, when do we get to the good part? If this is not dying, what is it? Is this my punishment for hoping? For asking? Should have known better than to hope. Am a demon after all.

demon aren’t i why does it feel wrong to think demon (unforgiveable it’s what i AM) I am a demon, I am unfor- I am un- I am a- I am an Giveable for u n Able lov u n Nomed N O M E D I am. Scattered letters on my tongue. I am an. I will die touching the clouds. (I am flying too close to the sun.) (But you don’t know how much I have always ached with it.) (You think your Love can kill me, go on, try it. I fucking dare you.) (Torture me with kindness. Whip me with niceties. Hollow me out with your Love, I fucking dare you.) You do not get to shape me. You do not get to make me. I am not your bruise to press on.

(I did ask when I was Burning.)

(I begged.) (Resurrect my soul. Glue my wings back on. Heal those sulfur burns. Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.) You are slicing through the air and it is slicing through you. You are the weapon and the wound.

(You have flown too close to the sun.)

You are Her Enemy. You are Her detested door-to-door salesman. You are a dried leaf under Her boot and She likes to hear it crack.

…

You are Her child. … You are My child.

you are my child i love you i’m sorry -

The Goodness and the Love and the Holiness flood his veins and his essence and everything, until there is no room for him anymore.

It will keep pressing, he knows. Until he is burned away. And it’s okay. Aziraphale is safe. And it was all worth it. He has loved. He is ready to go.

But then it eases – but She will not let him – he can breathe again – his wings are his again – he is floating -

He gains control of his wings and lands on the ground of the alley softly. And he can tell. Something is Gone. And something is There.

There are two things he is certain of: He is Forgiven. He is Loved. Which makes him not certain of anything anymore.

He is shaking, even though the pain is gone. Once a demon. (Once a demon…) ? Once a.

? ?

?

He will not be loved. He will not be forgiven. He is. He’s.

It’s everywhere. He has felt it before, but that was a long, long time ago.

Love is not something to have. It’s a passer-by. It’s a precious visitor. It is not in its nature to last. (Not for someone like Crowley.) Love will not be owned. (And if there is one place it does not belong it’s behind yellow slitted eyes.) He knows what it feels like to have Love bleeding from your fingertips. Love oozing from star-maker’s hands. Love dripping red from curled angel hair. Love is not to keep. What just happened? What happened? Something is Missing. Something is There.

He is a demon, he has wings. He has… White. Why are they white? Fucking shit. Fucking hell. Holy fucking shit. Fucking Heaven. They’re white. They can’t be white. It’s impossible. (They burned in fire and in acid. They broke and healed. They are as black as a void where goodness used to lie.) He tears off his sunglasses and turns them around, quickly skimming his reflection in the glass. The eyes are still there. But the wings are looming behind him, as if he were – some sort of – holy – ngk

And if there’s one thing Crowley is absolutely certain of, it is this -

(It’s WHAT I AM -) once. crowley was once an angel. Fuck. As a matter of fact, no. No. No no no no no.

Crowley does not run to Aziraphale’s bookshop. It is an emergency, but not one that warrants superfluous exercise. He does, however, walk at a very brisk pace.

He does not think anything but a never-ending string of swear words and curses. He throws open the door to the bookshop and there he is. Safe. Whole. Tartan bow tie and everything.

He almost walks back out when he is hit with a wave of love stronger than anything he felt out on the street, love that he knows is not his own.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley rasps. He can’t say the other thing at the moment. “Oh, Crowley!” Aziraphale starts walking toward him, hands anxiously fidgeting in front of him. “What’s going on? What happened? Is it angels? Are angels after you? I could swear I’m sensing one close by, I’ve been a little… nervous about it.” “Nah – no, it’s not – it’s not angels, I don’t think, it’s -”

“But I’m usually never wrong about these things.” Aziraphale frowns.

“Well – well you’re not wrong, technically, it’s just.” Crowley can’t say it and tries to scramble for a place to start. “I went to hell.” “Hell? Why? Did they take you? Did they hurt you? Are you hurt?”

The expression on Aziraphale’s face is heartbreaking. But Crowley is fine. Isn’t he? Nothing broken. This time, there are no scars. Skin is unblemished now. “No, I’m not hurt, well, not anymore, but… I don’t know why I went into hell, it was stupid. But then she – she slammed the door in my face and said you’re no demon, which ha! Fair enough. Just Beelzebub being petty, you’d think. You don’t just un-become a demon. It’s not like – not like I could be some sort of an aardvark all out of a sudden. That’s not how it works.” Aziraphale has come very close now and reaches out his hands to clasp Crowley’s, which is probably meant to be reassuring but makes the panic flare up inside of him. Maybe it’s not even panic, but some other embarrassing emotion close to it.

“My dear, what are you saying?”

Crowley clenches his jaw. He can’t say it. Aziraphale will think he’s mad. He is mad. This is mad.

Aziraphale is fine. Now that he’s seen it, he should leave. Maybe he can just… sleep it off. Maybe it will all turn out to be a very strange dream. He will wake up in his flat, as demon as ever, and there will be nothing to be confused about, nothing to dread and nothing to hope for.

But he can still feel it. As real as anything. Buzzing under his skin and above his skin. In the bookshop, he can tell it’s everywhere. Is that Aziraphale’s love? It’s… shining. It’s so beautiful. No, it can’t be. There’s too much of it.

His lips are clamped together, but his wings are not. He unfolds them right here in the bookshop. They are so bright. Brighter than they should have any right to be.

Aziraphale lets go of his hands and stumbles back. He makes a small ‘oh’ sound.

What will he think? That it’s ridiculous. It is ridiculous.

(That it shouldn’t have happened. Crowley doesn’t have what it takes to be one, that’s obvious to anyone.) (That he has wanted this to happen. That he has wanted to upend Crowley’s entire being and remake it ever since they met on the wall. That this is good.) Aziraphale presses his hands in front of his mouth and just stares.

That’s when it occurs to Crowley – things are different now. He hasn’t changed, but things have. Unforgiveable unraveled and turned into forgiven. Unloveable unraveled and turned into loveable. How much more would it take for loveable to turn into loved? Maybe Aziraphale will let himself -

(Is the apple still so tempting when it is not forbidden anymore?)

“Is this -” Crowley asks, “Could we -”

He thinks, Aziraphale will just know. Because of course he is asking. He is asking.

But Aziraphale is shaking his head. Still staring.

Oh, the eyes. He forgot about the eyes. Quickly, he puts on another pair of sunglasses. His eyes are still demon. He is a demon, but watered down. Still too demon. Even when he’s not.

“I – I know the eyes are still – but it doesn’t matter, I’m -” and it doesn’t feel right, but if this is what it takes to convince Aziraphale – “I’m an angel, right?” We’re on the same side, right? We’re the same. Right? Just don’t look past the sunglasses, and it will be fine. Just forget that my wings were black only yesterday. Aziraphale’s expression changes, but Crowley can’t tell. “You being -” Aziraphale hesitates too, “- an angel doesn’t change how I feel about you, dear.” “Oh.”

Crowley had let himself hope again and he’d barely even noticed it. But he shouldn’t have. Maybe in time, Aziraphale would get used to it. Maybe in time, he would fall in love. But not so soon. Crowley has waited six thousand years, he can wait a little longer.

Unless.

Unless it doesn’t matter. Unless what’s on the surface doesn’t count, only what Aziraphale knows to be true and what he knows to be true is that Crowley is a demon and meant to be a demon and demons can never be redeemed. Maybe She has changed Her mind about that, but that doesn’t mean Aziraphale has.

Aziraphale knows.

(Maybe it was never being a demon what made him unloveable.)

But he can wait. He will. He’ll be patient.

Oh, the love. It’s starting to become unbearable.

“How did it happen?”

“I don’t know – it just suddenly started. I was walking here and then suddenly I was Rising.” “How? How do you Rise?” Aziraphale seems astonished by it. And Crowley thinks of burning love. Of water that is not water. Of divine agony. “Just… sauntered vaguely upwards,” he says and shrugs. It’s strange how different and familiar it feels. How foreign and home. How far and how close. “There’s just so much love here,” he says, just to say anything else, “where does it all come from?” Aziraphale looks surprised and then bashful.

“Maybe it would help if I stepped outside for a moment?” “Why, what’s the problem?” Crowley asks, confused. “Oh, wait, you don’t mean – all that love is coming from you?” Ah. That explains. It was a stupid question earlier, although it’s not like that’s ever stopped him. He should have been able to tell. So much love, so much, and none of it is directed at Crowley. (There is the proof Crowley never wanted that Aziraphale was not just lying to Crowley or even to himself.)

“It is,” Aziraphale says softly, resigned, almost like he just admitted to something. “I am an angel after all.” But Crowley has always known that Aziraphale loves. But he had not known how sweet it would feel, even if it’s just a dream that it’s for him.

“Are you alright?” Aziraphale asks and comes closer again. “I know it must be a startling change.” “Ha! You can say that again. Count me startled alright.” Crowley runs his fingers through his hair and lets out a slow breath. “Yeah, I’m okay. I just… don’t understand why She would do this. Why would She just – shake everything up again? I thought – She made the rules clear all these years ago and now I feel like maybe I was playing an entirely different game all along.” Like he thought they were playing chess, but it was really Monopoly all along.

“Maybe… maybe She wanted to reward you.”

Aziraphale had not been there. He had not felt it. To him, being an angel comes without a price attached. “No,” Crowley insists immediately. “No way. It must be some sort of punishment. I just can’t see how yet.” “Is it so hard to believe that the Universe would simply be kind to you?”

“Yes,” Crowley says tersely.

She isn’t kind, She plays games. The Universe has never granted him favors. Anything Crowley tried to do right has always gone wrong.

“I can’t,” he realizes suddenly, “sorry, angel. I can’t.” He rushes out of the bookshop and doesn’t listen to Aziraphale’s stammering and doesn’t turn back around. It’s not just the conversation he can’t do, it’s all of this. He’s not an angel. He’s not a bloody angel. He doesn’t want to be an angel. Angels are stuffy and hypocritical. Angels have hurt him and have hurt Aziraphale. He doesn’t want to be an angel. (He has never wanted to be a demon either, of course, but that’s semantics.) The Bently is still at the entrance of hell, so he takes a Taxi back to his flat.

“I’m not an angel,” he says to the air. He circles his throne and flops down on it. A moment later, he gets up again and starts pacing the room.

“Do you think this counts?!” he says, growing more agitated. “Do you think the pain just – goes away? It doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t mean you never let me suffer. You did. You did.” He slams his hands down on the table, then braces himself on them.

“You might have Forgiven me. Maybe. Maybe you did. But that doesn’t mean that I will forgive you.”

He just can’t figure it out. So he yells. Yells loudly, as if something like volume could ever make Her hear him. “Why did you do this?” he yells, “what do you want from me? Do you want me to forgive you because I won’t. Do you want me to be your perfect little angel because you can forget that.” She has never heard him. For millenia he has begged her, he has asked her, he has yelled at her and She has never responded. “FUCK you,” he yells. “You hear me? Yes, I just cursed your fucking name. Are you going to make me Fall again, now? Then go ahead and do it.”

Is that Her game? Are those the stakes? He’d never known back then. That that was something that could happen. But now he does. Now he knows Her and what She is and what She will do.

“Is that what you want? For me to make the next mistake so you can push me out again?” That must be it, right? Why else would she do this? It’s oh so in-fucking-effable.

“I won’t be your blasted clean slate!” His plants are shivering, even though it’s not them he’s yelling at. “I won’t be your blank canvas, just for you to hurt again.” (I will not have everything just to lose it all.) (I will not climb high just so I can fall deeper.) “I am a demon,” he says with a certainty he doesn’t have, “I don’t care how white my wings are, I am a demon.” Demon means many things and most of them Crowley has always hated with his whole being. But demon also means ‘abandoned’. Demon means ‘pushed over the edge of Heaven’. “I am a demon. You didn’t not hurt me just because I don’t have the scars to prove that you did.”

She cannot erase him. She can’t write him out of existence, it’s too late for that. He might die, yes, but he was here and he was a demon and she can’t take that from him. “Twice,” he snarls, “twice you’ve ripped away who I am. Redefined my being how it pleases you. I am not your plaything. I am not your game piece.”

He pushes himself away from the table again, suddenly drained from anger. “I am not Crawly,” he says. And refuses to be.

***

The angels come for Aziraphale the next day. He is not expecting them. They scoop him up outside his bookshop and drag him up.

Gabriel is with them, but not to get his hands dirty. He is here to taunt. To mock.

“You’re not an angel, Aziraphale,” he says, “you should have Fallen. We’re just helping to – speed things along, as it were.” So that’s what they were after – a Fall. Aziraphale had often wondered what it would be like to Fall. He had wondered if the freedom would be worth the pain.

In the privacy of his mind, he has drawn up a list of things he would say if he were Fallen. And a list of things he would do.

There were times he had wanted it. (Our side.)

They keep dragging him up, knows he is too weak to break free and he will not miss Heaven.

They break his wings with a well-placed blow half-way to the clouds and he will not miss the angels.

When they reach the lowest cloud, he slips free.

It’s not the angels who make him Fall. Angels don’t have that kind of power.

What makes him Fall is a thought that starts with How could She do this to him? The thought follows Why do you let him be an angel now and not six thousand years ago? It stumbles briefly over Why do they get to be angels? The thought reaches Are you saying he didn’t deserve it before? Because he did. He deserved everything. It dives right into You don’t know what’s right or wrong, do you? And hits You’re just playing a game with full force.

It’s not quite I don’t believe you did the right thing that does it. It’s the thought he ends with: I don’t believe in you. He falls. He looks up at the sky and the clouds and the somber faces of beings that were supposed to be good. And he thinks, I don’t believe. And then he Falls.

He doesn’t try to move his broken wings. He lets it happen.

(He had thought Falling would take longer.) (But it’s over quickly.) (It’s hitting the ground that hurts.)

(The force of his fall denting the asphalt.) He lies in the rubble. And he knows that something is Gone. And something else is There.

Several of his bones are broken, but it’s nothing he can’t mend. His corporation survives the fall. Love doesn’t.

He lies and lets himself feel the loss of it. I don’t want your Love, he thinks and misses it terribly.

He stares at the far-away sky for a long time. It is untouchable now. For a long while, he lets himself feel the pain - and finds it’s not a fresh wound. It’s very old and has been bleeding for a long time. Maybe it can finally start healing now.

Then he thinks, I should get on with it. If Crowley can do it, so can I. Then he rises up in his spot of rubble. And then he does. ***

(He does not call Crowley. He locks the bookshop and closes his blinds.)

(He cries for as long as his corporation will produce tears.)

(He tears half of his books apart with his fingers and all the brute force he can summon, then he miracles them back together. Once. Twice.) (He screams at Her, but he doesn’t use words. She will understand.) (He lets his phone go to voice mail and miracles it apart when it keeps ringing.) (He does not answer the knocks on his door.) “Aziraphale!” (Not the banging either.) “Angel!” (His bones have healed but the pain fills him from head to toe.)

“Please let me in.” (He posts Crowley a letter. I’m fine. Go away. He lets it float outside the bookshop.)

(It goes quiet.) (He can still sense an angel around.) *** A week later, Aziraphale dusts the bookshop.

It’s ineffable.

Aziraphale is Fine. He lifts the blinds. To Hell with ineffable.

He gets on with it.

*** Crowley is leaning against the door of the bookshop when it opens. He gets to his feet swiftly and turns around, but he balks when he sees Aziraphale’s face.

“No,” Crowley says and backs away. Scared. “She can’t – She can’t, She wouldn’t dare. Not you.”

Because I would tear Heaven apart for you, and She knows it – I would tear her whole Creation apart until She was the only being left and then I would put Her to trial.

“No. It’s fine.”

Aziraphale looks indeed fine for someone who has spent a week holed up in a bookshop. He looks too fine. Unnaturally fine. He ushers him into the bookshop and closes the door behind them.

“It’s not,” Crowley says quietly.

“Well, it is what it is. No use in dwelling on it.”

But Crowley will dwell on it. For a long time.

“What happened? Why didn’t you call me?”

He is frantic with concern, the shock of finding the locked-up bookshop still deep in his bones. He hadn’t expected this. He would have expected angels to come and get their revenge. Not Her. “I believe this is something I had to do alone,” Aziraphale says.

These are the repercussions. This is the price. Why would She make Aziraphale, Aziraphale of all angels, the best angel there is, why would She make him Fall?

“Did it hurt?”

Too much time with a demon. Where is the limit?

You can have my soul, you can have my heart, you can have my wings, I let you take it all, but not him – you can’t have him. “It didn’t hurt a lot for a Fall.”

He has dreamed of this. He is a complete and utter bastard and he has dreamed of this. What if Aziraphale were a demon? What if I were an angel? He had never imagined those two would collide. “But it hurt.” Aziraphale doesn’t answer, which is answer enough.

This is the cruelty he knows from Her. She will keep them forever apart. They can never touch. They will never be the same. Maybe that’s her punishment. (It is ever more cruel if you had hope. And Crowley has always been a terrible demon.) “I’m sorry,” Crowley says.

In a general bad-things-should-never-happen-to-you way but also in a very specific this-is-my-fault way.

“Don’t be,” Aziraphale says kindly. “We were always rather terrible at our jobs, weren’t we? You a bad demon. Me a bad angel.”

(I would give my grace to you, if I could.) (I don’t deserve it, I never did.) “I was a terrible angel too.”

“And I imagine I’ll make a terrible demon. I suppose it doesn’t really matter then, what we are.”

Why him why him why him why HIM?

“It does. It does!” Crowley is growing angry. “I can’t believe how calm you’re being. Why aren’t you freaking out? I’m freaking out.” “My dear, I’ve had six thousand years to learn that, angel or demon, it’s not important. They’re really just labels.”

“Just. Labels.” Crowley repeats dumbstruck.

He steps past Aziraphale to the sofa, grabs one of the pillows and presses it to his face. And then he screams.

Aziraphale doesn’t get it.

He doesn’t understand, this is all on Crowley. Crowley never should have talked to an angel on the edge of Eden. He never should have gotten so close.

“What about Love?” he tries, choked up.

“It was a bit overwhelming sometimes. All that Love.” If Crowley could sense love, then so could Aziraphale back then. Then he’d sensed Crowley’s love – then he’d always known – and of course he’d known something so blindingly obvious – and it had all been too much for him, Crowley’s love, so much that he was glad to be rid of it. Not having to sense it anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Crowley says again and he is. More than anything.

Crowley should go.

This is why Aziraphale had barricaded the bookshop.

It’s over. They both know it’s Crowley’s fault. He ruined this. He’d wanted to much. He’d wished a doomsday upon them.

“’s my fault,” he speaks it out into the open quietly. The sorry wraps around his throat like a snake and starts to strangle him. “It must have been my fault. I made you Fall. I tainted you.” (This is what happens when you touch an angel.) (When a demon touches an angel, they bleed into each other. It is as unholy as it is holy.) Aziraphale, who must be the kindest demon there is, if Crowley can ever accept he is a demon, does not condemn or accuse him. He will be gentle about his rejection. Aziraphale is an expert in wrapping brush-offs in nice words. He kicks people out of his bookshop with sensible shoes.

Can’t you see, angel? I did this I did this I did this to you I am worse than a demon

I am your monster, I am your nightmare, I am your Personal Hell I am your punishment, I am your crime, I am your worst mistake He is a thief and a scoundrel. He took it. He took Aziraphale’s grace. Aziraphale should hate him. Should kick him to the curb.

(He had seen something precious and wanted to own it.) And Aziraphale has always known, has rejected him at every turn because he always knew what was really there, but nothing has ever been as bad as this. There is no coming back from this. He will walk out the door of the bookshop and never return. Won’t be allowed to. (The most unforgiveable thing he has ever done is to be forgiven.) But Aziraphale looks at him, with his kindness. He steps toward him.

(You should not have let me touch your wings, lest I turn them black.)

You might not be Heaven’s angel, but you will always be mine. (I turned them black.) Aziraphale puts a hand to Crowley’s cheek, as if to soothe him.

(I never even kissed you, but I burned away your Grace.) Aziraphale tugs his sunglasses off gently. (Not burn, but take. Take and take and take.) “Dearest, don’t insult me,” Aziraphale says then, “this was nobody’s choice but my own.” “Choice?!” Crowley croaks.

“I was never much fond of being an angel, as you well know.” How can Aziraphale accept this so easily? Doesn’t he know - Why does he always understand but never understand -

But there is nothing to change it. This is the new world now. We are an angel and a demon has become true once more.

***

“It’s strange,” Crowley says, “I thought all your angel-love would disappear, but it’s all still here.” Aziraphale lets out a strangled sound. “Yeah, s-strange.” *** For a day there, they were both angels. But now Crowley has missed his chance.

*** “She has been quite cruel, from time to time,” Aziraphale says. *** “Even the kids.” *** A man rushes past Crowley when he enters the bookshop.

“Who spit in his coffee?” he asks Aziraphale, who is sorting books.

“Oh, I have a feeling he suffered a minor delusion and thought the book he picked up had maggots crawling all over it, but who knows.” “Okay, and who spit in your coffee?”

“Satan,” Aziraphale says innocently.

“Aziraphale!” Crowley exclaims, equal measures scandalized and bemused.

“Didn’t you see that book he was carrying in his bag? Full of dog-ears. I will not tolerate a book-abuser in my shop.”

“I see.” Crowley hides his smirk.

*** A girl runs along the sidewalk and trips over her own feet. Crowley, sitting in the Bentley, sees her fall. Her knee is scraped and starts bleeding. She’s crying. Crowley’s heart flies into his throat.

He wants to heal her. It’s a forbidden emotion. It’s Something Not To Think About. He is not allowed to want things whole. Except now he is.

It’s a subtle miracle. Crowley gets out of the car and gives a short wave of hand. The skin mends itself and the scrape is gone.

He has done this kind of thing before, of course. When there were no other demons around. This time he doesn’t feel guilty. “Did you just heal -” Aziraphale starts when he walks into the bookshop.

“Shut up.” ***

“Oh, but you can’t leave without trying the crème brûlée,” Aziraphale tells the couple on its way out the French restaurant. “It’s simply – well, divine.”

The couple has a change of heart. “I’m starting to think it’s the opposite,” Crowley remarks and raises an eyebrow.

“I have no idea what you’re insinuating,” Aziraphale says cheerfully and takes a bite of asparagus. *** Crowley leaves for the homeless shelter every now and then. Aziraphale knows better than to ask.

***

Crowley doesn’t know what to do with Love. It feels like it belongs to somebody else. But he also knows that missing it is worse, so much worse. He knows Aziraphale doesn’t tell him everything.

And he can’t bear the thought, not even of Aziraphale being a demon but of Aziraphale suffering like a demon.

He won’t feel Unforgiveable, not now that they know that demons can be Forgiven. But cut away from Love, from Her Love, not being able to sense it anymore… Crowley knows that it’s hard. It’s lonely.

Sometimes, it’s like freezing out in the cold. Sometimes, it’s like starving of something. He wants to give it back to Aziraphale, even if only a sliver. Only a modicum of what he really deserves.

And Crowley… well, he has Love but he does not have love. Not the kind he wants.

“I want you to know… it’s not gone,” he tells Aziraphale on a quiet evening, sitting next to him on the sofa.

“What, my dear?” “I… I know you always knew… and of course, I know you don’t return – I just want you to know. Because it’s the not knowing… that’s really painful.”

Crowley is explaining himself badly, but it’s been in his mind for so long, it’s hard to let it out.

“Whatever are you talking about?” Aziraphale diverts his full attention to him now. “Well, it’s… It didn’t really become clear to me that you knew, must know, until I could sense love myself.” Quickly, Crowley adds: “But I still do.” “Do what?” Aziraphale looks very confused, which means he’s not being deliberately obtuse. And he’ll have to say it. It hurts to say it, but nothing is as bad as Aziraphale not knowing.

“I love you,” Crowley says softly. “And you know that. You must have been able to sense it for millenia. So I hope you realize… you’re not unloved. Could never be. Not as long as I’m alive.”

Aziraphale’s mouth drops open.

“You don’t have to respond!” Crowley rushes to say. “All this time, you haven’t said anything, so – so that’s an answer in itself. I mean, I sense love, of course I know you don’t. Can’t.”

This will not break them. If nothing has yet, this does not have the power to. But it still hurts. Oh, it hurts. And he has always, always wanted too much. “My darling, I think you’re not yet an expert at the sensing of love.”

Crowley rolls his eyes.

“It doesn’t exactly require a lot of skill.” Aziraphale sends him a calculating look.

“Who do you think my love belongs to, then?”

It sounds like a trick question. “Wha – the world?”

Aziraphale shakes his head. “A nice thought, but I really don’t love the world all that much.” “Then what?” “It’s a misconception, you know. That angels can tell where the love comes from. We – they can only tell that it’s there.”

So he didn’t know. He didn’t know that Crowley loved him – well, he should have been able to tell anyway.

But then Crowley’s throat goes try. His mind should not go there, but it does. The well of hope inside of Crowley is endless. No matter how much of it you snuff out, there is always more to come.

“So hypothetically,” Crowley says.

“Yes, hypothetically…” “All this love could be directed… at one person.”

Crowley scoots a little closer to Aziraphale. “Even a demon?” Crowley adds. “Yes, a demon,” Aziraphale breathes. Yes, feast yourself on my tainted love. Do you think you are immune to poison because it was home in my veins? Are you willing to take your chances?

It’s bad. Crowley shouldn’t do this. But he can’t stop his hand from reaching out. He stops at at the last moment, just before touching Aziraphale’s and quickly draws it back. He almost forgot. There’s a crater between them still.

“But you won’t let yourself,” he says and is certain that it’s true. They are an angel and a demon, it doesn’t matter who is which. Aziraphale thinks they don’t fit. “We’re an angel and a demon. ‘S probably some sort of law of nature against it.”

Hope dies a slow death in his chest. “You’re probably right,” Aziraphale says, which speeds up the process a little. “But -”

“But?” “As of late, it turns out, I’m a bit of a rebel.” Crowley’s head shoots up. “What?” “And I don’t care much for rules.”

I have always been venomous, you should have known to stay away. You shouldn’t have let me tempt you. (Soft-seeming lips, did you let yourself be caught off-guard by the teeth behind?) “Aziraphale,” Crowley whispers and it’s do you want this will you let me can you forgive me? Aziraphale takes his hand. Please don’t let me bite you. “You really shouldn’t,” Crowley says.

“Why not?”

Aziraphale looks at him so earnestly, so seriously, like Crowley matters. “Falling for it wasn’t enough of a clue?” “You didn’t make me Fall, dear. That was all me.”

“But I’m not g-” his voice is wet “good for you.” “You are.” Aziraphale’s voice is rising. “You didn’t need to be an angel for me to know that.”

He wants to lean in, lean so close he can breathe Aziraphale’s breath, he wants to press his lips to Aziraphale’s but he’s frightened that Aziraphale would let him.

Venom on my lips and poison in my blood, I taste so sour, darling, don’t drink from me. And I know you are a glutton for it, you are a glutton for the finer things. But don’t drink your punishment from me, it won’t taste well. But then Aziraphale leans forward and kisses him and Crowley can’t stop him and he doesn’t want to and Aziraphale’s love tastes so, so sweet. And Crowley doesn’t like eating pastries or candy but he loves this.

She will never have this. She could never create this. She could never remake the world in a way that he won’t fall for Aziraphale.

It’s a slow kiss and it’s a little difficult to fit all that love between their lips, but they manage it.

She could never take this. She can drown the world and She can burn the world and She can banish the angels and She can grow a garden in Hell, but this love will always be there. She can’t touch it.

Crowley is not rotting, not anymore – he is blooming, like the blossoms on an apple tree. Not even he can destroy this.

He is touching the sun. He is living in it.

“Well then,” Aziraphale says and beams at him. “Can I tempt you to dinner?” Crowley groans. “Oh, you’re insufferable.”

Aziraphale looks very smug.

“Then I suppose you’ll just have to smite me. With, what was it? Your angelic righteousness.”

They stand up from the sofa at the same time and start walking toward the door.

“You’re a real bastard, Aziraphale,” Crowley tells him. Aziraphale preens at the compliment. Things are shaken up. They are a little different and a little the same. But Aziraphale and Crowley carry on as always. And Crowley still glues coins to the sidewalk every now and then. Aziraphale still blesses babies once and again. One of them might be an angel and the other might be a demon.

Semantics, really.

[firesofdainix]

would the people's fates around you change if your fate has changed too?

In another universe, Henry is kindly, but he could not save everyone.

Warnings; murder, death, beheadings

Henry was just a baby when he meets his caretaker- a stunning young woman, blonde hair and beautiful smile still stuck in his memory, despite the fact he is still a small infant with no mindset other than eating milk and babbling and cooing. He remembers the warmth of her smile, a smile that shines brightly like the warming suns in which he has basked upon whenever his mother takes him outside.

He remembers how she is so gentle, gentler than the way his mother handles him so callously to the point he has to cry to get the wants he desires.

This woman was a gift to he, sent by the god above, loving her and cherishing her, his grabby little hands yearning his warmth.

He remembers the lullabies he sings of all night; her voice so beautiful he remembers so vividly, as if she can - and will - put him to sleep no matter what the cost.

Then one day, when he turns just the age of one, the blonde, beautiful and kindly woman was taken away from him, putting him into various nurseries with the unjust tutors and impatient teachers, their tongues unleashing out a poison to poor and young Henry, who only wishes to play with his building blocks.

He asks his parents - in broken, misguided words - when the blonde woman will be back, but they pat his head and continue ignoring him.

(Later in his life, he learns of Jane Seymour; a kindly woman, with a familiar bright smile and the same crown of blonde hair he faintly remembers in his childhood. She had died giving birth to her first child, Edward.

He could not help but feel the irony of it, though; Jane Seymour was so kind and caring towards her children, but birthing one was the cause of her death.)

-

He meets the quiet and reclined Catherine - Catalina, as her Hispanic parents call her - in his years in elementary. She was holding a rosary and bible, silently praying in a lunch table, not eating unless the Lord hears her prayer and answers her calls. Needless to say, Henry is fascinated at Aragon's confidence to show her religion, to show how loyal she is to God.

He catches her eye.

Catherine looks away, cheeks tinged with pink.

Henry tries to make her notice him again- from casual waves in the hallways, to offering to carry her books (she awkwardly declines), to praying with her during recess or lunch or after class for the matter. Yet much to Henry's frustration, she pays attention to his older brother, Arthur.

He hates how his brother could make her blush, how he and she have so many hobbies - like speaking and learning Latin - how easily Arthur can make her swoon and with one finger she can lift her up, high, high into the skies with no possible way to come down unless Arthur lets her.

Meanwhile Henry watches them, stomach turning slightly, jealous green spread on the features of his face- Mary Tudor mocks him for it but he denies that he is jealous of them.

(A rather fateful accident occured- Aragon and Arthur had gotten into a car crash and unfortunately, the latter did not survive. No matter how many times Catherine prayed and sit on pews or clasp her hands closed in the hospital bed, ignoring the pain, Arthur's life has been snipped, his thread of life short yet meaninful. Henry did not like the way his brother stole Catherine from he, but he had cried at his funeral, with the same amount of grief as with Catherine.

After college, they both wed in a quiet church ceremony, attended by their family and relatives. Henry sees her smile shyly in her veil, and he smiles too, albeit just more confident than hers.

They have a daughter, Mary, and they could not have asked for anything else.)

-

Mary cries of a failing grade in school, and he comforts and hugs her, telling her what is bothering her of her failing grade. She recollects at how the teacher is always so horrible with her, treating her wrongly while she favors her other classmates, comparing them to her.

"Don't worry, I will talk to your teacher", he reassures his daughter, rubbing her back slightly to make her feel better. He can feel anger boiling inside of him- how dare that woman make Mary's life inside of the school miserable?

He calls the principal, and, with civil wording and the fake calm of his voice, ask for Mary's teacher, wishing for an appointment with the woman and complain of how he had treated their daughter. When they have both agreed on a due date, did his mind start to hum with thoughts on how to confront the teacher- some say he must be firm and stern to her, other voices tell him to just shout at her to the point he has all but used up his voice, and some tell him to just ask her politely to tell her why she is failing his child.

But as he faces the teacher, his throat starts to constrict around him, as he chokes on the words he was going to say. He remembers her face, oh so brightly, just in the days they had just met- a drop of green into his golden view, it is where everything had went wrong.

Anne Boleyn looks at him, with a calculating expression, smeared red lipstick and raven dark hair pulled up into two twin buns, holding a little girl - their daughter - in her arms. She glares at him with such intensity and he bites his lip.

Of course she would be angry with him, for leaving her alone after their one-night stand together.

(When Henry confesses to Catalina about his affair with Anne, she had dropped her teacup, sending it shattering to the floor, causing their daughter from upstairs to yelp and watch her parents. Henry did not fight back as Catalina hits him, book after book, trying to hit him in a hard blow.

Much to his surprise - but not that he does not deserve it, of course - she files a divorce and only lets Mary stay with him in the weekends, staying with her friend Marìa.

Mary cannot look at him in the eye ever again.)

-

He meets a lone, fifteen year old girl in the streets, starving and shivering in the park bench late at night. Henry has been given over time and he, relentlessly, accepted such jobs, leaving him exhausted and cold and tired and hungry, but all his thoughts and worries vanish when he meets the young and skinny girl.

"Are you lost?" No reply, just a chatter and a shiver.

He asks minimal questions, yet the girl did not reply to him. He sighs and gives the poor girl water she perhaps has not drank.

She mutters, "Thank you", and it is enough to make Henry smile and nod his head, as he gets up from the bench.

He continues to visit the homeless girl, give her warm clothing, food and drinks, never questioning her and vice versa. She did not speak to him at all, and it was only a matter of time will fate get their hands on her.

(One day he is walking back from his work, and - rather eagerly - runs towards the park, until he screams. He finds the body of the young girl he was nursing back to health, headless, the bench covered with blood and her neck looking absolutely shaved off; he investigates where her head must have gone and he sees it- on the alley walls, the young head of the girl, with a rather messy imprint on the walls used with her own blood.

Katherine Howard is mine.

Years later, he finds out it was made by a man named Thomas Culpepper; her cousin.)

-

He meets a young woman with a dark complexion in one of Elizabeth Blount's parties- she was wild, she was the life of the party, and everyone was vying for her hand to dance and waltz with she. Henry had his chance, as she clasps his hand, bringing him to the centre of the dance floor, their moves as smooth as the beat as they curve in just the right angles. Her moves were breath taking, and sooner they were at the gardens, smoking and away from the eyes of the party goers.

"A friend of Bessie?", she asks with a Getman accent as she puffs out smoke from her mouth, watching it disappear into the night sky.

"Yes- I was the one who match made her and her husband, after all."

She looks at him intensely, as if there was something wrong with his face. "The name's Anna. Anna Cleves."

"Henry."

(He and Anna would remain friends through the years- chatting through their phones or voice-chatting, but they did not explore the trials of love, just seeing them as good friends and nothing more. Henry had come to bid her goodbye as she leaves to go back to Germany to pursue her arts carreer with Hans Holbein.)

-

He is dying.

He knows that his life is now coming to a close, the monitor beeping slower and slower, matching the rhythm of his heart. He breathes for a moment, as he looks back at the people in his room, waiting for his final breath, hoping that it would not come.

There was Catalina, Mary, Mary Tudor and her husband Charles Brandon, Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth, Anna Cleves, Bessie Blount, Anne Hastings, Mary and George Boleyn, William Stafford, and so many familiar faces to the point he cannot pinpoint them all but he knows that they are there, they are hoping it was not his time.

But he knows.

He knows that it is his time to finally die, either to be sent to heaven, to hell, or to the purgatory.

His eyes trail towards a woman with curly hair, looking at him with a sad yet reassuring smile. Her name tag catches his eye; Kateryn Parr.

-

He opens his eyes, only to find the vast cosmics in front of him, and he sighs, wondering how beautiful the parts of this galaxy is, and why he is here and not in the mythical afterlife that was meant to be for him.

His eyes trail over a woman, all in white, shimmering and shining and seemingly buried in her work, sewing an embroidery, undecipherable in his bare eyes. The woman turns towards him, and he jolts backwards, but she just beckons him to come closer.

"You did good in this universe, Henry the Eighth."

Henry blinks, "I did good?"

The woman sighs, "You are not as cruel as your alternate versions, and for that, your six wives thank you."

[in-the-bookish-dark]

Fifteen Booths - Chapter 1 - RL

It’s lunch. On a good day, I have forty-five minutes, no more, and I get it at a moment’s notice from the big Boss Man, Mr. Peters.  There’s always something that needs extra hands at the warehouse, so you take what you can when you can, is what he says. Sometimes, I only have thirty minutes, and every once in a while, I have zero minutes and I’m starving by the end of the day. Today, I have a full forty-five minutes as long as I get out of the building before he thinks for something else. I have my sandwich in wax paper. I have my bag of chips in a twist tie bag, and I have my can of Dr Pepper. The lunch bag, which I recycle until it falls apart, fell apart today, so they’re all loose.  I find a vegetable bag that someone left behind in one of the cabinets, so I stick all of them into that.  Looks like a homeless guy’s lunch, but it all chews the same.

When the weather is good, I’ll go over and sit maybe at the Water Gardens, or I’ll go up over by the courthouse.  Burnett Park is about as far away, but there’s always so many streets to cross that it takes damn near forever, so if I want trees, my only good option is the Water Gardens. It’s okay, though.  Most of the time, I’ll go sit at the edge of the big pool, the one they show in Logan’s Run. They shot it last year here, and a bunch of friends and I came to watch in the middle of the night.  I don’t remember what that pool is called, but I like having all that rushing water in front of me.  Sometimes I can get mesmerized, though, and I feel like I’m about to get sucked into the waters, tumbling down the steps to a very wet and sore death.  When that happens, I’ll move over to the plaza or go sit on the edge of the quiet pool.

Wherever I end up sitting, which is usually something I don’t figure out until I’m down the sidewalk a ways, the bottom line is that I get some fresh air and a little time away from Mr. Peters, and then I go back and I can get through the bullshit day, y’know?

I put my windbreaker on – it’s only October, but we just got a front come in overnight and it’s sixty degrees with a light drizzle.  That’s all we’re supposed to get today – drizzle, so I'm not too concerned. I stuff my lunch into my jacket pockets and head out, past someone with their radio on, the news going on about some trip President Ford is taking to the midwest. Or Middle East or something. I'm too hungry and in too much of a hurry to really pay attention.

I hit the back door and automatically check my pockets for my keys.  Doing so, I fish three bills out of my pocket.  I have two fives and a twenty, but I don’t see how.  Did I get too much in change somewhere? Usually, this time in the month, I only have ten dollars in my allowance pocket, and then I remember.  Mary Ellen and I were planning on going out to the movies night before last to see “Oh, God!” which just came out, but she ended up starting her time of the month that morning and didn’t feel like going out.  That explains why I have fifteen dollars more than I was expecting.

So, I’m walking out, and I’m going to the Water Gardens, and then, two blocks down, it starts to rain. Not heavy, but if I walked a mile, I’d be soaked. I’m right next to the Greyhound station, and I actually think about going in there.  I can sit on one of the benches and just eat my sandwich in peace.  I see like three homeless guys wander in, though, and I figure, it’s middle of the day. Place will be full.  Chances are, I’ll be stuck next to these guys and they’re gonna smell like wet dog.  That would be the best scenario. Worst would be they’d smell like dead dog.  Yeah, that always goes good with bologna and American cheese. Not for me, my friend.

So, I keep on walking, trying to stay under overhangs as much as possible, but there’s not a lot of that on the Hell’s Acre side of downtown.  The heart has been gone for, I don’t know, ten years I guess, maybe the mid 1960s, but there’s still plenty of run down rat holes around the edges that you’re not going to get a lot of awnings and stuff.

It goes from raining to pouring.  Not only pouring, but pouring and blowing – blowing right into my face.  I’m half way to the Gardens, which won’t give me any cover, and the same distance back to the warehouse.  The next door on my right is an arcade, not a game arcade but one of those dirty movie arcades, with the tiny booths and films running all the time.

Truth is, I’ve never been in one.  Some guys at the warehouse talk about going in them after work, watching the 8mm loops or maybe getting a booth with a real dancer. She’s on the other side of a glass, but still, it’s a real woman there, in “all her glory.”

I don’t have a lot of options for escaping the rain, and the one that means getting the least wet is right in front of me, so that’s the one I pick. It sounds like an excuse, but hey, it’s the first time I’ve used it.

I push through the door and before my eyes adjust to the dark, the door snaps shut and I’m left in a skinny hallway with a window and countertop about ten feet down.  I walk up.  An old guy in a Mets ballcap is on a stool with a cashbox on one side and what must be forty stacks of quarters in front of him.

“Hey … uhh … mister. It’s my first time here. What do I ~”

“Two bucks in quarters gets you through the curtains.”

I hand him a five.  He starts to slide five stacks of four quarters my direction.

“Sorry,” I say, “all I really want is two dollars worth.”

He keeps sliding and says “Don’t got any ones yet.  Still early.”  He cracks the lid of the cashbox about a quarter of an inch and tosses the five in, then scoots the box back a little like I’m about to make off with his fortune.  I know it’s a scam. He’s got to have ones in there, but I guess he figures guys will spend more quarters if they’re carrying them around.

I scoop the quarters into my hand and drop them into my pocket as I start to go. Then, I turn back and add “What kind of ~”

“Film booths down both sides.  Green light means empty, red means occupied.  There's a card on the doors telling you what's showing in that room right now.  We got a whole mix of movies depending on your tastes.” He gives me a quick eyeball like he’s assessing what my tastes are likely to be. “The three rooms on the far wall have the models, when they're here, which is usually after lunch.”  I nod, then he remembers more “Oh, and the rooms where the projector isn’t working, there’s a big white sheet of paper saying so.  We got maybe two out right now. Don’t even think about going into those rooms, ‘cause we have them locked.  We catch anyone in there, and it’s his ass.”

He just stares at me at this point, and I think the only thing in his head is wondering what the hell this stooge is doing in there when he has no idea when he’s doing in the first place.

I wait a sec to see if he's going to say anything else, and he isn't, so I turn and walk between the velvet curtains, just like in a regular movie theater.  Just before the curtains close, he adds one more thing. “There’s paper towels – don’t leave a goddamn mess!”

It's much darker in there, on the back side of the privacy curtain, and I almost walk into the dead end wall before I see the faint left and right arrows right under signs that say “We have the right to refuse service to anyone at any time” and “No loitering.” The loitering sign has a city ordinance number down at the bottom even though the lettering is the same as the other sign. Official or not, even if I had the inclination to loiter, I don’t have the time.  I swing to the right and see the first row of booths.  Both sides of the little hallway have something like a pantry door every five feet or so. Half of each wall is made up of doors and there's a sign on each one and a light over each one.  Rows of little doors with little lights, like, I don't know, the confessionals at the Vatican, maybe. Plenty of doors, no waiting.  I'm immediately embarrassed by the thought, though, and tell myself to add it to my own confession this week.  

A guy with a mustache comes around from the far corner and just stops to read the first sign, so I stop and read a different sign.  I don't want to give him the wrong idea.  The first one has this big swirl of color and says "Swedish Erotica" on it, and there's a picture of a guy and two girls doing it right on the card.  He's sitting and the first girl is sitting on his lap facing out and you can see their whole business right between her legs clear as daylight.  The other girl is leaning in and kissing the first one, and playing with her breast - the first girl's breast, not her own.  And they are all buck naked, of course.

I stare at that one a bit and think about going in, but the light is red.  Lots of rooms, I tell myself, and walk down one door.  That one has the same big swirl of colors, but this time it says "Color Climax." This card has the same blonde girl that was standing up in the first one, but she's on her knees now, and a dark-haired guy is behind her, holding on for dear life and she's got a face like a howler monkey.  They must be about done, it looked like.  I think about going into this one.  The light is green, but I decide to hang off and check one more.

When I move down, the other guy glances my way and moves a door closer, too, until we're standing in front of adjacent booths not three feet from each other.  This one has a big black man and a girl with pigtails. She's on the couch and displaying her altogether to the world and he's leaning in so he can put his enormous thing in her mouth.  This light is green.

I look around as if anyone is going to notice or care if I go in, then walk in and close the door.  I latch it, too, with a flat kind of sliding latch though I don’t think it’s necessary.  It’s there, though, and I’m a little obsessive about locking thing when a lock is offered to me.  Besides, that’s probably what activates the little light over the door. There's one wood chair in the middle.  Every edge of every flat surface, from the chair to the rim of the projector screen has little burn marks from who knows how many cigarettes left resting there.  There’s also a roll of toilet paper on a handmade shelf and a little waste can in the corner.  I think that's kinda odd and puzzle for a couple of blinks, then I remember what the guy said about paper towels, and it dawns on me. It's so a guy can do his business right there when he gets cranked up, and nobody's the wiser.

The screen in front is a yellowed grey and covered with streaks that I avoid thinking about.  I almost sit down and get ready for something to start, but it doesn’t take me long to decide against doing that.  There’s no telling what might be on that damn seat.  Actually, yeah, I do have a real good idea what’s on it and I don’t want any of it.  I take the toilet paper roll with two fingers though and spin it around so it unspools, then I yank it into pieces long enough to drape over the seat.  Not perfect, but close enough.  I shift and the quarters rattle in my pocket and I remember what they’re for.

I pump a few quarters into the slot below the screen, being very careful not to touch anything. They clatters down through the machine’s little maze, then the sound seems to rise up from behind the screen.  The projector starts flashing a completely naked woman on the screen, brunette with medium size breasts and curvy hips. She’s walking right to left and black lines are worming their way down the screen from left to right, running right over the top of her as she goes.  She looks a little like my girl, Mary Ellen, but I’ve never seen all of Mary Ellen.  We’ve only gotten as far as second base, but looking at this woman I can imagine what Mary Ellen would look like if she was naked.  I’m sitting there watching her start to play with herself on the couch and I just remember that I’ve got my lunch and better get started on it.  Before I know it, the rest of the forty five minutes is going to be gone, and I’ll be starving the rest of the afternoon.

I unwrap my sandwich and crumple up the wax paper and toss it into the trash can for two points and start to chow down just as she is sliding a big black fake penis up inside herself.  She has all my attention, ‘cause like I said, I’ve never seen any movies like this before, maybe a random picture here and there, but not a whole movie. I’ve for sure never seen a naked woman in real life.  The most I’ve ever seen is up Mary Ellen’s skirt to her panties, but even then everything was covered by her panty hose, so she was doubly covered.

As I chew away on my bologna and pickle sandwich her fingers are going wild on her privates and she’s rocking away in wonderland.  Before I know it, my chewing is in sync with her rocking.  Chomp-chomp-chomp – rock-rock-rock, and I’m completely lost in what’s going on in front of me.  I can feel pickle juice running down my the inside of my sleeve under my jacket and shirt and I know it’s going to end up sticky because these are bread and butter pickles, not like my usual dill pickles, and they’re just more sticky like that.  But I don’t care, really, because I’m fascinated, y’know.

All of a sudden, the door rattles and I jump and almost choke on a piece of pickle.  It’s latched – I latched it when I came in, I remember that clearly, but still it was a noise I wasn’t expecting. I spit my mostly un-chewed piece of sandwich into my palm and call out “Occupied!” like the latched door and the red light weren’t clear enough.  I guess they weren’t though, because why else would he be wanting to come into an occupied booth.  Dumbass.

Anyway, so I think about it twice, and then go ahead and pop the sandwich bite back into my mouth.  It didn’t even have time to get cold.  I swallow it, then wash it down for good measure and then I turn and double check that the latch is secure.

I keep watching and in a few minutes, she’s joined by people who I think are supposed to be neighbors, like maybe a couple from next door.  There’s no point in really trying to describe it except to say that, if there was a position two women and a man could have sex in, they try it over the next fifteen minutes or so.  I can hear latches snapping and doors opening and closing every few minutes up and down the hallway, other guys coming and going from other booths, but I don’t see any big reason to come and go.  I have plenty to watch right where I am.

So that’s all I do for the next fifteen-twenty minutes.  Eat, drink, watch these three have sex, and feed the machine.  A quarter buys two and a half minutes, so eight quarters get me a solid twenty minutes, which honestly is up before I realized it.  My sandwich and my baggie full of chips, I practically inhaled, but I still have some Dr Pepper left in my can. I’m trying to be judicious, knowing that it’s only 12 ounces, but this awfully thirsty work, like we say over at the warehouse.

The handle gets jiggled twice more, but since I’m kind of expecting it, it doesn’t startle me.  It annoys me, but there’s a big difference.

When the last loop ends, I give myself a minute to get more presentable and then gather up my Dr Pepper can, baggie and wax paper.  I’m about to carry it out with me and then I remember the trash can, which I didn’t use for anything else, but it seems kind of tacky to put regular trash in.  Not that it’s some special semen box, it just feels weird, suddenly, to have brought my lunch in.  Somehow, the “normal” thing is to sit there in the dark, with the bleachy smell and the cigarette smoke smell soaked into everything, and the abnormal thing is to have my lunch with me, and I feel a little queasy.  I toss all my stuff in the can and walk back out the windy hallway and right out the front door.  The mustache guy is still back there, reading a sign just across the hall from the booth I was in.  I don’t look at him, but I can see in my peripheral vision that he glances my way.  The manager or owner or whatever the old guy is, is reading the paper and doesn’t even look up as I pass him on the way to the door.  No hello or goodbye or “Come again!” which is okay.  It’s not a chatty kind of place, y’know?  The only way to tell I’d come or gone is the door chime making its “bing-bong” sound as I pass through it.  I didn’t notice it when I came in, but I can sure hear it now.

It has actually stopped raining – quit sometime while I was in there.  The sidewalks are all wet, but the sun is already out, at least for a moment.  The sunlight on the water makes a nasty glare in places, and I’m trying to shield my eyes as I walk back to the warehouse.

It’ll be forty-five minutes on the dot when I walk back into the warehouse, I’m sure of that.  Maybe a minute early if traffic is light and I don’t have to wait for a crossing sign.

The afternoon is a busy one.  We’re in the middle of adding a little more office space, and so the floor crew, which includes me, is having to move some racks of document boxes around to make space for the expanded walls.  It’s not bad.  At least there are no chemicals to spill in this move, which has happened to me there before.

Before I walk out, I call Mary Ellen from the break room phone to see if she wants to eat.  I offer to come pick her up and we’ll go to the Swiss House, like we planned the other night.

We’re sitting at dinner and I can’t help but think about the girl on the screen, the one who I thought looked like Mary Ellen.  Looking at her now, I can see there’s really no resemblance.  No real resemblance anyway.  Her hair is different, her face is different, nose, eyes, even her breasts.  Not that I can see them, but if I glance down while Mary Ellen is looking someplace else, I can tell that Mary Ellen’s are maybe a little smaller.  It might be the blouse, but probably not.  At the time, though, I sure kinda wanted them to look alike … to imagine Mary Ellen like that.  Not that I don’t do it myself sometimes when, y’know, but it seemed like it was a lot easier doing it that way, with the movie.

“What would you like to do after dinner, Brendan?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it.  We could maybe go to the drive in.  It’s going to be nice, but we’d have to pick up a paper and see what’s showing.  We could stay on this side of town and go see “Oh, God!” at the Meadowbrook, since we didn't end up doing it the other night.”

“Maybe not the drive-in tonight.  I hate walking back to the restrooms on a regular day, and you know, right now …”

“Oh, yeah.  Right. Yeah, no, let’s not do that.”  I really had forgotten why we canceled the other night, at least for that moment. That time of the month.

We just sit and stare at the picture on the wall next to us for a few minutes.

“Are you okay, Brendan? You seem quiet tonight.”

“Me? Nah. I’m probably just a little tired.  Things were kinda busy this afternoon and I didn’t sleep good last night.”

“Oh. Well, maybe we could just go to the Tandy Center for a while and have some ice cream? Maybe there’ll be skaters we can watch.”

I’ll be honest. I perk up a little at the thought of skaters, but I don’t want her to notice.

We drive to downtown and park in the Tandy lot by the river, then take the subway in to the Tandy Center. The whole place is nearly empty, but the ice rink has two skaters, probably a mom and her kid. Maybe a babysitter and somebody else’s kid.  He was about ten and she was maybe ten years older than me.  Mid thirties seems about right.

We watch them for a while.  She’s a good skater.  She’s probably had some lessons.  She also has the right body for a skater. Curves, but not too many or too big.

“Did you ever skate, Mary Ellen?”

“Me? No, not really.  I’d come to birthday parties here when I was younger, but I never had lessons or anything and I never was any good at it? Do you skate, Brendan?’

“No, I’d just fall down if I got out there.  I’m not graceful enough on the ground. I’m sure not going to be any better on ice.”  We both have a good laugh at that, and Mary Ellen touches my arm like she’s saying “You’re silly, but I like you anyway” that way women do.  “She’s good, though, Mary Ellen.  You might like it if you had lessons.  They probably don’t cost a lot if you do them here.”  It reminds me that we’ve never been dancing yet.  We could go dancing, Mary Ellen and I.  I’m okay with safe things like the two-step, and they made us learn the waltz in P.E. when I was in Junior High.

The son - the boy, anyway - stops and rests against the rail for a bit while the mom or sitter or whatever goes out and really opens it up.  She’s really good, and in a way that I have trouble imagining Mary Ellen being.  I try to picture her out there, in that body, doing the gliding and the little loops, and it’s hard.  I still like it, though.  I could give her lessons for her birthday, but that’s not coming up until May.

Or I could make a surprise gift to her.  It doesn’t have to be her birthday or anything for me to give her a present.  We’ve only been going out a couple of months, since about the time she went back to college, but we’re pretty close for just two or three months. I don’t think she’d say it was too much.

I reach down and squeeze her hand and we watch her some more.  When the boy skates back out into the center, we’ve already finished with our ice cream, so I stand to go.  She tugs me back down by my hand and says, “Please ... this is so sweet. She seems like such a nice mommy, doesn’t she?”

So we watch for a while, and I’ll be honest, I’m day dreaming a little bit.  The boy spins off from the woman and takes a big tumble, then just drifts for another twenty feet, spread eagle flat out on the ice, twirling as he goes.  I kind of miss the first part right after he launches, but I look over when Mary Ellen gasps.  Almost immediately, though, the mom is there, leaning down to give him a hand up.  She’s turned just the right way that someone could see down her blouse maybe, but she covers her cleavage when she bends.  She’s no rookie there, either, which I kind of embarrass myself thinking, but hey, it stayed inside my head, so no harm, no foul, I say, right?

We’re both about done at that point.  We walk back to the subway and as we’re waiting for the car to show up, Mary Ellen snuggles up under my arm like she’s cold, but she’s not.  She just says, “Thanks, this was nice” in a little, soft voice.  She stays like that till the subway car comes, and then snuggles back in when we’re on the car, heading out to the far stop where I parked my car.  It’s so much better to park out there. You have less congestion around you, both in terms of cars sitting and in terms of cars all tangled up trying to get to the exit and blocking you in until they can move out of your way.

I walk her to her door.  Her dad is home. I can tell because just as we get up on the front porch, the porch light comes on.  Even when we go up the steps quietly, he knows.  She’s twenty two now, and you’d think she was still sixteen the way he watches over her.  We sure don’t fool around together much at her house.

When I start my car up and drive away from the curb, I think about that woman on the film again.  She and Mary Ellen looked so much alike.  Maybe kind of creepy, I guess, but I don’t let myself dwell on it.

The next couple of days, it’s real busy at the warehouse, plus it started raining that next morning.  It ends up raining for two days straight, so there’s no way I’m going to go wandering anywhere with my sandwich.  I just sit in the little break area each day and eat my sandwich and chips and drink my Dr Pepper, and I read through all the old issues of Field & Stream that my friend Kyle brought in from his dad’s barber shop last week.

On the third day, I’m starting to feel trapped, and like I want to eat lunch out, so I leave my sandwich and chips at home.  I could treat myself – I could go over to that burger place in the Tandy Center, or I could go to the little barbeque place next to the Federal Building.  I don’t know which yet, but I just step out the door, put my sunglasses on, and start walking.  I’m letting my feet decide.  Right away, they seem to start drifting toward the barbeque place, and I let them.  I love their chopped brisket sandwiches, and it’s still pretty cheap even if you get the chips and soda to go with it.

It’s all going great, and my stomach is getting set on the chopped brisket, and then I decide to turn one block earlier than I usually do, and there’s that movie arcade just down the block on the right.  I do good, though; I just walk right on by like it’s not even there.  I go on to Robinson’s and I get my sandwich and chips and a Coke this time, and decide to walk over to Burnett Park. I should have stayed and eaten at the bench in front of Robinson’s, but I didn’t.  As soon as I start walking, I know where I’m headed with my lunch again.

I feel a little guilty because I was raised Catholic and we feel guilty for the wind blowing, but I’m also – to be fair – feeling guilty because I know what I’m about to do and I do it anyway.  I don’t think Jesus is too happy about it, no.  But I also am pretty sure this isn’t the biggest issue Jesus has to worry about on a Thursday afternoon in October.  All I do is watch a movie for a few minutes while I eat my lunch.  I don’t think I’m going to hell for a movie.

So, I’m there and I’m all by myself this time. Nobody else in the hallway, anyway, though some booth have their red light on. Also, I can just make out the sound of other projectors running and other sounds seeping in. I walk around more and pick a different booth from the first time. I’m not looking for anything in particular, just something different. Roll the dice and take your chances. What’s the Mousetrap game motto? “You roll your dice, you move your mice” or something like that.  I did glance at the pictures on the door, though, just to make sure it’s not anything like two guys or something else weird. I’m a little annoyed at myself because when I got a lot of change from the guy at the counter. I go ahead and ask for a whole five dollars’ worth, like I have time to sit in there for … well, however long five dollars would take. I guess if two dollars is twenty minutes, then five dollars would be almost an hour.  But again, quarters spend everywhere, right?

I feed in only two dollars’ worth, just to make sure I don’t get carried away. The projector starts and what I see this time is a party and at first the couples go off into other rooms for sex, but after a while, it’s all happening out in the open and with multiple people.  Girls are kissing and touching girls, two guys are both having sex with a girl, things like that. This goes on in all kinds of combinations.  I open my drink first and take sips from time to time.  I also open my chips, but I feel very self-conscious for some reason. Every chip sounds like glass bottles falling from the sky.  At least I can sip my drink quietly, but there’s no way I’m going to go through even one of those tiny bags of chips without making a lot of noise.  I eat maybe three or four and it sounds to me like I’m walking across broken glass, so I stop.  I don’t even touch my sandwich.  I can either pay attention to the show and sip my drink or I can pay attention to not getting barbeque all over my shirt.  So, I pick the show.

One guy who shows up late has an enormous penis, and three of the girls – a redhead and two blondes - race right over like they’ve been waiting for him to get there. I can’t even describe what they’re doing because every minute or so it changes and they’re doing something different.  There was one scene where one of the blonde girls was holding the guy’s penis for the redhead while she put it in her mouth and sucked.  I kinda wish that the blonde holding it for the redhead were the brunette from the other day, the one who looks so much like Mary Ellen.

Then my time runs out.  It just runs out. There’s no warning, no nothing.  One minute the projector is going and the next minute it’s dark.  It’s so abrupt.  I start to put in another four quarters, but I talk myself down.  If I put in just one quarter, then I can see a little more before I have to go back to work and it’s not just a sudden stop.  I pop the quarter in and sit back down.  The film picks up right where it left off.  The guy has reached down and he has his hand on the redhead’s head, just holding it in place while he starts thrusting.  I set down my drink, which is now empty, and put my right hand down on my crotch.  I can feel my own hardness through my jeans, and I imagine that it’s my hand resting on her head.  Quietly, I start moving like him.  Very quietly.

The projector stops again and I think it really couldn’t have been two and a half minutes, because it seems like it had just started up. Who am I going to argue with, though?  The projector?  The old fucker up front at the counter?  Like he’s going to worry about whether I’ve seen my full two and a half minutes of his dirty movies.  Time is time, though, and now I have to get back to work.  I’ve got eight minutes which should be plenty, but still -

I scoop up my can and toss it in the trash. I almost do the same with my sandwich and the rest of my chips, then I remember how hungry I am and calm myself down.  I stuff the two of them into my pockets, unlatch the door, and next thing I’m out on the sidewalk.

I eat while I walk, which is easy enough with the chips, but I slow down a little when I’m working on the sandwich.  I still don’t want to get back to the job covered in barbeque sauce.  I zip up my windbreaker.  At least most of it will fall on the jacket and not onto my clean shirt.

Later, when I’m leaving work, I think about calling Mary Ellen and seeing if she wants to get together. It seems like maybe I should do it, but I don’t really want to.  Wednesday isn’t one of our usual nights, plus sometimes she has church activities anyway so it’s very hit and miss if we did want to do something. I must just be feeling guilty, and wanting her to reassure me that I’m not a bad person, or that she has no idea of what I’ve been doing.  I don’t feel like going home though, so I take a walk around downtown for a bit.  I happen to walk by the arcade twice.  No, that’s not true.  I just happened to walk by it once. I walk by it on purpose the second time.  I don’t go in. Not either time.  Instead, I walk on to the Richelieu Grill and have a bowl of their chili and a grilled cheese sandwich. That’s a lot of food, but it was a busy day, and I was pretty hungry.  After I eat, I walk around a little more.  A new cold front is coming in tonight, they say, and I can already kind of feel it.  I don’t walk by the arcade again.  I go home.

That night, as I’m getting ready for bed and taking care of business like they say, I think about the redhead and what she was doing.  I imagine her as a brunette while she’s doing the oral sex thing.  It seems like a good look for her.  A real good look. She would actually look a little like Mary Ellen if she were a brunette.

The next day, everything is just off.  I’m going the wrong way at work and everyone is annoying me.  I’m edgy, which isn’t all that unusual, especially if Mr. Peters is having one of his Management by Riding Everybody’s Ass days.  By the time lunch comes, I really want to get anywhere but the building. I don’t even want to see the building from wherever I am.  I think about going back to Richelieu’s, but I brought my sandwich and chips, and besides, I’ve been eating out almost every day it seems, and a couple bucks here and there start to add up after a while.

So, I get my jacket, sandwich and chips and grab a Coke from the vending machine before I leave the building.  I’m going to go to the Water Gardens for a while and just sit in the sun.

It’s a great plan, except when I get outside, I find the wind has really picked up.  It was breezy when I came in, but now it’s really gusting.  Still, I made up my mind, and that’s where I’m going to go.  Make a plan, stick to it.  I turn down Commerce, and even with the Convention Center in the way, the wind is still blowing in my face.  That’s okay, though.  I can sit on the bottom step of the mountain next to the plaza and be protected from the wind.  I’ll shoo away a couple of panhandlers, and then they’ll all leave me in peace.

It’s still a good plan, except when I get there, there’s about a hundred elementary school kids there for a field trip or something.  Four FWISD buses on the street and kids everywhere, but especially in the middle of the plaza where they’re settling in to have lunch.

So much for my great plan. There’s nobody to yell at, though.  Do I yell at the kids for being around or all the adults for bringing them, or the wind for being a pain in the ass in the first place?  Right.  That’s what I’ll do.

As a payoff for the aggravation, though, I decide that I’m going to enjoy myself at lunch, and you know what that means.  The wind almost yanks the door out of my hand when I get to the arcade, and even rattles some of the display cases with old posters.  I just walk right on through and shake my handful of quarters as I walk by Grady, who is the old man who runs the place.  Or at least, he’s the guy who sits at the counter while someone else runs the place. Probably the mob or someone like that.  I bet if I ask, I could buy a marijuana joint from Grady or maybe some uppers or downers.  Random fantasy, because I wouldn’t know what to do with any of those things.

I brush past an older guy in a ball cap and sports jacket and just walk back toward the booths with the girls.  I stop when I see the little sign next to the first booth that says “Live girls / $5 for 10 min / $12 for 30 min / $25 for 60 min.” Even I can figure out that two thirty minutes cost less than one sixty minute, but maybe they don’t get too many of the sixties. Or maybe they want people to stay more than ten minutes but less than an hour. ” At any rate, I figure maybe I’m not going to see a live girl today. I wasn’t planning on spending so much, even if it’s a real live girl on the other side.  Also, as I look around, I don’t see any pictures.  Whoever is in there could be eighty years old with boobs down to her hips for all I know.  That’s definitely not worth five dollars.

So, I backtrack down the hall.  The guy in the cap and jacket is still where he was when I came in, reading the same sign he was reading.  I don’t feel like going around the long way or squeezing past him, so I just turn left into the last booth before where he’s standing.  I close the door and start rummaging through my pockets to pull out my lunch.  First, I get everything out, then I start the movie and just relax.  Today, I don’t care how much noise the chips make. If someone doesn’t like it, they can stuff it.

I pop the tab on my Coke, sit down, and immediately feed four quarters into the machine.  I empty my pockets while the reel starts up. It has fewer scratches and damage than the one yesterday, plus the colors are better and it’s in focus. I figure that means it’s a lot newer.  I can’t tell from clothes because nobody has any.  It just starts with this redhead pulling this guy back on top of her into a big four-poster bed.  It has canopy, drapes, big pillows and comforter – the works.  No warm up or foreplay.  He just starts pounding into her like gangbusters and she’s wrapping her legs around him and making all kinds of crazy grunts.

That must be the point where the door opened because all of a sudden, I can tell someone’s right behind me.  In all this, I didn’t lock the door, I figure, and there’s a cop who’s just walked in on me violating who knows how many laws and health codes and things.  My heart is pounding.  I want to jump up, but I just freeze.

The guy puts his hand on my right shoulder and leans in to my left ear.  I just know he’s going to start reading me my rights or tell me to stand up so he can put cuffs on me.  Instead, he just says “I can help you feel even better” and starts massaging both of my shoulders.  When he’s in close, I realize he’s the ball cap guy who just waited until I was settled and followed me into the booth I left unlocked. His breath smells like a queasy combination of chaw and doublemint.

“Oh, uh, sure, but no thanks.

“Nobody’s gotta know, buddy.  I’ll just latch the door again and you can get our dick out of your pants. You’re gonna love it, trust me.”

“No, that’s okay.  I ‘preciate it, but that’s alright.  I’m gonna pass.  Uhh ... listen, I just put ... umm ... a buck into the machine, but I’m going to head out. I got stuff I have to do.”

As I pop the door back open, I’m embarrassed at barely managing to say something that lame.

Of course I don’t really need to think of something clever. It’s not exactly a social error that I’m not interested in getting a blowjob from a guy.  Even knowing that, though, it occurs to me that maybe that’s what most guys come here for.  Does everyone but me just prowl around until they find a guy that lets them into the booth?  Maybe this guy really does think I came in wanting it and then got scared.

Grady is probably getting used to me sailing out of the place.  Maybe most guys sail out of the place once they get whatever it is they want there. That makes sense now that I think of it.  Like people, guys I mean, are going to hang out in a waiting room or something and have tea?  First off there’s no room down that skinny dark hallway.  Second, holy crap, can you imagine what kind of germs and stuff are probably all over in there?

I’m nauseated now, and my heart is pounding.  It’s just so strange, y’know?  I had no idea what I was getting into when I went in the first time.  I just figured I get a cheap thrill and that would be it.  I’d go in for lunch every now and then, and that’s all,  Here, I’m already going in three days in a row, but I tell myself it isn’t all my fault.  If it wasn’t for the school kids, I’d be eating lunch at the Water Gardens right now, and not trying to get it eaten walking back to the warehouse.  And then, I get even madder at myself because I realize that I don’t have to worry about eating as I walk because I left my damn sandwich and chips back at that … that darn place!  Now, I’m muttering to myself as I stomp down the block. “I can’t believe all the darn stupid crap you get yourself in all the time.  If it’s not one thing it’s another.  You really try ~”

I stop myself there because those aren’t even my words.  It’s my mom in my ear, saying all those things she always says when she gets mad.  The next thing she says is “~ our patience sometimes.  I don’t know what your dad and I are going to do with you.”  Even now, when I’m twenty two and mostly living on my own, I have to listen to that business a couple of times a month.  Even now, I’ll pick up the phone, and if she’s not yelling at me, she’s telling me how concerned she is about me ever making anything of myself. Last week, she called at ten thirty on a Tuesday when I was already in bed, and spent twenty minutes telling me that dad had run into Mr. Peters at the Meadowbrook golf course, and just happened to ask him how I was doing, and all Mr. Peters would say was “Oh, fine. Fine” in a way that didn’t sound to my dad like I was doing fine at all, and he came home and told her about it, and she’s been worrying herself sick since lunchtime that I’m going to get fired from another job and nobody was going to hire me because I’m getting a reputation.

Really all that in one sentence - hand before God.  Now take that sentence and make it twenty minutes long and you’ll see what kind of noise I have to put up with, and then maybe it’s not so bad that every once in a while, I waste a couple of bucks on something that doesn’t exactly make me a good citizen.  And y’know, that other job I got fired from, and there really was only one, was a lawn mowing job back when I was fifteen, and I got fired because the boss’ son came back from college before the end of the year, and the guy was desperate to give him something productive to do. He even apologized to me, for crying out loud, because he couldn’t afford two of us and he was stuck with his son or his wife would give him “holy hell” – his words.  I went home and told my parents and they acted like I’d just confessed to burning down a church full of puppies.  I told them exactly what Mr. Sloan told me, but it didn’t make any difference.  Here I was at fifteen, about to ruin my life and end up panhandling and living in the woods at Trinity Park. Well, I guess now you know that, when I get mad, I can get pretty long-winded, like my mom – unless I just shut up completely – also like my mom.  I couldn’t get mad at myself the way my dad does, ‘cause there’s no way I’m taking myself into my room and beating my own ass with a belt until I can’t sit for a week.  I have to laugh a little.  It’s just so crazy.  I really want to give Mary Ellen a call just to say hi, but she doesn’t get to take calls at her office, and I don’t have time at the warehouse to get anywhere near the payphone that’s out in the loading dock.

I guess it’s okay that I left my lunch behind, because I’m not feeling very much like eating.  If I didn’t have a real upset stomach when I walked out of the arcade, it did just fine until the real one showed up.  Fortunately, I do have a big bottle of Tums in my locker basket at work.  That’s going to pretty much be my lunch today – a handful of Tums and maybe a quarter’s worth of peanuts from the Tom’s snack machine. Tums and Tom’s, the lunch of degenerate losers.

I spend the rest of the afternoon in a mood. I don’t want to talk to anyone and I don’t want anyone to talk to me.  I work up a pretty good sweat loading archive boxes onto the cart for disposal, then unloading them near the shredder.  Back and forth, back and forth.  I see Mr. Peters watching me, and maybe he’s a little surprised by how much I’m getting done.  He shouldn’t be, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

On the way home, it occurs to me that maybe I’m just bored at lunch.  If I had something different to do, that would probably change everything.  I’ve gotten tired of sitting outside and watching birds at lunch, but if I took a magazine along or maybe had a little radio with me, that could be exactly what I need. That’s an exciting idea, and for the first time all day, I’m feeling better about myself.  I realized that all I needed was a plan and now I have one.

There’s a Wards and a Sears up at the mall, but there’s also a Radio Shack not a mile from my apartment, so I stop there on the way.  At first, I’m very disappointed.  Everything I’m seeing is a radio and a cassette or eight-track deck combo and they all run anywhere from seventy to two hundred dollars!  I’m walking out of the store with my mood hanging down to the floor and I see a little display of AM/FM portables, which is all I want for cryin’ out loud.  There are two – one for fifteen and the other for twenty-two.  I could probably go with the more expensive one, but I look at both the boxes and as far as I can tell, the only difference is that the more expensive one has a bigger speaker and runs on C batteries, and the other runs on nine volt batteries. They both come with an ear-phone and have a carrying handle.

Easy decision. I take the cheaper one.  I have to skip fewer lunches to pay for it, right?  It’s been an expensive week and “not as much” is the perfect price for me.  I pay with a twenty and the cashier asks for my address and phone number.  I just shake my head. They always ask and I always say no.  They say it’s so they can mail catalogs.  I’ve given my address before and I’ve never gotten a catalog.  I don’t know what they do with them, not that I think they do anything evil with them, but still I don’t feel like playing whatever game it is they have going on.  Ask my parents.  They’ll tell you I have a problem with rules that I don’t understand.  Ask my mom. She’ll talk your ear off.

Anyway, I make another sandwich when I get home.  It’s a big sandwich to make up for the one I left behind earlier today.  I call Mary Ellen and we talk for a couple of minutes, but I’m tired and still a little irritable, so we hang up fairly soon.  I want to tell her that I’m really feeling good about this, but that would involve telling her about what brought me to this, so that’s not going to happen.  I don’t want to make her put up with any of this noise.  It’ll pass and things will be fine, and she doesn’t need to even know.  It’s a non-event. Seriously.

[jngukie]

WIP Tag

i was tagged by @floofyeol! idk if this is a blessing or a curse let’s find out.

some of these fics have been in drafts for ages? so tbh i don’t even know if i will post them but hey we’ll see. (so assume for now that none of these will be posted—except when stated otherwise with an *)

the first couple will be ships. the later ones are reader-inserts. all are still protected by the Creative Commons license.

slide it up in here: chapter 10* pairing(s): jikook, namjin, yoonseok genre: humour, crack, drama, angst tags/warnings: texting, college au, slightly filthy, innuendoes, Awkward Jeon Jungkook™, slowburn, self-esteem issues, self-hatred, implied/referenced homophobia, everyone is a mess™

SUMMARY

gguki: [image attached] gguki: what should i do with it chimothy: um chimothy: dude idk if i’m entitled to give you suggestions but chimothy: i mean you could always just stick it in the ass???????

or jungkook accidentally sends a stranger a picture of his roommate’s brand new dildo

PREVIEW

the (9)7 wonders of the world

tol: ok here’s the plan dabs 24/7: yugyeom no offence but your plans kinda suck muscle pig: ^^ what bambam said muscle pig: i don’t trust you anymore tol: wow that hurt tol: but i promise you this one will be better dabs 24/7: don’t do it kook tol: it won’t backfire in any way

untilted vhope pairing(s): vhope, namjin genre: humour, fluff tags/warnings: college au, skype dates, profanity, neurobiology/pyschology major!namjoon, ra!jin, music major!yoongi (i think), some major!hoseok, and high schooler!tae, tbh idrk bc i haven’t finished writing it lmao

SUMMARY

When Jung Hoseok signed up for college, he didn’t think he’d end up on academic probation so soon. Hell, he’d never guess he’d have friends who would use him as a fucking lab rat for their atrocious experiments. He definitely did not expect to fall in love with his resident advisor’s little brother—and then proceed to sneak into said resident advisor’s room and hack his computer just to have one more Skype date with the little brother. Without getting caught by said resident advisor. Yeah—he’s a little stressed, to say the least.

→ a continuation of It’s Burning Up in Here.

PREVIEW

He didn’t sign up for this. He thought college would be a great idea—who would pass up the opportunity for ultimate freedom and youthful stupidity? No, he was ecstatic for college—but he definitely hadn’t signed up to be the fucking victim for his resident advisor’s boyfriend’s experiments.

“Hoseok-ssi, please stay still or otherwise this will hurt. A lot,” Namjoon begged as his friend Yoongi tried to hold him down on the fragile coffee table.

“That’s not what your needle’s saying! You said it was a harmless experiment! You said I’d be fine!”

“You will be! I just need practice drawing blood once—”

“You’ve never even done this before?” Hoseok shrieked, writhing some more. Yoongi growled in frustration and flung his entire weight onto Hoseok’s body—and thus effectively snapping the legs of the coffee table and sending them down towards the floor.

His advisor ran into the room then, eyes wide in alarm while holding a skillet filled with half-cooked meat, his creased white apron reading World’s Best Dad! in pretty cursive pink. “What the hell is going on here?”

untitled taekook* pairing(s): taekook, yoonjin genre: fluff, angst, humour, crack tags/warnings: restaurant au, running away, mentions of nudity, exhibitionism, does getting caught dancing naked in your room count as exhibitionism idek, mention of mpreg, but there’s no actual mpreg, i mean it’s the sims it’s not real, many many references to the male organ, but sorry folks no smut (A/N: this is literally what i have in my docs wow i’m such a nerd for preparing ao3 tags LMAO)

SUMMARY

The last thing Jungkook expected after running away to Seoul is to score a private live viewing of Naked_Neighbour_Dancing_In_His_Bedroom.mov—and then proceed to bump into him when he’s not-so-naked. And then also manage to greet him with a slap. It also probably doesn’t help that Nude Neighbour is his new boss. All in all, Jungkook just maybe kinda wants to die. (But of course Seokjin isn’t gonna allow him, so he’s just going to suffer—for now.)

PREVIEW

He sighs, turning his head to gaze out of the window, only to freeze when he realises his view isn’t exactly the most… decent.

Because across from his small studio apartment window is a perfect view of a larger apartment in the building across, and currently, the tenant (he hopes the boy’s the tenant) is enthusiastically dancing through his room completely naked, dinglehopper fully on display. He’s mouthing the words to some song, throwing a finger up in the air as he shuts his eyes and nods his head as though the music (Jungkook thinks there’s music) blasting in his room is speaking to him on a spiritual level.

Jungkook’s face is bright red when he finally breaks out of his trance, and he wishes he wasn’t so bad at reacting appropriately to inappropriate situations so he could at least have saved himself from adding a thirty-second clip of Nude Neighbour to his collection of non-digital memories. He rushes to the window and pulls the curtains close, fingers stiff as he tries to rid his brain of such scandalous images.

At least he was hot.

His face is redder now—if that’s even possible. “Fuck me,” he whispers, and then flushes even more. “Wait, no. Don’t fuck me. That’s not what—why am I even talking to myself. Agh.”

take these words out of my lungs (and set them free) pairing(s): vmin genre: angst, fluff tags/warnings: major character death, suicide attempt, depression, body image issues, depressed!jimin, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, ambiguous original character that appears for like five seconds, high school au

SUMMARY/PREVIEW

three pounds. that’s how much he’s gained since he last stepped on the scale, the dictator that rules over his life. he stares at the numbers again, frowning at the digits glaring up at him. perhaps there was a mistake; maybe the scale is rigged or jammed or simply broken. he couldn’t have possibly gained three pounds in a span of two days. hasn’t he been walking around his neighbourhood enough?

he sighs, stepping off the scale and turning around to flush the toilet before washing his hands. even the cold water burns his skin, and he wishes he could melt through the cracks on the floor. would he slim down then? would he finally be skinny enough?

“jimin!” he hears his mother call, and he forces his way from the sink, sneaking out his parent’s bathroom and into the living room outside. their apartment is small but cozy. jimin hates it.

untitled kim seokjin* pairing(s): platonic OT7 genre: fluff, angst tags/warnings: anxiety, depression, eating disorder, negative body image perception, lapslock (lower case)

SUMMARY

honestly, he can’t remember what it’s like to live anymore.

PREVIEW

breathe in. breathe out.

three lucky charms. four cereal pieces. seven bits down the drain.

he smiles, staring at the milk-stained sink as the spoon clatters against metal, bowl turned upside down. it’s ugly—white ink staining burnt grey like liquid cobwebs feeding on rust. it looks exactly as how he feels: dirty, wasted, trash. one-seventy-nine centimetres down the drain.

untitled kim taehyung pairing(s): Kim Taehyung/Reader genre: fluff, humour, probably angst bc knowing me tags/warnings: (sor far) nudity, profanity

SUMMARY/PREVIEW

Kim Taehyung has no regrets. Sure, he probably should’ve thought twice before he spent all of his money on BIGBANG merch just to show Jungkook that yes, he’s the bigger fanboy, and sure, he definitely should’ve listened to Jimin when he warned Taehyung that no, he shouldn’t eat three whole pizza pies by himself, but that doesn’t mean he regrets any of his decisions. Even though blowing all his earnings on people he’ll never meet did cause him to starve for a good or so month.

(Thank god for ramyeon.)

So, no, Jimin, he doesn’t regret running out of the shower butt naked when he heard her singing on her way to the second floor of their co-ed dorm, doesn’t regret shouting, “I love your voice!” before she screamed, “Oh my god, you’re naked!” And he definitely doesn’t regret yelling, “Oh, shit!” into Oblivion before sprinting back into the bathroom to resume the hot shower he abandoned.

“For fuck’s sake, Taehyung,” Jimin says to him once Taehyung’s finished recounting the story, the two of them lying side by side on Jimin’s bed. “You’re going to get us kicked out.”

“I should probably say hi,” Taehyung muses, blinking at the ceiling. “Do you think she remembers me?”

Jimin glances down, and snickers. “With how small your dick is, she probably does.”

untitled park jimin pairing(s): Park Jimin/Reader genre: fluff tags/warnings: (so far) blind!reader

SUMMARY

He is an angel; and she doesn’t need to see to believe. She fathoms his widespread wings as he gently picks her up, worriedly and urgently asking for her health, voice so soft it touches her skin like silk on smooth glass. His eyes must be crinkled in the corners, a smile stuttering through apologies, heart too warm for the human hand to touch. She imagines what he looks like, faintly deciding through his rapid Korean that he must be chesnut if not vanilla, not in skin but in connotation because he sounds and smells and feels like home.

Her pause is a millennia long, and she hears him repeat himself again, the sound of melting marshmallow oozing out of beautiful lips: “Are you alright?”

She produces a smile, feathery and light, eyes glassy and the world continues to remain black. “I’m fine,” she replies, and her voice is cracked from its lack of use; she hasn’t met anyone worth talking to in what feels like a century. Another smile reappears, much strained than what she’s used to, and she picks herself up from where the concrete lay, the dust falling from her voile skirt. “No damage done.”

untitled kim taehyung #2* pairing(s): Kim Taehyung/Reader, platonic OT7 genre: fluff, angst tags/warnings: i think it’s schizophrenia?, mental illnesses, depression

SUMMARY/PREVIEW

There is a moment when time stands still. It’s fleeting, escaping the moment your fingers curl around it and pull. But it is during this moment happiness enraptures you with its warm hug as your heart thunders against your chest—the steady thump, thump, thump of a snare drum awakening. It is during this moment pain ceases to exist.

But after, everything will come rushing back.

i have more but these are the ones that are decent, at the very least.

to pass the torch on, i’ll tag @minmelly @kinky-koreans @pasteljeonggukk @haneulismykoreanname @rnjmnster and anyone else who wants to do it! (if you don’t, no pressure. good luck to you and your writing!)

[luki-fanfic]

Guardians of The Galaxy Vol 2: Unspoken Things

Title: Unspoken Things Rating: T Characters: Yondu Udonta, Rocket, Kraglin Obfonteri Summary:

Conversations that must have happened in Volume 2, that we never saw.

Eclector Prison Cell

“So, since we’ve got some time to kill, wanna tell me the real reason you kept Quill?”

Yondu glanced up, staring at the rodent that shared his cell, before shrugging and returning his attention to the corridor, looking for the small twig that would hopefully be bringing his fin this time around.

“I already told you.  He was sm-“

“Oh, don’t even try it” Rocket interrupts, smirking at Yondu.  “That explanation might work on Quill, but I’m not that stupid.”

“It aint stupid” Yondu warns.  “I’ve got photos, kid was skinny-“

“Oh please” Rocket snaps.  “There’s a million small, skinny, starving kids on every fricking planet in the galaxy. Most of which would be elated to find a ticket out.  Yet you kept the one kid that didn’t wanna be with you, and came with a payday you chose to ignore.  Nobody does that for no good reason, specially a crook like you.”

“Is that a fact?”

Rocket shrugged.  “You tell me. For whatever reason, you raised Quill when all the evidence says you should have delivered him.  Makes a guy curious-”

His ears prick up.  Here comes Groot again.

“-As to why you thought giving him to his old man would be worse than growing up as a Ravager.”

Yondu’s lips purse on reflex, before the stinging pain on his forehead reminds him it’s useless.

“I reckon you’ll find out soon enough if you go looking for Quill rat” he says, ears pricking at the sound of tiny footsteps.  To his relief, Rocket steps back in acceptance.

When they break out and the rodent immediately sets course for Ego, Yondu wishes he’d picked his words a bit more carefully.

The Quadrant, above Ego “Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up!” Rocket squawks, running Yondu’s ‘about to fight a planet’ line through his head.  “What do you mean, fight a planet?”

Yondu ignored his, pulling Kraglin close.

“What ships made it through the blast?”

“Two M-ships are still in flight worthy condition” Kraglin offered, pulling up the specs.  Yondu immediately shook his head.

“No good.  If we’re gonna get Quill out before Ego reacts, we’ll need to do it hard and fast. He’ll rip apart an M-ship before we get off the ground.  Got something that’ll take a beatin?”

“Well, we still got that shuttle from the Askaveri Bank job.”

“That’ll do.”

“The Askaveri – that was you?” Rocket spluttered, before shaking his head and storming over.

“How about you start talking.”

Yondu rolled his eyes and headed off the brig.

“Follow me rodent, we’ll walk and talk.”

---

“You know, there’s considerable walking and not so much talking happening right now…”

Yondu sighs.

“Like dealing with Quill in puberty all over again.”

“I will shoot you archer boy.”

They reached the lift, and Yondu waved a hand to push him away while navigating them down.

“Fine.  You want to know what you’ve signed us up for?  Ego didn’t just name the planet boy, he is the planet.  Also known as a Celestial.”

Rocket stumbled.

“…As in the god Celestial?”

“That’s the one.”

The raccoon groaned.  

“Dammit, Quill is gonna be insufferable.  He’s a freakin god?”

They hit the right floor, and Yonda heads out.

“Right now we’ll be lucky if he’s even still alive.”

Rocket freezes, only chasing after the Centaurian when he realised the doors were closing.

“Wait, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying Peter wasn’t the first kid of Ego’s I brought to him” Yonda explains, regret deep in his voice.  There were ten more before him.  Each a different race, different mothers.  Guy got around.”

Rocket whistled.  “Okay, so guy liked to spread his oats.  What’s that go to do with anything.”

Yondu just shook his head, barely aware of the question.  

“I should never have taken the jobs.  I knew something was up, but the records matched, and the money was so good. Even when my gut was screaming I looked the other way.  Wasn’t till one of my men spoke to Ego’s pet that I couldn’t pretend no more.”

“Pet?  You mean bug girl?”

Yondu shrugged.  “That’s the one.  He asked her how the brats were all doing.  She couldn’t even name em – had the first one almost a year and his damn near constant companion, whose whole schtick was emotions, couldn’t put a name to a face.”

Rocket felt ice pool in his stomach.

“I didn’t tell em I figured it out, and a few months later he sent me another job.  Kid on a backwater dump called Terra whose mother was dying.  Realised pretty quickly that if I didn’t take the job he’d just find someone else to do it, so I grabbed Quill and hid em on the ship. Took some sweet talking and threats to get the crew on board, but the old timers had figured out the same thing. Only chance Quill had was with us. Ship’s no place for a kid, but we didn’t have much options.”

The centuarian gritted his teeth.

“Course, a few months in, Ego starts getting curious.  I blank his calls and he calls my bluff.  Tracks down Stakar and tells him what I’ve been doing the past few years.  Stakar came to me and asked what the hell I’d been doing, and I couldn’t…”

His hands clench.

“Stakar was going to take Quill to his old man.  Escorting kids was just about within the code.  So I told him what Ego was doing.  Had to admit I’d trafficked ten kids to their deaths.  The look on his face…”

They’re almost at the loading dock, but Yondu pauses, eyes closed and teeth clenched.

“Kicked me out of the Ravagers right then and there.  But Quill, he left on board.  Told Ego he couldn’t find a trace of the kid, and not to contact the Ravagers for any more jobs involving his brats.”

Rocket paused next to him, eyes wide with the new information.

“You never told Quill.”

Yondu gave a choked laugh.  “You know that boy.  The second you tell him not to do something he’s halfway into doing it.  Knew if I told him anything about his old man he’d either not believe me or go straight for him.  Ignorance has always been his best defence.”

The raccoon really can’t find fault with that, and Yondu’s starting to shake off the hesitance from earlier, so Rocket pushes on with one last question.

“What does he want with him?”

“I don’t know” Yondu admits.  “But considering what happened to his siblings, Quill’s in serious trouble.”

He heads into the loading bay, heading for an old mining ship that’s long since seen better days, while Rocket mulls over what he’s learned.

‘Hope the old man’s not as big a dick as you orphan boy.’

He winces as his last words to the terran run through his head.  Dammit, he only said it because Quill’s Dad was supposed to be the guy someone like Peter should be allowed to get as a father.  If he’d known the guy was a murderous asshole he would have kept his damn mouth shut, or at the very least shot the man that night.  How the hell was he supposed to know Ego was a nutcase?

By the grace of his biggest gun, Quill better still be alive for Rocket to rescue from Ego or the raccoon will never forgive himse…Quill – he’ll never forgive Quill – for it.

Wait…there’s an obvious way to find out.

“Hey Yondu!” he yells, running into the bay.  “You got any handheld radios that’ll reach the surface in here?”

The Quadrant, on Ego

Trying to land a ship the size of the Quadrant on a planet literally falling to pieces was a difficult job at the best of times.  Trying to do it solo was a lesson in skill Kraglin had never wanted.

But the Captain needed him, and he was in no position to complain.  Now that those strange white tentacles had freed them, he could see the Tattoo Giant running towards them, a tiny figure in his arms.

Suddenly, the radio lurched into life, and the grainy audio of Yondu’s collar phone echoed in the cabin.

“Kraglin, you hear me?”

The man lunges for the radio.

“Loud and clear Captain.  You on your way up?”

Instead of the affirmative followed by cursing that he expected, Kraglin felt his heart chill when Yondu just sighed.

“Kraglin, the rodent’s on his way up.  Once he gives you the order, you head out, you clear.”

The Xandarian froze.

“Kraglin!  We clear?”

He swallowed.

“Cap…I can’t leave you behind.  S’not right.”

Over the radio, he heard Yondu sigh again.

“I can’t leave him behind” he says.  “I’ve screwed up every damn time he needed me to pull through, I need to do this.”

He doesn’t.  That’s what Kraglin wants to say.  His Captain had done more than anyone could have done for Peter without losing the respect of his crew.  Peter won’t even be expecting him to stay.

Not like Kraglin, who through his own stupidity only has Yondu left.

“Cap…”

“You were a better first mate than I deserved Kraglin” Yondu interrupts with his usual abruptness.  “Sorry you had to put up with so much crap from me.”

“Don’t say that” Kraglin snaps.  “I’m the one who screwed up.  I should be the one down there – head on up and I’ll extract Peter.”

Yondu just laughs.

“It don’t surprise me that the one mutiny that worked was cause you spoke up Krags” Yondu laughs.  “Known for years if you wanted to take control I’d probably lose.  Whole ship answered to you and you never even knew it. Expect you’ll be flying with your own crew in a few years.”

“No” Kraglin says.  Forcefully enough that he can practically hear the capital.  Beneath him he can hear Quill’s giant friend clambering on board. “In a few years I’ll be right where I need to be.  By your side handling your new crew.”

“That aint gonna happen son” Yondu replies, and Kraglin’s knees feel weak. “Peter’s my boy, but he’s no Ravager. You’re gonna have to carry the crimson clan yourself from now on.  Can’t think of a better heir to the title.”

It’s not becoming of a Ravager to cry, but Kraglin’s about ready to do just that.

“Captain…”

“Tell me Kraglin” Yondu snaps, back to business.  “Tell me you heard the order.  When the rodent lands, you leave.”

Kraglin’s hand tightens around the radio.

“Kraglin!”

He swallows.

“Aye, aye Captain” he chokes out.

Yondu sighs, and the man can practically see his shoulders relax.

“Good man.  I might not die under the Colours of Ogord, but promise I”ll be there to wave you on when your time comes.  Make me proud Kraglin.”

The radio cuts off, and Kraglin punches the control panel just as Drax arrives.

“The others will soon arrive” he states, walking over and glancing out the window.  There are two figures climbing out the crevice.  One’s Gamora and the other…

Huh.  Guess the sister murdering didn’t work out so well.  Hopefully that means she wont wanna kill Kraglin for messing up her payday either.

He pays no attention to their mad scramble to the doors.  All Kraglin can look at is the crevice.  Hoping, begging, that the next body out will be a centaurian lugging a red coated terran with him.

But it’s not.  

It’s Rocket.

Who refuses to answer Gamora’s yells, and orders Kraglin to leave.

Drax is yelling now, realising that Quill isn’t on board.  Kraglin ignores him, firing up the engines and fulfilling Yondu’s last order.

He won’t go any further than he has to.  Just far enough outside the planet’s atmosphere that he can escape its gravity.  If Yondu and Quill find a way out, maybe he can get to them in time.  Maybe it don’t have to be the way the Captain plans…

[notcoybutcryptic]

Hot Sauce & Coffee Macaroons

I wrote this fic for my friend, cause he got into an early college program! gj taako! read it on ao3 here

added a break cause this is long

It had been a week since the Tres Horny Boys finally remembered who they truly were, and Taako was tired. By some sort of miracle, they managed to ward against The Hunger, albeit temporarily. Taako would put all of his money (which, to be honest, wasn’t much) on the invisible shield breaking within the week. The base was gutted after so many lives were taken (so much death, it permeated the air, and Taako was choking, they were going to lose, they were going to die, and they wouldn’t be able to save jack fucking shit-), leaving an air of emptiness and desolation. By some weird, twisted sort of luck, most of the people that he actually gave two shits about didn’t die, but then again, it was only the first wave and who knows what would happen next.

Sighing heavily, he flopped back onto the bed, but not before gently leaning the Umbra Staff against the wall. Since he found out about the staff’s origin, since he found out about Lup, he had been exponentially more gentle with it. It was the last thing of his sister he had left, and he sure as fuck wasn’t going to break it by being careless, that’s for damn sure. Stretching his limbs to their full length, he was extremely happy that, out of everything that was destroyed, the bunks were one of the few things that were spared.

It was the first time he had been able to rest, fully rest, in almost two weeks. Taako paused, and scoffed. Had it only been two weeks? It honestly felt more like two years to him, which goes to show just how truly exhausted he was. He had just gotten back from the mess hall where he helped the rest of the trio and Angus clean up a bit, to the point where they could sit down and eat their food without having it come back up. It was very difficult work, and after almost a week of constant fighting? He was a mess, both physically and mentally.

He had just gotten settled and fallen asleep (he didn’t need to, but he found that in times like this, sleep was incredibly enjoyable), when something woke him up. Taako jolted upright, days of combat putting him on edge, and warily looked around the room to find the source of whatever had disturbed him. There wasn’t anything noticeably wrong, however. No strange sound, no movement, nothing out of the ordinary. The only thing off about the room was that the air was slightly charged, the same way it feels after a lightning spell is cast, and it made the hair on the back of Taako’s neck stand on end. He glared at the room, mumbling a couple of choice words under his breath, and fell back onto the slightly-too-firm mattress, deciding that he must be imagining the strange atmosphere surrounding him.

After a few minutes of tossing and turning, he begrudgingly sat back up. It was obvious that he wouldn’t be getting any sleep, not with the strange feeling in the room. Grumbling, he got out of bed and aggressively put on his fuzzy pink bunny slippers, and threw on his robe. After getting all of his clothing in order, he left his room, going towards the place he always found himself whenever he couldn't sleep: the kitchen.

Walking through the halls sent a chill down his spine; there was blood everywhere, and bodies almost-casually strewn across the floors. Taako was not one to be unsettled at the sight of gore, but this was just… too much, even for him. His stomach churned at the smell and he was becoming light-headed at the sight of all the people he used to know lying dead around him. It almost reminded him of Phandalin, only more bloody, and that brought up a whole slew of memories he didn't want to be thinking about.

He sped up his pace, sidestepping when needed, and got to the kitchen in record time. Automatically, almost mechanically, he started to gather up what he would need to make macaroons. Macaroons were his go-to pastry when he was upset. They always had been, especially back when he was travelling with-. He caught off the thought mid sentence, muttering a curse. He hasn't thought about Lup much since he had first remembered her, keeping his thoughts on a strict track so as to avoid even more heartbreak over the death of his sister. Taking a deep breath in through his nose, Taako started to get to work.

*

It was several hours later when he was finished, and if he was back down planet side, the sun would've just started to rise. He had made several different batches of the treat, with all sorts of different flavors: green tea, chocolate, vanilla, and his sisters old favorite, a coffee and hot sauce hybrid (he definitely did not cry while making those, no sir). Taako gathered all of them up into a container and made his way back to the room, exhaustion seeping from every pore. He was ready to sleep for days, and nothing would stop him.

When he finally, finally, made it back to his bunk, he took a couple chocolate macaroons, shucked off his robe, and made to go back to sleep. After quickly scarfing one of the macaroons (he had been starving after baking for so long), he laid his weary head down, all the energy that had been keeping him awake so far leaving him in a rush. Breathing a sigh of relief, he fell asleep, a soft smile on his face for the first time in weeks.

*

He managed to get a good 10 hours of sleep by the time he woke up. Dusk had fallen, and everyone was off doing there own thing. In the distance he could hear Carry and Kilian laugh about something or other, and then the sound of sparring beginning. After laying still and relishing on the moment for a few minutes, the wizard thought he had better get up and get to work. The thought of him willingly doing work would've made him cackle a few months ago, but he had changed. The battle changed him- almost dying every second for days on end changed him (and that's not even mentioning Wonderland, but that was a thought for a different time).

Groaning, he slowly slid out of the bed, stretching his arms above his head lazily. He padded over to the macaroons that he left on his armoire, and started to munch on one while starting to get ready. He was halfway through getting all of his stuff together, and on his 6th macaroon, when something stopped him dead in his tracks. In wasn't just the feeling like last night, no, it was much more.

It was a voice.

“I see you still like those weird macaroons, huh?” Someone said from behind him, in the shadows of the corner of the room. It was beautiful: lyrical, sweet, affectionate, and most of all, best of all, it reminded Taako of home. He was suddenly hit with a wave of emotions, too many and too complex to name.

Without turning, he choked out a rough laugh. He suppressed the huge grin that was threatening to break across his face, refusing to get his hopes up, not yet. He had been hurt and burned too many times to let himself hope. Softly, Taako said, “I'm the weird one? At least I don't like whatever the fuck coffee and hot sauce tastes like.” Clenching his fists, he took a deep breath, and slowly turned around. He continued, “You know, Lup, it's rude to talk to someone from the shadows.” The second the words leave his mouth, he saw a leather boot emerge from the corner. After it, follows the greatest sight he's seen since… well, years.

Lup’s lips were spread in a wide grin, and there were tears in her dark gray eyes. Taako looked at her hard, desperately trying to see if anything was out of place, if this was some sort of sick, disgusting trick. But nothing was wrong with her- she still had that same rich brown skin, her hair was still raven black and in tight curls, and her face still made his heart soar with love and pride. Softly, she whispered, “Hey, Taako. It's been too long.”

Suddenly, it was too much. He couldn't just stand there, couldn't not move when his sister was right there, alive. Alive. He rushed forward and wrapped his arms around her, tears welling up and sliding down his face without his permission. “Lup,” he sobbed, “Lup? Is it you? Are you really here? Are you really alive?”

She gave a soft, wet laugh. “Yeah, I'm real, you silly. And, no, this isn't a trick.” Lup wrapped her arms around Taako, squeezing.

“How are you here?!? I thought you were dead!” Taako pulled back slightly. “How are you alive, Lup? I found your b-body,” He said, words tumbling out of him a mile a minute. It had been a while, a very long while, since he let himself get so visibly upset, especially around someone else. It wasn’t like him, he was definitely more the type to keep everything bottled up until he exploded but this was different. This was Lup.

“It’s complicated, and it’ll take hours to explain. I want to get caught up with you. Taako, I… I’ve missed you so, so much.” She said, sadly. She took a shaky breath and took a step back, holding onto his arms. “The brief and skinny is this: I was trapped in the staff,” she used her head to gesture towards the Umbra Staff, “and I was just able to get out. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why. But what I do know is this: I’m so happy I’m back with you, Taako. You… you have no idea how much its sucked to watch you grow and develop as a person without me there. How much pain watching you, and Mags, and Merle, and everyone else caused me.” She looked back at him and saw a flash of pain go across his face. “I’m sorry, that was worded wrong. What I mean, is that I love you and everyone else so much, and I was so incredibly sad I couldn’t be there to help you all…” she trailed off, a distant look crossing her eyes, and then started again with a determined expression, “But I’m here now, and I’m here to stay.”

Taako was speechless. He had no clue what to say; it was so strange to be able to talk to someone he had never thought he’d be able to see again, let alone talk with. “I… okay. I’m going to have questions later, and hell knows the rest of the goof squad will, too, but first… I want to talk to you, just for awhile, and pretend that everything is okay. Is that… alright?” He asked, nervously.

“Of course it is, you dummy. Come on, let’s sit down.” She half-dragged him to the bed and sat down with him. She started talking, asking questions so fast and excitedly that Taako wasn’t able to get a word in, but that was okay. It was worth it to see his sister, alive and well, be happy. They had a lot of catching up to do, but they had time. Maybe not a whole lot, The Hunger was still an imminent threat and he had no idea what he was going to do after this shit show, but they could talk for a while. They deserved at least that.

As his sister talked, Taako felt a happy, lopsided grin fill his face. He was content, in this moment, and he was excited that he could finally talk to his sister again, after all these years of feeling alone. For the first time in a very, very long time, Taako felt hopeful. And that was enough for him.

[emilylasalle-blog]

My Story.

I guess I should start off by explaining who I am, where I come from, and the whirlwind story that is my Eating Disorder. I should also preface by saying that I have always had a negative relationship with food-- whether it be allergies, anxiety, or my Anorexia. My Eating Disorder has been present my whole life, masking itself and becoming like a chameleon-- taking the face of many different things, Eating disordesr can take the shape of any form. One doesn’t have to have Anorexia to have any “claim” to ED. Know that ED’s range from all different shapes and sizes just like body types, and yours is just as valid as the one next to you. 

Okay, now that I have got that out of the way, I guess I should start at the beginning. For me, that started the day I was born. My mother has an anxiety disorder, and my whole mother’s side of the family is coursing with paranoia, fear, and obsession-- these characteristics have formed me to become the person I am today, flaws and all. So, yeah. I was born. I was also the first child, and definitely the guinea pig, which meant I was the one catching all of the helicopter-parenting. At age three, my mother put me into my first ballet class. Single-handily the best and WORST thing to ever happen to me. Best, because it gave my love of performance and helped me to become the actress that I am today... Bad, because it was the beginning of the end for my Eating Disorder and self-loathing. Ballet is a beautiful and breath-taking art form, however... the ballet world (at least growing up), was insistent on maintaining an abnormally skinny figure. They wanted twigs and if you were anything less, you would get phrases (and I quote) shouted at you such as: “Emily, I don’t want to see that bagel you ate for lunch today...” “Suck in DAMMIT.” “Have you put on weight? I see it in your face.” “You need to be able to fit into this costume.” Yup. Real things shouted at me, while a long stick was smacked onto my stomach and thighs. Absolutely brutal and cruel to be saying things like this to such a young child in the formative years of her life. So, I spent 15 years of my life constantly comparing my body to other girls, never feeling good enough, and constantly looking in the mirror-- I mean heck they were on all sides while I was exposed in a tiny leotard and tights. 

So. Now that we know where my anxiety and OCD stems from, and why I had such negative thoughts drilled into my mind at such a young age, I’ll introduce the FIRST MASK my eating disorder took. SIDEBAR: let me be frank, I had a happy childhood, don’t get me wrong. My family loved me and fed me well, and they told me no when I craved fast food constantly. However, I didn’t have the enforcement for healthy eating that I needed. It was encouraged, but not enforced. So, my picky habits came into fruition. On top of that, I over the course of my short 10 years of life, had developed several food allergies-- deathly allergies-- to the point of having a significant number of shots a year. Food was scary. I was scared-- scared of everything in my later years of elementary school. My mom had drilled a significant number of scary thoughts in my head about food and my allergies. Don’t trust anyone, don’t eat without labels, check everything twice. It was my default state- anxiety. This is the first mask. I was scared to eat anything, even foods that I had eaten my whole life. I would ask my parents over and over again about whether or not I would have gone into anaphylactic shock already as I ate at meal-time. And I HATED meal time. I would create these psycho theories in my head about how my food could have cross contaminated in absolutely ridiculous ways. This mask was scary-- this mask could quite literally KILL me with one bite of egg, peanuts, tree nuts, coconuts, or sesame seeds. 

Which brings me to middle school, where my anxiety was peaked at an all-time high. Not only was I petrified of food due to my food allergies, but I grew (due to events in my childhood) to have an IRRATIONAL fear of vomiting. And I mean, I would go days without eating for fear that the food would somehow cause me to throw up. I would eat dinner at 2pm to make sure I was “fully digested” before going to bed. I would call my mom crying, asking to be picked up because my anxiety had spiked so high and kids were pretending to throw up and be sick around me to watch me cry, It was a sick and traumatic three years (6th-8th.) I was so utterly and insanely scared of food. I had these insane scenarios built up in my head about food being able to “come alive” inside of me and chew me from the inside out. I had theories that all food was not FDA approved, and I would ACTUALLY call the companies to double check if it had been. So, I started to see Dr. G, my therapist of 12+ years, and a special doctor to help me gain weight (as I was like 70 pounds at MOST.) DR. G focused in childhood and familial therapy, and she saved my life. I was so hyper-fearful of everything. I couldn't eat without the huge fear of the risk of death, sickness, or worst of all... vomiting. So, that's tier number three. The second masked form my ED took on. Illness. 

Which brings me to my last tier. I have grown up hating putting food into my body, for various reasons. But it wasn't until end of senior year the seed I had always had planted in my mind (ED) really began to sneak his way into my life. The first two years of high school were marvelous, I was gaining my womanhood (that's period), meeting new friends, finding my sexual awakening (thank you to the drunk guy at my first high school party for so effortlessly slipping your tongue down my throat that fateful sophomore year night), and loving my life. I ate what I wanted , danced in ballet, and didn’t give  FUCK about what other people thought about my body (which is a lie because I always wanted to be skinny and I always compared myself to others). But, as rejection from boys came, jokes about unflattering pictures of me roamed about, and the yearning to look like other people began pressing in, ED began to stick his claws into my psyche. Junior and Senior year were... well, fucking awful. I was extremely depressed, ridden with anxiety, sadness as teenagers I knew in my class died, constantly stressed, and never feeling good enough. I began committing self harm to myself. Was it for attention? Was It a cry for help? I’ll never know. But, I’d cut myself with razor blades. Never super deep, but enough to hurt and bleed. I was able to CONTROL the pain. Control. CONTROL. That is a red flag to remember here, my anxiety and OCD all stems from loving to be in control of my surroundings. I hate feeling at loss. I NEED power. And ED was my sick and twisted form of that. So, I cut myself. And I made the brilliant and amazing mistake of telling my cousin who I adore, and she then proceeded to tell my parents. So, they bust into my room at approximately 11pm on a school night, crying and yelling, demanding that I go back to therapy. THATS RIGHT, BACK. TO DR. G I WENT. And she did help, a lot. Round two, and she still didn’t want to put me on medication, she said it wasn’t good for such young kids and that she wanted me to use my own power and tools within myself to conquer my anxiety and depression. And ya know what, I did. For a while. 

Then I went to COLLEGE!!!! And oh boy, leaving a summer of romance from my high school boyfriend and entering college-- a whole new world of beer, sex, and theatre- I was a new woman. I quit ballet back in high school to focus on my musical theatre career, and I was in HEAVEN. I was cast in all the shows I wanted, I was in LOVE with a new boy at college, and I was making so many new friends. I ate whatever the HELL I wanted, because I was 18, on my own, and FREE! This meant pizza and fries at 2am, this meant buttered bagels for breakfast, microwaved mac and cheese for lunch, McDonalds after acting class, it didn’t stop. But, ED wasn’t gone... he was waiting patiently behind a nearby street corner, lurking, waiting, plotting. He had a plan, and was preparing the perfect attack. I was always his target. So, freshman fifteen happened. Maybe even 20, I don’t know. All I know is that I was at my college “dream-boats” house weighing myself, when I began to panic. ED was slinking back. The number had grown a lot since I weighed myself two semesters ago. I felt, “fat.” It was the first time I admitted to myself that that’s what I thought I was. And it was a nightmare. I was able to brush it off and push the thoughts away, I had a fun summer coming up, friends to see, etc. I managed to focus on the positives, that is... until the end of year banquet. 

When I think about what propelled me into the next three years, which also happen to be the most unhealthy and sick years of my life, I think about this very moment. The end of year banquet. I like I said, was happy and healthy (I HAVE NEVER BEEN OVERWEIGHT. EVER.). I had my senior year prom dress picked out to wear to my first year of college, end-of-year banquet! Sure, my heart was broken from my college dream-boats dumping, my lack of summer theatre jobs, etc.... rejection was written all over me, but I DIDN’T CARE. Not until the dress. I put it on, a size 2-4 dress, that I had fit into snuggly the year before, wouldn’t zip. I panicked, thinking there MUST be something wrong with the zipper... only to have my mom tell me it didn’t fit. This. This exact moment. ED took a HUGE bite out of my soul and dug his fingernails in. He was mine. I remember screaming, crying, tearing my dress up into shreds, and screaming to my mother at the top of my lungs: “I AM SO FAT. I AM AN UGLY COW. I WILL LOSE ALL THIS WEIGHT IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE, I WILL STARVE MYSELF. I WILL NEVER EAT AGAIN. I WANT TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL, I’M SO SKINNY. I’M DONE,”..... my mother was horrified. But, if there’s one thing I’ve always been, its determined. Which brings me to Tier 3. The final mask of ED. 

That summer I worked out like nobody’s business. Sweating outside in the blazing Georgia heat as I ran miles upon miles. I cut myself off from fast-food, I blocked all the asshole boys who dumped me, and I became a health fanatic. And then a friend of mine (who blames themselves, even though they shouldn’t), made the biggest mistake anyone has ever done... they introduced me to MyFitnessPal. The worst thing to ever get into my hands, and to happen to me. I slowly became obsessed with dieting. I began counting calories, comparing myself to her, treating our weight loss as a race (MIND YOU I WAS NOT FAT OR OVERWEIGHT AT ALL. I WAS 130-135 MAX AND 5.7-5.8!!!!!). She went along with it, and then slowly started to realize, that maybe I was taking it a little too seriously and a little far... she then backed out, started to become “worried” about me. Concerned that I wasn’t eating enough and dropping weight rapidly. Friends noticed, my parents noticed, but they all assumed I was just working out and eating healthier. No biggie. I dated a guy briefly at this time, and all I can remember him saying was, “you’re getting kinda skinny... build some muscle, eat protein!” Man if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that one... So, I continued to diet. I lost weight, but wasn’t deemed “unhealthy.” Just, “skinny.” They nicknamed me Chicken Legs, and... I liked it. I liked being told I was small. It fed ED, and kept him occupied. That is until three hours later when he shamed me for drinking a glass of skim milk, stuff I had been drinking for literally my whole life. So, I did what I always did. I listened to ED, and I cut out milk, cheese, butter (haven't had real butter in four years), potatos, etc. Any food that sparked “joy” I wouldn't eat. I counted my crackers, I measured my cereal, I went to bed hungry. As long as I didn't pass that 1,000 calorie goal. 

The summer after sophomore year was the worst summer of my life. My hatred of rejection mixed with my fear of loss-of control, caused me to do things to my body that  I am not proud of to this day. I was always comparing myself to other girls, checking to see if I was the skinniest girl in the room, and if I wasn’t, I let ED decide what my punishment was. I formed sick habits. I bought a scale, I bought extra small clothing as a form of forcibly maintain a bmi to match my clothing, I ate 0 calorie foods for meals, it got bad. I would weigh myself every day, so many times. Before and after using the rest-room, and I’d buy laxatives to make me shit so that I could see if my weight had gone down. The number that was “too low” continued to be pushed farther. It was scary, and the whole time my heart and soul were fighting ED so hard. It was a full on world war in my brain, fear and anger for letting myself get so unhealthy, and shame and disgust for letting myself get so fat. I wrote notes to myself on mirrors, telling me not to be weak-- to go hungry, you fat cow-- that skinny is the only way I’ll be successful. I’d push food around on my plate at group outings, I’d stuff it in my napkin, If I was starving, I would chew up food and spit it out. Just to get the sensation. I’d measure my arms and wrists with my hands, just to double check that everything fit inside my abnormally small hands. I’d wake up crying, go to bed crying, call my parents crying, because dammit--  I was so hungry, I was so sad, and I was so alone. Except for ED of course, he never left my side. He’s watching me as I write this. 

My parents came to visit me, and the skeleton that faced back at them made them cry. And guess what, BACK TO DR. G I WENT. Everyone was worried about me, and I LOVED it. My best friends mom even had a heart to heart with me about her friend dying of a heart attack because of her Anorexia (God such a daunting word.) I didn’t want to get better, I pretended I did, so that people wouldn’t think I’m gross, but rather some kind of here. Alas, I WANTED to stay 100 pounds. I wanted to stay 99 pounds. I didn't care if it would “send me to the hospital” as my doctor said, I was happy with  watching the number go down. I wanted the number at zero, because I felt like a 0. I felt like nothing. I wanted to be whisked away. My therapist says I allowed myself to get this ED because I seeked self control, she said however, that that’s the last thing I have. ED controls me. So, I took her advice, and we finally put me on anti-depressants. I looked up group-therapy, and I made a “plan” to get better. But deep down I knew I didn’t want to. I was loving the skeleton life so much. Hungry=Strong. And I was the reigning champ. But, school came back around and if there’s one thing I fear more than no control, is failure. And that’s what I was afraid would happen if I didn’t put on some weight... I would lose the leading lady role I had been dreaming about for the past year and all of summer. I didn't, but that fear was in my brain. And quote frankly, why I think Theatre LITERALLY saved my life. 

The medicine helped, theatre helped, and I became happy again. I wasn't the weeping starving skeleton I once was... I was a happy one. My therapist explained to me why it didn’t feel real, and that it very much was. She diagnosed me and that was strange... but that’s another topic. However, I started noticing certain changes on my body. Things that other people didn’t have. Like: all my clothes were too big and falling off of me, I had brittle skin, I was ALWAYS cold (still am), I was always tired and it didn't take much to make me feel weak or out of breath, I even started losing hair. These were all consequences from my anorexia. And people noticed. In negative ways. However, I FELT better, and that's all that mattered to me. I still weighed myself, I still counted calories, I still made sure that if my parents found my scale and hid it, I’d get another one. I was sneaky. And they always say that ED’s are the most clever and manipulating people. And then I was off to summer-stock in Indiana. This was a dream for me, my first professional contract!! And just when I was feeling myself go down a dark path again. This was a miracle for me, I truly thought I wouldn't get a professional contract and was fully prepared to go back down the summer-rabbit hole as I usually do, as I have way too much time to think. But, this was not the case! I packed up my bags and flew to NYC for a trip to see family, and had so much fun I didn't count calories for three days. This was a huge deal for me, and I truly started to feel better. I got to Indiana and the biggest blast began. I made so many incredible friends, who supported me and my issues, I did some awesome theatre (and some shitty theatre lol), and I met my boyfriend at the time. I was happy, I had new people in my life who watched out for me. And I stopped counting calories! I ate more protein, I was doing well. I worked out a lot and attempted to get strong. But I felt my body deteriorating. I got dizzy very easily, I got extremely sick very easily, and I couldn’t keep up my stamina for very long. I also began birth control at this time, as I was in a new relationship and preparing to be sexually active. This changed my body in many ways, which we’ll get to later on. 

However, the summer ended. I moved home, I got back into bad habits, and the comparison and “less-than” feelings returned. However, they got snatched away really fast and here’s why: I had been on my anti-depressants for over a year, and I was way overdue for a checkup at the doctors office. I hadn’t gained any weight, and they noticed my bad habits still being there-- and I hadn't seen my therapist since before I left for Indiana. They did some tests, and I was off. Then I got a call asking me to come back in. Turns out my blood cell count was irregular-- ie: my white blood cells were abnormally low and my red blood cells were enlarged. They believed this was due to vitamin deficiency. What I hadn't told them is I had been feeling heart palpitations for some time now. They drew more blood and ran more tests on me. Alas, I received another phone call telling me that I had to come back in, as my results left them clueless. So. They referred me to an Oncologist. This, was the scariest moment of my life. I had believed it had been vitamin loss, and that it was something I had done to myself-heck I literally was happy that maybe I was so skinny my vitamin levels were lacking. But nope. My boyfriend was amazing during this time, and encouraged me to continue to eat healthy and try new things to get better. During this long waiting period I ate like a normal person. I ate healthy. I stopped counting calories. I was doing better-- but not from a place of health, from a place of fear. That’s not how you heal healthily. I was scared I had cancer. I went to the oncologist’s and was tested for Leukemia. Suddenly, I didn't like feeling this thin. I didn't enjoy being breakable. I wanted to be healthy and strong. I continued with the visits to the Cancer Center. This was three of the hardest months of my life. And the scariest. I had one half of my brain telling me I was fat and needed to not eat anything, and the other half was telling me if I didn't eat, I’d get even sicker. And that I needed to gain weight, to prove I wasn't dying of Leukemia. After all of the blood tests, and the trips to one of the scariest doctors offices I’ve ever been in... we figured out:

I didn’t have cancer. But I realized how stupid I had been for the past ten years of my life. I had been given a TASTE of how scary and haunting being sick can be, and here I was destroying my own body. y healthy body, that people WISHED for. So, I stopped listening to ED, and I moved on. However, this didn't las long. Birth control changed my body. My boobs got bigger, my face filled out, and I noticed small changes. And I began to fall back into bad habits. Limiting foods, cutting calories, I went full vegan, I dumped my boyfriend so I could stop taking birth control, I stopped my medicine (as I didn't want to be mentally healthy anymore, I wanted to be sick so that I could lose weight.). Things got bad again. All the while, still having to go to an Endocrinologist. Since they realized I didn't have cancer, they did tests to realize I had given myself thyroid diseases, blood weakness, frail bones, and heart palpitations. All because I starved myself. But what did that make me? Happy. Happy to be ‘sick” and “skinny”. And that’s MASK 3. 

And here I am today, still struggling. Better, but struggling. I try not to weigh myself anymore (some days I fail, it’s human). I still count my calories, I try to find protein substitutes, but it’s constantly an uphill battle. The calories control my life. I started this journey thinking that it would give me more control, however the exact opposite happen. 

My eating disorder is a sickness. My ED and I are in an abusive relationship with myself and ED. There’s not enough space in my head for this. So here I am today, in therapy, doing everything I can to try and make sense of why I hate my body. 

My therapist says that I have been “screwed from the get go.” I was brought up in the ballet world, with a mother who constantly self deprecates, constant comparison syndrome... Instagram is hard. Life is hard. But I will continue to fight so that I can be successful.