#i think she should have to kill someone to bring back someone else's egg

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

the road to hell is paved with good intentions

[two-white-butterflies]

i know places | a. targaryen

Description: Aegon is a popular streamer, his girlfriend brings him treats every few hours. No one knows who his girlfriend is. Pairing: streamer!aegon/non-showbiz!reader

The first time his fans found out about you - it was totally an accident. He was using his phone to play a mobile game, casually streaming in omelet arcade and twitch at the same time. "I haven't actually touched my phone in a week, I'm sorta a pc guy." he spoke into the mic, using his controls to win and follow the quests in the mobile version of Genshin.

While he was walking to the north part of the map, his phone suddenly flashes a message from you.

HONEYBUNCHSUGARPLUM Heading towards Maccas, you need anything babe?

His eyes widened slightly - pretending that he didn't see the message. "- and I don't play genshin much so I don't think I'll have fun using the mobile version," he continued - slyly changing the topic. He takes a deep breath, seeing that his chat couldn't stop talking about the message.

"What message?" he scratched the back of his head.

You were going to kill him.

DreamStan

Evidence A. Now looking for suspects @egg.streams

PinkIsLife74: Ya'll saw egg's stream rite?

"So the first thing I want to build is a farm for my carrots," Aegon spoke to himself, staring at the chat that was currently going wild because his girlfriend brought him some hot chocolate. He smiles softly, turning his mic off - and giving his girl a small kiss.

"Thanks, honeybunch." he whispered, making sure that your face was far from the camera's view. Once you walked away, his eyes returned to the screen in front of him - and everyone couldn't stop talking about you. He turns his mic on with a small smirk.

"Calm down guys,"

egg.streams: sorry for not streaming today guys 💚

159 comments 178,293 likes

islandinthestream2124: no message huh

hannahbanana90: Find urself a man that lets u use his gaming pc for roblox 😆 - egg.streams: roblox is for pro-gamers ong 💪🏽

bedlam29: HE'S SOFTLAUNCHING BYEE

aegonii_fanbase: I MASTERMINDED IT, I think it's Alys Strong.

7 comments 789 likes

AemondTargaryenOfficialAccount: Could be...but she's dating me so probably not. - aegonii_fanbase: OMG AEMOND NOTICED ME

Hannibal80980: HEAR ME OUT.

"I was sorta thinking 'sophisticated' vibes for our engagement party," you continued walking while holding his hand. "Yeah, and we'll get some white flowers." he added while holding your hand tightly. He was the sweetest boy in the world - he respected your privacy and treated you nicely. You couldn't ask for anything else.

Before you could enter the shop - a man pokes you with a microphone on his hands. "Do you think that husbands should help around the house?" he asked and a laugh escapes your mouth, seeing that he was one of those tiktok interviewers.

Aegon was about to talk to him - presumably pleading to remove the footage but you shake your head. "We have a chance to make it official in the most hilarious way possible," you whisper and he nods - smiling as he lets you answer the question.

"I think it depends on the household, but Egg helps around ours - I have no complains." you laugh and he raises your hand - showing the camera your large diamond ring. "Thank you," the man walks away, interviewing other people.

tobascolikescoke: i interviewed someone on the street and i didn't fucking realize that they were famous 😭 now, twitch royalty @egg.streams probs hates me for exposing his relationship

@pearlstiare @watercolorskyy @sweethoneyblossom1

[llamaisllama777]

My THEORIES ON WHO THE EAPS KILLER COULD BE?

Since tomorrow's Friday and the killer always strikes on Friday and I have a feeling we may learn who the killer is in tomorrow's episode I wanted to get my theories out on who I think the killer really is...

(This will either age really well or really poor.)

Suspect 1. Michael Afton(of the EAPS universe)

So, in either episode 3 or 5 of EAPS Eclipse briefly mentions that Michael Afton does indeed exist here in this universe too and that he build something that's down in the basement that they should keep an eye on. (Ominous and foreboding), and since then, we haven't heard about since. Either Michael has been fired from Henry's fazbear, or Michael still has a job there.

I can see Mike being the killer in this world cause in this universe his mom, Wanda Afton, was accused of being the killer back in the day. (She might have been the killer back in the days of the MCI Incident, but nothing was ever confirmed) Mike might be following in his mom's footsteps. Either Mike is doing this to make his mom lose her business cause ever since the deaths of the children. Fazbear has been losing the case. Mike might be doing this to spite his mom. Or maybe Mike was ALWAYS the killer in this world, and he either let his mom take the fall or she tried to take the fall for him to protect him. Mike might be the psychopath in this world, not his mom. Mike is also a likely suspect cause Mike knows how to build animatronics. He's built animatronics. He would know about the recall code. And the ins and outs of the building, seeing as how he's worked there for a while.

Problems with this theory

-Mike hasn't been mentioned since ep 3 or 5

-Why would Henry even keep Michael on staff? Maybe Henry is just genuinely a nice dude, but letting the son of your arch-enemy work for you during a lawsuit where you are actively suing their parent for their business feels a little... dumb.

-If Mike is doing this: WHY? What would drive a guy like Mike to homicide? Spite? Revenge? Pursuit of Science? Remnant?

Chances of it being Mike 7/10

Suspect 2. Henry Emily

The lawsuit has really been going in Henry's favor since these deaths have been happening. Maybe Henry is willing to let a few eggs get cracked if it means he wins. The killer does know his way around the animatronics and since Henry did help build the animatronics he would know about the recall codes and that flashing lights could blind them temporarily. It's possible Henry IS the killer from the MCI incident in this world. Maybe Henry and W.A.'s roles were swapped, so Henry lost Sammy and went mad, trying to find a way to bring him back. He's restarting the remnant experiments perhaps and needs more remnant

Problems with this theory.

-Henry is too old. There was no way he could never be the killer. Unless he is surprisingly spry for an old dude.

-Would he really risk his whole life and winning the lawsuit just for a chance he'll win the lawsuit by murdering a bunch of kids?

-Henry seems to care about his kids. Why would he take someone else's from them.

Chances of Henry being the killer 4/10

Suspect 3. Charlie Emily

Okay..... so.... this is probably the least likely-est one(but also the coolest and angstiest one). Charlie is mentioned once in this series. She is alive in this world! She was never killed by Wanda in this world. From what we've heard, she's in college, I think? She seems to be doing good, but what if she is helping her father win the lawsuit by making things look really bad for Fazbear. She is the daughter of one of the founders, and Henry did take her to work a lot, I'm sure. Meaning she would know the ins and outs of Fazbear. The buildings, the animatronics, Everything! It's likely she could be the killer.

Problems with this theory

-she's in college

-She has literally only been mentioned once in the show(then again, so has Michael)

-I mainly want this to happen because the angst would be delicious!

-In TSBS main universe, it's been shown Charlie isn't really interested in her dad's work, so there is a chance it's the same here in the EAPS universe.

Chances of Charlie being the killer 3/10

Suspect 4. The Mimic!

Okay, while yes, the suspect appears to be human. There's a chance it could be a skin suit!(Possibly from a missing person)

The Mimic is known to steal suits and even people's skin! (I.E. Burntrap.) The Mimic has been known to mess with tech and manipulate his voice. So, there is a chance the killer really is an animatronic, not human. Eclipse did mention he saw something the Michael of this universe in the basement of the Lefte Pizza-plex. He said it looked like a kinda like a rabbit. One of the Mimic's most popular fan designs was a tall bulky animatronic with bunny ears. (I LOVED THAT DESIGN, SO MUCH! The Canon one is cool, too.) It's possible the Mike of the EAPS world created the Mimic, and now Mimic is going on a killing spree. The Mimic knows a lot about the pizzaplex it would know every escape route. The best places to hide. Where the cams are. Plus, the Mimic can copy voices so that could explain how it lures kids away from the animatronics and their folks.

Problems with this theory

-Mimic is not yet confirmed to exist in this world, but if Detective Larson from the stitchwrait books exists in this world, then there is a high probability that the Mimic exists here too.

-No adult has been reported missing. So, no free human flesh for you Mr. Mimic.

-The Mimic is known to be more brutal and violent with its kills more messy, not a clean stab like how I assume the kids have been killed.

Chances on the Mimic being the killer 7/10

These are all my current suspects.

I highly doubt it's Vincent. 1. Vincent has kids and seems pretty broken up by these murders. 2. Just cause Vincent is named after a very popular variant of William doesn't mean he is the killer.

So, let me know your theories and any evidence you may have to help confirm or denie my theories.

[jelzorz]

152.

When Rayla says her parents, Ezran imagines a mom and a dad, or maybe mom and a mom, or a dad and a dad. He imagines they're people that look like her and sound like her, people who share her sense of humour and took care of Zym when he was an egg at the Storm Spire. He imagines people he would like.

He does not imagine that one of them is the elf that killed his father.

The thought by itself makes him mad. King Harrow was a good king, a just king, and a loving dad who was only doing his best. He didn't have to be assassinated. He didn't have to die. He shouldn't have died, and yeah, his dad did bad things too, but he recognised that, didn't he? His last letter to him and Callum told them that they were free, that they didn't have to continue on this stupid path and this stupid war, that their decisions were theirs and theirs alone. Rayla was fifteen when it all happened, still a child by most standards, raised to be an assassin and sent on a mission to kill him, and she still made the decision not to for a chance at peace. Runaan knew about the egg, they showed it to him and everything, and he still—

Ezran scowls.

It's a whole mess. It gives him feelings he doesn't want and anger he doesn't know what to do with. Rayla keeps the coins with her at all times, and there are moments he just wants to toss them into the ocean or melt them down into something else but how can he do that without hurting her? Without causing her the same pain Runaan caused him?

And when Callum had offered to help—

Ez doesn't like thinking about it. He'd been so angry. He said things he shouldn't have. He and Callum fought like they've never fought before, and at the end of it all...

He's sitting at the edge of a boardwalk now, feet dangling over the edge, the leather of his boots dark with water as he skims his toes over the surface of the sea. He's never hated someone like this before. He's never felt rage or sadness or grief so big.

"You okay?"

Ez sniffles and doesn't look up, even as Rayla drops into the spot next to him and leans her elbows on her knees.

"Fine," he mutters. "What—um—what's up?"

Rayla pauses, her lips pursed, her eyes searching and sad. She was there. She saw the fight. Ez feels like he should apologize but there's a part of him that doesn't want to. Why should he? Is it so wrong for him to hate the elf that killed his dad?

"You don't have to be fine," she says at last. "I know there isn't... really much I can say. Runaan... was like a dad to me but—"

"Don't excuse him," he snaps. His throat hurts. He curls his hands into fists. "Don't."

"I wasn't going to."

"Weren't you?" Ez scowls at her, his anger getting the better of him, growing bigger than he can control. "But what? But it wasn't his fault? But he was just following orders? You had the same orders and you didn't follow through. You were fifteen! You could have lost your hand! What the hell was his excuse?"

"Ezran..."

"Don't Ezran me! He killed my dad! And you and Callum want—" He stops. He swallows. He's crying again, he thinks, but he doesn't care. "I don't care that he was like a dad to you," he snarls. "He killed mine! He killed mine knowing that he didn't have to! And he gets to come out of the coin? He gets to live and my dad doesn't?"

"I'm sorry, Ez—"

"Stop it! Don't act like that means anything! Sorry's not going to bring him back!"

Rayla says nothing to that. She fiddles with her fingers, head bowed, her hair over her eyes, and in the pause, Ezran sees it—the shake in her shoulders, the tears on her cheeks. His anger falters. He hadn't meant—

"I'm sorry," he mutters at last, but Rayla shakes her head.

"You're allowed to be angry," she says. "You're right to be. Sometimes being angry is part of the grief." She sniffles. "I don't blame you for not wanting us to do it. I wouldn't want to, if I were you."

"But you're still going to."

Rayla doesn't answer.

Ezran looks away. The silence between them hurts, but he leans against her anyway, not because it's okay, but because she's basically his sister, and grief and anger and big feelings are easier when they're shared. Her arm curls around his back, a promise that she's there for him no matter what happens, no matter what he feels, and they sit together, and cry together, until it feels like there's nothing left.

"I wish things were different," whispers Rayla.

Ez sniffles. "Yeah," he mutters. "Me too."

[musclemanveryregular]

[ID: Rigby, an anthropomorphic raccoon,, and Mordecai, a taller anthropomorphic blue jay, pointing at each other in The Park. /end ID]

Some more info below:

Pre Eileen Rigby:

-once tried to go on a date with the girl his best friend was crushing on.

-would regularly skip out on work even when Mordecai was serious about getting things done.

-on multiple occasions has allowed his greed, laziness, and sometimes just meanness to nearly destroy reality.

-

[ID: Rigby's butt, there is a noticeably smaller butt cheek with stitches in it. /end ID]

-goes into a coma if he eats eggs

-once stole Benson's food and lied about it to both mordecai and benson.

-once beat up everyone in the park and made them do everything he said using Death Quon Doe.

-gave Mordecai his college letter of rejection so mordecai would think neither of them got into College so they wouldn't be apart from each other, only to accompany him to college in an alternate timeline via changing history so mordecai got the correct letter instead.

-once changed his name to trashboat.

Post Eileen Rigby:

-has remarkably turned himself around via studying.

-pulls his weight more and becomes much more reliable after graduating high school

-much nicer all around

-

[ID: The same image of rigbys butt cheeks, this didn't changed once he matured. /end ID]

My own personal thoughts about getting high with pre eileen rigby: he's a bit overactive at times, and gets into trouble a lot, but he'd be chill to smoke with, so long as you do all his work for him (otherwise you might have to deal with an angry benson). You should probably also let him choose what video games or movies you watch, because otherwise he'll be a nightmare. And don't you dare be first player.

My thoughts about getting high with post eileen rigby: much easier to manage although you should probably still let him be player one.

Id rate his tolerance level at a solid 3/5. He and Mordecai are definitely getting high every weekend with a little bit during the week if everyone else is for a party. He'd be willing to chill alone if you asked him to, he'd even bring weed although depending on which rigby he is he may not share as much with you.

Mordecai:

-once killed his best friend for trying to go on a date with the girl he had a crush on.

-regularly finds himself cleaning up both his and Rigby's messes.

-took multiple seasons to get with one girl.

-broke up with her when she moved away.

-rebounded and dated a girl who he had so much more in common with.

-broke up with her for his ex at one of his best friend's weddings.

-didn't even get back with his ex after this.

-plays punchies to get his way knowing he'll always win against rigby.

-very talented at volleyball.

My personal thoughts on getting high with mordecai: i think he'd be chill, so long as you're not a girl, or he is already dating someone. Probably has the biggest munchies of anyone, so bring lots of snacks.

I think his tolerance level at around 3.5/5, weekends parties, but he's also taller than rigby so he needs a little more. Definitely would bring the weed, as he already does so the most when it comes to smoking with rigby.

[mdhwrites]

Do you agree with the idea that Luz is a people pleaser? Or is it just something the fandom made up to make her seem more likable/relateble/interesting with no real basis in canon?

GOD NO! But that's not necessarily a bad thing as the protagonist archtype she's hailing from normally isn't. The problem comes from the fact that she is so ANTI people pleasing that it clashes with her backstory, rare moments in the show and she also just NEVER LEARNS ANYTHING.

This is also a problem for Randy Cunningham: Ninth Grade Ninja. Him and his best friend make a declaration at the start of the year to be popular. They don't care if they're liked or disliked, the goal is for EVERYONE to know their name. This fuels a bunch of teenage shenanigans that are meant to impress people or make them look cool by the definitions they have in their brains rather than what reality is.

Cookie from Ned's Declassified did stuff like this a lot, Danny and Tucker from Danny Phantom are also prime examples of it. It is just a teenage protagonist archtype for them to be trying to live out a fantasy of being special when the reality is that they're just nice nerds who should be happy being who they are. This is Luz. Period.

And there's two sides of this archtype. The first is the FIRST THING WE KNOW ABOUT HER. They will do things to stand out from a crowd because they think it's cool regardless of if it's right. We are literally shown FOUR instances of this back to back from her book report to the montage of her fuck ups. Each time, she is actively looking at what others are doing and going "Nah. Hold my beer and watch this." I mean... She brought fucking SPIDERS to school and looked at best confused as to why everyone ran off screaming and that's not talking about the play she RUINED.

This is then reinforced in Episode 2 when she tells King and Eda to go suck eggs because she is totes a chosen one. She does save them at the end which brings the other half of this archtype when it comes to their fuck ups. When they fuck up, they fix it, commonly so as to not get people killed but also to make sure that either people in general or those closest to them don't HATE THEM. Now, that might sound like a people pleaser... But it's not. It's seeking forgiveness, not permission. I mean in S1 alone you have her explicitly ignoring Willow's wishes in both Understanding Willow and Wing it Like Witches so that she can have her fun before then someone gets hurt or upset and fixing it in someway.

As a note: The moment you realize that SO MUCH of Luz's character is motivated by tropes she likes or be special, a lot of actions she takes take on way worse connotations. A perfect example of this is when she declares in Lost in Language that she'll be friends with Amity come hell or high water... A minute later she's fucking around with Amity's siblings who Amity has shown clear disdain for. Or you can go with Adventure in the Elements where despite her trying to get along with Amity and impress her, she STEALS FROM HER so that she can get the instant gratification of casting magic. And this sort of recontextualization is ALL over the first season especially of Luz just doing bat shit crazy things because it lets her be cool and she never really learns to stop, even PROUDLY stating in Reaching Out that she'll always choose the option that leads to the most chaos. The most adventure, the most tropes. A season and a half in and instead of growing at all, she is still defiantly against reality.

This is also all inherently AGAINST being a people pleaser. A people pleaser wants everyone to LIKE them. Sprig spends half an episode being a people pleaser like this, even if I don't think it's quite who he is. What Luz is after is just to make sure people don't hate her. At best, she doesn't want people to actively dislike her but she mostly cares about if you remember her name. If she left an impression bigger than anyone else.

But I don't blame the fandom for making her a people pleaser. All of what I've said is based on her actions. By her words, she's meant to be someone who has had to hold back who she is. Who has hid from the world so as to be liked by society. Being a people pleaser IS a part of that archtype and that's where we get "Oh no teenagers" and "I'm gonna get made fun of again" and... That's about it. It's actually why those lines annoy me so much because they happen over a season into the show and she has NEVER held back on who she is for even half a second during that ENTIRE TIME. Even Adventure in Elements isn't about pleasing others, it's about not being embarrassed. Being brought low.

But those are literally the ONLY moments in the entire series where she gives a fuck. The Collector and Belos angst? It's not about how no one will like her anymore, it's that they'll hate her because it needs to be that drastic for her to care. It also makes her less of the paragon hero that she sees herself as. And that's laughable because she only has like TWO moments in the entire series where she actively seeks out a way to help someone without them asking. The cure for Eda's curse at the end of S1, where she's trying not to have Eda die in return for watching over her which is just kind of basic kindness and going after King's stuffed rabbit in Titan Where Art Thou. At that point though, the show claims they're siblings so it's just being kind to your family... You know, right before she effectively tells Eda to go rot because she won't let her go fight Belos.

All the while, she is learning NOTHING. The teenage dumbass archtype is GREAT as a main character because it allows so much room for growth. It's part of why Anne is such a good protagonist because while she embraces the lazy side of it more than trying to appear special, she is still a teenage dumbass. As such, S1 spends time teaching her morals and making her grow up so she can be better.

Luz never grows up. Then again, she'd either have to actually face consequences for her actions or care more deeply about others for that to happen. That isn't going to happen though, not when she, and everyone around her, are solely focused on letting her live the isekai fantasy that she's always wanted.

=========

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[sheep33hallow]

Action Speaks (NaruSasu)

Rating: T

AO3

This was inspired by Cult of the Lamb

"I hate you." He hissed, cracking an egg open. Naruto had his arms wrapped around Sasuke's waist, chin resting on Sasuke's shoulder. Swaying together. Sasuke despises it. "I'm fine with that."

_____

Laying in the grass, Sasuke stares up at the sky. 

The sun is bright, the air is soft, and this morning his pregnancy was confirmed. 

He's tired. 

He didn't expect his life to be like this. It's too peaceful, and the community is too involved in each other's lives. A woman named, Sakura, she is apparently Naruto's first friend, and she was excited to get to know Sasuke. 

Now that his powers were sealed away, went unsaid. 

He used to be a God. Wings on his back, a domain to control and minions to do his bidding that Naruto thwarted one after another. 

He was tired of controlling his domain and wanted more after doing the same thing day in and day out. He didn't think much of Naruto. They exchanged words a few times before on many occasions before their final battle over the waterfalls. Naruto was a human with magic tricks. He shouldn't have won. The only thing he was happy about is he took the man's arm from him in the final moment of him sealing Sasuke's powers away. Before his tail dissolved fully, he was able to catch Naruto off guard by using his sharpen tip to slice it right off. 

A week later, when he woke up, he had a moon mark tattooed on his hand, and Naruto was next to him smiling as if they haven't been mortal enemies for over a decade. 

Sasuke remembers trying to set the bed on fire, and realizing to his horror he had been weakened. 

No powers. 

No wings. 

Nothing, but an idiot that was forcing him to be his own personal housewife. Sasuke refused to clean, which Naruto didn't mind, but Sasuke was made to cook. Naruto would hold his hand tight when they went grocery shopping in the market. 

The people always stopped them to talk. The council, and Naruto's trusted companions knew his true nature, yet the townspeople were left in the dark. Naruto was the Hero. 

It pissed him off even worse when he met the woman who gave Naruto his arm. She smirked at him, and told Naruto to bring him in for a checkup. 

He couldn't run from Naruto's hold when they were out in public, only letting Sasuke go when they were back on his land where it was warded with sigils. 

"I hate you." He hissed, cracking an egg open. Naruto had his arms wrapped around Sasuke's waist, chin resting on Sasuke's shoulder. Swaying together. 

Sasuke despises it. 

"I'm fine with that." 

"I will poison you." 

"I'm immune to poisons. Especially those that come from earth which is all you have access to." Naruto blew a raspberry into Sasuke's neck, causing Sasuke to drop his next egg. 

He tried to move from Naruto's arms. "Do not lay your spit on me." 

Naruto held on. "You are mine, but I can be persuaded to put my spit elsewhere." He raspberries his neck again. 

Sasuke was effective the next time, stopping on Naruto's foot. The hold loosened and Sasuke slipped out. "Pathetic." He said with a piercing look at Naruto. 

"I'm not the pathetic one." Naruto reminded. 

Sasuke's nose twitched in annoyance. "I am aware of my place, Hero. You could have killed me." 

Naruto kneeled on the floor to wipe the yolk up. "I do not kill." 

Sasuke finds Naruto's way of life dull. In his domain, they killed, and nothing was thought more of it. You lose a battle, you die. 

"Living with you is humiliating." He wishes he could fly from here. "I do not know how my domain is doing? If my brother is alive or if someone else had taken over." 

With the last bit of shell picked up and thrown in the trash. Naruto washes his hands. "Not my problem. You should have never come to the surface world in the first place." Naruto smiles before sticking his tongue out at Sasuke. 

Sasuke seethes. "I no longer wish to be here. I no longer have powers. I would rather try and make it on my own in the barren wastelands." 

Naruto laughs. "No. You are my partner. My spouse in the eyes of the people I serve, and on paper with the documents the council forged for me when I told them I wouldn't kill you." 

Sasuke's face was filled with disgust. "Spouse?" 

Sasuke remembers that day, when Naruto explained what a spouse was, and the dread in his stomach when he realized why he continued to mount Sasuke at night. 

In his domain, mounting only happened when a person declined a battle. When disrespect happened, either they fought, or there was a public submission. 

He didn't know humans had other reasons for mounting. 

Their domain naturally produced new individuals from the soil when it felt the population was low. 

"Sasuke!" Sasuke sits up from the grass. Coming out of his daydream. 

Naruto's sweating, a headband keeping his hair out of his face, and gloves. "I'm home!" His arms wide open, presenting himself to Sasuke's blank face. 

"Yay." He says dryly. "Woo." He says even drier, if possible. A small fist pump. "Is that good?" 

Naruto throws his head back with laughter, hands to stomach. 

Sasuke's upset that he can't stop himself from smirking. 

Naruto drops to his knees, crawling over to Sasuke, laying his head on Sasuke's lap. "Hi." 

Sasuke exhales, then rolls his eyes with a fun twinkle in his eye. "Hi, human." 

He pressed his cheek to Sasuke's stomach. "Heard you're pregnant. Think it'll be a demi-god?" 

Sasuke frowns. "I do not know, Naruto. It would be hard if so, and I don't have my powers to take care of them while you are away." 

Naruto bops his nose with his pointer finger. "Don't frown. I'll figure it out." 

Sasuke doesn't know if he believes him. 

Naruto takes his gloves off. 

_____

The baby comes out with wings on their back, and blonde hair. Screeching until it is placed in Sasuke's arms to lay upon his chest. Syncing their heartbeats together. 

They are in Tsunade's clinic, she is off to the side talking to a nurse. Naruto is crying. 

"You're ugly." Sasuke says. "Do you want to hold it?" 

"It is a girl." Tsunade speaks up, looking over notes. 

"Girl." Naruto sniffs next to them. He has a grip on the bars of the bed. "Tsunade, we have to tell Jiraiya I have a girl." 

"Un huh." 

"Do you wanna hold it or not?" Sasuke's annoyed. His hole aches, and he'll stab Naruto if the hero attempts to mount him anytime soon. 

"It's a girl, Sasuke." He stomps his foot with a pout before making grabby hands at the baby. Sasuke hands her over. 

Exhaustion soon takes over after that. 

They hide the baby's wing as best as they can when the grannies start to swarm their home. Giving advice, food, and clothes. 

His feelings about not having his powers are proven true when Tooru feeds on Sasuke's blood more than the baby formula that Naruto tries to get her to drink. 

He's exhausted from the blood loss. Even Naruto tried to give her some of his blood but she refused it, wailing until Sasuke awoke from his nap to feed her. Luckily she only needs to be fed once a day but she drinks a lot when the action occurs. 

"You need to fix this, Hero." He spits out one night. Tooru is sleeping, the grannies are gone and Naruto is healing his recent puncture wound around his nipple. Sasuke is sitting on the bathroom counter with Naruto between his legs. 

"Maybe we need to keep trying with the formula. Or until she gets into solids." 

"We do not know how long this will last! This form is weak. You impregnate me, figure this out or I will die from blood loss." 

"We can give you more red meat. That'll help." Naruto tries. Sasuke is healed now, he presses their chest together, he drags his nails lightly across Sasuke's lower back. "I can share my blood with you." He kisses Sasuke. 

Sasuke doesn't kiss back. "Can't you crack the seal a little bit? Just so I can use some of my powers." 

"No." 

Sasuke clenches his jaw. "I hate you." 

Naruto kisses him again. "I know, but trust me. You'll be happy. This will pass." 

"When you finally die on one of your little crusades, I will dance on your grave with Tooru." He kisses back. He takes hold of Naruto's head, deepening the kiss. 

"My death turns you on?" Naruto smiles. 

"My domestication arouses you, Hero?" 

Naruto moans, he takes his shirt off. "You have no idea." 

AO3

[freelanceexorcist]

FFVII Rebirth spoilers under the cut.

OK, so I was off the mark in a good bit of my speculation about Ore and Watashi Sephiroth. Way, way off the mark for some of it.

And from now on, I’ll identify the two as Glenniroth for who he was impersonating most of the time and Jenovaroth for who he has latched onto and is probably in a scenario where one doesn’t know where he ends and she begins.

I’m sticking with my feeling that Glenniroth is Chaotic Neutral, just currently on the darker end of the moral spectrum. I thought I would be bummed if this turned out to be the case, but it’s the opposite. I love this version of him. Like, a lot. He’s so deliciously wicked I just can’t help myself. The verbal evisceration of Rufus? The sarcastic clapping at the end? Using Terms of Endangerment on Cloud? Making him bring it in just to fuck with his head? Sassy, manipulative and rage-fueled Sephiroth is the Sephiroth I never knew I wanted so badly.

Jenovaroth? He’s cooked. Blotto. Pants-on-head fried. His eggs are well and truly scrambled. Not even playing the same sport as his pre-Nibelheim self, let alone being in the same league. And there’s no coming back from even a little of that. However…

He does cartoonishly over-the-top horrible and evil things, yes. But is he truly evil in the purest sense? See, that’s not a word I like to use lightly and I reserve it for the types of characters who do heinous things because it gratifies them or because of greed. There’s a difference between an antagonist killing a shit ton of people with names and dialogue in service of a cause they think is worth it and someone doing it because they get off on it or because they profit from it. And then, of course, there’s the Chaotic Evil alignment. If Jenova is a member of the Gi tribe like she’s implied to be to me, that complicates the issue. More on this later.

Before I continue, I should explain how I interpret Chaotic Neutral in fiction outside D&D.

A Chaotic Neutral character’s motivation is freedom, but I think it’s also survival. They are unfettered. They don’t give a fuck. They align with anyone who can help them get the job done and help them stay alive, and don’t concern themselves with these people’s moral standing. They are morally dubious themselves. They may align themselves with either the good guys or the bad guys just so see what it feels like. The lighter ones may operate by a personal code of conduct or honor, but the ones on the darker end of the spectrum-which is where I think Glenniroth currently is-tend not to.

Torching Nibelheim was a horrible thing to do and something he can’t take back. So was killing everyone else’s pretend girlfriend in his universe, wherever that may be. But the point of divergence for him appears to be that he either didn’t cleave to Jenova, or at some point broke away from her.

See, I think it’s the former, because a common trait of Chaotic Neutral characters is that they can be solitary. They don’t need anyone else. They may have friends and people that they like, but they prefer to go their own way on their own terms.

With Glenniroth, we don’t know how his version of Nibelheim went down, so it could be that he was thinking of all the people who betrayed and abandoned him, disabused himself of the notion that Jenova would never do the same, and said “you know what? Fuck you, too” when he was halfway up the mountain. And off he went to do whatever he wanted.

Along the way, perhaps he also abandoned the notion that he was Cetra. After all, when was the last time he heard the planet speak? The scientists must have been mistaken about what they found in the rock layer. So much to his dismay, he realizes that while he is different from everyone else, he is human.

This doesn’t make him feel any better, because he hates most other humans now. To him, they’re his abusers and his manipulators. They’re the ones who kept him on a leash, used him, tortured him as a child, treated him like a piece of meat or made him an object of mindless hero worship and unachievable expectations. He can count on one hand all of the people in his life that he thought he could rely on, and all of them either died or turned their backs on him. The world’s small towns are safe from him for now, though, because he’d die happy if he never had to interact with anyone again.

His act in Nibelheim didn’t burn away his sadness, loneliness, compassion, kindness or loyalty. Those things aren’t gone forever, they’re just in a cellar with no stairs in the bottom of a locked file cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “beware of leopard.” They’re shoved so far down inside him, James Cameron would have to get into one of his submersibles and hit bottom in order to find them again. Now he’s a 6’6” mountain of disdain and spite, and it shows in all of the interactions we see.

But along the way, while enjoying the blissful solitude that comes from extreme misanthropy and not giving a fuck, he finds out that the planet is dying. He wouldn’t have known this before, because why would Shinra ever tell him that? Why would they even care as long as it was all black in the ledger? Those survival instincts kick in, and his mission is now to save the planet. Not because of any newfound caring or respect for humans, but because if it dies, he has to wander a barren husk as a displaced ghost until the heat death of the universe. He says so himself in the Edge of Creation.

Much to what is most certainly his dismay, he realizes he needs humans. Or more to the point, he needs to use humans for his plan to save the planet to work. He needs to eliminate Shinra, and decides that another war between Wutai and Shinra is what will do it. And it will be so huge and devastating that the people will come together out from under Shinra’s thumb and heal the world. And this time, the shoe is on the other foot, because Sephiroth’s about to become the demon of Midgar. Shinra’s going down. Surely Lord Godo and any surviving Wutai soldiers would be willing to bury the hatchet long enough to see that happen so they can rebuild.

Now, this isn’t him having an I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing moment, oh no. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people will die, but eh. Not his problem. That’s food for the Lifestream that will sustain the planet a little while longer. That’s all that matters. All he needs to do is rattle some sabers, plant a few false flags and voila, humans will be chomping at the bit to do what they do best: kill, hurt and betray each other. Out of that could come the unity needed to reject mako, find a more sustainable source of energy and leave the planet alone so she can recover.

This isn’t to say that this version of Sephiroth is permanently on the darker edge of morality. The thing about Chaotic Neutral characters, is that their moral fluidity can sometimes solidify given certain circumstances. Don’t get me wrong, the man he was before Nibelheim is gone. I think the best we’re going to see from him is some kind of anti-hero, and I’m not talking about the cool 90s kind. We’re talking more Byronic Hero from this guy or one of the darker dishes on the Anti-Hero menu. That’s sometimes what happens to these types of characters in fiction, and it can make them even more interesting, not less, because there’s a chance for real character development. He’ll still be a dick, of course, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Assuming that’s what’s happening in Glenniroth’s case, of course. They could throw us yet another curveball and have him in cahoots with Jenovaroth for all we know. That doesn’t seem likely, though, as their goals don’t align.

I’ll end this now, because I’ve rambled long enough. Thank you for reading if you chose to do so. Maybe I’ll post the next part about Jenovaroth, maybe I won’t. It all depends on how I feel when I get home after that fuckwit from Field Services has had another go at me on email and Teams messages. I went to a good school, but that school wasn’t Hogwarts, Karen.

[ghostrecall]

Vex Hetz Sunburst met a rather gruesome fate in being slashed by a dragon, accidently thrown off of a cliff by Mogrin and then the eldritch horror trapped inside her finally ripped it's way out of her corpse. Humans have no afterlife and oblivion awaited her soul, from a lifetime of imprinting, her memories persist in an abberant mind.

It wouldn't be so bad if she didn't remember things she shouldn't, like how her ruined body had tried to crawl back to them, to her party, to her friends, her new family. Vex wishes they understood why she could not allow the wyrmlings to live, she wished she could explain herself and the danger they were in. In the end, she could only tell Dougless how cold his blade was when it pierced her exposed heart.

It's oddly lonely here, dark. Not much light, she has to make her own. It's cold... she wishes she could make fire. She wishes that she hadn't listened to Mogrin, she wishes that she had just taken the egg when she had the chance. She would have use that power to protect them, right? No... no those were Viktor's lies... his corruption of her mind... well Viktor was just that, a piece of her, an imaginary friend she created and bestowed godhood to.. a response to trauma... just a response to childhood trauma...

It sure is quiet, she wished Viktor was here. At least even with his "I told you so" attiude would make her feel less lonely. He wasn't wrong, despite everything she did for them, they got her killed. She bent the fabric of time for Dougless, to bring him back moments before his untimely death. Mogrin was only after the dragon's patreonship, he didn't even stand beside her when they confronted the dragon...

No, he came... the clumsy fool turned to an aspect of the wind and knocked her from the dragon's grasp. It's not his fault that she fell... her neck hurts... her bones... they feel scattered... why is everything so light... where is she again?

Right, she is where she belongs... nowhere... or maybe somewhere... ah... she can't even hold herself together... just a bundle of psionic feedback that still thinks she has reason to exist.

Her magic fails... human again... not quite able to bend this place... or flee it either... she tries again... and again... and again... she wants to scream... she doesn't have a voice anymore...

She curls up, closing socketless eyes. She remembers a time when her dad brought her home... after the cult... after all the lies, the torture and the magics... a day she named herself in a way... or well just part of the ritual chants the people in hoods and bird mask used to say... "Vex Hetz" was the only part she would remember until she would passout from the pain... it was the time she first let him comfort her, his cape over her shoulders... it was soft and fluffy... it was warm... the closest thing to an embrace she had ever recieved. Or at least remembered...

She opens her eyes... still nowhere... she sighs... there is no ground here... nothing to grab... nothing to hold... it is cold again... she stretches out to see herself... not much left of me... she holds her broken body tracing over the tattoos... only two from her childhood were the the chest and back... she could finally see the one back there now but... it felt uncomfortable to twist her head back like that... not painful... just... wrong... although what is right about this situation... only one seal was broken... not that it matters... her real body was destroyed...

Is she real? Am I... she not I... stop that... no I refuse, where am I? She is looking around, there is nothing here... a blank canvas... I should not be here... can I go back... or have the roles been reversed? Am I now your prisoner...

She waits... and waits for an answer... there is none... she is alone... right? No... there has to be someone else... she can hear them right? Or is that just her? Is she the one narrating herself...

Stop that... you won't trick me... she holds her head... it falls apart... skull shattered on impact... there's a hole on the right side of her face... where Viktor used to live... please just tell me I'm not alone...

There isn't an answer... though there should be one, shouldn't there. No where is completely devoid of life, right? She wishes her friends were here... she wishes she could stand beside them, hug them, hold them... tell them sorry... sorry for...

What? For being a harbringer? I-I have always tried to not... to fight against fate... I just... I'm not evil... I can do good... right? Dad always said I had great potential for good... he's not a liar... I can't let him be a liar...

Damn it, Mogrin... why couldn't you stay out of it... had to be dramatic and show up... and get me killed... just like you did with Dougless... should have seen the repeating pattern... thanks a lot... I guess it's my fault for trusting you! For being gulible enough to think the universe will let me be anything but a harbringer... well joke's on me now! I can't laugh anymore...

...

...

...

Please... I'm sorry... I didn't mean that... sorry... please don't take that personally... I just... I don't know if I would try to embrace you or strangle you... not like I did either often enough... it's so cold here... I'm just angry... no... that isn't the right word...

Heartbroken... well Dougless did certainly destroyed Vex's chance of revival... he had to do it right? I, no she was causing the dragons to go into a frenzy... am I still me... Vex... right... although I guess without a soul... without magic... and without anyone else here... I guess I'm nobody now...

Why does that hurt... oh... that's right... nobody is coming to save me... nobody... nobody is... my eyes sting... I don't have eyes... I can't cry... why can't I cry... please just let me scream... let me sob... I can't just hold this... it hurts... just let me go!

There is no answer... she is floating... she is nowhere and she fears that whatever she was has been forgotten... please let me talk to someone... I know... I... she... we weren't the best... like we were willing to let an entire city be razed to the ground by the dragon... all for the arcane potential lying dormant in that creature's eggs... sure it may have depowered the protective field... it was only a temporary problem... she could have always reverse time again, right?

No... that's wrong... stop... that's why Mogrin had to stop you... Viktor is to blame for that... no... we are, we let ambition and fear rule you... you have to cling onto everything or anyone you find... you can't let them go... you can't lose them like dad... I really miss him...

I really miss everyone... Aera, Korxan, Dougless and even Mogrin... from the amethyest dragon to Dougless's tiefling friend... she... can't remember thier names... please don't tell me that I am fading? Is this really the end? No wait please... I don't want to die... I really don't want to disappear... I can't be forgotten!

She isn't going anywhere... maybe that's somehow worst... she just here now... forever... gods this is... boring... can I do something? I was able to pull Viktor from my mind and embed him into the bones of dieties long past, what is up with this place... my magic doesn't work quite right... my heart... no what is this light from my chest... huh...

[blogger360ncislarules]

If you just finished the season finale of The CW‘s Wild Cards, we’ve got some good news: There’s more on the way, at least according to star Vanessa Morgan, who tells TVLine that it’s “very likely” we’ll be getting another season of the comedic procedural.

“We’re still waiting for that greenlight, but I’ve heard that it’s happening,” she says. “I’d love to have the official word so I can plan my life a little bit, but I’m pretty positive.”

And the finale certainly gave viewers plenty to think about while they wait to see what’s next for Max and Ellis. Here’s a quick recap of the season’s final hour: Max coerced the authorities into helping her swipe a $33 million egg from her estranged husband (!) Olivier, who also happens to be the man responsible for landing Max’s father behind bars. (By the way, Morgan says she was “just as shocked as everyone else” when we learned that Max has a husband.)

The team successfully exposed and captured Olivier, earning Max her freedom, Ellis his old job back and Max’s father a lesser prison sentence. And they all lived happily ever after, right? Well, actually… It was then revealed that Max and Ricky have been eyeing Olivier’s incriminating egg for months, and they were fully prepared to skip town after swapping it out with a fake.

But “lying is no way to say goodbye,” so Max paid one last visit to Ellis’ houseboat to share some information she and Ricky received about his brother… they know who killed him! As for the identity of Ellis’ brother’s killer, Morgan has one prevailing theory — and she really wants to be right.

“I hope it’s Curtis Moorfield, the basketball player we met in Episode 2, because that would bring my boyfriend back to set,” Morgan says of the character played by her real-life boyfriend James Karnik. “I was like, ‘Babe, if you were the killer, you’d come back and be with me!”

In the meantime, fans of Max and Ellis’ will they/won’t they dynamic should appreciate Morgan’s thoughts on where the duo now stands: “Max does genuinely care about him,” she says. “The fact that she even went back [proves that]. She was supposed to be on a plane. She could have been halfway around the world by then. But she came back to tell him who killed his brother. A person with no feelings for someone wouldn’t risk their life and risk getting arrested to tell that information. So we’ll see what happen

[andy-deer]

PLS go in depth about it

I doubt my players check my tumblr so here:

It's on rough shape so bare with me.

In this world there's 4 realms or planes (I'm not too sure what to call em) and they're like sort of an onion???? it's like layers.

There's the normal realm, which we all know and love, a medieval setup with magic, classic dnd setup. With it's kingdoms and empires with regulated magic. (idfk how to name this one)

There's the gor and navzdol realms, which are sort of in the same place, really connected to the normal realm, these are thought to have been created by the god of morality, Gor being the "Good place" and Navzdol being the "Bad place", they hold spirits and demons respectively as an example. (I was unsure if I should actually write them as one big realm, two different faces of the same coin in a way)

Then there's Vmes, sort of the astral plane, I wanted it to be more like an in - between the material realm and the Onstran realm

And finally the Onstran realm, house of the gods and souls that died in the material realm.

Having said that, All of it was created by the union of life and death, they had the elements as an explanation of the planet. With dirt, ocean and such. The elements of water and Earth got married and never had children which made Earth very sad, so she asked her parent life for children and they concieved flora and fauna, the fact that water's life conceived with someone else made him so sad he started crying which created lakes, rivers and such, sort of giving us what today is this planet.

I imagine I will writing smaller deities later in time, which could perfectly be the result of a titan (elements) and Idk a dragon having a baby, or life straight up having children by itself idk.

The plot of the story is that a few oracles see a future of the undead ruling the material world and this alarms kings and governours who decide to put an end to the worship of death to avoid this future.

You see... the problem is that Gods stay strong because of worship from their grandchildren. After such measures are taken, Death is left very weak and life is, in comparison, very prosperous.

Death starts literally falling apart, making it's way to our realm, by crossing Vmes. Not only this but also souls aren't being processed as they should, there's a lot more spirits in the world that there should be and for stupid reasons they stay, instead of the normal super strong feelings that tie you to the world. (At some point I was thinking about showing just a dude who wanted to buy some milk and eggs but died falling down stupidly and couldn't get to the other side because of this unfinished business. Forever trying to buy milk and eggs but never being enough milk and eggs to get to the other side)

This tiny pieces would give origin to one of our players classes, our ranger, the lamb and the wolf, or well only the wolf, a being that is obssesed with finding his lamb, and that upon finding a child after a fresh killing and the death of the last hunter (Which very likely the wolf did himself due to them not fullfilling his duty like the lamb would) decided they were gonna be the next to fill this rol.

It would also give humans and such new information about Vmes, like new "Runes" or "words" or "glyphes" as a residue that came with the falling pieces. This new info basically permits new spells related to Vmes, like the teleportation circles but instead of one to another part of the world, to Vmes. This is highly illegal and information only military forces of huge empires have.

Which obviously someone will use to have advantage over other enemies. Certain emperor thinks "what if with this new magic we kill our enemies? We'll use a dummy to blame everything onto and one problem less in our list."

This, finally, takes us to the adventure. An ex-adventurer who desperatley wants to bring someone He lost, back. So much he gave his life (thinking about making him a phantasm) and his last party's lives to get her back.

The idea is He was after a bunch of pieces of a knife that can contain souls. For he heard from sources (That for sure have nothing to do with this emperor) that only souls can go thorugh Vmes, so a knife made out of souls could cut a hole on this layer towards the far beyond.

And he already has a book of a spell never seen before that can get you to Vmes, facilitated by some random mercenary (Who for sure has nothing to do with this emperor)

The last thing he needs is some adventurers who will get this knife for him.

The idea was to make a cut long enough for the undead to come in and fullfill the profecy but then I have some collision with realms like Navzdal. I need to ask myself where does the undead actually come from.

I need to see if dates match, tie the rest of the characters to this story (I am waiting for their backstories), properly think about Gor and Navzdol, give more thought to where the realms are situated, if the falling pieces had any more concequences and much more stuff i still haven't think about. Point out plot holes if you desire, I'm trying to fix everything I can.

[casspurrjoybell-20]

FOOLS IN LOVE - Chapter 9 - Part 1

BOOK THREE: 'Fools Fall in Love' Trilogy

*Warning - Adult Content*

Samuel Moretti

Noah brought me food 'made me food' to make sure I'd eat.

My heart was beating so fast when he was talking to me.

I was in awe when he walked away and I just sat frozen in my seat.

He'd noticed that I hadn't been eating much?

How? I didn't lose that much weight, had I?

I lifted the lid off the container.

There was a plastic fork.

I smiled and picked it up.

Pesto eggs was my favorite type of eggs and Noah knew that.

What did that mean?

Were we friends now or at least heading there?

No one makes someone else food without thinking of that person and caring for them.

Maybe there was hope after all for mine and Noah's friendship.

Just the thought of that had my heart beating faster.

Eating seemed slightly more appealing at that moment and I took a bite and another and another.

Slowly and cautiously but nonetheless I ate.

The eggs and bacon were still hot from being enclosed and the berries were cold.

I couldn't finish it even though it all tasted so good.

I looked back at Noah and he thought he was slick as he looked away but I knew he was looking at me.

I faced the front of the class, biting my lip to keep me from smiling. 

Professor Weber entered the classroom at 8:58 am and set his briefcase down silently before turning around and writing eight equations on the board.

He turned around to us.

"Good morning class. You have ten minutes to complete these equations while I do roll call. Go."

After class, I waited outside of the door for Noah but when he walked out, he glanced at me and didn't stop walking.

I sped-walked down the stairs and until I caught up to him.

"Hey... um... thank you for this," I said shaking the container a bit.

We were then walking side by side on the pavement.

Noah only nodded.

"I'll wash it and bring it back to you."

"Keep it," he told me, still not looking at me and it oddly felt like I was back to Junior year of high school when Noah wouldn't give me the time of day before we became friends and then more.

But then Noah added...

"Now you have a container to put your own breakfast in."

"Ahahaha, yeah. Hey, so I was wondering..."

Noah grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side of one of the buildings.

"We're not friends, Sam. I made myself breakfast and had extra. Me giving you breakfast was because I don't want to see you killing yourself by not eating."

My chest grew tight.

"I do eat."

"Really? 'Cause you..." he began harshly then sighed, inhaled a deep breath, then said more calmly.

"I just... I had extra food, that's all," and he walked away.

He had extra food.

He didn't make me food, he made himself food but even if that was true, Noah still thought about me which was confusing.

*********

He was so confusing but I was an idiot as I stood outside Noah's apartment door with a cleaned container 'around eleven pm' and waited for him to open the door.

It wasn't him.

The pretty, petite dark-haired girl I saw Noah with at the party.

My stomach felt mushy when she opened the door.

"Sam?"

She knew my name?

Well, I guess that made sense, I had met her before and she was clearly close to Noah. 

"Ah haha, yeah."

'Oh God, what was I thinking?'

"Um, I'm sorry, Noah lives here, right?"

"Yeah, you can come in," she offered as she stepped back, opening the door some more.

"He should be here soon."

"Oh, no. That's okay, I... uh just... just brought him this," I held out the container.

"Um... it's his, so yeah, if you could give that to him. You don't have to say I was here... well, he'd know I was..."

"Sam?"

I spun around at the sound of Noah's voice.

He looked worn out, with his dress shirt unbuttoned some.

He was coming home from work.

Noah looked confused but not angry that I was there and also had a guy with him.

'You're so stupid and pathetic, Sam.'

I laughed anxiously again, my whole body was shaking on the inside.

He looked down at my hand that held the container.

I held it up to him.

"Here you go," I said and hated that my voice came out high pitched.

"Sam," the guy next to Noah said 'who I refused to look at cause one glance had me almost tripping from how attractive he was but Benjamin was hotter, so that made me feel slightly better. Slightly'.

But I had to look at him when he said my name.

"Nice to meet you."

I could only give a small smile which fell when the attractive guy said,

"I'm Wesley, I work with Noah."

My heart stopped.

Wesley.

The same Wesley Noah had 'danced provocatively' with?

I wanted to run away but I held my head high and gave him a friendly smile.

"You should come in and we can all hang out," Wesley suggested innocently.

"Wes," Noah spoke Wesley's nickname with a dark threat to it.

"No thanks," I said, keeping my emotions at bay before shoving the stupid container against Noah's chest.

"I'll see you in class," I muttered to him and walked away, ready to cry from how embarrassing that was, until I was at the bus stop.

*********

I had to wait only ten minutes along with a balding old man for the city bus.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," I repeated to myself once the bus arrived and I settled into a seat.

I should've given Noah the container during class on Friday.

Instead I made a fool out of myself and for what?

What did I think was going to happen?

What did I even want to happen?

But that didn't matter because as soon as I was at my destination and Benjamin was opening the door to his dorm, I felt better, lighter.

"Hey baby, what are you doing here? I was just about to call you."

I stepped in, shut the door and pulled Benjamin to me.

I took control of the kiss that time because I needed chaos and lust and anything to release the tension in my body and Benjamin was good for that.

My tongue plunged into his mouth and I advanced forward until I shoved him onto his bed.

"Baby, wait."

I pulled back

"Is this too much?"

"No but what if Brandon walks in?" he asked in a slight panic.

"Live on the wild side, Benjamin, it's more thrilling," I told him.

I was kneeling on the carpeted floor in between his legs, my hands running up and down his thighs.

"But if you want me to stop, I will."

Benjamin glanced nervously from the door back down to me, the door one more time, then said...

"No. It's okay," he nodded.

"You can always use the safe word," I said reassuringly.

Benjamin came up with a safe word so that when things got a little too much in the bedroom, we'd stop if one of us said it.

Benjamin was the only one who's used it.

Once when I placed his hand on my throat and once when I put handcuffs on him.

When I received the nod of approval from my boyfriend, I undid his pants, slid them down to his ankles along with his briefs and took him in my mouth.

[pondslime]

??? FINALLY got the chance to sit down and read this

jfc, meg. ur really sending my ass straight back into the swamp. u have pitched me directly into the bayou and now I'm being pursued by a blue-eyed gator. how DARE u (I love u dearly)

FIRST OF ALL!! the prose in this is absolutely stunning.

u really captured this feeling of heavy, dense, INESCAPABLE heat. we're back in ambrose and it's SWELTERING. oof. reading this was like crashing ur car straight into a bog and having to trudge thru the muck!! waving ur 2005 flip phone in the air desperately trying to get service!! so u can call roadside assistance!! but surprise!! there's no reception and the only roadside assistance u get is some vile hick w/mommy issues!!!

bojangles in a wifebeater. the fact that u gave me that mental image. wild....................much. to ponder

favorite lines under the cut bc I'm howling about them. as we speak

The quilt sits scrunched at the foot of the bed for the season and he kicks the sheets off around midnight like something forcing its way out of a soft-shelled egg. 

LOVE THIS WORDING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO VERY MUCH !!!!!!!!!!!!!! REPTILE BOY !!!!!!!!!!!!!! CROCODILIAN MFER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The day languishes. They all do. You kill a thousand flies. You mop the floor and track your own footprints across it before it dries. You hang his shirts on the clothesline in the side yard and feel like an insect trapped in the sap of time. You shave your legs in a cold bath and examine your skin:  sunburn, bug bites, bite marks. 

NOW THAT'S THE JUICE RIGHT THERE

He brings home a bag of saltwater taffy, all raspberry.  “Thought of you,” he says when he hands it to you. To your recollection, you have never mentioned taffy or raspberries or anything of the sort. You wonder who he thinks you are, whether he has you confused with someone else. 

I cannot. physically put into coherent words. how much I love this bit.

just............OOF. the reader stuck in this house with who she is vs who he thinks she is vs who she has become!!! and @ the end of the day she decides it doesn't matter and eats the candy bc whatever. one of them should probably enjoy it.

THE FAIR DON'T COME AROUND HERE NO MORE AND THE TAFFY WILL ALWAYS GO DOWN WRONG !!!!!!! OH MY GOD !!!!!!!

oh. ILL. ill and diseased. excellent stuff

Your hips bump against his like a car on a back road, lost, no cell service. You wish there was music playing. 

You are drowning here, surrounded by trees, surrounded by more green than you ever knew existed in the world.  Somewhere out there, someone is mourning you. You can feel it tonight, crackling in the ozone like the storm that won’t break. 

You can’t remember your home address. You can picture the house, the sidewalk in front of it, cracks in the driveway. The rest is like a dream. The house behind you doesn’t have an address. No number, no mailbox. You can feel it sucking at the base of your spine like a leech, coaxing you in, tipping you backwards all wrong like a gravity hill. You feel eyes on you, all the time, no matter what room you’re in. 

You live sideways amid the boxes and bottles and beer cans. He refuses to let you throw anything away.

n o w o r d s

gagging. throwing up even. ur prose. ur P R O S E

I'm in space...............the stratosphere..............I suspect

This might be her house, will always be her house. But you do not belong to her. You have been spoken for again and again, and perhaps you should thank him for that.  In the daylight you remember that you aren’t scared of ghosts, and that you have nothing left to give. Plenty of dead women have laid claim to you already. This one cannot have you, and for that matter, she can’t have him either. 

No one can kill you if you’re already dead. You believe that so hard sometimes you can’t see your own reflection.

my jaw absolutely DROPPED at the transition between the nightmare to waking up in bed jhsdfjhsfdjhdf getting eaten out by this FREAK!!!!!!!! do alligators eat each other???? I'M ROTTING AWAY!!! love love LOVE that SO much. god. that's the juice that's my JAM that's everything!!!!!!!!

“You love me?” you ask him before you can think better of it. Before the rain stops. The corner of his mouth twitches. His gaze slides past you, goes somewhere else, above the sea of trees. The sky is in his eyes. “Sometimes.”

U M ?????????????????????????? thinking thinking THOUGHTS

wow??????????????? wowza???????????

ANYWAY. any shred of coherency that I have left is steadily dripping out my ears and I'm just yodeling gibberish @ this point. this is SUCH a drop-dead gorgeous piece. your prose is so so so immaculate. it's so wonderful to get to read ur stuff again. u always knock it out of the park. luv this and luv u

fever dream

Bo Sinclair x AFAB!Reader

7.6k words. dubcon ofc. reader is absolutely mentally bankrupt. stockholm is where we live, it's where we are, it's where we'll die. sporadic smut, pnv, fingering, and oral (fem!rec). blood and sweat everywhere. Bo calls reader a bitch a couple times but like, it's out of love or some shit. somno. alcohol use. nightmares. ghosts. swamp things. the ever-looming threat of death and depersonalization.

welcome back to my youtube channel. I have been. working on this fic. since May of last year. and it's finally done(?) it is long and weird and maybe bad and meant for you to get lost in. a journey with no destination. a haunted house only you are the haunted and the haunt and the house. tbqh I'm rewatching HoW today for the first time in months and months and I had to get this out of my drafts so I can check back into the sanitarium with minimal baggage, y'know?? I hope it makes you feel some type of way.

The summer heat is in your blood and the swamp is in your lungs and he is under your skin. 

You’ve never known an August like this, like a blister. You go to bed sticky and wake up drenched in sweat. The ceiling fan is a hurricane agent that offers no respite, just blows the humidity in vicious cycles. There’s no air conditioning in the house; it’s too old. Instead you wrap ice cubes in dish towels and press them to the back of your neck. 

A storm’s been hanging on the horizon for days. Thunder rolls out of a wall of iron gray, an idle threat. The air is soupy and super-charged. No rain comes. 

The nights are delirium. You go to bed on opposite sides of the mattress, oil and water. He sleeps naked, sprawled out like a water skeeter. The quilt sits scrunched at the foot of the bed for the season and he kicks the sheets off around midnight like something forcing its way out of a soft-shelled egg. 

You lie awake, listening to the cicadas and waiting. Just when you’ve started to cool down and drift off he reaches over and fumbles at your leg, grabs your arm. He pulls you on top of him, hands on your body beneath his old t-shirt. You ride him with your eyes closed and your breath hot on your lips. It’s a fever, the sweating, the shaking. 

You wake every morning suffocating under his arm in the center of the mattress with honey between your thighs. 

.

He drinks his coffee hot even though the steam can barely rise above the rim of the mug in the humidity. You pour yours over ice and savor the feeling as it seeps down your throat and into your stomach. You curl your toes on the linoleum and almost smile at him across the table. He’s golden from all his time in the sun. You can trace the lines of his wifebeater over his shoulders, across his chest. You stare at him across the table and think about the taste of his skin. You want to run your tongue along that tan line. 

He catches you staring. “What?” he says flatly. 

You redirect your gaze to your hands. Shake your head. Wait for him to move on so you can resume your perusal of his body.

When he looks away, out the window, the sun catches those eyes and turns them to sea glass. He needs a haircut; walnut curls crest over his ears like kudzu. When you get up to clear the table your skin peels from the vinyl seat cushion with a sting that makes you wrinkle your nose. 

“Be good,” he tells you before he leaves. You wonder what he means, what he thinks you might get up to in this house full of dust and guns and ghosts. You know better than to ask, and you nod and kiss him goodbye and feel his lips on your lips for hours afterwards. 

The day languishes. They all do. You kill a thousand flies. You mop the floor and track your own footprints across it before it dries. You hang his shirts on the clothesline in the side yard and feel like an insect trapped in the sap of time. You shave your legs in a cold bath and examine your skin:  sunburn, bug bites, bite marks. 

When he pulls into the driveway you’re on the front step eating a popsicle and counting the minutes. He saunters across the gravel like John Wayne, shoulders exposed, hair plastered to his neck. You meet his eyes and wrap your lips around the cherry-flavored mess dripping onto your fingers. He spits into the weeds and eyes you through his lashes. 

“What’s for supper?” 

You suck on your sticky thumb. There’s a full spread on the dining room table, ready and waiting. “Whatever you want.” 

He licks his lips. 

Supper gets cold. 

.

He brings home a bag of saltwater taffy, all raspberry. 

“Thought of you,” he says when he hands it to you. To your recollection, you have never mentioned taffy or raspberries or anything of the sort. You wonder who he thinks you are, whether he has you confused with someone else. 

You sit on the porch steps and amass a pile of wax paper wrappers beside you. It’s soft and melty, peels out of the wrapper with a sticky crackling sound. It’s salty and sour and tastes like cheap sugar. Like a memory of summer that may be real, or maybe not. Could be yours, or could be someone else’s.

You eat more than you want, until your teeth hurt and you can feel the hot spot on your tongue where a canker sore will form. You rake that spot back and forth across your incisors. You can’t help it. Sometimes it feels like things have to have a hurt to them. 

“You ever been to the fair?” you ask him over your shoulder.

He grunts from the porch swing. “Used to go when Vince ‘n me were little. Took Les a couple times when he was old enough.”

“You ever take a girl?”

“Nah.” His boot thumps on the porch, an offhand punctuation mark. “Couldn’t find one to go with me.”

You doubt that; you’ve seen his yearbook photos. But then again, maybe he was off-putting as a teenager. Spooky. Hadn’t quite learned how to camouflage yet. Came on too strong, wore too much cologne, used too many teeth.

You survey the vast swath of woods that surrounds Ambrose and try to imagine a ferris wheel, red and blue and blinking, rising from the green like the hump of a whale.  “I’d go with you.”

He snorts. “Yeah?”

You look down at the piece of taffy in your fingers. You don’t really want it. You unwrap it anyway. “Yeah.” You gnaw on the candy like a dog savoring a scrap. “Be like a date,” you say thickly.

“What, you wanna skip down the midway holdin’ hands? Makin’ out in the Tunnel of Love?”

You can picture it, sunset and a sundress. He’s laughing. You’re laughing. The crowd is made of wax. “You could win me a stuffed animal.”

He scoffs again, but then he asks you, “What kinda stuffed animal you want?”

You think for a second, unstick the taffy from your molars and push it around your mouth with your tongue. “A Louisiana crocodile.” A souvenir from your time in the South. Maybe it’ll be wearing a little trucker hat and a smile that doesn’t reach its eyes.

“Ain’t got crocodiles here, sugar. ‘S all alligators.”

“Fine, an alligator then.”

You run your hands over your shins, sticky with the humidity. The chains of the porch swing creak rhythmically behind you. The sea of trees is dark and still and endless.

“Fair don’t come ‘round here anymore,” he says finally.

You force the taffy down your throat, swallow hard, and reach for another one.

“Figures.”

.

You’re buzzed and reckless, sucked down a pair of beers too fast just because they were frosty. The shears snick like some needy, nipping thing. You found them upstairs under the bathroom sink once upon a time and you always put them back when you’re done. They’ve been there longer than you’ve been alive. You comb your fingers across his scalp and loose locks drift onto your clean floor. 

“Don’t take it too short,” he admonishes into the mouth of his beer bottle. “You butcher me, I butcher you.” 

You roll your eyes behind his back. “Have I ever?” 

He grunts in acquiescence. That’s as close to a win as you’ll get. 

The windows are open; the thunder presses against the frayed screens. A gigantic moth flings its feathery body repeatedly at the ceiling light. You run your hand through his hair slow just to feel it between your fingers, thick and soft. Your thumb glances off the scar on the left side of his skull and comes back for another pass. 

He jerks his head, puts a stop to that. “You done?” 

“Almost.” 

You’re particularly fond of the curls at the nape of his neck, always save them for last. You coil one around your finger. You want to ask him if you can keep it, but you’re afraid he’ll say no or worse, that he’ll say yes. He’ll ask for something in return. You’ll give it to him, no matter what it is. You give him anything he wants, everything he wants. It’s the least you can do, the most you can do. 

You snip them one by one, bittersweet. 

“Done.” 

He leans over in the chair to examine his reflection in the window. “Good enough.” 

He stands up and drains the dregs of his beer. His hand finds your waist and he pulls you in and you bend like a reed, peering up at him, inspecting your work. He smells like sweat and sun. You grip his shirt in your fists and move with him as he sways lazily side-to-side. 

He gives you the gift of a smile, half-cocked and handsome. “You wanna dance, mama?”

Your fingers spider-creep up the shield of his chest and lock behind his neck. His skin is hot and sticky against your wrists, clipped hairs poking and itching. Your hips bump against his like a car on a back road, lost, no cell service. You wish there was music playing. 

He tilts his head towards you and you get caught in the trap of his mouth. The thunder moans. You can feel the sweat beading on your upper lip, in the pit of your elbows. His hands are heavy on your bones. 

His jaw scrapes along your temple like a razor blade and a fever chill rolls over your skin, hot-cold. “G’on upstairs, get those clothes off.” 

Have you always been such a good listener? 

.

He comes home drunk and fucks you on the table, in the midst of supper left cold and waiting for him. You knew he’d be hungry. You are right about some things and wrong about others.

You wince every time a dish topples off the table and shatters on the faded linoleum. He doesn't look at you, not once.

Afterwards, he disappears for a while and leaves you to clean up the kitchen. You are dazed, legs unsteady, leaning on the counter like an old friend. It’s been a bad day. Dinner has soaked through the back of your shirt and so you take it off, hang it over the back of a chair for later, and set to work on the mess.

You cannot puzzle out how he managed to get blood on every dish you are trying to wash until finally you realize it is yours, seeping quietly from a slice on your palm. When he comes up behind you your spine stiffens, arching like a snake making a final stand. He puts his hands on your bare waist and his lips against the back of your head like a sweetheart, like a husband, like a different person.

“Leave it, darlin’. Come sit on the porch with me.”

You bite your lip, lift your palm so he can see it, watch the world blur with saline. “I cut myself,” you say, and only then does the sting set in, so sharp you can feel it in your teeth.

He makes a sympathetic noise and cups your hand in his. “Now why’d y’go and do that?”

You open your mouth to answer but only a moan comes out as he lifts your arm and seals his lips over the cut. He sucks, gently at first and then harder, hard enough you feel the seam of skin separate and your fingers jerk like puppets to the pain. He lets you go and you cradle your hand to your chest as he laps your blood off his lip.

“You’ll be fine,” he says, takes your arm, tugs you from the sink. “C’mon. I need a smoke.”

You follow him onto the porch, curl up in his lap with a dishrag pressed to your palm and watch smoke and moths float around the light.

Your blood dries on the dishes with the gravy.

.

The clouds boom a reminder that they are still hanging above the house, but you are already awake in the split second beforehand. You are cocooned in the sheets and panic for a moment, arms pinned to your chest, bedroom black as a coffin. When you claw free, gasping, the air is like moss draped spongey and damp across your face. 

You worm out of the bed, out of the room, stagger into the hallway and down the stairs in the dark. You are mere steps ahead of some emaciated beast, its breath muggy on your cheeks and the back of your neck. You twist your shirt off and throw it on the floor of the den before it can strangle you, wrench the front door open and slam through the screen with both hands. 

The night is wet in your nose. One hundred million insects scream to God. In the back of your mind you think about joining them. Your toes scuff to a stop on the precipice of the porch and you peer into the darkness with round eyes, bare chest heaving for more air than you can hold. You are drowning here, surrounded by trees, surrounded by more green than you ever knew existed in the world. 

Somewhere out there, someone is mourning you. You can feel it tonight, crackling in the ozone like the storm that won’t break. 

You wrap your arms around yourself and sink to the ground, sit perched on the top stair in your panties and sweat-drenched skin. The nail of your index finger rips apart the cuticle of your thumb. Mosquitos float open-armed to your legs like swamp angels. It’s too hot to cry. 

The yellow porchlight struggles to life. The screen door bangs flatly behind you. He can’t ever pick up his feet, scuffing through the dust you haven’t swept. 

His fingers brush the bone of your shoulder. You don’t flinch nowadays, usually. “Y’alright?”

You don’t have to answer that. Let him wrap his hand around your throat and fishhook his fingers into your mouth to pull your jaw open, you don’t have to answer that. You grit your teeth and dig crescent moons into your thighs with all ten fingernails.

Your silence doesn’t bother him. He leans on the railing to your left, curling his toes on the concrete, looking out into the night. Sleep has mussed his hair to one side and left imprints of the sheet fanning across his chest. There’s a hickey in the shape of your mouth in the curve of his neck. Lightning flutters shy among the clouds and the thunder reprimands it. There’s something stuck in your throat, something you can’t swallow down no matter how hard you try. Moths flock to the porchlight. If anyone was alive in the town to look up the hill, they’d see you haloed, and him too. 

“‘S late. Come back to bed.”

You can’t remember your home address. You can picture the house, the sidewalk in front of it, cracks in the driveway. The rest is like a dream. The house behind you doesn’t have an address. No number, no mailbox. You can feel it sucking at the base of your spine like a leech, coaxing you in, tipping you backwards all wrong like a gravity hill. You feel eyes on you, all the time, no matter what room you’re in. 

“You listenin’ to me? Let’s go.”

You can’t go back inside. You can’t go back inside. Something in you doesn’t line up right. Someone is holding a pillow over your face.

“No,” you think you say out loud. The word flutters off into the night. You watch a mosquito drift beyond the reach of the porchlight and disappear. The stars bow gracefully into the arms of the clouds. 

After a beat, he shuffles out of your periphery. The screen door slams. Maybe this time. When you least expect it. Maybe he's sick of you at last. You pick at a scab on your knee until it comes loose and flakes off, and then you pinch the skin around the wound and squeeze until a bead of blood, scarlet-black, mounds and breaks and gets all over your fingers. You raise them to your mouth and suck them clean and it tastes familiar. Safe. 

He doesn’t come back with a knife, or a gun. He comes back with the quilt and sheet from the bed, a pillow stuffed under his arm. He unfurls the quilt on the porch. The pillow flops to the ground like something hunted to extinction. He follows suit. 

“C’mere.” He wrestles with the sheet, props himself up on an elbow and punches the pillow into place. “C’mon.” 

You breathe, just for a minute, watching him. You want to hate him so bad it hurts. You want him to hit you so you’d have a reason to hit back. You want to fight for your life because you can feel it slipping away, waning, evaporating in the heat. Already you’ve found shreds of yourself under the couch, covered in dust. You are drowning. You are thirsty. He is water, cold and brackish. 

You rise from the stairs and come to him because you need him, because he is all you have. 

“Get the light,” he says. 

You go and come back and his hand finds your calf in the dark, slides up the back of your knee, guides you to the ground. The quilt is a mockery of softness, the porch unyielding beneath. You curl up with him at your back and he folds his arm around you, thumb worrying aimlessly at your nipple. His breath is hot on the nape of your neck. 

The air roils in your lungs. The night surges in. You are alone, so alone, aching with loneliness, now and always. You close your fingers around his wrist and guide his hand between your legs. He rubs the cotton of your panties with something like pity and you let a moan seep from your throat. 

Your face lolls into the pillow and it smells like fever dreams and cold-sweat nightmares. The fabric of your underwear catches on your clit and you gasp, arching against his chest.

“Easy,” he murmurs as his fingers drag back and forth. He hooks his foot around your ankle, forces your legs open. You asked for this. You’ll take it and thank him. 

Lightning silhouettes the world beyond the porch in black and purple. When you close your eyes, you see the rooftops of the town in the colors of heaven. You rock against his hand and pretend you’re someone else somewhere else. You feel the thunder in your teeth and wish with all your heart the rain would fall. 

He puts an abrupt end to the friction and cups you in his palm, wide and warm. You make a plaintive sound and wiggle your hips, push your ass against him. You need to feel something. You need him to help you. Otherwise, you might disappear beneath the horrible blanket of the night. 

“Please,” you moan. 

He presses his lips to the back of your neck, whispers into the shell of your ear like a lover. “You love me?” 

You squeeze your eyes shut. “Yes.” 

His teeth graze your skin as he slips his fingers past the waistband of your panties. 

“Good.” 

You wonder if he knows he keeps saving your life. 

.

The house is a midden of family misery. There’s barely space for you between heaps of clothing and glassware and mass market paperbacks. You live sideways amid the boxes and bottles and beer cans. He refuses to let you throw anything away. No matter how much you sweep and dust and tidy, the clutter seems to crawl right back across the carpet like morning glory. 

Late morning finds you in the master bedroom. It’s sweltering up here. The air sticks to your face like tattered gauze. The junk in here is of a particular breed, more meaningful—photo albums, baby clothes. Much of it has been stacked high just inside the door like a battlement. A fortification between this room and the rest of the house. You’re not allowed in here. 

Neither is he. 

Beyond the wall, everything sits untouched. A layer of dust rests primly on the bedside tables, the vanity, the yellow quilt still neatly made up on the bed. The art on the wall is sun-bleached in evenly spaced lines from the half-open blinds. The silence crowds your ears. It feels like standing in a tomb, the family crypt. 

With courage paper-thin, you've decided you'd like to confront the heart of the horror. Like shoving your fingers down the throat of the beast trying to bite you. Like making a home in its mouth, a bed in its bed. You want to eat me so bad, you’ll have to savor every scrap. 

It’s eerie in here. This room is brighter than the rest of the house by far. You can feel that parasitic presence all around you, cajoling you with hands that are soft and dry. There is a faint, floating smell of faded flowers. You breathe slowly to keep yourself from sprinting back downstairs.

You gaze at yourself in the vanity mirror. The dust almost erases you from sight, almost. You reach a finger out and draw a single streak across the silvery surface. You’re in there, somewhere. Sometimes you forget. 

The front of the vanity holds a trio of slim drawers with tiny gold handles. You catch one with the tips of your fingers and tug, just slightly. It creeps open without resistance. The inside is lined with green velvet. You pull it open all the way and search through the contents with your eyes. Blush, lipstick. Eyeshadow in seven shades of blue. You slide the drawer closed and move on to the next one, the widest one in the middle. 

This one holds a treasure trove of golden baubles:  a jumble of earrings, half a dozen hairpins, a long, thin cigarette holder. A string of pearls that look too chipped and dull to be real. And a locket, oval-shaped and decorated with a halo of tiny vines. You pick it up and the chain slips over your fingers like a thin, shining snake. 

You dig your nail into the seam and pop it open. To your muted disappointment, it is empty. No husband. No children. 

It’s yours, you decide suddenly. You want it. You've earned it. A prize, a consolation for the hell you’ve been through. For the fact that you have survived him, and she has not. You wonder if he’ll recognize it. Part of you hopes that he does. You imagine the look on his face and his hands on you afterwards. Your mouth is wet. 

This might be her house, will always be her house. But you do not belong to her. You have been spoken for again and again, and perhaps you should thank him for that. 

In the daylight you remember that you aren’t scared of ghosts, and that you have nothing left to give. Plenty of dead women have laid claim to you already. This one cannot have you, and for that matter, she can’t have him either. 

You hear the rumble of his truck out front and the thrill of fear that shoots down your spine is so cold it’s almost welcome in the stuffy room. You shove the locket into the pocket of your shorts and fling the drawer shut. It closes with a soft, complicit thunk. 

You pick your way back through the boxes and slip through the door like a reptile into water; smooth, silent. You make sure it latches behind you before you hurry to the top of the stairs. 

Out of the corner of your eye, just before you dip out of sight below the banister, you see something bend the light that reaches through the crack beneath the door. You freeze, turn your head only slightly. You see nothing. Only sunlight. Certainly no feet, dainty and bare, padding across the carpet with red-lacquered toenails. 

Panic, delayed, breaks loose. You gallop down the stairs so quickly you forget to skip the ones that creak. 

By the time he comes inside, slamming the door fit to shake the frame of the house, you are hunched over the dishes in the sink like you’ve been there all morning. If you are unduly quiet, he doesn’t seem to notice, and if he notices, he doesn’t seem to care. 

.

“I think I love you.”

You say it half-casual, half-pronouncement, the way you might tell your mom you’re dropping out of college. Tell your boyfriend you’re over him. Tell your boss you’re moving to Louisiana. “I mean it this time.”

Bo snorts, lifts his beer to his lips. “That so?”

You shoo a bee from the rim of your glass and suck down the last of your drink. You just might be drunk. “Yup.”

“Think that’s the bourbon talkin’.”

You roll your eyes, shimmy a little in an effort to make the busted lawn chair more comfortable. You thought he’d be more excited. “Why don’t you ever believe me?”

He smacks his lips like he’s considering his answer. The sunlight shifts through the trees and you close your eyes, blissful. “Lemme ask you this. You ever set a snare, baby?”

You can feel it in your blood:  the sun, the breeze, the brook bubbling over your toes. It’s not so bad, you think. Sometimes. It’s not so bad.

“Hey.” He leans over in his chair and snaps his fingers, splintering your peace. “I asked you a question.”

“Nah. Never set a snare. Some of us were normal kids.”

He ignores this and you feel like you’ve gotten away with something. “Well, sometimes you catch a critter, but it don’t strangle to death like it’s s’posed to.” 

You frown. 

“So you gotta do somethin’ about it, right? But you gotta be real careful. Can’t get caught up by the sufferin’. Gotta keep your head about you, y’know?” He’s not looking at you, but you can picture his lips, twisted in something like a smile. “‘Cause it don’t matter what it is…raccoon, possum, bunny rabbit…that sucker’ll take your hand off if y’let it.”

Your throat is sensitive all of the sudden, feels closed off. Maybe you swallowed a bee. “What are you even talking about?”

His head lolls lazy to the left and he stares at you for a second in a way that makes your hair stand on end. Then he chuckles, winks at you, turns away and leans back in his chair. 

“Nothin’, sugar. You’re awful cute.”

.

The heat wreaks havoc on the lifeless inhabitants of the town. You trail behind him like a listless kite as he makes the rounds, checking for damage, hauling the worst afflicted home to Vincent. It baffles you how much he seems to care about them. How much investment he has in keeping the rot contained beneath a pristine cosmetic veneer. For what? For who?

You don’t tell him it’s all rot, all of it, the people, the buildings. The trees. The air. Him. You. 

Some days, most days, you can’t quite look them in their faces. It’s guilt, you suppose. Guilt and acknowledgement of a fear so pervasive you no longer notice the way it clings like a second skin. You’ve convinced yourself if you meet their eyes you’ll find them glaring at you, envious and accusatory. Or worse–you’ll see the future, suspended in the flat, glass pupils of a dead game animal.

Occasionally you punish yourself by looking too closely. You note the receding hairlines, where the skin beneath the wax has dried and pulled taut and shifted the scalp along with it. You observe the way the light shines through plump round fingertips that are only hollow shells of wax, all that soft flesh desiccated and shriveled to a skeletal wedge underneath. You wonder, sometimes, whether Vincent smoothed over any flaws–scars, moles, asymmetrical lips. You touch your face subconsciously and think about the things he might fix for you.

It makes you feel like you are tiptoeing on the precipice of sanity, arms wide, just waiting to topple.

You take a particular interest in their clothing, wonder whether it belonged to them or to someone from the town. You never ask Bo, although you know he could tell you. You ignore the obvious parallels like a badly stitched seam. None of the clothes you wear belong to you either.

There are more residents than you ever imagined, half the houses not as empty as you assumed. Ten years, three brothers, three hundred and forty-nine holes to fill. You were decent at math in a past life, but nowadays, you try your hardest not to solve problems, no matter how they howl and scratch at the door. You’ve become adept at avoidance of the obvious in favor of learning how to assimilate into the cobwebs and shadows. No one can kill you if you’re already dead. You believe that so hard sometimes you can’t see your own reflection.

You believe it so hard that when you find it, on a girl in a house on a street you’ve only been down once or twice, you can’t make sense of it for several long seconds, staring dumbstruck and stupid while the static subsumes your brain.

“Let’s go,” he barks from the sitting room. The couches are pink and floral and faded.

You cannot move. You are made of wax.

“You deaf? Come on.”

She’s wearing cutoff jeans and the t-shirt you bought on a trip two years ago, or maybe three. There’s blood, brown and faded from half-hearted washing, streaking the collar and left sleeve.

Her hair is lighter than yours, and shorter. Her feet are smaller. Her nose is bigger. But the shirt is yours, and so is the blood, and for a second, you know you are a ghost.

“Hey.” He grabs your arm and turns you around. You think maybe she’ll move, now that you’re not looking. “You got a problem?”

You cannot answer him, because you do not have a voice. Because your lips have been glued together and painted the perfect pink. His gaze flicks from you to the girl and back and you wonder if he kissed her the way he kisses you. You hope he can see it, the way you are withering under the wax. You hope he will pick you up, cradle you in his arms, take you home and take care of you, make you whole, make you human.

Isn’t that all you’ve ever asked for?

He snaps his fingers in front of your face and you flinch, because you are real after all.

“Let’s go.”

You let him push you towards the door, hear him close it behind you, feel the floorboards shiver as he follows you down the hall. He puts his hand on the small of your back and ushers you out of the house, down the sidewalk cracked and stuffed with weeds keeling over in the heat. You can feel your feet melting to the concrete, skin crawling, sagging. You try not to stumble. You don’t want him to leave you behind.

“She ain’t you,” he mutters at the end of the street, so low you barely hear him over the buzz of the cicadas.

You aren’t sure if he’s lying, now or ever. You don’t ask him where her clothes are and he doesn’t offer. She might not be you, but you might be her. And you both might be someone else.

Either way, the shape of her is burned into your vision in blue and green, and she shakes her head at you when you close your eyes.

.

You wake to the sound of rain on the roof and it pulls you immediately from bed, stumbling sightless over your feet to get to the window. You yank on the mangled cord to raise the blinds and sure enough, the dust of summer is melting down the window in waves.

“Bo,” you say hoarsely. “Bo, look.”

It is then that the silence of the room seeps into your brain, the conspicuous lack of snoring. Your heart sinks into your wringing stomach. 

In a perfect world, he’d be taking a leak. He’d stumble back to bed and wrap you in his arms, press a kiss to your temple, and you’d drift back to sleep in the bliss of air conditioning. 

Your world is a few dirt road miles south of perfect.

You have to go find him. Find him and haul him out of whatever dark place he’s waded into, before he comes back worse than he went in.

The hall is a throat you have to fight against to get to the stairs, black and humid with walls that breathe. You feel cobwebs on your face and slap them away only to realize it’s your own hair caught on your lashes. The glow of the TV laps at the bottom step like floodwater, makes the carpet undulate like something just sank below the surface. You hesitate, for just a second, before you step down and feel solid ground beneath your feet.

He sits slouched on the couch in front of a screen full of static, deadeyed, jaw clenched. He doesn’t seem to notice you, quiet, creeping thing that you are. The static sounds like rushing water. Mangroves rise from the shadows in the corner of your eye. Lilypads part around your feet. If you turn your head just right, his eyes flash red in the light.

You stop halfway between the stairs and the couch, unsure what kind of animal you’re approaching. Your hands float up like a shield, like a bridge. “Bo,” you say softly, and it echoes in the night. “Are you okay?” 

He blinks, like a person. You notice a bite mark, a purple half moon in the meat of his forearm. Your skin is well acquainted with the shape of his teeth. 

“Bo,” you whisper. You don’t want to get closer. “Come back to bed.”

You hear a splash in the kitchen. The carpet squishes between your toes. Something brushes your ankle and wriggles away. You need to get out of here. You can’t leave without him. 

“Baby…please.” You step towards him and freeze as he lurches forward, sits up straight. His hands dangle between his knees, his gaze still locked on the fuzz of the television. 

“I killed my mama, y’know.” 

His voice is pitched, low and dull. A sheen of sweat glistens on his upper lip and cheekbones. The color is gone from his face and here, in this place, he looks almost green.

You fight to form breath into words. “I…I know.”

He’s speaking again as though he didn’t hear you. You can see in his eyes he is far, far away. “I watched her die. Took a real long time. But I stayed…waited. Had to make sure.”

The water is rising, cold and slick, over your ankles and up your calves. Panic rises with it, packs into your throat like silt. “You were real brave, baby. You did it. You made sure.” Your voice is thin as a reed. 

A terrible, empty grin cracks his face and then vanishes without a ripple, and now he looks at you for the first time and his eyes are hollow and blue as marbles and he whispers, “Then why ain’t she dead?”

The water surges to your knees like it’s been displaced by something large, something prowling. You teeter forward, heart hammering, splashing as you regain your balance. Too loud, too loud. Do alligators eat each other?

“She’s dead, Bo. She is.”

“Don’t lie to me, bitch!” He rises to his feet so fast you lose your balance again, flinching back from him. “She ain’t and you know it. You’ve seen her, she’s here! In this fuckin’ house!”

You shake your head quickly and in your periphery something ducks beneath the surface of the water. “No. She’s not.” Convince him, convince yourself, make it true.

His chest is heaving, his gaze darting around the room, searching. You can picture a shadow in shadow, curled up and waiting in the corner of the ceiling like a fat black spider, fingers splayed wide and tipped sharp and red. 

Bo grips the back of his head and moans and it echoes off the trees, too loud, too loud. “Fuckin’...everywhere.”

Faded flowers. Blush, lipstick. A trick of the light. A locket wrapped in vines. Something hunting, just below the surface. If you let it rip him apart, would it come for you next?

“She’s everywhere…in my goddamn head….” He sways on his feet like he might fall and if he does, if the swamp swallows him, you’ll die here in this place.

“Hey.” You close the distance, push through the muck, brush his elbow. “Hey!”

He smacks you away, snaps his jaws closed. “Don’t touch me!”

You cringe and the hair on the back of your neck stands up. Something groans in the dark. Something moves near the ceiling. 

His eyes on you are predatory, cold and empty, and his brow furrows. “Who are you?” he demands.

Wide-eyed, you open your mouth to answer him, but there is nothing on your tongue but moss. “I don’t…I don’t know.”

He leans toward you. “Who the fuck are you?”

You hold your hands up in front of you, backing away, mud between your toes. Your fingers are skeletal. Your nails are painted red. “I don’t know!”

A terribly low, vibrating sound is rising from the water, sending ripples in all directions, freezing your heart in your chest. He moves towards you and the swamp parts around him, allows him to pass like he is a part of it.

“You ain’t leavin’, baby.”

His teeth are sharp.

He lunges.

You scream.

The sound gets caught in your throat like a wad of feathers and bones and you choke, twisting, coming to in your bed. In his bed. Disoriented, you gasp for breath and release the death grip you have on the sheet. Your brow is so sweat-soaked your eyes are beginning to sting. The air is dry on your skin; the blanket is gone. The lower half of your body is tingling.

His head lifts from between your thighs and he looks at you with eyebrows raised. “Easy, sugar. Ain’t done with you yet.”

“Wh…what?” You rub at your eyes, trying to shake the sensation of water closing over your face. Somewhere, some version of you is bleeding in the silt.

His tongue makes another pass and you whimper, arms shaking with the effort of holding yourself up, of treading water, of fighting the maw of a monster. “Relax, baby. Go back to sleep.”

It’s all so insurmountable, the weight of it on your chest, and you sink back into the mattress without a ripple. His mouth is wet and warm. His dark hair is disheveled and you wonder absently if he misses it, that lock you stole. The room is silent save for the sound of your drowning.

“Is it raining?” you whisper, and hate yourself for the hope behind it.

He pauses, meets your gaze over the watery surface of your body. All you can see are his eyes and you could swear, for a second, they reflect neon red. “No.”

You let your head drop back onto the pillow, let him devour you, feel a tear slip over the brim of your lashes and disappear into your hair.

.

The storm breaks on a Wednesday. 

At first, you don’t register the rain on the roof. You don’t even take note of the thunder anymore, after weeks of torment. It’s become a fixture like the dust, like the pervasive smell of decay.

It starts slow, cautious, rolling into town like a tourist with a busted GPS. You mistake the patter for the familiar buzz of TV static even though that makes no sense, even though you’re the only one in the house, even though the TV is off in the next room. All you can hear is the rough swish of the scrub brush on the hardwood floor, coaxing flecks of blood from the gaps between the boards. It’s already beginning to reek in the heat.

You wanted to clean it up last night when it was fresh but he wouldn’t let you, strongarmed you up the stairs and pinned you to the mattress. You’d never admit it to him, to God, or to yourself—and really, is there a difference in Ambrose—but he fucks so good when he’s riled up like that, when it feels like he can’t get enough of the killing so he’s going to take it out on you, take everything you have to offer him plus a little bit more.

The cut on your palm is half-healed and hurts when you put your weight on it. There’s something about that—familiar, comfortable, not grounding, not really, but like static. Stable. Buoyant. Like the bruises on your knees. A constant that cradles you and takes you up and out of here, not too high, just above the trees.

A stair creaks behind you and you freeze like a hare in the shadow of a hawk. It could be Vincent, but he’s busy with last night’s batch. It’s not Bo.

You ease yourself up onto your knees, rock back, stand up, and creep to the foot of the stairs. They are empty. You are alone with the sense that someone has just disappeared out of sight, retreating up into the aching cranium of the house, skirt swishing.

You are never alone, not really.

It’s only then that the sound of the rain seeps into your brain, soothes the hair standing up on the back of your neck. A weight you have been holding on your shoulders since the end of July dissolves like sugar and your spine lengthens by inches. You drop the brush, forget the ghost, walk barefoot through the bloodstain on your way to fling open the front door.

It rains.

It rains even though the clouds are thin, the sun forcing its way through in places like it just can’t bear to admit defeat. It rains and pools in the potholes of the driveway that have been waiting open-mouthed to be filled. It rains and the grass and weeds release a sigh of bliss, stop begging for mercy.

You step down from the porch in a trance, palms up and open, trailing pink-tinged footprints that melt across the concrete like raspberry taffy. You walk across the lawn, scuff your feet in the grass, wonder if maybe you’re dreaming and decide you don’t care.

You sink to the ground, sprawl on your back, feel the damp soak into your clothes and your skin and it makes you whole, makes you new, makes its apologies for taking so long. You are floating, only eyes above the water, surrounded by salvinia and duckweed.

You hear his footsteps just before he calls to you. “The fuck you doin’, girl?” he shouts, but when you open your eyes, he’s losing a fight with a grin, picking his way up the slippery hill.

You sit up halfway. “It’s raining.”

“Y’don’t say.” He drops to his knees beside you, slumped with relief.

His wifebeater is splattered with blood and water but you grab it with both fists and pull him to you, catch his mouth and coax him to the ground.

“Crazy bitch,” he mutters, but he guides your hands to his belt and grips your ass with both hands as you fuss with the buckle, even rolls onto his back to ease your way and lifts his hips so you can tug down his jeans. “Right here, huh?”

“Yes.”

“In the front goddamn yard.”

“Yes!”

“It’s fuckin’ rainin’!”

“I know!”

He laughs and the heavens giftwrap it with a roll of thunder. You're giddy, beaming at him, and he traces your smile with the pad of his finger and something akin to admiration.

You're brand-new, him too, and both of you together. Like it's the first time, a better first, another universe. His hands are on your thighs and his shirt rides up above his stomach. Water drips off your nose and onto his lips and he licks it off like it might save him and maybe it just might. Maybe it’ll save you both.

Exhausted, exalted, you wash the sweat and grime off each other with filthy hands and thirsty mouths. You wrap your fingers around his bare shoulders and ride him with your eyes open and your breath hot on your lips. It’s a fever breaking, the panting, the shaking.

The locket taps against your chest, the lock of his hair tucked inside it. He cups your face, slips his thumb in your mouth, and there’s blood beneath his fingernail. You suck it clean with greed and obedience, savor it, turn your face to the sky and let the crocodile tears run down your cheeks.

“That’s my girl,” he growls, and you bask in the rare and wondrous glow of his approval.

You come apart in splashes like raindrops, small, staccato swells in your core while he kisses the rain off your skin. His hands find the bruises they’ve left on your hips and squeeze and it’s all you could ever ask for, to be held. To be hurt. To be his.

Maybe it’s not so bad, you think. Sometimes. It’s not so bad.

“Y'know, girl, maybe you're right,” he says. "Just this once."

You’re confused until you realize you’ve spoken out loud. You look down at him, cold skin, wet curls, a smudge on his jaw that could be mud or blood, his or yours or someone else’s. He looks back like he sees you.

“You love me?” you ask him before you can think better of it. Before the rain stops.

The corner of his mouth twitches. His gaze slides past you, goes somewhere else, above the sea of trees. The sky is in his eyes. “Sometimes.”

You don’t smile, don’t sigh, just push the hair off his brow and sink slow and gentle beneath the surface and into the green, not a ripple made in your wake.

“Good.”

[dlnj]

Well the support was very short lived before it would be thrown in my face which I suppose I should have seen coming I feel like such a fucking moron . I’ve never been one to open up to people but for what ever reason this person made me feel ok about it and wanted to explore it with me. But as per her usual agenda she got me to do things then decided to go ahead and slam me for them. So typical man. So I cleaned all the make up off which was by far the best I ever did , took all the clothing off and what ever else . Packed it all up and put it away . Make me feel like that just because you want to and I will pull away from you , build my walls back up and be back within myself , suppressing what ever the hell you want to call this and now blocking her out. Now when she get the urge to do something the answer is no way in hell is that ever going to happen with you again. I just can’t deal with that. Don’t get me wrong it totally sucked to have to know your different and lock it up inside of you, you never feel right but it’s safer . I should have never opened up to her , now I feel like I have egg on my face and I’m going to pay for it forever . I’m just so totally blown away but at the same time not surprised in the least . Never again. Never again will I share something so big with anyone ever again . Such a waste of time. I keep thinking how could I have been so stupid ?? It is what it is I guess , now you get none of that shit, everything I’ve ever shared with her will now be not valid , she brings it up and I will remain silent and never engage nor talk indulge in any kind of kinky stuff. I can’t do it. And not for nothing it’s not just a matter of it with her, I will never again have a partner of any kind . Im not meant to be loved or even liked so screw it. I feel like im back in elementary school being bullied , that’s exactly what is going on here Bullying and I’ve had enough of it. Anyway wish this weren’t the case but sadly I killed off the girl I thought I was . I even killed off the good guy and brought back out the protector . I’ve always looked at my self as two people . The ones who’s kind, loving , caring yet weak, easy to hurt but over all a good hearted person. The other guy is the protector who was created by me in order to be tougher , in order to do the two things you need to do to a bully , 1, beat their asses and then 2 now it’s their turn for a little bullying . But now I won’t waste my time , the protector is only here to take charge and lay down the lay, now I run the show , I’m threw listening to someone who could work 40 hours a week, who had the option to not providing she did things that I don’t want to do ever and I would cover everything , the arrangement has never been in my favor . I give up my whole check every week then am told how much I can have . I’m a moron to say the least

[clubwnderland]

𝑯𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒚 𝑽𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒆❜𝒔 𝑫𝒂𝒚

@doom-bc

Halloween: fine. It was fun seeing Doom wander around and take in the way the world had changed, even if she had to stop him from killing someone.

Christmas: fun. She remembers how exciting it was to spend the holiday with someone, the way Doom didn't mind being pulled around the park and listening to her sing Christmas carols with all the carollers. He even wore a Christmas crown that they had pulled out from a cracker.

New Years: familiar and sweet. With everyone away or spending time with the people that are important to them, Jangmi had Doom come over and celebrate the beginning of the new year with her. Sure, he gave her a lecture about how kisses don't bring people luck but he didn't stop her from giving him one. A soft, shy peck on the corner of his lips while the fireworks lit up the night sky.

Valentine's Day: nerve-wracking.

Jangmi knows that Doom didn't mind celebrating the day a little later, probably not caring since he had never had to deal with these holidays before but it's why it made it so much more terrifying for her. It's his first and she wanted it to be special, she wanted to show him that while every day with someone should be important, Valentine's Day is the one day a year you can go all out.

Maybe it's because she wanted him to feel special too, like he makes her feel whenever they are together.

When the God arrives, the fox walks over to the front door, greeting him with her signature smile and taking his hand towards the lunch that she had prepared for them. She didn't know what else that he liked outside of the apple pie she makes but she wanted him to enjoy his meal, even if it just meant enjoying her company.

A bouquet of red roses sat prettily in a white vase while the spread of croissants sat on the table with all sorts of fillings were neatly placed on smaller plates. Sweet and savoury, Jangmi made sure to cover all the bases.

"I made some croissants for lunch today," she says as they take their seats, "I- well, I didn't know what you liked so... I made everything! I personally like the sweet croissants with cream and chocolate but people fill them up with nearly everything." She points to the eggs and ham on a plate. "I- mmm, well I also have a pie being made for you." She points to the oven where the apples are boiling in a pot for her to use. "It will still take a little while so... I hope you don't mind."

She's never felt so nervous with Doom. Even when they first met after him saving her, she didn't feel this nervous but then maybe it's because looking at him, seeing him sit there with his eyes on her, has her heart racing. What does he see when he looks at her like that?

The masquerade really has been causing her to overthink, overanalyse each moment and she must look so silly considering the God has made no indications that he was as moved by that night as she was.

"Please," she reaches for a croissant, "let's eat."

Once they had finished and cleaned up, Jangmi become hyperaware of how close the God is behind her, feeling his presence practically take up the entire room while she thinks about the gifts that she had found for him.

Silently, nervously, Jangmi reaches for his hand and leads him towards the couch, standing before him as he sits and the fox smiles because he doesn't say anything which helps her find the courage to get the gift. She can't explain it, his silence, while she used to find scary, has a calm to it that helps her find herself. She can fill the silence with her noise, she can fill it with laughter, or she can sit in it - regardless, it's not scary anymore.

The silence, the darkness, are no longer scary thanks to Doom.

Whistler follows the hybrid to her room, causing her to pick him up and kiss the top of his head as she take the small box from her dresser and heads back out to her guest. "Happy Valentine's Day, Doom." She says as she sits next to him, passing the box to him and watching him.

"You- well, that suit you wore to the masquerade, you looked really handsome and it would be a shame if you only wore it once." She chews her lip as she looks at the bunny on her lap. "I'm... I'm not saying that you have to wear these lapels with your suit but- I- well, I thought they would look good with it... that's all." Her voice gets smaller the more she talks, her leg bouncing with nerves. "My name means rose and... you-you suit roses so I thought- you'd like them." She hides her face behind her hair, waiting with bated breath on his response, if she even gets one.

They stay there in silence for a short while, the woman thinking deeply about everything that brought her to this moment. She cannot explain the way she feels, not yet anyway, but she also cannot say where it started.

"That music," she begins, looking at Doom with hopeful eyes, "can you- can we-" Jangmi swallows thickly, "can we dance to it again?"

Those words, the way he looked at her when wrapped up in their own world and maybe every moment leading up to it and beyond, finds her slowly giving more of herself to the God than she intended.

Does he know that?

[todoscript]

you receive a love letter in your shoe locker from an anonymous admirer

characters: bakugou katsuki, kaminari denki, kirishima eijirou, midoriya izuku, shinsou hitoshi, todoroki shouto

genre: fluff. very slight angst.

word count: 3.2k+ total, 400-700 per character

warnings: jealousy, possessiveness, feelings of doubt (mostly all fluff though)

author’s note: i’ve been on spring break so i found some time to write this! i absolutely love writing for these six (not like they’re my faves or anything pshhhhh—)

BAKUGOU KATSUKI

he’s already fuming the moment you open your locker and hold out the pastel pink card, sealed by a shiny heart sticker with your name written in smooth calligraphy.

it doesn’t take much for him to realize some other dunce head is trying to make moves on his girl.

and he absolutely won’t stand for it.

he stomps over to you and snatches the letter right out of your hands as you’re reading it.

your complaints go ignored behind him while he inspects the writing with the most livid expression.

you know that ugly face he makes when it comes to his over-exaggerated anger? the one with his eyes all squinted and the corners sharpened upward?

that’s his face as he continues reading, growing more twisted at every mushy sentence this anonymous admirer had the gall to say to you.

at one point, he can’t stand to read it anymore so he crumbles the letter in his fist before igniting it into crisps.

you scold him for causing such a scene and letting his anger get the best of him, but bakugou is still annoyed about it regardless.

“tch, who the hell does this shithead think they are, trying to make moves on you when we’re already together?! i’m gonna kill them when i find out who it is!” he exclaims, hands instinctively sparking with heat that scares off the other students walking by.

you mentally facepalm at this. still, you go about reassuring him that you won’t be swayed and take his hand to walk to the dorms together.

“katsu, you know it’s going to take more than a love letter to make me leave you, right?”

“heh, damn right, it’s gonna take a hell of a lot more that’s for fucking sure,” he sneers, a confident smirk on his face as he knows everyone else never had a chance with you to begin with. they can keep sending those letters and he’d make sure to burn them before they could even reach your hand.

on the way back to the dorms, he makes a conscious effort at pda—arm wrapped around your waist while his eyes glare daggers at any extra that even so much as looks at you the wrong way—asserting his claim over you.

meanwhile, having bared witness to that whole scene, your secret admirer is trembling in the corner. they make note to never send you another letter again unless they want their life to flash before their eyes in a fiery explosion.

KAMINARI DENKI

surprisingly enough, kaminari takes the whole situation more positively than most people expected.

in fact, he’s actually prideful about it.

just as he’s about to head over to your locker so you two could walk to class together, sero pokes his shoulder.

“hey, did you see all those written love confessions in y/n’s locker?” sero whispers behind his cupped hand near kaminari’s ear.

the blond scrunches his nose, confused. “no. what love confessions?”

“the letters that were stuffed in your girlfriend’s locker.”

again, kaminari is still puzzled at this. he realizes there’s only one way to understand what sero means.

when he glances in your direction he’s met with you fumbling around with a pile of letters balanced in your arms. his vision zeroes in on the envelopes, deciphering the fancy stationary and pretty embroidery.

oh. they’re love letters.

“other people are trying to make moves on your girl. what are you going to do about it, kaminari?” sero chimes in with an important question and honestly, kaminari can’t exactly make out a solution. or rather, he feels he doesn’t need to.

sure, he should be a little annoyed over the fact that others are disregarding your relationship.

yet could he really blame them for taking such a liking to you?

you’re pretty, smart, nice—the whole damn package.

he’d be more shocked if you didn’t have any secret admirers lurking around.

kaminari decides to leave his friend’s question relatively unanswered and continues his trek to your locker.

“hey, pretty girl! whatcha got there?”

taken off guard by his appearance, you nearly drop all the letters in your arms.

“denki, you scared me!” you exclaim. “these? they’re just some love letters some anonymous person placed in my locker. don’t worry though! i don’t plan on returning their feelings.”

smiling at how quickly you reassure him, he crosses his arms behind his head. “nah i’m not worried, babe. i don’t feel threatened or anything. it only makes sense that my girl is popular after all!”

you’re pleasantly surprised by how rationally he reacts to the scenario. though, knowing his character, he can’t just seem to leave it at that.

“yep, seems like we’re quite the popular couple!” he grabs your hand, wanting to show each other off as you make your way to class.

the bakusquad sees this as another opportunity to egg him on.

“and just how many love letters have you received since the beginning of the school year, kaminari?”

the blond freezes at the question. kaminari bites back words, but begrudgingly answers.

“...zero.”

KIRISHIMA EIJIROU

“heya, babe!” kirishima enthusiastically calls to you, approaching your shoe locker. “ready to go back to the dorms?”

“yeah! in just a second though!” you reply.

as kirishima comes closer, he sees you occupied with some envelopes in your hand.

“what’re all those?” he asks, pointing at the refined stationary curiously.

“ah some letters gifted to me from an anonymous admirer. something about wanting to make their feelings finally known, but i’m not interested in them,” you say, clearing up everything before a misunderstanding could arise.

“oh, that’s cool.”

you quirk a brow at how relatively chill he is at this revelation. you were expecting a bigger reaction at this, but kirishima just simply smiles his genuine, care-free smile.

you don’t think much of it though. shoving the letters in your bag to dispose of later, you walk side-by-side with him to the dormitories.

little do you realize that kirishima actually mistakens this as pure, platonic admiration rather than infatuation.

to him, if they had really wanted to profess their love to you, they’d do it in person where you could see and hear them. not behind fancy penmanship and some pretty paper.

after all, that’s what a true man would do!

but as the days continue to roll by, he’s starting to have second thoughts.

“y/n, i’m telling you, with the amount of letters you keep receiving from them, you gotta find out who this person is!” he overhears mina lecturing you at your desk, going through another pile of notes that were left in your locker from that morning. lately, you’ve been greeted by an astounding number of these things each time you visited your locker.

“mina, there’s definitely no need for me to go out of my way to find this person.”

“aw, but look at all the sweet things they said about you!” mina recites a line from one of many letters. she muses about how the writer sentimentally compares your aura to that of a dandelion wisp in the wind—free and lighthearted yet fleeting and out of reach.

“how romantic!”

you roll your eyes, indifferent, but one side-glance at kirishima from your desk tells you that he’s beginning to interpret the situation differently.

the redhead has to admit that all those things that anonymous admirer said to you were… pretty sweet.

kirishima has always been a man of action—an passionate believer that actions spoke volumes compared to words alone. however, after hearing all of that, he’s wondering how he’s able to compete in that aspect.

he seeks you out during lunch and asks you something beneath a lonely corner of trees.

“y/n, do those kinds of things make you happy..?”

you tilt your head, curious about what he’s exactly referring to. one glimpse back at his demeanor in the classroom earlier with mina gives you an idea.

“do you mean all those letters i keep getting?”

kirishima nods slowly.

“well… i have to admit, it is nice to know that i’m ‘liked’ by other people,” you phrase delicately. “but all those pretty letters and sweet words don’t mean anything to me if they aren’t coming from you. besides, i always thought it’s better to let your actions speak for you, don’t you think?”

hearing your answer, kirishima’s face lights up immediately. before you can properly react, a pair of lips meet your cheek.

you rub the warm skin where his lips touched, flustered for a moment. kirishima grabs your hand, walking you two back to the lunchroom with a newfound surge of conviction in his steps.

MIDORIYA IZUKU

“ooh, look midoriya, seems like someone else has a crush on your girl.”

as midoriya’s tidying up his red shoes and bringing out his slippers for class, his male classmates inform him of the pink envelope held in your hands.

midoriya looks over in your direction. he watches as you peel the letter out of the envelope and begin reading its contents.

he doesn’t miss the slight flustered look on your features, observing how you scan through the writing while tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, glancing over your shoulder as if your secret admirer was peering at you from behind.

“you better hold onto her tightly if you don’t want her stolen from you,” one of the boys warns, more so as a joke, but midoriya doesn’t take their banter lightly.

“knock it off, guys. just because someone else likes her doesn’t mean she’s going to leave me or anything,” he says this with as much confidence as he can muster, but his demeanor betrays him.

when he goes past your desk in the classroom later, he can’t seem to meet your eyes.

“good morning, izuku!” you greet him mirthfully. however, midoriya fails to return the greeting with the same enthusiasm.

“g-good morning, y/n…”

it’s hard for you not to notice that something is up by the way he heads straight to his desk afterward without another word.

throughout class, midoriya finds it a challenge to concentrate on anything but that letter you received that morning. his mind stumbles into the hole of bad possibilities—ones of you leaving him, those sweet words from your anonymous admirer making your heart flutter more than he ever has.

“—zuku… ‘zuku… izuku!”

he gets pulled out from his thoughts by your voice and turns to see the concerned look on your face.

“you okay? you haven’t touched your pork cutlet bowl this entire time.”

he stares down at his food, untouched since he sat down. “oh sorry, i guess something’s just been on my mind today.”

your brows knit together. “it’s about the letter i got today, isn’t it?”

midoriya stares at you, debating whether to deny your statement, but knows it’s pointless to try when it must have been obvious.

you take his silence as confirmation and grasp his hand that lays flat on the table.

“izuku, look at me,” you tell him and watch as his eyes slowly trail to you. “you know i wouldn’t leave you over some silly letter, right? no amount of words they can say to me could ever make me think differently about you.”

at this, a comforted smile spreads on midoriya’s face. he nods and squeezes your hand as a sign he took your words to heart before chowing down on his food, the uncertainty inside him disappearing.

SHINSOU HITOSHI

“another one?” you inquire to yourself in disbelief, opening your shoe locker to discover a rose-colored envelope waiting for you atop your slippers.

“dang, y/n, that’s like the fourth one this week!” uraraka comments, peeking over your shoulder.

“ooh! i wanna see what they wrote for you this time!” mina approaches from behind. you allow her to grab the delicate letter from your fingertips.

she over-exaggeratedly clears her throat, unwrinkling the paper by pinching at the sides. “‘you are the one who brought me sunshine when i only saw rain.’”

“aw! how sweet!” uraraka clasps her hands above her heart, seeming almost moved.

though the girls are all smitten by the love poem, you bite your tongue, hoping to suppress the urge to gag in front of them.

your boyfriend shinsou is on equal wavelength as you, witnessing the scene unfolding so early in the morning. he’s grown tired of replaying this spectacle for the past four days now.

his eyes navigate to the note and envelope in mina’s hand. by the script and the use of the same stationary, shinsou can tell the love letters you’ve been receiving are all from the same person.

“damn dude, you got some serious competition.” overhearing the girls, kaminari jabs at shinsou’s sides teasingly. “so, you gonna do anything about that mysterious guy trying to go after your girl?”

the violet-haired boy shrugs. “why should i? it’s not like i feel threatened.”

kaminari whistles at his confidence.

shinsou says he doesn’t care about it, putting on a level-headed and indifferent facade. but that was honestly far from the truth.

in actuality, he’s a bit pissed.

what kind of person goes around sending anonymous love messages to someone who’s already in a relationship? what the hell do they hope to gain out of doing this?

shinsou more than trusts you won’t be swayed by them, no matter how many times those notes discourteously greet you every morning.

you never bring up the topic of the letters whenever you two are alone, not wanting shinsou to be bothered over it and create a hassle. all in all, he’s grateful for this, and also for the fact that you make a point of never taking any of those letters seriously and dump them into the trash bin whenever the chance arises.

however, he can tell by your body language that the whole situation bothers you and makes you uneasy.

so, during one incredibly early morning, he decides to do some scouting.

he plays off his odd punctuality by saying he left something in the classroom yesterday and wants to get there early to look for it.

lo and behold, he finds a male student hovering around the lockers—suspiciously darting his head back and forth to be on the lookout for any other students.

little does he realize he’s already been caught red-handed.

“hey you.” shinsou abruptly calls out to him and the boy nearly jumps. “what are you doing here?”

the boy panics at his question, fumbling with his answer while hiding something behind his back—what shinsou presumes to be another one of those cheesy letters.

“u-um, just want to get to class early!” he sputters.

“is there any special reason you’re standing in front of my girlfriend’s locker then? ’cause last i checked, the lockers for general education students were located on the opposite side.” shinsou emphasizes his words with a bite of malice, arms crossed.

“i just lost my way is all–” the student suddenly stops mid-speech, his words and actions forcibly coming to a halt. all thoughts are overturned in the presence of shinsou’s quirk.

“i’m going to make this quick and easy for you to understand. not only are you going to forget about this conversation, but you’re also going to stop handing my girlfriend those love letters.” shinsou bends down to the boy’s height, staring at the abyss in his expression.

“and i’d also appreciate it if you kept your eyes off what’s mine.”

it’s safe to say, your influx of letters had been effectively cut off after that day.

TODOROKI SHOUTO

todoroki is no stranger to finding love letters from avid admirers and fans in his shoe locker before and after classes.

in fact, an unprecedented number of them had begun taking up all the space there after his impressive performance at the sports festival.

when he started dating you, however, he had made a clear declaration that he wouldn’t be accepting anymore of them.

but to be on the opposite end of having to watch you unlatch the door of your locker to have letters and notes practically tumbling out, todoroki wasn’t exactly sure what to make of this feeling that made his stomach twist into knots.

he notices the alarming amount of them and concludes they’re all from various students in different grades and departments.

“y/n, you’re getting pretty popular,” uraraka says, eyeing the stack of envelopes. “must be your dance performance from the culture festival! i remember you did get a lot of cheers in the crowd.”

“guess all those cheers came with a lot of fanboys, huh?” the invisible girl, hagakure, teases.

you jokingly nudge at them to stop with the teasing, but pause when your eyes cross todoroki’s. he’s giving you a look you can’t decipher—one that edges between troubled and apathetic yet you can’t tell which it is.

you send him a nod, silently acknowledging his presence as he waits for you to finish your business so you could head back to the dorms together.

watching you dispose of the various piles of letters has todoroki contemplating about what uraraka and hagakure commented on. about how popular you were getting and how your admirers have been bold enough to profess their reverence for you despite your relationship status.

todoroki’s not entirely sure what to make of this information. he doesn’t linger on it for long though when you finally approach him, your sneakers slipped on and your backpack securely hanging off your shoulders.

“ready to head home?”

a smile finds his lips at your appearance. he softly utters his response.

during the small distance to the dormitories, todoroki reaches for your hand and intertwines your fingers together. as seemingly minor the gesture is at this point of your relationship, it’s a detail you mentally take note of.

usually, when it came to publicly displaying physical forms of affection, you were the one to initiate it. you have to admit, seeing the assertive side of todoroki is like a small breath of fresh air.

as you continue your short journey home, a couple of male students walking by greet you enthusiastically. though you wave back to kindly acknowledge them, you feel the grip on your hand tighten, followed by a slight tug closer to todoroki’s side.

that alone is enough for you to realize something is definitely troubling him.

“sho, is there something wrong?” you ask, steps still walking in tandem with him.

todoroki’s voice doesn’t waver in the slightest as he replies, “no, why would you think that?”

“you’ve been awfully possessive all of a sudden,” you note, “is this because of those letters from earlier?”

“...maybe.”

you quirk a brow, amused. “is that a yes or a no?”

now todoroki is silent. your steps come to a halt. not parting your laced hands from his, you turn to look him in the eye.

“sho?”

“it’s just… when i realize that there are other people looking at you the same way i do, i get… uneasy.” his gaze drops to the ground as he confesses this, hand squeezing yours. the uncomfortable churning in his stomach settles a bit now that the words are out, but he finds it hard to ease the atmosphere.

this is where you picked up from where he left off. your hand goes to his cheek, gently cupping it so you can tilt his head up at you.

“oh shouto, you have to know that you’re the only one for me and i don’t plan on looking at anyone else but you,” you assure him. todoroki stares into your eyes, and in them, he can’t find any hesitance or flutter of doubt.

at this, he lifts your twined hands and grazes your knuckles ever so softly against his lips, wondering whatever troubled him so much to begin with.