#i am almost kind of mentally-awake-ish

[graciecatfamilyband]

.

[divinehedons]

i won't hurt you.

navigation: masterlist

word count: ~1.9k words

summary: you meet joel in the aftermath of a terrible accident. reeling from the aftermath of the event, there is a looming shadow that complicates your relationship with the southern man you just somehow happened to meet 

warnings: explicit (but not graphic) content–MINORS DO NOT INTERACT! relatively dark(?)-ish joel miller, allusions to smut (not heavily detailed), graphic depictions of injury, some scenes include hospitalization (not in graphic detail), dubious consent, joel miller radiates mansplain / manipulate / malewife energy, men are trash in general wbk

note: oh. my. god. it has been far too long and i’m so so very sorry for just now coming back! i’ve hit a terrible writer’s block alongside very bad mental health and i’m just now recovering :’D thank you so so so much for 800 followers, it’s going to take a while for me to respond to everyone but i’ll be going through them! i love you very very dearly, mwah!

note 2.0: pls pls lower your expectations, 🫣 i am trying to get back into the groove of things!

You remember the screech of tires on frozen asphalt. A flash of headlights. Spinning, spinning, spinning. Your body ignited in pain. Then… darkness.

Darkness that seemed to spread before you for an eternity. Untethered and stuck in limbo, perhaps in another universe, you would call it the most peaceful slumber of your life. The misfortune comes when you wake. Lightning strikes shake you awake from the darkness of your subconsciousness. Electricity trembling in your chest as it shoots through your beaten frame. A light peers through your closed eyes. Brighter, and brighter… bigger and bigger. A ringing in your ears that almost deafens you.

The world shifts around you, and you wake paralyzed, staring at the ceiling in the warm sun that falls on your body lying there. Everything hurts. There is a humming in your head that you cannot seem to shake out of.

The solitude lasts for a beat. Then another. That’s when you see him.

A sleepless, roughened man looking at you with his warm eyes. Through the bleary vision of your own gaze, a shaky breath escapes him. His crinkled eyes looking over your features with a swift once over.

“Oh, Christ, you’re awake.”

And that’s how you met Joel.

–

In the week that followed your complicated recovery, Joel tells you he saw the crash. Tells you the asshole who ran you over was nowhere to be seen. He says most of it with his eyes averted. Yet you hold your gaze.

You will not be weakened by the shame of your misery.

It is two days later when you confess to him; your throat still rasping as the pain in your head boils and toils beneath your skull. You look at him when he arrives, paint-stained shirt providing evidence of a messy day of working. “I don’t want to think about what happened to me anymore, Joel.”

Your tongue grabs at words the way young children do with sticky fruit in the summer. As if language has become foreign to you.

Joel, keys in hand, meets your gaze with a furrowed brow. “Sure, sugar. Whatever you need.”

Maybe your eyes were tricking you, but you could’ve sworn you saw his shoulders relax from some kind of tension leaving his body.

–

Joel doesn’t know what he had gotten himself into. What he does know is that for some reason, he couldn’t bear the idea of staying away from you. You tell him fragments of what little you remember, your concussed consciousness blindly clawing at every last bit of beaten brain matter for some kind of answer. 

You sometimes cry from the effort it takes you to think, but he’s there. The first few times, he held your hand. As the hours bled into days, he held you as you wet his shirt with warm tears. Sometimes, when the nightmares reach him in his own bed a few miles out from the hospital, it feels like you’re bleeding into him.

From the moment he saw you, he had been marked. And no matter how many times he scratched at his own skin, he could never wash away the blood on his hands.

–

He’s the one to take you home to your quiet little apartment, having grown dust in your absence. You apologize, he waves you off. He watches you as you peer out of the window, comprehending a view that had once been so mundane, transformed into some shred of a miracle for you to still be there, witnessing it all. He’s behind you, ten feet away, tilting his head as your hair catches what little sunlight blessed you the day you left the hospital.

He says your name, and you look back at him with a curious smile. “My God,” he followed. “You look just like starlight.” He steps forward, and that’s when you know everything had fallen into place. Without another moment lapsing, he takes your face into his hands, pulling you into a searing kiss.

You apologize so many times. For the hospital smell on your skin. For your trembling knees. For the dizzying sensation of human contact without the involvement of medical processes. For feeling so unclean.

Meanwhile, he apologizes, too. For kissing you. For pulling you to him. For holding you. For carrying you to the forlorn couch grown cold from the absence of human warmth. So many times that there are times that you don’t know what is there to apologize for. You shake your head each and every time.

The tears roll down your cheek just as he pulls away and his eyes immediately soften. You shake your head, pulling him into another kiss as you whine.

There are many things you want to tell him. But you don’t dare tell him this: Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you have been ruined.

“Tell me to stop, honey, and I will,” he murmurs, holding your cheek as you pause between touches. You shake your head immediately. You want many things. You are hungry and untamed. But you do not want him to stop.

You tell him as much. “Joel, don’t you dare stop.”

And he doesn’t. Not when you’re naked and he sees your bruised skin, purple and yellowed in places. He looks to you just as your body tenses. His demeanor softens, kissing along your jaw and your neck with a shaky breath.

“I won’t hurt ya, darlin’.”

He keeps to that promise. Even when your legs are around his waist and he’s caught in your warmth. He says it again and again as you whine into the cool, quiet solitude of your home.

I won’t hurt you, I won’t hurt you.

–

Falling in love with Joel was both so complicated and so simple at once. Whenever you wake beside him, you wake up writhing from the pain of your injuries; sometimes crying from the nightmares that followed every waking moment. You felt marred by shame for putting so much of your perceived burden on his shoulders. He never departs from your side, his strong arms placating you while his lips press against your temple.

It’s all so simple, the way he cares about you. And whether or not you admitted it, you like the feeling of being cared for. Of having someone that cares.

Regardless, you cannot escape the fact that someone did this to you. And whenever the pain shocks your body, everything but rabid rage escapes your body. You curse the stranger, whoever they may be, for that cursed night.

Joel sees glimpses of this. He saw it most that one afternoon when the hospital called, saying you had been taken care of. By who, they didn’t say. Only that the stranger apologized for what happened.

You were on the floor, hands trembling in the fists you held them in. The hospital bill crumpled a few inches away. You do not see him. What you see is all red.

A wail escapes your trembling mouth just as your hands claw at anything they can touch. It is an uncontrollable surge of blinding, mouth-foaming, unbridled rage. He’s there, trying to hold you down before you hurt yourself. Each wail pierces another hole into his aching heart. Each struggle followed by his gentle shushing, trying to assuage you in the crest of your emotion.

“Whoever it was,” you told him then as you sobbed. “They ruined my life.”

“Darlin, darlin’...” He breathes in, cupping your face. “Maybe he’s around and he regrets-”

“No!” You claw at him, just as he holds you tighter against his chest. “If he could find me, then he could say it to my face. He wouldn’t be some coward who left me alone like this after he ruined my life!”

It destroys him. And you can see it in his face. All he can do is hold you as you cry against his chest. All he can do is shut his eyes, letting the waves of grief crest over and over your frame. Letting your sobs tear him open and burn him out.

He tells you nothing lasts forever. That he’ll be there for as close to forever as possible. You shake your head because you know better. He says nothing lasts forever. He doesn’t know he’s just afraid your pain can last longer than he is capable of loving you.

–

Perhaps, to the end of his days, Joel will regret that drunken night. He’ll regret following his bleary gaze through the quiet, sleet-slick roads. He’ll regret the fact that he couldn’t have stopped his truck sooner.

When he steps out into the cold just as he smells the acrid scent of burning tires, he sees your bloodied face in your car. So small. So undeserving. He muttered a string of cusses. The sudden shock of adrenaline washing away the last of his drunkenness. He looks back at his truck, horrifically beaten, his gaze doubling from his last bout of drunkenness.

He bargains that night. Calls up someone high up amongst the police rank to bail him out. He negotiated for ten minutes. Then he hides the truck somewhere off the side of the road for him to come back to and dispose of. And then, only then, did he call for help.

Only then did he reach you in the driver’s seat, blood now caked to your skin as he lay you out amongst the concrete.

You make some sound, and he cusses to himself.

His rough palms cup your cheek, trying to get you to look at him then. But you were too far gone.

He spoke, anyway. Just in case you’ll hear it.

“It’s alright, doll. I won’t hurt you.”

Even now, weeks after he stole your life from you, he holds you and tells you the same thing anyway. The same set of words that manage to calm you down.

He does love you. And it breaks him every day to know he was the one to endanger you.

I won’t hurt you, I won’t hurt you.

[cheezeybread]

American McGee Alice anon, back at it again [if I keep this up, I might label myself something cheesy like "Anon McGee." How does that sound?]

I was going to gather more to send your way regarding the topic of the last request, but I couldn't actually put much together today. So, instead, I'm delivering some potentially mildly incoherent ramblings and a lot of creative freedom to take them wherever you'd like.

I'm thinking especially of something along the lines of- likely post Riddle Overblot- a gradual shift into the MadAlice Reader becoming more genuinely comfortable with everyone in Heartslaybyul as they begin to create a differentiation between them and that which hurt them in the previous mental wonderland they'd retreated to.

Obviously there's still plenty of Rocky moments to be had- just because they're comfortable doesn't mean all will always be well- but overall, I'm just thinking of a bit of a fluffy-ish scenario that encapsulates the reader growing closer to the students of Heartslaybyul. Maybe hurt/comfort at best, but still comfort nonetheless.

Again, take as many creative liberties as you want here, I'm doing my best to balance being vague enough to allow wiggle room but also trying not to keep too many details out to the point it's just entirely unclear, lmao.

YEAAHHHH ANON MCGEE BACK AT IT AGAIN! Totally start calling yourself that now, it has such a silly ring to it!

Don't worry, I totally got you (unless I don't oops), so have this little sucker of a one-shot! I haven't written very many comfort fics lately, so I might be a taddddd rusty, sorry!

𝐅𝐭: 𝐑𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞, 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐲, 𝐀𝐜𝐞, 𝐃𝐞𝐮𝐜𝐞, 𝐂𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫

..••°°°°••..

You had woken up sooner, rather than later, to the relief of the entire Heartslabyul dorm. But no one was more relieved than Riddle.

As soon as you woke up, Riddle was there, leaning his head down to read out of a thick textbook. You almost didn't recognize him at first...he wasn't wearing the attire you normally saw him in. Instead of the crown and wonderland-esque uniform, he had on a shirt that looked to be a size too big, and a baggy pair of sweatpants.

You sat up slowly, the movement sending a dull throb through your back. Geez, how long were you out? The shuffling of the bed made Riddle's head jerk up, and the tension on his face faded as soon as he saw your eyes opening.

"You...you're awake," He said, his voice in a whisper.

You couldn't think of what to say to this guy who was practically a stranger to you, so you made a small "mhmm" back.

Riddle looked back down to his textbook before closing it softly, setting it down on the ground beneath his chair. He took his time before looking back up at you, his gaze focused on your shoulder rather than your eyes.

"I wanted to say that I'm...sorry," He started, a bit awkwardly. One of his hands reached down to his sweatpants, idly pulling at the fabric "For everything. I wasn't very kind to you, which went against one of the rules of the-" He stopped himself, furrowing his brows "I mean, it wasn't nice of me. And I knew that you had some...issues with our dorm. But yet, because of me, you kept having to be dragged back there. Even though I could tell how much it was hurting you."

Riddle sat up a bit straighter, taking a deep breath before continuing "I was....wrong. It was wrong of me to treat you like I did, and I was wrong about so much other stuff, too. The Quee- sorry, her rules aren't everything, and since my accident, I've come to understand that the person with the most power isn't necessarily the most right, much less the most righteous ruler there could be." He folded his hands in his lap "I know that you have issues, I can see the burns on what little parts of your skin show. I hear from Ace, from Cater, everyone who's seen you, that you have something happening. Some sort of paranoia. And I cannot express how deeply apologetic I am for playing into your fear."

You swallowed thickly, trying your best not to remember the events that transpired just before you blacked out. You tried not to see the malice and hatred in Riddle's eyes now that you had seen before. But it was hard. "M'kay," was all you could manage.

"I won't disrespect you by demanding you tell me what's going on, or what had happened to you in the past," Riddle continued "I only wish for you to help me act better, for you to tell me how I can help. I wish to improve myself, and my dorm, to become a place where you can rest easier than you have in the past. Or, if you'd rather be left alone by us entirely throughout your stay at this school, I can do my best to ensure my students won't get in your way in the slightest."

He...he actually wanted to help you? After all that happened, after all that he himself went through as well? The thought brought a small smile to your face, and you reached out a shaky hand, resting it on top of Riddle's head

"That sounds nice."

Riddle gave a small smile in return, his relief palpable. He had expected you to blow up in anger, based on how he acted. To see you holding no ill will towards him was more than he could hope for. He stood up quickly, nodding his head towards you in a professional manner, before he walked out of the room.

It wasn't until a week later that you realized he had not worn his uniform so that you wouldn't panic at the sight of him.

★・・・・・・★

Things were slowly getting better. For real this time.

It wasn't easy, but no recovery ever should be. But with some baby steps, you were on your way to a better place, mentally and emotionally. You could tell that Riddle was healing alongside you, which made the path to happiness a little more rewarding.

You never did tell the Heartslabyul dorm what had happened to you in detail. Only offhandedly mentioned your scars coming from a house-fire. And they never asked for any more information, despite their intense curiosity that you could feel oozing out of them with every glance towards you. You suspected this was mainly because of Riddle's influence over them. You were grateful for it.

Speaking of, Riddle kept his word, true and deep.

You gave a text everytime that you were about to come over to their dorm, and Riddle would instruct his student to change into their loungewear, even if they were in the midst of doing work. He told Ace and Deuce, knowing that the two of them were around you more often, to warn you when there was an Unbirthday party at their property, so they could, in turn, warn you.

He even asked if you'd like them to wear makeup over the card symbols on their skin. It was an enticing offer, since the symbols still made your heart sink every time you noticed them...but you denied it. You had to learn to deal with some things, or else you may not heal fully. Besides, Riddle and the others were bending over backwards for you as it was, it would be unfair for you to make an obscenely large amount of demands of them.

You cooked with Trey, who always made a habit of telling you when he needed a "hand in the kitchen", even though you knew he'd be better off without your held. The two of you would talk about anything under the sun, except for cards, parties, and painting roses red. And in the end, you would get a slice of whatever dessert you two whipped up.

You went on walks with Cater, who kept you up-to-date on the latest trends and scandals going on both in school and in the world around you. He always found some silly story to make the two of you cackle and howl, and eventually, the conversations would drift from real-life stories to fantastical tales involving dragons, knights, and magical geese who could blow up the world with a single honk! They weren't the best made-up tales, but you two had fun with them.

You played games with Ace and Deuce, who were both masters at trying to one-up the other. Sometimes they would get caught in a prank war between each other, and each one would recruit you to prank the other, which led in a lot of back-and-forth banters and ended with them laughing about how you "betrayed" them by joining the enemy's side. Sometimes they would teach you how to play video games, and sometimes you would play a lame version of basketball with the mediocre players.

And you would hang around Riddle while he studied in the library. In return for your company, he would tell you stories about his own life- keeping careful watch of what he said so that he wouldn't slip and begin talking about the Queen- about his mother, his unhappy childhood, and how he had struggled throughout his life with feelings of being inadequate unless he was at the top of the list in anything and everything. He found comfort in telling his secrets, and it almost made you want to tell him yours. But he never asked to hear yours, and in the end, you were content to keep your own secrets.

You were getting better, day by day.

°°••....••°°

[multiversstuff]

Chapter One - Death Version One

A/N - I finished the chapter sooner than expected! For the concept of where the chapter takes place; click me!

Warnings — 18+! Violence, kidnapping, blood, weapons

WC: 1315

Death. You get taught that everyone experiences it at one point in their life; whether it’s someone they know or witnessing a death.

But what no one tells you, is that you can experience more than one type of death – there’s the normal type that everyone knows, then there’s the type where you, yourself, die; spiritually, mentally and physically.

No one taught me that. But I know it, because I’ve experienced each and every one.

My name’s Danielle, and this is my story on how I died, again, and again; and how I survived to tell the tale.

It was supposed to be a normal day – wake up, go to work, go home, and do whatever. So, what happened? How did I end up in a warehouse tied to a chair across…eleven?…eleven people with bags over their heads. I’m assuming that, just like me, they’re all gagged because a few of them are awake and screaming; at least, they’re trying to. It kind of sounds like they’re screaming into pillows.

The only light I can see is from the lightbulb dangling above me; from that light, I can see the eleven others in a similar situation as myself – tied to their chairs by the hands, behind their back, and their feet, against the two front legs of the chair. Looking around, I can see a white-ish counter covered in rust, the light isn’t bright enough for me to be sure; but it’s to my left. There’s what I’m going to assume to be, a counter to the right of me, and right next to the counter (on my left) is a sink, and another, longer, counter. The eleven are seated in a way where I can see each and every one clearly; one slightly to my left and one slightly to my right. I may not be able to see their faces, but judging by what they’re wearing and by general, and obvious, anatomy; I can see that there are five women and six men.

I’m crying – I don’t know when I started crying, but I am. Noticing the tears got me out of my head, which made me realize that I’m also hyperventilating.

I need to calm down…this isn’t helping anything, and it certainly won’t help when, whoever brought us here, comes back. Trying to put my head between my legs to help my breathing…my restraints are too tight so, I lean my head back slightly and look at the dim light; focusing on my breathing.

Inhale for three seconds…hold for four…exhale for five. I repeat that breathing sequence until the tears stop flowing.

After I get the tears to stop, I go back to looking forward; at the woman who’s sitting right in front of me. Almost immediately after, I hear what sounds like a door opening behind me, to my right. I whip my head towards the sound and, sure enough, a door is wide open letting a room-full of light pour into the room I’m in. There are two men – one holding the door open and one in the doorway. My eyes follow them as they make their way towards me.

One stops behind me, the other places both of his feet in front of me. I can’t make out what he looks like; my eyes trying to adjust to the change of brightness.

Keeping my eyes forward, the man in front of me bends down by the waist to make eye contact. I can now see his facial features.

Short, close to a buzz cut, sandy blonde hair.

He’s white with a slight, but very noticeable, orange tint to his skin. A tan gone wrong.

Thin lips.

His eyes are light blue…but with the way he was looking at me made them look as dark as the sky when the sun is in its last stage of setting.

He’s tall. I don’t know how tall, but enough to have to bend his knees slightly when he lowers down by the waist.

I keep my breathing calm.

“Hi, Dani,” he speaks in a low voice, “remember me?” I don’t recognize him in the slightest, so I shake my head. “Take a moment,” he cocks his head to my left, “think about it; rack your brain, we just met a few hours ago.” A few hours ago I was at work…getting the mail…I said hello to a man coming out of the stairwell before turning to the elevators – immediately before someone hit me over the head…THE MAN! He’s the man!

My face had to show that I remembered because the next thing he said, before standing straight up, was “there it is. You remember.” Now that he’s fully standing, I can see that he’s wearing a simple black t-shirt, with dark blue jeans and tennis shoes; white tennis shoes.

I tried to say “what do you want?” But what came out was “mmm…mmm…” The man takes out my gag and I take in a large breath.

“What was that?” He said in an annoyed tone.

“I said,” inhale, “what. Do. You. Want?” Exhale.

The man sighs exaggeratingly and starts walking towards the woman who’s sat in front of me. He doesn’t stop in front of her; he stops behind her, grasping onto the bag he says “I want what you know.” My eyebrows knit in confusion. “And you’re going to give it to me…every little piece of information you have, you will bestow to me.” I’m even more confused now, but before I get the chance to say anything, he rips the bag off of the woman’s head and now I can see her face.

She’s not just any woman…she’s my mom. My wonderful mom who has helped me work my way out of my own personal hell. Who helped me recover from the worst moment of my life. The woman who’s had to deal with my attitude, ungratefulness, and my short-temper. My mom who’s supposed to be in Arkansas.

I have so many questions; why is she here? Who are these guys? What information could I have that they would want?

The man pulls out a knife and puts it to her throat. The other man, who hasn’t left his spot behind me, puts a ripped piece of duct tape over my mouth and grabs ahold of my head to make sure I don’t look away. At least that’s what I’m assuming; after watching so many true crime shows, movies and documentaries, I’m going to stick to my assumption.

I, finally, begin to struggle against the restraints and, now, the other mans hands. No screaming comes from me, but muffled words do; trying to get one of the men to take the duct tape off so I can, at the very least, get a question out. All I want is to know what he thinks I know so I can convince him that I don’t know anything and they can let us go…or take the knife off of my mom’s throat, at least.

But it doesn’t work. Neither one of them move and I’m stuck looking at my mom’s tear-stained face, gagged, and a knife to her throat. I increase the volume of my muffled words when he doesn’t make a move or a sound.

That doesn’t help either; in fact, it made things worse. He moved slightly back, grabs a hold of her hair and moves the knife to his left.

My muffled begging increases in volume. No…this can’t happen.

Mom’s eyes widen. The knife starts to move. Blood starts to pour. My begging turns to screaming.

I was right. The other man is holding my head to make sure I can’t look away. They want to make sure that I watch as this man, the man I have only seen once, slice my mom’s throat; taking a part of my heart, my soul, and my life away from me.

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Well I was able to sleep from 8 am yesterday until around noon, and then managed to get to bed by 7 pm and slept till almost 11, so that's at least 2, 4 hour shifts.

That's 8 hours, and having been awake at noon and relatively alert from the 4 hours of sleep at a new time, I was able to clean out everything under both my desks to sort through, because they are things I shoved there when I first moved in and some logs. If I was worries about finding anything under there I shouldn't have been, because there was little more than some pens, one spoon and simple floor dirt.

Point being it's 12:30 [midnight] and I have a cokey cola. The tea or coke before each of these times actually helped me sleep, which suggests part of what's causing my insomnia currently is brain hornets from the adhd, so caffeine focusing me is helping me right now. There are other times when it wasn't, which is why I started limiting it.

For me, mentally alert, and mentally buzzing are two separate things that just -can- go together. Like I can be mentally busy or agitated while not being particularly alert and that's when the intrusive thought demon annoys the fuck out of me the worst. Or I can be mentally alert and awake but not be particularly prone to the sort of manic buzzing unfocused thought processes that can exasperate that into an inability to fall asleep at night. Sometimes it's BOTH and that's when I calm the hornets by working on creative projects, but the insomnia is hopeless.

It's like, alert exists opposite of sleepy, fatigue exists opposite of having physical energy, and brain hornets exist opposite that kind of mental slowness that requires someone remind you what you are holding in your hand 3 times in a row. And caffeine...

Caffeine for me prioritizes each of these sliders one after the other instead of affecting them in parallel. It pulls me out of seeming drugged to my peers, escalates to calming the brain hornets for a long time, adds to my mental alertness at some threshold after that amount... and at no point actually reaches a threshold of tricking me into thinking I have physical energy, because everything hurts, so it circles back and kicks the brain hornet's nest in frustration [this comes right before seeing the face of god].

And if last month I was at a baseline of "brain fogged to all fuck" caffeine could bring me up into brain hornets, but the problem is that brain hornets keep me awake, and brain fog lets me sleep 16 hours, so I was letting myself sleep 16 hours and reducing caffeine.

This month my baseline is "brain hornets" and brain hornets don't ever want me to be asleep, so having caffeine is focusing the brain hornets into obeying me, and letting me sleep.

Not for more than 4 hours at a time, mind you, but I can do 4 hours shifts, it's fine.

How do I tell the difference between brain hornets from too much or too little caffeine? By how much caffeine I have had, generally.

But I can't keep sleeping at 8am. I get up by 5 so that I can leave in time for any business right at opening, in and out before everyone else. And some of the places I need don't open until 8am. So I am done my errands by 10-ish, but going to sleep at 8 regularly means potentially being hit with the sleepies right when I need to leave to buy food or something. I think the ideal is 10-2 ish, but the problem then is that the sleep shifts get too opposite each other and it takes me at least 3 hours to wind up to doing anything after sleeping. Having my sleeping shifts too divided just means doing nothing ever.

I had been aiming for 10-2 and then 6 ish till 11 ish, or 9 ish till 3 ish, but for whatever reason if I sleep past noon I was having a hard time sleeping before -at least- 9 pm... My "regular hours" were supposed to be 7pm ish till 5 am, with an extra hour in there to get up to pee, and we have strayed so far from that T~T...

But the 3 goals are:

-restful sleep

-always awake at least between 5 and 10 am

-productive enough to do more in a day than just barely keep up on chores so I can make my apartment nice and then have hobbies and the will to live

Let's not lose sight of that.

My cat won't tolerate me sleeping more than 4 hours at a time anyway, because he doesn't know what a human is and thinks I work like him. And he isn't even particularly cuddly about it :( Don't try to tell him though, he doesn't understand and also he is very cute.

Maybe with the right level of caffeine I can swing 10-2 and then 6-11??? That leaves me midnight onward, already being up and about at 5+ am, and then a daytime sleeping shift that is during the day when my brain wants to sleep.

The other problem is that I had to have a lot of iodine recently to cure the goiter, and then I ate mushrooms [the food kind, not like drugs] and a few handfuls of cereal... which means I had B vitamins while my iodine levels aren't borderline depleted... Which means my thyroid is acting up, so being hungry and hot all the time, and very sweaty, is in part due to too much thyroid hormone and my metabolism being elevated. This always comes with insomnia, and it's probably why my baseline this month is brain hornets instead of brain fog. Unfortunately, we are a decade past the time when my metabolism getting out of control meant having usable physical energy from it.

But for the moment we have reached our 3 goals during this 24 hour period, and if we can keep achieving that while sleeping in somewhat regular shifts without having the negative symptoms get out of control, then everything is fine.

The great news is I don't think I am having auditory hallucinations of a french horn today! I think someone's just being really inconsiderate with their car noises. [I do keep hearing a random french horn though, so, there is that, and it is the middle of the night]

The other good news is my neighbours are clearly awake till at least 1am and stomp around and sometimes play dance music this late so any time they start playing dance music I am going to start moving heavy shit around and if they complain I'll tell the landlord that I don't know how they could possibly hear me over the dance music they keep blasting in the middle of the night, and I think they are at least smart enough to realize I am not the one losing that fight.

[uswntxfootball]

purely by accident (leah williamson x uswnt!reader)

everything was going to plan until you made the mistake of wearing her shorts to practice.

word count: 2044 ish

rated F for fluff, S for stupidity, and M for messy as fuck.

——

it was open training today in tokyo, and you fucked up.

you fucked up.

the olympics were set to begin next week, and you fucked up.

~~

so flashback to last night.

with some thorough bribing, you finally coaxed jordan to crash with beth for the night, promising and swearing not to defile her bed while she was gone.  

you glanced down at the defender in your lap, her attention solely focused on the show playing in front.

the show was leah’s pick and it didn’t particularly interest you, as you were more focused on the sight before you.

both of you were in bed, leah’s head in your lap, your right laid gently over her side, and leah’s hand was playing with your fingers absentmindedly.

the girl in front of you let out a laugh at something that played on the screen, the sound making your heart skip a beat.

upon hearing your silence, she looked up at you.

leah’s cheeks flushed when she saw you already staring down at her, a loving smile stretched across your face.

“what is it?”

you lean down to kiss her.

“nothing. just my girlfriend is really cute is all.”

leah rolled her eyes but met you half way, pressing a tender kiss to your lips.

she turned back to the show and slipped her fingers between yours shyly, an action that caused butterflies and wholeass rhinos to have a disco party inside of you.

it was only a few minutes later when leah spoke again.

“you’re acting weird.”

you quirk an eyebrow at that.

“me? how so?”

“you’re staring at me like you really love me or something.”

you let out a snort.

“congrats baby it only took a year and a half for you to figure out.”

leah giggled, and you grinned, leaning down to give her a kiss on the cheek.

you couldn’t help but let out a sigh at how good it felt, having your girlfriend in your arms after not seeing each other for a month.

given the hectic schedule of the olympics, you both wanted to spend as much alone time together as possible.

you both knew that coming out in the midst of big events was a terrible idea, with first the world cup and the olympics following suit.

it wasn’t that you were ashamed of it, it was just that the media could be a lot at times.

and so could your teammates.

the two of you had met during the world cup, leah taking a particular liking to you after seeing you in the semi final match when england played the us.

she then had missed the chance to talk to you, but lucky for her, the next year, following suit with many of your other teammates, you signed internationally, landing a spot as a midfielder for arsenal.

trainings and games brought you closer together, and feelings developed, with both of you realizing quickly that they weren’t platonic.

but it still took an embarrassingly long amount of time.

and jordan couldn’t stand the two of you.

neither could rose, with leah and you both complaining to them, respectively.

even after quarantining with the defender (and jordan) and spending every second of the day with her, it was almost the end of the fixture when you finally mustered up enough courage to ask her out, only for her to beat you to it.

jordan can’t tell if this was better or worse.

on one hand she no longer had to witness the idiocy and obliviousness for days on end, no longer had to hear the desperate pining from both sides, and no longer had to deal with leah having a mental breakdown overanalyzing every text you sent her.

on the other hand, she now had to deal with the sickening cuteness of the two of you, and had unfortunately caught the two of you going at it in the arsenal locker room after practice, before practice, in the shower, and basically everywhere in the house.

rose was in a similar state, though being overseas, she was spared the worst of it.

the two of you had parted ways when national team duty called, leah staying in england and you flying back to the states.

and here, in tokyo, you were together again, and you couldn’t be happier.

~~

it was 11 pm now, the lights were off ,the defender fast asleep and snuggled close into your chest, your arms wrapped around her.

you had the vague thought of getting up to set an alarm for your training tomorrow, but any attempts to get up were squashed by your girlfriend, who at any movement only held onto you tighter.

your heart melted at the sight, but your rational thought knew this was a bad idea.

worst case is that you miss practice.

best case is that you somehow wake up on time naturally.

unfortunately it ended up being worse than that.

~~

you were jolted awake by your phone ringing.

the girl next to you let go of your waist and mumbled sleepily:

“turn it off.”

you stood up and saw rose’s contact name flash and you picked up the phone groggily.

“uh hello? what do you want?”

“HELLO?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT DO I WANT THE BUS FOR TRAINING IS ABOUT TO LEAVE IN SEVEN MINUTES WHERE ARE YOU?!”

you glance at the clock and the panic sets in.

7:23 am.

fuck.

oh. fuck.

you mutter a “shit” into the receiver before hanging up, glancing over at leah who was fast asleep.

brushing your teeth and putting your hair up quickly, you went around the room grabbing your jersey, jacket, shorts and cleats as you prepared to leave.

but before you left, you leaned over quickly and gave your girlfriend a light kiss on the forehead before rushing out the door.

you sprinted across the street to where the building where the us teams were staying, making it onto the bus quickly and collapsing on the seat next to rose, hoping no one saw where you had came from.

luckily for you most of the team was chatting and preoccupied, except christen who noticed and gave you weird look when you stepped onto the bus.

sam gave you a weird look too when she finished talking to mal.

“when did you come in? why are you still in your pjs? do you even have your kit and training things?”

you decided that saying you overslept was the best excuse.

you could tell sam didn’t quite believe that.

“well why didn’t rose wake you then?”

“um-“

rose cut in and saved you when she said with a shrug:

“it was a prank. i turned off her alarms and thought it would be funny.”

that was slightly more believable, as the younger kids played pranks on each other all the time, so sam let up her questioning.

you turned around on the bus, quickly pulling on your jersey, shorts and socks, all the while hearing a wolf whistle from kelley upon seeing you changing.  

you flipped her off when you finished.

“so where were you-oh,” rose’s eyes widening.

you scrunched your eyebrows in confusion.

“oh?”

rose let out a laugh and pointed to your collarbone.

you looked down and cursed.

there they were in all their glory, two hickies, bright as day.

“fuck this is an open training too.”

you were freaking out.

but thank god for rose.

rose thought about it for a minute before suggesting:

“well it’s kind of cold out today, you can keep your jacket on for the whole training and no one will see.”

“what would i do without you?”

“i dunno die probably.”

~~

arriving at the pitch, you hoped that your hyper-vigilant fans wouldn’t notice anything.

you did make sure to take some pictures with fans on your walk there though.

you noticed walking to the locker room that christen kept giving you weird looks, but you just brushed it off and got your mind set for training.

the open part of practice went well and without issue, except for the odd looks occasionally thrown your way by some of the veteran players.

when closed practice began a little bit later, you asked christen about it.

“why do you all keep giving me weird looks? do i have something on my face?”

christen shook her head, and upon seeing that there was no one around she whispered:

“i’m pretty sure it’s because you have a lionesses crest on your shorts.”

you looked down and gasped.

shit.

she was right.

in your haste this morning you had unknowingly grabbed leah’s shorts instead of your own.

in your defense, with the the english and us home kit both being white and both of you being #14, it was an honest mistake.

but still.

fuck.

so much for keeping it a secret.

christen opened her mouth to say something else, but upon seeing your face decided against it.

besides the one hiccup, the rest of practice went smoothly, and you were on your way back to the locker room when you were stopped by sonnett.

“do you play for england now or something?”

“it was an accident.” you said, shushing her.

all the way back into the locker room emily teased you, so much so that your face couldn’t have been any redder in your life.

you changed as quick as you can, trying to get out of the locker room as fast as you can.

walking out, you stopped abruptly upon seeing your girlfriend in the stands.

“leah? what are you doing here?”

your girlfriend, who looked radiant as always, said with a smile:

“well i was originally going to come bring you your shorts baby.”

“oh you found out about that?” you said sheepishly, a blush crawling up your neck.

leah shook her head and laughed.

“i woke up to us trending on twitter so yeah. did the girls tease you about it?”

you pouted a little nodding a yes, and leah just laughed, cupping your cheek with one hand and smoothing back your flyaways with the other.

at this point some of the chaos crew came out of the locker room looking for you, and upon seeing you and leah, they stood back and watched with wide eyes.

they watched you giggle at something leah said, lindsey making sure to keep a hand firmly closed around emily’s mouth to keep her from speaking.

some of the vets came out to see what the holdup was for, and upon seeing you, they stood back as well.

sam whispered quietly:

“are they flirting?”

“i think?” lindsey whispered back.

“it sure looks like it..”

christen shook her head.

the gears clicked into place in christen’s mind quickly, first with the hotel this morning, then with the shorts, and now this.

“i think they’re dating.”

emily’s eyes bugged out of her head and she finally ripped lindsey’s hand off.

“they’re WHAT??!”

this caused you and leah to turn, cheeks flushing when you see the majority of the team there, watching.

then they all started screaming at once.

“come introduce us to your girlfriend y/n!”

“hi leah!”

“WAIT CAN I GIVE HER THE SHOVEL TALK??!”

“I’M YOUR BEST FRIEND Y/N I SHOULD DO IT!”

“NO IF ANYONE DOES IT SHOULD BE ME I’M HER TEAM MOM”

you turned back to leah as the rest of the team quarreled.

“well since they’ve seen us already, let’s formally introduce you to the team.”

you stuck your hand out and said:

“come on. i’ll catch you.”

leah let out a laugh and took your hand, jumping down from the stands.

meeting the team wasn’t as bad as it could have been, partially because vlatko called sonnett away, but at the end you were both glad you had done it.

leah intertwined her fingers with yours as you walked across the field to the bus.

“i do have to admit my shorts look good on you.”

you looked at her and winked.

“maybe i’ll wear them on purpose next time.”

[saberstars]

I'm Here

Pairing: Gender Neutral Y/N & Loki

Fluff, angst, implied smut

Warnings: Mentions of depression/mental illness, epilepsy/seizures, mentions of sex, as always if I missed anything feel free to let me know

Summary: Loki & You have a pre-existing friendship with benefits & one night you have a seizure after some spiciness. He cares for you helping you afterwards & makes sure you rest easy & safe. Reader is portrayed to have seizures more so during changes in sleep phases, not awake. The wake seizures or more of a medium ish absence/ focal aware seizure that only occur on occasion & can be “fought” through.

Word Count: 1796

Notes: This was intended to be a gender neutral reader. I think I removed all he/she pronouns.

Additionally, I know that not everyone experiences seizures the same way, and that epilepsy can affect people differently. This is all written from my experiences with it, so I ask that you do not tell me I portrayed something wrong. I can and will accept constructive criticism, But I will not accept someone telling me blatantly that I am wrong with my experiences. Therefore please keep that in mind when reading. I genuinely hope this fic brings others comfort if you suffer from epilepsy or any disorder that causes seizures. Thank You <3

It’s been three years since you found out you suffered from epilepsy. A diagnosis that came late in your life to be fair. As a young child up until you reached adulthood, you suffered from eye shakes that would eventually turn into stuttering spells that made it difficult to breath or not breath properly at all. You never passed out though, you got close a few times, but you managed to stay awake and “fight it off.” You started to notice over time that you’d also get a strange taste in your mouth, almost like metal or as if you were sucking on a battery and it had that zing flavor. You knew that was a precursor and would panic on cue rightfully so. You hated when you had your mini stutter fests because all you could do was hope it didn’t happen.

Of course you complained to your parents as a child but they didn’t think it was anything. They said it was just a panic attack. So you took their word for it. That was until you started having grand mals in your sleep. At first you thought they were just a part of some strange dream, that wasn't real to you, not yet anyway. You would wake up exhausted, sore, sometimes unable to move properly, walk, open and close a fist, and you just overall couldn't stay conscious sometimes. Again you complained to your parents about it, but they said it was nothing. You probably had night terrors or some form of minor sleep paralysis. So you dumbly believed them.

When you moved out, You sought answers, and eventually got them. You were grateful. The medication they prescribed helped tremendously though, it did make you tired but it was worth not having your episodes. Thankfully your case wasn’t as severe as others and it was manageable so long as you took care of yourself and took your medications. Though you were warned, breakthroughs were common, and missing your dose can and would cause a seizure.

Despite having such a diagnosis, you kept it to yourself. You never really told anyone. It wasn’t until you started sleeping with a friend, that you finally divulged your secret too in the event that it ever happened whilst they were with you.

It was someone you randomly slept with on and off with. A friend with benefits, his name was Loki. You had met the god shortly after his father had passed and his home, destroyed. You found comfort with each other despite it being more of a sexual comfort. You both used sex as a way to fight your own demons, a distraction, a quick grab at serotonin. Despite the sex you both developed a very deep friendship. You’d read together on occasion, have very interesting debates on current events, history, as well as other nuances, and a lot of other things. You even met his brother and the avengers at one point.

You both slept soundly after spicy events had taken place 2 hours prior, Loki had come over desperate for attention of any kind. He didn’t say why, but you knew it was a rather serious topic he wished not to discuss and rather lessen the pain with ecstasy. Little did you know, on this day a few years ago he indirectly murdered his mother. He blamed himself dearly, he knew if he would have kept his mouth shut for once in his life she may be here today. So he needed a genuine distraction. One of any kind. Preferable you. Due to the spicy events that took place you missed your dose, due to falling asleep promptly after, which cost you dearly. Missing doses always caused this to happen no matter what.

You gasped for air like usual, your body contorting outwards first with a thrust. You were awake, conscious, and terrified for the few seconds you normally were given before blacking out. You began to stutter violently all the air leaving your lungs as it happened. Until no sounds were made and it was just you chattering. Loki woke immediately, with a completely calm exterior despite a raging mixture of emotions internally. He knew you never called an ambulance for these things because you were normally alone & unaware until you became conscious again. She made him promise to never call 911 unless it was over a certain time length, to save her medical expenses, or unless she stopped breathing for good.

Loki dare not touch you though as you shook and curled up. The last thing he wanted was his godly strength to crush you somehow or cause you more pain. Instead he watched and hovered until you finally stopped. It was a short 50 second one, which was under your time limit, but he still debated calling. It’s not like You would’ve known he lied.

His breathing hitched as he went to check your pulse and airway, ever so delicately, which were both clear and strong.

“Oh thank you.” he whispered

A few hours had slid by with still no response from you. Loki sat next to you, staring down at you, to the point where he would fight the urge to blink, waiting for a stir of some kind from you. He did give the courtesy of redressing you though, in a nightgown from a drawer after an hour slid past. He even went as far as ensuring that you were adequately covered by the blankets to avoid being chilled. It has been 3 ½ hours now, with no stir of any kind from you. He knew it would be awhile before you showed any signs of movement possibly but this worry tore him to his core. In the midst of waiting he refused to just idly go back to sleep next to you, he was determined to stay awake until you were conscious again, so that you knew, he stayed there waiting for you. Loki didn’t know when he found himself talking to you as if you were awake, but all he knew was that it made him feel a bit better, and he hoped that when you woke it would make you feel better too.

“You know, I’ve been reading this really dumb gothic romance novel. I think you’d like it because of how naive the girl is. I know you like to criticize and pick on how they make decisions.” he spoke with a chuckle in his voice thinking back to how you’d flail your arms and drop your book to scream about how dumb some main protagnist could be.

“I'll have to buy you a copy or give you mine when I’m done.” Loki shifted his weight from his right to his left brushing your bangs out of your eyes.

“I don’t know why you keep those so long, all they do is get in the way of your gorgeous eyes.”

It was in that moment you rustled, you shifted your neck ever so slightly, Your eyelids twitch. Loki leaned forward parting his lips as he watched with a heart of hope completely overwhelmed with joy when he saw the color of your iris’s. He exhaled a shaky breath cupping your cheeks which caused you to flinch sending a wave of shocks through your body. It was at that moment you knew. You knew what he saw, what he had gone through. Your heart sank and you immediately berated yourself internally despite your exhausted state.

“It’s ok you don’t have to say or do anything. I’ll stay, I’ll take care of you for as long as you need.” Loki assured you, wanting you to know that you didn’t have to go through this alone. You never really had anyone stay, let alone worry about you. Your eyes began to water as tears rolled down your face.

“I’ll go grab you some water, you’re probably parched. I’ll also grab you a banana. I read that potassium can help with the cramping.” Loki said leaving to yourself for a moment. He also grabbed tissues for your eyes and nose just in case. Upon returning her placed everything at your side offering help to sit up. “Do you need to use the bathroom or help sitting up?” He asked with a gentle tone.

You nodded trying to take a good deep breath so you could speak a bit. “I’m so sorry you had to see that… but thank you. Thank you for staying, for helping. I do need the bathroom and I would appreciate help. My legs are still...” you mustered out with all your might but after a point your tongue refused to work with you.

“Of course, I may be a monster but I’m not entirely cruel. If it helps… you can just think to yourself and I can listen that way. So that you're not struggling too much.” Loki admitted with a tone of self depreciation.

“You're not a monster just because you're different & have made mistakes.” you thought as Loki picked you up bridal style walking you to the bathroom. Of course he placed you down on the toilet and waited outside for you to do what you needed. Since he had only added a nightgown to your previously naked body it made things easier. It was exhausting to just sit up and do everything but you pushed through. You even pushed yourself up and limped to the sink best you could to wash your hands. Upon hearing the faucet though Loki came back in standing behind you offering support if needed.

“Catch me~” you thought before falling back into his arms with a snort.

“You're lucky I have godlike reflexes you minx.” He replied with a hint of flirtation. You had used more than you had in you to wash your hand. Loki caught you obviously and carried you back to the room placing you back on the bed. “No, more like I knew you were ready to catch me.” you slowly thought as exhaustion tugged at your consciousness again. Loki noticed the pill bottle on your dresser before prompting you to take it. Instinctively opening it and sliding one into his hand.

“You should probably take this before you fall asleep.” You took it mentally saying thanks drinking the glass of water with it.

“Yeah that would probably help avoid some added breakdancing.” You joked trying to use humor to lighten the situation. Loki stared plain faced trying not to entertain your joke though, despite finding it secretly witty. Maybe he’d laugh at it when you felt a bit better. Soon after you began to dance between awake and sleep. Loki took note based on how your thoughts jumbled around between multiple things, laughing to himself a bit before minor intrusive fears began picking at you. Loki immediately jumped into action in an attempt to squash them soothing you a bit.

“You can sleep soundly, please get some rest. You don’t have to force yourself to stay awake out of fear or guilt.” Loki spoke in the most caring and sweet tone he could muster up. Trying to convince you that it was going to be ok & it worked. Somehow you knew he was right & that you could trust him completely. You drifted back to sleep peacefully thinking about how for the first time in your life, you didn’t fear sleeping in your bed. You didn’t have intrusive thoughts about whether or not you’d wake up in the morning or not. Which honestly brought tears bubbling their way up and out of Loki's eyes. The amount of trust you had in him in your thoughts, at that moment completely took his breath away. And that was something he wasn’t going to break or ever lose.

[tossawary]

I just want to say that I love the dynamic between Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua so much in your story. It always bother me how Shen Yuan acted towards Shang Qinghua, blaming him or being a bit harsh on him, then Shang Qinghua acts scared or something. In a way it’s kinda refreshing to see Shang Qinghua act differently compared to other fanfics when it comes to dealing with Shen Yuan. Love your story, it’s definitely my favorite fanfic!<3

To be slightly fair to Shen Yuan, SVSSS Shang Qinghua is an asshole. He’s INCREDIBLY blasé to Shen Yuan’s situation and everything Shen Yuan is going through + everything Luo Binghe is going through (the abuse, the abyss, the insanity-inducing sword). Because at this point SY is like 4 years ish into his transmigration and Airplane is 40 years ish minimum into his transmigration. 

When I first met Airplane, reading SVSSS for the first time, I was like, “WOW, this guy is mentally fucked up! He is totally detached from this! This man is probably disassociating through 75% of his life!” 

(No fucking wonder Mobei-Jun is making, like, almost 0% progress here.) 

And part of what I find interesting about Shang Qinghua’s character is I kind of read the dude as basically internally screaming into the void: “MAKE ME CARE! MAKE ME CARE! I don’t give a shit about anything and it’s killing me! Give me something to care about in this fake world full of fake people who hate me before I go fucking insane! At least, anymore insane than I already am!”

So when Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua finally clock each other as transmigrators, and Shen Yuan is ready to clock Shang Qinghua across the face for everything, Shang Qinghua is kind of like, “FINALLY!” It’s like SY’s presence snapped the guy awake. Shang Qinghua is a dick to Shen Yuan sometimes, a real asshole of an ally and a fucked-up friend to have, but he helps! His priorities are completely skewed and his worldview is ruthless, but he has enough humanity in him still to help Shen Yuan!

Like, I don’t really want to call them friends sometimes? They’re two people in a really, really fucked up situation who have no hope of being understood so completely by anyone else in the world. It’s an “you’re all I have” situation. 

And SVSSS doesn’t really... go into this in detail? Neither SY or SQH end the story by actually opening up to each other, so we get the surface level of it all, in which SY harshly blames SQH for everything and SQH laughs at many of SY’s personal difficulties. Which didn’t so much bother me (SVSSS has lots of flaws to be bothered by, imo) as direct me on how I wanted to engage with SVSSS as a fanfiction author: I wanted to explore Shang Qinghua’s relationship with his world and the people he only sees as characters, plus the face he puts on for other people (the coward and the traitor) versus his surprising fearlessness and personal loyalty. 

And I wanted to explore Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan (on this note, holy shit, does SY as SQQ have his emotions locked the fuck down where no one can get at them, not even him, most of the time) opening up and supporting each other more directly. I agree with you that a lot of people don’t always focus on (maybe it’s not what they’re interested in focusing on) the soul-deep trauma of being stuck on what’s essentially an alien world, with only one person from home, who you might have said you wouldn’t hang out with if they were “the last person on Earth”. Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua each wear so many masks, they have so many available paths, that their dynamic can shift very easily. 

Anyway, thank you! Thank you so much for following my fic and letting me know you enjoy it! My fic “pride is not the word I’m looking for” is very much me going, “HEY! Is anyone going to explore this concept that is very important to me and possibly only me?” And then not waiting for an answer. 

[scoups4lyfe]

Journal Entries of Bipolar sh*t compiled to Show the Mind of Someone with BP:

[Entries from my mood journals:] 

TW: Mental Health

These entries are personal, I wrote them as I was going through whatever I end up writing about, I took out any personal details so it reads like ANON.

[Next]

Energy Levels: 

July 15th 2020: 

Questionable levels of energy. Went to bed at 9am and woke up at 6pm. Just really tired, I feel just,,,, exhausted in an empty almost depressive kind of way. Could a depressive episode be looming on the horizon? Conversely, however, my energy has been pretty high the last three-four days at least. I’ve been somewhat motivated, getting work done, and also having major problems with insomnia that really kind of came out of nowhere. That’s why I couldn’t fall asleep until 9am last night. (Though my time blindness when doing things I enjoy certainly doesn’t help.)

July 16th 2020: 

(went to bed at 9am, awoke at 7pm)

Another feeling of low energy. I’d rate it about 3.5/10 (5 being normal.) Mood wise, I'm in a rather neutral mood, though I’m starting to worry that it’s getting more and more apathetic. (Especially when I’m dehydrated.) 

Executive dysfunction is rearing its ugly head. It’s hard for me to do things, I kinda want to curl into a ball and do nothing for great periods of time. I find it hard to really be motivated or to make myself WANT to look nice when I see my friend tomorrow. It’s actually kind of worrying, but my overall mood (as I said) is still pretty neutral. 

July 17th, 2020: A solid 3/10 

(Bed @ 7/8-ish am. Woke at 1:09pm to go to a friend’s.) 

I just feel tired and kinda zen, not gonna lie. Like relaxed and ready to slip into unconsciousness at any moment. Not necessarily as apathetic as yesterday, but that could be because I am around my good friend, and being around my good friends makes me happy, distracted, and more energized, even with barely any sleep.

July 18th 2020: 

Bed time:  Close to 11:30 pm Wake Up: Close to 9am. (Like 8:40 am or something) 

A solid 2.2/10 

I’ve had low energy for a bit now and I know it’s starting to roll into my apathetic depressions. Today [friend] wanted me to go to the gym/pool with [them] and I was REALLY not feeling it, but [they] were  gungho for it and were talking about it like it was already going to be a done-deal. This kinda soured me because I really do not want to move around much when I’m like this and I ESPECIALLY did not want to go to the pool—  I knew I’d be the only one in the pool, alone, because I didn’t bring shoes so I either had to wait horrendously by myself in the locker room or pool it out alone until someone joined me after their workout.

I DID feel great when I stepped into that lukewarm shower before having to get into the pool, but like, WOAH MAN, I got super apathetic, I contemplated just staying in the shower for an hour and like hOO wow. Not great. 0/10 would not recommend. 

I did actually enjoy the pool though and after about 15 minutes of [friend] joining me I began to go back to a more neutral state of mind, so that was good. 

When we went to the mall it was fun too, but for some reason (I can’t even explain why) I hit a low— low, and started to second-guess everything (even my friendship with them) and wondered if I should never talk or see them ever again from then on. It was really melodramatic and I don’t even know why I thought about it for a minute there. After a few minutes I was snapped back to normal by hanging out with my friends and then I was kinda okay again. 

Emotionally (when I’m not feeling low energy/apathetic/empty AF) I feel on the verge of just breaking down into tears and laughing like a maniac.

July 24th

Bed: 9pm-ish  Woke: 5am 

Energy: 4-ish (Maybe even a bit more of a 3.5 rn) 

These last few days have been a blur tbh. I went on a webtoon-reading, what-music-was-I-listening-to-in-middle-school binge these last couple of days and so I remember not much. The hyper focus really had me there lol. 

July 28th 2020: 

Bed: 1:15 am Woke: 6:30 am 

Mood: When I was awake earlier and reading, about a 3. RIGHT NOW??? 1.5/10 and quickly approaching a meltdown. 

I am SO SO tired and almost about to have an emotional breakdown for no reason. I have no idea where this is coming from but I am going to tuck into bed and disappear from existence because I need to sleep for 19hrs or I WILL throw a fit. 

**Some notes for July 28th. I tried to sleep at 7/8pm because I felt an incoming meltdown. But then I was suddenly wide awake? Like my energy was at a 7 while my mood was at a 0.5. Basically, not fun, would never repeat again. 

July 31st, 2020: 

Bed: Around midnight/1 am woke: 3pm. 

Energy: 4/10

I don’t know why I slept for so long, but I def. could have slept longer. In fact most of the day I felt kind of bleh. 

Not terrible enough to lie down but also not normal-normal. 

August 26th, 2020: 

Woke: 7pm Slept: 9/10am 

Mood: 4.5/10 

In general I’ve felt fine. Not as exhausted, and definitely  in a good mood. Maybe it’s because I’m purposefully taking it easy while still trying to accomplish the small things. Ahhhh I feel so accomplished, yo!!!

But just as a general warning, I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay optimistic. (Hopefully for a long time.) I just feel the depressive episode on the horizon. For now, I’m doing self care so that I can fight  it off, but hopefully it won’t be “only a matter of time.” 

Thursday — September 17th, 2020: 

Slept: 1am woke: 7:30am 

Mood: 5/10 ENERGY: 2.5/10 

Though I’m in a pretty genial mood, I just feel so tired. Which makes no sense because yesterday I woke up at like 7pm and went to bed at 1am. So WHAT TF bro. I’ve just been lying in my bed all day because that’s like the only way I feel somewhat decent. 

Kinda want to take a nap but I know that’ll do me absolutely no good whatsoever, so I’m gonna stay awake and try to be as productive as I can be when I’m lying down in a horizontal position.

[Journal Entry] 

“Saturday: October 10th, 2020 —  Around Night

Right now I feel invincible. Like I can write and capture that perfect melody. Pen to paper. Pencil to sketchbook. For this moment, just right now, I feel as if I could do anything, and that makes me so, so, happy. 

Today is a happy day, which is made funnier or perhaps more ironic by the fact that I didn’t even want to wake up today. [Which I did, begrudgingly, at 6pm-ish.] 

The tides really do come and go. So never feel too down. At some point you’ll feel like this again. The cogs keep turning and life goes on. 

Mood: 10/10 Energy: 10/10.”

[End quote] 

...

“October 13th, 2020 — Tuesday, 10:45 AM. 

So many thoughts have taken travels in my hand. Today I feel invincible again. Much like I did in the last entry. I have been an unfortunate disappointment to my family, though. My energy, motivation, and time has been entangled lately. Entangled deep into my mind, my media, and the interests I partake in: The Void ™. 

Therefore I haven’t been of much help, entertainment, or enjoyment for my loved ones. Last Sunday our relatives gathered at our house to celebrate [my brother's] birthday. Yet I stayed in bed. I did not celebrate with them, and ignored their asks of me. I’m quite disappointed in myself for being this way. I can only strive to be better. I may not have been energetic or involved these last few days, but I feel much better now that I’ve gotten rest. 

Though I’ll always be fighting with that void that distracts and captures my attentions, I won’t let these strings choke me.” [End Quote] 

…

October 18th 2020:

Slept: 10am Woke: 4am

Mood:2.5/10. Energy:2/10

I just feel very anxious (like pit of nervous energy going 100mph in my stomach) anxious. I’m gonna try and nap the wired energy off cause it’s making me panicked 

[Journal Entry] 

“October 18th, 2020 — Sunday, 3:46 AM

I’ve gone and slept all of saturday. But hopefully this will fix my sleep schedule. I’m also (not quite anxious, but I know the tension is there, rising, ready to explode on the horizon. Already it’s October 18th, and yet it feels as if I’ve accomplished nothing. And perhaps I haven’t.”

[End quote] 

…

“October 24th, 2020 — Saturday, 9:55 PM.

At the beginning of this page I felt indescribable emotion fill me. Everything was pointless. I’d forgotten how to fly and instead remembered how to nap. For a singular moment I wanted to sleep into nonexistence. I wanted to cry, too. But mostly, I was just tired. I could do nothing but sit and want to sleep, and I had not even the strength or energy to loathe myself for this. So I decided to scrapbook instead and then maybe sleep after I’d written all this leak in me from pen to paper. But in the (time it)  took for me to design the page I fell out of my emotional range. Instead I felt calm. Pacified. Silly, isn’t it? I’m supposed to edit today and tomorrow, but I’ve let today slip away. 

I’ve also eaten too much again. I feel sick. Like I’m eating as much as I can before a hibernation. Does my body feel a depressive episode coming before I do? Is that it? Or is my overeating and lack of control leading me into a spiral? I shouldn’t be feeling like this. So much anxious, emotional energy. I’m wired as shit and I hate this jittery-ness. 

It’s suffocating. Like a snake’s wrapped itself over me and keeps constricting, tighter, and tighter, and tighter, till there’s nothing left.”

[End of entry] 

…

“November 10, 2020 — Tuesday 

Pros: I watched lupinranger like 3 times in the span of 3 days. 

Cons: I watched lupinranger like 3 times in the span of 3 days.”

[End Quote] 

[Around 3 month time skip]

[Sunday, February 28th, 2021 — 2:04 AM] 

“I’m treading water. Another month passes. Hopefully I’ll make all I can of this last day. I walked some, but I still haven’t reached my desired destination. Guess I have no choice but to keep going! Everything has a time. I can only continue trying. That’s all I can do. To quit is to have nothing for myself, not even dreams. ‘Being confident that he who began a good work in you will carry on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ.’ (-Something Phillipians.) 

I dream of many things. I pray that March gives me what I need. Please be here with me, hold my hand in these times and keep me close in your thoughts. I’m trying. I’m always trying. Day by day, hour by hour, sometimes minute by minute. I can’t do this alone. (I wish I could.) My brain is so easily distracted and it’s hard to get by even doing things I joy. I wish I had something that could force me to function. All I have is myself.  

One day I won’t just be writing dreams with no evidence. Every step is part of the journey (even if it doesn’t feel like it.) So thank you for walking with me. I don’t have the strength to do this alone. Please, please hold my hand through the anxieties and whisper that it’ll be alright. I’m blindfolded, and I’m walking on a tightrope, and I need you to tell me when and how to jump so that I’ll land in the net. I’m blind but I’m listening. September 30th feels a lightyear away. It’s hard to forget the lack when you’re faced with it everyday. And I’m unsure. Please tell me that it’s worth it. Please. Please help me. Please. Please lead me. Please help me.” 

[End of entry.]

Part: [1], [2], [3], [4]

This is the first part of the journal entries, I'll be uploading another compilation after each newly posted PPT essay.

Bipolar PPT Essay: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]

Visuals of depressive episodes: (1), (2)

PPT Essay Extras: (1), (2), (3)

[Next]

[realcube]

sleepy haikyuu headcanons 💤

pairings: nishinoya x reader, tendō x reader, kageyama x reader

tw// swearing, violence(?), she//her reader, angst, overthinking, fluff 

Yū Nishinoya

midnight pillow fights with Noya 💓

i could leave at that but i shall elaborate 

whenever you sleepover at his house (or vice versa), every time y’all say that you are gonna pull an all-nighter and have chaotic fun

but it never works because being chaotic requires a lot of energy, so you both end up falling asleep at like 2AM-ish 🥱

the closest that y’all have gotten to an all-nighter is 5AM

anyway, it’s not a tradition - more like something that just ends up happening every time Noya is over, perhaps a curse lol

but at some time of night, you’ll say something to irk Noya and he’ll throw/hit you with a pillow 

not to intentionally start shit but just as playful ‘shut up’ sorta thing

but something about the sharp impact of the pillow just pisses you off and you instinctively launch a pillow right back at him and it’s always a bit harder than you meant for it to be  

thus, a pillow fight ensues  

Noya had always envisioned a pillow fight with a female as a playful, sensual experience 

but there was absolutely nothing playful or sensual about the way you powerbombed him and then proceeded to suffocate him with your pillow 

you would both be feistily beating each other with the pillow, the room filling with your battle cries and screams ╰（‵□′）╯

and this would only end once both of your harsh, quick hits turned sloppy and tired 

eventually, you’d both just drop unconscious during the fight and wake up in the weirdest positions 

Satori Tendō

he is the self-certified ‘worst cuddler’ (ಥ _ ಥ)

not only is he extremely sensitive to temperature, he’s also filled with too much energy to just stay in the same position with you for god knows how long 

it’s not that he didn’t like to cuddle, though. 🥺 i mean, nothing made him feel more safe than you in his arms but he was just unable to stop himself from getting restless when he did it for too long 

but there were some nights that he wasn’t as fidgety, though

most of the time, it was after a big volleyball game or a hard day at practise and he was absolutely exhausted (_　_)。゜zｚＺ

he’d literally just detours to your house to catch up like he usually does but his demeanour clearly isn’t the same when he’s worn out so you invite him in for a few minutes and he’d gladly (and gratefully) accepts 

he’d just flop down on the couch beside you, his arms just automatically finding your waist and thoughtlessly pulling you against his chest as he laid back, staring at the ceiling

he found himself muttering random things about his day when you asked him, but nothing he said seemed to be in chronological order - unless he brushed his teeth during volleyball practise, which - now that you think about it - doesn’t sound too out of character for him.

his hand found it’s way into your hair and started caressing your scalp, slowly drifting off as the little tune you hummed into his shoulder sent relaxing vibration throughout his body (￣o￣) . z Z

and this wasn’t a one-time thing either, whenever he comes to your house drained from practise, a similar chain of events always end up happening 

the only difference being that sometimes it was in your bed rather than on the couch 

Tobio Kageyama 

i feel like bb has nightmares, like frequently 🥺

i mean, if i was him i’d have nightmares too; he has so much important shit riding on his performance - it’s a miracle that this man can even sleep with how much stress he must be under 

like, he’s kinda failing school/ he doesn’t have the best grades and if he doesn’t do well on tests then his opportunity to go to camps and train volleyball could be taken 

speaking of volleyball, he probably is so stressed from being a part of a team and having people rely on him - not the mention that he clearly isn’t very good at processing his feelings considering that he expresses most negative emotion he feels towards Hinata in the form of anger   

then there is the pressure of keeping his relationships and not naturally distancing himself from the people he loves

like you, for example

he goes to bed with all these horrible thoughts in his head and whenever he tries to think positive, it  always backfires

he’ll be like ‘i’m the worst person to be around, it’s clear nobody likes me.’

then he kinda shakes it off like, ‘wait, no. don’t think that. i know that (Y/N) loves me and i love her back.’

but his mind never leaves him alone, ‘am i even sure she loves me? i mean, i act so stand-offish towards her - yeah, she probably barely tolerates me. and she was talking about hinata’s spike yesterday, she’s probably going to dump me for him.’

it was a heart-wrenching thought but what could kageyama do? 

for now, he’d just lie down beside you on your bed as you scrolled away on your phone, completely unaware that he just mentally rehearsed how he was going to react when you broke up with him

“goodnight, kags. love you.” you hummed, turning around to place a kiss on his cheeks like you always do when he sleeps over

kageyama nodded, trying to act cool and collected despite the fact he was internally nervous as hell, “night, (y/n).” he paused, trying his best to lift the corners of his lips into a kind - rather than intimidating - smile, “love you too.”

‘look, i called her by her first name - i’m so romantic.’ that was probably the nicest thing he’s thought to himself all day

with that, you both try to get some rest 

aaaannnndddddd cue the part when he wakes up in a cold sweat, shivering slightly as he looks over to you with wide eyes to reassure himself that your not gone 

his heavy breathing alerts you that he is awake so you pry one eye open to look at him, “not again, tobio.” you said wearily, forcing yourself to sit up and attempt to wrap him in a hug but he just jerked away from your touch

you sighed, “what happened?”

kageyama blinked rapidly, darting his gaze around the room before it finally landed back on you

“i- the walls- and you were almost d-” he began coughing, resulting in you immediately reaching over to your nightstand and handing him the bottle of water you had lying there

he took a few gulps before letting out a refreshed ‘ah’, his stare glued to your lips the whole time

eventually, he was able to grumble “it was nothing.” (⊙_⊙;)

upon hearing his evidently fake answer, you shoved out your bottom lip and whined, “shut up, tobio. i was obviously something; why won’t you tell me?”

“because it was nothing.” he said without missing a beat, then he proceeded to lay down so he could fall back asleep - as if this time it’d go better for him

“Kageyama!” you barked, resulting his eyes jolting back open, “You always have nightmares at my house; I’m starting to wonder if you’re scared of me or something.” 

kageyama shook his head before nonchalantly responding, “it’s the cherry blossom air freshener - maybe use vanilla or something next time.” he joked, unable to resist a smile as you playfully punched his shoulder.

you sighed, clearly not going to get an answer out of like every other time you’ve tired, so you just decided to  try fall back asleep and try reclaim the little bit of sanity you had left

“(y/n).” kageyama grumbled, wanting to make it seem like he was half-asleep but he was far from it as he pulse was still going crazy as that nightmare shook his to the core. “are you going to dump me? because if you are, now would be a good time.” 

he spoke, praying to every deity he could think of that you wouldn’t say yes - but if you did, now would be a good time as he could storm out and since it was dark outside, the streets would be deserted meaning that nobody would be there to witness the tears streaming down his cheeks as he sprinted through the night 

you rolled your eyes, “is that what this is about?” you didn’t mean for it to come off so harsh as you actually felt a great amount of sympathy for kageyama but just unable to express it in the way you desired

“stop crying.” you hissed, making kageyama quirk an eyebrow.

“I’m not crying-” he replied until suddenly, he realised that your comment was directed at yourself as you hastily buried your head into his chest and he felt something soak through the fabric of his shirt. 

“I’m not going to break up with you kageyama, you stupid moron idiot!” you snapped against his shirt.

don’t ask why that nickname made kageyama’s heart flutter

“get those crazy ideas out of your head or i’ll have to take them out for you 🔪--” you could barely even finish your sentence before both you and kageyama burst out laughing

it was probably just the ambience of being cozy under a blanket with each other in a freezing cold room that reeked of cherry blossom but some how you both some how fell even harder for one another

although what you said wasn’t the most moving or motivating, your intention was clear and from then on, kageyama was a lot more upfront with you💕 

he’d tell you if he ever felt uncomfortable or if he was ever worried and you’d either make him feel better or make him laugh and then insist that he goes to talk to suga or daichi

also after that night, (and once you ditched the air freshener and started burning vanilla essence) he only had ‘sweet dreams’ whenever he stayed over at yours 

(or at least that is what he said whenever you asked him. in reality, his dreams were about volleyball and tsukishima chasing him through the mall on a velociraptor but whatever, it was a step up from the nightmares anyway. 🏃‍♂️ 🦖 )

[1-800-hellraiser]

Devil Town

Requested by: Candis Kid

Words: 1,281

Aged up?: Nope, cus this oneshot is a platonic one :)

Genre: Kinda misc.

Pairing: David x Camper!Reader

Song: Devil Town - Cavetown 

!TWS!: None :)

(A/n: I'm sorry this is more late than I intended it to be, some stuff went down and I became very unmotivated.)

*************************************************

"I still get a little scared of something new, but I feel a little safer when I'm with you."

     It's been about a month since the campers arrived at Camp Campbell for the summer. All of the same campers from last summer showed up along with three new campers, Nikki, Neil, and you. Nikki Is wild and rambunctious, Neil is nerdy and anxious, and you are antisocial and stay out of the camp's wacky adventures for the most part. 

     David finds you to be interesting in a way. Usually the rest of the campers would participate, but you always stay on the sidelines. The only person you would sometimes interact with was Max. This made a lot of sense, considering you both just rather not get involved with the camp. You'd sometimes ask David and Gwen for something, but that was it. To be honest, David worries for your mental well being.

     He usually see's most of the campers showing some sort of emotion throughout the day, but you seem so stoic and kind of emotionless. He's only seen you show genuine emotion was around Max. He told you a joke and you chuckled a bit, but that was it. David isn't the best with confrontation, but he want's to make sure you're okay and having the best time at camp. He'll be sure to talk to you tomorrow, if nothing goes awry.

      David awakes at six am sharp with a smile already on his pale, freckled face. Walking over to the medium sized dresser on his side of the councilor's cabin, he opens it and picks out one of many of the same pair of shirts and shorts he owns. After getting dressed, he combs his hair into its usual style and leaves the cabin. His whistle bounces around his neck as he makes his way over to the camper's tents. One blow of the whistle and every camper is groaning as they wake up. 

       "Goooooooood morning campers! Time to get up and at 'em!" David exclaims encouragingly. Some campers are tiredly staggering out of their tents to the mess hall, where they will greeted with breakfast. David waits until all the campers have piled out of their tents and into the mess hall. Then, he double checks to make sure all of them are in the mess hall. After checking all the tents, David is sure the campers are all in the mess hall. 

      Entering the mess hall, he grabs his breakfast and sits down with Gwen. Gwen occasionally takes bites of her pancakes as she reads something on her phone. "What are you reading Gwen?" David asks, a curious smile spread across his face. Gwen jumps and almost drops her phone and chokes on her pancakes. "N-nothing David! Just an article on...global warming?" Gwen says sheepishly, David gives her a look of suspicion. "Awwww Gwen, I never knew you cared so much about our beautiful planet!" David says, suspicion gone from his features. 

      "Yeah, totally..." Gwen says in a relieved tone. David and Gwen both continue to eat their breakfast. But, throughout their meal, David keeps an eye on you particularly. You sit at the bench in the upper right corner of the mess hall, alone. You do this everyday, but nobody really seems to care. You yourself don't even seem bothered by sitting alone. In fact, its like you actually prefer sitting alone during meals. "Uh, David?" Gwen says, snapping David out of his thoughts. "Yeah, Gwen?" "You've been staring at Y/n for like ten minutes, is everything okay?" She asks, taking another bite of her pancakes. "Yeah, it's just, I don't understand them."

       "What do you mean?" Gwen asks, giving David a questioning look. "I mean they're very quiet, they never get involved with camp activities or adventures, and the only person I've seen them talk to was Max. And even then, they didn't say much to him at all! They just, worry me a little bit. Am I doing something wrong?" David finishes, looking at Gwen for answers. "David, you're doing the best you can for the kids, maybe they have something going on personally that's hindering them from participating. You should talk to them later today about it." Gwen answers, getting up with her plate. "Are you done with that?" Gwen questions, pointing at David's bowl of now soggy cereal. "Yes, thank you so much CBFL!" David says, returning to his natural chipper attitude. 

      After breakfast, him, Gwen, and the campers make their way to the activities field. Today him and Gwen had nothing planned, so they let the kids have a free day. Gwen goes back to the cabin as David walks around the activity field, making sure the kiddos are doing fine. Every camper is accounted for, except for you. David scans the activity field and he notices you walking over to the dock, holding something in your arms. David quietly walks closer to you and sees that you are holding a bunch of flat-ish rocks in your shirt, like a kangaroo pouch.

     You get onto the dock and drop your shirt, the rocks fall into a messy pile on the wooden surface. Plopping down next to them, you pick up a rock. You examine it for a bit then skip it across the lake. David smiles at you as he makes his way over to you. "Hey kiddo," David says, sitting next to you on the dock. You say nothing as usual, you grab another rock and skip it. "I noticed you aren't really enraging in camp activities and don't really talk to anyone except for Max." David explains, you say nothing and keep skipping rocks.

     "I just wanted to see if you're okay, you don't have to talk to me. But just know that I'm here for you if you need to talk." David says, giving you a comforting smile. You stop skipping rocks and look at David. "I appreciate you caring about me David, I'm just getting used to being here. It takes me a minute to get used to being around so many people. I'm only used to me and my mom, and sometimes my friends. I have to kind of get over missing my mom I guess? That sounds really harsh, but you know what I mean, right?" You finish, looking up at the redheaded man.

     David looks stunned, maybe it's the initial shock of you talking to him after ignoring him for almost a month. "Yeah, I know what you mean Y/n. I know it's hard getting over homesickness. When I was a camper, I missed my mom a lot too. I used to be a troublemaker because I didn't know how to feel about being away from my mom for the first time. So I acted out." David explains, shifting his gaze back to the lake before standing up.

      "So if you ever feel homesick, come talk to me about it. I'm always here for you." David says, bending down a bit to ruffle your hair. A giggle escapes your mouth as you hug David's legs. You think you're ready to start engaging and talking more. You thank David and run off to the activity field. David chuckles, he'd never thought he'd see himself in a camper as much as he does with you. 

[jae-daddy]

magic (2)

draco malfoy fanfic

one / three / four / five / six

pairing: draco x reader genre: shifting realities, romance, clownshit plot: you were shifting realities for the lols but end up trapped in harry potter world with draco malfoy as your companion  a/n: say it with me kids, it issss what it issss <3 hope y’all enjoy it not edited 

________________

You slowly opened your eyes and took in the darkness. You smiled as you remembered the dream you just had. You had actually ended up in Harry Potter world and met Draco Malfoy. It had felt real, but it was all a dream.

You sighed as you sat up and closed your eyes, soaking in the darkness around you.

“Good, finally you’re awake.” You shot up straight as you turned to your frantic eyes towards the boy who reminded you of winter. “Your snoring was rather annoying. One more minute and I was about to turn you into a frog.”

“It’s real,” you breathed as you slightly slumped in the bed. You looked around you in confusion and then at the black covers over your body. You were sure you had fallen asleep on the armchair, but you were in bed now. “Oh my god, I’m sorry, did I sleepwalk into the bed?”

You didn’t realise you were that exhausted from shifting. But you also didn’t know what to expect when you were shifting realities, and you still didn’t know what to expect. You didn’t know when you would be able to go back home, or what will happen to you while you remained here.

“It was unpleasant,” Malfoy just shrugged his shoulders, as he took a bite into a green apple. You smiled at that and bit your lip. He snorted as he quizically held out the apple to you, “Do you want one, muggle?”

“No,” you smiled back, making him frown. But before he could say anything else, your tummy grumbled with hunger, making your cheeks flush. You softly said, letting your hair fall around you, “I’m not hungry.”

“I think your tummy was loud enough for the entire of Wiltshire to hear,” he chuckled at you, your cheeks burning brighter. “And the way you’re looking at my precious apple, makes me feel unsettled.”

You rolled your eyes as you crossed your arms and gave him a blank stare.

“I wasn’t eyeing your apple, Draco,” you huffed, before shaking your head. “You don’t know how many girls would have died seeing you bite into an apple.”

Draco laughed at that, as he took another bite, this time holding your eyes. You didn’t look away from the challenge and tried to hide the way your body was reacting. The butterflies fluttered wildly in your stomach, going crazy as you looked into his icy grey eyes.

“Is this the tiktok nonsense you mentioned yesterday?” He asked, looking smug as if he saw through your act.

“Yeah, it is,” you whispered.

“So, what it is?”

“It’s videos made by people, and others can see them and enjoy it,” you were being careful. “A little community is formed when a lot of people hold a similar interest, and that becomes a ‘side’ of tiktok.”

“And there is a side, dedicated to me?” He smirked before taking another bite.

You quirked an eyebrow, and he smiled, “you mentioned it yesterday.”

“You caught that?”

He rolled his eyes, and you sighed before nodding.

“And how did you muggles get these materials of me to make these videos that you seem to enjoy a lot.”

“I don't enjoy them,” Your cheeks were on fire once again, as you felt an urge to defend yourself. But you were lying you had enjoyed it, a lot, and that’s why you had tried this stupid shifting in the first place.

Draco tsked, as he got up and moved closer to you.

“Don’t avoid my questions, muggle,” he asked, his voice cynical. “How did you get materials of me?”

You couldn’t say he was a fictional character. You were sure there was a rule that prevented you from saying that the fictional characters weren't real. That they were nothing more than words in a book, or characters played by actors. It would make them spin out of control, go mental. You couldn’t tell him the truth.

At least not entirely.

“I am from the future,” you answered.

It was stupid. You regretted the words as soon as they left your lips.

Stupid. Absolutely stupid.

“Really?” Draco narrowed his eyes at you.

You nodded your head quickly, but you were sure your eyes were wide with panic.

“I am certain I can’t really talk about it properly because you know,” your eyes darted around the room. The morning light illuminating the dark wood through the open curtains at the opposite end of the room, “I might say something and unleash chaos.”

Draco moved away in deep thought, his tongue tracing the side of his lips, and it took everything in you from squealing.

“But we know about you, and you are very... loved.” His icy eyes skipped over to you before he rose an eyebrow, before snickering darkly.

“I am loved by muggles?” He snorted, not believing you. “You say they love me, but you were certain I was going to kill you when you showed up here.”

You opened your mouth to say something but failed to find the words. You didn’t know how to explain your fear, how disoriented you were. How you ended up in the Malfoy mansion not sure what time it was, not sure if Voldemort had made this into his headquarters and was slithering around somewhere downstairs.

“Forget it,” he sneered as he turned away from you and began towards the door.

Before you could stop him; he was out. You slumped into your seat as you bought the sheets up to your chest.

And then a minute later, breakfast appeared on the table in front of the fireplace and armchairs.

_________

“Finally,” you cried as he came into the room.

He looked at you with wide eyes, checking behind him before quickly closing the door.

“Are you deranged?” Draco spat as he stared at you furiously. “Don’t ever do that again. Stay hidden in the closet until you’re sure I am alone.”

Your tummy flipped as you curled your toes. You tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, pulling a Debby Ryan. “You’re worried about me?”

Draco scoffed, before locking his door with a flick of his wand, and walked towards you. He settled onto the armchair in front of you, keeping his eyes steady on you.

“You can take a picture,” you spoke with a smirk. “It lasts longer.”

“Spunky, are we muggle?” Draco replied, a fire in his eyes that made you smile harder, before chuckling.

“I’m sorry, that’s the best I can do,” you shook your head before giving him a ridiculed look. “Can you believe that I’m a Slytherin?”

He snorted before freezing.

“Wait, but you’re a muggle?” He blinked confused. "How can you be sorted?"

“Yeah, well, we have this website where you fill in a quiz, and it tells you what house you are in,” you shrugged as you took a grape from the table loaded with snacks thanks to the gracious Draco Malfoy. “My wand is applewood with a unicorn hair core, 14 inch-ish.”

Draco watched your hands as you showed the uncertainty, and then at your face as if you had an extra head.

You ignored him and continued, “You have a unicorn hair core too, right?”

He just stared at you, the fireplace casting beautiful shadows on his face.

“It means you are good,” you spoke softly. “You’re not bad Draco, when there is a choice you do choose good if you can.”

Draco scoffed at that before closing his eyes and leaned back, his face facing the ceiling.

“For example,” you continued, swallowing nervously, “you could’ve outed me to your father, but you didn’t.”

Draco opened his eyes and stared at you. His eyes were blazing as he locked his jaw.

“You’re not bad,” you breathed, holding his eyes. “You’re not evil.”

Draco rolled his eyes, shaking his head as he snorted in disbelief. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and his eyes so cold it froze you in your seat.

“The only reason I hid you was because you could prove to be useful,” he spoke, his voice low and void of any emotion. “You entered inside Malfoy mansion, so riddled with wards, that even attempting is enough to paralyse the best wizard. But there you were unharmed, very alive, and a muggle too?”

He laughed to himself, and you stared at him as your eyes burned.

“Don’t try to romanticise this, muggle,” he whispered, his voice dripping with venom cutting your skin. “Don’t mistake my actions as kindness to you. I am not good. I am not nice. I am not your saviour. I am nothing but your captor, muggle.”

You tore your eyes away from his blazing ones and stared at the fire instead. Even the flames crackling, as it ate away the wood, seemed calmer compared to the fire in Draco’s icy eyes.

“Now be useful,” he said, his voice smug with victory, “and say something beneficial to me.”

You dug your nails into your palm, trying to contain the poison boiling in your veins. You wanted to hurt him. You didn’t want to have this victory.

You lifted your gaze and met his, as a vicious smile grew on your lips.

Maybe you were Slytherin after all.

“War is coming, Malfoy,” you spoke, your voice barely above a whisper. He watched you, his eyes taking in your lips as every word left you. He drank it in, his face paling as the words left you. “And you’re at the brunt of it all.”

Draco Malfoy studied you waiting for you to laugh, waiting for you to tell him it was a joke. But when you remained quiet, you saw something in him crack.

Had he suspected this?

He opened his mouth to say something, but a voice interrupted him. He looked behind him, replying he’ll be there in a minute.

You got up, as he turned towards you, you closed yourself in the closet.

__________________

You welcome the hot water falling over you, relaxing the tight muscles on your shoulders. The Malfoys sure did have amazing water pressure, and the whole bathroom smelled like Draco.

It was almost as if every product in the bathroom was made from a scent specifically made for him.

As you opened your eyes and reached for the shampoo, you found another set of products placed next to them that wasn't there a moment before. Just like the brush in the morning, a new set of showering products had appeared just for you.

You pumped out the shampoo and messaged it into your hair. You smiled at the scent of light flowers and thanked the lords it did not smell like strawberry or some fruit because your headache would’ve killed you.

You came out to find a fluffy dark green towel laid out for you. You wiped yourself before wrapping it around you and reaching for your clothes.

You grimaced at the thought of wearing those same dirty clothes after feeling so fresh and clean. But to your surprise the clothes were missing, you froze before checking the floor, under the sink, but it was gone; it was missing.

You checked the bathroom for another pair to magically appear like the products but nothing.

You wrapped the towel around you before peeking out into the room. The bed and the armchair facing the bathroom were unoccupied. You took a deep breath and walked out gripping the towel around your body.

“Putting a show for me?” A voice snickered making you whip around. You turned to a smirking Draco who sat on the other armchair, taking in your body before clicking his tongue in distaste. “Sorry but muggles do not engage me.”

“Your magic took my clothes away,” you rolled your eyes before glaring at him, annoyed.

Draco laughed at you.

“Trust me, I would use my magic to avoid seeing you like this,” he apologised mockingly. “The manor has magic of its own, it goes to the house-elves.”

“Dobby?” You exclaimed, making him frown in an almost sad way.

“He’s free now,” he said, his voice seldom but a small smile on his lips. Before he focused at you, and then clipped, “are you going to stand like that the whole night?”

“If you didn’t realise Draco, I don’t have any clothes.”

“Just find something from my closet.”

You walked over and were once again overwhelmed by how big and luxurious the walk-in closet was. It all looked expensive and you hesitated to reach for anything. You spotted a basket at the bottom in the corner of the closet and pulled out a sweater and sweatpants.

You walked out dressed and frowned.

Draco noticed and sighed, mockingly, “What’s wrong, princess?”

You frowned deeper before sinking into the seat in front of him.

“Can’t you magic some clothes for me?”

Draco rolled his eyes and looked away from you.

“Hey! Don’t ignore me!”

“My clothes fit you just fine,” he muttered, not removing his attention from the book in his hands.

“Draco, I need other clothes than a sweatshirt and pants,” you growled at him, but he still didn’t look at you.

“I didn’t realise you had a vacation planned out,” he snickered, his eyes moving along the page.

“Draco, I need undergarments,” you spoke your cheeks flaming.

Draco didn’t look up, but he wasn’t reading anymore. His eyes remained at the same spot for a long moment, before he cleared his throat.

“Fine.” Was all he said before he began reading again. His eyes moved slowly as if trying to concentrate. You watched his blonde hair shine orange in the shadows of the fireplace.

“Thank you,” you replied. You awkwardly sat there for a minute, feeling bored instantly. “So, what are you reading?”

“Are you blind as well as stupid, muggle?” He lifted up the book and held it out to you. You squinted trying to read, before frowning.

“I can’t read,” you sighed.

“You’re illiterate as well as muggle?” He jeered, his eyes on you expectantly.

“No, I wear glasses,” you explained, annoyed. “I wasn’t wearing them when I shifted because they were reading glasses, and I was like sleeping, you know? And I only brought with me what I had on me.”

“You are blind.” Not a question. “I can fix that.”

“Draco, I think-”

He got up and moved towards his bed, opening the drawer of the side table. He pulled a vial and then handed it to you.

“What is this?” You studied the bottle sceptically, you stared at Draco with distrust.

“It’s a potion for weak eyes,” he answered, tired, before mumbling. “I take it too.”

You looked at the clear liquid, tossing it in your hands for a minute. You began opening the lid and focused on Draco, “If I die from drinking this, I am haunting you.”

Draco watched as you put the bottle to your lips and drank the contents.

“As if you are haunting me enough,” he snorted, focusing on his book.

You closed your eyes, waiting for the burn or the feeling of magic to make you glow, but nothing happened. You opened your eyes, your brows furrowed as you looked around.

You peeked at Draco, and then examined the book in his hand.

“Conscious and Projection,” you read. “What class?”

“General knowledge.”

“Boring.”

Draco glared at you.

[lily-blu]

“I promise I’ll stay on my side of the bed” with Thancred. Can he keep that promise (doubtful hehe)

(Premise is that the Scions all know Mai and Thancred are crazy for each other so they purposefully put them in these situations, I would say this is in ShB when they reach Urianger, he does NOT tell them he has extra sleeping mats and thus, he takes the couch before either Thancred or Mai can and Ryne takes the guest bed. Also, I got way too carried away, hope you enjoy! And also, I suspect he would be able to unless she made the first move and then he would 100% koala onto her so here you goooo)

"I promise I'll stay on my side of the bed," Thancred smiled. Gods, I missed his smile-NO, no I did NOT. Mai's gaze shifted to the floor. How hard could it truly be? "Oh, come on Mai. We're adults! Unless you think you can't keep to your side," Thancred teased, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"Keep making faces like that and it'll stick that way," Mai huffed. Thancred lets out a low laugh and she can't help it when the corners of her mouth twitch upward. She sat on the corner of the bed and removed her socks and jacket. As close to the edge as she can she lied down with her hands straight by her side. This is fine.

"By the twelve, do you actually sleep like that?" Thancred asked. "You look like a corpse."

"Maybe I do, what's it to you?" Mai asked, keeping her gaze locked on the ceiling of Urianger's main room. Why in the seven hells would he fall asleep on the couch when he had his own room? Her heartbeat quickened as she felt the bed shift beside her. In order to appear nonchalant, she broke her staring contest with the overhead light and looked over.

"I highly doubt that," Thancred said, propping his head on his hand. "If anybody here needs to get a good sleep it's you, so if you're really that uncomfortable I'll go wake up Ryne and we can switch places so she's here instead." Mai frowned, the young girl deserved some alone time, and it was already late.

"No, no, I don't want to wake her," Mai sighed. "Fine, I'll relax. I trust you." And she did. Turning back over she shimmied her way under the covers. Although the problem wasn't her trust in him, it was her trust in herself. It'd been 5 years for him, he probably just remembered her as an old work colleague. Where to her he was her best friend that had collapsed like a week ago. She had been devasted. Because he was her best friend, nothing more. Then why am I so worried about keeping my hands to myself? She was not going to dissect that right now...or ever.

"Okay, well then goodnight sweetheart." Thancred joked. Mai's face went red. To hide it she turned away from him, and slowly, eventually, fell asleep.

....8-ish hours later...(in Spongebob Squarepant's voice)

Hmm, goodness this bed is warm. Did Urianger have some sort of heating magic blanket? She nuzzled into the warmth. She hadn't slept so well in a while, maybe she should ask what kind of pillows he had...then the bed moved. Her eyes shot open, remembering she was not, in fact, alone in this bed. Her face heated as she realized she was not curled up in a warm bed, but instead into Thancred's side. How dare he! Her heartbeat quickened as she surveyed the room. Oh, oh he hadn't dared. Her head dropped into her hand. She was completely on his side of the bed. He was almost falling off the edge. But, he was still asleep she could still move over.

Mai began to slowly, as slowly as she could, slide over to her side of the bed without waking him up. "Mmm, 5 more minutes..." Thancred mumbled. His arm around her waist (when did that get there) tightened. Pulling her back to his side and into his chest. He rolled over, fully engulfing her in a hug and burying his head in her hair. I'm going to have a heart attack, this is how I go. She thought as her heart raced uncontrollably. Gods, he was strong. And he smelled good. And honestly, if this was how she died then that wasn't too bad of a way to go. A string of curse words rang through her mental speech, she had to stop thinking like that.

Then she felt a soft kiss on her forehead. I'm going to pass out, this is it, this is the end. But, instead, a surprised squeak came out of her. She felt the lips freeze and Thancred's body go still. Mai stupidly tried to pretend that she was asleep. But, the next thing she knew the warm "bed" that she had been sleeping on fell with a thud onto the ground beside the bed.

"I'm so sorry!" Thancred scrambled up to standing. She was impressed by how quickly he went from sleeping to awake. "By the twelve, I'm so sorry I was asleep and I thought..." His voice trailed off as he noticed which side of the bed he'd fallen off of.

"Apology accepted!" Mai squeaked. Throwing herself with equal speed to the other side of the bed and out of it. "I think I heard Urianger walking around, we should go!" She said quickly, practically running to the door.

"URIANGER!!" She yelled, he was going to be awake now if he wasn't already, and she was never going to share a bed with Thancred again. She ignored the disappointment she felt at that thought, bolting down the stairs and chucking a book at Urianger's slowly awakening body on the couch.

[annakie]

Patchy

A little under two years ago I made this post, a chronicle of Patchy, the outside feral, turned inside kitty who took ten years to learn to love being petted.

Today we got some bad news.

TW for pet illness under the cut.

Patchy’s always been a bit of a puker, usually oh, say, once a month or so she’d have a good puke for no reason.  I’ve had other cats that are pukers so it’s not that surprising.

In the late winter/early spring I started to notice more frequent pukes.

I’d decided around that time that I needed to find healthier food for my cats, with Leela, the oldest turning 16, Fry turning 11, Pemily turning 7 and Patchy turning, I don’t know, 12 or 13.  No way to really know.  They already got decent food, but I did my research and had started looking at Blue Buffalo, American Journey and Dave’s canned food. 

Patchy had been on a mostly canned food diet since she went to the vet back in early 2020 and had a bunch of teeth pulled.  Also, as a note, Patchy’s brief flirtation with hanging out in the rest of the house ended after like a month.  She and Fry fought too much, and eventually he claimed the rest of the house is his.  He also still thinks the master bedroom should be his, but, Patchy defends that territory well if anyone else encroaches. (The door just stays closed most of the time.)  I really wish they could have all gotten along, I loved having Patchy out, but both Fry and Patchy agreed it wasn’t going to work.

The food she’d been on was pretty junk-food-ish though, which she did love and eat. But I wanted everyone on more or less the same diet and the highest quality food I could readily get them.  So I bought a lot of cans of different kinds of food, and kept a list of which ones seemed to be hits and misses. (I still have a dozen cans of the kind nobody liked -- Blue Buffalo Wilderness Salmon -- I’ve been meaning to take to the city shelter).

Around halfway into this experiment I noticed Patchy puking more, so I decided to try to stick with her favorite kinds, which, I thought was helping.

But once I was fully vaccinated this year, it was time to get all the pets to the vet.  I noticed Patchy had still lost some weight, I thought it was due to switching around her food too much earlier, and tried to stick with the things I felt she really liked.

Then, of course, Leela got sick, spent two and a half days in the pet ER and almost died back in April, and then it was like... yeah we’re done being afraid of COVID, we’re done waiting.  It’s time to get them all their checkups.

My regular vet was doing COVID restrictions so no pet owners inside the clinic back then, so they took Patchy (and the others) in without me.  I thought Patchy had lost some weight, but Dr. B. sounded alarmed when he called me with how much lost she’d lost in the last year, about five pounds.  He wanted to do some bloodwork for Patchy, and I said of course go for it.  

He called back, sounding much calmer and was like “her bloodwork couldn’t be more perfect.  Let’s try switching up her food, get her on some sensitive stomach food and let’s see how she’s doing in a couple weeks.”

So two weeks later it did seem like she was doing better, I called Dr. B back and he said to bring her back in a month.

It was my plan to take her back next week when I had some PTO coming.  I admit, later than planned... my last couple of months have been mucn more focused on Leela... who, thankfully, continues to thrive.  But feeling like my time with her is running out, she’s been my main area of concern.

The last few days though, Patchy has really not been eating well.  Sometimes she does OK, sometimes nothing at all.  And then puking every day.  I swapped her back even to a few cans of the Junk Food (Whiskas) I still had laying around.  She’d eat it... and then puke it up.  And also she... stopped sleeping with me.  I thought... well, it’s summer.  It’s probably too hot to cuddle.  But she stopped laying on the bed.  She stopped coming up for pets when I come to bed and hang out for awhile specifically to spend time with her and pet her.  She runs under the bed again when I come into the room.  It’s like we regressed to three or four years ago... just two weeks after our two year anniversary of getting to pet her.

So this afternoon we went to the vet.  Getting her into the carrier sucked.  I tried nice methods, then I had to scare her into the closet by running the vacuum, and then pretty roughly grab her.  I have scratches and a pretty deep bite on my thumb which either maybe hit a nerve or is infected, may have to go to the doctor for it tomorrow. (Yes, washed it thoroughly with soap as soon as I could.)  I also hated betraying her trust that badly, but it’s for her own good.  But it was rough.

Dr B. wasn’t working so I saw one of the other vets.  I liked him. Also COVID restrictions are gone so I got to go inside. But after talking to him for a few minutes, going over her history and what changes I’ve made, he spent a long time rubbing her intestines (Patchy was perfectly behaved, at least.)   Then he looked concerned.  Then he said let’s do an ultrasound.

A few minutes he came back in and showed me her scans. 

Lymphoma.

I was a bit stunned for a second so I missed a bit of the technical speak he said next, but it came down to the best thing we could do is give her some medicine that may buy her more time.  It doesn’t sound like Chemo or Operating is even really an option.  I’m going to call back tomorrow and see if Dr. B or the vet I talked to can talk me through it a little better now that I’ve had a chance to digest.

If I can get Patchy to take the medicine, and if she responds well to it... she may have 3 - 6 months left.

If she won’t take it, or if she doesn’t respond, it’s at this point, a matter of her comfort and quality of life.  So... weeks.  And I’m worried about getting her to take the medicine, especially since she won’t even come let me pet her and we just had a huge trust betrayal today. I don’t know if I could take her spending her last few weeks hating me, especially if the medicine doesn’t work.

The vet also told me that... I didn’t do anything wrong.  And we did the right thing six or so weeks ago by changing her food and seeing if a few other things worked. Especially with how good her blookwork looked.  He barely felt the cancer today, he said six weeks ago Dr. B wouldn’t have been able to feel it at all.  And for this particular type of lymphoma... there’s not a lot to be done, anyway.  That made me feel better, at least.

(As a really dumb side note, after I got her home, I sat down to eat dinner and watch an episode of Star Trek to take my mind off of all of this since I’d been crying since I found out, paid my bill, and drove home, stopping at a drive through so I didn’t have the mental load of cooking.  And I’m in the middle of my rewatch of Enterprise.  I bet any trekkies reading this can guess what episode was next in my rewatch because yep I’m in season two and A NIGHT IN SICKBAY started playing, of course, so obviously I NOPED THE FUCK OUT OF THAT EPISODE.  For the non-Trekkies.... the Captain has a dog on board, an adorable beagle, Porthos.  The dog gets sick and almost dies and spends his night in Sickbay.  He does pull through.  But the ONE episode centered around a beloved pet getting sick and almost dying... and that’s the episode that fate decreed I was supposed to watch tonight. I did not.  I don’t know if I can watch it anytime soon.)

So now for the next few weeks I will spend my time being grateful that Leela is alive and thriving and pray she keeps doing so -- I will continue to give her extra love and care and attention, and also I will need to do the same for Patchy.  I can’t even do it at the same time because Patchy will not come out here, and will not allow Leela in her room. 

I am low-key freaking out that there’s the possibility of the nightmare scenario happening to me again.  In winter 2016, after months of being sick, I woke up on Christmas morning and my 16-year-old cat Jim had died overnight.  It was terrible, and traumatic, and I had to deal with everything all alone because anyone who could support me was... well, it was Christmas morning and my family was all out of town, too.  Posting about it on Tumblr... actually really helped me, since it’s the only place I felt like I could talk about it.

That Christmas was on a Sunday.

Wednesday morning I woke up to hearing my dog, Cebu, moaning in pain.   I rushed him to the vet, but whatever happened overnight, it was too late, maybe there wasn’t anything we ever could have done even if I’d been awake when the puking started.  The vet said the kindest thing we could do was put him to sleep.  And we did.

Also I just, JUST now realized that the vet who helped put Cebu to sleep was the same vet who I saw today about Patchy.

But I lost two of my pets within 3 days of each other.  I was very lucky that my job let us have the week between Christmas and New Years off that year.  I had a few days to pull myself together, and I needed it.  It took months to recover totally, though.  Every once in awhile I think about that week and I still cry, though.  I miss them both so much and they both had deaths that were less than ideal.

I remember thinking then “I have like, five years of reprive.  Leela will be sixteen in five years, and that’s when I have to start to worry again, when I have to be ready to say goodbye again.”

I thought then that even after that I’d have two or three years until Patchy would leave me, and two or three years past that until Fry.  And then five more years with Pemily.

Right now I’m realizing that I will likely lose Patchy, very best case in six months, but possibly before July is over.

I need Leela to keep thriving.  I don’t know how I would handle losing another two so close together again.

Patchy is... she’s the one who chose me.  I chose my other cats.  Fry and Pemily I plucked from the backyard when they were tiny kittens and brought them inside.  They didn’t have a choice.  Leela I adopted from a rescue, she didn’t have a choice.  Patchy chose to stay.  She chose to stick around when she realized I’d feed her.  It took years but she learned to trust, she chose to come inside when it was cold, when it was hot, when it was storming, and when she was pregnant.  She chose me to help raise the last litter of kittens she’d ever had.  (My entire Rescue Kitties tag is full of adventures in finding, raising and usually adopting out strays. Lots and lots of posts about Patchy and her final litter.  Been awhile since I’ve done it, though.)

I used to joke that Patchy was my roommate, not a pet.  She ate, drank, did her business, and kept to herself for a long time.  Don’t get me wrong, she was a very good, quiet, considerate roommate and I loved her.  But it wasn’t until that wonderful day she let me pet her that I felt like she was my pet. 

I loved having her just hanging out living in the house since 2014, but the last two years especially have brought me such joy.  I’ve tried to never take Patchy’s trust in me for granted.  It was EARNED.  Every small step forward was a milestone to be celebrated. I worked for every bit of trust and love Patchy has given me, and have been rewarded.  And it was worth it.  Every minute.  Every long, patient year.

Even now I’m telling myself... without me, she would have died years ago.  Probably violently, or starved, maybe frozen to death.  Getting to die of cancer brought on by older age is not something that most feral cats ever get to do.  Getting to become an inside kitty where she’s loved, and comfortable for the second half of her life was something remarkable, brought on by her wiles and will to survive for so many years, bolstered by the food I left out for her.  She’s had this much time, this much life, this much comfort and love that she would have never had otherwise, and that’s something to be happy about.

I’ve watched dozens of ferals come and go through my neighborhood throughout the years.  I feed them, I work on seeing if I can get them to trust me enough to let me TNR them, but even those that I have, I don’t keep seeing for much longer.  There��s one right now, I jokingly call him Patchy’s Boyfriend.  He still won’t trust me and never has fallen for the trap when I’ve tried.  But he’s there most nights when I feed him around 11.  He’s getting terribly thin despite the quality food I leave out.  I’ll miss him.

But none of them were Patchy.  None of them became what she is to me. None of them survived long enough to adapt and decide to live another life.

Also?  I wouldn’t have Pemily without her.  Pemily is literally Patchy’s Granddaughter and that is one more thing I love Patchy for.

I feel guilty sometimes, both because I don’t spend nearly enough waking hours with her I feel, but I have three others who need me, as well. One who’s time is growing short, as well.  And they don’t get to sleep with me, she does.  What a joy it was all winter when I would wake up and she’d be sleeping on my chest.  I’d get a bit annoyed when she’d sleep with her backside to my face and her tail would tickle my face and wake me up.  I’m a side-sleeper half the night and she hated that it was harder to get comfortable on me that way.  She still doesn’t want to have my hand just stay on her, she wants pets and skirtches, no long-form touching.  That’s ok.  I sleep better with her weight on me.

I don’t know what the next few weeks or months will hold, but at least pet-wise, it’s going to be rough.  I’m going to wrap this up and give these three out here a good pet, then go hope Patchy comes and asks for love, too.  Tomorrow is one more day with all four of them, and for that, I’ll be grateful, for every remaining day.

[lighdramons]

Hi I'm back. I promised awhile ago I’d tell the story of the fucked up digi.mon cult, so I figured that’s a great start for getting back onto this hellsite.

If the read more works, everything will be below the cut and it is a mess. Just a few things before the cut though:

General TW as I will be bringing up some of the bad experiences I had as well as talking about mental illness.

I will not be using names of sites, usernames, etc. I will not answer on specific users either. I’m sure these sites are still operating somewhere privately and back in the day, some of these people were big in the Digi.mon community outside of the sites as well.

If any of the people involved see this, no ill wishes towards you guys, just my take on things.

I quit these sites back in early 2015. I do not know what happened after I quit. I am only still in contact with a few individuals who either quit around the same time as me or long before.

As a general courtesy, some of these sites still exist. Please do not go harass them. A lot of the public sites are just teens trying to figure out themselves.

If you have questions or comments after reading this whole thing, I’m happy to answer any either publicly or privately. And yes, you can reblog this post.

We need to jump back to 2007 to begin with. I was a middle schooler getting back into Digi.mon because I walked into Gamestop and Digi.mon was sitting in the new releases. And I had access to the internet. I did binge S1-5 with subs and watching reruns of the dub on Toon Disney. I spent some time on the big fansite. Great site, just bad experience at the time because I was a teen and probably lied about my age. I didn’t feel like that was the community for me. I do check it every day now for news, just never made a new account cause I don’t even remember what I used back in the day.

By end of 2008/beginning of 2009 I began looking for other sites, stumbled across the digiclipse stuff on the bad encyclopedia site, looked into it, thought it was neat, moved on. Stuck with the big site for now because the only other sites I found were RP sites and not my thing at the time. Got hit hard with depression at the start of 10th grade (late 2010) and found my way back onto the digiclipse stuff. Didn’t really believe most of it, but thought the idea of creating AI Digi.mon was neat. Joined the smaller of the two sites because it felt friendlier and most users seemed my age.

For people who do not know, digiclipse is the act of going outside and holding the toys up hoping to get teleported. Most people by the time I joined thought the people who did this were crazy. Some people liked to do it for the lolz though.

Anyways, most of what happened on the sites was just talking and hanging out in chat rooms about life and other things. It was pretty chill. I can’t speak for everyone on the sites, but for me it was an escapism kind of thing. I was depressed and hated life so pretending that a magical adventure was a possibility gave me some hope. But honestly, got a group of people who were cool to talk with for the most part. There was one older female in her mid 20s that would come in the chat drunk and sexually harass the other female users and tell all the male they should die and are worthless. Nothing was ever done about her. And honestly it was weird having her there when most of the other people on the site were under 18. That was initially my only bad experience on the sites.

At some point during 2011, there were three individuals who claimed to see and speak with their digi.mon partners. And that they could read your aura and tell you exactly your digi.mon partner. And everyone believed this shit, mostly because two of them were prominent members and how could they lie. The process was simple, you would DM them either a creative piece you’ve done (art, writing, etc) or send a photo of yourself and they’d come back in a few days and tell you who your partner was. There was only ever one individual this method of tracking did not work on and that is yours truly. Oh and at the time it hit hard because I had started falling down the rabbit hole. This is the beginning of the cult-ish stuff.

Then the Ouija board happened. I have no issues with what happened during the fucking around with said Ouija board, I have issues with everything that spiraled out of control after. They fucked around with it confirming people’s partners that the others had “found”. And eventually they asked about mine. And then it was basically said, “oh we can’t tell you the results”. I was eventually added to this secret site of “The Chosen”. And basically told, “oh your partner is the offspring/creation of THE BIG BAD” and there were all sorts of debates on what to do about it. I literally thought I was getting punked at first and these people are clearly taking this whole thing too far. No, these people all believed this. Oh and the best part, most of the people involved in this “chosen” group were in their mid 20s. Me being a depressed as fuck 16yo that just wanted something exciting in life ended up eating all this up. I felt special and chosen. I look back on it now and I’m like what a fucking idiot.

We were all taught from the three who could do the stuff I explained earlier how we can also learn to bond and communicate and see our partner. I had absolutely no progress. Eventually this stuff led to everyone in this “chosen” group getting a “special guardian spirit”. Again, I made no progress on this. And to the point where they made me feel special again, I was the only person who had the wrong “guardian spirit” and they eventually found my “real one”, more on this later.

These discussions moved from a forum site to a private skype chat room, and then further smaller private chat rooms. The movement to skype is where I started having some bad experiences. I gave a few of my “close” friends on the site my phone number, soon everyone had my number. And this happened to multiple people over the years. My own stupidity at the time.

This stuff continued as I finished high school. At the time, I still managed to maintain my social life with school friends, keep up my grades, etc. Got into college with a good scholarship in my dream field. And then I started to go downhill once I got to school. The longer this stuff went on, the more you were expected to be involved. Including being on skype calls all night. It slowly began consuming my life. I ended up not only with depression, but ending up with an ED that was tied to anxiety so I’d go days without eating. I was seeing things and hearing voices, which was highly encouraged because it meant things were working. I literally could not tell the difference of when I was asleep or awake. I honestly do not remember the majority of my freshman year of college. I had no real friends and was just barely scraping by grade-wise. And well, the academic year almost ended with me hanging from a pipe in my dorm.

I ended up running the site I started on as an admin after the original admin team left. And it was expected you do not mention any of the “secret” stuff on the main site. Over the years I know it became clear to the users not included that there were secrets in the background. And those who knew stuff would actively fuck with these users. And if I haven’t made it clear yet, there was a hierarchy to this whole secret group. And it was the original three who were mentioned at the beginning that were on top. And what they said was gospel. Whatever they claimed is what happened and whatever rules they had were the rules. But of course certain people could break the rules and get away with it.

This next part happened at some point during my freshman year and will be relevant again later on. This is the biggest TW section so skip if you have to. I had a user dox me. He had my home address and threatened to post it. He had sent it privately to a few other users as well that alerted me of this. His reasoning? I would not date him or say I loved him. He told me that he would come to my house, murder me, r*pe my dead body, because he is the only one who gets to have me. Another user got involved and called the cops. I do not know if anything ever came of this because I never spoke to anyone about it. I at the time had admin privileges on one of the sites so I banned him and blocked his IP and I blocked him on anything I could. And I continued doing this over the years. I was told I was a bad person for doing this because I did not understand him. This lead to a lot of the things in the above paragraph getting worse.

As this all continued, there were battles and casualties and everyone ended up with like 20 partners. And if you haven’t noticed I’ve stopped using the term digi.mon entirely in the past few paragraphs. That’s because oh they weren’t digi.mon. They were spirits/dimensional beings that took on a form we were comfortable with and we formed a bond with. And I kept going along with all of this because I was in too deep at this point. And obviously yes, this all made sense. So at some point during this time, my “spirit” went to sleep and a new one “awakened”. And I of course still went along with all this. The BIG BAD kept mutating into stronger forms and blah blah blah.

During my fall semester sophomore year, I joined theatre at my college and did tech. Honestly, one of the reasons I was able to begin breaking away from this. I started to get an actual friend group and have less time for these sites. But there was always a pull of “you have to be here”. You were expected to be on skype calls and/or active in chat.

Well, that all changed at the start of 2015. They wanted a deletion of all the other sites and they would have one site united under one belief system. I was not a huge fan of this and made this known, but also offered to help in the coding as that was a skill I had that no one else really had. It got out around that I was a cunt and a power hungry bitch and blah blah blah. If it was just that, I would probably not have left. No no no, I was accused of lying about the shit that that user said and did to me. Because he is such a nice guy that could never do that type of stuff. And unless I provided the receipts I was clearly an attention seeking liar that wanted to ruin his life. That was the straw. I fucking blacked out in a rage and attempted to delete some of the different websites, I blasted some of these people on their real facebooks, and then I deleted all of my accounts and blocked everyone and blocked their numbers.

After that, I started talking with other people that quit. I started enjoying my college life. And I tried to act like none of that stuff had happened. I distanced myself from those individuals that were active in the Digi.mon community. I stopped hearing the voices and seeing things. I started going to therapy. My road hasn’t been perfect, but I’ve come a long way since I got out of this stuff. Honestly going to meet up with one old member after covid is all clear cause we’ve known each other for over a decade now and its about time we finally meet in person.

So yeah, that’s my story. I know I jumped around a bit and thoughts might not be too clear, but I wanted to share the fucked up things that happen in the background of the digi.mon community. Did I have good times? Hell yeah. The Olive Garden incident still to this day is iconic. We played d&d oneshots sometimes. We had memes. We all watched xros and hunters together live. And I still have some good friends out of this. The most fascinating thing out of all of this is everyone from the community that I still am either in contact with or see them via social media had admitted over the years to suffer from some kind of mental illness and has come out as part of the LGBTQA+ community. My own conclusion is a lot of us got sucked in due to depression/escapism and just a feeling of not belonging. And being around people of similar age with similar interests just made things more bearable at times. It also made a lot of us very vulnerable to the manipulation that took place, whether it was intentional or just one big group delusion created by multiple mentally ill people. I call it a cult, but I'm sure people will disagree with me. Whatever you want to call it, it wasn't good for my mental health in the long run.

If this shit is still going on, I hope people aren’t letting it consume their lives. And I just wish the best for everyone even if some of the shit hurt me.

As I said up top, if you want me to elaborate on anything or have questions, I’m good with talking about stuff. If you know me IRL and are reading this and are like "RACHEL WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK" I owe you a drink and explanation. And of course it Is okay to reblog. This is one hell of a comeback post on this site, am I right?

[phcking-detective]

FOUND

Find Familiar: ch 1

Rating: E

Summary: Nines cast the spell Find Familiar, but instead of an animal, they accidentally summoned a werewolf. Gavin is just happy to have finally found his mate and start pack bonding with the half-elf wizard. His best idea for a fun bonding activity? Touching his dick of course!

***

Gavin wakes up with a warm, breathing body pressed against his own, and it's all he ever wanted.

Then reality seeps in like cold rain and he realizes it's just the one person, not a dog pile, because he doesn't have a pack. Only a wizard who maybe sort of magically owns him now.

So that's a great start to the morning.

He gets a stew started like he promised, once he finds some potatoes and carrots, one lonely haunch of meat in an icebox, and no spices beyond salt. There aren't many places to look, since the whole room is five, maybe six hundred square feet.

Gods. Gavin's a lone wolf living half-feral without a tent or even a fire half the time, and he still thinks this is pathetic.

He knows better than to touch any of the books scattered around—fucking wizards—so he doesn't try to clean anything while he waits for his new … boss? Alpha?? person, to wake up.

(He does risk moving a stack of papers to sit in front of the black leather collar on the desk. Not hidden. Just. Out of sight.)

"No celery?" the wizard asks.

Gavin bites down on a flinch and a few choice swears. Sweet Selûne shift him. Who the fuck goes from asleep to awake completely silent like that?

"No," he growls.

Nines blinks themself more awake. "Is your negative an agreement to my question or simply a negative?"

"Baby, I have no idea what the fuck you mean, but there's not any celery."

"Oh. Thank you."

The conversation ends there when he dishes out a bowl of stew, that Nines eats at their desk, one agonizingly slow bite at a time, almost as an afterthought as they work on creating papers and papers of writing.

Since the wizard is so absorbed in their scribbles they can barely notice food, Gavin strips down and takes a bath. The water runs hot straight out of the faucet, even without any signs of pipes. Sinking into a whole tub of it feels goddamn luxurious.

He's half-shifted before he even realizes, but Nines probably wouldn't notice he got out and swung his dick around like a propeller, so he doesn't force himself back. His hybrid form always feels better anyway, the best of both animals, with human hands and wolf senses, still able to stand and walk upright but with stronger muscles and thicker protective body hair.

He's still sunk down and amusing himself by blowing bubbles in the water with his near-snout when Nines finally surfaces for air on their own side of the tower.

"Gav—oh."

They turn around and blink at him. Gavin hunkers down lower in the water and prepares to force himself back, but even without actively poking the bond, he can tell there isn't any fear or revulsion from the wizard. He still pulls his snout of out the water and scents the air just to check, but … nothing.

"Good. Yes. Feel free to utilize any of the …" Nines pauses, stuck on the words. "Accommodations. Can you read?"

It's probably a fair question—especially since the answer is barely—but Gavin still hauls himself out of the bathtub and onto the sand pit so Nines will have to look at him. All the scars, the body hair almost thick enough to be a pelt, the way his bone structure is clearly halfway between one form and the other right now.

But instead of making the wizard flinch away and stop asking questions, Nines just grabs a different notebook and begins sketching him.

"Why?" Gavin growls out.

He can still speak, but just like his amount of literacy, the amount is barely. With lots of effort.

"Hmm?"

Nines looks up. Sort of. They lift their head at least, but their eyes stay focused down on their notebook, reluctantly dragged up at the very last second.

"Mm? Oh. Yes, here is your contract," they say.

They place the small stack of papers they'd written onto the dining table in the center of the room, then the two of them meet in the middle, each awkwardly taking a seat across from each other at the table, then staring at each other even more awkwardly.

"That is my brother's seat," Nines says.

Gavin raises an eyebrow but doesn't move his ass out of it. At least he put pants on before sitting down.

"I have never had another visitor," the wizard continues. "So. That has always been …"

They trail off, then grab their notebook and begin reading from it.

"My name is Nines. I am a wizard. I am thirty-two year half-elf. I do not have a gender. I use they-them pronouns. Pause for—"

They stop abruptly and look back up at him.

"… Gavin," he says. "I'm a fighter, thirty-six, werewolf. Born, not turned, so we don't really keep track of any races. You're either a wolf or you're not. Probably human though. Uh, he-him."

If they don't bother with human binary genders, maybe they'd understand just … switching genders? He thinks about it while Nines writes down what he'd said, like anything he says is actually important enough to be recorded.

Maybe he should let them get a little more attached to him before he tells them about the other crazy, evil wizard with a claim on him—and all the transformations they'd done on his body.

"Does your entire pack consist of born lycanthropes?" they ask, drawing him back into the conversation.

"Can just say wolves," Gavin grumbles. "And yeah. Haven't taken in a stray for a while."

No one does. That's why he's still—ugh, stop it. Fucking feeling sorry for himself.

"Is there a significant cultural difference between born and turned … wolves?"

Gavin stares at the wizard. Significant cultural difference, Selûne shift and collar him.

"Turned wolves don't have a pack," he finally says. "No one to share the mental load—most of the poor fuckers don't even know what's happening until they're already shifted and scared and starving. They've got just enough instinct to go back home, and then the screaming and running starts …"

He assumes he doesn't have to finish it from there. A hungry wolf sees something run, and they think prey, not child.

"I apologize if I ask simple questions," Nines states while still writing. "But I have never had the opportunity to meet a wolf in person, and so my knowledge is likely biased and incorrect. Is a coastal environment a suitable habitat for you?"

Gavin shrugs. "Sure. You gonna let me run around outside at some point?"

"Yes, of course. You may come and go as you please," Nines says. "How much land will your pack need? I do own the surrounding—"

His pack? Gavin stares at Nines as they ramble on about this land they own and how it's too rocky to support farming but has access to a cove, and the ensuing treaty with the local pod of merfolk, and—

And his pack. He has no idea what game the wizard is playing, but he never imagined it would include letting him "come and go as you please" and providing land for his—

"I don't have a pack," he blurts out.

Nines stops and blinks at him.

"Got kicked out."

He doesn't explain. It's impossible to explain just one thing, because it's all tangled together, in his mind, the words stuck in his throat. Refusing his pack's Alpha, bargaining to have his body changed and transformed, his womb scooped out so he could never be bred, never ever—

And where exactly that got him. They sit together in silence for a long, horrible moment.

"No one has need of a ninth child," Nines finally says.

"You really call yourself that?" Gavin asks in return, for lack of anything less dick-ish to say.

"Yes." Nines looks at him without any self-pity and factually adds, "It states all that most need to know. They do not need me, and I do not need them."

Gavin nods. "Fuck 'em."

"Yes. Well. I—" Nines stops and abruptly pushes the small pile of paperwork closer to his side of the table. "Here is your contract. It details what I … do need. And, expectations. I suppose the fifth clause is no longer necessary, unless you intend to create your own."

"My own … pack?" Gavin asks slowly.

"Yes."

He snorts. "I'm not going to run around and start turning people."

"Yes, that is included in the clause," Nines says. "Subsection A. Not to offend, but I thought it best to lay out a certain number of precautions first. B notes that you will be beholden to all the same laws as any other citizen, and C states you will make adequate arrangements for the full moon with myself or Knight Commander Anderson."

Gavin pulls a face at the rank. That shit's almost definitely a paladin. No sense of humor, holier than thou, and allergic to critical thinking. Just because you pledged allegiance to a deity society deemed "Good" doesn't actually mean literally everything you do is always going to be right or kind or morally just.

"He is also a lycan—" Nines stops and corrects, "A turned wolf, you called it? If expecting the two of you to … have commonalities … is unreasonable, then the subsection can be adjusted accordingly. The point is merely that you arrange for a safe and secure location each month."

"Yeah, we're not going to sniff each other's butts and be best friends," Gavin tells him. "It's probably how you feel about sorcerers and warlocks. Magic just looks like magic to me, but—yeah."

He stops when he sees Nines's face collapse into itself in the purest form of affronted disgust he's ever seen. This time, he can't stop a chuckle before it slips out.

"I can just stay here though?" he asks.

Nines unfurls their face enough to nod. "Yes. My power may be my own, achieved through my own studies, but I was sent to the same monastery as my twin. I acknowledge you have been sent by my patron deity, and I will fulfill my responsibilities to you thusly."

Gavin's eyebrows shoot up. "You're religious?"

"I worship Selûne," Nines answers.

Gavin stares at the wizard.

"Children born under the full moon often have enhanced magical ability," they explain. "She is also the goddess of navigation, quests, and all who work by night. It was the battle with her own twin that caused the formation of Mystral, the goddess of all magic. Many arcane users still worship her as such."

"And werewolves," Gavin says as how this shit all happened clicks into place.

"Your duties outlined in the contract." Nines stops and clears their throat. "Every power has a price, and mine was enacted at my birth. I have always needed certain accommodations. I realize now a mere animal would not be enough to serve as my familiar, yet a person has never been summoned before. A familiar that is both animal and person, however …"

Gavin nods at the stack of papers. "So am I your familiar or your employee?"

"Well, both," Nines answers. "You are magically bound to me, but you obviously are not a simple animal. I have made adjustments due to these extenuating circumstances, but this is a standard contract for all minions, assistants, and others employed by wizards."

He snorts. "Do I have a union?"

"Yes, subsection E, although you will need to opt-in," Nines replies, very sincerely.

Gavin taps the top paper to make a point when he asks his next question, and the paper suddenly yells the word "HEREFORE" at him.

"Oh, my apologies." Nines takes the stack from him and scribbles a few marks in the top corner. "There, the volume should be properly adjusted."

Gavin cautiously slides the papers back over, being careful to only touch the sides of the stack. He takes the first page off the top and pokes his name, one of the few words he recognizes.

"Gavin," the paper announces.

"I have paperwork I must complete to officially register you as both my familiar and my new minion," Nines tells him. "I trust you can be left to your own devices to review our contract?"

"Yeah," Gavin says.

"Very good."

Nines gets up and returns to their desk. Still no collar, only … this contract. Gavin runs his finger along the first line.

"The entity known as Gavin, herefore referred to as THE FAMILIAR, will enter into a magically binding contract with Nines, herefore referred to as THE WIZARD, to serve in the capacities of both a FAMILIAR and a MINION, as outlined by the Wizard Coalition of …"

***

Gavin nuzzles into his bed and groans. Three days of barely stopping to hunt and sleep to get here, and now it's been another three days of slowly figuring each other out.

Which hasn't been bad or anything. He got to run around outside, do a few laps around the borders of Nines's land. Cold, wet, and rocky, but he has to admit, he's kind of digging the melodramatic sea-side vibe. The air smells like salt and storms all the time, crowding out all the memories of soft earth and dense forest.

And he's got a contract. A "boss." That's the word Nines wants to use, so Gavin says that, but they both know he means Alpha.

It's good to have a job, food, and a bed, blah blah blah, he's really grateful and all, it's just—

Maybe not everyone has them or wants to indulge in them, but Gavin does for both.

And it's been nearly a week.

"Nines," he finally says.

He pokes at their bond too for good measure. The wizard won't pay attention to him unless he does. They'll look up and point their face at his face, but somehow their hand will keep writing in the scroll and they won't hear a goddamn word he says.

Even with the mental prodding, Nines barely turns their head. "Hmm?"

"I need to jack off."

Nines keeps writing for half a second before they blink and actually look at him. "… now?"

Gavin half-shrugs, still laying down. "I mean, tonight, yeah."

He's a werewolf using testosterone cream—kept in a jar in his coin purse, which was much more important to enchant to shift with him than shoes—who just formed a mental pack bond again. Full moon already past or no, his hormones are screaming at him that he needs to fuck.

But that's probably not Nines's idea of a fun bonding activity.

"Do you have adequate lubrication?" Nines asks, then continues with narrowed eyes before he can even reply, "Do not use my spell components."

Gavin barks out a laugh. "What—I'm gonna jack it with oblex ooze? That'd melt my fucking dick off!"

"Yes, it would."

He pauses. "Do … you know that for sure?"

Nines sighs. Deeply. "I attended an academy meant to train paladins, clerics, and perhaps the odd druid."

"All the most repressed spellcasters, huh?"

Nines doesn't deny it. Gavin snorts, imagining all the magically-inclined tithe-children being told to keep themselves pure so they can be properly donated to the gods turning into magically-inclined teenagers hit with guilt and libido in equal measure—and all the idiot fuckery they probably got up to without any actual education about their bodies.

"Do you have adequate lubrication?" Nines asks again. "I do not keep supplies for that on hand."

"You don't keep supplies or you don't uh, keep anything on hand?" Gavin wiggles his eyebrows.

Nines flushes and glares like they're still a prefect at that academy. "I—that is not—"

Gavin raises his own hands to prove they're above the sheets. "If that's not any of my business, sure. Figured that, honestly. Which is why I'm telling you that I've got needs, but I can just go downstairs if you want."

"Downstairs?" Nines frowns less furiously.

"That little entranceway at the door is large enou—"

"I'm not going to send you out into the hall," Nines says, like that's what will make them clutch their pearls in shock. "You can stay in your own bed."

"Yeah?" Gavin gives the wizard a once over. "I'm good with that. So good. But what I'm willing to do with pack and what you think is appropriate for a roommate probably isn't the same thing."

Nines's frown turns more calculating, like they're correcting the runes in a spell. "We are discussing you staying in your bed to masturbate while I continue my studies, correct?"

"… yeah?"

"Are you going to call me names, attempt to touch me, or—"

"No, no," Gavin rushes to reassure them. "I can just …"

He moves his hand down and cups himself, just to demonstrate that he's only going to be touching his own body, before he remembers that's not socially acceptable around humans either. Nines only cocks their head to the side though, a mild curiosity leaking through their mental bond.

And fuck, just his hand feels good right now. It's been nearly a goddamn week.

"Do you have adequate lubrication?" Nines asks.

Gavin shivers under the sound of their voice. "Don't need it. Get wet enough myself."

He feels the bond pulse again with that academic sort of curiosity, like Nines is going to start taking notes on him again while he jacks off. He pushes his trousers down, moving slowly enough to give his boss plenty of time to look away. He isn't wearing smalls of course. They'd just be another piece he'd have to pay to get enchanted.

Nines eyes his cock like they might sketch it in exact anatomical detail.

Gavin doesn't mention how he got it—his bargain and the Collar, the collapsed tower, the vows of vengeance—he'll get around to confessing it all eventually. But in the meantime: a fun bonding activity.

Gavin grips his cock and gives it a few strokes. Nines blinks in a way that's more like shutting their eyes repeatedly. He exhales slowly and makes himself stop, although he does still keep his hand held loosely around the base.

"If you don't want echoes, you'll have to wall off your mind on your own end," he advises Nines. "I'm uh … a little too busy here to concentrate."

"Echoes," Nines repeats.

Shit, right. Human. Doesn't seem to specialize in any divination or enchantment magic—so they probably don't have any experience being inside someone else's head.

"Yeah, that's why I offered to," He jerks his chin at the door. "Distance helps, some."

Nines does that tiny little head tilt again. "May I observe?"

Gavin licks his lips. "Yeah."

"May I ignore you?" they ask next.

"Uh, sure?"

He doesn't have any human hangups about nudity, but he's not going to whip his dick out and waggle it at anyone who doesn't want to see it. Jacking off in the same room is probably already pushing it, but then again, the rules seem to be different in boarding schools and barracks and sometimes bars but sometimes not—humans have so many weird fucking rules.

"Then," Nines says. "You do as you please, and I will do the same."

"Works for me."

Gavin gives his cock another squeeze, and Nines turns back to their scroll. Yeah, he's a little disappointed about that, but it's enough just to have his pack in the same room and know he's not alone.

Since the wizard isn't watching anyway, Gavin rolls over and shoves a blanket down around his crotch. He has a whole nest of them, all piled up on top of a mattress Nines insisted he have. They'd tried to bring in an actual bed, but it's just weird, sleeping so high up and away from the ground for no reason.

He gets a soft little mound built up and grips himself again through the blanket. Even if Nines makes him wash it after, this will make his bed smell like him and home and—

Gavin buries his face into his pillow and inhales. It still has Nines's scent on it. All the blankets do too, so now they'll smell like the both of them, like pack.

He feels a fresh jab of interest spike back through their bond and guesses Nines is watching him again. Maybe jacking off right in front of them like that was a little too much, but with everything mostly out of view now, they're back to curious again.

It only takes him a minute to build up a steady rhythm, rutting into the blankets and his own hand. He groans into the pillow and hears Nines breathe in sharply.

Echoes. He grins and keeps going.

He doesn't know what kind of needs Nines has or wants to fulfill, but he likes the thought of making them feel good. Would like it even better if he could crawl over between the wizard's legs and find out what they're working with by licking it.

"Gavin …"

The wolf whines in response to his name in his Alpha's mouth. He squeezes his hand tighter at the base of his cock against the knot trying to plump up there, just in case Nines wants it.

"Yeah, baby?" Gavin manages to growl.

"Oh."

Nines breathes the word, and Gavin can feel a small simmer of arousal bounce back and forth between them—this time from the wizard's end, not his.

"Does it always feel like this?" they ask.

He groans in answer, the only response he has to the soft wonder in their voice. He knows humans' senses are weak and dull, that they don't get hit with lust and frenzy the same way wolves do.

But hearing the awe in his human's voice the first time they feel it too makes him want to show them how good it can really feel.

"Yeah," he bites out. "Better with … you."

His canines get in the way of the words, the partial shift rippling through his body. He's never had particularly good control of it, so there's no stopping the change now when his blood's up.

"Are you wet?"

The question stabs through him. Gavin loses his rhythm with a whimper, nearly overcome with the instinct to crawl over and show his Alpha, present his cock or his mouth or whatever hole they want to use.

And he is wet. He can feel it dripping down the length of his cock, more pooling at the head, smearing into the palm of his hand.

"Uh huh," he pants.

Gavin bites down into the blankets as he ruts harder, but a sharply clicked tongue brings him back to awareness. He turns his head to the side and blearily stares up at Nines as he continues fucking his own hand.

"I would like to hear you," Nines says.

"Baby," Gavin breathes in reply.

Nines closes their eyes and shivers. Well, if they like his voice …

"Wanna lick you," he says. "Suck on you and make you—ahhh, make you feel good."

"I—" Nines stares at him with wide eyes.

"Shh, shhh." Gavin keeps making the noise in a low mumble as he slows down his pace into a dirty grind. "Gotcha baby, get my mouth on your nipples an' your neck, your mouth, make you wet too."

"I don't usually like to be touched," Nines admits.

Gavin's brain snatches onto the word usually, but he doesn't want to push. There's some shit he knows for sure he won't ever do, but then there's a lot more he just doesn't know if he really doesn't want, or maybe only in the right situation, with the right pronouns and body parts, the right person, but then how is he supposed to know if he wants it enough to try it if he won't know if he actually wants it until he's already tried it?

So that's a whole big nest of wyverns, and neither of them need to try to sort it out right this moment.

"Can give you this though, yeah?" Gavin asks.

He twists his wrist on the upstroke against the head, but then stops and holds completely still. Nines tries to strangle a whine in their throat at the lost sensation.

"… yes."

That confession sounds much better. Gavin grins at the wizard and starts thrusting again, still looking at them. Their long eyelashes and shoulder-length hair almost soften their face into pretty, but then thin lips, a straight nose, and strong jaw sharpen the effect back up again. And the ice-blue eyes set against pale skin and black hair just sends it all careening past beautiful or handsome into big words about being scary-haunting-magical that the wolf can't think of right now.

He can feel his orgasm building up, drowning in those eyes staring right back at him, but he squeezes harshly at the base of his cock. The sensation strangles at the root, like the little moans Nines won't let escape their mouth.

He probably shouldn't tempt it, but he sinks into the feeling of tightening and loosening his grip around his knot and the waves of pleasure that sends rolling through them both.

"You," Nines says but can't seem to find anymore words.

"Mmgff." Gavin huffs into the pillow and tries to make his own words work. "Good, feels good. Sorry. Won't knot if—fffuck."

If that scares you. Disgusts you. Bores you, to be stuck listening to him come and come and come while the exasperated wizard is trying to focus on their studies.

He pries his eyes back open when he hears footsteps and stares up at Nines paused in an awkward-half crouch over him, like they're not sure if they're allowed to touch. His tail makes the decision for both of them by immediately wagging in anticipation of pets and attention.

"May I touch you?" Nines still asks.

Gavin nods past a desperate whine. A hand slides up the back of his neck first, while another soothes over his bare flank. Must've kicked off his trousers at some point. All that matters is the hand on the back of his neck, pinning him down, holding him place, exactly where he should be for his Alpha.

His tail wags harder.

"May I see?"

The hands urge him to roll over, and he does, without hesitation, like a dog showing his belly when his master comes home.

Laying on his back like this, he knows the partial shift is even more apparent. Just about everything humans think they know is bullshit, but his hybrid form really does look like those shitty illustrations of big scary wolf men.

And that's without the thick, hairy cock jutting out between his legs.

He's proud of it, wanted it, needed it, but that was for himself. He wasn't trying to impress anyone, and he's not expecting a human to like it.

"Does your phallus typically have this appearance, or is it increasingly engorged due to your partial transformation?" Nines asks.

Gavin stares up at them and tries to impress through their mental bond just how many fucking words that was.

Nines flushes and tries again. "Does it get bigger when you shift?"

"Yeah," he says. "Touch me?"

He holds his cock slightly out toward the wizard in offering. Nines hums in consideration but doesn't make any move toward it. That's fair.

"Do you knot without …" They struggle with the words again. "Sex?"

Gavin strokes himself, tugging upward and pause at the head. It leaves his knot free below, not quite there yet, but noticeably swollen under the attention.

"Can. Sometimes."

"Will you show me?"

Nines stares down at him and meeting their eyes is like looking at the moon. Humans want so badly to sort everything into Good or Bad, even the deities they worship. But some things aren't good or bad, only intense.

Gavin nods, mouth slack and panting. He wraps his left hand around his knot to work it while his right keeps stroking the rest. Nines's eyes sweep up and down him like a search light scanning for a rogue.

"Feel … good?" he asks between pants.

Maybe he's already asked, but it's hard to think right now. He tugs at the bond, trying to pull Nines's mind closer to him, get them to come down out of the sky and feel it with him. The wizard's hands clench into the robes draped over their kneeling legs.

Then they open their eyes again, and Gavin could swear their irises really have turned a silvery-blue.

"Behave."

The order thunders down their bond and into his chest. Gavin groans, the tightness coiled inside him easing another measure. He's not quite ready to unspool, but maybe—maybe just a little?

"I am asking about you."

Nines's voice changes from questioning and a little stilted to informing him of how it is, like casting a spell. Gavin doesn't have any ability himself, but as far as he knows, that's kind of how they do it. Spell casting is just telling reality what to do with enough conviction that reality up and does it.

"Do you want to be mine?"

Gavin thrusts into his hands in answer. It's sloppy and a little pathetic, because there's nothing for him to rut into. But he starts nodding again, just in case that wasn't enough.

"Like this?" Nines touches him for the second time, one hand gently curling around his throat. "To be mine."

He's coming undone. Falling apart. Food and shelter and an Alpha, their own little pack of two, someone touching him and promising to claim him.

"Suh … 'posed to be … yours."

He knows it's true, it's true, true. The call in his mind, their contract, both of them bound by Selûne.

"Yes," Nines confirms. "Show me."

Gavin comes almost before they finish speaking. He tries to hold eye contact as long as he can, but eventually his own squeeze shut as he curls in on himself with a shudder. The first wave passes deceptively quick, with just a few spurts from his cock.

But he's not done.

"Good boy."

Those hands are back again, just like before, this time encouraging him to roll back onto his belly. They stroke through his hair and scritch behind his ears when he obeys, and he thinks life couldn't possibly get any better until there's a warm body sliding onto the mattress behind him.

Then he's being spooned and everything inside him unravels without any warning.

When he's done coming for the second time, he's aware of a few things: the hand wrapped back around his throat, first. That the gangly half-human, half-elf is tall enough to almost envelope him completely. The soft murmur of praise in his ear, shifted halfway up his head now and nearly wolf-like.

Yours.

It's harder to send the thought out when he's only partially shifted. Even with other wolves, they all share best as animals, some basic concepts as hybrids, and only faint echoes when unshifted.

But being the wizard's familiar must be different, since he'd heard the summons in his head from damn near across the country, in all forms, while Nines can't shift at all.

You are mine. I will take care of you, if you allow me to keep you.

Oh yeah, that's definitely different. Wolves share senses and feelings, not full sentences.

Keep me, Gavin manages to think back.

"Yes," Nines murmurs aloud.

The third wave hits him, and he sobs as he comes for his Alpha. His body is just doing the best it can to please, still managing to pump out another two shots of cum. He can finally feel a tinge of mild revulsion from Nines, but it seems to be aimed more at the mess than himself. Bold feelings from a wizard who left a hunk of bread to mold so long they mistook it for a stoneshroom.

"Perhaps I should invest in a toy," they muse. "A sleeve somewhat akin to a bag of holding, so that it can contain all this mess."

Gavin groans in a not-sexy way. "Don't make me fuck a void."

"No, the pocket dimension would only be applied at the tip of the—"

He can't help but start laughing. Pocket dimension applied at the tip—and said completely straight. Goddamn wizards.

Nines expresses their irritation at being laughed at by nipping his ear, and yep, there's wave number four. To their credit, they do continue to hold him until he gets another brief reprieve.

"How many times does this occur?" they ask when he's done.

"Depends," Gavin scrapes together enough brain matter to say. "More with … partner."

"Hmm," Nines says, like the feral scientist they are.

Gavin flips off his pride and goes straight to begging. "Please."

He's not sure what exactly he's begging for though—not to be forced into multiple orgasms while Nines observes or takes notes, or that the wizard will get started on that right away.

"Please, please, baby."

Nines pulls him back to rest half on top of their body, which lets them switch their right hand for their left hand around his throat without him laying on top of their arm. And that in turn frees up their right hand to drop down to his cock.

"Yours, yours," he mumbles. "Alpha."

"What do you need?"

Their hand brushes his own, the one gripping his knot. He lets go for an agonizing second to press their hand against it instead. Nines lets him wrap his hand back around theirs, using both of their hands to squeeze and lightly tug the knot.

"Ah … ahhh …"

"Ask properly," Nines orders.

"Alphaaa!"

He practically wails the word, shaking apart in Nines's arms and beneath their hand, but he can't now, it's not enough on his own anymore, not without permission.

"Hmmm."

Gavin cries freely, but doesn't make Nines grip him tighter or stroke him off. His Alpha will give him what he needs, and he'll take what he's given, like a good boy.

But that doesn't mean he can't ask for more.

"Baby," he groans. "Need it, need it, I—phck, please!"

"Yes."

The final wave sweeps over him so hard he goes blind, or his eyes shut, or he's back on his belly again, face smushed into the pillow, Nines's hand still around him and the blankets beneath his cock to rut into and it's not the last because Nines tells him Again and Again, until he's coming dry, throat hoarse from crying.

And then once more after that.

When he regains consciousness again, his whole body feels sore in the best possible way. There's drool running down his chin, tacky and drying to the pillow. He has his knees tucked up beneath him, but that's OK, because this is how he's supposed to present anyway.

Except the hand reaching between his legs doesn't breach him. Something soft and wet swipes over him instead, and he can't even muster up the mental energy to be scared, to explain why that's still there, that he managed to bargain for a working cock and all his insides scooped out, but that's still—

"Hush." Nines soothes him with another hand rubbing his back. "You did very well. All you must do now is rest."

Gavin sinks back down into the delicious ache and doesn't move while Nines cleans the slick from between his thighs, then further up to his cock. The blankets he'd rutted into have already been removed at some point. He knows from experience not even the best wizard on the material plane could wash his scent out though and takes a moment to feel a little smug about it.

"Yes, you came a truly impressive amount," Nines says. "Excessive, actually."

Gavin smacks his mouth before he can speak. "Your fault."

"Hmmm."

Nines stands when he's done and moves away. Gavin manages to flop onto his side and curl up. His boss did say he could sleep now. He just needs a little nap.

He gets a flask of water shoved in his face instead. The hand petting him goes back awkward again, pat-pat-pat instead of real pets. Nines doesn't seem to know exactly what to do now that they're done, but clean up and water was still really nice of them.

Gavin finishes gulping down the flask and heaves in air.

"I have work I need to finish," Nines informs him. "Have your needs been sufficiently met?"

Sufficiently met? Fuck, he's had orgies that didn't wear him out this good.

"Yeah," Gavin answers. "Need to sleep now."

Nines smiles at him. "Excellent. Good boy."

Gavin grins lazily back at them. "And when I wake up, I'm gonna crawl over between your legs and make you feel good too."

Nines flushes and half opens their mouth to protest.

"When you need a break from your scroll-thingy, and only if you let me," he adds.

Nines closes their mouth. They don't say anything else, but that means they also don't say no. Their blush doesn't go away either. They simply stand back up and sit down at their desk, spending far too much concentration fussing over the exact alignment of all their inks and quills instead of looking at Gavin.

Who keeps grinning, even as he yawns and snuggles down in his bed. He just needs a little nap, and then after that … he has all sorts of ideas for fun bonding activities.

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This fic was commissioned by one of my followers to continue the first drabble! Subscribers to my Patreon get early access to all my commissioned fics 2 weeks before they’re posted to AO3 and tumblr ^^