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houseofripley · 1 year ago

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Hotel Hell

Rhea Ripley x Fem!Reader

Hotel - Montell Fish

Part Two Pinterest

WARNINGS: 18+ SMUT, Overstimulation, Cunnilingus, Strap-On, Extreme Knife Play, Blood Play, Handcuffs, Rough Sex, Just Pure Filth tbh WORD COUNT: 2,586 A/N: inspired by hotel by montell fish. my brain turned to jello while making this. mood board for this below okay toodles

Room 936.

Rhea Ripleys room was always Room 936.

It was routine at this point. Show up, get your brains fucked out, leave right away. Repeat every three months.

Rhea was a brooding woman you came across as you worked at a concert venue in lower Manhattan a year and a half ago. Rhea sat alone in a balcony club booth as Bring Me The Horizon's live music blared through the concert hall.

Once the night had ended you shuffled through tab receipts, Rhea’s bill boasted a 50% tip and a scribbled phone number and address at the bottom.

That night you took the risk, catching yourself in a never ending loop.

You stepped into the room after entering the pin code. Your eyes searched for Rhea’s figure in the dark room being dimly lit up by the city lights seeping through the floor to ceiling windows.

You dropped your bag filled with a change of clothes on the floor. You learned to take an extra change of clothes as Rhea picked up a tendency of ripping your clothes to shreds.

“here.” You shot a text to the woman before placing your phone on a side table you passed as you made your way to the large windows.

Getting caught up admiring New York City you were pulled out of your trance as the cold edge of a switchblade was placed against your neck. Another hand wrapped around your waist from behind, Rhea pulled herself against your back.

“Don’t say a goddamn word” Rhea murmured inches from your ear. The woman had you frozen in fear, she had never brought a knife upon you.

Your breath anchored as the blade moved to slash both the straps of your loose slip dress. Rhea nibbled at the back of your neck as the dress slowly glided down your body.

Rhea shed her blazer and trousers off her masculine build. The woman shoved you down to your knees before pulling a nearby armchair up to the window.

“I want this whole city to watch you devour my pussy.” Rhea declared. As you slowly crawled in between her thighs as she removed her long sleeve button up.

You looked up at her as you pulled down her boxers. Your tongue trailed up her folds, your warm lips pecked Rhea’s clit. “So good” You quietly praised.

A bitter slap was placed across your face causing a whimper to escape from your mouth. “Nobody told you to fucking speak slut.” Rhea scrutinized, “Now get back to work.”

You sluggishly nodded before attaching your lips to the woman's heat. Your tongue worked in circles and trails as her hips rolled against your face.

Rhea and you held eye contact while you shook your head left and right, moaning against her heat. Something was off about Rhea tonight, there was something sinister about her demeanor.

Rhea took a firm hold onto the roots of your hair as your tongue toyed with her entrance. You hummed as you dove into her, her juices mixed with your saliva on your chin.

You worked on Rhea as her orgasm neared. She let you taste her for several more moments before yanking you way as she was seconds away from releasing onto you. Rhea had just edged herself using you as her personal toy.

She stood up, pulling you up by your hair as you whined. “Stop your fussing.” Rhea demanded, taking a grasp of your chin.

Rhea unclasped your bra and slid it down your shoulders before pulling you to the bed. She threw you towards the center of the bed before crawling up between your legs.

Your teeth bit down on the inside of your cheek as you watched her pull her switchblade from her bra. Rhea danced the blade across your thighs, the fear she sensed from you seemingly put her under a trance.

The blade pressed down against your soft thighs. Rhea shred the skin of your shaking legs, dark red blood began bubbling up from the cut.

You let out a pained whimper as Rhea’s tongue collected your blood. Your hands clung onto the sheets as Rhea left multiple cuts scattered across your thighs.

“So fuckin’ sexy,” Rhea whispered as her hands spread the blood around your legs. Her blood covered hand clasped the switchblade as she began to mangle your panties.

Bloodied fingers separated your folds, Rhea’s tongue glazed over your slick. Rhea’s eyes darted up at you, your eyes full of desperation.

“Such a tasty girl,” Rhea’s voice was menacing, it was clear she planned on destroying you tonight.

Rhea’s lips wrapped around your clit, her tongue piercing slowly rolling over your bud of nerves. Her eyes rolled back into her head as a moan left your throat.

A quiet “fuck.” exited your lips as two blood stained fingers slipped into your wetness. Your hips rocked while Rhea’s fingers pushed and pulled from inside of you, her tongue rocking against your clit.

Clusters of moans escaped you as the woman's fingers curled up inside of you. “I’m gonna fucking cum,” you hissed out, your legs squeezing around Rhea’s head. Her mouth worked like magic on you while her fingers pierced into you.

“Ah shit!” Echoed around the room as your hips twitched against Rhea’s humming lips. You whimpered out, releasing your tension onto Rhea’s fingers.

Rhea moaned as she sucked on her cum coated fingers. “Always cumming so fast for me,” She preached out. “I’m just getting started babydoll.”

You looked down at your blood coated legs, clenching your jaw as the pain began catching up to you. Rhea lurched over to the closet, bending down over her bulky overnight bag.

The woman soon returned back to you with her strap-on in one hand and a vibrating wand in her other.

She placed her strap next to her trusty switchblade. Humming as she gazed down at you she turned the vibrator on and placed it against your sensitive clit.

“Fuck Rhea,” You whined out, still fragile from you orgasm that took place moments ago.

Rhea soon joined you, lowering her core on the bulb of the vibrator. The woman let out a husked groan as she began rocking herself against the toy.

She reached for her blade, only to be stopped by your hand darting down grabbing her wrist. “Rhea please, no!” Your voice pleaded. Rhea looked down at you, pure rage covered her face.

The brooding woman lowered herself inches from your face “Let go right fucking now or I will plunge this knife right into your goddamn cunt.” Rhea threatened under her heavy breaths.

You loosened the already weak grip you had on her wrist. “That’s what I thought.” Rhea snarked tracing the blade down your sweat filled chest.

Tears glazed your eyes as the blade sank into the soft skin of your lower abdomen. You moaned out whimpers watching Rhea brand her name onto you.

“Look at you, what a pathetic bloody mess.” Rhea taunted beginning to thrust into the vibrator resting against your core.

The knot in your stomach grew larger as the toy was repeatedly pushed further against your clit.

A loud yelp rang around the room, a stream of clear liquid sprayed from your insides, soaking Rhea’s legs.

“Just way too easy.” Rhea grinned watching you attempt to jerk away from the vibrator. The more you squirmed, the more pressure she put against you. “Please no mo-'' Rhea shushed you before you were able to complete your sentence.

It was mere minutes until a pool of cum dripped out of your cunt. Rhea finally removed the vibrator from your skin. Both your legs tangled into each other as Rhea’s cunt settled onto your wetness.

Her head threw back as she grinded against your soaked core. “Can’t t-take anymore!!” You cried out.

Sweat pooled at Rhea’s forehead “Don’t lie-” grumbled out her mouth “I know you better than you know yourself…” Escaped through heavy breaths. Her fingertips dug into your waist as her orgasm approached.

The tribbing motions shortened while her speed increased. “Such a good fuck toy mmph” Rhea slurred out. Your brain was unable to process anything other than the overwhelming stimulation between your legs as pitiful moans left your mouth.

“Aagh fuck!” Rhea’s voice howled as she came undone against you. She slowly fucked herself onto you, coming down from her high.

Rhea sat back attempting to catch her breath. You tried to sit up but Rhea halted you, putting a hand on your chest. “I’m not done with you bitch.” She growled, shuffling around as she tried to get her strap-on tightened to her body.

“Fuck you,” You muttered quietly. If she wanted to push you towards your limit you were gonna piss her off as much as you possibly could.

Rhea crawled back between your legs, she rammed the black silicone into you with no care in the world how much pain she caused you. She pulled her face up to yours, the switchblade made a reappearance pressed against your throat. “What the fuck did you just say to me?” Her voice was full of fury.

“I said, Fuck. You.” You raised your voice, spitting at Rhea.

The blade pressed further into your skin, one swipe from stealing all the life inside your body.

Rhea’s hips began smashing into you, abusing your insides. Rhea’s free hand delivered a blow to your cheek. Not a slap, a cruel punch.

You cupped your injured cheek as cries escaped your mouth. Rhea backed away from your face, “You wanna act like a fucking bitch? I’ll make sure you know to never disrespect me again you stupid whore!” You had never heard Rhea’s voice this loud.

The blade was moved down your torso, ready to attack if you dared to misbehave. Rhea’s free hand took hold of your throat, squeezing at the sides.

You knew that one word could make this torture stop. She’d cut it out if you blurted out your safeword. You masochistically wanted to know how much more you could take. Your hands took hold of your tits as Rhea’s hips continued their assault on your insides, your moans loud enough you were sure you’d be receiving noise complaints.

Rhea used the flat edge of her blade to push your hand off your tits. “Whores like you don't get to touch themselves.” She stated as her strokes into you deepened.

Rhea made sure you felt her anger with every stroke.

“Tell me who owns this pussy.” Rhea murmured, smirking as she realized you were dozed off into space

You had got so caught up in pleasure Rhea had practically fucked you till you were braindead.

The blade in Rhea’s hand gashed the skin on your ribs, snapping you out of your trance. The wound was much deeper than all previous cuts Rhea had given you.

“I asked who owns this pussy slut. Use your fucking words.” It wasn’t a demand, it was a threat. Her eyes seemingly pierced through your soul.

“Fucking shit!” You yelped out, your torso recoiling in pain. “You do Rhea! You own this pussy!” Your voice rang around the room, her control over you was intoxicating.

“Good girl, hm” Rhea said as her face displayed a ‘fuck you’ grin. She closed her eyes as she took in the sounds escaping from you.

You took this moment to reach down your bloodied torso and began rubbing circles over your clit. “Fuck Rhea,” You whispered out as her eyes slowly opened.

Rheas eyes filled with rage seeing you touch yourself under her. “Stupid slut cant even listen to simple rules.” She berated before slapping down on your fresh wound. “Don’t do that!” You cried out.

Rhea pulled out of your sore hole. She got off the bed and dragged you to the edge of the mattress before flipping you onto your stomach. She disappeared into the bathroom for a moment as your blood soaked into the white sheets. Rhea soon returned with a pair of handcuffs.

She forced your hands behind your back and locked you up. “You just never fucking learn don’t you…” She taunted.

Rhea stood you up and led you over to the window. She bent you over, holding onto your restrained hands to help you keep your balance.

“Now everyone gets to see what a slut you are for me.” Rhea chuckled as she re-inserted herself into you.

A loud moan escaped you, her hips jolting into you as clapping noises began ringing through the room. “That's it take my cock,” Rhea hummed as she made sure every inch of her length was inside of you.

“Harder!” You pleaded, watching as droplets of your blood dropped down to the carpet. You squealed as Rhea’s strokes began to speed up causing you to squirt all over yourself again. “Such a needy girl,” Rhea degraded while laughing.

Rhea had put you through hell and your brain was borderline fried, you weren't able to do anything but shriek in pleasure. Your legs began quivering under your weight.

You let out a series of screams as you released everything you had left to give onto Rhea’s cock. Rhea pulled out of you slowly and admired the black silicone that had been coated with your cum.

The woman removed your handcuffs just as your legs went limp, sending you crashing to the floor. Rhea unashamedly chuckled as you groaned in pain.

You curled up on the floor trying to recover from the cruelty you had just faced as Rhea walked over to the bed and began collecting her items. Aftercare was something that did not exist in Rhea’s mind, you were her toy whether you liked it or not.

You laid down for a few moments before you stood up slowly and stumbled to your bag. “Why?” You asked as you looked at her from across the room while pulling out your change of clothes.

“Why what?” Rhea’s brows furrowed in confusion as she put her suit back on. “Why do you do this Rhea? Abuse me for one night just to leave and forget I exist for months! Why can’t I know you?!” You complained as you slid into a pair of sweatpants.

Rhea sighed in frustration, throwing her bag onto her shoulder. “Don’t ask me stupid questions like that.” She rolled her eyes as you put your hoodie on. “See you later.” She grumped before storming out the door.

You weren’t gonna tolerate this anymore. You were going to find out what she was hiding from you. Why was she keeping you in this torturous loop? What was she protecting you from?

You waited a few seconds before leaving the hotel room that had turned into a biohazard, making sure to close the door silently. Rhea took the elevator as you took the stairs.

You noticed the woman's frame exit the lobby as you reached the bottom floor. You kept your distance as you followed Rhea through the streets of Manhattan, your hand placed against the laceration Rhea had just given you.

After what felt like hours of stalking the woman she turned down a flight of stairs just outside a bodega.

You stood at the top of the stairs, your eyes glued to the black door at the bottom. “You okay? You’ve been staring at our door for like three minutes.” A man with an Irish accent interrupted you from behind. You looked up at him for a moment then returned your gaze to the door.

“What’s in there?”

#rhea ripley angst #rhea ripley fanfic #rhea ripley smut #rhea ripley x reader #rhea ripley x you #wwe smut

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cy-lindric · 9 months ago

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I wanted to vent, but also ask an honest question. Since I was a teenager, I always wanted to work on character design. And one thing that always caught my attention was how I always preferred male character designs over female ones. My first thought was that I was always more into androgynous fashion and more masculine styles. But time passed and I came to the conclusion that it wasn't just that, and it seems that male characters can always be different things: fat, thin, handsome, ugly, short, tall, young, old, etc. and female characters, for the most part, fall into two categories: cute or sexy. I wanted some tips on how I can make female characters with more interesting designs, without having to fall into those two categories. I love your work and you managed to make someone else like the three musketeers <3<3

Hello ! That's definitely a good question and something I think about a lot. The bias towards beauty is very strong in character design and it takes a conscious effort to diversify output in that regard.

That sort of advice might be a bit obvious, but one habit I picked up from the director on my first feature film gig was to actually "cast" characters. Without reference, we tend to go for the kind of symmetrical face and "average" features mostly out of stylistic habit. I like to look at character actors with distinct faces (I like this pinterest page that has a lot of faces in one place) but also just acquaintances or pictures of random crowds.

When designing a character, at first I'm always building a big reference board trying to decide what Type of Guy (gender neutral) I'm going for, trying use photos rather than other people's art, because I want to rely on automatics and graphic symbols as little as possible. Whether I'm designing a man or a woman or other, I use references of fashion styles and people across the board in terms of gender so I keep the scope open. Sometimes a character ref board for me will be a picture of one of my aunts next to a bunch of screenshots of Columbo. In my experience, a lot of the times, it's mostly about going with styles and archetypes the same way you would for a male character, and switching it up somewhere along the way by looking at real women in your life and beyond as a grounding mechanism. Sometimes that will mean changing almost nothing, because the borders between genders and how you characterize them is blurry and fluid, and sometimes it will mean using features that are uniquely tied to some sort of female experience.

I enjoy realism and I think getting more proficient at it did help me diversify my designs (I find that more difficult to do with more minimalistic styles). Still, I am mostly a fantasy artist and in my case that comes with some amount of stylization and idealization of shapes and looks. I'm far from perfect in my biases and I'm not going out of my way to draw "ugly" characters because that doesn't mean much to me ; I try to draw inspiration from the faces of every day people and I associate it with my love for fashion. It's also worth noting the work I post here for fun is a lot more hash tag aesthetic than the stuff I do professionally where diversity is much more important.

I don't know if any of that is relevant but that's definitely an interesting topic ! I'd love to know others' perspective and tips on the matter.

#replies #txt #theinvisiblescanner #character design

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hoseoksluna · 6 months ago

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SMOKE, iv. | myg

pairing: idol!yoongi x smoke!oc (ft. jungkook)

genre: angst, heart-wrenching fluff

word count: 6.5k

summary: everything that hurts must begin to stop at one point.

pinterest board: smoke / taglist: join / discord: join

warnings: DOMESTIC ABUSE, oc gets triggered a lot in this chapter, dissociation, anxiety, alcohol consumption, a brief mention of physical violence, religion, praying, jk and oc smoke together.

note: hi, my babies. i'm here with another chapter. i really like this chapter a lot and i like where it's heading, so i hope you like it as much as you do. let me know what yout think. sorry, this is a bit short, but i didn't want to drag it out, esp. if everything that needed to get settled did. i love you all soso much, mwah.

When Jungkook appears, uncanvassed, damp and abysmal, in the field of my swimming vision, I have to stop dead in my tracks to see if my inebriated brain isn’t playing tricks on me.

He’s sat on the half-wet stone of the staircase leading up to the street where I live. My apartment complex is just straight up, a minute away from where he’s waiting for me, and the wheels within my brain cells begin to whirr and turn, reminding me that I tapped on the crescent moon icon on my phone before I absconded to my girl best friend for a heart-to-heart conversation and a new set of nails. Misty-eyed, I recounted to her the monochrome poetry lines that bloomed through last night between me and Yoongi and wilted in my bare, sleep-cloaked hands this morning while she filed down the freshly baked acrylic powder. The moment she heard the deadly words that were spat at me, she flung her rosy, tiger-print file across her station, got up to her feet without a word and came back with a bottle of my favorite pink nectar in even pinker, fancy glass, certainly not meant for wine.

And I downed each and every refill in one, singular gulp everytime she moved onto the next step and my hand was free.

And Miyun… as much as she erupted in her idiosyncratic rage, her work on my nails was immaculate and untouched by her vivid lava. Curses and funny remarks, that yanked the weight off my shoulders and wiped it out using her vigor and red-hot magma, shattered the room until I laughed so hard that the alcohol dipped into my system far quicker than usual. She glued on the crosses I had asked for while I chortled, and she shushed me, breaking into a soft, non-obvious laughter that she tried to keep at bay while her hair fanned around her. Cherry-red, long and lustrous, curling on the smooth skin of her arms. The laughter died down and silence replaced it as she laid down the last layer of top coat over her artwork—and I felt a certain inspiration seize me.

“What if I dyed my hair red, too?” I voiced it out, a seawave of different kinds of co-existing emotions ebbing and flowing in me. Airiness and offense, care and distance. And they were all roped around the memory of Yoongi in me like the roots of flowers in a colorful meadow soil. Vast and expansive, yet delicate and frail. One sweep of the wind’s harsh breath and they tilt—and remain tilted.

I do, too, despite my efforts.

Despite my ingrained fight to straighten and my strivings to be unaffected, unagitated and undisturbed by the way I was disrespected by Yoongi. They were all fruitless, however. Barren of my long-exercised resilience against the violence of men, my wariness and vigilance of them only strengthening.

He took me to the far north side of paradise with his tongue and fingers in the middle of the night. And when the sun rose, he treated me like I dragged him to the deepest of hell and left him there to perish of starvation and thirst.

I should have seen it coming and prepared myself for it, especially when I had decided in my heart to take care of him, take care of the deep-sunk, nameless agony in him that prevented him from coloring our stanzas. But alas… it came to face me too soon, in my gossamer defenselessness.

Yoongi metamorphosed into the vermin that Ji-hoon was. His face faded on top of his while my ex-boyfriend’s body remained intact, broad and fear-instilling. And when Yoongi stood up so quickly, I sailed back, against my will, to the sheer realm of brutality that I had dwelled in, years ago. Yoongi with Ji-hoon’s body, abandoning me after I got myself into trouble. For wearing too much make-up, for having long manicured nails, for dressing a certain way that was impertinent in our relationship. He would leave a bruise for every mistake I made to discipline me, to ascertain that I would learn from it and never do it again. And I did learn after I was depleted of color-correcting concealers, the sinews I would use to raise my hands and tap the cream product in, erasing my foolish mistakes from the eyes of Jungkook, Minyun and my parents.

I fought for too long during the relationship. For my freedom, for my dignity. And I fought for too long after the relationship to go through it all over again.

I dreaded being hit when Yoongi stood up from my couch. Flinched when he went around the coffee table past me because I anticipated the swing of his arm with my eyes boring holes into my carpet. I had flexed my muscles to brace myself against the incoming physical pain so hard that I nearly gasped, pathetically, for air when he walked on into the corridor.

But I still couldn’t look at him.

Although I knew, rationally, that Ji-hoon wasn’t present, I didn’t let up until he shut the door behind me with a soft click because my body didn’t connect to my clear-headedness. It was caught in a fight or flight response like an ensnared bird.

And this must’ve been what Minyun was seeing when she contemplated me, paused in the middle of dusting her station clean with her pale-pink kabuki brush. Because she resumed right after once I reciprocated her gaze and curled her lips under her teeth.

“We can go to Olive Young then, and stop by 7-Eleven after to get some snacks and drinks.”

She reflected on my wound and didn’t hesitate to cradle my head and bring me to a safe refuge.

And I didn’t hesitate to wrap my arms around her and hug her until all those oxymoronic emotions, which I felt towards Yoongi, dulled in the smallness of me.

I let her take the lead. Choose the vibrant, deep cherry tint that would annul my trigger and dye me anew. I sipped on my iced cherry drink for the occasion while she glided the brush along my strands, splattering most of the orange paste on the thick wisp of the symbol of my connection with Jungkook, the only man in my life who never used his manliness against me. I thought about him as she rubbed it in; and I thought about Grookey. Thought about how, in that very moment, I was saying goodbye to the self I possessed while being attached to them.

And when Minyun washed my hair and curled her round brush through it, the stark contrast to who I was before overwhelmed me so much that I began to weep.

I couldn’t recognize myself, I didn’t know who that girl in the mirror was. But something told me that she was stronger than who I used to be. And while it felt petrifying to be standing alone in the crook of my past self and my current self, the longer I gaped at myself, the more I adapted to the assurance that she was emanating.

She wasn’t going to take any shit from any man ever again. Certainly not with darkly, sequoia-kissed hair like that.

Minyun brushed her thumbs under my eyes and shifted me deeper into the refuge by grabbing my shoulders and guiding me to her balcony, where she sat me down on her chair while she crouched in front of me. Sliding a tiny cigarette into her IQOS and taking a puff, she leaned over to the square table and grabbed her pack, nudging a longer, classic cigarette between my chapped lips.

I never smoked on my own. I would take hits from her slender, pink case of flavored air or steal her cigarettes when I had enough buzz from the alcohol in my veins. Forget about it the following days and weeks that we wouldn’t see each other because I was such a hermit. But I didn’t want to be one anymore—I wanted to spend more time with her from now on. With Jungkook, too.

“You look so pretty with your new hair,” Minyun said, sweetly, leaning back on her sock-clad heels in her Louis Vuitton slides, wrapping her arm around her knees like I did around my chest last night, and I inhaled her compliment along with the drag of her cigarette. “We’re twins now.”

I had become such a fragile egg shell that her words multiplied in me as they settled in my lungs, bursting and imbuing me with pigments of confidence. And I beamed through my tears, a light protruding through clouds, as I exhaled the smoke.

It felt as natural as breathing—to claim her cigarettes and make them a thing of my own.

In place of Grookey.

It’s what Jungkook spots first, instead of my hair, once he senses my presence and lifts his head, standing up to his feet, towering over me. And he must’ve been waiting for a long time because his scolding words are flung out first before anything else.

“Where have you been? Do you know how scared I was? I called you up. I rang your doorbell and you wouldn’t answer. All day.”

I take a long drag just to stabilize myself, gratitude unfolding in my sternum for the way he isn’t manly.

He’s merely caring.

Hovering above me, moving his arms in my proximity, features stern in his soft manner, and yet I’m not threatened by my fear because I know him, because I trust him. Trust that everything about him is securely soft and boy-like, round and endearing—even when he raises his voice a little at me.

Minjun and I took another bottle of rosé to her balcony that we finished by passing it to each other and smoking like there was no tomorrow, so the liters of the nectar that flit in my bloodstream elevate how I see him and my body is naturally inclined to do something I normally wouldn’t do.

And much to Jungkook’s surprise and a little bit to his dismay, I listen to that hushed tone of my heart and obey it—discovering that it is an aid and nothing else.

“Since when do you—”

I silence his stupid, yet valid question by wrapping my arms around his neck, careful not to nip his skin with the hot prickle of the cigarette. Its orange tip envelops us in a soft glow in the middle of the darkening evening, the smoke surrounding us like a protection ring. It takes three beats of my heart—which in reality must be his and surely not mine considering the numbness that has descended, fully, in me—for his arms to move and swathe me in complete safety.

He’s rescuing me, like Minyun did. Bouncing off of her and finishing the job, without knowing a thing about it.

We become one, singular form of a penumbra, dressed as we are in this unlit shade. Jungkook with his cargos and baggy sweatshirt; me with my tracksuit that’s too big for me. His neck is cold and I scatter a little bit of my warmth upon that skin, regretful that he waited for me this long because of my foolish forgetfulness.

My dearest boy best friend.

I squeeze him harder and Jungkook buries his nose in my shoulder, fisting the fabric of my hoodie on my back.

And then, he sniffs my hair. Makes a Korean sound of discovery and surprise. Pulls back just to look at me with narrowed, inspecting eyes. Drags me to the nearest street lamp—and I watch his eyelids grow to their original, bulbous size.

Roundie.

He has noticed my hair, at last.

Fluffs it and completely destroys the impeccable blowout that Minyun gave me.

“What the fuck, Jungkook?” I grumble, pushing his hand away, but, like my hoodie, he fists both of my wrists in one hand and sinks the other one into my length, following the diligent curve that Minyun created.

I huff, and the sound is deadened by the devastating words he utters, disappearing into the prickling coldness of the air.

“What did he say to you that made you do this?”

I dwell in silence, my numbed emotions leaden, dented and yet sharp enough that I feel their resurfacing pain.

I look away, untangling my wrists from his hold. Jungkook unclenches his fist, but the ash from my cigarette lands on the back of his hand. I gasp, quick to brush it away, however he’s quicker. Doesn’t make a sound in response. Shakes his hand and steals my cigarette, puffing on it.

My mouth parts. Shock strangles me.

He smokes?

Jungkook’s seriousness droops as he chuckles, dryly, at my reaction. He takes a step back, slides a hand in the pocket of his pants, coalesces into the shadows of the early blooming night.

“I didn’t know you smoked either,” he says, smiling in that lopsided way of his, a large dent in his cheek. And it feels as though I’m getting to know my best friend for the first time. What else is he hiding? What does he do, in utmost normalcy, when he’s not with me?

He dips his chin to look at the cigarette before he flicks his thumb across its ivory butt. The ashy particles fly to the rocky ground in tandem with his smile. And his mind travels back to this morning’s misfortune, as rapid as a rocket shooting up beyond the clouds.

“I’m not giving this to you until you tell me what he said. The last time you did something to your hair like this was when you left that good-for-nothing son of a bitch.”

A fleck of memory appears before my eyes. Me dousing my hair in black dye with my own hands while Jungkook stood by; him putting my star clips in my no longer virgin strands to distract my tears, me sliding the same ones into his, making a middle part and laughing until my stomach hurt. He had healed me by just being with me, not expecting words, not expecting any explanations.

Him asking me for them has a great meaning, a certain hastiness that I know full well has a stabbing pain, and I feel his fear, instead of mine. Understand, all of a sudden, why he waited for so long.

And I put him first, just so that emotion unclenches its fist from him. Nod my head to let him know that I’ll tell him, bare my heart for him.

I walk backwards and sit down on the stony stairs. Jungkook joins me, right beside me. Takes a long drag of the cigarette as if to prepare himself for what I’m about to share with him—and I need the same smoky courage. I take it from him, puff on it and give it back to him. He gives me a gentle smile and I recognize the reason behind it.

A new form of bonding settles between us.

I reciprocate the smile and gather my words in the brief silence. The wind helps me as it breezes through my hair, fondles my face ever so gently and when I lift my chin at its attention, my eyes stumble across the full moon.

I breathe in its pristine energy. Let my lungs be full of its beams—and let it cleanse me, thoroughly.

Jungkook’s patience helps me, too, as he quietly finishes the cigarette, stubbing it out on the step. Ready to listen.

And so I begin.

“I invited him upstairs because I wanted to,” I start and realize that I have to come forth with the truth. Deem that he deserves to know. I look inward, quickly, and try to detect any obstacles in me—but I find myself empty, cleansed, a dried fountain with no drops of water, yet I am free. With the alcohol still trickling in my bloodstream. “I didn’t feel sick. That was a lie.” I flick my eyes to his reaction, catch him widening his eyes and parting his mouth and I decide it’s time for another cigarette. I pull one for him and myself, lighting it up for the both of us. “I didn’t want you to know that I got triggered. I’m sorry for that.”

Jungkook blows the smoke in the other direction, away from my face. He furrows his brows in pity as he leans his elbows on his outstretched knees.

I expect him to yell at me… but he does the exact opposite, soothing me down to the marrow of my bone.

“Triggered? How?” he asks, his voice so muted that I barely hear it, lips pursed in that eternal pout of his and mine mirror it, naturally. I appreciate his gentleness so much that I lean the side of my head against his shoulder. And he leans his against the top of mine.

“I guess I wanted to be alone when I left the room and I found Hobi at the end of the hall. I sat with him for a little while and when he started talking, I realized he was drunk and my body gave up on me. I dissociated like I used to after the breakup. I thought I was better, that I healed from it, but it’s been a long since I was in the company of men, you know? I didn’t want to disappoint you, especially when I’d promised you that it wasn’t happening to me anymore.”

I hear him take a strong puff and I reflect him, doing the same. Then, he sighs and extends his legs, his back rounding forward. I watch the smoke make patterns in the night-tinged air and I breathe differently, now that I’ve pulled the skeleton out of the closet. And even though my emotions are numb, my softness deepens when Jungkook takes the bony creature into his arms and begins to dance with it.

“You could never disappoint me,” he whispers, his words the music for the dance, and I wrap my fingers around his clothed forearm, just holding him there, needing it. “You should’ve told me. Did you think I would tell you off for it? Of course not, you silly goose.”

I chortle, and the smoke comes out in staccatos that are guided by my tender laughter. And he melts it with his following words.

“How can I help you? Should I get you a therapist? I don’t want you to take meds for it…” he trails off, clicking his tongue and fishing out his phone from his pocket. His fingers move on the keyboard of his screen and the letters I read fracture my heart and glue it back together all the same. “Grounding techniques. Breathing slowly while counting. Different sounds, walking barefoot, blanket, ice cube or cold water—”

My mouth opens before my brain registers what my weakened heart longs to say.

“Yoongi splashed cold water on my face and neck and that brought me back,” I spew out, tiny tears lining my vision at the memory, at the feel of his cold, solid hands, at the sight of his wide, fearful eyes that relaxed when he realized that I was back in the present times. “He saved me.”

I blink them away; I smoke them away.

Jungkook sucks in a breath, clicking on an article about dissociation and scrolling down. “Yoongi and I will be your therapists, then. For free.”

I look away and withdraw from him, twiddling with my fingers. My heart enlarges, yearns for it—yearns to create a link to his beyond the physical bound we have, reach out for him like a child for its father, but my fear of being triggered again, of being afflicted by his pain slaps its arms away from him.

It’s not meant to be—Yoongi is not the one for me because if he were, there wouldn’t be any barrier between us. And with that knowledge, my obsession with him, slowly and painfully, dissipates, leaving my frailty and my willingness to help him, if he’d ever need me, in the hands of God.

But knowing the faces of manliness and ego, Yoongi won’t allow himself to be helped by me. And that bruises me more than the words he flung at me.

Jungkook senses my absence more vividly than I want him to, and his head swivels in my direction, the article momentarily forgotten.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, prodding me, and it’s me who sighs this time.

I take the last drag and gaze at the moon as I speak. “Yoongi can’t help me when he needs help himself.”

The yellowish face of the bulbous planet nods at me and I feel, ever so slightly, at ease, leaning my elbows back on the steps. That is until a lump forms in my throat and, inertly, I ask the feminine luna for her strength, for her resilience, and I ask her to help me become my new self that resembles her so much.

Jungkook locks his phone and stares at me. “What happened this morning?”

And perhaps she does nurture me with what I need through her radiance after all because I don’t hesitate to tell him.

“I wore lingerie to bed that was see-through and when I looked for him and found him crying on my couch, he told me, ‘can you, please, put something fucking on?’ and left,” I unravel, violently, mimicking Yoongi’s coarse morning voice, and Jungkook scoffs, averting his gaze. He sucks hard on the last of his cigarette before throwing it away with the same nerve, shaking his head as he thinks about those poisonous words. Validates me, like Minyun did.

It takes several heartbeats and several more moonbeams puncturing my sternum before he turns back to me.

“Check your phone.”

A wrinkle between my brows. “Why?”

“Just do it.”

Without understanding why he wants me to do that, I comply. I pull out my phone from my purse, the light from the screen bathing me in stark blue. Jungkook chews on his bottom lip as he watches me read my notifications from him, Minyun and Netflix. And when I say nothing, he tilts his head and reads them on his own, only to groan and place it in his hands.

Then, he stares off into the distance.

“What?”

He takes my hand and drags me to my feet. “Come on.”

I yelp and Jungkook yanks me to the patch of grass by the street lamp, kneeling by the gravel. And I can’t speak as he builds a praying altar of rocks, leaves and sticks. I can’t speak when he holds it in place and makes sure it doesn’t collapse, as small and sturdy as it is. And I can’t speak when he adorns it with an abandoned, pink flower petal that he finds nearby. Places it on the top of the last stone, against the flesh of the damp, green leaf that is propped by a petite rock.

And in my silence, once he’s done, he tugs my hand down, sinking me to my knees. Sits back on his folded legs and presses his palms together.

“God, I know that you know I don’t believe in you. My dad probably talks to you a lot about me, so I’m sure you know who I am. I don’t come to you because of me, though. I come to you right now because my friends need you,” Jungkook prays, his voice mellow and subdued, meant for my ears and the ears of God that I myself believe in, but don’t have a relationship with. I settle down into my respect for his bravery and kindness, closing my eyes, and I feel him enveloping his fingers around mine on my lap. My heart thumps and my other hand finds the way to it—I pin my palm to the left side of my chest, cradling those full-blooded strikes, willing the corners of my mouth not to quiver. “My dad says you know everything and right now I really hope that you know what Yoongi went through. I ask you, sincerely, to give him strength to be a better person. To make sure his feet don’t walk backwards but forward with the girl beside me. I also ask you to help her to not dissociate anymore, help her not remember that son of a bitch, sorry—that guy that broke her. And altogether, I ask you to heal them both. Also, make sure Yoongi mans up a little and texts her like I wanted. Or just do something, anything. Give him ideas. Make his balls grow or whatever. Thank you. Sorry for all I did. Amen.”

The tears fall and I can’t halt them, nor do I want to. Lightness floods my chest, my mind, spreads all over my bones, and I breathe out in hiccups. I agree with his prayer by whispering the same ending word and when I glance at Jungkook, I see him meditating, privately, on something on his own.

It inspires me, comforts me and impassions me to do the same.

I flutter my eyes closed and quieten my breathing.

Dear God, if I was wrong and this is for me, allow me to take care of Yoongi. Help us find a way towards each other and cleanse my heart from all the pain.

And then the words spill, my prayer prolonging, and I discern that they don’t root from me, bathed in the glimmer of the moon as they are.

I forgive him and I’m giving him another chance. Give us the opportunity to better our actions and communicate our pains. Give us the strength to do so. Give us the words. Give us peace of mind and clarity. Thank you. Amen.

My tears have dried by the time I’m finished with my internal prayer. Jungkook has patiently waited the whole time, holding my hand, and he gives me the lovingest, most wholesome smile I’ve ever received in my life when I face him. He kisses my knuckles and I feel, strongly, that it seals our prayers.

Helping me stand, it’s him who hugs me this time around. I bury my face in his chest, fisting the back of his sweatshirt like he did to me when I arrived. We remain like this, underneath the lenitive moonlight and the merciful eye of God that I sense upon us. And I know, in the abyss of my weakened heart, that I shall never forget about this moment.

“Did you also feel that lightness in your chest?” Jungkook asks onto my hair, and I nod, too lost in my brimming, alive emotions—no longer numb, but erupting in tender colors—to answer. Love, thankfulness, delicate joy and that persisting lightness.

Grabbing my shoulders, he breaks the hug and grins down at me. He glows underneath that street lamp, a pure whiteness lining his form, the tiny twinkling freckles of stars scattering upon his skin and I love him.

I love my best friend.

And the more I look at him, the more I’m reminded of the way I put the star clips in his hair and I think it would only be right if he were to wear them right now.

I link my arm around his.

“Let’s go inside.”

The moonlight shone upon our way, ascertaining that we didn’t stumble. Reached a standstill and formed a ring around us when we stopped by the door to my apartment building and had another cigarette together, this time another shared one because I felt as though I had inhaled too much smoke throughout the day.

The stars poked at my back in our silence, encouraging me to break it, and I did—once it was my turn to puff. I thanked him, earnestly, for the prayer, showed him my nails embellished with little silver crosses, ones he gaped at with utmost fascination before it all spurred something in him enough for him to share with me what went down earlier in the morning after Yoongi left my apartment.

Crestfallen Yoongi, drenched from the rain, murky, cloud-bearing; the very one I know. Jungkook had to, essentially, extricate him from the force of his innermost downpour, and I waded through the torrent with each information he provided me.

He was profoundly regretful and made a fool out of himself by choking at the sound of my name—something that made my cheeks ignite with coy flattery and my fingertips to tingle. The knowledge that he rued his actions wove through my prayer and quelled me, my heart and my mind, until there was no ounce of ache that bothered me.

I entered a state of sobriety, plopping down onto my couch with a small basket of hair ties and clips. Jungkook wasn’t really cognizant of what I was doing as he focused on telling the story, describing, in his teasing manner, the way Yoongi looked like while he spoke of me. The way his cheeks flushed and light burst in his eyes. He was so preoccupied with the task that he didn’t flinch when I brushed his hair with my Kuromi tangle teezer, nor when I put up his hair in two pigtail buns and secured them with matching, violet Kuromi hair ties.

His hair felt brittle in my fingers from all the bleach the stylist used on his hair. Briefly, I remembered the way he specifically asked her if there was a drugstore alternative to the professional dye and he went to buy it for me that very day and we splattered it on together, with him choosing the strand, of course. I made a mental note to talk about his hair with him later.

I grew hot when he shifted to the part, where he read to him the message I sent for him. I had cleaned the whole apartment in effort to rid myself of the residue of my trigger, but my care for him remained because I understood where he came from. What I hadn’t known was that after listening to my heart and typing out the message, I would get tormented by my mind so viciously that I had to seek my girl best friend. My care for him sank to the bottom of me and the offense I felt resurfaced, swallowing me whole.

To know, in the present time, that Yoongi thought it too good to be true, grew smaller when Jungkook began to tell him off, washes it all out and I am a brand new canvas.

I take off my hoodie, aflame.

“He really thought about what I said to him and he even put your number in his phone. I visibly saw him opening a new text message and typing something,” Jungkook says, exasperated, and I have to chuckle to myself—he looks so damn adorable with the two minty buns, but he’s still missing those clips. I search for them in my basket, reveling in that fire of his, which his words are permeated with, the heat stifling me. “I thought he sent it to you. I didn’t see him do it because I got a call from Namjoon, asking where we were. We had a meeting right after—and that’s also something I need to talk to you about.”

My ears perk up and I freeze with the clips in my hands.

The smile Jungkook gives me this time is cheerless.

The sweat that coats me morphs into a layer of iciness.

“We’re going on tour abroad next month,” he imparts and my heart closes. I disintegrate, the clips falling out of my hands. And the stars blanketing the heavens outside must do the same, plummeting to the ground, conjointly, with me. “We were supposed to have another concert tonight, a secret one that would be made into a docuseries, but then America fucking called.”

That means no hanging out with Jungkook, no star clips; no seeing Yoongi and leaving things as they are—unfinished and still aching on his part.

And that leaves me alone with my thoughts.

I pout, my heart dead silent.

“When will you be back?”

Jungkook gathers the fallen clips and sets them down upon my open, vulnerable palms. Manages to warm them up in that brief exchange.

“There aren’t many tour dates. I’ll be back before—”

My phone pings in the kitchen.

And before I can breathe, Jungkook scurries to his feet and flees.

Grabs my phone and holds it in front of my face, so the detector can unlock what the notification hides. And once it does and his eyes sweep over the lettering multiple times, he squeals. Springs. Beams like the warmest star he is, personified firelight. And I’m more happy that he’s happy than I’m happy about the fact Yoongi has done something.

For me.

Jungkook slides the phone into my clammy hand and I let out a little breath. Instagram has notified me that a certain person that goes by the name agustd liked my post. I smirk, cupping my face, while I click on the notification to see what exactly he liked. Jungkook sits beside me and looks over, laughing, vehemently, through his nose before he starts clapping.

My stomach jumps, stirring my butterflies awake.

I’m wearing a knitted set in the picture, nearly pellucid with how stretched out and purposefully ripped the fabric is, and I’m sat on my vanity table in my room with my arched back facing the mirror, my long black hair obscuring most of the sheerness of my spine.

Is that a truce? Liking a picture where I’m wearing something so akin to the slip that broke us this morning? If he did, then that’s an intelligent move in the chessboard of all toxicity.

And I like it.

I blush, profusely. But then another notification rings through my living room and Jungkook stills beside me. We share a look, both of our mouths parted, before he steals my phone, though I slap his back and retrieve it from his grasp, the shifting causing the message to get opened.

I run a hand down my face. “You clicked on it and now he can see I’ve read it, Jungkook.”

He merely laughs. “So what? Read it.”

I groan, tipping my chin, focusing my gaze on the letters, and my heart thrashes in my ribcage. And their meaning propels it to fly on the wings of my butterflies.

The letters tremble in tandem with my hand as I read them.

“I’m sorry for my behavior this morning, you didn’t deserve that. I hope you allow me to make it up to you as best as I can. Car drive tomorrow at 8 PM? Food’s on me, you just bring your playlist, moon kitty. And your sneakers. Yoongi. Jungkook gave me your number.”

My heart stops mid-flight. And I don’t see Jungkook’s eyes abounding in the glow of the stars. Neither do I hear his laughter and his praises for Yoongi because I walk backwards into myself.

Bring your sneakers.

I see myself getting hit for wearing heels. I don’t feel the pain, but I have a glimpse of the bruise forming on my cheek, a patch of red and purple staining me for weeks only because I wanted to feel pretty and feminine on our date night. And before Jungkook’s voice can get to me, the echo of Ji-hoon’s command fans out in me.

You won’t dress like a slut when you’re with me. Take them off. That dress, too. And wear your sneakers.

I was forced to wear jeans and Nike’s to a fancy restaurant while he sported nice pants and a polo. And much to his dismay, and later to mine as well, I still received stares and smiles. From men and women alike.

The memory splinters at the sound of Jungkook’s voice. And I perceive that it’s just that.

A memory.

I didn’t dissociate.

And vulnerability clutches me so tightly that I shrivel and don’t think before I fold myself into Jungkook, hugging him until the memory completely evaporates.

Jungkook pets my head as I bury it deeper into his chest. “What’s wrong?”

“Just a memory,” I heave, blinking rapidly, and Jungkook holds me to him, sifting his fingers through my hair.

“Are you okay?” he murmurs, continuing with the movement that intersperses mollification all over my being, and I nod.

As long as I have my best friend, I will be okay.

“It happened this morning, too,” I admit, unafraid, and Jungkook stills for a moment. “When Yoongi got up from this couch, I thought I was gonna get hit again. And now when I read that he wants me to wear sneakers, I remembered the way Ji-hoon hit me because I wore heels that one time. But it wasn’t so bad. I didn’t dissociate. Your prayer helped.”

Jungkook curls around me and holds me tighter, putting me back together, and I let him.

I let him because there’s nothing else for me to do.

There’s no one else for me.

“He’s not here anymore. He’s not in your life. I broke his leg, remember? He can’t walk back into your life.”

It’s the only memory, where he’s present, that brings me pleasure: Jungkook finding out I was a victim of domestic abuse and chasing him all over the city until he yanked him by the back of his shirt and beat him until he was unrecognizable. He broke his leg by purposefully driving over it with his motorcycle upon leaving, considering the deed done.

“Every time your bad memories come back to haunt you, remember this one,” Jungkook advises and I pleat his words, stuffing them somewhere inside my sternum, where I can return to them and remember them like he said. Use them as a weapon.

Something tells me that now I shall need it more than I ever have before.

“Yoongi isn’t like him, I promise,” he continues, seeping his boyish warmth into my skin as he cups my face and makes me look at him. I feel as though I have run a marathon with the way I breathe spasmodically and Jungkook sees me, composes me by leading me to take deep breaths that subdue my nerves. “I regretted letting him take you home but for a far different reason. Underneath all that pain is a good person. A romantic that has lost his hope, but if there’s anything I can depend on, it’s the fact that Yoongi will find what he’s lost. And he’s halfway there. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have texted you.”

I ponder his words, my heart collecting all those stars that have plummeted from the heavens, and, internally, I use their light to help me comprehend the deeper meaning behind his words. A romantic that has lost his hope. I wonder what meadow of agony he walked through—and I wonder how much it would devastate me if I ever were permitted to place my bare feet upon his footprints on that flowery soil.

“You can trust him because I trust him.”

I slide the star clips beneath the space buns I twisted his hair in and I nod.

“Let’s text him back.”

𓂃 ౨ৎ LOVE-KISSED BABIES: @tkslovechild, @jjk7k, @parkinglot-nights, @bethvar, @Sexytholland, @yoongibaybee, @crystaleah,@fennecnco, @lil-kpopstan, @euphoricmyth, @jungkoock, @cinmmongirl, @hobiberrystuff, @kam9404, @fr0ggieth1nk.

BACK to masterlist | READ third part

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blorbo-from-the-cosmos · 13 days ago

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Hello Everyone!

* . . *. . . *. . . *. * . * 🌙 . *. . * .

I decided to compile a list of some of my favorite manifestations that I’ve gotten since I was last regularly active on this account. Feel free to send asks if you’d like me to elaborate on any of them, as I won’t be doing too much of that here :)

* . . *. . . *. . . *. * . * 🌙 . *. . * .

I. PHYSICAL

Clear Skin

A no brainer, I feel, in the manifesting community. I was one of those kids growing up who got acne before anyone else, it was persistent all throughout my adolescence and into adulthood. One day I just got sick of all the burning, itching, dryness, oiliness, and overall feeling of how much I hated my own appearance. So, I gave up. I literally decided I did not care and if my skin was meant to clear up it simply would and I left it at that a few years ago.

Cue to now, I constantly get compliments on how smooth and radiant my skin is. People always comment on how it looks bouncy and natural dewy. Go figure

Tattoos

I’d always wanted tattoos but was scared to go alone and intimidated by the prices. I remember adding a few tattoos I was inspired by into my yearly manifesting Pinterest board (I can elaborate on this later if you would like) and sort of forgetting about it. Since then, I’ve had 3 opportunities with different friends and artists for cheap yet lovely flash tattoos. I’m currently working on a more detailed piece and simply waiting to manifest an artist closer to my house to do the job :)

Straight Teeth

A work in progress. I had a very unfortunate snaggle tooth and essentially zigzagging lower teeth as a child, went through the fun of traditional braces, and at the end of it my teeth never got 100% fully straight when they removed them. My retainer stopped fitting shortly after, and my teeth went back to a (thankfully not as bad but) similar state. I’d always been self conscious of my smile and it got to the point where I’d avoid opening my mouth at all for irrational fear of judgment. I was too old to be on my parents insurance and did not have the funds to pay treatment as an adult.

Lo and behold, through my job I was able to get name brand Invisalign for a fraction of the cash price and my smile (again, while still a work in progress) has never been better. Apart from the physical change through the aligners, Ive also manifested them to be whiter and healthier when they definitely weren’t before.

Tweaking Facial Features

I’m gonna just put them in one category, but I essentially tweaked my eyebrows, lashes, eyes, lips, and nose. Nothing super dramatic, sorry to disappoint, but I always thought they fit my face just not in the size they came in if that makes sense? I realized recently that my eyebrows are incredibly sleek and well maintained for someone who doesn’t take care of them more than plucking them every few weeks. My lashes (when curled) are way longer than they’ve ever been, my nose is the slightest bit smaller and therefore more complimentary to my face, and my lips are poutier and nicer than before (they’re always hydrated and plump). I also noticed my face chiseled out a bit, as someone who has always had a rounded baby face, but that could’ve also just been long overdue for my age haha

Nicer Hands & Less Body Hair

Little about me, I’m Hispanic. So, my genetics lovingly gave me an abundance of thick and dark body hair all across the way. I’m not here to tell you being hairless is better than not because it genuinely should be up to you personally, but for ME it is a sensory issue having body hair (I hate the way it feels rubbing against clothes or catching in things ugh). Tmi but even my hands were quite hairy, with my arm hair thinning yet continuing to about halfway up the back of my hand.

Soon enough, using the same “fine I give up” mentality, I noticed that (while still hairy lol) my hair doesn’t grow in as thick not as much as it used to. I literally looked at my legs the other day and realized it’s been probably over a month since I’ve shaved them but the hair grew in all sparse which is super unusual. Same with my hands, my fingers no longer look knobby and and scrawny like they used to, but they are quite elegant and I’ve actually received recent compliments on them which made me have that realization.

Ideal Hair

This one isn’t too dramatic as I’ve always been blessed with thick and healthy hair, but more so the fact that I dyed and cut it myself at home quite frequently and yet no matter what I do to it it remains as healthy and thick as ever. I alone made the attempt to go nearly platinum blonde at home, meaning I was using volume 30(?) developer by myself with zero experience on actually bleaching my hair (I dyed it often but always got the bleaching done at a salon). I think I did a total of 3 sessions within a two week time span where I left the bleach on about an hour per session and not only did it come out unscathed, people regularly ask me what salon I had it done at because they apparently can’t tell it was an at home job lol

II. Material

this one will be a fast round !

iPad Pro & newer iPhone with 513GB for a fraction of the retail price

Brand new gaming PC & ideal gaming setup

Brand new Docs

Ideal jewelry

Ideal closet staples & ideal shoes

A new car, partially gifted

Collection of amazing perfumes, all gifted

A diploma I definitely didn’t deserve because I should have failed it tbh lol

Fairy lights for my room, gifted

My perfect shades of makeup staples, all gifted 🫶🏼

Art supplies & kits, mostly gifted

A book I’d been dying to read, gifted

A random $2 pay raise I didn’t even ask for & that wasn’t due within that time frame (but am definitely not complaining about lol)

III. Miscellaneous

another fast round because I have to be somewhere and also my brain is blanking listing these out haha

The light is always green for me or about to turn green, this one never fails me and my friends/family all think I’m just really lucky 🍀

Even when I just rolled out of bed, I look amazing and even my panic lazy outfits look great

People are intimidated yet awed by me, I get a lot of people surprised when I’m nice to them and get told I always look busy and they don’t want to disturb my peace when in reality I just didn’t wanna talk to anyone haha. This one is important as someone who’s always had a “cutesy” demeanor who really dislikes social interactions

I always smell good, has saved me when I run out of the house and realize in a panic I didn’t use enough deodorant lmao. It sounds like a joke but I swear Ive even had people who I know to be brutally honest smell me and I’ve never been told I smell bad

Going to concerts, raves, and clubs (again, I was always socially awkward and didn’t have friends who were willing to do these things with me). On that note…

… a new friend group! I love my childhood friends but we are all a bunch of hermits and I really went through an era where I wanted to have fun and enjoy my 20’s, hence this new group of the loveliest and craziest people I absolutely love 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼

Trips to NYC & San Diego. Before I discovered manifesting I rarely ever left my city, let alone the state. The trips were everything I could’ve hoped for and I’m currently manifesting about 3 more this year!

Passing grades in classes I definitely didn’t earn them in 😬

Money, specifically money Ive saved. I’m not sharing the quantity just for personal safety reasons, but I will say I probably have more money saved alone than all my friends do combined

* . . *. . . *. . . *. * . * 🌙 . *. . * .

So, there’s that! I’m actively manifesting many other things as well, specifically a new high paying job, my dream apartment in Seattle, and a significant other as I’m finally in a place where I feel ready for a relationship 🫶🏼 mark my words I’ll have a success post about these soon >:)

Let me know if you guys have any questions, and comment below your favorite manifestations so we can all inspire each other! -love, Blorbo

#law of assumption #manifestation #reality shifting #affirmations #manifesting #blorbo from the cosmos #blorbos rambles #shifting with blorbo #blorbos posts #ask blorbo

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forever-and-whats-left · 24 days ago

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Headcannon :

Alright bitches, you’ve opened this can of worms, so here comes me divulging my entire Pinterest board and headcannon collection.

Christine <3

Katrina - ?? - Frodo

The first two characters are more visual headcannons, especially the latter. Frodo, however, is the one I feel represents my Christine most. His entire story talks on themes of mental strife, and how his compassion and inner strength are the true hero’s of the story.

Frodo in the movies has such a gentle voice, and it’s exactly how I imagine hers, if not genderswapped.

Meanwhile Katrina has the pale, blond-haired, gothic inspirations that I tend towards. I basically rip my color pallete from her, haha!

Erik…

Peter Cushing - Misfits - Christopher Lee

I make my Erik look as if he belongs in a black and white horror movie as much I can. I hope this gets across, but often I feel my design for him leaves me wanting for more. If I could change anything, it would be his shape language. All in all, however, I believe people enjoy him, so I’m happy at that.

And… the misfits skull. I’m not even a misfits fan so I feel like such a cheat. I just came upon him and, by gosh, I fell in love. It was everything my brain dreamed up when I read the novel as a child.

Raoul :)

Vronsky - Samwise - Gregory Peck

Vronsky was an obvious choice. The pretty boy to trump all pretty boys. That little mustache he has is, without a doubt, EXACTLY how I imagine Raouls stache’.

Samwise, however, (and I apologize for flooding you with my LOTR x POTO mashup from hell) represents an understated part of his character. It’s always heart warming when he’s depicted as a support to Christine. He might not get everything right, but should Christine need it, he would risk life and limb to assure her safety. I think it’s sweet s’all.

Also Gregory Peck is here because he’s got.

#sorry for any typos #I’m an artist #not a writer…#thank you for coming to my Ted talk #I didn’t get into Erik’s persona #because I have no clue #what he’s like #he hops between being #sympathetic #and blood thirsty #love him #hate him #mostly hate.#phantom of the opera #gaston leroux

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boygiwrites · 1 year ago

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Harley D. Dixon 1

• Gen Tags. Found family, Daddy issues, Hurt and comfort, Gore.

• Summary. Harley D. Dixon is a tough yet sweet little girl who until the dead started eating the living, thought she had seen it all. Alongside a mismatched group of survivors in rural Georgia, Harley and her Dad are forced to leave their small life behind and learn how to survive all over again through the horrors of the apocalypse.

An amazing edit inspired by this story! (Cred to Cora_Line99) Harley D. Dixon's Pinterest Board! Harley D. Dixon's Playlist!

📖Chapter List.

❤️Cross-Posted from Ao3.

Author's Note. Here we gooo! Argh, I'm so excited.

I've been wanting to write something like this for a long, long time. I've read just about every 'Daryl has a daughter' story out there, and now I've finally got my own to share. I just love Daryl, and Daryl with a kid is a whole other thing. We all know he wouldn't be the perfect parent, so you bet I'm gonna play right into that. He's gonna swear, he's gonna be strict, and he's gonna mess up. As for Harley (Yes, as in the motorcycle brand), I love her too. So ready to write her.

This story will cover the general plot of the show. To keep things fresh, I've made sure that almost every canon scene has undergone at least one small change. Plus, of course, many new scenes. Occasionally, I'll make bigger changes just to keep you on your feet! Nobody's safe! I'm also gonna be expanding on all the characters. And lastly — FOUND FAMILY! Piles and piles and piles of found family, eventually. I live for found family.

Please enjoy reading! :)

My Uncle Merle died today.

I'm sitting in a crinkly green camping chair, watching embers die.

I don't wanna think about my Uncle right now, so I think about something else.

The fire was built last night by Glenn and Morales. Then Lori came along this morning very quietly and made it alive again with logs and wads of notebook paper. Thinking about facts is easy. It's like sucking on a plain candy that tastes like nothing. There's a navy-blue blanket across my lap with three holes in it, perfect for nibbling, poking, and ripping. Dale gave it to me when the cold settled in this afternoon. He told me he reckons it's around June, as he covered my shoulders, which used to be his niece's birthday.

He says she looked a little like me. That means she's dead. So many people are dead, now.

A thin log in the campfire cracks and tumbles over after trying to stay upright all morning. I hope I don't look like that log.

I can hear Officer Rick approaching. My stomach becomes a stone.

I can tell it's Rick because he's got one of them power walks that you can hear coming from a mile away, which I think makes him pretty stupid. He's loud, and loud is dangerous, and dangerous is stupid. My Dad's not like that. Unless he's angry or running, ain't nobody hearing my Dad coming; especially not no squirrels.

He's almost as big as my Grandpappy Dixon, who people used to say was as big as a house, and he wears super heavy boots from a hunting store near our house — but he's still not loud, or dangerous, or stupid. Not like Officer Rick.

"Hey, Harley."

I think I hate Officer Rick. I think I hate everyone.

And I think I might be crying now, too. I focus on twirling the blanket strings around my finger so I have something very simple to think about, which is that it hurts real bad when I twist it tight. I see Rick crouch down in front of me. He takes a while to say anything else, and it's prolly 'cause he's tryna be real careful, so he don't make me cry even more.

If my Dad weren't out hunting, he'd prolly slap Rick and everybody else that's tried badgering me today dead for tryna do his job for him. I feel like, just by sitting here, I'm disobeying him. Rick ain't my Daddy.

"We, uh..." He clears his throat. "Me and Lori, and some other folks are uh... Well, we're all a little worried about you, honey, okay?"

I imagine a small group of folks gathered by the RV right now, watching me and Rick; wondering if he's gonna be the one to get through to me.

I'm worried for when my Daddy comes back. When he finds out about Uncle Merle, he's gonna be fuming. He's gonna be like one of them cartoon characters with the bright red faces and the smoke comin' outta their ears, stomping all around, and he's prolly gonna kill somebody. It's prolly gonna be Rick. He always told me cops are bastard liars, and that they can't help us.

I look up at Rick. Yep, I've been crying.

Rick's all blurry, but I can still make out his ugly Sheriff's badge and his scary blue eyes and his frowning eyebrows that look like clenched fists, and I can tell he's been waiting to be the one to talk to me. I bet he thinks it makes him better than everyone else; better than my Uncle Merle, who he left to die just 'cause he ain't like him. I wanna kick Rick right in the face. I think he knows this, but he doesn't move.

"First off, I wanna say that I'm sorry about what happened to your Uncle Merle." Rick says all nice and gentle.

Nothin' happened to him.

It weren't no freak accident, which is what Uncle Merle used to say happened to my Momma.

Rick killed him.

"I know he meant a lot to you. And I'm sorry. If I had'a known he had a niece to come back to, maybe I woulda been a little wiser with my decision makin'. But Harley," He tilts his head and puts a hand on my knee for this part. "You gotta know, like I know, that your Uncle was a danger to us all."

There's a little angry parasite inside of me. It's been growing and growing ever since the group came back from Atlanta, and I couldn't find my Uncle Merle in the crowd. I've never noticed my Uncle Merle so much than when I realised he wasn't there. It was like there was the wrong amount of space left in the air and Rick was taking up the too much of it. Ever since the cars showed up, everything has been wrong, wrong, wrong.

Ever since Rick showed up.

"If I hadn't stepped in when and how I did," Rick says, "Your Uncle wouldda gotten us all in a lotta trouble."

Another log crumbles in the campfire. My finger aches and pulses around the string.

That hungry little parasite — hungry for Rick to hurt like I'm hurting, needing it more than anything — makes me tell him, "I wish he did." And again, because it feels good. Rick becomes even more blurry, as my voice makes an embarrassing hicking noise. "I wish you died."

I expect to be hit. That's what happens sometimes, when little girls don't know their place.

Tellin' adults I want them dead — That ain't my place. And I know it. I just don't care.

My Uncle Merle wasn't a danger, he was just Uncle Merle; Has been since I could talk. He used to feed me bits of his sandwich out on the deck back at home, like the tomato, 'cause he ain't like the taste. He used to fix my bike when it was broken. He used to make sure I was the first one to open presents at Christmas, and help me wrestle the wrapping when there was too much tape. He used to pull my wobbly baby teeth out for me and let me outside without shoes. He wasn't mean, or bad, or loud, or dangerous, or stupid; at least not always. He wasn't the one that got my Momma killed. He was good. And now he'd dead.

If someone had to die, I wish it had'a been Rick — Stupid, noisy, idiot Rick who ain't shed one single tear after what he done to my Uncle Merle.

I wanna get hit. I want him to hit me so bad that I'm allowed to hit him back.

"Okay." Rick says, and I can't breathe.

I feel like everything goes silent throughout camp, like the chairs and the cars and the people are all holding their breaths like I am. He actually looks a little sad, which feels really, really bad, because I wanna be angry.

"Okay. That's okay."

But as I think about my Uncle Merle, and the tomatoes, and my old bike, and what Christmas used to feel like, and my Daddy, and how he ain't even know about Merle yet, I realise I'm just really, really sad.

I can't even see Rick anymore, my eyes are so watery. My whole body hurts from being sad. I feel like I'm sick and I need to go to the doctor, but I don't even know what for. There aren't even any doctors here. Just two bastard liar cops, some campers, and a space where my Uncle Merle should be.

I think, after a while, Rick leaves.

My Dad still keeps his wallet.

It's in a backpack under his sleeping cot. He says that everything inside that bag will keep us alive some day, if we ever need to leave the quarry camp. He said I need to know exactly where it is so that I can grab it if he can't. He showed me everything the night we got here, because he forced me to, because it's important. The other kids don't learn stuff like this from their parents. It makes me feel smart. I'm in on a secret. He showed me the bug spray, which keeps our skin healthy from bug diseases, and he showed me the flashlight, which has two batteries and a big black button. He showed me the compass, the box of matches, the big knife, the little knife, the rope, and the map. It's like a Jenga tower. If we lose even one thing from the backpack; everything topples, and we die — I die. You gotta listen t'me, chicken. My Daddy's always been like this.

But the wallet made no sense.

We don't gotta pay taxes no more, like Merle said. I don't know what taxes are, except they're bad, and gone, and nobody liked them anyway. And I saw my Dad burn all his money in a campfire one night, so it can't be that.

It's the pictures, Dad told me. He flipped it open like a book, and we looked at 'em together on top of his sleeping bag. I felt like crying for a second because we forgot all my storybooks when we left our house, but Daddy hates it when I cry, so I dried up. Crying is for babies, and I'm a big girl. He showed me a photo of an actual baby, and after he touched the baby's face with his fingertip, he said the baby was me. I didn't think I could look like that. He stopped talking for a while. I listened to the cicadas in the trees to pass the time while he touched the photo. Then it was bedtime.

I'm looking at the photo now, waiting for him to get back.

I was a very pink baby. I was only the size of his forearm, which in the photo, hasn't been tattooed yet. The tattoo of my name is missing, which goes up his wrist in curly letters. Harley Davidson Dixon. It's the name of a motorcycle. The tattoo of the skull and the bleeding angel are missing, too. He's fixing my baby blanket around my chin. I guess he's been doing that since the day I was born. Every night, at least up until last week, my Dad tucks me into bed and sings me the same song. Hush little baby, don't say a word. Daddy's gonna buy you a mockingbird. I like his voice when he sings to me. Usually, he's yelling, or grumblin', but in those twenty seconds before I have to go to sleep, and nobody else is listening, he's softly whispering the lyrics to me, and touching on my ears and my cheeks. In the photo, he's crying down into his smiling mouth. That's something he doesn't do anymore.

The next photo is of us at the zoo. I know it was taken on one of the weekends I was at my Dad's house, because my Momma's not in this one. Just my Dad and two of his friends, I think, who are throwing rock star hands in the air. I'm wearing a black shirt with a videogame character on it that my Dad likes, and brown pants. I'm sitting on my Dad's hip as we pose in front of three giant elephants. My Dad's got a tiny purple backpack over his shoulder that makes him look sorta funny. It used to be mine. I'm looking at the elephant's long, silly-straw trunk as it tries to sniff us, but my Daddy's lookin' at me. I wish I remembered this day.

The third photo is a school photo with a swirly blue background. I remember this one. My Momma did my hair that day.

I know why he keeps his wallet, now. Just like how we need the bug spray, and the matches, and the rope, and the knives, and the map, and the flashlight to stay alive — I think my Dad needs these photos. They won't keep him warm or stop bugs from chewing on him, but he needs them.

I shove the wallet back where I found it, 'cause I'm not meant to be goin' through my Dad's things.

My Dad comes back while I'm vomiting under a tree.

At first, he doesn't see me. He calls for me to come get my little butt over there, so I can help him and Uncle Merle stew up some rabbits for dinner but when he hears me retch, he comes running over. I hear his crossbow drop and some more people call after him.

One minute, Lori and Amy are holding back my hair and patting my shoulders the best they can, and the next, my Daddy's forcing his way in. I'm rocking and I'm swaying like I'm on a life raft in the ocean, and I can hear Rick's voice and then Shane's and then Dale's. My Dad grabs the back of my neck and squeezes it, the way Lori and Amy would never know how to do, and tells me to lean forward some more. It works. I vomit up a chunky puddle of peaches and jerky into the dirt.

Then, I'm empty, and I'm crying — crying hard — into my Dad's lap.

"Someone wanna tell me what the Hell's goin' on here?" He snarls at whoever's around.

Feels like half the camp is here.

"How 'bout we all just try—" Shane's suggesting, but my Dad cuts him off.

"How 'bout ya'll just spit it out? And where the Hell's my brother?"

That makes me bury deeper into my Dad's legs, moaning and hiccupping. He puts a hand over my head. He's clocked the problem.

"Where the Hell's my damn brother?"

"Look, Daryl," Shane levels, "I'm just gonna come out and say it, alright? There was a problem in Atlanta."

My Dad's panting, now. "What fuckin' 'problem'?"

"Listen—"

"He dead?" Underneath me, my Dad's muscles are lurching and stopping, lurching and stopping, like he wants so much to just jump up and knock Shane to the ground, but he won't bring himself to leave me. The camp has gone completely silent.

Shane stammers. I've never heard Shane stammer. "We're— We're not sure."

The silence just keeps on goin' and goin' and goin', and somehow, it's even scarier than the yelling.

"There's no easy way to say this," Rick says, voice lowered. I wonder what my Dad looks like; if I was right about the cartoon thing.

Dad presses my head further into his stomach. "Who're you?"

"Rick Grimes."

"'Rick Grimes'." He spits, like it's an insult. It is. Bastard cop liar. "You got sum' you wanna tell me?"

"Your brother was a danger to us all." Lies Rick. "So I handcuffed him on a roof; Hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there."

After he says this, something in the air must have changed; something must have snapped without even makin' a sound, because Lori's whispering to me that I should follow her back to camp, like we're running out of time. She tries to pull me away, but I kick her; kick her hard, in the shin. She tries again. I realise she's trying to separate me from my Dad. Then, I realise he's sorta shaking. Lurching, stopping, lurching stopping. Silence, silence.

"Lemme get this straight." Dad whispers, and it's not the nice kind, like when he sings. "You're tellin' me that you handcuffed my brother to a roof."

Glenn's pulling at me now, too. Nobody else moves a muscle.

"And you left him there?!"

This time, he lurches and he doesn't stop. Glenn catches me as I'm flung from my Daddy's hip, and he passes me off to Lori as Dad goes lunging at Rick. The brown pebbles go flying up into the air. My Dad tackles Rick at the waist, and they crash into the leaves and the twigs, and his fist — The one with my birth date tattooed on each knuckle — goes smack, smack, smack, into Rick's cheek. There's yelling; scrambling. Glenn and Shane pull my Dad off of Rick, and that smacking sound stops. Dad beats Shane offa him and then, —

"Watch the knife!" T-Dog yells. Now there's a swishing sound, and grunting sounds, and I was right — My Daddy's gonna kill Rick.

My Daddy's killed someone before. He did it on accident, 'cause he got so angry that he didn't stop until the guy was dead and gone, which means that it was aggravated manslaughter. It was in the afternoon, just like it is right now, and I was playin' in the front yard in the sprinklers. My Dad and Uncle Merle were in the open garage, smoking and poking at their bikes with tools. Ronnie lived two trailers down. I was small, and easy to pick up, so I don't remember much, but Ronnie snatched me up right there in the yard. My Daddy says he was gon' take me. But he didn't let him. Ronnie got chased into the woods, and for two days, my Daddy and Uncle Merle searched for him. Then they beat him so bad his Momma ain't recognise him when the ambulance people dragged him out in a big black bag, and the cops took my Daddy away while the sun rose. I wasn't allowed to see him for four and a half years.

I need my Dad. Suddenly, I'm shrieking at him to stop, even though I want Rick dead so bad. By now, Shane's got my Dad in a chokehold up against a tree. Are he and Rick allowed to take my Daddy away? Lori and — I think that's Amy — are shushin' me, but I just keep hittin' on them and shouting.

I writhe in the dirt. "Stop! Daddy!"

"Damn pigs!" Dad growls. "You're stressin' out my kid, now! Lemme the Hell go!"

Shane laughs. "Nah, I think it's better if I don't." Then he turns to Lori, because what my Dad said is true. "Get Harley out of here."

I don't let her move me when she tries.

Dad struggles. "Chokehold's illegal, bastard!"

"You can file a complaint later." Shane scoffs. "We got all day here."

Rick steals my Dad's knife off the ground and gets in his face. His cheek is all red and purple. The fight's over. "What I did was not on a whim," He tells my Dad straight. "Your brother does not work and play well with others. I did what had to be done in the moment, to keep us all alive."

He's lyin'. He's lyin' again. My Uncle Merle chopped these people's firewood and brought them meat. He worked well.

My Dad shoots out a foot to try hit Rick in the crotch. He misses. Shane pushes his face harder into the tree.

"It's not Rick's fault." T-Dog holds up his hands, coming close. "It's mine. I had the key. I dropped it."

"You couldn't pick it up?" Dad sasses.

"It fell in a drain." T-Dog serves up this answer like it means anything at all. I hate him.

"If that's 'posed to make me feel better, it don't."

"Well, maybe this will." T-Dog's lookin' at me, now, too. "The door to the roof — I locked it with a padlock so the geeks couldn't get to him. There's a good chance he's still alive."

I heard this all before, when all them people kept coming up to me at the campfire. Lori told me to get some food in my stomach; the peaches and jerky. Shane tried to make me go play with Carl. T-Dog said sorry over and over again. Dale gave me the blanket. Rick made me cry. I know how this goes, though. Gettin' someone killed and killin' them with your actual hands are the same thing. I know that.

"To Hell with all'a ya'll!"

He shakes Shane off and beelines for me. He takes me from Lori with bloodied hands — Rick's blood — and I let him yank me by the back of my shirt to my feet, and I fall into his chest when he crouches. His breath is heavy on my neck. Even his skin is hot.

Lori's pale as an egg. I think she's scared of my Dad.

He takes a big breath, stands up, and drags me by the hand back to our tent without sayin' another word.

#the walking dead #twd fanfiction #twd #daryl dixon #daryl dixon twd #daryl dixon fanfiction #daddy issues #rick grimes #fanfic #ao3 fanfic #daryl dixon daughter #parent daryl dixon

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miri--writes · 20 days ago

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The Long Game ◇ A Slow Horses Story

The second chapter of this story is ready! At the end of the post you can find the playlist and Pinterest board I made for inspiration :) The full chapter will also be on AO3, so you can follow me there.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62440984/chapters/159790789

Chapter 2- A Shot in the Dark

The office was designed to impress. Not garishly—modern clients preferred understated wealth—but with a deliberate elegance that whispered competence. Polished oak paneling met frosted glass walls, where light refracted in muted tones that softened edges and egos alike. Art hung just off-center on the walls, pieces curated to appear as if they weren’t curated at all. It was everything a crisis management firm needed to convey: trust us, we’ve got this.

Beyond the glass partition, however, was a world with no such pretensions. The bullpen was a sprawl of cramped cubicles crammed with cheap desks and chairs that squeaked like startled mice. Ten screens flickered as their operators spun disasters into salvation: ghostwritten apologies, sanitized interviews, and social media campaigns designed to bury today’s scandal under tomorrow’s hashtags.

Ron Haydon, former MI5 officer turned crisis management maestro, often joked that capitalism was simply the survival of the shiftiest. Tonight, though, he wasn’t in the mood for quips. It was late, and he was evaluating a delicate piece of damage control for a D-list celebrity who had found themselves on the wrong side of CCTV. By morning, the tabloids would run a polished version of events, and by week’s end, another fool would stumble into infamy.

He sighed, imagining his wife’s exasperated smile when he crawled into bed past midnight. “Couldn’t the starlet wait?” she’d tease, her voice heavy with sleep. Ten more minutes, he promised himself.

A faint rustling sound yanked him from his thoughts. He froze, fingers hovering over the keyboard. His head turned toward the door—a frosted glass barrier that blurred whatever lay beyond. The bullpen was supposed to be empty. His team had left hours ago, and the cleaning crew wasn’t due until morning.

A shadow passed behind the glass, moving in jerks and starts. Haydon stiffened. Just the air currents, he thought. Or a draft.

But unease settled on him like damp clothes.

It must be the recent nightmares, vivid flashes of a shapeless figure creeping toward him. He’d woken in cold sweats, his wife murmuring reassurances beside him, her hand cool on his cheek. “It’s just stress,” she’d said. “Your mind is playing tricks.”

The noise came again: faint, irregular, like a chair creaking or paper shifting. He reached for his desk drawer, pulling it open just enough to slip his hand inside. His fingers closed around cold steel—the revolver he kept there, a relic from his days at the Service.

His heart thudded against his ribs as he approached the door, gun tucked discreetly under his jacket. He cracked the door open and peered out. Rows of lifeless desks stretched into dim silence, the HVAC’s low hum the only sound.

A crumpled banner lay on the floor: ‘Let the world see you for who you are’. Its cheery font mocked him.

“Bloody janitors,” he muttered, louder than intended, as though volume could banish his discomfort.

Back in his office, he locked the gun away, grabbed his briefcase, and powered down his computer. The clicks and whirs echoed unnaturally in the stillness.

The underground parking lot was colder than he’d expected. His footsteps reverberated off the concrete walls as he made his way to his silver sedan, parked under a flickering fluorescent light.

A soft pssst broke the silence. Then, a muted pop.

Warmth spread across his chest. Staggering, he glanced down at the red soaking through his shirt. His knees buckled, and the ground rushed to meet him.

The last thing he saw was the sedan’s tires, framed by the lazy tendrils of his blood.

✴

The killer crouched in the shadows, steady and unhurried, as Haydon’s blood pooled across the concrete. The silenced shot had merged seamlessly with the hum of the parking lot’s ventilation, leaving the space unnervingly quiet.

He stood, holstering the weapon beneath his coat with practiced precision. He moved toward the exit without hesitation, navigating blind spots in the CCTV coverage with deliberate ease. The biting cold gnawed at his exposed skin, but he ignored it. The city’s relentless chill had lingered for weeks, sharpening edges and numbing sensations. Discomfort was an indulgence he’d long since discarded.

Emerging onto the streets, he blended into the muted rhythm of the city. Frost clung to the pavements, faint halos forming under the dim streetlights. He avoided the main roads, sticking to back alleys and narrow lanes where cameras were scarce, his silhouette vanishing into the endless sprawl of London.

From his pocket, he drew a burner phone, its keypad glowing faintly in the darkness. He typed a single word: Volchok. The phone emitted a quiet beep, confirming the message had been sent. Without breaking stride, he slipped it back into his coat.

Ahead, an oil drum fire flickered, its orange glow throwing jagged shadows against blackened brick. Two men were hunched by the flames, their thin jackets pulled tight against the cold. They fell silent as he approached, wary eyes tracking his every move.

Without a word, he retrieved the phone from his coat once more. In one smooth motion, he tossed it into the fire. The flames hissed and flared, devouring plastic and circuitry.

The killer continued, his dark figure dissolving into the night as the fire surged momentarily, a fleeting beacon in the stillness. Behind him, the faint crackle of burning plastic faded into the city’s noises, leaving no trace of his presence—only ash and dying flames.

✴✴✴

Ashley’s flat was quiet, only softly interrupted by the uneven gurgle of the radiator fighting against the cold. The living room was caught in a limbo of disorder—a space staggering between neglect and half-hearted attempts to restore order. Books she’d promised herself she’d read, yesterday’s coffee cup perched precariously on the armrest of the sofa, and a lavender diffuser, her mother’s Christmas gift, emitting a faint, futile scent of calm.

She scrolled through Instagram with detached disinterest, her thumb moving on autopilot. Carefully filtered snapshots of mountain peaks, turquoise lakes, and sunlit beaches passed by in a blur. Every image seemed to scream one thing: escape. Her gaze shifted to the framed photos lining the wall—snapshots of other days, other places. She stared at them for a moment longer, then closed her eyes, trying to summon a feeling she barely remembered: grass beneath her feet, the sharpness of winter air, or sunlight breaking through a canopy of trees. Anything to chase away the stale scent of Slough House that seemed to cling to her like damp wool.

Three weeks. That’s how long it had taken to fall into the rhythm of monotony—or to become numb to it. File after file. Chart after chart. Numbers no one cared about, discrepancies no one would ever act on. Once, she’d been someone who could anticipate danger before it unfolded. She’d trained to take down threats in seconds. Now?

Check folder 1, chart 1. Check folder 2, chart 2. Repeat. Log off. Go home.

There was a small comfort, though: the people. Against all odds, she was talking to them—not much, but enough to break the silence. Catherine had been the first. Reliable, warm, a steady presence that coaxed hesitant remarks out of Ashley. Then there was Louisa, reserved and deliberate, someone who seemed to keep the world at arm’s length. Ashley liked her, but her attempts at friendliness often felt clumsy, leaving her second-guessing every word.

Marcus was a surprise. He let slip anecdotes about his kids or wife—small windows into a life weighed down by more than he admitted.

And River. She hadn’t worked him out yet. Quick-witted but guarded, he radiated an energy bordering self-assuredness, though there was something unpolished beneath it, like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. After her first day at work, their conversations were cautious, circling safe topics: his grandfather, her mother, always skirting the edge of deeper territory.

She’d thought, fleetingly, about asking him out for a pint. Just as coworkers. Just to unwind. But the thought evaporated almost as quickly as it arrived. Too soon. What if he said no? Or worse, what if he said yes?

That day, as the office emptied, Ashley lingered by the door. River was still at his desk, scrolling through his phone, his jacket draped over the back of his chair.

“Heading out?” he asked without looking up.

“Yeah.” She forced a casual tone. “You?”

“Eventually.” He glanced up briefly. “Thought I’d stop by and see my grandad first.”

The words hung lightly in the air. Her question hovered on her tongue—fancy a pint? No. Instead, she nodded and tightened her grip on her bag.

“Well, see you tomorrow,” she managed.

“Yeah, tomorrow.” A quick smile flashed before he returned to his phone.

Ashley walked into the damp evening, her brisk steps echoing against the pavement. She allowed herself a small moment of pride—progress, however slow. Socializing was a minefield she’d spent years avoiding. Even this small victory felt like something.

Still, the Slow Horses weren’t a team. Not really. They were a collection of missteps and disappointments, tied together by circumstance and little else. Each carried their failures like shields, and Ashley doubted they’d let them down long enough to truly connect.

Back at her flat, the radiator groaned into life. traffic in the distance, a low, steady rhythm. Her phone buzzed and the screen lit up with a FaceTime call from her mother. Ashley sighed, swiped to answer, and was greeted by her mother’s sunkissed face.

“Ashley, preciosa.” Her voice was gentle, threaded with worry and a lilting Spanish accent.

“Hi, Mamá.” Ashley offered a soft smile.

“You look tired,” her mother said, bypassing small talk. “Are you eating enough? Sleeping enough?”

Ashley sighed. “I’m fine, mom.”

Her mother didn’t look convinced. “You should come visit. Get some sun, breathe fresh air. I’ll make you gazpacho, like when you were little.”

Ashley’s smile deepened, but only slightly. “I’ll think about it.”

The conversation meandered into familiar territory: updates about Spanish markets and trekking sessions, nosy neighbors, and the stray cat her mother had adopted. The warmth of her voice painted pictures of a sunlit life far removed from London’s gray streets—a city her mother had left after Ashley’s father died, fleeing memories, back to the country she loved.

Ashley listened, murmuring the occasional response, but her thoughts strayed to her father. His face surfaced vividly, etched into her mind. Twelve years hadn’t dulled the ache of his absence. His death had been an accident—a tragic end to a life spent serving the Defence Intelligence Staff. But his choices had deeply shaped Ashley’s view of the world and her future. And his absence had reinforced the feeling that she was alone against the world.

When the call ended, Ashley set her phone down and stared at the blank screen. The reflection staring back at her looked tired. She leaned into the sofa, letting fatigue seep into her bones.

Somewhere beyond her window, the world carried on. News broke of a man found dead in an underground parking lot, but Ashley didn’t see it. Her phone silent, still on the table.

✴✴✴

Slough House was colder than usual. The heating was dead again, leaving everyone wrapped in whatever layers they could scrounge. Shirley had doubled down with a puffer jacket over two sweaters, a scarf practically swallowing her neck. Marcus wore a beanie pulled low and fingerless gloves, his breath puffing faintly in the icy air.

River stepped into the room with two chipped mugs of tea, steam curling lazily upwards.

Ashley glanced at him as he walked over. Even in the perpetual shabbiness of Slough House, River managed to look somehow polished. He carried himself with the air of someone put together. It was rather distinct. She shifted her attention back to her screen, jabbing at the mouse. “Bloody thing’s frozen again,” she muttered.

“Cutting-edge tech,” River said with a smirk, setting one of the mugs next to her.

She shot him a sidelong glare, but a small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “This relic belongs in an exhibition.”

“Budget cuts,” he replied, settling into his chair. “We should be grateful Catherine restocks the tea bags.”

Ashley picked up the mug and sipped. Chamomile, two sugars—exactly how she liked it. Her cheeks warmed for a moment before she pushed the thought aside. He probably remembered her tea preferences the way he remembered codes and patterns—a mind wired for details.

A sharp shout shattered the relative quiet.

“You’re not going to believe this!” Shirley’s voice carried from downstairs.

Marcus groaned without looking up. “Indoor voice, Shirley.”

Louisa barely reacted, keeping her focus on her screen. But River, with a quick glance, noticed the slight tightness in her shoulders, the fatigue in the way her fingers moved over the keyboard. Ashley was watching her too, her gaze lingering before shifting back to Shirley.

“Lower your voice,” Ashley said, her tone calm but firm.

Shirley ignored her, dropping into a chair. “It’s in The Guardian. Roy Haydon. Ex MI5. Ran some crisis management firm.”

River caught a faint flicker of recognition on Ashley’s face—so brief it could’ve been missed.

“Do you know him?” he asked.

Ashley shook her head quickly. “Just…sounds familiar.”

River let it drop, for now. “What’s the story?”

Shirley squinted at her phone. “Shot in a parking lot near St. Paul’s. No witnesses.”

“Bit risky, don’t you think?” River said. “Car parks are crawling with CCTV these days.”

“Not always,” Ashley murmured, keeping her eyes on her screen. “Some of those posh firms have their own systems. They might leave a blind spot or two.”

“Blind spots for what?” Shirley quipped “Murder packages included in the corporate plan?”

Ashley shrugged and tapped at her keyboard.

“Anything else?” River asked.

“Not unless you’ve got fifty quid for premium access,” Shirley said, scowling at a subscription pop-up.

River glanced at Ashley. Her expression was carefully neutral, but he sensed there was more beneath it.

“Sure you’re okay?” he asked, studying her.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said quickly, then added, “The name rings a bell from my time on Tactics, but I’m not sure.”

River leaned back, letting the silence linger for a beat. “Always a sad day when an agent dies.”

“Ex-agent,” Ashley corrected. “And I’m sure the Park will catch the killer in no time.” She took another sip of tea and added, “Thanks. It’s exactly how I like it.”

River tapped his temple with two fingers, a brief, knowing gesture.

By the end of the day, the cold had driven everyone out. Even the slow horses moved quickly when warmth and shelter were waiting elsewhere. Ashley was tightening her coat as she made her way down the stairs when River fell into step beside her.

“Hey,” he said, brushing her arm lightly. “If you know something, maybe it’s worth sharing.”

The comment caught her off guard.

“What do you mean?” she snapped, then softened her tone. “Haydon just…sounds familiar, that’s all.”

He studied her for a moment, his expression unreadable. “Keeping secrets has caused enough problems lately. I know we’re spooks”—he raised a hand to preempt her sarcastic retort—“but we can help each other out.”

Ashley hesitated, then smiled softly. She wanted to say more but wasn’t ready. Instead, she nodded.

“Oh, that’s so fucking sweet,” came Lamb’s voice, cutting through the moment like a knife. He stood at the top of the stairs, his sudden appearance as unnerving as ever. “But Cartwright’s wrong, obviously. You’re not spooks. You’re rejects. You don’t have secrets because you don’t do anything worth hiding. Now go home and stop leeching off the heating.”

Behind him, Catherine appeared, one eyebrow arched, her arms crossed. “A remark as warm as ever, Jackson. Lucky the heating’s back on.”

The moment dissolved as they stepped into the cold evening. Ashley quickened her pace to match River’s, reaching out briefly to touch his arm.

“Thanks,” she said, her voice quiet. Without waiting for a response, she turned and walked briskly toward Barbican Station.

River watched her retreating figure, then turned in the opposite direction, heading into the night.

✴✴✴

Ashley bent over her laptop, fingers drumming absently on the table. Outside, the recent rain tapped steadily against the window, echoing her rhythm, while the damp chill seemed to seep through the walls, pooling around her ankles. The Guardian’s online portal loaded sluggishly, and she resisted the urge to curse at the spinning wheel of death on her screen.

The article was straightforward—deceptively so. A few blurry images of the crime scene caught her eye: two uniformed officers standing near the cordon. Behind them, almost lost in the shadows, was a figure that snagged her attention. She zoomed in, scrolling her mouse wheel until the screen was filled with the unmistakable face of Ingrid Tearney’s guard dog, Duffy, the head of MI5’s internal police.

What was Duffy doing there? His presence signaled that the murder of an ex-agent may be more layered, wheels turning in the background. Was this a cleanup? What were they looking for?

Ashley leaned back in her chair, brushing her hair out of her face. Two fingertips pressed into the corners of her eyes as she tried to summon clarity. With a sharp shake of her head, she typed “Roy Haydon” into the search bar.

As expected, not much came up. A LinkedIn profile so pristine it was almost useless, a few mentions of his crisis management firm, and a grainy headshot from a security conference years ago. The kind of man who worked behind the scenes, kept his digital footprint minimal, and avoided anything that might connect him to something... unsavory.

She glanced at the time. Eight o’clock. Over an hour had passed, and her neck ached from the tension of hunching forward. The rain had eased to a drizzle, but the damp air seemed heavier now.

Ashley pulled out her notepad and scribbled quick notes:

Duffy at the scene

No CCTV in car park → intentional blind spot?

Haydon linked to Lynton… how?

The bookkeeper.

She circled the last phrase twice, her pen hovering for a moment before she added “R.H.” beside it. Roy Haydon, the bookkeeper. The pieces were beginning to align. Corridor whispers from years ago about an agent who excelled at making problems disappear—and money multiply. An agent rumored to have been key to operations.

Yet, doubt crept in. Seeing ghosts, Ashley? Trying to stitch together a conspiracy to claw your way back? She could hear her coworkers’ cynical tones echoing in her mind. Spying relied on gut instinct, but paranoia was a dangerous label—especially for someone already relegated to the Service’s scrapheap.

She stood abruptly, grabbing her coat. The drizzle outside called to her. She needed fresh air, to clear her head before spiraling further.

Camden always felt alive, even in weather like this. Neon lights from the Electric Ballroom shimmered in puddles, and the mingling scents of damp stone and street food clung to the air. Ashley kept her pace steady, breath fogging faintly as she walked along Camden High Street.

The drizzle clung to her, cold and insistent, but the shiver crawling up her spine wasn’t entirely from the weather. She caught a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye, reflected in the darkened window of a closed café. A figure.

Am I being followed?

Hands shoved into her jacket pockets, she sped up, acutely aware she didn’t have her mobile on her. How long had they been behind her? Had she truly let someone tail her without noticing? Some bloody spy you are, she thought bitterly.

The figure lingered in her peripheral vision. Turning abruptly, she ducked into a quieter side street, weaving through clusters of pedestrians. Spotting a Tesco Express, she slipped inside, heading straight to the back. Using the reflection in a freezer door, she watched the entrance, breath held. Minutes ticked by. No one followed.

When she finally stepped outside, the street was empty. Still, the walk home felt longer than usual, the lingering sense of being watched gnawing at her nerves. She knew better than to glance over her shoulder.

Back in her flat, Ashley fumbled with her keys, locking the door behind her with a sharp twist. She leaned against the counter, gulping down a glass of water as she tried to steady herself. Focus. Breathe. She exhaled slowly, her mind churning with questions she couldn’t quite arrange into order.

Still wearing her damp jacket, she returned to her laptop, hesitating before reaching for her phone. Catherine was her first thought, but what would she say? Lamb’s mocking sneer intruded. “You think Standish is your lifeline?”

She exhaled sharply, shaking off the thought, and opened WhatsApp. Her thumbs hovered for a moment before she typed cautiously:

Ashley: Hi Catherine, sorry for the late message. I think I left my notepad at Slough House. Could I get River’s number to check if he’s seen it?

It was a flimsy excuse, she knew, but her mind was preoccupied with heavier matters, and this would have to do.

Catherine’s reply arrived almost instantly:

Catherine: Of course. Here it is. But don’t call—he might be with his grandfather. Just text.

Ashley let out a small sigh of relief, the corners of her mouth lifting briefly. Catherine always had a way of providing just the right kind of nudge. Saving the number, she hesitated before composing another message:

Ashley: Hi, River. It’s Ashley. Sorry to bother you so late, but I think I left my notepad at Slough House. Did you by any chance come across it?

Rereading the message, the excuse sounded even thinner now, like something scraped together at the last minute. But she hit send anyway, resisting the urge to rewrite it for the third time.

The reply took longer than she expected.

River: Uh, hi, Ashley. No bother. Haven’t seen it, but I can check tomorrow.

She frowned. This wasn’t going to be easy. Taking a deep breath, she typed again:

Ashley: Actually, I was hoping to ask you about something else.

River: Okay… what’s up?

Ashley: I think I might’ve been followed tonight. I shook them off, but I’ve got a bad feeling… and Haydon’s name keeps coming up.

River: Are you sure?

Ashley: Not really. But something doesn’t feel right.

There was another pause before:

River: Let’s talk about it in person. Want to grab a beer?

Ashley blinked at the screen. A beer? It wasn’t what she’d expected, but it made sense—no paper trail.

Ashley: Sure. Where?

✴

The pub River chose was low-key, tucked away from Camden’s busier streets. Ashley arrived first, nerves jangling as she ordered a pint. By the time River walked in, she’d already worked her way through half of it.

“So,” he said, sliding into the seat across from her. “What happened?”

Ashley recounted the night, carefully laying out the details: the article, the photographs, Duffy, and the unsettling feeling of being followed. River listened intently, one elbow propped on the table, a finger tapping his chin. His expression remained unreadable, though a small crease formed between his brows. When she finished, he leaned back, exhaling slowly.

“It could be something,” he said. “But it could also be nothing. Maybe…” He hesitated. “Maybe we just want it to be something. You know, to feel back in the game.”

Ashley frowned. “You don’t believe me.”

“I didn’t say that.” His voice was steady, his look reassuring. “I just think we’ve been in the wilderness so long, we’re ready to chase any rabbit we see.”

Both of them knew that sense all too well—the urge to piece together puzzles, even when none seemed to exist. River had learned it firsthand during an assignment months ago, assessing a quiet village that masked darker truths. On the outskirts of London, in a place that looked like a postcard, he had discovered that the absence of obvious clues often meant the key was hiding in plain sight.

He circled back to Duffy, musing aloud. “The head Dog wouldn’t be there unless Tearney was worried about something.”

Ashley tilted her head. “Or just doing his due diligence.”

River gave a faint smirk. “Duffy doesn’t do diligence. He’s got a talent for smoothing over screw-ups.”

Their conversation shifted as they worked through their drinks. From Duffy, they moved to Taverner, their mutual distrust of the Service, and the complicated truth that, despite it all, they still wanted to belong. For the first time in weeks—maybe months—Ashley felt heard. River didn’t dismiss her concerns, and the tension in her shoulders began to ease.

Then he blindsided her.

“Why did you take the blame?”

Ashley blinked. “What?”

“During the training exercise,” River said. “Years ago. The one we did together.”

The memory surfaced sharply. The mock surveillance operation, the dynamics of their team, and the moment she had stepped forward to take responsibility for a tactical error that could have botched their plan. She shifted uncomfortably. “I thought it was the right thing to do.”

“Why?” he pressed.

“It was a tactical mistake,” Ashley said carefully. “That was my area of expertise during the exercise. If anyone should’ve caught it, it was me.”

River shook his head. “It wasn’t your mistake. I was supposed to attach the mic to the target’s belt. I didn’t. They took their jacket off in the car, and we lost the feed.”

Ashley shrugged, brushing it off. “It didn’t matter. There was a mistake, and someone needed to own it.”

He studied her for a moment. “I remember thinking you didn’t like me.”

She blinked, startled. “Why would you think that?”

“You were so quiet back then. I figured you thought I was useless—or that you were as unimpressed with Spider as with me.”

Ashley’s brows furrowed. She hadn’t considered that River, confident as he usually seemed, might have harbored insecurities. She thought she’d been professional, not cold.

At the mention of Spider Webb, her lips twitched involuntarily. She looked down at her drink, but River caught the reaction.

“You didn’t like him, did you?” he asked, his tone sharpening with curiosity.

“No,” she admitted after a pause. “He was… full of himself. When he wasn’t giving unsolicited advice, he treated me like liking him was the only natural thing to do.”

Her fingers tightened slightly around her glass, stopping herself from saying more. But the half-formed thought must’ve shown on her face because, when she glanced up, River’s expression hinted at faint annoyance.

She redirected the conversation. “Anyway, that mistake didn’t matter. We were a team. When you’re working with other people, you get better at what you do. You’re only as strong as your partner.”

River’s gaze lingered on her. “It’s hard to feel that way now, though, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“With Lamb constantly reminding us we’re useless,” he said dryly. “It’s hard to feel like what you say or do matters when someone’s got their boot on your neck.”

Ashley huffed a small laugh. “Fair point. But back then, it was the same—just a different boot.” She hesitated before adding, “I know I’m not imagining things.”

River raised an eyebrow.

“It’s my old instinct,” she said quietly. “I can feel it.”

For a moment, they sat in silence, the din of the pub around them fading into the background. When the waitress came to tell them it was closing time, they both glanced at the nearly empty pub with surprise, as if neither had noticed how much time had passed.

Outside, River hailed a cab for Ashley.

“I’ll talk to my grandfather,” he said, his tone serious. “See if he knows anything about Lynton or Haydon.”

Ashley hesitated. “Thanks,” she said softly.

He smiled—not the faint, polite smile she’d grown used to, but something warmer. Genuine.

“Anytime.”

As the cab pulled away, Ashley glanced back. River stood on the pavement, tall and still in his dark coat, the collar turned up against the cold.

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firefly--bright · 2 years ago

Text

laal ishq.

[English - red love. ]

a blooming hearts extra!

jean kirstein x gender neutral!reader

inspired by this song and the new episode. scroll to the end for the symbolisms ;)

warnings : heavy angst, grief, violence and gunshots/wounds. (should be expected at this point) new episode/manga spoilers!!!! i haven't watched the new ep yet (I'm not ready) so it's more based on the manga chapter 132 so read at your own risk!

a/n: i love this song so much it's a Hindi/Bollywood song (back when Bollywood made actually good songs) and i listened to this so much and there's so much symbolism in it that i had to write something angsty :) anyway! i also have exams coming up in like a week so this might be the last fic i post for a while. enjoy!

taglist : @mrsnobodynobody , @a10vely-yutazen .

✿ main masterlist is in pinned navigation! ✿ enter my taglist ✿ fic playlist ✿ fic pinterest board ✿ comments/reblogs/likes are deeply appreciated!! ✿

you heard the gunshot far before you felt it; the final bell. you wondered if all the authors of the books you'd read as a cadet - the ones where the main character gets tragically shot or stabbed only to be healed again inexplicably - had ever been here before. had ever felt death like this, face to face.

death, shockingly, didn't grin menacingly at you like you thought it would. it didn't look over you (not any less than it already had been since the moment you'd joined the scouts), making you feel small and guilty and regretful.

this death; the one you faced with your eyes blown wide and a diminishing heartbeat, felt more like an embrace. in a flash, you caught dark brown eyes and a freckled face looking at you with the same look you've seen a hundred times before. in a flash, a picture of a brown haired girl with her mouth opened wide as if she were about to say something came before you.

it went away before you could grasp it.

but the pain, the blinding hot sensation aimed right at your heart, felt like it would last for eternity. the shape the bullet had cut out might have been a small fracture but it felt like the widest puncture, straight through the organs you had memorized the names of during your cadet days. the inside of your body lined itself up with flames even if you weren't on fire.

is this how sasha felt? her forever smiling face and warm touches did not deserve this pain, you thought. then again, none of your friends did.

in a foolish way, you were glad it was you and none of the others that were left. they were far too important for that. they would have much more of an impact than you would.

the blood dyed your shirt and in a moment of desperation, your hands clambered up to your chest to stop the wound from bleeding out. it was stupid to think that your feeble hands could help this, but you had to try.

(for him.)

you shuddered out a breath, your vision was getting cloudy. you didn't know how you were still standing up-right. you couldn't feel your legs or the way your knees stumbled or the way your hands shook fervently. spots appeared in the corner of your eyes as you looked around, trying to say something.

what would you say? what could you say?

when you've been running away from death for so long, who were you to stop fate with simple words or even desperate pleadings?

your ears were ringing but you could still hear the shouts; your friends scattered across the port as the workers busied themselves trying to weld the fuel tank shut. floch was in a worse condition than you and you wondered if he was still speaking, even after all of this. you wondered if anyone was looking, if anyone noticed your state. even if they did, the sounds of the terrifying footsteps and the tremble of the ground kept them busy.

you whispered out "jean" the best you could without your soul giving out completely, your staggering voice getting lost with the shaking of the earth. barely feeling your knees buckle, you decided this was it.

you would give victory to the death that had chased you for a long time. the death that you pushed aside that day the walls fell, the death that you swung past the day you saved jean and armin from their own fate. countless times, you had fought the cold touch without even realising it's icy breath.

maybe the worst part was that you were still hoping. you had already strapped in your ODM gear like you had done so many times before, hoping this one would be the last time you'd have to resort to violence. you could almost laugh at that thought if it hadn't hurt so much to breathe. you were so fully prepared to fight, to resolve, to hope for better days ahead after all of this. maybe that was your flaw - no matter how much jean convinced you otherwise. it always had been, your head had always been elsewhere, dreaming of a better place while your body carried out its own fight.

you let out a sigh. there was no light that sasha told you about - one of the many tales her grandmother had narrated to her. there was nothing to follow, nowhere to go. you eyes fluttered shut when even the dimness became to bright for you to handle.

flochs incoherent babbling was almost inaudible and jean had to resort to reading his lips rather than try to hear anything. he felt like he was running out of time. hange said something about not being able to give up, and in all honesty, jean wanted to clog up his ears again and close his eyes to hope the same way you did. hope that eren would atleast listen and stop this, hope that after this you'd spend your days together, hope that one day, his friends would share a meal without thinking about war.

his hand wandered to it's left without even thinking, hoping to find yours to link itself with.

jeans brows furrowed when he felt nothing but cold air greet him.

you were right there, weren't you? on his left like you always had been?

he knew you couldn't be lost. you'd be too adamant to help out all the workers instead of view the rumbling from afar, away from all the shouting. you were never one for being lost in violent thoughts, always pushing yourself headfirst with any and all work you could get your hands on as a way of distracting yourself.

jean looked around infront of him, scanning the place. hange followed his confusion.

"where's poppy?" he asked, only to be met with a half-hearted shrugged from the leader.

"sir!" he heard someone shout, a terrified shriek following the sound.

jean stood before he could even think, head whipping around to find the sight.

a pool of blood surrounding a previously white shirt, and gear that could only belong to one of the nine wearing them. the hand his fingers were desperately searching for was now drenched in red.

jeans head whirred with questions. his heart felt like it was burning, a sensation that was new to him. his leg moved him before he could make sense of anything happening.

your struggled breaths met his ears with an ache, and something in his chest shook with so much force, he felt like he would collapse if it weren't for the heavy machinery clinging to his body.

it was only when the soles of his feet touched the blood that jean felt like he couldn't breathe.

a string of curses left his mouth before he could even stop it, and the years spent trying to be a good leader went into the drain as the strong, honest and passionate section commander collapsed next to his lover's body with a clambering breath and shaking hands.

he felt his knees as they hit the ground, the blood - your blood - staining through his pants.

he didn't care about the stains or the status or the stares of everyone around him. you were on the ground in the way that he only had nightmares about; nightmares that you woke him up from, comforting him until his fear subsided.

your eyes are almost closed, he notes, and he wants to slap himself when his brain thinks of how long you laid like this waiting for him.

he didn't waste another second scooping you gently into his arms. you groan weakly as his forearms flex, and he tried not to let the string of curses fall from his mouth. he was pretty sure he was uttering them anyway. he had a bad habit of cursing, a habit you laughed at whenever he did. he cursed incoherently after you first kissed him. he'd remember that laugh forever.

your head nestles in the crook of his arm as he holds on to you and the bitter hope he refuses to let go of. your eyelashes flutter, and he brings his hand up to your wound, cursing his palms as they shake with force.

"no, no, no, no, no, no. please. please." are all the words that can come out of his mouth as he touches his warm forehead against your cooling one.

"it's okay." they croaked out. "we'll meet again."

jean could hear their hope. their usual honeyed tones had lost their light but they still held on to that one last string of bright dreams.

and despite himself, jean smiles. he breathes out shakily onto their paling skin.

jean didn't know if their friends knew about this. jean didn't know if hange was alright, if their promise of protecting them was fulfilled till their last breath. all the loss that occurred in the matter of seconds made jean feel trapped inside a small box, one that only you could pull him out of.

your noses were touching. jean left a kiss to your mouth, fleeting but with all the love he had stored through the years. he adjusted your head so your lips could graze his chest one last time.

a promise, he hoped. his heart would find yours again and love it just the same if not more.

the last time he saw your face was one he refused to remember. he refused to remember your closed eyes and shuddered final breath and pale skin. your body was left on the ground with no real grave to mark it, no-one to remember your body except the years he spent memorizing it.

he was aware of Connie's crumbling presence as both of them boarded the flying boat. the actions jean made in order to get that machine flying were only half registered by his brain. the boat rattled as they sat in silence.

"where... where's (y/n)?" Armin asked. jean flinched for the first time in years.

his face was not tear stricken yet. as much as he wanted to, he could not collapse. no matter how hard his bones begged him to rest, his mind ran rampant and his heart refused to slow down.

the question, however, finally broke him.

his vision blurred as silent tears flowed down his cheeks. his chest felt like it was giving up, collapsing onto itself, and the rattling of the flying boat felt like mere background noise when he clamped his ears with his palms. the underside of his nails was caked in your blood and the thought itself make him shut his eyes tighter than before.

if his friends spoke, he didn't hear it. Mikasa and Connie's presence next to him felt overshadowed by his all consuming guilt.

he wasn't there. he didn't notice your fall before you touched the ground, hell, he wasn't even looking at you when floch shot everything in his blurring vision. jean should've been there, in your place. jean should have been there to spend atleast a few more moments with you.

were you with them now? marco, sasha, and all the other cadets you had befriended while jean stayed stuck in his ways as a teenager? did marco greet you with open arms and sasha greet you with a kiss on the cheek?

he tried to convince himself you were resting now, finally. he tried to tell himself that you were fine, that your friends and fallen comrades would embrace you into the afterlife. but he couldn't.

you were happiest with him, and selfishly, he wanted you here.

that's how it was supposed to be. you promised a large house uphill with two cats and your warm laughter, while he would read the sunday paper and drink his cooled down tea and eat his sugared toast. his mother would visit you on the longer weekends and you promised you'd learn all his favourite dishes - ones he knew you'd like too.

he had a plan. his future was built around you and for you.

what was he supposed to build his future around now? an empty apartment with the lack of a floral perfume in the air with no decor whatsoever? with no-one to make it a home?

Connie's hand rested on his back as jean clutched his head, resting his elbows on his knees.

he knew this was far from over but he craved so badly for it to be done with.

he heard something being spoken to him. Mikasas voice wavered when she spoke, something she had never done before. Armin lost hope before even knowing the answer to his previous question, and Connie's hand had never felt so distant. jean's own guilt outweighed even reiners, and Levi sat in his own silence as he witnessed the fall of two of the people that meant the most to him.

jean felt everything slip away from his grasp. he wished his mother had prepared him for this, but he knew all the training and learning in the world wouldn't stop him from feeling the way he was right now. he knew that even if he did know the outcome of your life, the way it ended right before his eyes, he'd do it all over again in a heartbeat.

he'd love you with all his unshakable might as he's loved you once before and maybe even lifetimes before this. maybe even universes beyond this cruel one.

his eyes opened with a start. his nightmares had been few and far in between, a rare occurence that his body no longer knew how to deal with.

his heart hammered in his chest as he clasped a hand over it, no longer bloodied, no longer as calloused or scarred. the soft weight on his shoulder made him look down in the dim of the night lamp in your shared room.

you laid there, eyes closed prettily, a little drool slipping past your lips. his breathing was still erratic, but you didn't seem to mind it much as you cuddled up to him. your arms wound around his chest, determined to engulf his frame with futile and sleepy efforts.

and despite himself, jean smiled.

you were alive. breathing and warm and clad in his shirt, alive. you didn't need to know about his nightmare, not until a couple days atleast, when it would slip out in conversation. you'd grow incredibly concerned, asking him to wake you up if it ever happened again so you could help him through it. he would shake his head, rolling his eyes and tell you not to baby him to which you'd respond with a slap to his arm.

for now, though, he pushed the thought of his nightmare aside. pressing a kiss to your forehead, he ducked down to kiss the tip of your nose as well.

your lips twitched in your sleep and jean smiled wider.

he finally gave in to the rest his bones so dearly craved.

he woke up the next day fully awake, to the scent of warm tea and sweet toast.

extra a/n! : okay so this song literally translates to what hues love is. it calls love anguished and flawed and i thought it would be very fitting for jean and poppy because after poppy's death, that's how jean felt about love. he thought it was futile, that even after all his efforts in the next life, it would result to the same outcome. the colour of love (laal - red) to me meant the colour of poppies and the blood staining them, and also the love that takes place in Jean's heart in the next universe - the one that he has stored only for you. there's a verse in the song where it basically states that the singer is contemplating whether to grab the moon and change the darkness of the night to the brightness of the day and he made his lover his enemy because he couldn't handle the love that he felt for them. (i haven't seen the movie from which the song is from but this is solely my interpretation) so i wanted to end it with a nightmare-ish sequence where jean wakes up and even if he used to hate nights after poppy died because the bed would be too empty, he loved the nights he spends with you now. the love runs too deep for him to ignore and be your enemy instead, so he (unlike the song) chooses to embrace it with you.

and then there's also a repetition where the singer just says "my name is love, your name is love" over and over again and i just think its what jean feels about you that you are love itself etc etc :)

hope you guys enjoyed this!!!!

#jean kirstein x reader #jean kirschstein x reader #jean kirstein #jean kirstein x you #aot #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan

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