#i don't get how life can be so cruel like that

[trek-tracks]

Something that I think is interesting about McCoy and Spock's dynamic with each other is that neither of them verbalize their affection, instead preferring to show it via action. The fact that they are simultaneously extremely different and extremely similar, I think, is both the cause of much friction and why that friction is so compelling. It's not just that they're philosophical opposites, it's that, practically, they're often alike with a different veneer or mask. (They probably wouldn't get to each other so much if they didn't recognize this to at least some extent.) Neither of them are much with words that acknowledge their importance to each other; it's Kirk who says, "I need you. Badly!" or "I need him."

In the James Blish novelization of Bread and Circuses, McCoy thinks, "I am very fond of this man," but he says, "I know. I'm worried about Jim too." In The Immunity Syndrome, he can't say "Good luck, Spock" until Spock is out of earshot. Even when he's talking to Kirk, he expresses affection obliquely with lines like "Don't destroy the one named Kirk," and when he's on the verge of death, he expresses his affection to Spock by telling Spock, "You've got a good bedside manner," a nod to McCoy's own caring profession that serves as his highest honour.

While McCoy is driven by emotion, he also relies on it as a mask, just like Spock relies on logic as a mask and excuse for any action he decides to take. We see McCoy take action for Spock again and again at the risk of his own life. He rescues him in The Galileo Seven after fighting with him half the time they're stranded on the planet. He volunteers to die in Immunity Syndrome, and he convinces Kirk to save Spock later at great risk. He risks his own mind and life to save Spock in Spock's Brain. He injects himself with an untested vaccine in Miri for many reasons, one of which being to let Spock get back to the ship. He risks his life to snap Spock back to himself in All Our Yesterdays. He defies thousands of years of Vulcan tradition so Spock won't become a murderer. He holds Spock in By Any Other Name.

He agrees to stay on a doomed spaceship/planet so that Spock won't be executed. He tries to stay with the Platonians because Spock is being humiliated (in fact, many of his nice words about Spock are defending Spock to other people--in The Menagerie to Kirk, in Plato's Stepchildren to the Platonians, in The Omega Glory to the villagers...calling him "the best first officer in the Fleet" when he thinks Spock can't hear (or does he? It would be a great excuse).

And then, of course, there's The Empath, where he allows himself to be tortured to death to prevent Spock from being tortured to insanity--not death, but probably worse than for a Vulcan. Much as Bones says he doesn't understand Vulcan dignity in S2, I think he has a clearer idea in S3, considering how much he risks himself for Spock's mind. I'm not even getting into the movies, but Spock clearly trusts McCoy with his soul, and McCoy clearly proves worthy of that trust--and yet, in the same film, we get the "Jim, be careful" "WE will" exchange, with Spock still withholding the words. It becomes almost a game of tacitly acknowledged chicken by the end of the films, with neither willing to break.

The funny thing is that, while both Spock and McCoy show their regard for each other through actions and not words (and both can be genuinely cruel in words that completely belie their actions), many viewers can see Spock's bluff, but not McCoy's, taking everything the latter says at face value. Perhaps that's because they expect McCoy, being emotional, to mean everything he says and say everything he means. That's pretty obviously not true. (Similarly, a lot of people tend to take Spock's self-aggrandizement and McCoy's self-deprecation at face value, but that's another discussion. There's also the theory that McCoy is reinforcing Spock's preferred Vulcanness by allowing him to push back against his statements.)

McCoy challenges Spock to verbalize his feelings instead of the logic he uses as a mask, and Spock in return challenges McCoy to verbalize the actual feelings he feels, not the ones he's expressing as a mask. But it would be so much less interesting if they both clearly said what they meant, instead of going to increasingly ridiculous lengths to save each other's lives.

This scene is so interesting to me.

We all know Bones accuses Spock multiple times that he isn’t able to love (while knowing it’s not true). Bones and some others around him even accuse him being heartless or unemphatic.

Spock IMMEDIATELY started holding Bones’ hands when he found him when Bones was unconscious. He looks worried and upset. He didn’t know if Bones will die, but even when Kirk came, which was after some time, Spock was still holding Bones’ hands and wasn’t going to let go anytime soon. He doesn’t try to wake him up. Just holds his hands.

It looks like he wanted to make sure that if Bones is dying, he won’t be alone. That he will probably feel that Spock is there.

This gesture is touching, and shows how human Spock is, how much he cares for Bones, didn’t want to leave him alone, didn’t go to search for Kirk. It is very touching.

This scene adds a layer to the scene in Bread & Circuses when Bones accuses Spock of being incapable to have a decent warm feeling, to Spock’s reaction “Really, doctor?”. Because he doesn’t want Bones to die not only because it is logical. Probably Spock hoped that Bones knows it, realizes it.

I wonder if Bones felt at this moment Spock’s grip.

It is interesting how Spock often shows signs of affection to Bones, but Bones still doesn’t acknowledge it. Why does Bones want for Spock to acknowledge his affections verbally? Why his actions are not enough for him?

[fizzyapplecandy]

The one where you fall in love with a pirate

Hyung line X fem reader

Genres and warnings: short imagines, fluff, mature language, humor, so many kisses

Word count: 4k

I've been on a roll with our hyung line, and I can't stop thinking about a pirate au. Maknae line will be out shortly.

Lots of love, and happy reading X

Hongjoong

Your relationship with the Captain has always been a bit strained. He wasn't too fond of a female crewmate, but his fellow pirates adored you. He, for the life of him, couldn't understand why. Women weren't meant to be out on the sea, and you'd proved his point many times. You were constantly sea sick, the rocking causing your nausea. You hated getting wet, which happened a lot on a pirate ship. You also hated how out of touch you were with the world all the time.

Sure, you cooked for them. You even payed attention to all of their preferences, always making a variety of dishes. You kept the deck pristine, and the boys now had clean clothes, sewn together where needed, always neatly stacked in their cupboards.

Wooyoung pleaded with him to take you in, stating how cruel the townspeople were towards you. Your father was a gambler, and people were after you to pay his debts.

To this day, Hongjoong doesn't know what came over him to say yes. Maybe it was the terror written so clearly on your face, or the bruises visible on your arms. Or the fact that you were... Pretty. Soft spoken, well mannered, and a much needed addition to their ship.

He would never admit it out loud.

One night, he couldn't sleep, so he went out on the deck to get some fresh air. He was surprised to see you there, sitting on a barrel in your nightgown. The flimsy material wasn't enough to keep you warm, he thought. Nights in the open sea could get extremely cold.

Without much thought, he took off his coat and placed it over your shoulders.

You weren't aware of his presence until he did so, and it startled you for a second.

"Oh, Captain! You don't need to do that, you'll freeze!" You were about to take it off and give it back, but Hongjoong stopped you, placing his warm hands over your cold ones.

"No need. I can handle it. You on the other hand..."

He took in your red cheeks and pale lips, your whole body shivering, teeth almost clicking together.

You chuckled and wrapped the coat tighter around yourself.

"You're right. Silly me, I was in such a rush..." You stopped suddenly, turning your head away.

Hongjoong leaned on one of the pillars, gaze fixed on you.

"In a rush? Care to explain?"

You swallowed, taking a deep breath to calm your nerves. Hongjoong was intimidating, and you experienced first hand why the called him the 'Sea Monster' in your town. However, the amount of care he put into his crew, the sheer worry on his face whenever one of them wasn't okay... It told you much more about the stoic Captain than he liked to show.

"Well... I kind of... Have nightmares. They aren't that bad anymore. I think being on this ship with all of you helps." You glanced at him, noticing how he hasn't moved an inch, paying attention to your words.

"Sometimes I need to feel present. I need to know that it was just a dream. So the cold kind of... It lets me know I'm here, and I'm safe."

You stood up and turned towards him fully.

"Does that sound weird?"

There was a pause between you. No words were said, but your eyes never left eachother.

"No, it doesn't sound weird. But getting hypothermia isn't the best solution, you know?"

Did he just joke around with you? That's a first. Before you could help it, a giggle left your mouth. You quickly covered it with your hand, eyes widening.

"Am I amusing you, Miss Y/N?"

Hongjoong's tone was relaxed, and you felt like he was almost mocking you, but not in a bad way.

"Ah, no, no! Sorry! It's just... I haven't talked to you like this... Ever. So, you know..." You trailed off, not knowing what to say.

The Captain made his way over to you, now inches apart. He took in every little detail of your face, as if he finally gave himself permission to indulge in his curiosity towards you.

"We talk. You just don't listen to me. Maybe you find me boring compared to the others?"

You flailed your arms around, shaking your head.

"Of course not! You're not boring! I mean, your the Captain! You always tell these amazing stories, and you're so kind towards everyone, even though you don't like to admit it. You... You saved my life that day, and I'm forever in your debt."

Hongjoong didn't know what came over him. One moment he was watching how your chest rose and fell after your energetic exclamation, and in the other, his hands were on your cheeks, lips firmly planted against yours.

You made a noise of surprise, not expecting the kiss, but you certainly didn't mind. In your head, it kind of happened differently, but now that you were wrapped in each others embrace, you wouldn't want it any other way.

There was no saying who pulled away first, but you were both breathing heavily, and your giggles filled the air again.

"Oh my Captain... That was..."

"Yeah... I... Y/N..."

You shushed him, grabbing his cheeks between your palms, placing another sweet kiss on his lips.

That night, in the warmth of his embrace, you were rooted in the moment, and it was the best one in your life so far.

Hongjoong just had to make sure the next one would be even better.

Seonghwa

Of course he had the task of keeping the princess occupied. He figured they'd make Yeosang do it, but he would have probably freaked you out with his staring.

Seonghwa watched as you shifted in your seat, back straight, hands crossed in your lap. You were the epitome of royalty, and you stood out like a sore thumb in the dingy old room on their ship.

For someone who's just been kidnapped and held at ransome, you seemed pretty calm.

"How much money did you ask for?"

Seonghwa's eyebrows furrowed.

"Excuse me?"

You turned towards him, your stance as perfect as ever.

"Money? You did ask for it in favour of giving me back? Otherwise this would be a ridiculous way of courting me."

The pirate stood flabbergasted. A smile was about to make it's way on your face, but you managed to control your emotions.

"Well..." He started, voice a bit unsure. "Our Captain does the deals, but I assume you're worth a pretty penny."

You nodded, and he thought you'd go back to being poised, but you managed to surprise him again.

You shot up from your seat, startling the poor man. The crown you wore was ripped from your head, and you placed it in front of Seonghwa.

"Here, this is worth more than a pretty penny. Go give it to your captain, and ask him if he needs a maid or a cook on this ship."

"What?"

Seonghwa watched the woman, noticing how her expression hasn't changed. She was dead serious about this.

"You heard me. I'm sick and tired of living like Rapunzel! You probably don't know who that is, but nevermind. I want to sail around the world, go on adventures, you know? I don't want to marry a prince, and I cannot stand being in dresses like this anymore!"

Seonghwa didn't know whether to be scared or turned on by you. You were a strong willed woman, and you weren't backing down. For some reason, he couldn't help but feel intrigued. Maybe keeping you with them wouldn't be such a bad idea?

He stood up from his seat and grabbed the crown from the table. Without another glance towards you, he went to the door.

"I'll see what I can do."

.

.

"Oh come on! You literally don't let me do anything fun around here!"

"Yeah, well, that's because you get into trouble more than I anticipated. Now let go!"

You and Seognhwa were playing tug of war with your favorite bag. The boys went out into town to gather supplies for your next trip, and you wanted to go with them. Seonghwa was stuck babysitting you again, and he wouldn't let you leave.

"Please! Do you hate me? Do you not want to see me happy! Come on Hwa!"

It's been about three months since you ran away with them, leaving your castle and princess status behind. Seonghwa asked you from time to time if you regret your decision, but the answer was always a strong 'No'.

"Princess, I've about had it with you! Can you please just let go and sit still for once!"

Now, that wasn't the tone of voice he usually used with you. He was accustomed to your antics, and he let you do whatever you wanted, but he never once sounded as serious about saying no as now.

You slowly loosened your grip on the strap, and you could tell something was wrong with him.

"Hwa? Hey, I won't go. See? Here's the bag, take it. I'll stay on the ship."

He only nodded before turning around and marching to the other end of the deck. You quickly followed after him, trying to look at his face, but he wouldn't turn your way.

"Seonghwa? I know I'm a bit tough to deal with, but something's up with you. Wanna tell me before we start a guessing game?"

His hands gripped the railing tightly, and he tried to calm down enough to look at you. Seonghwa knew his fear was a bit irrational, but it wouldn't go away. He also knew he had to tell you before you started freaking out.

So, he took a deep breath and turned to look into your eyes.

"Listen. I know you love it here. I know you love the boys, the ship, the food Wooyoung makes, the strange animals San sometimes brings aboard... But what if..." His gaze fell to the floor.

"What if, one day, you venture out into the city and realise you miss it? What if you want to go back?"

Seonghwa paused, noticing how quiet you were. As if sensing his unease, you came closer and took his hands in yours.

"Go on." You whispered.

"I can't let you go, Y/N. I... You've made me so happy. Even though you give me constant headaches, I wouldn't want it any other way."

"Oh Seonghwa..."

Before he could tell you to let him down easily, he was surprised with your lips pressed onto his. He quickly gathered himself, wrapping his strong arms around your waist, getting lost into the passionate kiss between you.

You pulled away first, and he was about to chase after you, not wanting it to be over, but you placed a finger on his lips.

"I just want to say... I will never leave you. Yes, I love exploring the city, but I've found my home now."

You leaned your forehead onto his.

"You are my home, Seognhwa."

After that, he let you wander off as much as you wanted, because he knew you'd always come back to him.

Yunho

"Hey! Get back here you son of a bitch!"

Yunho never ran so fast in his life before. His legs were about to give out, but thank goodness the dock was close.

You see, he may or may not have gotten into a slight altercation with a merchant.

The man wanted Yunho to pay for the compass, whereas Yunho... Well... Didn't.

Now, he was in a chasing match with said merchant, as well as three of his friends. They were surprisingly slow, and he thought he was in the clear until he bumped into something.

Or more precisely, someone.

The basket you held flew up in the air, and it was raining apples all around.

"I think he went that way boss!" The men were coming closer, and Yunho cursed from his position on the floor. You on the other hand dusted off your skirt before kicking the man in the leg.

"Hey, I'd say you have about five seconds before they catch you, so why don't you hide in my shop?"

His eyes widened, and he quickly got up and followed after you. You ushered him behind the counter and motioned for him to stay quiet.

There was noise outside, and the door of your shop opened.

"Hello there Miss Y/N. You didn't happen to see a mongrel with long legs running around?"

Yunho glanced at you from his crouched position, and you seemed casual enough.

"No, I can't say that I have. Sorry gentlemen."

They grumbled, but soon enough, the shop was enveloped in silence. You glanced outside, seeing them going back where they came from.

"All clear now big boy. You can come out."

Yunho poked his head up, and you chuckled. The tall man gave you a youthful vibe, and the smile on his face made you stop in your tracks.

"That was a close one. Thank you, little lady. I'm sorry about your apples."

You waved him off while he curiously looked around your bookshop.

"Wow, quite a collection. Are you the owner?"

"My father is. I just help around when I can. Now..." You stepped closer to him, examining his handsome features.

"What did you do? That was one hell of a chase."

Yunho laughed, but he stopped abruptly to check his pockets. He let out a sigh of relief as he took the small compass out. He extended his hand and held it over to you.

"Oh, wow. Did you steal it?" You watched as he nodded, expression almost sheepish.

"I didn't bring any money with me, and I know my Captain wouldn't let me go back for it because we're in a hurry, so..."

He trailed off, but you got his point.

"Ahh... I see. Well, in that case you might want to hurry to your ship before Mister Jung finds you."

His eyes widened and he rushed past you towards the door. You were almost sad to see him go.

"Thank you, again. I wish you all the best!"

He was out before you could reply, but you followed after him to watch as he ran down the street, an apple from your basket in his hand as well.

"What a silly boy..."

.

.

It's been about a month since your encounter with the gentle giant, as you called him. You couldn't stop thinking about his handsome face, and it made you sad every time. You figured he was a pirate by the way he dressed, and he only confirmed it when he mentioned his ship.

Your father always knew you were a free spirit, and he was sad you chose to stay in the city and spend your days in the bookstore. He knew you felt uneasy about leaving him, but he couldn't convince you to change your mind. That is, until he found a young man curiously peeking through the shop window.

The tall man came inside, and he could sense his nervousness in the air.

"Hello there... Is... Is the little lady somewhere around here?"

Your father smiled. "Oh, my daughter. She went out to get us some fruit. You're welcome to wait inside."

Yunho nodded, and went over to one of the shelves to browse. It didn't take long for you to return, and you almost dropped the basket of pears you were holding.

"Oh..."

Yunho turned towards you, a big smile spreading across his face.

"Hey there! Long time no see!"

You glanced at your father, and he nodded slightly before smirking. After that, he stood up and went to the back to give you some privacy.

"Yeah, long time... What are you doing here?"

You placed the pears on the counter, offering one to... Well you didn't know his name.

"Well, I... I had to go and settle my debt with Mister Jung. I also..."

He took the fruit from your hand, fingers brushing yours. You looked into each other's eyes, unconsciously coming closer.

"I had to see you again. I know it might sound crazy, but I can't stop thinking about you, little lady."

Yunho leaned in slightly, his voice almost a whisper.

"What's your name? I need to know the name of the girl of my dreams. Mine's Yunho."

"I'm Y/N." You managed to mumble, eyes still fixated on his.

"Say, you two, why don't you go back to our house and start packing Y/N's bags?"

You let out a startled noise, and turned around to look at your father. He was standing behind the counter, a wide smile gracing his features.

"Dad? What..."

"Yunho, I assume you're here to ask my daughter to come with you, is that right? I know how you pirates get."

Yunho stood frozen, surprised at how easily her dad got him figured out. He was right, he did come to ask Y/N to travel with him. His life was on the sea, has been for a long time, but she... She was something he felt was missing.

"I can really go?" You went towards your father, not believing what was happening.

He gently placed his arms around you in a hug, whispering into your ear.

"You were never meant to love a mundane life, my sweetie. Go now, before I become too sentimental."

It wasn't long after that your bags were packed and you were waving at your father from Yunho's ship. As the town you grew up in got smaller, your eyes filled with tears.

A pair of strong arms wrapped themselves around your waist, and a kiss was placed on top of your head.

"Everything okay little lady?"

You turned around in Yunho's embrace, placing your hands on his chest. Without much thought, you got on your tiptoes and placed a soft kiss on his lips. He stood frozen for a moment before his arms tightened around you, deepening the kiss.

When you finally broke apart, you placed your head above his heart, listening to the steady beats.

"Everything is perfect."

Yeosang

Yeosang loved being a pirate. He loved the freedom he had, the laughs he shared with his shipmates, who he now viewed as brothers. He loved everything about his life. Apart from the times they had to wreak havoc in a random town.

They tried to bring justice where they could. Once they found out about groups doing harm on the townspeople, they intervened in no time.

Tonight wasn't any different from their usual agenda, if he excluded you.

They were seated in one of the more problematic bars in town. Hongjoong told them the job was simple - Get in, take out the bad guys, get out. There was one man, Han Sehun, and he was known for intimidating the lower class people into giving him their well earned salaries, as well as harassing women.

That's where you came into the picture. You were working the night shift at the bar tonight, and you hated it every time. Sehun was adamant on making your life hell, but you couldn't complain because you needed the job. Your parents were long gone, and there wasn't anyone in town you were close with.

You'd be lying if you said you didn't notice the handsome men making an entrance. You could tell there was something different about them.

One in particular caught your eyes the most. He had a blonde mullet, and he seemed like the calmest of them all. As if he could sense your eyes on him, he turned his head, but you managed to look away in time.

"Yeosang, stop staring at the pretty lady. You'll scare her." Wooyoung chuckled after pinching Yeosang's cheek.

He swatted his hand away.

"I'm not staring."

Wooyoung smirked. "Sure you aren't."

Without another word, Wooyoung stood up and went over to you. He smiled at you, showing you eight fingers and motioning to their table. You nodded, giving him a thumbs up.

Yeosang was nervous all of the sudden. He knew they were on a mission, so what was Wooyoung doing.

"Relax, Sangie. The pretty lady will bring us some drinks in a second."

Hongjoong pinched his nose.

"Now is not the time for drinking, or staring at girls. Get it together."

Wooyoung held his hands up, and Yeosang remained still. That is, until you came to their table holding a tray with eight beers.

"Here you go boys. Enjoy!"

His mind must be playing tricks on him, because it seemed like your eyes only met his before you went back to the counter.

Before he could dwell on it, Sehun started causing a scene at the bar.

"Oh come on Y/N, when will you give it up? You know I can show you a good time."

"For the last time, please leave me alone."

"Still trying to act tough? Just wait until I fuck the attitude right out of you!"

Yeosang had the sudden urge to march over an fuck up his face, but Hongjoong's glare kept him at bay. They had to wait for the perfect timing, otherwise they would cause a ruckus.

The night went on like this with Sehun's comments getting even worse. Yeosang felt immense relief when he saw Hongjoong nodd, and the plan went into action.

Soon enough, the bar was turned over upside-down. Sehun was in handcuffs, and you were hiding under your counter. The officers would be here any moment, and the boys had to run.

Yeosang glanced at his crewmates as they went down an alley, his chest tightening.

"I have to do something quickly. Meet you at the ship."

"Yeosang!" Their voices were now faded into the background as he re-entered the place they wrecked.

"Hello? Miss?"

You slowly lifted your head from your hiding place, glancing at the handsome man from earlier. You should have known they were pirates, his outfit basically screamed it in your face.

"H-Hi?"

He turned his head towards your voice, a small smile gracing his features.

"There you are. Come out, I won't hurt you."

For some reason, you believed him. After all, they managed to take away your town's biggest problem.

You carefully got up, and he could tell your dress was ripped in some places. Probably got caught in one of the broken tables.

"What do you want?" You asked, voice trembling.

He approached you, paying attention to your body language. You were still apprehensive, but slowly loosening up.

"I'll cut right to the chase. Want to come on a little trip with me?"

.

.

It's been about a month since you took Yeosang up on his offer. You weren't sure what came over you to say yes so quickly, but you felt like he was trustworthy.

Honestly, you didn't have much left in the town, and you felt like you weren't leaving anyone behind. You only gained another family, a bit rowdy, but definitely lovely and supportive.

You also gained something else along the way, and you hoped Yeosang was feeling the same.

"Hey there treasure. What's got your head in the clouds?"

His voice brought you out of your daydream, and you could feel him beside you, gripping the railing. The sea was calmer than usual, giving you a sense of peace.

"Oh, nothing much. Just thinking about you."

Yeosang let out a startled noise.

"M-Me?"

You turned to look at him, noticing the slight blush on his cheeks.

"Yeah, you. I don't think I ever thanked you properly for taking me away from my miserable life."

Yeosang stayed silent, observing your expression. You looked... Happy.

"So, forgive me if I'm reading this wrong, but I just can't hold it in."

Before he could get a word in, you placed a kiss on his cheek, lightly catching his lips. It took him off guard, but he wanted to make sure you knew the feelings were mutual.

So, as you went to pull away, he grabbed your waist and placed a proper kiss on your lips.

You just looked at each other, smiles stretched out from ear to ear.

"I can't hold it in either."

.

.

[locke-esque-monster]

If you are losing your mind at the possibilities of the Misha Collins on The Boys S5 news (I think the JPad appearance was already in discussions previously), and you haven't seen The Boys I think there's some context non-viewers need to know. Whether it be before they start watching the show as a whole, or if they plan to speculate or watch clips when S5 airs.

I cannot under-stress how this is this is the most deranged show I have ever seen.

To that point (and these are just some spoiler-y highlights):

I don't say "most deranged show I've ever seen on tv", not just because it's on Amazon. This show could never air on cable tv, unless it was edited beyond recognition.

Sure, it'll throw you one-off insane sight gags, like Butcher brandishing a baby with laser vision to laser their attackers to death. It also will go for long-run arcs you'd never see on network tv, like the Aquaman-type's multiple season, bestiality-arc, which isn't relegated to just one type of sea life.

Speaking of sea life - PETA was outraged by this show a few years back when one character was shown eating a living octopus on camera. This show has about an average of 1 violent crime to sea life per season.

I'm not actually sure any of our heroes have made it through an entire episode without being covered in blood at some point. If they have, then they have probably experienced or stumbled into some uncomfortable sexual experience.

This show has basically no qualms showing the amount of kinky shit people with unique powers, near-indestructible bodies, and almost no moral qualms will get up to.

I strongly recommend against drinking milk at any point while you watch this show. You will probably regret it.

You think live bees and real glass from SPN are bad? This show had an episode take place predominantly at an orgy. It was filmed while Covid was going strong, so people kept thinking they were grabbing hand sanitizer, and they actually had squirted lube on their hands because there was so many bottles of both everywhere.

To be clear, the orgy itself served mostly the purpose of a comics callback, and happened mainly in the background while our main characters acted. It was also inexplicably the emotional crux of the season.

Jensen Ackles will do some of the best nuanced acting with micro expressions you've seen talking about his toxic relationship with his father. This will be preceded by an episode where he's found jerking off while insisting he needs more lube to fuck the elderly women masturbating on the bed behind him.

Kripke will not hesitate to make allusions to SPN in the worst way. One of the first scenes our heroes talk with Ackles's character, he's classic Dean, eating takeout in a hotel room, and sure, he's drinking some liquor. But at the same time, he's making racist/sexist comments and crushing up pills with a giant hunting knife so he can snort them.

Kripke tends to be particularly cruel to former SPN actors - On the spin-off show Gen V, one of them had his dick exploded. And on this most recent season of The Boys, he had the actor who played Chuck/God, use his superpowers to pleasure himself naked onscreen and then his character was murdered multiple times over. They made at least two references to his SPN role too, from walking in on him saying "my god" in French, to saying he was up in heaven pleasuring himself now.

I could keep going and going with examples and probably never run out. But here's my point.

This is one of the best satires I've ever seen. It's sharp and outrageously funny, and so timely. But it's also the best show I can never recommend to anyone if I'm not sure they're a little bit of a terrible person, too.

So yes, we might get sort sort of AU Destiel onscreen. We'll almost certainly get more SPN references than we ever wanted.

But if you think for one second that Kripke isn't also going to put Jared and/or Misha in the most uncomfortable scenes that you can imagine (or more likely, the ones you can't), think again.

And that in all reality, as much as we speculate, it's likely none of us are ready for what we're actually going to get onscreen.

[brittle-doughie]

(Sorry if my English is wrong, because I'm using a translator)

Man, I'm a recent fan of your content since I started playing CRK again just a whole month ago because of Shadow Milk Cookie (Whoever I can catch with 120 pulls, the same number I caught the awesome Vanilla Lol) and let's just say I stalked your account and stuff... But what I can say is that your writing is very unique and pleasant to read since there are no long descriptions, something I love but sometimes my brain bugs out and stuff, and then I realize that you put love into your content

But anyway, enough of the rambling and fangirling and let's get straight to the content I want to comment on:

Today's Soul Jam victim Y/N -

What we know about them: A Soul Jam created alongside the others but unlike them, they don't have a Cookie but rather have a form and they show resentment (hatred in its purest form) that the other Soul Jams have receptacles

My idea:

As I know, Soul Jam's were created and given to the Beasts before they collapsed, and with that comes my idea of ​​what if Soul Jam Y/N also had a Beast

The relationship between the two was very different from the others because they interacted at every opportunity, had inside jokes, judged the other cookies and even the witches, and to the point that their Hero nicknamed them 'Y/N'

Everyone could see that they had a special bond, a bond that no other hero and Soul Jam had

But then the corruption happens, one by one the heroes fall, all except Y/N's hero, they were the only one left standing, the only one who resisted the corruption...

Because of this, the witches asked the hero to stop those who were once their friends, at first they didn't know what to do "They're my friends! But they're hurting the other cookies! But the other cookies also made big requests! What should I do?!" So they asked for time to think, something very short at the moment and had a conversation with Soul Jam Y/N

"What should I do Y/N...?"

"...This is a decision that I would say is easy from the outside point of view, but from the inside it is the hardest to make..."

"... So there is no answer...?"

"There is an answer, this answer will be the right one, I trust you ██████ Cookie!"

"Heh... thanks but I don't know... What if I make the wrong choice instead of the right one, what if I make the right choice for others and make the wrong one for my friends! I don't want to hurt them, they're already hurt by the cruel fate of immortality"

"You're a kind cookie, I'm sure you'll manage"

"...What if it was all my fault..."

"Hmm..?"

"What if I had been a better friend, noticed the signs earlier, stopped them in time... Maybe they wouldn't have to do this, maybe everything could be the same as before..."

"It's not like that-"

"It would have been better if I was the one to be corrupted..."

" ██████ Cookie!"

"I'm sorry Y/N, but I've already made up my mind, I'll go with them, I'll be sealed with them, but don't worry okay? You won't get caught, you can live your life and find a better cookie than me to be your user"

"Wait ██████ Cookie! Don't go!"

"Goodbye Y/N, I hope you can discover new things in this incredible world"

That was the last conversation the hero and Soul Jam Y/N had, the hero agreed to help the witches in exchange for being sealed with his friends, something that was conceived, during the purity of the Soul Jam's they did not purify Y/N because they were not corrupted

But then why did Y/N feel empty? Why did they feel like everything was wrong? Why did they feel like crying when they didn't even have a body? Why was ██████ Cookie gone?

Time passed and the other Soul Jam's found new users, but Y/N was left in the dark

They felt jealous of their companions, of how they moved on while they still mourned the loss of their Hero, of how they gave their power to their Heroes, while Y/N remembered the times when her Hero borrowed her power to help their friends, how they guide them to the right path, while Y/N remembers all the times they and their Hero would talk through sleepless nights when everyone else was asleep, how they would guide their Heroes through their darkest moments, while Y/N couldn't see him one last time properly

They were jealous, they wanted a Hero, but at the same time they couldn't, they couldn't move on, they couldn't accept another Hero, they couldn't find another cookie as their Hero

So they thought, if I can't have a Hero why can't I be my Hero?

So they did it, created their cookie form and bam! They could walk, touch and feel the Bread Land without any effort!

But at the same time, they hoped to find their Hero once again, maybe they could be like they were before...

Tadaa~ So what did you think of my idea?

-Just a Person

I think it’s a solid enough foundation.

[mia-can-yap-too]

interwoven with webs (part 1)

Who?:- Isagi Yoichi x spider-girl! reader

Warnings:- very bad descriptions of violence, kinda crack, fluff will come in part 2

♫ :- Honeypie— JAWNY

Your name is Y/N L/N, and you are Tokyo's one and only spider-girl. How did this come to be, you say? Well, you would definitely like to say that you got bit by a radioactive spider while graffitiing on subway walls or something like that. But, no, life must work in cruel ways.

You got bit while coming out of the shower. Adorned in nothing but a towel, you had screamed your lungs off when the spider inched closer. You did manage to end up killing it, with the back of a hair brush too, but by then it was too late. The spider had crawled up your leg and bit you.

So yeah, it's not exactly the best story of the birth of a hero but that doesn’t matter. Soon enough, you became accustomed to the changes in your body, albeit you were slightly weirded out when spider webs started shooting out from your wrists. And now, you fight crime and keep Tokyo's streets safe as the one and only spider-girl.

The tabloids love you, especially because you always pose for the photos,even mid-fight. The people love you. Some post you on their socials whenever theysee you and comment many wonderful things like, 'who is this DIVA', '#needthat', and the ocassional 'MOMMY'. It's such an ego boost. And yes, some do have their controversies about you but those are just haters. Some put out conspiracy theories about you, too. You heard one about how you are actually a robot made by the government so that police officers could take a break or some shit. Lmao,no way.

Regardless, with your unrivaled charismatic charm and spidey senses,you can do anything!

Except AP physics, apparently.

"Yeah, no, I don't get it," you say as you turn to look at an exasperated Chigiri. He had been trying to help tutor you, not that he was much better.

"This is it, you are failing," he runs a hand through his hair.

"Hey! It's not my fault I don't understand! It's probably because I have a horrible tutor." You expertly dodge the pencil he throws your way, yet you do let out an overly dramatic gasp at his audacity.

He rolls his eyes at your antics. "If that's the case, then why don't you get a proper tutor? You know, someone who's actually good at this?"

"I don't know anyone from that class, else I would've had one by now," you sigh. "Hey, I know a friend who takes this class too, but I do not know if he tutors as well. I'Il ask him the next time we meet and if he's willing to help then I'll pass on your number," Chigiri's tone is nonchalant, as if he weren't just solving the worst of your problems.

"Thanks but I wasn't aware you had other friends," you joke. Another pencil isthrown at you.

Suddenly, your phone lets out a 'ting'! You pull it out to see the latest notification, from a news channel.

'Bank robbery on the U-20 street. Three people taken hostage.Police are ontheir way.

Eyes widening, you quickly start to shove your stuff into your bag. Chigiri looks over with concern. "What's wrong, did something happen?"

"Yes, I gotta go, I'll tell you later, okay? See you, and sorry for ditching you, too!" You run away, leaving a baffled Chigiri in your wake. Truthfully, he should be used to this by now. You've always got urgent stuff to do. I wonder why.

You run into the nearest alley, doing a quick check to see if anybody was there. Once you confirmed it, you take your suit out and begin stripping to wear it. Why the hell is this shit so hard to wear?!

Discarding your bag in a corner and sending a quick prayer that nobody steals it, you shoot spider webs into the air and swing away. Soon enough, you reach the crime scene. No police yet, maybe that one conspiracy theory had some truth to it.

The doors are locked, so instead you must climb the walls and sneak in through a window. Quietly hiding behind a comically large vase, you assess the situation.

Papers are strewn about and tables have been overturned. Three men in skimasks each hold guns. One is shouting at the hostages, keeping them at gunpoint as he orders them to stay still. Another has a gun aimed at a banker, forcing her to take out as much money as she could. The last one shoves said money into a black duffel bag.

Thankfully, this wasn't a very popular bank, so not many people got caught up in this robbery.

Right, so if you took out the one holding the hostages via sneak attack, you couldeasily deal with the other the same way. And if things went wrong, well...you’d figure it out as you go. You're known for being heroic, not smart.

Keeping your steps light, you sneak up behind your target. The hostages, however, see you, which makes their eyes widen with hope. Unfortunately, the man notices, and turns around. While you are quick enough to disable him and stick him against the wall with your webs, his gasp alerts the other two."Uh oh," you mutter as one of them starts charging at you. He swings at you, but of course, you dodge. Landing a harsh kick to his side, you barely dodge the bullets the remaining man shoots at you. Ugh, you'll have to deal with him later. The one you had just kicked groans as he stands up. After some amateur hand-to-hand combat, he somehow manages to hold the banker at gunpoint with his arm around her throat. "Stay back! I'Il shoot her!"

"Calm down, dude, you wouldn't hurt a lady, would ya?", you chuckle nervously.

Ah, shit. You can't sense the last guy either, he might have made a run for it. You inch a little closer, arm stretched out. "I said stay back!", he barks. His goldfish brain could have never guessed your next move. Moving faster than light, you shoot web from your outstretched hand, not at him though, but rather at the vase behind him. The recoil makes the vase shoot forward, hitting the man at the back of his head. He slumps forward, unconscious.

Unfortunately, your job here isn't done yet. After sticking him to the wall with his

companion and making sure the civilians were fine, you swing out of the bank. He couldn't have gotten that far, could he? You stand on the roof of a building, eyes darting here and there, trying to locate the robber. Fortunately for you, running through a calm crowd in all black attire makes you stand out, so you find him in no time. When he notices you, he tries to get rid of you by darting into a maze of alleyways. You don't stop, as persistent as a pest. What kind of hero would you be if you let him get away?

Soon enough, he is cornered in a dead end. He knows he is fucked. He used all his bullets trying to shoot you in the bank. "No way out, might as well give yourself in," you say with a cocky grin.

He gets into a fighting stance. Battle ready and teeth bared, he is not going down without a fight.

Or that's just what he tells himself.

He doesn't even get to swing his fist before you knock him out with a punch tothe jaw.

Chuckling, you dust off your hands. Heh, you were so cool. The guy behind the dumpster thinks so too.

Wait...the guy behind the dumpster?!

Both of you let out shrill screams when you finally notice him. How long had he been there?!

He tries to say something but the only thing that comes out is a series of gasps."Y-you...l-l..."

"What the hell, dude?! Do you even know how creepy this is? Why were you even there in the first place?!"

He somehow composes himself when you accuse him of being a creep."I was hiding because I have self preservation skills. The guy could've held me at gunpoint!"

"Oh wait yeah..."

Point proven, his awe comes back in full glory. "And...oh my God...you're actually spider-girl?! Woah...that was so cool! You totally kicked his ass!" His deep blue eyes are gleaming with admiration.

"Uh, thank you? And of fucking course I kicked his ass, I am spider-girl, after all." Your wonderful-ness truly has no bounds.

"Hey," he starts shyly, "can I get an autograph? To brag to my friends, you know, that l met the greatest superhero of all time." He was obviously buttering you up, as you were the onlysuperhero ever, but it boosted your ego nonetheless. No way would you turn down a fan, after all.

And so, you comply. He finds it a bit weird that you draw the dots on your 'i's as a small little circle, instead of a dot like normal people, but he doesn't have the courage (or a death wish) to call you out on that. 

After signing his notebook, phone and calculator (weird but okay) you walk him out of the maze of alleyways. Once you make it back to the street, you turn to look at him. "This is it, fanboy. Stay outta trouble, okay? And don't scare people by hiding behind dumpsters, that shit is just weird."

He gives you a deadpan expression. "I told you I didn't mean to do that."

Chuckling, you wink at him. "Sure you didn't. See ya!" 

And with that you swing away, leaving behind an awestruck boy. 

'I am so bragging about that wink,' thinks Isagi.

--

The next week went by pretty normally. No crimes to fight and no fans to awe. But that was okay, because Chigiri did end up convincing that friend of his, named Isagi, to tutor you (for free too!) and now you finally get a chance to deal with the pain in the ass that was AP physics.

You got to the library ten minutes earlier than your tutor. You didn't want him tostart charging you if you were late.

And so you sip your mocha, waiting for your now academic knight in shining armor to save you. Though, your thoughts did end up going back to that guy you met before. I mean, can anyone blame you? He was kinda cute, and getting you to sign his calculator of all things? Total nerd behavior. Y/n approved.

A tap on your shoulder pulls youout of your thoughts. You turn to look at theculprit, ready to go off. What annoying bitch dares to interrupt my daydreaming of fine sh--What?!

You recognized his deep blue eyes. That little sprout on top of his head. It was really him!

Isagi was...the fine shit?!

Authors Note:- This was originally supposed to be one part but it ended up being wayy too long. And my ipad decided to be a bitch and wouldn’t let me airdrop this to my phone so i spent three hours uploading this. Many mistakes were made so if you find any typos please tell me! Also, just because i wanted to say that whenever i put a song in ♫ i don’t mean that i associate the song w the fic, it just means that i listened to it while writing it, unnecessary but still.

[xylatox]

with wings of wax and thread | hik

Another fic from Cam and a Kai fic no less, this interests me so much, unto the review!!

Before I even start, I've always been obsessed with angel and demon themes and the fact that Kai is mode or less fallen makes me more obsessed.

Feathers, soft and white, twisted in the golden glow from the slow-setting sun. Raining down like a thrown stone, sinking and littering the waiting ground. — god the beginning is so enrapturing.

His mouth had filled with blood, the ichor more sugar than iron, his stomach turning from the flavor, or maybe it was the feeling of falling. Flying had been something like this, the air rippling in his hair, every strand kissed with the soft hands of the north wind, a mother's touch. Flying had felt so close to life that even in falling he understood what it meant to have all your memories rush in front of you one last time. Because falling was like the memory of flying, the echo of it so close it was like a shout right in his ear. — this description is absolutely insane what the fuck.

They had come, found your hiding spot, and planned to finish you off, that laugh was only the start. It had not yet turned cruel as it was that day, the parroting of the group still ingrained right behind your ears, following you around no matter how you tried to shake the thoughts. And now they were coming down like a meteor into the only safe space you had ever known. The entrance was hard to maneuver with wings; it only made sense they would have a rough time with landing except there was a giant splash, the water in the moonpool lapping up, the crashing sound like the waves hitting the rocks only now echoing in the carved out cave. — I love this. I am absolutely geeking out over every word so far. It's all phrased so wonderfully. I'm also super interested in reader, she's so intruding. I also love that contrary to typical demon behavior, reader chooses to save Kai, that further makes her such an interesting character.

When they had ripped your wings off you had nothing left to attach, not that you haven't tried, but alone with no help there was no way to reattach wings with your hands. No way to reach behind yourself except to feel the spots they had once been, the jagged scars still there now, the ghost pain of that day still shooting down your back every time you dreamt of that day. — the fact that reader is on her own, it hurts to even think of what she went through.

You had not grown the horns that most of the demons possessed, you could feel the spot they must have wanted to sprout through if they had been given the chance, the area always colder than the rest of your scalp. It had been one of the things they had picked at when taking their dues. — it's so cool that reader is technically demon by birth(?) but lacks all the physical attributes to deem her one, it's makes her even cooler.

Reader's personality!! I love it, I love that there's already thus barrier between them as a result of it.

They had told him never to bite the hand that fed him but this was a forceful hand coming out to get him, twisting its fingers in his hair and pushing his face in the dirt until it was nothing but a given that he had to eat whatever it was that was handed to him. But he listened, taking in each word and trying to keep them as close as he could get them. — Cam...you have such a way with words.

I love that despite the hesitance from reader when they first interacted, it's really sweet now like —“That would be horrible and if you don't listen to me they will be gone, keep your hand away,” you left no room for argument in your tone and Kai listened. He curled his hand into a fist and sat it in his lap. “Today we will let the area breathe and while I’m out we can get whatever we need to make a salve to help the healing process,” Kai nodded knowing that you were right. He didn't even have the first thought of where to start to find out how to help himself. — her caring is super cute.

Also I just wanna say, candle wax is an interesting method to stick the feathers back??? like I wouldn't have thought about it.

He pictured you over and over again in his head. Imagined you with your wings of night in the air next to him, that laugh you had turned his way unlike the one he heard but one he wished you would give him so that he would know something in his dream would be real. This laugh was somewhere caught between a giggle and a sprinkle of light from his fingertips. He locked in on thinking of the laugh over the feeling of flying because it was impossible to not hurt when thinking of the air. But you, thinking of you, felt safe even if it was some kind of hope caught in a dream.  — im going to sob, how could something be so sweet yet so sad.

Kai could not feel the process, not when he was lost in his thoughts. He tried to separate the knowledge of you being a demon away from the proof he had of you being nothing more than someone who was lost. The two could be synonymous is what he reminds himself over again. — :((((

Also the way reader fights over her natural feelings as a demon?? my heart breaks. —But waking up to know he had been here the whole time, knowing that if he had been there he would have helped just the same, settled something inside you that had been overrun with worry. You unfurled your arms from around yourself, throwing them around Kai’s neck and pulling him into a hug. — poor baby.

You whimpered when he brushed over the scars on your back but did not pull away, letting him have a part of you that you would never give to anyone else because he knew what it was like, he knew what it meant, this level of trust rushing into you almost as fast as your coming orgasm. —HELLLLLLIIIIIOOOO??? This was actually so attractive good bye, like the trust, the intimacy behind this???

And then the feathers started to rain. A few white tumbled down along with you as you looked up at him, wax melting from being so close to the sun for only a short time. The edge of his right wing was still tipped in black as if your feathers had infected his mind and thoughts as if they had been the cause of the drop and not the sickening worry he had of losing everything that had just been returned to him. But you could not stop yourself from thinking again of the story you had been told as a child. That demons had been the same as angels, cast out for the bitterness lingering in their near-empty hearts. You two were the same, cast out, and only now did he truly see it. — oh my god. From Kai letting her go to this...it's insane. It reminds me of Icarus :(

If falling felt like flying you would welcome the feeling because anything was better than nothing at all. — oh my god.

I'm so glad I finally got to take my time and read this.

Cam, your writing is beautiful, the way you've described things has left me beyond words. I absolutely love the end where they were both able to relive falling but their emotions were so different at the time. I just love that they're the same ah, this was so amazing♡

with wings of wax and thread

angel!huening kai x demon!fem!reader

‧₊˚ ⋅ synopsis: In the kingdom of Aethera, an angel is pushed from the heavens. Wings torn and feathers spilling, he finds himself in the den of a demon who wishes to have never been found. Long having lived with your own fall from grace, wingless and bloody just as he is now, you help stitch back up what once was. Can nurtured understanding be crueler than nature? ⸝⸝⸝⸝⸝⸝⸝⸝⸝ warnings: 🔞!!!demon fem!reader, angel!huening kai, angst, blood, depression, mentions of death and gore, reader talks about being violently attacked, cpr performed, slight open ending that could lead to mc/member death if interpreted that way, unprotected sex, no pull out mention, prob forgot some sorry

⊹₊ ݁ . wc: 19.6k . ݁₊ ⊹

𓅪 ⸝⸝⸝ now playing: I, carrion (icarian) - hozier an: im so in love with this event, the work that all these amzing writers put into this is so astonishing- it’s so wild to participate in something like this when I still feel like a baby writer with so much to learn but thats always the fun bit I guess lol im so happy we could all stretch our creative abilities to come together and make this work <333 thank you for reading!!

[m.list] [aethera!event m.list]

ONCE UPON A TIME… In a land far far away, where the treetops touched the soft clouds of the sky, and the water sparkled under the glowing sun. Where mountains rose high and in which long, deep caves ran. Where the sea met shore in a collision of tall waves. Where the undead walked among the living. Where the winged flew above the finned. In a land where things beyond any reason and rhyme existed. And amongst those very beings, within the veils of Aethera, there was… 

Feathers, soft and white, twisted in the golden glow from the slow-setting sun. Raining down like a thrown stone, sinking and littering the waiting ground. 

The fall from grace had been sickly sweet. The shock of that first second of flightlessness was frightening enough to cause Kai to sink his teeth into his tongue. Holding back the staggered scream he wanted to let out, still protecting the ones who wronged him. Who had sent a blistering pain down his back, the cracking of cartilage ringing in his ears as he screwed his mouth shut, pleading with glistening eyes, forgiving them the second that his foot had met nothing but air. 

His mouth had filled with blood, the ichor more sugar than iron, his stomach turning from the flavor, or maybe it was the feeling of falling. Flying had been something like this, the air rippling in his hair, every strand kissed with the soft hands of the north wind, a mother's touch. Flying had felt so close to life that even in falling he understood what it meant to have all your memories rush in front of you one last time. Because falling was like the memory of flying, the echo of it so close it was like a shout right in his ear. 

And he laughed, the sound a strangled choke, fighting its way out from between his lips, teeth stained and heart sinking. He had never felt heavy, not when lifting off the ground was second nature. Kai had imagined his bones had been hollow like a bird's, but plummeting only showed him how led he was lined. Heavy, too much for even the mother's air to carry him, slipping through fingers, through feathers. 

He didn't think that having a wing ripped right from his back would have made so many of his feathers come free, whirling around him, in a thick plume. Maybe it was his wing's way of bleeding. He had witnessed the damaged appendages before on others and they never bled, not unless wounded at the base, right at the shoulder blade. But even his feathers now were dotted with thick spots of blood, the droplets rising instead of falling with him, lighter than his lead bones. He reached out, trying to catch any feathers he could, trying to grasp them as if they would be the edge of a cliff he could pull himself back up from. But he came away with nothing but understanding. 

This was a brutal way to make a grave but it was the hand he had been dealt, the cards pushed into his waiting palms without question. He only hoped the ground wouldn’t damage his wings worse than they already were. Half hanging on by tender threads of pink life, he hoped to tuck whatever was left around him like he had when he was a child, creating a small cave for him and him alone. 

Kai was thinking in full circle thoughts, that crippling adult understanding washing away to childlike hope as he counted the seconds down to when someone would realize he wasn’t catching air, their rush to reach him deterred by the weight of him hurtling towards the waiting dirt. If his bones were not lead-lined they had been made of magnets, his ruined wings having kept him from the realization sooner; the grave always called the body. 

The carrion had made the decent look appealing. Kai had grown up seeing the demons sore up only to tuck their tar-colored wings close to their bodies, looking freer than when Kai stretched his out, the span of his shadow over the sea. If they could feel the thrill of descent he could find it in him to enjoy the last of his sorry life. 

The wind picked up, spinning him, round and round, dizzying and giggling. It was his twinkling laugh that made you look up. The jagged rocks circling his falling form, the ceiling of your cave the perfect opening for him to find himself invading. The sun was setting just enough so that the shadow of him cut deep into you, palms slick as you pushed up from where you sat at the edge of the moon pool, sand coating your fingers as you pressed a hand to your racing heart. Blood rushing in your ears, serpentine fear wrapping around your limbs running a chill down your spine. 

They had come, found your hiding spot, and planned to finish you off, that laugh was only the start. It had not yet turned cruel as it was that day, the parroting of the group still ingrained right behind your ears, following you around no matter how you tried to shake the thoughts. And now they were coming down like a meteor into the only safe space you had ever known. The entrance was hard to maneuver with wings; it only made sense they would have a rough time with landing except there was a giant splash, the water in the moonpool lapping up, the crashing sound like the waves hitting the rocks only now echoing in the carved out cave. 

Everything was getting wet, the water cold to your skin as it dotted your legs, feeling like a burn when you were so shocked. Because as the water settled, the churning sound still worked its way through your skull and it began to rain. The soft white feathers swung down billowing side to side, drifting as if they were a newborn butterfly, always knowing flying was in their bones but never knowing they could do it alone. Drifting to a final stop on water starting to calm. And there sinking to the bottom, face up and eyes closed, was an angel. 

His white wings torn and weighed him down lower and lower to the sandy floor of the pool, the plume of derby shadowing him as he hit the bottom. Hands out on either side of him like someone welcoming in the sun after a long winter, the look you saw before a much needed embrace, not as if you had ever seen it before. 

Stepping to the edge where sand turned to rock you looked back up at the sky, the fading light of the day slipping into hazy darkness, the blue hour working its way over the land before the moon fully made its appearance. But you could only see the slow falling feathers, catching wind and making way in other directions far from where you stood now. If he had been pushed by a demon they would have been on their kill without a second thought, they tracked them without mercy, like the hunters who aimed to play with their food instead of showing it the grace of kindness. If they had hit to watch him run they would have chased until it was over not let him sink in this water so far from home. They would have wanted the angels to see what they had done to such a pretty face. 

Because he was pretty, even in dying. The last bubbling breaths fluttered to the surface until they broke through the tension. You trembled, cold all over from the moment's rush of fear that was still coursing through you, hands clenching and unclenching as you thought over what to do with him. In the water he could rot without much worry to you, the fish would pick him over but it wasn't as if you got many swimming around anymore. The sea folk had warned of swimming too close to your pool, for the first couple months of you finding shelter in the hollow cave, the fish had been your only source of sustenance. But the sea folk kept to their own, even the lowest of the food chain, warning them about you had been easy enough. So his body would rise unless his wings found themselves lodged under a rock. 

You were ready to turn, find company in him even if he was at the bottom of the water until a single lone feather caught your attention. Eyes tracing the swaying descent like a cat following the trail of a mouse. Bleached white like a bone, pearlescent once it landed on the now still water, cupped like a curved leaf or petal. And there, dotted like a heart, was a single spot of blood. You could remember the way your own feathers looked, black enough for the blood to seep in and disappear like it had never existed. 

It had felt like drowning the day you found yourself here. Falling from where they had dropped you had hurt, the salt water burning your open wounds like a quick scratch from a cat. Your mouth full of the ocean, choking and suffocating you as you claw for anything to grasp. They had left you, the rain of black feathers not unlike this angel's white ones now. Only you had been still fighting, ripping at the hold that death had on you because in death you would have to go back to some kind of hell and you wouldn't be able to survive an eternity with your worst moments, not when at that peak they felt that excruciating. 

The angel now had given up, his twitching hand slowing to a stop. If the day you had found yourself drowning in this very pool had been your worst you would not let the same death kill someone else when you knew that it had been survivable. You would not take the name of your brethren as a brand but only the burden as it was, this action a shoulder shake to lessen its hold. So you dove in. 

You had reached the bottom before, the sandy ground only six feet deep, a proper grave for when your arrow rang true on the rare fish that came in. They sank from how heavy the weight of their death hit them. But they had never been truly heavy and you still felt weak in comparison to the other demons you should have taken after. It wasn't until you reached him that you realized you would have to touch him to take him to the surface. 

Your hands slid around his wrist, trying to lift him just enough to get your arms under his. Legs kicked behind you as you struggled to keep yourself in the right position, lungs constricting. He was lighter than you imagined and it was mostly because of the water's help, but his wings, broken, bent, and barely hanging on, weighed him down, hanging behind him like a sheet torn to bits. 

Kicking and kicking you went, feet pushing against the rocky walls lined with coral, sharp enough to cut into your feet. Blood was darkening the small space, his and yours, mixing as you went. The need to breathe begged at your aching lungs, throat tight with the need. He was so limp, no help as you finally broke the surface, gasping air by the mouthful as you reached an arm out for the edge. 

It hasn't crossed your mind how you would pull him out only that it was better to have his head above the water than below it. But you tried, not caring if he got scratched up as you pushed him needing to get him halfway out of the water so he was easier to pull out. Your grunts turned into near cries, he was heavier and heavier the more you pushed him out of the water, sopping body, wings, and clothes adding on to the bricks piled up you felt you were pushing out. When he was halfway up when your arms weak, you pulled yourself out of the water. No time to take a breather as you wrapped both your hands around his wrists. You groaned, putting all your weight back, tugging and tugging until he was just feet resting in the bloody water. 

Your arms are trembling, half limp only held up with the adrenaline crossing through you from the fear that was still making its way through your veins. Pushing him onto his back his partially open mouth looked as if he had already gone and died, effort wasted if you gave up now. You had never been taught the art of saving anyone but you knew what you would want if someone had been kind enough to lift a hand to help you. Fingers locked together you press on his chest, shoulders burning with the effort. Dripping water fell from your chin as you went, the droplets sliding down his cheeks like tears as you cursed. “Don't,” it was all you could make out from your clenched teeth, a demand that he not die right here, right now. Sand digging into your legs, grains between each feather pressed under him, turning them golden as the fading light hit in just right. 

You pressed so hard you felt your arms out snap, elbows locked, chest heaving in the way you wanted him to and then he coughed. The strangled choke like a morning bell, that slim chance of promise of another day. His body jerked to life, shocked like lightning he bolted, turning to the side and vomiting a mess of sea. Your nose scrunching as you sat back,  joints electrified and shot, you fell back into the sand, watching the high mouth of the cave as you listened to him continue his fit. 

In the time you had spent in the Moolpools cave it was easy to only make small movements, you hardly went out unless you were truly hungry enough to risk it. This had been the most motion you had done in a long time, and now you knew exactly why it was easy for them to target you. You felt weak, you were weak, this was only proof enough. But you had saved him, if even for a second, and they would have thought you weak for that too. 

You could hear their laughs right behind your ears. You had not been facing the sky then, but you had hoped, their hands forcing your face into the dirt. Childish demon cruelty taken a step too far even in the eyes of the elders. It had taken you a long time to catch your breath then, your lungs never obeying you but it's another reason why they had believed you dead, the sudden stillness that had taken over your body as the pain made its way through you. You wondered if your angel felt that way now. Only you had been kind enough to let him see the sky before he slipped into unconsciousness. 

Because he had, as you regained your strength to look at him, eyes closed, breathing rapid and uneven. You had given him a chance and now you didn't know what to do with him. His wings were bent and broken. Hardly any feathers clinging to the frail bones they had been attached to. It would be hell to fix them, pain unimaginable to bind and snap them back into place, stitch them together, and pray for some way to make them better again. You stood over him, the white shirt that had once been billowing in the wind was now transparent and clinging to his skin, the thread strong and fine. 

When they had ripped your wings off you had nothing left to attach, not that you haven't tried, but alone with no help there was no way to reattach wings with your hands. No way to reach behind yourself except to feel the spots they had once been, the jagged scars still there now, the ghost pain of that day still shooting down your back every time you dreamt of that day. And on the worst days, you could imagine them still behind you, heavy and protective, enough to curl yourself into your personal space, alone in the dark velvet home you had been born with already built in. Wishing they were back was worse than knowing the pain of them being taken away. And even as a demon, you would not be so cruel as your brethren had been to leave you without so much as the one thing that should never be taken from a person, angel or not. 

You still had your embroidery kit, the soft bag had been tied to your finger the day they had ruined you. The thread was dark, dyed to match the rocky mountains you had been sewing into the fabric. You wonder if they had burned your work after you were gone. All the hard hours doing the thing that you had hoped would get you by in the underworld. People loved to be flashy, spend on extravagant things, and there had been nothing more extravagant than the garments you had embroidered. 

Tucked in the bottom of the small pouch was a thin sharp pair of scissors, the handle shaped like a bird, wings laid back with its beak glossed in gold. They had been a gift when you started to learn, your needles next to them clicking around, silver and all different sizes. Everything was so small, your only weapon that day as if it would hurt them. They Had been useless but they would be put to work now. He would need to be wiped of the sand before you went in and started to clean the wounds enough to see where you would have to help sew him back together. 

You had collected a fair amount of things having lived in the cave for so long, your stash that was similar to a magpies, pretty but never something you used. Sometimes you would find things and keep them just because you might want them because it was better having something over nothing. The crate of glass bottles filled with alcohol is one of those things. It had washed up on the beach after a ship had hit the rocks, too close during a storm to leave anyone alive in the mess. You had picked over the wreckage just as the carrion you were nicknamed after. Someone would have wanted it and so you had taken it just because of that fact, if the gold meant nothing to you but everything to another you would have it, as was your nature. Now you could use it, uncork the bottle, and pour it over his back if you could get him to roll over again. 

Kai did not see you move to the dark corner where your stash was hidden when he blinked himself awake. In his confusion his lungs still felt full, his throat constricting as if he was waking in the water and not beside it, choking because his mind was trying to catch up to his reality. He hurt all over, his chest and stomach scratched and burning, heavy with an ache of bruised ribs. His back was on fire, screaming at him, begging him to scratch and rip at the pain. It made him whimper, the only sound that could come out from his raw throat. 

He could not think past anything but the look of the sky above him and not behind him as he fell. And when you showed yourself, a bottle of clear liquor in one hand and a small pouch in the other, he believed you to be a human stumbling upon him on a lone beach. He had not seen many humans, accustomed to staying up in the heavens with his brethren. And how could he have known what you really were when you were wingless? You had not grown the horns that most of the demons possessed, you could feel the spot they must have wanted to sprout through if they had been given the chance, the area always colder than the rest of your scalp. It had been one of the things they had picked at when taking their dues. 

To them, you had been no demon without the markers they had been so used to seeing, your wings the only thing tying you down to their depths. Even your power had been faint, strong enough to only wave a candle's flame to life, no roaring forest fires and destruction.  To Kai, in that moment you were nothing more than a girl who looked like the saving grace he had been begging so fiercely for when falling. 

For an angel, his dark eyes cut through you like knives. You had not been looked at so intensely since the attack, people who caught a glance had known to keep going and turn away. This gaze was a line of glimmering hope that he had thrown around your shoulders tightening until it was nothing but a collar of expectations tugging you forward. You had been taught to crush looks that felt suffocating, praise broken bonds, and burnt bridges before ever letting someone take you for a helping hand and honest heart. “Do not look at me like I'm something to be thankful for,” 

It was not the first thing that he had expected you to say to him. Not when he was so close to thinking you to be some sort of angel like him without the matching wings. Your voice cut through him, sharp and demanding, nearly as painful as it had been to wake up like this. Everything was falling apart; his body, his grip, which he had believed to be tight, around his good faith in people. But you had pulled him out of the water and maybe he had come to expect too much from people. A package deal that had been wrapped up in the warped expectations of the angels. Not that most of them followed the rules, but it was better to hide behind the guise of kindness than the truth of wrongdoing and instinctual indifference. 

The fallen angel only blinked back at your words instead of taking them in, eyes softening at the realization that it had been you alone to pull him out, your chin still dripping with the saltwater that stung the open wounds on his back. He could not do anything but look at you thankfully because it was the only thing he could focus on feeling without turning back into a pit of despair that had let him give up the second he had hit the water. Thinking even about that second of thought that would have led to forever was nothing but crushing rocks landing on his back heavier than the wings still trying to hang on by nothing but thin ribbons of flesh. 

And in truth what the look did was make you nervous. Like some lone schoolgirl who couldn't be under the pressure of her class watching a presentation. It frustrated you to no end, twisting a bloody knuckled hand around your insides and tugging them down to your knees. He was in no way able to make a move to hurt you that you wouldn't see coming first. You knew the small cave better than anyone alive and he was weak, his hands opening and closing limply like the steady wings of a butterfly resting. And all his feeble voice could muster up in response was, “Thank you,” 

The words strung together felt like thrown stones hitting you one after the other. You had been kicked out of your home and told you were no more demon than the humans roaming the castles pretending to play ruler and kingdom. To be told thank you for saving anyone, or even more specifically an angel’s, life was the final nail in your coffin. Every last thing they had said to you as they ripped your wings from your shoulders buried deep enough to burn, those two words sprouting from the grave to show the fruits of your tormentor's labor. The final stamp to seal the truth of your wrongfulness. 

It would have been easier to kill him then, easier than having to hold him down as you tried to help him, and easier than pulling him up from the depths of the moon pool. But they had been right to call you a sympathizer, right in calling you weak because looking at him needing you it was impossible to turn him away. “I'm going to hurt you,” it was a warning bell, the echo of your voice mimicking the sound of some faint prophetic truth. It was not your intention to cause pain on him but the only way that you could help him. It was easier to confess to that than to say you would try and fix him. 

But Kai did not listen, he did not care if you hurt him so long as it made his mind stop working over his last thoughts. The blinking of tears the second he had been pushed had made him feel little again, a child wondering why bad things happened at all. Why would someone push him, why would someone rip his wings until they were nothing but dead weight trying and failing to hold on to their last breath, drowning him, pulling him under into nothing but darkness? He had been wronged more than he thought would ever happen to him and if those who claimed to be honest, kind people,were the ones who hurt him, what was there to believe when those claiming to hurt him had done nothing but pull him free from death? It was a mess of contradictions and his gut was not helping him pick sides. He was a mix of emotions that felt hollow like a long dead tree waiting for a victim to fall into and perish just the same. Being hurt meant nothing to a newly found desolate creature, betrayed, and seeking grace. 

And so he would let you hurt him because he had nothing to lose, no more to give but turn over and let you try whatever it was that you had planned to help fix him. It was like a mutual understanding had fallen over the two of you like a blanket. He saw the bottle in your hand and knew, watched your fingers as they pulled out the needle, watched the way the metal turned red and you started to heat it enough to sterilize it. It was then that he knew what you were. 

It did not make him cringe, not when he knew that to have a demon at his back was akin to death incarnate welcoming themselves to twist a knife right into his spine. He knew that there were hardly enough people on this island who would have helped him enough to the point that they wouldn’t have gotten ill at the sight of his blood. Demons had steady hands; they did not tremble and they did not cower away from gore. To have been stumbled upon by a demon as generous as you were was a blessing he could not fight back against. 

So he let you turn him over, your warm hands working to take off his shirt, cutting it away until it was nothing but scraps, his face pressed into the sand, the grains catching in his lashes. You were gentle with him, laying out his wings that had lost most of their feelings, numb all the way up until they hit the spots right where they were supposed to be connected. It was the only place he could feel the pain anymore, his lungs and throat secondary to the pain he was feeling right there at the root of him. If everyone else had worn their hearts on their sleeves angels had found a way to wear their hearts on their back, their life source, and now it was screaming at him. 

You picked over the scraps of his shirt, peeling away the thread in long stands, looping the thread around your fingers, and making a small ball for you to pull from as you worked. He kept his eyes closed, lashes laying so peacefully across his cheeks as if he was dreaming in the moonlight and not waiting for you to put him back together. There was no going back the second you started, not unless you picked him apart again just to see the way he looked again while hurt. The thought made you feel a bit sick. The intrusion of it is either your mind trying to work around the situation or your faint demon instinct kicking in, playing with the idea until you fall into the trap of it. 

But it was still enticing even if it was sickening. You were so alone and bored, with nothing to do and no one to see. You had been hurt and had not yet found the outlet for that pain even years later, this was the perfect opportunity and yet you could not bring yourself to do anything but cringe the second you straddled his back. Holding him down with the weight of you as you poured the liquor over his wounds and watched him writhe from the pain. There was little enjoyment to find here. 

Kai tried to keep his mouth shut nearly as tight as his eyes but the second the first wave of the anesthetic washed over him he could not help himself from screaming. It echoed around the cave, loud enough to find itself spilling from the cave's top entrance. If anyone had been walking around they would have run, believing some wolf had gotten too far from the woods and taken a victim. You did not try to shush him, just placed your warm palm in the center of his back and pushed him back down, trying to keep him still even if it was an impossible task at that point. 

Then the first stitch came. It was easier to hold back, easier to try and focus on anything else but the blinding pain he was feeling, it was something other than the emptiness settling over him. He could not think of anything good coming from this, could not see himself going home again, to see his friends, the ones who had pushed him, his mother, his sisters. There was nothing but shame and treachery. They would have welcomed him back even wingless but there was no way for him to ever feel at home again, not when he knew what it was like to be nothing but air and death. 

He did not care if he did not move from that spot, the sand the only thing grounding him as he sunk his fingers in curling them until he could feel nothing but his mind trying to work and count every grain he could imagine on his skin. It was nothing but a tactic to let the pain wash away for even a second. He didn't even realize he was crying until the wetness was making more sand stick to his cheek. The soft rumbling of his whimpers mixed in with the faint groans he would release after a particularly tender part of the stitching. 

“You are very lucky to have me, when they took my wings I had nothing to do but bury the one they had left hanging. I don't know what it had looked like but I do know that it felt like this,” you were muttering, talking to yourself and letting the words come out without a filter just as you did when he hadn't been here. “I would have wanted even the one to be stitched back but I remember the pain and I'm-” The word sorry was not one that came from you often or at all, there was little you could do but say it now but still your throat caught. “I would not wish it on anyone,” 

Your fingers worked fluently, picking up the memory of the old stitches you had perfected long ago in a life you did not care to remember. This was nothing but an old way of passing time that you had practiced over and over again. You had never stitched up flesh and blood but it was no different now than it had been then. In a way, it was a comfort you should not have found in the task but it was impossible not to. 

“I do not know how well this will work but I will try,” his wings, covered in sparse feathers, twitched every once in a while as you carefully threaded your needles, tightening the stitches and watching the way the wings came back to life like a marionette doll pulled at its strings. It was hope and nothing more. 

Kai couldn't grit out any more words, the sound of your voice washing over him like a balm but nothing more. He wanted to hate you but knew it was necessary to feel this way when it came to pain. They had told him never to bite the hand that fed him but this was a forceful hand coming out to get him, twisting its fingers in his hair and pushing his face in the dirt until it was nothing but a given that he had to eat whatever it was that was handed to him. But he listened, taking in each word and trying to keep them as close as he could get them. 

Tried to imagine you with dark wings at your back. The silky feathers always shined so nicely in comparison to his white ones. His wings had looked plush and downy, nothing like the oily temptation of the demons. But he could not get the image around his head, could not see what it looked like any more than what it would look like to go home again. It was with you in his mind that he passed out, eyes closing until there was nothing but peaceful darkness where he had no reason to think of hurtful homecomings and angels dressed as death. 

You noticed almost as soon as he fell into the pain. Body going slack underneath you, all of his muscles loosening before he was nothing but twitching nerve ends from each insertion of the needle. It was not delightful work but clean and concise, the expert precision of a fiber works artist long since skilled in their field. Every so often your fingers struggled to keep hold of the slipping needle, the tips of each digit dipped in crimson as you went on with your task. And even as he lay there you went on with your muttering. “We will have to look for more feathers, only a few fell in here, I still have a couple but I don't know how well you will feel looking spotted like a pigeon,” 

For a long time, you had been sick at the sight of the clutch of feathers that you had kept from your wings long gone. It had been nothing but pain to see them, the sight cutting into you like a knife just sharpened on a whetstone. You had wanted to bury them right along with the wing you had put to rest, ripped the rest of the way from your back from your own hands, and yet you couldn't part with them just as you couldn't let go of the needles from your past life. 

Helping him right now, pinching skin to pierce through and thread, felt like it was somehow stitching up a bit of yourself. You acted fast almost as soon as he was out of the water because it was the way you would have wanted someone to help you. Without discrimination, just understanding. They had given you no chance and if you could not give it to yourself you would give it to someone not far off from you. Because you knew what it was like to live here stuck wingless with nothing to do but try not to rot like some discarded apple. It had taken everything in you to help yourself once you had let go of your past life. The feeling was nothing like you had ever felt before. 

It was emptiness, no more and no less, just an expanse of nothingness that unraveled the farther and farther you went into the recesses of your mind. To pull yourself from that pit and find some kind of routine was nothing short of a miracle. But if someone had been waiting here, even if they didn't pull you out of the water but took the wing you had and gave you the hope to live with that once comfort would have been better than nothing. Even if he didn't have full control over his wings like before he would still have his childhood home still there right at his back protecting him when no one else had. If you could give him that it was enough. 

But then when the sewing was done there was nothing to do but let him rest. The work you had done was as neat as it could be, the prickling skin around the base of each wing would hold steady and let the skin heal. You stood looking over him, sleeping with his soft cheek on the sand, his hair once wet now dry and resting against his sleeping brow. Angelic was the only word that would surface and it felt silly to attach something so obvious to him. He was nothing but angelic down to the bone; to his blood. But even still freckled in dried blood and his half-feathered wings you could tell it was written all over him fallen or not. 

You had seen little of the angels when growing up but occasionally they made a pass over the moonpool's mouth. Their bell-like laughter twinkled like the stars in the night that they flew with. They had seemed so far off and distant. But what you had been told about them was that they were nothing but selfish and self-righteous. Underneath the beauty was callous arrogance, they helped others but only if they had already achieved more and found that they could take the last step without them. Take help but never give credit unless it is beneficial to them to say, drop everything to look good, or fend for themselves. 

They had said all demons had shared blood with the angels, until one was banished, the bitterness infecting their souls until their wings turned ebony with rage and the promise of revenge. The story had been on your mind the second they had picked on you for being weak, wondering if somehow your blood had run thin and showed assets of your long since dead ancestors who had seen the heavens and walked with wings of ivory at their backs. Because although you found yourself thinking cruel things you did not dream to be a cruel person. 

So you cleaned him up as best you could, cleaning the blood from your hands and his back, taking the time to take your wet cloth over his feathers to try and clean them as best as you could. You watched his wings twitch in response every so often but he did not stir, there was little you could do in terms of his pain, little more you could do if he found himself with an infection. You could hardly keep yourself alive in the space, you don't get many fish unless you make it out to the beach at night, or find a rabbit in the woods easy enough to catch with a trap. Two mouths to feed was a limit you would have to push yourself to reach. 

But it was something you would think about in the morning, not when the sun was gone and the cave was dark enough that the only thing you could see was the faint glow of the moonpool. The water reflected onto the walls of the cave, washing everything in an eerie blue hue that minced what it would have looked like if you plunged in and swam with the sea folk. It was one of the few beautiful things you could indulge in and yet now you could add to the list because you had him to look at. 

Without turning your back to him you found your usual spot against the wall, the perfect place so that it was just hidden in the dark with the view to see the ceiling's entrance. There was nowhere else to look with him blocking the water as you lay down, back pressed up against the smooth stone wall, washing your heated skin with the faint coolness it had been seeking. You traced the lines of his sleeping face, scared to fall asleep with him so close. Wishing that in that moment you had your own wings to wrap you up, block you from the fear of waking up with him so near with nothing but questions and demands. 

You curled up with your small blanket, tucking it under your chin keeping the angel in sight. It was only when your lashes were fluttering closed that you noticed his eyes start to peek open. He only blinked faintly, a tremble starting in his arms but he was unable to move them. Kai felt weak, drained of everything, vision blurry with the sight of you lying down in the blue darkness. 

Whatever fear you had before was slowly washing away with the look of pain written all over him. He had no way of hurting you when he could hardly breathe properly from the pain. “What is your name?” you could not keep calling him the angel in your head or out loud. 

Your whisper carried in the room and he closed his eyes at the sound, it had been what he had heard before he passed out and it only made his mind feel at ease, something to grab onto in the pain. “Huening kai,” it was low and the only thing in the whole room besides the two of you. 

“You need to rest Kai, tomorrow we have to look for any feathers that may have dropped around the beach or the woods,” but Kai didn't care about that, not when he was still trying to find more of you to hold onto. 

“What’s-” he couldn't think of the rest of the sentence, not until it was tumbling into him like the rocks off the side of a cliff. He wanted to know your name and hold onto it so he could attach it to the thoughts and memories he was building of you in his head. “What's your name?” He was looking through his lashes only able to keep his eyes open the smallest bit because even that had felt like it took too much energy, the small twitches of his fingers taking most of the rest of his will. 

For a second you could not remember what you had been called before you were just you, because in here, alone, no one asked and no one cared. But it came back to you like the moon had come back each night, there was no forgetting it even if it sounded foreign on your tongue after so many years. Saying it, Kai could hear how unsure you felt until you repeated it again for him. 

So that's how he said it in his head, the slight second between the two the repentance following the state of his mind, that question lingering at the last syllable, and the sigh of content following the tail end when he said it again. So he let it go over and over in his head, counted the letters like sheep jumping over him, letting the thought of you lull him back to sleep instead of the pain. And you followed right after him, sleeping fitfully because every time you heard a small hitch in his breathing you had to make sure he was still alive. Make sure that your effort has not gone to waste. 

And he did live through the night and with your aid you helped him sit up in the morning. Watching him ball his fist and rub at his cheek to rid it of the sand that had built up. He looked like a cherub fallen to the stone and looking up in the foreground of the painting waiting for someone to notice his absence. Because all he could think about was if anyone missed him, if they knew what had happened to him and how he had been pushed instead of just caught in some wind he could not find control in as if he was little and learning to use his wing again. They must have said something, maybe they had blamed a demon for what had happened. 

But now with your eyes on him, watching him as you made to clean his back again, checking if in the night there was no more redness or sign of illness, he could not think to see a demon the same again. Here you were being a complete contradiction to everything he had ever been told in his life. Demons were nothing but troublemakers who thought nothing about others. They kept to themselves and made fun by bringing people down. There was no room for him to think about how good a demon could be to anyone let alone an angel like him. 

Sitting up, letting your warm hands look over his back, he wanted to lean into the touch, let you care for him until he could find a way to fly right out of here. There was no way that he could repay you for something like this, nothing for him to do but sit in the silence you had built around you. But he wanted to break it, crack against the hold that the stillness had over him, and scream at the top of his lungs and curse the heavens even if he had forgiven them for so much already. 

He did not know if he deserved what had happened to him but he understood that it had happened and there was nothing for him to do but take it. Cursing and screaming would do nothing but make him bitter and bitterness took too much from the soul, it drained people and he needed all the energy he could get. “Thank you,” it was again the only thing that he could think to say. 

“I told you it would hurt,” because every brush of your fingers to check your work was making him suck in the air between his clenched teeth, the sound fast and snakelike. 

“Would there have been another way to do it without pain?” it was nothing but a question to poke fun. Kai wanted to lighten the mood but it did not help the situation. 

“Do you think my kind would have taken it if so?” you didn't care to look at his blinking reaction, because as much as he knew you were his only option he still held some kind of grudge against demons. It was written all over his face and you didn't even have to see it to know. It shut kai up in a slip second of shame for thinking the instant no. 

“You're helping me nonetheless,” his hand reached across his body to press at his shoulder, delicate fingers so close to the torn flesh. 

You waved his hand away, “don't touch it, the worst thing would be an infection,” 

“The worst thing would be to lose them all together,” he did not say it to be mean or pick at you, he was not like your kind in that way where they know the thing that would tear you down and pick that option every time. No, he was just stating his truth and he was not lying. Infection could be helped but losing them would be closer to death. It was nothing but words but it made your back burn. 

You had heard of ghost limbs, the feeling of a hand still being there after it had been cut clean off. People believed they could scratch the limb if they thought hard enough to get rid of the feeling. You didn't know how real the feeling would be until you were there with your wing buried in the woods, the other long lost and tossed in a fire if you knew how any of them would have cleaned up the mess they made. If anything was to tear into you it was that first night where everything ached. Your back where the scabs started to turn to scars began to itch and the feeling traveled down to where there was nothingness but the hope of where your wings would resprout if that was ever an option. You wanted to wrap them around you and wished if you felt the ghost of anything it would be the home they had helped you feel but all you had felt was pain. A pain you could not help because there was nothing to do but let it work its way through your system. The pain was not an itch; not so easily taken care of. 

“That would be horrible and if you don't listen to me they will be gone, keep your hand away,” you left no room for argument in your tone and Kai listened. He curled his hand into a fist and sat it in his lap. “Today we will let the area breathe and while I’m out we can get whatever we need to make a salve to help the healing process,” Kai nodded knowing that you were right. He didn't even have the first thought of where to start to find out how to help himself. 

“Can you try and pull your wing in,” you didn't want to push him so early but you needed to know if it was worth the trip to even go out and look for feathers if he could not use them. 

For Kai, it felt like an impossible question to answer. He felt distant from his heart back, like he was cut in half but then he felt your fingertips, the feeling of them dragging along the edge of his wings, tracing the span of them and following the curve. “Can you feel that?” This was easier because it was the only thing he could focus on. The heat of you was constant, radiating from your body onto his like a blanket he wished he could pull in closer. 

“Yes,” it was shallow as he followed the feeling in his mind. He had never been sensitive to touch on his wings, he knew others could feel any brush of their feathers but he felt nothing until now. If he had lost the ability to fly he had gained the ability to have sensation right along the spot he feared he would lose anyway. 

You curled your fingers around the top of his wings slowly following the natural way they folded into themselves and helped him push them close to his back. Kai groaned but it was not as horrible as he expected it to be. With your help, he found whatever connection he had lost because now he could keep them pulled in without your help. But you still helped to tuck the other one close just as neatly, checking around his stitches to make sure they could handle the movement without being impossibly stiff. 

The sight made you clench your jaw. Jealousy had not been a familiar feeling here but it was alive and well now. But it did not matter, you could be jealous and still help him. But you had to get up and turn away, busy yourself with finding your own feathers, the ones you kept at the bottom of your stash of things, making sure they didn't accidentally get seen by you when you didn't want the reminder. 

It had felt easy to say you would give them to him in the moment but the second you pushed aside the spare clothes you had and laid eyes on them it was like saying you would clip off your fingers and let him use them on his own hands. You let the stack of clothes fall right back into place, picking up the loose shirt you could find that would button over him. He would have to wear it backwards because it was not made with wings in mind but there was nothing else for you to do unless he wanted to walk around shirtless. 

But Kai was thankful pushing his arms through the sleeves and leaving the buttons for you to do up for him. You made sure to keep yourself from brushing him accidentally, no need to touch him more than you needed to as you secured the fabric around him. But Kai instantly missed your warmth the second you pulled away. 

“The only way out is up but it's nothing too bad, you only need to raise your arms about this high,” you demonstrated, “it's mostly leg work,” 

“You want me to leave?” he didn't know why it was the first thing he would think, you had just told him about collecting materials to help him but as soon as the words left your mouth all he could think was no don't kick me out don't push me like them, as if you could hear him you shook your head. 

“Do angels only sit around when faced with adversity or do they get up and work?” you slung your bag over your shoulder, slipping both arms in to have it securely against your back. When going out it was the only thing that felt comfortable enough to have at your back when you had little else. “If you want to stay, I say we work together to make sure that we can keep you here for a bit longer, but I cannot do everything and you cannot stay forever. Tonight we only need a few things,” 

“Okay,” Kai stumbled to stand, feeling unstable and wobbly enough to reach out for the walls to hold him up. 

“You can stay here for tonight, rest more if you're not up for it,” 

“No,” it was a slight snap back against the way he was feeling. It was not only because he was feeling weak but because he did not like to sit around doing nothing, he did not want to wait for you to come back or worse wait and think that you were never coming back for him. He's sure that is something a demon would do, leave him here without help just to see how long he would stay without the help. But he was thinking badly because he didn't want to face his own truth, “I need to do something,” anything would be better than sitting around and thinking up ways to hate you over nothing at all. Because there was nothing to hate you over, you had done nothing that would make him hate you but the longer he stayed up with his thoughts they seemed to poison the image of you slowly. And he could not do that to his savior. 

“Fine, you can go first so that I can make sure you don't fall back,” and you had been telling the truth about the way out, the grooves of the walls made perfect spaces for his feet to fit. Only after a few steps up did he have to raise his arms to try and hold himself steady as he kicked his feet out the top of the opening. It was only possible because the side you had set him to get out of was shorter than the rest of the jagged ring of rocks forming the entrance of the cave. And as soon as he was out it was easy to sit and rest with his legs dangling into the open mouth as if he would just jump right into the water he had nearly died in. 

You had no trouble pulling yourself up and out, the rock smoothed down from the amount of time that you had made the trip up even if you avoided it most times. “There is no other way in or out?” Kai asked as you showed him the way down to the grassy underbrush. 

“You could swim in and out, it's not very practical but it's better that way if you want to make sure no one sees you coming in. But I don't think that would be good for you and you have to hold your breath for a long while,” Kai could not think about what it would be like to go back into the water after yesterday, he's sure he would instantly imagine himself drowning again. 

Instead, he focused on following you and your steps through the thick mess of trees surrounding the spot where you had made your home. Distantly he could hear the sea, the soft crashing of waves on the shore lightening as the two of you went until he saw the first blood-dotted feather. 

His wings twitched at the sight, the soft white tucked in between the branches and leaves of a tree. He was silent as he watched you pluck it between your fingers, reaching it like you were picking up a gold coin found on heads for luck. “You will tell me eventually why it is you fell from the heavens won't you?” he watched you twist the feather, examining the dark dried crimson stains. 

“There is little of a story there,” he was clenched all over, fists and jaw tight as you held the feather out for him to take, “you hold it,” he jutted his chin out, the only movement he could bring himself to make or else he would fall apart. 

Kai had gone through many feathers of different sizes growing up. Preening them and feeling grateful to have grown fully so that they did not fall out as often as they had when growing from downy softness to strong enough to let him fly. But it was different to see them like this. He knew they should not be in your hand, or even his. They should not be spread around the woods like bunches of snow that had not yet melted with the coming spring. But it was as if the longer he looked out over the expanse of woods in front of the two of you the more speckles of white he caught mixed in with all the green. 

He was frozen in his spot, stuck just looking out at all the pieces of himself spread out like nothing more than a chess board thrown to the ground, with no intention of being picked up after a soiled game. You could see in him the same kind of evil that was in you twisting itself around your brain the second you moved that stack of clothes and saw your own feathers. When you were young they meant nothing because they had always been there but once it started to go away, once it was nothing more than a pile in front of you it made you feel small and insignificant. 

“When they first ripped my wing it didn't hurt like I had imagined it would have,” you had been frozen, stuck like a kitten who had been picked up by the scruff of its neck. You had looked up with eyes that nearly rolled in your skull the second you realized what had happened. How could you not have felt something so huge? Maybe it was because you could not see it, your mind not catching up with your body until seconds later and it was all you could think to feel. There had been blood, slick down your back and on your fingers as you reached to try and hold onto anything that was left. “For a second you almost think you can fly away from the pain,” 

Kai watched your eyes go unfocused, lost in a thought that had been his reality just the day before. It was almost as if he could feel that foot pressed right into his back again. His ‘friend’ with the heel of his boot cutting into Kai’s spine. He had asked him to look out over the edge of the last cliff, claiming to have seen carrion flying around too close for comfort. It was only a second, looking over the edge so high up he knew that if he flew down and caught the wind that it would be a rush he could never replicate. 

The boot had been nothing but a second before his hands had been on his wings pulling them back until that sickening crunch and tear. It had happened so fast kai had felt nothing until it was all too late. 

“There is always a story and you don't have to tell me yours but know that if I could get revenge on the ones who took my ability to fly, I wouldn't hold back from repeating over and over the same pain they inflicted on me,” you tucked his feather into your bag, “they wouldn't think twice about you so don't give them the grace of never speaking up for what they did to you,” 

“You’d think that because you're a demon,” and for the first time Kai saw you crack a smile, a twisted tarnished thing. 

“We are not too different, the only thing that sets us apart is you thinking you are any better than me. You forget we both woke up in that cave only I was alone and you had me, and how lucky for you that I'm nice and don't just build you up to pull you right back down again,” you turned walking because you needed the distance, “go back if you can't see that we are the same,” 

“My first thought wouldn't have been to hurt someone I helped,” Kai kept pace with you, watching you pick up each one of his feathers as you went. 

“Just because I say I resist hurting you physically does not mean that what you say or think cannot hurt me. You want to freely throw your judgment around and stick a label onto me, reducing me to nothing but blood I did not ask to be born with and still you cannot see how we are exactly the same. We are only doing the same thing in different seasons, only one of us is plain as day and the other is hidden behind some thick smokescreen allowed in whatever game we have found ourselves,”  he could tell there was no room for argument with you. Set in some demon way that made you want to burn instead of heal. But even he knew he was just being bitter, proving you right even if he didn't say it out loud. 

He was grateful and he was upset, he had been a pot of water his whole life and it had never been set above a fire until right now and the bubbling was unwelcome and made him itch all over. He didn't see the reason for revenge when there was no way for him to get back up to the heavens without walking up the stairs and that would feel more shameful than coming back wingless. The only thing he could feel about the topic was that if it had been him or you he's not too sure that it would have been him you would have picked to help. But even he couldn't hide from the truth of wanting to pick himself every time. 

So he kept his mouth shut knowing there was nothing he could say that would make him look better and nothing he could say to make you look worse because faintly you were right about the both of you being so similar. He followed you like a lost puppy, watching you pick over the brush, collecting pieces of him until you found every part of the set to make enough of a picture. You were careful with them, fitting them all together in a neat stack and wrapping a loose string of thread around them to keep them from spilling all over again. 

By the time you two had combed most of the area, the sun was setting into nothing but stars. Two handfuls of feathers and a pit in Kai’s stomach made for little conversation. Keeping his eyes on his footfalls he did not see what it was that made you tense up until it was right there burning in the distance. 

A little ball of fire, dancing seemingly above nothing but the air. A Willo-the–wisp, bright enough to feel like a beacon one could not turn to look away from. But you hissed at the thing, reaching down to pick up a rock, smooth in your palm before you threw it. “Hey!” Kai's voice echoed in empty woods, previously the only sound heard was his crunching footsteps. Your years of walking down here had taught you how to keep yourself light as you made a journey this far out from your home. “See only proving my point, hurting things without reason, what did they ever do to you?” 

But you didn’t feel like explaining yourself to him, it felt silly to believe in rumors about the little creatures but it was impossible not to feel conflicted about bad signs when your life had been full of misfortune.  “Its bad luck to see them,” 

“Well it showed up there was no need to throw a rock at it, bad luck or not it was given the second it popped up,” his statement made you roll your eyes. What was there to do but watch the flame snuff out? It felt better to make the flame extinguish the second you saw it as if they were the thing that leached luck from you the longer they stayed around.  

“I'm not going to sit and let the death promiser dance around and curse me, or you for that matter, I don't know how I would pull your corpse from the cave if you were to die from the infection they wanted to warn you about,” you watched his face pale, your eyebrows lifting letting it known that you had seen that you had won written on him, “see, so let me throw stones, I'm doing it for both of us even if you don't believe it,” 

“It's only an omen, it doesn't mean anything real,” but he was trying to convince himself to fear the little flame, small and weak enough to be taken out by nothing but a pebble. 

“You know we have people who read the stars? Creatures deep in the sea, the woods, the kingdom, even your precious sky. They all have stories and folklore that came from some kind of truth,” you picked up another stone in case you saw another little flame lingering around not wanting to risk a sighting even if you could help it. 

“How are you planning on getting the feathers back on?” Kai wanted anything else but to talk about being the same or not, about folklore and truth. He was tired and didn't want to think about anything else besides what was supposed to come next. 

“Wax, I have lots of candles stored up that will do, if I get the layers thin enough it shouldn't weigh you down. It's also soft enough so that it won’t restrict any growth when they start to grow back,” it felt far away to think about having to go through the process of aging all over again, he had been through the phase of watching his feathers transition he did not want to wait again. The wax would give him an option, anything that would help to keep him from feeling as if he fell so far back from everything he had ever known. 

He wonders if you had thought through the same things with your wings before it was too late. If the idea for the wax had come before or after you buried your last option. He did not think it would be okay to ask that, not when you were helping him already. Demons being fickle was not uncommon; he wouldn't be surprised that you tossed him aside for something new to tinker with if given the option. Rather he gets as much information for you on how to help himself before you leave him with nothing at all. 

You showed him the way back up and down into the cave and for a sickening second, he thought you would push him while he looked for a way to make it down without landing in the water. Your hand had been on his back to steady him and yourself on the edge together. His flinching from your touch only registered as pain and not fear. You jumped down angeling yourself so that you landed right at the edge of the water and you looked up, stepping out of the way waiting for him to follow your lead. 

Kai pushed himself down feeling nothing but air for only a second but it was a second too long. He stumbled as soon as his legs hit the ground, leaning back and looking at you for a sickening moment before he was ready to accept falling back into the water, but you reached out making a fist in his shirt as his arms waved trying to find something to hold onto. The heels of his feet almost tipped him into the water, his wings shuddering and trying to pull in closer, hiding back away as if they could when this damaged. The buttons on the back started to pop with the strain of his weight and he had to reach out for you, hands wrapped around your forearm as you pulled him back to the safety of the sand. 

“You're very clumsy on your feet,” you muttered, pulling yourself away from him and his tight grasp. He was embarrassed but only because he was washed in fear and being caught for it on his face. 

“There was not one time you fell while jumping down?” he waved at the short distance that was available for him to land. 

“Once or twice but you get used to the angle and learn,” you don't put your bag down, not when you have to turn around to look for your candles, keeping your back covered even if now you knew he would do little to hurt you physically. Everything you had picked up from your conversations and just watching him walk around made you realize just how his label fits him so well. He had been more upset over the will-o-the-wisp than his own ruining. But it still didn't make you drop your guard. 

Finding your stack of candles you tucked them under your arm and turned to find Kai sitting in the sand all over again, looking out at the water and watching the way it swayed. He traced the dark outline of the opening leading out to the sea, hardly noticeable if you hadn't said there was a way out before. He would have believed there was only the two of you and not the world's ocean just a few feet away from him. So much just inches away from his tomb that he believed he would have been stuck in until someone found his heavy lead-lined bones. 

“We don't have to do it tonight if you don't want to,” your voice was soft as if you knew he was stuck in some darkness in his mind, struggling against the hold of some blanket of depression he had thrown over himself and couldn't find his way out of. “It would be better too because we need the light and I can hardly make a fire big enough to produce enough,” 

Light, once so easy to produce on the edge of his fingertips, wasted power on his childhood innocence trying to find ways to light up his bedroom when he was supposed to be sleeping. It had been easy back then and now sitting here wanting to get it all over with he couldn't get up enough energy to heat his skin. He was cold all over, blood leached, and hollow. Lifting his palm he focused in on his hands, the soft ridges tracing around the center supposed to be the lifeline or so he had been told. That was where he had always watched the light come from first, starting right at his wrist and working its way up curving between his thumb and pointer finger before it was nothing but light held in his hand like he had caught a star. 

Now it was nothing. Not a flicker of illumination nor a hum of warmth. He balled his fist clenching until he felt his nails digging into his supposed lifeline wishing that if he squeezed hard enough he could find a single drop of anything left in him. And still nothing. Not even enough to help him now when he wanted it, needed it most. “Tomorrow,” the word was a bitter thing, in his chest and making it sound rough with hatred. 

“It takes a bit to get back,” you tried not knowing why you didn't just curl up in your spot and wait for the rest of the sun to set so that you could sleep. Ignore him and his well-deserved mood. But you had done the same thing, sitting in the dark trying to make even the smallest flame and nothing would come, “I was never the best at lighting anything on fire, not even the blades of dry grass they let the little ones practice with,” 

Kai listened, watching you from the corner of his eye as you took a seat next to him, legs crossed just like his, your knee so close to hitting against him he could feel the heat from it. “I should have known then that I wasn't like the rest of them, tailless, hornless, powerless,” you gave a dry humorless laugh, fiddling with the candle sticks you had, letting them spill into your lap picking one only one up and examining the wick. He traced the side of your face, following the bridge of your nose right till the end and watching you blow so softly it wouldn't have taken down the light of a birthday candle. 

But a flame bloomed, catching on the wick, and dancing in the coming darkness. It lit up the features of your face, your eyes shining in the light as you watched the small reflection of your power. You had little to give, children had been playing with fire long since they were learning to crawl and you had only come to master a few tricks. “The only thing that had labeled me a demon were my wings, and they had been…” the edge of your lips wobbled, your jaw clenching closed at the itching in your throat as if this was even too much to say to him. “They had been beautiful,” it was said just as softly as the exhale you had done to light the candle, hardly there and weak. 

“I didn't even care about the fire, anyone can light a match or strike flint and create a spark. But…” 

“Not everyone can fly,” he could feel the way you struggled to say it as if it was traveling from his mind to yours. In the firelight he watched the tear fall, tacking down your cheek faster than you could wipe it away. But you caught it erasing it as if that would take your feelings away from you as if it would keep those intrusive memories from surfacing. Because no one would know how it felt to be that high, physically and mentally, unless they had been up there with you catching air with a laugh bubbling up from your chest like it was coming from a faucet that could never be turned off. 

You blew out the candle, sticking it in the sand and pushing yourself to stand, letting the rest of the candlesticks stay laid out for tomorrow. “Don't worry about what you don't have just yet and be thankful for what you're still holding onto. I'm going to bed.” No more was needed to be said when the two of you both knew it hurt too much to find yourself in the mix of confessions and shared sympathy. So you tossed your bag to the side, turning your back to the wall and closing your eyes so that you couldn't look at the blessing you had given him and hadn't received from anyone else. 

But it was incredibly hard, there was nowhere to look except him or the back of your eyelids and all you could see when you closed your eyes was the vision of you in the sky. It ached to remember and the pain was fresh looking at his new stitches that you had done even with his wings pulled in and sparse of feathers. Because he sat there at the edge of the water trying and failing to open his wings up again without your help this time. 

He could tell they were stiff and he was unfamiliar with the feeling. Before it had been second nature, his wings moving as his lungs did without the need for his mind but now that he focused on them it was like they couldn't work and wouldn't unless he focused on not paying any mind to them. But it was hard to do that when his healing stitches were itching and he was told over and over again by you not to touch them. So he sat there watching the water with his back to you as if that would keep him accountable for not messing up your hard work. 

All that was keeping him up was the promise of tomorrow when the sun would come out and you would help him put his feathers back even if he felt that it wouldn't work. In a way he worried it was too unnatural to work, that somehow it would just fail because it was not right, the wind would not agree and still, if it did work he had no intentions of going home. To go back with wings made of nothing but wax and thread felt like a lie of himself. Some imposter trying to pass as himself to fit back into the same life he had before. But with his wings stuck together like a forged abomination felt like he was never going to find himself comfortable there again. 

He didn't care if they took him in as he was, whispered behind his back, because he knew they would, and let him pretend that everything was the same when it so clearly was not. He knew little of the world below and even less of the world below that one from where you came from, leaving home would be an adjustment but necessary. He just needed his wings healed enough to hide them back inside of him wherever it was they unfurled from when he wanted them. It had been uncomfortable back in the heavens because there was no need to hide who you were. He would have to get used to the feeling but it would not be something as horrible as this ache was now. 

It wasn't until the morning, the sun just peeking over the edge of the cave's mouth that he realized he had not gotten any sleep at all. He listened to the water, the chitter of the animals in the distant woods, and the sound of your easy breathing while you dreamt. He wondered if you would have dreams of flying, if they hurt just as bad as the pain of knowing you never would fly again but he knew they must have been tethered feelings; unable to have one without the other. 

He pictured you over and over again in his head. Imagined you with your wings of night in the air next to him, that laugh you had turned his way unlike the one he heard but one he wished you would give him so that he would know something in his dream would be real. This laugh was somewhere caught between a giggle and a sprinkle of light from his fingertips. He locked in on thinking of the laugh over the feeling of flying because it was impossible to not hurt when thinking of the air. But you, thinking of you, felt safe even if it was some kind of hope caught in a dream. 

Because you would never fly again he knew that much because you were so certain of it. He had known of people who wanted to mimic the feeling of flight. Making things out of clockwork and magic as if it would help them but that felt worse than having to go home stitched up. To walk in with wings not even close to the ones you owned, or were born with, felt like the worst kind of death. You wouldn't have even known that you had died, that the only thing keeping your body animated and moving were the strings of your delusion tied so tight around your joints that you never got a chance to look down and realize this was not you at all. 

So he tried to grasp that laugh because it was the only thing that felt close to real; the only thing that felt close to happening at all even with all the distant hope he was supposed to be having. And when you woke you could see it all over him, the failure written on every inch of him. It fueled an anger you had not felt in years, the simmering pot inside you turned up to boiling over nothing more than an empty glance. 

You kept to yourself, let him stay seated by the water, and went about to find the two of you food. And it wasn't until the two of you had eaten that you set into getting yourself ready for the long days work waiting for you. Candle in hand you watched him look back out over the water and you couldn't take it anymore. Kicking at the sand you watched the grains puff up in a plume around his legs his hands waving away the dust, brows scrunched as he scowled at you, “Stop looking as if I'm a failure already,” 

“I didn't say anything,” but he knows what you're talking about, the thought had infected him and was spreading as rapidly as the infection you had warned him would happen if he touched his back. 

“You didn't have to say anything, trust me if saving your life meant little to me I wouldn't have done it in the first place, I wouldn't waste my time,” you grab the handfuls of feathers, his eyes locking in on them in hand. 

“You have nothing better to do,” he didn't mean to say it but it was true he felt it and it made him believe it was the only reason why you were helping him. Because you were bored here, sitting in a cave doing nothing that he could see because there was nothing to do but sit. He had made it so that you had something to do. In a moment you would turn him away and tell him not to come back, to find someone else willing to help him. But you wouldn't let him give up on you. 

“No, I don't but I could have done anything else besides this. Hell it might be more fun watching you fall again than it would be to watch you actually fly but I guess we won't know unless we try,” but Kai’s scowl was back and it was better than seeing him feel nothing at all. 

“Why would you say that? You know what it's like-” 

“Exactly why would I help you for nothing at all but boredom? I wouldn't help if I didn't want to see you succeed, I wouldn't be doing this at all I would have let you die. So stop wasting my limited kindness and accept my effort without believing it will lead to nothing but failure,” 

“You would do that, wouldn't you?” because it had caught on him, the idea of being watched as he fell again by someone who would enjoy it. Unlike the first time, it would be worse, he would never come back from that fall, because even if he had forgiven the person who had pushed him he had known the second he felt their foot on his spine that it had been out of pure evil, if it were you doing all this just to watch him fail again it would be worse and there would be no forgiveness. “Build me up only to prove I should never fly again,” 

“You are incredibly cynical,” you blow on your candle, watching the flame heat the ivory colored wax so close to matching the color of his feathers. “Did you ever think that maybe I want you to succeed? That it would help me see you make it out of here more yourself than I ever would have left this place?” you stand behind him, pushing back the first row of feathers as gently as you can before placing the feather over the node you knew a new one would find to grow. You tilt the candle just enough until the wax drips, translucent dots pattering around the area as you watch the way they dry the color blending in perfectly. You let the feather go watching the way it sticks and stayed in place, right where it looked like it had never been gone. 

Kai could not feel the process, not when he was lost in his thoughts. He tried to separate the knowledge of you being a demon away from the proof he had of you being nothing more than someone who was lost. The two could be synonymous is what he reminds himself over again. He had his back to you and was hoping you wouldn't shove a knife right through him but that didn't mean he wasn't worried. 

He did not bring up his thoughts again, he let you work and passed himself off as being hopeful when it was the last thing he felt he was. He was grateful that you cared enough to try even if he believed you had ulterior motives but he would not say out loud that he had any hope when it was not true and if it was it felt wrong to jinx it. 

And so you worked, the slow repetitive motions evening out your heartbeat. And even when the wax fell to your fingers you did not flinch, taking the slight burn and continuing. Even Kai did not back away from the fallen wax when the sparse drops landed on his back. Anything was better than the pain he had felt before and now this felt pleasant, trembling from the shock the first time and accepting any other spot that made itself known to him. 

Then the two of you began to talk, small things that felt so insignificant when you were alone. His first question filled up the silence, “What's your favorite color?” you had not been asked in years something so lighthearted, there was no need to have a favorite when you wouldn't seek it out. 

“I don't know,” you had shrugged, dripping the wax over the next feather in the lineup. By midday, you had done one whole wing. The way the feathers overlapped made it so that you never even saw the wax since most of the top feathers had stayed in place. 

“You don't know? How could you not know your favorite color?” It was hard to explain to him how it didn't matter because Kai would take nothing short of an answer he saw as being good enough. He asked again, asked what it had been like when you were a child, and he listened as you tried to explain.  Answering his own questions and trying to take everything off his mind besides you and who you were. 

He asked you everything and anything he could think of until it was too late and the only thing he could think about was the fact you had stopped and were looking over his stitches again. “Is it bad?” 

“No,” it was the opposite of bad, he healed exceedingly fast because of his angel blood, the once torn flesh already looking a day away from having the stitches removed. “It's doing well, but I ran out of feathers for your right wing,” 

“Oh,” he felt like he had been deflated, his shoulders already bent forward so that you could have the best access to his back and he did not think he could sag anymore, yet he did. Periodically as you added more feathers in you would tap your wax-coated fingertip against his spine asking him to stretch his wings out. In the length of a day, he felt stronger and more like himself as the time passed. He could hold the weight of his wings up fine even with the thread still pulling him together bit by bit. And now he couldn't even finish what had been started. 

You had not thought before you spoke up next, the words spilling out as easily as the continued answers to his constant questions, “I still have a few from my wings if you don't mind the color,” but once it was said it felt right. You had no need for the feathers anymore, the only thing they did was bring you pain. They should have been buried right along with the rest of your wing and now you knew that there was some reason out there why you had kept them besides the reminder of a painful past. If they could help it felt right just as it felt right the second you pulled him out of the moon pool. You could give them up because in some way healing him was healing you. What better than to let your feathers fly again when you could not? 

And Kai did not mind, not when now he was itching to fly again, the hope somehow filtering into him the second you had told him to stretch his wings out again, to try. He let you put the feathers on, looked at the glossy ink color, and had not turned away because now he was tying the strings of his delusion on and he could not bring himself to stop. 

You did not feel loss this time around when seeing your past spilled out in a heap in your lap as you took wax to each one, fastening it to the angel boy's wing to give him one last chance that you wish you could have had. It felt cathartic, watching the way the colors contrasted and blended so well together. Your fingers ran over the line of them the second you had finished. A soft sad smile on your lips as you told Kai to stretch one final time before trying to fly. 

It felt so sudden, so soon from the last time he had taken flight. He hadn't even realized it was his last time at least before the fall. He wondered if you remembered your last time, what it had been like, and if it felt just as insignificant to you as it had to him. Wondered what you would have preferred your last flight to have felt like, where you would have gone. But the thoughts were a distraction to him trying to fly now. 

Kai stretched his wings, the white expanse only broken up by the tip of black at the end of his right wing. He couldn't remember what it felt like to lift off the ground instead of hurtling towards it but then he felt it, his heels lifting first, and the soft beat of his wings echoing in the small space. You stood back watching with a blank expression, tingling all over because you couldn't believe you had done it. He was up, the tips of his shoes just hitting the stirring sand before he felt his wings give out.

Shouting he fell, the distance nothing but a foot but feeling like he had come crashing all the way back down the side of a mountain. His back ached but not from pain but the strain of weakness. “You can try again tomorrow, we just have to keep at it even if it's a little bit every day,” Kai had fallen to his knees, looking up at you with his slumped shoulders and puppy dog eyes. 

“Thank you,” the words still tumbled into you, but it was easier to accept when the fruits of your labor were still right at the forefront of your mind. He had flown even if it was just a foot, it had been more than what either of you had expected. You had worried of his stitches ripping, worried of the feathers falling with only a few beats of wind and they had not, both holding stronger than your conviction. 

Your smile could not be contained, the edges of your mouth trying to hold it back like a stranger at the door because it had been far too long since the last time you felt this happy about anything. “It worked,” disbelief made itself known in your tone but Kai was just as surprised. He did not care at that moment if he got any higher off the ground, only that he did not have to lose so much of himself. “It worked,” he mimicked his smile wobbling as he fought back his tears, “it worked,” 

It was the way he said it last that hit home. You did not think about it hurting so bad to see him succeed, jealousy thick and alive in your blood. You wanted that feeling, you wanted those words to come from you not just from being an aid but from being the project. The words were felt all throughout you as he whispered them, just enough to watch the stress of never again flying dissipate into nothing but happiness. He had been empty and you had tipped in a bucket of everything you had to give, he had gained so much and you lost more than you had to offer him. 

There was nothing more to call it besides envy; sickening jealousy. If you could rip the wings right off his back and give them to yourself in that split second you would have. It was not productive but it was the only thing you could see when you looked at him. But you shook your head as if you had been caught in the rain and needed to get the water from your hair, pushing the thoughts to the side. You would never have what he did, no way for you to have given yourself the chance in the way that you had given it to him. 

So you squashed the feeling, talked yourself out of the need to cry once the two of you had laid down. Your back to the wall again as you look at him with that faint smile on his lips because he was getting to sleep peacefully since the first time he had come here without the aid of his pain. The outline of his wings in the darkness made them look just like a shadow behind him. And it was so hard not to cry as soon as you knew he was asleep. Wanted to turn and face the wall to give yourself the illusion of privacy in your struggle to keep the burn in your throat from turning into a sob you had fallen into to fitful sleep. 

What had awoken Kai was the strain in your voice, the way you muttered, again and again, the word no, the noise of it getting louder and louder until it was impossible to ignore the sound as if it was nothing more than the hum of a mourning bird's song. He opened his eyes and there you were on your makeshift bed, your face pressed into the blanket, your back turned to the sky and you reached back trying to scratch at your shoulder blades. But even in sleep, he could see the way it pained you, hands only just brushing over your shoulders when you found yourself pinned down in sleep. You were whining, crying in your sleep, and it was full of pain. 

Because in your sleep you had dreamt of that first night without your wings. You could not lay on your side, could not lay any other way but with your face to the ground like they were pulling your wings from you all over again. Back facing the sky praying that they didn't come in because you had no strength to turn over, no strength in you except to try and restrain yourself from scratching at the healing wounds, unaided by careful stitches. 

It had been a long time since you had felt the dream so real that it made you believe there was something wrong with your back. Because you were somewhere on the edge of your dream telling yourself it was real, that the pain was right there at the surface and you didn't know it unless you woke up. If only you could just wake up instead of struggling as you had back then. And when you looked to your side there was no kai, just the outline of that wing, the one you had to pull off there dead and waiting for its burial. 

But Kai would not let you sleep through it, not let you scratch at your shoulders and wade through the dreamscape colored in nothing but the shade of a nightmare. He grasped your sleeping hand, the one fluttering at your back like a moth to a flame and curled his fingers between yours. Your hands fit neatly against his, locking in place as if you had been reaching out for him the whole time. His free hand was at your lower back, keeping away from the top where he knew you were trying to reach. And when your eyes opened your gasp followed the way you shot up, back pressed back to the wall and you tried to cure the burning. 

You knew this feeling, the momentary ghost wings pretending they still had feelings for which could be hurt. Everything about you felt as if it was shaking, like a rattling cabinet of glass in an earthquake because your world was shaking at your feet telling you something was wrong but you couldn't tell what it was. “It's okay it was only a nightmare,” Kai tried to sooth, thumb running over the back of your hand that he held in both of his. 

In your dream you had been alone, so much of it had been like it always was. Pain circling around everything you had come to know. But now there had been pain but the faint hurt that Kai had not been there to help you. As if he could go back in time and do what you had for him even if it was no use you had just wanted him to be there next to you. But he hadn't been and in the mix of the sobs you had found his name and prayed he would hear because if they were your dreams you should have been able to grab them by the neck and control them, not follow them down the dark hall that felt neverending. 

But waking up to know he had been here the whole time, knowing that if he had been there he would have helped just the same, settled something inside you that had been overrun with worry. You unfurled your arms from around yourself, throwing them around Kai’s neck and pulling him into a hug. 

He did not freeze up under your hold but melted into you, sliding his hands around your back and pulling you closer to him, your face pressed into the space between his throat and his collarbone. He hadn't known how much a hug would have helped him just as it was helping you. You were warm and clinging to him in a way no one had ever needed him. 

Kai could have sat like that with you in his arms until the sun came up and you would have let him because you needed to be closer and needed something that only he could give you. Your fingers ran through his hair, his hands sliding down your lower back pulling you to straddle his hips because he needed you chest to chest, needed to feel the weight of you against them to make sure that he knew it was real just the same as you did. “You're okay,” he whispered the words, a hammer against the dam you had walled up in place to keep you from ever getting close to anyone ever again. 

It was so quick you are unsure why it was your instant reaction. Your lips kissed over the mole he had right along the column of his throat. The feeling of his words pressed right to your mouth when he hummed your name. Everything was so much easier to do in the half dark, the room alight in that blue glow of the water, the moon still high in the sky as he slipped his hands under your shirt, cool against your heated skin and only making you arch further into him, hips sinking as you kissed up his neck. 

Neither of you stopped the other from the exploration, you curled your fingers in his hair right at the base of his neck and he found any expanse of skin that he could let his fingers touch. And when you finally made your kisses stop right at the edge of his lips he couldn't help but turn his head, chasing after your mouth with his desperate desire to get lost in you. Because once you started neither of you could pull yourself away from stopping. 

He tasted like nothing short of twinkling light filling the darkness that you had let wash over you for far too long. His soft moans caught in your mouth with each drag of your hips now perfectly placed over him and his wanting need. It was the only way to describe the way he was feeling, he did not just want you, he needed you, so hard from just a few devouring kisses that you couldn’t resist. 

You pulled away for only a second standing so that you could take the few clothes you had on off. Kai sitting there watching in awe as you peeled off your shirt, his hands itching to have you back on him with no layers between the two of you, chest to chest but closer now being skin to skin. He reached out for your hips pulling you closer to him so that he could rest his chin on your stomach, looking at you like the fallen angel he was, like you were the only savior he had written in his stars. 

He let his lips pepper over you, your hands brushing the hair from his brow, his fingers dipping into your waistband holding the fabric in a way that asked you for permission to tug them down and off. “Please,” he whispered check pressed to your hip, “I need you,” and you would give him everything he asked for if he continued looking at you in that way as if nothing in the world mattered but you at this moment, not your blood or cruel words, just a boy and a girl seeking out the pleasure of another. 

You let him take your pants off just as easily as he had let you tug him free from his. And when you sank onto him, took all of him in with a gasp at the stretch working its way through you, nothing had felt more right. Because he was curving into you, your lips were his only salvation as you slowly rocked your hips back and forth on him. His face washed in the pleasure of having you his hands growing warmer and warmer as they held your back. You did your best to avoid his stitches, ignoring his wings that twitched along with his body every time you found a new slow rhythm to move to. 

The angle the two of you had was grinding against your pleasure point, your moans so sweet and rumbling against him. He traced up the line of your spine with one hand, keeping the other wrapped around your back to make sure you stayed in the circle of space the two of you had created. You whimpered when he brushed over the scars on your back but did not pull away, letting him have a part of you that you would never give to anyone else because he knew what it was like, he knew what it meant, this level of trust rushing into you almost as fast as your coming orgasm. And right behind him the soft blue light of a will-o-the-wisp on the water, gone as quickly as it had come into your field of vision but you would not have cared in that moment anyway. 

Both of you neared the end, and when you came, the feeling in your belly took all the space to think because it had been reduced to feeling only him and the pleasure he was giving you. His hands felt hot and alive with the power he had believed had been lost to him as you trembled in his hold, swallowing down each little noise you made. He guided you down to the blanket stretched out on the sand, rocking his hips now chasing after his own high watching the hazy look wash over your face as you held onto his shoulders. And behind him his wings spread covering the two of you in that safe space you had craved more than anything, his panting breaths pressed to your neck as he spilled all he had into you. 

You could only focus on him and the way he brought you the closest you had ever felt to being whole again. Wrapped up in nothing but him was close to being saved because you both knew how similar you were and to be seen like this, to be understood, was healing all on its own and you welcomed everything he had to offer. You would let him take you again and again because you felt linked, the jealousy washed away because being held like this was enough to sedate the torment you had found yourself subjected to being here alone for so long. 

And in the morning, when the sun came in on the new day you never felt as excited to see the light as you did in that moment. Because Kai was grinning looking over at you knowing what it meant. He would go out and try again and again until he knew that he could fly even if it took time but here starting today would be the beginning and he would be starting it all with you at his side. 

He did not need help out of the cave's mouth this time, pulling himself up as easily as if he had been doing it his whole life. And he stood, looking out over the water below him and knowing that if he fell he had you there willing to pull him out if he needed it. He looked to the sky the second you pulled yourself up next to him, his wings spreading out and beating softly enough to draw your attention. “We don't have to start so high up. I know it's a short distance to the ground and it won't hurt much if you fall but just in case it might be better to go to the beach,” 

He should have listened to you but he was too excited to think about where he was when all he wanted to do was fly. “Just this once and we can go to the beach and try again if not,” he reached his hand out at his side, low enough to find yours and your welcome squeeze in support. 

“It's okay if you don't get up too high so long as they can carry your weight that's the main issue at the moment because of the stitches,” Kai nodded along half listening as he focused in on the clouds. He pulled your hand to his mouth, kissing the back of it before letting it go once more before trying. 

Both of you held your breath, the seconds passing slowly as you waited for his heels to lift again only this time it was so much higher, Kai was rising, each beat of his wings only raising him and widening your smile. You had done it, you had made him fly again and it didn't hurt but made you elated. 

Kai could feel the wind welcoming him, pushing him up and up until he could see nothing but the expanse of blue and you were gone. It was that thought that had him going back. He could have spent all day up there if he could, if he knew that it wouldn't hurt him if he pushed himself so far but thinking of you watching him without being able to feel it tore into him. He flew back down landing right where he had started and laughed like it had caught him by surprise. 

And he looked at you, his arms open enough for you to run into them, that smile you wore was going to be tattooed along the insides of his eyelids because it was the only thing we wanted to see. Because you had done this for him, you had given him his flight back, his hope, and wrapped in nothing but sarcasm and truth because it was your way. So he hugged you tight, kissed you until your arms were locked around him just right and he took you with him. 

It had only been in dreams that you felt the faint feeling of being weightless. The wind hits your face as you let the laugh bask in the morning sun with you. It had been everything Kai had wanted, his dreams coming to reality as he caught the wind to carry the two of you higher and higher, until it felt as if you both would be made of nothing but clouds and happiness. He knew what it meant to be up in the sky like this again for you and knew that it would never be much of a thank you in return for what you have given back to him. 

And when he found a place to be steady, beating wings behind him, no pain in sight as the two of you looked out over the green and blue land and water below you. He held you close, arms keeping you up and in place even with your dangling feet picking up the memory of what it had been like before when you were a child with nothing to be scared of because you had not been wronged yet, you had only been a girl with wings happy to be in the air. 

Kai pressed his forehead to yours, nose dipping and bumping your cheek as he kissed the edge of your smile. And it didn't matter anymore if you felt weak, or had been told it was all that you had ever been because you had saved someone worthy of being saved, picking up yourself along the way and flying through him when flying was only a word thrown around to hurt you. You had put his wings back when they had been nothing but torn flesh and nothing made you feel this good, only the knowledge that you knew he would take you again if you asked. 

The trail of your fingers did not cross your mind when you felt this good, your subconscious working over the thoughts you were having and putting together the puzzle you had made by following the seam of his stitches. You could feel the knot you had tied to secure the wing in place, the spot you would have to cut away when pulling the thread free after you had checked again that his fast healing had done its job. 

But the ghosting of your touch on the closed wound was akin to you pushing him into a frozen lake, the ice breaking beneath him and reminding him just how heavy he had been when he had nothing behind him to support his body. It was the fear mixed with your words that you had said what felt like ages ago, as if when the two of you had shared then you had been different people. But here at his core, he felt it, that foreboding and gut-turning maggots wiggling into his skin and poisoning his already made-up mind. ‘Hell it might be more fun watching you fall again than it would be to watch you actually fly but I guess we won't know unless we try,’ you had said those words, he had rolled them over in his head over and over again because it had not sit right with him, but he could not remember the rest of the conversation, not when your fingers were messing with the stitches right on his back like you were fulfilling a promise. 

It had been quick, the intrusive thought taking over because all he could think again was that you two were similar. He would have helped you yes but if it had been him or you at the bottom of the water and both of you had to pick who got their wings back he would not hesitate to make sure he felt this feeling again. And having you here, threat alive in his mind he could not help himself from leaning into the cruelty if it meant saving this. 

And so he let you go. 

When in his arms it had been the illusion of flying, still grounded to him just by holding on but falling from this height was even closer to the feeling of flying. The wind rippled around you as you fell in slow motion, his sweet angelic face washed in shock at what he had done and all you could do was think about how you would forgive him because you knew that if it had been you in his place, demon or angel, you would have done the same. 

You did not feel heavy, you felt free and the laughter echoed around Kai as he realized his mistake. His fear had control over him in ways he had not expected it to and his shouting did nothing to make it any closer to you as he tried to catch up to your falling form hurtling closer to a waiting grave that had once had a tombstone with his name written on it. You had missed this feeling of freefall and descent, missed the open arms of the wing kissing your skin in the same way Kai’s hands had only the night before. 

And then the feathers started to rain. A few white tumbled down along with you as you looked up at him, wax melting from being so close to the sun for only a short time. The edge of his right wing was still tipped in black as if your feathers had infected his mind and thoughts as if they had been the cause of the drop and not the sickening worry he had of losing everything that had just been returned to him. But you could not stop yourself from thinking again of the story you had been told as a child. That demons had been the same as angels, cast out for the bitterness lingering in their near-empty hearts. You two were the same, cast out, and only now did he truly see it. 

The last of his feathers started to come free, his control over his wings lessening as the two of you fell, the sky a perfect image of just you and him with feathers all around as it had always been. The spotting of inky black feathers floating around you, finally ready to be buried alongside the body they had come from. You reached out, Kai’s hand already trying to find anything on you to grasp but was just far enough to miss by the brush of his fingertips. The expanse of blue widens around you and is impossible to tell if you were rising in the sky or sinking closer to the waiting ocean. 

If falling felt like flying you would welcome the feeling because anything was better than nothing at all. 

<333 thank you to @beomiracles who wrote the opening paragraph that is italicized for this event so that we could all start on the same page- taglist 🏷: @kissmekissykissme @bts-txt-ateez @apeachty @seungfl0wer @lunesdesire @no1likemybbgcharlie @chasingthatjjunie @taegyutomorrow @izzyy-stuff @yeoningz @filmnings @jellymochii @dawngyu @bamgyuuuri @lickingan0rchid @felixleftchickennugget @thetxtdevil @luvsicktyun @hyukascampfire @prince-jjae @liverspaghett want to be added to the taglist? check out my rules to see how to join!want to be taken off the taglist? send an ask!

[thenexusofsouls]

Tony felt so conflicted. All he wanted was to keep Wanda and his friends safe, but doing that meant ignoring the plight of these aliens, whom Wanda seemed already to be somewhat attached to. It made him feel a bit cold and cruel, but the alternative might be someone he cared about getting seriously hurt. He just couldn't allow that to happen. "Honey, bleeding from your nose isn't normal, and I'm pretty damn sure it's not anything good either. I can't in good conscience let you go back in there and keep hurting yourself. You tried, you had good intentions, and I love you for that, but it's just not safe for you to keep trying."

When Wanda snapped at her, Zhaan felt some of her anger be doused, even as her fear and sadness remained. "You are right, I apologize," she admitted. "Forgive me, I am only worried for my dear friend..." She knew she needed to get a better handle on her emotions, but seeing Pilot like this and being forced to handle it in a situation in which she had almost no control was causing her to spiral a bit. "Whatever help any of you are able to provide, I am grateful for it," she said graciously, knowing that she couldn't allow her emotions to cost Pilot life-saving assistance. She continued to cradle Pilot's head, petting it as he lay passed out from the pain of his wounds.

When Wanda mentioned Vision, something clicked in Tony's mind. "Hey... You know what? You might have something there. Once we process the samples and get to the data analysis part, that can take hours, right? I bet Vision could do it in minutes. He's a walking data processor, for god's sake. I don't mean that... in a derogatory way, I mean his brain is a literal computer. He can process data faster than anybody can do by hand. I can work with this." He started to walk away, but then paused. "If... I leave you here with them... will you promise me not to go back in there? I'm just gonna go find Vision and ask him to help medical with the analysis."

As he was asking Wanda this, a lab tech arrived to take a sample from Pilot. The man looked a bit wary at first, but he cautiously entered the cell and was directed by Zhaan to take blood from one of Pilot's joints, in between the natural armor plates of his body. The tech was able to do this without any fuss from Pilot, who was clearly out like a light.

- - - - -

It was Earth. Crichton's planet. He would've wanted to be here instead of us, she thought. Aeryn pushed aside the emotions that brought up. "It's unlikely that they could reach this planet, but I hesitate to say that anything is impossible at this point," she answered. "I suppose it depends on whether our comrades are stupid enough to try and come after us." She sighed. "I wouldn't put it past Crichton to do exactly that," she then said to Rygel.

"And if he can find us, then they can too," Rygel agreed.

"I'm not exactly sure what I'm hoping for here," Aeryn said, feeling at a loss. When Steve said they wouldn't give up on them and that they were safe, she was genuinely confused, but grateful. "Thank you," she said sincerely. Her heart dropped, though, the moment she heard that a blue woman and an insect creature had been found... "Zhaan and Pilot... Frell me," she said, sitting down and letting her head fall into her hands. "Moya is going to panic without Pilot."

"Surely the others can manage her?" Rygel suggested. Seeing Aeryn suddenly so upset had him unnerved. The Peacekeeper was usually so stoic and collected. If she was this upset, then their situation must be incredibly dire.

"She's not going to listen to them, and even if she does, they can't understand her, not without Pilot's assistance!" Aeryn replied. She ran her fingers through her hair and looked up at Steve. "I take it Pilot is the one injured? The large insect creature?"

"How would he be injured? Who injured him?" Rygel asked.

"He was physically connected to Moya, Rygel. If he's here and Moya's somewhere else, then... do the math," she answered.

Rygel grimaced and he bowed his head. "Worst hemorrhoids ever..." Although his words might have been taken as a joke, his tone was anything but humorous. He was genuinely sorry for Pilot.

"Can you help him?" Aeryn asked Steve. "Is Zhaan with him at least?" The thought of Pilot being injured and alone had Aeryn feeling a bit feral to break free of her cell...

“Are you friend or foe?” (For Zhaan)

Zhaan looked up at the young woman from where she sat inside her holding cell, not unlike the one used by Loki years prior. "Given our respective positions on either side of these walls in which I find myself imprisoned, I would say... at present... neither. But there is time yet for misunderstandings to be cleared and injustices to be set right." Her tone was not antagonistic, but it was guarded. She did not appreciate being incarcerated yet again after finally escaping Peacekeeper oppression after a number of years, yet she could hardly blame this woman for that. Still, trust was something that would have to be built.

The wormhole that had facilitated the invasion of New York City was not to be the only such anomaly to occur, it seemed. Another had just been detected, though this time, the results had been far less... dramatic. Something had come through, however. Perhaps several somethings. Both SHIELD and the Department of Defense were still attempting to determine exactly what.

One being had been captured thus far. A Delvian, apparently, by her own admission. No one had any idea what a Delvian was, or what such a being was capable of. For now, she was being contained at the Avengers compound, both because of the unknown level of threat she posed and for biological containment purposes. She could be carrying pathogenic microbes, after all.

Zhaan had been both interested and concerned to discover that she was on the planet Earth. It was John Crichton's home planet. How agonizingly ironic that she should be sent here and not him. Still, it was a planet entirely unfamiliar to her, and for that reason, she had to remain cautious. Although most of the humans who encountered her seemed unwilling to treat her as anything more than a caged pet, an oddity on display, or a test subject to be poked and prodded, there had been a few who had bothered to actually speak with her. Through them, she had learned where she was, at least, but was no closer to being able to gain her freedom.

And now... this young woman had chosen to speak to her. She did not look like the usual soldier or government official that had spoke to her - no, interrogated her - up until this point. That gave Zhaan some hope that perhaps this might be a different sort of interaction. Slowly, she rose from the bench she had been sitting on and walked closer to the glass. If the relative age of Crichton was to be any basis for comparison, this woman looked very young indeed. Then again, all humans were young ones compared to Zhaan. Eighty years... That was about how long Crichton had said the average human lived. Zhaan had already lived ten times that long.

Standing closer to the woman, inasmuch as the glass was still dividing the space between them, Zhaan's polite smile faded into a look of concern. Despite her situation, she was still an empath and a tenth level Pa'u, and for those reasons, she found it impossible to ignore the pain of others... even that of her own captors. "My goodness... There is such a heavy sadness that follows you," Zhaan said, her voice gentle and almost pained, as if she was feeling it too. It felt like... grief to her, but with humans she could never really be sure at first impression. She simply wasn't as familiar with their minds and emotions yet. "Are you alright?"

[mystvcs]

the day has taken so many turns, hansa has whiplash. from her panic attack, to their kissing, to this. it was all a lot. hansa just wanted to go back. back to earlier in the day. or back before she asked for this favor. or even back before she sat on that shore. she mentally scolds herself, cruel 'i told you so's' being throw at herself.

but it's really hard to be upset when he does talk about leo's mom. hansa aches for linus. she'd hopefully never know what that was like. she couldn't imagine life without him now. hearing him voice that pain only made the gorgon want to hold him. but she stayed as still as stone, feeling tears well up. ❝ you can cry whenever you need to, ❞ she says softly, letting her head dip to hide the droplets. it's a failed attempt, leaving her cheeks stained. ❝ you can talk about her and you can cry. you should. ❞ again, she wishes to remind him she's not going anywhere, but the words get stuck in her throat, held back by her racing thoughts.

finally she moves when he does, stiffening a bit when he moves closer. she thinks of flo, when the python knows she's being watched and is already one step ahead. but flo is not so easily subdued. linus' hands touch hansa's face and she immediately feels herself begin to relax. even if his tone does little to settle her.

both hands raise to remove his from her face, but they end up staying there, held onto his wrists while his thumb grazes her skin and he tells her the truth. even if it wasn't perfect, trust was important. he was honest and that was something. it was everything. but there is still a knot in the pit of her stomach, that part that said 'leave'.

hansa wished she could relate to him but he had the opposite effect on her. she struggled for breathe in his presence, quite literally taking her breath away. still. and she hated it. ❝ i'm glad i make you feel that way. ❞ and it was nice to hear. of course she could see how different he was over time but an admission? hansa would smile if she had it in her. ❝ you know you deserve to feel good and happy, right? ❞ linus was holding onto a lot. hansa knew what guilt looked and felt like. it kept her up at night as well. but maybe she could lighten his, the way his he illuminated all the dark aspects of her life.

she could feel the warmth from his breath when he steps in close, shut eyes when his lips touch her skin. how long has it even been since she's taken a breath? she's not sure. but despite him saying he doesn't want to make her cry, more tears spill after they had been wiped away. her lips part to speak, once more getting choked up. but, he's been honest. he's said more than she expected and deserved the same in return. ❝ i'm scared, ❞ she finds her voice, just barely a whisper with fallen eyes. because she knew how she felt, too, when she was with him. she felt it in her bones. her eyes find his again as she takes a breath to regain some strength, inhaling him in with her, making everything fuzzy. ❝ but i want to try too, ❞ she confesses, hand moving from his shoulder to his face, gaze focused on the warm eyes before her. ❝ i do. ❞ because you don't know the hold you have on me. ❝ because i never feel this way. ❞ like they could make each other happy. and she didn't want to let it go.

her nose moves against his, tempting herself to ignore her fears so she could taste him again. it wouldn't take much but a tilt of her head to have their lips meet. but instead, she wills her head to move back a little, to better take him into view, hand moving from his shoulder to his face. a light stroke of his cheek with her thumb.

hansa wants to look away, almost certain he'll be able to see right through her. that even now, in all of her fear and anxiety, she wants him. that he'll be able to see all the many ways he can cause her heart to race, breathing to slow, mind and body to yearn. that he'll know, like she does, that she never even stood a chance. her hand on his cheek starts to guide his face towards her, just barely closing the space between them when their lips almost touch. but she holds back again. ❝ please don't walk away from me, ❞ her whisper echoes her earlier words. except, her meaning goes deeper than just physically — mentally, emotionally. after a moment, teary eyes drop to his lips, leaning in to press hers against them. a bit rougher than intended, her actions influenced by the desperation she feels of never wanting to let them go. it's pathetic and she'll hate herself for it later. but much later, when the taste of cigarette no longer lingers on her tongue, put there by him when her lips part. it's a nudge to make her move, her free hand coming up to gently graze through his hair, a needy grasp when reaching the back of his head. ❝ please, ❞ another whispered plea murmured against his lips. she gives him one more quick kiss before her head pulls back to look at him.

               If anything, Jinwoo deserved a good beating.   Hansa was being far too kind to him… and he wasn’t going to take it for granted. Talking about Inji had never been easy since her death. The werewolf could count on the fingers of his hands the amount of times he spoke to Leo about his mother, and it was probably because the wolf cub deserved to know how much of a great woman his mother was. He remembered the first time Leo asked about her–he also remembered how he couldn’t stop crying for the next couple of days.

Letting out a sigh, he ran his fingers through his hair. Here she was, open to listen to him, ready to welcome him and his baggage and Linus was running away like a coward. Like he’d always been.

“It’s–hard.” He said, looking down at his feet, before forcing his gaze to find hers again. “Talking about her.” Hansa needed to know that none of this was on her. None of this had ever been her fault. He was the one who couldn’t even grieve properly and who was dragging this goodbye for the last four years, but Inji had been everything he’d ever known once. Everything he’s ever loved. How do you say goodbye to that? “It’s–been four years. Four years and I still can’t talk about her without feeling like my chest is going to get crushed with pain.” Surely, this wasn’t how Hansa had planned to spend her Lunar Year, but it wasn’t how Jinwoo had planned to spend his either. “I’m scared that if I start talking about her, then I’ll start crying and then I’ll never stop.” He confessed, trying to find sense in his own, confusing thoughts. It was uncomfortable thinking about the fact that his love died because of him. 

Jinwoo could sense the hesitation, the fear hovering in the air and for the first time, he understood that during all of those months he’d been picking up on fear emanating from the gorgon, it might not have been directed at him. Clearing his throat, Jinwoo took a step closer to her. Things had been so good just moments ago, why did he have to let his past come forth and ruin everything? “Hansa, listen…” Another step closer and the older werewolf reached up to touch her face again—not without a split second of hesitation, as if asking for permission to touch her again before doing so. “I… I’m sorry.” He ducked his head while cupping her face with both hands, his gaze searching for any sign in her eyes that she would ever forgive him.

Apologies, Linus had learned, were good for nothing. Once you broke someone’s trust, you could still apologize, but things would never be the same. Hopefully, he would make a bigger effort to ensure he didn’t keep screwing things up around Hansa. “Honestly, I–I don’t know.” He started, choosing to be honest with her. Whether it was something she wanted to hear or not, at least he knew he was being honest. “Some days are easier than others." Pause. Honesty fucking hurt, man. "Some days, it’s hard to leave the bed without feeling like my chest is being crushed.” Because of how much he missed Inji. “So, I don’t know if I’m ready." And then, he was reminded of how he felt when he saw her smiling about the apron. Or when Leo would laugh in her presence. He remembered how her nose would wrinkle at his commands in the kitchen. "But–when I’m with you, it’s different.” He continued, fingers brushing against her cheeks, tracing gentle lines on her face, before his thumb brushed along her bottom lip. “When I’m with you it’s… easier to breathe.” Pause. His gaze lowered to her lips, too. “It has been for a while.”

Jinwoo moved closer, now fully stepping into her personal space. One of his hands remained caressing her bottom lip, while the other gently brushed the remains of tears away from her face. “I don’t want to make you cry, Hansa.” His voice was as soft as a whisper and he leaned in to press a gentle kiss between her eyes. “But I can’t answer your question.” Pulling away for a bit, he continued looking into her eyes. “I don’t know if it’s too soon for me.” Linus then, took one of her hand, moving it to rest on his shoulder. “But I do know how I feel when I’m with you." Again, he leaned in, resting his forehead against hers. "I can’t tell you some days won’t be hard for me. I can’t tell you it’ll be easy to talk about her… but… I want to try. With you.” The tips of his nose brushed against hers, lips dangerously close to hers once more without touching.

[o4o41]

Common characteristics for each characters' iteration (when they act differently). And how I connect them, personality-wise.

I seem to think about how I tie the every-tmnt-iteration (past and present) characters in a way that each one won't be OOC (out of character) from another. A justification theories and all.

I did for Leo.

Now I'll do for R and a bit for the M-guy.

In 2003 R was pissy and had a foggy head when pushed too much (agitated, purposefully angered, or neglected might be). M's favorite pastime was to come and bother him, on purpose. Making him angry, knowingly.

You know for M it might be nice for him to have as much of a hyper friend like him as not to disturb and bother his bros. He tries to be positive and pass his time by trolling and being kind of mean to his bros. Esp to Raph when he (emotionaly) wears out quickly.

R has a thick shell like he doesn't really wanna allow anyone unless they know they are genuinelynice. He also likes to pride by achievements (fights perhaps) also has an ego but is defensive for his ego. While Mikey is on the way and playing with it. You know like bothering a tame dragon. On purpose. Like a purposeful d.

R would be glad to have smb to be secure and tame with (not nessessarily a love interest). Like Peter Parker when he goes to Mary Jane (her character majorly lacking, she sucks, clearly writers had no idea with her, who she iswhat her life was that kind of stuff). He goes to her after a very rough day, beatings, struggles, villains, flying etc. But R is stuck with himself. Almost everyone is emotionally stunted, D doesn't have to deal with psychological stuff, he has a hobby, M is a jerk and L seems to like to order around (maybe he doesn't like, depends. When he cant help himself that's when). He might need to meet and talk to a pyichatrist that would be nice. (Imagine the setting)

He is stuck with himself. He and his emotions.

And the bravery. He needs to remind himself to get a hold of himself. Maybe. He doesn't like ... maybe he thinks he has no personality, a monster-freak. He is passionate and ready to fight anyone that gets in the way of their group, but sadly M uses that care and push in order to run against, offender attempts against him. M is a jerk but he wants to stay positive (could be insecure too, why not) and that could mean he can do it on account of his bros. Could be gluttonous and take away kept food without warning.

Everybody is emotionally detached and hurt, and has a "?"sign about many things about themsleves (L is identity, R is his feels that he pretends he doesn'thave and D is focusing on his hobbies and tries to ignore pesky "?"s: depression and clingy thoughts maybe he is a faithful person(there's smth that keeps him gentle is it the TV series? Is it the faith in himself that he can change (life, make it more appealing and comfortable) and play as a benefit to their closed ones?)).

And M needs to have fun(be positive) in a mean way. Like a mosquito.

Edit: my HC for why Rise Mikey is tame. The 3 Brothers have been alright that M is in a position of "being taken care of, fave child and loved" from the 3. While '03 M was super bothersome because 4 were basically equal. So he was less about "being fave and more loved child" part and "parents being more attentive to him and his emotional needs", rather than he is one of tmnt and even viewed more of a slacker and a bothersome bro, rather than someone doing smth worthy and useful for the day. In Rise they came to the consensus and understanding about M. He also needs to be careful because now he has 3 more "parents", who have their own vision for how he needs to be brought up. Maybe beaten up too, a bit abused 🤔 🤷

M is self-serving, while D is detached (has passions and interests that make him feel better accomplishing).

[ventbloglite]

It is vital to understand that men do care about women. Not [adjective] men where the adjective indicates a circumstance or factor that must be present in order to magically get past the 'evil' that comes with being a man, men[period)]

Men that are abusive are not looked upon as "normal" or "good" by most men.

Most men want women to be safe. Most men are involved in laws to protect against common violences against women, or crimes that overwhelming affect women more than men or anyone else.

I just took a course about domestic abuse led by a man who has spent his whole life supporting women in domestic abuse situations.

There are experts in all fields of protection and bodily autonomy for women and feminism that are men who did not need to be told by a woman to care, that did not need to be reminded that they have family who are women to care, that did not need to experience anything on a personal level at all.

They care about women because women are people, and men are people, and people care about people.

It can feel like it's women versus men all the time and that can make you as a woman feel extremely afraid of men, maybe even to the point of either hiding to your own detriment or turning that fear into hatred against the male sex and/or gender which then leads you vulnerable to radicalisation and less likely to heal or make any meaningful contributions to feminism and changing how things are that led to that fear in the first place.

Don't quote stats at me, I know. But I'm telling you for every one man who hates women, there's another who does not and thinks that guy is a misogynistic asshole.

I know you're hurt, you're hurt bad and it's only come from men or feels like it at least and I can't change or really apologise for that but I promise it's behaviour not a gender/sex that's caused that hurt and it's dangerous to view someone as biologically imposed to be dangerous to women, or socially imposed if they're trans men.

You can be safe around men. You are safe around most men. Most people are inherently good. Women and men are all people and people overwhelming do care about people.

[piracytheorist]

Idk I just really like that Twilight's reaction to being told "Your wife used to be a prostitute!" is to go like

and proceed to say how honourable and worthy of respect her dedication, self-sacrifice and mental fortitude are, and how we're shown he actually means that.

And then my girl Yor sees his reaction and hears his words and for the first time in her life she goes like "This is a man who literally just met me and has no connection to me yet he not only understands my position, he's also willing to bring himself out there and have my back when other people have free bait to judge me" and like damn how important that was to her, to have someone (who doesn't owe his survival to her like Yuri does) actually see her and respect her choices and have the absolute BEST of faiths in her. Like, what Camilla says there has the societal power to make her look like a pariah. Yet this dude comes over and without knowing anything about her, he vouches for her and immediately assumes her reasons were noble and altruistic. And though he doesn't know what profession he's actually vouching for, he's completely right in his assumption about her intentions, and considering how easily the general public judges sex workers, it's no surprise this support gives Yor the courage to believe Loid will understand her and won't think bad of her if she ever disappears on them due to her work, because he's open-minded enough for his first and immediate assumption about her is that she has good intentions.

And I just wanna SCREAM because she has absolutely no idea how little he will judge her about her assassin gig. She already considers herself lucky she's come across someone who is compassionate enough to think the best out of someone who works in a profession that is not considered "morally acceptable" by the public. But she has no idea the actual jackpot she's hit, because his own profession is far more dark and sinister yet he still has the kindness and empathy in his heart to understand people who do the same as he does.

Like, that's it with her character, isn't it? She sacrificed her own youth and morality to help Yuri grow up and be educated, and that caused him to idolize her, and because he was the only family she had left, she has been desperate to not cause any of her ties with him to break. But it also caused her impostor syndrome, and she had no confidence in any of her abilities aside from killing and cleaning up after her work, because she lives in a misogynistic society that is suspicious of unmarried women (like, that judgment alone, considering unmarried men don't experience such scrutiny, can be enough to damage a woman's psyche) and because she has been working under a man cruel enough to hire orphaned teenagers as assassins and nearly kill them in tests of their abilities ever since she was a teenager. For her it was either "I'm either perfect in something or I'm completely useless and I deserve people's judgment". Because if Yuri sees she doesn't have the perfect record, she thinks he will be horrified and she'll lose the ties to her last remaining family. And she will think she deserved that. If her killing skills waver in the slightest, she will be killed, either by enemies or by the Shopkeeper doing his little "tests". And she will think she deserved that. And if she doesn't abide by the society's expectations, she will at best be judged and mocked (for not cooking at home) and at worst get arrested (for being suspected as a spy). And she will think she deserved that.

Yet again, this stranger comes along, is told she's worked a socially shameful profession, knows she's shy and with so few connections that she can't even find someone to act as her pretend boyfriend for a party, and he supports her. And then he finds out how socially unskilled she is, how terrible she is at cooking, how she can't even pretend to kiss him for their mutual benefit, how she has the tendency to get so drunk she accidentally kicks him unconscious... And those things that she considers fatal flaws of her, he says are parts of her that she doesn't need to pretend don't exist. That's who she is, and there's nothing to fix, and she can just accept them without feeling bad or ashamed of it, that pretending she's someone else, someone perfect, will only make her miserable and exhausted.

And like... fuck. How can she not feel glad she got to marry that guy?

And how much will her heart break when she finds out he's a spy and will immediately doubt all the supportive words he's told her? And how astonishing will it be when she finds out that he actually meant pretty much everything he's told her, and that he really resonates with her and believes in her?

(anime only here, don't spoil me for the manga)

[shotmrmiller]

your superior finding out about the secret praise kink you didn't know had a name because you'd always been called an over achiever, a goody two shoes. never gave anyone any trouble, nose burrowed in a book since you had knobby knees and a library card.

you'd thought it normal that the apples of your cheeks burned when praised after giving your teacher the drawing you'd made for them the night before. that heat spread from the center of your chest up when your first boyfriend/girlfriend whistled at the sight of you outside of uniform. that warmth settles in your belly when you get a pat on the back from your platoon leader firm enough to force the air out of your lungs because you'd disassembled and cleaned a glock with the ease of a professional.

apparently it wasn't.

after weeks of training with the fabled task force, weeks of sharing elbow room with the team, weeks of soaking up the dizzying praise from the captain ("did real good out there, eh? can always count on you." you didn't question the throb betwixt your thighs, taking care of it with a cute little bullet like you've always done since joining the military)

you're confronted by the worst of the lot. ghost catches you in a break room, your back to him, hands clutching a cup of coffee that's more sludge than liquid, its warmth barely seeping through the styrofoam.

his figure fills the doorway, shoulders nearly brushing the frame. your first thought is that his brows aren't twisted together and he lacks that cold, blank look in his eyes so your death isn't in the nearest of futures. the second is that when he's not fully covering his face, the outline of his jaw is quite visible, looking sharp enough to cut.

then he crosses his sculpted arms over his chest, seams straining against the expanse of his muscles, head tipped to the side.

he moves with the keen curiosity of a predator sniffing around a newborn fawn, gaze intense yet inquisitive, assessing your every detail with a menacing interest.

"you ever gonna tell me you've a praise kink, bird?" the question sends a chill through your veins before turning into a fiery rush as it races at twice the normal speed.

praise kink? no. surely not. doesn't everyone like to receive compliments?

"sure. i don't mind gettin' told i've an impressive cock but that's bed talk. you look ready to bend over 'nd show us how slick tha' pretty cunt can get over a rufflin' of hair and a couple of empty words."

that has you positively reeling, fingertips cracking the cup in your hands, pulse on your neck fluttering. you feel a cornered, skittish animal, ready to flee lest your life come to an end in his maws.

but as usual, the cruel man more creature than person, twists the knife he's dug into you with a certain ruthlessness only he can muster.

"so be good for me, eh? love your praise? earn it."

you've always been an over achiever, proven once again by the way you take him to the root in one long, broad stroke with any complaints at the sheer size of him resting firmly behind your clenched teeth.

"tight little thing, spread open over me like you were meant for it. for me." he runs a gloved thumb over your swollen bottom lip. "there's tha' look. drivin' me bloody insane when you gave kyle tha' molten gaze. none o' tha' now, yeah?"

he creeps his ungloved hand down to circle your pearl with the spit-slick pads of his fingers, drawing in a sharp breath when your walls flutter and constrict around his cock at the feel of something other than your toy giving you the relief you need after a hard day's work.

"bloody fuckin' 'ell."

ghost claims a fistful of hair, pulling you closer to him, his breath warming the stinging, throbbing mark he bit onto the delicate skin of your neck. the shuffling of feet right outside the door snap you out of your daze, fingernails sinking into the bulging muscle of his chest but he has none of it.

he uses your hair to direct your focus back onto him and even though he'd only given you a leading tug you felt some strands of your hair come off with a pop.

"easy. can't see your pretty face when i'm fuckin' ya if your lookin' away."

your expression twists into what you hope is bliss when he bucks his hips, your whimper drowning out his groan when he hits on something new.

something you want him to keep hitting.

"exactly like i'd thought."

everything else blurs together after that, and only when you're back in your room using a warm cloth to clean yourself up do you remember the other things he'd rumbled.

(inside o' ya, make you mine-)

(-get 'bout bein' with anyone else-)

(-ll to myself-)

you touch your tender pussy with gentle fingers at what he'd said in the end.

(leave tha' f'me, he swipes your hand away, i'll get ya there, pet.)

if price's compliments take a nose dive off a cliff you don't notice because you're getting your daily fill of them and ghost after dinner every night. kyle keeps them to one word and soap likes to tempt fate as always.

[porcalinecunt]

Can i pls request some face sitting headcanons for bllk guys? Specifically Sae, Rin, Shido, Oliver and Bachira solely because i think they're the nastiest 😆🫣 thank God!

𝐒𝐈𝐓.

🪽 ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ face sitting with blue lock boys! ~

·˚ ◌༘͙[featuring] ! ˊ 𝐒𝐀𝐄 & 𝐑𝐈𝐍. 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐎𝐔. 𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐑. 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐀.

cw — gn!reader. afab!reader. so much oral sex. edging. overstimulation. spanking. spitting. squirting. full on tongue fucking. denied orgasms. pervy behavior. shidou being an animal.

◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡ author’s note! : FUCK—this too me way too long to finish, but here it is! apologies nonnie for taking forever ;-;

₊˚ෆ 𝐈𝐓𝐎𝐒𝐇𝐈 𝐒𝐀𝐄

slow n steady always wins the race. a motto sae keeps firm when it comes to sex, no matter what he’s doing. when it comes to oral though..god. the agonizing drag of his tongue while he holds you by your hips, moving them against his mouth as he kissed your sensative clit before prodding his tongue against your hole. everytime you try to speed up your pace, his fingers dug into the soft flesh of your hips and waist to keep you in your place. he might as well be edging the fuck out of you until you finally feel the knot snap in two and gush all over your boyfriend’s mouth. sae, bedroom eyes and all, would admire your fucked out face and trembling body before flipping you onto your back and continuing where he left off. safe to say, you aren’t getting out of his grip until you squirted every last drop.

“s-sae..quit being a tease..” you stuttered, trying your hardest not to buck your hips. if it wasn’t for sae’s strength, you would’ve gone wild and full on rode his face like a madman. his whole arms wrapped around your thighs, gripping tighter then usual while he switched from your clit to your sensitive pussy. sae’s sharp, jade eyes staring up at yours. his pupils were blown with a burning desire all too clear to you, as if his tongue movements didn’t say enough. god, he was a patient one and it was getting on your last nerves. a thought he promptly smacked you out of with a simple strike to the ass.

“paitience, darling. or i’ll leave you like this, i can’t stand whiny whores who get greedy.”

₊˚�� 𝐈𝐓𝐎𝐒𝐇𝐈 𝐑𝐈𝐍

rin is more needier then his older brother, encouraging your carnal desires and egging you on as you rode his face as fast n hard as you please. the guy was basically making out with your cunt, open mouthed kisses and his tongue prying through your pussy had you gripping on the headboards or his hair. his hands roamed your body as he pleased, tracing his fingers against your stomach up to your sensitive nipples where he pinched and squeezed between his fingertips. don't think he'll stop either! long after you squirt all over his mouth, he'll only pull away just to take one long look at your fucked out face before he dives right back in again. rin gets pussydrunk a bit too easily, but why complain?

“rin..m-more, please..! i need more!” you begged and pleaded with a whine ripped straight from the jugular as you grinding your pussy against your boyfriend’s mouth. rin cracked open his eyes, through the blurred chaos, he admired your fucked out expression as you clung onto the wooden headboard for dear fuckin’ life. it was all too addictive to simple get off, how desperate and downright pussydrunk this man was, it’d be too cruel to pull away now! your thought process only strengthened when rin began to tug away at your sensative and soaked nipples from when he was mouthing at them earlier. he simply couldn’t get enough.

“stay with me..please, fuck! jus’ a little more, you can do that for me? please..?”

₊˚ෆ 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐎𝐔 𝐑𝐘𝐔𝐒𝐄𝐈

so much of a sloppy eater, it’s downright disgusting. shidou’s hands are unpredictable, switching from caressing and squishing the soft flesh of your ass to swatting away at it with quick strikes. don’t get me started on his oral anticts. this man is fucking eating away at your poor pussy, flicking his tongue against your sore clit while suckin’ n kissing at your abused hole. you couldn’t even move your hips with how much he’d just forced you down onto his mouth again, thus you had to sit there and simply take what he gives you, and god, the noises. besides your own moans and sobs for him to slow down, shidou’s downright animalistic growls and groans fill your ears and go straight into your cunt. don’t think he’s done either after you squirt into his mouth, oh no no! he’ll only push you onto your back with the hopes of you crushing his head with your thighs. he can’t get enough of you.

“haah..ah..r-ryu..” was all you could mutter out of your sore throat. after much whining and sobbing from the overstimulation, you could only make small noises of pleasure while shidou ate away like a man on death row. lapping up the remains of your last orgasm, he pried and pried at your hole until you swore he was tongue fucking you. grabbing fist fulls of his blonde hair only fueled the maniac to fuckin’ nip at your clit, an action that forced another intense orgasm out of your abused cunny and soaked his face even more then before. you could feel a smirk form of his lips before he landed a barrage of sharp slaps onto the flesh of your ass, dragging you out of your euphoric afterglow in time to feel his tongue pushing itself back in.

“c’mon sugar, don’t lose me now! we’re just getting started..! now, keep those pretty legs open..”

₊˚ෆ 𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐈𝐊𝐔

mister aiku here pays attention to both puss and ass with glee. when he told you to sit on his face, he meant it. there's nowhere that his mouth didn't touch, meaning you couldn't run from this man either. similar to shidou, he eats like a starved animal in front of a piece of meat. fingers pumping you full while he pays special attention to your poor clit with the occasional nips that would have you mewling and whining like a bitch in heat. but sadly, he's a greedy bastard when it comes to sex, pulling away right before you could have you sweet orgasm. heterochrome eyes staring daggers at your fucked out face while you pleaded for him to let you cum. you were almost in tears when oliver finally stuffed your twitching cunt with his fingers once again and went to town on your clit again. did i mention he pays attention to ass? that poor thing was covered in handprints and crecent shaped dents from how hard he was grabbing it. maybe, even a little bite mark for good measure.

“oliverrrr!” you whined out. "let me cum already! pleasee!" through tears, you could still see that bastard's shit eating grin. he was fucking enjoying this, getting off at your desperation while you bucked your hips at nothing. down there, oliver was enjoying the show he put together for himself and himself alone. his thumb ghosting over your neglected clit, his eyes flicking up to your own, pleading ones. you looked like a kicked puppy who didn’t get it’s owner’s attention, just like how oliver liked you. a shit eating grin stretched across his lips as he promptly gave your ass a hard slap before finger fucking your cunny at a furious pace. the noises it made sounded straight out of a porno as the pro player flicked his tongue around your clitty. it was all too much to handle at once, or so you claimed. you knew damn well oliver could see right through your teary eyes, and sniff out your disgusting, whorish fantasy.

“keep cryin’ like that and i’ll stop again, you hear me? i know you can pretty thing..i fuckin’ know you can.”

₊˚ෆ 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐀 𝐌𝐄𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐔

what a pervert, a proud one at that too! he couldn’t keep his grabby hands to himself all day, something the grew more and more dangerously obvious as the day went on. sneaky hands up your skirt or down your pants, gentle squeezes on your inner thighs inching too close to your wet cunt. the final straw was when you caught him trying to look up your skirt/down your loose pants. dragging him all the way home where he couldn’t even wait to get to the bed and pushed you against the wall, kneeling in front of you while patting his cheek eagerly. clinging onto whatever door frame or counter was nearby as bachira pressed open mouthed, tongue heavy kisses against your spread pussy. he was a messy eater as well, going as far as to even spit on your cunny before diving back in with the intention of drowning in your juices. bachira was full on obsessed. nothing could tear him away from your cunny, no matter how hard you yanked his hair or tried to push his head away. he’ll always come back for more!

“o-oh god..bachira, baby..!” you sighed, clasping a hand over your mouth in a feeble attempt to not alarm the neighbors. bachira quickly noticed and yanked your hand away, staring up at you with the same crazed look he had all day. he didn’t tear his eyes off of you, forcing to maintain eye contact with him as he licked and macked with your ruined cunt. your knees felt weaker and weaker, probably because of the last orgasms your monster of a boyfriend gave you, yet he just refuses to quit! not the stinging pain of you gripping his hair or even your efforts to straight up push him away so he doesn’t suffocate to death in your pussy. bachira, in retaliation, forced your wrists against the wall and gives your cunt a mean spat. you flinched in shock, watching as he simply goes back to eating you out like a madman. fuck, thank god you made it home in time.

“don’t shy away from me! i’m only getting started, my love..don’t you want me to please you? hm?”

© porcalinecunt 🪽ᯓᡣ𐭩ྀི do not steal, translate, or use my work and claim as your own.

[omgthatdress]

Oh god it gets worse

Okay, before I go any further I should give a little disclaimer that there's nothing wrong with doing a Christian-themed line of dolls. Toys and stories as a way to teach faith are nothing new and can be perfectly appropriate ways for kids to learn.

However the Life of Faith dolls are a unique kind of fucking horrible because they are obviously American Girl knockoffs. Instead of meaningfully engaging with the difficult themes of history like the AG dolls did, they present a disgustingly white-washed, pretty, frilly, and pleasant view of history that straight up ignores the dark stuff.

So the Life of Faith dolls are based on the Elsie Dinsmore stories which were published between 1867 and 1905. They're about a deeply faithful little girl who grows up on a plantation. In the books, when Elsie turns 18, she marries HER FATHER'S BEST FRIEND, because, to quote Wikipedia, "He has been her knight in shining armor who constantly helps her when other people are cruel to her; he has loved her for a long time." Yeah we call that "grooming" today.

Yeah, that's pretty sickening. But there IS a girl who escapes slavery in this series lemme see how that gets addressed....

WAIT YOU'RE TELLING ME SHE ESCAPES FROM THE SAME BEAUTIFUL PLANTATION THE OTHER GIRL WAS RAISED ON?! So when Elsie came of age she would literally own Laylie. Seriously did no one see the conflict in this?! Did no one involved in all of this stop for a moment and think, maybe we're not presenting a fully accurate view of history?

What really galls me is the playing Robin Hood stuff. While enslaved children did find ways to play and have fun, their lived were still dominated by the grueling, demeaning work they had to do. And they would not be given luxurious playthings like bows and arrows and green silk capes. And they didn't have frilly pretty dresses and elaborate hairdos.

I know the dolls are Christian and they all come with a little Bible but like.... Are we just gonna ignore the whole "slaves weren't allowed to read" thing?

While all the other dolls come with lots of dresses and accessories, Laylie only has the one dress and her Robin Hood accessories.

So yeah we're just skipping over the whole Civil War and Reconstruction. Violet is Elsie's daughter still growing up on the plantation like always.

So moral of the story, when you're trying to teach kids about history, maybe try a book series that wasn't written by this lady:

Because you actually can write stories about faith and being Christian that DON'T involve romanticizing slavery.

[navybrat817]

For your consideration:

Imagine Bucky, the strong and dangerous and stern super soldier that by all accounts is terrifying as an opponent, being unable to stop himself from coming in his pants because of you. Maybe you don't even have to touch him; he gets so lost in the taste of you that he has to start grinding against the mattress, and accidentally comes when you do.

I've had this image in my head for days and had to share it somewhere, sorry 🫠

Nonnie, I love this so much. 🫠

Feral

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Summary: Bucky gets a little feral now and then.

Word Count: Over 1.2k

Warnings: Oral sex (f. receiving), implied sex, possessive behavior, slight feels, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?).

A/N: Hope you lovelies enjoy. ❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

Bucky gets in a feral mood every now and then. He may let you know with a text that simply says, “Be ready.” and other days he won't give you a warning at all. By the time you hear his deep growl or see his pupils so blown that the blue irises nearly disappear you know you aren't leaving the bed for the next day. Or two.

Today you don't even hear him coming.

You’re in the middle of a shower when he suddenly shoves the curtain aside, and you’re lucky you don't have a heart attack or slip and fall. A shriek still leaves your mouth when you lock eyes with the ex-assassin and you see the blown pupils, and you're about to have a heart attack for a completely different reason. You hope your schedule is clear because you know he’s going to thoroughly ruin you and you’d rather not try to pull yourself back together for a while.

“Bed. Now.” His growl should make you move, but you’re still under the water and trapped by his massive body.

You don't move around him fast enough and he doesn't care that his clothes get wet when he grabs you and throws you over his shoulder. All he cares about is making you wet. At least he has the good sense to shut the water off before carrying you away. He’s thoughtful like that.

He drops you unceremoniously on the bed, the comforter now soaked as well thanks to your dripping wet body. Removing his shirt and tossing it aside, you get a moment to take in the view of Bucky Barnes looking at you like a man starved. He’s a beautiful canvas of muscles and scars, yet he looks at you like you're a real work of art. You wordlessly spread your legs and invite him to feast on what belongs to him. It would've been rude to keep him from his meal and you weren't cruel.

Not to mention no past lover can ever live up to how Bucky Barnes eats pussy.

He drops to his knees and pushes your legs open more, licking his lips as gazes at your twitching hole on display. He brushes some of the hair from his face to get a better look, and it only makes him look more wild. Untamed. It doesn't take much for him to arouse you, but the way he growls at the sight of you has you feeling like a goddess. You’re on your back, but he’s on his knees ready to worship and you’ll gladly accept his offerings. However he chooses to give them to you.

“I know you’re starving, Bucky. So eat,” you finally tell him, wanting him to have his fill. Whatever puts him in this mood, you’ll go along for the ride.

But before he dips down to feast, he moves up your body like a sleek cat and fastens his mouth to yours. He won't take from you without at least one kiss. You moan low as you kiss him back and feel him grind against you. It surprises you that he still has his pants on, but he’s getting rid of them soon enough.

You can't help but touch one of the scars near his shoulder, making him gasp into your mouth. He’s so strong. So powerful. Life dragged him through hell and he didn't escape unscathed, but he survived.

“Mine,” he murmurs so softly you almost miss it as he kisses down your body. Every kiss is a reminder of who you belong to. You’ll always be his.

“Yours,” you gasp when his nose nudges your clit and he inhales deeply. You remember when the smell of your arousal used to embarrass you, and now you wonder why it ever bothered you since he loves it so much. His metal fingers part your folds and he drags his tongue along your slit with a hum, lapping up your wetness. “Fuck…” you whimper, bringing a hand up to play with your breast.

“Not yet,” he growls, pushing his tongue deep inside.

Your free hand flies to his head and you choke on a moan as you clench around him. If he was speaking more, he’d tell you how beautifully bittersweet you taste, how your pussy is made for him, how desperate you are for him to fuck you with his cock, how you're all he needs. A mix of praise, profanity, filth, and love. Hearing him growl and grunt as he feasts tells you more than enough.

“So good,” he grunts between licks, his flesh hand digging into your shaking thigh when he slips two metal fingers in. You recall gushing all over the metal the first time he made his arm vibrate. He likes having the scent of your arousal on the metal, almost as much as he likes having it on the fingers of his right hand.

You lift your head when you hear shuffling on the bed, your eyes wide when you see his hips rise and dip. You’re all too familiar with that motion. “Bucky… are you…”

“Pussy’s so fucking good. I can't… I can’t stop,” he groans, rolling his hips like he can't stop himself from humping the bed because of how good you taste. “‘m so fucking hard for you.”

Your man’s cock can be sensitive some days. Grinding against him can make him get off in his pants. You went down on him once and just the feeling of your breath against his shaft had him shooting off before you wrapped your mouth around him. And with his rebound rate, you never have to worry if he gets off before you because he’ll still take care of you.

“That’s so hot,” you admit, your mouth falling open when he moves his fingers and tongue in time with his hips. “It’s okay, big boy. Make a mess in your pants for me,” you beg, wanting him to get off to you.

His growl has a bit of a whine to it when he looks up at you, his lips and chin glistening. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you smile, your fingers carding through his hair again. You don't want him to feel embarrassed.

He looks relieved. “Then make a mess on my face first,” he demands, dipping his head back down and making quick work of building your orgasm back up.

Pulling your hips down to meet his mouth, it isn't long before your orgasm tears through you. Your head nearly falls back as the tidal waves crash over you, but you keep it elevated enough to catch the stutter in his hips and the telltale husky moan against your sensitive hole. It almost triggers another orgasm watching him rut before he slumps against the bed like you.

Your head spins. Your heart pounds. And you smile. Bucky Barnes just came in his pants because you came. Yeah, you feel like a goddess and then some.

“You came in your pants for me,” you breathe. “That’s love.”

Your smile only widens when he pulls his mouth and fingers away to unbuckle his pants, your walls clenching when takes himself out. He’s large and thick as he strokes himself, and you can also see a bit of the evidence of him finishing in his pants. It gets you hot all over again, and now you need to make a mess around his cock while he finishes inside you. It’ll satisfy you both.

“Yeah, that is love,” he groans, brushing his thumb over the weeping tip. He still has a bit of the feral look in his eyes. “Now I need to fuck you with my cock at least twice before I eat again.”

Yeah, you’re in for a long and fun weekend.

I need him, okay? Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

Masterlist ⚓ Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

[the-faceless-bride]

More Ideas for KNY (demon slayer) different characters ♡ (SOME NSFW CONTENT FOR SANEMI AND MUZAN AND MENTIONS OF GORE IN SANEMI AND LIGHT NSFW IN GYOMEI)

<- Part 1

Imagine being dangerously in love.

Imagine being a demon, obsessed with the brash, and blood thirst Wind Hashira. the first time ever being in battle with him is what leads you down a path of want and lust for the cruel hashira.

Imagine going out of your way to always be where he is, always catching his attention and being attacked by him. He believes you're mocking him, following him just to show off that he hasn't been able to kill you. But that isn't true at all. When you fight, you never actively try and gut him, only blocking your neck and leaving the rest of your limbs exposed to be lashed in this masochism tango.

Imagine struggling to hide your enjoyment and ecstacy each time his sword ripped, teard, and scar your body. He had to have known how me made you feel. He must. The darkness of your cheeks must've been a giveaway. Right? His eyes bewitching you in how intense he glares into your soul. It sets a fire under your cold skin, a burning desire.

Imagine one time when you and Sanemi are fighting. Other slayers show up. But they don't instantly jump into the fight. 1. from looking at the fight, you hadn't landed a single strike and seemed to be a greater deal slower than the hashira, and 2. Tanjiro made an odd comment. "Huh, it's like she's avoiding striking him on purpose."

Imagine how Shinobu decided the fight was long enough and tried to sneak in and end the fight. Only for a switch to set off and catch her off guard and spin at the speed of light, leaving a large gash across her body from her left founder to her hip. And Sanemi instantly tried to help her. Only to be stopped by your own weapon pressed so close to his neck that even swallowing made his Adamsapple scrape against a sharp blade. "Don't you dare. Your attention is meant for me. Are you seriously letting her attempt to get between us work?" And that made Sanemi pause... "us? Wha-" -- "don't play dumb darling. We're soulmates, Sanemi~" you whisper to him. "What the fuck."

Imagine how now you make him feel so conflicted, how he hates you for what you are but loves you for how you make him feel... in his home in his spare time as the sun rises, his windows covered and locked tight as he has you on your knees, leaning forward and his chest pressed to your back. Your head locked between his bicep as his other hand held his sword under you. It nicks you each time he thrusts. If he pushed you forward anymore, his blade would surely cut your chest and stomach open. "I HATE YOU, YOU FILTHY DEMON. I DONT WANT YOU. CURSE YOU FOR DEMONIC TEMPTATION." You softy cry at the harsh words from your love, "I don't care if you don't want me... I'm yours right now..."

Sanemi Shinazugawa × Demon reader Trope: Yandere Lovesick/I hate you so much I love you.

Imagine being with Muzan his entire life... your family were servants to his family. And from a young age, you were assigned to be Muzans personal maid or companion as you were too young to really do any work than cleaning up his room. But since you can remember, you've always been with Muzan.

Imagine being the one he confides with most. His fears, his wishes, and despite his coldness. His shouldering eyes seemed to be less scorching when it came to you. His one and only friend. Even if you didn't have much of a choice in the companionship. It was you who sat in on his doctor's visits about his deteriorating health. When he got the news of how it would be a miracle for him to even make it to his mid 20s...

Imagine how one night after a particularly scary coughing fit, he simply places his head to your mid section as you blush his hair and pull it back into a braid. He softy thanks you as he tilts his head to look up at you, "Of course, I'm always happy to take care of you." But that isn't want he wants. He wanted to take care of you. Not you to him. And without thinking, he pulls you down to him.

Imagine His heat is pounding in his chest. You lay across him as his long and slim fingers tease you between your legs. You try and stay quiet, your face twisted with pleasure and guilt. You felt like you were taking advantage of the sick man who would never find love or feel the love of another in such a romantic and intimate way. You thought maybe that this was him just grasping for a moment where he didn't feel so useless being bedridden. But it was so much more. If this was the last thing he did, pleasing the only one who he cared for most. The one he wished he could've married... he would be happy to die. This surely isn't good for his heart, but he couldn't care less. You hovering yourself above him. As he tried weakly to pull you in to rest your whole weight. This was how he wanted to spend his last days, weeks, and months. However long he had left. He wanted it to be with you.

Imagine as days go by, and he feels more and more guilty. He starts to feel as though you let him do these things because you feel obligated as his personal maid to do so. Nights in the dark ask he fingers you, giving and receiving oral pleasure. But you still won't give him everything. You refuse to fully lay with him. Sometimes, he feels like it's because you don't really love him. Not like he does you. Or maybe you find him... pathetic... he can't actually make love to you. You'd be doing all the work. He doesn't want that, and it seems you don't either... eventually, his thoughts become too much, and he decides to let you go...

Imagine you were relieved of all your maid duties, not just to Muzan but to the family as a whole. You were heartbroken. And the heartbreak only worsened at the news of Muzan and his families and your families deaths. You'd cried more times than you'd ever had before in your life. And you were so very confused when you'd found a Man who looked exactly like Muzan sitting in your bed a few nights later. "Hello dear. I'm home." He invented to truly give you what you wanted, and he was eager to give it too you.

Muzan Kibutsuji × reader Trope: Unrequited/reunited love/soulmates

Imagine being Master Kagaya's faithful slayer, you'd always admired him. You and your Master had created a strong bond. Stronger than others. Moments like this reminded you that you were special. You sat on your knees as you just like you had the first time. Your head pressed to his chest and he dragged his fingers over your head.

Imagine trying not to tear up as you remember the first time you'd kneeled for him. You'd been reckless and impatient leading to a fellow slayer getting extremely hurt. You kneeled before him as you sat in the room alone waiting for him to speak. Doing your best to not make any noise as you silently cry. You'd failed him. Your beloved Master. But he didn't yell. He didn't make you feel like you were a problem. He merely hummed before knealing with you, one hand on atop your head and the other cupping your cheek feeling the wet stream of tears and wiped it away. "It's alright. You didn't mean for this to happen. I know you didn't. I know you're a good girl." And your breath hitched. He noticed. And from then on he gave you positive affrimations which encouraged you to do better. For him.

Imagine how as you sat there listening to his words letting yourself flow away and melt into your master. He thought it was innocent. He was simply your master helping you, if it wasn't him maybe you'd find these soft words from Gyomei or maybe even Kyojuro... but he was wrong. So wrong. It was him. Only him. You'd put yourself on the line so much more than you should've. All to hear those soft praises. His wife must not like you... you do take up more and more of his time as days go on...

Imagine how he softly calls to you. Late that night, he'd heard your footsteps. He sat with you talking. About anything that day. Soft and short conversations. Quiet but not uncomfortable. "You're my favorite you know." He sighed, before he let out a small chuckle "don't tell the others." You know he was teasing. But your heart told you other wise.

Imagine being hurt. In battle you were hurt. But even in your pain you still made your way to your master... your beautiful Kagaya... the married man, the family man, that you had fallen in love with. "My dear, you still come and see me while you're in such pain?" He seemed shocked. But you aren't sure why, you'd walk on hot coles and crawled on your hands and belly to kneel for him. You'd do anything for your master. And you could only hope as his favorite... you wouldn't let him down. Finally you lifted your head from his chest, pulling his hands from your hands, leaving a kiss to his knuckles. One day. One day you'll have him.

Kagaya Ubuyashiki × Slayer reader Trope: unrequited love/lovesick/slow burn

Special Part two of Forbidden love with Gyomei × demon

Imagine how the rest of the slayers flock around Gyomei, asking him so many questions. And he couldn't even answer them all. Too consumed by his disbelief that the person he'd fallen in love with so deeply, had turned out to be a demon.

Imagine how he layed in bed lonely and... missing you. He began to long of your cold touch, your voice, your laugh that was so contagious to him. He missed you. He'd fallen for you. Demon or not. He laid in his bed trying and failing to get even a wink of sleep. But just as he had almost fallen asleep he was awoken by a sound. 'Tap tap' was the sound, 'tap tap' on his window. "Gyomei... my love..."

Imagine how he practically leaped from his bed. Demon or not you had carved yourself a spot in his heart. Slamming open the window and pulling you inside, his hands instantly feeling over your cheeks, your nose, your neck. Kissing the knuckles of your cold hands.

Imagine being the one that made Gyomei for a moment stay from his faiths. Gyomei devoted his life to his beliefs, that includes waiting. Waited all his life for the one. Saving himself and waiting. But you both were in a unique circumstances... so from that point on Gyomei promised himself to you. You would stay with him in his home and he would always come back to you. That night he would kiss you, love you, lay you under him while he whispered for you to be his.