#i have a post talking about how his body is decaying from the inside out due to his soul rejecting his mother and that’s the closest i’ve

[aerticent]

my love for Maven has evolved into something and no matter how hard i try i cannot put it into words and it’s driving me crazy

[planetpedri]

Unrequited love (& other clichés) — Kai Havertz.

Pairing: Kai Havertz x Fem!Reader

Summary: Kai must’ve looked too hard into whatever you two had going on, because you didn’t seemed to feel the same.

Word count: 650+

Disclaimer/s: Angst I fear.. all angst.. maybe a little bit of hope at the end though ..

A/N: This is for @ar4ujos and @hrts4havertz specifically.

Kai breathed quietly while you two walked along the winding brick roads. He knew you haven’t been having the best time lately, so he wanted to show you he was there, that he cared. He’d showed up at your house, offered you his hand, told you to go on a walk with him, he even felt his heart squeeze at the sight of your smile.

Now, you two walked along a random road in the outskirts of the city. The roads clearly decaying with decades of use.

The moon lit up the sky, casting a welcoming glow over the two of you. His hand intertwined with yours, a light hold to keep you beside him. You didn’t say anything as you walked, you simply observed the buildings around you silently.

It wasn’t so late that the shops were closed, but the moon had come out already, and the streets were quiet. He heard a quiet gasp leave your lips when you walked past a flower shop, his attention quickly turning to it.

“Do you want to go in?” He asks, gaze drifting to your wide eyed face.

“Yes.” You reply, instantly.

He chuckles, giving your hand a quick tug before opening the door and letting you go in first. Inside the shop, you browse the array of bouquets. Commenting on the ones you like and don’t like, you don’t seem to notice the way Kai had plucked one flower from the ones you liked.

By the end, he’d had a full hand of flowers. You turn around to ask if he was ready to go, when you notice. You let out a laugh, “seriously?”

“Dead serious.” He nods, “let’s find the cash register?” Trailing behind him in disbelief, with a small smile on your lips, you make your way to the cashier.

Once back on the street, you sniffing the flowers and Kai watching you with a fire growing in his stomach, you continue your stroll about the town.

You walk and talk for hours. Kai asking you about various topics, your family, job, the things you liked, and vise versa. You found the both of you had more similarities than you’d ever thought. The watch on your wirst read half past eight, but neither of you were ready for the night to end.

You only stop when he spotted a bench to sit at so you could both rest your feet. “I’m surprised you don’t have a boyfriend,” Kai adds subtly.

“Not really looking for anything romantic.” You shrug in response, “it doesn’t interest me.”

He felt disappointed shoot throughout his body, straight to his heart. He knew he shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up, but you were too perfect not to feel hope for.

You give him a warm smile, “if I were to though, you’d be a prime candidate.” It could’ve been a joke, but it still stung. But, supposed it was better than nothing. “Unfortunately, now is definitely not the time for me to start anything in that way.”

Double sting.

He had a chance, but he’d have to wait. And Kai could do that. For you, he would. Then you looked up at him, a hidden emotion deep within your eyes that he wished so badly he could decipher.

You made him feel a mess, he didn’t want to be just friends, but you didn’t want to be.. anything. Not right now. For a while, he believed the feeling may have been reciprocated. Clearly he was just a fool.

You noticed the shift in his demeanor, your body tensing slightly. You felt guilty, you wanted to let him know how much he meant to you, but you couldn’t. It was simply for the better that he didn’t get involved with you right now.

“Walk me home?” You ask, “it’s late.”

Kai nods, standing up from the bench and offering out his hand. Always a gentleman, even when you’d broke his heart in two.

likes , comments , and reblog’s are all appreciated. lmk if you’d like to be tagged in any of my posts.

DTS , @halfwayhearted @ar4ujos @hrts4havertz @sakashq @spidybaby !

[vanilla-cigarillos]

A History of Vampires

Vampy vampy vampires! I’m not talking about Twilight; today I want to make a post talking about the real cultural significance of vampires in different folk beliefs around the world.

What Is A Vampire?

“...a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living.”

- Good ol’ Wikipedia

When we think of vampires, we picture Dracula in his brooding cloak sucking the life out of others. We see those characteristic fangs, an aversion to garlic, and a fatal vulnerability to sunlight. 

Vampiric creatures have been noted in cultures around the world for generations. 

A History of “Vampires” (Popularized in the West)

Cultures such as the Mesopotamians, Ancient Greeks, and Manipuri have folk tales of entities that are now considered to be precursors to modern-day vampires. Despite such occurrences of vampiric creatures in these ancient civilizations, the folklore for what most consider vampires today comes almost exclusively from early 18-thcentury Southeastern Europe. 

The term “vampire” itself was popularized in Western Europe after reports of mass hysteria during the 18th-century. Said hysteria originated from a pre-existing folk belief in Southeastern and Eastern Europe that in some cases ended in corpses being staked, and some people were even persecuted under the accusation of vampirism.

Early folk beliefs in vampires has typically been summed up to pre-existing ignorance of how the body would decompose after death, with people attempting to explain such decay through the existence of vampires.

The more personable and charismatic version of the vampire, born in fiction, came in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori. Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula in 1897 would later on provide the basis of the modern vampire legend and be remembered as the most significant vampire novel in literature. However, it is worth noting that Stoker’s novel came after the publication of the 1872 novel Carmilla, published by Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu. 

Folk Beliefs

In Slavic and Chinese folk traditions, any corpse that was jumped over by an animal (especially a dog or cat) was feared to become a “vampire”. There was also believed to be a risk with a body having any wound that wasn’t treated with boiling water.

In Russian folklore, vampires were said to have been witches or people who had rebelled against the Russian Orthodox Church while alive. 

Within Jewish traditions, “alukah” is synonymous with vampires. The creature is said to be a living human being, but can change into a wolf. It also has the ability to fly by releasing its long hair, and would eventually die if not allowed to feed on blood for an extended amount of time. Once dead, a vampire could be prevented from becoming a demon by being buried with its mouth stuffed with soil.

Albanian mythology discusses both the “shtriga” and the “dhampir”. Shtriga is a vampiric witch that sucks blood from infants while they sleep at night, then turning into a flying insect. Only a shtriga could cure those she drained blood from. A cross made of pig bone could be placed at the entrance of a church on Easter Sunday, which would render any shtriga inside unable to leave. Then, they could be captured and killed. 

The Ashanti people in West Africa have folk tales of the iron-toothed and tree-dwelling “asanbosam” which can take the form of a firefly and hunts for children for their blood.

The Betsileo people of Madagascar have stories of “ramanga”, a vampire who drinks the blood and eats the nail clippings of nobles.

The Mapuche of southern Chile have stories of a bloodsucking snake known as “Peuchen”, with aloe vera being hung backwards behind or near a door to ward off vampiric entities across a variety of South American superstition. 

Aztec mythology has folk tales of the Cihuateteo, which are skeletal-faced spirits of humans who died in childbirth. These entities were said to steal children, and entered into sexual liaisons with the living, which would drive them to insanity.

[little-miss-no-namee]

A fictional disease

part 2

There's a fictional disease that I started inventing when I was a child and it hasn't left my head since the day the idea started appearing, but I never talked about it with anyone because who would want to hear me ramble about a fictional disease that popped into my head? I hope you want :)

I called it ID (Ink Decay), but I hate that name so if anyone has a better name please let me know.

This disease develops randomly in the person's body, it causes the person's body to start producing a substance that looks like thick black ink, but chemically it is much more similar to a kind of acidic blood. Because of this acidity, your body has to expel this substance in some way so that it does not corrode your body from the inside out, and most of the time it is in the form of coughs, vomiting, "nosebleeds" and even tears depending on how bad the person's condition is. Expelling this substance is painful because your body is forcefully expelling something that has been developing inside you as if it were part of your body. The parts of the body that suffer the most are the lungs and stomach. Your body is trying to prevent you from dying, but it almost destroys you in the process.

Your body would not expel this substance all the time, only when it starts to pose a risk to your body and this happens when too much of this substance accumulates in your body, which can happen very often or little depending on the person. Stress can cause your body to decide that it has to expel this substance. After expelling this substance, the person becomes very tired and weak, mainly due to the pain it causes.

It is important to highlight that this disease is not exactly deadly, you die if your body gives up fighting against it, so the sick person must remain in good physical and mental health.

It is a chronic disease, a cure has never been found, but there are medicines to make the life of the person who has it easier and less painful, but unfortunately they are expensive. Medicines dilute the substance, making it easier and less painful to expel.

If you noticed some similarities with the ink disease from the comic BABTQFTIM it's because it really are, as this disease ended up having a lot of influence on the development of mine, since when I was a child and read BABTQFTIM for the first time I found the ink disease very interesting and I thought it would be cool to use some aspects of it in the disease I had invented. The aspect I got was the fact that the substance looked like black paint, before that the substance was blue and one of the main characteristics were blue spots on the skin, but I changed it from blue to black because I thought it looked cooler, I even have a very old drawing of a oc with the blue spots, I also had a story that I was writing with this disease, but I wrote it in a notebook that ended up disappearing.

There are many symptoms of this disease that are not fixed, like black spots on the skin similar to bruises, hallucinations can also be a symptom if you want to make the character's situation worse.

The disease could also develop due to a very strong trauma, but I find the fact that it develops randomly more distressing, like, you were just unlucky, anyone could have developed it, you were just unlucky that it was you :)

I like to think about how this illness would affect characters I like, if it would change them, if they would try to deal with everything on their own.Imagine a character who has to suffer more because he doesn't have money to pay for medicine, or a character who always seems to be in a bad mood and irritable, but that's just because he's in pain and trying to get by on his own because he doesn't want others to know.I have many other things I invented for this disease, but this post is already too long.

If you find it interesting and want to write something about this disease, please write and send it to me, I would love to see it :)

And if there is any fictional disease that already exists that looks like this, please let me know.

[employee052]

HELLO IVE HAD MANY A BRAINBLAST FOR THE TSPxDBH AU AND IM GONNA MAKE THIS A SEPERATE POST FROM THE FIRST ONE

[IF U WANT CONTEXT TO THIS AU HERES THE FIRST POST]

This is V, The Explorer who finds Virgil's body in the office ruins just a few years after Humanity has gotten their freedom.

Some more AU spitballing:

His name is V because of Stanley's Wife. She probably has heard a lot about this android at his office and how this android has taken care of Stanley while dealing with the intense pressures at the office, so she knows that they are a friend to Stanley of some sort. (Highlighting her bc i'll mention her again later)

So when V is born, she names the baby Vi. (Stanley probably didnt know about V at all. Perhaps his wife was going to bring up the news to him when he got home one day. Only for him to never come back.) She wouldn't remember Virgil's name fully though, so she names him V.

Since the game is essentially a VR world for Stanley, everything inside is probably a mix of things taken from Virgil or Stanleys memories. Only due to the decay on Virgil's body and Stanley's forgotten memories, they're half of the whole picture, but taken at face value on their own. Hence the endless sprawling office, non-sensical catwalks and locations, etc.

Like... maybe the Curator is the voice of Virgil's developers, or the Amanda of this universe. But with the decay coupled with the office terminating his service, cutting Cyberlife's systems off from him, all he remembers is the voice talking to him in a white void and reimagines her in a museum.

Maybe the bucket comes from Stanley's vague memory of going to Home Depot to buy a bucket and finding one really good one in the entire store.

Etc. Etc.

Back to V, however, I bring this up because this is the reason why i colour picked V's hair colour from Mariella specifically.

Since Mariella in the game is the only other person with a model that's human in form, maybe Stanley remembers her face but just doesn't remember who it is. Which is why in this AU im thinking Mariella would be Stanley's wife. He just doesn't remember that her face is his wife, since his "wife" in the apartment ending is a mannequin.

(Ignore the fact that Virgil/The Narrator would go on to say "Who would want to commit their life to you" and that he may have some jealousy to this said wife in the first place. /lh /silly)

Maybe The Narrator saw Stanley's memory of this woman's face, and used it in the game since he remembered it so vividly. But since neither remember it was Stanley's wife's face, it was used for the Insanity ending.

Having V as Stanley's son gave me this idea that once The Narrator leaves the office with him to go live out the rest of his days at the local town of survivors, he ends up becoming close to him as well.

It's almost a miracle in a sense, considering that The Narrator wasn't sure he could trust humanity again after his time back in the office.

But over time, they get close, and The Narrator let's his guard down.

Cyberlife Androids have that feature where they can analyze things with their tongue, right?

When they end up having their first kiss, it would take some time for things to get working much less the Narrator be willing to even kiss someone, his HUD starts studying V's DNA.

As he's kissing him, he sees his systems say that its a 47.5% match to Stanley's.

And if you're wondering how the Narrator has Stanley's DNA. He has a function for CPR. And I am 100% sure that he would've tried to save Stanley using it.

The Narrator wouldn't be upset about it in the slightest however. If anything he finds the situation funny in a sense. That the person he ends up loving is also the descendant of the man he loved first.

If he tells this to V however, he goes silent at the realization. Especially since he never remembered having a Father.

Maybe this could lead to him going to his mother, who's now elderly, and the look of shock on his face when he sees an elderly Mariella look back at him, and the voice similar to the one he used in the Parable.

Maybe she tells the story about her husbands disappearance, and maybe The Narrator tells her about Stanley's fate.

Maybe he tells her about the Parable, about how he desperately tried to keep him alive, only to realize that he was gone and moved on. But he still has whatever's left of him in his mind. Living happily in the newly reformed VR space that has him living out his happiest days and in peace.

Maybe with this, The Narrator and Mariella begin to recount stories about Stanley, with V listening in about his father that he never remembered.

And maybe, they all grow closer, and finally move on.

[little-engineer-who-cant]

Jason confronts Bruce

Part 5 of Sirens Scream Names Forgotten by Tomorrow, Laid to Rest in Infinity

(also posted under cut)

“You cannot create a monster and then condemn it, hate its ugly features, its terrible gait. When I look into the mirror, I do not see myself but all of you who made me.”

- David Jones

(Shoot him.)

(That’s not the plan.)

(Fuck the plan. Shoot.)

(You’d have me waste all this?)

(It’s what you want, isn’t it? No one walks away.)

(Ideally, I will.)

(You’ve been dead for how long now? No one is walking away.)

(I-)

(It was never going to be you.)

He’s staring down the barrel of his own gun at the man who should have been his father when he finds the truth.

(You came back from the dead. You were never making it out alive.)

(No one walks away.)

No one walks away. He’s cheated death to ensure it. 

(Reaper made flesh.)

(Pull the trigger.)

So he does.

—

There are burns on his arms. The hair singed right off. He reeks of smoke and despair, cloaked in failure as he hunches over the metal railing. He aches of broken bones that are healing, of bruises on his ego, his body, his memories, his everything. But that’s nothing compared to the sting of failure. Of all the times to grab me, old man, it had to be now? At least if Bruce had let it all happen, Jason wouldn’t be alive to care about the aftermath. He’d be back in the ground-

(where you belong-)

-making nice with the worms and decay. 

But that’d be too easy. That’d be nice and neat, a pretty little bow on the tragedy of Jason Todd. Born to die, again and again, until he finally got it right.

(Maybe you’re still trying to be the perfect son.)

(I can’t be. I’m not Dick.)

(No. You’re not even Jason.)

It’s an old truth. That doesn’t make it sting any less. What’s really fucking with him, running in incessant circles in his already insane mind is the why. Why did Bruce grab him? It wasn’t like he was Bruce’s son anymore.

(When a man puts a dead thing in the ground, he expects it to stay there.)

But he’d clawed his way back out. And like every warning sign on the way up from Hades, he hadn’t come back right. Would Eurydice have been the same, if she ever broke the surface? He’d done that, come up from the water, reborn and remade. Jason Todd, Talia and Ra’s had christened him. A dead man. 

(You’re not making sense.)

(Isn’t that what you wanted?)

It’s easier not to think, to let his body turn and twist and ache in whatever direction it decides to take him. It’ll make sure he’s safe, that instinct is too ingrained to ever die. As long as his mind is blank, he’s not thinking about Bruce. 

The Pit stays quiet. No use trying to drive a man towards a cliff when he’s already leapt off the edge.

Jason has never fucking once wanted it to talk more than he does in that moment. Just for a reminder that he’s not alone.

—

Weakness, plain and simple. When he comes out of his haze, he’s staring at his worst weakness in the form of her bedroom through the window. Perched precariously on the concrete sill, he leans his forehead against the pane and watches his breath fog it up until he can’t see inside. Can’t see if she’s home or not. Can’t see if she’ll see him.

(Weak.)

But the voice is weak too. It can’t goad him over something he’s already accepted, something he already knows. She’s his pressure point, the chink in his armor and it’s all because she-

Click.

The window unlatches and he leans just far enough away that he won’t tumble when it opens to reveal her, the off-white hue of distant neon light catching in her dark hair like a halo of starlight.

“Hey,” she whispers, leaning her elbows on the still and looking up at him, seeing the dirt and blood, smelling the smoke and sulfur, hearing the sirens that herald emergency vehicles screaming towards that fire.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he mumbles, resting his head against the rough brick exterior, the edge of her window digging into the back of his mask. 

“Come’ere.” She holds out a hand.

“I shouldn’t be here.” It’s the one thing he knows for sure.

“I don’t care.” 

“They can find you.”

“Let them. I’ve faced worse.”

“You shouldn’t face what’s after me.”

“If it means keeping you, I’ll welcome them all with a smile.” Her stubborn expression hasn’t changed. Hasn’t even flickered. “I’ve lost a lot of people that I’ve loved. I’m not losing you too.”

“You’re insane.”

“Maybe. What a pair we make.” He takes her hand, she pulls him in the window and they press their foreheads together. Her fingers come up and gently, carefully, reverently undo the clasp on his mask, peeling away the vengeful Red Hood to show the exhausted man underneath. And he is exhausted. 

“I let him get away,” he confesses, like a bullet to the gut. “The Joker- I-” Her fingers rest over his lips, silencing him.

“It’ll take time, but he’ll get his due.”

“You say that like you know.” Her smile is full of teeth, knives gleaming in the dark as her blue eyes flash through with the soft pink of an unknown power that absolutely terrifies him. Carefully hidden away, only to be drawn out to hamstring someone without warning, to hobble, to cripple, to destroy.

“For you? I won’t give Fate a choice. And he’ll beg for one.” Was this how Paris felt when Troy burned for Helen? Like any price was worth paying to keep those eyes on him with all that promise, that devotion, that dedication to do anything. Her fingers stroke down his jaw and he follows those streaks of heat like he’ll die if they leave his skin. 

It’s an incredible dichotomy, the violence of her words mixed with the gentle affection in her touch and it’s more intoxicating than any drug he knows. 

“I don’t want you in danger,” he protests, but it’s weak in the face of a woman stubborn enough to defy gods.

“And I don’t want you to get hurt. But here we are.” But here we are. With him hurt and her in danger. “Come to bed, the world can wait.” There’s so much he doesn’t understand, so many questions he needs answered, but in this moment, he can’t ask. Can’t be reminded she belongs to other people too. He needs to pretend, just for one more night, that she’s no one’s but his.

—

It’s quiet and dark and he loves it here, curled around her in a cocoon they’ve made of blankets and their bodies. It’s quiet and dark and he cares more about that than the fact that he’s overheating under the blankets. If he got rid of things he loved for the sake of his own comfort, he’d be in a very different place in life. He’s got the quiet and the dark and her, he’ll endure any discomfort to keep them.

“Penny for your thoughts?” she asks, voice a bare breath that stirs the room and him towards a semblance of life. But he doesn’t have any right now, none that he can speak. None that she can hear and live to see another day. 

“I can’t say what I want to,” he admits in the silence of her room, breathing that truth into the back of her neck. 

“Hm?” her head twists, trying to look at him, but he digs his forehead into the nape of her neck to stop it. 

“I can’t say it,” he repeats, arms banding more tightly around her, clutching her like a child holds their most comforting toy. “Or you’ll get killed.”

“Jason, let me turn around.” He clings harder, petulant, pressing a kiss to her spine and tasting salt. “Jason.”

“Silena,” he growls, curling further, squishing her more firmly into the circle of his body while he tries to shut the world away. 

“Can I at least look at you?” He shakes his head. He likes it here, in the dark of her room, buried in the softness of her hair. Childish of him, absolutely, but right now he can’t face the thought of seeing her eyes pick him apart. “Fine, then…” she grumbles something under her breath in what sounds like Not-English but he’s not concentrating enough to tell exactly what dead language it is. “Give me.” She pries at one of his hands with that ever surprising strength of hers.

“Silena-”

“Please can I hold your hand at least?” That he can do. He can keep her like this with one arm, that’s not a problem. So he gives her a hand, letting her pull it up and towards her face, what is she-

She presses each one of his fingers to her mouth, kissing the calloused tips, her breath warm and grounding. The sensation hits him like a pile driver, tears welling in his eyes as he buries his head deeper. Maybe not seeing her was a mistake, maybe then he could have stopped her before- Her mouth presses delicately into his palm, a gentle and reassuring hum vibrating against his skin.

“I love you too,” she whispers into the hand that has taken hundreds of lives, destroyed thousands more, a hand that could so easily smother her with just a bit more pressure but she puts her life in it again and again- “I love you too.”

[fieldofdaisiies]

Ultima Ex Nobis | ch. V

-all rights reserved-

Nessian AU word count: ~2,5k words warnings: mentions of bad mental health summary: Six years into a global pandemic which was caused by a mass fungal infection that turns hosts into zombie-like creatures and makes the whole of Prythian collapse, the former army general Cassian Cadell is tasked with one very special mission – escorting Nesta Archeron, one of the few immune survivors, across a post-apocalyptic Prythian to a group of people of the name L. Their identity  is unknown but they can make an antidote.

The road —if you can call it road— is rough, bumpy and incalculable. It is overgrown with weeds and grass, large cracks stretching out along the street. The sun is high and bright in the sky, almost gleefully glowing down on them — pretending to be a warm summer day when the world around them is breaking apart. 

The rotting sidewalks are barely visible, the decaying buildings lining the street are evidence that that long ago people have lived here. Most of the windows in the houses are broken, just like in the city outside the fenced area they have left over a week ago. These houses remind Nesta a lot of the other ones — another abandoned city, a so-called ghost town.

Nesta keeps a straight stare that lacks warmth. All worry about Cassian has vanished and she falls back into her usual patterns of cool indifference. Her back is stiff, her shoulders squared, her chin held high. 

Cassian and Azriel chat lightly, talking about the Starfall and army related things. Earlier they discussed the Darkbringers that have control in most areas, having taken over the government. Nesta does not really pay attention, she also does not care what they are talking about. Her eyes are trained on the street, but her lids feel so damn heavy. Exhaustion and tiredness come over her in waves but she fights them. She does not want to sleep now, does not want to seem week again.

She keeps a closed body posture, her arms crossed in front of her chest and she from time to time softly pinches her wrist to stay awake. There is a distance between her and Cassian that hasn’t been there when they have been hiding together. It makes Cassian feel confused as he has no explanation for it. Nesta herself doesn’t even know why she acts like that again. It probably is mask, so no one can see how vulnerable and fragile she actually is underneath the shell. How much pain, how many emotions she is actually feeling, experiencing. How much is going on inside of her.

“You know, you can sleep, Nes,” Cassian offers, with warmth in his voice. “Place your head on my shoulder and try to nap a little until we are there.”

“I am not tired.” Nesta’s response once comes as quick as a shot. “The same bullshit like when you said you were not cold. I know your are tired. Come on, Nes, give it a try.”

Her mouth is pinched and there is a tightness in her eyes when she glances at Cassian. He almost chuckles at her sour expression and looks down on her to where she is wringing her hands in her lap. She is trying so hard to keep up the indifferent facade, it nearly makes Cassian laugh out loud. 

“I will try to sleep, but definitely not on your shoulder.”

“I thought you loved cuddling with me? We have done it for a week now, haven’t—“

Holding her hand up she stops the former general, and when a low chuckle escapes Azriel, he is rewarded with her death pan and quickly shuts up. 

Stiff as a poker, Nesta leans back and forces her burning eyes to close. Her whole body is sore, but she cannot let it show. What would that look like? Cassian is the one who is hurt, not her. Cassian has been shot and acts all tough and strong and she would complain over a few sore muscles and blisters on her feet? Only over her dead body. 

Even though the truck is not that comfortable, exhaustion settles over Nesta like a wave, the last thing she hears are some words of Cassian about how Az is feeling. 

“You know it never gets easy,” Cassian says and gives his brother a sidelong glance. “You can tell me if it has affected you.” “Cass, I just killed a dozen of people, of course it has affected me,” Azriel mumbles and gives his head a little shake. His hands grab the stirring wheel tighter, knuckles turning white, his eyes are trained on the street. He speeds up a little, a muscle in his jaw flexing. “But there is no use to talk about it now. It couldn’t have been avoided, it was what had to be done.”

The former army general slowly bows his head and averts his gaze from Az to look out of his window. His hand still presses down on his side, his hand now covered in the thick red liquid. Breathing is a little difficult now as every inhale burns like a vipers fangs in his chest, but still he tries to act like the strong army soldier he once used to be. He has to, showing weakness and pain now would be for nothing, it wouldn’t get them any further and it wouldn’t help anyone. And he really doesn’t need to be pitied by anyone either. 

“You get this checked immediately when we arrive, Cass!” There is no room for objection in Azriel’s statement and Cassian grumbles a yes, before giving his eyes a tiny roll — overbearing mother-hen. 

“How many are there in the camp?” Cassian then asks, hoping to change the topic for good. Azriel takes a turn and is now heading down a straight, almost endless seeming road. But Cassian can spot high fences in the very far distance, telling him that they are already close to the new Starfall camp. 

“Around twenty. A few that have sought refugee, but most of them we have rescued. Some are from Sangravah.”

Cassian nods in acknowledgment, wondering if Az has finally been able to find his partner. They have lost each other out of sight a few months ago during a mission. Azriel has claimed to be alright, saying it was anyway just a fling, but Cassian knew that deep down his brother’s heart is shattered and Azriel spends every free minute trying to find him because this man hasn’t just been a fling for him. They have a too long history for him to just be a fling. 

“Eris?”

“No.” The answer is tight, cold, fired like a shot and signals Cass that he really does not want to talk about it. Cassina accepts that, does not want to push his brother, knowing he will seek him out to talk when he is ready.  They bounce a little in the car when they drive of the bumpy and in pebbles covered path leading to a gate in the fenced area. Nesta stirs, shifting on the seat. She yawns a little, her hand wiping over her face. 

“How is she?” Azriel then asks, now the one who wants the topic for good.

“She iswonderful. She is out here with two men she barely knows and one of her companions just got shot and now she is taken only god knows where. So obviously, she is doing absolutely amazing.” Nesta sits straight up again, hating that they have talked about her while she slept. During the past six years everyone has always talked about her — she, the one who is immune, the one who survived, the one who got bitten, the one who got attacked, she who was so lucky. But was she really lucky? Is she lucky? Nesta doubts that. Maybe she wanted to die that night as well? Maybe she would have accepted it? Maybe she did not want to live on without knowing what has happened to Feyre? What was about to happen to Elain that night? But apperently the powers that be had different plans for her that night and now she was stuck here in this car. She knows Feyre is alive, but each and every days has to live with the thought of having absolutely no knowledge about Elain. 

“And she has bite, did Rhys tell you that?” Cassian chuckles, clutching his side tighter. 

“And she is about to bite you!” Nesta hisses through clenched teeth and shoots Cassian a glare. 

There is gleeful amusement on his slick with sweat face. His mouth forms a smirk, his tongue poking out to lick over his lower lip. “How did you know that I like that?” He bites down on his lip, watching awareness dawn on Nesta.

She swallows thickly at that comment, heat suddenly filling her from her cleavage up to the top of her head. She hasn’t expected that his implication would have such an affect on her and so she quickly averts her gaze, staring straight ahead. She ignores Azriel in the corner of her eye, trying so hard to fight back a grin. Good God, that is going to be a very long journey, Nesta thinks, but somehow she is no longer so opposed to it. It is and odd feeling, but something has changed.

∙ ∙ • ◦ • ◦ ∙ ∙

“We are here?”

Azriel inclines his head at Nesta, shutting his window after having talked to one guard at a gate. 

The fenced area looks similar to the one she has been in for six years, but then she has actually only seen the experiment room, her bedroom and the place where she was handed over to Cassian, so actually she can’t really tell if it is similar. 

Small flags, attached to the caravans and tents, are flying in the wind, showing the insignia of the Starfall. A feeling of comfort overcomes Nesta — there would be no Darkbringers here.  

Azriel brings the car to a prompt halt and kills off the engine before jumping out. He calls for someone of the name Madja and tells people to bring her here. Then he opens the door on Cassian’s side, helping his best friend out, supporting him and keeping him upright. The former general is quite pale around his nose, sweat building up on his skin and his knees are wobbly. Nesta leaves the car after him and moves to his other side to provide an extra support for him. Together with Azriel they manage to bring Cassian over into a small tent where they place him down on a field bed and just a moment later the woman of the name Madja appears. Nesta sits down on a stool next to the bed, not quite sure what to do, and is quite happy when Azriel does the talking for her.

“That is Nesta Archeron, you know the immune survivor. Cassian has received a graze shot, it is not bad but he has lost quite a lot of blood.”

Turning, Azriel salutes to Nesta and says, “Business is calling, I’ll be back for dinner.” And with that he leaves, strutting out of the tent. 

And so Nesta waits, sits and ponders whether she should help somehow or simply sit here and do nothing. She opts for the latter as she still feels terribly exhausted and drained of energy. Twirling her thumbs she tries to make the time pass quicker. She silently regards how Madja cares for Cassian, cleaning the wound and—

“Come here, girl! Wipe his chest clean while I mix together the paste for the wound.”

Wipe his chest clean? Somehow her breathing halts for a moment, her heart beating a little faster when her eyes land on Cassian’s exposed chest. Even lying down he looks so powerful and large. Swirls of dark ink graze his broad shoulders, his strong pecs — his chest is incredibly well-defined, all sculpted muscles, chiseled, hard and solid and—

Nesta closes her mouth, grabbing the cloth that has been offered to her and crouches down next to Cassian. She carefully begins to run the damp cloth over his chest, clearing it of all the blood.

“You have a very soft touch, Nes,” Cassian drawls and blinks one eye open to silently regard her. He loves how carefuls he is with him, her eyes focused on her hand holding the cloth. And he also likes what she looks like right now. Her cheeks are a little flushed, her hair is, in all honesty, one big mess, there is dirt on her face and her shirt is slightly torn. But she looks beautiful. Probably the most beautiful woman he has ever seen in his life. A dull feeling appears in his heart at this thought, remorse and regret colliding inside of him, has he once thought so about Tanwyn. 

Could it truly be that he has finally managed to move on? He had no time to think further about it when Madja appears in his vision and smiles. “I’ll put some cream on the wound, wrap a bandage around it and then you are good to go. You two should find something to eat!”

It is what they do once Cassian is fully patched up. They enter a large tent for food storage and are soon again met with Azriel — so it has to be evening already? He said he would join them for dinner, Nesta wonders. She has somehow lost sense of time and started to live just for the moment. 

“What do you want?” “Does it matter what I want?” The words leave her mouth before she can stop them. 

“Well, and with that we are back the grumpy, sour Nesta,” Cassian huffs, and takes a step forward to look into one big blue box. He winces slightly when he leans over it, his wound obviously still causing him pain, but he clamps down on the pain and bites the inside of his cheek.

“Cass,” Azriel cautions and hands Nesta small box with rice and some meat in it. “It is not easy. For none of us.”

Cassian slowly bows his head and digs into a larger box, fishing out a package of beef jerky. “Aha!” he cheers and rips it open. When Azriel has also found his meal they sit down together on plastic stools outside the foot tent, watching the sun lower on the horizon. 

“We can only stay here for a couple of days, then we continue,” Cassian informs, first looking at Nesta then at Azriel.

“I am joining you from here on,” Azriel says and takes a bite from the meal in his box. Nesta is avoiding direct eye-contact with either — she just wants to go unseen, does not want to participate in their conversation, simply does not want to talk or do anything. All she wants to do, is wash herself and then sleep. And this is what she is offered when she has finished her meal. 

Azriel brings them to a large tent with field beds and shows Nesta a separate one where which is filed with large bowels of water where she can wash herself. 

Sweet oblivion welcomes her the moment she falls into bed, and buries her head in the thin pillow. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

tags: @helhjertet @moonlightazriel@aayo-whatt @crushedcloudsx @brekkershadowsinger @girasoli-e-sorrisi @ignite-me@swifti-ed @cassiansbigwingspan @burningsnowleopard @headcanonheadcase. @banasheefan56 @a-frog-with-a-laptop

[curt-mega-saf]

Report: Dr M[Redacted] On The Body That Has Come To His Morgue.

posted by ■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■■

Cw dead bodies, decay, medical talk ish, gore

The body brought into us was not dead.

It was a hub of life that we never see down here in the lab. You must understand I have seen plenty of weird bodies in my lifetime, especially here in Hatchetfield. But this body is truly one of the most interesting that I have seen.

We are supposed to wait for the body to be claimed before we start the autopsy but truly my team and I are having trouble waiting, especially because they decided to have some more people come in to check out the body for safety measures.

I can’t stop thinking though about how interesting this procedure is going to be. From the moment the body came in I could picture it. We’d cut him open, pop the eyes out and cut the skull apart to peak into the brain. Parts of the insides are already exposed seeming to have rotted away at a rate that makes no sense for when the body was said to have died. There seems to be a whole ecosystem living in this man’s body and I for one cannot wait to peal back the skin and look inside.

I have been informed that the man is one Jacob Cain Mcdoon. He has a husband, works at a coffee shop, and lives in the apartment that he was killed in. How curious. We’ll be starting the autopsy soon after the body is cleared of anything that could be harmful for us to touch.

I will report back with any new findings.

[iviarellereads]

The Dragon Reborn, Chapter 56 - People of the Dragon

(THIS PROJECT IS SPOILER FREE! No spoilers past the chapter you click on. Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Wheel of Time, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Wheel icon) In which yes, that's less than ten pages of wrap-up after 666 pages of story, whatcha gonna do about it?

PERSPECTIVE: Narrator:

Throughout the city of Tear people woke with the dawn, speaking of the dreams they had had, dreams of the Dragon battling Ba’alzamon in the Heart of the Stone, and when their eyes rose to the great fortress of the Stone, they beheld a banner waving from its greatest height. Across a field of white flowed a sinuous form like a great serpent scaled in scarlet and gold, but with a golden lion’s mane and four legs, each tipped with five golden claws. Men came, stunned and frightened, from the Stone to speak in hushed tones of what had happened in the night, and men and women thronged the streets, weeping as they shouted the fulfillment of Prophecy. “The Dragon!” they shouted. “Al’Thor! The Dragon! Al’Thor!”

PERSPECTIVE: Mat peeks out through an arrowslit, watching the city's chorus. Everyone inside the Stone agrees with the people below. He’s having more than a little culture shock at the Aiel, especially when he tries to flirt with the Maidens.

Moiraine is sitting close to the wondergirls, who are surprised Perrin is in town, and ask if he's ok. Mo says he was when she last left him, his companion was in some danger but it's nothing that need concern them.(1) She pulls out another one of the DO prison seals, which was found in the High Lords' ter'angreal stash. Mat vaguely recognizes it.

Egg says they should have expected to find one here. Twice before, Rand faced Baa, and both times at least one seal was present. Nyn points out that this time, the seal is unbroken. As if that matters now. Mo asks if it doesn't? Mat begs her pardon, and all four of them turn to glare at him. He asks how all this can be, the Stone of Tear fallen, and all that. The Prophecy said that couldn't happen until the People of the Dragon came to Tear. Does that mean they're the People? Rand's friends and a few hundred Aiel?

Mo says prophecies are fulfilled as they're meant to be, not as we think they should be.

Rhuarc cleared his throat. “When a man wishes to become a clan chief, he must go to Rhuidean, in the lands of the Jenn Aiel, the clan that is not.” He spoke slowly and frowned often at the red-fringed silk carpet under his soft boots, a man trying to explain what he did not want to explain at all. “Women who wish to become Wise Ones also make this journey, but their marking, if they are marked, is kept secret among themselves. The men who are chosen at Rhuidean, those who survive, return marked on the left arm. So.” He pushed back the sleeves of his coat and shirt together to reveal his left forearm, the skin much paler than that of his hands and face. Etched into the skin as if part of it, wrapped twice around, marched the same gold-and-scarlet form as rippled on the banner above the Stone. The Aiel let his sleeve fall with a sigh. “It is a name not spoken except among the clan chiefs and the Wise Ones. We are. . . .” He cleared his throat again, unable to say it here. “The Aiel are the People of the Dragon.” Moiraine spoke quietly, but she sounded as close to startlement as Mat could remember ever hearing her. “That I did not know.”(2)

Mat keeps talking like it's all over, but the wondergirls point out that the Forsaken and Black Ajah are still loose. Mat says, but they saw the body! Moiraine says they saw *A* body. Mat demands who it was then, he recognizes the face from his dreams, and Moiraine says the man who called himself Ba'alzamon. The Dark One yet lives, imprisoned at Shayol Ghul. The Dark One would never have left a human body behind, no matter how fast decay took it. Egg says Verin once showed her a page from an old book that mentioned Ishy and Ishamael together. Maybe they were the same person. Mo says even if it was, nine of the thirteen still live, and three seals are broken, only four still hold. Whatever battle they won here, the war goes on.

A door opens and a tall young woman walks in, wearing a coronet with a golden hawk on it. She says she's Berelain, the First of Mayene,(3) and she's not used to being given messages to carry, and throws a parchment down on the table. Mo asks who gave her the message, but Ber can't remember, and doesn't know why she took it. She just knows the lady who gave it her was impressive.

Ber turns to Rhuarc and tells him the Aiel fighting disturbed her sleep last night. She turns back to Moiraine and tells her to inform the Lord Dragon that the First of Mayene will dine with him tonight, then marches out of the room. Egg and El say in unison that they'd like to see Ber in the White Tower as a novice.(4)

Moiraine reads the parchment. ‘Lews Therin was mine, he is mine, and he will be mine, forever. I give him into your charge, to keep for me until I come.’ It is signed ‘Lanfear.’ She tells Mat that he’s ta’veren, and he blew the Horn of Valere. Nothing at all is done for him yet. He says, of course, he understands, you can count on him.

Outside the people are still chanting Rand's name.

And it was written that no hand but his should wield the Sword held in the Stone, but he did draw it out, like fire in his hand, and his glory did burn the world. Thus did it begin. Thus do we sing his Rebirth. Thus do we sing the beginning. —from Do’in Toldara te, Songs of the Last Age, Quarto Nine: The Legend of the Dragon. Composed by Boanne, Songmistress at Taralan, the Fourth Age.

The End of the Third Book of The Wheel of Time

=====

(1) Goddamn that's cold, Moiraine. You haven't even checked on him since you left him and Faile at the inn?! (2) Very little in prophecy comes true the way it sounds like it's going to come true. They were getting all worked up about the People of the Dragon, and had no way of knowing it would be the Aiel… unless the prophecy has many layers of meanings, which is also very likely. (3) You may note from my tags that I've put most of her full name in, including a very interesting reference. Paendrag, yes, like Pendragon. I mean, we already met Arthur, and most of the Caemlyn crew (4) That's not very women supporting women of you, ladies.

[eggyrocks]

rot: h. iwaizumi

chapter six -> a promise

(masterlist ; written content)

word count: 2.7k

now playing: my hot piss by die spitz

Autumn cools everything down. The feverish sort of pain that made her almost delirious has chilled into a dull, steady ache. Kiyoko rests her head on her shoulder. They sit on the couch together, under a shared blanket, and watch old, cheesy horror movies. Every on-screen death makes Kiyoko flinch and hide her face under the blanket.

It’s odd, to be in her apartment, to have it be her own as well. Where the fridge is free of remnants of rotten food and is properly stocked with essentials. Where the furniture matches and there’s no stuffing spilling out of the cushioning. It’s small, and sometimes she has to fiddle with the pipes under the sink to avoid calling a plumber, but it’s nice. It’s well-kept and Kiyoko always has some kind of candle lit. The walls are white, just white, not stained yellow from years of cigarette smoking. The locks don’t look like they’re about to fall off the door. There’s no mold in the bathroom. No pest infestations. No decay in the hardwood floor.

It makes her feel so out of place.

“My parents helped with the deposit,” Kiyoko had explained to her, almost sheepishly, like this was something she should be ashamed of. “And with the first few months of rent while I built up some savings. It’s how I was able to get it.”

Her brother would’ve liked Kiyoko, she thinks. He would’ve liked her quiet demeanor, and the deliberate sort of way she carries herself. He would’ve liked how spending time with her is never overwhelming. He would’ve liked how her voice is like a small stream that runs down the street after a rainstorm.

They would’ve gotten along.

She has the thought that he would’ve hated Iwaizumi, and then tries to pretend that she didn’t.

Onscreen, a head is removed from a set of shoulders. She tries not to think of Iwaizumi. It makes her sick, even his name. Never once has she felt like she did the right thing. Kiyoko keeps telling her that sometimes, the right things hurt the most. But that doesn’t help. It doesn’t quell the nausea she feels at his memory. It doesn’t fade that dull, aching loneliness. It doesn’t make her feel better about leaving him.

Objectively, her life as improved post-Iwaizumi. She’s held onto the same job for several months in a row without incident (no spitting, cursing, or fighting-though that’s mostly due to Kiyoko). She actually has money in her bank account now, ¥50,901.96, after rent (which, isn’t a lot by any metric, but it’s definitely more than nothing). Her father stopped calling. Her diet is much more balanced. The cable’s better. She doesn’t really get mad anymore.

It's an improvement. A drastic one. Something she probably wouldn’t have been able to achieve on her own.

But it’s worse. It just feels worse.

Blood spews from a headless body, cartoonishly fake. Kiyoko squirms, and she doesn’t flinch.

★⋆. ࿐࿔

The bell on the door to the sports shop dings as the it closes, and a customer leaves with fresh tennis balls. She rests her cheek on the palm of her hand as she leans up against the counter. She’s drawing the earth as it explodes from the inside, splitting into dozens of chunks of land and ocean. “Who the fuck buys tennis balls in November?”

Kiyoko slides behind the counter to stand beside her, peering over her shoulder to watch her draw. “I dunno. Maybe he’s going somewhere warm,” she offers as a solution.

Kiyoko doesn’t hate people the way she does. She can’t ever hate someone just because she wants to; Kiyoko doesn’t ever want to. It makes her feel mean, since the feeling of hatred comes to her so naturally. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Noya thinks you’re cute,” Kiyoko says, suddenly stiffer when she talks. “He asked if you were going to go out with us tomorrow night.”

She doesn’t know who Noya is. She probably should. He’s probably someone that she’s met more than once. But she can’t conjure up the face that’s supposed to go with the name. “Which one’s he?” she asks, well past the point of caring if she seems rude to Kiyoko.

Kiyoko knows she’s rude, at this point.

“The short one,” she answers. “The one with the blond in his hair.”

Her pen digs into the notebook paper, adding shading around a blown-up chunk of earth. “Yeah, he’s cute, I guess.”

Kiyoko makes a noise of acknowledgement. “But you’re not into him.”

It’s not a question, so she doesn’t answer it. Kiyoko sighs, and rocks on her heel. “That’s fair. As long as it’s because you’re actually not into him, and not because you’re not over Iwaizumi.”

Hearing his name spoken so casually makes her flinch. Kiyoko notices and leans her head down on her shoulder. “Well, we’ll get there.”

★⋆. ࿐࿔

At her lowest point, she calls her father.

She dials his number so many times she loses track of it. She stares at the numbers for so long they start to lose meaning. When she closes her eyes, she sees them burned into the inside of her eyelids. She hits ‘call,’ and then hangs up, only to dial him right back up again.

She doesn’t know what she’s doing, and definitely not why. She just sort of acts, moved by impulse and a craving for something unknown.

It rings. It rings three times before he answers. His phone is gruff and worn on the other line. “Hello?”

Her hand slaps over her mouth, and she tries to quiet her breathing, like she’s hiding from him. Her eyes prick and burn. “Hello?” he repeats on the other end, more impatient this time. Her heart pounds like he’s just on the other side of the door. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.

“Fucking hell,” is the last thing she hears before the line goes dead. The phone clatters to the floor of her bedroom, and she cries. The first time she’s cried like this in months.

She really doesn’t know what she’s doing.

★⋆. ࿐࿔

Most of her time is spent lying in her bed, doing nothing, thinking about everything. Sometimes she goes along with Kiyoko when she goes out with her friends, and she sits in the corner and tries not to draw too much attention to herself. She hates that. Sometimes she tries to pick up extra shifts at work just to pass the time. She hates that too. Sometimes she goes to this cheap dive bar just two blocks away from her new apartment, just to have a drink or two in a place that’s not her bedroom.

She orders a second drink. It’s bone-chilling cold outside, and the alcohol makes her feel warmer. Just a bit. She thinks it’s sad that this is the most exciting part of her week.

At least the festering rot that tore her up from the inside was interesting. Now her life is boring and depressing.

The call of her name is sudden and jarring. She spins around in the barstool with an elevated heartrate and her fingers reaching for her keys. She doesn’t recognize him, at first. When her eyes first land on him, she continues looking for a second, before it catches up to her. Her heart leaps up to her throat. “Matsukawa?”

Matsukawa chugs, his head tilted back and his Adam’s apple bobbing, downing the pint until there’s nothing left but traces of white foam. Her fingers tap against her own glass, looking at the condensation that leaves a ring around the wooden bar. It reminds her of the plastic cups of coffee Iwa brought her daily. She didn’t drink coffee before that. Now every morning she finds herself crawling out of bed at eight in the goddamn morning, throwing on whatever clothes are on her floor so she can get to the closest coffee shop before it gets too busy.

“Is he over me yet?” she asks, tips of her fingers collecting droplets of condensation.

Matsukawa slams his glass down on the bar. “Nah.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “Not even a little. Iwa’ll never get over you.”

Her eyes roll. Matsukawa sees this and narrows his own. “Don’t think I don’t mean it.”

There’s an awkwardness that hangs between them. She takes a sip of her own drink and swishes it over her tongue, trying to distract from it. “He’s got a long time to.”

“Doesn’t matter. I know him. You were it.”

“Then he shouldn’t have left me.”

She says this, she realizes, with familiarity, the kind that no longer exists between her and Matsukawa. She hasn’t seen him since her father’s blood was on her hands. Any closes between them granted by the lifesaving has since evaporated, and now, they’re as good as strangers. At least to her.

Still, Matsukawa leans back in the bar stool. “Yeah, he probably shouldn’t have.”

She shifts in her seat uncomfortably. It would’ve been better if he argued. “Yeah,” is all she can manage, her fire dulled.

“You don’t look like you’re doing that much better than he is,” Matsukawa remarks, and she offers no reaction. It’s not like he’s wrong. “You two are both idiots. You’re perfect for each other.”

Her lip furls up. “You got a lot of fucking opinions on this.”

“Hard not to. Iwa’s heartbreak is everyone’s problem.”

Iwa’s heartbreak. She doesn’t like the implication of it. Like it’s just his. Like it’s nothing something he caused for her. Like it’s not something they share.

“C’mon,” Matsukawa says, hand clapping on her back, like he can see the thoughts brewing in her head, and he wants to cut her off before they can work their way over to him, “let me walk you home.”

He does. He walks her home and he talks about his recovery post-stabbing and he rants about Oikawa and he talks about this girl he’s been talking to that he’s not really that into and he talks about how good Makki’s been looking lately but he doesn’t ask about her and he doesn’t bring up Iwaizumi again.

At least that she’s grateful for.

And when he deposits her at her front door, he grins, and tells her that he’ll see her later.

★⋆. ࿐࿔

It’s snowing. She stands outside of his apartment, box in her hands and something caught in her throat. It’s been a few weeks since she’s seen Matsukawa, and she’s done little but think about him and what he said and fixate on it and let it gnaw away at her.

So she’s outside Iwaizumi’s apartment, snow getting stuck in her hair and fingers going numb.

Her list of problems doesn’t really exist anymore. They’re not as material, harder to pin down. Her anger issues have simmered down into this lethargic mood that has much less daily wear and tear. The split rent and the consistent income have dissipated the money problems. She doesn’t worry about things the way she used to. Things don’t really plague her the way they used to.

It’s really just him. It’s really just Iwaizumi.

She sighs. It was easier in her head. Everything’s always easier in her head.

Now that she’s here, all she can think about is everything that can go wrong. Matsukawa being wrong, and Iwaizumi being over her, so much so that he’s not even moved at the sight of her and there’s already someone else in there warming up her side of the bed. He could be working. He could hate her. It could go as badly as it did last time.

Kiyoko disapproved of the plan. Kiyoko wanted her to move on. She wanted her to find a life outside of Iwaizumi, purpose outside of him, drive outside of him.

But people like Kiyoko don’t get it. People like Kiyoko don’t know what it’s like to be infected with something so consuming and persistent and chronic. Kiyoko doesn’t get it. Iwaizumi gets it.

He gets it.

She inhales slowly, and forces herself to move forward.

Breaking into the front door of her old apartment building is something she’s done more times than she’s proud of. It’s oddly nostalgic to pop that old lock open, and it feels the same as she creeps up the stairs. It was like this when she first moved in. Bitter, winter air floating up the stairs like all the windows were left open. She remembers shaking as she hauled up trash bags of her belongings, and taking breaks to wrap herself up in the first blanket she could unpack.

She feels that way now as she stomps up the stairs, the bottom of her boots heavy against the wood. She wonders if he can hear her coming.

By the time she reaches the top of the stairs, her hands are trembling, and she’s slightly out of breath. She takes a moment to catch it before she’s shifting the box to hold in one hand, and she knocks. She does it before she has the chance to talk herself out of it.

The door swings open sooner than she thought it would, like Iwaizumi was just standing there on the other side, waiting for her. Waiting for her this whole time.

When she sees him, she holds her breath. She holds her breath as she counts the one, two three, four bruises and the one, two, three cuts that decorate his features. He’s paler than he was before. The bags under his eyes are darker.

Still, he looks pretty. She always thinks he looks pretty.

His reaction to her, standing at his doorstep after six months, is the same as his reaction to everything else. His brow slightly furrowed, mouth curled up in something that looks like annoyance. She’s not surprised when he doesn’t say anything.

“Um, hey,” is how she starts out. It makes her flinch. “I’m sorry to just like, pop up out of nowhere but, I just kinda wanted to see you. I, erm, I missed you. A lot.”

Iwaizumi says nothing to this either. She feels oddly like she is shooting herself in the foot, and she loses the ability to look him in the eye.

“I feel really bad about how everything went down,” she confesses, now staring at her shoes. He’s still looking at her, she can feel it. “I’ m not proud of the things I said or how I acted. I don’t-I don’t hate you, not at all.”

She thinks she can see his chest rise and fall with heavy, deliberate breaths. But she’s not sure. Could be imagining it. The corners of her vision are starting to blur. She holds the box up to him.

A CD player. Brand new. The same one he got her.

“I got you this. As a sorry. I felt like shit for breaking the one you got me. I feel like shit for a lot of it, but that gift meant a lot to me. Just like you do. And I break things a lot and I have a lot of issues and I don’t think you-“

She does not get to finish her sentence. Iwaizumi grabs her by the arm and pulls her into her chest. The force knocks the box out of her hands, and CD player slams to the ground between them. Before she can realize what’s happened, her feet are hovering above the floor, and Iwaizumi’s arms are tight around her.

It’s automatic, the way she returns the embrace. Her arms snake around his middle, and she leans her head against his chest. She started crying at one point, without realizing it.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Iwaizumi says, pressing his face into the top of her head, lips kissing her hair between words. “You have no fucking idea how sorry I am.”

She does, because she feels it. It gnaws away at her chest the same way it does to his. She shakes her head. “I get it,” she tells him. “I know it.”

“Please stay,” Iwaizumi pleads. “Please. I would do anything for you to stay.”

If she were someone like Kiyoko, she would say no. She would leave. She wouldn’t have ever come back. Because she knows, she knows that Iwaizumi is not going to change. He’s not going to become someone different overnight, or over six months, or a year or a dozen. Iwaizumi is always going to be who he was the day that she met him.

People like your father only care about one thing. And it’s not you, and it’s not me.

She holds onto him tighter, and thinks that that’s okay. She is too. “I’ll stay,” she promises. “I’m not going anywhere.”

an: ok let’s try this again

taglist: @wyrcan @thechaosoflonging @localgaytrainwreck @cherrypieyourface @eclecticeggknightpsychic @httpakkeiji @does-directions @needtoloveoutloud @causenessus @kawaii-angelanne @thatonecroc @v1oletfury @lonesomedrive @nnnyxie @pinkiscool @michivrse @cannibalsrider @kmwife @k8nicole @oikasenpai @fennecnco @riousluvs @bellamsby @rinheartshyunlix @bae-ashlynn @ephemeralninon @fangsbb @plumarbre @v-e-r-t21 @snail-squasher @seroh @mfcherry @canthavetoomuchchaos @ange1icarch1ve @applepi25 @wqnsho @19calicos @girlkissersco @Lisoozi @bailey-reeds @kitskasoboring @iluvaquaphor @lllaw @kinsies-blog @1lovestrawberrymilk

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

Okay. I'm going to talk a little bit about what my experience of psychosis is like for a bit. Because I opened that can of worms in another post already, and it really DOESN'T get discussed because realistically (and reasonably) most of us who experience psychosis are too afraid to speak openly about it lest people decide we're the wrong type of crazy.

But when I first started working in mental health I had a boss who sat down with us in our inaugural staff meeting and introduced himself by talking about his experience of being committed for psychosis, and that was.....life changing? For me because I had never met anyone else like me in my career path. Maybe I can be that for someone else. Maybe I can just be a comfort. Maybe I just start a conversation. Whatever happens, I'm ready.

When I was little, I called them the whispers. The sounds that spilled under doorways and creeped along the hallways of my family home like fog, low to the ground, surface tension vibrating with the sound of a million voices trapped and muffled inside like a bubble waiting for me to burst it and free them. They were easy to ignore as long as I wasn't alone in stillness. I compressed them in my mind, shoving them farther and farther into the back nooks and crannies like a hated birthday present from an aunt you loved and didn't want to offend. Sometimes I pushed too hard and they all came pouring out like the rush of a white water rapid. But when I was alone, the rapids caught an eddy, spiraling around and around in a vortex that drowned out thoughts, feelings, hopes, and fears like so many twigs or leaves floating downriver.

I learned quickly not to tell people about the whispers. People did not like hearing about the whispers. It made them.....uncomfortable. but they had been there my whole life. As far as I knew, I came into this world crying in the hospital, was gently placed into a cradle with the first of the pinchie pillows I would have for life, and there were the whispers right along with it. I had never been afraid of them because there had never been a reason to be. Others clearly disagreed. The whispers became my secret.

What was easier to get away with was being "daydreamy". As a child, no one was surprised that I spent most of my time lost in my own little world. No one thought it odd (well, odd perhaps, but not the kind of odd you worry about) that my presence in their world seemed loose, tenuous at best. I wrote poetry about my senses and they called it deep and meaningful and encouraged me to read it at contests and performances. It didn't occur to me that describing the world through the lens of my own perception was artistic. To me, it was descriptive. Laughter sounds like the tinkling of broken glass and hangs in the air like a cloud of mineral dust. Winter in my hometown smelled like fog and decay and felt like the weightless apex of the jump off the balance beam. Thoughts came, not in language that could be spoken, or pictures to be described, but in the twist and dance of colored smoke as it curls and blooms around the tip of a stick of incense. Sometimes, if I focus, I can taste the scent of the stick's perfume on my tongue when I try to speak it into a reality I share with others.

Once I admitted to a therapist that I "didn't feel real" which was the closest I could come to describing the experience of being able to feel a body that didn't exist, and unable to feel a body that did, while the threads that connected MeAsIAm to MeAsIAppearAndExist floated in the breeze of unreality, barely tethering the two together. I was told this is depersonalization and dissociation, and that I needed to learn how to ground myself in my present body and time. I was not told that grounding was supposed to batten down the hatches of my body-mind and lock the two together again "as they should be". Which is probably why it never bothered me that it didn't. That it couldn't. That my body-mind was never connected in that way to begin with. The grounding tools did make it much easier to function in a world designed for a unified front, however, and I appreciated that. When I needed to be present, I could Turn On The Gravity and when I no longer needed it, off went the switch, and off I drifted into the orbit of my physicality again. Content and at peace. I did learn that the more "reality" rejected the shape of me, the harder the Gravity needed to work. The more room was left for my Strangeness, the less energy grounding strategies required. This is, I suspect, in part because I was allowed to be disjointed or scattered, at least a little, and so the extent to which I needed to be "grounded" in order to interact with others varied from context to context.

I don't think my perceptions are "real" in the sense that others could sense them too if they were a little more open minded. But I do think that they're "real" in that they are mine. My reality includes them. And I know that many others....simply don't. I think that's probably fine. It might be nice not to have to concentrate so hard on Being A Person In A Society. But I found treatment and support protocols that helped me. I moved out of my parents' home, got a couple of degrees, and I work in mental health now where I have often spoken to others who have similarly varied realities. I can sometimes see, when lucidity allows a more tightly tethered connection for them, clients realize I have asked a question that they've never been asked before. One that seems. Perhaps a little too specific and accurate to be coming from a textbook. But mostly I think they don't realize. This is also probably fine. I don't think I would have felt differently about my providers growing up had I known they shared my experiences of psychosis. I have had providers who were terrible at supporting me through it, and others who were very helpful. For me what mattered was knowing I could acknowledge my reality in care without it becoming an automatic hospitalization. This is something providers can do regardless of whether or not they also struggle to connect MeAsIAm and MeAsIAppearAndExist. It requires compassion and recognition of my autonomy. Not embodied understanding.

Besides there are many different ways to experience psychosis. Who's to say that because two people both have it, they both share an understanding of it?

It does sometimes help communication though. I've found that it can be hard for those without phychosis to follow my thoughts as I say them in orders and intonations and patterning that is comfortable for me. I speak 2 languages, but I also communicate in a language that is not a language. It is a rhythm, a melody, a song in my head that lilts and crescendos and....whispers. I find that this is often confusing to those who speak only languages. Perhaps less so depending on which language, but that undercurrent of rhythm appears meaningful in ways I do not care to dissect. So I speak carefully. Precisely. In deliberate orders. I prefer to write than to speak because it better accommodates this and decreases the amount of translation that I forget to do in attempting to communicate with others.

These things are difficult. Not everyone who has psychosis as part of their experience will share my strengths, limitations, contexts, or decisions. This is probably fine. Or it would be if the workd had space for us as we are. It rarely seems to. This is probably less fine.

[river-bottom-nightmare]

just imagine the very first time the batsignal lit up in gotham.

there had been whispers, reaching far and fast, about this new menace on the streets of a decaying city that had swallowed itself up years and years ago, imploding into something twisted and ugly and brutal. a city that kept most people from even thinking to step onto cobblestone streets where it's likely that there's blood on the ground in front of you and the mocking faces of socialites smiling down upon you like angels from heaven with their blinding light. this shadowy creature wouldn't last long at all.

the people of gotham though? they knew the batman was real. the light hadn't burned their eyes out; they'd just gripped their loved ones tight and learned how to survive, cutting out the parts of themselves that would have landed them on the wrong side of a cop's gun. the people of gotham had long since embraced this living darkness they called home, and they knew it inside and out.

they knew when one of their own decided to join the police academy, betrayal lacing through their hearts and ending up spitting out of their throats with venom-laced words. they remembered their own hesitant, disbelieving eyes as gordon rose through the ranks instead, never once breaking down, never once turning into one of the power-hungry thugs he spent every day surrounded by. but gordon was only one man.

this new vigilante? the people knew batman was real, but they weren't entirely sure if it was a man. general census ended up saying the bat was some soft of twisted monster whose heart hadn't gone bad with the rest of him, medusa hiding herself away in the shadows to keep from harming others with her curse. the bat hit hard and growled deep and waited 'till you were on the edge of giving up before saving your life, satisfied as you spilled everything you knew to him in pitiful thanks.

the people of gotham knew the batman was real. they couldn't count on him, though, they couldn't trust this thing that hid in the shadows. if you were lucky enough to be saved by him, you thanked whoever's good graces had led him to you and ran away. if you were unlucky enough to be his target, you vowed to never cross him again with trembling whispers. and that's the way it was.

at least, until the locks broke on the prison, the palace, that held the people insane enough to paint themselves in white so thoroughly that they stood out from both the comfortable darkness of gotham and the nauseating glitter and gold of the elite. laughter ringing throughout the night, the metallic ring of a coin flipping through the air, the rumbling growl of a monster in the sewers. poison ivy growing from stone walls, tea and biscuits with a side of arsenic, fear folding upon gotham like a thousand needles falling from the sky. the police acted out of their own self interests, their own self preservation. luckily enough, that motive would save the people of gotham, too.

but they weren't enough. guns wouldn't do much against people insane enough to run straight at them and ignore the blood streaming from their bodies. weapons wouldn't work at all as these madmen turned everyone's mind against itself. the ground was quaking under the city, and gotham was at the brink of collapse.

then all of a sudden, there was light. not the harsh white of the asylum, not the glitter of the rich them who took whatever reflections were left in the city and trapped the light in meaningless maze within itself. this light was soft, almost warm. yellow-coloured and beaming from the top of the gcpd, one lone figure standing on the roof, tan coat whipping around him as he made a desperate call for help from someone who wasn't supposed to exist.

the people of gotham knew the batman was real. what they didn't expect was for him to appear, answering what he knew was a call for him, utterly unaware of the shock spreading through the city. people whose optimism had been lost years ago, broken figures who'd given up on anything selfless sprouting from a city that sucked away anything but selfishness, men feeling that soft warmth from the light splayed out over gotham's clouds touch their skin for the first time in decades.

one of gotham's own had called out for the bat, and the bat had answered. the elite hissed and shied away from that heroic creature they didn't understand, the madmen of arkham were beaten and put back in their place. and for the first time in a long while, gotham city felt alive.

no officer i don't know what i'm talking about at all, yes officer i just have a bunch of feels and no outlet so this is what i'm posting.

tag list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan @subtleappreciation @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @bikoncon @maplumebleue-blog-blog @sundownridge @thatsthewhump @xatanna-troy @red-hood-redemption @capricorn-stark @batshit-birds @comics-observer

[lubdubsworld]

Madeira.  ( Taehyung x OC) Part 1/2

Genre : Angst, Sexually Explicit Content. 

Kim Taehyung x OC 

 Cop Au! 

Married Taehyung x Oc! ( Estranged ) 

Cop Taehyung! Bartender Oc ! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N : This is my spin on the brother’s best friend trope. I wrote this for @ladyartemesia​ Who made the amazing banner for the fic..

Because of one of her posts :D :D But I hope all of you enjoy it. 

Also listen , i was supposed to write a simple brother’s best friend fic , maybe playful fluff and mild angst and some smut but  this thing snowballed into a plot monster and now here we are. 

This is part 1. 

Part 2 soon :) 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So... that husband of yours is still missing, huh?" The man leaning against the bar smelled like sewage. 

There really was no other word for it. 

He smelled like he’d been drenched in the water that usually ran down the streets, whenever the heavens opened and poured a fucking deluge on us. Like he’d taken a soak in the disgusting broth of decaying produce, discarded animal entrails and everyday garbage. You know, the kind of stuff you find in the market street of a small town.

I ignored him, exhaling sharply and dragging the rag across the counter again, this time with a little more force behind it to make up for the urge to wrap my hands around the fucker’s neck. 

Not the man leaning on the bar that is.  

The man who had abandoned me. 

Kim fucking Taehyung. 

My breath shuddered out of me ,  a headache blooming inside my skull at the very thought of him. it was kind of unwarranted, I guess because it really wasn’t perfect Kim Taehyung’s fault that his wife of five years and seven months hadn’t seen him in ...well, five years and six months. 

Fuck. 

But see he wasn’t missing from my life by design. 

He certainly hadn’t intended to leave me alone because , well for one, he loved me. and two, his best friend aka my big brother Park Jimin would skin him alive if he tried something like that. 

They were best friends, bosom buddies since kinder garten and the only time they’d ever fought was when Jimin had walked in on me choking on Kim Taehyung’s dick in our coat closet at the age of seventeen ( 19 in Taehyung’s case) . 

Taehyung had sported a black eye for two whole weeks. 

So you see, Taehyung wouldn’t just leave me without reason, not unless he wanted to be castrated by my brother. 

No. 

The reason Kim Taehyung wasn’t around was because he had taken up an assignment, an undercover assignment a month after our wedding. 

An assignment that was supposed to last two months. Except it hadn’t and now, it had been a whole five and a half years since I’d seen the man I loved. 

Kim fucking Taehyung. 

See, Taehyung was a detective. 

A brilliant, A- class detective in Seoul PD’s Narcotics Division and he had a reputation. 

 A reputation as one of the most ruthless, merciless men on the force. 

Taehyung had a mind that worked like no other, somehow able to predict exactly how drug dealers moved, how the shipments were going to be smuggled. He could tell where the deal was going to go down, what kind of security measures they would be up against and the most intriguing of all :  just what drug a person had taken, simply from staring into their damn eyes .

 It wasn’t uncommon for his cop buddies to comment how lucky the country was, that Kim Taehyung had chosen to be on this side of the law . 

So Kim Taehyung’s reputation as a brilliant detective was well earned and that was why,  when people heard his reputation and  then  met him, they were always stunned. 

Because, for someone with such a terrifying aura , Taehyung looked deceptively.....well ethereal was the word. Beautiful was another. So fucking gorgeous  he could make angels cry. 

But Taehyung didn’t just look like a fucking angel. He acted like one. He acted like he had been sent on earth, simply to fight every bad guy in the city and while I had been proud and amazed and suitably enthralled with his prowess in the beginning, the fact that he had chosen to just leave me , really fucking hurt. 

It hurt that the boy i had grown up with , the boy who had been my first everything hadn’t thought twice about leaving me behind. About leaving everything we had spent a whole decade building , behind just because he couldn’t control the urge to save the fucking world.

Every damn time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The water in my parents’ home was often murky and I had to let it run for a few minutes, before sticking the bucket underneath the tap. I watched the water turn clearer, cupping my palms underneath the flow watching it run clear. I nudged the bucket with my foot , under the tap and the sound of the water hitting the cheap plastic filled the cramped bathroom, loud and jarring. 

I leaned against the chipped blue tiles, fingers shaking as I clenched them into fists. I had moved year about nine months after Taehyung had left, when it became clear that he wasn’t going to be coming back anytime soon and it became hard, paying the rent for our modest apartment in Itaewon. 

Jimin had offered to help, offered to let me move in with him and his wife Irene,  but he had been newly married as well, with a baby on the way. And i just couldn’t do that to him. I’d called my parents, explained that Taehyung and I were taking a break and could I move in for a while?

My parents had been stunned. 

A break after ten months of marriage? what had happened? 

I’d kept my mouth shut because everything was a security risk. I couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t cry or complain or seek comfort in my mother’s gentle words. Instead i’d spent the days, locked up in my childhood bedroom, pouring over my journals, my keepsakes and photos, reliving the years I’d spent, loving and learning and cherishing Taehyung. 

First kiss in his garage at the age of fifteen  , laughing over a failed skateboard trick. How he’d grinned at me, watching me whine over the scrape on my knee, how he’d stared up at me through the sweat damp bangs on his forehead as he’d knelt on the floor, sticking a bandaid over the scrape and then instead of moving away as usual, he mad moved  in,  brushed his lips against mine, stole the breath out of my lung , the soul out of my body . 

And Those first two years of denial....when he would practically run out of the door if i so much as breathed in his direction. 

“You’re Jimin’s sister.. I can’t...” 

God often he’d said that...over and over again until the words lost all meaning for me. I had wanted him so blindly. Had fought any girl who so much as looked at him and every one of my girlfriends  knew to stay clear off Kim Taehyung. 

The whispers, anytime someone showed an interest on the most handsome boy in school. 

Yes, he is gorgeous, yes he is smart and amazing but he belongs to  her.  She’ll kill you if you come near him. 

I’d enjoyed it. I enjoyed knowing that everyone could see that he belonged with me, even if Taehyung himself didn’t . 

And me at seventeen, watching him talk about leaving .... How he was going to join the police academy and become a cop and that had been the final straw. I’d all but barrelled into his home and kissed him. 

Told him in no uncertain terms that he was not going anywhere without telling me he loved me. And if he didn’t , I wanted him to swear he would never regret it. That when , years from now, he saw me walking down the aisle with some other guy, he would stand in the wedding party, next to my actual brother and not regret that he let me go. 

Taehyung had kissed me back with fervor that still made my lips tingle. 

And that last week before he left, when we had spent all our waking hours, either having sex or thinking about having sex. How we’d christened every surface of our parents’  house , our rooms and finally the coat closet after one particularly tense game of truth and dare. 

That was a memorable one because my brother had walked in, just as Taehyung had gripped my hair hard enough to bruise and shoved his ‘ big by any standards’ dick straight down my throat. 

Talk about embarrassing. 

And it had taken a whole lot of begging and cajoling and promises to not have sex till we were married, for my brother to come around.

But he had. 

And for five glorious years, I had been Kim Taehyung’s girlfriend. Watched him climb the ranks at seoul PD with a speed that was amazing. Watching him become the youngest detective on the force... watched him carve a reputation for himself in the Narcotic department.

And one evening, having dinner in a posh restaurant with our family and friends, I had watched him get down on his knees , a small velvet box in his hand  eyes practically sparkling with love as he stared at me. 

“The only one you’re walking down the aisle with is me, sweetheart.” He had rasped, over the raucous cheering of all the most important people in our lives. 

But the joy had been short lived. 

Just a month after our wedding Taehyung had taken up the assignment. Just two months, he had promised. I’ll be back in two months baby. I love you so damn much, you know that....

I had said it was okay. it wasn’t but i had said. Had promised to wait for him. To keep myself safe. 

Two months had turned to two years. Two years had turned to three. Three to four and four to five. 

Lonely. I was so lonely. 

Even living with my parents, the solitude had been unbearable. The ache from not being touched by him . The ache from not being able to touch him. From not having that boxy smile to greet me in the morning. Not running my fingers through his hair as he left hickeys all over me. Not having him over me, staring down at me,  eyes heavy and hard as he fucked into me.

I missed him so fiercely it was a physical ache. An intense , hollow ache filled with anxiety and longing. 

And terror.

Oh god I was so terrified. 

The fear was all encompassing somedays and I had to bite down on my pillows just to stop myself from giving in to hysteria. To start sobbing, uncontrollably because the thought would come out of nowhere, bowling me over in it’s intensity. 

The burning fear that perhaps he was hurt. 

That perhaps he was no longer of this world and i would never even know. That perhaps right this moment he was lying in some abandoned warehouse, bleeding out , thinking of me, wishing he could see me and he was just going to die alone . And I would never know. 

I spoke to Jimin on the phone to Jimin every weekend. But sometimes, once every three or four weeks, Jimin called in the day. 

We would exchange small talk. 

And then he would say, 

“Had a glass of madeira last night.”  “ spoke to Taehyung’s handler last night. 

I would grip the phone hard, brace myself for the good , the bad or the ugly that was to come. 

“Tasted great. Was thinking of you.”  He’s fine. He misses you. He loves you. 

“Okay. Thank you Jimin.” 

And that was that. 

The sound of the water spilling over drew me to the present and i blinked, staring down at the water flooding the bathroom, the drainhole struggling to get rid of the excess water. 

The house was deserted. 

My parents had died a year ago. And now it was just me. 

I swallowed , shaking my head before grabbing the hem of my dress and stripping. 

Shower.

And then bed. 

Alone. 

Always so fucking alone. 

The phone rang then and i groaned. 

God, I hated having to leave the shower to attend calls but the reception here was terrible and I could only get calls if I left the phone on the small table by the bed. 

Grabbing a towel and wrapping it around my torso, I stumbled out into the dimply lit bedroom, reaching for my phone. 

I couldn’t recognize the number and I frowned, before accepting the call.

“Hello?”

“Yerin?” 

Every hair on my body stood on end and my body curned hot and then went icy cold really really fast. 

“T-T-Tae??” I whispered, gripping the phone so hard my fingers went number. 

Five years later and his voice was so different. Deep and raspy and exhausted and I couldn’t make sense of it. Was this real? Was i having a fever dream? Had i fell in the shower and hit my head? 

“Hey baby.” He chuckled. 

“Is this real? Is it you?” I whispered, confused and my head spinning and my vision fading a little. 

“Yeah. “ He coughed a bit and i panicked. “ I’m back. “

I froze. 

“Wh-What?”

“I’m back. I’m home. I’m .... I’m back.” 

I stared at the wall, too stunned to process what I was hearing. 

I could hear his voice through the phone but I couldn’t respond. 

Staring at the screen , I hung up. 

And then, I finally gave in to the hysterics. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[idontblushsrry]

How the Jujutsu Kaisen Characters Smell

A/N: Absolutely no one asked for this but I have thoughts and now yall have to hear them. Btw gonna put a keep reading because I’m trying to cover as many jjk characters as possible so it’s gonna get long.

Warnings: Spoilers if you’ve only seen the anime or haven’t read the manga up to the Shibuya Arc (relatively minor but you’ve been warned)

Itadori

He’s nowhere near the best smelling but his scent isn’t awful 

He sweats a lot so he takes showers a minimum of 2x a day

Overall his smell isn’t that bad, he just smells like outside 

5/10 points for effort but he always smells like he just got done rolling around in grass

Fushiguro

Fushiguro smells like the suave ocean breeze body wash with an undertone of pen ink 

His smell is very nice, it’s not the most remarkable but it’s not stinky

Middle school Megumi was definitely a hot mess that smelled solely of axe body spray and other middle schoolers he beat up (Tsumiki tried her best but there was only so much he’d compromise on)

After he started attending the Tokyo school, Maki threw out his axe and made Gojo buy him actual cologne/scented body wash

7/10 smells like a friend (points reduced because he used to use 3 in 1 body wash)

Kugisaki

Kugisaki is very much clean

She keeps up a beauty regimen and doesn’t play when it comes to upkeeping it

She has this light floral scent because of that; it varies between cucumbers and roses

Her body wash is also consistent with the smell of her beauty products

One thing about Kugisaki’s smell is that it does change completely depending on what products she’s using

Although, if she were to be completely clean with no scented products, she’d have a smell that’s a little bit metallic because of the nails and a little pumpkin-y

10/10 points because she sets the standard

Gojo

Smells like the inside of a guys car

He smells like bergamot and cedarwood mixed with a hint of leather

Overall he smells nice and it’s frustrating because his scent lingers. It’s so distinct that even when he’s gone, his scent will stay behind just to taunt you

9/10 minus one point for being Gojo

Maki

She’s very particular about hygiene 

It mainly stems from 1) her upbringing and 2) the level of cleanliness needed to clean all the weapons she uses regularly

She smells of metal polish, lavender with a hint of patchouli, and a slight undertone of rust

10/10 overall very strong scent but it’s so uniquely her that it’s calming 

Inumaki

This makes no sense but I feel like Inumaki smells like the sandwich part of a deli

Specifically that fresh baked bread and sliced lettuce smell

It can be a bit nostalgic at times especially because the smell in general occurs in a lot of places 

10/10 because bread smells good

Panda

It’s canon that Panda smells like the sun but we can get more specific

Panda does smell like the sun but I think he smells like a freshly cleaned room with the curtains open

The smell is like air freshener mixed with the sun

The air fresheners he smells the most like are: morning and dew, wood, pine, pet odor eliminator

10/10 no explanation needed

Yuta

Smells like teen spirit

Pre-jujutsu high (and before he was sent away to Africa); Yuta smelled like deodorant

He smelled like wayyy too much old spice, it was pretty bad

Post trip to Africa (idk which country he went to), Yuta smells of shea butter, frankincense, and charred wood

8/10 the crimes of pre jujutsu high Yuta will not be easily forgiven

Nanami

He smells like the blue Ralph Polo Lauren cologne

No I will not take criticism

He also smells a bit like the wrinkle spray people use when ironing clothes

10/10 we been knew that Nanami looks good, smells good, and dresses good

I don’t even like that cologne but for him...

Shoko

Love Shoko but her smell isn’t the most pleasant

Literally smells like cigarettes and alcohol with the sterile smell of cleaner to top it off

She’s an icon but her smell can be overwhelming at the best of times and suffocating at the worst

5/10 some people might like it but it is not for me

Utahime

Her scent is very foresty, either pine or spruce, with an undertone of gree tea

Her scent is a bit muted too so you can only really smell it if she’s really close or if you’re hugging her

It’s not a bad scent though, it’s the type that immediately sets you on ease

10/10 smells like a warm hug

Mechamaru(spoilers)

He’s a robot what’d you expect???

Jkjk Pre-Shibuya he smells really sterile and clean due to his condition

His robots obviously smell like metal and wiring

Post-Shibuya arc(or yk during technically): He smells kind of like nothing

There's the slightest smell of sparks from his cursed technique and the hint of mojito’s smell lingering, but otherwise he smells like absolutely nothing

6/10 the lack of smell is a bit off putting

Miwa

I can’t explain but I feel like Miwa smells like banana and vanilla

Like Mai and Momo tricked her and she ended up actually liking the smell

6/10 not the worst but not the best

Mai

Mai smells really heavily of metal and gunpowder

Obviously brcause of her cursed technique but she ever expected it to stck to her like it does

She doesn’t make any active effort to change it though because she thinks it makes her seem cool and mysterious

4/10 because while it DOES make her seem cool and mysterious, she scares locals

Momo

She definitely uses bath and body works perfume (tempted to say she uses the glittery versions but alas)

She loves using all the candles, lotions, and perfumes because of how girly they make her feel; has a collection that’s probably on a rotater

Definitely uses sweet pea above all

Tries to get Mai to try some of her fragrances but she has a 30/70 chance of getting her to agree

7/10 another scent that’s not for me

Todo

He has a really intense cleaning regimen and is never caught lackin in the smell department

He gets all the more embarrassed when Yuuji smells stinky next to him and will always make Yuuji shower if thr boy stinks

Other than that, he smelled of an ocean-y cologne before Takada-chan released her perfume collection

Now all he talks about is how he smells like the perfect husband for Takada

Takada’s perfume is really light a floral (along the lines of rose + vanilla) and if Todo runs out, he tries to steal it from Momo’s collection

9/10 minus a point for being a simp

Noritoshi

Smells really clean except for when he’s using his cursed technique

On average, Noritoshi smells like the clean linen spray/ clean laundry

When he uses his technique, he smells like blood and when he uses his technique to “dope”, he smells like sweat

Usually he smells like clean laundry though, he’s very picky about how he smells and hates the smell he gets from using his technique

10/10 for keeping clean

Naoya

If you think this man washes his ass...

Sorry but he’s a little too busy being a misogynist 

Naoya saw the term gooch grease and was like “wow someone gets it!”

-400/10 I’m sick of talking about the ways this man smells like a popped neck pimple

Mahito

Only person that smells worse than Naoya

If Naoya smells like a popped neck pimple, Mahito smells like a literal sewer

He smells like sewage, garbage, rot and decay, melted plastic,etc.

Not only does Mojito’s body stink, his breath stinks, hair stinks, just everything stinks

Jogo and Hanami can’t tell since they don’t have noses but everytime Geto gets a whiff, he dies a little inside

-21982913293237932392379319210391090320323019/10 GET BACK. GET BACK. GET BACK.

Sukuna

Pre-death; he smelled like blood 9 times out of 10 

The other 10% of times he smelled like incense or jasmine but you’d never smell it for long

Post-death; stinky funky and rotten

I’m sorry but 1) he’s a mass murder who literally sits atop a mountain of skulls 2) he’s technically dead and only exists thriugh his fingers

If you think that man smells like anything other than rot and grave wax...

-2/10 be glad he got a higher score than Mahito

Choso

I love Choso with every ounce of my being 

That being said, he smells like a scab

Scabs don’t even have smells but somehow he smells like one 

Alright I’m done slandering him

3/10 because I didn’t have the heart to give him anything lower

Geto(spoilers)

Pre-Gojo angst: Geto was the best smelling sorcerer in the world

He was very meticulous about his grooming routine and showed Gojo how to care for himself w/o the aid of servants

A king of self care and personal grooming 10/10

Post-Gojo angst: Geto really stopped caring about his appearance

He’d keep clean to set a good example for his kids, but he didn’t really see the value of looking decent

Probably says “I refuse to use the technology of monkeys”

Even though Mahito smells worse, Geto does still hang around Mahito and that’s gonna rub off

2/10 take a shower man, sea water doesn’t count as cleaning yourself

Junpei

Junpei smells like dandelions/picked grass and cigarettes

Cigarettes are obviously because his mom smokes them so frequently the smell sticks to him

The dandelions/ picked grass smell is because Junpei spends a lot of time outside 

Out of boredom or a need to keep his negative thoughts at bay, Junpei started picking at the grass

I do think he eventually started weaving flower crowns made of dandelions and strips of grass

6/10 because I feel bad for him

Toji

This man...

As much as I’d like to pretend he smells good, he has a drooling worm hanging off him and  probably owns like one outfit

That being said, he’s not as stinky as Naoya or Mahito (or even Sukuna), because he does clean himself when he has the chance

It’s just that he spends his money so quickly that he kinda forgets sometimes

Although he usually has no problem finding some woman who’d be more than willing to put him up in a hotel room

His smell is musky but it’s not funky

He smells like a guy right before they start to get stinky, it’s a delicate balance

4/10 he’s a lil funky but it kinda feeds his image

[giorno-plays-piano]

Tainted Apollo

Pairing: Kars x Reader

Warnings: mentions of gore, death of minor characters, slight allusion to dubcon.

Words: 3056.

Summary: Finding a peculiar sculpture in the ruins of an ancient temple, you realize you have stumbled upon a god set in stone.

P.S. I forgot to post this one here haha

____________

"Good morning, Sire." You welcomed him as you stretched in your improvised bed, an old metal container of some kind with a pile of blankets on top of it.

Rubbing your sleepy eyes, you slowly put your feet on the floor and adjusted the hem of your nightgown so he wouldn't see too much of your flesh. Kars always found this habit of yours ridiculous. He had been a piece of stone for God knew how long, and even after you found him he'd been confined to bed for no less than a year, barely moving and unable to speak. Kars was sure you didn't even understand what he was, but you still cared about covering your body in front of him. What a pathetic habit, he thought.

When you found him in the sands, somewhere in what appeared to be a long abandoned temple that had been in ruins even before he reached the Earth, you first thought he was some kind of sculpture, adoring his unusual but captivating form. He hated you watching him with your eyes wide, even touching a lock of his petrified hair - you were just a mortal human woman, one of those he had been determined to wipe out, but you had the audacity to act like his sole purpose was to lay in the sand for your entertainment. If he could move, he would definitely end your pathetic like there and then. But Kars couldn't.

It must have been ages, if not a millennium, since he had been banished from Earth. Drifting through darkness, his body had turned to stone, his limbs losing their ability to move - regardless of him finally becoming an ultimate form of life, it brought him nothing but eternal suffering and oblivion. Kars had stopped functioning like a living being almost completely. Almost. If he hadn't been returned back to Earth by some accident, he would continue his meaningless journey to the stars till the end of times because the darkness enveloping him had no limits. It felt like being thrown into a cold throat of some gigantic monstrous creature, but instead of reaching its stomach and finally dying he had been forced to circulate somewhere in between, neither dead nor alive. If silly humans thought the Hell was real, it had to be it.

He couldn't remember what force sent him back to Earth as he could think of no one doing it intentionally, but it didn't matter as long as he could reach Earth. Regardless of what would happen after, Kars knew he would survive and regain his power, finally giving humanity what it deserved for what they had done to him.

Funny, but when his mind had awoken from hibernation, Kars realized there was no one to take revenge on. Humanity had successfully wiped itself out.

Even after year and a half that passed, he still saw just you, a girl who had brought his petrified form to her home to take care of him knowing he was alive - by the time you met him Kars was able to open his eyes. Oh, he remembered well how horrified you were, stumbling upon an immensely beautiful statue that turned out to be a stone god, he heard you saying that for a few times. That day you ran away with such an expression Kars didn't expect you to ever come back, although you showed up a couple of days after, trying to talk to him in that odd new human language he had never heard before. As he kept silent, unable to even move his lips and make a sound, you realized the god you stared upon had been trapped in stone, and you could do nothing to free him. You went away, but came back with an odd machine that reminded him of Stroheim, and Kars thought of melting your bones when you dared to use to transport him. However, he had to admit how further did human technology evolved when even a small and timidly-looking machine like yours could lift and transport him to your home, a place inside another machine that had been definitely used for military purposes before being abandoned. It looked incredibly pathetic, as if you were a little rat that had to live in a pile of garbage out of pure need.

The world he once knew and wished to conquer had disappeared. All he saw while being driven away by your small machine had been a never-ending desert and ruins of other machines: he learnt lately those were enormous satellites, star ships, and other rusting remnants of an epoch that had been long gone. Watching gigantic sand stingrays crossing the desert as if it were a sea made him realize how far humans had gone - they had created monsters that were never meant to exist in the first place.

Of course, they paid for it. Judging from the stories you told him and what he observed himself, humanity had faced almost complete annihilation even without intervention of their outer space enemies, if there were any. The atomic war destroyed nearly everything humans had been creating since the beginning of their era. It affected even the natural course of life of every living being on Earth, forcing them to change and finally become a horrifying, mutilated, monstrous life form of something they had been once. Even the Moon had been gone, it's ugly half-destroyed form shining in the night sky and making it even more revolting. You had said something about unsuccessful colonization and the war over moon territories while Kars had to force himself to look down on the sand that was at least familiar to him.

Disgusting. He still had hard time believing how far humans had gone, destroying everything that existed long before they started ruling the planet. What would Jojo say now if he saw what a nightmare the world had become? Wasn't it better to let Kars wipe out the humanity before this had happened?

He had been fighting the urge to break your spine or melt your insides at least for a couple of months, blaming you for the crimes of your ancestors despite you obviously being too young to commit any of the atrocities that had happened. How come a human being had the audacity to survive in this post-Apocalyptic world while other life forms had mutated into monsters? When you were wiping any impurities off his cold stony skin, he was dreaming of the time when his body would come out of this odd hibernation period he couldn't control and then murder you in some rather painful way, prolonging your death till you felt all kinds of despair a human like you could. As he struggled to move even his fingers, he had finally decided not to harm an only being capable of taking care of him.

Each day you brought him to sunlight so he could observe what was outside of your pathetic shelter while you worked to grow anything in this lifeless place, several times a week departing to some place to fill the ugly rusted water tank, then watering your plants in a some kind of a nicely equipped greenhouse - funny, now you used it to protect the plants from the intense heat rather than trap it inside. Fruits and vegetables were what your diet was based on, including some synthetic supplements Kars refused to consume, disgusted by something made purely by humankind. Sometimes you would bring him fried meat, and while the thought of eating a mutilated animal had been revolting to him, Kars knew you could offer him nothing else. Even the meat you brought you offered only to him, rarely taking a piece for yourself: now it must have been a great privilege to consume meat. Besides, it truly sustained him better than fruits or vegetables, and he was dependent on what you were feeding him, slowly getting his strength back. After a year and a half he was now able to move his lips and fingertips, making you nearly ecstatic: it seemed you were doing everything right.

What did you think he was? A deity? A monster? A machine? Probably an immortal being who had existed long before the annihilation, that's what you said: you were talking to him from time to time either to pay your respects, tell him more about your world you thought he knew nothing about or voice what you were going to do right the next moment. One day as you brought several rectangular plates made with what looked like a blue metal to him, you read Kars about ancient Greek gods, wondering if he had been one of them - you saw him melting food with his skin, and for you it was the inherent symbol of his divinity. Kars had to give you some credit: you weren't as stupid he first thought you were. You weren't worshipping him as much as he deserved, but you probably did the best you could do, just a little desert rat having nothing but her plants and a decaying metal house.

"I won't come back till the sunset." You said once you finished washing your face and brushing your hair, tucking them under a faded scarf out of some light fabric and then reaching out to grab your mask. "I'll try being quick, Sire, but it's important I visit that place. If I'm lucky, I might bring something very useful to you."

Useful to him, huh? He would appreciate if you stopped humoring yourself: there was nothing useful you could bring him aside from a dozen people to devour. While he knew there were some people left on Earth still, he also knew you wouldn't master the strength to capture, less sacrifice them to him. Besides, Kars was still deciding whether it was worth devouring those creatures. While it certainly would make him return his powers faster, he could wait a couple of centuries - Kars doubted remaining humans could do something worse to Earth than what had already been done.

You didn't return after the sunset that day. It was the first time you hadn't keep your promise to him, and it made ill-tempered Kars bitter: oh, he would remember it and make sure you remembered it, too. He spent the night thinking what he was going to do to you, albeit not getting too violent in his thoughts. Something probably happened on your way, and you had to stop and spend the night in the desert before coming back.

The next day you didn't return either. He waited for you till the sunset but heard nothing but the sound of sand stingrays travelling to the other part of the desert. The complete silence troubled Kars more than he was able to admit: you had been somewhere around most of the time, taking to him or making some other irritating noise. While he found you just one more annoying creature inferior to him, your absence had a strange effect on Kars - it felt like something was crawling beneath his stony skin, making it harder to keep calm despite the fact the man had always been patient, unaffected by something so unworthy of his attention. However, your absence was a clear sign that something had happened, and it somehow bothered him.

Were you attacked by the monstrous creatures roaming the earth? Humans? Some other force he knew nothing about? Surely, it had something to do with the thing you attempted to bring, but you were vague about its nature, and Kars doubted it was really something decent. How come you had the audacity to risk your life when you were his one and only follower, sustaining and taking care of him while he was still in hibernation? Were you so unbearably stupid you decided you could leave him alone for long? Who had given you the right to bother Kars with your absence? It was inexcusable. The only reason why he didn't punish you was his petrified body, but he wouldn't stay in such state forever.

The lack of your presence was becoming more and more disturbing, and Kars questioned himself why did it matter. He had never needed someone's company - even though he had respect for both Esidisi and Wamuu, their closeness to him wasn't something essential. Not that your presence was either... and yet he found himself constantly thinking about the reasons why you were late. Although it irritated him, Kars decided that time he spent into space had its effects on his mind.

When you returned at last, the sun had already disappeared over the horizon. You were bleeding - he saw crimson stains on your face and your left arm, your faded scarf absent when you stormed inside your house, a small metal container in your hand as you flew to your stone god. Something had gone terribly wrong.

"I'm sorry, Apollo." You were running out of breath, but Kars heard you calling him by a Greek god's name. Was it the god of light? Your choice was rather peculiar. You were probably calling him like this in your mind since you brought those books home, but was afraid to voice your thoughts to him. "I wasn't as prepared I thought I was. The guards are still there even after all these years."

Leaving the container on the floor close to him, you took your bag and started your things there, searching for food and flasks. Somebody had been following you to your hideout.

"This is all I could find." You whispered, opening the container and taking out a small glass vial with a bright red liquid inside. "I can't tell how it will affect you, but I believe it would be of use to you, Apollo. Please, consume it."

You had carefully lifted the vial as if it were going to explode and then put it on his chest, awaiting for Kars to melt it onto his body. He had been suspicious about this, for some reason unable to detect what the liquid was as the vial seemed to block it, he consumed it, nonetheless - there was a chance it could speed up the end of his hibernation.

And it did. He felt the familiar heat, albeit Kars had never thought the stone could be turned into liquid, and yet it was it, something he had been chasing for so long once before becoming who Kars was now. How come it had been somewhere here all along? Was it fate to land here where it had all ended for him once? Kars had no answers. Not that it mattered now as his petrified body was rapidly recovering, his limbs finally able to move, his dark locks softening, the paralysis shattering while he stood up, showing you his perfect form in all its glory as you stared at him, either afraid or unable to move. He was the God you were waiting for, his large wings turning into flesh hands, a halo of light surrounding his perfectly proportioned, sculptured body and making you lose your eyesight for a couple of seconds. It happened so suddenly you were trembling on your knees in front of him, forgetting about those who had trailed you and the danger they could bring to your God and you, both fear and admiration engraved into your stare. Kars was much more than you had pictured him to be, undoubtedly.

As much as he enjoyed that look on your face, devouring your fragile figure with his eyes, he could feel his enemies breathing down his neck. Of course, all of them were unworthy of seeing his true power, but even someone as miserable as them would do for a quick warm up after centuries of hibernation: once several disgustingly looking men with scars and mutilated limbs showed up in your hideout, all of them Ripple users just like Jojo had been, Kars let out a laugh, watching them demanding both him and you to surrender. Worthless little creatures, they thought they could give orders to him, the most perfect form of life on Earth. He had slashed all of them the next moment, pools of their blood dirtying the floor and spreading further to metal walls: apparently, despite them still being able to use Ripple, their power had deteriorated greatly to the point they only posed a threat to a fellow human being, someone as frail and delicate as you.

Turning to face you still on your knees, he saw your wide eyes, tears streaming down your cheeks while you covered your mouth with your hands: was your God more terrifying than you had imagined him to be? Did you think he would forgive those who made a mistake of challenging him, the most powerful being the Earth had ever hold? Silly little girl, there were so many things you had to learn about him, the God you were destined to worship and love with your whole being.

"Stand up, woman." He said, watching you tremble and trying to wipe away your tears, not knowing what you had to say to the God you finally saw in all his glory. "I demand you to leave with me before the sun rises. Gather whatever belongings you need for a long journey, we will depart soon."

You bowed to him deeply, afraid to open your mouth and say something your God would consider inappropriate, and hurried to take your bag, quickly putting everything you considered important in it while Kars stepped closer to the pathetic beings, consuming what was left of them and feeling the power coursing through his body, filling him with warmth he had craved for so long. That little vial you brought was truly worthy of him, and Kars felt satisfied it was you who found him in the sands in the middle of nowhere. He would take you with him while he would try to resurrect the Earth as he remembered it, bringing the balance to it and watching it flourish once again.

"Apollo, I have taken everything." You whispered to him timidly, forgetting you were using that fictional name you gave him.

Kars chuckled, marching through your hideout flooded with blood of his enemies. If you needed to compare him to some stupid Greek god so desperately, you should have chosen Hades.

[vostara]

I Am Lost - 01

Volume One: A New Guardian Component 01

pairing: - cayde-6 x female guardian x uldren sov - the crow x female guardian (eventual)

blurb: “The woman’s gaze drifts down to look at her hands. She moves her fingertips, intrigued by this odd sensation of feeling, of movement.”

word count: 2.8k+

When Verna awoke as a guardian, she knew nothing about what life is meant to be like as a Lightbearer. And though she has been told that learning about her past is a forbidden endeavor, she can’t help but feel drawn towards discovering who she once was. But her pursuit of the quest is interrupted by the growing chaos, by the Darkness spreading.

Begins with the events of Destiny 1 and will continue up to the current timeline (but hey, it’ll take awhile to get there). Verna is a void-using Hunter.

*This work is cross-posted on Ao3.

01 | … series masterlist

Tag List (Open): @mangovalkyrie

We called it the Traveler, and its arrival changed us forever. Great cities were built on Mars and Venus. Mercury became a garden world. Human lifespan tripled. It was a time of miracles. We stared out at the galaxy and knew that it was our destiny to walk in the light of other stars—but the Traveler had an enemy. A Darkness, which had hunted it for eons across the black gulfs of space. Centuries after our Golden Age began, this Darkness found us and that was the end of everything. But it was also the beginning. — The Speaker

COSMODROME

Old Russia, Earth

A pale orange machine with golden engraving zooms around a wreckage of rusted, disintegrating vehicles. Searching amongst the ruins. He stops to scan a skeleton, slumped over in one of the cars. “Ouch,” he comments, blunt, before flying away. He pauses, looking off into the distance. And then, quick, he speeds off to investigate this new area of interest. Curiosity running strong within his circuits.

His scanner flicks on once again, scrutinizing the debris. “Is it possible?” For a moment, he feels an inkling of hope. His protective shell moves away from his main body—a metallic orb—pushed apart by a glowing sphere of blue light. “There you are!” He says, confirming his suspicions. Excited, the machine puts all of his energy into bringing the skeletal remains back to life.

In its place, a young woman appears. Tanned skin forms, surrounding the broken bones. Dark hair grows, cascading in loose waves down to her mid-back. And with her first inhale of breath, a blush of pink life spreads across her cheeks. Slowly, the woman opens her eyes, and winces at the invasion of light.

“Guardian,” the machine says. He moves closer to her, flying right up into her line of vision. “Guardian?” He repeats.

The woman blinks at him. She feels sluggish, confused. Her mind still busy trying to process the concept of life, existence.

“Eyes up, Guardian!” The strange object says, inching the slightest bit closer to her face.

She tilts her head in curiosity, finally noticing the talking robot.

“It worked… You’re alive!” He says. “You don’t know how long I’ve been looking for you. I’m a Ghost. Actually, now I’m your Ghost. And you…”

The woman’s gaze drifts down to look at her hands. She moves her fingertips, intrigued by this odd sensation of feeling, of movement.

“Well, you’ve been dead a long time,” the robot continues. “So, you’re going to see a lot of things you won’t understand.”

Something yells in the distance, drawing his attention towards it.

“This is Fallen territory,” he says. His optic eye shifts rapidly to glance around the area. He’s nervous, concerned. “We aren’t safe here. I have to get you to the City.” Briefly, he flies away, before turning back to the Guardian. “Hold still,” he says, disappearing.

The woman opens her mouth to speak—tries to call out for the machine to return—but no sound escapes.

“Don’t worry,” his voice says. The sound vibrates inside of her head, and it feels ever-so-slightly unsettling. “I’m still with you. We need to move, fast.”

Almost hesitant, the woman pulls herself up onto her feet. She surveys the world in front of her, overwhelmed by the sight of sparse greenery and spreading decay.

“We won’t survive long out in the open like this,” the Ghost gives her a verbal nudge. “Let’s get inside the Wall.”

She looks beyond the clumps of rusted metal, focusing on a building that’s crumbling in the distance. With unsteady steps, she walks towards it. She stumbles in the dry dirt, gradually adapting to process that’s involved in forcing her legs into motion.

“I didn’t bring you back just for you to die again,” Ghost says. “We need to move.”

Sensing the urgency, she picks up her pace. The woman climbs through the wreckage and jogs the rest of the way to the Wall. She enters through a large hole that greets her with darkness. An automatic light resting on her left shoulder switches on, illuminating the space. She climbs the staircase to her left, ascending up a couple flights of stairs. The woman is cautious as she travels further inside, careful to avoid cutting herself with the jagged, sharp edges of broken metal. She considers grasping onto the safety railings for support, but changes her mind upon noticing that they look as if they could snap between her fingers.

A skittering noise echoes throughout the building, pulling the woman’s attention to the dark ceiling.

“Quiet,” the Ghost says, half a step below a whisper. “They’re right above us.”

Making a deliberate effort to keep her footsteps light, the woman traverses further into the building in search of a way through. Eventually, she opens a door and steps into an open space.

The Ghost rematerializes beside her, and immediately begins to scan the area. “Hang tight,” he says. “Fallen thrive in the dark. We don’t. We need more light. I’ll see what I can do.” He zips away, flying deep into the darkness. “Another one of these hardened military systems and a few centuries of entropy working against me.”

As she stares into the pitch black, a rock of discomfort settles inside the depths of her stomach. Goosebumps bloom down the woman’s arms. She feels something watching her, examining her every move. But she can’t see the source.

The lights flicker on.

And illuminate the swarm of creatures moving across the adjacent bridges and walls. The woman’s eyes widen at the sight, caught off-guard by their six slender limbs, claw-like hands, and glowing blue eyes. The creatures—the Fallen—are dressed in spiked gray and silver armor, with purple cloaks draped over their heads.

The woman emits an involuntary gasp, taking a step back towards the door that she had walked in from.

“They’re coming for us,” the Ghost yells as he speeds his way back towards the woman.

“Yeah,” she responds. And for a brief moment, she is startled by the sound of her own voice. It’s coarse, strained, yet soft, quiet.

“Oh,” the Ghost pauses, stopping abruptly to look at her. “So you can speak!”

“Yeah,” she confirms, though she sounds as if she doubts this herself. Hearing hurried footsteps, she turns her attention back to the creatures that are gaining on them.

The Ghost turns to look back at the Fallen, and then rushes back to the woman. He scans a gate beside her, hacking into the system to unlock it. As the gate rises, he flies through and points a light at an object leaning against a metal crate. “Here,” he says. “I found a rifle. Grab it!”

She runs after him, quick to pick up the offered weapon.

“I hope you know how to use that thing,” he says.

Walking at a brisk pace down the hall, she detaches the rifle’s magazine and checks the amount of ammo stored inside. “You and me both,” she mumbles, clicking everything back into place. A group of Fallen soldiers jump in front of them, and the woman reacts on instinct, lodging a couple of rounds into each of their heads. Another Fallen appears, ready to strike. And, pulling out a knife from her thigh holster, she jabs the blade into the creature’s neck.

“I think you’ll be okay,” the Ghost says, watching as the fresh corpse collapses onto the ground.

The woman looks over at the Ghost, before continuing forward. Rifle raised and ready to fire. After walking through a disorientating maze of hallways and fighting off two hoards of Fallen soldiers, she stumbles into an open space with high ceilings. On the other side, a giant fan is slowly rotating behind a metal grate.

“The Fallen have a tighter hold on this place than I thought,” the Ghost comments. He heads towards the fan and looks down a new hallway. “Just a little bit further. Let’s hope there’s something left out there.”

She follows after him. “You don’t sound entirely confident.”

“I was fortunate enough to finally find you,” he says. “I don’t know how much more luck I’ve got left today.”

As the woman enters the hallway, she pauses to look back at where they had come from, double checking that none of the Fallen were hot on their heels.

All clear.

The Ghost and the woman follow the path. It leads them outside, into another field of rust and ruin.

“This was an old Cosmodrome,” the Ghost explains. “There’s got to be something we can fly out of here.”

“Cosmodrome?” The woman whispers. She takes in the sight, trying to process and understand this ever-growing pile of information.

“Right,” the Ghost turns to look at her. “You don’t know—”

His words are interrupted by the loud sound of something being launched in the distance. The woman and the Ghost whip their eyes towards its direction, watching as a smoking orange light—a flare—flies high up in the air. Gradually, it changes direction, curving towards a nearby tower.

“Incoming!” The Ghost warns, pulling the woman’s attention away from the flare.

A large portal of blue and white light forms in the sky. And through it, a ship appears and starts to descend. With the sound of a faint explosion, another ship flies through another portal. It heads towards them, landing closer than the first.

“Fallen ships!” The Ghost says. “This close to the surface?”

The woman unclips her magazine from the rifle and replaces it with a fresh one. “We should go.”

“Move!” The Ghost agrees.

She sprints across the courtyard, approaching the ship. As she nears, several Fallen leap out of the vehicle. Aiming her rifle, she shoots several of them dead before their feet can touch the ground. Moving at a quick, but steady, pace, she heads closer and continues her task of killing the creatures. Fighting her way around the swarm, she treks through the open courtyard, before entering a new building on the other side.

“I’m picking up signs of an old jumpship,” the Ghost says. “Could be our ticket out of here.”

“Here’s to hoping,” the woman mumbles.

They follow the hallways inside, pausing to kill the Fallen before these enemies are able to spot them. Eventually, they turn a corner and enter a wide, open room with a broken glass ceiling. Across the way, an old ship sits abandoned, collecting dirt and grime. It’s suspended above them, held up by multiple thick cables.

“There’s a ship!” The Ghost says.

The woman steps closer, her eyes glued to it. “It looks relatively intact,” she notes. A cluster of running footsteps storm in through the entrance behind her, and she pivots to shoot the Fallen. Once all is calm, she turns her attention back to the ship.

The Ghost reappears beside her. “Alright, let me see if I can get us out of here,” he flies up to the ship and begins to scan it. “It’s been here awhile,” he comments. “Hasn’t made a jump in centuries. We’re lucky the Fallen haven’t completely picked it clean.”

“Will it fly?” The woman asks.

The Ghost pauses and turns to look at her. “I can make it work,” he says. He turns back towards the ship and disappears as he slips inside of it. After a few moments, the ship’s lights flip on and its engine begins to rumble. Another moment goes by, and then the ship breaks itself free of cables as it raises to hover in the air.

“Would you look at that,” the woman says.

“Okay, it’s not going to break orbit, but it might just get us to the City. Now—about that transmat...”

Through a hole in the wall, several Fallen scurry into the room. “Might wanna put a rush on that,” the woman yells. She swings up her weapon, finger ready to pull the trigger.

“Bringing you in!”

Before she can fire a shot, the woman disappears in a cluster of blue lights. She reemerges inside the ship, disorientated and confused. As she stares at the different levers and buttons inside, the Ghost steers the jumpship out of the building and away from the enemies that are shooting at them.

“Let’s get you home,” he says.

“Home?”

The Ghost turns to look at her, but says nothing in return.

And unbeknownst to the duo, a stranger watches them from a distance.

TOWER

The Last City, Earth

The trip “home” is shorter than the woman anticipates. Though, she was—admittedly—a bit distracted with her face pressed up against the windows of the ship. Eyes glued to the snow-capped mountains, vast forests, clear lakes, and crumbling cities that passed by beneath them. Breaking through the dark clouds of a thunderstorm, the ship is greeted with bright rays of warm sunshine. And, pressing her nose even further into the glass, the woman’s eyes widen at the sight of a giant orb floating in the distance. Below it, a towering grey building glimmers beneath the sun’s light.

When the ship approaches the location, the Ghost switches back on the transmat and teleports the woman down onto the courtyard below. Just as her feet touch the ground, the ship flies away and disappears behind the roof of the building.

“Welcome to the last safe City on Earth,” the Ghost says. “The only place the Traveler can still protect. It took centuries to build. Now, we’re counting every day it stands.”

The woman takes a step towards the balcony’s edge, wanting a better view of the City below.

“And this Tower is where the Guardians live,” the Ghost says, flying towards the main building.

She turns to follow him, but freezes in place. She’s stunned by the expansive entryways, tall pillars, glowing lights, and red flags billowing in the wind. Robots patrol the courtyard, sweeping the ground and collecting stray pieces of rogue trash. A group of children race across the steps, led by a young boy that’s clutching a large black ball between his small hands. As the laughing children sprint passed one of the cleaning robots, it cautions them to be careful and to slow down.

“You keep referring to Guardians,” the woman says. “Is that what I am?”

“Yes.”

“And what does that entail?”

The Ghost hovers just out of her reach, his outer protective shell whirling in circles as he goes through an internal debate. “It’s normal for you to be confused,” he says, looking at her. “I’m sure that all of this is… a lot to take in all at once.”

The woman sighs, “Maybe just a little bit.”

Their conversation comes to a halt.

“Follow me,” the Ghost says, ending the long stretch of silence. “I’ll take you to—”

“Wait,” she interrupts. “I want to… I want to know who I am. Why can’t I remember anything? What even is this place? This… Tower?”

He drifts closer to her, meeting her gaze. “The answer to that is a bit complicated,” he says. “But who you are now is a Guardian, a new Guardian.”

“So,” the woman blinks, “I was once somebody else?”

“Yes and no,” the Ghost responds. “Your body—your face—it once belonged to somebody else. Beyond that, you are completely different.”

“So, you’re saying that I’ve been reincarnated?” She asks, looking down at her hands. The woman examines the bare skin, noticing long scars etched along the outside of her right forearm.

“Don’t think about it,” the Ghost says, nudging her arm back down to her side. “Pursuing knowledge about your past life is ill-advised. Forbidden, actually.”

“Do you know who I was?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all?”

The Ghost stares at her.

But she continues to pry, “Not even a name?”

“Would you like a name?” He asks.

“‘Guardian’ feels a bit… impersonal,” she admits. “You probably have a name, don’t you?”

The top of the Ghost’s shell lowers, as if pulling itself down to represent a frown. “No,” he says. “I’ve only ever been ‘Ghost.’”

“Wouldn’t you like a name?”

“Oh!” The Ghost’s straightens out his shell. And his optic center appears to widen with brewing excitement. “You could gave me a name,” he suggests. “We could… do a trade. You name me and I’ll name you?”

For the first time, the woman feels amusement. “A fair proposal,” she smiles, “Tangerine?”

The Ghost flies around her head, contemplating the suggestion. “I like it,” he says, coming to a halt in front of her face. “My turn! What to name you,” his voice trails off, pondering his options. “Something strong? Pretty? Traditional? Unique? Do you have a preference, Guardian?”

“It’s up to you, Tangerine. That was the deal.”

Finally, he speaks, “What about Verna?”

She quirks an eyebrow, “Verna?”

“You don’t like it?” Tangerine’s shell spins rapidly, nervous. He starts to sink towards the ground, unsure and embarrassed. “I’m sorry, it’s just… it’s the first thing that I thought of. I can come up with something else if—”

She giggles softly, lifting the Ghost back up high into the air. “I like it,” the woman—Verna—says.

A/N: Thank you for reading! While I plan on keeping this story relatively close to the game itself, it will prioritize accuracy for the in-game cutscenes and spoken dialogue, and not any other miscellaneous written lore. This is simply because Destiny has an absolutely massive library of lore and I am simply a graduate student with little free time who has to write a novel for her thesis project.

Also, we'll be seeing some of Cayde-6 in the next chapter. ^^ I was hoping to squeeze him in for this one, but I felt that ending with Verna's name was a natural stopping point.