#i have been mentally paralysed for five hours

[sirenesublime]

Mental health struggles whilst being in university

I’m not too sure of the role of studyblr. If it’s meant to be a lighthearted superficial recounting of our experiences as students are if there’s a space for something more. Ultimately this is my blog so I’ll post what feels right and maybe this will resonate with some people in the community.

Today I’m laying in bed, and despite having slept 8 hours already, I’m feeling so tired that I can’t leave bed. I know what this is, I’m having a bout of depression and anxiety. At times my stress is so paralysing that I just end up sleeping through it. That’s what I did during my second semester of school when I was also in an abusive relationship. Assignments and tests were piling up while I was dealing with someone actively tearing down my life, and for hours and hours I would just sleep. Sometimes I would take the bus till the end of the line just to sleep.

Today I’m laying in bed and I’m sad and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I live in a box that gets barely any natural sunlight. Maybe it’s because of the lack of friendships I’ve formed and assimilation I’ve done in this new country I’ve been living in for now two years. Maybe it’s because I’ve been recently diagnosed with a chronic illness. Maybe it’s because I’m homesick but know I’ll never truly be able to go back. Maybe it’s because of school and work and all I have to balance and get done. I’m not quite sure. All I know is today I feel a deep sadness and I can’t get out of bed.

I’ve been feeling a depression coming on for a couple of weeks now. It’s here, it’s full blown, and I’m not quite sure what to do. Just go through it, feel all of it, try my very best to function. Yesterday as much as I could bring myself to study was an hour. On my good days I can normally study for five hours. I need to remind myself that an hour is better than nothing.

I’m feeling alone and in my head about it all. This will pas I’m sure, but it’s just tough.

[chinaablue]

Awesome things I've learned in three days of having Bell's palsy:

On Monday my face felt twitchy and tingly all day. I put it down to work stress and brushed it off. Then on Tuesday I woke up to one side of my face not working properly. Kind of like when you have anaesthetic at the dentist except in that whole side of my face. A few hours of genuinely thinking I'd had a stroke/suddenly developed brain cancer overnight were kind of a trip but that doesn't matter now - I'm fine, thank god - and one hospital trip later I had a diagnosis of Bell's palsy (click here to learn about what this is but the tl;dr is that it's facial paralysis, usually on one side of your face, and temporary in the vast majority of cases), a 10 day course of steroids and an understanding that what brought me here was probably our good friend Stress, which has been linked to it. Some other suspected causes are dormant viruses (HSV-1 is considered a big culprit), flu, diabetes and Lyme disease, but the reality is no one seems to know exactly how it happens and everyone is totally different. In my case I'm almost 100% confident it was stress as I have no history of cold sores or any of the other conditions.

So right now one side of my face is partially paralysed. Thank god it's really not that bad - you can't even really tell when my face is neutral and there's no overt drooping really but I can't smile or laugh with one side of my face, eating and drinking without channelling my inner toddler is somewhat challenging and my affected eye does some awesome freaky shit when I try to blink. Some people experience slurred speech but luckily I can mostly talk okay, just gets harder at length and certain letters are hard to pronounce. I can't close my eye all the way on the affected side unless I squeeze it really hard (and I couldn't even do that yesterday so woo!) and I have to wear an eye patch intermittently in the day and all night (managed to find a leopard print one on amazon so I can stay sexy) and put drops in my eyes like every five minutes otherwise risk corneal damage at best and vision loss at worst. Did I mention how fun this is?

ANYWAY. I rarely post personal shit on this blog but I felt compelled to write something to process just over 48 hours of serious mental gymnastics, despair, anxiety, humour, hope, and actually more positive thoughts than I usually think. But first, in case anyone who happens to be reading this ever ends up with this little slice of hell of a condition, here is some helpful shit I have learned:

1. You need to catch Bell's palsy early. There's a crucial 72 hour window from when it starts where if you don't get it seen to and get medication (usually steroids but some doctors will also prescribe antivirals alongside it depending on your country) you potentially lessen your chances of a full recovery. Many people do recover anyway without any treatment, especially if it's mild, but early treatment heightens your chances enormously.

2. Vitamin B12 helps with nerve regeneration. Bell's palsy is a nerve problem - it happens when one of your cranial nerves is like "lol fuck this I'm tired" and stops working as it should. Take vitamin B12.

3. Actually, just take a shit ton of vitamins. Boost your immune system to help you fight this shit. No one needs Bell's palsy. Fuck it off.

4. REST. I know for me having to do this especially when I otherwise feel well is super frustrating but if you have this, you are sick, and you need to rest as much as if you had the flu or whatever.

5. Get emotional support, and get it from the right places. I've never felt so grateful for my good friends and family than I have over the last 48 hours.

6. Find a way to laugh about it. Seriously. It might be the last thing you feel like doing because it's fucking freaky when your face turns on you, but it really does help. Smile looks evil? Lol you're a mafia boss. Dribble all over yourself when you try to drink something? Laugh it off. Oh, and avoid hot drinks. Seriously. I learned this the hard and burny way.

7. A lot of places will advise you to drink with a straw. DON'T. Your nerve needs to rest. Drinking with a straw stretches your face too much and you will piss it off. The nerve already hates you. Don't poke the bear.

8. On that note, don't force your face to do shit it doesn't want to do. Same reason.

9. On that note again, don't try the facial exercises you might see online until there are obvious signs of recovery. Same reason. Keep that nerve happy. Leave the mean angry bear alone.

10. Lastly - DON'T PANIC. 85% of people recover in a couple of weeks to a month or so, the other 10% or so in a few months to a year and the final 5%, well, there's still hope - there are all sorts of alternative treatments that have been proven effective. Plus panicking will only stress you out and make things worse both physically and emotionally.

So this is the practical side if you ever find yourself with this - and if you're reading this I pray for you that you never have to experience it, or if you've found this post because you are experiencing it I hope what I have to say is at least somewhat helpful.

So, more general advice. At the risk of whining (although I only mention this to make my point), 2021 has been one of the worst years of my life. I won't get into it too much but I've had some seriously low moments this year starting with the death of a family member and spiralling from there. I had times where I really felt like giving up, and no matter how depressed my neurotic ass can get, that's not like me. And as I reflect on how stressed out I've been - and what I'm sure has led me here - well, no fucking wonder. Getting this has been a HUGE wake up call about taking better care of myself. Here is a list of little wisdoms I have been mulling over the last couple of days - I hope anyone reading this can take something away from it. Trust me, something like this changes your perspective on certain areas of your life quickly and A Lot.

1. Stop fucking worrying about how you look. I have dreadful self esteem and often avoid cameras because of it - there are many events with friends, family etc that there are no trace of me even being at because I hide whenever someone mentions taking a picture. When this is over - never again. I have a whole new appreciation for my face. You really don't know what you've got until you risk losing it.

2. Stop persisting with people who make you feel like shit. Seriously. I'm avoiding people who even stress me out a little bit while this goes on. It's not worth it.

3. Stop squashing your feelings. Stop apologising for your feelings and trying to hide them. You're human. Show it. The right people will respect you for it.

4. Your job is just a job. Don't make anything that's not your problem, your problem. Do your work, do your best, don't absorb it, go home and forget about it until you have to go back. Work to live. It's not worth it.

5. You don't have to have something going on every night of the week. Take some time to yourself and use it to rest. Just because you have time doesn't mean you have to use it. Don't give into the "unproductivity" jitters. You don't have to be making and contributing and socialising all. The. Time. It's not worth it.

6. Comparison is the thief of joy. It's not worth it.

7. Go to therapy if you need it and use it wisely. Don't touch stuff that you're not ready for. It's not worth it.

8. Will it matter in a week, 5 months, 5 years time? No? Then it's not worth it now.

9. You can't change the past and you can't control the future. It's cliche but it's true. Stop ruminating, and if you can't stop seek help. It's not worth it.

10. Avoid things that make you angry in an unproductive way. It's so, so, so not worth it.

If you're still with me hi and thank you for reading. I know this was a super long post but I felt compelled to share this experience for anyone who happens to see it and my thoughts/learning so far - my perspective has never shifted so dramatically and so positively in such a short space of time. There are really fucking hard moments with this but with early treatment, the right mindset and very small but definite signs of improvement already I'm confident I can beat this. I sincerely hope none of you ever find yourself in this position. And for anyone who I talk with semi regularly, sorry if I'm a bit quiet over the next couple of weeks - I'm using this time to do what I never do, focusing on resting and focusing on myself. Much love to you all xx

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

A Place Like This 3

Warnings: this short series includes dark elements including noncon, violence, mentions of mental illness, mentions of contraception, and other explicit content. I’m not your mother, curate your own consumption.

This is dark!Lumberjack!Andy Barber and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You’ve gone too far to back out now.

Note: Okay, writing this, I thought hey, I can keep it to three parts... and this could be an ending but if you guys want one more part, I’ll do an official finale.

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

You finally broke the surface, floating and bobbing on your back. You were dizzy, your head pounded and your lungs burned. Your body felt heavy and you couldn’t help but shiver as a fire crackled nearby. 

You opened your eyes. Your mother sat with your head in her lap, you were wrapped in a thick duvet before the fireplace, and she pressed her warm palms to your cheeks.

“She’s awake,” She said. “Girl, you really scared us.”

A shadow neared and you flinched as Andy knelt beside you. You let out a weak moan but could only wriggle in the duvet. You coughed and shook your head.

“Get him away!” You rasped. “Ma!”

“Shhhh,” She traced along your cheekbone. “It’s okay. It’s just Andy.” She looked up. “She must be delirious.”

“She’s lucky I got to her when I did.” He replied and reached to touch your forehead. Your teeth chattered. You felt the cold deep in your bones. “But she’s still cold. If it’s hypothermia, we gotta keep her warm, at least until morning.”

“Yes, of course,” Your mother rocked your shoulders. “Oh, thank you, Andy. You saved her. I can’t-- If you hadn’t been there.”

Andy sighed and waved away her words. He stood and crossed to the fire. He fed it another long and looked to the old grandfather clock in the corner.

“It’s past midnight. You should sleep. She’ll be fine.” Andy said. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

“Nonsense, I’m her mother. I should be here--”

“You been trying not to drift off for the last hour. You’ll do her no good if you’re exhausted,” He said. “I’ll take over. Don’t worry.”

“You’re too good a man, Andy Barber.” Your mother smiled and tutted. She caressed your cheek again and Andy handed her a cushion to place under your head as she moved from beneath you. “Well, I suppose there had to be at least one in this godforsaken world.”

He took your mother’s hand and helped her stand as she groaned at her aching knees.

“Go. Sleep. When you wake up, she’ll be better.” He assured her. “Alright?”

“Okay,” She nodded and squeezed his hand. “Thank you… have a good night.”

“You too,” He bid. “Go on.”

“Night, dear,” Your mother called to you. She hadn’t called you anything but ‘girl’ since you were a child. You clung to the duvet and your arms brushed against your bare torso.

“Good night,” You croaked as you remained paralysed before the dancing flames. 

You wanted to beg her to stay but Andy turned and glared. A silent warning. Your mother turned and went up the stairs. You watched her helplessly and sucked in a breath as you listened to her footsteps and then she open and shut of her bedroom door above.

You sat up. The effort made you light headed and you hunched over as you moaned. Andy was beside you in a moment. He urged you back down with a hand on your shoulder. His hair was messy around his head and he wore a different shirt than earlier that day. 

He must have dived in after you, but why?

You hugged yourself and shivered again. “I’m naked.” You said.

“We had to get your clothes off so you didn’t freeze,” He sat back as his eyes searched your face. “You almost drowned. I barely got you back before the storm began.”

“You tried to kill me.”

“You wandered onto a frozen river. That’s hardly my fault.” He said tersely. “And I was nice enough to drag you out.”

“All I did was follow you,” You grumbled. “Then you… you attacked me.”

He scoffed and his jaw squared beneath his thick beard. His eyes glowed in the fire light and he reached into his shirt pocket. He pulled out the pack of cigarettes and opened it up. He slid one out and placed it between his lips. 

He fished around for a sleeve of matches hidden in his pocket and sparked one off the strip. He lit the smoke, the wisps blowing out from the corners of his mouth as he dug deeper in the pack. He pulled out the photo. He unfolded it and looked at it, holding it against the carton with his thumb as he pulled the cigarette away from his lips with his other hand.

“Two smokes to the left, five to the right, the corner of the photo bent just enough to keep it in place.” He mulled. “You’re a shit detective. I know, I used to work with them.”

You looked down guiltily. He took another puff and grimaced.

“Not much of a smoker but sometimes when I’m thinking too much I have one.” He blew away the smoke and stretched his arm over you to flick the cigarette into the fireplace. “My wife and son. They’re dead now. Whether I talk about it or not, but I prefer the latter.”

He put the photo back in the pack and reached behind him to place it on the low coffee table. He turned back to you and poked his tongue out between his lips.

“So, what is it you thought? That I killed them?” He scowled. “I didn’t, not in reality, but maybe it was my neglect, my denial that killed them. But it wasn’t me.”

You stared at him. You tried to sit up again but he quickly caught your shoulder and held you down.

“I came here so I didn’t have to talk about it or think about it. I came here to get away because everywhere I went I saw husbands, wives, children; families, all happy, all alive. And it made me so… angry.” His nostrils flared as his grip tightened on your shoulder. “Then I meet you. Your mother. You two can barely stand each other. Perfect. Nothing to envy, just as miserable as me.”

You pushed your arm above the blanket and grasped his wrist. You tried once more to sit up and shove away his hand. He quickly twisted his arm away and his fingers stretched across your throat.

“Doesn’t kill the loneliness. In fact, it makes it worse.” He sneered. “Doesn’t it?”

You squinted at him as you latched onto his wrist. He didn’t squeeze but held you firm enough to keep you down.

“I heard you. In the shower. I was curious how you coped with being alone all the way up here.” He smirked. “I can’t say it didn’t inspire me.”

“Let go--”

His fingers tightened and strangled your voice from you. He got to his knees and his other hand gripped the top of the duvet. He tore it away and bared your naked body. The heat of the fire washed over your skin as you tried to hide yourself. He was quick to straddle you as he kept his hand on your neck.

“Get off--” You dug your nails into his cuff.

“Shhh,” He bent until his nose was almost touching yours. “You don’t wanna wake your mom. Trust me. She’s sick already.” His lips curled. “You wouldn’t want her to get hurt because of you.”

“You wouldn--”

“She’s a cranky old wart.” He snapped. “But you…” His other hand tickled your side. “You’re her daughter, you love her, you want to keep her safe.” He backed up and his thumb ran along your hip and his fingers curled around your flesh. “You would do anything for her, wouldn’t you?”

You gaped at him and your lip quivered. You swallowed and nodded as he loosened his hold on your neck. He let out a small chuckle and slid his hand down to cup your chest. His eyes followed as he played with your nipple.

“You know, I heard the best way to warm someone up is skin to skin contact.” He moved further back and dragged his nose along your throat and chest. He nuzzled your nipple and flicked it with his thumb. “And no doubt that adrenaline I feel pumping through you will help.”

“Please…” You whispered. “I won’t tell--I won’t say anything.”

“Shut up,” He lifted his head and grabbed your chin. He squeezed so hard your jaw felt as if it would break. “I don’t want to hear you.”

You shuddered as he looked up at you. His other hand moved below him as he drew his knee back and forced it between your legs. He pushed his fingers against your cunt and you kicked your legs around him. He caught your thigh and pinched.

“You’re a stubborn bitch.” He growled and fell onto you. He rolled over and took you with him. Your teeth chatter as you were exposed entirely to the room. “Stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about her.”

You pushed yourself up and stared him in the face. You blinked in horror.

“You do what I say and she’s safe. That’s it.” He shoved you up so you straddled him. “This little living arrangement won’t be so bad with some compromise.” You nodded as he grabbed your wrists and held your hands to his chest. “Listen. Carefully. Think about that river and how much worse I could do to an old lady.”

You winced and he slowly slid your hands over his shirt.

“I want your mouth.” He sneered. “I’m sure you can figure out what I want you to do with it.”

“Andy--”

“Not another word,” He shoved your hand lower so it was nearly between your legs. “These things happen. The fire gets out of control, help is too far away; a pity you were both trapped inside.”

You recoiled and tore your wrist from his grasp. Panicked your hands shook as you fell back and barely caught yourself. Slowly, reluctantly, you righted yourself as he watched you. He folded one arm behind his head and then the other and smirked. 

You closed your eyes and shuttered as you rested your palms against the front of his jeans; the twitch there added to his words. He sighed as you flicked the button of his fly loose and opened your eyes. Your hands shook as you pushed the zipper down and your hot breath puffed from your nose in frantic gasps.

Your eyes were glossy. Don’t cry, you told yourself as you gripped his jeans and he lifted his hips with a low chuckle. He was amused. His briefs were slid down next and the elastic caught on his arousal. Your fingers brushed his tip as you unhooked them and rolled them down. 

Your fingers twiddled in the air as you looked down as his cock. Then you glanced at yourself, your nakedness, and quaked. You couldn’t decide if you were more cold or afraid. Both, you thought.

“Do you need detailed instructions?” He taunted.

Your eyes snapped up and you scowled at him. You gripped his cock without look and moved back on your knees as you bent. You opened your mouth and he reached down to grasp your chin again.

“Keep those teeth to yourself.” He warned and let you go.

You lowered your gaze, your tongue was sour and your stomach churned. You poked your tongue out and swirled it lightly around the head of his cock. He groaned and you pressed your lips to his tip. You felt as if it was all happening in half-speed but you had to go on. 

You slid your mouth around him and his hand stretched across the back of your head before you could pull away. He pushed you down until he was at your throat. You grunted and he forced himself deeper. You extended your neck and choked as you took all of him, unable to breathe as your head pulsed even harder.

“Like that,” He let up and you slid back only to have him force you back down again. “Yeah that’s it.” He carried the motion, the sloppy noises of your mouth and throat filled your ears. “Take it. All of it.”

He was urgent, relentless as he bobbed your mouth down his length. His hand slipped as his other pressed to your head and he clutched you tightly. He moved his hips from below as your fingers curled into his hips. You were dizzy and dazed as you eyes rolled back and your chest felt as if it would burst.

He shoved you away all at once and you crumpled onto the floor beside him. You touched your throat and coughed, your entire body shook as Andy sat up, his hand at his cock.

“Fuck, you almost did it,” He snarled. “Fuck…” He hissed and took deeper breaths. “Fucking bitch.”

He slapped your thigh and you winced. He stood and pushed his pants all the way down. You sat up and touched your forehead as the room spun. He kicked the denim away from him, his socks and underwear caught in the folds. Another flutter of fabric and his hand was on your shoulder. 

He shoved you onto your back and bent over you. Your eyes struggled to focus on his as he glared down at you.

“I can’t decide…” He held your chin and pushed his thumb between your lips. “I like your tits… but the ass is nice too.”

You hit his wrist weakly and groaned. He snickered and pushed down on your tongue before he drew his hand away. He moved between your legs and bent them carefully. 

Your vision cleared, he was naked, his broad shoulders were limned in the fire light and you watched the thick muscles of his arms as they tensed beneath his skin. His chest was thick with the same colour hair as his beard and his raw power was corded in the muscles of his stomach.

He hugged your thighs and dragged you closer. His cock rested against your cunt and he slipped a hand between your bodies to guide it to your entrance. He poked you and slid it back up, he teased your fold as a low rumble rose from him. He stopped, once more as your entrance, and tilted his hips. 

You gasped as he pushed into you and slapped his hand on your thigh. He ignored you and got even deeper. He grabbed your other thigh and lifted your pelvis as he impaled you entirely.

You let out a wispy cry as he hung his head back and let out a long breath. He jerked his hips and you clawed at the rumpled duvet below. He moved your entire body as he began to thrust; short, sharp, mean jolts. The crackle of the fire was punctuated by the even, measured clap of flesh.

“That’s it,” He growled as he rutted into you. “You little bitch. Look at you. I can feel you, feel how much you need this; you want this.”

He bent over you and you tried to turn your face away from him. His hand framed your jaw and he held your head still. He kissed you roughly as he buried himself to his limit and drew away with a vicious nibble of your lip. He sat back on his knees and lifted you with him. 

His hand spread over one side of your ass and he began to rock you against him. His other arm hooked around your back and his fingers clung to your shoulder. He grunted as he slid you up and down his cock, your pelvis snug against him as the friction sent a wave of heat through you.

“You don’t get it. You don’t get-- how long-- I’ve waited-- I’ve been alone,” His bestial panting stuttered his words. “You don’t realise-- how much you hunger-- for human touch-- for anything-- until you’ve waited so long.”

Your arms were folded against his chest as your fingers curled into the muscles beside his neck. You whined as your core began to swell. You shook your head, ashamed of your building arousal. This man… you didn’t know this man or what he’d done. All you knew was that he could kill you and your mother. That he would if you made him.

“Fuck. Or maybe-- you were-- waiting for me,” He bent his head and nuzzled the crook of your neck as he continued to move you, his fingertips pressed deep in the flesh of your ass. “Huh? Did you think about it? Like I did? Waking up? Opening my door?” 

He snarled and sank his teeth into your throat, he bounced you faster against him. He left your flesh raw and sore as he removed his mouth and replaced it with his hand. He lifted his hand as he gripped your throat and lowered himself carefully onto his ass. He took you with him as he laid flat, still grasping your neck as he had you sitting atop him.

“Keep going.” He snapped. You kept your hips going as he squeezed and your head swam. “Did you? Think about crawling into my bed? Huh? Keep it quiet? Just a little human warmth for that frigid heart?”

“Andy--” You mewled as his other hand guided your hip. Your clit brushed his pelvis and you felt your surging orgasm. “And---”

“Shhh,” He dropped his hand from your neck and grabbed your other hip. He rocked you faster, holding you down so that the friction grew unbreakable. “That’s it. Give in.”

You covered your face as you came. Your thighs tensed around him as you let him move you and moaned into your hands. He chuckled and changed your motion. He bounced you atop him. You dropped arms and clung to his wrists. His eyes focused between your legs as he watched himself inside of you. He stuck his tongue out and snarled.

“Shit,” He swore and slammed you down over and over. “Get ready.”

He pushed his head back into the floor and every muscle in his body contracted. He groaned as he spilled into you and you quaked atop him. His warmth filled you and turned your stomach as he slowed you. He held you down, every inch of him inside of you, and panted as his nails dug into your hips.

He drew his hands back and rubbed his chest. His lips curved slightly and he patted his shoulder. 

“Here,” He said. “We need to keep you warm still.”

You raised yourself on your knees weakly. You swayed as you climbed off of him and fell down beside him. Your vision swirled and every ounce of strength drained from you. He rested your head on his arm and his hand lingered on you, threatening to crush your jaw. Then the tension left his grip and he stroked your cheek. You were startled by his gentleness.

“That’s what I want you to do.” He whispered as he rubbed your cheek with his thumb and his arm hugged you closed. “When it’s late, when you’re mother’s asleep, I want you to come to me. Keep me happy and I’ll keep you safe. Both of you.”

You gulped and blinked away your fearful tears. You shivered as another wave of cold crawled over you. He reached and bent your leg over him and he inhaled the scent of your scalp.

“Understood?” He said.

“Yes,” You breathed as you trembled against him. “I got it.”

Your hand slipped down as his cum leaked from you and cooled on your thighs. You sniffed as you rubbed your fingers through the mess. Your mind was hazy but you knew that wasn’t good. He sensed the movement and his hand found yours and he dragged his fingers through the slickness of your cunt.

“I came inside you,” He said as if only realising it. “Are you--”

“I’m not...” You murmured as you tore your hand away. “But I’ll go to--” You were blurry, you couldn’t focus. “I’ll go to town… tomorrow.”

“No, you’ll stay here,” He poked his fingers inside you and played with his cum. He hummed as if pleased with himself. “I’ll get it. I’ll take care of it.”

[ofmythsandmadness]

i need a favour - seven.

PART SEVEN - bullet wounds and wounded hearts. (or, in which, they’re just too eager for some relief from the pain that no one gives a shit about labels anymore). WORD COUNT - 3318. A/N - forgot i wrote this, forgot about it for months & here we are. sorry. i’ve not really had much interest in writing this or anything in this style on here lately, but i didn’t want to leave this totally abandoned. figured, there’s no point in letting it rot away, might as well post (and for some reason, there’s been a spur in people reading this, so.) START FROM THE BEGINNING - one | two | three | four | five | six

PEOPLE THEORIZE A LOT ABOUT COMAS. And more specifically, what they do to a person.

More specifically than that, where a person goes, once in one. What the mind and psyche creates for them, where and when they escape off to while their body falls apart. If they relive their life’s best and worst moments until they can return to reality, if they dream on continuously - like the world was just one bad trip, and waking up they would not even realise their sleep had lasted more than a day. Or, if the person’s aware of everything around them, just unable to open their eyes and rejoin life - but maybe that was something totally different entirely.

But it was nothing like that, for her.

There was no way to tell just how much time transpired, when out; it could have been an hour, a couple days, three years tossed down the drain, for all she knew. Time moved so much differently, lost in the hellish dreamscape of the inbetweens of life and death. 

For the most part, she felt absolutely nothing at all. Not even a sense of drowning, or darkness, or anything around her; like she was dead, her brain was turned off, and really...nothing at all. The only way she knew she was still alive and things were happening was when her brain woke up just a little, enough to send her into panics she could not express. She still could not move or speak or fucking breathe on her own, but she felt the world crashing in, sluggish and deafening around her. People moving around her, voices, loud noises echoing like crashes and explosions that she could not place. It felt like she had been laid down in a warzone, paralysed from head to foot and forced into silence. Just waiting for her eventual death.

And the voices...she really could not distinguish most. Or if they were even real. She got flashes of familiarity, phrases and sentences that added up to only nonsense in her mind - threats of violence, promises, old memories so faded they might as well be someone else's. None of it made sense. It just made her feel more and more scared, and trapped, every time she ‘woke up’ again. Left her craving the still of death once more, waiting for its skeletal hands to cradle her trembling figure again.

Finally, however, she heard the first real sound in a long time. She left the stillness to a strange noise, not a voice but a repetitive beep that would not turn off. At first, she thought it was also in her mind and that if she just ‘shut’ her eyes, sleep would once more overtake her - but despite her mental protests, the sound wouldn’t stop. If anything, it got louder, forcing her forward until she could just about think of opening her eyes.

And then, the beeps were joined by another sound; soft, almost non-existent mumbles, or snuffling of something? Something alive, not a machine, but...Y/N wasn’t sure what it was at first. 

That was, until she began to move. With all the strength possessed in her frail figure, she pushed her lids open, blinking away copious tears welling at the bright light and forcing her eyes to work again.

She found herself in a small, white room - and though her mind seemed a million miles away, she could sort of guess it was a hospital room. There really was not much around her, the bed being the main furniture. The beeping came from her right, and she was able to crane her neck just enough to see some sort of monitor, the sort she would have seen on a crappy doctor’s show. With flashing lights and graphics she really couldn’t make out and honestly just hurt her head. She turned away from that pretty fast.

To her left, however, was a different story. She found the other source of the noise; Diego was slumped over in a chair too bony to be comfortable, softly snoring away. Which was never a good sign. The man was a quiet, still sleeper, like he was always waiting for something to happen - but after too long without sleep, his body would collapse into emergency catch-up mode. She had seen it many times after he’d come to her. And he always snored then.

She sighed, letting her head fall back against the pillow. There was no pain, which she guessed was either good or bad (who knew what the doctors were pumping through her veins, eh?) but her mouth was bone dry and she felt helpless, like even calling out for Diego was a deathly trial.

Y/N craned her neck again, taking his slumped figure in. He was almost right next to her bed, close enough that if she could reach out -

-her hands shook like tsunami waves, crashing against his black jacket like jagged knives of limestone on a cliff. She just could not find strength enough to angle them right, finding herself only able to brush the man and hope he felt her touch from wherever he had drifted to. Forget calling out; she could only mimic motion in the barest of touches, waiting for something to happen.

Luckily, it only took maybe a minute for him to stir. Slowly at first, then when realising what woke him up, he was up in seconds. His hands met her own, squeezing tight.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he croaked out, voice hoarse and worn out - she could only imagine how much stress-induced yelling he had been doing. Begging for something to be done, snapping at anyone who tried to get him to move; the guy was all too predictable. “I just fell asleep, I-”

“-s….okay…” Her vocal cords felt rusted over; how long had it been since she spoke? Her hand left his, gesturing weakly towards her throat. “Wa...wa...ter?”

“Shit, right.” He left her side and grabbed at a glass by her right. Within a moment he was by her left again, bringing it up to her lips. His hands shook ever so slightly. “Careful.”

But she ignored his word and slurped at it eagerly, too parched to be ashamed at how childlike her actions were. Too long had her throat been forced dry - how long had it been since the relief of a glass of water? 

Once she had drunk enough, she waved it away, doing her best to smile. “Thanks.��

“Course.” His eyes remained on hers, steady and dark. “How...how are you feeling?”

She glanced away for a moment to look down at herself in the bed, before looking back. Slowly, Y/N shrugged. “M’not sure...weird. I don’t know how I should feel.”

“Right. Well, you’re on a shit load a’drugs, so I guess that’s stopping the pain. Uh...you remember what happened?”

She frowned. “Sort of. More...I don’t know. Remember the pain...like burning, on my side. Talking...was there a Polish chick?”

Diego didn’t crack even the tiniest of smiles. “Ukranian. But yeah. She was with you when it h-hi-she called the ambulance.”

“Right.”

“Look, Y/N, I am so-”

Before he could continue, a new voice joined the duo, one Y/N was certain she did not know. She tore her eyes away from the man by her side to take him in; tall, gray-haired and smiling from ear to ear. It made her a little uneasy, the look; was this how all gunshot victims were treated? With doctors who thought big grins and happy tones were a good answer? If she didn’t already have a headache, she would by just one look his way.

“Good to see you up! Was wondering when that’d be happening.” He seemed to grin even larger, if that was even possible, and made his way around her bed. She watched him fiddle with something behind her, before moving into her view once more. “How are you feeling?”

“Um...weird,” she mumbled, struggling to find any words to describe the feeling. “Tingly.”

“No pain?”

“Not really.”

He nodded. “Good. You’re going to be hopped up on pain meds for a while, but just let someone know when you start feeling anything.”

“Okay.”

Once more, he nodded. He looked like a bobblehead, almost, in the ways his head swivelled and shook on his too-small neck. “You got quite lucky, I must say. Good support system. This guy, right here? Barely moved at all while you were out.”

Her hand squeezed a little, in Diego’s. “How long was I out?”

“About three days, after surgery.”

“S-surgery?”

His grin got a little strained, there, but somehow still remained. Impressive. “Yes. Yeah, we had to get you straight into intensive care after you were brought in. The bullet hit your right hip, just about here-” he grazed the blanketed leg lightly, “-but then travelled downwards into your leg. Which was somewhat good, you avoided serious damage to your hip, but it did nick your femoral artery.”

Y/N frowned, glancing down to where his hand hovered. She could not even remember feeling pain in her leg; it had radiated from her hip alone. “How...how did it go down?”

“Well,” the man sighed, “from what we could gather, you were at just the right angle for the bullet to go straight through the hip. Since it didn’t hit that bone - again, a lucky point on your part, it tore right through and down to your upper thigh. The bullet actually remained lodged, which made reason for surgery. If it had come straight through, well, I don’t know what situation we’d be in but you were very fortunate. Held you from bleeding out on us.”

Something about the emphasis on ‘lucky’ made her feel somehow worse. Like she was a kid all over again, and before getting the bad news, her parents had to amp up the few ‘good’ things about the situation. She really wished he would stop smiling.

“How much...I…” she weakly lifted her hands, gesturing downwards. “How much damage has been done? In simple terms...please.”

His grin shrank a little more. “Well, that’s a bit complicated. The surgery was a success, although there were several blood transplants needed to cover that hit your artery sustained. However, because of said bleeding, and the way the bullet hit, it will be a long recovery time. The leg muscles are built to be used, but when damaged as yours was, well - I can bring in the charts and explain this to you simply, if you want?”

Y/N bit her lip, hard enough to rip through. Absent-mindedly, she noticed the taste of blood, licking a bead of red off. “Long?”

“The timeframe is hard to estimate,” he said - and at least that time, he had the courtesy to look semi-apologetic. “After a couple days, we’ll check in and see how well the limb is functioning, if the muscles are healing properly. You should be able to head home by that time, if it's healing right. But I’m afraid you're not going to be able to use the actual limb for a while.”

Vaguely, from what felt like far away, she heard Diego curse. The doctor kept talking, throwing around words she could not understand, verbal warfare against her already panicking mind, creating a chasm of stress and fear inside her brain. She wanted to do something, reassure him, ask the doctor what she could do and when - but it was impossible when she herself was drowning in panic.

Where had Diego gone? Why did he feel so far away? He sat beside her, but his hands were fidgeting and his face tight, and she just wanted him to tease her, hug her, promise her that she wasn’t lo-

“-judging by your faces, this isn’t sounding great but I promise, you’re in the best possible case scenario. I mean, you got here at the best time, you’ve had the best working to put you back together. And physical therapy will be a big help, you’ll be recommended some top-tier-”

“-whenwillIbebetter?” 

Her words were hardly a breath, leaving right along with the little air in her system, but Diego still heard it. He clutched tight to her tsunami waves for hands and looked pleadingly the doctor’s way. “Can we h-have a moment?”

“I-” his eyes darted between the two, before resigning to an answer. “Sure. A nurse will be in at five, with me. Let me know if anything happens.”

Diego just nodded and watched him leave. The second he was out the door, he turned her way, hands moving from hers to hold her face, brush away the tears quickly slipping down her cheeks. Blearily, she made out his own eyes, swimming with emotions she had not seen from him in a long, long while. “Hey. Hey, it’s - it’s g-g-gonna-”

“-I got shot,” she huffed, struggling to get the words out between sobs. “I got shot, I got - I can’t walk?”

“That’s not -”

“-holy shit, Diego,” she cried, and in an instant his arms were around her, holding her as close as he could to his own trembling figure. She tried to talk, but failed and simply gave into the sobs. Words struggled to make their way through, really indiscernible and lost. Whatever it was, Diego could probably guess the point they were making - and it did not ease the guilt bubbling in his stomach for a second.

“I’m so fucking stupid,” she whispered, sobs turning into quick huffs of breaths caught like she was running out of air. “You - the guy - the way he talked - I’m so fucking-g screwed.”

“Don’t say that.”

“That’s how they do it, don’t they? Make you feel...lucky, like you dodged a -” she stopped to snort, like any of this was funny - “-a bullet, but you’re really screwed.”

“Stop.”

“What if I never walk again?”

His arms stiffened around her - only for a second, but enough for her to notice. It was not a thought only she had had. What more did he know? “I...l-look, you’ve always said it best. Look at the bright side.”

She slipped out of his grasp then, pulling back so he could see her face. Stained with tears and puffy, with red and dark circles alike taking a toll on the previously bright expression. She was scared, and rightfully so. 

“I don’t know how to do that,” she mumbled, staring him down as though somehow, she could give him all the fear through her eyes, make him feel all the things she did. And maybe she could, because the longer he looked, the harder it felt to keep his own composure. 

“I don’t know how to do that...not with this.”

Diego didn’t say anything to that. All he did was hold her a bit tighter and sigh heavily as he traced circles into her back with shaking hands. In return she used his shoulder as a tissue and openly sobbed, uncaring as to who saw or what repercussions came. As far as she could see, it didn’t matter anyways. Did it?

“What do I do now?”

Her words were soft, kitten mews into the heavy silence. Accented only with another heavy sob.

“I don’t know, Y/N.”

She cried a little harder. His arms couldn’t hold her close enough.

“But I’ll be right there with you. M’not letting you go, not now.”

She sniffled. “Don’t say that.”

“Why? I mean it.”

“I’m a fuck-”

“-shut up,” he murmured, hand finding hers and closing over it. He held it to his own pounding heart. “I’ll be there. That’s that. Okay? W-whatever happens, I will be there.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Y/N shut her eyes and leant her head against his dampened shoulder. She let herself focus on the sound of his heartbeat and the steadily beeping machines, somehow a semi-relaxing melody despite the stress behind each. She squeezed his fingers gently.

“O...kay. Okay.”

She felt his lips meet the crown of her hair, then his own head fall against hers. And then it was just nothing more than the two of them. A small duo, amidst the chaos of it all, finding just a moment of peace before things got even worse.

That was not the end of her tears shed that day, far from it. She cried more than she had in years, maybe more than her entire life. She cried when her sister came, when her dad showed up and told her her mother couldn’t get away from work, she bit through her lip trying to hold back the tears when her class’ warm messages of ‘get better’ finally got delivered. The dam was broken; the water dripped freely down her cheeks, waterfalls of emotions held back for too long.

Six weeks was a minimum of her being able to properly walk again, and it felt like it was a lifetime. The doctor broke down physical therapy rules, recovery times, prescriptions and all the ways she could be fucked otherwise by this wound, and the nurse pumped her to the brim with all sorts of medicines she couldn’t begin to pronounce. Her sister pretended to cry before leaving and her dad drank through six straight coffees, dumping packet upon packet of Splenda until the garbage can was filled with paper and cardboard cups. The doctor droned on and on, and the nurse kept ‘checking up on her’, and everyone kept wishing her fake sentiments and fake smiles that might as well be placebos, sent to placate her weakening psyche.

It was only hours later, when there was any relief. When they were all gone, and yet for some reason, Diego stayed.

“Don’t’cha have to…” she cleared her throat, trying to speak past the lump in her throat. “Y’know. Fight crime? Play neighbourhood superman tonight?”

Diego shook his head. His grasp on her hand tightened and it was only then when she realised how long he had held on. She had gotten used to the feeling, with her own fingers limp and weak throughout the day, and yet he had traced steady circles into her skin for the entire day and into the night.

“Not tonight.”

“Diego...I’ll be okay.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Just go, I’ll-”

“-m’not leaving,” he grunted, firm and hoarse. He ducked his head so she could not see his expression, but Y/N did not have to see his face to know what he was thinking. “S’all.”

She was exhausted and still weak, and the limbs that did work didn’t seem to want to, but still she tried. Y/N adjusted herself on the hospital bed and laced her fingers properly through his, gripping tighter than she could all day. His head moved at that, but did not lift.

Carefully, she lifted their joined hands to her chapped lips, pressing a soft kiss to his knuckles. The lump in her throat grew larger, and she found herself unable to speak more than a ‘thank you’, but maybe it was more than suffice, for the two of them.

Only then did their eyes meet, and his other hand moved to grip tight to theirs. Diego’s lips quivered, but he stayed silent, simply letting go of the breath held back in his own throat. Their faces remained close, separated only by their own hands, but holding onto the matched caring gaze reflected on both of their faces.

There was a feeling of mutual fear, and grief, and shame and loss that ascended the wound - years of pain between the two of them that sped up to meet this moment joyfully. But they did not speak on any of it. Just held tight to one another, even as her hands grew weary and trembling and his gaze grew dark.

She fell asleep looking at him, and feeling finally, the littlest bit of hope.

TAG LIST (let me know if you want to be added or removed) -  @asexualmarauder​ @thatshellfiredean​ @the-bird-suit​  @rangotangomango​ @fandomsandmore394​ @thatkidofwarandpeace​ @antoouu @soul-of-a-traveller @yall-wildin-like-siriusly @artsyle @asuperconfusedgirl @fic-cheesecake @spacenerdpascal @doctorsgirl262 

[danishmiilk]

hide and seek 🙈🌱

pairings || none, unless you count jeno x his cat

warnings || swearing i think

genre || crack (did you think it was horror? ah ah.

au || idolverse

word count || 761

summary || just wayv playing hide and seek in nct 127′s dorm - i made it up during spanish class and anyway it’s slightly crazy // don’t really know what i’m doing part one and many more to come yall see all my crackfics? that’s my brain dying.

“Yeah so let’s play hide and seek.” Believe Yukhei when he says he has no idea WHY he suggested to play this stupid, childish game. (Though, if we were to be honest, Yukhei’s mental age is 5.) Sadly, or thankfully, whichever you choose to believe, WayV decided it’d be a great idea to up the stakes. Whoever got caught first by the seeker would have to be the seeker’s slave for one day. (The rule was later, upon Ten smiling happily, amended to “nothing life-threatening or paralysing”). Interestingly enough, the seeker was chosen to be Xiaojun after a very passionate rock-paper-scissors session. Perfect, Yukhei thought, just perfect. The person who was caught by Dejun would be broke within an HOUR of the day. 

Seriously, the 127 dorm had been JUST FINE before WayV decided it was the optimal location for their games. “YANGYANG I’M HIDING HERE” “闭嘴,会被抓到的“ “IF WE GET CAUGHT WE DIE PLEASE GET YOUR ASS OUT OF HERE” “YEAH SO LIKE I DON’T CARE WONG KUNHANG FIND ANOTHER SPOT”. The screaming only stopped (with much difficulty, may I add), when Doyoung yelled at them that if there was any more screaming, there would be NO DINNER tonight, bringing up another very important point that the members conveniently overlooked: screaming alerts Dejun to their position. 

With all the chaos going on in the background, Yukhei was panicking like armies of hell were behind him, because what was the point of the VAST EXPANSES OF LAND nct 127’s dorm held when everything (in line of sight) had been tidied and cleaned no more than five seconds ago by Lee Taeyong. Yes, with Febreze. No, there was nowhere to hide. 

And then he caught sight of the washing machines. To give you a mental image of this corner of the dorm, there was a low wall separating the washing machines and the rest of the dorm and a gap between the wall and the wall like the structural wall of the dorm. There was a gate in the gap and it was normally left closed, nobody went there except to do laundry for them and occasionally whoever won rock-paper-scissors against them.  (Taeyong was still the only one who actually knew how to use the machines though, and maybe Taeil or Doyoung) Well, it WAS a perfect hiding spot. 

Seeing as the time left was about two seconds and he didn’t really have another option, he ran over and crammed himself in between two washing machines, only to let out a hiss of pain when he felt a claw come into contact with his skin. That spawn of the devil, Jeno’s cat. IT ONLY SHOWED KINDNESS TO JENO GOSH THE WHOLE GROUP HATED IT OKAY. Without thinking about it, Yukhei picked up the godforsaken meower and chucked it into the nearest washing machine, slamming the door behind it, before pulling a laundry basket in front of him to hide himself. “O, I’M COMING FOR YOU, FUTURE SLAVE,” Dejun yelled out, signalling the end of their hiding time. As Doyoung later quipped, it was the “quietest time in the history of 127’s dorm”, especially because the dreamies were all out. Yukhei’s heart didn’t calm for a long, long, LONG, time. Dejun hadn’t caught anyone, endangering the life of Yukhei’s wallet and bank account for the time being. Inevitably, when he heard approaching footsteps, his blood ran COLD and he felt his heart popping out of his CHEST into his THROAT- but it didn’t sound like Dejun? Ah, Yukhei thought, feeling himself relax, it’s Taeyong hyung. The leader’s soft footsteps echoed around the laundromat before he ripped open the door of a nearby washing machine, dumping a bunch of white shirts into it and turning it on. Yukhei laughed to himself, wondering who the shirt he got would smell like this time -- nct shared their white shirts because nobody could tell which was theirs, causing the shirts to retain the scent of whoever used it before it was washed. Yukhei looked at the basket that normally sat at the corner of the laundry room, holding the communal white shirts -- oh, it was running low. No wonder Taeyong had to wash some. He just sat there thinking all these random thoughts before something hit him as hard as Chenle rushing up and jumping onto him last time WayV returned from their China schedules. 

Jeno’s cat was in the washing machine. 

And Taeyong had turned it on.

Oh, holy mother of god, Jeno LOVED that cat more than he loved Jaemin. Yukhei was officially and royally screwed.

©danishmiilk, 2020.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi! I tried to send this before, but I’m not sure it went through. Forgive me if you got this request twice. Do you possibly know any fics where John chooses Sherlock over Mary? Specifically after Sherlock comes back, John realizes that his feelings for Sherlock are more than what he feels for Mary? Thank you for any help! Your blog is a treasure! Thank you!

Hi Nonny!

I could have sworn I’ve already answered this ask, but I’m not finding the post nor the offline fic rec list I make in case of Tumblr fuckups, and I apparently didn’t, so… HERE WE GO!! <3

It’s not all of the fics I have for sure... I just posted the ones I remember! Please feel free, lovelies, to add your own fics!! I’ve certainly missed some!!! <3

JOHN CHOOSES SHERLOCK OVER MARY

See also: 

Sherlock and John’s Wedding

Marriage, Weddings, & Proposals (April 2019)

Proposals

Infidelity

Evil / Not-Nice / Villain Mary

It's a Dummy by Johnnlocked (Krullenbol2602) (T, 2,574 w., 1 Ch. || HLV-Remix, Major Character Injury, H/C, Love Confessions, Mary is Not Nice, 3G Moment) – What if Mary had taken the shot?

Let Go by thisisforyou (G, 2,743 w., 1 Ch. || Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, Fluff, Anxious / Worried Sherlock) – In the end, separating John's things from Sherlock's in the chaos of their sitting room is like pulling a limpet from a wet rock. Especially when the rock is clinging on for dear life, because Sherlock doesn't want to let go. Short, fluffy h/c Johnlock oneshot.

My First, My Only, and My Forever by vintagelilacs (E, 6,220 w., 1 Ch. || Post-ASiB, Virgin Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Sherlock’s Bum, John’s Scar, Sherlock POV, Body Worship, Fingering, Bottomlock, Promise of Forever / Proposals, Misunderstanding, First Kiss/Time, Loss of Virginity, Virginity Kink, Seduction) – Sherlock narrowed his eyes. He was missing a vital piece of data, he was sure. John had been looking at him oddly ever since they left Buckingham Palace, and the ensuing incident with Irene Adler had only exacerbated his erratic behaviour. What was it? Why would he care that Sherlock was a virgin? There was nothing reminiscent of mockery or pity in his gaze. And then it hit him. John Watson was aroused.

London Gods by a_different_equation (E, 11,092 w., 5 Ch. || American Gods Fusion || Magical Realism, Sex Magic, True Love, PTSD John, First Kiss/Time, Marathon Sex, Sensuality, Genie Sherlock, Human John, Internalized Homophobia, Star-Crossed Lovers, Soul Mates) – Sherlock Holmes is a jinn who does not grant wishes. However, when Dr. John H. Watson, recently returned from the war in Afghanistan, gets into his cab by "accident", it might not even need magic to grant both men their deepest wish: love.

The Palmyra Atoll by elwinglyre (E, 16,609 w., 3 Ch. || TSo3 Divergence / Episode Fix-It, Stockholm Syndrome, Kidnapped John Watson, John Whump, Evil Mary, Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Toplock, Limited 3rd John POV) – As John's preparing for the wedding, Sherlock is preparing to have his heart broken, and Mary is prepared to do the unthinkable. Intervention required. Enter Sherlock. Set before Sign of Three with a far different outcome. John is drugged, kidnapped, and left on an island, but not just any old island.

A Study In Auto-Signatures, Sniper Dolphins, and Sex Holidays by cwb (E, 32,689 w., 8 Ch. || Case Fic, Post S3, Evil Mary, Dev. Rel., Beach Holidays, Confused Sherlock, Friends to Lovers, Honeymoon, Epistolary, Bottomlock, First Kiss / Time, Fluff, Secret Agents, BAMF!John) – John and Mary go on their sex holiday, and Sherlock is grumpy and pining about it. Part 1 of HOT DOLPHIN SEX

carrying up his morning tea by darcylindbergh (E, 34,504 w., 5 Ch. || Post S3, Minor Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Wakes/Funerals, Estranged John, Pining Sherlock, Depression/Insecurity, Slow Burn, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Chronic Pain/Injury, Reconciliation, Awkwardness, Loneliness, Scars, Angst With Happy Ending) – His fingers tremble as he dials and he can’t force them steady. Familiar number, even though he hasn’t used it in two years. He isn’t even sure he should be calling it now, but she’d asked. She’d made him promise.

Only To Be With You by SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John (M, 40,768 w., 4 Ch. || Black Mirror / Future AU || Character Death, Future Technology, Sickness/Cancer/Illness, Heavy Angst with Happy Ending, First Person POV John, Pining John, Heart-Wrenching Angst) – I tell myself that next time I’ll come near this same place again. Wait around for the mysterious stranger in his coat to dash past me, hot on the heels of a new criminal in black. I think this all the way back to my Exit, planning where I’ll wait and what I’ll say when I see him. Scheming on how to get his name. It’s only once I reach the Exit Point door that I realize two hours and forty-five minutes have passed, and I realize that this won’t be the last time I Visit. It won’t be the last time at all.

Right Hand Man by SilentAuror (E, 42,031 w., 4 Ch. ||  H/C, Injury, Slow Burn) – When John's left arm becomes paralysed after a car accident, Mary asks Sherlock to take him back to Baker Street to recuperate, as she's about to give birth. Despite the fact that the search for Moriarty is ongoing, Sherlock takes John in and takes responsibility for overseeing his rehabilitation as he adjusts to the loss of his arm.

Guidelines by WithLoweredVoices (M, 43,018 w., 15 Ch. || Winglock || Angels, Fantasy, Angst, BAMF! John, War, Jealous Sherlock, Possessive Sherlock, Jealous John, Falling in Various Ways, Needy Sherlock, Wings) – The Good Soldier, one of the oldest and strongest of the fallen, is offered a bargain: to live as John Watson and to Guide a fledgling archangel so that he will stay on the path of good. Of course, Sherlock Holmes has different ideas about his destiny. Fantasy AU. Warnings for violence, occasional gore, and a whole load of hurt and angst.

Scars by SilentAuror (E, 60,494 w., 5 Ch. || Rape / Non-Con / Abuse, Gaslighting, Manipulation, Dub Con Elements, Homophobia, Angst With Happy Ending, Mary is Not Nice) – S3 rewrite, showing Mary’s manipulation of John as he realizes his love for Sherlock. Mary is not having it.

The Progress of Sherlock Holmes by ivyblossom (E, 62,006 w., 25 Ch. || First Person Sherlock POV, Pining, Angst, Slow Burn, Infidelity, Sherlock Learns About Himself, Happy Ending) – Sherlock struggles with his feelings for John, makes a mistake, and learns just how important he and John are to each other. Non-BBC Mary / John, but it’s a *complicated* relationship.

Hell Sent, Heaven Bound by ConsultingHound (M, 64,381 w, 16 Ch. || Angels / Demons AU ||  Fallen Angel Sherlock / Angel Cop John, Alternate First Meeting, Slow Burn, Case Fic, John & Lestrade are Friends Before Sherlock, BAMF John, Mind Palace John, Friends to Lovers, John in Denial, Sherlock Picks Out John’s Clothing, Clubbing / Dancing, Mildly Jealous John, Awkwardness, Kidnapping, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Sacrifice, Worried / Anxious Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Immortal to Mortal) – Ex-War healer and current angelic guard John Watson is not having the best day. He overslept, he’s underpaid, and now there’s someone tagging the Council’s building walls. However things may be about to get interesting: there’s an unusual stranger hanging around (the definition of tall, dark, and handsome), a literal underground cult is brewing, and rumblings are coming from hell. Can he keep his neighbourhood safe, how and why is he being connected to all this, and who the hell is Sherlock Holmes?

Being John Watson-ish by elwinglyre (E, 69,902 w., 17 Ch. || Bodysnatcher AU || Author John, Cranky Sherlock, Angst, Sexual Tension, First Kiss / Time, Falling in Love, BAMF John, Past Soldier John, Feelings, Inside Someone’s Brain, Shy Sherlock, Sherlock Loves John, POV Sherlock, Switchlock, Slow Burn, Internal Dialogue, Mental Turmoil) – When consulting detective Sherlock Holmes steps on one toe too many at a crime scene, he's consigned to a desk job in an archaic office on the seventh-and-a-half floor of the New Scotland Yard. It’s in this bleak office that Sherlock discovers a portal into the mind of renowned author John Watson. Grander than his mind palace, this new wonderland affords Sherlock new vistas of experimentation. To learn more about the mystery behind the portal, Sherlock seeks out and befriends Watson. But then it all goes wrong when others find the secret portal door—including the man whose brain he visits.

The Moonlight and the Frost by CaitlinFairchild (E, 77,289 w., 10 Ch. || Case Fic, Post-HLV, Self Harm, Virgin Sherlock, First Time, Oral/Anal/Rimming, Romance, Angst, Mary is Not Nice) – John has to somehow rebuild his life in the wake of Mary's betrayal and Sherlock's deceptions.

Not Broken, Just Bent by Schmiezi (E, 87,585 w., 43 Ch. || Pining, Love Confessions, Torture, Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Villain!Mary, Suicidal Ideations, Main Character Death, Sherlock POV, Eventual Happy Ending) – "For a second, I allow myself to remember teaching John how to waltz. There is a special room in my mind palace for it. A big one, with a proper parquet dance floor. For a second, I go there. I remember holding him, closer than the World Dance Council asks for, excusing it with the fact that we are training for a wedding, not for a competition. For a second, I feel his hand on mine again, smell his sweat, hear the song we used. For a second, I allow myself to love him deeply. For a second, only a second, that love reflects on my face." Fix-it for S3, starting at the end of TSoT. Evil Mary.

The Adventure of the Silver Scars by tangledblue (NR [M], 142,458 w., 41 Ch. || S3 Fix-It, Post-HLV/ Post-TAB / Canon Compliant, Case Fic, No Baby, Angst, Humour, UST, Slow Burn, Angry John, Reconciliation, Not Nice Mary / Leaving Mary, Dependent Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Caretaker John, Fist Fights, It’s An Experiment, Virgin Sherlock, Dancing, Drugging, John Whump, Pet Names, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Scars) – It’s been thirteen months since Mary shot Sherlock and John finds he’s still pissed off about it. Sherlock had thought everything was settled: John and Mary, domestic bliss. But when John turns up at Baker Street with suitcases, the world’s only consulting detective might not be prepared for the consequences. A new case. Some old scores to settle. Certain danger. Concertos, waltzes, and whisky.

[nev3rfound]

the swan - chp. 2 : beneath the surface

nurse, friend, lover, assassin. these are the titles you were known under in his head, something he never wished to share until rumours spread of the swan being out of retirement. 

overview / chapter one / chapter two / chapter three / chapter four / chapter five / chapter six / chapter seven / chapter eight / chapter nine / chapter ten / chapter eleven /  chapter twelve (final chapter)

After months of seeing him three times a week, you’d learnt some significant information about him. His name was James, but he went by Bucky. He was born in Brooklyn, he misses it deeply. 

The information comes and goes with his mental state. 

Last week he was alert, eager to sit and watch you work, but this week he’s been the Soldat, not Bucky. 

It’s easy to tell when he is Bucky and when he is their toy. He sits in silence either way, but it’s how he holds himself. If he’s Bucky he’ll allow himself to hunch over, accept the blanket you place on the cold slab as a kind gesture. But if he’s their Soldat he stares at you, knowing twenty different ways he could kill you in an instant without anyone suspecting anything. 

Sitting in the corner of your room you fiddle with your locket, admiring the pictures inside of your parents as they smile brightly with you in their arms. You swallow the lump in your throat as the door unlocks and another tray of food is placed on your desk with no words exchanged, just a mere grunt from the guard. 

In the corner of the room, just beside your desk is a mirror. It is something you’ve abstained from looking at as you fear you’ll no longer recognise the girl in the reflection. Whenever you saw yourself in the mirror before you were happy, joyful to be around. But you know you’re weaker here, emotionally cut off and starved. You’re fearful of the state you’ll be in, the bruising on your body, the dried blood on your forehead along with the stains on your cheeks from crying yourself to sleep nearly every night. 

But sometimes you haven’t got the willpower to stop yourself. 

*

As they bring him in you remain seated behind your desk, not even lifting your head up this time. All you can see in your mind is what he must see. A little girl, frail, anxious and vulnerable before a mighty creation. How he hasn’t broken you yet surprises you, but you know deep down he is the same, even if he cannot admit it just yet. 

“You’re not yourself.” He speaks up and you slowly nod, focusing on the tray of freshly sterilised tools. “W-why?” 

Lifting your head up you realise it’s Bucky, he’s sitting with the blanket around his shoulders, covering his bare chest. His eyes are soft as they zone in on yours. Unlike anyone you’ve met he is able to look further than eye colour, he can read the emotions like words on a page. 

“I miss everything.” You mumble before rising to your feet, slowly walking around your desk. “I miss my bed,” Your eyes glance down tirelessly to the mattress you lie awake on for hours. “I miss laughing with my friends, I miss my Mamma’s cooking.” Tears begin to fall, but you let them knowing there isn’t a point trying to act tough around Bucky, he has learnt to know better than that. 

“Would you leave?” His words strike through your silence as you lift your head up weakly, raising an eyebrow to his question. “If, if you could would you escape here?” Bucky places his fingers to his lips, not wanting you to make your response verbal as he points to the door. 

Looking around at the bleak surroundings you nod repeatedly and cover your mouth, stopping the sobs from escaping all over again. “So badly.” You lean against your desk, hugging yourself since there is no one else to anymore. 

But then you feel it. 

His hand rests on your shoulder and you open your eyes, focusing on his stained skin as it is so gentle against your jacket. There is no pressure beneath his hold, but he knows the simple act means more than you can voice. 

You nod lightly and watch as a hint of a smile plays at his lips, but you almost see a flash in his eyes before his arm retracts itself automatically and he sits back down on the bed. “Right.” You clear your throat before picking up your gloves, slipping them on before beginning your checkup. 

*

At night you dreamt about the outside world, imagining what it could be like if you could feel a light breeze across your skin. Sometimes if you touched your cheek like your Mother would you can almost picture her sitting beside you like she would when you were little. You could almost smell the soup cooking in the kitchen as your parents laughed together about times before you were born. 

The thoughts make you smile and you drift off dreaming of those times, allowing yourself to forget the painful reality for a short while.

But whilst you sleep you’re unaware of the three men watching you through aa screen. They all sit down the long corridor, tucked away in a small room illuminated by footage of those they keep hidden away from one another. Their eyes flicker between the screens as they focus on the footage of you and their Soldat, witnessing something alien as he shows emotion. After all, they truly believed they’d beaten it out of him, banished anything human about him for good.

“My dolzhny sdelat’ bol’she.” We must do more. The man sat in the middle tells the two either side of him and they nod before leaving the room. 

The mans face twists into a smile as he lifts his finger up, caressing his gloved finger over the screen as you lie asleep and quickly he leans back, seeing you sitting upright, screaming as a series of guards carry you out of the room. 

He turns his attention to his favourite toy, his Soldat. The one who never sleeps soundly and instead stares directly up at the camera knowingly. Weirdly, the man finds it comforting, knowing the soldat is aware of his presence at all times.

“Ty yeye nikogda ne slomayesh’, ponimayesh’?” You’ll never break her, you know that, right? The Soldat spits at the camera as the man smiles to himself before leaning forward, wishing he could see his growing grin.

Placing his finger on the button he laughs through the microphone, watching as the Soldat tenses in his chains, tugging them forcefully as they keep him restrained. “Gde vy dumayete, chto ona soldat?” Where do you think she is Soldier?

Releasing his finger from the button he crosses his arms as he watches his Soldat silence himself. He stops pulling on his chains and calms down, sitting on the floor and focuses on the ground. Bucky knows he can’t do anything, he just silently hopes that you’ll fall unconscious before the worst of it. 

*

As you open your eyes everything is blurry, nothing is quite in focus like you’re used to seeing things. “Ah, you’re awake.” A voice states loudly and you wince as your head pounds, but then you can taste metallic in your mouth. 

Lowering your head you shut your eyes, you know what they can do and the lengths they could go to without causing too much long term damage. You needed your sight, your hearing and ability to speak. You needed your hands to work on their Soldier, but you didn’t need to walk. 

Swallowing the lump in your throat you tried to hide the fear you could feel pumping through you as a silver glare caught your gaze as a tray of equipment was wheeled out. Unlike yours, this contained tools mainly used in operating theatres. You couldn’t take your focus off of the large drill and small saw, silently praying you wouldn’t experience that today. 

“Why am I here?” You hesitantly ask, still not lifting your head up to meet the man before all of this, the reason you’re here. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” The voice questions with a small laugh and you try to hide the shiver going through you. “My sweet Y/n,” He sighs contently and slowly you lift your head up, finally meeting the dark eyes of the Man behind all of this. “we needed you, especially once we learnt the truth.” 

Furrowing your eyebrows you were clueless. “What truth?” You ask quietly, any snarky comments you had stored in your mind vanished, leaving you to rely on your deteriorating confidence. 

Stepping out of the shadows his hair is silver, swept back as he grins maliciously. But it’s his eyes, the deep brown filled with a desire to cause pain. He picks up a pair of gloves, snapping them on making you flinch. “You really don’t know, do you?” You shake your head as you shuffle in your restraints. “We didn’t just need another Nurse, dear. We have plenty of those.” He turns away from you to the trays of equipment, picking up a large needle and flicking it lightly. “We needed you in particular because of your Father.” 

Your eyes widen as he turns around, facing you once again. “My Dad is innocent, he, he is a good man.” You weakly speak up, but the figure laughs in your face.

“He was a traitor. Did you know about his service in the great war, Y/n? How he betrayed his fellow soldiers to work for us?” You shake your head in disbelief, refusing to accept what he is saying as the truth. 

“No. My Dad fought with those men, he watched them die!” You’re yelling, pulling on the restraints as the man walks closer, placing his hand on your shoulder. 

Glancing down you try to pull away, but his grip tightens. “He let them down, and then in return let us down.” He hums as he brushes his fingers along my bare arm, stopping as he drags the needle down. “So, we decided it’d be best for him to know how it feels.” 

Without a word of warning the needle is in your arm and you’re paralysed. “Wh, why?” You mutter as your heartbeat slows down, your eyes becoming heavy as the man's face blurs into three faces, all with that same twisted smile. 

“Because we know you’re more valuable than you know, my dear.” He brushes my hair out of my face as my eyes become too heavy to hold open. “You mean something to our Soldat, and we can’t lose our favourite toy.” 

Faintly you can hear the sound of equipment being lifted up and the cool metal gliding across our skin. “Do, don’t, don’t hurt Bucky.” You mumble as you feel something burying into your skin, but the pain is absent. 

“We’ll see, Y/n. He’s our toy, and you’re his new favourite plaything.” 

The words echo in your mind as you lose consciousness, picturing Bucky before you, whispering it’ll all be okay soon. 

If only you could believe him. 

taglist (thank you for the endless support on this series)

@callie-bear15 @vgirl10123 @markusstraya @krystallynx @toxic-pineapple @not-jarred-padaleki @tearsforhan @worldofchoices  @hungrymango  

[ramblingrybo]

Happy Birthday, Green  Manalishi

Fifty years ago today, on May 15th 1970, one of the most haunting singles ever to appear in the British charts was released. It was ‘The Green Manalishi (with the Two Prong Crown)’ by Fleetwood Mac, written by Peter Green, a brilliant singer-songwriter and blues-rock guitarist. I can remember the first time I ever heard it. My next-door neighbour, Nicky, played it for me on his Dansette record player. It made me shiver. There was something dark and disturbing about it. Both the lyrics and the manner in which they were sung suggested pain and paranoia. As soon as it had finished, I asked him to put it on again. I was possessed and have been for the last fifty years. It was one of the first times I had ever been transported by the the words of a song or, to be more precise, by three lines of a verse. They have inspired a love of language ever since.

Before 1970 I have very little memory of literature. I hated reading at primary school and found writing difficult. In fact, I was one of the only children not to feature in the June 1963 edition of ‘Around Our School’, the St Nicholas School Newspaper. I have the evidence in front of me. ‘The Owl’ by Judith Cunnington appears, as does ‘My Budgie’ by Michael Parkinson. Likewise, ‘What I have seen’ by Gregory Swain. Even an appalling untitled two line poem by DW is there. But I am conspicuous by my absence. I hate to think what I had produced that was so bad it had led to my exclusion.

It was much the same in the first three years of secondary school. I think I perked up twice. Once was in the second year when our English teacher read us ‘The Thirty Nine Steps’ by John Buchan, and the next was in the third year when the same teacher read us ‘Christabel’ by Coleridge. It was just one image I remember, a single leaf on an old oak tree in the wood which Christabel visits in April late at night: ‘There’s not wind enough to twirl/ The one red leaf, the last of its clan/ That dances as often dance it can’. That’s all there was until the Green Manalishi came along.

So, here they are, the first three lines: ‘Now, when the day goes to sleep/ And the full moon looks/ The night is so black that the darkness cooks’. How about that for an introduction to a song? ‘The darkness cooks’ is so ominous. It makes me think of witches’ cauldrons or blood boiling or a mind melting. Even better, the words are reinforced in performance by the chugging threat of the guitar riff and Peter Green’s soulful, tortured voice which is as smooth as polished leather.

Unfortunately, after these first three lines the lyrics become less clear but seem to describe Green’s fight against the demons of addiction. Sadly, this was the case. Eventually, his experimentation with LSD led to a mental breakdown and he left Fleetwood Mac on 20th May, five days after the release of ‘The Green Manalishi’. He had been with the band for three years. During that time he had written some truly wonderful songs which are still firm favourites with many people today, ‘Black Magic Woman’, ‘Albatross’, ‘Oh Well’, and ‘Man of the World’. 

Nevertheless, if the man was gone, we still had his songs. Inspired by this flawed genius, I joined a rock band eight months later. We were called Curiosity Morgue and advertised our gigs with cardboard coffins. We also wrote our own songs influenced by the likes of Uriah Heep, Ten Years After and Led Zeppelin. Many of the songs expressed our anger at the constraints placed upon teenagers by parents and teachers or the woeful inability of governments to tackle such problems as poverty and pollution. Occasionally, we even made personal attacks on members of our own families. I remember one gem. It was a vituperative assault upon the toupee-wearing father of our lead guitarist. And for what reason? Because he regularly turned off the electricity when we rehearsed in his lounge. Meanwhile, at school, we led the crusade against stuffiness, trying to persuade our music teacher that listening to the album,’Paranoid’, by Black Sabbath was an infinitely more pleasurable musical experience than having to endure yet more hours of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Fantasy Overture. In the end, he relented for one lesson and I remember him squirming as we played him ‘War Pigs’, urging him to listen carefully to the lyrics. Ah, happy memories.

After that came A levels and a degree and since then I have enjoyed a literature-fest on a daily basis. But do not worry. I am not going to treat you to an endless list of my favourite writers. I will just mention one, Holly McNish, and an incident when I was suddenly transported back to the realms of teenage fandom. First, you have to know that Holly McNish is a performance poet so that you can only fully appreciate her when she is performing live. Two years ago, I had a chance to see her at the Theatre Royal in Lincoln. I went with my friend, Lynn. When we were taking our seats in the auditorium, I recognised Holly immediately. She was talking to some local poets. Desperate to tell her how much I admired her poetry, I attempted to leave my seat. Unfortunately, I was paralysed by embarrassment and remained stuck where I was, wringing in my hands a copy of ‘Plum’, her latest work. I made my excuses, ‘It would be rude to interrupt her’, vowing that I would try to catch her at the end of her performance, ‘I’ll catch her in the foyer. If I’m quick enough, I’ll be the first in the queue’. I was and she was there. But I hesitated, tongue-tied, so by the time I had plucked up enough courage to speak to her, somebody else had stolen her away. ‘Shucks’, I thought, ‘maybe next time.’

It was different with Peter Green. I have never seen him so that I have never had the opportunity of thanking him for writing ‘The Green Manalishi’. But, why not now? Come on, courage, you can do it...

O.K. here goes. Thank you, Peter Green, wherever you are. Oh, and while we’re at it, can I have your autograph, please? 

[tara-l-blackmore]

The MWS Unit (or Iso)

Here's the thing about it.

I spent months upon months petrified of this experience. I would find myself suddenly scream-crying in my shower, so certain this would be one of the very last times I'll ever shower in my own house. I would look at Milo and just grab him and hug him, soak him in my tears and make him squirm away and wonder why I had suddenly lost my mind, because I was certain he would die before I could be freed.

I would log on to social media and stare paralysed at a screen of emails and messages, asking me how I was, and all I could think of was that if I never replied again, what would happen? If I lost them, if I could never get out, would they understand, would they not hate me for it? Or would they think I’d abandoned them, and hate me forever for it? And I could never ask, because I was too afraid of the answer, despite knowing how kind those few people are.

The worst was the fear over Terry.

He did nothing to stir it, to worsen it. He did everything in his power to steer my fragile mind away from that horror. But it didn't matter. It just didn't matter.

I stayed awake at night, staring at the ceiling, holding him and listening to his stupid obnoxious snoring and cry silently, wondering if I would regret hating that annoying nasally sound. I would watch the door close every morning, and dread that I would lose him on the other side of it, while I was trapped and not even able to escape to help him, to save him, to… to at least…

I was certain everyone would forget about me, that the time limit I was given was a lie to keep me calm, and that I would never, ever be released from that place, again. I had built up this place like it would be the insane asylum of all of my literary heroes, and I was just following them – and all without the being an author part. I would have a room of my own – forever.

So you could imagine my surprise when, the moment I walked into a room that had likely seen countless deaths, suicides, code blues, etc., and I sensed… none of it. I walked into that small room and felt absolutely nothing.

Let me back track a bit more.

While preparing for the time to get there, I realised something that had never happened before: I couldn't visualise or see it. Whenever I’m bound for some sort of adventure of some kind, good or bad, I can always picture it in advance. The majority of times, I’m wrong, but I can still see something.

But for iso, I saw absolutely nothing. And it terrified me, to the point of being certain that it meant I either wouldn't live to see it – or would die while there.

My fears grew. I became distant. I knew I could only depend on perhaps two or three people, and yet I still tried not to. I yearned to depend on others, only to be greeted with silence and apathy. My mentality worsened, I was certain this meant the end, and I started crying, every day, no matter what. I tried to do it alone, but usually failed – especially if Terry was there beside me.

But he wouldn't be �� no one would be – and I was terrified. No one was allowed to visit, to even drop things off for me, and I was terrified of being abandoned there, whether it be left there forever, or come out of there with nothing and no one left.

I was so certain that this blind spot meant that it was the end, and nothing mattered, anymore.

But instead of saying any of it, all I did was just… pretend I was fine.

We woke up at 6, and I started shaking right away. I thought it was just because I was starting withdrawal, or I was overtired, but I actually did manage to sleep rather well the night before – Terry appropriately wore me out – but the second I got into the shower, I knew better: it was fear.

Was this the last time I’d ever see this place? That was my only thought, with everything I did.

Until, finally, it was time to go.

I'd been fully packed for two weeks, as they warned us to be ready for a 24-hour notice. And we got it. So it was easy to drag my stuff down to the garage.

I cried the entire time, trying to stop, trying to be strong for Terry, but I failed, and he was strong for me. The drive was quiet, full of silent tears and sips of cold coffee, but we got there early.

We spent the early half-hour in each other's arms. Now that we were there, it felt real, it felt true, and I was paralysed with fear. Again, Terry was the strong one – until finally, they sent someone down, and it was time to go.

We hugged, I cried, I think he might have teared up a little, and then we kissed and said goodbye – and see you next week.

Then, I was led away, and the doors closed.

The lady was kind, carrying the things I could not and welcoming me here. I was warned, however, that there was a fire drill going on, so there would be an hour delay in my check-in. This was bad news, as I was already feeling absolutely terrible.

Or so I thought.

But I smiled and nodded and let her lead me into the kitchen/common room, to wait for it to be over.

That's where I met J. He greeted me and was friendly, asked if I wanted food, and asked how long I was going to stay. I was shaking the whole time – he was a tall white man, and they sometimes make me nervous – but he did nothing to send my alarm bells off – not even when he mentioned being in jail.

“What're you here for? Alcohol?” he asked me.

“No; pain and opiate control,” I confessed.

i made a small joke, then, and to my surprise, it made him guffaw.

“Well, Tara, I hope you like it here,” he concluded. “It's really good.”

“I can see that,” I agreed, and he left.

I waited a bit more, bored and feeling gross, until I was found again and taken to the doctor.

I was weighed, measured, and photographed, given a keycard necklace to wear at all times, and then they took both blood and urine. I then spoke to the doctor – Dr F – about what I hoped to achieve while there.

“I'm not expecting a miracle,” I muttered, starting to feel sick. “I just want to be a housewife. I want to go see my niece and not want to die from pain after.” I met his gaze. “I want to see her at least graduate elementary school.”

He took me seriously, and no doctor had ever done that, before. He named my condition ��suffering”, and for the first time, I realised that this was true. And I cried, shocked that someone I just met had more compassion than people I’d known for decades.

“Most of all,” I choked out, “I just want to make my husband happy.”

“I’m sure he wants the same for you,” Dr F agreed, “and part of that is to ease your suffering.”

Needless to say, it was a very emotional interview.

I was then led to my room – and surrendered my suitcase. I came prepared for it, aware that a lot would be taken away, and I was right. They took three freezer bags of stuff I was not allowed to be alone with – including my perfume! – but whatever.

After, I spent a brief moment of quiet putting things away, feeling the bad feelings increase but still having hope that I would spend the worst moments distracted at the desk they offered or curled up at the chair with books.

I was so wrong.

The rest of the day was a blur, because it got repetitive. I had to repeat everything at least four times, and by the end, I was exhausted.

But by then, I was ready to start.

At first, it was okay. I felt gross, but assured that the meds now inside me would ease that gross, and I would feel better in mere hours.

Instead, it initiated a five-day long stupor of pain, vomit, sobbing, and repeat, followed by exhausted or sedated sleeps and sobbing into pillow cases, my body too weak to even sit at the chair to do anything. I had to drag myself with my walker simply to see. Everything hurt.

But I kept breathing.

It was hard to do just that.

Withdrawal makes you think you are dying. It robs your muscles of blood, of air, and it makes your stomach curdle and turn on itself. It makes food taste like ash, pieces no bigger than pencil erasers creating constant choking hazards, and it makes your dreams turn to nightmares of that so-certain impending death.

Every night, I sobbed myself to sleep. Every morning, my body woke me with trembled and heaves and cold sweats and crying, crying, crying…

I fasted. I needed phosphates. I slept through all the activities I’d hoped to go to.

My only defence was sleep or tears. I tried to watch shows or answer emails or even talk on Discord, but nothing came out. Nothing could come out.

Because while everything felt horrible and awful physically, mentally I was… fine. I did have bad dreams, but they vanished the second I awoke bathed in sweat to heave. I didn't hallucinate. I didn't have flashbacks. I didn't even faint.

I was just very sick and ill, and reluctant to share it with anyone, even the people I knew I could trust.

Until my fifth day, I was trapped in this endless cycle of illness. Nothing mattered. Nothing existed. I realised way too late that one of the other chicks stuck with me was flirting with me, crying too hard to realise it (probably a good thing). All I could do was push myself with my walker from room to nursing station, crying, then back, again.

The night of the fourth day was the first time I wondered if I should try to shower. I even asked, and even though I was advised not to, I wanted to, anyway. But when I tried, I didn't make it. My soap did – I threw it across the room – but I did not.

The fifth day, however, was one that woke with heaving, as usual – but there was a finite quality to it, a strange kind of calm that followed it, and I wondered. The whole day, I watched myself, and I found myself sitting at that desk, writing one of the prompts in a prompt book I wrote. Then I laid back down and fell asleep.

The new meds had finally begun to work.

Because when I woke next, I was able to eat a little. And then after, I managed a sit-down shower. I cried the entire time, and after, so proud of myself, and I felt like a human, again. It was the first time I wanted to pick up my phone, but sadly, when I tried to speak, I again choked up and hid away.

Days six and seven were much the same: I awoke sick, was given meds, and when I was calm, I snacked on vegetable cheese crackers that I brought with me, finally able to stomach small amounts of solid – if very masticated – food. I spent the days watching Netflix or reading a book my mom bought for me – or sleeping.

Every day, I saw Dr F, who was dismayed by my lack of improvement until day six. When he saw me then, he was surprised by the change, and realised that maybe there is more to my suffering than wanting drugs. He even asked me how it felt.

“It doesn't make me high – I know what that feels like – but it makes me feel better,” I replied.

“Then it's working as it should,” he revealed.

And of course, I started to cry, and I was given my release date. I sobbed all the way to my room.

The last day – day seven – I was well enough to shower in the morning (though I did have to lie down for a while after, exhausted), as well as attempt to eat the food (fail). I then spent the day between packing up, going on a grounds walk and pet therapy (more on those in a second), and I even managed to listen to a small singing group (whose song made me cry and I had to run away).

First, the grounds walk. I missed all of the other ones, despite promising my mother that no matter what, I would get outside. But the one day I was up to it, it was raining. I was the only one who went, so it was a short jaunt, but so worth it to me. The air was cold and fresh, and the rain was like kissed on my hot, feverish face. I cried yet again, adding to it in my own way, and collected leaves, because I’m a witch.

Then, the pet therapy. I waited all week for this, and it was worth it. A woman came in with a rescued fawn greyhound, and I melted for her. She had past scars, but was so well-behaved and loving that you'd never know she was abused for sport. But near the end, I got too emotional, missing Nim, and I again ran away. I spent the rest of the night sneaking snacks around the entire place, because I didn't want to take them home.

The last morning finally arrived, and for a while, I didn't really believe it. I expected them to tell me I needed to stay longer. I distracted myself with an early shower; they said be out by 8 am, so I showered at 6 and was done by 7. This time, I laughed and cried.

After it was confirmed that I was going home, it again becomes a blur. They did repeat blood-work, sent my new prescription to my pharmacy (or tried to, but because the place is basically run by defective robots, there were issues), and was sent back downstairs.

Then… Terry was there. Holding me. Squeezing me. And crying, almost as hard as me.

He'd missed me. He said he did, hated being alone, but until then, I never believed it.

It changed something in me. It made me start to calm down about us, about how strong we are, together. I feel… well, it's hard to explain. But in any case, it's amazing.

We drove home, I posted some tweets, and I ate real food for the first time in 8 days – a poutine. We fought the pharmacy and won, then we just… hung out. Talked about it. Held each other into the night.

And in the morning, when Terry laid across my legs as usual, I knew my heart was home, and I wept. I knew I was safe, I was not alone. I knew I had to make hard decisions, now, things I never knew I had to do, but once I did, I was freer.

Once I stood on my balcony, the wind in my hair and the chill up my robes, I knew: my new life has finally begun.

I fought with all I could.

And for the first time, when I needed to the most, I won.

I won.

[adrianodiprato]

+ “Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.” Dame Jane Goodall DBE | English Primatologist and Anthropologist

Educational Spring | Wellness by Design®

Yesterday a friend sent me a message about an encounter they had with one of my ex-students at a recent dinner party. This ex-student mentioned the impact that I had on a number of his friends, his words were “you have no idea how many he stopped from suiciding just for being there and being him”. I’m not sharing this message to brag, I am sharing this insight into the true value of teachers and learning communities that operate from a human-centred learning ecosystem design. People need people. Every individual matters.

This got me thinking about what really matters. It amplified for me that the real pandemic of our industrial model of schooling is the growth in mental illness amongst young people. Additionally, COVID-19 sharply illustrated the truth of inequity in our system, especially with reference to the digital divide. According to Pasi Sahlberg from the Gonski Institute for Education, the pandemic has unearthed this unpleasant truth, "The education system has unequal structures that have become visible now through this remote online learning period."

So, what if we placed wellness at the centre of our society? What if we made it central to the objectives of learning? What is the interconnected relationship between character, competency and wellness within a whole education? What might be the global context for this?

The World Economic Forum has explored whether gross domestic product is still a relevant measure of a population’s wellbeing for many years. Looking at what alternatives could offer as mega trends such as climate change, demographic shifts, rapid urbanisation, moves in economic power, resource scarcity and swift advancements in technology innovations reshape our world.

In an interview with the BBC Radio 4 in May 2019, Lord Richard Layard, a Program Director at the London School of Economics and the Vice Chair of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics, advocated that wellbeing should replace growth as main aim of UK spending. His group drafted a wellbeing report for the UK government, setting out proposals including a bigger budget for mental health, a strategy to improve the wellbeing of children in schools, and more spending on further education for people who don’t go to university.

Australia also performs very well in many measures of wellbeing relative to most other countries in the OECD Better Life Index. Australia ranks at the top in civic engagement and above the average in income and wealth, environmental quality, health status, housing, jobs and earnings, education and skills, subjective well-being, social connections and personal security. Having said that, mental illness remains a serious issue. One in five (20%) Australians aged 16-85 experience a mental illness in any year. Data from the 2014 Mission Australia’s Youth Survey showed that around one in five (21.2%) of young people (15-19 years old) met the criteria for a probable serious mental illness.

Learning Creates Australia recently highlighted the current measures of success and achievement in schooling are causing barriers to excellence rather than leading to excellence in learning outcomes as highlighted below:

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wants to transform its politics to focus on empathy, kindness and wellbeing. After talking about “doing things differently” with a “well-being budget” at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in January 2019, Jacinda Ardern’s New Zealand government in May of the same year unveiled its plans to make that strategy a reality.

This move toward a greater commitment toward the health and wellness of communities is not limited to New Zealand. The United Arab Emirates has a Minister of State for Happiness and a National Programme for Happiness and Positivity. It has an agenda that is based on three pillars: inclusion of happiness in the policies, programmes and services of all government bodies and at work, promotion of positivity and happiness as a lifestyle, and development of benchmarks and tools to measure happiness.

Gross National Happiness (GNH) is a philosophy that guides the government of Bhutan. It includes an index which is used to measure the collective happiness and wellbeing of a population. Bhutan measures this collective happiness and wellbeing via a Gross National Happiness index over nine domains as illustrated in Figure 1. 

Figure 1: Bhutan Gross National Happiness Index

Dream a Dream is a not-for-profit organisation in Delhi, India positively impacting on the lives of young people from vulnerable backgrounds to overcome adversity and flourish in a fast-changing world. One key aspect of their work is the development and implementation of a Happiness Curriculum. The curriculum aims to equip students with skills so that they can better deal with anxiety and stress while thinking critically.

The 45-minute class starts with a meditation session, after which students read and listen to one another’s stories. In addition to textbooks, street plays and yoga serve as teaching tools. The curriculum has been implemented in at least 1,024 Delhi government-run schools, affecting more than 1 million students to date. “In a year and a half, we have already started observing minor but beautiful, positive changes in the relationship of the child and the teacher,” Vishal Talreja Co-founder says. “We have children coming forward and saying, ‘I look forward to coming to school.’”

The Dream a Dream Happiness Curriculum is becoming a model that other governments are promising to replicate in their countries’ classrooms. Countries such as Colombia, UAE, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

It is increasingly becoming clear that the main goal of governments is the overall wellbeing of its citizens. Their resources need to be more wisely spent based on what really matters most for the entire human experience. This also presents a real challenge for the entire education sector and makes a strong case for the moral imperative to curate a human-centred Wellness by Design® learning ecosystem.

Will Richardson, Co-Founder of The Big Questions Institute believes “in school, we seem to think learning happens only when it’s age-grouped and graded, or when it’s chunked into time blocks and subjects and meets some predetermined outcomes. Students have “learned” it seems only when they have consumed a mandated bucket of information or content and been tested to make sure they consumed it adequately.”

We have got to stop the testing hamster wheel that burns out children. We cannot and will not continue to be terrorised by the dreaded ATAR, an overbearing student ranking system that ends the careers of school leaders and teachers and drives up anxiety levels in young people. Figure 2 highlights that 64% of those living in inner regional areas and only 40% for those living in very remote regions complete Year 12. Of course, there are other factors impacting on these statics of those in disadvantaged areas, nonetheless the numbers are damming of our current infatuation with an out-dated, one-size fits all industrial model of schooling.

Figure 2: Geographical impact on education attainment rates1

Daniel Koretz, one of the America’s foremost experts on educational testing, argues in The Testing Charade that the whole idea of test-based accountability has failed—it has increasingly become an end in itself, harming students and corrupting the very ideals of teaching. Pressure to raise NAPLAN and ATAR scores dominates much of Australia’s education today. More often than not standardised tests shape what is taught and influence what we value as assessment. In many schools, we seem to think learning happens when it doesn’t look like real life. During the pandemic with the transition online, we’ve been reminded of those things that we value most: relationships, community, the curiosity of young people, and the power of real, authentic self-determined learning.

Please do not interpret my shift in emphasis as denouncing the value of literacy or numeracy data. Not at all. Of course, they have a place in supporting student growth, not just definitions of achievement. Nonetheless quantification measures like NAPLAN and the ATAR have assumed an importance beyond their ability to truly judge and paint the whole picture of each individual.

By its very nature, a crisis turns everything on its head. So now that everything has changed, why not take the opportunity to guide the development of a new culture? Director and Founder of Leading Thinking International, Kathleen Donohoe in a recent post titled Is educational policy constraining a renaissance in education? stated, “Age old traditions such as school times, compulsory hours, the definition of attendance, recognition, reporting and feedback on learning and the definition of student engagement are following the fate of blackboards and chalk, requiring the reimagination of policy, process and procurement.”

We’ve been paralysed in schooling for far too long, educating by living in the world without truly feeling. Now, acutely, we feel that need for an evolution and move toward the next normal. As we grow out of the pandemic, we need to recognise that this is our Educational Spring. It could happen, but it might not. There will be enormous pressure to forget this educational spring moment and go back to the old ways of experiencing schooling life. History is happening right now.

A clear feature of all the models we shared in our Continuous Learning Toolkit | Volume II – Leading Through Crisis has been an explicit focus on wellness. While some have viewed the use of technology as a distraction, the application of technology during COVID-19 has been an opportunity to prioritise wellness into all aspects of planning and scheduling. This new normal of schooling is based on a shared understanding of the significance of the interdependence of learning and wellness as we support each young person to flourish in this new world environment. It requires us to map the connectedness of a whole education for character, competency and wellness. It brings into sharp focus self-direction, self-determination and self-regulation as critical dimensions in fostering the development of resilient, resourceful and independent learners equipped with the adaptive expertise and self-efficacy to thrive in their world. Let us all build back better, with Wellness by Design®.

To prepare today’s learners to thrive in this new world environment, a whole new Wellness by Design® framework is needed. At the centre of this framework must be an explicit purpose-driven social contract based on the reality that all young people are home to a life, and that individual and collective wellness encompass all dimensions of life within any community.

For learning communities, a positive sense of individual wellness supports a base for rich learning growth and achievement, that enables all learners to thrive throughout their time at school and beyond. Wellness and the full flourishing of the individual cannot be separated from learning. Post COVID-19 we have the powerful potential to positively disrupt education forever, and the key is a genuinely human-centred reimagining. Therefore, it is imperative that any continuous learning competency framework for all school communities, needs to develop a learning ecosystem model that Equips the Learner, Empowers the Learner and Enables the Learner, positioning wellness at the heart of school life.

A focus on wellness is imperative now more than ever before - and I’m not talking about a visit to a day spa or a regular massage (although self-pampering is always welcomed). Wellness by Design® refers to a sense of wholeness and connection that entails personal growth, character and competency, healing from the residual of one’s past, and integration of self-worth and agency.

Maintaining personal wellness often requires commitment and significant effort. Through acknowledging our whole selves, not just the parts we think are amazing, but our blind spots, we become better equipped to connect with the other, which further opens up ways of our social, cultural and spiritual awareness.

So, in the context of schooling, how do we truly meet this moment? It is time to shift the emphasis, the investment from the seduction of just academic prowess and league tables achievement. It is time for learning communities to amplify the central position of Wellness by Design® as we support each young person to move from resilience to the power of resourcefulness of self-efficacy, personal aspiration, adaptive expertise, agency and advocacy.

We need to consider the role of personal goals, challenging assumptions, cognitive flexibility, courage over fear, emotional regulation and self-determination in supporting young people to flourish for their future. All fostered in a school ecosystem that values high (wellness) support as much as high (academic) expectations. A school that explicitly cultivates relationships that give each young person a profound sense of psychological safety, where they are known, valued and loved, through an authentic feeling that someone has their back and always in their corner. After all, we all need a champion.

It may seem counter-intuitive to put wellness at the centre and allow it to permeate throughout the whole of learning instead of confining it to a box of its own, and attending to it as an afterthought, but if we are not well, then how are we to thrive? How are we to make progress? How are we to succeed?

It’s time for us to create Wellness by Design®

References

Koretz, D. (2017). The Testing Charade. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Seligman, M. (2011). Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being. New York: Free Press.

Southwick, S. M., & Charney, D. S. (2018). Resilience: The science of mastering life’s greatest challenges. 2nd edition. New York: Cambridge University Press.

1   Commonwealth of Australia. Commonwealth Government (2019). National regional rural and remote tertiary education strategy: final report. Page 13. Year 12 rates are for people aged 19. Tertiary qualifications are for people aged 25-34 years. Remote includes Remote and Very Remote Categories. Any tertiary education qualification includes VET in Schools. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (2016) Census of Population and Housing.

15   Financial Review, May 29, 2018.

16   Mission Australia (2017). Youth Mental Health Report: Youth Survey 2012-2016. Page 12.

[nautiscarader]

Wendip Week day 3: We got each other now

(Ao3)

Tyrone Pines is an ongoing character in my older!Wendip stories, and he’s from @elentori-art‘s drawing.

- Well, we have each other now, son.

Saying this with a somber tone, Dipper put his arm around his son's shoulder, bringing him closer. He knew he wasn't gonna cry, he was far, far braver than he looked like. But still, something has been rising up in his chest, and the boy looked up at his father, looking for some wisdom in this difficult time.

- You know that means, right? - Yeah.

And suddenly, their sad faces wer filled with wide smiles as they exclaimed at the same time.

- We've got house to ourselves! Woo-hoo!

The two high-fived each other before Dipper prompted his son to turn around.

- Come on, wave mom goodbye one more time. - Bye, mommy!

The SUV honked again, before it disappeared behind the row of trees that hid Wendy and Dipper's house from the road.

- Don't forget to tell her that her hair looks nice after she comes back. - Dipper spoke to is son. - Why? - Well... I think women like when you mention that if they change the hair style. - Dipper pondered for a moment - I don't remember Wendy ever changing hers, though, but I always say it when she comes back from Mabel's day off at the spa anyway. - So, what should we do now? - Tyrone asked his father. - Well, let's think... What would mom not let us do if she was there?

The two men stood in place for a good minute, both scratching their chins in a near-identical, mirrored way. The truth was, Wendy wasn't a particularly strict mother, and living in woods of Gravity Falls meant Tyrone was both taught to follow rules, as well as to know when to break them.

At some point, Dipper shrugged.

- Okay, let's think what Wendy would not let us do if she wasn't letting us do stuff anyway... - Eat ice cream for breakfast! - Tyrone replied at once. - Good idea, champ.

A moment later, the two stormed for the kitchen, pushing themselves on the way, and it was Dipper who got to the freezer first. He took the large box, turned around and proudly opened it to his son's widening eyes.

- Oh, fudge! - Hey, language, son   - No, it is fudge!

Dipper looked at the box he took out.

- Oh, fudge, you're right! - Better take some strawberry-filled waffles with it. - Good idea.

Dipper took his son into his arms and let him take the package of waffles from one of the upper shelves.

- Think about that, Tyrone, we've got a whole day to ourselves! We can do whatever we want. So, what do you want to do first?

His son pondered a while, and at the same time as Dipper, their faces curled into a wide grin.

"The history of tortoise polo is a long and rich one, dating back to 1845, when sir Roderick Pflummington The Fourth rode his tortoise Bobby in a military parade in front of the King, and had to dodge a kettle the Queen herself threw at him after the third hour, displaying lack of amusement..."

The monotone, drowsy voice of Bert Kurns narrating his miniseries slowly put the two men into a state of slumber, as they stared at the TV in their living room, consuming spoon after spoon of the fudge ice-cream. It was already 4 P.M.

- You've got to give it to him, he can make boring things interesting. - Yeah, I think so. - Dipper mumbled.

He flailed his hand, trying to take another scoop of the dessert, but found himself whacking on a plastic, no matter the angle. Gathering the strength, he turned to the side, and found the box near-empty.

- Well, ice cream is gone. - What? No, I only have half the stomach ache! - Tyrone protested. - Hang on, I think we have more in the freezer in the basement. - Right next to bear repellent and portable internet? - Tyrone asked. - That's right. Gotta be prepared for apocalypse, like mom says.

The two looked at each other, and at the same time, they launched their fist s at each other. Dipper's was rock, Tyrone chose scissors.

- Aww, man. - Tyrone groaned and reluctantly got up from the sofa to go downstairs.

The basement of their house was quite spacious, and the act of venturing underground always gave little Tyrone a bit of a thrill he could experience in their home. It was naturally cooler, just enough dark to make a few hairs on his neck to stand up, but it was still cozy enough to make him feel safe. Of course aside the pantry he was trying to reach, the most important part was the vault.

It was the only part of the basement that stood out, thanks to steel, clean, almost alien-looking, black door, heavily guarded by both magic and technology. He knew his parents kept treasures there, though he only was allowed a peek or two in his whole life, and he always wondered if it was possible to somehow outsmart his parents and get inside.

Tyrone walked to the spare fridge, opened the freezer and, much to his delight, found not one, but five spare packages of fudge ice cream. He grabbed two, and was about to rush upstairs, when he felt a sudden gust of chilly wind on his back. Thinking the door to the fridge opened again, he turned around, but as he did so, a new image made him open his eyes wide, and drop the packages of ice cream to the floor.

- Dad! Come quickly!

The voice of his son alerted Dipper at once, and much faster than he thought he'd be able to, he sprinted downstairs, fearing the worst.

What he saw wasn't the worst, but it was quite high on the scale.

In the wall opposite the backups, there was a hole, not a neatly cut one, but evidently torn by some animal, as splinters of wooden planks lie everywhere underneath it, and only the partial darkness obscured the mess. Dipper grabbed his son and pushed him gently aside.

- Careful, we don't know what's inside. Go upstairs, I'm gonna call Ford and Stan, we gotta see what caused the damage. And Wendy too, she should know. - Can't I help? - No, Tyrone, and beside, if it can rip through concrete and wood, I don't think you are safe here. - But Dad... - Do as I say, Tyrone.

The boy ran to the stairs, and he was half-way up, when he realised he should be hearing his father making the call. He turned around, cautiously walked back, and saw the basement empty, and his father nowhere in sight.

- Dad?

Swallowing loudly, Tyrone walked into the tunnel, making sure not to cut himself on the sharp, broken planks, and took out his phone to shine the light on the walls. The tunnel went down, and it was getting wider, though that didn't exactly make his journey down easier. Whatever creature lived there, didn't require rails or handles to secure itself while crawling.

There was however, a sound. A terrifying, paralysing sound of scratching and clicking that simultaneously made Tyrone freeze in place and push himself to go further.

His father was there, and he had to do something.

He realised he didn't need his phone anymore to shine light; the walls were covered with glowing mushrooms and purple crystals, emitting eerie, cold light. And then, amongst the unnatural noises, he heard something worse. His father's gurgled voice.

- Get... off... me...!

If he ever had any hesitation, it was gone once and for all. Tyrone peeked out of the corner and saw a monstrous, lobster-like creature with several, elephantine tentacles or trunks, holding his father. The dark, pupil-less eyes stared at him, with evidently one intention.

The next moment, the cavern was filled with a scream, but not of the monster, nor Dipper, who found it more and more difficult to breathe, but a new one.

- FUDGE YOU!

The creature turned its head towards the intruder, only to have his vision blocked by something gooey, cold, and rather tasty. The monster dropped Dipper to the ground, and it took him a while to get up, horrified by the sight of his son crawling further down.

- Ty...Tyrone!

Dipper desperately moved his arms and legs to climb up, but more importantly to push his son to the exit first.  

- I got you, dad!

He reached his hand and with more than few problems pulled his father up, just in time for another loud noise to fill the cave.

- Run!

Dipper grabbed Tyrone and rushed to the exit, hoping he would be able to give his son more time to escape. The light of their basement was already on the horizon, getting closer with each second, but so was the noise of the pincers and claws behind them. Heart beat faster and faster, and only when Dipper and Tyrone crossed the boundary between the tunnel and their house Tyrone and Dipper allowed themselves a breather.

But the very next moment a loud crash behind them reminded them of the monster, who evidently couldn't get through the wall the first time, but found enough strength to do so now. Tyrone shrieked, but his vision was obscured by his father shielding him from the tentacles.

- Close your eyes!

Tyrone followed his father's command, and he did so, knowing what was gonna happen. Last thing he saw was his dad grabbing the bear repellent and aiming the nozzle straight at the monster's eyes. The basement was once again filled with its shriek, and Tyrone knew his father has done it.

And then, Tyrone felt something dripping on his face.

A single drop fell to his lips, and he realised he was tasting blood.

He opened his eyes, just in time to see his father fall to the floor beside him, and Tyrone quickly grabbed him to see if he was hurt, though he mentally tried to not notice the tentacle around his shoulder. But as he examined him, Tyrone realised it was the monster's appendage that was bleeding, an odd, violet thick substance, exactly where it has been cut.

- Get out, you oversized shrimp! You belong to the hors d'oeuvre table!

A familiar, loud voice brought a wide smile to Tyrone's face, when he saw his mother swinging a huge shining axe back and forth, chopping one appendage at a time, much to the creature's distress. But Wendy didn't want to harm the animal, she wanted to kill it once and for all. With a final swing, she bashed the creature's head, splitting it in half and covering herself with the same stinking, thick substance that was dripping from the floor.

Only when the lifeless body of the creature slid down the cave, Wendy allowed herself to turn back.

- Tyrone! Dip!

She dropped her axe and rushed to her family, and brought them into a tight hug. Tears flew down her cheeks, mixing with the odd substance that covered her, her husband and their son.

- Are you guys okay? - Ca-Careful, I-I might have a rib or two broken... - Dipper wheezed, and his eyes bulged when he felt Wendy's arms around him. - Oh, sorry, honey! We're gonna rush to the hospital soon. - Uhm...

Tyrone opened his mouth.

- Your hair look... uh, nice, mom?

With most of her strands dishevelled and soaked in the monster's blood, that was a blatant lie, but it didn't stop Wendy from bursting into a deep laughter while tears of happiness continued to trickle down her face. Even Dipper managed to let out a chuckle, though his tears were a bit more of pain.

"And thus, we conclude our 75-part miniseries about tortoise polo, its origins, and intense and violent history that continues till present day. In the next series, we will dive into the history of manatee surfing, a fascinating sport that originated in ancient Mesopotamia..."

Five hours later, three boxes of fudge ice cream lay open, one for each member of the Pines family. Dipper was worried the extra calories might rip the bandages he had around his torso off, but he also felt that each spoon improved his health significantly. For Wendy, no amount of sweets would produce a better taste than the one of safety, as she looked at the two men most dear to her life.

From time to time, she ruffled her son's hair, sneaking kisses on his forehead, much to his simultaneous delight and protest.  

- Mo-om! - Shush, Tyrone. If you were to rescue your kid, you'd be giving them kisses all the time, just to make sure they're fine. - And me?

Dipper puckered his lips, but received only another portion of ice cream to his lips.

- You're getting nothing for going after that thing alone. - Hey, I told you! - Dipper protested - I tried to call Ford, Stand and you, but that thing got me first. I would never go into a dark tunnel alone.

He turned to his son.

- I said, I'd never go into a horrible, dark, monster-infested tunnel alone! - And if I didn't, you'd be its dinner. - Tyrone blew him a raspberry.

He yawned and cuddled up to sleep between his parents who quickly placed a blanket over him. A moment later, first snore filled the living room, when Tyrone fell asleep, tired after the day full of fudge and mortal peril.

- We trained our kid well. - Wendy cooed. - I agree. And sorry for ruining your day at spa with Mabel. - What? - Wendy looked up, confused - Oh, nah, that's alright. You guys are more important.

She leaned over their son and kissed Dipper, tasting the sweet, chocolate-y flavour on his lips.

- And don't worry, Dipper, I'll make sure to be very careful tonight.

Her voice suddenly turned into a low and smoky one, and even if Wendy didn't drag her finger gently across the bandaged side of his chest, Dipper's skin would be full of goosebumps.

- My combatant deserves it.

She then took her phone and replied Mabel the message that she meant to send five hours ago: that next time they play paint-ball, they will have to remove Waddles from her team, because he's too good.

[tarithenurse]

On my mind, in my soul - 4

Prompt: Blue, floor, Foreigner’s God by Hozier (passages in block quotes) Pairing: Loki x Burglar!reader. Content: Swearing, angst, pain (mostly emotional), arguing, sadness, mention of trauma, LEMONS (with a hint of dom/sub?)...fluff? A/N: Link to previous chapters in Masterlist (check bio or tab). If you want a tag, then just ask (yay). Please reblog if you enjoyed...or comment! Comments are nice too. When that’s said...probably a shitload of typos etc bc i’ve not proofread ‘cause I’m in a shitty place mentally after a too social weekend (so worth it though). “Resume”: (Because this takes off right where we left last chapter)  The heavy sigh rattles you to your core. “I’m sorry for this, [Y/N].” Glancing briefly, you see how he runs a hand over his face, rubbing the tired eyes momentarily. “I can only imagine what you must think of me, truly…but I need you to hear me out, alright?”

It’s not like you have a choice, really, and this conversation has started nothing like you’d expected. “Then talk.”

Holding the Devil’s Hand

Waiting impatiently for the worst too happen, it surprised you when you realize he’s sitting down on the floor as far away from you as possible. There are other options for him to sit comfortably, still he’s chosen the least threatening option. It’s on purpose…trying to make me at ease. Drop my guard. Regardless the reasoning behind it, however, the silence still hangs heavy in the air, threatening to explode if neither of you say anything.

Her eyes look sharp and steady Into the empty parts of me

“I’m not good at these sort of things…apologies.” Stalling already with a sigh, Loki settles down more comfortably in the corner by the door. “I realize that…nothing I say can make it up to you…” You can feel his eyes on your back and it paralyses you, afraid what might set him off. “I…I’m prone to think very highly of myself and my skills as the God of Mischief and Chaos. Finding that I had been tricked and by a Midgardian girl no less?” He snorts in disbelief at his own words, releasing a hot prickle of anger in your chest. “I was intrigued. Amused more than offended…”

You grab the chance as he trails off. “So far you’ve said nothing that warrants fucking kidnapping me! Either get to it or let me go now!”

“Easy, tiger,” the god smirks, “my point is…your skills, personality…you…I see potential. The few testes I arranged proved that you’re exactly the partner in crime I need for a very delicate…challenge. I’ve been spending almost every waking hour since we parted to try to find you in the hopes of…convincing you to return so I could explain myself and extend an offer I think would be mutually beneficial,” Loki’s voice lowers to a purr, “because you can’t deny that we’re good together. Although…complementing each others’ baser instinct was a bonus which I thought you had no problem with until the…misunderstanding we –“

“Misunderstanding?” Spinning to face him, all the fear’s been flushed away by anger-fueled adrenaline and you can feel the nails dig into your palms to keep your hands from shaking. Anger at him. And anger at the heat in your core at the memories he awakens. “Misunderstanding!? Are you fuckin’ serious right now??!! You hit me so hard that I landed at the other side of the bloody room!”

He’s on his feet quicker than you can fathom and you jerk backwards until you collide with the bench by the window, sending you hard on your ass. The fearful retreat stops him short. Burning indignation reigned in in the same way he returns to the far side although he stays standing.

“What you accused me of being willing to do…” Loki’s voice’s shaking with anger although he tries to hold it back, “people may never think of me as good, but I have a code if you will. Some things that I’ll never lower myself to.”

“H-how should I…” The words are hardly getting across your lips as you stutter meekly along, so you try again. “Ho-ow should I know that?” It’s hardly a victory to finish a sentence, but this time it feels as though you’ve accomplished something grand, the little thrill enabling you to continue. “Prone, held at knifepoint by a guy who was accused of all sorts of shit. And not just here on earth.”

You know from experience how good Loki’s at using his tongue, but words don’t come easy as he opens and closes the pretty mouth of his until eventually, he stops trying and withdraws into himself. Once more, the only sounds is the faint buzz from the lamps and a gurgle in the waterpipes hidden behind the rich wallpaper. Rubbing the back of your legs where you’d slammed them against the seat, you assure yourself that not even a bruise will hint at your clumsiness.

The sound of a lock makes you look up to see Loki opening the door and stepping well out of the way, granting a clear path out of his bedroom. He doesn’t look at you, so you doubt your ears when he tells you that you are free to go.

Hesitantly at first, you tread across the soft carpet, each step bringing you close to freedom yet also fanning a doubt in your mind. Five steps to the door, Loki’s standing still in front of the mirror by the dresser. Four steps, you ignore the frown and glistening trail on his cheek. Two steps, and your legs are slowing, body fighting against the logic that urges you to hurry out and down the stairs, whishing no one will stop you. One step, and a memory presents itself, uncalled for at an inopportune moment which causes even your logic to hesitate. In the doorway itself, you come to a halt.

She feels no control of her body She feels no safety in my arms

“What was it?” Don’t hear the quiver of my voice, please.

You can see the staircase from where you stand, the broad steps granting a glimpse to the hall below.

“What was what?” Loki answers flatly.

“What was the reason the charges were dropped? About your role in New York?”

Everyone had been stunned when the news leaked, and it had been the rage in the media and online where the most absurd conspiracy theories went unchecked because really, what arguments were there anymore now that it was a fact that aliens existed?

“It’s of no consequence.” Arms cross over his chest, defiant and protectively. “Just leave. Forget about this. I will not bother you anymore.”

Dimwitted, emo-loving freak, your logic begins a rant to get you from doing exactly what you end up with anyways. A few steps back, while cussing yourself to Antarctica and back, brings the reflection of the god’s face back in view. Pale and hard. A hand nimbly swipes a wet shimmer away before it reaches the sharp jaw. Don’t fucking do it. It’s a trap. He’s a trickster. A liar. The sharp sting from the teeth sinking into your lower lip shuts up the inner monologue for a moment, allowing you to breathe deeply and way the risks.

All that I've been taught And every word I've got Is foreign to me

“You’d never given me a reason to actually…fear you…despite your majorly creepy stunts of breaking in to my place and shit…” The exhale comes as a puff, that stirs the fine particles dancing in the air between the open door and you. “The rules of our…game...thing…they were never clear, but you…you…uhm…” Struggling to put the chaotic thoughts into words, you know that you’re trying to convince yourself more than him and you hate yourself for it. “You’d not done anything I didn’t want be-before I accused you of wanting to…y’know…and you hadn’t even hinted that that was something…”

Loki has gone completely still, barely even breathing as he listens to the mumbled mess, but you’re at a loss at what you actually want to accomplish. Comfort him? He’d hurt you physically. Scared you. But if anyone had said something similar to you, wouldn’t you have lost your temper? Difference is, of course, that you don’t have the strength to literally knock someone through a wall.

“Gimme one good reason to trust y’again.” The harshness you’d tried to summon is inaudible, reducing your order to a plea.

“Not that.”

Staying quiet, you absentmindedly try to rub some warmth into your arms as you wait for the man to quit being stubborn. It’s going to be a long wait, but now that the door’s open you aren’t in as bad a rush as before.

“There’s an item which I greatly desire, but it’s of dire importance tha–“

“You can take the item and shove it unless you don’t answer my question,” your voice cracks like a whip, silencing Loki quite efficiently and you notice how the god’s body tenses.

A rustle accompanies the stubborn, no, haughty answer. “I told those who need to know about…the background for New York.”

“Then there’s no more to talk about.”

You’re in the hallway, when he calls out for you, broken and beaten by his own demons. I should continue. Already, your feet are rooted on the polished wood. I should leave. Soft footsteps are drawing near, urging you to run rather than turn to face the man the way you actually do, watching his cautionary movements and the tremble of his hands, feeling the cold roll over you once more. This is a trick. Eyes meet and you have no doubt that the pain he’s exhibiting is real.

“Tell me what happened.” It’s a soft murmur, spoken into his raven hair as you awkwardly pat his back.

It takes a minute or two before he straightens up, freeing you shoulder from the weight of his chilly head but taking your hands instead to tug you gently with him back into the room.

The door closes softly behind you, no click of the lock this time at least, as Loki silently offers the bed as a seat for you. You accept hesitantly, afraid of how long or short a time is left before the trap’s sprung. A trap you’ve walked into freely this time. Thankfully, he leans against the wall by the bathroom door with his head hung low as you fidget with the hem of the purple silk, trying to find some way to soothe your nerves. Can I take the cover? The air’s freezing.

“If you ever tell anyone about this…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t have to, really, mostly because even in your world there are some things that are sacred. He’s not the only one with a code. And then he begins talking about event long passed, about wrongs he had done of his own free will where not even the despair he’d felt was an excuse and no promises from neither him nor his family could right the many wrongs that had been committed. It had let to his fall. Literally and figuratively.

Then the tale takes a turn for the worse. To a darkness where words fail along with the god’s human appearance. As Loki talks about torture and pain beyond any you’ve experienced, his real form breaks free as if trying to protect him from the memories. Red eyes blur and burn in stark contrast to the ice that form around him, creeping towards you. And still you inch closer to him, to hear the words that are whispered hoarsely and to tentatively extend a quivering hand, placing it on his dark-clawed fingers.  Squeezing as he whispers the name of a Titan.

Screaming the name Of a foreigner's God The purest expression of grief

“I don’t want your pity,” he growls, trying to shake off the hand.

I know. “Good. ‘Cause you’re not getting it.” You manage to contain the sigh. “You’re still a fucking lunatic, but at least I know why…I can work with this…”

“You can…?” Eyes like blood scorch your skin.

Yeah, it’s not smart of me, though. “Gonna clear up some things if it’s gonna work…and you’ve got a shitload of sucking up ‘fore I forgive you for bashing me ‘cross the room.”

The reaction’s immediate, perfect proof that you’ve chosen the wrong words. A low frequency makes the air hum, and the face folds into that of a predator that’s both hungry and amused because it knows where to find the next meal without putting any real effort into it. Catching your wrist before you can pull your hand back, so you tug hard, pulling Loki’s on his knees before you as you scuttle back along the wide bed. Raven hair partially obscuring the smirk curling his lips, falling away grant a view of the shoulder blades oscillating under the thin, white shirt that’s stretching tight over the wider-than-normal body.

“How convenient.” The lip that darts out have an effect on more than just Loki’s lips. “I’ll do more than just…suck…up.”

Pressed up against the headboard, your only escape would be off the other side of the bed, but of course you don’t go for it because you’re a fool with no backbone to resist the silver-tongued god even now. That’s why you let him grab your ankles and pull you slowly to the edge of the bed, kissing each inch of skin as it gets within reach all the while he bunches up the thin fabric of your dress until his lips ghost across the very top of your inner thigh. A cold nose brush the soft lace as he switches attention from one side to the other, almost distracting you from the fingers that are wandering past your hips and across the expanse of you belly, straining the fabric and setting off shivers that have nothing to do with the cold of the room.

There’s a warm shimmer, a sign that you know very well already, exposing more of your body and granting Loki a chance to slither the exploring hand further until it skims the valley between the breasts to trace the delicate lace that does absolutely nothing to hide the perking nipples. Teasing and pinching them through the bra ads a lovely contrast to the feathery kisses and licks below the waist until you’re breathing raggedly, chasing Loki’s mouth with your still covered cunt.

Wide strokes of blue palms towards your hips send new waves of anticipation rushing along, and you can feel how slick your core is becoming even though the god hasn’t even touched you there. The moment his fingers hook on the panties, you can’t help but hold your breath. Glancing down between your legs to see delight warming the features decorated with lines…lines that you know from experience are practically everywhere on his body. But the green eyes are trained on the reveal happening before him as, inch by inch, your pussy’s bared.

“So beautiful.”  The words are carried on cold breath but hold more warmth and adoration than anyone else has ever shown for your body. “Perfect…and eager.”

You know somehow that you moan the moment his mouth finds your folds and begins to tease, driving you to writhing and whimpering to the precipice of release all while Loki’s kneeling on the floor between your feet. Each moan from your lips makes him hum with pleasure, sending vibrations into your core in a way that shouldn’t be possible. Every gasp and panting breath from your lungs causes him to suck greedily at your clit.

Somewhere in the process, you realize as Loki spreads your legs further, he’s removed your panties completely, but a particular strong lick that curls his tip of his tongue inside you chases any coherent thoughts away. Then you feel his fingers pushing and wiggling against the fluttering walls of your pussy, finding the g-spot and running over it again and again in slow pumps matching the pace of his lips. Teeth nibbling and tugging in a masterful feat of balance between pleasure and pain.

“Let me hear you…then I’ll let you cum.” Even when talking, Loki doesn’t let up but applies a thumb deftly to your clit. “Say my name.”

In the foggy storm of you mind, the words annoy you. That wasn’t the deal. It’s a struggle to get as far as to rest on your elbows because each movement requires coordinated use of your muscles that are trembling due to Loki’s ministrations. Finally in place, you catch his hooded, red eyes.

“N-no-o.” Your answer makes him slow down, but not stop. “You’ve no…right…to demand anything.”

You’re gasping for breath and in no condition to assert any imagined power, but pure stubbornness fuels you even as the man arches an eyebrow at you in disbelief. Lazy circles around the nerve bundle keeps you on edge, fingers slide effortlessly through the tight wetness in a way that sweep your g-spot gently.

“My dear, I believe you’re right…I did give my word.”

The low growl should have been warning enough in it’s own, but you’re too tightly wrapped in the ecstasy his adept handling has you stewing in to notice how his arms wrap around your thighs. All you know is that the world seems to shift around you sending you off the edge of the bed and impaling you swiftly around the ridged cock. All air leaves you in a warbled moan as the sudden intrusion topples you over the edge, back arching so you shoulders rest on the mattress, holding you partially in place like a safety in case your grip on Loki’s shoulders should fail. Even then, he’s got your hips in a bruising grip, lifting and lowering you effortlessly at a reckless pace without any risk of you slipping away.

Your core is spasming, sending thundering waves of heat each time the icy shaft bottoms out, ridges passing the sensitive spot each time. Sharp keens spur the god to rut into you wilder, practically shoving you back onto the bed as he leans over you to taste your skin. Lavish kisses and love bites soak up the pearls of sweat and he sucks greedily at your neck, you breasts, your mouth. The two of you share breaths through the superficial pantings, causing you to slowly black out from the mix of restricted air and the continuous orgasm burning through your body.

A cold thumb presses against your clit, rubbing tiny circles simultaneously bringing you even higher than you thought possible as Loki succumbs to bliss, your name woven into the shameless moan fanning your throat an instant before his leaves your lips as a ragged, breathy scream.

Screaming the name Of a foreigner's God …

Wrapped in Loki’s (now pale) arms, your thought are barely coherent enough to wonder if it’s a good idea to linger. He’s taken care of you gently and sweeter than you thought possible from someone like him.

Who am I kidding…there’s no one like him!

Those are your last thoughts as sleep claims you.

[ask-a-vetblr]

I absolutely mean this in the best possible way, because I love your content, and wish you the very best in everything you do, but your voice in the Pegasus video was very monotone and flat in delivery. Your other videos have not had this quality that I can remember. I only say this because I think you can make this great, right now slightly robotic content more engaging by adding more inflection to your voice. Sorry to be negative, but you usually sound better!

I appreciate the feedback, but I can only do what I can do and am unwilling to change it now.

All the videos I’m in are incredibly hard because I am terrified of the camera, of being seen. I do so, so many takes because I freeze or stumble, and often have to psych myself up for an hour or so before I attempt it. A five minute video that looks relatively simple will have taken me all day to make.

My voice is naturally soft, quiet and flat. I’ve been told that since I was a teenager and I have to actively think about and put in more inflections, emotion and variation, which is mentally exhausting.

But I do it because it’s hard, it is challenging, even though I take the criticism hard. That’s why it took almost three days to reply. I probably don’t have a thick enough skin for YouTube.

But I am learning each time, and think I will slowly improve as what is challenging now slowly becomes comfortable in the future.

I will get better if I can just not be paralysed.

- Dr Ferox

[tenacityblitz]

all the numbers u haven't done

roleplaying habits questions.

1. what’s a grammar rule you find yourself breaking or ignoring a lot?

Offhand I can’t really think of anything?? English is my first language so I don’t knowingly break any grammar rules anyway. Unless possible excessive use of commas counts bc I use commas a lot.

2. are there any languages besides english in which you think you could comfortably roleplay?

Unless Gibberish counts bc I learned that stupid crack language back when I was a kid but good lord I would not have the patience to actually type out a reply like that. 

3. how often do you reach for a synonym dictionary when writing? how about mentally?

Sometimes but not too frequently. Depends on how flowery I’m trying to write something or if I’m thinking of a word but I don’t like the first descriptive word that came to mind for what I’m trying to express.

4. how often do you need to translate your own or the other’s writing with a dictionary or google when writing and reading replies?

Never tbh. Especially since I don’t RP in any other languages, all my RP partners have a good enough grasp on English that I can always tell what they were at least trying to say in their reply.

5. do you listen to music while your write?

I used to need music playing in the background to help me focus on doing drafts, but nowadays I need more silence than anything to help focus and produce what I think is a quality response to a longer thread. Short one or two liner things idc what’s in the background. 

6. do you have ideal writing circumstances when you can do a lot of drafts or tackle really long ones very easily?

I can fluctuate with when I best write. Typically I write better at night when the house is quiet and any noise happening in the house is a noise I make, but I’ve had writing inspiration hit me at any time of the day before.

7. are you a morning, day, evening, or night writer?

Bold of you to assume I’m awake during morning hours that don’t include 5 AM bc I’m still awake haha. When I’m not swamped with commissions to do I typically write better during the day or at night when I’m the only person awake in the house and I don’t have any outside distractions from a person IRL.

8. how does tiredness affect your writing?

Not overly so sometimes, I know there’ve been times in the past where I powered through replies even though I wanted to go to bed just because I was riding the motivation train and I didn’t want to lose it and not get to those last replies for who knows how long. But on Discord at least I often have reply to Discord threads be one of the last things I do before I go to sleep so I go to bed knowing I don’t owe anyone a reply on there.

9. have you ever written a serious reply intoxicated?

Not a serious reply anyway. I’ve been on the dashboard before while intoxicated (ColossalCon East was a prime example haha) but I’ve never really RP’d while that intoxicated

10. how much do you proof-read as you are writing vs. proof-read at the end?

I’ll proof read as I go but also give it one last read before I actually hit publish.

11. when you are writing a reply, how much ahead in the thread do you plan?

Entirely depends on the thread. I could write it on the fly or I could have days to think about it from external factors keeping me from getting to the reply as soon as it comes back to me.

12. is there ever been a time when you’ve had to drop a roleplaying partner because you’ve found their writing style exhausting?

Yes actually, gather round for RP horror storytime haha. Flash back to 2013 while I was still in the Black Butler fandom. I stupidly decided to give writing Sebastian a try at the request of a Ciel I’d made friends with (probably through my old Alois or Lizzie blog). She was a nice enough girl, close enough to my age so she seemed plenty mature, and had been what I thought was a good enough writer to warrant trying my hand at a muse I wouldn’t have otherwise thought to try. Legit within days of me making the Sebastian blog she was getting super clingy in her IC posts making Ciel a whiny baby missing Sebastian, would try and guilt me in IC posts to get on and write with her, and I dealt with it for about two weeks before I deleted Sebastian’s blog without warning and deleted the girl off Skype. To this day it’s the only blog I think I’ve ever consciously deleted.

13. does writing roleplay things in public spaces make you uncomfortable?

Not really? I wouldn’t be crazy about a stranger reading over my shoulder while I was writing bc that’s just weird, but I’ve gone to Starbucks or one of the local malls before on my off days (back when I was still at my last job) and I’d do RP stuff there just to get out of the house.

14. how often do you need to change the icon in your reply while or after writing the reply?

Typically I don’t put in icons until I’m done writing the reply unless I go into the reply knowing exactly which one I want to use, or think of a good one while I’m writing it out.

15. do you first get in the “zone” when writing, or do you start writing and “enter” it that way?

Nowadays I just start writing and then get into the zone after I get the first reply done. Discord replies I can chug out any time of day without difficulty, but for whatever reason Tumblr I have to be in the right mindset for. 

16. what is your biggest obstacle to writing every day, if time doesn’t count?

Back when I was at my last job, it would be getting a lot of writing muse while I was busy at work and unable to get on my own laptop or sneak onto Tumblr on an office computer and at least type out the bulk of a reply (yes I was employee of the month many times haha), and by the time I was able to get to my own computer or be safe enough to get on a work computer, that writing muse would be gone.

17. what’s your inbox count currently? what did you do to get it so high/low?

Right now I have 15 IC asks. I won’t lie, two of them are from last years Valentine’s Day bc I was away at Katsucon at the time of receiving them and by the time I got home I still just never got around to answering the asks, but I didn’t want to delete them either so I just kept them for posterity. Some are from this past Christmas that I was terrible and haven’t answered yet bc I’ve been so swamped with commissions, some are from other random meme’s I’ve reblogged and gotten an ask or two for and also just never got around to. I’m horrible at replying to asks most of the time and I know it but I always appreciate whenever people take the time to send me an IC one.

18. how many drafts is a paralysing amount?

I’d guess I’d say over 15 like para thread replies would make me be like -insert meme song- ‘how could this happen to meeeee’. I’m not quite at that point yet but I’ll get there eventually if I’m not careful lol.

19. if you are writing a wrong reply that’s not working out, do you save what you have to be continued at another date, or do you scrap it and rewrite?

Usually I would just draft what I have and go back to it. I can’t remember the last time I scrapepd an unfinished draft and completely rewrote it.

20. longest reply you’ve ever writen on mobile?

N/A because I don’t do replies on mobile. I’ll send asks on mobile but I never reply to actual IC things while on my phone unless it’s something stupid and cracky or one-liner-ish.

21. does the total amount of threads you have going on matter to you, or just how many you owe?

Doesn’t really matter. I can have one thread with one person, I could have five threads with one person. @shinvcho is an example of the latter lol

22. what’s your thought process when you format? any unspoken rules you follow?

I’ve kept to the same formatting for years and years tbh. I’m too lazy to do excessive formatting beyond italicizing and/or bolding specific words for emphasis and spacing out the start of a new paragraph. Anything more than that to me is just tedious and unnecessary; I don’t want to make it difficult for my partners to read.

23. how does your follower count affect your mood?

Anyone who says they don’t appreciate or enjoy even a small spike in followers is a liar, because we live in an age where validation is held in high regard and it feels good to get the validation of seeing more people enjoy what we do on our blogs enough to put us on their dashboards. But it also doesn’t really matter to me when I lose followers because I have a mutual checker so I can unfollow a mutual back if they did so first so I don’t feel uncomfy still following someone who no longer wanted me on their dash lol.

[wickedsingularity]

Until Next Time [Chapter 12]

Banner by PhoenixAlthor @ TDA

The hand on my heart clenched painfully. I stiffened and gritted my teeth. My eyes stung and I couldn't breathe. I was there. I had reached the point where it hurt so bad I didn't know how to live for one more second.

War. We do what we can to find comfort and hope.

Remus Lupin x OC Warnings: Blood magic including the use of knives, dark wounds, Dementors, depression, anxiety, rough lemon as a coping mechanism. This one is dark in so many ways. You have been warned. Words: 4168

Note: I'm not tagging this one (or any of my future Wizarding World stories) with my "permanent tags" anymore, as the audience for my Wizarding World fanfiction is barely existent here on tumblr. If you want to be tagged in this series, or anything Wizarding World, please let me know.

Chapter 11 | Masterlist | Chapter 13

Blood Ward

I’m sorry. I failed you.

After almost five months of planning and implementing new wards, we were finally ready for the last one, and this one had taken time. It was a blood ward, basically dark magic, tying all of us to that stone structure in the middle of the North Sea. We had been at it for nearly two weeks and today was the day we were going to implement it. It had been mentally and physically exhausting getting to this point, and it was no less exhausting draining our blood and doing the incantations.

At midnight every night since the last full moon, we had all put twelve drops of our blood into a vial. Twelve nights later, there were twelve full vials. And all twelve of us were out there out on the island, on a Saturday because of the timing. This was the strongest ward ever put on the prison, supposed to ward off dark and intrusive magic from within and outside. And it was like the Dementors knew, because all through these last weeks of preparation, they seemed to almost try to sabotage us in the way several of them were hovering near where we worked or floating after us through the prison. It was very unusual behaviour for them, and to be on the safe side, we called in a few Aurors and a couple of people from the Being Division to keep an eye on them during this ceremony. The strength it took to keep up the Patronus Shield was enormous on any ordinary day and we couldn't afford any slip-ups on this particular ward, it could kill us all.

At twelve carefully calculated points throughout the prison, we found ourselves. Each with their own vial of blood, their wand and a knife, facing the outer stone wall. At twelve past noon, it began, my vial hovering in front of me as I cast a spell, hearing the exact same words echoing around me. It seemed even the prisoners knew something was up, as they were all unusually quiet. The blood in the vial rose like a thin rope, divided itself in the middle and floated left and right until it connected with the next person's rope of blood, creating a red helix up through the prison. A new incantation echoed off the stone walls, wands drawing intricate patterns in the air. Our voices grew louder and louder with each repetition of the words, reaching a booming crescendo at the twelfth repetition.

I whipped my wand up towards the rope of blood, and it rose quickly through the levels, the helix melting into a whole circle at the top. It glowed an eerie red for a moment, and then it dropped like a waterfall, colouring the walls a deep red. Then I switched my wand for the knife, setting the sharp goblin-made-blade against the inside of my left hand. I glanced quickly at Walter, who stood at one of the three corners and saw he was ready. Then all as one, the twelve of us pulled the knives down. Pain shot through my hand, but before I let myself get distracted by it, I placed my bleeding palm on the wall in front of me. It was unnaturally warm to the touch and kind of soothing for the pain. The first incantation echoed around the prison now as we repeated it together. And as the last syllable ended, the red on the walls faded away and the stone cooled down.

It had taken three hours and the effort had drenched me in sweat. My hair was plastered to my head and my sweater clung to my back underneath my cloak. We had all managed to cast the spell and set the ward while keeping up our Patronus Shield. Everyone was just as exhausted as they packed up their things to go straight home. I had volunteered to file the paperwork on the wards at the Ministry and was gathering all the parchments when everyone left.

I was so exhausted, but I cast a spell to fit the rolls of parchments into my pocket. I could feel the Patronus Shield wavering a bit, so I focused harder on the happy memory and walked out the door to the brooms. Then I cast the usual charms to keep the wind and the rain away. But as the last spell took effect, I felt the Shield drop.

A chill that had nothing to do with the weather crept over me. It seeped into the very marrow of my bones, and fear clutched at my heart. I felt the Dementors gliding closer from every corner and level. They felt that my Shield was down, they knew I was finally an easy target for them to feed on.

I stood paralysed. I felt a literal block inside my mind at even thinking about casting a simple Lumos, there was no way I could erect the Patronus Shield again. There were spells in place to keep me from Apparating from here, not that I thought I could manage it. There were no means to call for help. Apart from the prisoners, I was the only human left there.

The rattling breaths came closer, I could hear it. Forcing through my petrified state, my arm reached out and took hold of my broom. Unable to throw my leg over it to mount, I just rolled onto it, trusting the magic in it would keep me from tumbling to the floor. If I could make it outside the wards where the Dementors couldn't affect me, maybe I could manage to Apparate to the Ministry.

They were getting close. A chance to get at one of those that had denied them any kind of feeling for so many years must be a great victory for them. I don't think anyone who had ever worked as an Azkaban Security Official had ever been a victim of the Dementors, accidental or otherwise.

The broom rose in the air and the motion nearly unseated me. I leaned forward and it accelerated, the Dementors picking up speed as well. Every inch forward felt like it took forever, and I leant as far as I could, urging the broom on but also because I didn't have the energy to sit upright. The edge of the wards was getting closer and the thought of it had adrenalin surging through me. Time sped up and I was close, closer...

A bony hand landed on my shoulder and I shrieked in panic. I whipped my head around and looked right into the face of a Dementor. The decayed, soulless face somehow triumphant. A lipless mouth open in a large hole, ready to get the thing it had always been denied.

This was it. I'm sorry, Albus, I thought. I failed you.

But then suddenly the hand disappeared, scratching through my cloak as I slipped away from it. The shock and pain made me and the broom drop several feet. Arms and legs clutching the stick of wood for dear life, I managed to balance it. I must have reached the end of the wards; they couldn't follow through it unless we let them.

An immense breath of relief left me and then everything was black.

"She's coming to," I heard a muffled voice say.

Gentle, but calloused hands began touching my face – feeling my forehead, checking my pulse, opening my eyelids. The short moment each eye was open, I saw Madam Pomfrey hovering over me. "She's not awake yet," the matron declared.

"But her eyes fluttered and she made a sound." Was that Tonks?

"Her vitals are good, but she isn't awake," Pomfrey repeated and I felt her retreat.

I was awake, I just couldn't open my eyes, they felt like they were glued together. I tried to speak. My mouth opened, but I couldn't get the words out, tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth it was so dry.

"There! See!" Tonks cried out and I felt her presence come closer, the surface I was on shift.

Madam Pomfrey leaned over again and I felt something moist in my throat. I opened and closed my mouth a few times to get rid of the sandpaper feeling. "I'm awake," I managed to croak out. "I just..." I fought hard with myself to open my eyes, it was like trying to tear a stone in half with my bare hands, and what felt like minutes – but was probably just seconds – later, I finally managed.

I blinked a few times, and Tonks and Pomfrey came into focus, both right next to my bed, the first looking relieved, the latter apprehensive.

"How do you feel?" Madam Pomfrey asked.

"Like I've been trampled by trolls," I said and Tonks chuckled nervously. "What happened? Where am I?"

"We're at headquarters," Tonks explained. "You crashed your broom into the Apparition station outside Azkaban. You never showed up at the Ministry, so I went back, and you were unconscious. I brought you here and sent for Madam Pomfrey, not sure it was safe for St. Mungo's to get involved. What happened before you crashed?"

"Don't answer anything yet," Pomfrey ordered. "You need to get some strength back into you. You've had a concussion and quite a few bumps and bruises, a dislocated shoulder among them. Here." She held out a goblet with water. Tonks gently helped me to sit up, packing pillows behind my back. My head spun from the effort, but as soon as Pomfrey poured the cold drink past my lips, the world righted itself. A few potions were held out in front of me as well, and I was ordered to drink them all. Each one made me feel more and more like my old self, even though my limbs were a bit stiff and slow.

There was a knock on the door and Tonks opened it. Kingsley was there, worry etched across his face. "You're awake. A few of us are waiting in the kitchen when you're ready."

"For what?" I asked.

"The condition Tonks found you in was most grave. As soon as she delivered you here, she sent me a message and I went to Azkaban to check, and what I saw was quite... interesting. I think we both need to tell our stories of the day's events."

I nodded gravely. "I'm ready." As gracefully as I could, I got out of bed to Madam Pomfrey's huffs, but she helped support me as I followed Kingsley out and down two flights of stairs into the kitchen. Not many were there, thankfully. Albus, Remus, Sirius, Mundungus and Hestia. Tonks and Kingsley found seats, and Albus straightened up as Madam Pomfrey guided me to a seat.

My old headmaster looked at me with concern behind his half-moon spectacles. I gave him a weak smile. "How are you feeling?"

"Sore and weak. Like I've been trampled by trolls." The familiar feeling of someone's eyes on me burned on my skin, but I refused to look at anyone else. I felt like I couldn't keep it together if I looked at those eyes now, and I hated that.

Albus nodded and reached over to squeeze my hand quickly. "Madam Pomfrey will see to it that you recover quickly. But first, we need to hear. I've already informed everyone that you were found unconscious after crashing into the Apparition centre at Azkaban. But that is all I've been told. What happened?"

"I'm sure you're all aware that we were setting up the final ward today. It's a blood ward, and it's really complicated. All of the wards are, but this one is the most intricate I've seen my entire life. I... I think I overspent myself. The others left, and I was going to file the paperwork at the Ministry before I went home. And when I went to get my broom, I..." My voice faltered. I had looked at Albus during this entire time, but now I found my eyes wandering, and as they passed Remus' face, I nearly lost it. Grinding my teeth and collecting myself, I managed to continue. "My Shield fell." It felt like I had failed at life by saying it, but I had to tell the truth. "They came after me, but I didn't have the strength to cast it again. I took off on my broom and could barely stay on it. One of them almost got me. It... Mouth open... But I reached the edge of the wards and it fell back." Subconsciously I lifted my left shoulder and felt something sting slightly.

"The Dementor's fingers scratched through her cloak and clothes," Madam Pomfrey explained. "I can't heal a dark wound like that. You'll have the scars, dear."

I nodded, I could live with a few scars, as long as I still had my soul. "That's all I remember," I finished, looking down at my hands in my lap. "Until I woke up here."

"I found her," Tonks said. "She never showed up at the Ministry, so I went back to check. She had crashed through the window and headfirst into a table there. She can't have laid there for long, but she was drenched and ice-cold from the rain blowing through the broken window."

"I must have fainted the moment I passed the wards," I muttered. I hated this, being the centre of attention, and for something like this, something I failed at... The fear I had felt being chased by a band of Dementors... No, I forced it down.

"I brought her here immediately and sent for Albus and Kingsley, and Albus sent for Madam Pomfrey."

"Her magic was spent," Albus explained. "Having worked on the ward all day, while keeping up the Patronus Shield. The Shield alone takes a tremendous amount of strength. Imagine a Patronus Charm, ten times over, for hours every day."

The room held a quiet awe and it made me feel more uncomfortable.

Madam Pomfrey hadn't told me about the magic. The idea that I had spent it all, was terrifying. If it had happened only seconds later, I wouldn't have been here. I would have been Kissed and then fallen soulless off my broom and drowned in the North Sea. Ice-cold fear gripped at my heart, and I looked up to catch Remus' eyes, but he wasn't drilling his gaze through me anymore. He was looking intently at Albus, who was explaining about depleted magic before Kingsley told everyone what he had seen at Azkaban. I should have paid attention, but I couldn't concentrate anymore.

"The next meeting stand as is. Good night, everyone." Albus ended the impromptu meeting and swept out of the room with a quick squeeze on my uninjured shoulder before I even knew what had happened.

Everyone else began climbing the stairs too, Madam Pomfrey hovering behind me. Up in the hall, Hestia, Kingsley and Mundungus gave me a "feel better" and then left. I moved to walk up to the room I woke up in to gather my things, but Madam Pomfrey stopped me.

"I would have liked to take you back to the Hospital Wing, but that might lead to questions we don't want asked. I want you to stay here overnight, so they can keep an eye on you and alert me immediately if your condition changes. But I don't expect it will."

"Of course," Remus said immediately. Sirius nodded next to him.

"I'll check in on all of them in the morning," Tonks said. "Can't trust these wizards to be good nurses." She winked at me, and I smiled weakly.

"You also need to take a week off work," Madam Pomfrey continued. "I can't in good conscience send you back until I'm sure your magic is fully restored. I'll come back at lunchtime tomorrow, and I want to see you here for another check up on Tuesday."

I just nodded, starting to feel antsy and anxious, needing to get some time alone to let all this sink in.

Madam Pomfrey left, and I said goodnight to Sirius, Tonks and Remus, finally catching the latter's eye. I saw concern there and the need to get away grew. I didn't want concern – I didn't deserve concern. I hurried as fast as I could up the stairs to the room that was now my home for the night.

The door closed behind me with a faint click and I finally had the chance to take in the decor. It was just as dark and dreary as the rest of the house. Dark green, dirty curtains pulled shut over the windows. Dark, worn furniture and the typical large canopy bed with winding, sneaking snakes carved into the four pillars.

I sat down on the bed, glanced at the potions Madam Pomfrey left for me on a tray on one of the bedside tables. One had the label Pepper-Up Potion, one said Dreamless Sleep and the last read Sleeping Draught. Dreamless Sleep might be needed tonight.

I saw my wand next to the potions. My magic is depleted? "Lumos." A barely-there wisp of light blossomed at the tip of it but was gone in less than a second. Even as the Dementors chased me, it hadn't made me feel as defenceless as I did now. You-know-who could come bursting through the door and I didn't even have enough magic to cast the Tickling Charm on him.

With disgust, I threw the wand onto the bedside table so hard it slid right off and clattered against the wall, then I crawled further onto the bed, sitting against the headboard and staring blindly at the intricate snakelike circles that adorned the wallpaper. An Azkaban Security Official who had nearly been Kissed by Dementors. What a failure. What shame. It was the most useless I had felt in my entire life. What good was I anymore.

I don't know how long I sat there, but it must have been well past midnight when I suddenly jumped off the bed, arranged the covers to make it look like I was sleeping there and hurried up to the third floor as quietly as I could, knocking gently on the fourth door on the left.

It swung open to reveal Remus still fully dressed. "Hi," he said and stepped aside to let me in. The moment the door closed behind me the need filled me. I ran over to him and he opened his arms just in time for me to crash my lips upon his and start ripping off his clothes. He kissed back with earnest, but when I reached his pants, he grabbed my hands and held them still as a shield between us. "Do you really want this now?"

I nodded.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"You're well enough for this?"

"Yes, dammit."

He looked me in the eyes for what seemed like forever and my patience was growing thin. But then he let my arms go and began tearing at my clothes too. The ache between my legs grew to new heights as our skin made contact, and I groaned when Remus pressed himself against me. He was growing harder by the second and I wanted to taste and touch him, but something deep inside me needed to fuck first, drive the fear out, empty my mind of all about my failure.

Almost as if he could read my mind, Remus grabbed my thighs and lifted me up. One simple movement and he was inside. I forced myself down as far as I could go. He spun us around and we fell onto the bed, the impact of it pushing him so deep it hurt and the breath was knocked out of me. That's what I needed.

Before I could catch my breath, I urged him on by lightly kicking his butt with my feet, like urging on a horse. He started moving fast, the sound of smacking skin loud. But it wasn't enough for me.

"Harder! Faster!" I begged and tried to move my hips up with him. He quickened his pace, but it just wasn't enough, not this time. "Dammit! Make it hurt!" To emphasise my point, I buried my nails in his back and bucked my hips.

Remus looked down at me without losing his stride, as if checking if I was serious. In the back of my mind, I knew it was wrong, so, so very wrong. There were so many healthier ways to deal with my feelings, but I couldn't take any of them. I needed this pain as much as the pleasure, and the desperate hunger must have shown in my eyes because he stopped and pushed my thighs apart. Then he grabbed my hands and laid them on my knees. "Keep your legs outstretched," he said breathlessly. I had no idea where he was going with this, but I obeyed. And was greatly rewarded.

Remus laid his elbows near my waist and lifted his knees to get into a better position, still inside me. Then he pulled almost all the way out and slammed all the way in and there was barely room for him so my body had no choice but to yield for the incoming missile. He did it again, and it hurt, but in a good way. I mewled and he took it as a sign to keep going, faster and faster. I kept up a chorus of high-pitched moans. Somewhere in the back of my mind, behind the pain and the pleasure, I knew that Remus did this for my pleasure only and I was ever so grateful for it.

We stared into each other's eyes and it felt so intense, so all-consuming. It was almost too much. A drop of sweat rolled down his forehead, to his nose and landed on my neck. My climax was getting close.

It was violent, it was rough, the roughest I'd had in my life, driving all the demons out of me. And as I came around Remus – not able to separate the pain from the pleasure anymore – my demons left my soul for now. I became one with the mattress, arms and legs falling limply onto it, and barely noticed Remus take what he needed to reach his own end. When he groaned into my ear and filled me, satisfaction, peace and thankfulness replaced agitation, pain and failure in my mind.

Remus collapsed on top of me, the sweat from his body cooling mine. When he rolled off, I was finally coherent enough to remember how loud I had been. "Didn't silence the room."

"I did it before I opened the door."

"Good. Thanks."

"Had a feeling it might be needed, one way or the other."

We lay in silence for a while, getting our heart rhythms and breaths back to normal.

"Thank you," I mumbled finally, eyes on the ceiling.

"You're welcome." Silence filled the room again, but then Remus turned to his side and rose up on his elbow, looking down at me. I saw his eyes dart to the claw marks the Dementor had left on my shoulder and his arm twitched as if he wanted to touch it. But he looked up into my eyes instead. "I know you see this as an outlet for everything, but I can't take it that far again. I don't want to hurt you. The sex always good with you, but there are some things sex can't fix."

"I know," I mumbled. Remus was probably the only person who really knew how much fear I kept repressed all the time, and for that performance, he deserved the whole truth. But I wasn't sure I could give it to him. "I just felt... like a failure. I needed to feel something else."

"You needed me to punish you for failing."

I was struck dumb. He had summed up everything that had gone on in my brain since I gained consciousness. I wasn't sure how to reply, and he seemed to sense that too.

"As long as I don't have to do it again, I don't mind. I also hope you don't turn to anyone else for that kind of treatment. If you need to talk about it, if you need comfort, I'm here."

"Thank you." Something entirely different was about to bubble up inside me now, and I had to get out of there. I stood up and began gathering my clothes and holding them up for Remus so he could repair them before I put them on.

"You don't want to stay here tonight? You're already spending the night in the house, why not here with me?"

"Someone might come to check on me."

"Yeah, Tonks said she'd be back early in the morning. She seemed very worried. And reluctant to leave. I was worried too."

"I appreciate it." I didn't want to hear about him being worried, I had to get out of there. "See you in the morning, Remus."

"Until then."

Chapter 11 | Masterlist | Chapter 13

[the-world-of-naiyara]

Castiel Fanfiction : Passion or Forgiveness?

Chapter 2 A Hell of a Concert Part 2 : Confrontation!

Crowstorm symbol. Credits to tattooartist Denys O’hara (Kdy_ohara on Instagram) THIS IS ONE OF MY TATTOOS, Please don’t copy it!

The concert ended after about an hour. Girls were screaming “encore” and waving “CastielLove” banners. They were wearing t-shirts with the same catchword and Crowstorm’s symbol which represented a crow landing on a skill surrounded by two black and red roses. A lightning bold passed in front of the crow and landed on the skull.  

Naiyara breathed out. Had she been holding her breath for an hour? It sure, felt that way. 

“So, what did you think?” Asked Evie. 

“Honestly, it was good. I liked it. You?”

“Yeah, it was cool. I’m gonna go get us more drinks. Are you ok?”

Evie was worried about her friend. She knew how hard it must be for Naiyara to be here but she also knew she needed it. She needed to see Castiel. She’d texted him to tell him they’d be there and being his usual self, he hadn’t let anything transpire as to how it made him feel. Even with Evie, Castiel wore his pride like a shield. 

Naiyara thought of the first time she’d heard him sing. She thought of that one song Castiel had written, that wasn’t on the album. It was her favorite and yet, not having heard it in five years, she could barely remember its tune. 

Naiyara watched her friend leave towards the bar. She looked at the stage. The drummer seemed to have moved from there to inside her chest. She swallowed with difficulty and looked at her empty glass. Come on Rosa, hurry up. I can’t be... 

“Hey.” That voice. It paralysed her for a second. She turned around slowly , the way ghosts do in horror movies, . 

Castiel. 

“He.. Hey.”

“What are you doing here?” His voice was icy and he had his poker face on. 

“I wanted...” Naiyara’s voice was drowned in nearing screams and cries. A group of girl surrounded them. They were pointing their banners, t-shirts and pens to Castiel. He frowned and rolled his eyes. He brought his arms closer to himself, as if scared or bothered by the idea they might touch him. Naiyara understood why. Castiel loved music. He loved being able to play and making it his job. But he disliked what went with it. Fame. Fame had never been his type. 

“Do you mind going to some place quieter?”

“No, of course not.” She’d tried to smile at him, but he’d barely looked at her. 

Castiel grabed her hand and made his way through the hysterical crowd. He led his ex-girlfriend, a girl he’d loved more then anything, even more than his first love, outside the back entrance. Outside, he looked down at his hand and took it away instantly, as if he’d realized just now, he had taken her hand. He looked at her harshly, cursing himself mentally for not being able to ignore her or ignore how soft her skin was. 

As she started speaking, he lit up a cigarette. 

“Can I get one?” 

Now, that was something new! Naiyara was always harping on him for that “disgusting habit of his”. 

“Since when do you smoke?” The surprise warmed his cold expression. He looked at Naiyara with eyebrows to the sky and a soft smile. One of those he use to give her all the time back then. 

“3 or 4 years. I started in Paris.” She answered, taking a Marlboro from her ex-boyfriend and nearing her face from the lighter he was offering. 

“Paris, right.” He said with a soft chuckle. But not at all an amused one. Castiel turns his head to the side. He didn’t want to look at her. Paris. Oh, yeah, sure, Paris must have been great! So great it was worth tearing his heart to shred without so much as an explanation! 

As if reading his mind, Naiyara answered. 

“I’m sorry.” Why were those simple words so painful and hard to say?

“You’re sorry? Five years later, you’re sorry? Are you fucking kidding me Naiyara? I don’t give a fuck about your apology! You’re a couple of years too late and what you should have given me was an explanation not a damn apology!

“I know! You’re right ok and I’m truly sorry and ashamed about how I acted back then. It was unfair and disrespectful to you and you deserved better. I... I panicked ok? Your fame scared me. I thought I was going to lose you so... So I chose to break up before that happened. To stay in control. Better to push people away than to have them abandon you.”

Castiel could relate to that feeling. And he’d guess, since then, that this was partially, at least, the reason Naiyara had broken up. But nonetheless, he was furious at her. 

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about you anymore, anyway.” This was meant to hurt her. It did. But it did something else as well.

“Bullshit.” Castiel’s words had angered her. They were bullshit and she knew it. He was talking out of pride. That messed up, fucking pride of his that had caused so many arguments. That same messed up, fucking pride that had caused him NOT to try and convince her not to leave. 

“Bullshit Castiel. You do care. Or why did you want me to give you an explanation, otherwise? Why else would you have come to see me at the bar? You could’ve stayed with you groupies, you chose not to. And besides, if you really didn’t care about me, you wouldn’t still be so pissed. Stop hiding how you feel goddamn it! That’s what got us here in the first place!”

“Excuse me? You’re one to talk! You’re such a social tart that you can’t even tell your boyfriend when you’re scared of losing him! Instead you run away and put a fucking ocean between us!” He snorts contemptuously and looks down at her “Like father, like daughter, I guess.”

Naiyara had kept her head down. Taking in all the punches Castiel was throwing at her. Trying to swallow her tears. But those last words... Those last words were cruel. He hadn’t even been that cruel to Deborah. And no matter what she’d done, Naiyara knew, she deserved better treatment than Deborah did. Chin still down, her eyes rose slowly to meet Castiel’s. Once their eyes were locked, she lifted her head. Castiel knew he’d gone too far. Said what he never should’ve said. He’d wanted to hurt her like she’d hurt him, only, he’d hurt her more, because in his case, it was intentional. 

“Fuck you.” Naiyara said in a soft, helpless voice. She didn’t let him answer. Naiyara looked at him from head to toe, eyebrows furrowed, corner of the mouth turned downwards and trembling. Castiel saw the tears welling up in her eyes before she trew her cigarette bud at his chest, turned around and left. 

Seeing her had woken so many feelings.

Castiel wanted to stop her from leaving. He wanted to catch her wrist and apologize. Once again, he didn’t move.

He looked at her back disappear at the corner of the street. Her curly brown hair, flying behind her like a veil. 

Links to previous chapters :

Chapter 1 Introduction : Who is Naiyara? 

Chapter 2 A Hell of a Concert Part 1 : Five Years Later!

Link to next chapter :

Chapter 3 : All Hell Breaks Loose

@colombia-chan