#i mean in theory i could play all of them but i'm only just now doing my second inquisition run LMAO

[predestinatos]

you mean everything - MV1 ೀ⋆｡🌷

summary: max needed a wedding date and you were used to being his fake partner.

tags: max verstappen x fem!reader, fake dating, friends to lovers, max is so whipped, fluff, a bit angsty maybe?, mentions of alcohol

word count: 2k

notes: i've been writing (and thinking) so much about max... my period is coming please give me a break i'm sensitive. also would love to get some feedback if possible so i know if it's worth making a series out of this!!!!

"If you want to make it believable at least hold my hand" you half-whispered to Max, who was buttoning his blazer while getting out of the car, you behind him.

"Sorry, I'm not used to this with you" he said chuckling. His sweaty palm held yours tightly, and the feeling of it was odd. Knowing Max for so long meant that these romantic gestures felt almost cringeworthy to you both, and you both had to put up award winning performances every time you played this game.

The game in question being fake-dating. It started as a funny joke where you both thought it would be great to test out the Get A Champagne Bottle For Free At This Restaurant If You Propose theory (which worked, by the way). From then onwards, you used each other as dates whenever asked by annoying family members, creepy coworkers, or just because you felt like lying.

The talking wasn't hard - you both felt comfortable in that part, lying with words coming off almost dangerously natural - but when it came to acting the part, both of you felt awkward, like kids who found relationships absolutely repulsive.

This time, though, the performance would last longer than usual: it was a wedding. Max's friend's wedding. Max could've just gone along, or bring a friend (even you as a friend). Yet he had told his friend, after one too many shots on his Bachelor's Party, and after being chosen as The Guy Who'll Take the Longest to Settle, that he had, in fact, a girlfriend. His friends didn't believe him, so he showed a picture of you two together - a selfie really, nothing much. And they still said they didn't believe it. So here you are.

You couldn't blame him, even if you wanted to. You agreed to use each other as a fake partner for as long as you could in as many situations as required, although when it all started none of you ever thought it would lead to wedding attendances.

So now there you were, Max's hand on yours, entering the small church. His eyes locked with the groom, who waved and called for you to sit near the altar.

"So you ARE real" he said, nervousness laced in his voice even as he tried to lighten the mood himself. You giggled at the irony of it, nodding as you said your congratulations.

"Just wait until the guys see this" he continued gesturing towards the bench where 3 other men around his age sat. Men you had seen before in some Instagram pictures, men you spent the previous night trying to memorize basic information about so you didn't sound suspicious.

Max's hand now fell on your waist almost instinctively - it wasn't instinctively, he told himself once he noticed its positioning. And if it was, it was only because he took this so seriously, almost as a sort of method acting. Sitting down next to his friends, he noticed how all of them seemed surprised at your presence, and something like pride filled his chest. He loved winning, loved being right even if he was lying; but most especially, he loved how jealous other men seemed to be over the fact that he was (at least in their minds) dating you.

He couldn't deny - though he tried, really - that you two looked good together. His rougher features mixed with your softer ones gave you both an aura of near unreachability, which yes, was pretentious of him to think but he thought nevertheless.

The ceremony was quick and endearing, a smile spread across everyone's faces at the shared loved between the bride and the groom. As the crowd clapped, Max leaned into you, "don't tell me you're crying". "I am, just to think that I'll have to keep pretending to date YOU for the next 10 hours" you replied, his mocking smile recognizing the joke.

The reception hall was beautifully decorated with shades of soft green and violet orchids. Max tried not to think about how much it matched the shade of your dress, how you looked like you had come to life from a classical novel. He tried to feel like anyone but Mr. Darcy as you felt so much like Elisabeth Bennett to him.

Sitting down next to him, you found this part easier - mingling and socializing was something you enjoyed more than he did - especially with alcohol in the mix. It's a wedding, you thought; this is what weddings are for.

So you drank the wine with the main course and sipper champagne to celebrate and ordered a few cocktails when it was time to dance and talk - and you felt it on your body almost as much as you felt Max's hand occasionally sitting on your thigh, but not even close to how strongly you felt his thumb caress your skin as he did so. Truth was, he too was drunk; his eyes looked smaller and his cheeks were flushed, and the amount of times he ran a hair through his dirty blonde hair had caused it to look messier. As you looked at him, you felt he never looks as attractive as when he is like this - loose and carefree, his shirt sleeves rolled up and a smile on his face when he notices people laugh at his joke.

"I have to admit I didn't think it was true" his friend said when Max left to go to the bathroom. He looked drunker than the two of you combined, his words hard to decypher, like a riddle. "He's been talking about you for months now and we never saw you for real so we thought you didn't exist" he laughed, and you laughed back before it registered.

"Months?" you asked him, eyebrows furrowed yet attempting to remain composed. You shouldn't have asked it - a supposedly month old girlfriend wouldn't be surprised but you were his fake month old girlfriend and you weren't understanding it anymore.

"Yeah. He talks about you so much all the time I think even we started to date you" he laughed again, yet this time you didn't find the joke so funny. You were frozen in your seat, merely blinking as if trying to put the confusing puzzle together, the pieces not quite fitting the way you thought they would.

A touch on your shoulder unfroze you, almost like magic, like a disney film come to life. You turned around to find the groom, somewhat sober, smiling at you while also looking somewhat concerned. "He's calling for you... And he's also absolutely wasted" he said, pointing to the door of the hall.

"Shit" you cursed, getting up from your seat at a speed you couldn't believe, worry filling your heart, making you forget the conversation you were just having.

Opening the door to the garden outside, you found Max sitting down against the wall, shirt partly unbuttoned and disheveled hair. When he saw you, he grinned, such genuine happiness laced with tipsiness.

"Lightweight" you mocked as you crouched in front of him, trying to balance yourself on your heels, somehow managing it despite your own drunkness.

"You're laughing at my mis- Shit- my misery" his throat bobbed up and down, exaggerating his own agony with a hand on his chest and another on his forehead like a Shakespeare character.

"I have to admit it's quite fun sometimes" you bit your lip as you fixed his hair as best as you could, hands brushing through its soft, blonde mess.

"You're so– you're so sweet" he said, his words dragged and messy. He brought a beer bottle to his lips but you stopped him before any liquid touched them.

"I think that's enough of that for tonight" you grabbed it and placed it behind you, sitting in front of him.

"See now... Now you're being mean" his hand grabbed a strand of your hair and played with it softly as he pouted.

"Okay big boy I'm gonna get you some water" you say, getting up once again, yet his hand stops you, grabbing your wrist tightly.

You looked at him, startled. His drunken state is visible, and it felt frustrating that you had to be the one sobering up for him. The music vibrated through the wall he leaned against, somehow tickling him, making him giggle.

"Stay," he managed to say, eyes half closed, "I'm so glad we're- Fuck things are spinning so much" his hands rushed to his eyes and his head hung low, "Ah fuck. I'm so glad we're datin- Fuck, no, oops-" he continued laughing despite how sick he felt, the whole situation sounding hilarious when filtered through alcohol.

You giggled along with him, mostly because you wanted to see if you could convince him to move, scared he might feel worse or pass out on the cold floor if he doesn't do so. "Fake dating. Fake dating, I know. I knowww" he continued, his words dragged and his finger pointing at you before poking your nose with such innocent sweetness you were taken aback.

"Max" you tried to sound more assertive but found it hard to do so, your own intoxicated state making the situation lighter than what it actually was. Your heart racing was a symptom of it, one you wouldn't feel if sobriety was an option, you thought. Max's eyes wouldn't seem to stare at you differently were he sober as well, and the way he scanned your features, his gaze staying on your lips for longer than expected, wouldn't affect you in the slightest had you not drank some alcohol.

"I like it when you say my name" he looked up at you innocently, pleading, almost.

"Want me to say it again?" you asked, smiling. You complied with these demands because you knew they were childish whims of an intoxicated man, his happiness a priority in times like these. Upon his nod, you started saying his name, half teasingly, half reassuringly, the leaves rustling in the garden behind you.

"Max... Max!! Max Max-"

He shouldn't. It would complicate things, and he liked when they were simple, clean and organized. He knew he shouldn't even when his whole vision spun and his brain convinced him that he should do things he would never do otherwise. But every time he refrained from saying something he would stumble across all his words and trip and fall and his head would only hurt more, and it seemed as if he could only focus if he kept listening to you and talking to you and looking at you.

The lights shone behind you in a way that made it feel as though he was dreaming, like you were a mirage, too good to be true. Maybe his friends were right - you weren't actually real. He wanted to be sure, in that moment. That you were real and that he wanted you as much as he thought. And though he shouldn't, though it was a terrible idea, he couldn't help but lean over to kiss you.

He tasted like champagne - bubbly and slightly sweet, his movements sloppy given his state, yet you couldn't help but drink it all in. Part of you - a big part - reciprocated the kiss, felt his fingers on the side of your neck, pulling you messily towards him, and tried to steady him, guiding him gently with your own lips.

It was odd, how this felt so right yet the fake hand holding didn't. As Max kissed you, that thought entered his clouded mind - did it feel wrong because it was fake and this was real? Your skin felt so soft, so much softer now he could touch it freely and unapologetically.

"Fuck-" he started, pulling away, his head resting against the wall once again as he stared at you, noticing how it hasn't hit you yet; what you just did, how it affected everything. "I fucking love you" he shrugged as you fixed your hair, pausing with arms raised for a few seconds before smiling softly.

"You're drunk" you replied, looking at his own grin, the gleam in his eyes making him appear both innocent and guilty of so many things.

"I'm drunk and I fucking love you"

"Max..." you started, and he said your name back to you with such tenderness you couldn't believe his lips tasted of alcohol earlier and not something sweet.

"We'll talk tomorrow, okay?" you continued, waiting for the silence to swallow you both.

[rockrosethistle]

If there's one thing TGWDLM fans are gonna do, it's think about the implications. And the implications of the opening number are crazy.

So. We know that the show isn't completely chronological since the opening number takes place before the meteor hits. So that song is a sort of "flash forward" moment. But when you think about it, we don't really know how far in the future it takes place.

What we do know is that by the time it's happening, Emma is infected. She has a little solo in it singing about how Paul is pining over a barista

And we know that this is meant to be an infected Emma specifically. Lauren had other characters in the show, if they wanted to avoid the Emma implication they would've just dressed her as one of those.

So we know this is meant to be Emma.

And Emma isn't infected until the very end of the show. She's dragged off stage during the credits. So since she's infected in the opening number, we know the number takes place after the events of the show.

Another important detail is that Paul is infected before Emma. He's the one that passes it on to her.

So back to the opening number, Emma is infected. Which means by just following a simple timeline, Paul must also be infected. He should be singing and dancing, right?

But that's not what happens. Paul misses his entrance.

If Paul is infected, then there's no reason he should be missing his entrance. Furthermore, if he's a part of a hive mind, there's no reason other members of the same hive mind shouldn't know where he is. They are literally all connected by one brain, and yet both Mr. Davidson and Bill express they have no clue where he went.

What I'm saying is that Paul is not infected. He was infected (again, we know that because Emma is infected and he was infected before her) but now he's not anymore.

I'm saying there's a way out of the hive, and Paul found it. That's the only explanation that makes sense given the facts of the situation. Sometime after the events of tgwdlm, Paul is able not only to break out the hive mind, but to hide from it.

And if he broke out, others could do the same. Maybe even Emma.

Edit because a countertheory has emerged: Yes it's possible that everyone is infected the entire time and the show itself is just Pokey replaying the events for the fun of it. But it seems unlikely to me. First of all, each of the Lords in Black has a distinct personality. They all are evil, but within that they seems to fall somewhere on a spectrum of "silly billy" to "prick." For example, Tinky is more of a silly billy. He toys with humans without much of a motive and more for just shits and giggles. But in every instance, Pokey's more on the extreme side of prick.

He's one of the few with an actual motive behind what he does. In Yellowjacket, it's confirmed that Pokotho hates the sound of anyone's voice except for his own. The events of TGWDLM don't happen because Pokey is bored, they happen because he is executing a plan. So I don't think that he would just have them play out their little scenario just to entertain him, especially just one small island? I just feel like he'd be more focused on world domination.

If the theory is that all this is happening after Pokey's already taken over the whole world, no one was successful in stopping him, then yes it's plausible, but still weird. There are a strange amount of things in that show you just think an eldritch god wouldn't include.

Edit 2: New evidence has emerged???

The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals is loosely based off of Invasion of The Body Snatchers. Paul's last name is even a nod to the main character, Matthew. At the end of the film, Matthew survives, and continues living among the infected, pretending to be one of them. And wouldn't that be just such a fun little parallel...

Obviously it doesn't prove anything but the source material doesn't lie folks.

[damneddamsy]

falling | joel miller x fem!oc (part xii)

THEOREM OF BECOMING—Transformation is not a moment, but a process.

summary: The journey back to Jackson is full of make-believe of a life that almost feels like it's coming true.

a/n: woohoo, happy AAPI month! I'm sorry this update took so long, I was so indecisive on how I wanted this chapter to end, and what I wanted to depict, especially at the end when it was hard for me to decide where I wanted to place all of them... I just hope it turned out okay! one more chapter left before the epilogue :)

word count: 12,800+ words (dare I say, a short one?)

Joel tried to imagine himself at university. Outlandish things like, what would’ve happened if the world had given him a second door to open?

Because being here—goddamn. It was hard not to wonder what it might’ve felt like, walking into a place like this with a backpack and purpose instead of a rifle and regret.

What kind of kid would Joel have been, sitting in one of those chairs? Twenty years old, maybe. Hell—eighteen if he'd played it straight. No Sarah. No mortgage. No busted-up drywall jobs. No worry about gas bills or whether the AC would hold another summer.

Fuck no, he wouldn't do whatever it was Leela was doing in that lab, with data and diagrams that looked like chicken scratch to him. He would want a degree in something that lets the brain wander. A major in liberal arts, maybe. History. Music theory sounded nice. All that “not real work” crapola folks in his neighbourhood used to scoff at.

He’d always had a good head on him—just never the time or the cash to spend chasing someone else’s definition of smart. See, college wasn’t for men like him. Places like this weren’t made for people like him.

It was a gate you needed a key for, and that key used to cost fuck-ton loans and inevitable debt. More than he ever had or would have.

But that never meant he wasn’t curious. Never meant he didn’t know things.

Truth was, Joel used to like ideas. He liked stories. He read when he could. Listened. Paid attention. Watched old movies with Sarah, sometimes caught the way dialogue turned into meaning. Took in books secondhand, borrowed from neighbours, dog-eared and scribbled in. Kept his head and hands busy. When he worked construction, he could out-measure, out-calculate, and out-plan any of those stiff-collared pricks with their clean hands and degrees nailed to their office walls.

Tommy used to joke that Joel could memorize a script better than a foreman could read a blueprint.

“Man, you ain’t dumb,” his baby brother said once, picking dried cement off his hands. “We’re just poor.”

And he'd agreed. Their whole academic system was a racket, just a way of putting a price tag on knowledge.

Places like Caltech were always for them—it was for the bright ones, the born-lucky, the rich kids with trust funds and internships lined up like bowling pins. Kids like Leela, in fact. He'd never set foot in a real university, let alone one like this. All that prestige and legacy. Hell, even the labs looked like spaceships.

Joel had never even been on a real campus before the world went belly-up, and now here he was, boots echoing in a dead lecture hall, listening to Leela piece together the last remnants of science like she was born for it.

He stood halfway down the sloped aisle, one hand dragging along the edge of a long desk. The laminate was peeling at the corners. He could picture a thousand students slouched here over the decades, bent over laptops or spiral notebooks, yawning, scrawling notes they’d forget the second finals ended.

Behind him, Ellie climbed onto the stage at the bottom of the hall, testing the strength of the lectern like a kid playing teacher. Her voice carried, all grin and gravel.

“Bet you’d sit in the back row. Right, Joel?”

Joel smirked. “Only place I could get away with nappin’.”

“Or so you think. I’d definitely be front row. Raising my hand. Asking annoying questions.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Ain’t nothin’ changed.”

“Pft, whatever.”

Beyond the doors, down the corridor, he could just make out the faint click-clack of keys—Leela, working in the lab with that same eerie calm she always had when the world dropped away and it was just her and the numbers. Her silhouette had barely shifted in an hour. Her hair was loose, falling over one shoulder, half in the light. She looked like she belonged in there.

“Y’know,” he drawled out to Ellie from somewhere inside his head, “I think she and I… if we’d met like that back then… we’d’ve found each other.”

Ellie didn't tease him about it. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. I’d be the guy just tryin’ to keep up. Probably complainin’ about the campus coffee and the goddamn parking passes.”

She grinned. “She’d dodge you for two whole weeks.”

“Hm. Sounds ‘bout right.”

“Then one day you’d say something too smart that’d make her stop and think. And boom. Now you’re study partners.”

He sighed. “I ain’t smart, kiddo.”

“Nah, you’re smart.”

“Not that kinda smart.”

“Bullshit. You literally remember everything. Details. Faces. The way you describe a guy’s boots, I feel like I was there.”

Joel clucked his tongue. “You learn to read people when your life depends on it.”

She shrugged. “Still counts.”

He didn’t answer, but his mouth twitched—somewhere between a smile and a grimace. “Hey, know what else? She’d’ve helped me cheat on a math exam.”

“Ha, no way. Leela would smack you across the face.”

He rubbed his jaw, the beginnings of a smile ghosting across his mouth. “But she’d tutor me. Make me memorise some dumb equation by makin’ it a song or somethin’. She hums that stuff sometimes, y'know? 'Spretty cute.”

Ellie gave him a look—half fond, half exasperated. “Jesus. Jesse was right. You're cuntstruck.”

“Ellie,” he muttered, more warning than scolding, but it didn’t carry much heat.

“Aw, c’mon, Joel. Can you just imagine a life where,” she sighed, “you just live that time-honoured, grey area of life? Be a normal dude with a college sweetheart or some shit?”

“How the hell do you know all that?”

“I'm just that baller.”

“Jesus.”

Now, Joel meant to leave it there, but the thought had already taken root.

He let his eyes drift toward the broken chalkboard at the front of the room, and the lecture hall around them seemed to grow in his mind—less ruin, more memory of something he never had.

He imagined Leela sitting at a desk beside him, in a school that let smart kids like her and dumbasses like him sit together—just one of those big halls with sticky floors and ceiling fans that clicked when they turned, where the smart ones always found the front row and the tired ones sat wherever the sun didn’t hit their eyes. She’d be chewing a pen cap, probably, maybe twirling a strand of hair around her finger, nodding all serious while some professor went off about Gödel or Fermat or one of those names that felt more like hexes than people. Joel wouldn’t understand a lick of it—not even on his best, most caffeinated day.

But maybe—she’d lean in, whisper it in Layman's for him. Not to make him feel dumb, but because she wanted him to know. All sweet, patient, gracious Leela.

He’d pretend to follow along, nodding at the right times, but mostly he’d be watching the way her mouth moved around the words, the way her brows bunched up when she really got into it. Watching the gears turn in her beautiful, brilliant head. Joel still did that, when she went off on a tangent in their living room between her blackboards, he'd just want her to kiss her until she was blue in the face.

He nevertheless would've fallen so damn hard for her. Right on his ass. No question about it.

Wouldn’t have taken him long to ask her out, either—not if they’d met like that. Not if she didn’t already know all the things the world had done to a man like him. He would have acted like his balls had just dropped or something—nervous as hell, but trying to play it cool. Sweaty palms, rehearsed lines in front of his mirror. Something about those big, dark eyes of hers, her fancy shoes, or her mint-condition books. Something along the lines of: I promise I’m more interesting than I look… though I realise the bar’s low since I’ve been standing here staring at you for the last thirty seconds.

And if she’d fold and giggle ‘okay’—and he liked to believe she would—he’d take her out someplace decent. Someplace with candlelight, silverware, suited waiters, cloches and folded napkins. He’d pick her up in front of her building. Show up with a fat bouquet of daisies. Pull her chair out for her at dinner. Hold the door. Call her ma’am without even thinking. He would be flat-broke in that life too, but he was raised right with Texan manners imbued upon him by Mr and Mrs Miller, after all.

Leela would probably tease him a little, maybe make fun of how stiff his shirt collar was or how he kept checking the long-ass bill like it was going to change. But she’d smile through it and offer to go Dutch instead. That rare, toothy smile of hers that made her look so young, unguarded and just a little bit shy.

He imagined them walking back across campus after—quiet, inseparable, arm around his. Maybe it was autumn. Maybe the crimson maple leaves crunched under their feet, and she kept pushing her hands into the sleeves of her coat like she always did when she was cold but didn’t want to say so. Maybe he’d offer his jacket. Maybe she’d take it. Maybe he’d blow into her hands in an attempt to kiss them.

Maybe that night, standing outside her place, she’d look up at him with that same quiet challenge in her eyes she had now—like she was daring him to be gentle.

And he would’ve been. Gentle as fuck. Their first kiss wouldn’t have been some clumsy, rushed thing. No desperation. No fear of the dark coming back. Just... time. Time you don’t know you’re wasting until it’s gone.

He imagined her fingers curled into his coat on maybe their fourth date, maybe he'd just taken her out ice-skating or bowling, and she would push the coat off him, and pull him a little closer. Stay with me tonight. A breath caught between their lips. And maybe—God help him—maybe they’d have stumbled into the fancy elevator of her expensive off-campus apartment, shoes kicked off halfway, giggling when she nearly tripped over her own purse left by the door. He’d catch her waist, steady her, and she’d glance at him with those mischievous eyes that already knew what he wanted. I want all of you.

They’d lock the door behind them, not because they had to, but because they could—because no one was chasing them, nothing was breathing down their necks. Just a night in. Quiet. Private. Theirs.

The desk lamp would still be on, casting light over her math books still open, forgotten now, pages fluttering. Her room would be warm, a little cluttered, with too many books for one person. A corkboard with pinned movie stubs and Post-it reminders. A polaroid of them, maybe, from some campus event—Joel squinting at the lens, Leela mid-laugh as always, her nose scrunched in that way he loved.

They’d peel off layers slowly. Clothes in a trail from the doorway to the bed. His shirt, her dress, his belt, her tights, his boxers. Her bra hanging from the lamp. They’d laugh a little, giggling some, fumbling with the condom in his wallet like it was a joke they’d made earlier in the week—about how just in case that had suddenly become now.

No pressure. No pain. First times. A night they got to have too late. No urgency, no hunger born from grief or fear. Just intimacy. Just plain, affectionate, stumbling, careful sex. Earned. Trusted. Wanted.

He pictured them afterwards, her curled against him beneath tangled sheets, tracing lazy shapes on his chest while the radiator clanked in protest against the cold. Nodding while they discussed their upcoming test, how she’d incentivise him with a kiss for each question he scored, fingers moving through her hair, catching on a tiny braid she must’ve done while studying.

The window would fog up by morning. They’d sleep through their alarms. Maybe skip class like dumb rebels. Maybe make breakfast instead—pancakes from a box, the batter too thick, the frying pan too hot. He’d burn the first one and she’d steal it anyway, kissing him with syrup on her lips. Good fuckin' morning to me.

They’d graduate together, in this life. He’d be in the back row on ceremony day, shoes shined for once, hair swept back neatly, watching his best girl stride across the stage to grab her scroll. Top of her class, honour roll, summa cum laude. Maybe he didn’t get a diploma of his own—maybe he took night classes, taking the slow route out—but he’d be there, standing up before anyone else, clapping like hell, hooting her name with his hands cupped around his lips.

And she’d find him later, tassel on her crooked hat flying, gown wrinkled, eyes shining, leaping into his arms, and he’d spin her about. Kiss her right there in the crowd like he was the luckiest son of a bitch alive.

And in that life—the life he never got—maybe they’d go on like that for years. Their families are all tight-knit, spending holidays together, all of them waiting on hand and foot for Joel to pop the question, but he promised his girl all the time in the world. No muss, no fuss.

Graduation photos in front of some ivy-covered wall. Travel photos of the two of them from roadtrips and weekend escapes—mountains in Telluride, coasts in Monterey, lighthouses in Nantucket. Maybe later they’d rent a shitty apartment together in a big city even if he hated it—New York, or London, or some big German town with a zigzag skyline and a bakery on every corner—while she chased her PhD dreams and he’d just be happy to take care of them. Joel would take on carpentry jobs to keep the lights on and fix things around the building in exchange for rent. He'd play gigs, strum his old guitar, in pubs and bars all night for a good sum of cash. Patch the leaky sink with elbow grease. Assembling furniture that they couldn’t afford to buy. Shelves full of her notes. Coffee rings on the floor. Late-night supermarket runs. Eat dinner for breakfast and fall asleep with her textbooks open between them. The laughter of a life being made from scratch.

And maybe one day, not in a church, not even in a courthouse—but under that oak tree just outside her big, white house in Jackson, they’d say their vows. Soft ones. Barely louder than the wind. Just a handful of people who mattered, a patch of wildflowers in springtime, and the gold ring he’d carried in his pocket for years. Her hand in his, sliding the band into place. Her thumb brushing his knuckles while he tried not to cry. I offer you all I have, my dumbass and beating heart.

And she’d laugh when he picked her up, white dress, veil and all, just to prove he still could, and carry her over the threshold, whilst her sandals dangled from his fingers. They'd make love like it was the first time, on a nice, month-long honeymoon in the Maldives or Bali, on a linen, canopy-frame bed that wobbled by the time they were through.

And one day, he’d come home—sawdust still in his hair, tired to the bone, aching for his long shower—only to find a positive test on the bathroom sink, and they’d smile at each other like they’d just won the lottery. Those soft, teary eyes they’d share. You think we've got room for one more around here?

And from that moment on, Joel would've been all in. No half-measures. No second-guessing. Just him, right in her pocket. He wouldn’t leave her side unless he had to—work, maybe, or some emergency—and even then, she’d be on speed dial (not that she already wasn’t). He’d check in constantly. Make sure she was drinking water, eating enough. Sitting her antsy ass down.

Late at night, he’d press his ear to her belly, grinning when their baby kicked like she already had her mama’s fire. He’d murmur promises against her skin—about giving her the world, about love, about never missing a thing again. And he’d mean every damn word.

He wouldn’t miss a single ultrasound, even if the clinic was across town and the truck was coughing smoke. He’d be there for all of it—Lamaze classes, nausea, mood swings, sleepless nights, midnight drives for god-knows-what. He’d baby-proof every damn inch of the house, stock the cabinets with baby items, triple-check the crib screws, read every parenting book he could find, even the ones with goofy cartoon covers.

Overbearing? For fucking sure. She might threaten to divorce him half a dozen times before the third trimester—but he’d take it, all of it. With a grin and a kiss and a Yes, ma’am.

And when it was time—when the world narrowed to a hospital room and the sound of her hurting wails—he’d be right there, surgical gown and all, holding her hand through every contraction, brushing damp hair from her face, whispering through the panic, through his heart tearing in two: I’m right here, baby. I ain’t going anywhere.

And Maya would come hollering into their lives. Of course, that’s what they’d name her in this life, too. Radiant, beautiful, nascent Maya, looking just like her mama and holding his heart in her tiny fist. All that imagining he’d ever done—every if, every maybe—had somehow led to this little girl he called his.

He pictured Maya clearly in that other life—the one that never got to be. Toddling around their grad-school apartment, leaping onto his stomach in PJs on a lazy Sunday morning, giggling through a mouthful of sugary cereal while Leela chased after their little thief, trying to snatch the box from her sticky hands. One sock is on, and the other is always missing. Her wild curls bouncing as she ran to him when he walked through the door—always early, maybe this time in a stable job which involved him wearing a suit and tie, lugging a briefcase—arms outstretched, shrieking Da-da! like he was some kind of superhero, and without fail, he'd rain at least a hundred kisses on her before letting her go.

She’d throw a fit in the toy aisle over exactly the faulty stuffed animal, with lopsided eyes and a ripped tag, and Joel would fold like wet paper the second she pouted.

And if the bad times did come, the only arguments he and Leela might’ve had were the soft kind, inconsequential—disagreements over something like Joel’s brief, doomed venture into stocks, or Leela being scatterbrained with the grocery runs, or whether Maya should go to that elite preschool an hour away with the long waitlist and sterling reputation. Joel would’ve wanted the best for her, the kind of start he never had. But Leela would just want to keep Maya close a little longer, probably even attempt to homeschool her if she could swing it.

They’d make up over pizza on the couch—Maya asleep between them, still clutching that faulty toy, cartoons flickering on the TV. Their fingers would find each other over the back of her blanket, apology and forgiveness exchanged without a single word spoken.

And thereafter, the mornings were ones where he'd juggle coffee cups, lunch bags and backpacks, dropping Leela off at her university, her hair still wet from a rushed shower, pencil skirt on a tight ass that waited for it's morning squeeze, a thick binder clutched to her chest, a soft lingering kisses shared over the console; and then Maya in the backseat, singing along to the radio, squealing when he pulled up to her school next. She’d barely get her backpack on before she tore across the pavement to her friends, flashing Joel a quick flying kiss and a grin that damn near knocked the wind out of him every time.

And at night—the three of them crammed around a too-small kitchen table, Leela would sit, drafting her research papers or scribbling in a notebook, Maya in her lap, doodling in the margins, asking about black holes and dinosaurs in the same breath. Leela would answer every question like it was the most important one she’d ever been asked. Joel would just listen, smiling into his beer, tuck the moment away somewhere safe inside him, like a man who knew exactly how fragile good things could be.

And Maya would believe everything her mama told her. Because why wouldn’t she?

Joel blinked, staring at the cracked chalkboard. The room was silent, save for Ellie’s soft humming and the hum of distant power from the lab down the hall.

But that life—that life—wasn’t the one they got.

But maybe... maybe it wasn’t too late for some piece of it. Not the degrees or the papers.

But the love part. The quiet part.

Maybe that kind of life still had a place in this one. Maybe that was still real. Maybe it was standing just down the hall, surrounded by equations, stubborn as ever.

He smiled to himself, soft and stupid, like a man who’d just lived a whole other life in three minutes.

A loud metallic clatter broke the spell.

Joel turned—slow, blinking like he'd just woken from a dream—and found Ellie grinning at him, holding up a dusty diploma frame like she’d just pulled a sword from a stone. The glass was cracked in one corner, the name beneath faded and half-eaten by sun and decay. But scrawled across the middle in thick, unapologetic black marker was something brand new:

Dr. Leela Miller.

“Well,” Ellie said, lifting it higher like a trophy, “I didn’t know her last name, so…”

Joel stared. His breath caught on something warm.

“Reed,” he said, slow and quiet, like the name had weight. Affection weaved through it like a thread. “But this… this is fine.”

He could almost see it—this on the wall of that little apartment they never had. Over a desk cluttered with paper and empty mugs and one tiny sock, someone still hadn’t found the match for.

Ellie held it out to him like a kid offering a crayon drawing. “It’s probably not, y’know, technically accredited,” she said with a crooked smile. “D'you think she'll feel a little better?”

He snorted, folding his arms. “That's a ten-dollar word from a dollar-sized person.”

“Hey, fuck you.”

He gave her a look, soft and knowing. “Well, Leela won’t say it right now, but yeah. She will.”

Then he glanced across the hall.

There she was—his smartass, hunched on a table littered with papers and old, curling printouts. Leela had one hand braced against the edge, the other pressed over her mouth like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Her fingers moved through a page, tracing lines of ink like a woman touching scripture. Like she was holding a piece of a language she'd thought was long dead.

Joel brought two fingers to his lips and let out a sharp, low whistle.

Across the hall, Leela jolted a little—more like a reflex than real surprise—blinking over at him with a stunned, empty look. It cracked after a second, softening into something small and sheepish, but Joel didn’t miss the way she moved, like she was dragging herself up from somewhere far away.

He tipped his head toward her, half a smirk pulling at his mouth, trying to keep it easy, light.

“Weather’s turnin’,” he called, voice carrying across the dusty floorboards. “We oughta get movin’ along before it gets any worse.”

“Um...”

Leela hesitated, staring back at the whirring, flickering monitor like it was something alive she’d been charged with keeping breathing. Her hand lifted slowly, clumsily, brushing her hair out of her face with the back of her wrist.

She gave a stiff little nod—obedient, automatic, like she wasn’t even aware of doing it.

Joel opened his mouth—half-ready to tell her it was fine if she needed more time—but Ellie piped up behind him.

“Ooh, we gotta head down to the coast first. Ay, you promised the beach, old man!”

Joel felt the beginnings of a headache forming behind his eyes. He turned slightly, cutting a look back at Leela for silent backup.

And Leela just shrugged. Just the barest hitch of her shoulders, like even the decision didn’t mean much anymore. Her mouth twitched at the corners, a hint of old amusement surfacing and dying again all at once.

“I've almost finished the upload,” she said, tapping the corner of the monitor, where some ancient progress bar crawled along painfully slow. “Just... eleven more minutes.”

Eleven minutes.

It used to drive Joel a little crazy, if he was honest. He’d thought it was grief or obsession. Maybe denial. He’d even thought as much, once—there wasn’t anyone left who cared about prime numbers and proof sheets. Leela's long nights hunched over scavenged paper, her fingers smudged with graphite and ash, scribbling until her wrist cramped. A fucking waste indeed.

No one needed the big hypothesis solved when there were clickers on the road and medicine running thin.

And now he saw it.

She wasn’t trying to bring the old world back. She was trying to make sure some vestige of it survived.

Not the comforts. Not its power grids or grocery stores, or monuments. But it's thinking. It's questions. The bones of the mind that had once built bridges and satellites and figured out how to split atoms. She was keeping that, preserving hope for the world that would eventually look back.

And she was sending it forward like a time capsule in the shape of code—across a patchy uplink, through battered infrastructure, to a settlement that might not even know what to do with it.

One day, someone would.

Someone with a mind like hers. Someone with less blood on their hands and more time. A student, a child, a generation down the line who’d never seen the world fall and might still wonder how it once stood.

She was sending it all to Jackson—not as salvation, maybe, but as seed.

Something to plant. Something to grow if they ever got a spring again.

And if that someone asked, if they searched—she’d be there. In the pages, in the math. In the margins, scrawled with her restless handwriting. A woman who had no lab, no colleagues, no safety, but still sat down and thought.

Joel rubbed his thumb over a dent in the metal of the desk. It was humbling, what she was doing. Quiet and unadorned, the way most real things were.

And for the first time, he didn’t feel far from her work. He didn’t feel like it belonged to a world he couldn’t touch. He was somehow a part of it, too.

He exhaled through his nose, scratching the back of his neck. Eleven minutes. Seemed like a small enough thing after everything they'd been through.

He shifted his weight, the old floor creaking under his boots, and his gaze caught on the diploma again—still cradled in Ellie’s hands, the cracked glass catching the faint grey light.

Dr. Leela Miller.

Miller.

His name. His... wife.

He hadn't expected it to hit him like that. The word sitting there plain and heavy, stitched onto her like it had always belonged. The beginning of his other life.

His name stitched there so plainly, so firmly, like it had always been meant to sit against her like that. A jolt went through him—sharp and unexpected—settling low in his gut like a stone thrown into deep water.

He could almost see it, just for a second—clearer than any dream he ever allowed himself to linger on: Leela standing beside him at some clean, sun-warmed courthouse, signing her new name across the marriage license with a little grimace, muttering about how bureaucratic nonsense would outlive them all. Joel, laughing under his breath, taking the pen after her, signing his name next to hers. The flash of a cheap camera. The clap of a judge’s hand on his back. Her grinning face turned up to his, awaiting a congratulatory kiss. And he would make it linger, pressing two, three, four kisses before he murmured against her lips: You alright there, Mrs Miller?

Yes, Joel didn’t feel the press of the world closing in.

He just stood there, hands planted firm on his hips, heart too big for his ribs, and thought, Maybe it ain’t the life I thought I'd have.

When he was young—back before the world cracked open—he thought he understood what a good life was supposed to look like. Steady work. A home. A little backyard for Sarah to tear around in. A dog, one of those loud mutts that drove the neighbours crazy. Bills paid on time. Supper on the table by six. Simple. Straightforward. A line you followed if you kept your head down and your hands busy.

He’d built toward that life once. Brick by brick. Sweat and sacrifice and stubbornness. And he’d watched it all turn to ash in a single night, leaving nothing but the brutal math of survival behind.

Wake up. Choke down rations. Shoot. Kill without a thought. Stay alive. Sleep with one eye open. Repeat.

Hope had been a dangerous thing after that, an unaffordable luxury. Like college.

But standing here now, and Leela hunkered over that blinking screen like she was fighting the universe itself to save what little good was left in it—Joel realised he’d been wrong about what makes a life and what was worth holding onto.

It wasn’t about clean houses or paid-off trucks or picture-perfect little towns.

It was about this.

It was about watching the woman he loved refuse to give up on the world, even when the world had given up on her. It was about Ellie clutching a battered diploma like it was the goddamn Declaration of Independence, blinking out the window like a daydreaming college kid who still believed she’d make it here. It was about Maya somewhere back home, waiting, safe, growing up in a place that hadn’t been paved over by fear.

It was about them.

So, why not... breathe life into that other reality?

Joel shifted slightly, his hand drifting to his pocket—more out of habit than thought. His fingers closed around the small thing he’d stashed there weeks ago, careful not to draw attention to it.

Rolled it between his fingers sometimes, in replacement for the brass button that Maya had bestowed on him—in quiet moments, when no one was looking. Like maybe if he kept turning it long enough, the edges would smooth out, the crack in the band would seal, and time would forget whatever broke it.

It wasn’t much to look at. Just a beat-up old ring he’d pocketed back in Vegas, half-buried in dust beneath a shattered display case. The stone was gone. The band was thin and cracked, barely holding together. Still, he’d kept it. Couldn’t say why at first. Just felt right in his hand—small, broken, stubborn. Reminded him of someone.

Lately, he’d been thinking about what he might do with it. How he could fix it, in his own way. Maybe shave a sliver of intricate wood into the place where the diamond used to be. Not anything fancy, maybe a flower. She liked sunflowers. Just something honest. Pine, maybe—she always smelled like pine sometimes. Or walnut, strong and durable, like him. Something alive, something that wouldn’t shine too bright, but would still catch the amalgam of Leela.

He didn’t know if he’d ever give it to her. Or when. Or if she’d even want it.

Hell, he didn’t even know what he’d say.

But he carried it with hope anyway.

That was the strange part. It wasn’t really the ring that mattered—it was the idea. That someday, there might be room for something like that between them. Not as some big gesture. Not to fix anything. Just to say: this is still yours if you want it. Just to prove he still believed in what could come next.

Maybe sometimes love looked like a broken ring in a calloused hand, waiting for a world soft enough to give it back.

The sharp things—the grief, the anger, the failure—they were still there, rooted deep under his skin like old thorns. They always would be. But for once, Joel could see something else threading through it. A quieter kind of ache. Not the pain of losing, but the ache of wanting.

He wanted the kind of life that didn’t just survive the world’s ending—but stubbornly, stupidly, beautifully outlived it.

He wanted her, and Ellie, and Maya, and every goddamn scraped-together piece of a future he never thought he'd deserve.

And in this dead place, in the flicker of failing light and old dreams burned onto curling paper, Joel believed—just a little—that maybe this had all been for something. After all, maybe they hadn't come all this way just to bury what was lost. Perhaps they were here to carry it forward.

Maybe they were the ones meant to build what came next.

His throat felt tight, but he welcomed it. A man could learn to carry that feeling. He should carry it. Get used to it. All these good things he was doing.

He slipped the ring back into his pocket, careful, like it might bruise. Gave the pocket a small, reassuring pat.

He glanced at Leela, at the way she leaned into the light like a plant aching for the sun, and felt that wild, wordless thing rise again inside him.

Ours, he thought. Not just hers. Not just his.

Ours.

X

The ocean resembled a busted mirror.

Not glittering or big or blue. Just slabs of grey and darker grey, churning slow under the breadth of a sky that didn’t give a damn. The wind came off the water in lazy fits, carrying salt and rot and the memory of heat that had long since packed up and gone.

Wind tugged at what was left of the boardwalk nearby, a few slats still clinging on like they didn’t know how to fall properly. Rusted carnival lights hung in strips. Booths were gutted. A souvenir shack had collapsed into itself, hurling faded postcards and cracked plastic mugs across the ground. He saw a cracked one half-buried in the dune: I Survived Santa Monica Pier. Bit fucking ironic.

The sea had taken it all back. The joy. The noise. The crowds. It felt biblical, in a way. Like the tide was the big guy's long exhale.

Joel stood at the edge of it all—boots half-buried in wet sand, stepping over a tangled snarl of sea-bleached fishing net fibres, arms crossed against the cold that kept slipping under his jacket. The pier beyond was a half-collapsed skeleton, stripped bare, its spine curling out into the surf with broken ribs of wood jutting upward. Boats still rocked gently in the distance—untouched, paint peeling, sails long since devoured by saline winds, hulls soft with barnacles and time. No lights. No squalling. Not even of birds.

Funny. He used to think that if they ever made it to the coast, something would change. That maybe it’d feel like the end of the road—or the start of something. No, this was just another place the world forgot.

Ellie was already out near the waterline, her boots discarded in a heap beside a tide pool. She’d rolled up her jeans and waded ankle-deep into the cold muck, laughing as she scratched her name into the sand with a busted piece of driftwood. She looked so small like that. Innocent. Her shoulders loose, grin so secretive. He didn't get to see that often.

He watched her kneel, tongue poking slightly out in concentration, and for a moment—just a flicker—it wasn’t Ellie crouched in the sand.

It was Sarah.

Not imagined, not hoped. Saw. Not older, not younger—just as she was the day he lost her.

Kneeling beside her, seaweed looped over her wrist like bracelets, giggling about how it was going to get washed away but doing it anyway. He could see her—clearer than anything. Her head of sunlit curls, tossed by the wind. Making a heart out of the seaweed. Lining the letters with broken shells. Elbowing Ellie with that half-teasing grin she used to have, the one that always said, Do not mess this up for me, Dad.

He clenched his jaw. Swallowed hard. Blinked until the double image snapped apart again, rattled the thought loose from his head, and it was just Ellie again, whistling tunelessly, digging up dead coral to decorate her crude scrawl in the sand.

Goddamn, was this what it was going to be now?

Visions. Ghosts. Fantasies of another life. Wishing, wanting. His mind folding over itself. Losing the thread.

Or was it just the many extremities of grief? The accumulation of too many years? Or was this the beginning of something slower and crueller? Alzheimer’s or some shit. Some fucking cordyceps variation they didn’t have a name for yet. Maybe he’d start forgetting the way back to Jackson. Maybe he already had.

He rubbed a hand across his face, dragging grit from his cheek. The salt clung to his stubble, and the ocean made his eyes sting even when the wind didn’t hit them.

A little ways off, Leela sat cross-legged on the sand, her back to the surf, little haphazard strands from her long braid slapping at her cheeks. A neat little pile of small seashells sat beside her, most of them dull with age and wear—but one, a tiny conch, recently vacated by some poor creature that hadn’t made it. It was still freshly pink inside, gleaming, faintly iridescent.

She had a needle gripped between her fingers, her brow furrowed as she carefully worked it through the shell’s spire. Every movement was methodical, like she wasn’t thinking about what she was doing, like it was all buried muscle memory. When she threaded the bit of twine through and tied a knot, she held the shell up between two fingers, inspecting, squinting at it like it was some precious thing instead of beach trash.

“For Maya,” she said quietly, flashing him a smile—small, lopsided, but real.

Joel let out a soft grunt of recognition. Awful lot of jewellery to be taking back to Jackson.

“Cute.”

He remembered that story—the one he hadn’t meant to overhear, but things stuck. Something about her old life, before Jackson, before her parents, before a child of her own. How she used to make little shell necklaces just like that one and sell them to dumb tourists along the coast back in her hometown. Overpriced junk, she’d said. That weird, lonely kind of pride people have when they remember who they used to be.

Maybe this was her way of passing it on. A sliver of childhood she could carve off and give to Maya. A small thing that said I was here. I was whole once.

He took a step closer, boots sinking into the sand, hands in his jacket pockets. “Still remember how to rip folks off, huh?”

She glanced up at him, just barely. “Who says this one’s not priceless?”

Joel smirked. “Better be. Our baby girl’s got high standards.”

That got a laugh. A real one—small, scratchy, but it cracked the stillness in a way nothing else had all day. Leela shook her head, still smiling, eyes on the necklace, watching the shell sway from its string.

A beat passed. Wind was threading through the bare bones of the city. Maybe this place had once been paradise. Joel didn’t know. All he saw now was wreckage. Absence. A ghost town choking on salt.

Behind them, far away, Ellie whooped, triumphant. “I told you, little bastard! Joel, look, that’s a motherfucking crab!”

Joel glanced over. She was crouched in the wet sand, a long stick in one hand, something small and wriggling and furious in the other. Her sleeves were shoved to her elbows, knees soaked through, hair wild in the wind. She grinned like she was twelve again. Like the world hadn’t burned down.

Another shriek from Ellie. “Holy shit—there’s more of them! A whole Jackson community!”

“Well, don’t just play with ’em. Grab a few. Might be good eatin’.”

Ellie wrinkled her nose, poking one with the tip of her stick. “Eat this? Dude, it’s got, like—claws. And it’s hard as shit.”

“That’s how you know it’s good,” Joel called back, deadpan. “Hard shell means there’s somethin’ sweet inside.”

Ellie gave him a look. “Oh, hear, hear—Wordsworth over here.”

Joel chuckled, shaking his head. “Just get a few, kiddo. We’ll see what we can do.”

“Fine,” she muttered. “But if it kills me, I’m haunting your lying ass.”

Then she dropped the crab anyway, watched it scuttle sideways into the surf with all the drama of a jail break, and burst out laughing—real, unguarded. Her laugh rippled across the beach like it didn’t know how rare it was. Like it didn’t think it was a goddamn miracle.

Joel turned back to Leela. His voice dropped, not meaning to get soft but unable to help it.

“So, is this what you pictured?”

He didn’t say the beach. He didn’t mean California. Didn’t mean the long road behind them—full of blood and breath and quiet, feral hope. Didn’t even mean the life they’d clawed together with broken fingernails and dogged luck.

Leela didn’t answer right away. She just looked out toward the horizon, the sharp line where grey sea met grey skies. Where the world used to open up into possibility, into summer vacations and shipping routes and postcards with skipping dolphins. Now it looked more like an ending. A sentence with no period.

Then she shook her head, just once. “Not even close.”

But she was still holding the shell in her hand. Still tying another knot in the twine. Still smiling, just barely. And somehow, that answer—quiet, and unfinished—was more honest than anything else she could’ve said.

Joel sat down beside her, his knees cracking like firewood. The cold bled through the seat of his jeans, but he didn’t flinch. Just sat. Facing the water.

Leela didn’t.

She was turned slightly away, angled toward the sand, toward the ground, like she’d taken some quiet oath never to look at the sea again. As if it had taken something and she wouldn’t give it the satisfaction of her eyes.

Joel laid his hand over hers, careful.

She stilled.

His palm was unpolished against hers, but he could still feel the tiny shape of the shell necklace beneath it. Warm from her skin. Light as a breath.

“Joel.”

Before she could ask him to get the fuck off her, he said, “Look, I just—”

“What do you think Maya’s going to be when she grows up?”

Leela’s voice was soft, half-swallowed by the sea wind. Not wistful, not dreamy. Just plain and curious, like she was asking about the tide.

Joel didn’t answer right away. His eyes slid back on the water—on the slow, thick roll of it, the lazy collapse of each wave as it dragged itself onto the sand. This landed hard—not because it was tragic, but because it was so normal.

And yet that question hung there. He rubbed his jaw in deep thought. That wasn’t a question people dared to ask anymore, not seriously.

Honey, what do you want to be when you grow up?

He'd asked Sarah that plenty of times. And her answer had been no-bullshit: a rockstar. He used to joke to her about it, how maybe she'd take her old man backstage one day and sign T-shirts with her primped face on it.

The world was too fucked-up now, no rulebook to follow. See, back in the old world, kids had answers ready. Doctor. Firefighter. Astronaut. Singer. Shit like that. You dreamed, you planned. You had options. Only now, the world didn’t want anything from its kids but survival. To grow up at all was a feat. To grow up and become something? That felt like a pipe dream.

Joel breathed out through his nose. He shifted in the sand, elbows on his knees, shoulders hunched against the wind.

“I dunno,” he said finally. “Ain’t somethin’ I let myself think about too much. We used to imagine the future. Now we’re just glad to get through the day.”

Leela said nothing. Just waited, steady, patient, the way she always did when she knew he wasn’t finished.

A bitter little smile curled the corner of his mouth. “Baby girl’d probably be a scavenger. Some real slick trader. Hustler like her mama used to be.”

Leela huffed softly.

“Maybe a sharpshooter,” Joel added. “Takes after Ellie. Bossy as hell.”

That made her laugh again—just a little. Joel felt it in his chest like the thinnest crack of sun through stormcloud.

He kept talking, quieter now. “Could be she ends up one of those quiet ones. People listen when she speaks. Not ‘cause she’s loud—but ‘cause she means her shit. Maybe that makes her a leader. Or a target.”

He hated that last part. But it was true.

The truth was—he didn’t really care what Maya became. He just wanted her to have the space to choose between gentleness and survival. To live long, safe, and full enough to even ask that question. And he hated the world for making him think all this shit.

“And maybe she’s just alive long enough for it to matter,” he finished. “It’s enough for me.”

Leela’s fingers paused at the shell’s knot.

Joel looked over at her, and she still wasn’t looking at the sea. Her face was turned away a little, but her eyes were distant—thinking hard, probably thinking too much.

“Does it scare you?” he asked.

She blinked slowly. “What does?”

“The future,” he stated. “What she might become.”

Leela was quiet for a long time. She pulled the twine taut, tied another knot. Maybe the third one in the same place.

Then she nodded, but it wasn’t sharp. As if something she’d carried for years, only just now saying out loud.

“I just can’t have Maya become like me, Joel,” she said.

Joel didn’t say anything because he knew what she meant. And she was fucking right.

Not just Leela's impossible intellect that she carried like a blade. Not Joel's desiccating anger. Not the endless spinning logic or the obsessive calculations that had driven her across the country in a haze of grief and purpose. Not the math or the memory or the way she could see ten steps ahead while the rest of them were still tripping over the first one.

No—she meant the burden. The self-blame. The detachment. The constant need to understand everything instead of just feeling it. The survival that looked like a function but was really just a retreat.

The way Joel disconnected. The guilt that never left. The way he didn’t flinch at corpses anymore because somewhere along the way, his empathy had learned to ration itself. The way he lived in his head because that was the only place he could guarantee no one would hurt him.

And because of all the ways they taught themselves to cope—none of them were life. They were pauses. Contractions. Damage control.

She sighed. “I thought I wanted that. I did. But after everything back there…”

She nodded toward the road that led back to the university. Toward where she'd left her hopes and regrets. A whole piece of her past.

“I realised that…” She tapped her temple, fingers light, like she was knocking on the side of something hollow. “She doesn’t need this.”

He didn’t press or fill the space like he normally would with some muttered acknowledgement, because this wasn’t a moment for patch jobs.

“This saved me,” she murmured. “The logic. The focus. It’s how I kept going after—after what happened. If I could just understand enough… if I could predict things, calculate the worst-case scenario, I could keep her safe.”

Her voice tightened. Just a bit. Joel heard it.

“She deserves more than that.”

Joel’s throat was dry. He swallowed hard, barely managing. “And now?”

Leela let out a long breath. Not weary. Just… stripped bare.

“Now I just want her to scream,” Leela said. “To run fast. To fall hard. To be loud, and wrong, and stupid—and free. I want her to feel so much that she doesn’t know where to put it. I want her to hit back, punch hard, when someone corners her. Not stand there frozen, plotting some clever escape like that’s gonna save her.”

Joel’s eyes flicked toward her.

She wasn’t looking at him. Still had her gaze fixed on the necklace in her lap, the shell swinging gently as she tied and re-tied the same knot like it was muscle memory. Like if she stopped moving, she’d splinter.

And goddamn.

That’s when it landed. What she was really saying.

He’d seen people go quiet in the worst moments of their lives—seen them freeze, let it happen, disappear behind their own eyes. Not because they were weak, but because someone, somewhere, had taught them that silence was safer than screaming. That survival meant outthinking, not resisting. That pain was something to calculate your way around.

Leela had been that sort of survivor.

“I couldn’t even save myself,” she said, bitter, flat, after a beat.

The fuck kind of thing was that to say? Making it seem like it just made sense?

Joel’s fingers tightened gently around hers, unable to unclench his jaw. “That ain’t your fault,” he reassured to an extent, teeth gritting. “You sayin’ that like it was your choice.”

She said nothing. But the silence was answer enough. And Joel couldn’t sit with that.

“I don’t give a damn what you think you didn’t do,” he muttered, heat rising in his throat like bile. “Someone took... somethin’. They did that. You think being smart, or planning a way out—fuckin’ hell—none of that would’ve mattered.”

She shook her head once. Not in argument—just acknowledgement. “No. But it still happened. And I did nothing.”

Then, finally, she looked at him.

There was no shame in her eyes. Just a brutal clarity. The kind that only came from staring something dead in the face for years and deciding to live anyway.

“I know what I am, Joel. I know what it took to survive. I know what it turned me into. And I don’t want that for her.”

Joel didn’t speak right away. There was nothing to fix. Nothing to deny. He understood her too well for that. She wasn’t afraid Maya wouldn’t make it.

She was afraid Maya would—by becoming someone like her.

“Baby, she’s gonna carry us,” he said, a promise in his voice. “But she ain’t gonna be us.”

Then he reached out, covered her hand with his—rough skin on hers, grounding her.

“She’s got us, Leela,” he added, more quietly.

And he meant every word. He knew what it was to survive through retreat. To mistake numbness for control. To wear grief like armour and call it strength.

Leela didn’t flinch. But she didn’t smile either. Her face softened—like she wanted to believe him, that she was someone worth having.

“I hope so,” she said.

They sat there a while longer, the tide crawling up toward their boots whilst Ellie shouted at them about a jellyfish. Joel felt the sting in his joints when the winds picked up, faster, saltier, sharper.

He looked down at the shell again, their hands twined around it. Small. Pink. Still shining faintly inside. Something you’d pick up on a beach day with a little girl who didn’t know the world yet.

They couldn’t offer Maya that clean world they had lived in. But they could hand her a few pieces worth carrying. And she’d figure out what to build.

For one brief moment, he let himself believe his baby girl would have the chance to answer that question one day—for real.

What do you want to be when you grow up, Maya?

X

The fire had sunk lower to the forest floor, just embers now, red, pulsing like a heartbeat under ash. Shadows lean long against the trees. Night smells like salt and old leaves, smoke in cloth, and distant sea. Boots scuffed quietly on dirt. The silence that only came late, when everyone else was asleep, or pretending to be.

“Can’t sleep either?”

“No.”

“You okay?”

“Just thinking.”

“Night too loud? I've got headphones.”

A pause. Then: “Thanks... I'm missing home.”

“Oh. Me, too..”

“Hm. It's the longest I've been away from it.”

Another pause. “Yeah?”

“I keep wondering if I’d feel different if I got back. Things just magically change.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Fabric creaks. One of them tugs their sleeves down.

“Still mad at him?”

Pause.

“…He just left. You saw how bad it got.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“And he didn’t tell me a word about the Fireflies. Or Caltech.”

“He thought he was protecting you. You know how he is.”

“That’s the problem.”

Another pause. “He said nothing. Just packed up and left. Like I’d only get in the way.”

“I know.”

“You think I meant it?”

“You sounded like you did.”

“I think I did, too. Then. I was just... so angry.”

“But now?”

A defeated sigh. “I don’t know.”

A beat.

“Maya watches the world like he does, too. I noticed.”

“She does that because she learns from him. You can’t raise a kid halfway in, halfway out. You can’t teach them to trust and then disappear when it counts.”

“Yeah, but—” Someone exhales sharply. Tosses a pebble into the fire pit. It hisses. “He came back, didn’t he?”

“Only because we followed him.”

“He came back because he’s never gonna stop coming back. That’s the whole point of him.”

Silence. A reckoning in the dark.

“You know what he told me once?”

“What?”

“He said—he didn’t think people like us got second chances. That we ruin too much. And still, every time he looks at Maya, it’s like he believes she’s the one thing he didn’t fuck up.”

Silence.

“He loves her more than he knows how to say. But he shows it. In everything. That’s the closest someone like him gets to a promise.”

“…he still left.”

“I didn't say he's good at it. He's a goddamn dick. And he was wrong.”

The voice is calm, blunt. Not trying to win. Just telling it as it was.

“But so were you. Saying you’d take her. Like she’s a thing you can lift out of him.”

Quiet again. Then: “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know.”

“I just—she’s all I have. Everything good in me went to her. I had to follow him, and I have to keep her safe. Where do I win?”

“Jesus, she is safe.”

“No, I mean... he’ll break her heart someday, I know it.”

“Fuck no. Never Joel.”

“Hmph. You sound sure.”

“He didn’t break me. And the world gave him every reason to.”

Silence again. A longer moment, this time.

“Maya asks about you when you’re not there, right? She misses you. She asks for you. But when Joel’s gone? She watches the door. She won't leave it. That’s the difference.”

A breath.

“You take her away, and you’ll still have her. But she’ll never stop watching that door.”

Then the fire popped. A shift of posture. The brush of hair against cloth.

“He didn’t get to do all that before, you know. The whole marriage and two-parent household thing. Not with…”

Another breath.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Mm-hm.”

“And you’re still thinking about kicking his ass out.”

A creaking silence.

“I’m not good at staying.”

“Me neither.”

“Then why do you?”

A small sound. Could be a laugh or a sigh. “Because he’s good at making me think I can. I’ve seen what that man does when he loves someone.”

“Doesn’t that scare you?”

“No.”

A beat. “It really should.”

“I guess that’s the difference. I'm not scared of him. Not like you are.”

“I'm not scared of Joel.”

“Bite me.”

“It’s more about what he’d give up. For us. For her. What it would turn him into.”

“A dead man.”

No response. But from the dark—

“You think you’re protecting him?”

“I think I’m trying to keep us all breathing.”

“Well. That’s one stupid way to live.”

A rustle. Someone folding their arms. “Do you hate me?”

“What?”

“For saying all this. For thinking it.”

“Of course not. If anything, it makes you more real to me.”

“…But?”

“But if you take her from him—really take her—it’ll kill him.”

“I’m not trying to hurt him.”

The silence after that settles deeper. One of them pokes at the embers with a stick, ash dancing up like fireflies.

Then, softer: “I know. That’s why it would.”

X

As if into the mouth of some ancient beast, the Jackson gates shut behind them with a final clank, steel locking steel, rusting, slow, a reluctant welcome, and for a second, it sounded like a cell door closing.

Joel walked under the shadow of it and didn’t say a word.

The sun hung low on the horizon, flooding the snow-melted streets of Jackson with a weary saffron. Familiar smells maundered through the air—woodsmoke, cattle, hay, pine needles thawing on the wind. There was boisterous laughter somewhere. Hammers. And it all felt just close enough to touch, but not quite real. Like something playing behind a looking glass.

He was back.

Somehow, again, he was still standing. Luck—or stubbornness, someone up there still not ready to let him rest—was still with him. He’d gone to California half-dead and half-stupid, and still made it out. And more than that—they had come for him. Ellie. Leela. They’d followed. Chosen to come after him.

Because he was worth saving. Because someone out there still cared if he lived or died.

That part stuck like a splinter in his chest.

He barely had time to register the weight of it before Tommy was on him, hauling him into a rib-crushing hug, laughing through a wet voice.

“Goddamn, you tough bastard. You just don’t die, huh?”

“Too much to live for, baby brother.”

Joel didn’t hug back. Not at first. Then he did—hands slow, uncooperative, gripping Tommy’s shoulders like he had to feel the bones to believe this was real.

Joel pulled back from Tommy’s grip like he’d just come up for air.

The noise of Jackson started to creep back in—the call of someone on a ladder, boots on pavement, a dog yapping in the distance. All the moving pieces of life.

He turned to his brother, voice low. “Maya?”

Tommy smiled, but it was tight around the edges.

“She’s doin’ just fine,” he said. “Caught the sniffles crying her eyes out, but she’s fine.”

Joel stiffened. “She sick?”

“I said she’s fine, Joel,” Tommy said, firmer this time. “She… she just missed her daddy, is all.”

Joel looked away.

Of course she did. And he hadn’t been there. Not for her fever. Not for the nights she cried herself hoarse. Not for the mornings when she didn’t understand why he hadn’t come back. He’d walked out with nothing but a note and the ghost of an apology, like that would hold up in a house full of silence.

They passed through the main square, Joel’s boots heavy on the stone. It all looked the same; that was what struck him most. The tedium. The cruel, gutting way the world carried on like nothing had changed. Like he hadn’t nearly drowned. Like Ellie hadn’t pulled him back from the brink. Like Leela hadn’t followed him into hell and back.

Like Maya hadn’t cried herself sick.

Then, they turned the corner. And there it was.

The big, white house.

For a moment, Joel took it in. How much he missed this place.

Its porch was half-shadowed, steps dusted with snow. The gate creaked in the wind. He used to hear it from the bedroom. Used to fix it every two weeks, he could never find the right hinges. Used to—

He swallowed.

It used to be a shape in the distance. Something he’d catch through the branches of the old oak tree on mornings, sitting like a clean dream against the sky. Back then, it was just a house. Then it was her house. Then his. A home that was anchored in history and laughter, and Leela’s quiet hum as she flipped a page in her notebook. Full of Maya’s shrieks, toy horses skittering across the floor, her squeaky boots thumping against the wood.

Now, it just looked... tall. Unreachable. Like he’d have to climb back up the whole goddamn mountain to get inside again.

He had left something whole and returned to find it grown in his absence, evolved without him—carved deeper, tighter, stronger. Or maybe that was just him. His fear of losing.

Tommy called out, “Maria’s up ahead—she brought baby girl down the block to get some fresh air. Cranky all goddamn morning. She won't listen to anyone unless it's me.”

“Why's that?”

He sighed. “Guess I remind her of her old man.”

Jesus Christ, this was going to hurt like a bitch.

Joel’s head lifted.

And then he saw her.

A small figure on the porch.

Standing just like she used to, on the top step—like she always did when she waited for him after patrol. One mittened hand resting on the railing, the other clutching that old stuffed horse, ears chewed and fur matted from love.

She was watching the path. Waiting. Lips trembling like her whole world had been breaking every hour they were gone.

His feet wouldn’t move.

Her curls were a little softer now, matted, darker. Her coat was buttoned crooked, boots mismatched, nose splotchy from a recovering fever and maybe something else—like she knew something was coming. Some part of her did.

He took a half-step forward and stopped himself.

Then—

“Mama!”

The word left her like a crack splitting open. Her eyes widened. Her whole body leaned forward as if pulled. Arms out. Little hands grabbing at the air.

“Mama, mama—ha—come—Mama—”

It was the kind of sound only babies could make. Too raw to fake, too loud for their size.

And she teetered on the step, wailing.

Not to him. Not even a glance.

Just attempting to barrel forward to her mother, stubby legs churning, the toy horse flopping from her hand.

Joel felt it like a bullet.

Every effort she took—away from him, toward Leela—landed heavy in his gut. It was instinct. Pure. Unforgiving. She had learned that when someone disappears, you hold tighter to the one who doesn’t. The one who stayed.

Joel barely noticed Leela rush past him, knees bending, a ghost trying to reassemble a body—and didn’t even register the blur of movement until she was halfway to the porch, arms already outstretched. Her eyes were wet but unshed, her mouth twitching like she was keeping herself stitched shut by force.

Maya crashed into her, as if her mother made her real.

“Mama, Mama…”

No trembling. No collapse.

And the sound she made then—Joel had never heard it before. Not from her. Not from any baby. It was half-relief, half-fury, all heartbreak. Like something in her had cracked wide open from the waiting.

He staggered, stopped walking altogether.

Leela lifted her, spreading kisses on her cheeks, nose and hair, rocking her like she was trying to put every second of the last few days back inside her arms. Maya’s sobs were hiccuping now, her face buried in Leela’s neck, her whole body trembling.

She pulled Maya in like she meant to disappear with her. Pressed her face into her curls, kissed the top of her head and closed her eyes like that was where all the warmth lived now, shushed her with slow, circular bounces, murmuring nonsense in that gentle, rhythmic tone only mothers had.

“It’s okay, Maya. Shh, Mama’s here now. Mama’s here.”

While Joel stood frozen on the road.

He didn’t know when his hand had clenched into a fist or when his breath had left him.

He didn’t feel anger. Not at Leela. Not even to himself. It was something deeper. Older. Like watching a life he’d dreamed of grow old without him. A desolation.

And Maya—was still crying. Still hiccupping. Her fists balled into Leela’s coat. She hadn’t even looked at him. Or maybe she had, but didn’t know what she was looking for.

He wanted to step closer. Just one more step. Reach out. Soothe her. Say something. But his feet might as well have been nailed to the frozen earth.

He had nothing in his hands. Not even the strength to say her name.

Ellie moved up beside Leela, brushing Maya’s curls back from her sticky, tear-wet face. She said something. Leela nodded. And they all began to walk up the porch steps together.

Joel didn’t follow. Not yet.

He just watched.

Watched how tightly Leela held their daughter. Watched Ellie glance back at him once, her face unreadable, before she jogged past him and followed Maria and Tommy down the road, and away.

Watched his whole life move ahead of him, step by step, without turning around.

Leela’s arms were tight around Maya’s little body, the baby’s sobs quieter now but still hiccupping against her mother’s shoulder.

All he knew was that he’d left all of this behind with nothing but a note and a mission and the idea that maybe, just maybe, he could do something that mattered. Maybe he could fix something.

He eventually trailed behind them like a ghost.

They reached the porch. Leela didn’t pause. Just hitched Maya higher on her hip, the little girl whimpering against her shoulder, and stepped inside.

Maya twisted as they crossed the threshold, her arms flailing, her cries rising in volume. A shrill pleading screech.

“Da-da! Come, come!”

“Maya,” Leela tried to shush.

“No, no! Da-da, pease!”

Her voice punched through him, sharp and high and raw.

“Da-da-da-da—...”

The door closed with a soft, final click. Over.

Somewhere inside, the baby girl's cries still carried over in fresh pricks at his pummeled heart.

Joel stood there, one foot still planted on the step below, like a man halfway to salvation and halfway to hell. He hadn’t moved. His hand—useless at his side—twitched, searching for something it had forgotten how to reach.

The latch echoed louder than any gunshot he’d heard these past weeks.

He stared at the wood grain of the door, the same one he'd walked through a hundred times before, and now couldn’t seem to approach. A stupid part of him still thought maybe it’d open again. That she’d come back, that she’d say—something. Let him hold Maya just once.

But the house stayed still.

So Joel sat. Dropped like a felled thing onto the top step, legs spreading, elbows propped on his knees, fingers pressed to his lips. Because where else did he have to go?

He stared at the dirt packed under the railings, at the porch slats he’d helped mend last summer. He wasn’t sure he had the right to look at any of this anymore.

It hurt to breathe. Not from the bruised ribs or the deep-healing wound in his side. The knowing. The understanding that he’d done this. The rot. The shame. The guilt. The want to fight Leela, argue, and bash against the door.

And when he rubbed a hand over his face, he felt it—wet.

Tears. Real fucking ones.

He stared down at the shine on his fingertips like it was a new language he didn’t speak.

Crying. Goddamn. So he was still capable of that.

After all this time. After the blood. After the fear. After the killing.

It wasn’t the pain of the trip. Not the near-drowning, not the way his ribs still clicked when he breathed too deep. Not even the damage done to Leela’s precious math notebook, still folded at the bottom of his pack like a prayer he couldn’t read.

It was this silence that used to be his favourite harmony. This porch. This big white house across the street, standing like a lighthouse in the middle of the Wyoming snow.

His big, white house.

Or maybe it never had been his. Maybe he’d only been borrowing this life. A thief in someone else’s dream.

In this big dream, he might not be welcome anymore. He’d left thinking he could prove something. That there was still good he could do. That it mattered if he bled for it. That the sacrifice would mean some shit when he brought it back.

Only now—he was just a man sitting on the porch, hands empty, spine bent like a penitent.

He was still the loser. Always had been, hadn't he? A man who couldn't hold onto what mattered, even when it was pressed into his hands. Slipping through his callused fingers, sand in an hourglass.

“Da-da.”

A tiny voice. Raw. Exhausted from crying.

He blinked. Looked down.

Two tiny fists rested against his knee, barely covering them.

She stood there—his baby girl—in her yellow footie pyjamas, curls plastered to her forehead with sweat and tears, her cheeks flushed and snotty, a fist now halfway to her mouth. A warrior, somehow. She looked like she'd marched out here on stubbornness alone.

“Up, up, Da-da,” she said, her voice barely more than a breath, lips rounded to an 'O'.

He didn’t move. His hands stayed clenched on his knees, like he wasn’t sure if they were still allowed to touch her.

He just looked at her—like he was seeing a miracle and wasn’t sure he deserved to touch it. This small miracle with her tangled hair and her crooked little mouth, trying to be brave. Her big brown eyes stared straight through him, full of a deep, solemn thing children shouldn’t carry but sometimes did.

Maya wobbled slightly, off balance, still reaching. Her coat sleeve bunched at the elbow, her fingers finding a fold of his jacket and tugging. It wasn’t strong. It wasn’t a demand. Just a little pull. A tiny act of faith.

“Pease, da-da.”

That was it.

That was all it took.

He broke. Open like a thundercloud. A dam giving way after too many winters.

No big sound. No shudder. Just a quiet, helpless noise from the back of his throat, a beam giving out in a storm, as he leaned forward, reached for her with hands that shook, that had pulled triggers and choked men and now dared to try and lift someone so little and innocent. Someone still his.

He drew her in like she was the only warmth left in the world.

She wrapped her arms around him, little boots stomping onto his ribs, one arm locked around his neck, her fingers fisting the collar of his shirt, and burrowed in like she’d never left him. Like there’d been no time apart. Like he hadn’t abandoned her.

She just clung. The way babies always do. She didn’t care about the mess. Her dainty love hadn’t learned conditions yet.

His throat narrowed, his chest hitched once, sharp—then again, then again. He dropped his face into the crook of her neck and let it come, loosening that lock in him that had been latched since Sarah died. The kind of crying that doesn’t make sound, that just happens. Tears soaking into the fabric of her coat, into her hair, into his beard. He breathed her in like it might fix something, might make him whole.

“I got you, baby girl,” he sniffed.

She smelled like cinnamon. Like sleep. Like their kitchen in the mornings when Leela was fresh from her shower, Maya would toddle in and reach for a bite of breakfast with both hands.

She smelled like everything he’d fought for. Everything he might’ve lost.

Maya leaned back slowly, the softest untangling of her arms, her tiny body still half-draped over his chest. She blinked at him, her brows drawn close in a look far too serious for her little face. Her mouth tugged slightly downward, curious and concerned all at once.

Joel tried to smile for her. Tried to smooth his face. “I'm okay, it's okay.”

But she saw it anyway. The tears, still clinging to his lashes, streaked into his beard.

She stared, her little hand floating uncertainly in the air between them, fingers flexing like she knew there was something she was supposed to do but wasn’t quite sure how.

Then—clumsily, earnestly—she reached up and touched him, just one little hand against his cheek.

Joel looked from her eyes to her palm.

So small, it barely registered, but he felt the gentle tap, the warm pressure. He felt her try to wipe it—like she’d seen done before—dragging her palm across his stubble, awkward, too hard, leaving a streak of baby drool behind.

She sniffed. Then tried again, this time gentler. The way her mama would do it.

“Mm-mm, no,” she told him.

And then—her other hand went to his hair.

A soft, patting motion. Adorable, pure toddler comfort. No finesse, no words.

She looked at him like she was waiting for him to stop crying. Like she believed he could. That he should. Because Mama always did, when she wiped Maya’s tears. Because after the tears came warm arms. And sometimes applesauce.

Joel let out a sound that wasn’t a laugh, wasn’t a sob—just breath. Cracked, quiet. “You takin' care of me?”

His hand cupped the back of her head. His forehead rested against hers, their noses nearly touching. Her fingers were still in his hair.

“Da-da, no, no,” she resonated.

Joel’s heart clenched again—but differently this time. More like remembering what it was for. Beating for her. Alive for this.

He kissed her temple, the warmth of her skin soaking through his bones.

For a moment, the world held still.

No howling wind. No boots on snow. No years of silence pressing down between now and what he’d lost. Just this: the tiny weight of her heart against his chest. Her trust, folded into his jacket like a brass button or her mama's ring in his pocket.

The floorboard behind him creaked.

Joel didn’t lift his head. He felt her before he saw her. The air changed when Leela entered a space—like some internal pressure recalibrated. Softer, but tighter. She didn’t take up more room than she needed, never had. But somehow, her presence always rearranged it.

She stepped to the railing beside him and leaned, arms resting along the wood. The porch light behind her cast a low, golden ring along her dark, frizzed-out hair on her shoulders. The fire inside flickered behind the curtains.

She said nothing at first. Just looked at him. Looked at them.

Like she was trying to map it out—this man, this child, this picture she couldn’t quite trust yet, this picture that didn’t match the one she’d carried around for too long—of absence, of damage, of a man who left too much behind.

Joel didn’t look at her straight on. His eyes stayed on the horizon past the railing, that dim stretch of pine and powder blue, mountains against the dusk that bled into dark. He could feel her gaze, though. The questions in it. The ache. The absence they were both pretending didn’t sit between them like a third body.

“Joel,” she murmured, the first ripple on still water.

He swallowed. His arms tightened almost instinctively around Maya, who shifted with a faint hum, fist tucked against her mouth once more.

“Just let me hold her for a bit,” he said. It came out low, like an apology, or a prayer through gritted teeth.

A breath passed. Then, quietly—

“You can hold her as long as you want.”

He finally looked at her. Her face was turned to the dark, but he could see the fine edge of exhaustion there. Not the kind that came from no sleep—but from too many nights spent enduring what no one saw.

Her voice was softer when she added, “Do you want to shower first?”

Joel blinked, the words hitting him sideways. What a normal fucking thing to say. So regular.

His mind fumbled with it—like she'd offered him a cup of coffee in a warzone. Like there hadn’t been a canyon gaping between them only days ago, carved out by silence and anger and too many things said too late.

The absurdity of it almost made him laugh. Almost. But the sound got stuck somewhere in his throat, tangled with something older and harder.

The wind stirred again, tugging at the hem of her sweater. She didn’t smooth it down. Just let it flutter around her thighs like she didn’t feel the cold.

“Leela,” he said, low, worn, like gravel under tired boots.

She didn’t look at him. Didn’t speak right away. Just leaned a little further into the porch railing, her fingers curled loose around the wood. Shoulders rising. Falling.

Quieter this time—less like she believed it, more like she needed to—“Come inside, Joel.”

Not an invitation. Not a plea. Just something said because it had to be. Like muscle memory. Like faith said out loud.

“You don’t belong anywhere else.” A beat. Then, “And it’s cold outside.”

Joel looked down at the little girl in his arms. Maya’s cheek was pressed to his chest, her lips parted, her breath warm through his shirt. Her small hand clung to the collar of his jacket like she thought he might still disappear if she let go.

He felt it again—his daughter. His reminder. His consequence.

She came to me, he thought. She still comes to me.

Even now. After everything.

He shifted his weight and rose, careful not to jostle Maya. His knees ached. That old pain in his spine flared, but he barely felt it. She was heavier than he remembered. That, too, was a gift.

Across from him, Leela didn’t move. She didn’t offer him a hand. Didn’t clear the way. But she didn’t block it, either.

The door behind her stayed open.

Oh, here they were again.

Same porch. Same house. Same damn man, more or less.

But different. He wasn’t pounding on the door this time. Wasn’t driven half-mad by a baby that wouldn’t stop crying. He wasn’t walking in blind and bitter and ready to do a good thing just to silence a bad one.

Now he carried that baby in his arms. His baby. His girl.

And Leela—she was the one with the door now. Not just the one behind him. The one she kept closed for years, locked and latched and bolted from the inside, because too many people had barged through without asking.

Joel stepped forward.

Not past her. Not through her. To her.

The space between them was close. Intimate. He stopped just short of touching her, close enough to feel her breath ghosting warm in the cold.

She turned her head, finally. Just enough to see him.

Their eyes met. A half-second. A heartbeat.

There was no forgiveness in that look. Only recognition. And maybe—God help them both—want. A bit of love. Still there, under the rubble and the ruin.

He didn’t say, Thank you. Couldn’t. Didn’t think they’d be enough if he did. And she didn’t say, Welcome home.

When he stepped through the door beside her, the warmth met him like a memory.

As he crossed the threshold, this time he came to carry it all. To be part of it.

Maya stirred in his arms, murmuring something soft and wordless. Her thumb found her mouth again. Her head dropped against his shoulder like she knew this place of hers. Like her little body remembered what his mind kept trying to forget.

Joel blinked hard, the air in his lungs thick.

It was the same spot he’d once stood when he almost didn’t come back. When he’d looked at Leela in that doorway and thought about forgetting this ever happened.

Now she stood just behind him. A quiet key turning in an old, rusted lock.

And he thought: This is how it happens. Not with a grand gesture. Not with a reckoning or a flood of apologies. Not with big dreams of another life coming crashing down.

But like this.

A door not closed in anger. A man not barging in. A home not yet reclaimed, but not lost either.

Step by step. Word by word. Warmth bleeding slowly into cold skin.

Not a finish line or a full repair.

A place to start again.

One last time.

X

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[peachyparkerr]

to be so lonely | patrick zweig x female reader

or marrying patrick zweig out of convenience <3

tags: fluff, marriage, kissing, talks of having kids, best friends to more, no use of y/n, not proofread so sorry but not, soft patrick because ik that man just needs some love and josh o'connor is softie and i said so

˳༄꠶ a little self indulgent fic because challengers nation will never die.

you'd like to tell yourself that you'd find someone to marry when there was a right person to marry. you'd also like to tell yourself that you weren't in a rush and you were perfectly fine being single or dating casually til that came. but of course, that wasn't good enough for your parents who were just itching to get you married off. they just wanted you to be taken care of, and they were so insistent on introducing you to some of their friends' sons, "just a few" they said. you didn't have the heart to tell them no.

that's how you find yourself here. hiding out in your childhood bedroom after talking to the umpteenth "eligible" bachelor from yet another, you'd lost count, party thrown by your parents just for this reason. these "eligible" bachelors weren't exactly the type of husband you were looking for. they were all full of themselves, too caught up in their jobs or alcohol, or just looking for a wife for the sake of being able to say they had one. you were getting fed up, and didn't know how many more men you could stomach talking to before your parents ended up arranging a marriage for you. that's why you were hiding up here, sitting on your bed, trying to wait out the party. anything to get a moment to breathe.

your solitude didn't last long until your door was opening. you hadn't expected to be found, but before you could stumble out whatever excuse came first as to why you were up there, you were met by the sight of a familiar tall, dark haired man appearing in your room. your childhood best friend and next door neighbor flashes his signature grin at you, and suddenly you can't help but feel so relieved.

"if it isn't the guest of honor. shouldn't you be entertaining another private equity investor?" patrick says, sporting his familiar smirk back at you, closing the door behind him.

"that or drowning out the sound of their voice by downing champagne." you laugh.

"oh you mean to tell me you're not fawning over these idiots? i'm shocked." he laughs sarcastically before sitting next to you on your bed. you make room for him and he settles him arm around you. "at least your parents are trying to give you options, i'll be lucky if i meet my future wife before they walk down the aisle."

"as if you're not meeting tons of women when you're playing tennis." you point out, poking his side.

"none that i like, none that i want to marry, and none that my parents would approve of anyway." he huffs. "call me crazy, but ideally i don't want to be married off to someone who just wants my money or my parents money."

"i get it. i have no interest in being a trophy wife yet that seems like all these guys my parents are trying to marry me off to. something just for show. is true love really that dead?" you sigh.

"maybe we just haven't found the right people yet." he says as he leans his head back against the headboard looking at you, waiting to see what you're going to say next.

"at least that's what i'm telling myself. i'm practically an old maid already. it's not long before i'm going to die alone, with no one to love me."

he scoffs at that. "now you're just being dramatic. you're not going to die alone, you're a catch."

"sure i am. that's why i'm only being offered up to assholes." you roll your eyes at his statement. you're being a little self deprecating, but you've had a long night. many nights, just like this one, in fact.

"anyone would be lucky to have you." he says, his expression serious looking down at you.

"in theory, sure, but...and I'm only saying this to you because you're my best friend... i'm genuinely afraid that no one's going to want to ever be with me and that i'll never find someone that values me enough to treat me like i'm actually deserving of love." you admit sadly, looking away from him and at your hands in your lap.

he moves from next to you to in front of you and forces your chin up to look at him.

"you are the smartest, kindest, and most beautiful person i know. you are deserving of the best love there is to offer. whoever marries you is the luckiest person in the world, hell i'd even marry you." he laughs but something in patrick's eyes almost has you convinced that he means every thing he says.

"you're just saying you'd marry me to make me feel better." you contradict but you can't help but feel your face flush at the way he spoke about you.

"i'm not because everything i said is true, and I know if I called my mom right now and told her I was marrying you she would cry tears of joy if it meant she gets to have you as a daughter in law. and now that i think about it..." his expression turns serious as he considers his next words but then he smiles big and genuine, "we should get married. for real."

"patrick, your mom has been pushing for us to get married since we were twelve, don't go joking around like that." you think he's being crazy and messing around like he always does.

"it's not a joke." his tone is serious but he's smiling. "why shouldn't we get married? we know each other better than anyone else, our parents would stop trying to set us up with horrible people, you get a husband and i get a wife. we won't die alone because we'd have each other."

"you're ridiculous. you're asking me to marry you, you realize that right?" you're completely taken aback by this. he's your best friend, has been since you guys were five years old, and suddenly he's propositioning you to marry him.

"i know i'm ridiculous, but you would be too if you turn me down. come on," he pulls your legs over his lap and scoots closer to you on the bed, grabbing your hands, "marry me. it's the best option."

you search his eyes for any sign of a lie. there is none.

"you're serious? you want to get married just because it's convenient? what are people gonna say about our fake marriage?" you question but your heart is just about beating out of your chest.

"not just because it's convenient. you're everything to me, and if marrying you means that i get to spend telling my best friend that every single day and making her feel like she's the universe's greatest gift to earth for the rest of my life, because she is, then why not? who cares if it's fake? nobody has to know anything other than that reason as an explanation of why we're getting married." he makes air quotations around fake but he's speaking tenderly.

"you don't even have a ring." you point out matter of factly, but you're smiling, and he is too because he knows that he's got you right where he wants you.

"i can get you a ring by tomorrow afternoon. but i'm assuming that's a yes? you gonna let me make you my wife?" he teases leaning in close.

"okay. i'll marry you patrick zweig." you smile and he throws his head back in celebration before kissing the top of your head.

you guys laugh in disbelief in what you guys just agreed to, but spend the rest of the party hiding up in your room talking about how you're gonna tell your parents and what your guys' wedding is gonna look like.

˳༄꠶

patrick keeps his word and shows up to your apartment with a ring the next day. you don't know how he managed to get the most beautiful ring you've ever seen in one day. you're in even more shock that it's exactly what you've always wanted. he slides it onto your finger with ease, and he's not surprised that it's a perfect fit. he thinks to himself that this ring he got for you looks right on your finger, like it's always belonged there. he intertwines your hands after, pressing a kiss to your knuckles wordlessly, before leading you to his car to take you to tell your guys' parents the news.

he doesn't leave your side the whole time, keeping a hand or an arm on you as if he can't be without touching you. your guys' parents cry tears of joy, like he said they would, and you play your part as the perfect fiancé with ease as they invite more and more people over to celebrate.

the parents don't hesitate to throw themselves into wedding planning and throw more parties in preparation. it's a lot really quick, but you don't seem to mind. he sees the way you light up looking through dumb magazines with your mom or how you smile when his dad breaks out pictures of patrick you'd never seen before. it makes patrick forget this is all technically fake.

patrick convinces you to move in with him shortly after. you try to protest, but he's already made the space for you.

"i can take over the guest room you know."

"no way. what kind of husband would i be if i made you take over that room? there's plenty of space here. besides, what will our parents think? we're supposed to be madly in love." he rolls his eyes as he insists, gesturing to the huge bed he has and the empty spots in his closet, but is trying to push down the thoughts of what it'll be like to have you close every night for what's supposed to be the rest of your lives.

"i'm just saying that as far as fake marriages go i wouldn't mind if you wanted me to sleep in the other room." you say with your hands on your hips, but sometimes saying out loud that it is a fake marriage, reminding you that it's not technically real, makes your stomach twist.

"but i want you here. i don't want you to sleep in the other room." he says with a pout, as if it's the most normal thing in the world. how could you say no now?

you don't put up a fight anymore, and he helps you put your stuff where it now belongs. when you go to sleep at night you both stick to your own sides. it stays that way for the first couple of months of living together, til one night you sleepily curl into him because you're cold and you can't sleep and he doesn't have thick enough blankets. he pulls you close because he runs warm, you fall asleep right away, with him falling asleep soon after. he's never slept better.

when you guys pick your wedding venue with both your moms there, he knows its the one from the way your eyes follow every detail and you hang onto every word of the tour. how you start to walk ahead of him and get excited. you finally turn to ask him what he thinks, but he's just about finished writing out the check for the deposit and handing it over to the person in charge. when he catches you looking at him, you smile and practically jump into his arms and kiss his cheek. he's never seen you so happy, and he's failing at fighting the way he's turning red.

˳༄꠶

after that the wedding starts to get closer and theres barely any time alone with all the celebrations and meetings and planning. sure, you guys get a moment to breathe back at your now shared place but usually fall asleep as soon as you get home these days. luckily, there is one fleeting moment where you guys escape to your childhood room once again.

your sat in his lap facing him as he sits up against the headboard, just trying to enjoy peace and quiet. he likes having you close like this, even if its supposed to be fake. you don't question it because part of you wants to believe he's always been touchy and you're still best friends. best friends that happen to be getting married.

after some time you remember something and sit up straighter.

"i almost forgot, i have something for you." you say breaking the silence and reaching over to your bedside table.

"you have something for me?" he asks curiously, his hands finding your waist to steady you. he watches as you pull a small box out and hold it out to him.

"open it." you instruct with a smile.

he raises an eyebrow at you, but you usher him to open it, and he can't resist you so he reluctantly pulls his hands away from your hips to take the box and open it. when he does, inside are cufflinks. but instead of ordinary ones, they're engraved, with his initials and yours. he feels his heart clench in his chest.

"wow...these are really nice." he manages to breathe out. it's the most thoughtful gift he's ever gotten from anyone.

"i thought you could wear them on the day you know and whenever you have special tennis events? i know we have wedding bands and you got me an engagement ring but i wanted to get you something special. something just for you." you say a little shy. he's done so much for you, and you guys aren't really ones to talk about feelings, but this can say more than words can.

"i love them." he says. i love you. he thinks.

you smile and he smiles back and you think that you could just kiss him right then and there. but before you can even finish the thought and convince yourself that you're making the right choice by not acting on it, suddenly your mom is calling you from downstairs to come help her with something. you both groan, but he tells you to go anyways. when you're gone, his heart is still beating out of his chest.

that night at your shared place when you're getting into bed he's quiet. he's beating himself up inside about how much he's in love with you and he can't say because this whole thing about fake marriage was his idea but he's going to marry you anyway and pretend everything's fine and have to be okay with that. how he should be bothered by questions like when are you guys gonna get a bigger place or have kids because it's way too soon, but he wants those things with you. he wants someone thats the best parts of both of you and looks like the perfect little mini version.

but of course you notice he's quiet. he's usually more outspoken, cocky and cracking jokes.

"are you okay?" you ask tentatively from your side, turning to him.

"oh... fine. just tired. " he faces you and the way you look at him so concerned, so caring, has him burning up, especially with the way he's lying through his teeth.

you reach out to him when you see how flushed he is, and you put the back of your hand on him to feel him and he's burning up. he burns up more, and you can't tell if you are too.

"you're burning up...maybe you're getting sick?" you're so concerned and you don't know if he's actually sick or if its something you did.

"maybe...i'm fine, though, really." he lies again.

"do you want me to sleep in the other room?" you suggest, not because you want to though, because not sleeping next to him almost is worse than him possibly being sick, but because you don't want to make anything worse.

"no!" he says a little too quickly and sharp. but he tries to cover it up. "stay."

you just nod and pull him close. he lets you, and immediately buries his head in your neck and breathes in the scent of your freshly washed hair. he's supposed to be strong and not so clingy like this, but the way he holds you tightly and instead of pulling away you rub his back makes him feel so weak.

you don't know what's wrong, and you don't want to make it worse or ask, so you just stay like that.

"you're okay. i got you, pat." you speak soft and sweet in his ear. and he believes you because he'd believe anything you'd say.

˳༄꠶

for the sake of tradition, you guys don't sleep in the same room the night of the rehearsal dinner/night before the wedding. and knowing this, you can't seem to keep hands off of each other the whole night. holding hands, his arm around your waist, your head resting on his shoulder. how are you guys are gonna kiss for the first time at the end of the aisle in front of all these people tomorrow and not lose your damn minds?

when parting ways for the night he hugs you tight, as if he's afraid he'll never see you again. he's also so nervous, not because he doesn't want to get married to you, but because how is he going to spend the rest of his life loving you and not tell you?

you hug him back just as tight, not wanting to admit you won't get any sleep without him next to you tonight.

"see you at our first look tomorrow." you say as you're about to part ways for the night.

"i can't wait to see your dress. do i get any hints on what it looks like?" he tries to joke to ease his aching heart.

"it's white." you joke back and laugh. he laughs too and you think it's the best sound in the whole world.

you guys reluctantly part ways, and as predicted, neither of you sleep a wink the whole night without each other.

tomorrow comes, and after he's all ready, he's shaking and fiddling with his cufflinks waiting for you to come out for the first look. and when he finally sees you walking towards him, he actually thinks his heart is going to explode.

you keep getting closer and your holding your breath but looking at nothing but him. and when you get closer his jaw actually goes slack.

"hi." you say softly and smile when his jaw is still dropped. you gently close it for him, and he melts a little

"hi. you look... wow... you're perfect." he manages to croak out, his voice suddenly stuck in his throat. you're always beautiful to him, but today, he swears he's seen an angel.

"i like your suit." you compliment and fix his bowtie for him hoping he can't see how your own hands are shaking. but he takes his hands and yours and looks at you for what feels like a long time until you realize he hasn't said anything. "what?"

"i love you." he blurts out. he barely realizes he's said it, but when he does his eyes widen and so do yours. he doesn't take it back tho. he just stares into your eyes and hopes you understand how much he really means it.

"you love me?" you whisper in disbelief. is this really happening?

"i love you. i'm in love with you." he confirms, trying to read your expression to see if you feel the same, if you're still going to go through with this wedding or if he's screwed it all up.

"i love you too. i'm in love with you too. " you admit quietly, feeling your mouth curve up into a smile.

he lets out a breath finally, and feels tears prick at his eyes and fall down his cheeks. you wipe them away.

"god, you have no idea how long i've wanted to say that." he rests his forehead against yours and pulls you close.

"great timing." you joke, putting your hands on his face. he laughs and you can feel his breath on your lips.

it feels like a weight has been lifted off both of your chests now that this is out in the open. suddenly you're both leaning in and your lips are inches away. he's cupping your jaw now, your eyes are locked on his. and when your guys' lips meet in a kiss for the first time in your entire lives, its soft and full of months of desire and unspoken feelings. it's reverent and its yours. he momentarily deepens the kiss, pulling you even closer if that's even possible, and you lose yourself in the passion before finally coming up for air. you're both grinning and out of breath but couldn't have asked for anything more.

and when you reach the end of the aisle a few short moments later, and he kisses you again, you both get to relish in the fact that this is real. that true love isn't dead and that the right person for them was right in front of them this entire time and will be for the rest of their lives.

i haven't written a fic in YEARS but i had a bad day today so #yea

art fanfic here!

[pinkxpantha]

Suspicions, Scones, and Scandals.

diluc x GN!reader

#: synopsis- How the year long secret between you and Diluc is revealed, turns out the greatest bachelor of Mondstadt isn't a bachelor?!

#: cw- 3.4k words, they/you pronouns. Use of Mx, Traveler is left up to interpretation (Aether or Lumine), Kaeya, Venti, Paimon also mentioned, secret relationship, established relationship, Diluc loves like it's the only thing he knows how to do, fluff, Diluc is in mourning (you went to fontaine) no s/o = no life, Donna mentioned for a sentence and lowkey can't decide which one of you to be jealous of, no beta we die like Crepus.

Diluc polished the glass he held in his hand. It was quiet, beautifully so. The loud chatter of drunkards during the usual weekdays were now replaced with the delicate silence of his environment.

Diluc could see his own reflection in the wine glass, it glinted with the casual lighting of Angel's Share. 

Before he heard the door creaking open, he saw the peaks of blue. Who else could it be other than Kaeya.

He waltzed through the door, the corner of his mouth tilting upwards when he saw Diluc.

Diluc turned to face his brother, clenching his jaw in preparation for the relentless teasing he's recieved for the past few days.

Diluc made the fatal mistake of glancing over in your direction when you were talking to someone.

 Kaeya picked up on this immediately. Like a sponge he soaked every single interaction between the two of you to compile into a theory of Diluc's clear infatuation over you.

As much as Diluc wished Kaeya would stop sending him playful glances each time your name was brought up, he couldn't deny some of his words held a hint of truth to them.

Although he wouldn't say ‘his eyes had their own heartbeat’ whenever he glanced at you. whatever that meant.

“Ah, Diluc! Pleasure to see you here.” Kaeya greeted. Flashing him a small grin as he sat down on the stools in front of the bar.

“I wish I could say the same to you.” 

Kaeya only laughed in a placating manner.

“Brother, is that any way to treat your future best man?” 

Diluc deadpanned at Kaeya's audacious words.

“What do you want?” He sighed as he threw the rag over his shoulder.

“Aside from good wine, a fine chat would do.” 

Diluc swiveled around after he got Kaeya's order. 

“I'm not your in house entertainment,” he spoke. “If you wanted entertainment you should've come during the weekend.”

Diluc huffed and placed the empty glass in front of Kaeya.

“Better yet, go elsewhere.”

Kaeya shrugged, “Of course Master Diluc, I'll keep that in mind for the future.”

Diluc continued to prepare Kaeya's drink. The sooner he left, the better. He didn't need to hear his incessant teasing. 

If he glanced back, he might've seen Kaeya's gaze locked onto his gloves. 

Kaeya carefully investigated the lumps of fabric. Was it just the light playing tricks on him, or did that seem like the outline of a ring?

Soon the tavern door opened again, and Diluc resists the urge to sigh. 

Yes this is his job, but that doesn't mean he has to enjoy all parts of it.

Diluc sets Kaeya's drink in front of him, his gaze raised ever so slightly.

Then it locks on yours. You look like how he expects you to. You bring him a warmth him pyro vision could never mimic.

Then he remembered who else was in the room with him. He gave you a curt nod, trying to indicate something to you.

“Suddenly the atmosphere feels a lot colder.” Kaeya said.

You cleared your throat, a small black box in your hand. Wrapped in a gorgeous red velvet colored flat of fabric. You fiddled absent-mindedly with the ribbon. 

“Sorry Kaeya, I was just a bit distracted.” 

He smiled as he turned to the side, giving him a better view of both Diluc and you.

Diluc adjusted his tie, and brushed his hair back. Something he clearly didn't think much of. (Unlike the man that stared at him as he did so.)

He huffed amused. ”Don't worry about it Mx. [Name], at least with your company I won't have to worry about someone brooding anymore.”

Diluc shot Kaeya a glare from the corner of his eye.

‘Don't say anything you'll regret.’

Kaeya only smirked.

‘I rarely regret a thing I've said.’

You cleared your throat at the poorly disguised tension in the room. Snapping Diluc out of his in-between conversation with Kaeya. 

“Good evening.” You greeted the both of them.

You walked over to one of the wooden stools. It was solid, carefully made so that even with the hours of use it acquired over its long carrier of chairness you couldn't find a single trace of weathering or possible splinters.

“So what brings you here? I didn't take you for a drinker.” Kaeya hums, taking a small sip of his wine.

You shake your head, “I'm not here to have a drink, dealing with a hangover tomorrow would be horrible.” You shivered. 

“Do you not handle your alcohol well?”

“Kaeya.” Diluc scolds.

“What? I'm making conversation.”

“Don't make me kick you out.” 

Kaeya sighed, curling his bottom lip into a pout in an exaggerated fashion.

“I haven't even finished my drink yet, surely you'd let me enjoy this first.”

You smiled at the interaction.

And just for a second Diluc's eyes met yours. You were looking at him so.. openly? He couldn't decipher that stare of yours. He could feel the slight amusement in your stare.

You were such a force of confusion in his life, but with you he didn't need much reason. His ears tilted red with each second longer your eyes met together. 

You took pity on him, breaking eye contact first. “I'm not a lightweight, I just tend to go overboard.”

Kaeya chuckles at the clarification. “Aha I see.”

You placed the box onto the counter, the sound amplified by the silence that shrouded the room.

Diluc leaned over the counter of the bar, he used his elbow as a prop for his head. He blinked at the foreign object. A slight intrigue made him want to open it.

But… three's a crowd.

Clearly that sentiment slid out of his brain, bouncing around the room before it pointedly made its way to Kaeya.

He paused before sighing. “As much as I would love to indulge in these tendencies I do have some work to get back to.” Kaeya placed the mora he owed onto the table, before taking out a flash attached at his hip and pouring the rest of the wine down it.

“Ah, already?” You murmured.

“Unfortunately so.” He nods, “Very well then, see you both soon.”

You both bid him goodbye, and he sent a wink(you think??) in Diluc's direction.

As soon as you both hear the click of the door the atmosphere concentrates around the two people in the room. Both of you relax, a breath of shared comfort between the two of you. 

You nudge the box closer to Diluc, his red hair falling against his face slightly as he tilts his head in your direction.

Archons you really need to know how he keeps it so well maintained..? 

“This is?” He picks the box up in his hands, it feels miniscule in his palm.

“For you.” You said simply.

He blinked, “What's the occasion?” 

You shook your head, “It reminded me of you.”

He hesitated. A gift from you wasn't a rarity, yet it still felt odd each time he recieved one just… because?

He opened the box, it was two things. A hairpin. It was a solid metal, the imagery of a flower with its petals dyed red. Golden accents adorned the sides. It shimmered in regality with the dimmed lighting of the tavern glinting against the metal.

The next piece was made in similar fashion. The silhouette mimicked the frame of the hairpin but in a much more minimalistic fashion. It was a gorgeous deep red, a notable tie clasp.

“These.. are beautiful, [Name].” He said. 

You agreed, “So, you're calling yourself beautiful?” 

“...” 

Before he could sigh from exasperation he saw the teasing glint in your eyes. “If that's what you see me as, I can't help but not trust your judgement.” He leaned further into you, a small smirk playing against his lips. 

You felt your face warm up, for a guy that was so content with shrouding himself in intrigue and mystery, his eyes betrayed that reputation. 

They were so clear, if you looked directly into them you might've seen the mini Diluc’s running around scrambling to formulate his thought process.

The ombre of red and orange harmonized into a blazing ichor that threatened to swallow you whole.

He looked back at you, and you swore his eyes burned through your soul. His features were so tightly knit in comparison to his wide red eyes.

“You're not being fair right now.. stop looking at me like that.” You huffed.

 “Don't you spend your time searching for the beauties of this world? Don't tell me you've given up on that goal already.” 

This guy… he could be cunning when he wanted to.

You didn't allow yourself to falter, seeing this as a battle risking life or death. There was no way you weren't going to win this battle of flustering the other. (Diluc didn't even know what the hell you were thinking.)

You used your sword, otherwise known as your hand to stab his heart.(read: grab his tie.) You pulled it ever so slightly closer to you. Ignoring how 

You huff, leaning over the counter to grab him by his tie. He jolted at the sudden action, his torso angled over the bar, his hands moved closer to his waist, holding onto the edge of the wooden panel to steady himself.

Your fingers make their way closer to his neck, never straying from the fabric of his tie. He swallowed thickly as he watched you concentrate on fixing it.

As much as he doubts there was nothing wrong with the way he tied it, he.. appreciates the way you look up at him, just for a split second.

“Of course I haven't.” You said.

Diluc saw your lips move before he could hear you. He snapped out of his daze, the proximity between the two of you reduced to the length of a ring finger.

 “I haven’t taken a picture of you.”

Diluc pulled away, noticing how you already clipped the pin onto his tie. 

You bit the inside of your cheek to prevent the chuckles of amusement from slipping out. He had turned away from you, it was a desperate attempt to hide his reddened skin. 

More than ever is he glad you two are the only ones in the tavern.

You see him rub his face, the traces of red starting to dissipate from his neck and ears. You can't help but smile. You can't tell you're smiling because of his reaction, or the fact he's allowing you to see him like this.

“[Name]..” He turns back to you, his lips pursed together.

“Diluc” You responded, taking in his full appearance. 

The gentle slopes of his face, the harsh curves of his jaw and nose. They all worked together in a polyphony to create the the person you admire so dearly.

“Ah, that reminds me. Unfortunately I have a business trip to attend in a fortnight.” You broke the silence of the room.

He lowered his head to meet your gaze. 

“Should I bring anything back for you? A gift.. a recipe.. I'm sure I could learn to cook something for you.” You offered. Diluc's face paled.

The thought of you cooking something for him used to be a pleasant fantasy. But seeing it in practice turned any thought of you stepping into the kitchen into a nightmare.

You might as well have had a pyro vision the way the stove went up in flames. 

“I… appreciate the sentiment.” He grimaced. “If anything, I wish you to return to me safely.”

You smiled back at him, bemusement tracing the corners of your mouth.

“Of course. I'll make sure to have a good time as well!” 

He hummed. “Don't slack off.” 

“I won't I swear–!” You exclaim, jabbing your finger in his face.

You both continue to talk, in a way only the two of you know of each other. Barriers and walls broken to build a bridge between the two of you. 

These words are a well kept secret between the two of you, at least for now.

You leave the tavern when more people begin to filter in as the sun sets.

Time truly didn't stop for anyone. It wasn't long before Diluc had to bid you goodbyes. Time failed to capture the moments he spent with you leading up to that. 

A month had already passed since you left, his favorite place to be during that time was at the dawn winery. Letters you wrote came to him every other day. 

You were safe, and it sounded like you were enjoying the time you spent in fontaine. He no longer had to relive the first week of sleepless nights worrying about your well being.

He was in the dawn winery again, a newer letter in his hands. Diluc traced the wax seal, one he specially commissioned for you. 

He began to peel it off, a twinge of eagerness coated his fingers in a newfound fervor. 

Just before he could read your letter, he heard a familiar high pitched voice.

“Master Diluc would totally help us!”

Was that..?

“The traveler maybe, but you and I are on the same level!”

He looked up to see the traveler and their floating companion, along with venti matching their pace.

From the corner of the doorway he could just barely make out Adelinde's sheepish expression.

 “Traveller, it's good to see you here.” Diluc greeted, resisting the urge to sigh at the interruption.

He subtly slipped the envelope on the dining table behind him.

“Hey! How come Paimon doesn't get a hello?” She huffed, her hands balled into fists at her sides.

“Hello Paimon. Venti.”

“Told you.” Venti shook his head, ignoring Paimon's pointed glare.

Traveler quickly spoke up before Paimon could get provoked, “We have something to give you.” They handed an envelope to Diluc. 

He quirked a brow as he looked it over, undoubtedly from you.

Diluc hasn't been keeping tabs on The Traveler's journey, but something must have led them into Fontaine.. 

He let himself open it— the wax lifted under the nail of his finger.

Eagerness. Anticipation. You're right by his side– he swears. You play with his senses to a degree he cannot fathom. As he stares at the photocard of a few scones, he imagines he's sat across from you.

He could practically hear your indecisive ramblings about what to get. ‘The beignets sound tasty– oh but what about the blueberry scones? I'm not feeling for blueberries though..”

“Can't believe the traveler's been demoted from honorary knight to delivery service!”

For a second you coat him in a warmth– so entirely reminiscent of you. Diluc grieves the nights devoid of you.

“It's a noble job Paimon, I'm pretty sure you've made Diluc's week!”

Even before he saw your name signed at the back, he knew it was from you. He covered his mouth. He could recognize you in fields towered higher than his gaze. It's yours. You. You. You. You. 

“Eeh? Whaddya–?”

Diluc looks up (unfortunately,) to see the black, amber, and green eyes looking back at him.

.

.

.

“Diluc must really like Mx. [Name]’s letter.”

The traveler breaks the silence.

“Now I'm curious, what could they have written to awoke such a reaction out of him, any theories?” Venti playfully questioned.

“Maybe it's a love letter!” The pixie answered with too much giddiness. 

“It's definitely blackmail.” The blond smirked. (Furrowed brows? Check! Gotta be something incriminating.)

“It's neither.” Diluc deadpanned. “Don't make such uninformed guesses.”

“Uninformed? But Mx. [Name] said they'd sent a buncha letters! But they haven't gotten a response.” Paimon insisted, the unspoken words of ‘Diluc would totally ignore someone's constant love letters if he had the choice.’ underlined her speech. 

“The trip from Mondtsadt to Fontaine is a long one, I only started to receive their letters two weeks ago.” Diluc shook his head, (a poor attempt to quell the fairy's theorizing.)

“We could always pass on a message?” The traveler offered.

“I wouldn't mind!” Venti chirped.. for some reason?

Paimon grumbled, “you're not included in this Tone-Deaf Bard!”

“ Eh? I was planning on visiting Fontaine soon anyways.” Venti replied, pouting only to further provoke the floating child.

Diluc quickly cleared his throat, (just in time to prevent the childish duo from bickering with each other.)

“If the traveller is offering, I do have something I want to give to [Name].” 

Venti squinted, but didn't say anything. 

“Of course,” The traveler agreed.

Diluc quickly drafted a note, not taking long to compile his thoughts into words meant for you.

The group continued to talk amongst themselves, bidding Diluc their goodbyes after he handed them the note enclosed in an envelope. 

He saw them off to the door, leaving them with one final parting message, to not open it.

He saw them walk off into the distance. Diluc sighed as they left– relief admittedly washed over him. 

But it was short lived.

The recognizable high pitched wails of the ivory haired tag-a-long was enough to confirm he'd have a lot to talk to you about as soon as you returned. 

It must've been a millenia till you did,

 The breeze of Mondstadt made each step you took feel lighter. You could smell the scent wafting from good hunter's the moment you passed the gate.

You barely noticed the few pointed looks in your direction. One coming from a hard to remember face. (who was wondering who she was supposed to be jealous of.)

You ignored it, only wanting to do one thing. You practically floated into the tavern where you asked a certain someone to meet you when you came back.

You walked into the tavern, the brazen hours of daylight left behind you.

“Nice to meet you again, Diluc.”

His eyes snapped to your person, widening at the sight despite your predicted arrival. He got out of the area behind the bar to take you into a warm embrace.

No matter your stature, getting hugged by Diluc feels like a blanket covering you, protecting you from the outside world. He takes over your senses, the warmth of being home. 

“I suppose you miss me?” You muttered after he pulled away. He was close enough to hear even the slightest change in your breathing.

“More than I could ever admit.” He breathed out, more than glad to have you back.

“Did anything exciting happen while I was gone?” 

He sucked in his teeth with a slight furrow of his brows. “I wish it was more mundane actually.”

“Huh. Tell me more?” 

You both made your way to one of the multiples of empty tables. You both spoke in hushed whispers despite there not being a single person to overheat. 

“I'm sorry, dear.” Diluc apologized, his head resting in his hand, his fingers covering a bit of his eye. Red bangs would have fallen on top of his calloused digits if not for the familiar hairclip pinning them back.

 “Don't be sorry, it wasn't your fault at all.” You let your fingers rest on the side of his face, tilting his head to look into your eyes.

He had told you about the incident, how Paimon's curiosity led to the whole of Mondstadt knowing the most eligible bachelor wasn't a bachelor at all.

It didn't help that the first line was ‘To my dearly beloved,’ unmistakably written by him.

It wasn't long before the ‘secret’ spread along Mondstadt's greatest gossipers, Diluc was out of stock.

“I understand you didn't want this kind of publicity, but I'm okay with it.” You insisted.

He looked at you, his eyes weary with exhaust. Whether it was because he was worried over your reaction or the scandal seeping his energy, you didn't know.

 “[Name], you don't need to pretend it's fine, we agreed this would be a secret.” Diluc grumbled.

You remember that vow, the publicity of dating one of Mondstadt's most notable figures would have been incredibly pressuring. 

You didn't know if you were ready for that.

 “It was something I expected if I'm being honest. I'm well prepared, love.” After all, if you were to progress your relationship to the next level, it would be an even bigger shock if Diluc was secretly married.

Maybe this was for the best..?

You put your hand onto the table, your palm facing up as he moved his hand to meet yours, keeping his grip on your palm secure.

“No matter what happens, we'll do it together, okay?” You vowed.

Diluc looked at you warmly. Even without a pyro vision, you don't think he'd ever be cold to you.

A beat of silence passed, and he rubbed the back of your palm with his thumb. His glove rubbed against the peak of your knuckles.

“You look tired,” He whispered listlessly. 

You bantered, “I could say the same for you.”

You both stood up, Diluc kept his hand locked in yours. “Let's go home.” 

And you couldn't want anything more.

I HAVE BEEN WRITING THIS FOR TOO LONG IM SO GLAD ITS OUT OF MY DRAFTS

[obsidian-flame]

Hera wanted Athena to win

Guys hear me out, this is my conspiracy theory LMAO

I feel like in God Games when Athena is battling the Gods to help Ody, of all of them, Hera wanted her to win the whole time.

Hera is the final "level" of the game, and if Athena convinces her to say yes, then it's a yes and Ody must be released, and I'm sure Hera knew that fact.

Now look at what all the other Gods say.

Each of them gives a very specific reason why they don't want Ody to be freed.

Apollo's reason is slaughtering the sirens.

Hephaestus' reason is the Scylla sacrifice.

Aphrodite's reason is abandoning his mother.

Ares' reason is being cowardly in the Trojan war.

And then, we get to Hera, and she's just like 'Yeah just give me any good reason and I'll agree to let him go'. She has no qualms with Odysseus, she has no motivation even to fight with Athena on this. She doesn't really require convincing, per se.

She's legitimately just asking Athena to give her any half decent justification so she can say yes and make it look legit in front of Zeus.

The whole time as Athena is giving Hera reasons, Hera is also continuously egging her on to give her a better one, a more sound one that would look really convincing. She's saying things like 'Try Harder' and 'You can do better than that.'

So my theory is that after Zeus announced the God Games, Hera saw it as a chance to stick it to him for once, for all his cheating and disloyalty to their marriage, so she wanted Athena to win, and played her cards accordingly.

All she needed was Athena to give her any half-decent justification for her to say yes, so that the games look legitimate, but ultimately she was on her side the whole time. She made the game really easy for Athena, because she gave her free reign to think of absolutely anything and everything she possibly could in favor of Ody, instead of giving her a specific, niche argument she has to fight against.

Additionally, Hera is the goddess of marriage in the pantheon, and even if she doesn't care the least little bit about Odysseus, I am willing to bet she very much cares about Penelope.

Think about it, Hera herself is stuck in an awful marriage to Zeus and is not very happy about that. And she would 100% relate to Penelope's struggles of being alone, missing her husband and trying to ward off the suitors who are trying to force her into a, let's be real, abusive marriage with Antinous.

Hera as a wife definitely sympathizes with Penelope as a wife, and releasing Odysseus so he can return to Penelope is the only way to help her be protected again.

So there you go. My conspiracy is that Hera for one absolutely wanted Athena to win the entire time. I think she at the very least tried to help her, I mean she couldn't have known that Zeus would fucking kill her for winning LMAO

[nobody-nexus]

EP 5 Prediction/Theory

Just wanted to make this idea public cause I think it's cool, but I could be 100% wrong on it. It IS just a theory after all

So, I was thinking about how it's most likely that the stadium we got teased with in the season announcement is probably Ragatha's episode. Especially now since we know she at least knows how to play it and probably enjoys the sport as well

But then that got me to thinking about what Gooseworx said in terms of shadow Ragatha. Well, the two things. "This attachment to Ragatha is going to be EP 5 a lot funnier" and the "No one has correctly guessed shadow Ragatha". So, here's me rolling the dice at this prediction:

So. Baseball is a team sport. I'm sure everyone knows this. Of course, Ragatha being all about codependency, she would like to play this sport. But there's always two teams. ESPECIALLY if it's in a stadium. Because that means it's the bigger leagues. So... What if the opposite team are the shadow characters?

Like the ones from EP 2

Caine has already shown that he has access to the player models with both the EP 3 mounted heads as well as the outfits from EP 4 fitting perfectly (And let's be honest: The VHS tape Gangle most likely is NOT Gangle). so modified player models are already something that Caine can clearly do

Plus, this wouldn't contradict another thing Gooseworx said about no more major NPCs being shown. Because it's not an NPC because they're not completely new characters. They're just clones of the OG characters. And for extra benefit- I'd think that they'd be the worst parts of the characters but exaggerated and harmful

Why this?

Because if this is true, I wish for shadow Ragatha to be every flaw that Ragatha is. Her hidden thoughts and feelings, her need for companionship, and her nasty temper. Ragatha clearly doesn't like her own flaws- only being (impulsively) honest when LITERALLY HIGH OFF HER ASS- so of course this would get under her skin

I think the best way to have that work too is if the torment is emotional. The shadow team does better than the OGs, and Ragatha gets more frustrated with everyone else for not listening to her, when in reality she's her own downfall. I don't wish for a scene where she blows up at her ACTUAL friends... But maybe at the shadows instead

She manages to be alone with them and she just- lets her anger out on them. Pinning THEM as the reason they're losing. But instead... The shadows begin to berate her. Dig into HER own insecurities and troubles and maybe even trauma, shadow Ragatha being the main person to do it

I dunno how it would get resolved, but yeah :D Just a lil food for thought

[beuxwhoyouare]

Raised You Better

My son Jasper was a good kid. He was a star soccer player in school and got a scholarship to play in college, so I only saw him on holidays. I missed him so much and looked forward to our quarterly reunions.

Well that was until his most recent visit. He was being so distant and when I finally inquired why he was acting differently, he finally admitted he actually dropped out to pursue being a personal trainer.

I was shocked. He's always been a model child and did all me and my husband expected of him. Maybe it was all our time away working? Maybe I should've been home more instead of being at the lab. It felt like a punch in the gut. I mean sure he knew what he was doing thanks to all his time training for soccer but that's not a way to build a life?

My husband and I did it right. We met in college and supported each other through our advanced degrees and worked our way up in an international pharmaceutical company. Personal training is just so...surface level. He's supposed to be better than us. That's what you want for your children. No no no this is no good. I'll have to set him on the right path.

I knew of a special program at work that was rooted in natural medicine and meditation with a mad science twist. I set up Jasper with the "Sports Nutrition" department at work but it was actually our new experiment. It looked like a TENS muscle stimulator on crack. Several wires shot out of a relatively large dark grey box with a screen and several sliders on one side. I sat connected on the other side of the wall connected with the pads all over the top of my head. All I had to do was wait for Jasper to get hooked up. We sold it to him as a scientific way to curb cravings for sweets and unhealthy things, like an ozempic shot for the brain. In reality, I was told that the machine would take positive attributes from one source and strengthen them in the weaker mind.

I saw the lights flicker and anticipated that he had already been hooked up to the machine. I just laid back and rested while focusing on the importance of getting a quality education. Eventually, I must have dozed off because when I opened my eyes again it was all so groggy. But I was sitting facing the opposite direction. I lifted my arms to wipe my eyes and gasped when I looked down. My boobs were gone and replaced with sizable mounds of muscle escaping a tiny white tank top. My arms and thick thighs now filled with tattoos....no?! This isn't supposed to be how it works

I told the lab techs who I am and that I was actually Meredith. They both looked at each other spooked but judiciously jotting down notes. After answering a few security questions, they agreed to believe that I was indeed not Jasper and it must be an unforseen side effect from the treatment.

That's when they explained the problem....When my body woke up, it also said it was Meredith. Could the experiment have basically overwritten the memory of my son with my own? I felt like I basically killed my own child. Grief swept over me. But then so did a bravado, a confidence, a giddiness? The two lab techs handed me a towel as they shyly avoided looking down at a tent forming in my shorts. Oh I guess the excitement led to a physical response.

In theory I get it as a scientist. I did in fact instill positive traits on my son. Granted, that also erased him seemingly. But also it's a chance at a new life full of new experiences. I'm a man now. And what a man indeed. I walked into the shower facility at the lab. I took off the outfit Jasper donned to the lab, if I was still a woman it'd be called skimpy and slutty. Tiny shorts with underwear built in and a virtually see through tank top. In two swift moves, I had taken everything off. I had seen my son naked as a child but this is different. He looked so much like his father....well I guess I looked so much like MY dad now. His genetics graced me well as I placed one hand on my pecs and another on my new dick. I squeezed both recoiling from the newfound pleasure. This was wrong right? Like I shouldn't be doing this....I felt disgusted with myself. No. This is for the betterment of Jasper's life. I'm going to let go of my past life....I'm Jasper now.

And what a life it will be. Years of playing sport and training, whew. I wasn't going to let him throw it away, I'll let it be a side job, maybe I'll own a business with a bunch of trainers under me but I won't be hustling like that. Not yet. I gotta learn the new me. I used my hands to trace the curves of each new tattoo, then moved on to each muscle. I poked and prodded before squeezing, then I remembered I had business to attend to. I took one hand and gently took hold of the warm fleshy rod under the steamy water pulsing down onto me. I pumped back and forth for a few minutes. Jasper was not sensitive at all...I shoved aside my reservations and gripped myself firmer and began jerking harder and faster. Eventually I introduced my other hand....oh he was girthy in the best way. I mean I am thick in the best ways. Harder and faster, it felt like I was floating outside of myself as my muscles took over almost like autopilot.

The steam radiated off my new musculature when it felt like I saw a flash of light. Shot after shot came out of my new rod. The lab walls had likely never seen a show like this but I was happy to christen them. The autopilot kinky thoughts continued to take over my new mind and body. I squatted down an licked the nearest wall as my cum dripped down. I knew Jasper was queer but I didn't know how he would respond to this kind of kink. I think he was a little freak because there was not one single butterfly in my stomach from this action. I quickly toweled off and headed to my apartment. I figured "Meredith" could find her way home.

The apartment smelled like a young male in college. A musk twirled around sweat and strong cologne. Foreign to me, but familiar to my new body. I couldn't control myself and ripped my clothes off...literally. My strength made it obscenely easy to tear them off in ways they weren't intended to. I wanted to try on all my new clothes. This body made everything look good.

My phone buzzed. It was one of "my" bros asking if I was coming down to the shoot. I played it off like I forgot and asked him to send me the "deets" again.

I threw on the nearest random shirt and bottoms and made my way to the warehouse address given. I guess "I" had agreed to help with the photoshoot to launch "our" new clothing line. A nearby table had Jasper's name on it and I quickly assumed the position taking off all my clothes and putting the skimpy clothing on. I channeled my new swagger as my bros began taking pics.

Oh I think I'm gonna like this. Hopefully I can find a cute twink or something soon. I really wanna put these thighs to work plowing someone's son or two.

[krems-chair]

Something Something Yeah It's Still Solavellan Hours (Mythal is kind of here, too)

I've seen a few very beautifully articulated posts talking about the conflicted responses players are finding themselves having in regards to the decision by writers* to have Solas' atonement route possible because of his conversation with one of the remaining fragments of Mythal.

(*honestly I hesitate to put the weight of bigger game events on their shoulders because of how much I know bigger players in the company were involved, so when you read 'writers' know I just mean whoever had final say on plot)

I love reading where people are at on this, and having now breathed, re-played the scene, cried, read some more theories, and then played the scene again enough times I think I'm now able to figure out where I'm at.

TLDR: in my humble opinion, the conversation Solas has with Mythal doesn't bring him any actual closure at all. It is only the version of the atonement ending that has Lavellan in which he is actually set upon a road to redemption.

This, like everything else where I lose my mind, will be long. I tried to restrain myself and here we are, unhinged as ever.

I was unhappy at first that Mythal's incredibly brief conversation with Solas where she releases him from her service seemed to be what finally allowed him to make a decision based on his wants and not hers. My concern stemmed mostly from the fact that a lot of us are trying to be active participants in a society that recognizes patterns of abuse and seeks to establish channels through which individuals can pursue healing without the approval, consent, or demise of their abuser.

But the more I look at the scene, the more I wonder what would have happened in a world where Veilguard got just a little more time in development. Could we have gotten a scene that more elegantly conveys the theme that we cannot heal every part of our loved ones, much as we might like to?

In an imperfect world it isn't always up to us how someone finds closure, which really sucks when you'd like to ensure a loved one finds it in a way that preserves their dignity and limits exposure to the individuals who have harmed them.

And while it could be left there, I'd like to actually push back on the idea that Mythal is in any way responsible for "healing" Solas in this moment.

I went on a different tirade a few days ago about how at the end of Inquisition, Mythal says words to Solas that on their surface seem well-intentioned or placating, but they actually just serve to further bind him in guilt and a position of servitude. In Veilguard's finale, she still does not take accountability for exactly how much of a role she played in the pain that Solas, a man others have revered and feared as a god, has gone through as he cowers, actually cowers before her.

Mythal's interaction with Solas conveys exactly two things to him as far as I am concerned (I'm going to botch these quotes but my laptop is dying so please accept some paraphrase as I rush to finish this before I go cry about this analysis to my uncaring dog):

"The terrible things we did, we did together." You are forever tied to me.

"I release you from my service." But what am I releasing you to?

Because up until Lavellan joins the fray here, all I take away from the physical and unwilling emotional cues Solas gives in this scene (he is a master in trickery, for goodness' sake, the thought of so many witnesses seeing him unable to hide behind a mask has to leave him feeling anguished on top of everything else) is that Mythal has once again reminded him of everything he did in her name and telling him that all that's left for him is to go back to the fade prison and, as he as always done, endure the crushing weight of his failures alone.

To me, in my interpretation, the Solas that hears this from Mythal with no Lavellan intervention may choose to willingly step down from his original plan (and yeah, that's gonna do some damage) but he is certainly not free of his past. He's going to be reminded of it every time he turns a corner and finds more blight to try and soothe, and even the moments that he rests will be filled with more manifestations of his regret. He says it himself: where he's going? It's terrible.

Enter Lavellan. Yeah, he couldn't bring himself to listen to her at her first plea (but like damn how many times are we going to have to watch her give a heartfelt speech only for him to be like 'something something beautiful elven rejection'). But I know that you know that our clever icon knows better than to take what Solas says at face value. She tells Rook plainly that he's absolute dogshit at lies of the heart, and she says it with her whole chest.

Lavellan sees the way his shoulders slump (in resignation yes, but you can't convince me there's not a little bit of relief there, too), she hears the agony in the "vhenan" that escapes his lips (which, don't even get me started on the fact that it's been like nine years and he has no hesitation at all calling her his heart, it just spills out of him). It is not the sound of a man delighting in the steps he's about to take. They're certainly not steps he does not dislike that lead to a destination he enjoys.

And then she watches Mythal (who I can't imagine she feels any sort of fondness or respect for) pull some weird nonsense on her love one final time, and she knows it's her moment to shine.

Mythal, I would argue, pushes Solas down one more time, shames him into seeking atonement, into once again being alone.

It is the romanced Lavellan that kneels so that he cannot fail to meet her eyes. It is she who invokes their connection, not to remind him of his failures but to reaffirm his greatest strength: their love and their love alone is inevitable. Not the consequences of his past, not the regret he thinks will consume him as he seeks to mend what has been broken. It has only ever been them.

"There is no fate but the love we share". We are forever tied together.

"There is no fate but the love we share." *I* am releasing you from everything else save for this love.

Put colloquially: get absolutely fucking wrecked, Mythal.

Body language comparison to chase up the dialogue one, anyone? The way Solas shrinks before Mythal as opposed to him walking off into the fade with Lavellan at his side and standing tall, and he does not flinch when she lifts a hand to his shoulder?

Ultimately, Mythal is a part of the atonement endings no matter what. But it is only Lavellan that refuses to let him walk alone. It is only Lavellan that guarantees that his dinan'shiral ends not in a prison of regret, but a place of promise.

Mythal bends Solas until he breaks one last time. Lavellan takes each piece, claims it as hers, and uses them to build the beginnings of a future.

[eyecan02]

Alastor Analysis

Alastor's background regarding romance and sexuality goes all the way back to early drawings that depict Alastor crushing on Kay-cee.

The story then moves on from a crush on Kay-cee to a full on relationship with Mimzy.

It makes me wonder how Viv jumped from Alastor in a relationship to Alastor being ace. It feels like quite a wide leap. With Viv being the creator, I have nothing but respect for her but I feel like Alastor can still love/possibly do sexual acts while still keeping in character and looking out for #1.

I feel like while Alastor was alive, he leaned toward graysexual and this is why. I don't believe this man died a virgin. As we all know Alastor is from the 20s. He's in his late 30s/40s, meaning that it would've been uncommon for a man his age to still be unwed/unattached to someone. I'm sure he went on blind dates set up by his mom, and even occasionally slept with women in order to keep up appearances. He most likely did this in order to make his mother happy since any mother would've liked to have seen their child happily married.

And after Alastor became an overlord, the occasional sex probably didn't stop there, because Alastor is all about about keeping up appearances and deals. He definitely comes off as someone who would use sex as a means to and end. If a woman wanted to trade their soul in exchange for Alastor's protection and one night with him, I feel like Alastor wouldn't turn her down. It would be a decision that would end up leading to an increase in power for him. He just likely wouldn't kiss during the act.

Now finally onto Alastor's relationship with Charlie. From the beginning, we've all known that Alastor has his own agenda and reasons for involving himself with Charlie. He's a master of manipulation, knowing love is a powerful motivator (the way he manipulates Vaggie by making her feel bad about Charlie and the commercial) and also digging into Charlie's daddy issues.

It was clear that Alastor tried to play the boyfriend card to piss off Luci. It was only after Charlie introduced Vaggie that Alastor changed tactics and switched to the daddy card.

This means that Alastor would be willing to play any role to get what he wants from Charlie, whether the endgame is obtaining her soul or becoming her royal advisor or whatever. If Vaggie had been introduced in the pilot as a mere crush, Alastor would've caught onto the daddy issues quick and would've angled for a romantic role in Charlie's life since love and sex would be easy things for Alastor to manipulate (if my theory is right about him using sex as a means to an end).

I feel like this kind of materializes during the pilot with the way Alastor keeps pushing Vaggie out of the way, and how Vaggie seems jealous whenever Alastor impresses Charlie.

We don't know if this weird competition for Charlie's attention will persist between them as the series goes on considering that behavior was absent in season one. What's interesting is that the jealousy aspect switched from Vaggie to Alastor. The second Luci hugged Charlie, we're shown Alastor looking maliciously at Luci with his eye twitching in irritation.

What do we know about Alastor so far? He's an attention whore . He's used to being one of the strongest demon lords (at least from the pride ring) so suddenly not having attention, particularly Charlie's attention is making him act nuttier than usual.

Usually, it's hard for someone to be jealous without at least having some feelings toward the one they're feeling jealousy over. "Ah, an enjoyable collective to be around. I admit that one could get accustomed." This line is for the entire Hazbin gang, but also a real sign he cares for Charlie.

He can still have his own hidden agenda while caring about Charlie and being attracted to her. And he definitely is attracted to her. Calls her "charming and adorable". The constant touching.

Some might argue that that's just a part of Alastor's power play/dominance but he already knows that those types of moves don't intimidate Charlie. In fact, she never seems bothered at all when Alastor tries physically to get closer to her.

Also, the animators placing Alastor in Charlie's bed with both of them on a HEART pillow is insane. They know what they were doing. We see the way Alastor's hands possessively spider crawl up Charlie's shoulders and the way he grips her face.

And by the looks of it, Alastor seems to lust after Charlie's soul almost as much as his freedom. Viv has said that Alastor can't love anyone because he loves himself too much. Yet, she has also described Charlie as "Alastor's mirror".

The fact that they even made Charlie's color palette similar to Alastor's. Her hot pink jacket is almost a reddish color and they both wear bow ties. If Charlie is a reflection of Alastor then wouldn't that mean he does technically love himself by loving Charlie? He could be Charliesexual.

Not saying Viv will change her mind. She already chose her endgame. BUT what if Prime and Viv compromise and we get to have one sided Charlastor where Alastor admits to someone or even directly confesses his romantic love to Charlie herself (without actually trying to steal her from Vaggie)?

[chireikiden]

I really doubt google's giving me a good translation for the story summary for the Touhou 20 announcement and it's confusing me... could you do us all a favour? 〜 ストーリー 〜幻想郷に何かが起きていることは感じていた。しかし、その事に気付く者は僅かだ。 明らかに異常な反応を見せていたのは、聖域、すなわち山の麓に存在するアンタッチャブルな地と異変の力だった。 今まで解決してきた異変の力を纏って、彼女は聖域に挑む。(Also what are your thoughts on the announcement so far any theories and predictions?)

東方錦上京 〜 Fossilized Wonders

錦上京 is pretty hard to give a snappy translation without context. At face value, 錦上 means "fine dress" and "above" and would be short for the idiom "to put flowers on top of a fine dress", meaning "to make something beautiful even more beautiful". Meanwhile 京 is "capital city". So it could be paraphrased as like "Beautified" or "Resplendent Capital".

However, 上京 also means "going to the capital", so it could be "going to capital in fine dress" or along those lines. Or both of these options. I doubt there'll be anything to settle which one it's "supposed" to be, but mentally I'm going to treat the former as the main meaning with the latter as a side note.

Note that I'm not personally familiar with the 錦上 idiom or anything else it might be alluding to. Basically going by dictionaries here.

One could feel that something was happening in Gensokyo. However, only a few people would realize. The strange feeling was clearly coming from the Sanctuary, i.e. the untouchable region in the foothills of the mountain, and the power of an incident. Taking with her the power of incidents she'd resolved in the past, she set out towards the Sanctuary.

Spiritual sequel/spinoff for CDS, clearly.

The translation "taking with her" for 纏って feels a bit clunky. The verb used is somewhat ambiguous about how active/voluntary it is, and there'd be a more apt translation if we could be more sure about the details. But it's a safe bet it's at least referring to the rocks they're carrying.

This menu is titled "Change what Incident Stone you have equipped". That Main Story Stone should really be "Main Incident Stone". (And that text at the bottom is just the difficulty selection, with "Gemstone Level" as this time's playful name for Normal difficulty.)

The Main Incident Stone selected here is named Blue Season, and "is loaded with the madness that lurks at the back of all seasons. The power hidden within will certainly open up a hole in the Sanctuary." So it clearly represents the Four Seasons Incident somehow. The rocks also come with Incident Attacks that seem more or less in line with the season, animal spirit or ability card attacks from recent games, as a secondary bomb of sorts. The other screenshots show that you can have four equipped, including duplicates and bigger and smaller images of the same rock.

Other than that, I don't have very specific speculation of my own at the moment. Obviously everything related to Youkai Mountain is packed with options. Izanagi Objects seem like a gimme.

The Japanese title, the English title and the skyline on the logo all bring to mind the Animal Realm, but while they could be involved, I don't really think it's going to be another animal spirit-centric game.

And it could finally be the "large hollow cavity where a futuristic utopia just like the outside world is being built". Which is actually a bit funny, because the mere suggestion makes me think "But if is that, ZUN's being weirdly obvious about it here", as if this wasn't a single line in PMiSS we're talking about. Real xkcd 2501 hours.

I tend to not really play the games, but follow them very closely. Looking forward to getting three more characters again less than a month from now. Always one of the best times to be in this fandom.

[lover-of-mine]

alright costume oracle, if the black Eddie outfit isn't a flashback to the coma, what do we think that all black ensemble means??

Okay everyone, please only address me as costume oracle from now on when asking about this oskaoskaoksaosk (I'm kidding, this just made me laugh so sincerely, thank you).

So, the black. First, the 611 comparison, I think the biggest giveaway that is not meant to be a flashback is his hair lol. But while they do look similar, the shirts are different, with different fabrics, different buttons, different pockets, so not the same.

Honestly, Eddie was in a lot of black in s7 and 2 out of 3 non-uniform outfits we saw from him include black tops, which is interesting considering his arc. And this isn't considering the fact that he has been wearing the black lafd top more than the navy one and the black jacket he was also in a lot.

It could 100% be the lighting but something that drew my attention right away is that black isn't all that vibrant. He was in black during most of Buck's bi arc and he meets Kim in black, but those are a lot more intense. I have a running theory that Eddie is chasing color, and at first, I thought that they were gonna put him in lighter colors during said chase. And I think I was partially right. Obviously with Eddie allowing himself joy being my biggest thing here, that baby pink color. So in my head, when he is playing in those lighting tones, he's closer.

So putting him in black, something that absorbs color and doesn't allow him to reflect anything back, a color that was very attached to him last season while he was in a relationship wasn't fully sure of or the thing with Kim is interesting.

Talking about actual color theory, black is very commonly used as a color of mourning, so it could be Eddie mourning the life he doesn't want to leave behind. Black is also a color of mystery or concealment, so it could be Eddie hiding things, like the way he doesn't really want to move or be in Texas. Mostly I think that that outfit could be about a scene where Eddie is trying to resign himself to doing what he thinks is right even though he hates it, or hiding his true feelings somehow, trying to keep the peace, accept the criticism, end up back in a mind space where the belives he needs to be punished for hurting Chris.

This is my safe bet.

But let's say we want to be a bit more daring in our spec.

I have multiple theories about what color Eddie could be while he confronts his parents about basically stealing Chris. For instance what I nicknamed the "let's talk about if I trust you with my kid" light wash denim, since they put him in that white undershirt, light wash denim button-down combo when we first see Shannon and he doesn't want to let her see Chris, when his parents are trying to convince him to give Chris to them in 315, and for the there's nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you scene.

Other theories include a yellow color if the scene ends up attached to his queer awakening somehow, of him accepting more of who he is in a similar way they used blue with Buck throughout his coming out arc, but I'm a lot less confident on that one.

And well, some cultures have black as a color attached to rebellion, and black is also at times used to indicate power. And Eddie was in black the last time he was in Texas and he was confronting the damage his father did to him. So it could also be used as he confronts his mother, the precedent is there.

He's also in black during the dinner he tries to ask Shannon to be a family again and she asks for a divorce, so the road to acceptance there could end with black since their relationship ends and "restarts" with black, since he's also in black talking to Kim the first time. And that's interesting since he doesn't really mourn Shannon in black, the scene we have when he's confronting those feelings head-on, are not exactly black, yes, we have the black shirt in 217, but the green jacket ends up being the focus there. And as much as they seem to be trying to distance themselves from the Kim of it all, this arc also has to include letting Shannon's ghost go, so also something to think about there.

So, to recap, safe bet is Eddie in mourning for the life he left behind or hiding how much it hurts him to leave LA. Getting a bit daring, maybe Eddie having some hard conversations with his parents or finally letting go of Shannon for real.

This got long as fuck and I'm sure how much sense it makes if you're not seeing the visions in my head, but if you read this, I love you 🫶

[starsfic]

How about the demolition of Save Haven and subsequent Doey rampage told from the POV of Kevin, but playing on the theory that it was Matthew, not Kevin, who actually snapped in that moment.

By the time Doey got there, it was too late.

What he, what all of them, had worked so hard to build, was nothing but rubble and flame and ash. What was once light and warm was just like the rest of the factory, dark and cold. Little bodies were casually tossed here and there, either singed by the fire or bloody, broken messes.

What little of Kevin barely recognized the scream that came out of them. A distant memory, one tinged by guilt, remembered Jack making the same howl back when they were still adjusting. More mournful noises escaped them, and Kevin let his own grief drift out.

"I'm sorry...I'm so, so sorry..." Matthew was talking, and his emotions tinged the entire space. All of them felt some responsibility to the other toys, but Matthew, he knew, felt the most responsible. Both for the toys and for him and Jack, always coming up when decisions had to be made. "I was never what any of you needed."

"You were, Matt," Jack said, the words unheard except in the space of Doey's mind, where their consciousnesses met. "You did the best you could. We all did."

In Kevin's mind, he could see Matthew back when he was human, staring at the broken little Bobby. He had once thought he was the biggest teacher's pet he had ever met, but now...

"I was only made to hurt things." That scientist from the tape was right. Kevin would never trade this hell with anyone else, but they should have chosen someone better, someone...not broken. "It's my fault...my fault..."

"No."

Two voices had spoken as one.

Matthew was turning his head. The employee, the one Poppy had brought, stood there. Tears rolled down their cheeks, mixing with the blood that stained their form. "It's not your fault," they said, unknowingly agreeing with Kevin. "The Prototype, he must have followed me- it's not your fault, it's-"

Ah, crap. Kevin always knew there was something up with that Ollie kid Poppy was always talking to. He felt himself grin, pushing back the grief to focus on the anger that always burned below. It was time-

"Their fault."

...excu-what.

Emotion was boiling around them, like when Jack got too excited or Kevin too annoyed, or when they were all exhausted. However, this emotion, this anger...

"Hurts," Matthew said, gripping his sleeves. Kevin dared to drift closer. "Everything hurts." The look of pure rage in his face? He felt Doey take a step forward, closer to the employee, who was reaching, their face twisted into concern. "Hurt back. Always hurt back."

"Uh...Matthew?" The grief was swallowed up by concern now. "You're acting kinda weird-"

"Parents." Ow. "Scientists. Everyone." Unlike what a normal person would do, the employee stood there, frozen. "I have to-"

Oh boy. Kevin tried his best to think of what Matt said whenever he got too angry. "Look, just calm down!" He tried his best to mimic the deep breaths in, deep breaths out. "Just breathe, they didn't-"

Sadness tinged the emotions now, and tears were rolling down Matthew's cheeks, sliding into the snarl, matching Doey's tears.

"I mean, they were following Poppy's-"

"Poppy." Matthew snarled and Kevin had just made it worse. "It all started with them and her!" Doey slammed a hand into the employee's shoulder, and they didn't move or run. They simply stared, tears rolling down their cheeks like Matthew. "It was you who ruined everything!"

Oh god- Kevin tried to grab control, tried to reason. If Matthew didn't calm down, someone was going to get hurt. Why wasn't the employee running?! "No, no, that's not true, they jumpstarted the generator. They-"

A fist slammed into Doey's head and Kevin was pushed back.

"Destroyed everything!" Matthew's rage was nothing like Kevin's anger. Instead of being hot and flashy, it was cold and simmering, and now it is boiling over.

"No!" Jack wailed, hurrying over to grab Matthew's leg. "Mattie, please, we need-!"

"I'LL KILL YOU!"

A fist was made and launched.

Kevin barely managed to grab the reins in time, sending the strike into the wall. As rubble collapsed, as he felt their form twist and shift to match the grief that Matthew screamed, he hoped the human would do the sensible thing...

And run.

[therainscene]

I think I might have figured out what the Mind Flayer really is.

This theory has been percolating in my brain for a while now; it hasn't really finished baking yet but I wanted to get the gist of it down before The First Shadow debuts.

Let’s begin at the Hawkins National Lab, 6th November 1983. For the second time in her young life, El faces terrifying and deeply traumatic circumstances which cause her powers to lash out and rip a gash in the fabric of reality.

Meanwhile, across town, Will is doing what every queer 12 year-old has done and finds an excuse to spend an extra moment alone with his crush.

His little gay heart is as aflutter as the garage lights.

(Strange, that. The lights, I mean -- considering that he's on the other side of town from the lab. Do you suppose the Demogorgon trekked all the way to Mike's house and quietly followed him home again?)

Will heads home, lost in thought as he cycles past the lab. Is he thinking about how sweet his new X-Men #134 is gonna be? Or is he thinking about something even sweeter? The lights flutter again.

And something in front of him notices.

Will has always been noticeable: his clothes, his mannerisms, his interests -- they've always attracted the attentions of bullies. Now something new -- or maybe something that was always there and is only now making itself known -- has attracted the attentions of a monster.

He runs home, he calls for help, but he's alone, there's no escape. He races to the shed and loads a gun like his father taught him -- but it's not in his nature to be violent. He freezes, petrified.

The lights surge as his terror wrestles control of his powers and uses them to puncture an escape route in the fabric of reality.

Why were we so quick to believe that the Demogorgon -- a minion of the guy whose whole thing is his inability to open gates -- was able to open its own temporary portals in S1 and then never again?

Will could plausibly have been responsible for every temporary portal in S1: he’s at the Byers house when the Demogorgon pushes through its walls; he's on the run to Castle Byers when Nancy stumbles across that portal in the woods; and he's plugged in to one of Vecna's vines during the finale -- something we see Vecna plug himself into when he remotely opens gates in S4.

There’s one exception though.

Barb likely slipped through a gate in Steve's pool, but how could Will have opened that one when he was in his bedroom at the time, talking to his mother through the lights?

Let me ask you this: isn't it interesting that of all the injuries Barb could have obtained in her passage to the Upside Down, she got a nosebleed?

I think powers are more common than we’ve been led to believe, and gates are a last-ditch self-defense mechanism for anyone with powers.

This is why the four curse victims’ deaths opened a gate: Vecna pushed them to their breaking point to artificially trigger the self-defense response. Those headaches and nosebleeds weren't caused by Vecna directly, but by their own powers acting up as they inched towards oblivion.

[Shoutout to @givehimthemedicine's underrated powers and blood theory for the idea of Vecna's Curse being the overcharging of his victims' own powers.]

It was already pretty obvious that Vecna's Curse is a metaphor for suicide, and this theory reinforces it: every kid who gets targeted by the horrors of Hawkins for being "different" tries to find some way to escape.

Willel's misfortune is that their powers are considerably more easily manifested than the average person's. Byler tells the story of visible vs invisible queerness, but that's just a reflection of the larger theme at play in the show: the visible and invisible ways kids are othered and abused.

Max's trauma was a quiet thing that came from within and festered until it was almost too late to save her... but Willel's trauma manifests as a giant monster that openly hunts them down.

And I'm being literal when I say the Mind Flayer is a manifestation of their trauma.

We know that Vecna fashioned the Mind Flayer from a cloud of black particles he found in the Upside Down, but where did that cloud come from? The Upside Down is a mysterious enough place that it's easy to assume the Shadow is native to that realm... but what if it isn't?

The Mind Flayer is heavily associated with repression -- Will gradually lost his memories while he was possessed, and El lost her powers when the sliver of Flesh Flayer wormed its way into her leg.

But Will has mysteriously been without powers ever since leaving the Upside Down, and we've seen El lose memories too: her memories of surviving the lab massacre, in which she didn't simply escape by opening up a gate, but by disintegrating her attacker into black particles.

The Mind Flayer doesn't cause repression -- it is repression.

There must have been countless generations worth of traumatized children who took the extra step El did and sent their abusers -- or at least their memories of abuse -- into that hidden realm beyond the gate.

(There's also the possibility that Mr. Time-is-Just-a-Social-Construct is stuck in a time loop of some sort -- maybe the massacre has repeated hundreds of times, and Dimension X is a timeless graveyard of El's attempts to repress her trauma. This would explain why Henry seems to have both disintegrated and survived: we were watching at least two different iterations of the massacre all along.)

Whichever way you slice it, it's a perfect fit: the tool Vecna uses to perpetuate the cycle of abuse isn't some bizarro alien from an alternate dimension, but a direct consequence of the cycle itself.

The Mind Flayer tells us that escape alone doesn't work as a long-term solution: it might help you survive the initial abuse, but if you don't address the effect it had on you...

...it will come back to wreck havok.

[Edit: Click here for post-TFS thoughts on this theory]

[dramaticallytotal]

For Your Entertainment Headcanons: Part One

Idea Post

• Chaos Gremlin Noah, my beloved! Chris purposefully starts drama in the show to entertain Noah because, as mentioned before, a bored Noah is a scary Noah. This is why he was so mad at Duncan for quitting. Noah was looking forward to the love triangle drama! Now what was Chris supposed to play on?

• Noah getting Harold kicked off was more brutal than any of my other aus. Bro compared Harold to Chris, and Harold took that personally. This happened after the challenge in Egypt was over, and they settled into the hotel they would be staying at for a while. A lot of people were chilling by the pool, and Noah was one of them. Noah really liked pools despite the crowds they attracted. Plus, he promised Izzy he would watch her do a handstand and walk the entire length of the pool while doing so. He had been doing so until he got bored and started reading Construire avec le peuple (Architecture For The Poor) by Hassan Fathy when Harold decided that he absolutely had to interrupt Noah to start a debate.

He had done this four times previously, and Noah was done.

Apparently, Harold could not let go of all the cultural insensitivities they encountered today and just had to tell the 50th person around so. All the while wearing that stupid tinfoil hat he made. Actually...that gave Noah an idea. An awful idea. It gave Noah a wonderful, awful idea!

• He laid into Harold about wearing the tinfoil hat and that by wearing it, he was being culturally insensitive. "You're basically stating that you don't believe in their history. You wearing that...thing...is a statement that you agree with erasing people's hard work and labor for a brain-dead conspiracy theory. Hard work and labor that was significantly important to not only their history but their culture.

You keep harping on about Chris and the Network but are just as bad as them. Maybe even worse, too, considering you keep telling everyone you know everything about Egypt. If you're so well read and educated about it, that makes your fashion choice all the more insulting. And all the worse because I'm pretty sure Chris's knowledge of Egypt is purely from The Mummy, Cleopatra, Gods of Egypt, and other movies.

Do better."

• Absolutely destroyed Harold. This made Harold determined to prove Noah wrong and to maybe appease himself of guilt. Which cultivated in him having to point out everything that could be seen as culturally insensitive.

• Each time Harold annoyed someone, Noah had to hide his widening smile. Especially if the someone was Chris, his annoyed expression was just too funny!

• Alejandro flirting with Leshawna and Bridgette was also really entertaining to Noah because of how the others reacted. Especially Harold! He was so mad and sad, and it was hilarious because he kept trying harder to seem cool and good, and it was failing spectacularly!

• Like I said before, Noah is pretty apathetic and only cares about Team E-Scope and Owen. He also holds little grudges against some competitors! Like, noticeably, Harold. Another one that may come as a surprise is Bridgette, which is why he found such joy in her predicament in the Yukon. Before he got eliminated on Island Noah, he didn't like many people there, but he thought Bridgette was pretty cool and nice, and he did think she was pretty. It was a small crush, one he knew he wasn't going to pursue but that didn't mean he couldn't be her friend.

Apparently, this must have given something away, though he had no idea how, and instead of talking to him, she joked about it to some of the girls knowing damn well that Geoff and his "bros" were listening in. It was most likely to see if the guy would get jealous, considering everyone knew the two were crushing on each other. That somehow made it worse to Noah because from then on, he started getting the Harold treatment from Geoff, Duncan, and DJ.

That pissed him right the hell off. He had done nothing, and all of a sudden, he was getting shoulder checked when walking to the mess hall. His books would go missing from time to time if he didn't hide them first. Just small shit like that, and he was over it.

It was one of the reasons he got himself voted off. He was not about to stick it out in a shitty summer camp while these dude bros wanted to act like high school movie bullies instead of focusing on the competition.

• He had no remorse. He had more fun watching the competition from the luxury of his resort room or the game room.

• So he has little grudges against Bridgette, Geoff, DJ, and Duncan because of that whole mess. Everyone else he just doesn't care about. He tried to get to know some of them on Island and in Aftermath, but it was like they were humoring him. And he knew some only interacted with him because he was Owen's best friends. He was content with that, though, because the way he saw it, he at least tried, and that's more than he can say for the others.

So yeah, he doesn't really care what happens to everyone else.

• Izzy and him are chaos siblings, and Eva is terrified that they are on the same team without her being there to keep an eye on them and be their stern voice of reason. She should be.

• The number of times that Chef has had to carry them under his arms away from areas they weren't allowed is too much. All the while, the two are giggling maniacally.

• When Noah told Alejandro "Good Work," about Bridgette in the Yukon. Alejandro was afraid his teammate had found him out and went on the offense, which was flirting. He figured he could distract Noah with the flirting, and they could forget the whole mess.

It seemed to work if the blushing was anything to go by. Or the way Noah looked away if he complimented him and smiled a little. He was a little surprised when Noah would compliment him back of whisper snide comments to him, and he figured that was the snark's way of flirting back.

He assumed his plan worked and didn't pay any more close attention to his teammate. Which was a mistake he later learned.

• Noah knew he shot himself in the foot when he complimented Alejandro on a job well done with Bridgette, but he didn't care because it led to more entertainment for him! Alejandro started flirting with him, and the expressions of the females were delicious! So he acted shy and coy and would reciprocate the flirting here in there in his own way, and the way Alejandro fell for it was also hilarious. It took everything in him not to cackle.

• The crew and interns love their gremlin boss, which is why they have a code for if they think he's getting bored and they really can't have that! So if they see even an inkling of boredom, they call a Code B-72 and rush to find something that will entertain him. Most of the time, it's helping sneak him to Chris and Chef's room so Chris and Noah can watch Love Island together with excuse that Chris misses his trash TV buddy.

Or they sneak him books!

• After the confrontation in the cargo hold, Alejandro is always close by Noah looking at him with absolute moon eyes. Noah thinks this is still Alejandro flirting with him because he caught him, but no....Alejandro is just a simp now.

• Before their next challenge, Noah makes sure to get Alejandro alone so he can tug him down by his necklace again. He doesn't notice that the guy doesn't seem bothered by this in the least. "You're going to try today. That's not a question. You are going to actually try and win with the rest of us, and if we lose. We lose. But at least we lost when putting in effort. If we win? All the better. Understand?"

Alejandro, breathless, "Si."

"Good boy." After making his point, Noah once more patted Alejandro on the cheek before walking away again. And again, he left Alejandro absolutely flustered and heart eyed.

• Next challenge was the Amazon, and Alejandro did still get punched by Owen, but Noah thought it would be funny to fuss over the hunk of a guy in front of everyone, especially the girls. Alejandro could die happy with the attention he was getting from his zorro.

• Alejandro went down the zipline with Noah, and Noah let it happen because there was no way he was doing that himself. He just went along for the ride and clung to Alejandro, who swore he was in heaven the entire ride down.

• When they stopped to make camp, Noah made sure to act like he wasn't doing much besides indulging Izzy and Owen in their shenanigans, but he was also telling them to go get firewood while Alejandro told Trent, Tyler, and Justin set up their sleeping bags and such while he and Noah went to find some food.

Thank goodness Noah was in the Boy Guides of Canada when he was younger even though he didn't stay long. Plus, he read those survival handbooks, and his sister was studying to be a horticulturist, and she had a phase where she wanted to harvest her own food or take trips into the forest to find "hidden snacks" and of course he got dragged along.

• No Owen being taken by the giant caterpillars. Alejandro is a simp, and he knew Noah would be angry. Of course, Noah noticed his anger with the oaf and how he didn't let him be taken, so he rewarded Alejandro with a smile and pat to the head. It had Alejandro on cloud nine.

• Noah's all about reward systems.

• Thankfully, his friends respond to them, too! And so does Alejandro! Win win.

• They don't win the challenge, but Noah still gives Alejandro a smile because he knew the guy was actually trying. Noah may or may not start being fond of Alejandro more than he was before. But according to his observation, Alejandro seems fond of him, too.

• Alejandro starts to let Noah see the real him behind the masks and feels so relieved when the guy doesn't hate him or finds him weird. He feels accepted, and he doesn't fail to notice how Noah opens up to him in return or the way they both get closer, and Noah gets more touchy feel-y.

Noah finds the real Alejandro worlds more interesting than his mask and realizes that he's starting to get a crush on the guy.

• Chris and Chef also notice this development and are thankful that Alejandro is keeping their little gremlin entertained, but also, how dare that charmer make goo-goo eyes at their gremlin!?

Next

[crimsonmoonlight88]

Noa's Potential Love Triangle

"You like her--Soona."

"We were born within a sunset."

Okay listen, I never thought I'd be here considering a potential love triangle in this series, but here we are.

Now, I won't even touch on the interesting choice of having Mae of all characters ask this, but there are so many answers Noa could have given that ultimately tell the audience "yes, I like her."

Yes. Of course. I do. Sure. Maybe. Why wouldn't I? What, no! *looks nervous*

(I could go on all day.)

But no, he only says, very matter of factly, "we were born within a sunset."

So with that baffling response, I thought about it some more, and two things came to mind for what he might have meant:

They were born close together, like family, indicating his feelings are familial. (This jives with the actual vibe between them in the movie, imo.)

It doesn't really matter. They were born within a sunset and that (possibly) has some cultural meaning for their clan, like a sign they were meant to be together. Therefore, a relationship would be expected of them, no matter how they feel.

Now it could be one or both of these scenarios, but with the second I can see that playing into Noa's upcoming hero journey of becoming who he was meant to be. Interestingly, in this trailer we get:

Owen: Noa has to make a choice Proximus: Do you choose a human, over an ape? Owen: And only one will prevail. Proximus: Together, you will die. Noa: No, together--strong. *cues scene of Noa reaching for Mae on horseback and saving her*

From that trailer alone, you get a sense of what his choice will be. But in the movie itself, when Proximus lays this out for Noa, he does not choose. (Yet)

"Do you choose a human over an ape? Your sweet, little Soona or that stinking human?"

I think that's intentional for now, as I think the love triangle is potentially a catalyst for Noa, and Mae and Soona in particular, are meant to represent two different paths (and endings) for him. With this concept in mind, it could mean:

Choosing Soona means following the path that is expected of him, the one laid out since birth, the one he would have gone down had Mae not come into his life. Following the rules, following tradition, upholding his clan's legacy, and choosing for the world to stay as it is with apes dominating humans. (Apes, together, strong)

Choosing Mae means following the path that defies expectations, the new one that was forged because Mae came into his life. Questioning the rules, embracing change over tradition, upholding Caesar's legacy, and choosing for the world to evolve with human/ape coexistence. (Together, strong)

So Noa's answer of "we were born within a sunset" is not a yes or a no, just as Mae's response to "can ape and human live together" is not a yes or a no, because these characters have not chosen this "together strong" path yet. They are questioning everything they've ever known, are changed by this connection to each other, but they're still following their "expected path" at the moment.

Now I might be wildly off base with this theory of course, and I acknowledge that Noa could definitely become who he needs to be with Soona by his side--but I'm looking at this from the two path/two love interest narrative, along with many other factors. But I'll just finish with these quotes from Wes Ball.

"Her [Mae] whole journey is changed by meeting Noa, just as much as his journey has been changed by meeting her."

"These characters [Noa and Mae] have now saved each other, and they have a complicated connection. There is now a history and real feelings between the two, and that’s going to be important moving forward."

"Can apes and humans live together? Can we coexist? So that will be a continued theme throughout future movies, and if there’s any chance for peace between these species, it will probably be between these two characters."

"There's literally a door that opens at the end to hopefully many more possibilities. And the relationship between Mae and Noa and how they've changed each other, you know, is going to be crucial moving forward as they navigate the future together."