#i owe that man my kidneys for this

[wolf-tail]

Just watched the new Hunter: The Parenting Episode

Besties I am SCREAMING and EATING DIRT

[toxicanonymity]

omg the way every inch makes me drool idk what u did to me i haven’t been the same since 😃 ur so talented i owe u my kidney for that fic alone ! would ever consider part two?? no pressure !!!

EVERY INCH 2

2200 words, m!ghostface x f!reader

follows Every Inch. NEXT: Every inch 3

SERIES MASTERLIST

A/N: He's never unmasked. He is night walks coded. Thank you for all the love on my first Ghostface fic. This was a "one shot fail" because of your engagement & enthusiasm. WARNINGS: I8+ piv, noncon, he calls himself daddy, voyeurism, dirty talk, masturbation, knifeplay, hair pulling, manhandling, choking kinda, degradation, pet names. NO USE OF Y/N. 

SUMMARY: Last time you saw ghostface, he was unconscious from the car wreck and you had your way with him. Now, he's coming to take what's his.

You've put Ghostface behind you, at least in terms of fearing for your life. He's finally left you alone. He must be too humiliated to face you after you restrained him and had your way with him in the car while he was passed out. You still look at the picture you took every day.  You'd like to get it printed and stick it on your bathroom mirror.  He looks so pathetic with his own mess all over his robe. But it's not just the humiliation you love to see. It's his cock. . .

Yeah, his cock.  You've thought about it more than a few times. He would've given you every inch. All you had to do was ask. And the video of him whimpering? You save that for special occasions. Like when you need to cum in a hurry. 

It's Friday night and you're lying in bed after getting home from seeing a movie.  You make sure your vibrator is charged before you start reading, but soon enough you get distracted.  You're looking at your video of Ghostface coming all over himself when a call pops up on the screen. No ringtone.  Your phone is still on silent from the theater.  

The restricted number still makes your heart jump even after such an empowering victory. But you rip the bandaid off and answer it on the first ring. "Hello?"

"So... how'd you like the movie?" the voice changer asks you. 

You panic and hang up, but when he calls right back, you answer again. "This isn't funny, whoever you are."

"You know it's me, baby. You feel it in your. . . pants."

"What do you want?"

"I asked how you liked the movie." 

Friday night. Lucky guess. You know he’s not going to let it go, so you might as well answer. You’re not going to give him the satisfaction of acting aghast that he knows what you did tonight.  "Fine, I liked it. It was fun,” you say dismissively. 

"Picked a bad time to refill your drink. . .  Missed a great kill."

Your heart jumps. ". . .you were there?" The theater wasn't even that crowded. How could he go undetected? Surely you would have recognized something about a man you rode into oblivion. 

He's bemused. "What, you thought I was gone? Nowhere?”

"wishful thinking," you reply. 

Ghostface says, “Oh, we both know what you really wish for. . .”

You’re not even going to argue. 

“How was your date?" 

"How was yours with your hand?" You retort.

"You didn't look interested.” 

"What, are you gonna ask me out?" Your face heats up as you hear your own words.

"Not tonight. 'Cause you've got a date with that toy and my picture, don't ya?”

You freeze. 

He taunts, "Want a third wheel?"

You ask, "How long have you been watching me?"

"Never stopped, sugar." You feel like a fool for thinking he had. “I’ve just been a little. . . distracted.” 

You scoff. 

". . . Okay, did you call just to talk?"

"Wanted some audio with my visual this time."

"Pervert."

“oh I'm the pervert," he chides. Your face is burning up.

"You know, you’ve still got something of mine.”  His knife. You’ve hid it somewhere special.  “Keep comin’ for it. . .but don’t wanna interrupt you.”  

You look out your window, which faces the woods.  "Cause you put on a good show, baby." There’s never been a reason to close the curtains.  You preferred to see danger coming. Danger like him. A lot of good that’s done you. 

“You’re a creature of habit, aren’t you?” 

Are you that predictable?  

“Lucky for me,” he adds darkly.  His breathing becomes audible.  “Oh, you like this, don't you . . . knew ya would. . .  .  .Dripping already.” His voice is steady through the equalizer, but his speech pattern tells you his dick is hard. And god damn if he isn’t turning you on. 

“Dip a finger and show daddy how wet you are.” 

Before you know it, you're doing it. You don’t show him, but you curiously dip you fingers and pull apart the clear string of of your arousal

“Two fingers . . let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”  You lie there clenching your thighs together. 

“Ah, fuck it. Go ahead, turn it on,” he says but you don’t move. You clench your thighs together.  “Turn it on,” he repeats firmer, and something possesses you to turn your vibrator on. 

“Yeah, that’s it . . .”

You don’t even need the picture now, or the video, or your reading. But you don’t exactly want to let him make you come this fast. 

He sighs and says, “You’ve got a nice, juicy pussy." He spits, which the voice changer doesn’t process.

You close your eyes and recall what it felt like impaling yourself on his cock. 

"You don't have to say it," he reassures you menacingly. "I know I’ve got a nice cock.” 

He’s right about that.  You close your eyes as you touch yourself.  You’re too horny to think straight, but in the back of your mind, you try to tell yourself he killed your friends. He killed your friends. It doesn’t make you any less turned on. You sigh in shame at yourself. How does Ghostface have you wrapped around his finger?

“Oh, it’s only natural, baby. This cock’ll fuck you right up.” God, why does that turn you on? “In the guts and the head.” 

"Real shame I wasn’t awake.” He breathes heavily for a few seconds. "Coulda been even better for you.” 

You fail to suppress a moan as heat is bubbling in your core. 

“Yeah. . .Can’t stop thinkin' about this cock, can ya?” 

You turn up the intensity of your vibe. 

“Not everyday someone takes every inch of this.” He moans weakly then spits again. “Filthy girl.  Swallowed it right up.” 

“So tell me, sugar," his breathing is even heavier now. "How do you want it?”

“What if i don’t” you lie, then gasp at the tension in your core.

“Then why’d you take it,” he says with a bite and the heavy breathing stops. 

“Because,” you pant. “It was there.”

You’re getting close.  “How do you want me,” you self-loathingly ask. He doesn’t answer. You look at your phone and he’s gone. Shit. You open the video you took of him and as soon as you hear him whimper, your body jerks as the tension bursts inside you. As soon as you finish pulsing, the regret hits you like a tidal wave. So fucked up. Soooo disgusting.  You need a shower. 

—---

You take a long, hot shower, listening to music. You sigh, feeling a little better already. You turn off the water.

“Soaking wet. That’s how I want you.” You freeze and the only sound is the dripping water for a few seconds while the song changes.  

“Come on, you’re smarter than this.” The voice changer echoes through your bathroom and you almost fall over. “What’s next? Going down to the basement?”

You stand silently in the shower with your heartbeat echoing in your ears.  There’s nothing you can do.  You squat down, hugging your knees.  There’s no good option.   

The shower curtain slowly draws open and he looms above you.

“My turn, baby."  The glint of a knife–your own kitchen knife–catches your eye. He tilts his head slightly and observes you for a moment.  Then he pulls your hair and violently forces you to your feet. You begin to slip and he catches you, then manhandles you out of the tub and you whimper. You’re thrashing around wet and naked.  He drags you to the bathroom sink and puts you between him and the sink, both of you facing the mirror. He reaches out and wipes the mirror with his robe to make sure you can see. 

The sight is surreal. You’re completely nude with Ghostface up against you.  One gloved hand cups your breast while the other raises the knife.  He stays behind you and holds your own kitchen knife to your throat.  

He inhales audibly. “So clean and so filthy.”  

You elbow him in the gut. “Let go of me.” 

“Afraid not, baby. . .” The hand leaves your breast and slides lower.  He presses on your hip, bringing you tight against him. “Too late now.” His hips push forward and the massive shape of his hard cock makes you weak. 

He holds you still with just one of his big arms as you struggle.  “Coulda had it how ya wanted.” 

The unwelcome throb between your legs is spreading through your abdomen. 

“Now you’re gonna take it right here.”  He keeps you pinned to the counter, the arm with the knife holding you still while he lifts his robe and tugs his PJ pants down.  “You’ve put me behind you after all.”  He jerks you back against him, pulling you off the counter and holding you tight against his hard dick.  He lightly trails the tip of the knife down your cleavage and your stomach, dipping into your belly button on its way down to your mound. Then he holds it handle-up and teases your cunt with the flat of the knife as you watch in the mirror. The cold metal sends a shiver down your spine and you watch your nipples harden.

“Who are you?”

“Your favorite bad guy. Ask me a. . . harder one.” He grinds himself against you.

“What do you want?”

“To know what your insides feel like.” You suck in a deep breath and register the smell of weed as his cock twitches against your bare skin. “When I’m awake,” he adds. 

He pries your legs apart with his knee, then his glove brushes your inner thighs as he aligns his cock at your entrance. “Oh you’re ready ready,” he says. He notches himself with the thick head of his cock resting snug against your wet little hole, then he holds you tight and shoves himself into you with a sigh.  You have to try not to moan with the most welcome stretch. “Hell yeah,” the mask says into your ear. Thank God you’re so wet, because there is a lot of him. He pulls back, then slams into you, bottoming out with a grunt then another sigh. You watch your face in the mirror and try to wipe the enjoyment off it. 

The hand with the knife rests against your chest as he pounds you. “You’re lucky you’re so hot.” You want to memorize the feeling of his cock inside you so you can come to it later instead of giving him the satisfaction right now.  He pants as he thrusts into you harder.  “So. . .damn. . . hot.” You look down watching your breasts jiggle as he rails you. “I don’t think so. . . baby.” He grabs your chin and makes you look back up at the mirror. Your drooping eyelids give away how good you feel. 

“Take it like a bad girl.” He grunts and brutally fucks you in the way you’re afraid only he can. No, no, you shouldn’t be thinking thoughts like this. “A real bad girl.” A climax is gathering in your lower belly.  “Cock hungry little slut,” he bites and it makes you twitch. “This pussy’s mine now, you know.” 

He buries himself inside you for another minute and makes it rough. “Now or never baby," he pants. “Know you wanna come on this cock.” God, you do. “Do it now.”  He slams into you harder than ever and groans as he begins to pulse inside you.  You can’t stop it. The feeling of his climax trips you into your own.  Your needy cunt chokes his cock, milking him of an unfathomable load.  He fucks you through it and your body jerks into his imposing, robed form. His cum is in every crevice of your core.  You can’t help but moan and sigh.

“Good girl,” he says.

His cock slides out of you, leaving a void that slowly caves in on itself. He tucks it back into his pants. 

------

Ghostface forcibly positions your chin to take one last look in the mirror. Then he picks up your phone from the counter and forces you to swipe the camera on.  He points it at the mirror and says, “say cheese.” He tosses your phone back on the counter, then slams you chest-first into the back of the door with an impact. He holds the knife to the side of your neck and says, “you’re welcome.” He really smells like weed.

“Now where’s my knife.”

“I don’t have it,” you claim. 

“I don’t believe you.” 

“What’s so special about it?”

“It’s mine.” 

“The cops have it.” 

“No they don’t. Why are you lying?”

You’re not really sure. He presses the flat of the knife so hard against your throat you start to choke. “Okay,” you manage hoarsely. He lets you breathe.  You look behind him toward the toilet. 

He drags you by the elbow to the toilet. He opens the back of it and the knife is wrapped up in a grocery bag. “You watch too many movies,” he says. He pushes you out of the way, opens the door, and leaves. The song turns to Call Me by Blondie.

NEXT: PART 3

--------------------------

Please engage (reblog/comment)  if you want more of this <333 It might go a long way in motivation.

Yes this is my night walks coded ghostface but I think most people reading this don't know what night walks is lol.

Call Me:This Blog::Red Right Hand:Canon. But in this case it especially makes sense 🥹

@hearteyed-shawty had a song rec last time: I'm Yours by Isabel Derosa.

Slasher master list

@ghostslittlegf @sunflowerleii @igotmajordaddyissues @rileyquinn07

[okaylikeschaewon]

Hot-N-Fun - Part 1

~5k words, Roommates Series, smut

“Call it!”

“They never work,” you chuckled as you pulled your pants back up.

“Yeah but what if this time it’s real,” Mint pleaded while you washed your hands. “I’d do it if my phone wasn’t dead.”

“Seriously?” you began drying your hands. “It’s scratched into the side of the men’s bathroom. How could you possibly think it’s real?”

“You never know!”

“Call for a ‘hot-n-fun’ time? They didn’t even try. I think I can make a pretty safe guess,” you laughed as you dried your hands. “If anything, it’s probably just some dude messing with his friend.”

“You’re probably right,” Mint replied, staring at the scratching. “Either way, it could be funny.”

“Eh, you have a point,” you pulled out your phone and started dialing the number. “Fuck it.”

“That’s my man,” Mint smiled and jumped onto your shoulder, leaning next to your ear as your phone started ringing. “I owe you a drink for this.”

“It’s actually ringing, guess it’s a real number,” you commented, pleasantly surprised, with the phone against your ear. “I doubt they’ll actually pick-”

“Hello?”

It was a girl.

“Oh, hello,” you stammered after spending an awkward amount of time finding your voice.

“Do I know you?”

“No, I don’t think so,” you answered, stifling your laugh as Mint stared at you in shock, his eyes threatening to bulge out of their sockets.

The girl on the phone sighed.

“Did you happen to find this number in a bathroom?”

“Yeah, I figured someone put your number here to mess with you but curiosity got the best of me,” you explained. “Sorry to bother you.”

“Are you a student?”

“I am.”

“Tomorrow, 9 a.m., coffee. The cafe down the street.”

Mint began frantically nodding his head at you, mouthing ‘yes’ over and over, almost jumping on you in excitement. You couldn’t help but smile at the absurdity of what was going on, but you made it this far, might as well see it out. At least, that was your excuse. In reality, you just found it incredibly hot that she told you instead of asked you.

“Sure,” you answered. “How will I know who you are?”

“I’ll send you a picture.”

“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Could you do me a quick favor and please scratch out the number.”

“Yeah, I can do that,” you replied.

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She hung up, leaving you and Mint staring at each other.

“Did that really just happen?” Mint broke the silence first.

“I’m still not convinced this is real,” you shook your head when suddenly your phone vibrated, the message leaving you in shock once again. “Holy shit, yeah this definitely isn’t real.”

“Let’s see,” Mint grabbed your phone and his jaw immediately hit the floor. “Yeah there’s no fucking way. They’re harvesting organs for sure.”

“I’m still going.”

“True, who needs two kidneys anyway,” Mint laughed, giving you back your phone.

“Fuck it, this girl can have both if she wants them.”

—

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” Kazuha hung up her phone and turned to her roommate.

“Oh my fucking God about time!” Chaewon squealed. “Where the heck is Sakura, I need to tell her.”

“I’m not actually doing this am I?” Kazuha whined as Chaewon frantically tapped her phone screen.

“She got a call! Tomorrow morning! Yes! I know!” Chaewon screamed into the phone. “Okay! I’ll see you soon!”

“Chaewon!” Kazuha started hitting Chaewon’s arm. “I don’t want to!”

“It’s going to be so fun!” Chaewon grabbed Kazuha into a hug to stop her barrage of attacks. “I can’t wait to see him, what if he’s really hot?”

“I hope he is,” Kazuha sighed, falling face-first onto the bed.

“He will be, I can tell by his voice,” Chaewon jumped onto the bed with her. “So! What are you going to wear? Pick something that shows midriff, trust me.”

“I’m never making a bet with you two again.”

—

“Sorry I’m late.”

“You’re not late,” the girl looked up at you with a bit of a deer-in-headlights expression.

“I know, but it looks like you’ve been waiting. Therefore, I’m late,” you smiled warmly at her, gave her your name, and held out your hand.

“I’m Kazuha,” she shook your hand with firm but incredibly delicate fingers, holding on for a bit too long to be considered a ‘normal’ handshake. “Sorry, I would have waited before ordering, but I got kinda nervous.”

“No worries!” you sat down across from her. “I know it’s not exactly this simple, but don’t be nervous.”

“Yeah,” Kazuha laughed. “Just don’t be, right?”

“Is it working?” you asked while pulling your chair over so that you were sitting next to her instead of across from her.

“Umm,” Kazuha began blushing, her eyes frantically scanning you up and down as you moved right next to her. She ended up completely ignoring your question, biting her lower lip subconsciously as she picked up her mug and put it back down without even taking a sip. “Were you going to get a drink? I can come with you to the counter if-”

“No, I’m okay,” you gently placed your arm on the backrest of her chair.

Her eyes darted to your arm before going right back to you, that adorable deer-in-headlights expression returning with a vengeance.

“Here, we can share,” she picked up the mug and held it out for you to take, spilling a little on her own fingers in the process. “Oops!”

“Sure,” you ignored the error in an attempt to save her some embarrassment, and as you accepted the mug from her hand, you discreetly gave her a tissue. “Oh wow, it’s sweet.”

“Do you not like it?” she asked, looking up at you with an aura of innocent purity, as if your enjoyment of her coffee actually mattered.

“I love it,” you answered warmly, taking another sip. “What is it?”

With pure excitement, she started to explain her order, speaking too quickly to maintain any sort of semblance of coherency. The way she spoke about one pump this, one pump that, and not that a single word connected with you - in one ear out the other - was just too cute to handle. You were significantly more drawn to her appearance, focusing in particular on her expressiveness.

Her antics while she spoke were making you melt, you didn’t even bother hiding the smile on your face as you nodded along, pretending to care about whatever she was saying. She really was stunning, you could probably stare at her pretty face all day and never tire. Her beautiful wavy brown hair perfectly framing her cute features. The picture she sent definitely did not do her beauty justice. Have you mentioned that she was beautiful?

“Have you?” she waited expectantly for you to respond.

“Yeah, of course,” you replied, still mostly lost in her beauty.

She cocked an eyebrow at you before she burst out laughing.

“You haven’t been listening, have you?”

“Alright, you caught me,” you chuckled. “I got lost in your eyes for a second.”

“Oh,” she blinked rapidly a couple times before looking down at the mug in her hands. “You shouldn’t just make up stuff like that,” she added softly.

“I’m not making it up,” you reached forward and very gently pressed up on her chin so that she was looking at you again. “You have beautiful eyes.”

“Thank you,” she stammered, trying desperately to look anywhere but into your eyes, before suddenly changing the topic. “So, what about you, tell me something. Why would you call a random number like that?”

“I can’t say it’s something I do often,” you chuckled. “Although, maybe I should.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because apparently it can lead me to a coffee date with a beautiful girl.”

“You’re not even drinking coffee,” Kazuha giggled as she took another sip. “Does this really count as a coffee date?”

“I thought you said we could share.”

“We can share if you can tell me what my order is,” Kazuha teased, knowing you weren’t listening.

“Easy, two pumps of hazelnut-”

“I hate hazelnut,” Kazuha interrupted you with another giggle.

“No you don’t.”

“Wow,” she smirked, pretending to be impressed. “Were you actually listening?”

“Nah, lucky guess,” you replied with a smirk of your own.

“You’re so dumb,” Kazuha laughed, hitting your arm playfully. “You should have just ran with it.”

“You’re the one who said not to make up stuff,” you replied defensively.

“I meant about compliments.”

“Then it’s a good thing I haven’t.”

She began blushing again, tapping the side of her mug nervously before looking up at you.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you replied. “I guess you’ll just have to keep me honest on our next date.”

“Next date?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Confident, are we?”

“Should I not be?”

“Then where’s the next date,” Kazuha played along. “I chose this one, now it’s your turn.”

“Well, have you tried this thing called ‘dinner’ before? I heard it’s best with one other person at 7:00 p.m. tonight.”

“Are you asking me out to dinner?”

“What gave you that idea?” you leaned back in your chair, acting surprised for a brief moment before smiling at her. “I would have suggested a painting class or something, but it might be a bit too last minute to book something like that.”

“Then I guess we’ll have to settle for dinner tonight,” Kazuha smiled alluringly.

“I’ll call and make a reservation,” you smiled back. “Speaking of calling, want to explain that one to me?”

“I’m just going to be extremely transparent,” Kazuha put her mug down. “I lost a bet, the punishment was that I had to go on a date with the first person who called.”

“I figured it was something along those lines,” you chuckled softly. “Hopefully, I made it at least somewhat worth your time? Considering you already contractually agreed to go on another one with me, I’d say it’s going well.”

“Contractually agreed?” Kazuha laughed, tilting her head back. “Is that how this works?”

“Exactly,” you replied. “I took an intro to political sciences course in freshman year, I’d know.”

“And when was freshman year for you?”

“Last year,” you answered. “You?”

“Last year as well. How have we not taken any classes together if we’re both sophomores?”

“I assume we’re in different majors.”

“I’d bet that’s a safe assumption,” she giggled. “If you’re not in poli-sci, what are you in?”

“Wait, who said I’m not?”

“You obviously took the intro to political sciences course for fun,” Kazuha answered. “I’ve seen the poli-sci kids at this school, none of them are so…” she paused for a second while her eyes fixated on your forearms. “Toned.”

“Excuse me? You’re one to talk,” your eyes quickly darted down to the subtle midriff she was showing. “Having abs even while sitting means you’re also far too toned for whatever your major is.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she covered her mouth to stifle her giggles. “What if I’m in something like kinesiology? They’re usually fit.”

“Fuck, beautiful and smart? That’s just not fair,” you mumbled, earning you another embarrassed giggle from Kazuha. “How long before I can hire you as my personal trainer?”

“I didn’t say I’m a kin major, I was just suggesting it.”

“Can I still hire you as my personal trainer?”

The conversation paused for a bit while Kazuha laughed, and in turn made you laugh with how contagious it was. She spoke next, after finally composing herself, in a much softer tone.

“To answer your question, I’ve actually been really enjoying this,” Kazuha smiled back before biting her lower lip again. “There’s a bit more to the punishment, though.”

“Oh?” you leaned back in your chair.

“I’m supposed to actually-” she paused to lean closer to you for a second before leaning back again. “Actually, nevermind.”

“Nah, you can’t tease me like that. What is it?” you implored.

“No, it’s embarrassing.”

“I won’t judge.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” you repeated after her.

“Well, part of the punishment…” she trailed off again. “I can’t do it.”

“Hey, don’t stress it,” you leaned back. “We can talk about something else.”

“Fuck it,” she sighed, leaning forward. You moved closer until she was right against your ear. “I’m also supposed to blow you.”

“Wow,” you leaned back again and put your hands on your head. “That’s… a bit intense.”

“You said you wouldn’t judge!”

“I’m not judging.”

There was a long, silent pause, where numerous unholy thoughts flooded through your mind. Before you could even make any sense of anything though, Kazuha spoke up again.

“Yeah,” Kazuha was now starting to get really embarrassed. “Sorry, that was… I didn’t know how else… I don’t think I was supposed to actually tell you that part. This whole thing was probably super inappropriate, I’m sorry for bringing that part up, that was stupid. I feel like I just ruined this-”

“It’s okay,” you cut her off, placing your hand gently on top of hers to calm her down.

There was another pause in the conversation. During it, you simply admired Kazuha’s beautiful features some more while she absentmindedly stirred her coffee. She couldn’t find the courage to look up at you. She was clearly waiting for the conversation to continue, but she was too shy to be the one to speak next. You had to be the one to break the pause.

“I’m not going to make you do that.”

Her head snapped up and she looked at you with eyes filled to the brim with surprise. She really was quite beautiful - an aura of pureness surrounded her, almost making her glow in a way.

“I’m serious,” Kazuha announced with this intense, newfound conviction. “I’ll do it.”

“And I’m serious when I say I’m not going to make you do it,” you repeated firmly. “That’s an awful punishment, and there’s no way I’d force that upon you.”

“I appreciate you trying to help, but I really have to do this. I can’t explain,” Kazuha sighed. 

“Then just tell them you did, I’ll back your story up if needed,” you replied casually.

“They’d know I’m lying,” Kazuha suddenly lowered her tone. “They’re actually watching this date right now.”

“Are they?”

“Please don’t look around,” Kazuha panicked. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that part either.”

“I’m not stupid,” you laughed. “Look, how about the two of us sneak off to the bathroom for like five, actually ten, minutes. We can keep chatting or just stand there in silence, how’s that sound?”

“Would you actually do that for me?” Kazuha looked at you with that same shocked and pure expression that you were starting to fall in love with.

“Yeah of course, I’m going to look around as if you just offered to blow me,” you replied while standing up and over-exaggerating the motions of looking around the cafe before holding your hand for Kazuha to take. “Now we look suspicious as fuck, come on.”

Kazuha giggled at your foolishness before grabbing your hand and following you to the bathroom.

—

“Thank fuck it’s clean,” you laughed as you closed the door behind you. “Bit cramped for two people, but at least it smells nice.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

“Wait,” you leaned over her shoulder into her neck. “Oh, that nice smell is just you.”

“Stop,” Kazuha whined, stretching the word. The mirror showed her eyes rolling and her lips smiling. 

“Still haven’t lied by the way.”

“Well, thank you,” Kazuha awkwardly giggled as her backside lightly touched your crotch. “Oops!”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s fine,” Kazuha interrupted. “It’s a small bathroom. I really appreciate you doing this for me.”

“Don’t need to thank me, this ended up being a fun adventure. I got to grab coffee with such a lovely girl.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it,” Kazuha smiled at you in the mirror. “Do your dates usually end up like this?”

“If I had a nickel for every time I found myself in this situation, I’d have…” you pretended to count for dramatic effect. “Exactly one nickel!”

“You’re so silly,” Kazuha giggled, maneuvering around so that she was face to face with you. “Alright, I can’t lie, this is a tiny bit awkward.”

“Want me to face the door?” you laughed.

“No don’t,” Kazuha giggled, covering her mouth. “That would be so weird.”

“Well, I’m gonna ask for at least ten or fifteen minutes in here, I got a reputation to keep.”

“What about my reputation?”

“Good point,” you tapped your chin. “Are you known for being good?”

“Want to find out?”

“Kazuha,” it was your turn to feel warmth in your cheeks. “You might be one of, if not the, prettiest girls at this entire school. I really do want to take you on a date, I really do want to get to know you properly.”

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have made that joke,” Kazuha stuttered, avoiding your gaze.

“The joke was fine,” you leaned closer to her face. “I just really want to do this properly with you.”

“I do, too,” Kazuha looked into your eyes without pulling her face away, leaving her lips slightly parted.

Everything, other than the little frogs jumping around in your gut, slowed down. It was truly quite peculiar how the world worked. One moment you’re squeezed in a tiny bathroom fit for one, then one moment later it felt like it was taking hours to reach Kazuha’s lips. Were you even moving at this point? Surely by now you would have made contact. You shouldn’t have closed your eyes so early, but it just felt right. How much longer? Maybe you could open them back up, but would that ruin the moment? Then it hit you.

Strawberry.

Who even wears strawberry lip gloss? Is that a common flavor? Does she always wear strawberry? Why did it taste so good? Why did it feel so good? Have you been kissing her for too long now? Shit. Maybe you’re the one that shook her hand too long earlier, maybe it wasn’t her fault. No, that was definitely her not letting go. Speaking of letting go, are you supposed to stop kissing her now? When did your hands end up framing her face, cupping her cheeks? When did her hand end up on the back of your neck? Where’s the other one? Oh, it’s on your hip, when did it get there?

“Wow.”

“That-”

“Felt right,” Kazuha finished your thought.

“Yeah,” you agreed, suddenly noticing just how tangible the tension was between the two of you as you let go of her face and brought your hands to her hips. “Were your cheeks always this pink?”

“Are they?” Kazuha giggled, turning her face in embarrassment to try looking into the mirror.

“Don’t,” you gently turned her face with one finger until she was looking at you again. “You’re so pretty.”

“Th-Thank you,” she stuttered, physically fighting the urge to look away and hide herself.

“Can I-”

She didn’t even let the words finish leaving your lips before lunging forward and kissing you again. The force pushed your back into the door, leaving a small bruise where the doorknob hit your body that you wouldn’t even notice until later tonight. While strawberries attacked your taste buds again, you began pushing back, slowly moving forward until Kazuha’s soft body began squishing your hand into the porcelain sink.

“I think I could do this all day,” you gasped as both of you began panting for air. “But I think we’ve probably convinced your friends by now. Should we head back?”

“Wait, not yet,” Kazuha panted, licking her lips. “Can you help me get a picture?”

“A picture?”

“To prove that I… you know.”

“You mean, like, with my thing out?”

“In my mouth,” she began blushing. “Just for a second.”

“Umm.”

Was this real life? You weren’t sure anymore.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to,” Kazuha stammered. “Forget it, dumb idea, they’ll just have to believe me.”

“I can,” you wrapped your arms around her and embraced her softly. “But are you comfortable doing this?”

“I am,” her voice was muffled by your shoulder.

She pulled back, smiling at you for a second before leaning forward for another kiss. This one was softer than the previous two, her lips barely brushed against yours, her tongue barely touched you.

“Ready?” you breathed into her mouth.

“I still can’t believe you’re doing this for me,” Kazuha stared at you tenderly. “You really don’t have to.”

“It’s really no big deal,” you rubbed her arm gently before unbuckling your pants.

“Just umm, tell me when you’re… you know,” Kazuha stuttered as she turned away from you.

It was incredibly adorable the way she stood there, trying to avoid looking at you in the mirror. You lowered your pants down to your knees and began slowly stroking yourself. It definitely felt a little bit odd, but you just reminded yourself that you were doing this for her sake.

“Excuse me,” you reached your arm around her body and turned the sink on, wetting your fingers. “Let’s make it look even more believable.”

Kazuha furrowed her brows at you in the mirror, confused by what you meant.

“I assume the inside of your mouth isn’t completely dry?”

“Oh,” she finally understood what you were doing.

“Alright, I’m ready if you are.”

Kazuha turned around and kept her eyes on yours, seemingly physically incapable of looking down.

“You’re probably going to have to see my thing at some point if you want this picture,” you tried to lighten the mood. “Don’t worry, you have my permission.”

She giggled, the rosy tint returning to her cheeks in full force, before looking down at your wet cock. As soon as she looked down, her body froze again and she looked back up at you, bringing that deer-in-headlights look that you were growing so accustomed to now by now back.

“It’s big.”

“Hey, we don’t have to actually do this,” you said gently, moving her hair out of her face for her.

“No,” Kazuha replied softly before sitting down on the toilet cover. “Sorry, I just, I didn’t, yeah, I’m ready.”

Kazuha pulled out her phone and flipped her camera to selfie mode, holding it up to the side, looking for the proper angle. Once satisfied, she turned her head to you, nodded once before opening her mouth wide and staring at you.

This was your cue, and you took one step forward before gently placing your tip into her mouth. You inhaled sharply as her lips immediately tightened around your tip, her tongue resting against your hole. Despite your cock already being stiff, as soon as it entered her mouth you could feel the blood rushing into your cock, swelling it up.

Kazuha held her phone up and took a few selfies at various angles. It was wild, such a beautiful girl with your cock in her mouth in such an erotically casual way. She had her lips pouted, almost like she was kissing your tip. It didn’t really make much sense, but it was incredibly hot - she was incredibly hot. Before you knew it, Kazuha released your cock with a little pop and wiped her lips.

“Do you think you could like, push against the inside of my cheek,” Kazuha asked innocently before the realization of what she just said hit her and her face turned bright pink in embarrassment. “Sorry, that’s a crazy thing to say.”

“Of course I can,” you ignored her embarrassment and pushed your cock in front of her mouth again.

Almost reflexively, she parted her lips wide and let your cock slide back into her cozy mouth. Just as she asked, you pressed your cock against her inner cheek as she took more selfies. Your cock was exploring every crevice of her mouth, pressing and shoving against her cheek. You found, somehow, both of your hands on her head, guiding it while your cock roamed freely.

It seems that your ability to see things had completely vanished, since you failed to even notice that Kazuha had put her phone away. She was just sucking your cock; she was no longer snapping pictures. When you finally realized what was happening, you hurriedly released her head while attempting to ignore how wonderful her mouth felt.

The real shocker was that Kazuha continued to move her head back and forth along your shaft even after you released your grip. Her lips were caressing your length as she closed her eyes, totally engrossed in the moment. You were certain that her mouth was designed to suck your cock since it was now entirely her decision to blow you, and it was impossible to deny how fucking great her mouth felt.

“Kazuha,” you gently moaned, carefully pulling your hips back. “I think you got enough pictures.”

“Does it not feel good?”

Her voice felt like a dagger in your heart. She sounded disappointed.

“Hey,” you crouched down so that you were level with her and leaned forward for a quick kiss. “You’re fucking amazing, but I told you I wanted to do this properly. This feels… I don’t know how to explain it…”

“It feels forced,” Kazuha smiled understandingly at you. “I promise you it’s not, I know I don’t have to do this. I want to do this.”

“Kazuha-”

“Zuha. My friends call me Zuha.”

“Oh,” you smiled softly. “Zuha, are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” she whispered, standing up from the toilet and maneuvering you around before pushing you down to sit. “Now close your eyes, and let me prove to you that I’m good at this.”

Fuck that was hot. You obeyed her request, closing your eyes as those delicate fingers of hers gave your cock a couple of pumps. Not being able to watch truly was a tragedy, but you felt her tongue with details you never could have imagined possible as soon as she pressed it against your tip.

She slipped your cock into her mouth again, bringing back that gentle warmth, swirling her tongue around the tip a couple of times before she began using her lips to stroke you. Back and forth her lips went, your tip prodding her tongue each time she went down your shaft, while her hand firmly gripped the bottom half of your shaft. A soft moan escaped your lips, one that told Kazuha it was working - but she already knew that. The girl definitely knew how to suck cock. Even without seeing that beautiful face of hers, you were already nearing your climax.

Somehow, she also felt it coming. Or, just by coincidence, she decided to start pumping your cock. Her hand and her mouth worked in tandem, stimulating your entire shaft. Up and down, a soft slurp echoing in the small bathroom each time her mouth moved. She slowed down for just a second, leaving you spewing agonizing moans into her ears, before speeding back up.

“Zuha,” you groaned, squirming on the seat, lifting your hips up into the air. “I’m…”

That was all the warning she got, because that was all the warning you could muster. Whether or not she was ready, the next thirty seconds of her life were going to be taken over by your cum shooting into her mouth. Your eyes shot open as the first gush launched against the roof of her mouth, just in time for you to see her visibly flinch.

She looked up at you, locking eyes, and held her mouth steady. Even as the next few spurts flew out of your cock, she never flinched again. You could see your cock throbbing, each pulse shooting more cum into her mouth, but she held steady, not even blinking, staring at you with those beautiful eyes.

With one hand, you pushed her hair out of her face and cupped her cheek tenderly, using your thumb to wipe the little glob of cum that spilled out of the corner of her lips. As your cock finally began to relax, Kazuha slowly pulled back. Inch by inch, she released your cock, making sure to keep her lips taut until they reached your tip.

She gathered all the cum in her mouth and struggled to take out her phone. When she finally got it, she snapped a selfie with your cum all on her tongue. Once she was content with the picture, she bent over and spit it all out, holding her hair to prevent it from going into the sink.

“Sorry, there was just too much,” she apologized, looking back up at you. “I swear I usually swallow.”

“It’s fine,” you smiled reassuringly at her.

Kazuha smiled back before she bent down over your cock again.

“Holy fuck,” you gasped, shuddering as Kazuha gave your cock a lick from the base to the tip.

She pursed her lips around your tip, prodding your frenulum a couple times with her tongue, coaxing out a little glob of cum. Without even lifting her mouth, she swallowed it. After a few more licks, making sure you had no more cum to drain, she released your cock with a little pop.

“So,” she stood back up proudly. “You tell me, how was it?”

“Fucking amazing,” you stood up in front of her and grabbed her face with both hands.

This next kiss went on for a few minutes, or perhaps longer. It would have been even longer if it wasn’t for the aggressive knock on the door.

“Hello? There’s only one bathroom here!”

Both of you began giggling while staring at each other.

“We’re fucked,” Kazuha whispered.

“It’s your fault,” you whispered back. “Fuck it though, we’re already screwed, might as well keep going.”

So you did just that, and the two of you kissed again until a staff member came by and berated the two of you, kicking you out of the cafe and telling you to never come back.

“Worth it,” you laughed as the two of you walked out into the warm morning afternoon.

“Worth it,” she repeated, clutching your arm with both of hers and smiling. “I can’t believe it’s almost noon already. Lunch?”

“That sounds perfect.”

---

A/N:

Inspired by a prompt given to me by @mintwithchoco!

So, turns out Roommates is becoming a whole universe. I'll explain more in my Masterlist at some point, but my goal is to write a collection of fics from this universe that are all following the same OC. They're going to be readable completely independently of each other, but there will be a lot of references and foreshadowing since I've actually already plotted out like 10 fics, so if an idol is mentioned in a fic, they're probably getting their own fic at some point.

This particular one will probably be split into two parts, just so I can avoid making it too long. Hope you guys enjoy this one, I've been on a crazy Kazuha high lately and just had to write her.

Feel free to let me know what you think about this idea. I won't be releasing fics in chronological order either. This takes place in the OC's sophomore year while the Eunbi fic took place in the OC's senior year. I'm pretty committed to this now with how much worldbuilding and theorizing I've put into this, but I still love hearing feedback!

[cheriladycl01]

Funny Gaming moments with Lando and Max (F) x QuadrantStreamer! Reader

Plot: Just funny moments where Reader is a member of Quadrant and is a big UK streamer that does everything on Twitch and YouTube.

A/N: this is only small and just for fun, better Lando stuff is coming out.

Moment 1:

"Do you earn more than Lando Norris, chat you guys are wild ... but honestly with my individual sponsors, YouTube and streaming and any of my weird side activities I think it'd be up for debate" you giggle not actually knowing how much difference there was in what you or Lando earned.

"Not girlie casually admitting that with her side hustle she earns as much as an F1 driver, yeah guys, you gotta think I stream and upload full time. So i get paid for each YouTube video I do, I'm a twitch affiliate and you guys are so so generous. I game competitively and earn from that. I have sponsors, so ... lets just say i had no trouble buying Lando's Christmas presents" you grin, knowing the man had widely expensive taste.

"Who am i spending Christmas with, well Lando's family has asked if I'd like to join them, but I'll be spending the holidays mostly with Max and Pietra. Oh my gosh guys, did you see Instagram? I met Martin Garrix! How cool is that!" you laugh.

Moment 2:

"So I'm here today with Lando, and I'm teaching him Valorant, he knows that I'm in good but I don't think he knows I'm Immortal" you say until you unmute yourself in discord.

"Hey Lando baby" you joke but all you get from the otherside is silence which makes your chat go absolutely crazy.

You hear a few coughs that sound like choking, so you check his stream making sure not to tab out on stream, seeing him sat there in shock in his chair blushing.

"Lando?" you ask, and you watch as he rearranges himself in his chair pulling the mic closer to him.

"Hi, hello yes. Sorry you just threw me off guard" he laughs, wiping across his face with his fingers.

"What are we?" he asks, and you burst out laughing at the question which makes him laugh too. Chat on both ends starts going crazy, with the spam of Lando Norizz <<< Y/N the Rizzler and you were both dying.

Moment 3:

"Argghh fuck" you scream leaning back and fulling falling back off your chair. You were currently playing the horror game ' In Silence with Max, Lando and Ria.

"No way did Y/N just fall?" Max asks laughing at the girl whose stream he pulled up seeing her laying on the floor gripping her shoulder while her chair was now also laying in the floor.

"SHE DID" Lando laughs and you groan out in embarrassment.

Moment 4:

"What was that chat? My door reopened and closed shut while I was gone?" you ask looking back at your door. You knew you were home alone, the only people having a key to your apartment being Max and Pietra and Lando. But they were all travelling right now and were on the plane.

"Chat, stop messing with me" you scold jokingly, you start to load up the game your changing too. However a knock at your bedroom door has you stilling.

"What" you mouth looking at the camera. You go to the door, chat spamming saying how by opening the door that how all the dumb movie characters die. You here another knock making you flinch, you rip open the door, screaming when you see the scary mask, jumping and tacking the person now.

"Ow Y/N fuck" you hear and you rip the mask of, knowing that voice but not wanting to assume.

"Lando?" you ask looking at him.

"I thought it would be funny" he jokes laughing.

Moment 4:

"So Lando, Max and I thought it would be funny to play Valorant but for every kill we get we do a shot" you exclaim.

"Y/N gonna need new kidneys by the end of this? Hmmm very true, maybe we change it to every time we die we do a shot?" you ask seeing what chat's opinion would be on that.

"Then Lando and Max will be needing new kidneys? Well, I'm playing on my alt account and I'm just chilling so we'll be in gold/silver lobbies. Last time we played on my normal account, it was a struggle.

"Lets ask what they prefer! Guys? You want to do shots every time we get a kill or when we die?" you ask after unmuting yourself.

"We playing with MILF account of FnaticY/N?" Lando asks.

"MILF of course. And no comps, I'm not being called a booster" you grin and Max groans, Max was gold 2 and was asking for you to coach him, you had watched him in unrated's but refused to do comps together.

"Wait, when did you change your name...didnt it used to be Ilovetits6?" Max laughs.

"Yes, but chat started to call me mother? So i just rolled with it" you grin looking at chat and winking.

Moment 5:

"Are you and Lando Norris dating?" you ask, and then you open your phone and call Lando himself.

"Hey baby!" you smile and show the chat what Lando is saved as and the picture while he's on speakerphone.

"Hey love. I'm a little late coming back. I got stuck here with Zac and Oscar, but Max and P wanted to know if you would like to go out for dinner with them tonight" he asks and you laugh.

"Wait, Y/N are you live"

"Maybe, look you said you were ready to go public. So this is payback for what you did to Max on stream!" you laugh, knowing he wont be mad at you, as you'd talked recently about going public.

"Exposed? Yes yes i did" you grin.

Moment 6:

"Y/N your boyfriend is horny come sort him out" AngryGinge says adding you to the call forcefully mid stream.

"Mmmm that sounds like a job for you" you says seriously and you pull up his and Lando's stream to watch what was going on. Some people had come into your stream to say to get Lando to end the stream before PR has his head.

"He's been moaning on stream Y/N get your man and take him home"

"Yeah sorry let me just hop on the jet to Monaco..." you joke, knowing you definitely don't have a private jet.

"Wait, just how rich are you? Your boyfriends out here buying watches for 400k, you have a private jet. This just ain't right!" he exclaims making you laugh.

"I don't have a private jet. But... I've been in one of Max Verstappen's" you boast, you'd been introduced to him through Lando as Kelly wanted to meet you and set you up with her modelling agency.

"Huh? WHAT?" he screams and you just laugh before leaving the call. You shoot Lando a teasing message watching his eyes change as he reads it, and he lets out a groan that soon turns into a joke as Angry Ginge yelled at him to calm down again.

Moment 7:

"Salem stop" you tell your cat, which had jumped up and starting to paw in your lap where the blanket lay across before flopping down wanting fuss.

She started to meow at you not getting the wanted attention, but you were in the middle of an important rank up game, that would put you as radiant in Valorant.

As the game went on, you apologized to your teammates when you died after nearly clutching a round when Salem distracted you by pawing at your hand on your mouse.

"Salem please bub. 3 more rounds and you can have all the cuddles in the world" you whisper to the cat before she settles down, you proceed to Ace the next round and your team and you win the next two. The end of the game, with the MVP you get promoted to Radiant #497.

You celebrated by grabbing Salem your black Bombay cat and hugging her tightly, she leans into you wrapping her paws around happy for the affection she's finally getting.

"Treat?" you ask receiving a meow.

Chat:

y/nloverrr02- not y/n celebrating like she just got a podium

landonorizz- what's harder, f1 win, or reaching the top 500 valorant players

wedonttalkabouther- please, mother is mothering!

deadlocknerf- not her top fragging as an omen and their jett with a negative kda.

lockandassit- well done on the promo!

LandoNorris- Babe! Well done! I watched your win! I'm so proud

"Thank you, everybody. I think I'll leave it there for the day and I'll come back and we can try and get into the 450's!" you exclaim before cutting stream.

Taglist:

@littlesatanicassholebitch @hockey-racing-fubol @laura-naruto-fan1998 @22yuki @simxican @sinofwriting @lewisroscoelove @cmleitora @stupidandunnecessary @clayra-g @daemyratwst @honey-belden @moonypixel @lauralarsen @vader-is-hot @ironcowboycopnickel @itsjustkhaos @the-untamed-soul @beebo86 @happylittlereader @ziejustme @lou-larcher5 @thewulf @purplephantomwolf @chasing-liberosis @chillyleclerc @chanthereader @annoyingmoonballoon @summissss @evieepepi08 @havaneseoger08 @celesteblack08 @gulphulp @fandom1ruined2me @celebstories @starfusionsworld @jspitwall @sierruhh @georgeparisole @dakotatankbig @youcannotcancelquidditch @zzonsbeek @tallbrownhairsarcastic @mellowarcadefun @ourteenagetragedy @otako5811 @countingstacksandpanicattacks @peachiicherries @formulas-bitch @cherry-piee @hopexcroc @mirrorball-6 @spilled-coffee-cup @mehrmonga @bigsimperika @blueberry64857959 @eiraethh @lilypadlover

[pparacxosm]

sigh like a chime

(postcanon!patrick zweig x infant halfsister’s au pair!reader; idk either man; came to me in a dream; title from the sound of music let’s all act shocked; major tw for suicide talk; tw depressive behaviour; tw disordered thoughts about eating; tw vague implication of alcoholic dependency; patrick zweig is generally not doing so hot; like at all; tw strained father son dynamics; tw grown adults projecting childhood trauma onto a baby; warning you now: this is a long one !! ; make a day of it; atp coexisting; lily donaldson being a weird little girl ™; tw airports during holiday season; whoever came up with the headcanon that patrick was late for his circumcision and it got cancelled i owe you a kidney; so cw smut obviously; cw religious ((Christianity, specifically Catholicism + Judaism briefly)) motifs; tw splicing of said motifs with the aforementioned smut; tw vomit)

“It’s not that I’m not happy for him,” Patrick tells Tashi, “I really am, you know I mean that.”

He paces her kitchen impatiently, running fingers through dark, dishevelled hair.

At such times, he still looks like the boy wonder sprinting carelessly across electric blue asphalt, eyes shimmering, as if he were part of that riot of colour. Some of his athletic maturity is replaced with the facetious, callow mannerisms of a hungry novice who wants to skip the necessary steps. Who wants to swallow experience and spit out the bones.

Tashi straddles a stool at the vast marbletop island. She’s pattering away like bulletquick rainfall on her MacBook. She doesn’t even spare him a glance.

Patrick makes an effort to rein in his temper. He drops into one of the stools. He swivels left and right and cranes his neck, staring up at the coffered ceiling moulding.

“It’s almost Christmas, Patrick. Go home.”

I am home, he wants to say, but that would be revolting and stupid and he doesn’t even really mean it. Art and Tashi aren’t home for him. Nothing is. And he likes that, he likes being a nomad.

Lily clicks in like a pony. Lily—well, Lili, Lieselotte—is also the name of his little sister. He likes the coincidence. The trick of the mind he can perform, imagining an alternative family. 

Family is just being nomads together.

“Hey, I told you no tap shoes inside,” Tashi says, eyes still swimming through the pixelmire of her computer screen.

Perhaps Patrick ought to feel flattered by her attention at all. His familial woes are just as perturbing to Tashi as Lily fucking up the flooring with her ball changes.

Patrick’s still quashing his irritation. She doesn’t even fuck him, anymore. He actually doesn’t fuck much of anything at all, of late. What with how tired he is all the time, how his flesh and bones deplete with each exertion. In a way, that’s her fucking him. But it’s also just the scorn of getting older.

It gets harder to shoulder things. His patience corrodes quicker. He should lean forward, take that laptop, and lob it across the room. She’s not even wearing those stupid bluelight glasses she’s supposed to be wearing.

“Do you just not care about anything?” It’s a petulant attempt at stoking her, but it’s too meandering and abstract to really matter, let alone take effect.

She doesn’t respond for a whole five seconds, still typing, and when she does, it’s a distracted whisper of, “What?”

Her power over him is such that she can afford to be so blindly condescending. But it still stings.

He groans into the air, and it’s such a thundering sort of noise that Lily spares him a weirded out scowl on her way to the pantry. “Do you really want me in Germany? I’ll sit on my ass and start drinking beer again all day, Coach.”

Three years into their partnership, he often uses her title to signal his annoyance.

Tashi sighs like she’s disappointed. Not disappointed that he’s trying, but the fact that he’s making such meaningless, childish stabs at it. Instead of just going for it. As in, yes, smashing her MacBook over his knee and yelling pay attention to me! She’d respect that more and he knows it.

But, anyway, she lowers the screen halfmast and looks at him. “Are you jeal—”

“I’m not jealous of the baby.”

“Okay…”

“But he’s sixtyfive, Tashi! It’s ridiculous.”

Tashi does something between a scoff and a laugh, shaking her head. She rolls up the sleeves of her sweater and narrows her eyes at him. “And how old did you say the new wife was?”

“Thirtytwo, Tashi.”

Tashi laughs properly now, dropping her head and dragging her thumb and forefinger over her lashes. Patrick smiles at her amusement, albeit at his expense.

“That is pretty ridiculous.” She looks up at him again, clearing her throat, “Don’t try to bullshit me and pretend you don’t still drink beer.”

He wants to contradict her, but he decides he wants to make her laugh more. “He met her because she was his masseuse for a hot stone treatment.”

Tashi sputters, her giggles spilling everywhere, and she’s waving her hands like she’s calling timeout.

“And then he calls me,” Patrick continues, before miming a phone to his ear and straightening and dragging his voice down like an anchor with an affected distinguished rumble, “And goes, Son, I am moving back to Germany. I have love again.”

“I have love again!” Tashi wheezes, her elbows thunking on the marble and her face falling into her hands. Her shoulders are shaking with laughter.

“Like it’s a fucking disease.”

“It is.” Art’s voice still manages to quaver delivering a glib oneliner. Maybe because he doesn’t mean it. Patrick’s willing to chalk it up to his brisk stride as he enters the kitchen. Always a fucking pep in his step these days, the fucking asshole.

Patrick doesn’t turn his head. He feels a sharp instance of vertigo when Art’s hand lands on his shoulder. But both the touch and nausea are gone as soon as they arrive, and he passes off the motion of his own hand going to grab Art’s fingers as a scratch to his nose. Tashi’s too busy wiping her tears away to have noticed that, thank God.

“Oh my God, please tell him,” Tashi cackles, still gathering lost breath as Art slides her bluelight eyeglasses onto her face and enswathes her body with his, caressing her arms with his knuckles.

“He knows,” Patrick says dismissively, even though that’s a lie. He hasn’t told him.

“What do I know?”

Tashi recounts the story with the engaging enthusiasm of what Patrick is beginning to recognise as schadenfreude. But even that is still a salve, and he feels a little foolish for forgetting its effect. Not just the laughter, but all of this. He wishes they would just throw him a bone and let him stay for Christmas. He feels like a dying dog made to live too long. He offered to dress up as Santa, but Lily herself informed him that she’s far outgrown such folly and resents his assumption otherwise. She’d kicked him in the shin with the metal plate of her tap shoe. He’d let her.

Art’s smile quirks up at the image. Mean old Mr Zweig laid nude across a spa bed, cock jumping for the meek masseuse.

“Bet he slipped her eight grand to fold the towel a little lower,” Art mumbles into Tashi’s hair, the strands buttery against his lips.

She makes a face at this. She raises her hand to swat his arm reproachfully.

But Patrick only chuckles. Spares a glance over his shoulder to where Lily is sprawled on the couch, gripping the handles of her shockproof iPad case with the focus of a pilot at the yoke of a plane, her little head swallowed by a pair of AirPod maxes. Turns back and looks up at Art with a conspiratorial smirk.

“Probably had her stroke his dick with two hot stones,” he murmurs.

Tashi thinks that’s even less funny. But Art thinks it’s even more funny.

He laughs very loudly and does a less than polite impression of an old German bastard wincing and coming.

“Ah—” he hisses, “The next one up my bumhole, yes?”

It sounds like a botched Hitler lampoon, and it’s ostensibly a caricature he’s done many times before. Sometimes, they spend whole days just wading through their ancient morass of shared memories and inside references and running gags. Sometimes, even now, it's just easier that way.

Patrick laughs so hard he falls out of his chair.

They do let him stay for dinner.

It feels like they’re mocking him, but he’s hungry. So he stares into the middle distance and listens to Lily spiritedly declaim facts about deep sea turtles. She keeps surreptitiously slipping Brussels sprouts from her plate onto his. It wouldn’t be his place to mention it. And, for her part, she quaffs down her mashed potatoes like an endurance test. He tells her they’re not going anywhere. She kicks his shin again and he’s pretty sure she should have taken those shoes off by now.

He watches every gentle graze of Art and Tashi’s limbs and shoulders.

He sighs and chews his sprouts until his jaw aches.

There are worse things in his head to beat himself up with than wishful thinking.

“What’d Sassy say?” Art asks as he uncorks a Montrachet.

The corner of Patrick’s mouth quirks up almost imperceptibly. Like the reflexive twitch of a bad muscle. But he can tell Art discerns it by the way he starts to chuckle preemptively. That grin that spreads across his face like fire on dry grass.

Patrick huffs. “She said she hopes the baby chokes and dies.”

“You’re killing me, Sas.”

It’s December eighteenth at JFK. Patrick feels like a fucking sardine. Everyone is everywhere. The emetic odour of tarmac and jet fuel embues him. His fingers are red and stiff and so tightly coiled around the stainless steel handrail of the escalator that he thinks they may just pop off like caps. There’s an acetous chill to the nighttime air, and he probably should’ve worn more layers, but the sweat on his back is already soaking through the thin fabric of his shirt. He doesn’t mind. It’s better than being late.

Patrick’s dad used to enforce punctuality like a jailhouse warden. Saskia knows that.

He has his phone tucked to his ear against one shoulder.

His sister’s voice across the receiver sounds warped and liminal. His stomach is grumbling.

“You’re fucking me, Sas, you’re fucking me right over,” Patrick says. “What’s in Brazil?”

“Well, warmth, for one.”

“What about me?”

Saskia laughs. That loud, tocsin laugh she used to do when he’d wet the bed. “You boycotted the christening, Brutus.”

“Why would I fly to Germany to watch a baby take a bath?”

“Why are you flying to Germany now?”

Patrick’s teeth are on edge as he schleps his weighty duffel toward the terminal. He fishes a cigarette out of his windbreaker pocket and shoves it through his lips. He wants to spark it, even though Tashi’s psychologically tortured him into quitting, and he’d get thrown out for sure. There’s a line of security guards at every corner, and he’s seen the German Shepherd sniffer dogs.

He chews on the cigarette instead. Grinds the tip between his molars to get that stark jounce of nicotine even if it’s mostly tobacco and paper.

Saskia is saying something in his ear, and he’s only halfpretending to listen. His eyes are fastened straight ahead, singeing holes into the back of a woman’s head. Her hair is pulled into an absurdly tight ponytail. And he is so taken by the movement of the strands as it bobs with each step that he is only dragged back to reality when Saskia says his name loud enough to stab his eardrums.

He blinks. “What, bitch?”

“Paddy, I’m sorry, but I can’t do it. I don’t wanna throttle the little shit. I’m pushing forty and I cried because he bought it a fucking babysize tiara.”

Patrick closes his eyes, inhaling deeply through his nose. He swallows a bit of that tobacco wad on his tongue. He nearly gags. He belatedly catches that a couple of security guards are looking at him with some suspicion. He holds up a finger as if to say, sorry, and turns around to walk away.

Saskia’s still on the line, and she starts singing something, though he doesn’t understand why. He has to hold the phone a good foot away until she shuts up.

“Wh—” he scoffs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Hey, maybe you’ll get along with it.”

“Unlikely.”

“Maybe you’ll get along with dad.”

“Un—fucking—likely,” he retorts.

He ducks into a corner of the empty terminal and drops inelegantly onto a hard plastic seat. He is hyperaware of the sweat fumes under his arms, the way his track pants cling too snugly to his thighs.

“Actually, hey,” Saskia says, and he can hear her perking up. He imagines her in a hammock in Rio. She’ll burn so bad. No earthly SPF could ever keep her from shedding like a crimson serpent. “She has this au pair.”

Patrick glances up at the TV monitor over his head.

Departures to Berlin 23 30, it reads, flashing jarringly in red LED lettering, accompanied by a blinking graphic of an airplane taking off.

He makes a noncommittal grunt. “That tracks,” he mumbles.

“I’m saying you don’t have to be lonely,” says Sassy, “Make friends! She’s nice. Bit young.”

“Reckon dad’ll try to knock her up next?”

Saskia laughs herself to piggish snorting. The bigeared little boy within him, tugging at the pantleg of his sister’s pyjamas for attention, is vaguely mollified by that laughter. Albeit at his expense.

He should spend the flight feeling guilty for not getting a gift for the baby, but he listens to a true crime podcast instead.

They’re talking about a young girl who was found unconscious by the side of a road. The truck driver who spotted her was a little drunk at the time, and he was afraid that if he called the cops he’d lose his job, so he just moved her body further up the road where someone else could find her.

Apparently, she was still alive, but the truck driver thought she was already dead.

It’s not certain if she would have made it, had he done The Right Thing, but maybe it would've made a difference.

“He should've just called the cops and driven away,” one of the hosts says.

“If you’re reporting an accident, you can’t just remove yourself from the premises,” the other one replies.

“Well no, but if you report a homicide—“

“Same thing. Also, how can you just leave a person bleeding by the side of the road?”

“Was she visibly bleeding?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Patrick closes his eyes and leans his head back. The clouds roll by like lambhide.

He can picture it clearly, driving away from this fucking mess, leaving a body by the side of the road. He’d do it if he could. But he thinks he’s the body.

He shudders with a pang of cold. He doesn’t know why this image sticks. It’s like ghosts, floating in between the clouds.

Saskia texts him. Suffocate the baby with a pillow. Also delete that text. And that one.

And he, the body by the side of the road, doesn't say anything.

The plane jostles a little in a patch of turbulence. They descend into Berlin at eight in the morning.

His knees hurt from keeping them bent at an angle for so long, his ass is going numb. He should feel sorry for himself, being alone like this.

As he deplanes, a few fellow passengers glance in his direction, their noses wrinkling. He can’t tell if it’s the bitter rot of cigarette between his teeth or his sudor stench or his mouldering heart.

People converge in the baggageclaim like a throng of cattle. Patrick shoulders through. Swallowed up and spat out and alone again.

No one pays anyone any attention. Everyone is hurrying to make this flight or get to the next. When Patrick finds a men’s room, he realises he should be glad for that. In the reflection of the large mirror above a long stretch of white porcelain sinks, he can see shadows like cosmic abysses under his eyes. Some of the veins in his arms��which are sticking out from under his sleeves like pythons—are slightly swollen and purple.

His duffle bag bangs against his hip as he shuffles onto the tarmac and joins the taxi queue.

Berlin greets him with an onslaught of sleet.

His bones rattle like clicking spoons in the cold. He’s cursing under his breath and trying to remember the last time he was sincerely back in Germany.

Not just a brief cut across for a match, a layover, a hamfisted excuse to see his sister.

He was probably nine.

Patrick lumbers up the walkway to his father’s home. It looks like it’s been shoveled already today but has endured several hours of snowfall since. That and—well—he guesses his dad’s playing humble now.

Sas had dubbed it a latelife crisis. But it’s not shabby. In fact, it’s nice. It’s no limestone portico. Far cry from the august Georgian Revival mausoleum he and Sas gleaned their nascent wounds in.

Lili gets a Hallmark ass two story colonial, strung with Christmas lights. Deep green door, ornate bronze knocker, festooned with a wreath. The doorbell echoes through his empty bones like a deathknell.

His teeth chinkle like coins as he waits.

When the door opens, he releases a protracted, puerile whine. “Fuck.”

You’ve never been cause of such overt disappointment.

It’s almost flattering.

But your smile quickly metamorphoses into a grimace.

His shoulders are drooping and he looks liable to topple facefirst to the snowswathed gravel at any moment. His eyelids keep fluttering, like he’s fighting a losing battle against the urge to just shut down.

“Is this the right house?” he groans, pained and shivering.

You’re marginally certain this is your boss’ son and not a homeless vagrant.

Either way, you’re nodding emphatically. “Of course it is.”

In the kitchen, he stands in the corner like a newly housed stray. Hands tucked into his armpits and chin touching his chest as he watches you spark up the cooktop through snowdappled lashes.

The powdered creamer, as you pour it into the teacup, reminds him, too, of snowfall. You keep flicking him conspicuously concerned glances.

“So you’re Patrick…” you say, spooning sugar.

He clears his throat and hums in a way that says, yeah, I’m not too thrilled about it either. His head is bowed, his eyes fallen shut, and he’s swaying vaguely on his feet. He looks like he’s making devotions. The kettle sings.

His fingers are bonetight around the cup and saucer. He lifts the cup and presses it to his cheek, like leaching the warmth from the ceramic. When he sips, you’re reminded of cats lapping milk.

There’s a moment of silence, and it’s awkward. And then he sneezes—once, twice. His throat clicks.

“Uh… tennis,” you try, folding closed the box of Five Roses.

The steam plumes up and curls around Patrick’s face, flushed and sallow. He clears his throat again, his eyes unfocused. He glances toward you and knows he should reply, but the only thing that comes out is a damp, congested sniff.

He wipes his nose on his sleeve. “Tennis,” he repeats, the word muffled by the cup still pressed to his lips.

You nod slowly, rapping your knuckles rhythmically against the counter. “Wimbledon,” you say then.

Patrick scrunches up his face as if he’s in pain. He’s trying to force some simulacrum of synapse action in the conversational skills faculty of his brain.

“Yeah,” he manages. He takes another gulp of tea and tries to clear his throat again. It hurts. Everything hurts. He hurts.

You nod some more. You can’t help but think that this feels a bit like a tennis game. You and he, volleying oneword utterances back and forth. “Impressive,” you offer, cocking your brows at him.

“Thanks,” Patrick mutters.

He does actually want to be witty. And he does actually want to be charming. And he wants to make a good first impression. But right now he wants to sleep, preferably through a few decades. Certainly, the last few of his father’s life. Which, speaking of,

“Hey, where is the bastard?”

He glances around, as if to see his father lurking in a crevice somewhere. You raise a brow. Could it be an affectionate nickname? Perhaps. But you’re starting to connect some dots.

You smile like you’re trying not to provoke a sabertoothed creature. But Patrick can see in your eyes that he’s amusing you, which he doesn’t mind. Of course he doesn’t mind.

There’s a vast window above the counter, pictureframing an expansive, snowshrouded back garden that, knowing his dad, is probably a rigorously manicured viridescent green in the warmer months. How warm do things get in Germany these days?

He squints against the luminous white splay as you point beyond the glass. There’s a distant brown pinprick that lets him know this property is larger than it seems. Larger than it needs to be. But the kid needs frolicking room, he guesses.

“He’s in the den,” you say.

Patrick throws the rest of his tea back like a shot, placing his cup and saucer onto the counter with a twinkling thunk.

“Alright, then let’s go.”

“My balls are gonna freeze off before we even get there,” Patrick hisses.

Every step forward sends his feet an inch deeper into the snow, and you watch him shake out his running shoes with displeasedness. You laugh at him, and he turns back to face you, and he makes this face that could either be a smirk or an indication of great turmoil. You are struck by his ability to wear that lopsided grin in his current circumstances, to look at you like that. Well, like what? You don’t know.

It’s just that the scarf and wool peacoat you’re wearing make you look like a well-loved heirloom doll. He can see the faintest wisps of your breath in the bitter air. Your smile is so kind and so warm, he thinks, smiling wider.

He appreciates you joining him on his doormat pilgrimage. A better guy would tell you that, but he just turns around and keeps footslogging.

Together, you trudge forward across the sprawling, sleety landscape.

The door to the den is unlocked.

Patrick casts a glance back at you before he pushes it all the way open, hitting the opposite wall with a hollow bang.

It creaks a little on its hinges as it opens into a long corridor. He takes a step in first.

“Hello?” Patrick yells, his voice lilting. “Armed robbery. I have guns and knives and… bombs. Got your pretty nanny.”

You feel the little smile on your face quavering with amusement as you close the door shut behind you.

The floors are clad in dark oak panels. The walls are lined with copper sconces. There’s an ostensibly hideous and probably hilariously expensive rug in the middle of the floor and Patrick makes a show of wiping his shoes clean on it. 

“Sure as fuck not taking this thing,” he mumbles, digging his hands into his pant pockets. 

He glances toward a long sideboard on the side of the corridor. It’s laden with antique trinkets and mahoganyframed pictures, and he reaches out to prod at an ivory figurine sitting at the edge.

You stay in silence for a few moments, looking at him. 

Then, the faint creak of footsteps comes from upstairs, and you both look up at the ceiling. Seconds later, it fades to your right, and, soon enough, there appears Rupert Zweig. Cashmere jumper, tapered joggers.

There is no denying the family resemblance. And if the way Patrick’s eyes narrow as his father descends the staircase is anything to go by, he is not gonna wanna meet—

“There you are,” says Rupert, corners of his eyes crinkling. He stops at the end of the hall, hands in his pockets. The two regard each other like snipers. You have the sharp sensation you shouldn’t be here, but where would you go?

Patrick clicks his teeth wryly. “Here I am.” His hands are also in his pockets. Their deportments are uncannily kindred.

You think Patrick shouldn’t be so putout by that. Rupert Zweig is a handsome sixtyfive. Tall and broad and still in trim, despite most his days being ornamented by cognac and cigars. His silvery hair sheens like tinsel, and has not thinned much to speak of, if at all.

You figure maybe they’ll hug, as Rupert approaches. You know Rupert to be a hugger. But he only claps Patrick’s shoulder, and Patrick’s bones look like they’ve been swapped for concrete, and he watches his father give him a once over, like surveying an old car.

“I hope things are well with you,” Rupert says. Which isn’t strange paternal commentary. But his voice is tinctured with a concerned edge at the overall impression that his only son has been dragged along the pavement by the tail of a motorbike and then beaten with sticks to boot. I thought things were better, now, he’s really saying.

You think it’s concern, anyway. You, too, know Rupert to be quite concerned, and caring. But Patrick takes it as scorn.

He wears a bitter smile. “Things are peachy, Pa.”

His nostrils flare, he shifts his shoulders. Like he wants to shrug his father's hand off, but is keeping still for the sake of seeming mature.

And then it happens. A pule from the ether like the resounding stroke of a viola.

You perk up. “Oh! I’ll go—“

“Yes, dear, she’s with Giselle in the drawing room.” Rupert’s eyes crinkle, a kind brush of his fingers to your elbow.

Patrick—you glimpse, as you shuffle past him and out the passage—looks furious. And a bit queasy.

In the drawing room, Patrick stares at Giselle’s hands. She’s twisting her emerald engagement ring around her finger. The stone is big as a pebble, its facets winking.

He doesn’t let himself look to where you are. On an ivorycoloured foam playmat on the ground, doing something that is causing the baby to squeal and giggle like a strident string of bells and clap her pudgy hands together. He can hear the yarn of drool gurgling from her gummy mouth.

An angeltopped pine tree scintillates with fairy lights in the corner.

Giselle is slender porcelain. White sweater, skinny jeans, milkblonde hair. She crosses her legs at the ankles, knees to the side, like she’s the fucking queen of England. She is polite to varying degrees of genuineness.

“Lili’s so happy to see her big brother.”

Patrick’s knee shudders violently. Cut the shit, Giselle, he wants to spit.

But he knows he won’t. He doesn’t feel he can. Maybe it’d be easier, if she really was just some nympho naif. Then he could call his dad a perv and move on.

But no. Giselle is three years his junior but tenfold his put-togetherness. There are two infants in the room, and neither are her.

The room is so warm and well lit. There are bookshelves teeming with hardcover tomes whose rapiersharp corners look ostensibly untouched. A globe of the world, a framed Picasso original. Baroque vases and potted ivies and the permeating waft of jasmine and rose and leather.

It’s an intimate microcosm of his father and Giselle’s interwoven lives. Their very fumes amalgamate. And then there’s that puny thing, gossamer flesh, babbling like a brook. He doesn’t look. He can’t.

When his dad walks back in, Patrick is on his feet like a springing coil.

“You’re welcome to stay here,” says his dad, handing Patrick a set of keys.

Patrick shakes his head and feigns remorse. “Nah, Sas asked me to water her plants, so.”

Rupert looks like he’s going to say something, but decides against it.

“Right,” he nods and reaches into his pocket, retrieving a slim silver case. He flips open the lid, revealing a neat row of hand rolls. He plucks one between his long fingers. Patrick would say no, if he offered, but resents his father’s lack thereof enough to head for the door.

You think he’ll say bye to you, or maybe offer just a parting wave, but he doesn’t.

You hear him and his dad at odds like a cobra and a mongoose in the hall. You daub tender kisses onto the fleshy pink soles of Lili’s feet. You discern misty fragments of Patrick’s scathing whispers.

“... newage, hippie bullshit... nice guy act... fucking sweatpants... —christen the baby! What the fuck are you doing christening the baby? You never even took us to temple!”

However Rupert responds, on the other hand, is vaguely inaudible. It’s just a deep, cautiously placating rumble of syllables. 

You hear a bit more mumbled venom before the door creaks open and slams shut.

“He thinks he’s got everyone fooled, but I’m fucking onto hi— where is your alcohol?”

Patrick’s disembowelling every cabinet in his sister’s kitchen. On all fours like a hound rooting in the snow. He can hear the hot waft of tropical winds from Saskia’s end of the receiver. Crash of surf. Squawking birds. The staticky tempo of Brazilian phonk in the background.

“Ugh, Paddy,” Saskia mumbles like she’s disappointed.

He tears the fridge door open so fervently, the cord comes loose from the socket. There’s nothing there but bottled water, yoghurt, and salad dressing. He makes a strangled noise of agony into the ear piece.

“Saskia May,” Patrick groans with a sonnet’s desperation, resting his head against the icy fridgeshelf, between the organic grassfed butter and the handcrafted balsamic glaze, “I know you may be in a fucking beachside cabana right now, dipping Portuguese cock into your piña colada with the little umbrella in it and then sucking it off, but it is late here, and it is winter, and I am dying.”

“What do you mean you didn’t see the baby?” she asks.

“No, well, I saw her, just…” Patrick’s withdrawing all her earthenware now, “I just didn’t look.”

“What, like the fucking Basilisk?”

“Sassy, for the love of God, tell me you’ve left even a drop of liquor in your home.”

Saskia laughs, and he can hear the chime of ice. “Did you meet the au pair?”

Patrick stumbles back to the stillopen, halfway gutted fridge. He identifies with it. He sticks his head back in. “She thinks I’m a mess.”

“Wow, what a stupid whore,” his sister laughs. As everything, it is at his expense. He’s in emotional arrears, but it’s okay. It’s all okay.

He hears Saskia’s inbreathe. Marijuana? Probably. He doesn’t mind her lungs. He doesn’t mind that she’s always been more beautiful than him. He doesn’t mind that she’s warm in Rio. He knows it’s harder for her. She never got to be Rupert’s little princess. He wants to protect her in that asinine way baby brothers think they can protect their sisters. In that asinine way Patrick Zweig thinks he can protect everyone.

“Have pity on me, Sas.”

She directs him blindly like a game of Marco Polo. He wades through the ransacked bombsite he’s made of her kitchen. Avocados rolling across the slate floor. Spilled milk, which feels symbolic.

He unearths the bottle of Gordon’s dry gin from under the sink. Holds it aloft like a holy grail.

Patrick can’t remember the last time he set foot in a church, if such a time has ever occurred. Part of him expects the parishioners to take one look at him and know he doesn’t belong, for them to demand he leave.

For the things he has done, the things he has felt, the things he has wanted. Certainly for the things he cannot bring himself to believe.

He is struck by the towering stonework of the cathedral. The wooden cross in the apse is immense. Behind it, stained glass windows paint the icedover morning in vivisected coloursplays. Soft motes of sunlight waft in shafts from the ceiling.

He never thought he’d see the day—the Zweigs done up in their Sunday best. His mother would laugh herself to tears.

Rupert’s broad shoulders are ramrod straight, his argent hair slicked back handsomely. Giselle is wearing a ribbed knit dress in eggshell. Princess Lieselotte—finally, a worthy heir—is wearing a knit tunic dress embroidered with blooms, a scallopcollared ivory shirt underneath, and a crocheted woollen baby bonnet.

They look like an affiche for Norman Rockwell.

At first, he’s still trying not to meet the Basilisk’s gaze, but then he gets this disarming glimpse. The peonypink hue of her. Her comically outjutting little ears. Gibbous blue eyes, lapping up the world through cornyellow lashes. Those are Giselle’s. But the rest…

Unlucky little shit, Patrick tells her telepathically. And now he is looking straight at her, like the spell has been broken. He needs to let her know he’s onto her, and her bullshit doting father. You look like dad.

But what that means is she looks like Patrick, too.

He watches you hold her in your arms, rubbing your nose against hers.

Giselle had had you press Patrick’s shirt—his father’s shirt; of course he didn’t pack a buttonup—for him this morning. He was only kind of embarrassed. But he sat carefully in the car, leery of creasing your hard work. 

The linen of your skirt reaches your ankles. You’re wearing this creamcoloured slouchy knit turtleneck, and you’ve got a little lacy chiffon infinity veil halfway canopying your hair. Patrick is pleasantly amused by all this fabric. All the things he cannot see. Because of God, or the cold, or God and the cold.

The Zweigs find their pews, stopping frequently to greet their fellow churchgoers, and whisper inquiries after names Patrick doesn’t know. He shakes half a dozen hands if he shakes one, introduces himself as ‘Rupert’s son’ more times than he can count.

You, too, are pleasantly amused. Because Patrick is notably discomfited. You fish your little pewter cross necklace from beneath your collar. You hold it between your fingers and out toward him like an exorcist.

“He can smell your fear,” you whispergrowl, fauxominous. Lili giggles all saliva in your arms. That’s the voice you use when you pretend to be the babyeating ogre. She takes the cross between her tiny teeth. Patrick watches. You smile. “And so can she.”

Patrick looks at you for a moment, feigning indifference. “They’re both smelling how little they matter to me.”

Your smile widens.

Patrick—who has never endured a mass—takes his cues from the brush of your shoulder on when to stand, when to sit, and when to supplicate himself. The priest oscillates from English to Latin and back again. Seemingly on a whim. When Patrick fumbles trying to find the right page for the hymn, you tilt your book slightly so he can read along. 

He thinks the rosary looks good where it dangles from your lithe, supple fingers. Looping and weaving through your pretty knuckles like drops of blood. 

You are flawless in your devotion.

You slip to your knees with a fluidity that makes his tummy fasten.

You sing quietly and sweetly and when you turn to Patrick to wish peace upon him, your grin is so sweet and earnest it takes a moment for him to contend with that blessing.

Everyone falls down to the hassock again and Patrick is beginning to find the rhythm of the whole affair. At least enough to let his thoughts maunder and his body be at mercy to the motions.

It’s soothing, in its way. He can almost understand it. What blessed relief in lifting your human pains to be scoured clean.

The priest closes out the sermon with a few nice words about Jesus. Guy’s birthday’s coming up, after all.

Patrick leans forward a bit to glance at his father’s fingers, tapping on the dry leather of the psalmbook.

In the photo, little Lili is wearing a white linen nightgown that mantles her whole, like a tiny tarp. His dad cradles her, and everyone’s standing around a marble pool. He can see Saskia off to the side, hosting a very conspicuous hangover behind her mask. You’re in the picture, too. Apparently, you had been Giselle’s doula, in the beginning, and you just ended up sticking around. Which he finds more than a little strange. Patrick often sees life as a series of measures to get further away from his family.

On the edge of the photo, he can see the broad back of a becloaked man, plashing his fingers the water.

Patrick feels an inkling of discomfort at the sight of that man.

“She still sleeps in that dress, actually,” you say, rocking the babe.

The wallpaper of Lili’s room is printed with pale pink linework of woodland creatures. He’s straddling the vintage nursery rocker—a plush weathered lamb; it used to be his and Saskia’s—and his knees are hiked comically high on either side of him, his slacks riding up his ankles.

Patrick stares at the baby girl in this framed photograph. She looks too small—almost tenuous—underneath the white shift. Her eyes are flushed and still wombswollen.

“What’s the point?” he asks, trying to imagine that man softly slooshing water over her boneless head.

You smile. “It’s to protect her.”

“Protect her from what?”

You lower Lili into her French Provençal style woodcarved bassinet.

You look up at him, eyes flitting over his face. “Shame, I guess.”

It doesn’t quite make sense. A fullimmersion baptism means commitment. You have pledged yourself to God. You are bound to follow His laws. Shame is essential to these laws. Isn’t it?

You don’t know why he’s still here. Giselle is taking her Sunday nap, and Rupert’s playing solitaire or reading Guy Sajer or something in the den. Lili, too, is dead to the world. You need to do the laundry. The laundry room is too strait for him to be lingering, leaning against the doorframe, interrogating you. He likes watching the linen of your skirt gather at your feet as you crouch to the floor, depositing the armfuls of bedding into the mouth of the washing machine. All that fabric.

“It’s a different kind of shame,” you try to explain. “I can be ashamed of myself, of my body.”

“Why are you ashamed?”

You roll your eyes. “I don’t know. I’m alive.”

“Alright. And this helps?”

“A little, yeah. It takes you out of your body. Then returns you to it. And you feel brand new. Like you belong to Jesus.”

You laugh a little at the concept, but he can tell you treasure this belonging, deep down.

He walks toward you, taking the empty wicker hamper from your hands and setting it aside. “You shouldn’t feel ashamed in the first place.”

You shrug, noting his proximity. “It’s probably good to feel shame from time to time.”

He doesn’t say anything to that.

He doesn’t ask you if you feel ashamed right now. Face smushed against the top of the palpitating washing machine. If you said yes, he’d be unhappy. If you said no, he’d be unhappy.

He’s happy, now, hiking your skirt up around your waist, shucking your gauzy tights halfway down your thighs. Best not to ruin it.

So he doesn’t ask if you’re ashamed. He doesn’t ask if you’re a virgin. He does ask if you’re on birth control, and furrows his brows as his strong hands caress the flesh of your ass.

“Why not?” he laughs, dragging the beige skin down his rigid cock, rubbing the deep blush head against your hirsute pussy and bending over you. “Isn’t that shit free here?”

He burrows his head beneath your sweater, kissing your back through the cotton of your longsleeve. He doesn’t search for more bare skin, just keeps a good grip on that which he has, fingertips digging into the flesh of your hips.

He fucks into you and feels your body shudder around him with the jostle of the machine.

He doesn’t ask of shame or chastity or how long Giselle and Lili usually nap for, how far his dad is into The Forgotten Soldier. He does, however, feel it necessary to ask,

“Feels good, right?” Even though you’re drooling against the zinc and your hoarse groans are rivalling the churning noises. You roll your eyes but they stay there, your lashes fluttering.

“Yes,” you pant, clutching the edge of the machine. “It feels good.”

He bends over you, pinning you, elbow to elbow, his chin resting on your clothed shoulder. Your veil slips off your head and drapes around your neck. He quickens his pace. “It’s fucking big, isn’t it?”

You turn your head to look at him. His eyes look like they want to fuck your eyes. His mouth hovers over your drooling mouth as if to kiss you. The shaggy hair of his crotch abrades your tailbone.

“Verdict’s still out,” you say, voice quavering, and you let him lave your tongue sloppily with his.

His sister has a guestroom, but he sleeps in her bed. Reads her Audre Lorde and Laurie Colwin. Uses her toothbrush. God, she’d kill him. But he likes the transgression of violating her space. He doesn’t use her vibrator, or anything. He finds it, but he doesn’t use it.

He has his few ways of having people. So he’s always taking what he can get.

That’s why he fucks the nanny in the laundry room, and lets Art’s kid bruise him with her tap shoe, and sits on the kitchen tile drinking Saskia’s gin.

He has to hold on to the granite countertop, as he straightens from his haunches. His back is a wreck, but the ache is nothing compared to the relief and vindication and victory he feels. He can’t say for sure what the prize is. Maybe it really was just your pussy, and that’s where this all starts and ends, which is fine. The feeling of winning is so rare and precious and precious and rare and, as he unscrews the cap and raises the bottle to his lips, it’s as if he’s just slain a mighty monster.

He places the little tiara he’d filched from Lili’s room on Saskia’s mantel.

He’s less than compos mentis come Christmas Eve.

He lays in Saskia's bed for a bit, inhaling lime and ambergris, trying to figure out what to do with himself. He checks his phone: No Service.

He sighs and tumbles out the sheets like a rockslide. He figures he might as well go for a run before the blizzard clocks in since there’s nothing else to do. His feet already feel numb and damp. Everything has felt numb and damp the whole time he’s been here.

Running buzzed probably isn’t his smartest idea, but it doesn’t feel like his worst one either.

Patrick frenetically tugs two pairs of thermal leggings on. The radiotor whirrs but the house is still arrestingly gelid. He pulls on his sister’s comically inflated neon orange down jacket.

He looks at himself in the mirror.

“Oh, fuck yeah,” he whispers.

He loots and pilfers some mittens, goggles, and a neck gaiter from Saskia’s closet. She could never take to professional athleticism, but she’s a reasonably devout runner, and is partial to a halfmarathon or two most years. Which means free activegear for Paddy. He walks to the front door and slips on his dank shoes.

He steps outside once he feels decently covered head to toe, a skill he’s found refining itself as the week has shouldered past him.

Patrick strides the roadside briskly for almost a mile. His legs feel halfway atrophied, so he gives them time to warm up. The neighborhood seeps into copses of snowdusted forestry. He feels the beauty of the landscape flicker through him like a spark.

He starts jogging.

He has no mapped course, no mile time to hit. He just wants to move forward. For once. His goggles fog up with entrapped bodyheat crowning the cold air but he doesn’t fix them. The compressed insulation of his clothes, the whirring thump of his shoes to the tar—it engenders a strangely hypnotic effect. He realises, only after miles have elapsed, that he's forgotten to turn any music on. He doesn’t need it now.

He comes upon a clearing in the trees that discloses a river he hadn’t recalled.

He abates to a walk before stopping completely and removing his goggles. 

He knows a breathtaking scene when he sees one. That was never his problem, the discernment of the good thing. It was never even the obtaining of it. It’s that—well—if Sas actually had left plants for him to nurture, they’d be dead by now.

But anyway. The river.

Snowfall has burgeoned somewhat, but light is still breaking through. The sun reflects tenderly off the surface of the frozen water as if it’s all being illuminated from beneath the ice.

Patrick swears he can see evidence of a current still rushing below, but he can’t be sure that’s all too possible at these temperatures.

He tries to take a picture for posterity (or Lily; she’s ‘into vistas’ lately), but all the light is so strange and coruscating. Hardly anything can be captured in earnest.

Patrick takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

He pulls his gaiter down and doffs his hat. Allows his florid skin a few moments to feel the glacial squall, the moist sting of melting snow. He thinks he’s missed this weather, harsh as it may be.

He takes the opportunity to check his watch, vaguely hoping the GPS tracker’s been running. And hope seems to count for something here.

4.7 MILES

A surge of accomplishment and anticipation shimmers through him. He grins, breathless, at the thought of being able to tell Tashi that he’d done a cool ten miles. And the prospect of being able to eat a guiltless meal is emerging as an actual possibility. 

Patrick gears back up and begins to walk again in the direction he came. He takes advantage—always taking advantage, always taking what he can get—of the trodden path he’d made in the road. The surer grip of his shoes.

His head starts feeling strange as he’s walking. As though it’s sloshy inside, like the dirty snow he sees on the curb. But he pushes forward and chalks it up to temperature. Picks up the pace again. 

He finds himself less mesmerised by his own footfalls now and slips his AirPods in. Slips inside the eye of his mind. His sister used to have a ‘(What's The Story) Morning Glory?’ CD. Patrick’d scratched it, probably. He hopes Oasis can get back together some day. It's not so hard to reconcile. Mostly, anyway.

About a mile into the returning trek, Patrick feels his legs suddenly get heavier. He’s felt as much before. He assumes he’s just hitting the wall. It’s a little early for him, at such moderate mileage, but he knows inclemency and altitude can do things to a body.

He’s deliberate with his strides as he proceeds. He wants to be sure that his torpid legs are parting with the ground. 

It’s around the two mile mark that his spine rattles with an odd enough sensation—sharp, like an incision down the length of it—to bring him to a stumbling halt.

Patrick’s clumsily reaching around and groping at his neck and back the best he can through his layers. It feels almost like someone has poured water on his skin. Soused him like a baptism.

He tells himself he needs a second to breathe. Starts walking again. Eventually feels very marginally centred enough to pick up the pace. His knees feel like cinderbricks. Dense and angular. But he should be capable of making it home. Or at least determined enough to do so. He’s seeing houses again. He can’t be more than a mile out.

He’s thinking of raiding Saskia’s toiletries and snorting her cornucopia of bathsalts when a billow of abject nausea rolls through him. He’s stumbling again.

He moans vaguely with turnsickness. The trees are blurring together.

He sways.

Sidesteps jerkily over the curb into a stark white alloy of fresh and shoveled snow.

Doubles over.

Dissolves to his knees, bracing himself on his palms. All fours again.

He maintains this position for several minutes. He’s heaving in and out forcefully with his eyes screwed shut. It feels a bit prayerful. He’s praying to be made to vomit. Just wants to feel better and move on and he’ll never touch his dick again, he prays. Which isn’t true, but need it be?

Things go sloshy again, and warm, this time. Overwhelmingly warm, actually. He flounders in the wet, rips off his gear, and uses his bare hands to grab handfuls of snow off the ground and push it onto his face. The heat feels like bloodshed.

Patrick tears off his jacket. Patrick lays his entire body facedown in the snow. Everything is numb and damp.

“Oh my goodness, Patrick?”

One imagines the voice of God to be a little less frantic.

He’s confused by how weak his muscles feel when he tries to push himself up. How he only sees lucent whiteness when his eyes flicker open. Shit, is this it? He thought for sure he’d end up at the other place.

“Jesus Christ, I thought you were dead!”

Oh, alright. So not yet. Not yet, and certainly not Heaven. Close, though, with how relieved you sound. He is the body on the side of the road, and you’ve stopped to triage him instead of driving off. He squints up at you. Floral puffer. Scarf and muffs. You look like a fairytale illustration.

His blood’s gone cold in his extremities, and he’s mumbling, “Sorry.”

“You’re a mess.”

There it is.

For your part, you don’t sound malicious, or anything. You say it like a forgone conclusion, a fact of the matter. The way a person in an Ionesco absurdist play would say, oh, it looks like I’m wearing pants right now.

He tries to make a stab at indignity. Like maybe if he denies that he’s a mess, that should suddenly make him clean. What blessed relief. But all he manages is a whimpered grunt of protest.

“What happened? Were you attacked?”

Patrick shakes his head, suddenly aware of just how wet he is.

“Patrick, tell me.” You sound concerned, but not in pieces. He knows this is all coincidence. That you simply happened to be driving by. But the fact that you’ve found him prone in the snow, the fact that you knew to call his name, knew it was him who’d ambled to the woods and buried himself in the ground like a coldblooded mountain climber, like a defiant zealot, staring into Earth, his back to God, taunting you with his dickish solipsism—he thinks all this should terrify you. He isn’t dead. Not yet. But maybe he’d already made up his mind. Perhaps you’re just picturing him as another baby. Something small and soothable. “What happened? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Patrick shakes his head again and takes your assistance in getting up. All his things are gathered in your arms.

“You’re soaked, Patrick. What were you doing in the snow?”

He looks around and feebly brushes some of the debris off of his leggings and thermal pullover.

“I... I don’t know? I’m pretty sure I started feeling sick, and then I got hot, so I took all my shit off,” he explains. He’s all nonchalant about it, too.

At first, he won’t tell you where his sister’s house is. You’re going all Nuremberg on him, like he really is a baby who will drop the knife if you tell him no sternly enough. But he soaks through the polyester of your passenger seat and grins and defies you. It’s like he’s challenging you to take him back to his dad’s. Like he’s a kid acting up in school for attention.

It takes a while. You circle the block twice. Then he sees the way his fingernails tinge cobalt, and thinks of how disappointed his father’d be. Concerned, you allege, but he doesn’t buy that.

Still, he confesses like a sinner.

He asks you—as you stand on the concrete steps to the quaint, Tudorstyle home, and he holds his cap in his teeth and fishes the keys from his pocket—not to hold the state of the place against Saskia. He says there’s a lot of damage he can do in a week. He’s always making a mess. Messing things up. Has he messed you up? He doesn’t ask, but has he?

He’s even sorry for fucking you. He doesn’t tell you that, either. And he’s about to do it again. But he is sorry. That has to count for something.

You stink. Not in a really bad way, not in a noticeable way, but the stale perfume and deodorant have turned into a cool film against your skin, trapping your sweat and guilt and other gross things which you’re too tired to name. You’ve been out buying gifts all day. You’re always so last minute. You feel like you might fall asleep on Saskia’s couch.

News says blizzard’s on its way. News is all choppy static pixel kaleidoscope, too. Even if you left right now, you wouldn’t make it home before the roads got dangerous.

You’ve heard enough hypothermia horror stories to know he should be taking a shower right now, warming himself up in increments. And you’ve heard enough suicide horror stories to know you’d be wrong to leave him anyway, after how you’ve just discovered him.

Was she visibly bleeding?

He doesn’t look like he’s about to call it quits.

On the contrary, he looks relaxed, calm, selfpossessed, sitting on the arm of the couch, one knee drawn up, cigarette dangling between fingers. Also his cock is out. He’s naked.

Has he already made up his mind?

How many times has he lain like that, in the snow, lucid about his slide into the abyss? 

He finishes his cig and takes a knee by your feet. Your bare feet. You shouldn’t have taken off your shoes. They stink.

You try to tuck your feet under you, but he reaches out and grabs your ankle and tugs like you’re the baby.

“What happened to your leg?” you croak, your voice a little fraught.

His thumb keeps brushing up and down the arch of your foot, like trying to ease your tension. He leans back and looks down, past the leavening weight of his dick, to the navy bruise bloomed through the hairs just below his knee.

You watch that Cheshire cat smirk spread his mouth apart. “Violent tap dancer.”

You do kind of wish he wouldn’t do the whole slapping your pussy and calling you a good girl thing. It feels weird and Freudian and it even makes you feel kind of guilty.

Not because of his stupid uncut Jewish cock all swollen against his thigh, nor the virgin’s innards mangled in a manger at this very moment two thousand years ago. You know that’s not how you measure innocence. There’s something idiotic about that, something primeval and pathetic, something no one should be proud or ashamed of.

It’s just that he doesn’t seem fully committed to the pastiche.

He spits a thin globe of saliva right onto your clit. His fingers sweep through your coarsehaired folds. Slow, methodical, like a cartographer mapping the world with his compass and pen.

Then, he raises his fingers and strikes them down against you. You flinch, you whimper. He groans straight into you.

“Good girl. Good girl.”

And it's hot, sure, but he could stand to be crueler.

You’re this nice twentysomething with no real bearing on his life. You pray. You care. You wipe his sister's shit. He suspects he didn’t take your virginity, but he could easily imagine he did, if he wanted to. That he’s teaching you something. This could all be a lot more plastic and pornographic.

But it isn’t. Not really.

He climbs over you, all over you. He’s all over you like the flu. He wants to crawl inside of you, burrow and fester. His knee is pressed between your thighs and he’s breathing into your neck, his head tucked under your chin. His nose is the colour of raspberry syrup and he drags the cold tip of it up the column of your neck.

He smells like smoke and snow. Like sweat and musk and something stale and dry.

You crane your neck with a piercing cry when he bottoms out. He cracks your hips open like a lobster claw. You feel his fevered heartbeat thumping through your body. He seems to think the heat of your flesh is enough to warm and cure him.

“You’re going to catch a cold,” you slaver into his hair.

“I don’t get sick,” he assures you, puffing throatily. “I never get sick.”

He licks Saskia’s bathsalts from the swollen underside of your tits. You gather palmfuls of warm water and pour them over his freckled skin, watching it bloom florid. Are you clean now? Are you shameless? Has the stink gone? Sort of.

Maybe, for a second there.

But Christmas day seeps in like another reek. You feel bad when you catch whiff. You feel the stroke of midnight in your bones, and you think you can hear Carol of the Bells. You feel especially bad, because you’re holding onto his shoulders and fucking yourself on his unhewn cock, the bathwater swashing tepid around you. And he licks the silver crucifix in the dewy valley of your breasts into his mouth, and sucks on it, and looks at you like he’s trying to make a point. He sees you frown.

The pendant glints between his teeth as he says, “Don’t worry, He’s not paying attention. It’s His birthday.”

And you duck your head to laugh.

The water ripples. He wraps his arms around you in a halfway embrace, halfway detainment. You can tell he is worried you will find your morals and leave him cold.

But you won’t.

He’s big enough that he won’t just slip out of you, even in the water. You’re all steamdizzy, eyes halfmast. You watch rivulets of condensation dance down the tiling.

Are you really about to fall asleep on this man’s cock in his sister’s bathtub? Perhaps. There is something grounding about his heavy presence in all four corners of you. You feel that mollifying pressure in your head. Your hands scrabble and slip all over the skin of his shoulders. You kiss all these droplets off his skin.

“I think I’m about to throw up,” he whispers in your ear.

You pull back and sigh. He does look quite waxen and wheyfaced. You feel bad. You were starting to think that you alone could break the fever.

Your knee knocks against the tub. He has to tug himself out of you. He clambers out of the water, puddles splashing everywhere. He slumps to the ground like marmalade, his arms drape the toiletseat, his head in the bowl. Runnels drip off him and sop the bathmat. He spits and heaves. Then he retches. There is nothing solid to the bile. When was the last time he ate something? His viscera slops out of him and into the water. The gin scalds twice as sore on the way up. He sounds horrifying. His lips drip with mucus.

He feels your soft, moist flesh against his back. Your arms around his toned middle. You feel his ribcage tremble against you.

He feels the bone of your chin against the crown of his head.

Patrick knows this is all very repulsive. He's not sure why you're holding him. Maybe you're picturing a baby again.

“What would you get me for Christmas?” he murmurs, his heavy breath echoing around the toilet bowl.

You can smell his puke.

“Um— well... you know, Giselle actually—”

“No,” he grunts stubbornly. “I mean, if you could get me anything, what would you get me?”

“I don’t know,” you say, pressing your wet breasts against his wet back. The humidity is starting to disperse, the trickles cooling off. You do get sick. You get sick quite frequently, actually. This will definitely make you sick. He’ll be gone soon enough, and that’s probably for the best, but who will hold you in your ailing?

“Come on, babe.”

You drag your fingertips down the hair on his abs until you reach the thatch between his legs. “I don’t know… A hot stone massage?”

And it’s cruel and stupid and funny—it’s something only a few people would ever understand. He and Art and Sas and Tash and you. Maybe Lili, one day.

You and Patrick burst into laughter at the same time. He chuckles until he’s wheezing. The sound of it catches in his throat like a fishbone. This is what constitutes a happy moment for him.

“That’s perfect,” he mumbles into the shitter.

[batfambrainrotbeloved]

Favorite sentence you’ve made a character say in one of your fics?

Oh god I have a LIST- but this spiraled so most of these are just dialogue quotes I managed to find whilst skimming- (Also realizing most of my funny one liners are internal dialogue)

“ I just said Bruce has been encouraging us to express our emotions- if you happen to do that through fists then well, I’d hypothetically vouch for your insanity plea deal” “Nightwing is a manwhore on principal not in practice- don't worry I know he's really a prude”  “Stop moving- Alan help me he decided to confront a man with a pipe bare fisted, I think he has a concussion” “...'m not fuckin Russian”? “How long is that coffee”? “However long it takes you to accept your fate, get ready in the meeting room, and about ten minutes" “But the image of you fleeing grounds like some heartbroken hallmark actress would be worth it” “I may owe you my kidneys, but not my respect,” 

Other works-

"Heaven forbid they find you pathetic enough to be a worthy victim- i'll be there to pay the burial fee, so goodnight” "Sensei? your more like an alcoholic uncle- or the weird emo cousin" "This asshole is the emo cousin, and the least responsible adult in this entire building" “I don't think it counts as winning just… not dying” “Last thing we need is you psyching out our seeker- If Wood wins this game I will personally kick your arse everyday for a month” “Against Wood and not Gryffindor huh? I think there's other asses on our dear captain's mind-”

"You burn the tree I won't touch your dick for a month-"

"Look Ev, i'm a girl thats all for people embracing their inner slut- "Especially those where its v e r y deep down"

 "You... are you sure you're not just projecting some sort of domestic fantasy"? "Am I really that much of a manwhore"?

“People rejected your theory because they were not ready to accept that their world would come to an end, you were persecuted just as the apostle Paul" (and the following threat speech, just my fav line)

[chaosandmarigolds]

don't mind me I'm just here to give another angst fic idea with a post you made.

this, but make it angst by; when ghost betrays fem!reader she's like:

"you...didn't mean anything you said? at all? the way you said you loved me and that i was, apparently, the most beautiful girl you've ever laid your eyes on? that was all a lie?"

"everything i told you, and everything you asked me was just...to betray me at the end?"

"[reader] believe me i didn't—"

"and the funny thing is...i loved you."

"[reader]..."

"i don't want to hear it. just do whatever the fuck you need to do. In plain sight you hid, but you are what you did; and I'll forget you, but I'll never forgive."

can you tell I've been listening to The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived on repeat? maybe the fic gives off, if you've listened to it(hopefully), The Prophecy vibes...?

okay anyway bye i love you(parasocially) forever and ever and ever

DUDE ok so I love TTPD but I have the attention span of a literal duck so i have listening to the Megamix on youtube and ugh, but yes. The smallest man who ever lived is just beautiful and heartbreaking and I did post my take on your amazingly heartbreaking prompt.

The angst you come up with? Chef's kiss. I owe you my kidney for these prompts or somethin.

Love you too! <33

[dollsonmain]

I know folks are probably getting tired of this by now so you get a tag AND a cut.

But I feel like discussing this sort of thing might help people sometimes? since it's a first person account instead of listicles online.

What they did and didn't tell me about having stents.

They told me why: Facilitates drainage which takes strain (pressure) off of the kidneys and helps the antibiotics work by helping prevent pockets of infected urine reforming (that's what was making me sick, stuck urine that had built up lots of bacteria).

They told me how-ish: They go up with various catheters and things and install the stents, the stents stay in place until they are removed. Some stents have lines that exit the body to facilitate removal. Mine do not. The doc didn't want me accidentally pulling them out since the area they're in is heavily infected. They'll be removed at my first stone removal surgery in about two weeks from installation which was a couple days ago.

They did not tell me how-completely: The stents are hooked into my body meat like little fish hooks. They also didn't tell me they'd be taking urine for testing from my bladder and each kidney or that they would also be draining both kidneys during the procedure, so I did get a fluid-pressure reset.

They did not tell me basically anything about what the next two weeks will be like.

I'm on flowmax to soften my bladder so it's easier to empty. I don't think I needed that, I was peeing fine, but stents do change things.

I was worried that I might push them out while pooping but that's not likely to the point of nearly impossible. Not 100%, but nearly.

These things feel like a bad UTI and I have two of them. I got the ows, the zaps, the GOTTA GOs every few minutes. At least now I know that ALL of those pains are UTI pains, you know? I'd get some random pain sometimes and be like "what was that......" and now I know. It was UTI and pressure in my kidneys and the pain signals were traveling around the whole renal system. Because they do that.

I'm in a lot more pain now than I was with just the kidney stones. It is very, VERY atypical but my kidney stones and the pressure behind them don't hurt. Those nerves may have died off.

There's varying amounts of blood in my urine, sometimes very little, sometimes a lot. Sometimes there are clots. That's all normal but I had to ask as things were happening.

I get up every couple hours in the night and some times I don't make it to the toilet (I did all last night, so that is improving).

They also didn't warn me that just having the surgery itself might make me wet myself because the muscles hadn't all regained strength/how long it would take for the anesthesia to fully wear off.

I called the doctor's office and asked about that, too.

I'm glad I thought to have That Guy bring Depends but that's also something you'd think someone would like, mention. You know?

So that's what having stents has been like so far.

Feels like a bad UTI, though for some people they feel nothing. Need adult diapers for accidents. Need to be near a toilet at all times, and not going to get a hell of a lot of continuous sleep for a while.

-

I also think it's worth noting that I've had two male doctors blow me off about this and I think the only thing that went differently at the ER was that it was a female doctor.

The first male doctor said it was an anxiety attack.

The second male doctor said it was a viral stomach bug.

The female doctor listened to my symptoms and ordered a bunch of tests.

So, more personal blather about the whole situation.

While I was in the first ER I heard a man yelling and starting trouble in the waiting room. That Guy and Son got up and left as soon as the man was distracted by a security guy. I'd had told them to go home as soon as they dropped me off and I would text if I needed picked up. I knew I wasn't going home, though.

-

My neighbor was an elderly lady and they kept trying to figure out when she'd last pooped but she couldn't remember. Finally she called them in and was like I need to poop so they wrestled her up on a bed pan (she cried, she was in a lot of pain) and then left her alone with her curtain closed to poop. Right then the floor doctor walked in and was like HI MISS GERALDINE and whipped her curtain open to start talking to her.

...

I chewed him out. That's very atypical of me. Like, I laid into him for not asking if she was wanting to talk in that exact moment. And then I felt really bad until I realized he's probably had people a lot more angry at him than me considering a lot of the patients I could hear were elderly and some were confused, and I didn't feel bad anymore.

-

Since it's a university-run hospital there were sometimes pairs of nurses, and at one point a trainee came in to give me a dose of antibiotics through the IV but she hooked it into the wrong plug which depressurized the system and blood starting backing up the tube. As soon as she saw that she ran to get her trainer and they spent some time doing a full reset of the IV set up.

I wasn't worried or anything. It was my own blood and it could only go so far/only so much could be lost. At the most a cup since the saline bag was fresh and mostly full, still. So I was totally calm the whole time, which I'm sure helped.

I think the nurse in training was surprised when her trainer stepped out and I encouraged her instead of yelling at her. I praised her for not being too proud to get help when she noticed an issue, and for observing how to rectify the situation.

-

That Guy was like "Yesterday's nurses did NOT like me..." and I was like yeah I kind of told on you, but not out loud. He got put on the shit list FAST by staff. So for that I have a note in my account that I'm experiencing financial abuse and he exhibits controlling behavior. If there ever is a point where Son and I have to leave, I have the name of where to call. There's a facility in Next Town Over where the hospital is that will come and get us, and that would be the last time we see him.

I feel guilty for saying anything because he has paid for my existence for decades but he has also been abusive, just not physically.

They asked me if Son is safe at home alone with That Guy and I said "Safe, yes. Happy, no."

They also asked like how is Son and I said he seems to understand that his father's behavior isn't his fault but he still has had to endure it.

I also in the process learned how much money he makes (I didn't know before) and wow we should all certainly have insurance (he and Son might through his work but I have nothing and don't qualify for assistance while he claims me on his taxes as a dependent) and have had medical care all this time and there's no reason at all to be doing the whole -pointedly look at the food receipt every grocery trip, look up at the sky angrily, shake his head, shove it in his pocked, huff, and walk away- thing. Also explains why his work friends keep suggesting burger joints that end up costing like $80 for the whole family....

[free-for-all-fics]

Squid Game prompts and thoughts. Yeah, I know this fandom may be dead, but these are old and have been sitting in my notes app for a long time so I figure I might as well share them here anyway. Maybe it’ll be revived at some point with season 2, who knows. If anyone is inspired by or uses these, pls tag me. I’d love to read it 💜

1. Since In-ho gave Jun-ho a kidney, what if you, In-ho’s spouse, have an unspecified life threatening disease but couldn’t afford treatment. You’re the motive for In-Ho becoming a dirty cop who takes bribes and later entering the games. After winning and becoming the Frontman, he secretly transfers you to his private quarters on the island while you’re cared for; mostly bedridden, closely monitored, hooked up to tubes and wires with all the medication you need, etc. Maybe you’re put in a medical coma or are otherwise in and out of consciousness/disoriented and lethargic. He spends years using his resources and power as Frontman to cure you. Even if he keeps you sedated to take that edge off reality and make things sort of a blur for you. So you’re in an almost constant stupor where you think you’re dreaming even when you��re awake, etc. He’d try to keep you in the dark about the games and what he does, but what if you know more than you let on? What if Jun-ho inadvertently found you while snooping in the Frontman’s private quarters during his investigation into the disappearances of both you and his brother? (Ep. 5 & 7)?

2. “Isn’t the idea supposed to be ‘you saved my life, now I owe you a debt’?”

“Nope. You saved my life, now I’m your problem.” With either Salesman or Frontman.

3. It’s been a few weeks since your (relative, friend, neighbor, you choose.) went missing. You hear a knock on the door. As you open it, you realize that the man in front of you is not a typical solicitor or salesman. Before you can say anything, he says, “They said you’ll pay the debt.”

4. He’s one of the best recruiters for the games. A mastermind of persuasion and manipulation. He could sell rocks to jewelers, woo any man or woman, and even get away with murder. Until he meets you, his match: The most obstinate, unyielding, stubborn person whom he’s ever encountered. Your personal records tell him you’re not in the best of situations, and yet you’re not falling for any of his tricks or games. There’s nothing you seem to want or need that he can offer you. You keep turning him down, declining everything he claims he can give you, totally uninterested and not falling for any of it. But that just makes you all the more intriguing to him. As frustrating as you are, you’re a challenge. And neither of you are ones to give up easily. Maybe he won’t recruit you to play in the games after all. Maybe your resolve to resist temptation shows him you have potential for something even greater.

5. You’re one of the most aggressive salespeople alive; you steal money from your “customers” but leave an item they want, of equivalent value, behind. You’re threatening the Salesman’s “business” by taking away his “customers”. He has to decide what to do about this. Would he try to get you out of the way? Or Perhaps you could be a useful “business” partner?

6. The world’s most arrogant salesman meets the world’s most ignorant customer.

7. In-ho and Salesman, or In-ho and Jun-ho prompt: After years of struggling to pay off your college tuitions, all your debts are taken care of. Relief grows into suspicion when you come home. An unfamiliar black vehicle is parked nearby. Two men in expensive suits stand up when you enter. How did they get inside? “You’re not an easy person to track down. You know that, right?”

8. You’re behind on payments. A salesman recruits you to do a “housekeeping” job to clear your debt, handing you a card. His “colleague” (The Frontman) will act as your benefactor if you accept. It isn’t until you’re kidnapped and wake up on an island that you find out your task is to act as a forensic cleaner. You’re expected to wash away, disinfect and sanitize every game’s messes, removing all traces of murder and death after bodies are disposed. Not a drop of blood in sight. No human matter or fingerprints left to be found. You haven’t officially met the Frontman, but from what guards have said, you don’t want to know what would happen if he found out you missed a spot. The pink guards and surviving players leave you alone to do your job at the end of each game. But something is wrong. It feels like someone is still there, watching you at all times. What’s also weird is you’re assigned a room close to the Frontman’s quarters and kept separate from the other guards. He doesn’t trust the other guards to leave you be. Basically, you’re the only masked guard who’s a woman during the games. In-ho and/or the Salesman is interested in you and purposely sought you out. What happens?

9. You’re deep in student debt with no hope to pay it off in your lifetime, so you do the logical thing: Fake your death and move to South Korea to live an inconspicuous life under a new identity. The bank can’t really do anything since you’re “dead”. All your paper/online trails have been expertly wiped. So you thought. Some years later, door-to-door salesmen in your area start asking to be let inside. You know that’s not how salesmen do things. Something’s up. This prompts you to move around the country, never staying still too long. Seoul, Busan, etc. you’re on the move the second you feel they’re onto you. Until a man in a gray suit enters your train compartment and slides the door shut behind him. He sits next to you despite there being empty seats. His polite demeanor becomes unnerving. Small talk becomes invasive. He asks rhetorical questions - already knowing everything about you. He’s backing you into a corner. He opens his briefcase to display damning evidence detailing your “past life”, a sly smile on his face. Well, shit. Can’t run or hide on a moving train. And it’s a non-stop trip that will take a few hours. What do you do now?

10. Being In-ho and Jun-ho’s younger sister would include, before and after In-ho’s entered the games? Or maybe a fic where you’re their younger sister and unknowingly in a relationship with the Salesman (as in, you don’t know what exactly he does for work and are in the dark about your eldest brother’s involvement with the games. Your other brother doesn’t tell you much, if anything, about his investigations into In-ho’s disappearance, claiming the less you know the safer you’ll be. To you, your eldest brother is still missing after so many years and Jun-ho is still trying to find him. You haven’t heard from either of them in so long. Recently, Jun-ho has stopped responding to your messages. Now you’re getting worried. You may have to go out there and find your brothers yourself, to hell with the risks.)

[tdciago]

My Fargo Thoughts

Originally posted to Reddit and removed by moderators. Posting here for my own records.

Viewers probably think that Dot looks at the Bisquick boxes and breakfast ads at the Gas 'n Go with only Scotty in mind, but I think there's something more. We will flash back to Dot's kidnapping, to show what happened after she was cornered. She will further injure Donald Ireland, and Munch will give his monologue about kings and his early life, culminating with his request for pancakes. This will have a profound effect on Dot. Her vigorous stirring of batter also creates a little tornado-like whirlpool effect in the mixing bowl, a reference to Dorothy Gale. Let's remember that Liberal, Kansas (the setting for *East/West*) is both the pancake hub of the universe and the self-proclaimed home of Dorothy Gale.

GENDER-SWAPPING AND NON-CONFORMITY

Scotty "the cross-dresser" is the most obvious example here, choosing a suit over a dress, liking ninjas instead of dolls, etc. But the preview shows that Dot and Munch are also going to start dressing like each other. Dot will don a long green coat and become more ferocious, and Munch will wear what looks like a woman's coat with a fur collar and windowpane plaid, mimicking Dot's appearance. These two have a connection of some kind. They are kindred spirits. Also, from the very start of the story, Dot wears pants and Munch wears a kilt. Noah Hawley has said that this season will examine our perception of gender roles.

BRAINS

We've already had a couple of zombie references, and brains are their food of choice. Donald Ireland, demonstrating his thematic connection to the Scarecrow from *The Wizard of Oz*, moans that he needs his brain when Dot suggests that his facial burns could lead to brain infection. Dot also tells Wayne to call Scotty for dinner before her brain turns to mush from watching cartoons, and she mentions some story about a man going to the hospital for a kidney transplant, but ending up with someone else's brain.

DECAPITATION?

All the zombie/brain discussion leads me to suspect that someone will be decapitated on Halloween. We see an inflatable pumpkinheaded figure holding a skull outside the Lyon home, and Witt tells the convenience store clerk to get down before he loses his head.

PIRATES

Dot reads a story about pirates to Scotty, and previews show that she will try to buy a gun from a salesman dressed as a pirate at Gun World. That salesman has an eye patch over his right eye, like Danish Graves, perhaps suggesting that Danish is himself a pirate in some way. I think he knows more than he lets on about Dot's origins.

MIRROR IMAGERY

I've posted before about a possible "mirror universe" theme in season 5, as Noah Hawley has used that term to describe the internet vs. the real world, and how we see enemies in the mirror, when it's actually just a distorted image of ourselves.

With that in mind, we have the mirror-image leopard wallpaper in Dot's bathroom; Munch looking in a mirror and Dot appearing from behind to attack him; Munch seeing the cop car in his rear-view mirror; and Gator noticing his murdered companion in the side-view mirror. The previews also show Dot and Munch mirroring each other's clothing.

There are also mirrored themes in both Donald Ireland and Josh Hunk suffering burns, when both are Scarecrow substitites. And both Roy and Lorraine believe that Dot owes them something via her marriage vows.

THE WIZARD OF OZ

I've talked about these references for months, and now we begin to see them play out.

The name Dorothy Lyon is an obvious nod to Dorothy Gale and the Cowardly Lion. It's clear that Wayne represents the Cowardly Lion, who will find his courage in the end.

The surname Tillman sounds like Tin Man. Roy is a self-proclaimed "hard man for hard times." He ironically lounges in a hot tub, with a steam pipe reminiscent of the Tin Man's hat, and he mentions a "rainy day fund." Water is the Tin Man's enemy, as it causes him to rust. What does this foreshadow? Like the Tin Man, Roy is heartless.

See https://imgur.com/a/t5aWVTi

The name Munch is (among other things) a reference to the Munchkins.

The name Donald (meaning *world leader*) Ireland (*the Emerald Isle*) points to the Scarecrow, who was made ruler of the Emerald City until the return of Princess Ozma. Donald ireland reinforces this connection by lamenting the potential loss of his brain, and being set on fire, the Scarecrow's greatest fear. In *The Wizard of Oz*, Dorothy throws water on the Scarecrow to put out the flames. Here, Dot uses ice (frozen water) to hit Donald Ireland and cause him to die by striking the porcelain toilet, which also contains water.

Josh and Lenore Hunk bear the name of the Kansas farmhand who becomes the Scarecrow in Oz. Josh Hunk will also suffer burns when Roy throws hot coffee in his face.

Lorraine Lyon, for now, is playing the villainous role of the Wicked Witch of the West, as well as the role of Mombi, the witch who had Princess Ozma kidnapped and turned into a boy named Tip to hide her as the rightful ruler of Oz. *Mom* Lorraine frequently wears black, and has artwork in her office that depicts women's legs, bringing to mind the legs of the Wicked Witch of the East, sticking out from under Dorothy's house.

See https://imgur.com/a/Xg5L5x0

The Wicked Witch of the West controlled both the Winkie guards and the flying monkeys through the power of a golden cap. Not only does Lorraine seem to love gold everything, but her non-entity husband is named Wink.

The word *grave* in Danish means *dig*, and the Wizard's real name was Oscar *Diggs*. This suggests that Danish Graves may be a Wizard figure. For now, he is certainly Lorraine's flying monkey.

Dot's bloody feet are the ruby slippers. Her many yellow sweaters represent the Yellow Brick Road. She will also be seen wearing a rainbow-striped sweater, another clear reference to Dorothy.

THE LADY, OR THE TIGER?

The title of this short story has come to mean an unsolvable problem. Dot fills both the role of the lady and the tiger at once, and we are presented with the seemingly unsolvable problem of how she got home to Scandia, MN from Beulah, ND, over 500 miles away, on foot, with no shoes.

Indira Olmstead is shown dealing with her own unsolvable problem of financial debt. As she reviews her bills, we see two art pieces behind her on the wall, depicting a lady on one side, and a tiger on the other.

Episode 4 is titled *Insolubilia*, which literally refers to an unsolvable problem.

(Continued in reblog)

[bobasnonbeliever]

only posting this here because i dont think anyone will see it. i need to get this out

im so fucking tired of my life. im tired of caring, like, in general. as stupid as it sounds, i was watching kitchen nightmares, and gordon said something about a chef or an owner, i dont remember exactly, he said; "losing hope is a scary thing to do, when theres just no more light at the end of the tunnel, it takes you down dark paths." or something like that. and ive been suicidal/depressed since i was 9, but i thought to myself "im not hopeless, am i?". the more i thought about it, the worse i felt because, god no, im not hopeless. im helpless, or maybe i wallow too much in my own self pity. i dont know the difference. every goddamn day feels like another waking nightmare, im sick of living with my mom, im sick of her not letting me get a job. i dont want my name on the damn electric bill because shes over $1,000 in debt to the power company anymore. shes already ruining my credit, and i dont even have a damn job! not to mention her fucking kid, her 5yo fucking kid, im taking care of. the product of the man who beat me over and over again, threatened to kill me, and then he took a greyhound bus out of our lives. why didnt she protect me? he never once hit her, or anyone else, why didnt mom help me? i was only 13 when he first pulled me by my hair and slammed me into the stairs because i let moms ice cream tub melt on the kitchen table for half an hour. it took him till my brother was 3 to leave. she valued him over me, and even now. im always taking care of my brother, even when he screams at me, cusses at me, throws things at me, spits on me, hits me, kicks me, claws me, bites me, and more. you get the point. she never even tells him to stop, she doesnt have to scream, or hurt him, or anything. just please, please tell them to stop hurting me. i still take care of him. i take care of him when she takes 20 fucking benadryl and passes out for the full time shes at home between shifts. i sacrificed my education to "help her" take care of him. and she gets mad at me when i parent him, when i tell him off, or even more mad when i have to cry and beg him to stop hurting me. she says "youre 22 years old, get a grip" when im covered in bruises from the 5 year old "hes five!" she will scream when i tell her he hurts me. "he is five, hes supposed to listen to you" i said once, and she just stared at me. im always fucking things up, she never fails to let me know, when she looks at me like that i know its my fault. i cant even begin on my relationship, i shouldnt, he might see this. i just want to give up, im so tired of caring, i want to let it all go. my dog died, i ruined him too, i couldnt take him to the vet i couldnt help him. hes gone because i failed. my baby, im not saying that in the cringy melinial way, he saved me from suicide. so many times, it was "hell be so confused why im gone..", "hes gonna miss me", "whos gonna take care of him?" but now hes gone and im still here. my baby, is gone and im so selfishly still here. why wouldnt she let me get a job? i couldve taken him, i couldve at least got him put down so he didnt have to suffer in his favourite spot on my bed till his kidneys put him down for us. if i didnt know, my boyfriend would kill himself too when he comes home from classes tomorrow, and i was dead, i would take the entire 160 count bottle of benadryl i stole from moms room. i want to see my baby, he never ever missed on helping me, i owe him my life and couldnt even give him that when he passed. but not for lack of trying.

but even so, i dont feel hopeless. maybe only yearning, but it feels enough like hope. when i use my right hand to stroke my left cheek and neck, it almost feels like someone else. i get a glimmer of a thought, "one day, i wont have to beg to be taken care of. someone will do it because they want to.", but still, it hurts worse. i dont know how i can possibly derive so much gut wrenching pain from that little bit of hope, but i do. and still, i cant help myself, i cant blame anyone else. i can only hope someone will come save me. if i could handle this all on my own, i wouldnt be here typing this.

i want to decompose.

writing this after that monster of a textblock in the tags, but if you were wondering. im not exaggerating about the mess, and i wouldnt normally judge. because i have had worse bedrooms, mental illness is a bitch. but its in the common area, and she absolutely does make the 5yo live in it. she moved out to the living room after their room was too trashed for her to even walk in, so she toated her 50" fucking tv right out there and hasnt moved, accept to go to work, since. everyone pray or cross your fingers or send me some good energy to hope she gets sliced into a million pieces at work instead of accidentally oding on bennies so i can raise my brother with her life insurance money.

[miyos-multiverse-express]

Pelipper mail! To Tohru!

A nightmare! Its not yours!

You're in the drama club room, cleaning as many surfaces as you can, sorting as many props as you can, blaring vocaloid from your phone, all to drown out your thoughts.

You don't like being alone with your thoughts. They just remind you how nothing is permanent, how useless you are without your Persona, how badly you miss him, how you don't even know you are anymore. There's also the matter of how the silhouette on the Midnight Channel looks a lot like you, which your brain has been tormenting you with. But its not like you'll get kidnapped. At least, you hope not. And even if you did, it can't be as bad as last time... right? Right.

A knock at the door reminds you why you were staying after today in the first place. Right, you needed to sign for some theater props. You rush to the door, leaving your phone on the desk, and answer it.

"I'm Akira Kurusu, I'm supposed to sign for the theater props." Its funny how naturally that name fell off your tongue. Sometimes you catch yourself wondering if you would forget your real name.

The delivery man looked a bit shocked, before nodding. "Of course it would be you."

Huh. Weird way to say that.

The man hands you a clipboard, before asking you to "Sign here."

You freeze for a moment, your wrists beginning to ache, and you blink away visions of a police officer in uniform in a grey interrogation room.

The man nods, and asks you a question. "Hey, could you do me a favor and help me move the box here? My buddy's out sick, and you look strong enough to carry it."

You nod. "Of course I can."

You prop open the door with a rock, so you don't lock yourself out, before heading to the truck.

The man tells you that "you'll know the box when you see it", which isn't very helpful.

You enter the back of the truck, and notice that you, in fact, do not know the box when you see it. Oddly enough, there seemed to be a TV in there as well.

You turn around to ask which box you're supposed to get, before you hear the truck door close and lock shut, as the light from outside completely disappears. Your eyes widen, and you hear the man's voice. "Sorry, I can't let you leave. I need to save you."

"Eat shit," you respond, before charging at him. Unfortunately, you trip over a box, and land pretty badly on your arm. Ow. You also feel something fall out of your pockets. Hopefully it wasn't anything important.

You flick on Third Eye, and are helpfully informed by the red outline that the man is more powerful than you. Thanks, magical eyeball power.

You roll and scramble to your feet, dodging the man's swipe at you, before you jab him in the kidney and rush to the door.

Your hands reach your pockets, and you realize that the thing that fell out of your pockets was important, it was all your lockpicks. Shit. You rattle the handle uselessly. Fucking fantastic. A Phantom Thief foiled by a fucking locked door.

In a last ditch attempt to get out of this situation, you bang and the door and scream. "HELP—HELP ME I'M—mmmmphhh!"

You can feel some sort of cloth covering your nose and mouth, and you smell nothing but chemicals. It burns into your nose and eyes, and you can feel everything getting dizzy and fuzzy.

Yet you still struggle with everything you have, trying to get this fucking rag off your face. Though, it was pretty useless, as your arms and legs started feeling more and more like jelly. After a couple more seconds, your legs give out from under you, and you hit the ground. You start to lose consciousness, but before you do, you see the face of the delivery man, and you think you recognize him. Wasn't he that city council secretary...?

It doesn't really matter. Everything goes black shortly after.

Tohru: (shitfuck damn it why did it have to be about fucking Namatame-)

Miyo: You, uh. You good?

Tohru: (having flashbacks please hold.)

Miyo: What - OH RIGHT. Uh. Physical contact yes/no?

Tohru: (Mmmm yes I think.)

[walkthevalley]

What are you made of?

"And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." Genesis 2:22-23

The Good Book says that Eve was made from a rib from Adam's side.

I wonder why.

The rib isn't integral to the central structure of the man's body because the axial skeleton can operate just fine without appendages. The rib doesn't perform a specific organic function like the lungs or the liver or the kidneys, nor does it operate as a command center like the brain and its many parts and pathways.

Then it hit me: no woman is the same. We're all made differently. We're all individuals. And every man isn't missing his rib. Here's why I say that.

Some women are made from their man's rib.

She is always at his side. She protects him, she guards his heart, she takes the hits for him sometimes. She supports him and helps him stand tall. She is under his arm to be held close and loved well.

Some women are made from their man's head.

She is a little more fragile, so she needs to be protected more carefully. But she is witness to the workings of his mind and intimately involved in the conception of his thoughts. She holds his dreams while he sleeps.

Some women are made from their man's hand.

She is agile, versatile, adept, able, and sensitive. She makes beauty out of chaos, she makes delicious out of bland, she makes good out of bad. She is responsible for everything he does. He owes all he accomplishes to her.

There are many, many parts of man out of which to make the perfect woman for him, and once he finds her, once he finds the missing piece of himself, he is never the same.

From this I have concluded that I must be made out of some dude's tailbone because no man wants this pain in the ass.

[arcplaysgames]

Okay I am fucking around in the Kamoshida Palace rn so lets recap.

Went back to meet with the doctor lady because she felt like an SLink I mean Confidant (which is frankly a WAY BETTER TERM for SLinks, they should backport that shit).

Punk Doctor will hook Reverie up with the good shit but only if he acts like a test subject for her. This is extremely inethical! I love it! Lets do it.

lmao okay having a doctor as the Death arcana is pretty funny even if that isn't what Death means. But given the nature of Death as an irrevocable transformation, a back-alley doctor is great for that. Hopefully the transformation isn't going to be organ failure or her selling my kidneys.

Reverie The Fifth has so much personality tbh and I love it. Even if I'm kinda cold on my team so far, he's vibrant enough to actually carry this story so far. I'm gonna need some ffffcuking weirdos soon tho.

these gym uniforms are bad, can we all agree on that

So far Ryuji is not thrilling me but I do like a book-dumb-emotionally-smart boy who loves his mother.

Also, finally getting the background on what the fuck Kamoshida did to Ryuji. It feels stupid at this point to say "jfc the lack of professionalism" but wow, telling your other students about one athlete's abusive father, you'd think that was a breach of SOMETHING. Goddamn.

anyway Ryuji literally says something like "well that's in the past now, we need to look to the future" so he's Chariot as fuck so far.

Morgana I don't like heights okay they are scary, what if i fall???? and crack my head on the shelf and bleed out and Sojiro already left for the night so I would die?????? did you think of that?

Sojiro would probably get mad at me lbr

I DUNNO HOW Y'ALL CAN HATE MORGANA. THEY ARE A TALKING CAT WHO SLEEPS IN MY DESK OR SITS NEXT TO ME WHILE I READ. Like, the degree to which Reverie is living the fucking Sailor Moon dream here is amazing. He is a fucking Magical Girl.

do i get petting rights someday. will morgana permit pets. i wanna pet them. is that like a rank 8 confidant thing.

god i fucking hate the VR. there's no one to flirt with in there.

I DO LIKE THAT OUR PERSONA ACTUALLY FUCKING HAS A RELATIONSHIP WITH US? Like, Arsene stops to talk to Reverie before fusion, which is a nice touch.

Sorry did I say fusion

what in the everloving fuck

YANNO Persona 3 had to endure years of jokes about how edgy it was for having the summoning being a fake gun to the head. EVERYONE OWES PERSONA 3 AN APOLOGY. FUSION IS NOW EXECUTION AND THE COMPENDIUM IS THE INMATE REGISTRY.

B R U H.

man i don't wanna advocate violence on children but also i want to punt caroline through a goal post, what do.

anyway I'm working on the palace, bbiab.

[invisibleraven]

It's not what you lost, it's what you gained

Written for the Year of the OTP challenge prompt: No, I'm not dating your brother

Pairing: Julie/Luke/Reggie

On AO3!

Man, took long enough for me to get to my OT3 with this series huh?

Reggie has a brother when it's plot convenient, so I'm using my OC Alfie because no parents who name their first child Reginald are going with the name Steve for their second.

Hand waving any medical inaccuracies, and please enjoy!

Alfie is on his way to class when his phone rings and he almost ignores it. This final review is paramount to him passing this Chemistry class, and he’s running late as it is. But it’s an LA area code, so he reluctantly swipes to answer it.

“Mr. Peters? This LA County General. We have your brother Reginald here as a patient…”

The rest of the words are eaten up by the rush in Alfie’s ears as the fear rushes through him. The thought of Reggie, lying alone and broken in some hospital bed, he can’t even think about it. He thanks the nice nurse and books the first flight he can back home, rapidly throwing things in a duffel bag. Screw classes, screw his finals, his brother is more important than anything.

He’s sure Reggie would disagree, having slaved away at a million dead end jobs to afford Alfie’s tuition, but the man had practically raised him when their parents failed to be present, and then fought to be his legal guardian the second he turned eighteen. Alfie owed him the world. So it was off to LA, hoping and praying that he wasn’t going to be too late.

He doesn’t remember much of the flight or the cab ride from the airport, only that it seems to take forever. He hasn’t missed California traffic, nor the intense heat, part of him longing for his cool Portland spring, but at least he had the sense to pack a few lighter shirts in his bag, pulling one on as the taxi rounds the bend to the hospital. He’s sure he overtips as he all but shoves bills at the cabbie, but he doesn’t care, he barely remembers to take his bag as he rushes to the front desk.

“Hi, I got a call about my brother? Reggie Peters? Can you tell me where he is?” he asks at the front desk. The woman purses her lips but nods, typing into her computer, and with each clack of the keys he prays she isn’t about to tell him he’s too late or that he can’t see Reggie after all this.

“Fourth floor, room 450. Follow the yellow line to the elevators, then the blue line once you’re up there. Visiting hours are over at 9.”

Alfie nods in thanks and quickly locates where he’supposed to go, heart pounding as he finds the elevator, jamming repeatedly on the button, as if that had ever made them go faster. He’s tapping his feet and is just about to give up and find a stairwell when the doors open and he enters, pressing the 4 harshly in hopes it will hurry things along. The mindless music is grating, but Alfie’s brain is too full of thoughts to even register it.

He knows Reggie was in a car accident, had multiple fractures and a concussion. There had been some worry about a bruise to his kidney, and they had already done a surgery to clean up some internal bleeding. The prognosis was good, but Reggie had yet to wake up.

That’s what worried Alfie the most.

What if he didn’t wake up? What if he woke up and didn’t remember anything? Remember Alfie? What if he woke up and he was all alone and scared?

His thought spiral was interrupted by the doors opening, and Alfie frantically looked around for the blue line, finally locating it and counting off the numbers of the rooms as he went. 415, 423, 437… 450!

The door was partially open, and Alfie peered in, not wanting to interrupt if a doctor was seeing Reggie. But no, instead he saw people on either side of Reggie, a Latina woman with dark curly hair who is clutching his left hand, and a guy with shaggy chestnut hair on his right, hand on Reggie’s shoulder since that arm is in a sling.

Alfie has no clue who either of them are.

Look, between his classes and Reggie’s jobs, they haven’t had a chance to catch up lately okay? But still, these people seem to be very concerned for his brother, and neither of them are in scrubs, so that rules out medical professionals. “Hello?” he calls out and they both look up at him with wide, red rimmed eyes.

“Oh, you must be Alfie,” the woman says. “You look just like your pictures.”

“I am,” he says. “Who are you?”

“I’m Julie, this is Luke. Reggie is our best friend.”

“Jules-” Luke starts, but she waves him off. Alfie can question all that later, and how close the two of them could possibly be to Reggie when he can’t recall either of their names being mentioned. But they were here, and maybe they had answers that the doctors wouldn’t give.

“How is he-really?” Alfie asks as he looks over Reggie. Aside from the arm in the sling, he can see his left leg in a cast, bruises littering his exposed skin, a collar around his neck and a plethora of machines whirring and beeping away.

“He’s tough,” Luke says, “But he got pretty beat up. The other driver was drunk, plowed through a red light, he’s equally messed up, but his family is covering Reggie’s care, since he was at fault.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Alfie said as he took Julie’s spot, grasping Reggie’s hand tight. “I’m here bro, I’m here.”

Reggie’s pulse is there below his fingers, and Alfie finally felt the tension flood from his body. Yes, Reggie is bruised and broken, and there is a hard road ahead of him in terms of rehabilitation, but he’s still there. Alfie just needs him to wake up now, smile that crooked grin of his and lambast him for taking time off from school when he’s perfectly fine.

He looks up, seeing Luke and Julie still there, Julie standing beside Luke’s chair, pushing Reggie’s hair from his face.

“Thank you both for being here for him,” Alfie says quietly. “I would hate to think he was here alone.”

“Of course,” Luke replies. “He’d do it for either of us.”

“It was the least we could do for him,” Julie finishes, sending Reggie a fond look. A look that Alfie had only seen in movies, in fairy tales really. It’s the look of someone who genuinely loves the person they’re looking at, in the deepest way you could love someone. He hadn’t had much experience with it in his own life, but he still knows it when he sees it.

“Are you dating my brother?” Alfie asks. Julie and Luke exchange a worried look, and Alfie doesn’t know what to make of that. “It’s just… he never talks about himself. He tells me this and that, but he’s never mentioned either of you, and if it’s new that’s fine, but I need to know.”

“No, I’m not dating your brother,” Julie finally answers. “We… we both wanted to. Took forever to convince him we loved him like that.”

Alfie got that. After their parents it had taken years and lots of therapy for him to believe that he could be lovable to anyone, so it stands to reason that Reggie would also have a harder time believing anyone could want him. Or that romantic love could be anything but toxic. So no wonder he had a harder time convincing himself that two people could want him like that.

Luke reaches up and squeezes Julie’s hand on his shoulder. “But we finally did. He was driving to our first date when he got in the accident.”

“It’s not your fault,” Alfie says, as if that will assuage the guilt they’re surely feeling. “He might have been out getting groceries or going to work, the fault is with the guy who decided to get behind the wheel drunk.”

“I just wish it had never happened,” Julie says with a sniffle.

Luke gathers her into his arms at that, soothing her. “Sssh, it’s okay boss. We’ll be here for him the whole time right? Take him to every appointment, help him with whatever he needs help with. He’ll be sick of us by the end of it right?”

“Right,” Julie says wetly, giving Luke a weak smile.

“You two don’t have to do that,” Alfie says.

“Of course we do,” Luke says. “We love Reggie. He’s our whole world. And he’d kill us for letting you take more time off of school just to take care of him.”

“He’s so proud of you,” Julie adds. “Always going on about his genius baby brother and how he’s going to change the world.”

Alfie looks down at Reggie’s sleeping face. “He really talks about me?”

“All the time,” Luke promises. “I think he was waiting until after our date to tell you about us though.”

“Don’t hold it against him for keeping it secret, not everyone understands polyamory,” Julie says.

“I could never-Reggie is the greatest guy there is,” Alfie says, wiping away a tear. “I don’t care who he loves, or how many people. His heart is big enough to hold the whole world, I’m just happy he found people who realize it.”

Julie and Luke smile at him, and then they all look at Reggie, willing him to wake up. But he stays stationary, the machines still beeping and whirring around them. They sit there, getting to know one another as time goes on. A nurse reminds them about the end of visiting hours, but none of them move.

None of them want Reggie to be alone.

Finally it ticks over to 9, and another nurse gives them a stern glare, the three of them exiting the room, each promising to be back the next day. Alfie looks away as Luke and Julie press kisses to Reggie’s face. Then they invite him to stay at their place, or a ride to Reggie’s, if he wants. He decides to stay at his brother’s, and is shocked by the tiny studio apartment. There’s a cherry red bass in the corner, plants on every surface, and a dog dish in the corner. “Dolly is with my dad until Reggie can come home,” Julie says.

Alfie can see the walls covered in photos; shots of Reggie and the pit bull mix he’d adopted after finding her hurt on the beach during a lifeguarding gig, pictures of him playing his bass alongside Luke and a blonde guy playing drums while Julie is singing behind a piano.

“We’re in a band together,” Luke explains. “Julie and the Phantoms.”

“Tell your friends,” Julie says, though the phrase makes her a little melancholy.

There’s a bunch of shots of Alfie, and he almost cries when he sees the one of him and Reggie at his graduation, beaming faces smiling wide as MeeMaw took the shot. Plus another with her hugging them both tight that he touches reverently. God, he needs to call her in the morning, she’s in a home now after breaking her hip one too many times, but she’s still in full capacity of her senses.

“We already called Chavala,” Julie says. “She made us promise to take good care of you both.”

“Thank you,” Alfie says. Wonders how much more of Reggie’s life he’s missed out on, if even their grandmother knows about Luke and Julie when he’s been in the dark.

But the evidence is there, staring him in the face, because the bulk of the photos are of Luke and Julie themselves. Some alone, some together, a great deal more with Reggie. They look so happy together, all smiles and lovelorn expressions. Without going on a single date, if he looked at these photos, he would have assumed they had been together for years.

“The fridge is stocked, but if you need anything, you can call us,” Luke says, writing down their numbers on a piece of paper. “We’ll pop by in the morning, we can all go in and see him tomorrow.”

Alfie nods, and sees them out, but when he crawls into bed that night, he breaks down in tears, relieved that Reggie’s alive, but mourning the lost time between them. He sleeps restlessly, and barely manages a bowl of cereal before Luke and Julie show up. They chatter mindlessly as they drive towards the hospital, but all conversation ends once there, all of them silently waiting for Reggie to make some sign of consciousness.

But he’s just as still as he was the day prior. Alfie takes the time to email all his teachers, letting them know where he is, and most of them get back to him giving him extensions. Not the terrible Professor Martinez for Chem of course, but one email to the dean has him excused until he gets back. The doctor comes in to do a few more tests, so the three of them go to get something to eat.

“I hope you guys aren’t missing too much work for this,” Alfie says as he picks at his salad.

Luke and Julie exchange a look. “Um, the band is our job,” Luke finally says. “Our demo is doing really well, and we just got picked up by a label. The night we got signed is the night we told Reggie how we felt.”

“But Reggie…”

“Reggie works at the animal shelter because he likes it,” Julie says with a giggle. “Our friend Willie is covering for him. He quit all the other part time gigs once the band started taking off and our merch sales more than made up for it.”

Once again, Alfie aches inside, thinking back to every conversation that he’s had with Reggie over the past little while. He goes on and on about his classes, his friends, the cute guy who’d asked him out. That had led to Alfie finally coming out to Reggie who laughed and told him he didn’t care, and hell, he was bi, so he couldn’t say shit. That had been months ago though.

Reggie never told him squat about his own life though, sticking to his job walking dogs or serving coffee. He never mentions his friends, or his band, or the people he loves. He always demurred, like he thought Alfie wouldn’t be interested, and Alfie realizes he stopped pressing ages ago, not wanting to fight if Reggie didn’t want to be known. He silently curses their parents for screwing them up so royally, and vows then and there to be a better brother, to push more.

He just prays he gets the chance.

When they get back to the room, the doctor pulls Alfie aside. “His brain is active, the swelling is gone, and we’re going to remove the breathing tube. I’m hopeful that he’ll wake soon.”

Reggie does look a little better when they enter the room, the tubes and wires greatly reduced, and the bruises are starting to fade, just a little. But he still doesn’t wake up. Alfie squeezes his hand tight. “Come on Reginald, wake up. I’ll be so mad if you don’t.”

“Come back to us cariño,” Julie whispers, pressing a kiss to Reggie’s face.

“We have a date to get to, you can’t sleep through that bud,” Luke jokes. “And you know Willie can’t play bass for shit.”

“Maybe we should sing to him,” Julie jokes back.

“My acoustic is in the trunk,” Luke perks up at the suggestion and when Julie sends him a look, he shrugs. “You know I don’t go anywhere without a guitar!”

“Go get it,” Alfie says. “I’m willing to try anything.”

Luke dashes out and returns a few moments later with his guitar, beaming as he sits back down, nodding at Julie who starts tapping out a beat on her thighs, which Alfie clumsily copies. Reggie’s the one who got all the musical talent between them, he’s practically tone deaf, but he can follow this a little.

“Can you, can you hear me?” Julie sings softly.

“Loud and clear!” Luke sings back.

“Gotta get, we gotta get ready.”

“Cause it’s been years!”

“That's my song,” comes a creaking voice from the bed and three pairs of eyes fly to where Reggie is blinking up at them. “Hey darlin’, babe. Was going on?”

“Reggie!” Julie cries, hugging him as much as she’s able. “Dios mio, never scare us like that again!”

“I’ll try not to sweetheart,” Reggie replies, though his voice is more of a croak than anything. “As soon as you tell me what I did.”

“You got in a bad car accident hun,” Luke says, bringing his free hand up to press a kiss to the knuckles. “Had us worried sick.”

“Sorry,” Reggie replies, licking over his dry lips. Then he turns his head and sees his brother. “Alf, what the heck are you doing here? You have finals!”

“You’re more important dummy,” Alfie says, swiping the tears from his eyes as he chuckles. “And we need to have a long talk about you not telling me stuff.”

Reggie flushes, looking at the couple beside him who nod and vacate the room. “I meant to tell you, I just… you know how it is, I never think my stuff is all that important. You’re in college, going to change the world one day. I’m just…”

“A future rock star with two pretty damn good partners?” Alfie finishes for him. “Reggie I wouldn’t care if you were just sitting in your sweats playing MarioKart all day, I still wanna know about your life. It’s important to me, because you are important to me.”

Reggie sniffles, and lets out a little okay. “We’re not dating, you know. Not yet.”

“Bud they’ve been by your side since you got here, safe to say that you are,” Alfie replies.

“I love them.”

“Good, because they love you too. And I approve, so we’re golden.”

“So… how’s life?” Reggie asks.

Alfie barks out a laugh and the two of them spend the next hour catching up, only interrupted by doctors doing some tests and Luke bringing them food while Julie gets Reggie’s care instructions from the nurses.

Reggie finally convinces Alfie to go home the next day, he’s in good hands, but promises to call him every night. “If not, I will,” Julie vows.

So Alfie goes home, aces that Chem final-take that Professor Martinez! And he’s back in LA for when Reggie can play his bass again, smiling and bouncing all over the stage at Julie and the Phantoms first gig since he got his casts off.

And Alfie shouts louder than anyone when Luke and Julie kiss his cheeks during their bow, all three of them smiling wide, looking happier than he has ever seen his brother.

And a year later, he’s happily standing at Reggie’s side as his best man as the three of them have a commitment ceremony that beats any wedding Alfie’s ever been to. But Alfie’s favourite moment is when Regige picks him to dance with during the family dances, and they boogey away on the floor. Sure, he wishes that Reggie never had the accident that led to this, but a part of him will forever be grateful that he and his brother are closer than ever. He soon returns Reggie to Luke and Julie’s arms, and smiles at the three of them swaying together.

He doesn't even care that Reggie is leaving the Peters name behind, because Luke and Julie's families have adopted them both as their own, and Alfie is half convinced that if he was a few years younger, Victoria Alvarez would be fighting to be his mom for real. So surrounded by his new family, and his brother looking ecstatic with his spouses by his side, Alfie has no complaints about the road that led them here. Yeah, this was alright by him.

[umbrellamedic]

Fear.

Send my muse a word and they’ll tell you something about their past related to that word (Angst Edition).

"Did you know that I used to torture for hire? Umbrella never resisted my taking jobs for other companies because I would share the results with them. They also used me for their own fact finding endeavors. My victims were sometimes supposed to be disposed of after I was finished anyways, so I would often have fun with them.

"I am sure you have seen how afraid someone is when you kill them, but have you ever tortured someone to death? I would treat their injuries as I worked. I would take them apart bit by bit, keep them alive. My proudest little toy was a man who had dreams of immortality and was willing to betray Umbrella's interests for it. Interesting research; if not for his compound I would have scars. Every inch of smooth skin is owed to this man, so he deserved something special.

"When people break and tell you what you want to know they expect the pain to end. Can you imagine how his face looked when he spilled his secrets and Command said I could get rid of them however I want? When Command encouraged me to take my time? My first step was to use his formulation on him to clean up my previous work and have a clean canvas to work with. His teeth had to go, one by one with a hammer and a pair of pliers. This made forcing the feeding tube into him easier. His cock and balls were removed next. More tubes to evacuate his waste. Both feeding and evacuation are forced; he lost all right to any bodily autonomy when he crossed Umbrella.

"I took my time after that collecting all the little parts of him. Pulling his nails off. Skinning him. Removing muscle and tendon. I tried to get the bone as clean as possible before cutting at the joints to remove it. It took a lot of work and everything he and Umbrella had to offer to keep him alive. Eventually the mind breaks; I was left with a head and torso that could only stare blankly at the ceiling light while machines kept him fed and breathing- and filtered when I removed his kidneys and liver and left him in need of dialysis

"I miss those days. But also, I want to impress upon you that when I say I have seen monsters and I know fear, and you do not measure up, it is not grand standing. When I say I should have been a killer and that I do not understand how you were given that role, it is because I have done things to other humans that make a simple murder pale in comparison."