#i wish they brought out those toothbrushes for real with all the songs

[gaysimpsstuff]

Could I get a Hawks in his rut headcanon?

No problem, Anon! I’m sorry this took so long, I wanted it to be perfect since I really like thinking about Hawks’ avian traits, and I know people really like it too. I hope it’s good! 

Hawks Rut Headcannons

Genre: fluff, smut

Type: headcannons (so... many... headcannons)

Warnings: animal traits, Keigo being possessive af, the commission being assholes, sickness, food, breeding kink, lots of horny times

Other: most of this is based off of real research, but some of it also comes from personal preference. @keilemlucent and their fic Best Nest very much inspired many other headcannons, check them outI They’re one of my favorite creators, and the linked fanfic is one of my favorites! Hope it’s okay I tagged you here lmao

NSFW Taglist: @smolchildfangirl @combat-wombatus @mandalorian-baby-bird @waffleareniceandfluffy (Lemme know if you wanna be added to or removed from the Taglist)

Remember to check if requests are open before sending in a request. This was made while requests were still open.

Pre-Rut Behaviors

Grooming and Preening

Before his rut, Keigo starts to feel dirty. He just seems to accumulate more dust and dirt during hero work than usual. He’ll come back home grumbling about blood in his hair and little bits of concrete in/on his skin.

He will insist you clean him off. So you get to brush his hair, put creams on his face, and wash him off in the shower.

Finally, there’s the preening. If he lets you preen his wings, then you know he’s in it for life. He loves and trusts you with everything he has. 

Expect him to press his nose against yours a lot.

Possessiveness and Protection

You’ll notice he gets more clingy, more possessive of you. He gets really controlling in the days leading up to his rut, so you’ll be annoyed a  l o t.

Just text all your friends and family that you’ve been swamped at work, it’d be a little weird to say “hey guys, sorry I can’t hang out, my boyfriend’s horomones are crazy right now and he gets really insecure if I so much as exist near anyone but him.”

You would come home from work and he’s already on you, sniffing your body to see who you’ve been around, and to see if any of them were attracted to you at all.

If he had any kind of sneaking suspicion that anyone posed a threat, he’s literally laying on you and rolling on top of you to try and get his scent on you. Even if no one will smell it except him, he’s gonna do it.

He’s so protective of you, and if something tiny hurts you or makes you upset...

He.

Is.

Angry.

Someone was rude to you? He’s screaming at them.

Someone tries to hurt or touch you? You’ve got to hold him back to stop him from ripping that person apart limb from limb.

All that x100 when he’s approaching his rut.

One person accidentally bumps into you? He takes it as passive aggressiveness even if they’re very apologetic about it.

You stub your toe on a table? He’s smashed the table and burnt it then thrown the ashes in the ocean. 

If you’re sad about something he can’t beat up, he feels horrible. He’s not the best at comforting people, so he’s just grabbing onto you and not letting go, telling you how much he loves and cares for you, and just how amazing you make his life feel.

If you don’t give him enough attention, he gets really huffy, and it gets worse leading up to his rut. 

You lifted your hands from his head to reach for your buzzing phone? He’s already whining and pouting and begging you to give him more head-pats again.

Nesting

He’ll leave hints asking for you to make a nest, usually saying things like “Our bed needs some changing, don’t you think?” “Don’t you wish our space was more personalized?” 

If you don’t get the hint, he’ll be very sad, and he thinks you’re rejecting him. So you’d better be good at reading into things and realizing he’s approaching mating season and wants you to build a nest.

He comes home one day and sees you piled blankets, pillows, and dirty clothes in the living room, sprayed with his cologne and you’re cologne and/or perfume. He pulls you into his arms and spins around with you, giggling and laughing.

He’s so happy you made a nest for the two of you. 

He starts putting pretty shiny things he likes around the nest. Your toothbrush went missing and you found it in the mountain that was your nest.

Once, you were in desperate need of a clean shirt, and the only clean shirt you could find was in the nest. So you picked it up to put it on, and two seconds later, Keigo was in front of you, hands in your shirt, staring at you with such a fierce intensity, you felt almost like a villain.

He was very mad at you for taking things from your shared nest.

He leaves feathers all around the penthouse, but they’re all piled mostly around the nest, they’re for your protection so don’t try and throw them away.

Noises

He also gets really noisy, so he’ll be ‘singing’ and squawking and cooing constantly. He feels really bad about it so he might get you some noise-blocking headphones for when he’s screeching into the sky in the dead of night about how “THIS IS MY FUCKING TERRITORY Y’ALL MOTHERFUCKERS STAY AWAYYYY!”

You really think bird’s springtime songs are about love? Nah he’s mostly screaming about how he’s gonna fuck his partner and how the neighborhood  practically belongs to him.

Someone called the police once, tired of all the shouting, but the officers backed off when they saw who was doing all the shouting. Most of your neighbors are used to the screaming during early spring.

Rut End-game

On the third and second to last day before his rut, he gets a sudden burst of energy and an increased appetite. He refuses to eat anything unless you’ve made it though, so let’s best hope you can cook at least a little.

When he was younger, his hungry times before his rut were spent either eating anything and everything he can get his hands on. The commission broke that behavior very quickly though, so he’d starve himself before his rut, which would result in him getting very sick from a lack of energy and sustenance. That plus the extreme arousal was a recipe for pain and suffering.

So when you noticed he suddenly stopped eating, you insisted on making food for him, telling him that you wouldn’t let him go hungry ever. That was the first rut in years that didn’t feel like torture.

You’re cooking almost all the time, and he’s constantly eating everything you give him, running around from room to room while he waits for his next meal. He’s basically a hobbit.

In the last day or two before his rut, he suddenly has no energy, and starts getting hot and cold flashes. He’s sniffling, curled up in your shared nest, dirty tissues surrounding him. He comes in and out of consciosness, and when he’s awake, he’s whining and complaining about exhaustion and aches.

Physical Changes

Most of these happen in the last few days leading up to his rut, so it’ll be very sudden. These physical changes is what causes the extreme hunger and sickness.

His feathers darken several shades, and they become super sensitive. They also seem to grow in size, so when you cuddle, you’re smothered by them more than usual.

He also gains an extra couple inches in height, so expect some teasing now that he’s just that little bit taller. His hair also gets thicker and stronger, that’s so you can pull on it when he fucks you.

His nails get longer and darker, and they’re impossible to file or cut. So when he holds you and touches you, he often scratches you on accident. He’s really apologetic about it, but honestly you could totally paint his nails and pretend they’re acrylics if you’re into that.

His teeth get sharper, and he starts biting you just for fun. Bites your finger, hand, wrist, neck, even your nose. He underestimated just how strong his teeth are, and he made you bleed first time he bit you.

His whole body is very sensitive, so head-pats, back rubs, wings, and even his touching his feet can get him to the verge of cumming.

his tongue is longer, and it’s a whole lot stronger. He could probably carry a full plastic water bottle with his tongue (which isn’t a lot, but for a tongue it’s very much a lot).

His voice drops a whole octave and a half- mans is sounding almost like Corpse now. Maybe Markiplier? Anyways, if you’ve got a voice kink, you’re in luck

His dick changes too, it gets bigger, and he grows a lump at the base of it, between his shaft and balls. His balls get smaller until they’re barely noticable beneath what he calls him ‘knot.’

His eyes become sharper too, so don’t try and hide anything from him. 

Rut (MAJOR NSFW)

Everyone already knows Keigo has a breeding kink, but he hasn’t brought it up with you until now. It just kind of- happens. As he’s drilling into you, he suddenly starts blabbering about fucking a kid into you, and how hot you’d look all round with his kids. Might be a little weird for those of you who physically cannot give birth to children (my lovely AMABS and infertile AFABS). 

He can’t control it, so it’s especially weird if you don’t even want kids. If you can get pregnant, you’d better double check that you’re taking your birth control. And get to know some good clinics just in case.

However, if you do want kids, if you want to start a biological family woth Keigo, fuck. You will not be able to handle his happiness and horniness in that moment when you beg him to get you pregnant.

He is going to mark you up. Hickies, bruises, hand prints, bite marks, plus his scent. He needs everyone to know that you are his. He wants to claim you, make sure you know you belong to him. No one else can have you but him.

Halfway through your fuckfest, he starts making animalistic noises. He’s growling, roaring, whining, chirping, etc. This is around the time when he stops thinking about you, so he’ll really rough you up during this phase.

This man was a virgin before you, so this is also the first rut he’s ever going to have with another person, so he’ll hold himself back a lot. He needs you to reassure him at every step, tell him how good you feel, how you want him to fuck you, how not only are you okay with him going all out, you want him too.

Did he just cum? You think you’re finished? HA! No way in fucking hell is he finished after one, two, five, ten... so many rounds. He just keeps going and going and going and how the fuck is he still hard? He cums so fucking quickly, so much, and then keeps going.

When he finally does go soft, his whole personality changes. it’s like he didn’t just fuck you stupid. He immediately goes into ‘protect’ mode, which includes cuddles, him spoon-feeding you, petting you like a dog, and singing to you.

He puts the nest near a window so he can keep an eye out for possible threats. Just like “gotta keep mate safe. Is that the mailman? NO FUCK NO GET OUT OF HEREEEE!” 

One moment, he’s fucking you, and the next he’s leaning halfway out the window, screaming at some poor dude walking his dog. Remember, he’s still naked. You learned your lesson after that and kept the windows locked, and warned the neighbors to stay out of sight of the window, at least for the time being.

You’re going to feel very dirty, because he does not want you cleaning off the sweat, cum, and tears from your body. He likes that you smell like him, and you washing it off makes him feel rejected. 

He’s going to break a lot of things, so move pictures and vases into another room and lock the fuck out of that room. Or else he will break all of it.

He thinks any clothes you’re wearing are mocking him, so wear clothes you hate when his rut starts, then get used to being naked for a couple days. 

Oh yeah, his whole rut lasts one to five days. He’s fucking you for about three days on average.

He fucks you until you faint, and then keeps going until he’s out of ‘fuck’ mode and into ‘protect’ mode. A few times, he fucked you unconscious in the middle of the afternoon and then kept fucking you until the sun rose. 

Yeah, he’s got that much energy.

Don’t worry, during the whole time, he lets out pheromones with a strong vanilla-chocolaty scent that keeps your body and mind relaxed. 

There’ve been times when he’s just fucking into you and your water bottle is just out of reach.

During his rut, he has no shame. Let’s hope your walls are soundproofed, or else your neighbors will all know how he fucks you. 

He will not restrain you or hurt you in any way during his rut. So no degredation, no collars or chains, the only thing keeping you in the nest is his weight on top of you.

He gets upset if you try to touch yourself, things it’s you trying to tell him that he’s not satisfying you enough. 

He wants you to cum as many times as him, which is difficult because of his increased sensitivity, so he’s using every skill he knows to get you cumming again and again and again.

Most of the time, he’s going hard, rough, and spilling absolute filth from his cock and mouth, but in the last few hours of his rut, he suddenly gets emotional.

He’s rocking up against you, holding you close to his body and blabbering about you

How much he loves you

How good you make him feel

How he wouldn’t want anyone else by his side for his rut

How you’re his mate for life

How he’ll protect you and keep you safe.

Please be gentle with him, he’s very vulnerable near the end of his rut, and he’ll cry very easily.

When he’s nearing his last load, he makes out with you sloppily, trying to talk as he shoves his tongue down your throat.

He finishes off by  pushing his knot all the way inside you, and stays there for an hour.

This is the softest moment, and he’s covering your body in kisses. 

His knot pushes these small eggs inside you, and you have the lovely job of pushing them all out the next day. 

Post Rut

When his knot deflates, he finally pulls out and starts cleaning you off. 

He’ll carry you around and finally gives you a bath, constantly making sure you’re okay.

He’ll give you lots of massages and he’ll cook for you. He’s constantly thanking you for helping him, telling you he didn’t deserve it.

Just kiss him on the cheek, tell him you had fun, and that you love him so very very much.

He needs the most reassurance now than ever before.

He’s also very tired, so you’ll be taking care of each other.

Then his ‘post-rut’ resets, and he sleeps for hours.

Then he gets super hungry, and the two of you make huge meals and just kinda binge eat for a day or two.

Then his physical changes go back to normal, and you have a happy lil bird boy who simps for you so hard

[nlights37]

Fixer-Upper Ch. 5: Teaser

Trying to get this shit wrapped up as I type this, but until then, please enjoy this peek into Joe Snow's Real Depression Hours!

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At least a quarter of the whiskey bottle remained, and he’d committed fully to polishing it off, but it seemed like it was taking forever.

That probably had something to do with the fact that he couldn’t quite breathe through his nose.

The nose thing, well, that was from the crying, not that he would ever tell anyone about that. Especially not Dany.

Fuck, now his eyes were burning again, and he wasn’t supposed to think about HER, not her name or her smell or her taste, Gods, the way she tasted was insane. There was this spot just at the pulse in her neck, where she was so sweet, and something about the way her heartbeat would speed up under the tip of his tongue, the way he could fucking feel her getting hotter for him, just made him crazy.

Jon slapped a hand against his own cheek, wincing a second after the loud crack sounded through the air, furious with himself. “Stop it.”

He heard a whine and looked up to find Ghost watching him from the corner, which was shocking on it’s own because the dog had refused to even look at him since he’d gotten back from his breakup and subsequent breakdown in his truck. How the dog had known he’d spent an hour in that parking lot silently crying, swiping his sleeve across his face every few minutes until the fabric was soaked, he wasn’t sure.

Who the fuck even was he anymore? He didn’t remember ever being this fucking pathetic.

Ghost tilted his head at Jon.

“This is your fault,” he answered, at the question in the dog’s eyes. He jabbed a finger towards Ghost, the rest of his hand wrapped around the liquor bottle, liquid sloshing as he pointed accusingly. “You were supposed to stop me, pal. How did you let me get in this fucking deep, huh?”

Maybe it was the alcohol but he was sure, in that moment, that Ghost glared at him.

Then the dog huffed, and circled, and turned his back to Jon completely.

“Don’t give me that bullshit, man.” Jon rose, a little unsteady, passing the muted television currently playing a ‘Westerosi Pickers’ marathon that he had chosen because he thought it would distract him but really all it had done was make him wish Dany was there tucked up right next to him like she was supposed to be, making fun of the hosts and eating all his chips and doing that thing he really liked to his earlobe during commercials.

No, no, he didn’t need to think about that, and he pitched forward, hand finding the wall there in the corner, as he slipped down next to his dog, in the dark. Fuck, it was night.

How long had he been drinking?

Fuck it, it didn’t matter, because he clearly hadn’t drunk enough yet, everything still hurt too much.

Begrudgingly, Ghost shifted until he could put his head in Jon’s lap, then sighed.

“You sad, too?”

Big eyes angled up to look at him, and another low whine emerged from the dog.

Jon set aside the bottle on the floor beside him and fished in his pocket for his phone, grunting with even that minor exertion. The screen swam before his eyes at first, but he managed to connect his phone to the bluetooth speakers above the television, and he fumbled around until he finally got his music app opened, the appropriate playlist selected.

There was dead air for a moment, and he met Ghost’s eyes again, resigned. “We gotta do it, pal.” The opening strains of ‘Everybody Hurts’ began to play, and Jon shook his head regretfully as Ghost’s ears pricked up. “Time for the breakup ritual.”

This wasn’t gonna work. He knew it, even as he began to bob his head drunkenly, every forlorn word striking directly into his inebriated broken heart.

He knew it wasn’t gonna work, but that didn’t stop him from coming in where he always did, off-key and far too loud. “Don’t let yourself gooooooooo,” he bellowed, face crumpling as he started crying again, mangling the next line terribly because he was finding you couldn’t shout your heartbreak out when you were also sobbing.

But he pulled it together for the most important part, yelling and slurring to the empty room that everybody DID hurt sometimes, and he was everybody, apparently.

His head thumped back against the wall and he stopped trying to do anything but sniffle and hiccup and drink and just let the rest of the song happen to him.

It looped, three times, and now he could only manage short breaths through his mouth, but when his reddened eyes fell on the gift bag he’d shoved beside his coffee table he jumped as if he’d been electrocuted. “Fuck,” he rasped, and crawled over to get it, leaning against the base of the sofa for support as he cradled the item in his lap.

Then a chill wracked him and it clicked in his mind why he’d tried to shove this out of sight earlier.

It smelled like her. Like that fucking lemon meringue pie body wash she used that made her smell fucking edible and he could almost taste her skin under his tongue, the firm give of flesh as he would sink his teeth into the rounded curve of her hip and she would moan and thread her fingers into his hair and pull…

He let his fingers crinkle against the tissue paper and sucked in another thin stream of air through his nose, still stopped up, his eyes feeling heated and swollen as he looked down at the present she had given him.

If he opened he, that would be it. It would be over. He didn’t know why, but it made a weird sort of sense, and he was convinced that this had to be true. So maybe he just shouldn’t open it.

But he had to.

Because she gave him something, and he had to know, he couldn’t not know, what was in this bag.

His mind flashed sluggishly to the desk calendar page he had meticulously poured over before declaring it a masterpiece, a brief record of what they’d done, a little something to remember him by when she inevitably got scooped up by some lucky fuck who could behave himself at parties and be respectable and made better choices. Jon was just a ruiner, anyway, that was one thing Ygritte had probably been right about, that Jon ruined everything he touched, killed it until there was nothing left.

Dany was better off without all his bullshit, in the end.

So, while he’d had every intention of keeping Naked November for his own personal times of reflection he’d decided to give it to her.

He wondered if she had unfurled it yet, if it had made her laugh, or maybe she’d studied it with that tiny devilish little smile that always popped up whenever sex between the two of them was involved.

Maybe she was doing what he was. Maybe she was getting shitfaced drunk and listening to sad music and trying to scrape together the will to purge Jon from her life. If he were going to continue on with his own special breakup traditions he would need to go round up all the things he hadn’t given her back at the park, things around his place that he knew full well were there but he hadn’t been able to part with. Her spare toothbrush, his extra from his last dentist visit, purple plastic spangled with silver glitter, still sat in the holder by his sink. Three berry yogurts were lining the door of the fridge, along with the pale ale she’d brought the last time she’d come over. Several of Drogon’s cat toys, his ‘floaters’ that ended up travelling between both their places, were scattered in with Ghost’s.

Maybe she was wandering around her place right now and finding it was just as haunted by the spectre of him as his house was saturated with her.

Maybe she was crying. He didn’t like the thought of that, at all. She’d looked upset at the park, putting on her best unaffected face for awhile, but maybe it was just the sex she was mourning.

A small, petty part of him hoped no one ever fucked her like he did, and made make all those amazing noises she made, and he hoped she never called someone else baby in that low throaty voice that made him want to bury himself inside her until neither of them could walk. That was his, and maybe it was selfish, but he didn’t care.

“Fuck it,” he muttered, and took another drink from the bottle, smiling bitterly at the burn then thrusting his hand into the paper. He grew still when his questing fingers encountered a hard edge, and for the life of him he couldn’t begin to imagine what it could be.

So, he took a deep breath and braced himself, and pulled the object free.

[kookie-doughs]

Y/N L/N AND THE HALFBLOODS

Percy Jackson X Reader -Y/N L/N met Percy Jackson and everything was now ruined.

CHAPTER 10: The Wheels On The Bus Goes Skrt Skrt Skrt

It didn't take me long to pack. I didn't have anything at all, which left me only an extra change of clothes and a toothbrush to stuff in a backpack Grover had found for me and Percy. Both having nothing to carry we decided to share a bag. The camp store loaned us one hundred dollars in mortal money and twenty golden drachmas. These coins were as big as Girl Scout cookies and had images of various Greek gods stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other. The ancient mortal drachmas had been silver, Chiron told us, but Olympians never used less than pure gold. Chiron said the coins might come in handy for non-mortal transactions—whatever that meant. He gave Annabeth, Percy and I each a canteen of nectar and a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia squares, to be used only in emergencies, if we were seriously hurt. It was god food, Chiron reminded us. It would cure us of almost any injury, but it was lethal to mortals. Too much of it would make a half-blood very, very feverish. An overdose would burn us up, literally. Annabeth was bringing her magic Yankees cap, which she told us had been a twelfth-birthday present from her mom. She carried a book on famous classical architecture, written in Ancient Greek, to read when she got bored, and a long bronze knife, hidden in her shirt sleeve. I was sure the knife would get us busted the first time we went through a metal detector. Grover wore his fake feet and his pants to pass as human. He wore a green rasta-style cap, because when it rained his curly hair flattened and you could just see the tips of his horns. His bright orange backpack was full of scrap metal and apples to snack on. In his pocket was a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knew two songs: Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 12 and Hilary Duff's "So Yesterday," both of which sounded pretty bad on reed pipes. We waved good-bye to the other campees, took one last look at the strawberry fields, the ocean, and the Big House, then hiked up Half-Blood Hill to the tall pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus. Chiron was waiting for us in his wheelchair. Next to him stood a surfer looking dude. According to Grover, the guy was the camp's head of security. He supposedly had eyes all over his body so he could never be surprised. Today, though, he was wearing a chauffeur's uniform, so I could only see extra peepers on his hands, face and neck. "This is Argus," Chiron told us. "He will drive you into the city, and, er, well, keep an eye on things." I heard footsteps behind us. Luke came running up the hill, carrying a pair of basketball shoes. "Hey!" he panted. "Glad I caught you." Annabeth blushed, the way she always did when Luke was around. I looked at him with a frown. "Don't look at me like that. I had to find out from the others you're going on a quest." he glared. "So much for the option you won't die at." "I would've told you if you were at the cabin when I got back. Now what's with the shoes?" "Just wanted to say good luck," Luke told Percy. "And I thought... um, maybe you could use these." He handed him the sneakers, which looked pretty normal. They even smelled kind of normal. Luke said, "Maia!" White bird's wings sprouted out of the heels, startling me so much, Percy dropped them. The shoes flapped around on the ground until the wings folded up and disappeared. "Awesome!" Grover said. Luke smiled. "Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from Dad. Of course, I don't use them much these days...." His expression turned sad. I didn't know what to say. It was cool enough that Luke had come to say good-bye. But here he was giving Percy a magic gift.... It made me a bit jealous. "Hey, man," Percy said. "Thanks." "Listen, Percy..." Luke looked uncomfortable. "A lot of hopes are riding on you. So just... kill some monsters for me, okay?" They shook hands. Luke patted Grover's head between his horns, then gave a good-bye hug to Annabeth, who looked like she might pass out. The three went to Chiron about stuffs while Luke and I had a staring contest. "So Percy got a present and I only get an I don't know... a hug? Here I thought I was your favorite." "What made you think you are?" He laughed and ruffled my hair. "And no you don't get a hug." "Suddenly I'm not coming back." He smiled and from his back he pulled out a sheathed knife. "I meant to say you won't get only a hug. I noticed you're not a fan of swords. So, I made this my self. I am no Hephaestus child but hey..." He handed me the knife. The sheath was plain colored with a metal chap and locket, it had chains attached to the locket where I could probably put it on something to make sure I bring it with me. Pulling the knife out of the sheath, its knife was around 15 inches. On the blade, Ancient Greek was engraved on it. I think it's my name and the other side is his. "What is this?" I grinned. "I don't know. I ran out of good ideas! I swear I looked up some of Plato and Socrates for that." "And you settled for that?" I laughed. "I am going to take that back now." "Hey, that doesn't mean I don't like it. Thanks." "It's celestial bronze... Half of it at least." "Half?" "I'm sure Chiron won't appreciate it. It will harm both us and humans." "So... It'll hurt both side?" "Yup. And I'm not sure but according to a Hephaestus kid but it's supposed to glow when its near something." "Its not glowing now." "We never said no backsies. I'd like it back now." "I'll take good care of..." I stopped to think of a name and almost immediately remembered a perfect one, "Sting." "I would ask but I already know." Luke shook his head. "Be careful with Sting. It---" "He. Sting is a he, thank you very much." "HE, is lethal. He it can kill us, others close to our kind and normal humans." "Oops I accidentally stabbed myself." With a worried look he pulled me in a hug, "And whatever happens. Put your safety above all. No need to be the hero. If you die in this quest I will get the lord of the dead revive you or kill me." "Ew how sentimental." "Be careful... okay? All of you. Promise me that." "Fine, I promise. On the knife, I'll come back not dead, with everyone." After Luke was gone, I placed the knife on my waist. I went back to Percy. "Okay, that's extremely cool," I heard him say. "What's cool?" I grinned standing behind Percy overlooking his shoulder. "My new pen." He showed me his pen and uncapped it only to show a sword. "I can't loose it no matter what! Its called Riptide." "But what if a mortal sees you pulling out a sword?" Chiron smiled. "Mist is a powerful thing, Y/N." "Mist?" "I just keep hearing that over and over can someone finally explain?" "Yes. Read The Iliad. It's full of references to the stuff. Whenever divine or monstrous elements mix with the mortal world, they generate Mist, which obscures the vision of humans. You will see things just as they are, being a half-blood, but humans will interpret things quite differently. Remarkable, really, the lengths to which humans will go to fit things into their version of reality." Percy put Riptide back in his pocket. For the first time, the quest felt real. We was actually leaving Half-Blood Hill. We was heading west with no adult supervision, no backup plan, not even a cell phone. (Chiron said cell phones were traceable by monsters; if we used one, it would be worse than sending up a flare.) I had no weapon stronger than a knife to fight off monsters and reach the Land of the Dead. "Chiron..." I said. "When you say the gods are immortal... I mean, there was a time before them, right?" "Four ages before them, actually. The Time of the Titans was the Fourth Age, sometimes called the Golden Age, which is definitely a misnomer. This, the time of Western civilization and the rule of Zeus, is the Fifth Age." "So what was it like... before the gods?" Chiron pursed his lips. "Even I am not old enough to remember that, child, but I know it was a time of darkness and savagery for mortals. Kronos, the lord of the Titans, called his reign the Golden Age because men lived innocent and free of all knowledge. But that was mere propaganda. The Titan king cared nothing for your kind except as appetizers or a source of cheap entertainment. It was only in the early reign of Lord Zeus, when Prometheus the good Titan brought fire to mankind, that your species began to progress, and even then Prometheus was branded a radical thinker. Zeus punished him severely, as you may recall. Of course, eventually the gods warmed to humans, and Western civilization was born." "But the gods can't die now, right? I mean, as long as Western civilization is alive, they're alive. So... even if I failed, nothing could happen so bad it would mess up everything, right?" Chiron gave us a melancholy smile. "No one knows how long the Age of the West will last, Percy. The gods are immortal, yes. But then, so were the Titans. They still exist, locked away in their various prisons, forced to endure endless pain and punishment, reduced in power, but still very much alive. May the Fates forbid that the gods should ever suffer such a doom, or that we should ever return to the darkness and chaos of the past. All we can do, child, is follow our destiny." "Our destiny... assuming we know what that is." "Relax," Chiron told me. "Keep a clear head. And remember, you may be about to prevent the biggest war in human history." "Relax," Percy said. "I'm very relaxed." When we got to the bottom of the hill, I looked back. Under the pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus, Chiron was now standing in full horse-man form, holding his bow high in salute. Just your typical summer-camp send-off by your typical centaur. I took Percy's hand and we gave each other a reassuring nod. I wish us luck. Talking whilst at camp drained me. I apologize if I won't be much help. You have stamina? So you aren't a bigshot all powerful god? Without you and I as one. I am nothing. I have given you my everything.

Argus drove us out of the countryside and into western Long Island. It felt weird to be on a highway again, Annabeth and Percy was sitting next to me as if we were normal carpoolers. After two weeks at Half-Blood Hill, the real world seemed like a fantasy. I found myself staring at every McDonald's, every kid in the back of his parents' car, every billboard and shopping mall. "So far so good," Percy said. "Ten miles and not a single monster." She gave him an irritated look. "It's bad luck to talk that way, seaweed brain." "Remind me again—why do you hate me so much?" "I don't hate you." "Could've fooled me." She folded her cap of invisibility. "Look... we're just not supposed to get along, okay? Our parents are rivals." "Why?" She sighed. "How many reasons do you want? One time my mom caught Poseidon with his girlfriend in Athena's temple, which is hugely disrespectful. Another time, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of Athens. Your dad created some stupid saltwater spring for his gift. My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her." "They must really like olives." I interjected. "Not you too! You know what? Forget it." "Now, if she'd invented pizza—that I could understand." "I said, forget it!" In the front seat, Argus smiled. He didn't say anything, but one blue eye on the back of his neck winked at me. Traffic slowed us down in Queens. By the time we got into Manhattan it was sunset and starting to rain. Argus dropped us at the Greyhound Station on the Upper East Side, Percy and I didn't let go. Taped to a mailbox was a soggy flyer with Percy's picture on it: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY? He ripped it down before Annabeth and Grover could notice. "They could've at least gotten a better picture." I smirked which caused him to roll his eyes. Argus unloaded our bags, made sure we got our bus tickets, then drove away, the eye on the back of his hand opening to watch us as he pulled out of the parking lot. Grover shouldered his backpack. He gazed down the street in the direction Percy was looking. "You want to know why she married him, Percy?" I stared at Percy then at Grover. "Were you reading my mind or something?" "Just your emotions." He shrugged. "Guess I forgot to tell you satyrs can do that. You were thinking about your mom and your stepdad, right?" Percy nodded. I missed my parents of course, but I had Luke and Grover to talk to which made me less lonely. Percy became an outcast when we got to camp and had no one to talk to. I squeezed his hand and gave him a smile. "Your mom married Gabe for you," Grover told him. "You call him 'Smelly,' but you've got no idea. The guy has this aura.... Yuck. I can smell him from here. I can smell traces of him on you, and you haven't been near him for a week." "Thanks," Percy said. "Where's the nearest shower?" "You should be grateful, Percy. Your stepfather smells so repulsively human he could mask the presence of any demigod. As soon as I took a whiff inside his Camaro, I knew: Gabe has been covering your scent for years. If you hadn't lived with him every summer, you probably would've been found by monsters a long time ago. Your mom stayed with him to protect you. She was a smart lady. She must've loved you a lot to put up with that guy—if that makes you feel any better." I knew what Percy was thinking. He was thinking of the fact we'll get his mom and my parents. How we'll save them all. We got restless waiting for the bus and decided to play some Hacky Sack with one of Grover's apples. Annabeth was unbelievable. She could bounce the apple off her knee, her elbow, her shoulder, whatever. I wasn't too bad myself. The game ended when I tossed the apple toward Grover and it got too close to his mouth. In one mega goat bite, our Hacky Sack disappeared—core, stem, and all. Grover blushed. He tried to apologize, but we were too busy cracking up. Percy pulled me to a corner, after excusing ourselves for a bathroom break. "You finally going to tell me about this quest?" "The truth is," He started. "I don't care about retrieving Zeus's lightning bolt, or saving the world, or even helping my father out of trouble." I gave him a look that reassured him to continue. "The more I thought about it, I resented my father for never visiting me, never helping my mom, never even sending a lousy child-support check. He'd only claimed me because he needed a job done. All I cared about was you and my mom. The underworld god had taken her unfairly, and he is going to give her back." "Percy, we don't even know what's going on. Yeah, he might have her. But what is there's another reason? We don't exactly know anything. I don't even think my parents are with him." "Well, no matter where they are. We will get them back. The least I could do is get them back." He rested his head on my shoulder. "Don't "You will be betrayed by one who calls you a friend," "What?" I froze. "Percy... I would never---" "You will fail to save what matters most in the end." "What are you talking about?" The rain kept coming down. "The rest of the prophecy. Y/N, I don't want you to betray me. Please... don't." I could hear his voice breaking. "Of course I won't. We'll get this quest done. We won't loose anyone and we'll get our parents. Don't worry." I hugged him. "I will stay with you. I won't leave and I won't betray you." "Hey Bonnie and Clyde, we need to go." Finally the bus came. As we stood in line to board, Grover started looking around, sniffing the air. "What is it?" I asked. "I don't know," he said tensely. "Maybe it's nothing." But I could tell it wasn't nothing. I took Percy's hand and started looking over my shoulder, too. I was relieved when we finally got on board and found seats together in the back of the bus. We stowed our backpacks. Annabeth kept slapping her Yankees cap nervously against her thigh. As the last passengers got on, I immediately clamped my hand onto Percy's knee. "Percy." It was Mrs. Dodds. Older, more withered, but definitely the same evil face. I scrunched down in my seat. Behind her came two more old ladies: one in a green hat, one in a purple hat. Otherwise they looked exactly like Mrs. Dodds—same gnarled hands, paisley handbags, wrinkled velvet dresses. Triplet demon grandmothers. And I was now sure, Mrs. Rudolph was one of them. They sat in the front row, right behind the driver. The two on the aisle crossed their legs over the walkway, making an X. It was casual enough, but it sent a clear message: nobody leaves. The bus pulled out of the station, and we headed through the slick streets of Manhattan. "She didn't stay dead long," Percy said, "I thought you said they could be dispelled for a lifetime." "I said if you're lucky," Annabeth said. "You're obviously not." "All three of them," Grover whimpered. "Di immortales!" "Who knows maybe they just want to play?" I said nervously. Annabeth gave me a look of irritation, "Not now," she said, obviously thinking hard. "The Furies. The three worst monsters from the Underworld. No problem. No problem. We'll just slip out the windows." "They don't open," Grover moaned. "A back exit?" she suggested. There wasn't one. Even if there had been, it wouldn't have helped. By that time, we were on Ninth Avenue, heading for the Lincoln Tunnel. "Maybe a nice chat would help?" "They won't attack us with witnesses around," Percy said. "Will they?" "Mortals don't have good eyes," Annabeth reminded him. "Their brains can only process what they see through the Mist." "They'll see three old ladies killing us, won't they?" She thought about it. "Hard to say. But we can't count on mortals for help. Maybe an emergency exit in the roof... ?" We hit the Lincoln Tunnel, and the bus went dark except for the running lights down the aisle. It was eerily quiet without the sound of the rain. Mrs. Dodds got up. In a flat voice, as if she'd rehearsed it, she announced to the whole bus: "I need to use the rest-room." "So do I," said the second sister. "So do I," said the third sister. They all started coming down the aisle. "I've got it," Annabeth said. "Percy, take my hat." "What?" "You're the one they want. Turn invisible and go up the aisle. Let them pass you. Maybe you can get to the front and get away." "But you guys—" "There's an outside chance they might not notice us," Annabeth said. "You're a son of one of the Big Three. Your smell might be overpowering." "I can't just leave Y-- you guys!" "Don't worry about us," I assured him. "Go!" His hands were trembling. But I took the Yankees cap and put it on. And he simply vanished. Mrs. Dodds stopped, sniffing, and looked straight at a spot. My heart was pounding. Apparently she didn't see anything. She and her sisters kept going. "Maybe if they approach us, I could try talking? I really was Mrs. Rudolph's favorite..." I stammered. "Yeah stage is yours." Annabeth answered. The old ladies were not old ladies anymore. Their faces were still the same—I guess those couldn't get any uglier— but their bodies had shriveled into leathery brown hag bodies with bat's wings and hands and feet like gargoyle claws. Their handbags had turned into fiery whips. The Furies surrounded us, lashing their whips, hissing: "Where is it? Where?" The other people on the bus were screaming, cowering in their seats. They saw something, all right. "He's not here!" Annabeth yelled. "He's gone!" The Furies raised their whips. "Don't!" I stepped in front of them shaking. "H-Hi Mrs. Rudolph. W-What could you need?" Annabeth drew her bronze knife. Grover grabbed a tin can from his snack bag and prepared to throw it. To our surprise the bus jerked to the right. Everybody howled as we were thrown to the right, and I heard what I hoped was the sound of three Furies smashing against the windows. "Hey!" the driver yelled. "Hey—whoa!" The bus slammed against the side of the tunnel, grinding metal, throwing sparks a mile behind us. We careened out of the Lincoln Tunnel and back into the rainstorm, people and monsters tossed around the bus, cars plowed aside like bowling pins. Somehow the driver found an exit. We shot off the highway, through half a dozen traffic lights, and ended up barreling down one of those New Jersey rural roads where you can't believe there's so much nothing right across the river from New York. There were woods to our left, the Hudson River to our right, and the driver seemed to be veering toward the river. The bus wailed, spun a full circle on the wet asphalt, and crashed into the trees. The emergency lights came on. The door flew open. The bus driver was the first one out, the passengers yelling as they stampeded after him. The Furies regained their balance. They lashed their whips at Annabeth while she waved her knife and yelled in Ancient Greek, telling them to back off. Grover threw tin cans. It was as if I didn't exist which was kinda offensive. "Hey! I'm also here!" I yelled pulling out my now glowing knife and helped Grover. "Hey!" A voice from the door way echoed. "Percy you idiot! Run!" I yelled. The Furies turned, baring their yellow fangs at him. Mrs. Dodds stalked up the aisle. Every time she flicked her whip, red flames danced along the barbed leather. Her two ugly sisters hopped on top of the seats on either side of her and crawled toward him like huge nasty lizards. I don't know how but I managed to parkour my way to avoid them and get to Percy in no trouble. I raised my knife and stood in between of them. "Perseus Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said, in an accent that was definitely from somewhere farther south than Georgia. "You have offended the gods. You shall die. I suggest you step away from him Y/N L/N." "I liked you better as a math teacher," he told her. She growled. Annabeth and Grover moved up behind the Furies cautiously, looking for an opening. Percy took the ballpoint pen out of his pocket and uncapped it. Riptide elongated into a shimmering double-edged sword. The Furies hesitated. Mrs. Dodds had felt Riptide's blade before. She obviously didn't like seeing it again. "Submit now," she hissed. "And you will not suffer eternal torment." "Nice try," I told her. "Percy, look out!" Annabeth cried. Mrs. Dodds lashed her whip around my sword hand while the Furies on the either side lunged at him. I managed to keep one of them and parried with her using my knife., which turned out to be Mrs. Rudolph. "I hate to admit it but you were my favorite teacher. Why go mean now?!" I struck with the hilt of my knife against her, sending her toppling backward into a seat. I turned to see Percy had sliced the Fury on his right. As soon as the blade connected with her neck, she screamed and exploded into dust. Annabeth got Mrs. Dodds in a wrestler's hold and yanked her backward while Grover ripped the whip out of her hands. "Ow!" he yelled. "Ow! Hot! Hot!" Mrs. Rudolph came at me again, talons ready, but I dove in and got in range to swing Sting at her and she broke open like a piñata. Mrs. Dodds was trying to get Annabeth off her back. She kicked, clawed, hissed and bit, but Annabeth held on while Grover got Mrs. Dodds's legs tied up in her own whip. Finally they both shoved her backward into the aisle. Mrs. Dodds tried to get up, but she didn't have room to flap her bat wings, so she kept falling down. "Zeus will destroy you!" she promised. "Hades will have your soul!" "Braccas meas vescimini!" Percy yelled. I wasn't sure where the Latin came from. I think it meant "Eat my pants!" Thunder shook the bus. The hair rose on the back of my neck. "Get out!" Annabeth yelled at us. "Now!" I didn't need any encouragement. Taking Percy's hand, we rushed outside and found the other passengers wandering around in a daze, arguing with the driver, or running around in circles yelling, "We're going to die!" A Hawaiian-shirted tourist with a camera snapped my photograph before I could recap my sword. "Our bags!" Grover realized. "We left our—" BOOOOOM! The windows of the bus exploded as the passengers ran for cover. Lightning shredded a huge crater in the roof, but an angry wail from inside told me Mrs. Dodds was not yet dead. "Run!" Annabeth said. "She's calling for reinforcements! We have to get out of here!" We plunged into the woods as the rain poured down, the bus in flames behind us, and nothing but darkness ahead.

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UwU Haha this is what the knife looks like since I'm not sure if I describe it that well... Omg I just realized my brother changed the chapter title lmao -kookie-doughs

Just imagine it has your name on the blade.

Taglist?

@gayer-than-the-gayest-gay @the-natureofme @booknerd-3000

[tbhwhocaresanymore]

Nancy Drew 1x14

I just got done watching Nancy Drew episode 14, the sign of the uninvited guest and before I get into spoiler details let me sum up my thoughts on the episode.

Holy fuck

Okay so we’re just gonna dive right in and to start off it turns out Tiffany Hudson was never the murder target? Instead, it was RYAN Hudson. Lucy’s brother Joshua was taking his mother to look at a new mental asylum but when they stopped for gas she stole the car and hightailed it over to the Claw, where she used to work. The spare key spot has apparently not been changed since the 90s and so she just let herself in, creeping everyone out. My biggest issue was her red eyes she looked like she hadn’t slept since she was a waitress.

Lara Tandy has awoken from her coma and is feeling totally zen after her near death experience and wants Ace to come to Paris with her. The entire time I was torn between “that would be so sweet��� and “Ace don’t you fucking dare”. Nick picks up a stranded Joshua and brings him over as Nancy charts out everything they know about the Lucy/Tiffany murders. Patrice sees and starts muttering the Lucy Sable Murder Song (seriously who even started that) and then Dead Lucy (my creepy precious daughter) trashes the entire board except for one (1) image. A screenshot from Nancy’s video of Tiffany where Lucy first shows up.

Nancy and Ace and Lara go to the police precinct to get Tiffany’s cell phone data. Turns out Tiffany was going to rich sounding places like the yacht club, leaving her phone there, and walking to her real destination so they go to the library where she spent a few hours before she died. Side note, I would watch an entire episode about just Ace and the library politics. I want to hear more about capture the flag and Denise. Maybe they used to hack together and it went sour, maybe they were rivals from the get-go. I don’t know but I want to Find Out.

Ace manages to find what Tiffany was looking at: emails between Lucy Sable and Ryan Hudson circa 1999-2000. Most of them are lovey dovey including an actual “I think I might love you” until the end where Lucy asks Ryan to forgive her. Ryan says he will never forgive her, calls her a whore and says he hopes she dies. Then they arrange to meet the night of the Sea Queen ceremony. You know, that one little night when Lucy was murdered. Let’s take an environmental minute to talk about what we think happened. Lucy apparently did something unforgivable, and since they were in a relationship and he called her whore, there is one glaring idea: INFIDELITY. But Lucy loved Ryan. Now I’m going to go out on a limb here. What if Celia and Papa Hudson hired some guy (maybe Owen Marvin???) to seduce Lucy or something and then told Ryan. Or maybe Lucy felt awful and told him herself. OR on an even further limb, Lucy and Josh are only half-siblings. Maybe they’re going to go a la Riverdale and make Lucy and Ryan (DISTANTLY) related or something. Either way, Lucy did something she regretted and then Ryan found out.

As far as Lucy’s actual murder, during the seance when asked if the Hudsons killed her she said yes/no. Celia Hudson was in Argentina at the time but could have hired a hitman, Papa Hudson has no known alibi and already murdered a crew full of sailors including his wife’s boyfriend, Ryan Hudson had plans to meet with Lucy the night of her death “at our spot”. I am Strongly Suspicious their spot is the cliffs she died on. I think it’s a safe bet at this point to say Ryan was somehow involved in Lucy’s murder. He is a Hudson, they’d been dating and she betrayed him somehow, and they had plans to meet the night of her death at an undisclosed location. Now whether he is the one who physically murdered her, I don’t know. I suspect we will have more answers after finding out how Lucy died which we need her BODY FOR. Or at least her skeleton. We assume she was stabbed because of the bloody dress and also knife, but what if she wasn’t? What if it was an emergency C-section, what if someone else stabbed her already and Ryan just couldn’t save her, what if it was some kind of accident? And remember there was also that whole Ryan Is Being Haunted thing for the Velvet Masque. Lucy haunted him so she could use his wedding ring to show her death led to Tiffany’s. Maybe she specifically used Ryan because he caused her death, either directly or by accident.

Back to the episode, I liked seeing the entire walkthrough. I didn’t realize how much had happened off-screen that first episode. There is also the question of WHY it all happened off-screen, but considering the leaps and bounds of progress quality the writers have made I will give them a pass. When they first brought up the switched salad I wasn’t sure if they were being genuine, or if it was a part of their plan to trick Ryan, but when he and Nancy were outside and they were still talking about it I realized it was Legit.

Then that scene at the end, how Nancy managed to flip the switch from “oh hey Josh” to “holy fuck you killed Tiffany” so quickly was so in character. My girl is just so suspicious of absolutely everybody and her mind just JUMPS between puzzle pieces as fast as mine does but her brain actually stays on topic. I thought the fight scene was really well done, because Nancy was mostly improvising and trying to get away not fight, and his death was accidental. But I also want to see her take self-defense lessons or something at some point because at the rate she keeps almost dying it feels like the reasonable next step to take. Or at least like buy a switch blade. Have Nick make her a toothbrush shiv. SOMETHING.

MY PRECIOUS DAUGHTER. DEAD LUCY.

Okay guys, the part with the phone. I knew it was coming, and it was creepy, but now rewatching it I have to laugh because the first face she’s making during Nancy’s recording is really just a ghostly ��. But then when she starts fucking crawling, now THAT was creepy. And then when she kept moving closer to Ryan with each lightning flash. (He CLEARLY had something to do with her death.) Epic. It makes me wonder how long did it take her to learn this ghost stuff, and what was she doing before Nancy found her dress? Just sulking around, maybe pulling the occasional Halloween scare. I would also watch a spin off of the 20 years where Lucy is just hanging around and dead.

Side theory. What if Patrice was somehow there that night? I have no evidence to back this up but she seemed very set on Lucy always being in the water and so maybe she saw her fall or something and that’s why she’s so crazy. Moving on.

To talk about the characters who are of course important. I didn’t entirely catch the whole Bess/Lisbeth/Amaya drama of the episode. I will say I like her with Amaya a lot more than Lisbeth for some reason because I can feel the chemistry a lot better with those two, and she and George had a nice talk at the end. SPEAKING OF GEORGE. I can see multiple ways the George/Nick/Nancy triangle could play out, let’s discuss some. A) George is about to confess her feelings to George right before learning he and Nancy have gotten back together. B) George is about to confess her feelings to Nick right before he tells her about his remaining feelings for Nancy and how much he Wants Her Back. C) George and Nick get together right as Nancy decides to fight for Nick. Let’s talk about this one for a moment. Promo for next week shows Owen Marvin (ugh) is going to be back (Ugh) and he and Nancy will kiss (UGH). Potential scenario, her and Owen are talking and he goes to kiss her and she lets him before pulling away and he says “why won’t you date me” and she says it just doesn’t feel right or her heart still belongs to Nick or something. Owen redeems himself before disappearing forever by telling Nancy to fight for Nick. Problem is Nick has seen the kiss but not Nancy stopping it and leaves, angry, because he was about to ask her to get back together or because he thought they had an Understanding or something. He goes to George who asks him out and he says yes and Nancy finds out and puts on a happy face and then leaves to go cry. God I really want to write fan fiction for this show but I CAN’T until Lucy’s murder is solved. Let me know how you guys think it will play out. Speaking of Nancy x Nick whom I love and adore, that part at the end when the cops and Nick had showed up. He said like less than ten words the entire time but his concern was just SEEPING out of him, and he so clearly like wanted to hold her but held himself back because he feels it is not his place anymore. I also find it telling that just as Bess is telling George to come clean to Nick, he is with Nancy.

In totally expected news, I am still pining for Victoria. Writers, please bring her back. I haven’t seen her since the seance episode and I Miss Her.

I have absolutely no idea what happened to Joshua’s body don’t even ask me. However I AM hopeful he has turned into a ghost and will have to be banished requiring VICTORIA.

I am SO excited for next week’s episode, the terror of horseshoe bay. It looks awesome and spooky and creepy and we will hopefully find Lucy’s body. Owen will be there which is Unfortunate but I am sure I can cope because Lucy will also hopefully be there and Nancy like spits out ghostly teeth at one point which is so metal. Since the season is getting close to wrapping up and Tiffany’s murder is officially closed, Lucy’s murder is the only major plot left, so I am curious what they will do for next season. I am hoping they will start laying the groundwork for it this season, but I also don’t want them to just drag out the Lucy Sable storyline for ages upon ages. (I’m looking at you Pretty Little Liars with your like five fucking As.) I’m interested in if it’s one or two murders again, or if it’s like one main murder but then with a bunch of mini mysteries sprinkled in a la the serial poisoner episode. I am thinking (wishing) as far as college goes, maybe Nancy applies and gets into Columbia but she decides to stay and open up some sort of paranormal/normal investigative service with Dead Lucy as her receptionist and Nick as her literary loving arm candy and the others can help upon request or something and eventually join. Let me know if you think Nancy will manage to clear her dad’s name or if he’ll actually be indicted. CANNOT WAIT.

[dontdietwd]

Days 230 to 238

TRIGGER WARNING for suicidal thoughts and attempt.

Day 230 was the day I was gonna die.

Not day 73 as they all thought, as Daryl thought.

No, it would be on day 230. A whole 157 days later. And oh the irony… It was not walkers who’d kill me. It was not people.

It was me.

My legs were weak and trembling when I got up from bed. Disuse, after 10 days unmoving in bed, weakness for eating so little all this time. Honey was there. She never left my side. She hopped down from the bed with me and followed me out. I managed to leave though the half opened door. I didn’t know whose house I was in; it didn’t look like anyone of theirs. I couldn’t care less, though. I entered the bathroom, leaving the door opened and saw Honey lay down there, sleepily watching over me. I avoided the mirror completely and sat to pee. It was a real clean bathroom; someone’d been taking care of this house. And of me.

I wouldn’t bother them anymore.

Getting up, I accidentally took a look at the mirror. I saw a ghost. That wasn’t me, not anymore. That face wasn’t mine, those protruding cheekbones, those hollow eyes. Sam was gone and she’d been for a long time now.

Of the three small drawers on the counter, I opened the first. Just a few bathroom things, toothpaste, two toothbrushes and scissors. I stared at in in there for a long minute. I could use it. I could split open my wrists and die the way the world made us all now, bleeding. But as I looked at myself in the mirror again, I made another decision.

My dreads dropped cut off to the ground one by one. I took my time, holding each in my hand for a long moment before cutting it off as close to my scalp as I could. I wasn’t crying, but tears rolled down from my eyes anyways as my head felt the loss of the weight I’d been carrying there for so long. Dropping the scissors on top of the pile of brownish yellow dreads, I rubbed my hands in my hair, feeling the shortness. It was uneven and pointed in several spots.

Honey followed me quietly out the door. I was on Circle Street, one of the houses that’d been empty, I recognized now. It was chilly and I hugged myself, looking up and taking a short, shallow breath. It was late night, probably near morning, and everything was quiet and dark. I walked slowly to Main Street and stopped halfway there. Ahead and up in the platform, Merle was on guard, smoking a cigarette and looking out. He didn’t see me. Honey was just as silent as I was when I entered Merle’s house, dark and empty. Passing by his kitchen, I saw a pack of Morley’s and a lighter on the table and took them with me as I went straight to his bathroom, knowing what I was looking for. As predictable, it was a mess and didn’t smell good, but I didn’t give a shit. Inside a drawer I found his shaving machine. I knew he’d have one, he always kept his head clear of hair.

Lighting up a cigarette after too many months felt bitter sweet. It felt good, my addiction to them happily satisfied, but the fact that now I could smoke didn’t pass unnoticed. I took a long, deep drag with my eyes closed, feeling a little bit of lightheadness as I puffed out.

For a while the only noise was of the machine. Staring at the mirror, cigarette between my lips, I shaved it all. Right to the scalp. I could see I had small cuts and scars in there I didn’t even know of. It’s just how life was now. Once I removed at trace of hair, I turned it off and ran a hand over my head. That was better. No hair. Not the same Sam anymore.

I didn’t let Honey follow me out. She whined but didn’t bark when I closed her inside Merle’s house. I walked away with my chest tight because I knew she’d follow me anywhere and I wanted her safe, so she couldn’t come. I walked silently to the gate, the Morley’s pack on my pocket and yet another cigarette lit between my fingers. It was time for the change of guard at the gate so I was able to slide out without Merle or Mikki noticing me. At that moment I was like a shadow.

I had no weapons, no car, just a pack of cigarettes and the roads. I walked slowly and silently, like a ghost. On my feet, a pair of sneakers, not made to walk for too long. On my scalp, the cold air of the minutes before sunrise send me chills to my entire body. I didn’t care.

It was so many things amounting to this decision… The end of the world, no hope, people who had gone so bad they’d stab pregnant women in the belly. My group gone… My Village running well without me. They wouldn’t need me leading them anymore, not this ghost. They’d be fine. Daryl gone, I was never gonna find him again. And now… Did I even want to anymore? He had mourned me and the baby. He had suffered his loss already. How was I supposed to find him, make him hope the baby was fine and then tell him he was gone? He’d suffer it all over again. I didn’t want to make him go through it. I didn’t want him to feel what I was feeling. It’d been months, he’d be moving forward now, only with the memories but probably with no pain now. Maybe… Now I didn’t even want to find him, and the wish to do so had kept me going all those months. Three things had kept me going: my baby, the plan to build a place, and finding Daryl and the group. I had one failed, dead. One achieved. And one I didn’t want anymore.

Nothing else to fight for.

It was day already when I reached a street with a few stores. I don’t know how I got there, and it didn’t matter. I entered the first store, a little raid out grocery store and walked around. My feet crunched stuff on the ground, broken grass, shelves, making noise I usually wouldn’t make. I rounded the cashier counter. There was money still in there. Under it, there was a locked cabinet. I knew from my old times the kind of things stores kept locked. It was probably what I was looking for. It was luckily a pretty weak lock because I was able to burst it open with a piece of metal fairly easily and, sure enough, there it was.

I left the store with three bottles. Tequila, whiskey a vodka. No wine, which would’ve been my choice, but whatever. On the parking lot in front of the stores, an abandoned car. It wasn’t too dusty, so it probably wasn’t there for too long. There was a couple of walkers coming from around the stores. I ignored them and sat on the driver’s seat, closing and locking the doors from the inside. The cd player in there still worked and there was a cd on the glovebox, entitled in a handwriting Greatest Songs of All Times. Good, let’s judge what people thought were the greatest song of all times.

It started very well with Bohemian Rhapsody. Tequila accompanied it. The first gulp burned my throat and brought tears to my eyes, my taste bugs aching, my brain making connections it hadn’t done for a long time. It wasn’t as pleasurable as I thought, so I took a second gulp, and it felt a little bit better. By the end of the song, where I shriekly sang with the lyrics, making different voices aloud, it didn’t even burn anymore.

Aretha Franklyn got me screaming Respect as I kept on drinking. I was already dancing on the seat when Elvis sang Hound Dog. Numb, thinking nothing, wondering why the fuck had I ever stopped drinking in the first place. I felt like a professional singer but probably sounded terrible screaming Hit the Road, Jack as I stared as the walkers by my window. I didn’t even know I knew the lyrics to Under Pressure but I sang it all, the herd of walkers all the noise attracted my audience. I was Lennon singing Stand by Me, I was Michael singing Smooth Criminal, I was Aretha again saying a little prayer.

I was everyone, except for Sam. I wasn’t there.

I couldn’t even see anything outside anymore. The walkers were all over. In front and behind the car, right and left and even on top, and even if there weren’t so many, I would be seeing anything, my head fuzzy, nothing making sense. No pain. Nothing hurt anymore, I was just singing and drinking and dancing.

Numb. Gone.

 * * *

 Day 236

 The world was a mess of blinding light and deafening noise, all spinning and blurry, making my head turn and hurt. It felt like it’d explode. I had no clue what was happening, where I was, whose voices were those. Was this what being dead was like? I remembered trying to be dead, had I succeeded?

“Daryl?” was the first word I was able to say, my throat rough and lips chapped. He’d know what was happening, he’d help me. He had my back. Except…

No, wait. No, no… I was still alive. Daryl wasn’t here. My baby was dead. And how the fuck did I get out of that car? I was supposed to stay in there forever, until I died of drinking, of hunger, of walker bite, anything. How was I here? And where was here?

“Welcome back, Sam…”

Merle? Calling me Sam? He never did. Sugar, darlin’, goldilocks, sweetass, anything on his redneck vocabulary, but never Sam. It made me force myself to focus on his face, my head exploding at the effort, until I was able to see his expression.

No smile, no jokes. He was sitting in a chair by my bed, elbows resting on his knees. His eyes were sunken. By my side on the bed, Honey moved her heavy body closer, resting her head on top of my stomach. My much smaller looking stomach…

“What happened?”

“Got back home after watch and found the dog in. Hair all over the place. Knew you’d been there so went looking for ya. Gone… Got Mich and went out looking for ya. Found a shit ton ‘o walkers surrounding a car, music on, all the goddamn dead from miles around going at it… Had to make more noise than ya to get part of’em away and kill the rest, but got to ta. Out like a rock, vomit all over. Ya lucky ya didn’t breathe that shit in.”

Lucky… I snorted, looking away from him to the ceiling.

“Ya don’t think ya got lucky? Fuckin corpses were this close to breakin’ in and eatin ya alive!”

“It’s what I was there for, Merle,” I told him firmly but my voice felt weak. “You weren’t supposed to find me.”

“That what ya wanted? What you was tryin’ to do?”

“Yes. It was. You risked yourselves with all the walkers to get me out but you shouldn’t have. Ain’t worth it.”

“Ya talking shit right now, sis. Ya not on yer right mind.”

I shook my head and turned to my side, giving Merle my back. “Just… Leave me alone.”

He took long seconds to move, silence filling the room behind me. Honey snuggled with me and I threw an arm over her body. She smelled clean… Someone had been taking care of her. Good, not even Honey really needed me anymore. Better for her. I eventually heard Merle get up and slowly leave the room. I was glad to be left alone, I just wanted to sleep and nothing else, but it wasn’t even a minute until I heard movement again. I looked over my shoulder at the door and saw Michonne standing there, holding the door handle. I said nothing, just stared back at her. Her face was sad, pitiful, lips tight because I knew her, she was trying to suppress something she wanted to say.

I looked away, staring at the wall again.

“Do not pity me, Michonne,” I told her and the bitterness in my voice scared even myself.

“I don’t pity you, Sam. I understand you.”

“If you understand me you should’ve left me there.”

“You really think I’d ever leave you to die? Just like that?”

“Yeah, great. Thank now. Now just leave me the fuck alone. All of you”.

She did leave after a moment, taking a wile just like Merle had, and I knew nothing else after that. I fell asleep, Honey’s warm body comforting me, and must have been there for hours. I was miserable, smelling, in dire need to pee but with no wish to get up at all. I might just do it right there. I had small, quick dreams as I slept, more like flashes of image. The baby in my arms. The man’s knife coming in my direction. Daryl screaming at the farm. Walkers all around the car. Honey getting eaten by the dead. My image on the mirror, no enlarged stomach. Myself alone and naked in the woods.

Andrea came in eventually. She looked just as depressed as the others had as she took a seat on the chair by the bed. She said nothing for a while, and I didn’t move to look at her behind me. I was probably going to fall asleep again, ignoring her, when she spoke.

“You wish you were dead right now, don’t you?”

Ok, this started different from the others. I said nothing.

“You wanted to die, and they stopped you from it. From going on with your choice.”

Oh. Oh, okay. She’d gone through it. She’d tried to die before and someone stopped her. Slowly, I turned in bed to my other side and looked at her. “Dale stopped you,” I said.

“He did. And I hated him for it. You all heard… He had no right to take the choice away from my hands. He made me stay alive and keep feeling all those things I was feeling. Things I didn’t want to feel anymore…”

Damn straight.

“They hurt too much… The fear of all in my bones… The need to seem strong because this need had always been part of me… To prove I was strong. It was overwhelming. And the loss… My little sister, such a good person, so much better than myself, just gone like that, turning into one of those things… I couldn’t bare it, I wanted to be dead and not feeling. And he took it away from me.”

Tears had escaped my eyes even though I didn’t really cry. I knew it, and now I understood her completely. I hadn’t, not really, back then.

“But then…” she started again. “It got…” she stopped to think of her words. “Less painful. Slowly, gradually, so slowly sometimes it felt like nothing in my feelings was changing, but over time… I’ll never forget her, it will never stop hurting that she is dead and everyone else I knew from before probably is too. It never will… But I learned how to live with it, how to move forward. And who I am now… Things I’ve learned, how much I feel I’ve changed, and most of it all is thanks to you, would never have happened if Dale hadn’t stopped me that day at the CDC.”

I closed my eyes, tired. Of course she’d get to this, saying I shouldn’t hate them for saving my life.

“You hated him, Andrea,” I said weakly.

“I did. It’s why I understand what you’re feeling for both Merle and Michonne now. I get it, I’ve felt it. But it passed. If I ever see him again, I’ll tell him that no matter the things I told him back then, I am grateful now. Because all the things I’m living now, learning, growing, building in this place? I’d have nothing of it if he’d let me blow up that day. I wouldn’t have this family we’ve built. I wouldn’t have built this good relationship I have with Merle, I wouldn’t have you and Michonne as my chosen sisters. I just didn’t know it back then.”

All her words made sense, if I was rational about them. But I wasn’t. All I could feel was this pain inside my chest, drowning me, and I couldn’t see how one day I’d be glad to be alive again. I just couldn’t see it… I said nothing, just wishing she’d go and let me fall asleep again.

“I know you don’t see it now,” she moved on. “If someone told me those things back then, I would either. But you will… One day you will. You just gotta stay alive until you get there. Just say alive one more day, one at a time.”

I didn’t see her get out, because I kept my eyes closed, thinking of those last words.

Just one more day. One at a time.

 * * *

 Day 238

 “Alright, time to get the fuck up!”

For the first few seconds I had no idea what was happening. My blanket was pulled back roughly from me, coldness startling me like hell, and then hands were grabbing me, pulling me up and off the bed like I was a puppet. When I registered it was Merle getting me off the bed and could muster any kind of reaction, he had pushed me all the way to the kitchen already.

“The fuck you doing?!”

“I’m getting ya out of that shithole you dug yaself into! Out, now!”

Things were spinning, my head hurt, I felt like vomiting. I wanted a drink and I recognized I was probably in withdrawal all these days, my body shutting off and depression making me sleep though most of it.

“Get off me, Merle!” I shouted at him, trying to get him to let go of my arm.

“Ain’t gonna happen, sweetcheeks! Ya comin’ with me.”

He dragged me out to the street. I was barefoot, wearing a thin camisole, bald, probably looked like hell, but still I fought him. I kicked and screamed for him to let me go, he was hurting my arm as he made me walk with him. I saw the others around looking at the scene, shocked, but Merle didn’t mind them. He rounded the house, dragging me to the woods area, straight in the direction of the side hedge, my bare feet on the dry earth. In any other moment of my life I’d been able to fight him off, defend myself, but now my mind was blurred and it was like I didn’t know any self-defense movement, nor would I have the energy to do them if I did. So I just yelled, cursed at him, called him all the names I knew. Soon he stopped and turned to me, both hands strongly grabbing my shoulders to make me look at him.

“Shut up now!” he yelled. “Ya sad, bottomed down, I fuckin’ get it!”

“Then let go of me!!”

“But while ya been in bed drowning or out there drinkin’ and tryin’ to get yaself killed, we all been here! Watching over ya! Taking care of the Village! Keeping ya and the place safe!” and then he roughly turned me, making me look away from him, his hands still holding my arms from behind, “and getting your boy a proper resting place!”

Then I saw what he wanted to show me. Where he had dragged me to.

My baby’s tombstone.

I stopped struggling and stared at it, unable to look away. They were unbelievable. It was so well made, so carefully thought and built with the little tools we had these days. The stone was made of concrete and stood over a mount of earth with fresh grass starting to grow on it, a rectangle of stones pained in white and fresh yellow wild flowers adorning it.

Merle let go of my arms.

On the stone, they’d written it in the same white paint.

Jack Dixon-Danes.

My dad’s name. Daryl’s name. My name. Jack Dixon-Danes.

Merle said nothing else, just stood there behind me, out of my sight but solid. I slowly sank to my knees and let myself fall to the ground as I stared at it. They’d done this for him, carried him out there, paid their respects, buried him. It had to be hard for them too…

“Jack…” it came out a whisper and it made Merle move. He lowered himself to the ground by my side, a little behind, crossing his legs.

“We had to choose it for ya… Michonne knew your dad, said you’d like it.”

I nodded. She was right. The woman knew me back then, knew me well now. I hadn’t chosen the name before, deciding to choose when I saw him, but Jack had been one of my main options. I closed my eyes, allowing tears to spill. My heart had been thundering ever since Merle woke me up, and it was now slowing down, calmer. Even so, I allowed myself to cry, mourning the loss of my son, permitting the pain to come to the surface. I’d been avoiding it for too long.

Merle held me as I cried, pulling my back to his chest, firm and unmoving for a long, long time, and he kept saying things. He told me how he knew nobody was suffering more than I was but they were all mourning too, and to make it worse they had almost lost me as well. He told me how important I was to all of them, how I was family, his sister, and that Jack was a Dixon and I had taught him that being a Dixon was not a bad thing. He said he had a missing brother and a nephew in heaven already, couldn’t lose me too.

It was amazing how transformed Merle was. And I, apparently, had a part in it.

After crying out all I had to cry right now, and after a while I was just sniffing quietly, looking at Jack’s name and still near Merle, my back no his chest, my head fallen on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Merle…”

“I know ya sorry, darlin’. But ya ain’t gotta apologize.”

We got up from the ground what felt like hours later. I was sore and weak. Strangely, for the first time in all those days, I felt hungry. I had more important things than eating to do right now, though. Merle left me in front of Andrea’s house, giving me a kiss on the forehead before heading away. I watched him go thinking of how lucky I was to have such a brother now, an inevitable comparison between the Merle he was for the entire time I knew him before, and now. Feeling my eyes welled up and my nose prickling, I turned and limbed the few steps to the porch of Andrea’s house and knocked.

As if she’d been waiting for me, Andrea opened quickly. Seeing me there, she smiled with her lips closed, a breath coming out and tenderness all over her eyes. I extended a hand to her and she took it with no hesitation, and then I led her out to the front yard and to Michonne’s place right by hers. Still holding Andrea’s hand, I knocked and, again, it was like she was waiting for me, opening in a second.

Michonne had the same tenderness in her eyes seeing me there, but instead of a smile on her lips, hers trembled with emotion and she pulled me to her, hugging me tight and crying. I let it go as well, sobbing with her. There was something about being held and feel the empathy of a woman who also had lost a child. She understood. She knew how I felt. Miranda would know too. This thought, as terrible as it was to know both women had suffered it, comforted me somehow. I was not alone.

Andrea, Michonne and I spent the night together that day, at Michonne’s place. I was hugged by Andrea too, her height making my head rest on her breasts and she shushed me tenderly like a mom would. We sat together at the table, had dinner and desert, then tea, and talked a lot, with no stopping. I told them all I was feeling, deciding not to hold anything back. I told them I’d wished to die and hated Michonne and Merle for saving me. I told Andrea what I understood what she’d gone through months ago when she was the one who wanted to die, and that her telling me so a couple of days ago had helped more than she thought. I told them I didn’t even really want to find Daryl and the others anymore for fear of telling him what happened to Jack, for being terrified of seeing him suffer. I told them I still didn’t know how to move on with life now and that maybe I’d never know. I told them how much I wished that tea was wine. I told them I loved them, thanked them for being there for me, thanked Michonne for going out there to save my life, told them they were my family.

And the three of us cried a lot that night, and fell asleep all huddled up in Michonne’s bed.

[matildainmotion]

Letters in Lockdown: an invitation to take part in an art exchange

May 1st 2020, Sussex

Dear You,

I want to write you a letter for the month of May – an analogue antidote to our intense online digital lives. Of course, for now, you will be reading this on a screen but my hope is, as you’ll see if you read on, that some offline letters will follow between us. For the time being I will write this in the style of a letter, thinking of the quality of one.

It was my birthday last week and I received two fountain pens and three bottles of ink as presents (my mother and husband both had the same idea), so whilst I am typing this, using squares on a keyboard, I am dreaming of ink on paper. I think what is special about a letter, the real kind that you can hold in your hands, is that it foregrounds my particular moment of writing, and then yours of reading. It grounds me in the physical, sitting now in the living room, the cold metal of the laptop on my legs, while the children watch a Toy Story short on Disney Plus (a new lockdown addition to our lives). It makes explicit the incredible thing that writing does, bridging gaps of time and space, and of people- the gap between you and me. It does physical distancing yet social bridging like nothing else, and I need that kind of bridge right now.

This period in lockdown has been reminding me of the no-time time between Christmas and New Year. As a child I used to find it strange and fascinating to walk down our street on December 25th and to know that behind every door a different version of the day was taking place. I knew the insides of some of those houses well enough, but I didn’t know them on Christmas day. It was like the doors that said ‘Staff only’ on them in cafes and shops - suddenly, at that time of year, everyone disappeared behind doors like that, doors that seemed marked with a backstage, behind-the-scenes sign, the place you can’t see, but you know that stories are unfolding there.

In lockdown this is happening everywhere, for much longer than it does at Christmas time. I think of the twenty-four other families of the children in my son’s school class, how there are twenty-four different versions of this time happening between us. We live close by to one another but do not know how it is for one another in any detail. So I thought I would write you a letter to tell you a little about what it is like here, behind our door, and then perhaps you can reply.

There are five of us behind our door – me, my husband, my mother, my son and my daughter. We are 46, 56, 78, 8 and 3 – ages seem important now. We live in a village in Sussex, in a two bed house, but there is a little studio-shed in the garden that my mother, ‘Granny,’ uses as a bedroom. It is a small house for five people. Usually my husband is not here during the week – he is in London, working. Usually my mother is not here during the weekends – she goes back to my brother’s house in Oxford. But during the lockdown we have all been here all the time, five people, holding, between us, at least twenty-five different roles. Not just the husband, mother, son, sibling, in-law roles – the family ones you might expect to find together in a home – but also the student, teacher, director, facilitator ones. Because usually my husband doesn’t have to be an Artistic Director of a theatre company in the attic, a tiny triangle of space under the roof; I don’t have to facilitate Mothers Who Make sessions in the bedroom; my son doesn’t have to learn his times tables in the kitchen. Usually we go out to be in other buildings for these roles. And these are only the worldly ones. There is a whole raft of other dreaming, feeling roles – the carer, the cleaner, the teaser, the pleaser, the critic, the grump, the clown, the aggressor, the sulker, the button-pressor, the one with the button pressed…..that list goes on to reach many multiplications beyond the times tables that I know. We move through them every day, thousands of roles, ricocheting off each other as we manoeuvre round the kitchen: my daughter running up and down, refusing to get dressed; my son reading comics, strewn across the floor; my mother, holding the pants my daughter won’t put on, trying to keep out of everyone’s way; my husband wanting to make a cup of coffee; me looking for the toothbrushes that I thought I had brought downstairs, but maybe I didn’t.

Letters can feel confessional and I think I have reached that point in this one. I know the thing that I am meant to do, for everyone’s wellbeing, is to create a clear structure and rhythm for the days, and yet it is the thing with which I struggle most. My son is not asleep till after midnight. This means we get up late – nine, half nine. The first thing he wants to do, as soon as he wakes, is use up his screen-time allowance for the day (currently this means two episodes of My Little Pony). I let him because it means I get my moment of writing time at once, and this helps me accept the cramped-ness of the rest of the day. So by 10.30am, we are undressed and un-breakfasted. Some days we manage to achieve breakfast and clothes just in time for lunch. And then I realise I haven’t done the tooth-brushing….And then there is school work to fit in, and a walk, and the hens need visiting on the allotment, and perhaps some supplies need to be bought or ordered, and several Zoom calls have to happen, and then it is supper, later than it should be, and a bath and I am typing this again, past midnight with the children asleep at last.  

Meanwhile, behind the worldly roles, and the dreaming, feeling roles, pressed tight together in our two bed house, there lie things that are larger than any roles or rooms: the big picture thoughts. The what-will-become-of-us thoughts. The what-will-happen-to-the world questions. What will my children’s lives be like? Will everything get better, worse, or both? Another confession coming up, a confession about prayer. My mother brought us up Catholic – I’m not religious now but I still find myself praying. It feels like writing letters to the air. I still imagine angels, spiritual postmen (but transgender), with huge diamond-shaped wings, like kites, straggling across the night. I pass them messages, requests for health, safety, joy, care – the big things – and they take them up as they fly by.  

           And because I cannot hold everything – all the toothbrushes, the meals, pants, melt downs, cups of tea, the roles, the feelings, the big thoughts and prayers – I write, and the writing does some of the holding for me. So, as well as this letter I also wrote you a story, which I will share in a moment. But before that I’d like to make you an invitation. Usually, I write a question for the month. This time, my question is this: would you like to write me a reply? Would you like to join me on a project of which this blog is the beginning, called Letters in Lockdown? If so, here’s how…

Write a letter, a poem, a song, a story. Or don’t write, draw. Draw a doodle, a sketch, a cartoon, a painting. Or do both. Or fetch the scissors and cut out some paper dolls of all the people in your house. Or find the glue and make a collage of your lockdown lives. Write or draw to me and/ or to another mother and maker behind another door somewhere in the world, within this locked down time. Write or draw about how it is behind your door. Write a letter, make an image, such as you would like to receive. Your children can join you in this. They can write their own letter or draw their own drawing. Or you can make one huge messy image altogether. It can be about the big picture, or the tiny details of your days, or both. About the joy, or the fear, or the grumps, or the grief, or the roles, or the toothbrushes, or the angels. Then post it to me. Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE). I will put what you send me into another maker’s empty envelope and send it out to her. I will put another mother’s/ child’s letter/ artwork into your envelope and send it back to you. In this way, you will get a reply. It will be like putting a message in a bottle and not knowing what message will come back, or from whom, but knowing, for sure, that one will. Nor will you know exactly where your message will end up. That’s the game. We will all be writing to each other, and all receiving from each other, lots of lockdown letters and pictures, the kind that involve ink on paper, the kind you can hold, made behind another door, posted through yours. And, with your permission, I will keep a digital record of what you post too so that one day, maybe, when this is over and we can walk out into the new world, there will be a book by you and me and many other mothers and makers, called Letters in Lockdown – a record of this time.

           If you want to take part in this art exchange, then email me at matilda@motherswhomake.org and I will send you the address to which to send your letters/ artwork and other details. If you want to take part but you cannot get to a post box, then email me also and I can do the paper and ink part and the posting for you. I look forward to your post. Consider it a commission you are receiving from Mothers Who Make.

Now, below, enclosed within this letter, is my story for you. I am sharing it, though I feel shy and nervous about doing so, because I want to show you that it is possible to share different things – not just letters but things that you might not usually put into an envelope and post out to the world. This story is part of a longer series of unpublished flash fiction pieces I am working on called ‘Other Peoples, Other Worlds.’ This one, lockdown-inspired, is called ‘The People Apart. You can go here to read it: https://matildainmotion.tumblr.com

But first, let me sign off from letter-writing. I hope to hear back from you.

With love, and healthful wishes to you and everyone within your home, behind your door.

Matilda xxxxxx

[ourmanifestoisfun]

4x17 & 4x18 episode thoughts

IT’S OVER YOU GUYS!

That was one hell of a journey, and while I’m sad I won’t be able to write up week after week anymore, that still doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of things left to say.

Dream ghosting! I was kind of hoping she went to the real Dr Akopian, but honestly dream ghosting works equally well for me. But falling asleep on the toilet, Rebecca? Really?

I love the red dress Rebecca wears, because that is the color associated with love and of course she will wear it on this important night.

Tim...spend Valentine’s Day with your wife. You learned about her clitoris, now learn to handle your 11-12-year relationship. Seriously.

Maya looks cute though. Love her Reveal

All of Paula’s heart decorations are marvelous. Especially digging the earrings.

The time fakeout was nicely played. I got spoiled for that going in, but I appreciated how they clarified when “earlier” actually was.

Josh’s panic about Rebecca’s decision made it sound like it was...not entirely about her, more that he had finally reached a new stage in his life and was ready to share it with someone compatible. I wish they had delved into that more.

George’s “Raven’s Nest” is terrifying

Yay for Darryl and his blended family with April. Also holy hell that is going to be a crowded household.

All of Rebecca’s flashforwards were very short, but I liked those different glimpses into different lives and how frustrated she was that the Rebeccas in them were not happy.

So much cuteness: Rebecca + Greg’s wedding dance, pregnant!Rebecca presenting a baby Ruth Gator Ginsburg to Nathaniel, and her+Josh’s family breakfast with their adorable kids

Having the episode be a little more stripped down and center on Rebecca and Paula felt very natural, because that is how the show started and it would be the way to make it come full circle. While their relationship is no longer nearly as codependent and have other aspects of their lives as priority, it is good to see them still come together and rely on each other for pivotal moments.

ESPECIALLY having Rebecca bring Paula into “that weird thing [she] does”. Seeing her run around and peer excitedly at the costumes, and being so excited about this rich imagination of her best friend is just so heartwarming.

What she needs “just happens to be here” and the handholding moments GAHHHHHH

Also ‘11 o’clock’ was PERFECT. Love how they took all of these seminal songs and brought them together with the mannequins and the outfits and everything gahhhhhhh

I’m so proud of Paula for sticking to her guns about the pro bono arm of the firm and being prepared to walk away in order to continue doing something that she felt was right. Paula now knows her worth as a lawyer - now she can figure out how to use her worth and apply it to her drive. And Julia was willing to listen, so it paid off!

Watching Josh get his heart broken was hard, because the poor boy did not see it coming.

It makes sense for him to move out, but I wish we knew what he was doing for a living now.

I like the tidbit that him and George hang out now.

Josh’s new magic club girlfriend looks super nice and cute. But meeting Rebecca must have been so awkward. Especially if she followed the saga in the Daily West Covina.

Also, I wished she had a name. Please, for fan-fictional reasons!

AJ moving in with Rebecca is fun, but also such a bad idea. I am relieved that he will never tell her whether he has a vibrator or not.

I love AJ in general. For introducing a new supporting character, they came out very strong with him and I’ve really enjoyed having him around.

I hope she does get him that Harvard t-shirt

Valencia and Beth are engaged! And it was both quiet (in bed) AND a little bit dramatic (the drone). Looking forward to that wedding.

Heather and Hector got a hot tub! 

...maybe Rebecca shouldn’t be using it at the same time as them.

I liked that Nathaniel recognized what was happening with Rebecca very quickly and I kinda hope he was joking about the rock (knowing him though, he wasn’t). Still, the “you only have one life to live and you should live it the way you want” was a sweet sentiment.

Nathaniel walking away from his father’s firm was exactly what I wanted for him. I’m not sure he should stay long term in Guatemala, but a change to reevaluate his life will be good for him.

Also that he did it with the support of two psuedo-father figures and yelled ‘’I love you’ at his dad before hanging up. I am very pleased by that because Sr would HATE it.

I’m glad that Greg made it clear that he wasn’t going to wait for Rebecca

I loved Rebecca’s tribute to him at the open mic night, that he is someone who has always been ahead, and that she wants to have the passion in her life that he has for Serrano’s.

Whijo’s grumping about it was hilarious.

I am sure that Whijo had great things happen in his life too in the past year, but ouch re: the wildfire burning both his apartment and his childhood home.

To the surprise of no one, Rebecca is not in a relationship at the time of the ending. But given how they played her breakups with the boys with gentleness, and the idea that she has a focus of her own now rather than needing to actively “choose herself”, really worked for me, because romance is still important and desirable part of life. It’s just not the only part of it, and when Rebecca says that she feels ready to welcome the other side of love into her life, I believe her.

The panning shot of all of the eligible guys made me laugh way too hard.

I did want to hear her song, but that is an excellent way to close things off.

For the concert special I don’t have this kind of list, but it was fun and sweet and a perfect send-off as well. My favorite gag is either between David Hull dancing in Vella’s song, or Michael MicMillan’s sexy toothbrushes. The Period Sex choreography was GREAT. Especially the incredibly obvious maxipads. They are all stupidly talented.

It’s also really cool that they were able to have so many of the supporting cast come join them for props/backup vocals/gags. That made it feel really warm and complete.

Also loved Vinnie popping out of the bed for the Sex Medley

In many ways, this episode resolution was simple and probably predictable for anyone who has thought about the show as deeply as the people here think about it. There was so much focus on the boys in the last few weeks that it was incredibly obvious that the solution would be that she would choose none of them, because to actually have the conflict for the final episode narrowed down to that choice would go against the very nature of the show. But the way it was handled really worked for me. Rebecca has a life and routine and friends, plus now she has a passion to nurture to its full potential. This first version will be rough, but it will be something.

I do have my criticisms, because while I love this show, there have been quite a few plot points/character beats that I feel were shorted/not touched upon: Josh’s story in particular feels incomplete to me, especially when it comes to having direction in his life. I wanted to see more of Heather+Valencia this season and especially have a stronger focus on Rebecca being a better friend to her gurlgroup, which was often glossed over. I wish things hadn’t gotten so frenetic, or the love quadrangle taken up so much time that could have been spent on moving the characters more gradually in certain directions. In general, I wanted to explore other background character relationship dynamics on a deeper level. There’s also the consistent question of when and how often the writers were knowingly subverting or playing into with tropes, which I suspect also contributed to how the back half of this season was devised.

But this story has always been Rebecca’s story, for better or worse, and that focus is part of what makes this ending feel satisfying, knowing that she is in a centered, happy place, that she is surrounded by people she loves, and the room might include the guy who will be her future mate or not, and she is about to give them words from her heart. This was an apt ending to a phase in her life where she wasn’t sure what she wanted, and I’m happy for her and for everyone, and in the end that is what I wanted from this show.

“I open at the close” - written by JK Rowling, tweeted by Rachel Bloom, and applicable to Rebecca Bunch’s story. She now knows the passion that makes her happy, so we can leave her to a future wide with possibilities.

[caramelnini]

Lost and Found

Paring: Jongin x Reader

Summary: Jongin takes you under his wing after a long night.

Genre: Angst, Smut

A/N: If you feel like you’ve read this before, you probably have. It’s a remastered version of what I wrote on jingongkin. This is where I’ll be posting my stories from now on!!

You were lost. You knew where you were- you walked down the same road you did every night, leaned on the same metal post, not too far from the club, not too close. You weren’t going anywhere special.

But you were lost. Your life was empty. You didn’t live from paycheck to paycheck, but you were in spiral you couldn’t bring yourself to get out of. And you didn’t want to. Because you were ignoring how empty you were with sex.

The night was cold. Dark cars passed every so often, some slowing down even more so. It gave you some sort of exhilaration- knowing that you could be in anyone’s car, doing everything.  

“Hey!” You almost didn’t hear the slurred voice over your thoughts and the pounding music a block off.

“Hello,” you met eyes with a man in his forties. His business suit was soiled and you could smell the despair off of him. Maybe he was more empty than you.

“How much?”

You raised your eyebrow. “Do you have a car? Or are we taking the bus?”

His breath polluted your senses as he cackled hysterically. “We can’t drive, us businessmen... W-we can take a taxi… or I can just fuck you against this pole. Would you like that?”

“You look like you need the money you’d pay to fuck me against this pole,” you said, walking in the other direction. You liked the way your heels echoed against the concrete. You didn’t like the sound of his.

“Hey… can’t I get a discount? I can feel the chemistry between us, baby.” You scoffed and clutched your bag. How was it possible to feel so dominant and vulnerable at the same time?

“Hey! Don’t walk away from me!”

Your hand was shaking as it felt around for the pepper spray you always kept with you. You slowed down to make sure he was close enough to do actual damage. Just as you turned around to meet his lustful gaze you were startled by a loud honk.

The creep was just as startled as you- he could barely shift his attention to the car approaching us. A tinted window rolled down to showcase the soft concerned face of someone you had never seen before.

You would’ve remembered him.

“Where have you been?”

“Nowhere,” you replied. The handsome face gave you a once over, twice, not forgetting the middle aged man, who was distancing himself from you as much as he could. His dark eyes narrowed in conflict before he sighed.

“Get in.”

You didn’t hesitate to enter the passenger’s seat. You would rather be kidnapped by a handsome man in an Aston Martin than spend your evening with Mr. Midlife Crisis.

“Where are we going?” He was driving onto the boulevard, right past the club with tinted blue lights. You felt as if you were underwater. You were barely breathing.

“I don’t know,” you sighed softly, putting on your seatbelt. You weren’t taking anymore chances that night. “Your house. Or mansion.”

“You’re very comfortable with a random person picking you off of the street.” He was almost scolding you; he didn’t know anything about you- if he did he’d know you did that everyday.

“You saved me… it’s the least I can do.”

“Men are such creeps, huh?” At least he knew that. The scenery around us slowed down as he stopped. “Tell me your name.” The car was alone at the intersection. He turned to look at you in the low fluorescent lighting.

You turned away, mumbling your name softly. The deep hum of the car changed it’s pitch as he sped into the night life of the city. He looked even more beautiful up close, especially as he was focused on the road.

“I’m Jongin... I- I wish we didn’t meet like this. What’s a girl like you doing out here anyway? It’s a Thursday night…”

“What do you think? I was looking for a good time.”

“And how did that work out?” You snorted.

“I have pepper spray, just in case anything goes wrong. And I’m here with you, so it turned out just fine."

He hesitated before taking a deep breath. He had pulled into a garage of one of the main skyscrapers in town. “Is this a good time?” His voice was barely a whisper.

“Just take me to your room. Then we’ll have a good time.”

You thought he would take you then and there, but he just shifted his gear with an amused look on his face.

“We’ll see. There’s a catch, however: if you go to my place, you can’t leave.”

“Why’s that?”

“I wouldn't let you. It looks like you’ve drank too much to think for yourself. Maybe that’s why you’re in a car with a stranger, asking them to see their apartment for a good time.”

You were almost glad to explain yourself, raising your eyebrow. “I was in the club looking for a guy to have a good time with because that’s my job, Jongin. That’s why I’m out on a Thursday and that’s why we’re in this car. Stop playing around. You know you want me.”

His eyes widened as his breathing became deeper. You didn’t expect Jongin to punch his steering wheel, which let out a short honk. “I brought home a hooker!” You preferred escort but you felt like he wasn’t in the mood to hear that. When you adjusted yourself his eyes narrowed in annoyance.

“Out. Now.”

“See you around,” you sung before opening the car door. You felt his cold hands on your wrist before you could slip away.

“Upstairs.” Jongin opened his door and was already making his way towards the dark elevator. You could barely keep up in your stiletto heels but he didn’t seem to care, a footstep and a half away.

He eventully grabbed you by the wrist once again and pulled you close to him. You loved it when he touched you but you almost fell, grabbing his side. His body was much warmer: you wanted to touch him all over.

“You smell like alcohol… and weed… and… fuck…” He closed the elevator and pressed the top number. Penthouse. Of course.

“I don’t smoke. Or drink,” you said, but it just went through the other ear.

“Were you going to have sex with that guy? Was he one of your clients?”

“You know I was uncomfortable. Escorts have standards.” You were almost falling asleep on his arm, swaying to the music you could remember on the radio.

“You look so sexy when you’re frustrated,” you whispered. “It’s-”

“Don’t. We’re not doing anything.”

“I’m already here, you might as well. I know you can afford it,” you mumbled.

“I’m trying to help you, so… cooperate, please.” There was a chime and you felt your heart sink. A sophisticate woman was at the doors of the confined space. She was wearing a fur hat and a large coat, even though it was spring. Her aura alone made you straighten up. At least your cocktail dress was less dramatic than usual.

“Mrs. Choi.”

“Good evening, Mr. Kim.”

You wished there was one of those light elevator songs to ease the heavy tension. You were stiff and embarrassed. When did you care what others thought? Maybe when they were probably rich and important. 

“How’s Rufus?”

“Okay now,” she gushed. “He’s walking.”

She smiled softly at you, exiting on what you assumed was her floor.

“Dial my apartment when he visits next time.”

“You would be a delight to have, Mr. Kim”

“As you always are, Mrs. Choi.” 

You sighed when you were met with your reflection. Jongin didn’t say anything and you didn’t dare look at him. Not even through the mirror.

Luckily it was the top floor and your eyes met slick dark wood of the double doors. You shook your head, lost for words.

Jongin pulled you along, once again. You watched the elevator go down as he fumbled with his key and opened the door. You couldn’t be more amazed. He was right: you could never leave.

Across a fireplace was one of the longest couches you had ever seen, over a fur rug you hoped wasn’t real. The dark marble kitchen seemed untouched… You figured Jongin didn’t really eat. Or clean.

Of course there were the large windows to greet and please your eyes. You could probably find the club from there. You couldn’t help but smile. It was all so breathtaking.

There was light coming from the corner of the penthouse that he walked slowly towards.

You felt like a stain. Everything was perfectly set, like he was expecting someone over. The living space was so grand and quiet- you would be scared to live in a place like that. Maybe that’s why he brought you up.

“Jongin… this is-”

“Take off your shoes,” he ordered.

You kicked them off, obediently, offering an angelic smile to him. He rolled his eyes.

“Follow me.”

And you did. He had taken off his coat and threw it on the couch, along with his emerald breifcase. You almost cringed at how out of place it was on the beige furniture.

“Jongin-”

He stopped and turned around. “You’re staying in this room tonight. I want you gone by 9.30.” He pointed at a wooden door. It was the end of the hallway, opposite a glass chamber, right next to what you assumed was his room.

“Why?”

“If anyone knew you were here, I’d be in a lot of trouble.”

You couldn’t help but feel like you were shameful. You were certain that that Choi lady seeing you ruined half of his reputation, anyway. You wondered if he was married. His eyebrows rose in empathy, in which you saw an opening. “Jongin, let me go. Please.” You made sure your voice sounded as desperate as it could.

“No.”

“Then let me shower?” It was like a hotel, which you hoped came with sex, too.

“I’m coming with soap and all that stuff; go check out the room.”

It was cold. Not only the temperature, but the atmosphere. You looked out of the window facing the city and decided to text your roommate that you were just fine, even better.

“Hey,” Jongin knocked, soft hair appearing first before you gave him permission to enter. “I brought clothes and a toothbrush, too.”

“Thanks, but sleep naked.” You smiled when he bit his lip softly.

“Well, when you wake up you can wear it. Give me your clothes when you finish your shower so I can wash them for tomorrow. I don’t really have any female underwear.”

“I figured.”

You slid your hands up your thighs, coaxing your red dress up to your hips. You made sure to moan shortly as you pulled the hugging material off of you.

“Here.” You handed the dress to the man at your door.

“Thank you,” he said. He closed the door in your face, leaving you horny and disappointed.

“Anytime.”

“Jongin!” You had an electric blue toothbrush in you mouth; you were daydreaming for so long that you ended up cleaning your drool off of the marble counters.

“What is it?” He sounded rushed; you smiled, embarrassed. You were wearing a dressing gown with paste around your mouth while he was wearing beige sweatpants, with a decent t-shirt on. Maybe you wouldn’t sleep naked, just to prove him wrong.

“I don’t know how to use the shower.”

He raised his eyebrow as you washed you mouth and wiped your arm with his red hand towel. He stepped into the tile chamber and motioned you to watch his actions. “Hold this then pull this thing at the same-”

Cold water bursted out of the shower head, making you yelp. After scrambling to open the door, Jongin shook himself off. “Yeah. I haven’t used it in forever so… It’s pretty weird,” he panted.

You pouted when you saw his dark hair.

“Now you’re all… wet. You’re gonna get sick. Your boss wouldn’t like that...”

He put his hand through his hair, squeezing out as many droplets as he could. You grabbed a towel as large amounts of water soaked his white shirt.

“Jongin,” you called. You pushed yourself off of the counter, just to lean against it. He towered over you. 

“Jongin… can I?” He nodded, grabbing your waist and setting you on top of the dark counter; it almost cooled you down. You watched him come closer, feeling your heart beat faster. You noticed how plump his lips were as he dragged his tongue across them.

“You’re so bad,” he said, pulling you into a dark kiss. You were so vulnerable. He had already had your mouth open, letting you taste him. You wished you could’ve felt his hair when it was dry but you couldn’t ask for more as he rubbed against you, shoving his tongue down your throat. He felt so good. His fingers were merely pressed against your waist but it felt better than any other guys that did anything to you.

Jongin hummed against your lips; at least you knew he was satisfied. But he pulled away, nearly as breathless as you were.

“How much does that cost?” He bit your collarbone as you sighed softly.

“That was priceless.”

ᴛᴇʟʟ ᴍᴇ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ ᴛʜɪɴᴋɪɴɢ ✍

[winchestersnco]

Strangers

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 2,084

Summary: Dean and the Reader have a rocky past, but one that’s riddled with more good memories than bad. Will they be able to bridge the gap and have that again?

Warnings: Smut. Angst. Heartbreak. One curse word. Really, I’m sorry. 

A/N: This is the first of SIXTEEN song fics that I will be doing for Halsey’s new album, Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, out this Friday, one fic for each song. All one shots. Honestly, this album is going to be the death of me, I love it so much and she’s only released three songs! This one just resonated with me and gave me the idea for this project and I’m excited for you all to read what I have planned! Enjoy! 

Tags: Open for Followers. If you want to be added send an ask! 

Listen to Strangers HERE

Hopeless Fountain Kingdom Masterlist (Coming Soon!)

He sits in the war room and tries to concentrate on the research in front of him, but his eyes drift over the same sentence four times over as he listens to the rustling in the kitchen down the hall. It’s the only thing he’s got and it’s reassuring. Reassuring to know that she’s still there, still alive, still functioning enough to move around the bunker on her own.

It wasn’t always the case. There used to be a time when she’d be sitting right next to him, doing research for the same case, her legs tangled up in his as they shared a drink, looks passing between the two of them, a smile dancing across her face, his green eyes twinkling. Not lovers, just close friends. Close enough that it seemed insane to him to live life without her.

But that was another lifetime ago.

Dean hears the fridge door close and her footsteps retreat down the hall to her bedroom and he sighs. A sigh that sits heavy and deep in his soul. He thinks about the years past and wonders what had gone wrong as he sits back in his chair, abandoning his research. Swiping a hand down his face, he admits to himself that he knows where they went wrong, where he went wrong. It was fixing it that was the problem.

Those lines hadn’t been crossed ever, at least not in a final kind of way. He would watch her flirt with other guys in the bar when they’d be out on a case. He’d flirt just as much with other women. She always got a separate room and he never thought too much about it. Sam would always bunk with her when he picked up on some girl and she never said anything about it. Just like he’d never say anything when she spent the night with another guy.

But then there were the times where they couldn’t get separate rooms and she’d sleep in his bed, Sam in the other one. Or the times that Sam wasn’t there at all, when getting two rooms seemed silly and a waste, and regardless of getting two double beds, she’d end up in his bed anyway. No funny business, no hanky panky. Just for comfort, warmth, assurance.

And Dean got used to that. He got used to comfortability with her, got used to the easiness of just existing with her, being with her. He didn’t realize until after that he could breathe easier when she was right there, that his heart didn’t ache so much.

Dean rubs at his eyes, trying to erase the memories.

But he can’t stop the onslaught and he’s thinking about that night, he’s not sure if it was the loneliness or the alcohol or both, but lines were crossed. When he tried to ask if she was really sure she had wanted this, she silenced him with a kiss.

It had been like coming home to him. The easiest night of his life. It was everything he didn’t realize he had needed in that moment. The push and pull, the give and take, the silent way she communicated with him. He’d never been happier, never been more sated, never felt so whole.

As the next morning dawned, her hair fanned out around her, limbs tangled together, he briefly thought about forever, just the two of them. Watching her sleep peacefully, the woman that had been his best friend for years, the woman that had always been there for him in his darkest moments, he realized he wanted that. And he wanted all of that with her.

But she’d hit the breaks awfully fast on that thought. Once she woke to Dean pulling her closer, he could see the regret pile in her eyes as she told him. She wouldn’t even look him in the eye as she spoke, saying things like just friends and not right and sorry. It had broken his heart.

She’d slowly pulled away after that, going on hunts with him less and less, and when she did she always kept to just busines. Dean couldn’t remember the last time she had looked him in the eye or talked to him about anything else besides cases. And when they were at the bunker, it was as if he didn’t exist. Sometimes he wondered if she were still alive, he’d go days without seeing her. He hated that he had crossed a line with her, hated that he had ruined something that had meant so much to him, and he had lost his mind trying to fix it.

Except when the lights went out. That was different .

Like now.

Dean is brought back to the present as the light in the hall goes out and he hears the click of her door. And after it, a stabbing pain in his heart. He’s grateful for that at least, grateful that he can still feel something so poignant after all these years, grateful that, even though it hurts, he’s got the reminder that for one night, they were perfect.

He admits defeat and closes the books around him, fingers digging into his tired eyes, hoping to maybe rub away the thought of a forever with her as he makes his way down the hall to the bathroom. As he’s getting ready for bed, he sees the evidence of her all around him. Her shampoo that smells like tea tree oil and eucalyptus, it’s the good stuff she only saves for the bunker. Her toothbrush sitting in it’s charger on the counter, a hair tie and a handful of bobby pins resting next to it. And there’s a handful of other products in various spots, just enough for him to miss her so much it aches.

He misses her, yet she’s right down the hall, nothing between them except a few steps and a wooden door. But he can’t face going down that road again.

He also can’t help the direction his feet take as they move, as if by their own accord, down the hall to her room. He doesn’t knock, doesn’t say anything, he just rests his hand against the cool wood, his forehead following suit.

He does this every so often, just stands outside her door, wishing he could cross the threshold. But he never does. And just like every other night, he eventually turns and walks back to his own room, alone.

It’s when he’s on the brink of sleep, that precipice where real life almost feels like a dream state, that he feels the dip in the bed. He doesn’t react, he stays still, curious what she’s doing in his room anyway. But she only slides under the covers, turns away from him, and lays there.

She’s closer to him than she’s been in months and his heart stills. He rolls to his back and feels, rather than hears, her breathing falter before she too rolls to her back. The room is silent and tense, and Dean isn’t sure how to proceed from here. He’s still not sure why she’s there in the first place.

And then her fingers are interlacing with his, he’s pulling her close and his lips are a hair’s breadth from hers, and she’s placing a finger against his lips and whispering the first words he’s heard from her mouth in weeks.

“Don’t speak,” she says, her nose brushing up against his, ��don’t say anything at all. Just fuck me.”

It’s words he’s been dying to hear for longer than he cares to admit, words he never thought he’d hear again. In seconds she’s rotated, pulling off her pajama bottoms and panties in a swift movement, her bare ass pressing against his cock which is hardening quickly, and still trapped in his boxers. He can barely think straight as she grinds her ass down on him, the friction heady and needy and perfect.

When he wraps his brain around what is happening, when he’s able to get a grip on his senses, his one hand finds her hip and stills her movements, his other arm working underneath her and wrapping around her waist, pulling her closer than it seemed possible. But it’s not enough, he’s still not getting that skin on skin contact that he’s yearned for since it happened that one last time, he’s still wearing a shirt and bottoms, and she’s still wearing a shirt, a shirt he realizes is an old Metallica one of his.

His hands work up under the fabric, fingers tracing the bare skin of her torso and she gets the hint, pulling it over her head, and in the darkness he can almost make out her naked form. Soft and perfect and his. He feels her groping behind her back, her fingers finding the top of his boxers and trying with all her might to pull them down, but the angle doesn’t allow for much leverage, so he grudgingly let’s go of her in order to remove the offending items of clothing.

His groan when their bodies finally meet again is throaty and deep, a hole in his heart that had been there for longer than he cares to remember being filled. Her back arches as he kisses the back of her neck, his one hand finding her breast and rolling her hardened nipple between his fingers. Her arm is again reaching behind her, but this time it’s to wrap around his body, gripping his ass and pulling him impossibly closer, his cock now trapped between her legs and coating in her slick.

He so close to sliding home, so close to make her his again, that it’s a miracle he has the forethought to fumble in the drawer of the nightstand behind him for a condom. He’s lucky to find one quickly, ripping the packet open with his teeth. It’s only a couple moments more and he has it rolled on, her smaller hand finding his cock and guiding him to her entrance. She arches against him as he inches into her, both of them groaning at the feel, the perfection, the way they fit like a puzzle piece.

It’s a dance, the way their bodies move together, the way she meets him thrust for thrust. Her hand on his ass pulling him closer, his one hand on her breast, his other gripping her hip so tight he’s sure he’s leaving bruises.

But he knows she doesn’t care, she’s gripping just as hard and just as desperate. And he knows it’s because they’ve both been drowning in numbness, that just to feel something, even if it’s on the brink of pain, is enough.

Dean feels that she’s close, and he’s right there with her. He moves his hand from her hip and snakes between her legs to find her clit, her body spasming with his gentle touch. He backs off, but her hand grips his wrist to keep his fingers there and grinds down on them. He feels her clench around him and within a couple thrusts he’s tipping over the edge, her orgasm sending him into his own.

They lie still, their breathing heavy, and Dean is sure she’s able to feel his heart pounding against her back. He pulls his shirt from where it landed on the pillow above him and uses it to clean them up, pulling her under his arm once he’s done. Her movements are tentative, but she eventually wraps her arms around him and tucks her head under his chin. His heart stills and he hold his breath, expecting her to move away, but she doesn’t. Her breathing evens out and deepens and he knows she’s fallen asleep.

It’s the most peaceful moment he’s had in his life in a long time, a hunger he didn’t know he had being satiated, and, after kissing the top of her head and hoping beyond hope this is what he’ll wake up to, he follows her into sleep.

When he wakes, before his eyes open, he reaches out, but is only met with cold sheets and an empty bed. Dean’s heart breaks all over again, the memories of last night replaying in his head, the feel of her all around him. He can still smell her on the sheets even. And that hunger hits again with a force, the hunger he constantly feels to be loved, to be touched, to feel anything at all.

But she’s gone, and he’s reminded that they aren’t lovers, only strangers.

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[chroniclesofawkwardness]

Minutes

I’ve seen the musical Rent at least three times. One of the songs, probably Seasons of Love, has a line that asks how years are measured. The answer they came up with is 525,600 minutes. The time constraint got me thinking this Pride month about how many of those I spend on my phone. I remember having so many minutes as part of my cell phone plan, but the unlimited ones didn’t start after 9 P.M. Imagine that. Measuring how you use your phone based on how many minutes you spent talking to someone else rather than how many gigabytes of data you used all by yourself. 

As I write, I’m attempting a digital detox by giving myself only so many minutes to look at my phone each day. I didn’t even take it with me to work yesterday, but I couldn’t shake an anxious feeling I did bring along. It was as if a part of me was missing. You’d have thought I was in mourning. I feel something similar if I’m unlucky enough to forget my watch. I’ll stare down expectantly at the obvious tan lines on my wrist seeking validation that time is indeed passing, but not counting how many of the 525,600 minutes I had left in 2019 and beyond. If I’ve worn my watch but forgotten my phone, the left front pocket of my jeans feels as empty as my wrist without its timepiece. Maybe my soul already was empty. The two questions that consistently emerge are how did I get to this point, and how can I reclaim my minutes instead of just watching them pass?

There are unexpected moments that pique my attention. The first times I heard the phrase: the modern Stone Age family, and the piano outro on In The Meantime by 90s alternative rock outfit Spacehog come to mind. Neither of them made much sense.

In an ode to another of my vices, I recently watched a video in which the author stated that by living for the weekend, your average 22-year-old in the United States has a life expectancy of approximately eleven years if you consider hours spent working a 9-5 job, sleeping, and medical conditions brought on by age that cause one’s quality of life to deteriorate. I’m sure there were even more factors, but if I tell you everything, I’d pretty much rip away the joy of self-discovery.

I wish that my journey toward self-discovery could fill me with the childlike enthusiasm of the athletes of the Special Olympics I saw in action this morning. Not that I wish I had Down’s Syndrome like many of them, but I couldn’t help noticing how those athletes who live with it always seemed to be in IDGAF (I Don’t Give a Fuck) mode. I was envious.

Learning to live with envy isn’t easy without another emotion or activity to balance it out. I won’t go as far as saying I want an extra chromosome or advocating for a specifically-targeted line of 24 and Me DNA tests. Still, I could learn something from the athletes of the Special Olympics. They have every reason to be pissed about the shitty hand life and dealt them on the surface, and the minutes stolen from them due to circumstances beyond their control. If nothing else, watching the athletes compete made me think twice about giving away my minutes so easily to activities designed to take my minutes away. 

A few days ago, I watched part of a video presentation in which the speaker said something simple, yet potentially very powerful depending on how I chose to react to it. He admitted to having heard the phrase somewhere else, but I’ll give him credit for it because I don’t know the source. The simple phrase was: “Create more than you consume.” I started ruminating on those words the moment I heard them, and have yet to continue watching the presentation. Why? It speaks to the struggle I’ve had when it comes to seeking validation. It flies in the face of the notion that the things you own end up owning you. It was the rarest of phrases that I could fundamentally relate to rather than just powering through to the next page, segment, or some other demarcation only to feel an ever-fleeting sense of accomplishment. After I heard this, something clicked. I understood that if I wanted to achieve anything worthwhile, I should stop giving myself away so easily when various opportunities present themselves.

I don’t want to break the rest of my life down into fifteen-minute increments, but I would like to relearn how to stay focused beyond the commercial breaks between major events.

When it comes to creative endeavors in which I engage to repurpose my time, I often think of two things I’ve attributed to Charles Bukowski. I’ll give him credit for saying that he tried to write two hundred shitty words a day and that he’d get letters from strangers who told him that Notes from a Dirty Old Man turned them on. Would I like an occasional letter from a stranger confessing that my writing made a bit more blood flow to their private parts? Sure, why not?

My lost minutes are like the Lost Boys in Peter Pan’s Neverland. Lost Boys had fallen out of their prams, and if they weren’t claimed within seven days, they’d be sent to Neverland, where their captain was the boy who wouldn’t grow up. My lost minutes can’t figure out who their captain is. The top contenders are anger, regret, pornography, irrelevant video clips, swirling thoughts, and superficial conversations. Oh, and the newly discovered (by me at least) assertion by Peter Pan that there were no lost girls. Girls were far too clever to fall out of their prams. Who knows why the author was already putting women on a pedestal before they were strong enough to stand on it. Maybe their baby legs couldn’t support the weight of the expectations they were already feeling.

If I believed that there were no lost girls, I might as well go all the way and start shouting from the hills that a certain shampoo really can bring a woman to orgasm, or that an electric toothbrush does remove 47% more plaque than manuals. Below the gum line even. Won’t somebody think of the goddamn gum line? All I had to do was watch thirty-second ads for each product at least one hundred times (thereby throwing more of my nonrenewable minutes in the trash) before I truly believed the messages they were pushing. After all, what're thirty seconds? Whatever stupid show I was watching or game I was playing would be right back, so why should I care?

If I shouldn’t care, why would I be angry? Because the doctor messed up either during or immediately after my birth? Should I be pissed that he was allowed to go on practicing medicine unimpeded, yet his mistake condemned me to a life of not exactly wanting to identify as a person with a disability, but also not wanting to milk my disability for unreasonable accommodation or financial gain? I have to laugh when I see those ads from lawyers trying to drum up clients on TV:

Was your child born with Cerebral Palsy?

Did you or a loved one serve in the Navy or work in a shipyard thereby risking exposure to asbestos?

Are you sick of no one letting you and your wheelbarrow ride the elevator in privacy due to your severe Orchitis?

What’s the point of surrendering my minutes to an emotion rooted deeply in my past when I have to live in the present? My clock has never stopped running from the moment I was born?

Long summer days remind me of the brief period that I felt close to my dad. I was fourteen going on fifteen in the summer of 1996. That’s when I began working on the service project requirement to attain the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America (fuck yeah). My project was to repaint the bleaches at Spartan Municipal Stadium, which almost every Scioto County schoolkid knows was the site of the first night game in the history of the National Football League.

Dad would wake my ass up at 6:30 A.M., and we’d go to the New Boston Wal-Mart to buy paint, trays, and rollers. In small glory-days-are-gone areas like Scioto County, Ohio, Wal-Mart(’s) had become the place to see and be seen. You could find almost everything American consumerist culture said you needed, and catch up with friends from school, church, or around the corner all under one roof. 

If you were having a bad day, pushing your cart past the checkout aisles only pretending to look for the shortest line could make you feel better about yourself almost immediately. You were bound to see people of all shapes and sizes in various states of undress. It was an honest-to-God spectator sport, worthy of competing against the very Spartans whose stadium we were painting. The only real difference (other than the circumference of their waists) between those Spartans and the modern incarnation being that those modern warriors were people who’d largely given up on life, but still needed to sustain themselves before thinking of a way, creative or otherwise, to check out permanently. The fact that even this microcosm of modern life in my hometown was deserted when dad and I came in search of supplies should say something. The prevailing sentiment was that trips to cookie-cutter chain stores like Wally World were all small towns like mine had to look forward to.  

As if attaining the rank of Eagle Scout would be my ticket out of that hilly hell hole. When’s the last time you heard someplace described by three straight words beginning with h? Supposedly, only two percent of the boys who join the scouts ever make it to the rank of Eagle. As if I too would grow up to be a United States senator, like John Glenn, or have a generation of kids grow up believing that the answers to life’s biggest questions could be found in my movies, like Steven Spielberg.

I may have believed some of the stories I heard about what other Eagle Scouts had done with their lives since reaching the top of the scouting mountain, but I wanted to get in and out of Wal-Mart on those summer mornings before people who were easy subjects for my dry, often callous sense of humor showed up. The biggest reason I loved pointing out the differences between us was that deep down, I knew there weren’t any. 

If dad and I were lucky, we’d make it to the stadium before the heat of the season sucked up the breeze so typical of its early mornings, and left behind temperatures that only seemed to move in one direction. We hardly even talked. We just painted. A father and son who had both suffered loss at an early age, yet not dwelling on anything for once in their lives, just focusing on the task at hand. Not even a traveling band from Cleveland could interrupt us. We’d been instructed not to let anyone who wasn’t helping with the project inside the stadium gates. I’ll remember that summer painting with my dad for the rest of my life. Why should I still be angry at him for not being like the dads I saw on TV? Why should I regret that not a word has passed between us in almost five years? That summer was better than nothing. It gave me more time than a lot of boys got to spend with their dads, however unavailable they may have been. How many minutes have passed between now and then? How many have those have I already lost to useless anger and regret?

Porn’s been a hell of a time thief too. But is it guilty of stealing my time if I was a willing participant? In Q, I wrote at greater length about my addiction and struggling to overcome it than I will here. For now, I’m mainly concerned about the theft of time. I began my meteoric descent into the pornscape at about the same time as my rise through the ranks of scouting. If John and Steven could have only seen what was just the beginning of my life out of uniform. What started as a curiosity ballooned into a serious problem because, for years for the average 22-year-old living for the weekend, I didn’t ownership of the why behind it. I thought watching short spurts (which reflected more on me than them) of acrobatics executed by male and female performers with both surgical enhancements and natural gifts could permanently take the place of genuine intimacy forged with a real partner.

What started as a weekend thing with the sound off and the blinds closed became more and more of a wide-open, sound-no-higher-than-twelve (I had to show some restraint for Christ’s sake), IDGAF, who-would-notice-me-anyway thing. I can’t tell you how many hours I wasted on porn rather than creating or consuming something of real value to the person I could become. Porn was a nasty reminder of what they always say about potential: It just means you haven’t done it yet. I knew that those who acted in and sent it out into the world didn’t give a damn about me, but the real tragedy was that I didn’t give a damn about myself. I often wonder who I’d be, and what I would have accomplished by now if I’d stopped my recidivistic porn use a long time ago, but that’s in the past, and time waits for no man as it marches on. I have a much better idea now of who I was and who I want to be.

At least that’s what I tell myself until a clip of a video I watched one Monday morning, or Wednesday night (what’s the difference) flashes through my dreams. I don’t care as much about the actresses’ measurements or what she was doing in the clip as much as I do being able to see her face, but having no idea what her name is. You’re nobody if nobody’s watching. 

The intellectual part of me takes over. I become obsessed with finding her name, or at least what she calls herself in front of the camera. Intellectual curiosity, or so I say, leads me back down a rabbit hole I’d fought for so long to climb out of. Urges win the minutes. My streak ends quickly and has to start all over again, way back at zero.

At least I found out her name’s Britney. With one t and an e.

If I ever woke up feeling less hardcore, or less like dwelling on some perceived slight from my past, no matter how recent or distant, I’d tap the thumbnail of a popular site for posting video clips that came pre-installed on my phone. If it was already there before I even bought the damn thing, that means it was supposed to be, and I was supposed to use it. Besides, its a library of largely short clips that only take five, seven or ten minutes to watch. I need this information if I’m going to be able to seamlessly work references from an episode of an animated show that originally aired twenty-five years ago into current conversation. I need to be able to quickly recall the hardest college football hits of all time if I’m going to have a shot at being accepted during Monday morning water cooler talk with no one in particular during the season. I need to know why women reject men or the benefits of making a schedule and sticking to it. It’s okay. Britney doesn’t even have to know. 

They’re just minutes. I’m still young. My hair hasn’t even started to go gray. There’s still time. There will always be. Time’s my friend. Blah Blah Blah.

At the end of the day, all of my excuses were lies. Whether they stemmed from negative emotions like anger or regret, or destructive behaviors like watching porn or too many other, non-explicit videos. It didn’t matter. It still doesn’t. I spent too long avoiding resistance. I’d talk about putting in the work, but at the core of my being, I wasn’t into it. I’d have much rather had someone tell me what to do with my minutes instead of holding myself accountable for how I chose to use them. I was the greatest thief of my own creative space, not a video clip, or a performer with fake tits or a nine-inch cock. 

Me. 

I can’t get the lost minutes back, but I can turn my back on Neverland, and ask myself “What if I could,” instead of saying, “This is why I can’t.”

525,600 minutes? How about the rest of a lifetime? Not given away, but carefully measured. One second at a time. I’ll take that any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

[norihisahyuga-archived]

✤ + taihiiro

who said i love you first? taiga says it first because hiiro is the emotionally constipated one and also the one who takes the longest to get around to admitting he actually likes someone instead of merely tolerating their presence. taiga has been a little soft around the edges for hiiro ever since hiiro saved him anyway, and hiiro has been taking careful care of him ever since. so one night when hiiro comes to sit at his beside to keep him company, taiga takes him by the hand and says it. hiiro is so thrown because he never would have imagined that taiga would ever say those words to him, but he’s so grateful for them.

who laughs when the other trips? taiga laughs at hiiro. always. hiiro carries himself all cool and composed and when he trips and stumbles in those rare moments, taiga laughs at him. it’s more of a snort or a chuckle, something quiet and almost not detectable, but hiiro always hears it and he always throws taiga a look even though he doesn’t mind it half as much as he pretends to.

who pays the bills? taiga is loaded, this much we already know, and he’s able to keep the equipment in his hospital up and running without seemingly any problems. but hiiro pays the bills at their apartment because he wants to, because it’s something domestic and it gives him a sense of purpose. and he likes taking away things for taiga to worry about.

which one makes a bigger deal around the holidays? hiiro does. taiga doesn’t pay attention much to holidays because his purpose has been hunting down and defeating the bugsters, so he doesn’t care so much about anyone or anything else. so hiiro makes the plans for the holidays, he invites his father over, he invites taiga’s parents over, he makes sure to invite nico over. hiiro is good enough in the kitchen that taiga just has to assist him in preparing food. and taiga will never admit it but he appreciates that hiiro goes the extra mile to make him feel important.

who’s more clumsy? hiiro is. it comes with the territory of being so rigid and controlled most of the time that when he loses it, he loses it big time. he’ll knock things over at home, he’ll trip over his own feet, he’ll slide on the kitchen tiles. taiga always gets a little laugh out of it, just seeing hiiro actually act like a person for a change, and he wishes emu could see this.

who checks their daily horoscope? neither of them do this because neither of them buy into it very much, but nico reads hers and so she got taiga into doing it as well. he’ll check his if he happens to glance at it in the paper and he always asks hiiro if he wants to hear his. hiiro says no, and taiga proceeds to read it to him anyway.

who sings louder in the car? taiga, to the surprise of everyone who has ever had to ride in a car with him but especially when he’s in a good mood. they’ll be on the way to work in the morning and a song he likes comes on the radio, so he cranks it up and sings along as loud as he can. hiiro just looks at him with this half-smile on his face

who leaves the cap off the toothbrush? taiga does, god, he’s so bad for this and hiiro gets onto him about it all the time. taiga doesn’t listen, though, why would he ever? so hiiro just keeps getting onto him about it and finally he shoves taiga over at the bathroom counter and says if they have to do it at all they’re doing it together so he can cap the toothpaste. they argue the entire time but it satisfies hiiro so taiga finally lets it go.

who is more up to date in pop culture? neither of them are even close to staying updated, which nico makes fun of them both for when she comes to see them/eat their food/make use of the “guest room” which is really just her bedroom. neither of them really even try at this point, they just go with the flow and do what they want to, and it’s not like either of them needs to keep up anyway. neither of them is interested in anything like that.

who insists on going to see the newest movies? hiiro likes to go see movies because it’s an easy way to do date night and so he drags taiga with him to the cinema at least once a week to watch something. taiga bitches about having to dress somewhat nice but he likes the fact hiiro will lean his head on his shoulder because he likes to be close to him.

who cries when the abused animal commercials come on? neither of them cry but hiiro is uncomfortable enough that taiga is smart enough to change the channel for the duration of the commercial and won’t turn it back until he’s certain the commercial is over. eventually hiiro presses him into adopting a puppy from a shelter and taiga just gives in without a fight. it’s worth it. hiiro is pretty cute with a puppy in his arms.

who’s the lighter sleeper? taiga is of course, he’s used to getting little to no sleep and anything can disturb him, which is something hiiro finds out only after they move in together. hiiro has nightmares and taiga is always awake to comfort him from then, which is something he doesn’t quite understand until taiga tells him that hiiro’s whimpering always wakes him up.

who believes in ghosts? taiga does of course because taiga is afraid of them and that means he believes that they are real. hiiro is amused at first because he can’t really believe that taiga is afraid of them but nico drags them through a haunted house with her and he sees for himself just how bad it is. that means no ghost movies because taiga absolutely cannot take it.

who does the grocery shopping? the two of them do it together to ensure both of them are happy with what is brought into the house and that they both feel like they have what they need. they cook more or less together with hiiro doing the prep and taiga assisting so both of them being there is essential to everything else.

who updates their facebook status more often? neither of them use facebook okay. they have accounts and they never post on them. nico will occasionally hijack taiga’s account to post cute pictures of him and hiiro having fallen asleep on each other on the couch but that’s as close as you’re going to get to actual contact with them.

[belledamsceno]

Kiss Me

Prompt: After being rescued from the hands of Hydra by the Winter Soldier, deep down you only had one more wish

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Warnings: None that I know of... *If you do feel triggered by something, let me know so I can add here and warn other readers!

Word Count: 1,144

Author’s Note: Loosely based on a true story   As always, if you see any words that could/should be replaced or sentences that could be better put together please feel free to point it out! English is not my first language and this will help me improve ;)

My Masterlist

You found yourself in your room, more specifically, the guest room that had been given to you. A guest room in the Avengers Compound

Without thinking it twice you went straight to the bathroom so to take a hot shower. No only to clean the dirt that you felt on your whole body after weeks of being on the run, but also to wash off the memories of being kept captive

You had nothing with you, no clothes, no belongings, not even towels. You needed to find Bucky.

Looking at the ground so as not to have eye contact with the other heroes passing by you searched for his bedroom in a hallway that seemed longer after each step, they tried to talk to you but you pretended to be oblivious, you had already been introduced to them, but you didn't feel comfortable around these still strangers. Bucky was the one you truly knew, the one who rescued you, and the one who kept you safe until a huge quinjet appeared in the sky.

He was in front of you, handing you what you needed; one of his t-shirts, one of his towels, and his toothbrush. Then stopping to caress your face with his hand in a way he had never done before, prompting you to look into his eyes, your whole body warming up with a cozy feeling

There was something unique about brushing your teeth with his toothbrush. Something so personal and intimate that brought thoughts to your head that weren't there before. Or at least you had never paid attention to them

Feeling slightly embarrassed you put on a shirt and your denim shorts, coming out of the bedroom to find him standing solo at the living room

For some reason, you knew he was waiting for you. As you approached he turned to look at you, smiling when you were only inches away. You didn't know why you had come so close, but he seemed please with it. Reaching for your hand he took back his toothbrush from your grip, making your face blush with the possibility of him thinking the same you did when you used it

His other hand held your cheek and you were forced to look at him. Eyes locked on each other, and for that moment you couldn't see anything else. You could only smell him, see him and feel his touch on you. He looked down at your lips and started to bring his face closer.

You closed your eyes in anticipation and when your mouths met the butterflies in your stomach couldn't be contained. You held his arms and felt the tip of his tongue on your bottom lip, but as you were about to give him entrance the sound of steps near by made you wake up from this trance and quickly step away

You were both heavily breathing and you could only listen to the sound of your rapid heartbeat. His look was slightly concerned and you felt like you needed to explain yourself before he could interpret this the wrong way

"Bucky, I want this... But not here. I don't feel... comfortable around them..."

Bucky's face changed to a side smile, making your whole body relax and instantly get excited when he gave you a little nod pointing outside

The garden was huge. The grass cold on your feet as you both walked side by side. You wanted to stop and get back to what you were doing before, but Bucky seemed to have a goal in mind, he wasn't walking fast, but still it looked as if he had somewhere to get to

He took your hand in his again and started to show you around the museum  "This is one of my favorite places to come... I would love to bring you here during working hours someday..."

There was something mystical about being in an empty museum during the night. The whole place only for you two, no sound to be heard beside your footsteps

Smiling down at you, Bucky pulled you towards a little wooden door and now you found yourselves in what could only be a ballroom. A pile of chairs in the corner and huge windows covering the walls on both sides letting the moonlight illuminate the place. You felt like you have already been there, but you didn't know when

"Can I have this dance?"

Somewhere, somehow, a beautiful tune started to play and you placed you other hand on Bucky's neck, you both swaying in sync to that unknown song. Bucky's head started to come closer to yours and as you were closing your eyes you felt a cold feeling in you spine "they're here!"

For a second Bucky seemed confused, but soon he made sense of your words and you both started to run. You looked back to confirm your suspicions and there they were, three hydra agents wearing those masks that had been part of your in real life nightmare

You ran and ran, until you reached the beach. Suddenly you couldn't feel their presence anymore and Bucky's finger interlaced yours as you walked trough the shore.

His thumb was brushing the back of your hand and you let yourself rest your head in his arm, closing your eyes and just felling his scent while you listened to the calming sound of waves breaking. You felt safe with him, you felt at home, and you wanted this moment to last forever

Bucky slowed his passed, getting your attention back. It only took you looking into his eyes for your heartbeat to raise again. You both came to a stop and he positioned himself in front of you, his hand brushing your hair away from your face. The hand that was holding yours started to slowly brush up your arm and suddenly the rest of the world disappeared, it seemed like there was only you and him. His hair, his eyes, his mouth... you couldn't stop staring at his lips, craving to have them once again pressed into yours and wanting what you didn't have the last time

You felt the cold of his metal hand tingling the back of your neck, pulling you closer, and when you looked up the sun almost blinded you, making so you could only see Bucky's silhouette.

Slowly you opened your eyes, a single beam of sunlight coming from the window of your bedroom on the compound straight into your face.

The short moment of confusion was followed by an anger that filled your whole body. Your breath got heavier as you punched your bed and forcibly closed your eyes again, trying to come back

But it didn't work, it would never work... you would never come back. That kiss was forever lost in the depths of your subconscious, because it was all just a dream.

My Masterlist

Feel free to request a new prompt

@aenna-4 @crownie-sr @winterboobaer 

My role-models @bovaria @austinamelio @officialcaptain-marvel @mattymattymerduck @bionic-buckyb @just-call-me-mrs-captain @redwriteblue

[loadings-stuff]

Unlucky Heart pt.1

So… A new story begins (I haven’t forgotten about Divine Addiction, don’t worry, just… Life happened and I had to delay it for now) I read a challenge on the amino app of Miraculous and… I really got interested in it, I suppose it’s a mermaid au, but this is how this story begun.

Master Fu tells Adrien that the only way to bring her mother back is to take off the heart of a mermaid and make a wish.

So with that idea, I was already thinking in so many possibilities! And then it came the part that totally sold me out

The part of the heart didn’t mean that he had to make her fall in love with her, no… It literally means to take her heart out! So… Yes, it won’t have a happily ever after ending, sorry… (Not sorry XD)

Pt 2, Pt 3, Pt 4

“You must steal the heart of a mermaid and make a wish if you want that what’s in your heart to come true... You can’t hesitate, Adrien, if you do, there will be serious consequences…”

With those words I woke up from my sleep, just a day have passed since I heard them and now I’m dreaming of them...

Great..

I walked out of my tent feeling heavy, sleeping out on the nature wasn’t bad, I’ll admit it, after all, I get to clear my head on my own with no distractions of any kind. The only times I woke up like this was when I went on training camps with Master Fu….

I stretched out, hearing my back popping and relaxing my entire body, I grabbed the small bag I brought to clean myself and headed to the river that was a kilometer away from my tent, remembering what my dream was about.

“A mermaid?! This is serious, master!! I’ve been training with you for the past four years so you could tell me the secrets to protect others! To not rub my bad luck on them!” a few hours ago I received an alarming call from my father, telling me my agonizing to death mother went critical since last night, that no one could do something for her, not even my father with all his money and resources could do something for her… gripping my blonde hair with the desire of rip it off in frustration I looked at my master in front of me “now my mom’s getting worse by the minute thanks to my bad luck and the only thing you can say is that I need the heart of a living mermaid?! What kind of joke is this?! Those things don’t even exist!”

Master Fu, a grown man in his late 190’s, but that looks of 50 or 60 was as passive as always, his posture straight and was holding a cane behind his back with both of his hands, looking at me with those same eyes that said he wasn’t joking. “I wonder if you yourself believe your own lies Adrien…or could it be that you really don’t remember it at all..?”

My hand went straight to my chest, touching over my clothes the spot where a scar in the shape of a cherry blossom flower carved and marked my skin 15 years ago… I looked away from my master, feeling the shape of the petals beneath my fingers “or maybe you don’t want to remember it...”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about master…” I denied it with all my might, I don’t want to remember it…I want it to stay the way it has until now…as just a dream…

After washing my body in the river together with my teeth, I put on my clothes that were hanging on a tree close to the river, as I put my black large shirt on, I grazed my fingers over the flower, as I get close to my destination I’ve felt the scar pulsing and even sting me…just over my heart, quite accurate to the task I’m doing…

I put on the rest of my clothes with a sigh and walked back to my tent, is just the dawn…but I have to start moving if I want to get there before it gets dark.

Putting my clothes in a backpack with my tent and all, I grabbed a bunch of berries and ate them as I started making my way again to my final destination… the beach house of the Agreste family and approximately half day from there on the shore…the last place where I saw an alive and real mermaid…

“Plagg, can you sense it?” I asked the kwami floating to my side as we walked through the shore, not a single soul around or any kind of civilization besides the Agreste mansion in more than 2 miles, luckily our resources were enough to last for another three days but it was almost the sunset now, if we didn’t have the sunlight to guide us, I was going to have to use my backup plan.

“Barely… Adrien, are you sure this is what you want to do?” it’s the first time after meeting Plagg 15 years ago that he’s been the quietest, I was sure he was going to be complaining during the whole journey since we started it but it was the opposite, he stayed quiet most of the time and also listened to everything I had to say.

“You heard Master Fu, this is our only option, and she’s my only option…. I can’t just choose some random mermaid...”

“The girl on your mind…is the only one that’s capable of saving your mother, the only heart powerful enough… your wish can save her life, save her from the dark destiny she’s bounded to suffer….” Master Fu told me while Plagg placed once of his paws over my hand on my chest, trying to ease the pain that was rising from the depth of my heart.

Because of me…

“What… What should I do...?” I asked before I could think about it, my mother needs me, my family needs me now… I can help her for the first time, help her and not cause pain....

“Look for the mermaid that put that mark on your chest…”

“Should I bring her to you…?”

“Yes… but if on your way you find it hard to bring her to me… you can do your wish no matter where you are with the condition that the heart is still beating once you take it off if it stops beating...you should face the consequences, your mother will face the destiny she’s meant to have…” Master Fu's expression was restless, he knows this isn’t the easiest task to ask and to ask me to do it is even harder….

Without a second thought, I packed the essentials in a large backpack, a tent, toothbrush, towel; clothes for at least a week of travel, a large and dented knife wrapped in a thick cloth and food enough for me and Plagg to eat during the trip. When I went back to the garden, I saw Master Fu in the eyes and asked the last thing about my task….

“Why her….?”

“Because where you’re the night, she’s the day, where you are anger, she’s love.. Where you’re bad luck... She’s good luck…. where you’re Yin... She’s Yang…”

“I really hate when you speak like that, why can’t you speak clear this time that I need clarity? I’m always up to hear riddles and puzzles master but I’d really appreciate if-“

“Where you got Plagg, she’s got Tikki…”

Tikki? The name of the Ladybug’s kwami, the opposite of Plagg, the one that should be my partner…

“The miraculous of luck…my partner…my opposite…” I frowned looking in disbelief at my master “you told me it got lost…long ago…that you couldn’t give it to me”

“A child that since born was meant to hold the miraculous of bad luck wasn’t going to be able to resist the amount of power that the miraculous of good luck has…only someone with the heart as pure as the miraculous itself can use it and keep it…”

“What do you mean with that? If I’d tried to be the holder of that miraculous…”

“You’d have died just in the attempt Adrien….”

“Died, uh…?” he said it so casual and with that serious expression of his, but what Master Fu probably doesn’t know is that I’ve died already… probably more than once… “So she’s the one with a heart so pure that can make her deserve to be the holder of my opposite…to be my partner….”

“What are you thinking Adrien…?” Plagg looked worried as I felt the first cold wind of the chilly night cursing through my entire body, I'm already tired and it's getting darker by the second…

I need to find her today, I can’t lose another night, I can’t afford it, not anymore….

“I’m thinking that we need to be able to see in the dark… to be able to sense her kwami…” I stopped and let my backpack fall in the sand before looking at Plagg “we need to be ready…in case she tries to resist...”

Plagg looked at me troubled, he hates the idea of us getting ready for her not cooperating, but he knows we have no choice, after all, Master Fu said it, where that girl is the day and good luck…

I’m the night and the cat of the bad luck….

“Plagg… claws out…” making a fist with my hand, Plagg went into the ring, our usual transformation began, we fusion into one and he gave me my powers, the first years my transformation was all flashy and was meant to look as a superhero, after going to Master Fu to train four years ago it changed, just as my job and my life did…

A mask covered my mouth and nose now, not my eyes, at will it could cover my whole face, making it useful for when I needed to use the night vision, pointy ears were still in its place but they were now also sticking out of a large hoodie that could cover my eyes if I had to pass unsuspicious at any job, I’d look like a simple guy in a weird hat passing by, my belt was still my tail but now I could tie it around my body, I learned to tie stuff to it too, the thing that changed the most was my weapon, the staff disappeared and instead a pair of large and stylized Tekko-Kagi appeared attached to my wrists that I was able to retract in case my job needed me to do it, in exchange, my abilities in jumping, escalating and running increased even more with the training I had with Master Fu, my leather catsuit became more rough in design, more normal looking for civilians, but also it was way more impenetrable than before.

“Feels just like home…why didn’t I transform earlier…?” I mumbled to myself with my mask on, with my hoodie still on, I picked up my backpack from the ground and kept walking.

Plagg was right, I can barely sense her… she’s getting away…how can I make her come close to the shore?

A sudden memory popped up in my mind, I can’t keep walking around in circles when I know she must be deep in the ocean…she’s somewhere around, hiding from humans….

I need her song…

I walked as close as I could to the shore, my knee length boots almost touching the water of the ocean. I closed my eyes and sighed, just five more minutes until the sunset passes. I walked into the water, not stopping until the water reached my hips, the cold water didn’t bother me at all thanks to Plagg...

‘Plagg…can you help me with the mask a little…?’

Plagg didn’t answer as usual on my mind; instead, he let my mask fall from my face, I caught it just before it fell into the ocean.

I looked forward, where the ocean turned deeper, I closed my eyes and tried to remember the lullaby I first used when I was little…the lullaby or more like… the weird and full of pain words that I as a lonely kid hummed to myself that made her risk her existence just to meet me…

‘A boy who seeks the soft touch of love…

‘Looks for someone to give that love to…

‘In search of that girl…

‘Whom my bad luck can clear…

15 years ago I sang and mumbled those words to myself close to the shore… my dad moments before almost drowned when we were playing together thanks to my bad luck, after that, I ran away as far as I could… but being only 6 at that time didn’t take me far, crying and desperate I started mumbling and saying dumb stuff to myself, hoping that like in a fairy tale, a fairy, a princess would hear me and come to save me from my living nightmare…

But I never expected something like her to ever appear…

Thanks to Plagg I felt a kwami getting closer to me; I put my mask on again covering my nose and mouth immediately as I saw a shadow under the sea getting closer at full speed.

Once the shadow was right in front of me I felt the scar on my chest pulsing and burning in the same way when it was done, I looked down as the thing that made the shadow in front of me emerged from the water, black bluish wet hair that reached just under her shoulders was the first thing that came out, her face now larger after 15 years, bluebell eyes that haunted my dreams occasionally watched me curious but with her guard up, her lips rosy were just as I remembered, her hands were nowhere to be seen, probably were helping her to stay on the surface, she stared cautious and curious at my clothes, once she stopped checking me out and reached my eyes, we stared at each other without saying a word for a minute, she was the first of us to break the silence.

“A-Adrien…?” her voice was soft, melodious and even more alluring than when we were kids.

But it wasn’t going to fool me, not this time.

Not after I’ve trained myself to keep calm and cold in front of an enemy for 4 years…

The last ray of light coming from the sunset shone between us for a second before everything around us turned into darkness, blue and green shining in the darkness as we stared at each other.

“Finally, I found you…mermaid…”

Ok! First Chapter! I have the rest already written, I’m just adding stuff and editing them, besides that... I think they’ll be posted during the course of the day, right now I’m tired and I need some sleep ^^

Let me know what you think of it, I’d really like to know what people thought of it or if someone liked it ^^

[littleshopofreaders]

What inspired you to write your first book?

My first book was a collection of erotic short stories with various supernatural and fantasy themes, and I was inspired to write them after a friend gave me a Black Lace collection and I realized “WOW! You are allowed to write this sort of naughty stuff!”

The first book of this trilogy, Cover Him With Darkness, started life as a short story that appeared in Mitzi Szereto’s collection Red Velvet and Absinthe, and the publisher at Cleis loved it so much that she asked me to write what happened next.

Do you have a specific writing style?

Madeline Moore called me “hardcore and literate.” I love that!

How did you come up with the title of your current book?

“In Bonds of the Earth” is a quote from The Book of Enoch, which is an apocryphal BC text not included in most Bibles, but which is all about fallen angels: “And from henceforth you shall not ascend into heaven into all eternity, and in bonds of the earth the decree has gone forth, to bind you for all the days of the world.”

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

Right and wrong is not about following any set of laws, it’s founded on empathy.

How much of the book is realistic?

It’s a contemporary paranormal about fallen angels, but I put a LOT of effort into making the settings and details accurate. A big chunk is set in Ethiopia for example – so I went to Ethiopia for 20 days. The description of the rock-hewn churches is bang-on accurate…right up to the end of Chapter 9.

Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

My real life is not that eventful, believe me!

What books have most influenced your life most?

“The Lord of the Rings.” I’m a geek; I started playing Dungeons and Dragons when I was thirteen. I think everything else has come out of that.

If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

Angela Carter influenced my writing style and themes from the start.

What book are you reading now?

“The Tiger and the Wolf” by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It’s an excellent fantasy with a really unusual setting.

Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?

Samantha McLeod and Sonni de Soto.

What are your current projects?

I’m writing the sequel to In Bonds of the Earth, and the final part of that trilogy: The Prison of the Angels.

Name one entity that you feel supported you outside of family members.

I’ve found the erotica writing community (which is mostly female btw) incredibly supportive, intelligent, and friendly.

Do you see writing as a career?

No – I see it as a vocation, and as my purpose in life.

If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

I wish I’d made it clear that all fallen angels are left-handed. Too late now, lol.

Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?

I always wanted to write, I think.

Can you share a little of your current work in progress with us?

Egan came up behind me without a word and slipped his arms round my waist, kissing the top of my head, breathing the scent of my hair. Goddamnit; to cut him some slack, I’m fairly sure he didn’t know the effect that had on me– my insides were doing that flip-flop thing that hurt so good. “We need to talk,” he murmured. I knew it! Here it comes. Mr. Rationality. Mr. Consequences. My stomach tightened up like a knotted fist. They were so different, my two loves. Azazel was a creature of appetite and the moment, living for his desires—but Egan lived in the battlemented ivory tower of overthinking, fending off the armies of his libido. Only when he was undermined by illness or exhaustion or drink did he ever fall into recklessness. And me? I was much more like Azazel. I went with my gut instinct. None of this would have happened if that hadn’t been the case.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

After 15+ years of writing erotica, the most challenging thing is writing orgasms without just repeating myself!

Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?

I have many favorite authors, all wildly different, but the one thing they all have in common is that they have their own creative vision and they don’t compromise it or write to a market formula.

Do you have to travel much concerning your book(s)?

I LOVE travelling, and use the places I’ve been to all over the world as settings or inspiration for many of my stories and novels – even ones set in imaginary worlds.

Who designed the covers?

The cover of In Bonds of the Earth is by Deranged Doctor Design and I’m delighted with it! The publisher and I put a LOT of discussion into getting something we’d be proud of. In fact, input into cover design was my first stipulation in my contract!

What was the hardest part of writing your book?

Writing the main antagonist/villain, in a way that makes it clear they’re awful, yet understandable.

Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?

Every time you think you know your characters, they suddenly reveal another layer of complexity.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

If you have an uncomfortable truth to tell about your protagonist, put it in the mouth of an antagonist.

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?

Read critically. Don’t assume that everything a protagonist says is correct, or is projecting the author’s own opinion. We sometimes write characters that we think are getting it badly wrong.

What were the challenges (research, literary, psychological, and logistical) in bringing it to life?

I was brought up in a Christian (born-again Protestant) family but I’ve had to do a lot of research for this trilogy into other Christian theologies – Catholicism and Serbian Orthodoxy in particular, since my two main human characters belong to those traditions. There are surprising and significant differences that affect how they see the world.

Rapid Fire

Coffee – Tea: BOTH, IN STRICT TURN Boxer – Briefs: BRIEFS Jeans – Sweats: JEANS Silk – Cotton: COTTON iPhone-Galaxy: I DON’T OWN A SMARTPHONE! Rightie – Leftie : LEFTIE Soda-Water: TONIC Cake-Pie: CAKE Rock n roll – Country: ROCK Mountains – Beach: MOUNTAINS Cat -Dog: DOG

Favorite Movie: A Muppet Christmas Carol Favorite TV Show: Game of Thrones Favorite Car: Anything that can fit two greyhounds in the back Favorite Color: Midnight blue Favorite Male Film Star: Tom Hardy Favorite Female Film Star: Eva Green Favorite Fast Food: Chinese Favorite Cocktail: Mojito Favorite Musical Band: Rammstein Favorite Singer: Freddie Stevenson Favorite Song: “Solsbury Hill” by Peter Gabriel

Excerpt from In Bonds of the Earth:

Wrapping the cheap cotton throw from the foot of the bed around my bare body, I padded through to the doorway. The Archangel Michael stood in the middle of my small apartment, looking about him at the book shelves and the pictures. A paperback copy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo slipped from his hand back onto the low table. “Hello, Milja. Nice place. Has he moved his toothbrush in yet?” It was like waking to find a giant bird of prey in my tiny living room; he looked wildly unsuited to a domestic setting and way too big for it, even with wings furled. In fact, with that Roman nose and those unblinking amber eyes, there was something distinctly golden eagle-like about him. If he stretched out he could knock over walls, I thought. “What do you think you’re doing?” I asked. “This is my home. You can’t just come barging in!” “You’re right,” he said, looking startled. “I have to have your permission. No, hold on, wait…that’s vampires. Shame.” I pursed my lips. “Well, God certainly did not hold back on the sarcasm when he made you guys.” He smirked. If you’re that good-looking, even a less-than-warm smile can be a weapon of devastating charm. Turning to the couch, he sat down with arms draped over the back and knees spread. It was not so much an invitation as a claiming of territory. “What do you want?” I kept my voice hard, even as I thought of the icon of Saint Michael that had stood guard over the key in my father’s church. That holy painting had always made me feel nervous as a child, and he was no less intimidating in the flesh. His piercing gaze rested lightly upon me, with all the gentleness of a sword-point. “Nothing.” His rigger boots were caked in dried mud, I noticed, and flaking on my rug. I wished he would blink. It still creeped me out, even though Azazel should have inured me to it. “Angels aren’t supposed to lie. What are you doing here?” “Waiting.” “So, what…you’re sitting guard over me until Azazel comes back? Is that your plan?” “He’s too much of a coward to face me. Runs every time.” “If that’s the way you want to call it.” He looked at the kitchen door. “I see you have a kettle. You got any tea? I like that Earl Grey stuff. Tastes like flowers.” “I know the rules, you know. You can’t actually do anything to me.” “True enough. And I’m not stopping you leaving, if that’s worrying you.” “I can move out. Get a new place.” “That’s fine, I’ll find you. This apartment’s a bit small for the two of us, to be honest.” I clenched my jaw, weighing my options. “Okay,” I said, and dropped my wrap to reveal my naked body, in all its post-coital salty glow. That wiped the smile off his lips. “Don’t play those games,” he growled, sitting up and looking away from me. Love is Azazel’s weak spot. Shame is theirs. They’re terrified of their own human flesh. “What? Does this make you uncomfortable? That’s a pity, seeing as how it’s my house and I like to walk around it naked.” “You are shameless.” His gaze was sliding all over the place, not daring to settle on me. “I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.” I hefted my breasts and jiggled them. “They’re my tits. In my apartment. If you don’t want to see, clear out.” “Put your robe back on,” he rasped. “Oops,” I said. “Did I drop it?” Turning my back to him, I spread my feet and, straight-legged, bent over to pick the fabric up again. Nice and slow… He moved so fast he’d launched me across the room and onto my bed before I even realized he was out of his seat. The abused mattress twanged in alarm. It knocked the wind out of me—and more than that, shocked me half to death. I wasn’t in the least bit hurt, not even bruised, but I hadn’t expected him to touch me at all, under the rules. Maybe the Boatman sailed closer to the wind than I’d bargained for. “Don’t do that, whore!” he barked, leaning into my face. He looked furious. I knew why. It takes a human decades to learn how to deal with all the things that come with an adult body—all those hormones and instincts—without losing control. Angels never had the advantage of a gradual introduction. I had two choices: surrender or fight. I bared my teeth and snarled right back at him, matching his rage and contempt. “Or what? You’re going to rape me? ’Cause I think that might just count as a fall from Grace, don’t you? And then you’d be royally fucked, Mister Michael.” He recoiled, drawing himself up in undisguised horror. I took advantage of the gap between us to roll over and pull the drawer of my bedside cabinet open, pulling out the silicon rabbit sex toy I’d been given at my graduation party. I hadn’t used it in months, I couldn’t even remember if there were any batteries in it, and I certainly wasn’t feeling horny, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. “Wanna watch?” I asked, spreading my legs wide. “Because that’s what us girls do when we’re home alone these modern days. You can go into the other room if it squicks you out to see. Then you’ll only have to listen to the noises I make.” He turned on his heel and stomped away, slamming his hands into the doorframe hard enough to crack the wood. But he didn’t leave altogether. He was just that bit too stubborn.

Blurb:

“I will free them all.” When Milja Petak released the fallen angel Azazel from five thousand years of imprisonment, she did it out of love and pity. She found herself in a passionate sexual relationship beyond her imagining and control – the beloved plaything of a dark and furious demon who takes what he wants, when he wants, and submits to no restraint. But what she hasn’t bargained on is being drawn into his plan to free all his incarcerated brothers and wage a war against the Powers of Heaven. As Azazel drags Milja across the globe in search of his fellow rebel angels, Milja fights to hold her own in a situation where every decision has dire consequences. Pursued by the loyal Archangels, she is forced to make alliances with those she cannot trust: the mysterious Roshana Veisi, who has designs of her own upon Azazel; and Egan Kansky, special forces agent of the Vatican – the man who once saved then betrayed her, who loves her, and who will do anything he can to imprison Azazel for all eternity. Torn every way by love, by conflicting loyalties and by her own passions, Milja finds that she too is changing – and that she must do things she could not previously have dreamt of in order to save those who matter to her. In Bonds of the Earth is the second in the Book of the Watchers trilogy and the sequel to Cover Him With Darkness.

Buy links:

Ebook: Amazon: http://hyperurl.co/cu1pe0 Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/in-bonds-of-the-earth/id1201654085?mt=11 Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/in-bonds-of-the-earth Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Janine_Ashbless_In_Bonds_of_the_Earth?id=HZMSDgAAQBAJ&hl=en Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/in-bonds-of-the-earth-janine-ashbless/1125264279?ean=9781910908099

Print: Support your small publisher and buy direct: https://sinfulpress.co.uk/product/in-bonds-of-the-earth-by-janine-ashbless/ Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/in-bonds-of-the-earth/janine-ashbless/9781910908082 Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/in-bonds-of-the-earth-janine-ashbless/1125264279?ean=9781910908082 Amazon: http://hyperurl.co/fuqprg

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32996475-in-bonds-of-the-earth Author bio:

Janine Ashbless is a writer of fantasy erotica and steamy romantic adventure. She likes to write about magic and myth and mystery, dangerous power dynamics, borderline terror, and the not-quite-human.

Buyer beware! If you like dark romance and a hard-won Happily Ever After, try “Cover Him with Darkness,” “Heart of Flame,” or “The King’s Viper.” If you prefer challenging erotica, go for “Red Grow the Roses” or “Named and Shamed” instead. All her other books lie somewhere on the spectrum between.

Janine has been seeing her books in print ever since 2000. She’s also had numerous short stories published by Black Lace, Nexus, Cleis Press, Ravenous Romance, Harlequin Spice, Storm Moon, Xcite, Mischief Books, and Ellora’s Cave among others. She is co-editor of the nerd erotica anthology ‘Geek Love’.

Born in Wales, Janine now lives in the North of England with her husband and two rescued greyhounds. She has worked as a cleaner, library assistant, computer programmer, local government tree officer, and – for five years of muddy feet and shouting – as a full-time costumed Viking. Janine loves goatee beards, ancient ruins, minotaurs, trees, mummies, having her cake and eating it, and holidaying in countries with really bad public sewerage.

Her work has been described as: “Hardcore and literate” (Madeline Moore) and “Vivid and tempestuous and dangerous, and bursting with sacrifice, death and love.” (Portia Da Costa).

You can find Janine on Facebook or at her website or blog.

Author picture credit to David Woolfall.

*****

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In the Bonds of Earth by Janine Ashbless What inspired you to write your first book? My first book was a collection of erotic short stories with various supernatural and fantasy themes, and I was inspired to write them after a friend gave me a Black Lace collection and I realized "WOW!