#it is probably the grief finally hitting
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mitamicah · 1 year ago
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I had to say goodbye to my last grandparent tonight. She passed away in her sleep after a long struggle with dementia.
R.I.P
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asexualbookbird · 25 days ago
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oh right library haul
The Fireborne Blade by Charlotte Bond
The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P Djèlí Clark
That Time I Got Drunkand Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming
gonna try to start with Fireborne Blade but we'll see how my brain goes. I also got some pamphlets for some yearly reading challenges that look fun to play around with AND a bookmark for my every growing collection
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javierduffy · 1 month ago
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ohh javieran … javieran post kieran’s death .., javier is a poor lonesome cowboy in america a long way from home with no more sweetheart to sit and talk with him ooohhh can anyone hear me ….
#someone on tiktok found poor lonesome cowboy in an old archival-esque book of cowboy and campfire songs and as soon as i saw this i gasped#ummm burst into tears actually ! thanks ! i’m so sad !#poor lonesome coyotito who parted from his city and who has no sweetheart to sit and talk with him ☹️#they make me miserable#i was just gonna put this in my drafts but i already have 15 drafts and i fear if i continue to put ideas in my drafts “for later’’ i will#never make another post again … so instead of setting myself up for disappointment i’m just gonna start posting like i do on twt#which is where i post every unfiltered thought i have :)#it’s MY blog and I get to make useless textposts constantly because i know im incapable of making any actual content atm#i’m hoping to draw something based off of this some day though :( i’m already having ideas#usually i sit in my mind palace and tinker with my au where kieran lives but unfortunately sometimes i must face reality and think about#javier’s loss and heartbreak in canon <//3#i need to rewatch kieran’s death cutscene and see where javier is and what he does because i’ll have to write his initial#response to grief depending on that :/#whether he’s frozen in disbelief or actively involved in the retrieval of kieran’s body (if he’s even around at all)#javier isn’t really the type to scream and sob out in pain in the moment but i do think that when he finally had a moment to himself (likely#all the way in chapter six considering how chaotic everything gets and how he’s involved in like … everything following that) (which also re#minds me that he literally goes and gets tortured in guarma immediately after losing his lover. i have to kill myslf. anyway.)#i think it probably hits him like a train and he begins to hack and throw up like the weight of grief is literally crushing his organs from#the inside out 😕 javier escuella the lover that you are sets you up for such devastating heartbreak im so sorry#idek how much i want to tag this. maybe ill pull a moss and start using my own tags for characters#rdr2#image#hero's talking to himself again#hero’s kieran#hero’s javier#hero’s javieran#just so i dont have to clog up tags 💛#i will tag#javieran#as normal though
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shannonsketches · 6 months ago
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something something foils moving in opposite directions Goku's always happy to seek and fight stronger opponents because he spent most of his life being the strongest guy in the room and Vegeta wants to be the strongest/is always exhausted to find stronger opponents because he spent most of his life having to navigate his survival around the whims of the strongest guy in the universe room and so Goku has a foundation of safety and stability and so spends his time craving challenge and adventure and Vegeta has a foundation of challenge and adventure and spends his time craving safety and stability and the overlaid section of their venn diagram is that the only way they know how acquire and maintain those things is through battle
#thank you this has been the laziest media analysis post of my career#dbtag#media analysis#something something a game to goku is a threat to vegeta etc#there's a pinned thought here about how Vegeta also didn't learn about the dragon balls until he was ?? 30?? and so all loss is permanent#and goku has been familiar since he was ~12 and hasn't faced a permanent consequence since he was 10 years old and even then he got closure#sometimes I think about how Vegeta saw Trunks die and how Krillin was mad at him for reacting since they could fix it with the dragon balls#but Vegeta has very limited experience with the dragon so to him in that moment that was permanent and Trunks was Dead. Forever.#And we talked before in a 2am post about Vegeta having never experienced grief born of love and I stand by it because his feelings then wer#still very new and very odd and not something he'd accepted until that moment so it was raw power but not as powerful as it could've been#all this to say in my heart of hearts I think Vegeta deserves to retire at the end of super (if super continues) -- not as a warrior#but as an infantryman. he's a prince and now he's got his domain and his family and his planet to look after and I think he deserves#to go home and stay home and help piccolo bully gohan into training more often when goku inevitably leaves to hop the multiverse#geets wanted to take a sabbatical when Bulla was born but didn't get the chance because Freeza coming back freaked him out too much#but whether freeza gets a redemption arc or gets defeated -- Granolah's arc seemed to shift his perspective on being the strongest#and I just grips fist I just think it would be a really nice full circle for Vegeta to inherit his throne in a way he never expected and#finally get his kingdom to look after and protect in the way that he was looking forward to being king of his own planet all those years ag#Goku's got Broly and Jiren and Hit and all the others to keep him busy and happy now -- and if Freeza gets a redemption arc he'll probably#continue playing slap-ass with Goku for the rest of his life -- and Vegeta's got Gohan and Piccolo and Goten and Trunks#I just think them getting a nice bittersweet 'This is where we part ways' would be really nice for both of them because !!#They couldn't have done this without each other. They couldn't have known this kind of life was possible without each other.#So they swap lots and live happier than they ever imagined they could be#especially since Vegeta has proved to himself that he can close any gap Goku creates in progress that's not a concern anymore#And obvs the door's always open!! There's no point closing it Vegeta's tried the locks they don't work on Goku#anyway here's me putting the whole essay in the tags again#this isn't an essay as much as it is stream of consciousness tag blogging#anyway i'm too lazy to write fic or draw comics so we get ramblings instead
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izzy-b-hands · 6 months ago
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Me to myself: you are SO behind on finishing your izzy bingo prompts. You definitely won't finish the whole card now, and you've gotten so little done today. We DON'T need to research if this roadside coastal motel in our head actually exists anywhere. NO ONE IS GOING TO GIVE A FUCK
Also me: Time to search google maps for coastal motels and hotels and cabins and things while my word doc that's got a nearly fucking finished draft on it rots waiting for me!
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dannyphantomiscool · 1 year ago
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While Damian never stops fighting, just going from assassin to vigilante immediately, Danny… does. He doesn't continue his training, and very deliberately rejects everything he was taught in his childhood.
He heals. He leaves behind the violence and the death and gets a normal life, with a sister and friends and school.
Dying throws a wrench in that.
It'd probably take him longer to accept what happened than in canon. He doesn't want to believe it, doesn't want to acknowledge that his life is changing (that he's changing) when he's just become situated into Normalcy, even as his school is being attacked by a ghost.
But he does, and he decides that even if he'll have to let violence back into his life, dust off his old training and skills, he's still not going to be what the League made him into.
Nobody is going to tell him what to do. Nobody is going to make him fight anybody he doesn't want to, and nobody is going to make him kill.
Nobody is going to make him give up his friends even though they're a "weakness".
I think something interesting in the damian&danny twins/danyal al ghul au that i don't see explored,,, basically ever, is how Danny heals.
I always see his personality made more similar to Damian's, which does make sense bc of his altered childhood. But i think it's far more interesting to keep it more canonincal.
He doesn't text w proper grammar bc he rejects the strict way he was raised. He makes puns and jokes and laughs freely because he was never allowed that when he was young. He freely admits to caring about his friends and family bc that is something he can have now.
I want to see a healed Danny. I want to see an Al Ghul that actually got to leave the league, got to heal and become normal.
And it'd add a really interesting aspect to his death, and Phantom. He escaped and he healed and then he still got fucked over and lost it all.
He's right back to having to fight constantly, his friends are weaknesses that can be exploited against him, and his parents are fighting him.
Danny directly and explicitly rejecting his upbringing and taking his life back. Eating nasty burger and playing doomed and having friends and crushes like a normal teenager.
And then losing it all.
(But better to be like his father than his mother.)
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enchi-elm · 8 months ago
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Inception is funny because the final heist is a wildly different experience for everyone involved.
Yusuf drives across town under gunfire and voluntarily drives off the edge of a bridge. He probably has a resting heart rate of 180 for the duration and it’s over in, say, 15 minutes.
Arthur finally gets to snap at his boss, something we get the sense he’s been wanting to do for a solid year now. He vents the rest of his frustrations on unsuspecting goons, then spends the rest of the heist quietly problem solving around his unconscious and therefore uncomplaining teammates. This is probably his preferred way of dealing with people.
Saito gets shot and dies an agonizing death for anywhere from a few minutes to about an hour. Instead of being allowed to peacefully suffer, he volunteers to lead his business rival on a mountain expedition that involves driving pitons into rock, then survives a free fall down the same mountain before holding off enemy fire with his dying breath. His reward for finally kicking the bucket is aging fifty fucking years.
Cobb literally goes through every stage of grief and dies twice. I mean he’s not my favourite but he’s certainly suffering for his art.
Ariadne is on the steepest learning curve of her life: by the end of this learning abroad experience, she’s a certified psychiatrist and also she’s shot someone.
Eames is going through every single one of his employable skills like an intern hoping to be promoted at the end of term. This includes hitting on two billionaires and firing a grenade launcher to impress a coworker. By far having the most fun.
Robert Fischer has been the CEO of a Fortune 500 company for a week. He’s been sedated, kidnapped, conned, betrayed, led mountain-climbing, shot, resuscitated, and resolves an adult life time worth of daddy issues in the time it takes to order coffee. Possibly fires his uncle when he lands for reasons he can’t explain even to himself.
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sunnami · 7 months ago
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❝like the grass wants to grow, i want to run anywhere that you go.❞
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summary. 'a tiny butterfly flapping its wings today may lead to a devastating hurricane weeks from now.' or alternatively, it takes six lifetimes for you to find each other.
pairings. poly!marauders+lily x reader.
word count. 8.9k (i tried to keep it short. i really did T-T)
tags. hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, happy ending. reincarnated/regressor!reader. no specific gender described. not proofread, we die like lucerys velaryon.
cws. brief depictions of death and war, themes of mental health and trauma.
note: lmaoao, as per the poll, here is the time-traveler!reader fic! i didn't cry during the angsty parts so it's probably not that bad.
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YOU WAKE UP to a familiar weathered stone ceiling, owls softly hooting beyond the curtained windows, sunken in the mattress of a canopy bed with low snoring on either side of you. There’s a wilting candle on your nightstand, alongside an unfastened leather journal—a whiff of spilt ink under your nose. In your limp embrace, is a plush capybara with a turtle attached to its head. The quilt blanket is entangled between your thighs, the early morning breeze flurrying past the exposed stretch of your belly where your oversized granny-square jumper has ridden up.
It’s only then, when you try curling your fingers and wiggling your toes, that you realize that your body feels as though it had been hit by a shrinking charm. 
You sit upright instantly, heart skipping a beat from fright.
No.
You can’t have.
You reach for your brass handheld mirror, tucked away in the bedside drawers. 
There is no way you are this unlucky.
Yet staring back at you, is your eleven-year-old self.
Naturally, you end up screaming in frustration—startling the robins idle on the windowsills and all but waking the entirety of the Gryffindor castle. Prefects burst inside the dormitory, wand at the ready and crust in their eyes, in search of a threat only to find you on the verge of hyperventilating.
Bloody hell. 
Not again! 
Merlin, Morgana and Arthur—you are not going through puberty a sixth time.
“Oh, fuck me,” you mumble defeatedly as you fall back onto the patchwork pillows. Your roommates are gawping at you in horror, the sound of heavy footfalls echoing in the halls outside. 
Months ago, you had heard about the gruesome passing of Dorcas Meadowes—you weren’t necessarily close friends with the girl, despite being sorted in the same House, but you would grieve where grief is due. 
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YOUR FIRST LIFE came to an abrupt end at the age of nineteen, in a quaint coffeehouse where the owner knew your name and the baristas wore a sunlit grin everyday. That day, no one had expected for Death Eaters to wreak havoc in Diagon Alley—it could have been anticipated, if only the Ministry was competent during the onset of the war. But with the extensive list of Muggleborn and half-blood casualties after that incident,  Ministry officials had no choice but to restrict certain areas and propose the ‘lesser-breeds’ go into hiding for their safety. This alluded to many families; most condemned to be blood-traitors. 
(There had been fleeting whispers of her dying at the wand of Voldemort himself.) 
Then, you’d woken up in the four walls of your dormitory. The sensation of being ever-so cruelly struck by the killing curse burning in your chest—a scorching fire, yet bitterly cold all the same. You had sobbed wretchedly, curled up in a shuddering ball of tears until your roommates had called for the prefects. It got worse when they tried to console you—you felt everything still. The panicked cries and screams of the wounded ceaselessly echoing in your head.  You remembered the shards of glass sinking into your skin as you dove for cover, Unforgivables apathetically hurled in every direction. 
It was not until Madam Pomfrey administered a Calming Draught and an elixir for dreamless sleep that you finally went out like a light extinguished.
Your second life was relatively longer—you had spent it under the supervision of mind healers at St. Mungo’s, after all. For the next thirty years, you’d been confined to a ward on the fourth floor. (Later, you would share this space with a couple who went by the names of Alice and Frank Longbottom.) Regardless of the bleak walls, it was not so bad. The quilts were warm and the assigned matron, Madam Strout, was kind and fussed over you regularly. While the healers had done everything they could, you continued to struggle with discerning what appeared to be your ‘first life.’ (Which one was your true reality? The first? Or the second?) Eventually, all the poking and prodding wore you down. Your fingertips had bruised and brittled. You could not look over your shoulder in fear of finding a Death Eater staring back at you. Night terrors plagued your dreams. 
(Your parents who had always embraced you with loving arms—they could not look you in the eyes now.) 
Memories bled into newer memories as the days went by. You haunted the corridors with a plagued stare, quickly becoming a woeful canard amongst the residents of the hospital. ‘The hysteric fortune teller,’ they called you. You who spoke of wars and rebellion at the age of twelve—but whose words nobody cared for when Voldemort began rising to power. You who’d gone mad and overwrought. In the end, you believed everyone else. 
(See? It must have been all in your head—a wayward spell that unfortunately damaged your memories.)
You’re unsure of how you died, but perhaps, you were never even alive in the first place. There was only so much Draught of Peace you could take before you inevitably became a soulless, sleep-walking husk of a person.
You woke up in the Gryffindor tower once more—this time, you’re careful enough to smother your cries.   
If you flinched every time Marlene McKinnon coarsely bellowed Dorcas’s name in the middle of the school hallways, or if you averted your gaze at the sight of Alice Fortescue and Frank Longbottom’s intertwined hands—it was nobody’s business but your own. In this life, you kept your head down, breezing through your homework and exams—although you had seen no purpose in it, at this point. Each morning that you woke up, you wondered if this was a favor from the Gods, or a relentless hell so meticulously-crafted for you.  
(But what sins had you committed for them to spit on you as they had done? Surely, you would be granted peace after two deaths.)
You could not tell your family, nor could you ask anyone else in Hogwarts if they remembered fragments of their past lives—for the last time you had done that, you were met with vindictive laughter and cruel gazes. 
(At that moment, you had understood Xenophilius Lovegood a little bit more. You never knew how many sought to trample on the wallflowers of the castle.) 
And so, you’d kept your head down until the end of your time in the castle. You stayed away from Diagon Alley and surrounding areas, and you willed yourself to perfect the art of apparating—a skill you wished that you had learned earlier. 
On the first of November 1981, witches and wizards had come to celebrate the fall of Lord Voldemort—which ultimately meant the death of James and Lily Potter. (You could not come to their funeral the first time around, seeing as you were chained to your hospital mattress that day, inebriated on the third dreamless sleep potion administered to you.) 
Under the eyes of St. Jerome, you laid bouquets of white roses and dahlias on their tombstones. 
“Wherever your souls are now, I hope you find each other and unearth peace,” you whispered to the two names engraved on the slate, hands clasped together as you rested on the grass. The winds had been cold and biting, a testament to the looming winter that would sweep away the tears on their graves. Like Dorcas Meadows, you did not interact much with James and Lily—but more than anyone, you knew how death was no easy enemy to conquer.
(You hoped their orphaned son would live a life that would not take him too early.)
A few months later, you met your demise to a werewolf named Fenrir Greyback. 
As you bled out on the grassfields, you wished for Death to come and take you faster.
When you awakened, it was in the same bed and the same dusty ceiling. 
There was nothing you could do but go back to sleep this time around.
After dying pathetically for a third time, a stubborn part of you wanted to fight back—so you did. 
Unlike your previous lives, you joined the Dueling Club, supervised by Professor Flitwick himself. Your wand work was clumsy and you stumbled on your incantations. You could not lift your wand without remembering a coffee shop laid to ruin and wreckage or the hardened gaze of Greyback as he sank his teeth into your neck. The times were merciless, your dance with Death even more—but you would not die helplessly again. 
As you lay in your bed, muscles aching from dueling practice, you had realized one thing. 
You did not want to stain your hands with the blood of another—having grown tired of the Reaper and his antics. If the Gods would not let you rest, then you would not let them take anyone else. 
After all, you had the stubbornness of a Gryffindor lion. 
For the next six years or so, you devoured your textbooks on charms and healing spells, refining your spellwork until your tongue grew numb and your wrists became sore. When the time came, you followed James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Lily Evans, and many more, in joining the Order of the Phoenix. (Perhaps you should have realized earlier that you all were just wide-eyed children on both sides, forced to partake in a war that should have never been yours to fight.) 
The First Wizarding War transfigured the years into a blur of mourning, surviving, and fighting in alleys now-bloodied. Even the sun hid behind the clouds, for brothers began turning on one another. You could only find solace in the fact you had kept Dorcas away from Voldemort’s clutches, volunteering to go in her stead during incursions, and Marlene McKinnon alive for another day to see her family.
But for how long could you cheat fate? 
Hours before your death, you found yourself in a forest clearing. The campsite was filled with witches and wizards afflicted with severe hexes and curses—a few of Dumbledore’s best fighters screaming in agony from the Cruciatus. 
There you found Remus Lupin, bruised and worse for wear, attempting to wrap a bandage around his shoulders in an empty tent. 
“You look like you’ve seen better days,” you said in a soft greeting, stepping inside the tent with a forced smile, your collection of potions and jars of herbal pastes jostling in your leather satchel. 
Remus chuckled tiredly. “Haven’t we all?” 
You gently pried the bandage from his trembling hands and maneuvering yourself at his back. You stifled the urge to cry at the sight of his scars—so violently red against his pallid skin. Compared to your previous lives, you had developed a friendship with Remus and his group of bold marauders—a camaraderie as true as it could be in dire times. (And if providence had been kinder, you could have dared to want more than just friendship.) You poured drops of Dittany onto his shallower wounds, murmuring empty words of comfort as he flinched and hissed.
“It’s Peter,” he rasped, abruptly holding onto your wrist as you turned to leave. “He’s been missing for hours. Please. I don’t know what I’d. . . what I’d do if. . . if. . .”
You squeezed his hand. “I’ll find him, Remus. Don’t worry.”
True to your word, you had found Peter at sundown deep within the forest. There was an unsettling quietude that hung in the air as you trudged to his side. He was kneeling on the muddy ground, head hanging low. It’s only then that you noticed the body laying still in his arms. Violent chills slithered down your spine as you recognized the woman in his embrace. 
“Mary!” you cried out, hurrying to them as fast as you could. 
“What happened?” you asked frantically, hands in a desperate search for a pulse. When you were met with no answer, you pressed again more heatedly. “Peter! Look at me!” You gripped his chin, heart hammering in your chest. “You have to tell me what happened! I can’t. . . I can’t help her if I don’t know what hit her.” Droplets of tears fell from your eyes down to Mary’s pale cheeks. “I can’t. . . I need—please. . .”
Bloodshot eyes stared back at you. “I. . . I didn’t want to do it.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” he croaked, burying his head into the crook of Mary’s neck. “I was so, so scared.”
“Peter, what are you talking about?” You grimaced impatiently when Peter lifted his gaze—but he was not looking at you, rather behind you.
The answer to your question was a killing curse to the back.
An unseen rustle in the bushes that you should have paid attention to, a cloaked figure darker than any shadow; a Death Eater that’d come to ensnare you in a perfectly-laid trap. 
(Damn it!)
(Damn it all to Hell!)
You awoke to the sound of your screaming and your limbs thrashing in the bed you’ve grown to despise. There was nary a remorse in your body as your roommates wailed at the sight of your nails drawing blood from your arms. Later that morning, the common room would be filled with talks of your faraway gaze and your scratched-up flesh. 
You could not take it anymore.
In your fifth life, you had sought peace—or rather, the most beautiful mockery of it. 
You decided to give up your magic to chase a semblance of normalcy. No more wands, no more moving portraits, no more jinxes and pranks, no more owls and wizard robes. Most of all, no more war. (‘But it did not work like that’, Death laughed.) In this life, you wanted what was denied of you in the previous ones.
A family.
A happy ending.
Bitterly enough, the Gods saw fit to give you only one of the two. 
You married a Muggle, to your parents’ dismay. He was nice and compassionate—a distant contrast to the ongoing turmoil of the wizarding world. But you could not bring yourself to feel guilt. You had been stripped of everything, which included the privilege to die and lay your soul to rest in perpetuity. 
(Who were you, if not a dead man walking?)
Over the years, you would have three children with your husband—three beautiful children born from love, in a world that would not actively seek to take them from you. You raised them all to adulthood, hoping they would not fault you for finding relief at the lack of magic in their veins. Their names were Kinsley, Piper, and Avery—and you had adored every inch of them, from their striking eyes to the tips of their stubby fingers. 
On your deathbed, you were surrounded by your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren. An image you held close to your heart as your vision began to deteriorate. 
Just this once, you prayed to all that would hear. 
Let me die surrounded by my family.
At the age of ninety-one, you drew your final breath.
And when you opened your eyes, you were back in Hogwarts for the sixth time.
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TO SIRIUS BLACK, you are a curious little wallflower, albeit a withering one—you who blend among the crowd, with a sad gaze in your eyes and the fretful twisting of your fingers. He doesn’t know why he’s particularly drawn to you—but perhaps he understands, more than anyone, the hesitance of taking up space in fear of punishment for one wrong move. But you look so lost, meandering along the corridors like the ghosts of the castle—but even the spirits seem more alive and colorful than you. 
“What is it that they have taken from you?” Sirius wants to ask. 
(What judgment has fate placed upon you so—for you to cry each morning?) 
There is a raging urge in his veins to reach over and wipe your tears away, but what can he do as a stranger, if not watch powerlessly as you fade into the background? 
His fingers feel like they might fall off if they do not entwine with yours. He wants to offer up his shoulders to carry the burdens that weigh down on a creature as lovely as you. 
There are times when he and the other Gryffindors catch you crying at the long tables of the Great Hall. 
“O-Oh, was I?” Your reply is quiet. Resigned. Sirius has never felt his heart break more than in that moment. You move to weakly swipe at your tears. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to. . .” 
“It’s alright, really,” Lily says, her voice strained, the words lodged in her throat. Under the table, she seeks James’s hand for comfort. (How can someone appear to be so lonely and defeated?) “We all have those days.”
“Yes.” You blink away the fresh tears pricking at your eyes, mindlessly pulling at the threads of your woven bandages, a weary chuckle falling from the cracked skin of your lips. “Except, it seems the days never end for me.”  
Lily stays silent. 
Sirius shares a look with Remus from across the table, an unspoken question hanging between the animagus and the werewolf.
How do their voices call out to the one who so faithfully believes that the world has abandoned them?
But Sirius Black is determined and unyielding—what good of a prankster would he be if he could not bring a smile upon your beautiful face? 
He gets his chance during Transfiguration class, when McGonagall instructs the class to pair-up for an activity in turning miniature statues into birds. Predictably, you don’t move a muscle, staring ever-so intently at the sights beyond the classroom windows that you don’t notice the professor observing you worriedly—her lips tightly pressed and her eyes wrinkled with concern. Sirius slams his buttocks onto the wooden chair next to you; the sound of chair legs screeching bounces off the cobblestone walls.
“Hullo, partner.” Sirius grins as he offers you an enthusiastic wave, his dark curls floundering with his energy. He feels the gazes of his best mates boring into his back, but decides to ignore it for now—Remus can live without him for one class. In his mind—a perfectly-reasonable logic for an eleven-year-old, mind you—he figures that you would find class more entertaining if you had the right company. And, Sirius is wonderful company. 
You stare at him with furrowed brows and Sirius wishes nothing more than to bring fire to your eyes. “Partner?” you repeat, a tinge of confusion in your voice—a deafening cadence to his ears, as for once, it is not desolation that laces your words. 
“Partner,” Sirius affirms with a nod of his head, barely paying heed to McGonagall’s directions at the front of the room—but noting the mention of a prize for the pair who would successfully cast the spell for longer than ten minutes. He takes your silence for uncertainty, and replies with a light-hearted scoff—finding the pout on your lips adorable. “I’ll have you know I’m a bloody master at Transfiguration. Not even James could match me in this class—okay, maybe he could, but that’s not important, is it? Point is, with me at your side, Minnie will have no choice but to give us a hundred points!” 
From the frown on your lips, Sirius gathers that you’re unimpressed by him—a first, but not a total setback. 
He seizes the small box of porcelain figurines before you can blink, a wry smile on his face as he wrangles a boastful laugh from his throat. “Ready to have your mind blown? I’ve been practicing this spell since last night. There’s no way I’m getting this wrong.” 
“Oh, I’m Sirius Black, by the way—at your service.” He holds out his hand for you to shake, wondering what your palm would feel like in his. Cold? Warm to touch? Or, perhaps, a perfect fit—just as Lily’s hand feels laced with his?
He doesn’t find the answer to his question. Instead, you draw your wand from your robe pocket, and point the tip of the wood at the earthenware at Sirius’s grasp. 
“Avifors,” you recite delicately—such a flawless incantation that Sirius hears Merlin himself weeping in the depths of his grave. 
The figurine grows feathers and a beak—Sirius and the rest of the students can only watch as the weebill flutters its wings and soars through the roof. 
He’s stupefied. Breathless, one might say. But not because of your little trick—rather, the growing smile on your lips as you watch the bird fly across the room. Your eyes flicker with mischief, and like a man on the edge of a cliff—what is Sirius Black to do, but fall? 
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THE END OF YOUR first-year at Hogwarts draws near, and so does the springtime—a coveted season for lily flowers to bloom. The April winds find you out by the lake edge, swinging your legs idly on a marble stone bench where the cypress vines grow along the cracks. Songbirds fly overhead as the daylight glistens on the surface of the Black Lake, a beech tree in the near distance, butterflies dancing past the gnarled trunk. Pollen floats like dust in a cupboard under a staircase. Ducklings waddle after their mother as riverine rabbits scurry on into the tall, purple nettles. On days like this, you find it easier to settle into your new life—but, perhaps, you have your friends to thank for that. 
Yet, as you find yourself wanting to reach out to their outstretched hands, flashes of children with your hair, your eyes, cheekbones whittled to resemble your own, haunt you. Their pure and gentle temperaments, painfully akin to their father’s. You mourn them every day. Their names are forever inscribed in the locket of your soul. (You did not find it fair—you who live again, and they who disappear forever. An existence that would cease to be—all because you fear what awaits you in this life. Why must it be you who should walk this land with a body scarred by wounds no one else can see? Why must it be you who mourns the loss of your family, your friends, and all your loved ones—everyone murdered by the Gods who spit on the five graves with your name written on it? Why? Why?)
Do you dare to live a life without them? Is it fair to deprive them of a chance of being a family while you waste away on the Isles? You may have lived multiple lifetimes, but not once have you been given the answers you seek. 
You will not find happiness without them; it is as you deserve. 
(For why else would Death torment you so if you are seen as innocent in their eyes?)
“How did I know I’d find you here?” A sing-song voice emerges from the trees, and you’ve no need to turn your head—the sound of Lily’s bright cadence is one you’re familiar with. But, somehow, you’ve grown fond of her voice, more acquainted with her smile and laugh than you’ve ever been in the last five lives. (You have to wonder if this friendship is one you’re permitted to enjoy.) Her grin is blinding, more so than the afternoon sun behind her. Lily’s wavy hair falls over her shoulder as she plops down on the empty space beside you. “We didn’t see you at lunch today,” she says, looking ahead, the warmth of her hand inching closer to your own. “I figured you didn’t want a bunch of whiffy boys around.”
Then, she looks around, searching for any prying ears, a stream of giggles falling from her lips. “Although, I must warn you—their pockets are loaded with food stolen from the hall, saying they’d give it to you when you returned to the tower. But I think Minnie caught onto them.” She chortles, a fond gaze in her eyes. 
You hum in thought, a smile unknowingly pulling at your lips. “Thank you, Lily. It’s sweet of you to come and find me.” 
She harrumphs light-heartedly, snootily lifting up her nose. “Don’t get too used to it. We’re only just best friends, after all.”
A silence encompasses the two of you, sitting under the shade, pink fingers shyly intertwined. Lily allows the minutes to flow by like a breeze on the waters, until she stares at you with thick emotions flickering in her emerald eyes. She nibbles on her bottom lip, long lashes kissing her eyelids. “Are. . . Are you alright? Is it one of those days again?”
You grin at her question, impishly nudging her legs with yours. It’s a gesture you deeply appreciate—befriending you and growing closer to you in ways you imagine are never in your cards. But Lily is only eleven, and you will not act upon your selfishness. (But, maybe—just maybe—you are allowed to relish in their company until you are called once again to your deathbed. In the next life, they might not know your name as they do now, and the revelation frightens you immensely.)
“I’m okay,” you say, a gnawing lie that sounds unconvincing to even your own ears. You stare at the flock of swans diving in the lake. “I was just missing a few friends back home.” You remember the toddlers that you used to call your own—their spittled possessiveness toward anyone who dared to snatch your attention away from them. “I don’t know if they would be happy with me going off on my own adventure,” you say, sparing Lily a knowing look. “They are—erm—Muggles.” 
“Oh.” Lily nods, mulling over your words. “Tuney. . . my sister. She sort of resents me ever since I left for Hogwarts. We live a world apart, and it barely helps that she ignores me during the holidays.” She sighs, averting her gaze elsewhere, a grimace pulling at her mouth. “Sometimes I wonder if all of this was never meant for me. That I was just a fluke. Why do I have magic and not her? Any day now, I expect for McGonagall to come and ask me to pack my bags and head straight home.” 
“But,” says Lily, her eyes resolute and her fire unwavering, “until that day comes, I will enjoy every bit of this world as I can. Tuney will just have to deal with that.” She offers you a mellow smile—a likeness to a kind husband that you had once in a past lifetime. “Besides, I think those who truly love us will understand the paths we must take. Even if it means parting ways for a long time. Your friends will not blame you; they’ll want you to live truly and freely.” 
Her words sink deep into your bones, and you can’t help but let out a hearty laugh. You simper at the confused tilt of her head. “Wise words, Lily Marie Evans. Are you sure you’re only twelve?” 
Lily beams. “Mum likes to tune into the Sunday motivational-talk channels.”
(“The ones we love never really leave us, do they?” Sirius Black will tell you one day, when you’ve bared to him the truth of your lives, and he looks at you no differently than he has before—with all the adoration and fondness of his heart.)
Later, before you and Lily make your way back to the castle, you pick three flowers among the chicory weeds. She stays behind as you kneel by the riverside. For the children you have loved, and will continue to love for eternity. Droplets of tears fall onto the water, joining the floating blue petals. “I’m sorry that I cannot find you as you are,” you whisper, a heavy weight lifting from your shoulders. “But I hope that we meet again in this life, whichever names you may take.” 
(After all, what love is stronger than one that perseveres across endless lifetimes?)
You carry them in your heart—letting cherished memories remain as such. Otherwise, you’ll be chasing what can never be again. It would be an injustice to their names to try and replicate a shallow imitation of them. They deserve more than that—to be treated like a pawn in Death’s game. They were alive and you will honor them befittingly.
You bid them goodbye and allow the tethers of their soul to untangle from your grasp. 
It is the most difficult farewell—and yet, the easiest act of mercy you have ever carried out.
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‘THE FLAP OF a butterfly’s wings can evoke a hurricane in the next world over.’ 
This is a phrase you’ve come to be familiar with over the span of your numerous lives. It has never been truer than the moment you step outside the infirmary to find a group of mismatched Gryffindors waiting for you in the halls. Their heads snap in attention at the sound of your footfalls. In an instant, you’re crowded with their questions and worries—but you find it endearing, the way your friends fuss over you. It’s certainly a welcome change from a past spent by your lonesome in the castle. (You only wonder what makes this life so different from the rest? Why is everything changing without you noticing? What will be taken from you for this deviation in time?) 
“How did it go?” James asks, now seventeen and captain of the Quidditch team, wavy tendrils of brown hair swooping over his round glasses. The broad of his chest fills out his red and yellow jumper, crocheted by Lily over the yule break—the five of you, including Peter, Marlene, Mary, and Dorcas, have matching sweaters as well. 
Except, you like to tease them with a jest that Lily made yours with the most love—as no one else had the pattern of a capybara with an apple on its head. 
“Well enough,” you answer, patting his shoulder with a tired smile that reaches your eyes—for how could one not cheer up in the face of James Fleamont Potter? That would be saying the skies do not brighten in the company of the sun. 
By incontestable decree of Poppy Pomfrey, the headstrong matron of the castle, you are required to meet with a mediwitch from St. Mungo’s twice a week, since the start of your fifth-year. Healer Robbins floos to Hogwarts on Wednesdays and Saturdays to check up on your health, physically and mentally. Of course, you don’t divulge anything about your time-traveling dilemmas, lest you end up confined to a hospital ward again for the rest of your years. But you do end up addressing—albeit, begrudgingly—the dried tear stains on your pillowcase every morning, your wayward habit of purposefully missing meals, or your tendency to withdraw yourself from your peers on certain days—which coincidentally happen to be the anniversary dates of your deaths. (If no one would grieve for you, then you’d do it alone.) 
Who’d have thought that healing would be much more tortuous than hurting in the quietude of your room?
But one thing is for certain—this is a suffering you will endure with greed and hunger. 
For today’s session, Healer Robbins suggests you proactively live in the present more—which is easier said than done. 
“Although, she did tell me to stop slouching all the time,” you inform James, scrunching your nose in feigned offense, to which he replies with a hearty chuckle, pulling you into his embrace for a side hug. You burrow your nose in his scent of oakmoss and orris root, a lingering touch of broom polish as well—you feel the warmth of his hand splayed out on your back, and hide your grin into his chest. 
“Well, someone had to tell you,” says Regulus Black with a scoff, arms crossed over his chest, yet no genuine heat in his trenchant eyes. He looks pleased that you return unharmed from your meeting with Healer Robbins. Funnily enough, you’ve no doubt that the famed Black temper would emerge should you utter so much as a single word against the mediwitch. (You like her, though. Some days, Robbins lovingly spiels about her clumsy-footed wife—and in return, you talk about your sad feelings. Eurgh. Talk about a fair exchange.)
Among the many divergences in this life, one of them is the unforeseen friendship you have forged with Regulus Arcturus Black. But that story begins with Xenophilius Lovegood, when you stumble upon him in the Forbidden Forest chasing after a family of bowtruckles with a fervid expression and a journal in one hand. You protect him from foul-mouthed Ravenclaws, and he allows you to tag along in his woodland escapades—including a lifelong access to the kitchens beyond curfew. His lack of regard for personal safety is both endearing and maddening, you realize early on. One stormy night, you chase Xenophilius into the forest—he is barefoot, following the Mooncalf hoofprints, as you spit out strings of expletives and mouthfuls of rain. That is where you find Regulus, groaning in pain and carrying a burden that is much too heavy for a fifteen-year-old. 
Then, a year later, they decide to give you a heart-attack when you discover that Pandora and Xenophilius have taken Regulus under their wing—figuratively and literally. And, most of all, romantically.
You’re more speechless than Sirius had been when you catch him one fateful evening.
(“Don’t do it, Sirius Black,” you greet, startling the ebony-haired boy as you step out from the shadows. The common room is silent, save for the crackling embers in the fireplace. You stare at the sixteen-year-old with a vehement resolve, your hands curled into fists. If there is one fixed event you had to live through over and over again, it is the news of Severus Snape being nearly mauled to death by a creature so feared and gruesome. You will not let it happen in this life. His eyes flicker with shame amongst a sea of gray, and he knows that you know about his abhorrent idea of a ‘prank.’ 
You sigh, taking another step forward, hand coming to rest on his tense shoulder. “Let it go, Sirius. It’s not worth it. Bringing someone to harm is never worth it. If he dies, his blood will be on your hands—and you don’t want that, trust me. Be kind to him, Sirius—and even kinder to your brother. The two of you are all each other has.”
“Not true,” Sirius whispers back, almost afraid, his fingers tracing the curve of your cheeks. “I have you, Prongs, Lily, and Rem.”
“And Remus is exactly who we should be with right now,” you reply with a harsh glare. “Not in the common rooms trying to one-up Snape because of some childish rivalry.” With a long sigh and a shake of your head, you push back the dark curls from his face. “The times are cruel, Sirius. We must hold onto what we can.”
His forehead will fall onto your shoulder, and your shirt will be soaked with his tears, but you realize that you will hold him, and all those who’ve captured your heart, until Death himself pries you away from their embrace.) 
But, it all pales in comparison to the horror in Sirius’s eyes when you point at Regulus and Peter, as you utter with absolute conviction, “They are my dearest friends.”
While Peter may have been a traitor in another life, a murderer with blood and guilt staining his hands—he is only a skittish boy in this one. A timid student who hides behind the shadows of his friends. You will not let him go down that path again. The Peter Pettigrew you currently know is a mousy little thing, pun intended, who sneaks in a pouch of sugared jelly worms in the library for you and him to enjoy whilst copying off each other’s Arithmancy homework—you two automatically get perfect marks, seeing as you’ve went through school multiple lifetimes already. Truthfully, when you see him tongue-tied before Mary Macdonald, you can’t envision anything else than a lifeless body and a man apologizing for his sins. But it is hardly fair to condemn Peter for the sins of a life he has not lived—and will never live through, if you have anything to say about. 
A lion protects their pride, and that is what you shall do. Even if it tears you apart in the process. (Healer Robbins won’t be so pleased about that, though.) 
But, perhaps, the most unexpected surprise you’ve received this year is—shockingly—not the news of Dorcas and Marlene dating, and neither is Alice and Frank’s relationship as you have already known that since your first life. It is James, Remus, Lily, and Sirius announcing to the world, with a poorly-written poem for a gnome to recite on Valentine’s Day—courtesy of James Potter himself—that the four of them are in love. In all five lives, that has never happened. Not even Lucius Malfoy can call into question the genuineness of their devotion to one another—and he will not dare to do so in your presence, otherwise he’d find himself at the mercy of you and Narcissa Black.
The four of them are happy as one, and you would die to ensure they stay together until the end of their time. Dark lords be damned. 
An even bigger shock comes when their affection for each other unspokenly extends to you. Not in a manner that equals their rambunctious gestures—because the Marauders don’t do anything half-arsed. (And if they fall in love, they fall without fear.) But in a way that is quiet yet intense, ever-so mindful of your walls—with an intention to break them down slowly and only with your utmost permission. They leave you confused with each day that passes. (You fear that they think you pitiful for having not found a significant other.)
(For months now, your heart is set aflutter just by the sound of their voices—if they look at you as a token charity case, it would tear you apart.) 
Forehead kisses, hand-holding in the corridors, late nights in the kitchen—tipsy on gillywater and the scathe of each other’s touch. Picnics by the lake, bodies intertwined where no one knows where they begin or end. Ventures in the library where not a soul is paying attention to the passages of their textbooks—hushed giggles turning into unrestrained laughter until Madam Pince rounds the corner and has you all thrown out. (How long has it been since you felt so free?) It’s the little things, like your fingers brushing against theirs as you walk side-by-side, or the soft glint in their eyes as they stare at you from across the room—as though you are a jewel to behold. 
It is one thing to know that you are living a life after life—but it is another thing entirely to feel alive when they are nearby. 
You are alive when Remus relaxes on the carpeted floor of the Gryffindor tower, and as you lay on the velvet couch, he draws protection runes on your palm with his finger. When he thinks you’re asleep, he presses a kiss to the back of your hand. When the nights are unbearably long and you find a safe haven in his embrace, and he in yours.
You are alive when James cages you in a bear hug after an intense Quidditch match against Slytherin, limp tendrils of hair clinging to his sweat-soaked skin, pressing a series of fervent kisses to the side of your head until his voice is louder than the cries of victory coming from the cheering stands. 
(“Lay back down, James Fleamont Potter,” you command tersely as you push him onto the infirmary bed. You narrow your eyes at the bandages wrapped around his arms and neck, as though it’d personally wronged you. “Don’t even think about getting up,” you quickly add when you notice his droopy eyes staring at the doors—where Sirius, Remus, and Peter have gone off for a night of mischief. With an exaggerated sigh, James will roll his eyes before pulling you into the bed with him.) 
You are alive when Lily scours the Great Hall in the mornings, hair fussed from sleep and her face bare, and when her eyes finally land on you—none misses the way she lights up blindingly, as if she were a poppy flower emerging from the forest floors and all her petals are curling towards the sun. She bounds over to you with a smile that draws everyone in the room to her. And your heart will have no choice but to swell three times its size when Lily falls asleep mid-meal, snoring with her neck bent and a spoon dangling from her mouth. 
You are alive when Sirius dashes across the room to claim you as his Potions partner. He’ll spend the rest of the class with a triumphant grin on his face—sitting on a rickety chair as he lazily admires the view of your backside. And may the Gods help the poor soul who dares to question your work. 
(“See that lovely creature over there?” Sirius will say with a dangerous lilt to his voice, pointing to you who’s quite busy squabbling with Severus and Barty Jr. over frog legs. “They will be the greatest apothecary to ever walk the wizarding world—so watch your tongue, mate.”) 
They are your limbs, the blood in your veins—the ache in your heart. The fires of your soul. And when they are near, you are finally whole. (Healer Robbins certainly won’t like that, either—but this is a thought you shall selfishly keep for yourself.) 
That is why you had come to a decision at the beginning of the year.
“I need to tell you all something,” you say, breaking out of your stupor and finally meeting everyone’s eyes. You meet Sirius’s gaze from where he leans against the wall, his attention on you—and only you. You reckon he notices the way you’re fidgeting nervously with your fingers, gnawing on your lip as you suck in a deep breath. It’s similar to the way he acted when he first told the group about his intentions to run away from his mother. Healer Robbins told you earlier to not dwell on the past—it’s only a thing that time-travelers do, she had said. You suppose there’s no better way to exercise honesty than to tell your loved ones about the secret you have been keeping for the last five lifetimes. You just hope they won’t look at you differently when all is said and done. 
Marlene’s gaze worriedly flickers from you and to the infirmary doors. “Has the mediwitch said something?” 
You shake your head. “There’s something you should know about me.”
Like a badly-written joke, a pack of lions, a snake, and a badger follows you into an empty classroom. They watch with furrowed brows as you cast a silencing charm over the room. You feel the weight of their curiosity as you take a seat in the center, drumming your nails on your lap as everyone moves to do the same. Remus wordlessly takes the seat next to you, as though being by your side is a natural phenomenon—like the shores never straying from the sand. He gives your hand a gentle squeeze and you return his kindness with a weary smile. You look at the protective circle that’s somehow formed around you. Marlene, Dorcas, Mary, Xenophilius, Regulus, Lily and the Marauders. (Since when did you gain a family like this in such a short time?) 
“Where do I even begin?” you ask with a shuddery breath. “It might get a bit intense. . . and sad, and I wouldn’t want to overwhelm you. So it’s okay if you aren’t prepared to take this all in yet. I’d understand.” 
“What one of us goes through, we all go through together,” Dorcas vows with her head high. “It’s not the first time we’ve done this, love,” she says, looking at everyone else in the room. “We’re here for you. Always have been. It’s what friends are for, aren’t they? You taught us that. Let us return the favor now.” 
You laugh wetly, eyes crinkling with gratitude. “I suppose you’re right.” 
There is no time like the present.
And if all goes awry, you probably might just jump out of a window and reset everything. (You wouldn’t, really. This life is precious to you more than anything in the world.)
You close your eyes and draw air into your lungs.
No time like the present.
“When I first died, I was only nineteen.” Despite the pinched expressions and soft gasps, you force the words out. You have to. Otherwise, the tale of your lives will be buried with you forever. This is the first time you have ever said the words aloud. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying. “Death Eaters came to Diagon Alley. It all happened so fast, next thing I knew the killing curse was cast straight at me.” 
Regulus flinches, and you offer him an apologetic grimace. 
“But that wasn’t the end,” you continue amidst their horrified wide-eyes—feeling Remus tighten his hold on your hand. You chuckle bitterly. “If it had been, maybe it all would’ve hurt less. When I woke up, I was back in the Gryffindor tower.” 
“What?” Lily frowns as a shadow is cast over her eyes. “But how?” 
“I wish I knew,” you reply with a lodge in your throat, eyes thick with incoming tears. “I really wish I knew. But I woke up back in Hogwarts. I was alive again. Somehow, someway, I was alive. But I was dying.” You shut your eyes, head craning to the ceilings as you swallow back a sob. “Have you felt what it’s like to be burnt alive? That’s what the killing curse is like. And I feel it everyday. When I told the nurses this, I was sent straight to St. Mungo’s. They could not heal what was not found in my body. They called me mad. And there was nothing I could do but believe them. It was like that until I died on an infirmary bed, leather straps around my wrists and legs, forbidden to leave the ward and feel even the sunlight on my face. I was deemed a threat to the others and myself.” 
Lily beats you to the punch and cries into her hands—the harrowing sound torn from her throat. Mary, with her own stream of tears, pulls Lily into a hug. 
“I-I told you it was ugly,” you say timidly, averting your gaze out of remorse. “We can stop here if you’d like.”
“We’re staying,” says Lily with a guttural edge to her words, eyes quickly growing red. 
“Then, in my third life, I died by a. . . Greyback—it was Greyback who killed me.” You intertwine your fingers with Remus’s, who’s gone ashen from the reveal. “It’s alright.”
“The bloody hell do you mean it’s alright?” James bellows, running a hand through his hair as he tears himself from his seat, chest heaving up and down. “None of this is alright! How could you say that? We. . .We should tell Dumbledore or something—or anyone! This shouldn’t have happened to you—it’s just too cruel. . .” 
“I know,” you acquiesce with a low hang of your head. “I know.”
Sirius exhales jaggedly. “Was that the last of it? Of your. . . your deaths?”
“No.” You stare at him with regret. “In my fourth life, I died in a Death Eater ambush.” 
Xenophilius looks like he might faint any second. 
“But in my fifth life, I met some people in the Muggle world,” you explain, remembering kind eyes and wide smiles, a family made in a home far away from magic and wars. “I loved them dearly. When I thought I was being punished by Gods, they gave me peace. They taught me unconditional love and I. . .” You let the tears drip onto your skirt. “I might never find them again, but I’ll never forget them for as long as I live. It was the only death given to me without pain.”
You watch as Lily’s doe-eyes flicker with realization. Three flowers in a watery grave. 
“And here I am now. The end,” you say, forcing a crooked grin as you brush the dust off your school robes. 
No one moves a muscle for the next few minutes. 
You freeze in fear. 
(Have you upset them? Do they see only a talking corpse now?)
The room is suffocatingly quiet and you can’t bear to see the pity or judgment in their eyes—so you run out of the room as though Death himself was hot on your heels. 
They are right behind you—of course, they are. (Where a part of their soul goes, they will follow.)
“Are you angry?” You quietly ask, wrapping your arms around your waist—afraid to turn around and face them. “I would not blame you if you are.” 
“No, not mad. Never.” Lily falls into place by your side, hovering but never stepping past your erected borders. “Maybe at the circumstances. It’s all so unfair. I’m. . . We’re just upset that you had to live through that all alone. To die over and over. I can’t imagine how much it must have hurt each time.” 
You nod, swallowing the urge to crumble on the floor. “Then you’ll understand why. . . why you and I—all of us—I can’t be with you.”
Remus frowns, stepping forward to reach out to you. “What?” 
“Don’t make this any harder than this has to be, please,” you beg, voice hoarse and hands trembling. 
“What the hell are you talking about?” Sirius presses further, a bitter acid to his words. He looks frightened, almost—guilt instantly pools in your stomach.  
“Don’t you see? Everything is changing!” You exclaim, grateful that you’ve chosen the abandoned corridors of the castle where no one dares to venture on a sunny day. “I can’t protect you if I don’t know what’s to happen next! I’d rather die again than let any of you get hurt.”
“Then don’t!” shouts James, veins straining against his neck, tears of his own glistening within his hazel eyes. “I would rather die than pretend none of what I feel—what we feel—for you isn’t real.” 
“You don’t know what you’re saying, James,” you retort with a sharp scoff. “I’ve no need for a relationship that’s borne from pity or charity.” 
“Pity?” Lily echoes incredulously. “You think I’ve confused love for pity? Is that how low you think of us? After all that we’ve been through?”
“Are you stupid?” Sirius bites back. 
“Excuse me?” you shriek. “Must I spell it out for you? I’m trying to protect you! I am cursed!”
“Not anymore than I am!” Remus bellows with his fists tightly clenched, his canines laid bare and his cheeks lit ablaze. “If you’re cursed, I must be damned. Why can’t you allow yourself the same grace that you’ve given us?” 
You wilt. “I can’t do it, Remus. I just can’t. If I die again, and everything resets—don’t you know how much it will kill me if we start as strangers again?” 
Remus encases you in his warmth, an embrace that promises to keep you safe from all harm. (What good of a monster would he be if he can’t rip apart your fears for you?) “Then we will find you in that life. And every life after that. We’ll use a pensieve, or anything at all—just so we don’t forget.”
You melt in his arms, bathing in his scent of caraway and bergamot. You feel Remus placing a kiss on the crown of your head. “All these things I know. All these lives I’ve lived through. What if I ruin everything in this life?” 
“Then do it,” Lily provokes stubbornly. 
“Ruin me,” James pleads raspingly—a falter in his steps as though he’d get on his knees and beg in an instant just for you to stay with them. “Ruin me as much as you’d like. You would be the most beautiful devastation of my life.” 
And so, you choose them. 
For there was never any other option from the start.
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YOU WAKE UP in the dead of the night, sunken in a mattress that is one too small for five people to fit in, leafy vines and fairy lights wrapped around the posters of the bed. Sometime during the night, Lily had thieved the wool blanket for herself. You rest in between her and Sirius, their snores echoing into your ears as the grasshoppers chirp outside. The potted plants will swing from the ceiling as the evening breeze passes by. (You’ll scold James in the morning for leaving the windows open again.) By your feet, is a fat Tabby cat with one eye named Tuna. (Full name: Tuna Belly.) There are moving pictures on the flower-plastered wall, a testament to the life you share—and the life you have fought hard for. Ruffled pillows are strewn across the carpeted floor. Parchments and notes lay askew on the desk table across the room—Remus’s jittery preparation for his first day next week as Hogwarts’s newest professor. 
Remus will catch you wide awake and tuck you into his chest, murmuring, “Rest now. We’ve got an early morning tomorrow for Wormy’s wedding.” 
You’ll hum and relinquish your thoughts for the night, holding onto James hand over Remus’s belly. “I love you,” you’ll whisper. 
Remus will say it back without hesitation—and you know the others feel exactly the same. 
Minutes later, the door will creak open and a tiny shadow will come crawling into the bed, knocking into everyone’s knees and stomach. It’s a little Harry who’s three years old now. He curls under your neck and you will hold him with all the love that six lifetimes can offer and more. 
When you close your eyes, it is a comforting darkness that envelopes you.
(Somewhere in a castle beyond valleys and lakes, locked away in the dusty shelves of Dumbledore’s cupboards, sits a broken Time-Turner that finally stops ticking.)
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a/n: i wrote the last 2k words like a woman posessed! LMAO. i have to be at training in 2 hours and i haven't prepared yet. tell me what you thought aaaaa!!!! and yes, your sixth life is your last life so u die happily and in peace mwah mwah. might continue this universe with drabbles, idk. if u spot any mistakes.. ignore it for a bit LMAO, i'll proofread this soon.
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not-so-mundane-after-all · 2 months ago
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I know plenty of people have already made a version of the "Jinx is alive" theory post but I've also seen so many of you mourn her death that I decided to gather all the evidence and make another post, turning this theory into a fact.
Because Jinx is alive. It's not a speculation. It's literally there.
The first thing I'm going to mention are the context clues Jinx gives herself. First, the last thing the ghost of Silco tells her. I think the cycle only ends when you find the will to walk away. Then, the realization she comes to when Vi hugs her in the cell. You're never gonna give up on me, are you? What she tells Vi after she leaves her in that cell. You don't need to worry about me anymore. [...] And yes, her initial plan is to kill herself, because she thinks the only way for Vi to move on is for her to be gone. And Ekko gets there just in time to stop her but it looks like he doesn't convince her to abandon her plan, just change it.
And later, when she joins Vi in the final fight. What does she tell her? Still don't get it, huh, sis? I'm always with you. Even when we're worlds apart.
Everything that happens after is constructed specifically to let us and Vi believe that Jinx died. Until we get to this scene:
Caitlyn is studying the Hexgates designs.
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She's looking through the pages depicting the place where the final fight happened, specifically focusing on the air vent shafts, while toying with a monkey bomb head - the same monkey bomb that Jinx used in her supposed last monents.
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She looks down at the monkey...
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Watch the eyes. The realization hits her...
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And she smirks, knowing. Jinx used one of the air vents to escape before the explosion.
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I've studied the explosion frame by frame. First, a small yellow explosion goes off - Jinx sets off the monkey bomb.
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As it becomes bigger, she shoots out of there
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this is still the beginning of the blast when we can still see her, and the big boom that destroys everything starts 10 frames later
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Last context clue is a reference to the very first episode, which is clearly depicted in this gifset here, so instead of explaining, I'll just send you there to check for yourselves.
One thing that is speculation here is, how exactly did Caitlyn come into possession of the monkey bomb head? I doubt she found it there because it would have been turned to dust. And I'm thinking, Jinx took it with her and left it for Cait to find as a clue. She didn't want Vi to know but maybe she wanted Cait to figure it out. I imagine her sneaking into her house and maybe leaving it somewhere for Cait to find, like her desk or something. It gives Cait an idea, a gut feeling she needs to check, and that allows her to figure it out. Just like we are supposed to figure it out on our own.
Bottom line, Jinx is alive. She escaped the explosion through the air vents, then boarded the airship and left the city, convinced that the only way to give her sister a happy ending is to take herself out of the equation. The glitching closing shot saying The End in Jinx's colorful handwriting is a sign that she is telling us that this is where this story ends, like she's saying "don't look for me. It's over." That's also probably why we aren't shown what Caitlyn does with the information she now possesses.
I hope this helps take away from the grief 💙
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cheyisagirlkisser · 2 months ago
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Breaking Your Walls: E.W
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Content: Ellie Williams x Fem! reader, sexual content, Santa Barbara setting, near-death situation, porn with plot basically, oral sex (r! receiving), tribbing, sex on the shores, may contain grammar or spelling mistakes
݁Word Count: 4.3k
Description: You're used to moving from group to group in California, not wanting to stick around to watch someone you get attached to die. Ellie's on her own revenge mission in Santa Barbara when she sees you in the worst possible situation. You try not to open up to her, not wanting to actually feel something for someone who can die at any moment, but it's hard when she's everything you could ask for. Enjoy!
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You were tied up to the wooden beam as it rot along with you. Your wrists were sore and probably red, your mind fuzzy with the blood loss. All of the labor done at the orders of cruel people, the countless hours all spent for naught, only to die on some pathetic wooden stake.
When you left your group, you thought it would be a fresh start. Los Angeles settlements were always safe, but sometimes you craved more. You didn't have a family, so you travelled a lot. It was easier to hop from place to place than to settle down. It was always easier not to fall in love with the people you met or to even feel an attachment to them. So when you left for Santa Barbara, you were feeling that adrenaline from survival. It was quite addictive.
Most people would say that living in a post-apocalyptical reality should not have been romanticized. It was constant grief, violence, and an embarrassing lack of hygiene amongst all people. But those who actually experienced it all knew the bond formed along with the trauma. Maybe that's why so many people willingly left the safety of settlements or mass groups. There was too much routine, and it's almost impossible to get used to not having to rely on pure wit and survival instincts.
There was no denying the dangers of travelling in your world, however. There was no way of pretending, not when you were currently on your death bed. Or more accurately, your death pillar. You only wanted to have another reckless adventure, and look where that got you. You had already accepted the death offered to you upon this pole, however. Now it was only a matter of actually dying.
The sun was constantly beating down upon you, mocking you in a way. You remembered how much you used to love the sun. Your mother would teach you sayings that got you through rather tough times.
"The nights may be rough, and you may doubt you'll even be alive in the morning. However, the sun will always come back out. The day will be new."
There wasn't much to believe in now that the sun was seeming to drain your body of its livelihood even more than you were already enduring. You were starving and you could feel your body giving up on your will to live. The first few days you had tried to escape and found no hope once you watched the other slaves around you practically drop like flies. You weren't even sure how long it had been since you were able to touch the ground. You just hoped the afterlife would be good to you, and maybe you would find your family once more.
You swear you almost saw the pearly gates and for some reason, it hurt. You hit the ground with a thud and your vision was betraying you more than you could ever predict. There was possibly a person standing over you, one who wasn't much taller than you. And then you lost consciousness.
-
You awoke to a cold rag on your face, and you felt some dusty couch underneath you. You were somewhere in California still, you could tell by the window outside and the heat that still harassed your skin. You saw the figure once more and your vision finally adjusted.
She looked unhealthy too, lanky with her ribs slightly visible even through her bloodied tank top. Her hair was messy and an auburn shade that seemed to reflect some reddish undertones when she shifted and the sun hit the strands just right. She looked as if she had been injured, and you were puzzled to how she seemed so unbothered by her state.
"You're awake." She stated as if you didn't already know that. She wore a cautious expression, and you could tell she wasn't keen on trusting you yet. You couldn't blame her, but it was obvious you were also in no position to harm her.
You let out a shaky breath and tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness fell over you. You were reminded of how hungry you were, and your throat was dry with the need for water. The girl seemed to notice, and tossed you a flask.
"Drink slowly, or you're gonna end up heaving up water. You look like a fucking corpse, you know that?" Her words were harsh but laced with some concern her face tried to lack. You tried to hold back from chugging the water. It was warm and probably not the most fresh, but you were desperate. The liquid went down your throat and you couldn't help but wonder who this angel woman was. She seemed to even match her actions with her appearance; there was just a hint of a flutter your stomach couldn't suppress when you glanced at her. Maybe it was nausea, but regardless, you found her beautiful. Like some auburn-haired savior.
"What's your name?" You asked, your voice raspy with disuse.
She didn't seem to mind. "Ellie. Yours?"
"It's (name)," you replied.
Ellie nodded and and appeared stuck in her own thoughts. You noticed the way she fidgeted with her fingers, and you wondered how someone who looked so intimidating could be awkward. You really, wanted to know what happened to her, given her own brash condition.
"You look fucked up. You should probably eat." She finally commented, and you nodded. You tried not to seem too desperate, but you really needed some sustenance. Ellie walked over to her backpack and picked up a can of beef stew off of the ground. She unzipped the backpack, pulling out a well-used can opener. You tried not to stare too hard at the way her biceps flexed as she moved around.
She returned to you with the can and a spoon, and you noticed how much softer her face appeared than it did when you had woken up.
"Here. Eat slowly, or don't complain if you puke it all up." You couldn't help but smile at the hint of humor in her words, and you tried to savor the feeling of food in your mouth instead of trying to finish it all in under five minutes. She observed, probably wondering whether or not to make any more comments for you to listen to. She knew she should just be quiet, but Ellie had a tendency to not care much. She could be dearly honest when it was needed, even though you looked like the last thing you needed was for someone to tell you that you smelled like body odor and garbage.
"Girls like you end up in groups just like the Rattlers all of the time, you know." Her voice was measured, not knowing why she blurted that out.
"Well, yeah. Anyone around here is vulnerable to them." You defended yourself.
"I just don't understand why you're here, then. I'm assuming you knew about slavers here in Cali. It's swarming with 'em." She raised an eyebrow at you; she couldn't help but wonder just what you were doing here.
"I've lived in California for a while now." You stated as if it was nothing, but Ellie wasn't dumb.
"I could've figured that out, but that means you're smart enough to know better than to travel alone in a fucked up area."
At least with those words, you took a pause. She saw right through you. You cleared your throat further, and spoke again. "I've been travelling along my entire life, I know the risks."
Ellie scoffed. "Yeah, good for you. Knowing the risks doesn't mean running around any less foolish."
"I don't see you with a group. You're just alone as me." You countered, and you noticed the way Ellie's eyes flickered down.
"Yeah, I guess you're right. Sorry.." She sighed and brought a hand to her face, tucking a stray auburn piece behind her ear.
The silence grew uncomfortable. You didn't know this girl, and yet there was something in her mannerisms and words that made you feel that she would not be a passing stranger.
"Hey.." Her voice trailed off as she struggled to find the proper words. "Rest up in here. I'll go search around the area for some supplies. Don't think about moving, by the way."
You wanted to protest and tell her that you could go your separate ways as if she never saved you, but you knew that in your condition, you needed her. For once, you needed someone, and you couldn't just run off to go live your nomadic ways.
You nodded and laid back down against the couch. It was a far cry from new or even clean, but it was infinitely better than a wooden pillar.
-
As the weeks went by, you slowly recovered and gained some weight back onto your body. You knew that soon, you would be able to go your own solitary way again. However, it was annoyingly difficult to imagine doing so.
Over the weeks, Ellie's ways grew on you. It started with her smile and the way her eyes contained a hint of humor throughout herself. It was always small and you had a feeling that once, she was more carefree, but you ask her about that. Only let your heart flutter when she told you a dad joke. From there, it was then her voice and how she rasped on, sometimes not having much to say and other times telling you stories about a small settlement in Wyoming. You told yourself you were just bored from being forced to stay in the home the two of you held shelter in, but you knew damn well it was more than that.
You also knew she loved someone else. A woman named "Dina." She never told you outright, but you could see it in her body language. You were observant enough to notice the way she tried to brush it off, and only ended up looking almost child-like, like a young girl in love.
You tried not to let yourself grow a soft spot for her. She was already spoken for, at least her heart was. You had no place in her life in such a way. But it was just so hard when small moments lingered, increasing in tension. Ellie was everything to a girl that had inextricably nothing, a girl that didn't know what letting feelings linger felt like. In any other condition, perhaps you would've ran off far, far away from this auburn girl. But by some strange inconvenience, by your own body's limitations, you're here with her.
-
You were laid on the couch starting at the ceiling. You didn't know what time it was, but from the window, you guessed it was well into the night. The faint sound of crickets carried throughout the air, and you could sense Ellie's presence on the floor below you. You didn't want to glance over at her.
You could already imagine the way her face would be moonlit from the shine in her eyes, the small pieces of shaded hair, the mold of her face. It was like a being begging to be touched, how inexplicably gorgeous she was. Daydreams of having the chance to tug the strands and make her sigh, to feel her in ways you could only imagine what was like-
Now you were getting ahead of yourself.
You were supposed to be recovering so that you could leave. You needed the sleep, needed the rest for your sore body after being practically tortured for weeks, but you were restless. You let out a soft sigh, giving up. You sat up and brushed through your hair, which was in extreme need of a wash. Then, you got a stupid idea. You knew it was risky, but you were in desperate need of a rinse.
With quiet but inevitably creaking steps, you managed to slip out of the house. From the view, it was clear that you were still in Santa Barbara, just on the outskirts. the moon was the only source of light across the entire view, and you could see the water smothering moist sand at the shore of the beach. It wasn't far; maybe a five minute walk. With a deep breath of courage, you took the walk.
Your body was in much better condition than it was weeks ago, but it still was a far cry from the body it used to be, the one that could handle itself. Now, you felt vulnerable, knowing that if infected were to catch a glimpse of you, you'd have to pull a you and run. You wouldn't be guaranteed an escape, though.
Your shoes made a soft crunching noise against the beach. You kicked your shoes off and then slipped free from your jeans, your shirt, and then finally undergarments. The breeze was slightly cool, but only heightened the feelings conflicting in your mind from being naked on a shore in which anyone could find you. Still, you needed a damn wash.
At the feeling of cool ocean water lapping at your feet, you felt truly alive. The moon was proudly beaming above you. You used to think the moon was like some torturous level to get past, that the sun was your savior. Now, you let yourself absorb soft, cool fragments of luminosity.
Your body was now within the water to your waist. You closed your eyes, letting out deep breaths, before kneeling down into the water. The sudden submergence made you shudder, but you could feel the way the salty water mixed within your scalp and enveloped your body. When you finally surfaced, you were met with the sound of a familiar raspy voice.
"Scared the fuck out of me so you could go skinny-dipping?" She stood at the shore, brows knit together in frustration, but some worry hid beneath it.
You quickly turned around, not expecting to actually be caught. Fuck. Your hands instinctively went to cover your chest, but Ellie only sighed as if she'd already given up on lecturing you. She was used to you by now.
"Mind if I join you?" She already made quick works of kicking off her dirty converse. You only nodded, not knowing what to say. You didn't know if you could handle being naked next to her, but you couldn't explain to her that you had a stupid school-girl style crush on her. Plus, she definitely needed to get cleaned up too.
You could hear the sound of her clothes coming off and then the slight splash of her walking into the ocean. You closed your eyes and dared not to look behind you.
"Your hair is gonna be salty." You jolted when you realized she was right next to you, only a few inches of space between your bodies. Fuck, you tried not to look. It was too hard, though. Only an involuntary flicker, and you could see the way her body was practically sculpted like some goddess. Not in a conventional way, either. Her hip bones were visible through her skin, and you could faintly trace over her ribs with your gaze. Her breasts were small, but they sat beautifully on her body and her nipples were slightly hardened by the breeze. You couldn't fully make out all of her features in the dark, but the was gorgeous. So fucking gorgeous, and you had to look away before you lost your mind.
"Um, yeah. It needed a wash, though." You cleared your throat to compose yourself. Ellie's lips tugged into a slight smile, but she didn't make an effort to comment on your defensive tone.
For a few minutes, all you did was look up at the stars. They were dim, but created a portrait of beacons, and they reminded you ever so slightly of Ellie's face and how you wished to make constellations out of her freckles. The silence was comfortable but left you alone in your thoughts that you wished to hide from. It was even harder to hide from them when Ellie's fingers brushed up against your hand, slightly wet from the salty water.
"What are you doing?" You flinched away out of instinct, and immediately regretted it. You wanted her touch, why did you do that? You hated the barriers you set so naturally, not wanting anybody close.
"I'm so sorry, I just..guess I misread your face." She sounded embarrassed and slightly dejected. You were extremely nervous, not ever even letting anyone see you like this, but you couldn't help yourself.
"No, it's okay. I do.." You trailed off slightly before finding the courage to turn and face her. "I do want you to touch me." You knew you probably sounded pathetic, all shaky and quiet, but definitely certain. It was enough for Ellie.
She turned to you, her body almost grazing yours. She hesitated only slightly, her eyes following her own arm, before she finally let her hands trail up your arms. Her fingertips traced the dip in your collarbone, and you couldn't find it in you to shy away. Even though her touch was innocent, bordering on more than that, it was hard to resist when she was here offering you everything you wanted, and you were subconsciously touch-deprived.
Soon following, her lips grazed over your wrist, her eyes on yours as if seeking approval. Your breath hitched slightly at her implication and you nodded. Her mouth wasn't as slow as her hands, sliding its way up to smother soft, sensual kisses on your shoulders. When her lips met the space between your shoulder and neck, her tongue darted out to taste your salty skin, and you let out a small involuntary sound, a mix between a gasp and a moan. She pulled back to read your expression before her mouth latched onto your neck, her body now pressing against yours. You could feel her everywhere; chest to chest, hips conjoined, and it made your head spin with the need for more.
When her kisses reached your ear, she paused. "Can I kiss you?" Her heated breath was hitting your ear, making you weak in the knees.
You swallowed and nodded, but Ellie didn't seem impressed.
"Say the words." Her voice was a whisper and her words her blunt, demanding. Her tone though, it was laced with sweetness. She could probably sense your inexperience.
"I want you to kiss me." You got the words out, and Ellie was satisfied.
Her lips left soft pecks on your jawline until they reached your chin, and then with her fingers, tilted it slightly so she her lips could taste yours.
The kiss wasn't sweet like in the novels, but rather salty, and her lips chapped. You didn't mind. Her hands found your waist and tugged your body closer until there was no room between your bodies. Her tongue slid between your parted lips, making you let out a soft whine. You didn't fully know what you were doing, but your eagerness made the kiss just as good. Her kisses went from soft and gentle so sloppy, wet, and desperate. Your own hands grasped at her face, needing more. You felt a heat, an ache between your legs, but you tried not to focus on it too much. It was all an overload to you; the way her body rubbed against yours as the two of you moved, how her lips took your bottom one into into her mouth and suckled onto it, the scent of the ocean and the sand between your toes.
Before you could even register it, Ellie was guiding you back onto the shore and laying you down onto the sandy surface. Her body followed yours swiftly, her lips chasing yours back. You were a heap of tangled limbs on the ground, grains of sand stuck to your back and your hair as it was spread out against the sand. Her hips were fit snug between your thighs and her hand moved to hitch one of your legs around her waist. Your moans were swallowed by her mouth, your hands rubbing over her back to find purchase in the situation. None came.
Her lips began trailing from your own to your neck, collarbone, and then shoulders. She paused at before her breath fully hit your chest, making sure you were still wanting her. Your face was flushed even in the night, and your eyes half-lidded. That was enough for her to make contact with your boobs, taking one into her mouth and swirling her tongue around your hardened nipple. You gasped her name, fingers tugging into her hair. You could feel her smile slightly and switch to the other nipple. Her hands held your waist, squeezing it slightly as she finally moved further down. Her tongue swirled around your navel and down to your thighs. When her lips met your left inner-thigh, you let out a short breath, practically panting.
"Ellie..." Your eyes were closed, your body slightly tense in anticipation.
"Do you want this?" Ellie looked for confirmation, her lips now gently mouthing at each thigh.
"Yes, I do..but I've never done this before." You admitted weakly.
Ellie looked up when you said that and squeezed one of your hands with her own. "That's okay. Just relax for me, 'kay?"
You nodded, eyes closed, only relying on her touch. Her hands gently worked to pry your legs further apart, and you allowed her to. Then, you felt her hot breath fan over your cunt, making all blood rush to it, before licking from your hole to your clit, hardly grazing it with her tongue.
You were already wet, but that made you practically Nigeria-falls level flooded. You couldn't hold back the strange, needy sound that left your parted lips. Your body twitched, legs moving instinctively to close, but Ellie's grip on your thighs was strong. She moved to hitch your legs over her shoulders, and kissed at your thighs like a tease once more.
"Just let yourself enjoy it. Feels good, doesn't it?" You couldn't respond, only silently nodding and hoping she could understand the feelings coursing through you. When she felt you relax more, she continued her work.
Her tongue flicked at your clit before slipping into your hole, making your hips jolt slightly. She didn't stop, only letting you feel her mouth against your pussy. Ellie would occasionally let out soft vibrational sounds against you, making your head spin and your stomach flutter. It wasn't like anything you'd ever felt before. You had obviously taken care of yourself before, but having someone else's tongue inside your cunt while your legs squeezed around their head? It was another type of heaven you only understood in other types of senses, not physical pleasure.
If you were even able to think of anything besides the heat Ellie's touch provided, you would've been concerned about how you would be able to fare without this treatment every single day. But you couldn't worry, not when this felt so good. You could only appreciate it for what it was worth, and that felt like everything.
You were growing needier, hips grinding your cunt against her mouth while you chanted her name. "Ellie", "Ellie, oh god..", "Please, I'm so close Ellie-"
Your stomach was all tied in knots, and she was only encouraging the feeling and you wondered just how euphoric it'd be to finally release all over her face, to taint her with your arousal.
Soon, you just couldn't help it; the knots she had you tied up in snapped, and Ellie didn't stop, letting you ride out the high. She could hear your pants, the cries you were letting out, and the way your plush thighs practically suffocated her. All she could focus on was your taste, how you just came from her nose brushing up against your clit and her tongue filling your insides. It made her just as needy as you.
You didn't get much of a break, only some soft kisses to your thighs before she was moving up your body and spreading your wobbly legs to feel your soaked cunt against her own. You whined, overstimulated, and she leaned to nuzzle her face into your neck, spilling apologies she didn't really mean. "Sorry, baby..just need you. It's gonna feel good, I promise."
Her cunt slid against yours, hardly any resistance from the way your cum spread between the two of you. You felt so good against her, your nails digging into your back it was almost painful, yet she wouldn't protest, almost pitying your poor, overstimulated clit.
Your body felt so raw and used up, and somehow it felt even more good than before. The way she used your body for her own pleasure had you whining now, louder than the first time. The squelching sounds of your love-making filled both of your ears, and you could hear every soft huff of Ellie's breath matching the rhythm of her humping.
Soon, the intense overwhelming rawness left you, and you only felt bliss. Ellie seemed to follow suit, her movements growing sloppy and less purposeful. You could feel the wetness between the two of you combine, making the movements even louder.
When it was all over, the only noises were crickets and your heavy breathing. Ellie was collapsed on top of you for who knows how long, and her breath was finally evening out against your neck. She pulled herself up and sighed.
"Fuck."
You laughed at that. "Yeah. Fuck is right."
Her body fell back onto yours, her arms holding you tight. You could feel the uncomfortable feeling of sand covering one side of your body, but you didn't care.
After a while, Ellie asked something that usually would make you run away.
"You wanna maybe..go to Wyoming with me?"
You didn't offer much hesitation.
"Why not?"
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lilia-calderus-pet-goat · 3 months ago
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Something of note about Lilia's tarot spread is that—it's hers. The cards she pulls aren't precisely who the characters are to themselves, but who they are and what they represent to Lilia. As her coven, in her life.
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Like, I don't really know my tarot that well—I'm just pulling themes from within the episode and my general understanding.
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But when she was reading for Billy, he was fittingly represented by the Magician. But for Lilia, he was the “windfall.” He was the tower, reversed. Miraculous transformation. Because she, having put the sigil on him, saved him from the destruction and lead to his miraculous transformation. And to her, he was the windfall, because without him, she wouldn't be here, with her coven. She wouldn't have found herself.
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Alice's is very straight forward—“full of fire, fights bravely.” It's how Lilia saw her, what Lilia had once again predicted for her. 'Wound suffered, lessons learned.' Specifically, Lilia wasn't able to warn Alice, but she learned her lesson. So, this time, she makes sure to warn Agatha. “When she calls you a coward, hit the deck.”
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And why does she warn Agatha? Agatha represents her 'obstacles,' after all. Maybe so—Lilia's literal obstacle at this stage ends up being the Salem Seven, who merely want Agatha. Yet she chooses to stay behind to save a woman who probably wouldn't do the same for her. And the reason is—for her, Agatha is the Three of Swords. She looks at her and sees Heartbreak, (Rio) Sorrow, (Evanora) Grief (Nicholas). And Lilia is willing to forgive her—to sacrifice herself for her—even if the universe itself doesn't think she deserves it. This is different from how Agatha views herself, or even how Billy views her, since he initially pulls out the Chariot. One might say it's a random choice, but the Chariot is described as representing “determination, success, and control.” It's about overcoming challenges and gaining victory through maintaining control of your surroundings—which, I argue, embodies Agatha pretty well. So The Three of Swords is who Agatha is to Lilia. She doesn't hate her, or see her as a force to be reckoned with. She pities her. After all, the Queen of Cups is defined by her empathy.
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Then, of course, Jen. Jen is Lilia's path ahead. Not only because she has a brilliant future of her own ahead of her in the mcu, now with her powers unbound. Because Lilia senses all the trapped light and bound power that Jen carries—“The High Priestess: Immense spiritual power, unable or unwilling to use it--” but also because Jen, the survivor, is the one who will carry on Lilia's memory. All those centuries, Lilia had been alone—there was no 'path ahead.' Everything was a jumbled mess, her “path” was non-linear and twisty. And Jen, after centuries of solitude, was her light in the dark, guiding her through the dark tunnels, as her mind wandered through her timeline searching for answers. Jen was the only person in centuries who bothered to see her as something more, to acknowledge her strength, and to help her fill in the gaps as best as she could. And so Lilia sees so much hope in Jennifer—who won't stop becoming better and better. Because for Jen, the Queen of Cups is her path behind. Wound suffered, lessons learned. “I couldn't save Lilia, I didn't even try to save Alice, I'll be damned if I let you two idiots die.”
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Finally, Death, Rio. Well—it's obvious. In tarot, death isn't literal. It's mist often symbolic. Transformation, end of a cycle, new beginnings. Which is why we never see Lilia's corpse, and we never see Rio collect her. Because unlike Alice, Lilia went into the afterlife willingly. And for her, it was a beautiful release. After years of running out of time—she got to start anew—knowing that this time, she managed to save her coven. (I'd also like to think that the reason we don't see Rio collect Sharon is because it was a peaceful death—joining Mr. Davis instead of suffering further. Whereas Alice finally had something to live for, but I digress. I've already made my posts about Alice.)
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I think that this is all relatively obvious—but I genuinely can't stop thinking about Lilia and her dynamics with the rest of the coven.
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emeritusemeritus · 2 months ago
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hi hun, i have a story idea for you, reader and fred weasley if that's alright. reader is pregnant and is due to have her baby on new year's eve but she goes into early labour alone after an argument with fred and gives birth on christmas eve just as fred arrives to make up with her⁷
Hi Anon! Wow when I tell you this has consumed me for days, it’s taken so long to write but I just couldn’t stop! Side note, the name of Fred and Reader’s child is a name I’ve loved since I was a kid and finally got to use it in a fic where it fit perfectly. Hope you enjoy! 🖤
Warnings: pregnancy and childbirth. Graphic descriptions of pain and labour but not of actual birth. Fast labour, precipitous labour. Reader has the pregnancy emotions. arguments and shouting, minor swearing. Reader hits Fred in the arm. Molly Weasley being the OG midwife. I may have some unresolved birth trauma of my own apparently. Happy ending I promise. Not beta read or spell checked.
Word count: 5.5k
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Hark now hear the angels sing [Fred Weasley]
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"And... that is the last one, we are officially ready for Christmas!"
You beam as you turn towards Fred, having tied the last bow on the last gift you had to wrap. You look at the pile of gifts and smile, partially because it meant that you no longer had to wrap a single other thing but mostly because it was a stack of gifts for your loved ones. You'd be going to the Burrow tomorrow for Christmas Eve to spend a big family Christmas back at the Weasley home and had made sure that not a single person would be missed in the gift exchange.
It was December 23rd and you couldn't be more excited for the holidays. It had snowed overnight making everything seem so much more magical and it would be the last Christmas as a couple before the little one arrived.
With one final proud look towards your pile, you gather the scissors and tape into the little bag to store them and tried to stand up from your place on the floor, realising quickly that it probably wasn't the best idea to wrap the gifts on the floor at 39 weeks pregnant. You wince at the sharp pain that runs down the length of your back at any form of movement and momentarily swallow your pride as you call out your husband.
"Little help?" You asked Fred who was sat on the sofa in your little home, tinkering with a string of lights that just didn't seem to want to work. He looks up and starts chuckling at your pathetic attempts at getting up and stretches his hand out for you to take. He lifts you with ease, something you're very impressed by factoring in your current size and giggle when he places a delicate kiss onto your nose. His hand wraps around your waist, his palm pressed against the curve of your belly with his thumb stroking the stretched skin through your T-shirt.
"Did we wrap anything for Fred jr?" He asks, smirking at you with those mischief filled eyes that you love so much.
"No. Mainly because there is, and will be, no such person."
"Oh come on sweetheart, don't you want a tiny little me running around?" His eyebrows jump up and down for effect, fingers still lovingly stroking your bump.
"I'm hoping for a George," you deadpan, breaking into a laugh when he suddenly pulls you gently towards him by tickling your side. "Anyway, she's a girl."
"Oh yeah? Mother's intuition?" Fred teases, his eyes gazing over your bump as if he's trying to see something that's not there, like an obvious clue of what gender your baby will be.
"Something like that," you smile, reaching up on your tiptoes to press a kiss to his smiling lips.
Suddenly, you pull away from Fred with a brief push to his chest, showing your panicked face and the tears that are starting to well in your eyes, all glimmer of happiness gone.
"Princ-."
"I didn't get her anything!" You suddenly cry out, cutting Fred off as he notices the rather sudden change in your demeanour, your voice trembling as the feeling of complete grief consumes you. "What if she comes early and we didn't get her anything? She'll think that we don't love her! Or she'll think that Santa forgot her!"
Tears are streaming down your face now, your breaths coming quicker and quicker as guilt and shame fill your mind. What kind of mother doesn't buy her own baby a Christmas gift?
"Between the cot, the pram and the clothes we've bought for them, plus not to mention the entire house we bought after finding out they were on the way, I'd say they've had enough."
The glare that you shoot at Fred is enough to silence him instantly, the venomous look in your eyes rivalling his own mothers as he quickly realised this is not a time to make jokes.
"This little one isn't due until after Christmas," he says with a much gentler tone now, placing his hand back onto your bump. "They don't need a Christmas present, they'll already have everything they need when they pop out." He regrets his choice of words the second your eyes shoot up to his, knowing that 'pop' made it sound like an easy thing to do, which he'd been warned from almost every female member of his family that it was far from easy.
"When our baby's born," he says, trying again. "They'll have me and their beautiful mummy. And a whole family that loves them, what else could they need?"
Surprisingly, his words do offer comfort and a wave of relief washes over you as you feel calmed by the idea that the baby really did have everything they would need.
"Sorry," you say, feeling a fresh wave of shame taking over you at your slight overreaction, but Fred steps in again to give you a tight squeeze.
"Already the best mum," he whispers, rocking you gently as you stand holding each other, the Christmas lights illuminating the room in a magical display. You feel a little wiggle in your tummy and smile to yourself, your hand slipping down to cradle the spot where you could feel your little one stretching and rolling.
Everything was set for your arrival at the Burrow in the morning, the suitcase was packed with a mixture of your clothes and Fred's, everything down to your spare toothbrush. The gifts were wrapped and the cookies you'd baked earlier that mornings had been placed into a cute metal tin with a bow, placed on the table beside the front door so that you wouldn't forget them.
"Want me to load the car now?" Fred asks, poking his head around the bedroom door.
"I can help," you offer, only to be shut down a moment later by your husband.
"You will do not such thing," he says firmly, though his eyes are soft. "You are going to park your gorgeous little bum down onto the nearest, softest surface and rest."
"But."
"Doctor's orders princess," he winks, making you smile and relent, though you were hardly going to turn down the offer of sitting down for a while before bed, knowing you'd have an early start in the morning. Your back was twinging with discomfort, a crampy feeling radiating between your pelvis and your hips that made you curse yourself for the stupid idea of wrapping presents on a hard floor.
You walked downstairs to grab a warm drink and sit on the sofa with the hope of a warm fire and a Christmas film, stopping to peek out of the Christmas light filled window to watch Fred trying to fit all the presents in the boot of the car. Since you were so far into your pregnancy, almost every magical transportation option was now deemed unsafe, leaving you with only a handful of options for reaching the Burrow. Percy had very graciously secured a ministry car for you to borrow over the holidays, a fact that he was insistent upon repeating whenever it was even vaguely mentioned in conversation, including the precarious nature of securing the car during the ministry's busiest season. Regardless of your brother in laws self importance, you were thankful for his gesture and though the drive would be long, you were actually looking forward to it. You'd prepped snacks, both muggle and magical, had ensured to the point of obsession that the radio was fixed upon the muggle Christmas station so that your entire drive down would be filled with only the cheesiest Christmas songs and you'd even prepped some hot chocolate for the drive, placing two matching Christmas travel cups beside the kettle ready to make just before you left.
A loud crash pulled your attention right back to Fred as you watched him scrambling onto his feet, an array of once neatly wrapped packages on the floor around him. He looks around nervously before catching sight of you in the window, eyes widening, before he attempts to pick up the dropped presents.
Instantly you were moving to the door, your mind spiralling at the idea that they might be broken or wet from the snow, or if Fred was hurt in the skirmish.
"Are you okay?" You ask slightly breathlessly as you scramble to the door, trying to place your shoes on as quickly as you could.
"Sweetheart stay inside, it's icy and you're not coming out here until I can clear it," he says holding up a hand, eyes fixed on your bump as if you accentuate his words.
"What happened?" You ask, trying to steal a glance around his body to look for any damage to the presents that he was slowly picking up, stacking them high in his arms as he attempts to talk to you through a vision blocking stack of presents.
"Well I was trying to balance these ones and the bottom one slipped."
"You can't stack that many! No wonder they bloody fell!" You say, anger simmering under the surface as you watch more and more presents dangerously wobbling in his arms, swaying with the wind and from every movement he makes. "Stop stacking them so high."
"I can do it."
"Obviously you can't!" You snap, feeling the anger rising now from his obvious lack of care to the gifts that you had so painstakingly picked out and wrapped. "What if they're all broken?!"
"They're not all broken," he snarks.
"All? You mean there's broken ones?!" You exclaim, hardly able to push down your anger anymore. You and Fred hardly every argued, but when you did it was almost always a big one that lasted no more than five minutes before you were making up, sometimes longer if he was in the mood to sulk. Uncaring about the ice, you step outside and rush over to the back of the car where Fred continues to pick up the last of the presents from the ground, cringing at what follows when he picks up the very last one.
The telltale sound of damaged box fills your ears at a painfully ironic moment, the sound so obviously being something broken, shattered with the pieces rattling about inside. You gasp as you look upon the misshapen box, seeing the distinctive green wrapping paper all torn and wilted from the snow, knowing instantly what was inside, undoubtedly shattered beyond repair.
You're completely heartbroken at the sight before you and more angry with Fred than you ever remember being.
"You stupid git!" You say, hitting his arm as he turns to you with a look of apologetic shame, though you don't even remotely fall for it, too enraged to give a single thought to his feelings. "I told you that you couldn't carry that many! Now look what you've done!" The box falls from his hands again and lands in a heap on the floor, an ominous rattling crying out all the way down until it crashes upon making contact with the snow.
"It's just a present," he mumbles, trying to downplay the situation as he turns back towards the car, away from your body. His words and aversion to the situation only fuel your anger in the moment, seeing visions of his younger self so uncaring for the consequences of his actions even if it both directly and indirectly affected others.
"It's not just a present you git! It was Fleur's only Christmas present! You have no idea how long it took me to find it," you say, tears welling up in your eyes again as the anger turns to sorrow.'you knew how much she adored snow-globes, something from her childhood that she'd told you about in great detail one night at the Burrow. You'd gone searching around muggle antique stores for something within the brief and had been completely overwhelmed by the beauty of the snowglobe you found for her. It was a little over the budget but you didn't care, knowing how much she would love the beautifully ornate pink and gold filigree on the side, the tiny carousel horses inside that spun around with fine gold glitter covering the beautiful scene. It was decadent and beautiful, and now shattered in a box on your front drive, the glittery water leaking out of a large crack in the box and onto the snow.
"Just give her one of Ginny's," he says defensively, the hint of a shrug ghosting his coat-covered shoulders.
"Oh yeah perfect, because I'm sure she'd love a mug that says Mrs Potter to be!"
You march away from him in a foul mood, stomping your way back into the house as you close the door with a resounding slam, the wreath on the door quivering with the force.
It was the evening before Christmas Eve, you didn't have anything else to give her and you certainly couldn't show up empty handed for only one person, especially one that had become a good friend to you and who had admittedly struggled to fit in with the family at first. You felt wretched and suddenly wanted to stay at home, the idea of going to the Burrow now making you feel physically sick.
You winced as the pain in your back suddenly increased, making you grab ahold of the table beside the door for support as you felt it radiate through your back and settle into your pelvis.
"Look, why don't we just drop by somewhere on the way to mums? See if we can get a replacement." Fred says as he steps through the door, inevitably trailing snow throughout the hallway. You straighten up, recovering from the cramps and turn to him in disbelief, fresh annoyance consuming you again.
"It can't be replaced it was antique!"
"Well something similar then," he mumbles. You don't even fight his words, realising that he didn't have any semblance of idea of how hard you'd worked to make everything perfect for Christmas.
"You haven't even apologised," you huff, kicking off your shoes and wandering towards the kitchen, cringing at the pain that still remains in your lower back.
"What for?!" He asks, sounding mystified. "Hardly my fault I slipped, ice is icy funnily enough."
"Oh piss off Fred, you know it wasn't the ice," you spit out, reaching for a mug as you flick the kettle on again.
"I've had enough of this," he says angrily, marching right back out of the hall towards the front door that slams shut behind him. The silence that follows is almost suffocating as you stand looking at the place he stood only moments before.
The tears flowed freely now, though the gut wrenching sobs had stopped eventually. It had been around half an hour since your argument with Fred when you walked over to the door to attempt to reconcile, not wanting the stupid argument to ruin the last night in your home before tomorrows journey. It was getting late and you wanted to go to bed, exhausted both physically and emotionally and knew that stopping off somewhere tomorrow for a replacement gift for Fleur would only make your wake up call earlier. You sucked in a sharp breath when you stood up from the sofa, feeling a sharp pain shoot right up your pelvis and down your leg right to your toes, the cramping immediately resuming. You let out a few steady breaths and grabbed hold of your bump as if to help calm the pain and waddled towards the door.
When you saw that the car was no longer outside, with no sign of Fred anywhere and only tyre marks in the snow as proof, you knew instantly that he had left. Tears began to prickle at your eyes and you closed the door slowly with a weak shove, the tears coming once again. Fred had never left during an argument, had never just upped and decided to flee. You felt miserably guilty for your overreaction, even if it did seem deserved, and wished more than anything that you could just fix it and go to bed.
You went to make another cup of tea, needing the warmth and the comfort from the drink, the fire having long since died and the room feeling uncommonly chilly. A sharp pain suddenly radiated through your lower abdomen, like a crushing pain that tightened around your hips like a belt that was too small and you gasped, clutching hold of the counter as you waited for it to disappear. During your scramble to reach out for something solid to rest upon, the mug had been knocked to the side and you watched as your favourite mug tumbled to the floor, splintering at your feet into little ceramic shards.
The pain was increasing rather than disappearing and you felt the tightness all over your bump now. When it finally began to abate after a few seconds, your legs felt wobbly and you felt shaken, heart pounding and breathing unsteady as you tried to calm yourself. You barely managed to make it over to the sofa when the pain started again, radiating through your body with increasing intensity that felt like a wave slow building until it crashed upon the sand. You gripped the arm of the sofa as the apex of the pain consumed your body again, this time lasting even longer than before.
When the pain peaked, forcing you onto your hands and knees on the floor in front of the sofa, you realised with a sheer sense of panic that you were completely alone. You couldn't use the floo, couldn't apparate and now you also had no car to get you anywhere or to anyone. Your owl was delivering a message to the Burrow and still hadn't returned, clearly having flown to Wheezes instead, leaving you owl-less. You took long steady breaths when you could, relishing in the few moments of relief that came between your pains. It couldn't be labour, it just couldn't, even though logically you knew that it was more than possible as babies came when they were ready, not when you wanted them to.
You sighed when you felt another wave of pain starting in your extremities, rapidly increasing to a crushing pain around you back and in your last parts. The pain made you breathless and you could hardly believe how quickly things had escalated as you knelt on the floor trying to keep yourself calm but failing miserably in the middle of what you absolutely would not believe, but logically knew, was labour. You choked on a sob when you thought of Fred, that he'd left you at your most vulnerable time, that he'd miss the birth of your child and that you'd have to do this all alone. The plans you'd made for your birth were now completed ruined and you would no longer have the support of Molly, who had been overjoyed at being asked to support you. She was more than just your mother-in-law and after birthing seven children, there was no one else you trusted to guide you through labour. But now completely alone and trapped at home, would you survive? Women died in childbirth all the time, especially when birthing alone. What if the baby didn't survive? What if the cord was around their neck and you didn't know?
Almost like a switch had gone off in your mind, you focused on the task at hand, pushing all fear inducting thoughts out of your head and focused instead of what would be needed if you were going to do this alone. Warm towels, water, somewhere comfy for you to labour, somewhere warm and soft for the baby, baby clothes and a multitude of blankets. You looked towards the stairs and took a deep breath, trying your hardest to time yourself so that in the brief moments of reprieve you could climb the stairs to fetch what you'd need.
It took much longer than expected to collect everything you'd need, having to stop multiple times to cling onto the nearest surface and ride out the wave of pain that you could tell was getting worse and closer together. You'd barely made it down the stairs when another wave of pain hit you, making you stumble down the last step. You cried out at the searing pain that shot through you at the inadvertent step you'd taken, a lighting bolt of agony coursing through your pelvis, around your bump and settling deep in your groin. Your breath was shaky as you tried to recover from the pain but it didn't wane this time and instead focused purely in the centre of your pelvis. You notice by chance that it's past midnight now, the jingle of the little Christmas-themed muggle clock taunting you as to the announcement of a new day. Christmas Eve and you were alone, left to give birth entirely alone.
It takes everything you gave no to cry out, focusing instead on taking deep breaths and emitting a low groan as a way of vocalising your pain. You eventually make it back to the sofa, surrounded by all the things you'd need and allow yourself a little sob as you look at the equipment surrounding you, like an ominous scene of foreboding. Whatever motivation and strength you had previously momentarily slipped away and you allowed yourself to cry, both for the unrelenting pain and for your heartbreaking situation.
You let out another cry when a pain much stronger and more direct than before hits you full on, a crushing feeling from the inside that makes you feel lightheaded. You scramble to look down when you suddenly feel something wet beneath you, bringing your hand up to your legs to try and decipher what had caused it. You fight through another pain to pry off your wet bottoms and cast them aside, praying that you don't see any blood between your thighs. It's clear, the liquid that drips down your thighs, small sudden gushes turning to small drops as you battle to get a towel underneath you.
You're on all fours again, trying your hardest to take stabilising breaths when you hear the sound of the front door open.
"Fred!" You cry out in hope and desperation, the wail that falls from your lips an accumulation of the physical and emotional pain. It's the scream that you had wanted so desperately to let out as your body burns internally.
He's beside you in seconds and couldn't have been quicker if he'd apparated between the door and the living room. Your head falls forward as another contraction takes over, the sudden need to push consuming every instinct within you.
"I'm here sweetheart, I'm here it's okay," he coos, his hand instinctively reaching for your lower back as you circle your hips, trying desperately to bring relief.
You look up into his eyes and can see that he looks completely torn, eyes washing over your form as his mind whirls trying to formulate a plan. He looks completely overwhelmed under the surface, as much as he's pretending to be calm, panicked by the sudden chance in circumstances.
"Look sweetheart, I need to fetch mum, I'll be back in five minutes tops, I'll apparate right there and right back, can you handle that?"
He barely gets the words out before you scramble to reach out for him, clutching the bottom of his shirt desperately as you cringe from the movement of your torso.
"No please Freddie, please don't leave me alone again," you beg, already crying from the thought alone as you cling into him, tears streaming down your face. You're terrified of being alone again, desperate for him to stay by your side. You're scared and in pain, unable to think clearly.
"I won't leave," he says with a nod, trying to calm you, his brows knitting together as he tries to think of a backup. It's too late to drive you to St Mungo's and there's no way to side along apparate with you safely, especially now that labour had begun.
He does the only thing he can think of and pulls out his wand to cast his patronus, watching with a dwindling sense of hope that it would reach its destination quickly.
He pockets his wand again and turns his full attention back to you, trying to push some pressure into your back to relieve the pain in anyway he can, gently reminding you to take slow and deep breaths. There's so much that he needs to say to you, to apologise for, but that can wait until later, knowing that his focus had to be on you right now.
"Fred I need to push," you say with staggered breaths, a thin sheet of sweat covering your forehead.
"I know sweetheart, just a couple more minutes okay?" He says, still squatting down beside you. He prays to Merlin and to anyone else that might be listening for this to go well, for his patronus to have worked and failing that, for it to be an easy birth. He wasn't prepared for this, just a prankster turned businessman that had no knowledge of women's bodies beyond putting the baby there... getting it out was a completely different matter. 
"That's it sweetheart, you are doing so well, I'm so proud of you," he says, pushing back your hair that had stuck to your sweaty head, reaching for one of the little hand towels towels and enchanting it so that it was wet and cool before rubbing it softly over your forehead. You moan out and he hardly knows if it's because of the cooling sensation or because of the pain, but when you pull his washcloth holding hand back up to your forehead, he's pretty sure he has an idea.
"You are so strong princess, you're doing so well," he coos, trying his hardest to support you in your time of need. Truthfully, he was baffled how your body was doing this. You looked like you were in excruciating pain but yet you still carried on for the sake of the baby, your strength and resilience astounding him.
He jolts when he hears the telltale roar of flames in the fireplace and his heart leaps at the thought, had his patronus worked?
"Where is my, oh my dear!" Molly Weasley steps out of the floo induced flames of their fireplace and directly into the living room, giving herself a good shake as she spots her daughter in law on all fours in obvious labour. She pulls out her wand and casts a spell over herself that cleans off any sign of fireplace soot, then blasts the fireplace so that the regular flames resume to heat the home.
"Oh my dear," she rushes over, moving to kneel beside her daughter in law whose face scrunched up in pain, a silent scream of anguish falling from her lips.
"You should have got me sooner!" She points an accusing finger at her son who looks equal parts guilty and mortified as she strikes your hair out of your face, her eyes flicking between concern and anger between the two of you.
"I... I told him it wouldn't be yet," you stammer, hardly able to form the words. "I need to push!"
"Fred make yourself useful! Just like your father sat idly about, fetch some more towels and pillows from the bed, honestly you men." Molly surges into caring mode and for once Fred does exactly as she says without any backchat or hesitation. Her very presence is reassuring to you and you feel instantly calmed just by having her by your side.
"Well I have to say it, you do make beautiful babies," Molly coos as she looks at the three of you huddled together on the bed. Fred looks tired but peaceful, his arm wrapped protectively around you as your new baby stays latched on to your breast, bundled in soft blankets that her grandma had knitted especially for her. You're exhausted but overwhelmingly happy, and perhaps a little bit shocked by how quickly everything had progressed throughout the day and night.
"Right I'm off, as long as you're all okay? Oh I can't wait to tell your father he'll be overjoyed! I'm only an owl away if you need anything and I mean that, yes?"
"Thank you, for allowing me to experience this. I have a feeling this little one will be my favourite yet," Molly smiles as she leans down to glide her fingers across the little one's cheek lovingly. She looks up to you and smiles warmly, leaning down to give you a kiss on top of your head. "And very well done dear, you did brilliantly."
Fred walks his mother out, knowing that she had never liked apparating and would be using the floo to get home. You can hear their voices as they go downstairs but you can't hear what's being said and you look down at the cooing baby in your arms, watching her closed eyes and quick but steady breaths. She really is perfect, her little button nose, long lashes and tuft of distinctive red hair that was currently hidden beneath her little hat. 10 fingers, 10 toes and a striking resemblance to her dad that after the intense labour you'd just endured felt like a hilarous but tiny smack in the face.
When Fred returns, he's beaming. He pauses, leaning against the doorframe as he looks at the sight before him, his girls.
"How are you feeling sweetheart?" He asks, gently climbing onto the bed beside you.
"Exhausted," you say with a laugh, trying hard not to jiggle the little one too much with your laughter. "But I'm happy."
"Me too. Here, let me take her so you can get some rest."
You want to protest but you're worried your eyes will close at any second even though you're trying your hardest to keep them open, your body just too exhausted. You hand Fred the sleeping baby, passing her over gently like she could shatter at any moment from being so fragile and within moments of your head touching the pillow, you're out like a light.
"Wait till you meet your uncle George, and auntie Ginny, and uncle Percy, and Ron, and Charlie and Bill... there's a lot of them to remember I know, but it's mainly uncle George and Auntie Angelina you have to remember kid. Don't even get me started on the others, aunt Hermione, uncle Harry, auntie Fleur and then there's your granny and grandad."
"Trying to bore her back to sleep with your family tree?" You smile, noticing Fred and your little girl cuddled together in the little armchair in the corner next to her bassinet. He huffs a laugh, turning to you with so much adoration in his eyes that it momentarily leaves you breathless.
"Just getting her up to speed," he smirks, reaching down with his hand to grab her hand gently, "you going to say good morning to your beautiful mummy?" He gently manipulated her hand so that she gives you a little wave and you laugh, sitting up in bed with a slight wince.
"So I guess Fred Jr is off the table now eh?" He says with a wiggle of his eyebrows as he stands up from the chair, bringing your daughter over to you, her face a perfect picture of contentment.
"It was never on the table," you say with a smirk, greedily reaching for your daughter.
"Well you surprised us little one," Fred says to his daughter as she begins to stir. "Thought we'd be naming you something new yearsey, but you're a little Christmas Angel."
As if the concept of time and days had just returned to you, you realise that your daughter was born on Christmas Eve, your own little Christmas miracle.
"Holly?" Fred suggests, your nose scrunching up at the suggestion, not liking how obvious it was.
"What about Evangeline?" You ask, looking down at the sweet face, trying to weight up what name suited her the most. "Nickname Eve or Evie?"
"Evangeline Weasley..." Fred muses, as if trying it out for himself, "I love it." He beams, as if the missing puzzle piece has just slotted in to place.
"Merry Christmas little Evangeline," he coos, watching as she yawns, her eyes opening with a little squint as if by some miracle, answering to her name. Fred kisses you and you're happier than you've felt in a long time, the heartbreak of yesterday long forgotten and forgiven as you celebrate your first Christmas together as a family of 3.
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wwooyology · 4 months ago
Text
Please Come Back | K.SN
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「prompt」 : wake up 「pairing」 : bf!sunoo x fem!reader 「word count」 : 1.2k
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「synopsis」 : after a huge argument, you ran out of the apartment in a fit of rage, and sunoo stayed behind; that was until he got word that you had been in a lethal car accident, resulting in you fighting for your lift with no sign of recovering.
「genre」 : angst
「warnings」 : cussing, brief mention of arguments, car accident, death, self-blame, lmk if I missed anything!!
「notes」 : this was written at like three in the morning while I'm fighting for my life to keep my eyes open so hopefully it turned out alright.
masterlist ─ navi. ─ angstober list
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“Can you pull your head out of your ass and take a look at the real world? It doesn't revolve around you, y/n!” Sunoo hissed, anger boiling hot in his veins as he glared at you.
Matching his glare with one of your own, you scoffed in disbelief, “You know what, Sunoo? Fuck you!”
With that, you stormed out of the house, refusing to listen to another word that would leave his lips. That was probably the worst decision that you could have made in your life and, quite frankly, your last.
In the span of an hour, you had been involved in a car accident with a drunk driver and was rushed to the hospital.
In the span of an hour, Sunoo received the call that nearly made his heart stop in his chest. You were critically injured and currently undergoing surgery that could mean a matter of life or death.
Dropping his phone, he quickly made his way to the hospital, surprised that he hadn’t been pulled over in the process. Once he got there, he rushed into the hospital and to the receptionist's desk, asking them for you.
“The patient is still currently in surgery,” The nurse explained to the blonde with a solemn expression because things weren’t looking too good for you.
Sunoo then asked which operating room and pointed him in the right direction. Running off, he stopped in front of the door, pacing back and forth. You had to be okay, right? This was just a simple surgery, and you would come out alive.
Right?
‘It was just a stupid fight. Why did it escalate so far?’ He started to beat himself up over the argument, praying that you would make it out of this and he could make it up to you.
After what felt like hours, the operation light finally turned off, and the door slid open. Sunoo quickly rushed up to the doctor, asking how you were, to which they gave him a look filled with pity.
“We’ve done everything we can, but she’d be lucky to make it through the night.” The doctor informed the younger male, who nearly collapsed to his knees right then and there.
Nurses quickly rushed over to help hold him up, but Sunoo wasn’t worried about them. He quickly grabbed the doctor's arm and looked at him with pleading eyes.
“Can I see her?” His voice shook as he tried his best to keep the tears that had built up on his waterline at bay, but as the seconds ticked by, it was proving more and more difficult to do so.
The doctor agreed before moving to the side and allowing Sunoo to walk into the room. As soon as he walked into the room, the tears he fought so hard to stop started flowing down his flushed cheeks. 
There you were, lying in the hospital bed. A multitude of wires and tubes connected to your body, and god, did you look so, so lifeless. If it wasn’t for the faint beeping of the heart monitor, one would think that you were just a corpse lying there. The sight caused Sunoo’s heart to hurt, a sharp pain shooting throughout his entire body.
He couldn’t stop the tears. All of the overwhelming grief and anger hit him like a freight train. There was no way he could process all of the emotions at once. His fist connected with the solid wall next to him in the blink of an eye.
It hurt, god, it hurt like hell, but even when he looked down at his now busted knuckles with misty eyes, he didn’t even think twice before punching the wall once more. A cry fell from his lips as nurses rushed in to keep him from doing any more damage to his hand.
He wept and shouted, all of the pain coming out in anger until he tired himself out and just sat on the floor of the room. His eyes never leave your motionless figure as you lay in that bed.
Once he finally gained enough strength, he pushed himself to his feet before stumbling over to your side. Gently grabbing your hand, he dropped back down to his knees as more sobs racked from his body. He begged and pleaded with you to wake up. To yell at him once more for being such an asshole and that you would be just fine.
“I’m so so so fucking sorry, baby. Please come back to me.” He cried, fingers tightening around you as he studied your face.
Even as he sat by your side for the next few hours, he continued to blame himself for your situation. Blaming himself for blowing up at you for asking a simple question. Cursing himself for letting the fight spiral out of control like it did.
“I know I’m an idiot, but I swear when you get out of here, I’ll do anything to make it up to you, just–” He was cut off by a hiccup as tears fell endlessly from his eyes, “Just come back to me. Please.”
Those next few moments felt like they happened in slow motion. The heart monitor that had been reading your shallow heartbeat suddenly fell flat, and your whole body went still. A loud alarm rang around Sunoo as he panicked, calling for the doctors to rush in.
“Get him out of here!” They shouted as the nurses tried to pull Sunoo from the room, but he refused to move. Watching as they started CPR and trying to bring you back.
The ringing in his ears was so loud that he couldn’t hear anything else, tears blurring his vision once more. Even if it brought upon an unimaginable pain, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the scene in front of him.
“Time of death; 2:49 am.” Those words echoed in Sunoo’s mind as he watched them move away from your body.
He refused to believe it; you couldn’t be gone. You couldn’t have just left him like that. No, this was just some sick and twisted joke that you were pulling to get back at him for arguing with you.
Rushing over to your motionless body, he grabbed your shoulders and shook you like a ragdoll, “Come on, y/n, this isn’t funny anymore. The prank’s over. Ha ha, very funny.” He laughed dryly as he continued to shake your body. “Wake up, please. Please wake up. I can’t do this without you.” His cried echoed all around the room, the doctors and nurses averted their gazes in pity, some crying tears of their own.
“Don’t leave me, please, I’m sorry.” He sobbed, dropping down to his knees at your bedside.
“I’m sorry, but she’s gone.”
“NO!” Sunoo shouted at the doctor with a teary gaze, “she wouldn’t leave me like this. She just wouldn’t.”
The doctors allowed him a few moments with you in silence before ultimately dragging him out of the room as he kicked and screamed. Then, even after he was removed, he continued to plead with you to come back.
“I’m sorry I’m such an idiot.” He hiccuped as he looked up, tears flowing from the corner of his eyes. "God, just give me one more chance.”
But he knew it was too late for another chance. You were gone, and the last words he said to you were out of anger. Something that would eat at him until the day he died.
All because of a petty argument.
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@wwooyology | Do not steal, plagiarise, translate, or repost any of my work
𝖉𝖎𝖘𝖈𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒𝖊𝖗 : ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ɴᴏ ᴡᴀʏ ᴀ ᴛʀᴜᴇ ʀᴇᴘʀᴇꜱᴇɴᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ᴏꜰ ᴀɴʏ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀꜱ. ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ᴘᴜʀᴇʟʏ ꜰɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴀɴᴅ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏᴍᴇɴᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏᴛ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴛᴀᴋᴇɴ ꜱᴇʀɪᴏᴜꜱʟʏ.
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favefandomimagines · 4 days ago
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I Know Places 2 (r.c)
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Summary: Rafe goes to Y/N at the bait shop and his presence is not celebrated
AN: part 2 of ‘I Know Places’ and I’m deciding to go the traditional route! I’m used to the old school way of fics so this will be fully written out and not SMAU! Though I do love how that’s on trend right now!
Previous part
The next morning, Y/N Maybank was up before the sun had fully risen, her mind too restless for sleep. She had spent the night tossing and turning, debating whether or not to tell JJ and the Pogues about what happened at Tannyhill. It wasn’t that she wanted to keep secrets—she just didn’t know how to explain the strange feeling of being pulled into Rafe Cameron’s world, if only for a fleeting moment.
By the time the bait shop was ready to open, she was already elbow-deep in her morning routine: feeding the live bait, checking inventory, and wiping down the counters.
Summer was here, which meant the shop would soon be crawling with locals and tourists alike, and she needed everything to be in order.
The small bell above the door jingled, pulling her attention away from the tank of minnows. She glanced up to see Rafe Cameron standing in the doorway. His broad shoulders filled the frame, his usual air of arrogance replaced by something quieter.
“Hey, Pretty Girl,” he said, a faint smirk tugging at his lips.
Y/N quirked a brow, unsure whether to be annoyed or amused. “Rafe Cameron on the Cut? You must’ve hit your head harder than I thought.”
“Funny,” he replied, stepping closer. “How’s business?”
“It’s early,” she said flatly, then tilted her head. “How’s your head?”
“Better,” Rafe said, though his hand instinctively went to touch the bandage she had applied the night before. “Still aches.”
“Maybe now you’ll listen to me and see a doctor,” Y/N said, crossing her arms. “What if you’ve got brain damage? You must have if you thought coming here was a good idea.”
Rafe chuckled under his breath, but his expression quickly sobered. “I need to talk to you about last night.”
Y/N set the container of fish food on the counter, her brows knitting together. “What do you mean?”
Rafe leaned against the counter, his blue eyes scanning the shop briefly before landing back on her. “How many people did you see leave the house?”
“Three,” she said slowly, thinking back to the shadowy figures slipping through the side gate. “They looked like men, but I couldn’t see their faces. They had black hoods on.”
She watched as Rafe’s jaw tightened and his eyes clouded over, clearly running through a mental list of possibilities. It didn’t take a genius to realize there was more to the break-in than he was letting on.
“Are you in some kind of trouble?” Y/N asked, her voice softer now.
Rafe shook his head quickly. “No. Don’t worry about it.”
“Rafe, someone broke into your house and assaulted you. You need to tell Shoupe,” Y/N said firmly.
“I’m sure they didn’t find what they were looking for,” he replied cryptically.
“What does that even mean?”
Rafe ignored the question, shifting his weight uncomfortably. “I just... I wanted to see you. And to thank you again for helping me last night.”
Y/N blinked, caught off guard by the sincerity in his tone. “It’s no problem,” she said, though her voice faltered slightly. “But you should probably go before JJ finds you talking to me.”
“Do you always do what JJ wants?” Rafe asked, but there was no malice in his voice.
Y/N hesitated, his question catching her off guard. Did people really think that? “No,” she said finally, a small smile tugging at her lips. “It’s just that a fight is bad for business.”
Rafe returned her smile, a rare softness in his expression. He pulled out his phone and handed it to her. “Here. Put your number in. You know, in case I need another house call.”
Y/N stared at him for a moment, her instinct screaming at her to say no. But Rafe seemed... different. The last time they’d spoken, he’d been consumed by grief and arrogance, still reeling from his father’s death and struggling to take over the family business. But now, he seemed calmer—more grounded, though still carrying an edge.
She grabbed his phone and began typing her number. Her head was screaming at her to not do it, don’t give him access. But she did it anyway.
“Rafe?”
Both their heads snapped toward the dock, where Sarah Cameron was walking toward the shop. Rafe stepped back from Y/N, his demeanor instantly shifting.
“What are you doing here?” Sarah asked, her gaze narrowing suspiciously.
“Thought someone broke into the house last night,” Rafe said smoothly. “I knew you parked outside when you went to that party, so I came to see if you saw anything.”
Before Sarah could respond, Y/N interjected. “I already told him I didn’t see anything. We were still at the party when it happened.”
“Someone broke into the house? Did they take anything? Are you okay?” Sarah questioned. “I’m fine. It didn’t look like they took anything. Just a window and a door I have to replace.” Rafe answered.
“I uh, gotta go, I’ll see you around.” He added, his gaze fleetingly on Y/N.
He walked past Sarah and up the dock, leaving Y/N standing there, her heart pounding for reasons she couldn’t fully understand.
“Was he bothering you?” Sarah asked, stepping into the shop.
“No, no,” Y/N said quickly. “He just wanted to ask if we saw anything.”
But even as she spoke, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Rafe’s visit meant something more. And as much as she hated to admit it, she didn’t entirely mind.
“JJ is going to freak when he finds out.” Sarah commented. “We don’t need to tell him. I’m sure Rafe came here looking for you but I was here.” Y/N quickly replied.
As Sarah stepped closer, Y/N busied herself with the container of fish food on the counter, her mind racing. She could still feel the heat of Rafe’s presence lingering in the room, and her stomach twisted at the thought of Sarah catching onto something she hadn’t even figured out herself.
“What’s going on?” Sarah asked, crossing her arms as she studied her friend.
Y/N shrugged nonchalantly, hoping her casual demeanor would be enough to shut the conversation down. “Nothing.”
“Since when does Rafe come to you for answers?” Sarah’s tone was skeptical, her piercing gaze making Y/N feel like she was under a microscope. “And why didn’t he just ask me?”
“Maybe because you were at the party too?” Y/N said, raising a brow. “I don’t know, Sarah. He didn’t exactly give me his whole life story.”
Sarah frowned but didn’t press further, instead moving to grab a soda from the mini fridge behind the counter. “Still... I don’t like him showing up out of nowhere like that.”
Y/N let out a short laugh, trying to lighten the mood. “What, you think he’s gonna rob the bait shop? Pretty sure we’re not hiding any family heirlooms in the minnow tank.”
Sarah snorted, but her expression remained thoughtful as she leaned against the counter. “I just don’t trust him, Y/N. You know how he is.”
Y/N hesitated, her fingers fidgeting with the edge of her shirt. Sarah wasn’t wrong—Rafe Cameron was trouble. He always had been. But last night, when he was bleeding and vulnerable, he didn’t feel like the same guy she’d written off.
“Yeah, I know,” Y/N said quietly. “But he’s your brother, Sarah. He can’t be all bad.”
Sarah gave her a sharp look, clearly not expecting that response. “You’re defending Rafe now?”
Y/N shook her head quickly. “No, I’m not defending him. I’m just saying... people can change, right?”
Before Sarah could respond, the bell above the door jingled again, and John B strolled in, followed closely by JJ, who was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“Morning, ladies,” John B greeted with a grin, grabbing a bag of chips from the shelf. “What’s the gossip?”
“Rafe was here,” Sarah said bluntly, making both boys freeze in their tracks. Y/N glared at her friend, eyes saying ‘why the hell would you do that?’
“What?” JJ’s tone immediately turned sharp as he walked over to Y/N. “Why the hell was Rafe Cameron here?”
“Someone broke into his house,” Y/N said quickly, trying to downplay the situation. “Wanted to know if we saw anything suspicious last night. That’s it.”
JJ’s jaw clenched, and he let out a humorless laugh. “Since when does he care about what we saw? He’s up to something.”
“Relax, J,” Y/N said, placing a hand on his arm. “He wasn’t here to start trouble. He just... wanted answers.”
“Well, he better not come around again,” JJ muttered darkly, his protective instincts kicking in. “I don’t care what he wants. You don’t need to be talking to him.”
Y/N bristled at his tone, but before she could respond, Sarah spoke up. “Let’s not make this a thing. Rafe’s gone, and he’s not coming back here.”
JJ muttered something under his breath, clearly still annoyed, but he let it go for now. Y/N, however, felt a tinge of annoyance in her chest. She loved her brother, and it was just the two of them at the end of the day so it makes sense he’s protective. But he’s not her father, she’s 20 years old, she doesn’t need her brother telling her who she can and can’t talk to.
||
The fire crackled softly, its orange glow casting warm shadows on the Pogues as they lounged in the cool evening air. John B was sprawled out on the sand with Sarah curled up beside him, their laughter intertwining as they recounted the story of JJ’s infamous fight with Topper outside the country club.
“And then Shoupe shows up, and Y/N’s out here sweet-talking him like she’s auditioning for a soap opera!” JJ exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air for emphasis.
“Sweet-talking?” Y/N interjected from the hammock, her tone dripping with mock offense as she rolled another joint. “I’ll have you know I was using logic and reason to keep your ass out of juvie.”
Kie snorted. “Logic and reason? You told Shoupe Topper started it and then cried about how JJ was just trying to defend your honor.”
“Exactly,” Y/N said with a smug grin. “And it worked, didn’t it?”
JJ grinned back, leaning over to flick sand at her. “I owe you for that one, Sunshine.”
“Damn right you do,” Y/N quipped, expertly twisting the joint closed.
The group dissolved into another round of laughter, the kind that came easy after a long day and a few too many hits. Pope was stoking the fire while Cleo leaned against him, teasing him about his terrible impression of Shoupe. It was one of those rare nights where everything felt simple—just them, the stars, and the stories they carried.
“Hey, Sunshine!” JJ called, breaking through the chatter. “Toss me one of those masterpieces!”
Y/N smirked, flicking the newly rolled joint in his direction. JJ caught it with ease, holding it up like a trophy before lighting it.
As she reached for another paper, her phone buzzed against her thigh. She picked it up without much thought, her heart skipping a beat when she saw the name.
Rafe.
The text was simple but enough to tug at her carefully guarded smile.
RC: Hey, Pretty Girl.
Y/N: Can I help you, Cameron?
RC: What are you doin’?
Y/N: Currently? I’m rolling a joint.
RC: Lol, save one for me?
Y/N: Maybe.
The next text froze her in place.
RC: Just wondering, is asking you out against doctor’s orders?
Her breath hitched, her mind racing. Was Rafe Cameron—Rafe Cameron—really asking her out? She stared at her phone for a moment too long, trying to process what this meant.
Y/N: Hm, that might be bad for your health
RC: What if we don’t tell anyone?
This wasn’t the Rafe she’d known before. The old Rafe was reckless, arrogant, and self-absorbed. But now? He felt different, quieter. Something had shifted, and Y/N couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
RC: Did I lose you, Pretty Girl?
She glanced around the fire. Her friends were laughing, oblivious, completely immersed in the stories of summers past. Sarah was teasing John B about his failed attempts at surfing, JJ was leaning back with a lazy grin, and Kie was high enough to be softly singing to herself.
Y/N was the odd one out—always had been in a way. The one without a partner, without a storybook romance. And yet, there was something undeniable about the way her chest had tightened in Rafe’s bathroom, how she’d felt something she couldn’t ignore.
Y/N: Better plan a good date
The reply came seconds later.
RC: Is that a yes?
Y/N: It’s a yes. Don’t mess it up.
Y/N set her phone down, the smallest of smiles playing on her lips as she leaned back in the hammock.
“Who are you texting?” Kie’s voice came from beside her, making Y/N jump. Kie had slid into the hammock, her eyes glassy but curious.
“My cousin,” Y/N lied smoothly, reaching for another paper. “We need more weed, and he’s got the good stuff.”
Kie leaned her head on Y/N’s shoulder, her movements sluggish. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”
Y/N froze, the lie suddenly feeling heavy in her chest. “Of course, Kie,” she murmured, though her voice felt hollow.
“You’re my best friend,” Kie continued, her words slurring slightly. “You and me, we’re a team, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Y/N said softly, guilt twisting in her stomach.
But as Kie drifted into a half-asleep haze against her shoulder, Y/N’s thoughts drifted back to Rafe. Whatever this was, it wasn’t something she could tell them. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
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too-much-tma-stuff · 9 months ago
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Caring enough to Kill (part 2)
Part two to this. Jason confronts Bruce and when it doesn't go the way he wants it to Danny is there to pick up the pieces.
tw: Mentions of sex, descriptions of violence, abusive relationships
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Jason stumbled back into his safehouse, clutching his bleeding throat where Bruce had cut him. He could feel the tears trapped behind the stupid Domino mask and he ripped it off, sobbing as he collapsed to the floor. He had finally done it, he had confronted Bruce, told him it was Joker or Him and Bruce had, Bruce had attacked him! 'Because he took me from you'. So pathetic, Jason had practically begged, and Bruce had nearly slit his throat. So pathetic! to have believed he still even had a father!
He could swear the tears that fell to the floor had a subtle green glow as he wept, he felt helpless, worthless, purposeless! He could feel the Pits churning inside him, burning in his veins with grief and rage that might turn him into a monster for good. He would let it, maybe escaping all this human misery would mean he didn't care so much about someone caring enough to avenge him. Maybe he would finally just be able to kill Joker himself.
A floorboard creaked and he looked up sharply. Danny, sliding through the window after him. He gave Jason a look of sympathy and concern as he approached slowly, his back hunched and his knees bent, making himself as small as he could as he kept closer.
"One of your people saw you running and called me. Jason, what happened?" Danny asked softly, reaching out to touch Jason's face.
Jason couldn't stand, couldn't stand the care, couldn't stand a gentle touch that wasn't from his father. He grabbed Danny's wrist and twisted it, startling a scream out of Danny who so rarely cried out in pain. He shouldn't have, he didn't want to, but he was not in his right mind when he threw Danny to the floor. Danny who did not fight as Jason lashed out at him Again, channeling too much rage and misery into the person who probably deserved it least, but who always let him.
He was barely aware of what he was doing as he hit and kicked, though he knew that for once Danny was actually shielding his head, curled up on the floor. The rage broke suddenly, and all that was left was the sadness and the growing dizziness and nausea of blood loss. He backed away from Danny where he was curled on the floor and slumped into an armchair.
After a drawn out moment of stillness Danny uncurled from where he was laying on the floor, he spat out a tooth and some blood as he pushed himself up to his hands and knees. Jason noticed that he had a black eye that wasn't healing as quickly as usual, had Jason broken something? Still when Danny looked up at him it was with concern not fear.
This time when he approached it was fully on his hands and knees, creeping over to Jason again, who this time stayed still and let him, Danny knelt between Jason's legs and cupped his jaw, Jason tilted his head back and to the side, bearing his neck to Danny so he could get a good look at the injury.
Danny grimaced sympathetically and kissed the corner of Jason's mouth before flitting away to the bathroom, he came back moments later with the well stocked first aid kit and knelt by Jason again. Jason stayed still, allowing Danny to gently clean the wound, stitching it up, besides the small place where it had ruptured his windpipe so the fluids would have somewhere to go besides down Jason's throat. By the time he finished and had bandaged the wound the black eye had healed as well and besides the blood on Danny's face there was no sign of what Jason had done.
There was no sign of it in Danny's behaviour either, as he curled up on Jason's lap, leaning against his chest and wrapping his arms loosely around his shoulders. There was no fear in Danny's posture, no anger. How could he love so unconditionally? Especially someone like Jason, who so clearly didn't deserve it. They stayed there until Jason fell asleep, exhaustion winning out over everything else.
Jason woke up in bed, and confused, how had Danny gotten him here without waking him?! He must have been more tired then he realized. Danny was there too, on his side next to Jason with an arm around his waist. As soon as he felt Jason stir he sat up and reached over to the bedside table where there was a bottle of water, unopened, which he offered to Jason.
He took it and drank deeply, finishing about half before he offered it back to Danny who took a few gulps as well before putting it down and laying back down with his head propped on Jason's shoulder. "I've never seen you that angry," He murmured against Jason's skin who winced, remembering just what he'd done yesterday. Danny had showered, and cleaned Jason up as best he could so there weren't really any signs of it but still...
"I'm sorry," He murmured and felt Danny shake his head.
"It's okay. I'm not upset, just worried. What happened Jason?" He asked softly.
Jason felt tears burning the back of his eyes again and he huffed, biting his lip for a moment, but Danny deserved to know. "It was my father again. I finally asked him outright why he hadn't avenged me, I basically begged him to, even let Me kill him and witness it. And you know what he did? He slit my throat to stop me, he chose the Joker over me." Jason gave a bitter little laugh, and was genuinely startled by the snarl Danny let out, he'd never heard him make a noise like that, but it continued, a deep, inhuman growl that didn't pause even when Danny spoke, creating a dark undercurrent to his voice.
"Who is your father," He asked, and Jason felt a chill run down his spine.
"Batman, but don't confront him Danny. I don't really have a father anymore. He can't change, I'd rather focus on the things I can change."
"Like the Joker's status as living?" Danny said dryly, but the growling did ease off.
Jason winced and sighed before he looked to the side. "As much as I know the world would be better off without him, something is holding me back from doing it. I do a lot of avenging people, killing rapists and traffickers and shit. Is it so bad to want to Be avenged for once?"
"No, it's not," Danny said softly. "Does it have to be Batman, or would someone else who loves you doing it be enough?" 'Would I be enough' goes unsaid.
"Yes, that would be enough."
----------
Jason's throat healed, months passed and Danny didn't mention the conversation they'd had about the Joker. Jason threw himself into work, gaining control of more of the drug trade to make sure his rules were followed. He set up safe injection sites and rehabs. He killed corrupt police, politicians, traffickers and anyone who harmed children, cleaning out his turf in the most permanent way he could, making it safe for the kids, the working girls, and everyone else who called it home without being a Complete piece of shit.
Danny kept him from completely losing himself, dragging him away from work for date nights, meals and to get some sleep. Occasionally Jason got angry, occasionally he lashed out, but Danny never held onto those times. Danny didn't only pull him away from work though, since they'd gotten together he started participating even more in Jason's work. He was no longer just a 'goon'.
He designed himself a costume, with a pattern different shades of brown and red, a muzzle covering the lower half of his face and a colour. The first time Jason had seen Danny in the tight leather... let's just say Danny hadn't kept it on for very long, Jason Really liked the collar. Danny called himself Hyena, like it was a joke Jason didn't fully understand. He was Jason's second in command and he gave orders when Red Hood wasn't around since he knew what Red Hood would want. It was almost like being able to be two places at once and Jason was incredibly grateful to Danny for it.
The Joker still being out there was the only thing that kept nagging at Jason, and as they got closer and closer to the anniversary of his death the worse it got. He thought he might have been imagining it but he though Danny was pulling away a bit too. He was busy more often then usual and distant in a way that made Jason worry he was keeping secrets, though he had no idea WHAT they might be since his life genuinely did seem to revolve around Red Hood and his mission.
When the day of his death came Danny was nowhere to be seen and Jason shut himself up on his office to focus on work, reading reports and writing responses. Doing whatever he could to try not to think about what had happened this day five years ago, and how Joker was either not thinking about it at all, or celebrating.
He had explicitly said for no one but Fox to disturb him today so when there was a pounding at a door he was ready to Fucking Kill someone! Danny never knocked like that, usually he just let himself in, so he knew that wasn't Danny. He got up from his desk so abruptly he knocked his chair over and stomped over to yank the door open.
"Please don't shoot! Hyena is in trouble!" The goon at the door, Marcus he though, cowered. Marcus got along with Danny, they might even friends, he would know.
"What happened?" Jason snarled through the voice modulator on his helmet, but he wasn't about to bite Marcus' head off anymore.
"He left your turf in costume this morning, I tried to tell him not to but he didn't listen to me! We've got reports he's on his way back but the Bats are on his tail! You have a tracker on him don't you?! He's gonna need help!" Marcus said in a panic and Jason grabbed his coat and his phone.
"Ya I do I'm not going to let them touch him," Jason snarled checking his guns before he practically bolted out of the building wondering what the Hell Danny had gotten himself into.
He grabbed his grapple and headed to meet Hyena as quickly as he could. He knew Danny was fast but Bruce and the Replacement would catch him eventually if none of the others were already on their way to intercept.
He heard Hyena before he saw them, the high cackling of the manic laughter Danny tended to lean into when he was in his Hyena persona, then Jason saw him, he planted his feet on a rooftop just inside crime ally and drew his guns. He saw the moment Danny spotted him and slightly adjusted his flight so he landed on the same roof as Jason, rolling to absorb his momentum and skidded to a stop half hiding behind Jason as he grinned at the Bats who had also come to a stop on the roof across from them with the muzzles of Jason's guns trained on them.
"Sorry about this, I knew what I was doing but I don't know the placement of the cameras all over Gotham, I didn't know they saw me," Danny said, resting his hands on Jason's shoulders.
"What did you do Hyena?" Jason asked without looking away from Batman and Robin.
Danny cackled again, the Hyena laugh that made him shiver just a little. He ducked out from behind Jason and got halfway between the two groups in the stand off. He pulled the bag Jason hadn't noticed off his shoulder and reached inside. Jason could tell Danny was smiling at him from behind the muzzle as he grabbed something and pulled out... The joker's head, Jason's breathing caught in his throat.
"Happy death day baby," Danny said fondly, his voice loud enough that Batman and Robin would be able to hear as well. "Someone cares about you enough to avenge you."
It was brutal, and final, it was a decoration of love as surely as anything else and so much better then a dozen roses. Jason thought he would be horrified, fixated on the head, but the Joker was just a lump of flesh now, a horrified expression fixated on his face as if he hadn't actually expected anyone to kill him. Nothing to be scared of anymore.
"Holy shit," Jason laughed and turned to Danny, scooping him up making Danny yelp in surprise and drop the bag, the Jokers head rolling away as Jason twirled a laughing Danny. "I love you so much Cub! This is the best gift anyone's ever gotten me!" He cheered and Danny blushed all the way to his slightly pointed ears, clearly pleased.
It was the first time Jason had said he loved him and Danny felt like he had won the lottery! He couldn't control his purring as Jason put him back down, he snuggled into Jason's side as he aimed his gun and put a bullet in Joker's decapitated head just for the catharsis of it.
"Jaylad," Bruce's voice was soft and betrayed. As if he had any fucking right!
Reminded of his presence Jason's gaze snapped back to Bruce, as did his guns, pointed at Batman and Robin again. "If you're planning to arrest Hyena for this I will not hesitate to shoot. If you take one step inside My territory," Jason snarled at them. "You can take the head if you want, I don't need to keep a lump of rotting flesh, I just needed to know Someone gave a shit." He stepped forward and kicked the head like a football, sending it hurtling at Batman with pretty damn good aim as Danny cackled behind him, high and loud.
Batman caught it, more on instinct then anything, but it was evidence, it was a body, he would take it, and the corpse from wherever Danny had left it. "Now if you'll excuse us, I think we have a celebration to plan!" Jason said before he shot at them, he wasn't aiming to kill, just to make them leave and it worked. They dashed off and Jason turned back towards Danny.
"I love you too," Danny said, soft and warm, pressing himself against Jason's chest. "Now take me home and Fuck me~"
Jason laughed and scooped Danny up into his arms, letting him wrap his arms back around Jason and cling as he set a quick pace towards their nearest safe house.
Part 2.5
Part 3
Masterpost
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bunni-v1 · 2 months ago
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Omegaverse Lighter Ramblings
🍓That Omagaverse ask has had me in a chokehold, I haven’t have the time to write much of anything since finals week started butttt I have to get Alpha!Lighter out of my head and onto my blog IMMEDIATELY!!!
TW: Omegaverse related stuff lol (marking, breeding, excessive use of the word alpha 💀)
Info: Lighter x Reader; Alpha!Lighter; implied Omega!Reader; Spoilers for Lighter’s trust events
-Lighter is unequivocally an Alpha, let’s get that settled. There’s no way he’s anything but. He has that pure alpha male kinda vibe (jsbsishwos).
-Speaking seriously, he presented around when he turned thirteen, and he’s always been seen as an “Alpha’s Alpha”. He’s strong, competent, and he demands respect just by being in a room.
-It’s part of why he became a mercenary in the first place. He just knew he was built to lead a pack, no matter how dangerous the work they did was.
-He was a great head too, his pack loved him and he loved them. He did his absolute best all the time to be the best Alpha he could be, supporting all of his pack members and never discriminating based on their second genders.
-He vowed he wouldn’t become a monster like other Alphas. He heard the stories of pack leaders losing their minds or abusing the weakest members just because they could. It made him sick to his stomach, so he made sure his pack was safe under him.
-So their deaths hit him so much harder. He legitimately cannot handle it, the grief and the devastation turn him into a monster in the ring. He is the perfect picture of everything he swore he would never become in those years, and they’re particularly difficult for him to reflect upon.
-Joining the SoC is also made harder because he’s kind of needing to recover from literally just living on his instincts 24/7. He avoids the girls like the plague cause he doesn’t want to hurt them — it’s his job to do the opposite.
-Slowly, slowlyyyy, he warms up to them and he lets them in and he doesn’t realize how much he missed having a pack to call his own until he has them. This time, though, he doesn’t want to lead and he doesn’t have to.
-(In case anyone is wondering Caesar is an Alpha (no duh), Piper is a beta, Burnice is… Omaga(?), and Lucy is an Omega. Lighter loves them so much, despite the distance he keeps, he hold nothing but respect and admiration for his pack.)
-It’s a good deal he’s got going too. He gets to have a pack full of friends and a home to call his own… and he can also take out any pent up aggression in his fights.
-Okay with all that out of the way, I’ll get into the shit you wanna hear.
-Firstly Lighter smells… peculiar? He’s got this woody kinda undertone and there’s a sharp scent of gasoline on top of it. He smells like a fire before it’s burning. It’s not bad, but it’s really intense and it can be… too much for most people.
-It’s something that lingers in the air even after he leaves. He always tries his best to contain it, but he can’t help that he naturally secretes a lot of his scent. The girls don’t complain, and it’s a good way of keeping people in check, so he never thinks too much of it.
-Though he does notice the odd looks he gets in Lumina Square, he just figures it’s because of the way he dresses or some other thing.
-It’s not till you point out that his scent is so strong that he realizes. You frame it as a good thing (because of course you love how your alpha smells), and he starts like secreting his scent more when you’re around 😭
-Speaking of you fucking REEK of Lighter. He is big on scenting, leans hard into that jealous protective side he has. If you smell like him, people probably won’t mess with you.
-If someone is stupid enough to do so, they probably won’t be around long enough to warn others not to, honestly.
-Imagine regular Lighter’s protectiveness turner up to like ten. He does NOT fuck around when it comes to his mate, not even a little. Those violent instincts come out tendfold when his mate is in trouble.
-So, yeah he scents you a lot, and he’s big big big on marking. You’ve gotta have a visible mating mark somewhere on your person or else Lighter’s gonna be antsy until he can get one on you.
-His favorite ones to leave are on the juncture between your neck and your jaw. The mark is big, but it’s still something that you can hide easily for more professional things.
-He’s quite possessive of you, too. He’s never had a real mate to call his own before, and you are everything he’s ever wanted and more. Excuse him for being a little obsessive.
-His favorite thing in the world, though, is your scent. He practically begs you to scent him every morning and every night. It rarely sticks thanks to how strong his own is, but it’s the idea that he wants your scent so badly that’s so flattering.
-He also wants you to mark him, and he doesn’t care where. His neck? Perfect! His chest? Wonderful! His thighs? Knock yourself out!
-He does LIKE having matching mating marks though, so he’d be very flattered to have your mark in the same place as his.
-Ah, and finally, let’s talk about his rut shall we?
-It’s intense, like worryingly so. It lasts about a week and a half, exceptionally long even for alphas, and it’s miserable to deal with alone.
-He used to take suppressants for them when he was younger, but during his time in the ring he just learned to lock himself away and deal with it.
-There’s little to no relief during his ruts when he’s alone. He can fuck his hand or use toys and cum like that and he’ll be fully erect within a minute later.
-He gets these awful fevers that, the first time it happened, the girls thought he was legitimately dying until Bug Daddy realized what was going on and chased them off.
-He really struggles to keep himself mentally in check during his ruts, so he usually locks himself away until it’s over for everyone’s well-being.
-When he gets with you, though, it’s… different. They’re MORE intense, like to the point it concerns him a lot. He connects pretty quickly that it’s because his alpha knows that he has a mate now, and it wants its mate to help it out.
-He’s kinda afraid to let you help, though. He’s not exactly coherent or even remotely considerate of anything during his rut. All he’s thinking about is how badly he needs to fuck whatever hole is in front of him (specifically, how badly he wants to fuck your hole and stuff it full of his pups).
-You’re insistent about it though, and he can only say come up with so many excuses before he finally gives in.
-It’s literally life changing, I’m not joking.
-He gives you a whole rundown about being safe and how you need to put yourself first no matter what and blah blah blah.
-He’s so fucking sweet to you during his rut, I’m not joking. It’s literally like his alpha is sedated by your presence, and he’s so incredibly obsessed with keeping you happy and satisfied with him.
-Anything you want it’s yours so long as he gets to be with you, okay. Just the smell of your skin is enough to make him sigh in relief. Let alone the touch of your skin.
-He’ll split open your legs and eat and eat and eat until you’re sobbing for him to do anything but. He can’t help that you taste soooo good on his tongue. He can’t get enough of that delicious flavor you’ve got, not when he’s so far buried into it now.
-God don’t even mention how you feel around him. It’s actual heaven, you letting him rut into your sweet little hole, all because you love him. All because you want to help him out. Oh, it has his alpha purring in delight.
-So many positions, most of which have him bent over you so he can coo in your ear how good you feel. How he can’t wait to see your tummy swell. How much he adores being inside you.
-It still takes him a while to cum, despite how satisfied he is being inside of you. It’s just how his body is, but when he does cum it’s A LOT. If he’s not knotting you you are almost drowning in it.
-Forbid if you play with it, he’ll be hard again in less than ten seconds and ready to go again.
-When he cums, though, he always leaves a nice bloodied mark to enjoy for later. Your whole neck is pretty much black and blue from how many he leaves.
-That’s okay though, you enjoy it too, which only motivates him to keep going more and more until you tell him to stop.
-You’re his cute little mate, all his to mark up and stuff up. The way you squirm when his knot swells inside you makes his toes curl.
-And when you whine about being “too full” as he pumps load after load inside he can’t help but laugh at you. You wanted this after all, don’t complain when he’s giving you exactly what you asked for.
-Having you during his rut shortens it a significant amount, and it usually only lasts four to five days so long as you’re available.
-After the fact he’s so doting, feeling so bad for splitting you apart and stuffing you too full. You usually need a few days to recover together, and it’s full of nothing but pampering and loving from your oh so adoring mate.
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