#it was a graveyard graph

[lunamann]

Okay. So. Let's say you have Doubling Season, Parallel Lives, AND Primal Vigor out. When you make one token, you instead make eight of them. You now have Extravagant Replication and, finally, Creakwood Leige. Upkeep happens. Order Extravagant Replication before Creakwood Leige. Create eight token copies of Creakwood Leige. All black/green creatures now have +9/+9. The 9 creakwood leiges then make eight 1/1 worm each. You now have 72 worms that are each 10/10s. And that's if you don't instead hit a Doubling Season with Extravagant Replication instead. Assuming you do that, you'll instead end up with 9 copies of Doubling Season, plus a Parallel Lives and a Primal Vigor. You now make 2048 tokens instead of just one whenever you make a token. Creakwood Leige would then make 2048 2/2 worms. Next turn, hit Creakwood Leige to make 4,194,304 worms, and pump them all up to 2049/2049s. Yes, those are stats high enough to kill Yu-Gi-Oh monsters.

Even if you don't play this game and know nothing about it I want to see if you can read what these cards do, figure out what my strategy is going to be, and tell me how much you would hate it

[clevercorvidae]

In the basement of the Mystery Shack there once lived a towering triangular machine. It hummed with a great and terrible alien power. It roared with the voice of doom and loss and inexplicable weirdness.

The great and terrible machine was once many pieces in a grand but simple plan from the stars beyond, a physical catalogue of many specimens. When that plan crashed and crumbled into the valley that would one day be Gravity Falls, its loss was mourned as it was buried beneath the earth.

The great and terrible machine was once nothing but a harsh whisper in an eager ear, a pen drawn to paper, frantically scribbling away to capture its dire beauty. Blueprints for its immaculate conception marring pages in the bible of hubris.

The great and terrible machine was once just a series of intricate, passionately welded together pieces of an ancient graveyard. Wires and circuitry woven carefully by terrified hands.

The great and terrible machine was once a window, a revolving door, a gateway to hell and a stairway to heaven all at once. It rumbled like a beast and ate like one too. After lapping up its fill of misery it lay down in false torpor for 30 long years.

When the great and terrible machine finally died it put on its divine halo and engulfed itself in demonic flames. Earth became sky. Gravity fell. And the universe tore itself a brand new eye.

After the end of the world, the great and terrible machine lie as a carcus, a skeleton. Its architect long forgotten. Its corpse would be dragged away, repurposed into a new sturdy grappling hook and the hull of a sail boat and a chew-proof pen and industructable banjo strings and a sick new axe and some definitely illegal brass knuckles and a pair of wedding bands and a new cash register and many more beautiful but quaint things that shine brighter than the horrible machine ever could.

In the basement of the Mystery Shack there is no trace of the terrible thing that once shook its foundations. Instead the space holds laughter. Often its used as a workshop for an aging inventor or a glue-gun happy teenager to tinker with creations. Often it is used as a space for countless sheets of a graphing paper and rolling of dice. Often it is used to host parties and get togethers and holidays to bring a weird town with weirder citizens together again.

Never again will the basement beneath the Mystery Shack be filled with loss or terror or pain or regret. No darkness. Only love, only light. The eye is closed. Hdvvg Wivznh.

[anika-ann]

Seven Minutes (S.R.) - pt.2

Type: TWO-SHOT, independent, canon-ish, part 1 here

Pairining: Steve Rogers x reader    Word count: 10 900 cause I have no chill

Summary:

You weren't obliged to go to that party, but you went anyway. You even had fun.

Until you and Steve were left to pick up the pieces after your seven minutes in a closet together, so graceful having been pushed into it by Tony's stupid idea, Loki's magic and a game of chance where there might be more losers than winners.

Warnings: SMUT, 18+, NSFW, (unprotected sex, fingering, glimpses of size kink and praise kink, soft hints of D/s, mirrors, possessiveness;cumplay, overstimulation and edging if you squint really hard), alcohol, a drop of angst, language (a lot), STEVE (he is a warning in this one)

A/N: written for @jtargaryen18 and her Halloween challenge. Prompt in the final notes. I toyed with it so much that it might have been cheating 😅 dividers by @firefly-graphics 💕

Part 2: Seven Minutes in Heaven

“Secrets are the prisons we make for ourselves.”

― Joe Hill, Locke & Key, Vol. 6: Alpha & Omega

The party had died down; or as Tony said, only the fittest had survived.

Sam, Bucky and Rhodey had challenged Natasha, Maria and Helen to a lazy game of beer pong. Bruce was still asleep. Thor and Vision started some sort of a special game of pool, wordlessly watched by Wanda and Steve, while Thor and Loki argued in hushed voices about what only gods knew – literally. Tony got some genius idea despite – or thanks to – the killer levels of alcohol in his blood and sneaked off into the corner of the room, working with holograms of graphs and other simulations graciously supervised by Pepper.

Needless to say, the spacious room still looked every bit a warzone in an autumn aesthetic. And yet. It still looked better than your heart; a wasteland.

You avoided Steve ever since you stumbled out of the stupid closet, from which he oh-so-kindly helped you, supporting your weight before you could faceplant on the floor – and he graced you with a sweet even if a little shaky smile as he did so. God, you hated him for it. You hated you could still feel the heat of his skin, taste his breath on yours, an echo of the reality of the closet; what more, the memory of his skin on your bare body, lips mapping every inch of you, teasing touches and thick fingers, dark gaze as he made you his in every way possible… this memory of your fantasy was somehow fading, as if it wasn’t even yours.

And it wasn’t; because Steve himself was never yours to have. Fantasies like these were futile.

The loneliness in your chest despite being surrounded by friends hit you harder than ever; and you should have known better. You could blame Loki and Tony and Steve, even yourself for your past shortcomings, but the trigger for your mood was all on you. You shouldn’t have been drinking. You knew you often toed the thin line between a cheery drunk and a miserable drunk. Tonight, it seemed you very much tripped and stepped over the line by a mile.

You nursed a bowl of candy, staring at the repetitive sequence of scary images projected on the wall. The only person you’d be willing to join was Tony; but the reasonable thing to do would be retreat to your room and sleep it off. You even felt sleepy; except your brain was wide awake at the same time. Body exhausted, brain hazy but alert, eyes burning with tears born not only from your loneliness, but also from being awake for too long. You were never going to another of Tony’s stupid parties ever again. You’d promise to never drink again, but your job sometimes required dumbing your mind in a way therapy never could.

The skeletons on the wall blended into a graveyard again; the image was almost soothing. Peaceful. A pile of bones that couldn’t hurt anymore a blessing. And you really should go to sleep, because your thoughts were getting morb-

The yelp erupting from your throat was pitiful – but thankfully drowned in the hooting from the beer pong table. You nearly jumped out of your skin as you found Loki suddenly sitting next to you on the couch, the corners of his lips now twitching in amusement.

Jesus.

��Don’t sneak up on me!” you complained, your body suddenly very awake too. Jerk. “Jesus, Loki!”

“I believe you Midgardians say that if one becomes easily startled, it is because they have impure thoughts or intentions,” he hummed, but had enough decency to control his smirk a bit. Still a jerk. “What is it, søster? You appear upset.”

Anger and humiliation flared up in your achy chest since it was him of all people pointing that out. As if it wasn’t his stupid magic that created the closet in the first place, feeding your misery further. You shot him a glare.

“And you are to blame. Piss off, Loki.”

He retreated a bit, showing off his bare hands as to tell you he meant to harm, a slight pout to his lips.

“Now now. There is no need to get hostile, is it? I simply noticed you were… rather isolated and the party did not please you anymore, nor did the company. I came here as a concerned friend.”

You sighed, eyes roaming his face; he appeared genuine. He might be a god of mischief, but he had proven a friend on numerous occasions indeed. An annoying sibling, if you willed; there was a reason why he called you a sister.

“Don’t you always…” you murmured, sighing again and working hard to try and smile. “Sorry, bror, I am not in a festive mood nor in a friendly indeed. You do not indeed deserve my hostility… much.”

His eyes flashed with understanding, a smile spreading on his lips as he tilted his head, inquisitive.

“Has something happened during the seven minutes with your precious Captain?”

To protest was an instinct at this point. “He isn’t m-“

“Yes, he is, but that is not the point,” Loki interrupted you, rolling his eyes theatrically before his gaze bored into yours, the blue of his eyes almost burning. “What did you see, søster?”

It hit you like a train – the realization that should have hit you long moments ago. God, you were an idiot. Such an idiot, trusting, naïve, too good-hearted idiot, who-

You slapped Loki’s bicep hard – or tried to, your hand passing through the illusion of his body he had created, your hand only meeting the cushions. Of fucking course; he wasn’t even here. He was a trickster, after all. Case on damn fucking point-

Your face burned almost as much as the tears of anger in your eyes – anger and embarrassment. God, he hadn’t- he couldn’t have possibly--- had he seen?

“You did do something to the closet, didn’t you? I defended you when Steve suggested it, you know! Did you make up the damn illusion I saw? You fu-“

Loki’s hand, materializing as his whole body now, caught your hand when you tried to hit him again, his long fingers gentle as they wrapped around your wrist. If you had any more energy, you’d fight his hold and send him to the floor in one of the fancy moves Natasha had taught you. But you didn’t; too weak. To stunned.

The asshole.

“I did not make up any illusion nor did I see what you saw, my little Midgardian,” Loki responded calmly, for once appearing sincere – and unless you imagined it, there was a shade of regret in his expression too.

He’d better be telling the truth about not seeing at least – but how could believe a word he said? He tricked you. Like a trickster. Gods, you needed to retake your IQ test if he had got you so easily.

“I simply offered clarity to everyone who walked into that closet… incidentally, it was only you and him,” he added.

“Clarity?” you echoed, an unamused erupting from your throat as you yanked your hand free. “I don’t think so, Loki. Whatever it is you did was a damn low blow. So do take it personal when I tell you to piss off – wherever your actual body actually is--- or one of your bodies or whatever.”

You rose to your feet, determined to leave him – and this whole cursed party – behind and sleep for a week.

He caught your hand again, stopping you; you shot him a murderous glare, gritting your teeth as you failed to keep your tears at bay, a few rolling down your cheeks – a mix of of humiliation, anger and bewilderment, because were you really crying? Christ, you were never drinking again.

Loki’s gaze softened at the pitiful sight you had to make; he gently tugged at your hand, so watching you so kindly and pleadingly that he might have as well tugged directly at your heartstrings.

Gods, why did you have such a glutton for punishment and pain? Why were you such a sucker for redemption? Why were you so weak to give people and gods the chance to apologize just so they could feel better about themselves?

You sat down with another sigh, willing to give Loki one more minute to explain himself and say sorry – but not more. You blinked in surprise when he frowned, slowly raised his free hand, his fingertips brushing the tears from your cheeks away.

“I am sorry to upset you,søster. But you should slow down in jumping to conclusions,” he said, making you already regret your decision; he wasn’t apologizing. Of course he wasn’t. Men. You wrenched your hand free again. You were out of here this very- “Ah-ah. Here it is again. I am sorry. But… what is that figurative expression you Midgardians have? Say, what do you hide in a closet, søster?”

Clothes, usually, you thought, annoyed. Clothes, unless it’s empty and you’re lucid-dreaming about enthusiastically getting railed by one of your closest friends. You had a distant feeling this was not the answer the trickster was looking for.

“Loki, I’m tired, drunk and miserable,” you said matter-of-factly. “I really don’t want to play any more of your games and I think you had done enough, so I’d appreciate if you-”

“Skeletons, søster. Secrets,” he whispered conspiratorially, a slow smirk spreading on his face. “Dark, dark secrets you do not share with anyone else, those you do not dare to share. In that closet… the darkest one concerning the person you were in there with came out.”

Your shoulders sagged, annoyance biting at your gut. Loki was saying these things as if he just revealed to you the secrets of the universe and not a well-known fact.

“Gee, thanks. I knew about that ‘secret’ already.”

Loki’s right eyebrow arched as he smiled deviously.

“Did you, now? Did you know your Captain’s best-kept secret?” he pried, eyes sparkling with the mischief worthy of the god he was, confusing you in the process.

You were too lost to his mysterious message to correct him again – that Steve was not yours. Loki knew and apparently, he knew that that was exactly part of the problem. Hell, that was the whole problem at the moment, but-

“Huh?”

Loki’s other brow arched as well at the bewildered sound you let out, his gaze measuring you from head to toe with distaste almost as if you insulted him by not praising him for his supposed brilliance.

You didn’t feel bad for it – you had no energy for that. And his ego could use a little blow.

“…you truly are exceptionally drunk if you get slow like this, my dear Lady Speedy,”he emphasized, shaking his head like a disappointed parent – or older brother. “You did not see your secret. What kind of lousy trick would that be?! You already know your secrets, they are in your head! That is why they are yours! No, no, no,” he lamented, shaking his index finger before he pointed it at you, his proud grin widening. “You, my little Midgardian søster, stepped into the Captain’s head. You saw his secret. And he saw yours. Do we understand now?”

All blood drained from your face, annoyance replaced by a mask of pure horror that seized you the moment Loki finally explained. You stared at him blankly, mind suddenly completely sober and whirling. You were fucked. You were utterly, utterly fucked, because if Steve saw your secret, he knew. He knew you wanted him; he knew how you wanted him and how much. He knew what you craved him to do to you.

“Loki, this isn’t funny,” you heard yourself say, almost soundlessly. He tilted his head, that irritating grin still present as he looked right back at you, waiting for you to process the bullshit he was trying to feed you. “This is a very, very bad joke.”

Please tell me it IS a joke, you added mentally, only to be very disappointed.

“That it would be, but it is not, for I am not joking,” he retorted, expectant.

Expectant of what? Of praise? A thank you? For putting you into this insanely vulnerable position, for basically stripping you bare and revealing—

Your mind came to a screeching halt as another realization finally slammed into you like a freight train.

“Holy shit.”

Loki straightened in his seat, his grin now almost maniacal – and so goddamn smug.

You saw Steve’s secret. You saw Steve’s fantasy. Taking you over and over in front of a mirror, all the praise, sweet nicknames and affection he showered you with in your vision – that was him. He wanted you too. These weren’t only your desires, these were his.

But that was impossible. Steve didn’t--- he wasn’t- he would have said something. He would have acted differently. You would have known. This, whatever Loki was saying, couldn’t be true, Steve would have asked you out again if he wanted to, he’d-

Except he wouldn’t. Because unlike many men, Steve understood the meaning of the word no. If you rejected his initial advance two years ago, he had no reason to try again, because he would respect your choice.

You could kiss him for that. Or smack him. It that were true.

The hope rising in your chest was a dangerous thing. Hope was the thing with feathers; it would fly you high so the fall lasted longer and the landing hurt more once it dropped you out of the sky. If you allowed yourself to hope that the absolutely wonderful gorgeous human being Steve was was still interested in you romantically…

Instinctively, you glanced the direction of the pool table, hoping to see a hint of Loki telling the truth – and worried Steve might hear your conversation due to his enhanced senses – but Steve was no longer there. Swiftly scanning the room, you found out he was no longer there at all. It seemed he was the only one having made the sane decision of going to sleep.

You gulped as your gaze focused the trickster again, still afraid to believe even for a minute this could be real.

“Loki…”

“Now. You know his and he knows yours… the question is, are you willing to act on it? Are you willing to admit what is it that you want out loud now when he already knows anyway… even if he does not, for I entrusted the power of the closet only to you so far?”

You swallowed loudly, heart hammering in your chest wild. Were you? Willing to admit it out loud? That was one insane risk to take. One you weren’t sure was worth the consequences.

“Loki, if you are lying-“

“Bleh, I am not!” the Asgardian spitted out, offended. “What could I possibly gain from that?!”

“Fun?” you suggested automatically, because that was what he was all about, wasn’t it? That was why he created the insane magical closet in the first place.

Could Steve really still like you? Like like you? Now you were back to being thirteen indeed-

“Your idea of my idea of fun is rather strange. Go talk to your Captain. Or… communicate your thoughts in whichever way you prefer.”

You felt your already hot face burn at his suggestion. As much as you’d like to do that, the thought of even confronting Steve was scary – it would be much easier to be sure you wouldn’t mess up your perfectly good friendship, a friendship you cherished. Alas, you only had Loki’s words to go on. You could imagine more reliable sources, but none of them you’d dare to approach either.

“Oh shut your face, bror. If this is another idiotic prank, if you are lying, I’m going to tell Bruce to smash you—no, I’m going smash you myself, reduce you to the size of atom. Without breaking a sweat,” you promised him as you rose to your feet and you meant it.

If you were going to find Steve now – and you were, because there was not a universe in which you would simply fall sleep after what Loki did and told you – and if you were going to mess up, if Loki was truly just toying with your heart, you’d make sure he’d suffer for it.

“So feisty,”Loki praised, eyes lit up. “The Captain will like that, I am certain.”

Oh you were sure he would; Steve liked a drive in a person. He’d like it if you were brave enough not only to find him now, but also tell him how you felt. The idea was so damn intangible even as you had thought of it thousands of times, so terrifying that you just might go to bed and stare at the ceiling for the rest of the night instead because you could not take that risk.

“Loki… this is a personal thing. And if I go and fuck up what Steve and I have-”

“You mean two years of fruitless pining-“ he interrupted you again.

“-based on your bullshit, I---”

You felt tears in your eyes again – and god, you were truly never ever drinking again, even as you felt very, very sober now – and the God’s mischievous eyes softened once more.

“I shall never repeat it again, but I grew quite fond of you, my little Midgardian. Despite what the over-righteous Captain believes, I have no intention to hurt you,” he assured you kindly.

“…I will still smite you if you’re wrong.”

His grin returned. “Looking forward to it, my Lady Speedy. And you’re welcome!”

“Don’t push it, Loki.”

As expected, your brief surge of bravery ran out by the time you stood in front of Steve’s door. Your hand shook as you raised it to knock, counting to three. Then, you simply did it – better to get it over with, right? With what you learned from Loki, awkwardness was about sneak between you and Steve anyway. At least you would know.

That wasn’t a terrifying thought as all, was it?

Steve appeared in the doorway, already in pyjama pants and a white t-shirt, looking at you as if he wasn’t sure whether he dreamed you up or not. His special nickname for you slipped from his lips, surprised and questioning.

You felt like an idiot; you probably looked like one too, your outfit in a pitiful state as well as your make-up, but here you were about to have one of the most important conversations in your life. An agent for the Avengers Initiative, supposedly one of the strongest and most capable people of the planet; yet, you felt like a teenager about to confess to your first-ever crush.

“Can I… can I come in?” you pipped up nervously, wondering whether your heart could actually jump out of your chest – and guessing that yes, it could, when Steve smiled automatically, stepping back to let you into his room.

“Are you alright?”

No, you wanted to say, your sweaty palms twitching to curl into fists briefly, because of course he would ask that. Beautiful, infinitely good man. Sweet and caring. Golden boy. Golden boy who wanted to fuck you in front of the mirror and watch.

You shook off the last thought as your stomach fluttered, coming to a stop in the middle of the room, trying to ignore the large inviting bed and spinning on your heels to face Steve instead.

“Yeah. No. I mean,” you stuttered, shaking your head. “I… Loki, he--- he said something.”

There was no mistaking the flash of cold steel in Steve’s eyes, the way his relaxed body straightened and stiffened, shoulders squaring at the mention of the God. He really didn’t like him, did he? After the emotional turmoil of tonight, you couldn’t say you blamed him.

“What did he say?”

“He said… you--- this is so stupid, I can’t even--- did you have, uhm, did you have a certain… vision? A dream maybe? When we were in that closet?”

Your face was set aflame at believing he had, that he had the kind of vision you assumed; a vision that would make most people blush. And Steve did blush a bit, discomfort clear in his face.

“I--- maybe,” he admitted reluctantly, earning a raised brow. He closed his eyes and sighed. “Yes. Did Loki…” His gaze found yours again, searching – and worried. There was something in his expression you couldn’t quite decipher too, something you weren’t sure if you wanted to understand. “Did he tell you--?”

You shook your head.

“No. If you’re asking whether he told me what you dreamed about, then no.” Because he didn’t have to. I just know. If Loki wasn’t lying, that was. “But I… I had a vision as well. And Loki, he… told me what it meant. He said--- he said-“

You gulped, a dull weight in your chest as Steve observed you with silent wonder and a mixture of emotions you couldn’t hope to understand. Patience. Concern. Apprehension. Affection? Definitely confusion.

This was absurd. What were you even doing here? It was utter non-sense. Loki was just pulling your leg, that was what he did, a friend or a bror or not, he just decided to have some extra fun during Halloween and make it his personal April Fool’s Day. You were but the victim of his over-the-board prank-

You chuckled at your idiocy, shaking your head and stalking to the door.

“You know what? Forget this. This is so stupid, I can’t believe I fell for that-“

A gentle hand, the gentlest touch, stopped you in your tracks, disappearing as quick as it appeared on your wrist.

Reluctantly, you turned back to Steve again, truly loving him and hating him at the same time when his tone softened as if you hadn’t brought up Loki, his personal thorn in side, at all.

“Hey now. This, whatever it is, is clearly making you upset. Upset enough to knock on my door at three a.m.,” he noted, hand twitching towards you again – but not touching.

That was what he would have normally done – comfort you by touch. A warm hand on yours; the warmest hug. Touch was Steve’s love language for friends and no doubt lovers alike. But he didn’t. Because you had said no – you had pushed him anyway, you had pulled back in the closet. You had broken him; you had broken you two already.

Damn Loki and damn his stupid jokes and painfully unhelpful interventions. You already hurt Steve and now you were here, at three damn a.m. indeed, robbing him off his well-deserved sleep on top of everything.

God, what a farce.

“I’m sorry-“

“That’s not the point, you know the door is always open for you,” Steve interrupted you, eyes roaming your face with determination now. He was on a mission. He had noticed your body language, whatever it was trying to say. He noticed your hesitance. He read you like a book and he was going to read it through to the last chapter to get to the bottom of things. You were in trouble; there was no going back now. “What did Loki say? I saw you two earlier, he--- did he make you upset?”

Your heart seared, your lips parting on instinct.

While spoken on a normal volume, the question was a battle cry. If you said yes, Steve would release the wrath of Gods – of an angel, a guardian angel and a warrior – on Loki. It didn’t matter Loki was the god, the entity from another planet. He would tremble in front of the anger of a righteous man defending you.

“No! I mean--- no. He just…” you stumbled over your words again, shaking your head and taking a deep breath. You closed your eyes, because otherwise you’d never get it out, not with the way your throat felt so tight you could barely breathe, let alone speak the bare truth. “He said that what we saw in that closet was each other’s secret. Something we secretly want. Supposedly, I saw yours… and you… you saw mine.”

Your voice trailed off into a shy whisper, but you had no doubt Steve heard your words clear as day. The silent shock settling on the room told you as much. Hands curling into fists, nails digging into your palms, you squeezed your eyes shut tight, before you gathered enough courage to open them and look at Steve’s reaction.

But Steve wasn’t looking at you, much to your relief and frustration. He was staring over your shoulder, the smile on his lips absent, appearing just a little broken. You dug your nails further into your skin, not daring to even breathe in until Steve released a wavering breath of his own.

His voice was quiet as he spoke, so very soft and warm, a note of gentle wistfulness. “I’m not sure I can believe that, Shines.”

You nodded, licking your lips and bracing yourself. Now or never. No take-backs.

“I’m not sure either… but that depends. What do you want, Steve?”

“I…” he sighed, finally meeting your gaze, an unreadable open book. He observed you carefully for a moment as you tried to stand tall, stand your ground and pretend you didn’t feel like it was shaking under your feet. Like you wouldn’t feel like the Earth was splitting beneath you if his answer would be anything else than you were hoping for. “I want you, Shines. But I don’t see how that’s a secret.”

Fresh tears sprang from your eyes; but this time happy ones, the shock and relief and joy finding release.

You had hoped. You had prayed on your way in here. You wished upon the stars. And yet nothing prepared you for the reality of Steve saying this. You were certain your heart was about to explode any second, your pulse thundering in your head. He really said ‘you’.

A small part of you wanted to remark that if Loki was right about everything and you had indeed saw what was in Steve’s head, there were a few secretive details that Steve had failed to mention, but you kept your mouth shut, because that was not the point.

He wanted you. He truly wanted you. He still… you still had a chance. More than a chance, apparently.

“Oh,” you let out quietly and oh so wittily, probably making your IQ scores appear like a joke again, but this time, you didn’t give a damn. You smiled weakly at Steve who stared at you expectantly and resigned at once. “Good. Because I want you too.”

A single deep breath. Eyes full of wonder, soft confusion lacing his voice. Reluctant hope, as reluctant as your own had been. “But you said no.”

You nodded, lowering your gaze and smiling tightly on the floor as you wiped away the few tears.

“I--- I was still new and you were… you were this idol of all things good, intimidating and untouchable. I mean, in many ways, you still are, but I was just crushing on you so hard even if I barely just met you. The longer I knew you, the more it… changed into something much deeper than a crush, but when you asked me out back then, I just… panicked. And I wanted to take that answer back later, but I was scared it was too late. And the longer it got… the harder and more awkward it felt to ask you if you were still interested in me, if you’d want to be more than friends after all this time, especially since you dated someone else in between.”

A few beats of silence followed your confession, words hanging in the air.

“That was never a good idea,” Steve admitted lowly, causing you to look up to his now sheepish face. “I thought I was ready for someone else, but I wasn’t. My mind was still on you. And still is, which really shouldn’t come as a surprise to you or me,” he noted, lips curling up in a smile that would make your heart beat faster hadn’t it been already racing like mad. “You’re beautiful and brilliant. You could do anything you’d put your mind to and would still stay humble enough about it. You’re capable, you’re passionate, you’re kind. You make the world a better place… and you take my breath away. You always have.”

You stood frozen, momentarily stunned.

It seemed when Steve went for something, he went all the way. You knew that about him already; and still. His declaration took you by surprise. A pleasant one, much like two years ago; but this time, you knew better. You were ready. Or at least ready enough.

At three a.m. after a damn Halloween party, you were ready to accept you and him felt the same.Steve liked you. Liked you a lot more than a friend, if his words were sincere and you would never doubt they were anything less.

The world was a beautiful place and you adored Loki’s shenanigans.

“Well…” you said as you stepped closer, basking in Steve’s soft gaze set firmly on your face, hopeful and incredulous. “I think you are pretty damn brilliant, handsome and overall amazing too, so that works out well… and I guess maybe we should do something about that.”

“I guess,” he echoed, his smile slowly widening when you took another step. He reached out this time and took your hand, enveloping it in his larger one.

It was just holding hands, it should not have such an effect on you, but Christ, you could die a happy woman right there. Especially when Steve carefully lifted your joined hands, dropping a kiss to your knuckles, eyes never leaving yours. When you smiled wide at the tender gesture, Steve’s gaze lit up with a familiar and yet so different spark. “You think I’m intimidating?”

A surprised chuckle erupted from your throat, the tension you hadn’t been quite aware of melting from your shoulders. You could smack him – now he was a cheeky fella, wasn’t he?

“That’s what you took from me pouring my heart out? Really, Steve? Wow. Just wow.”

He laughed as well as he erased the last distance between you so you stood chest to chest, hand moving to cradle your face instead and angle it up, his eyes full of wonder still as if he couldn’t believe this was happening. Humour and absolute delight blended into one in his expression; you imagined yours most have looked the same.

“Well, I kinda poured mine out too to make it even. But I’m just a guy, doll. My ego needs a good rub every once in a while.”

You couldn’t help it. You snickered at his choice of words. A good rub, huh?

“Just your ego?”

Something flashed in Steve’s eyes, his smile earning a wicked edge that had your stomach flutter; or perhaps that was just his strong arm wrapping around your waist, pulling you flush to his front, your palms catching against his chest. So warm. Warm and wide and real, and it was yours to touch.

“Aren’t you a cheeky little thing…” he mused.

“You know it. What you’re gonna do about it, Captain?”

His gaze roamed your face, searching for an answer to the unspoken and yet completely clear question. He found it in the challenge written in your smartass grin, his lips soon gravitating towards yours, suddenly close enough you could feel his breath on your own. His voice dropped but to a whisper.

“Depends… what would you let me do, Shines?”

Anything. Everything. All at once. Forever.

You licked your lips, painfully aware of the firmness of Steve’s body against yours, so pliant to accommodate his strength. “I’m pretty flexible.”

The corners of his lips twitched at the double entendre.

“Is that right, sweetheart? Let’s see how you like what have in mind then…”

A lot. The answer was a lot. You loved it the very second his lips touched yours at last, causing you to shudder and melt into his embrace. The kiss was even more tender than you imagined; gentle lips moulding into yours, thumb stroking over your cheekbone softer than silk. Lingering and brushing yours even as he released you to do something as mundane as breathing.

“I like it so far,” you muttered, eyes closed to absorb all the sensations enveloping you. The warmth, the masculine scent, the faint taste of mint tooth paste and Steve, the thundering heart under your palms, the hot skin as your hand slid up Steve’s throat to his nape, the soft strands of his hair as you pulled him to another kiss. “What else do you have in mind?”

He hummed against your lips, smiling, hand angling your head to kiss you deeper, parting your lips with ease, so naturally as if it was always meant to be. And perhaps it was; kissing him was two years due. The thought of a lost time had your fingers flex against the material of his t-shirt, squeezing his nape; his chest rumbled with a silent groan, arm tightening around your waist, heat pooling at your stomach.

You knew this groan. You knew the feeling of hardness building against your belly and you knew exactly what it meant; and you wanted it. You wanted it real this time and there nothing in the world that would make you resist Steve inching you walk backwards one small step after another as his mouth dominated yours, his hand moving to your hip to steer you the direction of the bed.

Or you thought so until his arm softened the impact of your back against a wall, your eyes snapping open with a gasp. Your gaze met Steve’s just as his fingers tangled in your hair, eyes roaming your face attentively, taking in every detail of your flushed face and already swollen lips. You feasted your eyes too, hand instinctively moving from his chest to his bicep, nearly whining at feeling the power humming underneath.

He could take you. He could take you in whichever way he wanted and you’d simply have to hold on and survive it, because even with your fancy moves and normally sharp brain, you were no match for his strength. But you didn’t need to be; you didn’t want to be. You were actually perfectly fine with Steve making love to you tender or fucking you against the wall all the way across the room from the no doubt comfortable bed.

“What else is there?” you heard yourself ask breathily, rewarded with Steve’s gaze darkening, his hips pressing against yours, palm sliding from your cheek to your throat, thumb caressing the soft skin.

He was trying to kill you. He was, there was no other reason to show off those large paws of his in comparison to your body, no reason to remind you he could crush you without much effort.

He petted the sensitive skin lovingly, licking his lips as another shudder ran down your spine, his middle finger inching under the shoulder strap of your dress.

“Can I?”

You only panted as he already hooked his finger under it and sent it sliding down while still being able to touch your throat, the hoarseness of his voice awaking the heat inside you having been sleeping ever since your dream encounter in the closet.

“Y-yes,” you whispered, hoping he’d understand that that consent applied to everything. Everything he wanted he was free to do. You needed him to do it.

He must have understood. He must have, because when his lips locked with yours, the heat behind the kiss was otherworldly, his body caging yours against the wall in the most toe-curling way.

It was like a switch flipped inside him, because it finally dawned to him. He had seen you fantasy; the filth he had experienced came from you and he could take full advantage of that. That previously frightening thought that Steve knew now, knew how you wanted him and how much, was apparently exactly what he needed to see; that you wanted him. All of him. No filter.

You mewled when his fingers tugged at your hair with the slightest pressure, guiding you to expose the column of your throat for his mouth to explore and nip at, his other hand squeezing your hips and following the curve of your ass appreciatively. Your already damp panties turned completely useless by now and in the very back of your mind, you realized that with Steve’s slightly enhanced senses, he could probably smell how riled up you still were from your imaginary closet experience. You could be embarrassed about that; but when his hand brushed up the back of your bare thigh over your hip under the hem of your dress, stroking over the lace of your panties at the apex of your thighs, you decided you were beyond caring.

Especially when you could feel his muscled shift with the minuscule movement of his fingers tracing the hem of your underwear, so close to where your core screamed for his touch and attention.

“So, doll…” he whispered to your skin, groaning minutely when you grabbed at his nape and pulled his mouth to ours, feeling it was way too long since you tasted them. He didn’t seem bothered at all, his fingertips brushing oh so lightly against your heat at last, a barely-there brief touch gone too fast. “I saw your dirty secret, is that right?”

Alright, he needed to stop talking and teasing you and get to work before you could spontaneously combust. Your only satisfaction was the fact that he too was far from indifferent to what was happening, his hardness pressing against your thigh.

So why wasn’t he doing something about it?

“Doll?” he hummed against your lips, expecting you to answer, clearly.

“Y-yeah? I guess?”

“Hm…”

You cried a discontent noise when his hands untangled from your hair and disappeared form under the skirt of your dress, long fingers curling around your wrist, one and then the other, soothing your disagreement with a filthy kiss.

Next thing you knew, your hands were pinned to the wall by your head, carefully, but firmly, Steve’s body pressing against the rest of you; his lips released yours just in time for you to let out a gasp as startled as pleased.

Your heart turned into one of a hummingbird when you realized your predicament fully.

Trapped against the wall by Steve’s large body towering above you, hands locked in a grip unmoveable upon you testing it. Caged. Utterly helpless. Dominated. The surge of need into your belly was so acute your brain turned into a blank screen with static noise for a moment.

Steve was playing out your fantasy. He was replaying what he must have seen. He was giving you exactly what you wanted and you were not about to protest; less so when your heart felt like giving out when his teeth grazed your pulse point, your knees bucking a bit, a silent mewl escaping you and that loveable bastard smiled with absolute glee against your skin.

“Love the sounds you’re making, doll. Love how your body responds to me.”

“You’re playing dirty,” you whined, not quite complaining, but still causing Steve to look up. The glee you had assumed was most definitely in his smirk and hungry gaze.

You swallowed loudly, gaze trailing up his bulging bicep when his hands manipulated yours above your head, one hand easily gripping both of yours.

“You want me to stop?” he asked, long fingers running over your bare arm indulgingly slow, over the swell of your breast, over your waist, until they slipped under your skirt again, following the hem of your panties to the junction of your thighs and pushed it aside at last, feeling the pool of slick in your underwear. His voice grew huskier as he spoke again. “Fuck. Doesn’t feel like it.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“I won’t,” he promised, latching onto your mouth as his thick finger slipped into your heat at last, causing you to moan at the blissful intrusion.

He pumped his finger a few times before he added another, the soft stretch sending hot pleasure through your veins, having you chase the feeling in the limited space he made for his hand between your bodies, trying to rock into his hand as he set a maddeningly slow pace.

“Steve, ple-ase-”

The plea melted into a gasp when he curled his fingers, finding your most sensitive spot, your hips jerking forward as the ripple of pleasure he elicited.

“There she is…” he murmured smugly, swallowing your noise of complaint when he pulled his fingers out right then, spreading your slick all over your lower lips and circled your clit only to neglect it right after.

Empty and strung tight at once, you tried to move and chase the much-needed friction, only for Steve’s hips to pin you in place again, palm spawled over your ass.

You wanted to shoot him the dirtiest look for denying you, but all you managed was a soft accusation in your hooded eyes as his still wet fingers tipped your chin up, his intent gaze dark and hungry.

“God, you’re perfect, doll,” he rasped, thumb brushing over your swollen lips. “You have no idea how beautiful you look right now.”

You had no time to be embarrassed; not when the words from your dream echoed in your head – except it was not a dream. This was all Steve – his fantasy, his reality too. He liked to watch. He liked to tell you were beautiful. He clearly liked your fantasy too – to have you in his arms, at his mercy.

You wanted to pull him for another kiss, to guide his hand – his cock for god’s sake – where you needed him so much you could barely stand it at this point, but the thrill of the not being able to, not being allowed to, felt almost as good. He was breathing heavy too, yes, but otherwise, holding you down posed no challenge for him, not even with one hand, the other sprawling over your hip again. Your core clenched at the casual display strength, a tiny noise escaping you against your will.

And bless that it did. Steve’s fuck it was the most beautiful song you had ever heard, because it was the sound of breaking.

So fast he battled the speed of light, his hand was back, tearing away the soaked fabric of your panties, mouth stealing the blissful moan from your lips, body letting just an inch of space for you to arch into his touch when his fingers slid right back into your heat, pumping and assaulting your g-spot, this time with his thumb pressing against your clit. Small rhythmic circles, dextrous fingers filling you up over and over and he had you chanting his name as you clenched on his fingers hard, warm release overtaking your body, muscles spasming, your vision blurring for a moment.

And Steve didn’t stop. The back of your head hit the wall with a silent protest as his fingers continued to fill you over and over again, mouth latched onto your neck and sucking a bruise, grasp on your hands firm and you struggled against the hold no longer sure if you wanted to stop him or keep his hand exactly where it was, because despite the overwhelming sensation and overstimulation, your body screamed at you to take it and enjoy the flames licking at your insides, so painfully delicious.

You clamped on his fingers again with a wordless cry, gasping for air as your eyes snapped open, meeting Steve’s impossibly blown pupils drinking in the sight of you overtaken by utter bliss. The wet squelch filling the room was pure filth as you soaked his hand, but you had no capacity to feel ashamed, you body buzzing with adrenalin and white-hot pleasure, Steve’s gaze making you feel like the eighth wonder of the world.

The second he released your shaky hands you were on him, holding onto his shoulder and pulling him in for a bruising kiss, his talented fingers slowing down to bring you down from your high. Once he let you get your fill, his kiss softened, short pecks to your lips, to your cheek, to you closed eyelids.

“You okay, Shines? Was that too much?”

You shook your head with a breathless laugh, the action of checking that you were alright familiar, matching the faint memory of seeing the images of his desires. Fuck you so good you’d forget your own name, but in a very respectful and caring way. It had Steve written all over it, alright. You should have known.

His forehead rested against your sweaty one, his nose nudging yours, his body more holding you up rather than restricting your movements now.

“I’m gonna need words, Shines.”

“Yeah,” you whispered obediently, pecking his lips for a good measure.

His hungry eyes sparkled with mischief as they met yours, beautifully red lips curling up in a smirk and causing your racing heart to stumble.

“Good… because I don’t think that’s how the fantasy ended…”

You yelped when his hands slipped under your ass without a single warming and lifted you with ease, your own hands gripping at his shoulders, legs, while rather jelly-like from your mind-blowing orgasms still, wrapping around his waist on instinct. You felt his hardness press against your core, hard planes of muscle without as much minute tremble under your weight as you stared at him, excitement stirring in your belly anew. With laughable ease, one of his arms shifted so he could use his other hand on you as he pleased.

You bit down the squeal ripping from your lips, but not quite successfully. He was carrying you. On one hand. And he didn’t even break a sweat yet.

“Better?” he asked smugly and it shouldn’t be attractive, you hated arrogance, but goddamnit cocky Steve seemed the hottest thing ever at the moment. Even when he was still fully clothed and your dress was loosely hanging over your bra, skirt ruffled up. Christ, his shoulders were so wide-

“I don’t think I can survive better…” you admitted, gulping, but letting your hands roam his exquisite body and gods you could come again just from touching all the delicious power you knew were locked in that body. “But I wanna try.”

Steve’s grin was the thing from your filthiest dreams; and his cock pressing against your core, the annoying fabric of his sweatpants in the way, was too.

“Atta girl…” he praised, hand curling around your nape to pull you in for a kiss that had barely any resemblance to the one he graced you with to bring you down, oh no. He licked into your mouth with indulgence, taking what was already his. “You’re gonna be so good for me, aren’t you? Take everything I give you?”

“Yes.”  

“Let me fill you up, again and again until I’ve had enough? Until you’re so completely mine that all you can think of is my name and the way it feels to come on my cock? You’re gonna let me do that, sweetheart?” he whispered to your ear, sin dripping from every carefully spoken syllable. He pulled at your dress, revealing your bra and groaning when he palmed your breast over the thin material, your own hands sliding down his chest and finally under his t-shirt to feel the heat of his skin.

So good. Gods, he felt so good.

“Yes. Wanna feel you. All of you.”

Steve rutted into you and you grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and tugged, wordlessly begging him to reveal your playground. He chuckled, pulling at his t-shirt himself to help you, quick to hum a promise to your lips that had your core clench around the painful emptiness.

“Oh you’ll feel me, Shines. I’ll make sure you’ll feel me for days. That what you want?”

One palm sprawled over his chest, the other laid over his abs, you weren’t sure you could answer beyond an absent nod. Steve did not find that satisfactory.

The nips of his teeth combined with the rumble in his ribcage had you release something between a mewl and a gasp, his abdomen shaking with a silent laugher.

“Oh that was a pretty noise. Can’t wait to hear more of it.”

“Steve, please, just-“

He heard out your plea at last, kissing you, free hand going to the laces of his sweats, undoing it way too slowly. Impatient, you knocked his hand away and did it yourself, feeling Steve’s lips curl in a grin against yours.

“Do you need me so much, doll? Need me to make you mine?”

You barely had time to breathe a yes and shove his pants down, hand wrapping around his thick length, drawing a breathy sound of pleasure from him and an unnecessary confession of the obvious.

“Yeah, need you too.”

He allowed you barely a few seconds of pumping his cock before he coaxed your hand away, the head of cock nudging your slit, quickly coated in your slick. His groan was delicious to hear, your hips bucking on instinct.

Yeah, need you too. You did this to him.

“Fuck, Shines, you’ll feel like Heaven.”

It was inappropriate. Completely and entirely inappropriate but you chuckled, a cheeky retort about seven minutes dying on your tongue when Steve entered you, a little too fast and straight to the hilt before he gave you time to adjust to his impressive size and grith. The stretch was a lot; a lot more than his already thick fingers, but you had never known you could be filled so well and it could feel just this good.

He was made for you, he had to be. Or maybe you were made for him.

Little droplets of sweat pearled on his forehead, gaze firm on yours, dark and amused at once as he slowly retreated and pushed inside you again, your lips dropping open because you had been wrong; he stretched you further and a shy glance down told you he still had a way to go.

“I could hear that pun before you said it, doll. You’re thinking too much,” he husked, setting a pace and pushing just a bit further and further with each thrust, hand sprawling over your lower back to angle you to his liking – for you to take him even deeper. The burn and fulness felt impossible, but Steve’s intent gaze on your face was even more so. “Let’s fix that.”

“I thought you liked me brilliant?” you hummed as if you didn’t feel your toes curl in pleasure, your hands grasping at his shoulders, at his arms, anywhere to keep him closer, closer…

Wind knocked out of you with ne sharp thrust, you finally took all of him; your lips parted with silent oh god, eyes slipping shut as the sensation of utter fullness. Distantly, you could feel his gaze on you, drinking in the sight; the artist in him admiring the visual, no matter how plain you thought you had to look.

“I do, Shines… but now I need you to think about one and one thing only.”

There was no space for words after that. Once he had you, he set a punishing pace, claiming your lips as much as your silky heat, overwhelming all of your senses all over again. The onslaught of sensation – his warmth, his strength, his musky scent, his lips, his grip on you, the fast but deep drags of his girth against your walls, stretching you to your limits – it was all too much, too much when his fingers sneaked between your bodies and ripped the dress away to give the much-needed attention to your clit.

“Steve-“

“That’s it…” he spoke against your mouth, teeth grazing your lower lip even as his pace never faltered, building you towards the skies again, “you really are perfect, Shines, gripping me so tight. So perfect and mine, aren’t you?”

“Yours… yours… yours,” you promised with every thrust until you couldn’t, your lips falling limp, your nails digging into Steve’s back when you came with another shout of his name.

And soon, he followed, whispered praises and mine over and over as he made you exactly that. Thoroughly his. Keeping you close even when he pulled out, keeping you close when his spent drippled out of you and he simply gathered in on his fingers, pushing it right back, dark gaze never leaving yours, your stomach making wild somersaults.

Mine. So completely mine. Aren’t you, Shines?

You were. Completely his, deeply sated and utterly exhausted. You were grateful he carried you to bed, because your legs were beyond functioning; as he laid you down, you couldn’t see the clock and you thanked heavens for that, because the time had had to tipped over from too late to too early. But you couldn’t care less. Not when Steve’s fingers caressed every inch of bare skin of your body they could reach, the rags of your clothes in a messy pile by the door a proud reminder of how exactly he had got it off.

And got you off.

You mentally snorted at the bad pun, another one you didn’t have a chance to share since Steve had been too determined to stop you from thinking returning to your mind.

“Steve?” you smiled lazily as he was lying next to you, propped up at his elbow, smiling down at you softly – so softly in contrast to how he had railed you into oblivion. Lovingly, of course.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“I think this was what we should call Seven Minutes in Heaven.”

He groaned, falling on his back and drawing a full belly laughter from you, throwing his arm over his face as if he couldn’t bear to look at someone who made such a terrible joke. With effort, you propped on your elbow then, looking at the gorgeous length of his body for a change, cheeks hurting from grinning so wide. He was a work of art; Michelangelo’s David had nothing on him. Superb balance of size and function in every muscle, every tendon, as hard as stone when needed and carved into perfection. Alive and warm under your gaze and touch, its utter superiority proven by countless missions and work-out you had witnessed. It wasn’t just how large his body was, the contrast of the width of his shoulders to his waist, the lines of his abs with soft treasure trail; it was the knowledge of what his body could do. What that brilliant mind behind those sweet blues could come up, the kind heart humming contentedly under your palm now. You had met enough dumb jocks in your line of work, big almost as Steve, handsome too; but they could never compare.

He moved his arm when your fingers walked down his sternum, heading for the treasure trail; his cerulean eyes observed with a mixture of mischief and warmth, wide awake despite the ungodly hour. You stopped, fingers hovering just above his skin, the heat it radiated tickling your fingertips.

It didn’t escape you – it was literally hard to miss that – that Steve clearly hadn’t had enough. You didn’t ask why, whether it was the serum or something else, but you knew you didn’t want to leave him unsatisfied.

You had promised, hadn’t you, even if it was in the heat of the moment. Until he had his fill, he said? You could take it.

Leaning down to kiss him, you were welcomed by the sweet taste of his smile; your wandering hand continued your path at last, wrapping around his still very hard length. He didn’t protest, only reached out to pull you closer, practically lying on top of him.

The kiss was lazy; half-hearted desire, reluctance and indulgence at once. Steve tangled his fingers in your hair, pushing it out of the way, caressing your cheek.

“You sure you can take more, sweetheart?”

You nodded without a second thought, a wordless ‘yeah’ whispered straight into his mouth, a slight twist of your hand causing him to groan.

Steve might be caring to a fault, but he was only a man – as he had said. Who was he to refuse your offering? He sat up and pulled you to his lap with ease, your body obedient and pliant, a gasp elicited from your throat when his lips moved to suck on your nipple, your fingers gripping on his hair.

“Steve…”

“Did I mention you were perfect?” he muttered into your soft flesh, kneading your ass and your breast.

You had never felt so utterly adored; body, mind and soul. How could you be anything else than his when this was what it was like?

“Once or twice. You’re not too bad yourself, Cap-tain,” you stuttered when he pinched your other nipple for the cheekiness, a breathy giggle escaping you.

He released your nipple with a wet pop, gaze having turned hungry again.

“Good. Turn around, sweetheart.”

You looked at him slightly confused, but obeyed. You’d do anything, even kneel in front of him, the prospect of him taking you from behind like this stirring something deep inside you. You glanced over your shoulder as he positioned himself behind you, a glorious god prepared to claim the sacrifice of those who worshipped him; and god, would you do exactly that.

He grasped at your chin softly, capturing your lips with his, his hardness nudging the globes of your ass; and released your lips all too soon, fingers pushing at your jaw to look forward.

Heat flooded your body, teeth sinking into your lower lip. Kneeling on the bed, completely bare and exposed, you were facing the mirror.

His fantasy. His turn.

“That okay?” Steve asks, voice husky as his lips attached to the flesh above your collarbone, his arm sneaking around your waist and pulling you to his front. He was hidden from your sight for most part, a true shame; you were on full display.

For you. For him.

You gulped, gaze set firmly on his face in the mirror, not daring to stray it elsewhere even as you could see his eyes appreciating his view.

“I… I think so?”

His smile was warm, a little boyish and entirely devious. You sunk into it as much as you sunk into his firm body, his fingers tweaking your nipple, drawing your gaze to the movement of instinct. Heat spread in your insides at the sight of his large hand over you, barely an edge of shame nudging your consciousness. Filthy. Vain. Wrong. Thrilling.

“Good… ‘cause I think we can do better than seven minutes,” Steve hummed with a trace of humour in his voice, free hand sliding between your thighs to tease you and make sure you were ready for him still – or again. When he spread your lips for the head of his cock, you instinctively bucked into his hand, gaze flickering to the sinful image. “In fact… I wonder how long you can last until you’re begging me…”

He pushed into you in one swift movement, strong hand keeping you in place, the tendons on his forearm dancing, a breathless oh falling from your lips.

“…to stop. Look at yourself, sweetheart. Look at us.”

Almost in a haze, like a new dream on its own, you did. With the strangest and most tickling glee, your gaze trailed from where you and Steve were one between your spread thighs, over his arm draped over you, his hand spreading softly over your throat to keep you looking straight into the mirror, lips attached to your temple curled in a smile.

“Your mind is way more filthier than I thought,” you managed to say before he started thrusting into you, his smile earning a wicked edge as he nuzzled your hair.

“Shh… that’s my best-kept secret. You’re not gonna tell anyone, are you, doll?”

Powerful. Adored. Desired.

His.

The next words rolled off your tongue before you could think twice, Steve’s hypnotic gaze on your body enough of an encouragement.

“Keep my mouth busy and I won’t--- oh god.”

The fingers of his left hand circled your clit, sending an almost painful pleasure through your veins, while his right hand angled your head to capture your lips indeed.

“Now who’s filthy,” he murmured, pressing his thumb against your mouth, dark pupils blown wide as you sucked on it obediently. He pushed into you so deep at the action you thought you’d feel him in your throat and you finally understood the expression of la petit mort. The feeling of bliss washing over you was so strong it could kill you and yet you’d never felt more alive. “Fuck, Shines, you’re gonna be the death of me. But first… let me show you how beautiful you look when I make you mine.”

And he did. Oh, he did.

And he’d stand by his promise that you’d feel it for days too, you were sure of it, even if only time would tell.

The sun was already rising and peeking through the blinds when you finally laid your head on the pillow to sleep at last. Successful revels Thor would say, you thought lazily.

You walked the fine line between consciousness and dreams, cradled to Steve’s chest, closer than you ever thought you could be. Idly, you let your mind wander; despite the absolutely mind-blowing sex that only probably happened to a person once in a lifetime, you couldn’t but believe that this wasn’t a one-time thing. No, Steve didn’t do one-night stands, he even said so; his mind was on your for quite some time. This was but a start and you loved the idea of that. Not just because of the promise or experiencing this again, the pleasure still flowing through your body as an echo of what had been almost too much bliss to bear, but because of love.

You had been more than a little in love with him for almost two years – and you couldn’t wait to fall harder. Because besides being a sight to behold, Steve’s arms provided comfort, safety and sincere affection. You didn’t have to be scared of that fall, because they’d catch you. You didn’t have to fear for your heart if you gave it to him, because you knew Steve Rogers to his core; he’d cherish the gift and guard it with his life.

And he’d deserve it too, your whole heart. He deserved to be loved deeply and unconditionally; and on occasion, filthily.

With a sleepy hum, he nuzzled into your neck almost as if he could hear your thoughts and approved of them, pressing a soft kiss there. You drifted off to sleep with a little sappy but entirely adoring smile.

“You did something to the bottle, didn’t you? Some fancy physics trick?” Bucky said, more an announcement than a question, just before he decided to finally follow Steve’s and your example, ready to retreat to sleep – most of the group did anyway.

Tony was a picture of genuine innocence for once at the accusation. “Me? Please. How would I even do that?”

“I dunno. Magnets? Electric pulse? Flying invisible bot? What do I know…”

A nearby chuckle caught both Tony’s and Bucky’s attention, their suddenly knowing gazes finding Loki with his arms crossed over his chest. They didn’t bother to pretend to be irritated, even as at any other time, they would have been. For once, they were just grateful; Friday had silently informed them that the agent known as Speedy had been last seen outside Steve’s suite and wasn’t seen leaving for at least an hour.

If the two clueless dumbasses figured their shit out at last, Loki’s mischievous involvement was worth it.

“Oh no, I cannot possibly take the credit for that part.”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “What part can you take the credit for?”

“You could not handle the truth, Sergeant,” Loki smirked, causing Bucky to roll his eyes. “But not the bottle. I swear. I admit that I wanted to – but I did not have to.”

“So you want me to believe that after two years of Steve and Speedy needing to pull their head out of their asses and at least half of us trying to talk some sense into one or the other, a stupid game an even stupider coincidence finally did it for them. Really?”

Tony nodded, watching Loki with searching gaze. “Yeah, I’m with Buckaroo on this o-“

The sudden soft dragging sound and a clink drew the gazes of all three men. The bottle, having spun a bit, came to a slow stop under their watchful eye.

“Dammit, Loki-“

The trickster raised his hands in defence, chuckling again. “I did not do anything!”

“Yeah, right-“

The bottle shifted again, this time spinning fast – and stopped abruptly at once.

“But-“ Bucky froze mid-sentence. Then, his head snapped in the direction the bottle was pointing now. His eyes found the young redhead witch, walking out of the room hand-in-hand with Vision. As Tony followed Bucky’s line of sight, his mouth fell slightly agape.

Loki only smirked harder. “I must say, it is always a pleasure to say this: I told you so.”

“No way,” Tony breathed out, incredulous.

“Stark, give that girl a raise,” Bucky muttered, shocked as well; but completely sincere in his request. Bless magic. Bless that girl for pushing the idiot of his friend into what Bucky couldn’t convince him to do for months.

Wanda only smiled at them over her shoulder and walked out of the door with a silent ‘good night’.

Steve Rogers masterlist 

Complete masterlist

The prompt was Only when you and your significant other are locked in the closet for 7 minutes, you’re transported somewhere else. and well. Yeah. I transported them into each other’s head – specifically, into their filthy fantasy. I am not even sorry anymore for that cheat if it is a cheat🫡 Though I am a little sorry for the length because this was supposed to be a one shot (story of my life).

Well, this was a LONG ride. I hope you enjoyed it 🤭

Let me know if did and if you can🥰

Thank you for reading!

[enemylv1]

What's your favorite piece of jewelry you own?

What weird thing do you do when you're alone?

Do you have any superstitions?

Ask game! :3

Theses!

Firts two where made by our sibling.

The list goes on and on with weird things I do alone, talking with myself, doing graph about my own behaviour and sometimes I to imitate movements i see on animations or "voice act" games while playing them .

I think as a system we do not share supesticions, for the most part we do not, but a few do have. An example of one I belive in would be saying certain names brings bad fortune or the whole thing with graveyard dirt

[that-weird-skeleton-bastard]

🐑Cult of the lamb incorrect quotes ❤️ (Ratau squad edition + Lambert)

Shrumy: Flinky and I were crossing the street, and this man drove by and honked at us. Lambert: What did you do? Shrumy: They chased him to the next red light, and reached into his window, and- Flinky: *walking in* Who wants a steering wheel?

🐍---------------------------------------------------------------

Lambert: How many vampires do you think have been hit by a car backing up in a parking lot because the driver couldn’t see their reflection? Flinky: I’ve never considered it but you’re really shining light on what’s probably a very serious issue.

🐢---------------------------------------------------------------

Klunko : When Shrumy was born, the gods said, "They're too perfect for this world." Flinky: Please. When they were born, the devil said, "Oh, competition."

🐦---------------------------------------------------------------

Lambert: I regret nothing!!! Ratau: I regret everything!!!

🪱---------------------------------------------------------------

Ratau: All snacks are gone. Flinky: I AM LITERALLY RIGHT HERE?!

🐀---------------------------------------------------------------

Lambert: You need to stop swearing so much. Shrumy: Shut the fuck up. Lambert: Yeah, that's not how you do it. Shrumy: Alright sorry. It's just that it's hard not to swear. The words just creep up on me when I least expect it. Lambert: Now now, don't be like that. Just replace the swear words with 'beep' and you'll be fine. Shrumy: Shit the beep up. Lambert: Shrumy: SHUT, DAMMIT! I MEANT SHUT!

🐑---------------------------------------------------------------

Lambert: Will Shrumy be okay? Ratau: He won’t be when I find him.

🐍---------------------------------------------------------------

Ratau: *falls down the stairs* Lambert: Are you okay? Shrumy: Stop falling down the stairs! Flinky: How’d the ground taste?

🐢---------------------------------------------------------------

Ratau: Do you even know what an amulet is? Shrumy: Of course I do! I eat amulets sometimes. I like the ones with cheese and onions! Ratau: Shrumy, those are omelettes. Shrumy: Oh. Then I’ve got nothing.

🐦---------------------------------------------------------------

Shrumy: Lambert learned how to fold origami penguins from Ratau the other day. I told them, “I feel a little bad for the penguins, it’s hot here”, and the next day they put them in the fridge.

🪱---------------------------------------------------------------

Lambert: Do you want this handful of moss? Shrumy: Why would I want a handful of fucking moss? Lambert: Damn, you could’ve just said no.

🐀---------------------------------------------------------------

Ratau: Silence is golden. Flinky: Duct tape is silver.

🐑---------------------------------------------------------------

Flinky, in the hospital: Will you visit me when I get out? Shrumy: Lol nah, I hate graveyards.

🐍---------------------------------------------------------------

Lambert: DID YOU REALLY THINK THAT JOKE WAS FUNNY? IT WASNT. NOBODY IS LAUGHING. Lambert: *pulls up a graph* THIS IS WHEN YOU TOLD YOUR JOKE, YOU HAVE SINGLE HANDEDLY RUINED COMEDY! IVE ALSO ASKED MANY COMEDY SCHOLARS ON THEIR OPINION OF YOUR JOKE AND THIS IS WHAT THEY HAD TO SAY! Ratau: I've been researching comedy for the past 20 years, and I have genuinely never seen a joke this bad. We have used quantum physics to look into alternate universes to see every joke made, and yours was still by far the worst. Lambert: CONGRATULATIONS! YOUVE SINGLE HANDEDLY CREATED THE WORST JOKE IN HUMAN HISTORY! HERES A MEDAL! *pulls up a horrible ms paint drawn star that says "you need help*

(Lambert when a follower asks to "prank" another follower by KILLING THEM)

🐢---------------------------------------------------------------

Lambert: PEASANT. I REQUIRE SUSTENANCE. Ratau: You know there are other ways to say you want McDonalds. Lambert: FOUL PLEBEIAN. YOU DARE SPEAK AGAINST ME— Ratau: *sigh* What do you want? Lambert: Chicken nuggets please.

🐦---------------------------------------------------------------

Ratau: I keep a picture of all of us in my wallet. Whenever I face difficulties, I take it out and stare at the picture. The Squad: Awwww- Ratau: And I tell myself "If I can deal with these idiots, then I can deal with anything." The Squad: Oh.

🪱---------------------------------------------------------------

Lambert: I drink to forget but I always remember. Shrumy: You're drinking orange juice.

🐀---------------------------------------------------------------

Ratau: Here are two pictures. one of them is your room, and the other is the garbage dump. Flinky: *points at a picture* That one is the dump. Ratau: tHEY'RE BOTH YOUR ROOM!

🐑---------------------------------------------------------------

Flinky: What's worse than a heartbreak? Klunko & bop: Stepping on a cat's tail and not being able to explain that you're sorry.

❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️

[leafybfdia]

they did the monster math. it was a graveyard graph

[anonymousdormhacks]

She did the math! (calculated how much my assignment was worth to my overall score) She did the monster math! (why is it only worth 1% of my grade) She did the math! (I spent like 15 hours on this? I spent at least 15 hours on this??) It was a graveyard graph! (I'm going to spend at least 225 HOURS of my life for a measly 15 percent of my grade???)

[boyswillbedogz]

i get so fucking upset seeing those tiktok videos where people do cool things and caption it "doing ___ because i didnt die in that house".

and i should be happy for them and im not negative on their posts but its so goddamn bitter and it stings deep in my throat.

because i will die in this house. this house is less a home and more a graveyard for different joys in my life that have died. this is it for me and i cant fathom a future any less bleak than just dying here. i dont expect to live long enough to do things like that. i dont expect to be anything but a number on a graph. i dont expect to be anything but blood on my mothers hands.

this house is going to be my grave. im going die here and it just upsets me when i see people that escaped. because i know i wont.

[knox143]

Beyond the Data Deluge: Diving into the Innovation and Community of BluWhale

The digital age is a sea of information, and for far too long, we've been passengers on a ship steered by big tech corporations. Our data - a treasure trove of preferences and personal details - is locked away in isolated server rooms, fueling targeted advertising and exploitative business models. But a new current is rising, and its name is BluWhale. This innovative project isn't just about navigating the waves of Web3; it's about building a whole new vessel – one powered by user empowerment and community collaboration.

Innovation that Breaks the Mold

BluWhale's core technology is as groundbreaking as it is fascinating. Forget the siloed data graveyards of traditional platforms. BluWhale leverages a decentralized AI protocol, creating "user knowledge graphs." This allows applications to share data openly, fostering a collaborative environment where personalized experiences become seamless interactions, not forced encounters. Imagine your preferences flowing effortlessly between dApps, building a web experience that feels more like a conversation and less like a targeted ad.

Community: The Engine that Drives Progress

But BluWhale isn't just about the tech (although the tech is pretty darn cool). The project thrives on a vibrant community where users are more than just data points – they're active participants. This isn't a one-way street. Users contribute their data, but they also have a say in how it's used and by whom. Think of it as a digital co-operative, where everyone benefits from a rising tide. Secure on-chain messaging allows users to connect and share ideas, fostering a sense of shared purpose and collaboration that propels the project forward.

Exciting Developments on the Horizon

The BluWhale team isn't resting on its laurels. They're constantly innovating, pushing the boundaries of what's possible. The "Use-to-Earn" model and the BluAI token are just a glimpse of what's to come – a future where users are rewarded for their participation. Imagine getting paid for the data you already generate – a revolutionary concept that empowers users and disrupts the status quo.

The Call to Action: Dive In!

BluWhale is more than just a project; it's a movement. It's a call to arms for all who believe in a more equitable and user-centric digital future. It's about reclaiming control of our data and using it to build a better web experience for everyone. So, are you ready to dive in? Join the BluWhale community and be part of something truly transformative. The future of the web is blue, and it's looking bright.

Beyond the article, consider this: Explore the potential of integrating BluWhale's features with real-world applications. How could personalized learning platforms leverage user data graphs to create customized learning experiences? Imagine a healthcare system where data is securely shared between providers, leading to improved patient outcomes. The possibilities are endless, and the BluWhale community is the driving force behind making them a reality.

[alias-milamber]

Six Gods

As part of the BitD campaign I just finished, I accidentally put together a pantheon. I defined three in play, and the others were vague concepts. As part of the process of excising the old campaign from my head to work on something new, I've fleshed out the other four in the same style, and now I'm publishing it here because I don't see a reason why not.

The Moon is all things that are no one single thing. The Moon is all things that exist on a spectrum, on a plane, a scatter graph of all the things that could be, with no specific things that are. Their domain is negotiation, discussion, neutral ground. Their altar was a soft cloth over a hollow table, where anything you placed change the nature of everything.

The Crab is all things that shall be improved, and shall be one. They are collective action and harmonisation, and endless iteration to a more perfect form. They are always changing, and insistent that all must change, to not improve is to die. To not improve towards their idea of perfection is to die. To object to what they think of as perfection is to oppose the Crab. Their domain was the ocean, the battlefield, the debate chamber; certainty and specificality. Their altar was a rock worn smooth by the sea, and it ran red.

The Forgotten is no things that are remembered. The Forgotten is there for those who no longer exist, and that which has fallen between the cracks of the world. They are the language unspoken, the book unread, the library burnt. Their domain is the room whose door was papered over when you remodelled, the cellar whose door was removed, of research and archology and the truth behind history. Their altar was an empty shelf of blank books.

The Mire is all things becoming all things. The life that decomposes into the ground and feeds the plants that feed the animals that feed the animals that feed the animals that worship the Mire. The brickwork that splits under the tree root, the log that covers the nest, the storm that burns the tree canopy and provides light to the plants below. The sword that cuts the neck of the hegemony and brings power to the people below. The domain of the Mire is the swamp and the revolution, the kitchen and the garden, the parliament and the graveyard. Their altar was a century old terrarium standing in the sun.

The Shadow is the site out of sight, the edges and the places defined by their absence. Not so much the places that don't exist, as the places that should not be entered, the danger and the hazard. Their domain is the sentient spell book and the diving cave; the office's of the devil's advocate and the trust in the fraying rope; The occult power that sings in your hand hides the Shadow, and they are the only one of six that can be seen by the conscious dead. Their altar was a puzzle box of hidden knives.

The sixth isn't, yet. Her diffuse existence swirls in the glittering gaps left by the Destitute, whose true name and form only remain in the realms of One of Six, who doesn't speak of it. The Six do not dwell on the possibility of mortality. The new deity's domain seems to revolve, and click, and whirr. It oozes and flows with viscid confidence, slicking the way. Sometimes it sparkles and crackles, and leaps with jagged steps. It had no altar. Not yet.

(The Destitute was once The Ennobled, and was a merchant/high society deity tied to the idea of fair trade between equals, and lie to and cheat the rest, but it was a bit on-the-nose as a late-stage-capitalism bit in a dark fantasy campaign, so I replaced it with some Goddess Rising stuff around technology, which is also a possible hook for a continuation in the same world, though probably not as a BitD campaign, and not any time soon. In my BitD campaign, the Gods were incarnated and sealed in a place where time no longer flows and it is forever night, which cuts them off from their own omnipresence and much of their power. The Crab God found a way to open a portal to the past, where he could connect to his former self and regain his domain.)

[dcvilgrams]

so because i've been working a lot of graveyard shifts where i can't spend a lot of time on my phone, i've taken up pokemon pixel art. i found this amazing blog @thexstitchpokedexproject that has designed pixel art for cross-stitch purposes but on graphing paper it's coming out incredibly???

look at my little pixel army!!!

credit to @thexstitchpokedexproject for all of these amazing designs !!!

[legends-of-time]

Thorn Bush (Doctor Who Story)

Chapter 45: Village of Angels

Masterlist

A/N: Kathy has been through War of the Sontarans and Survivors of the Flux and Vanquishers but she hasn't seen anything after season 12 and New Years special so is lost in this episode but remembers what she went through in 1851 and 1901-04.

Thank you to everyone who’s read this story! Please leave comments and likes.

——

21st November, 1967 AD/CE

Kathy tucks her edition of Thomas H. Johnson's 1955 The Poems of Emily Dickinson deeper into her coat pocket. She taps away on her scanner, reading over the information Lizzie Dalton has sent her before shoving that too in her pocket.

She'd just recently felt with a case of Piggybackers in Bridgeport, US, psychic creatures with no form who need hosts to operate, spreading across worlds and making worlds into temples. The race had been difficult, getting to the teacher, Miss Harcourt, and forcing her to take over the town by hypnotising everyone into silent drones. Thankfully Kathy had been able to stop her along with the help of the Dalton family, Hank, Lizzie and Tommy, humanoid species who's species was immune to the Piggybacker's influence, as well as Abner J. Endicott, a respected friend of the teachers. It had all sadly led to the death of Miss Harcourt who'd fought against the creature's influence and rejected it.

She shivers slightly as she walks through the misty moonlight village of Medderton but not because of the cold, something which, due to her not-so-human genetics, doesn't really bother her, instead she shivers for a different reason. Her eyes are narrow as she takes in the ominous graveyard on the edge of the village as she passes it on her way to Professor Eustatius Jericho's house. The village around her seems as if it's deserted but Kathy doesn't trust it, something in her gut tells her there's something out there.

After her experiences with Yaz, Dan and Jericho in the early 20th century and 21st as they battled the flux, Kathy knew from what they'd said that she had (or will be) in 1967 (Jericho's original year and the year from which Yaz and Dan are sent back in time to 1901). So, after spending a short while in America and then Italy, more specifically Rome and Venice, Kathy travelled north, back to England.

The trio had also informed her of the mysteries of this village. Everyone vanishes in 1901 then again in 1967 as well as the mysterious and sudden expanding of the graveyard's headstones. She knows that according to Yaz, Dan and Jericho she's safe from the Angels as they hadn't done anything to her but Kathy knows how timelines can change and she'd rather not risk it.

With that thought in mind, she picks up the pace to cover the last stench of distance to Jericho's house. Kathy takes a breath and slumps against the door once she's in the hallway.

She is startled when Jericho pokes his head out of the doorway that leads to the kitchen. "Ah, Ms Davis, there you are. We were just about to get started."

Kathy flashes him a smile. "Of course, Professor."

It was strange to see Jericho again and yet he had no idea who she was. This Jericho hasn't been sent back in time by an Angel yet, he's not been stuck in the early 20th century with Kathy, Yaz and Dan trying to find out what is happening to the universe and get back to the right time.

Kathy takes the tray of tea he's offered her and makes her way down to the basement lab. The place is a dim cavernous place. A few pencil sketches on the wall, plans of the house. Records, diagrams, graphs, old house/architectural plans and equipment littered about. In the middle of it all, perched on the chair is Claire Brown.

Claire had given her a knowing look when they'd met. The percipient knew who she was even though they hadn't met (from Claire's pov) and why she was here. The woman had turned up on Jericho's doorstep, a little while before Kathy had gained the position as his assistant. She'd also explained how she's had visions of the Doctor and met her previously as well.

"Ready to be strapped in?" Kathy quips.

Claire huffs. "As ready as I'll ever be."

Kathy straps the thick brown leather straps to Claire's head, encouraging the girl to lie down as she checks the wiring of the machinery. Jericho had been surprised but pleased when he discovered her understanding of technology and machinery was quite developed than most particularly as he'd gained a new machine for his experiments. It's a sort of lie detector/EEG machine in a sense.

"How many more of these?" Claire asks.

Kathy isn't sure whether she's genuinely asking her or thinking out loud but she answers anyway, "I don't know. I was sort of hoping you'd tell me."

Claire sighs. "I don't. I'm sorry, I wish I knew more."

Kathy places a hand on Claire's shoulder, squeezing it gently, "What you already know is more than enough."

Claire nods.

"Are we ready ladies?" Jericho asks as he makes his way into the room. A pair of wonky glasses pushes up on his nose, a pencil in hand a a wad of A4 lined paper.

"Ready to go Professor." Kathy flicks the switch and the machine comes to life. She takes the paper from him and Claire takes a breath and settles in.

"Can you tell me today's date, please." Jericho begins.

"November twenty first." Claire answers. EEG needles tick over across a roll of paper.

Kathy notes this. 

"And the year."

"Nineteen sixty seven." The needles flicker up erratically. Kathy stares at them worriedly, glancing at Jericho who leans close to the EEG needles, studying the flicker, mildly irritated.

"There it goes again." He complains. "Can you state your name please?"

"Claire Brown."

Kathy scratches the name in and adds: THIRD SESSION. Kathy can see Claire swallowing nervously as she writes.

"And your date of birth." Jericho prompts.

"You know this already—" Claire retorts, agitated.

Jericho is unperturbed and replies in a calm, patient tone. "Control questions only. Date of birth."

"13th of May, nineteen eighty five." Claire snippily answers.

Kathy freezes from where she is about to write and gives Claire a warning look while Jericho looks at her alarmed. "Beg pardon?"

The EEG tucks over as Claire answers as if repeating herself; styling it out. "I said: 13th of May, nineteen thirty five."

The EEG flickers up. Kathy reluctantly notes this. She knows Jericho is going to find out the truth at the end of the day anyway plus it's rude to mess with someone else's experiment.

"Apologies." Jericho taps his ear and smiles. "Word of advice, Miss Brown. Never get old. Not even slightly." He nods to the reel-to-reel. "Thank goodness for mechanical recordings."

Jericho looks at the EEG roll. "There it goes again. Twice! For no reason. It is empirically, factually, November the twenty first, nineteen sixty seven. And you clearly know your own birthday! And yet, the machine would suggest you believe neither statement."

"Problematic when you need a control reference. A baseline." Claire quips shakily.

"Precisely." Jericho looks thrown for a moment before chuckling. "Yes. I forgot, you're very with it."

Claire tenses, her breathing becoming erratic as she gasps, "It's happening." Before beginning to convulse. Her knuckles are white gripping the chair, breathing fast and shallow as the EEG goes wild. 

Kathy steps back, watching worriedly but knows she can't do anything until Claire comes out of it. Jericho, on the other hand, grabs the reel-to-reel microphone and brings it closer to him, in excited fascination.

"The percipient exhibits immediate extreme physical distress. Almost as if physically experiencing the events she describes." Jericho describes as Claire continues to convulse. "Theta waves suggest a sleep state, yet she remains extraordinarily alert." He moves to examine her eyes. Her pupils are dilated. "Mydriasis of the pupils yet no discernible trigger."

Claire clasps Jericho's arm hard, staring sightlessly ahead. "Help me!"

"Of course my dear, in good time—" Jericho tries to reassure.

Claire suddenly sits up, her voice deep and hard as if she's in a trance. "There is no time. Not anymore."

"Then how? How can we help you?" Kathy tries to ask.

The needles going are still going haywire! Pressure building, machines complaining, Jericho is looking more and more alarmed.

Claire continues talking, "The end begins again now. And there will be no escape. Not this time. Not for her, not for them, not for you." The trance seems to break, Claire lets out a big gasp as she stares at the wall in front of her. "The Angel has the TARDIS."

Well, sh—

——

Kathy hands a mug of steaming tea to Claire. "Here you are. Tea, with honey from the Professor's own bees. O'natural shock remedy."

"Thank you." Claire takes it. "What did I say?" 

"I have it all recorded. It was a little alarming." Jericho answers.

Kathy scoffs. "That's putting it lightly."

"Not as alarming as the readings that have set my sonic off." A very familiar voice remarks.

They all turn to find the Thirteenth Doctor sonicking the EEG machine. Kathy grins at the sight of her (she'd sensed the Time Lord's arrival while she'd been making the tea) while Jericho is outraged. 

"Who are you?!" The Professor cries.

"You can call me the Doctor." The Doctor says distractedly, more focused on her sonic and only absentmindedly flashing her psychic paper at Jericho.

"The Institute of Psychic Investigation?!" Jericho reads.

The Doctor checks the psychic paper. "Looks like it. Interesting." She turns to explore the room again.

"How did you get in here?"

"Your door was open."

"It most certainly was not!"

"My apologies Professor, I opened the door." Kathy cuts in. "I had called on the Doctor's expertise. I knew she and her associates would be here seen." He stares at her blankly but at least he isn't angry anymore. She feels awkward and instead turns to the Doctor who's examining everything pinned to the walls. "Er, speaking of, where are said associates?"

"Yaz and Dan are looking for a missing girl, Peggy." The Doctor replies then pauses as if just realising something. "Wait, not said my hellos." She turns and yanks Kathy into a big hug, which startled a laugh out of her before she hugs back. "Hi Kathy. Been anywhere recently?"

"America, Italy."

"Oooh, nice."

Jericho pipes up, reminding them of the actual more important conversation. "Peggy's missing?"

This must be the start of everyone vanishing Kathy realises, which means Yaz and Dan are currently, will have or have already been sent back to 1901.

"Let's not get bogged down by all that," the Doctor responds, "not when we could get on to whatever experiments you're doing down here, Mr...?"

Jericho puffs his chest out. "Professor! Jericho. Eustacius Jericho."

The Doctor's eyes light up. "Eustacius?!"

"Yes."

"Oooh, wish I had that in Scrabble, thirty three on a triple word score, wouldn't be allowed, proper noun." The Doctor quips.

"George Eliot allows them." Kathy corrects. "God, I love that woman."

"Well I know that!" The Doctor retorts. "Nice to meet you, Professor Eustacius Jericho." She peers at house plans. "Nice house too. Now, with apologies to your subjects—" The Doctor freezes when she finally notices Claire from where she is behind Kathy and Jericho. "Oh. Hello. Again."

And the sonic goes crazy, flashing and chirruping, and the Doctor frowns. She flicks the sonic between the machinery and Claire who appears to have paled and groans slightly. Kathy turns to her, concerned.

The Doctor appears not to notice as she gazes upon her sonic. "I thought it was the experiments that the sonic was reacting to but it's actually you." She looks at her. "Claire. Right? How are you here?"

"I'm feeling sick again, Kathy, Professor." Claire quickly leaves the room with Kathy following after her. Kathy hears Jericho snapping at the Doctor as they leave.

——

Kathy helps Claire to the bathroom but allows her to enter when she asks but promises to be outside if she needs anything. She snaps to attention when she hears a sudden gasp from inside.

Kathy knocks. "Claire? Are you okay? Claire?" She knocks again when she receives no reply.

"I-I'm fine!" Claire eventually calls.

"Are you—" Kathy tries to ask if she's sure but then she hears what appears to be a window being smashed downstairs. "Er, Claire? I'm just going to find out what that was. Will you be alright?"

Claire calls her reassurance and Kathy rushes down the stairs to find the Doctor in the entrance hallway, sonicking the glass as she creeps through, her boots crunching on the broken glass.

"What the hell happened?" Kathy asks as she steps into the glass, flicking her sonic out to have a quick scan.

"I think I might know." The Doctor answers. "Did you know Weeping Angels are involved?"

Kathy startles from where she's been looking at her sonic at the question, wondering how the Doctor worked that out but nods. "Er, yeah, kind of."

"Hint?" The Doctor asks as she kneels by a misshapen large rock, sonicking it.

"Er, well... the Angels, they're after something." You. Probably, Kathy thinks, considering they apparently kidnap you.

"Broken glass everywhere," Jericho complains as he approaches them. "What is that device you're using?"

The Doctor looks irritable as she turns to him in her crouched position. "Did I not tell you to stay downstairs?" She snaps.

"This is my house!" Jericho retorts. Jericho then looks down at the rock and picks up the rock. "Vandalism!" He cries, striding to the door. "If I get my hands on the person that threw this..."

Kathy and the Doctor cry out, trying to stop him, but it's too late. He throws the door open to reveal Weeping Angels spread out far, wide and deep in front of the house.

"How did they get here?" Jericho murmurs.

The Doctor and Kathy come to join him. Kathy can feel her blood chilling down as she looks at them. To be this near to them, it reminds her of when she was little in her old life and watching Blink for the first time. Kathy can't help but shiver.

"Back away slowly, into the house, keep your eyes on them. Don't look away, and don't blink." The Doctor instructs urgently.

Jericho looks to the Doctor. "What're you talking about?" He looks back but this time one of the Angels is right in front of him causing him to jolt in surprise and fright.

The Doctor grabs him backwards and slams the door on the Angels to which Kathy quickly sonics the locks. 

"'Cause they do that." Kathy quips as the Professor catches his breath.

The Doctor's mind is clearly racing as she looks at them gravely. "Why are they here? Lock everything."

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The noise comes from the door as Jericho and Kathy run out of the hall. They run into one of the sitting rooms to find loads of Weeping Angels at every window. Kathy pushes him back and slams the doors shut and sonicking the locks.

"They're at the windows. But how are they moving? They're just statues." Jericho rambles in terror.

"They're called Weeping Angels. They move when unobserved. Quantum beings. If they touch you, they will send you back into the distant past, feasting on the quantum energy of your unlived life." Kathy explains.

There's a pause as Jericho stares at her then— "Oh, don't be ridiculous."

Kathy glares at him. "Just lock the back door and don't, no matter what, don't take your eyes off them. Go!"

——

Kathy locks more doors while Jericho runs off to do the back door. By the time they're back in the hall, the banging has gotten worse and the door handle is rattling. Claire is now standing with the Doctor. Claire's are filled with what appears to be junk from the Time Lord's pockets.

"All of the doors are locked." Jericho informs them.

"Good! Have you got a television?" The Doctor asks to Jericho's bafflement, which they really don't have time for.

"On it!" Kathy cries.

But before she can leave—

Ding dong!

They all look to the front door. 

Ding dong! 

They all look at each other.

"Sorry. Am I dreaming or are the Weeping Angels actually ringing the doorbell?" Kathy rhetorically asks. She really shouldn't be surprised considering they have previously killed people to use their voices and open doors but the fact they're ringing the doorbell of all things.

"It's a very nice sounding doorbell." The Doctor murmurs. Then she snaps to it. "Television!" She tapes an old mobile phone to a vantage point on a wall.

Kathy runs off just as she hears what sounds suspiciously like the sound of glass and wood smashing off in the distance. She picks up her pace and grabs the TV before running back into the hall.

"Do you not think that evacuation might not be the order of the day?" Jericho asks as she renters.

"How can we evacuate if we're surrounded?" Claire retorts.

"Exactly." The Doctor agrees as she tapes the mobile to the bannister. "The building's surrounded and there are more of them than there are of us. At least inside, we have a defendable position. The basement is securable, right Professor?"

"Oh yes." Jericho says.

"Take the television down there, quick smart. Follow him you two."

Bang! Bang!

Jericho grabs the TV from Kathy and does as he's told. Kathy moves to do the same but notices Claire holding back.

"Claire?" She calls.

"I said go!" The Doctor cries.

Claire doesn't move. Instead, she brings out a news clipping, the one she'd shown Kathy which had proven what Yaz, Dan and future Jericho had told her.

"There's something else, Doctor. I googled the name of this village after my first premonition." She hands the piece of paper out to the Doctor. "Everyone in the village disappears, on the 21st of November, 1967. Tonight. Whatever happens leaves no trace. The Army move in, turn it into a locked encampment."

"Yes, well, time is not always fixed." The Doctor tries to argue confidently but Kathy can see the worry she's trying to hide.

Kathy shakes her head. "No, Doctor, you need to listen. Claire's right. This won't be the first time. It also happened in 1901. Everyone in the village vanished."

Ding dong!

Bang! Bang!

"Get down to the basement now. I'll be right behind you." The Doctor deflects, jumping back to work.

Kathy grabs Claire's arm and drags her down. Because of this, Kathy misses the familiar stone dust falling from the woman's eye. The same dust that once came out of the eye of one Amy Pond once before.

——

The basement door is locked and bolted. The TV is set with a CCTV image of the hallway on it; to Jericho's shock.

"I'm going to need you to keep an eye on this picture. It's risky, but we've got limited time and choices and we're going to need to know where they are." The Doctor tells them. "Kathy said they're after something."

"Why risky?" Jericho asks.

"That which holds the image of an Angel can also be an Angel." Kathy explains. "Takes a lot of effort, but if they really want to, they can escape that screen."

"What?!"

"Just don't question it."

The picture of the Weeping Angels changes and now there are more of them.

"Ah!" The Doctor exclaims. "See what I mean. You have to keep your eyes on them."

"Doctor, my drawing!" Claire cries from behind them.

They turn to find a Weeping Angel in the middle of the room being projected from a sheet of paper and flickering into existence! 

Kathy jolts back in terror. "That's your drawing?! Why did no one me?!"

"I didn't know you were so well informed!" Jericho retorts, clearly not liking her accusatory tone.

"Do not take your eyes off that screen Jericho and Kathy! Claire, keep yours on the sketch Angel!" The Doctor orders.

Kathy watches the screen but can hear what sounds like paper being scrunched up, an angry hiss before the match is lit. Kathy's attention is torn away when she catches sight, in the corner of her eye, of the Angel in the room once more alight and kissing angrily.

"You've made it worse!" Kathy cries.

"I know!"

Looks back to the screen to see that the distraction has made things worse and the Angels are moving through the hall.

"Oh dear." Jericho utters.

The Doctor grabs a fire bucket of sand and throws it onto the flaming Angel. The flames go out and ashes crumble to the floor. Not sure whether that was enough, Kathy grabs another bucket and drowns the burning ashes in the sand. Kathy and the Doctor breathe heavily before turning back to Claire and Jericho. The former stares at them, astonished while the latter keeps an eye on the screen.

"Where were we?" The Doctor quips casually

"I may have to write all this down." Jericho replies over his shoulder in shock.

"Once this is over, be my guest."

You won't...

Kathy quickly moves over to the screen to join Jericho, trying not to think of the man's future, to see the Angels largely in the same position as they were before. Good.

"Why are they attacking my house? What do they want?" Jericho demands to know.

"I think: me." Claire tells them.

Kathy frowns. She'd thought...

"Why would they want you, Claire?

"Because I'm one of them. Look."

Kathy walks backwards so the TV is still in her line of view before peering at Claire. The woman stands there with her arms and hands the colour of stone!

"Claire..." She breathes. Oh, God. This is not good. 

She hears Jericho's stunned utterance before the Doctor says, "This isn't possible. How long have they been like this?"

"Physically, just tonight. I hallucinated I had Angel's wings, there was dust coming out of my eye." Claire shakily answers. "There's an Angel within me, Doctor. I'm certain of it."

"You're a percipient. A seer." The Doctor slowly realises. "You had a premonition of an Angel in your mind. And now it's living there."

"That which contains the image of an Angel is an Angel. It literally inside you." Kathy registers.

"It keeps coming and going." As she says this, Claire's hands and arms return to normal.

Kathy watches the screen fixedly as Jericho turns to the Doctor, his mind spinning. "You're saying because she had a premonition, a vision, it has taken psychic root within her? A real, genuine psychic manifestation?"

"Eustacius Jericho, proper scientist. Under siege from the impossible, doesn't even stop to be scared, just wants to understand what's beyond his comprehension." The Doctor remarks.

Kathy smiles slightly, that's the Jericho she knows.

"I've seen plenty of things beyond my comprehension, Doctor. I was one of the first British soldiers into Belsen, at the end of the war. If you think that stone statues are going to destroy my equilibrium then you are mistaken." 

Kathy's throat tightens at his admission. She clears it quickly and calls over her shoulder, "Jericho?! Need more eyes on these Weeping Angels."

The Doctor turns to Claire. "Claire, I need you to look inside your mind. And if there's an Angel in there, I need to get it out. Will you give me permission to enter your mind?"

"Will it hurt?" Claire asks.

"I'll be as gentle as I can." The Doctor reassures and eventually, Claire gives her consent.

"You're going to place yourself in Miss Brown's mind?!" Jericho questions in disbelief.

"Yes." The Doctor replies calmly.

Kathy can sense Jericho brimming with excitement. She rolls her eyes, almost fondly at Jericho's excitement. "Go on then, record it."

"Wait, he's supposed to be helping you in observing the Angels!" Claire argues as Jericho rushes for the equipment.

Kathy can hear Jericho fiddling with the equipment as he speaks, "I can still do that. T-the machines will record any activity. Please. This is unprecedented. An experiment beyond anything before researched." He flicks a switch on the machine. "There!"

Kathy imagines the Doctor has placed her fingers in Claire's temples.

"Contact." The Doctor murmurs. 

The needles on the EEGs leap into action.

——

Kathy and Jericho wait in silence as the EEG needles continue to go crazy as the Doctor and Claire stand frozen, hands on each other's heads, wired into the EEGs, behind them. On the TV there's a dozen Weeping Angels in the hall. It is packed. 

Bang! Bang! Bang!

It startles the both of them. Kathy realises, to her horror, that it's the door at the top of the stairs.

"Don't look at it. Don't look at it." Jericho mutters to himself but just as he says this, the screen covering the hallway flicks off then static. "Oh what's happening now?!"

"The Angels, the can affect electricity, make it flicker." Kathy replies.

She glances up, through the gaps in the floorboards, swallowing tightly as she sees movement. Back to the screen flicks back on. Kathy quickly looks at it to see only half a dozen Weeping Angels there now in the hallway.

"Oh, God." She's really not liking this. Why did everyone say that the Daleks are the most scary? It's clearly the Weeping Angels!

"Where've they gone?" Jericho wonders anxiously.

And then, Jericho's own voice whispers through the television, "Do you really think you can protect them?"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Kathy freezes as Jericho, alarmed and terrified, intensifies his fixed gaze. "Who's there?"

"The Angels..." Kathy murmurs. Christ. She's not going to be that scared little girl again.

"The Angels?"

Before Kathy can reply, Jericho's voice comes through the television again. "You are, Jericho. Listen to yourself Jericho. Look away, Jericho. Look away."

"Stop this!" Kathy cries.

"I don't think so." Suddenly there's a close-up of an Angel face on the TV! Hands in front of its eyes. A slight squeak comes out of Kathy's mouth as she tries to suppress her yelp. "I see you, Jericho. You see yourself."

"Please stop using my voice. Very clever trick. But most impolite without permission." Jericho replies snippily.

"So interested in the workings of others minds. Because you can't bear to examine your own." The voice continues. "Loveless. Childless. Hiding in academia for fear of the real world. Always losing to a better man. A life of failure."

Kathy can't take this and snaps, "You don't know him."

"We have his house. We have your attention. We are on our way. There is nothing you can do to stop us." The Angel lists. "Surrender to the Angels. You know you want to."

And Jericho hardens, his posture more defiant. "I have never surrendered. And I have no intention of starting now."

Kathy leaps back, startled and frightened, when the Angel suddenly reaches out of the TV; flickery, black and white. Jericho recoils as well, snatching a cricket bat from the side and smashing the TV screen. The Angel disappears. Kathy takes a moment to breathe but then the door at the top of the stairs comes crashing down the stairs.

Kathy and Jericho run to the bottom of the stairs and look up to find two Angels on the top two or three stairs, one coming through the doorway. 

"You stop right there." Jericho declares, defiant, heroic. "You are observed! And that is my power, over you."

"For now, Jericho." The Angels speak with Jericho's voice. "But we are patient. We have Time. We are all around you. We are everywhere."

Kathy swallows tightly, trying to not let the fear take over her as she lunges forward, grabbing the cup and throwing it at the Doctor and Claire.

As the Doctor and Claire pull back into this reality, Kathy turns her attention back to the Angels.

"What happened?!" The Doctor cries, startled.

"Sorry, threw a cup at you. Had to shake you out of it. Kind of running out of options here." Kathy replies, trying to remain calm but she can hear her own voice quivering.

"I see what you mean." The Doctor remarks.

"How do we get out?" Claire questions, frightened.

"I'm beginning to question the wisdom of barricading ourselves somewhere with few exits!" Jericho retorts.

Kathy raises an eyebrow but still doesn't dare look away from the Angels. "Wait, are you telling me you've never read your own floor plans?"

"What?" Jericho blurts out.

Kathy backs away and, once certain the Doctor and Claire also have their eyes on the Angels, she turns to one of the boards on the wall that displays the floor plans. "Assignation Tunnel. The first owner of this house was somewhat of a scoundrel. A tunnel, from the basement, out to a lovers' meeting point."

"Hah! Brilliant, Kathy!" The Doctor cries happily.

"Don't look away!" Kathy calls to the group. She dashes to the far side of the basement and grabs a long-handled mallet and swings it at the wall, smashing it to pieces to reveal a dark tunnel beyond. She knocks out the remainder of the wall remnants.

"Kathy?" The Doctor calls.

"Yep, there's a tunnel we can go down!" Kathy calls back. "Never been more grateful for another man's deceit."

The Doctor turns and grabs the EEG headbands, throwing them to Jericho and Claire. "Put those on the two front Angels! Me and Kathy will keep our eyes on them."

Kathy moves over to do just that as Jericho and Claire do as they're told. The rolling tape machines go crazy, the lab is rattling, and shaking. 

"Through the tunnel, all of you. Now." The Doctor instructs.

Jericho and Claire grab torches and hurry into the tunnel.

The Doctor realises Kathy hasn't done what she's told. "Kathy—"

"Look you need my help, right?" The Doctor nods reluctantly. "Well?"

The Doctor turns to the Angels. "Now, reverse the polarity of the neutron flow. Might give you a little quantum headache."

They pull out their sonics, aiming them at the machines. The EEG machine sparks as the two scramble backwards through the basement, grabbing a torch each without taking their eyes off the Angels. They slip into the tunnel and slam the door closed. The dark, mysterious tunnel. Great.

——

Once in the tunnel, it shakes and dust falls from the ceiling as the machine explodes. They all duck, crying out in surprise. 

"Doctor, Kathy, are you alright?" Claire calls.

"Just peachy." Kathy huffs, wiping the dust from her face.

The Doctor frantically secures the metal door with three heavy bolts. "Go! I'll keep an eye on this door—"

Bang!

The door shudders. Jericho and Claire look back, anxiously.

"Don't look back!" Kathy calls, waving them on. "We're doing the looking! You look forward. Keep going!"

Bang!

The Doctor and Kathy look at the door as it continues to bang! They start to walk backwards, keeping their eyes on the door. Jericho and Claire going ahead behind them. 

"Curious patterning on the wall, wonder how old it is." Jericho remarks.

Kathy eyes the stone wall out of the corner of her eye. The patterns are almost Angel wing shaped...

Bang!

Her thoughts are cut off by— 

Creak!

One of the bolts moves back by an unseen hand! 

Oh God! Kathy grabs the Doctor's hand as they continue backing away from the door.

Creak!

Another bolt slides back!

"Everything alright, Kathy, Doctor?!" Jericho calls back to them.

"Yep! Nothing to worry about!" The Doctor frantically calls back.

Creak!

The final bolt moves back! 

The tunnel shakes again dust drops from the ceiling. 

"Doctor, Kathy..." 

Claire's frightened tone doesn't help the terror Kathy's feeling as she watches the door.

"Yeah?" The Doctor replies tightly.

"I think there are Angels in the walls here!"

"Oh, fantastic!" Kathy retorts sarcastically. "Why wouldn't there be?"

"Angel up ahead!" Jericho cries.

"And behind!" The Doctor adds oh so helpfully.

"Keep your eyes on it, Miss Brown." Jericho reminds the woman.

"Yes, thank you Professor, very much not blinking!" Claire quips back shakily.

"If you can get past them, we might just stand a—"

Before the Doctor can finish her sentence, the door blasts off its hinges in a cloud of dust. Now three Angels stand frozen at that end of the corridor.

"Chance..." The word dying on her lips.

Kathy tightens her grip on the Doctor's hand, dragging her backwards from the Angels in front of them. She can see the arms of other Angels coming out of the walls and resists the temptation to look at them as well as back to see where the Weeping Angel in front of Jericho and Claire is blocking their other exit. Then both Kathy and the Doctor's torches are fading, powering down.

"Oh yippee, a flickering torch!" Kathy quips sarcastically, trying to reign in her terror.

The torch flickers and the three Angels advance with each one. Like strobing. Kathy swallows tightly, gripping her torch strongly with one hand while the other grabs her sonic to power the battery up. She can hear the Doctor doing the same. 

"Oh no you don't. Keep back now!" The Doctor warns.

"The exit is the other side of the Angel. It's narrow, but we can get through. If one of us has eyes on it at all times Professor." Claire observes.

"Good, yes—"

The tunnel shakes and dust falls from the ceiling at both ends of the tunnel. Kathy staggers, gripping the Doctor's hand once more.

"Are they doing that deliberately?!" Jericho exclaims.

"Yep! Trying to get you to blink. Or sneeze. Can't sneeze with your eyes open." The Doctor rambles in false cheer.

"Miss Brown would you care to go first, I'll stay here and keep my eyes on this Angel." Jericho offers.

Kathy is about to argue against it but then realises she might mess things up if she does. If she's right and Dan and Yaz are already in 1901, this might be how Jericho gets back there as well.

"Always the gentleman, Professor." Claire says and Kathy can hear her moving forward.

"I'm. Not. Blinking!" Jericho declares.

"I'm through!" Kathy hears Claire call.

Now it's the Doctor and Kathy back to back with Jericho, surrounded by Weeping Angels. Literally, Kathy would rather be anywhere else. 

"Jericho, now, when I say run, run. You and Kathy take left, I'll take right and these Angels will be left looking at each other." The Doctor instructs.

"Righto." Kathy quips shakily as Jericho says, "If you say so."

"Run."

They run. There's a bang and dust falls through. 

"Argh!" Jericho cries. He wipes his eye, opens it again and Kathy is just able to see an Angel directly in front of him. Kathy yelps as the Professor disappears in front of her, to 1901.

"Kathy?!" The Doctor calls to her.

"Jericho, he's gone!" Kathy cries frantically.

"Kathy, Kathy, run. Please!"

Kathy nods though she knows the Doctor can't see her, too busy staring at the Angels. Kathy can't help but notice they've seemed to have lost all interest in Kathy herself. She doesn't want to think about it and instead scrambles through the narrow entrance.

——

Kathy emerges to find what she can only describe as a split screen. Her side is in night-time darkness but across from her, across a blurry line creates a border to which it, on the other side, displays daylight. Dan, Yaz, Jericho and Peggy stand on the daylight side (must be 1901) while Mrs Hayward, the school's teacher, stands just by the border on Kathy's side. 

"Kathy!" Yaz cries fearfully.

Kathy frowns. "Okay, right, that's weird. Peggy? Mrs Hayward?"

None of them answer and are all instead staring at something behind her. She slowly turns to Claire, on top of the stones, with an Angel standing behind her like a shadow. And surrounding her is an army of Weeping Angels as far as the eye can see into the night. She is surrounded, defenceless but they remain unmoving.

She swallows tightly, her eyes flickering frantically across all the Angels in front of her. "Er, why aren't they attacking?" Kathy asks aloud.

"They don't care about you. They won't attack until they have the Doctor." Claire tells her, her voice is shaking slightly.

Sod that. Kathy goes to yell but Claire's voice stops her.

"That won't be wise. If you warn her, they will stop you."

It's then that Kathy hears the Doctor's voice calling ahead. "Kathy, Claire, good news is we made it through, more worrying news is, think they let me go, but I don't know—" her sentence drifts off as she fully scrambles out and sees the scene in front of her. "—why. Kathy?"

"Um, them." She points.

The Doctor turns, and looks up, behind her to see the scene of Angels. She backs up to Kathy.

"My Angel says: go to your friends. It will wait. They'll all wait. It says they're enjoying watching you work it out." Claire informs them.

"What's going on?" Kathy asks. 

"Doctor, it's been communicating with them. I can sense it, I don't know what it's said to them, but—"

"Claire, don't worry. Stay there." The Doctor turns, moving over to the dividing line, sonicking.

"Don't come any closer!" Yaz frantically yells. The Doctor jerks to a stop. "We're stuck in 1901."

"Wait– we're what?!" Jericho splutters.

"We should've broken that to you a bit more gently." Dan remarks.

"We can't cross the line." Yaz explains to the Doctor.

"And at the edge of the village, there's just stars. Like we're marooned in space. And it's creeping in on us." Dan adds.

"Right. Anything else?!" The Doctor questions.

"What does Quantum Extraction mean?" Yaz asks.

Kathy's blood freezes at that. They had told her that's what the Angels had done before they'd taken the Doctor.

"The village has been taken out of time and space. They're isolating their target." She explains.

"What target?" Dan asks.

The Doctor. That must be why the Angel has Claire, to draw the Doctor in.

The Doctor is striding away, facing the Army of Angels. "Alright! You've got what you came for. Take your rogue Angel out of Claire without harming her. And put this village, these people, safely back into their lives. Come on Rogue Angel. Tell them to do that, and I'll negotiate a deal between them and you."

There's silence. Claire's head is turned towards the Angel behind her as if listening to what it's saying.

"Well?!"

"No." Claire forces out, she looks terrified.

"What?" The Doctor blurts out.

"My Angel is saying... no." Claire responds. "It says... it has made a better trade. That they have agreed not to take it. Because they will take you instead."

Despite expecting those words, they still chill Kathy to the bone.

She can see it hitting the Doctor. "This was its plan all along. It hid in you, a human, to attract me."

"Because the only thing Division wants more than my Angel... is you."

Division? Kathy's heard it before when the Judoon came to arrest the Fugitive Doctor.

"You are recalled. To Division."

And the Angels start to glow individually and then as an army. Kathy scrambles back, watching her friend in horror as the energy spreads over her.

She hears Yaz run forward. "No!"

"Yaz, no!" Kathy yells over her shoulder but she can't take her eyes away from the sight in front of her.

Trails of grey stone begin rapidly spreading across the ground from the Angels towards the Doctor, who stands there frozen to the spot as she shakes and vibrates As they reach her, she quickly begins turning to stone. She stares at her grey hands in horror as a pair of huge carved wings spout from her back and her neck stiffens as the process forces her face to look back ahead. Kathy can see the terror and agony written across her face. Finally, the stone colour is spreading up her neck and onto her face as her hair is also turning to stone, completing the transformation. The new Angel Doctor slowly covers her eyes with her stone hands, surrounded by the hoard of Weeping Angels.

They glow brightly. Kathy staggers back, covering her eyes and when she is able to remove them, the Angels and the Doctor are gone.

"Doctor!" Yaz cries again, tearfully.

"She's gone. Where's she gone?" Dan questions.

Kathy turns, stunned. "I don't– I don't know. Division I think."

"You don't know?"

Kathy shrugs desperately. "She never really said."

"Well that's all good but we're stuck in 1901," Jericho interrupts, "how we going to get out?"

"Spoilers, sorry." Kathy replies apologetically. "The only hint I can give you is that you need find me – the younger me. The one in 1901."

"You what?!" Jericho splutters. 

Yaz ignores him, nodding determinedly. "Okay. Where?"

"13 Paternoster Row, London."

——

A/N: Please leave comments on how you're enjoying this story and what you think.

[melo-writes]

I Buried Ghosts

(TW: SH. Take care of yourselves)

I buried ghosts beneath my skin.

Their graves are old and faded now,

But I know where to look.

I laid them where the ground was soft,

Covered them before dawn.

Their silent protests meant little to me,

The babbling of a midnight brook,

The slow droplets of maroon traveling

Down,

Down.

Falling like rain on the shower floor.

I relished in the comfort of the storm,

For I was its creator.

The architect of its crypt,

I, the author of its obituary.

I controlled the meandering paintbrush that rendered the landscape red.

The seasons changed uncaring,

As I sat in my graveyard.

Each tombstone marked,

Lined up perfectly,

Like exact units on a graph.

The seasons changed,

Uncaring.

Until I,

the ruler of the dead,

The commander of the storm,

Became them.

Until the droplets became streams,

And thunder raged outside of my control.

The paint on the canvas started to overflow.

Until I wanted to bury myself.

There are ghosts of marks on my arms,

If you know where to look.

If you ever see mine just know,

That I can see yours too.

[draconym]

Thank you for renewing your subscription to Spouse Facts. Here are 5 additional facts.

He figure skates. Not too often anymore, and he will tell you he is "not very good and never mastered backwards crossovers," but he betrays himself by commenting on the technical skill of other figure skaters whenever I show him a video of figure skating. He was pretty unimpressed by Yuri on Ice.

His figure skating skills are apparently non-transferrable to ballroom dancing.

He is pretty good at lockpicking. One time when we were walking through a graveyard we noticed that the mausoleum was in disarray, so he picked the lock on the gate and we cleaned it up. (The next time we visited, we noticed someone had replaced the lock with a newer, beefier lock).

We have written several one-page RPGs together. We both enjoy tabletop roleplay but we don't really care about stats or leveling up, we just want to play pretend with our friends.

He does recreational math in graph paper notebooks. The first time I ever saw him doing this I asked what he was working on and he replied "I'm just having fun :)"

Since you all had so many kind things to say about my spouse on this post, I will provide you with ten Spouse Facts:

He has a pet rabbit that we found as a stray, which he has clicker trained to do various tricks. He also wrote the rabbit a theme song which he frequently sings to him (when he is not baby talking at him). The rabbit loves this.

He plays the guitar, piano, and dizi (Chinese transverse flute). When I got very sick a few months ago, he wrote a song for me and has sung it to me nearly every day since. He also wrote a (beautiful, heartbreaking) song for his mother who has dementia and whom he visits every day, because music is retained much longer than other kinds of memories.

He doesn't have a car. He is anti-car. He has two bicycles: a Raleigh Record Ace (with a custom paint job featuring a rabbit) and a Lightspeed. He has a lot of biking gear that makes him look like a Pokemon trainer.

He eats raw onions whole like they are apples.

He got serious about baking as a hobby a few years ago, when he was irritated by the imprecision of bread recipes for not stating the optimal temperature of warm water to proof yeast. He created a gas displacement chamber out of jars and aquarium tubing and ran a series of experiments to find out the answer himself. We ate a lot of bread that month.

He taught himself tablet weaving in an afternoon. He also knits, and one time he sewed himself an entire ballroom gown for a Halloween costume because they don't make ballroom gowns in his size.

He's conversational in Spanish, French, Japanese, and Mandarin.

He learned to beatbox in his college a cappella group. (I also beatboxed for my college a cappella group, but my parrot prefers his beatboxing over mine.)

The first time we met in-person was at a Humans vs. Zombies nerf gun LARP. I asked him out to dinner a few weeks later and at the end of the evening I said "let me know if you want to do this again" and before I even finished the sentence he said "I want to do this again."

The last time he ate eggs was about twenty years ago, when he ruined a batch of chocolate merengues and then tried to recombine them with the yolks, creating Chocolate Scrambled Eggs. Apparently it was terrible.

[nauticalmyles]

January 15, 2024

Pokemon Sleep

100 Sleep!

Got a C rating for last week. That 12 hour sleep really made the graph look super inconsistent.

I really need to get some Pokemon to 30 to get the ingredients you can only get past 30.

Spirit Hunters: Infinite Horde

Magnus - Cold Steel, Out for Blood

Vivian - Hex Power, Graveyard 100

Conrad - Fried Chicken

Maxine - Elemental 44, Plague Bones

Hugo - Snake Charmer

Shakpana - Brutal Brambles

Sickle - Robin Hood, Desert Reaper

McDiggins - Spark and Ride, Farmers Run

Doing Brutal runs now. Didn't notice my first one and went 3x. Then the purple enemies started showing up. Almost won the run too. Pretty easily won the 2x speed of it though.

Was it really necessary to have an enemy that can just insta-kill you?

Realized that I'm just two away from getting all Steam Achievements and neither of them really have to do with Challenges. Think I'll still do all challenges anyway.

[starlightandnightbreeze]

Some days my mind is at a war with itself.

My friends tell me they idolise me for always doing the "right" thing.

Is it ever right though?

When you hold something for too long and then let go, is that giving up?

When does kindness ends and boundaries start?

When you fight till you bleed because mom never raised a quitter, is that self sabotage?

Where does efforts pause and acceptance starts?

If we can never heal completely and everything pitched against time shows an exponential graph...

When do we stop?

Should we stop?

My decisions are a graveyard of what could've been or should've been.

Among the thorns of wisdom and expectations, I sometimes mourn the loss.

The loss of possibilities, memories and sometimes people.