#it's been so joyous to remember how much i love gravity falls

[qifreyplushie]

book of bill came out and my partner said baby bill looked like hong'er and i laughed so hard i cried

[hysterialevi]

Hjarta | Chapter 11

Fanfic summary: In an AU where Eivor was adopted by Randvi’s family instead, he ends up falling in love with the man his sister has been promised to despite the arranged marriage between their clans.

Point of view: third-person

Pairing: Sigurd Styrbjornson x Male Eivor

This story is also on AO3 | Previous chapter | Next chapter

A WHILE LATER

BJORNHEIMR, THE LONGHOUSE

Pain. That was all he could see.

As Sigurd walked side-by-side with Ulfar through the longhouse’s doors, he heard nothing but the agonized groans of fallen warriors, and the devastated cries of survivors who were now mourning their loved ones.

The horrid stench of smoke and death clung stubbornly onto the wooden walls, and with so many fresh corpses now littering the village, they had what looked like a battlefield sitting on their very doorstep.

It was a nightmare come to life. Even though Sigurd was no stranger to the morbidity of war -- he had grown up in the midst of one, after all -- it was still enough to make his stomach churn, and his heart ache.

How could this have happened? And during such a joyous event as well? Today was meant to be a day for their clans to celebrate; to enjoy themselves. But instead, they were now taking shelter in the longhouse, and being forced to isolate themselves from the mayhem that lurked outside. 

It looked like Muspelheim itself had razed Bjornheimr’s streets, and frankly, Sigurd didn’t know how they were going to recover from this.

“Poor woman...” Ulfar said, gazing in Ingrida’s direction. At the moment, the seeress was holding Eirik’s body in her arms and gently stroking his forehead, comforting him as if he had contracted a simple ailment. Not a single word was being uttered from her lips, and yet, the lifelessness of her expression was enough to say everything.

“No parent should have to lose their child,” Ulfar remarked, his voice heavy with sorrow. “I can’t imagine what that woman is going through right now.”

The prince followed his line of sight. “What happened to Eirik? How did he die?”

“I have no idea. He approached me and Eivor at the temple just before the assault was launched... with three arrows in his back. He wanted me to tell Ingrida something, but... he slipped away before he could get the words out.”

The older man’s brow crinkled with anger. “Those bastards. Kjotve’s men didn’t even have the honor of giving Eirik a warrior’s death. They shot him down like a dog.”

Sigurd sighed in frustration, crossing his arms in a stern manner. “...How did this even happen? You and I spent so much time planning the defenses of this village. We cleared the forest of Kjotve’s camps. How is it that his people overwhelmed us so easily?”

Ulfar’s eyes narrowed with skepticism. “I have the same question. It’s possible that Kjotve’s been planning this for a while, but... still. I’d be lying if I said the efficiency of this attack wasn’t suspicious.”

Bringing their conversation to a halt, a nearby series of footsteps suddenly made its way into the building, drawing both the men’s attention to the doorway.

In the distance, Sigurd saw Eivor dragging himself into the longhouse with his father’s axe in hand, still as bleak as before. His head sank with a profound sense of melancholy, and his feet lingered behind him in a manner that made it seem as if chains holding him down.

At first, the prince expected Eivor to say something to Ulfar upon entry, but instead, he simply drifted past the two of them without a single word, and headed out into the training yard adjacent to the longhouse.

“...Do you think he’ll be alright?” Sigurd asked, watching as the man slipped away.

Ulfar shrugged. “I cannot say. Eivor has always been strong, but even the strongest of men have their weaknesses. Kjotve has caused him much pain ever since he was a child. It will take him time to recover from this battle.”

The prince’s voice softened at the thought of a recent memory. “...Eivor told me about his parents a while ago, you know. About how Kjotve killed them.”

“Then you understand the gravity of what happened today. Kjotve trying to kill Eivor in the same way he murdered Varin -- it’s an insult deserving of an axe to the chest. I’ll be surprised if the boy lets this go.”

Sigurd paused for a moment, allowing the realization to settle in. “...Eivor nearly gave up Valhalla in exchange for my survival. He was willing to die without a fight... just to ensure that I lived.”

Ulfar nodded, recalling his conversation with Eivor all those years ago. “Yes. Because in the end, you were more important to him than anything Valhalla could’ve offered. He spent the past thirteen years dreaming of the day he’d finally get revenge, and he sacrificed it for you. I hope you understand that, Sigurd.”

“Of course. I owe him my life.”

“Indeed.”

Sigurd decided to follow Eivor and began making his way out of the longhouse, hoping to catch the young man before he disappeared. 

“Wait here,” he told Ulfar. “I’ll go speak with him. I want to see how he’s doing.”

“Hold a moment.” The raider said, stopping Sigurd in his tracks.

“Yes? What is it?”

The older man fell silent for a second, pondering how to broach the subject.

“Before you go, Sigurd, there’s something else you should be aware of.” Ulfar lowered his voice, ensuring that no one else could hear him. “...I know about your relationship with Eivor.”

Sigurd’s heart skipped a beat, and the color drained from his face. “You-- what?”

“Eivor confided in me during the wedding,” Ulfar explained. “He had quite a lot on his mind, and was willing to tell me about your affair. Have no fear, though. I won’t expose your secret. He entrusted me with this matter, and I have no intentions of betraying that trust. However, there is something I need to make clear.”

The prince listened intently, worried about where this was going. “...Alright, then. Speak your mind.”

The raider crossed his arms. “It pains me to separate Eivor from someone who makes him happy, but for the sake of this alliance, I must insist that you keep things at a platonic level if you wish to console him. I realize it’s not always that easy, but our clans need each other to win this war. If your marriage with Randvi falls apart, so does our bond.”

Sigurd took his words to heart, regardless of how reluctant he may have been to accept reality.

“I understand, Ulfar. You have nothing to fear. I wouldn’t jeopardize this marriage.”

Ulfar didn’t look entirely convinced. “I hope so. You have my trust for now, Sigurd, but just remember -- I don’t give it blindly.” He turned away from the prince, dismissing him with a wave of the hand. “Anyway, go and see Eivor. I imagine he’s somewhere in the training yard. If the two of you wish to join me later, I’ll be speaking with the jarl and your father in the war room. We have much to discuss.”

“I will.”

“Look after that boy, Sigurd,” Ulfar said, striding to the front of the longhouse. “He cares about you more than you realize.”

~~~~~~~~~~

THE TRAINING YARD

Stepping back out into the open, Sigurd welcomed himself into the deserted training yard as he scanned the area for Eivor, admittedly reluctant to wander through the aftermath of the recent battle. The thick scent of smoke and ash immediately smacked him across the face once he was outside, and even now, he could still feel the heat of the raging fires consuming their entire village.

He imagined Eivor’s state of mind must’ve been dire, if he was willing to take solace in an environment like this. Bjornheimr was hardly recognizable after the chaos Kjotve wreaked, and yet, the young man found it preferable to staying within the confines of the longhouse.

Sigurd supposed it was understandable, considering his exchange with the enemy. Kjotve could’ve cut Eivor down in the midst of a proper holmgang, but instead, he decided to do something worse. He took away his honor.

He degraded the Wolf-Kissed with the same impossible dilemma he once thrust upon Varin, and now, the nightmare would only haunt Eivor again. The gods would know of his swift surrender and declare it as an action of cowardice, and he would likely receive judgement from his fellow clan members.

In Sigurd’s eyes though, the man was a hero. He sacrificed one of the greatest honors known to Midgard in exchange for his family’s safety, and he did so with barely any hesitation. He displayed more courage than Sigurd had ever seen from anyone else in his life, and yet, he would have to reclaim his honor simply because he was willing to put down his axe.

It was a series of events laden with unfairness in Sigurd’s opinion, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to change it nonetheless.

Roaming closer to the training yard, Sigurd’s head perked up in interest when the sound of metal scraping against wood suddenly reached his ears, drawing his focus to a nearby tree. There, he saw Eivor himself fervently slashing his axe against the trunk, letting out occasional shouts of anger.

His movements were erratic and driven by rage, and at certain points, the prince even feared he might chop down the whole tree. Eivor seemed to be trapped in a tempest of fury that Sigurd had never witnessed in the past, and frankly, he was concerned about the man’s well-being.

“Eivor?” He called out. The younger man swung his axe one more time before coming to a halt, giving Sigurd no more than a brief glance.

“...What?” He replied sharply, speaking through rapid breaths.

The prince approached his friend, careful not to provoke him any further.

“I don’t mean to disturb you,” he said gently, “but... I was worried. You disappeared from the longhouse so quick. I wanted to see how you were doing.”

Eivor turned around, revealing the glower that had been branded into his face.

“How do you think I’m doing?” He snapped, lodging the weapon’s blade into the wood. “The gods granted me the chance to kill Kjotve after thirteen years... and I wasted it! He was right there. He was right in front of me. I could’ve done something -- anything! Even if it killed me, it would’ve been better than surrendering!”

He stormed away from the tree and began pacing around the yard, attempting to recompose himself.

“By Odin, I’m such an idiot. I’ve spent my entire life preparing for this moment. Waiting for it. I’ve endured countless days of training, planning -- everything you can think of. I’ve placed offer after offer at the feet of the gods, just begging them for the chance to bury my axe in Kjotve’s chest. And what do I do when they finally give it to me?” Eivor kicked a rock resting by his feet. “I walk away.”

Sigurd gazed at the man in sympathy, wishing he could comfort him somehow.

“Don’t be so quick to dismiss yourself, Eivor. You may have let Kjotve slip from your grasp for now, but remember why you did it. You did it to save your family. You did it to save me. I... I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t shown up. I owe you my life.”

Eivor plopped himself on the ground and sat against the longhouse’s walls, staring upwards at the smoke-riddled sky.

“Perhaps I should be proud of myself, then,” he said, “but I’m not. If anything, I just feel like a fool. I feel like... like I’ve failed my father. Like I’ve wasted everything he did for me.”

Sigurd took a seat next to the Wolf-Kissed, allowing his feet to rest for the moment. “You’re too hard on yourself, drengr. Your father would understand. He was once in the same position as you, after all. Not only that, but he also made the same choice. He would be proud of your sacrifice.”

Contrary to what the older man expected, Eivor only seemed to grow more bitter.

“I guess. But-- why are you even here? I thought you’d be in the longhouse, looking after the villagers with Randvi. What are you doing out here talking to me?”

“Randvi has her own duties to take care of, and so do I. But I wanted to see you first. Just because I’m married now doesn’t mean I don’t care about you anymore, Eivor.”

The man shook his head. “Well, you shouldn’t. You can’t afford to care about me, Sigurd. You have a wife now. A future queen. She’s the one you need to be focused on. Not me.”

Sigurd was admittedly taken aback by the coldness in his tone, but brushed it off nonetheless. He knew Eivor was hurting at the moment, and it felt wrong for him to hold that against him.

“Eivor...” he said softly, “listen to me. Kjotve may have escaped from our grasp today, but we are not letting him go. Ulfar is devising a plan in the war room as we speak. We will find him again. You will get your chance.”

The young man sighed out of exhaustion, causing his shoulders to slouch. “...I hope so. I’ve fought too hard for this war to end now. I can’t let Kjotve get away. Not when I’m so close. I just pray that the gods will deem me worthy of a second chance.”

Sigurd gave him a reassuring nod. “They will. This fight isn’t over yet, Eivor. In fact, it’s hardly begun. We haven’t seen the last of Kjotve. I know it.”

Eivor dragged a hand down his face and drifted off into silence, staring at the clouds of smoke forming in the distance. By now, they had completely blotted out the sapphire embrace of the sky above, and darkened the land beneath with a looming shadow.

Particles of ash fluttered through the air like autumn leaves twirling in the wind, and in the distance, Eivor saw nothing but a shroud of fire obscuring the horizon beyond.

As for the man himself, he seemed to have calmed down somewhat compared to when Sigurd first arrived. A glimmer of hope had returned to the blankness of his empty gaze, but a grim veil of despair still clung onto his expression. He had lost every shred of the motivation that once fueled him, and even now, the pain of losing a loved one to an arranged marriage continued to pester him.

“...Kjotve ruined my life that night, you know.” Eivor said, devoid of any emotion. “He took away my family, my home -- everything that I loved. The only life I ever knew was stolen from me in an instant, and the whole world shifted into something that I no longer recognized.” The young man peered at his companion, still leaning against the wall. “...He must die, Sigurd. Not just for me, but for everyone he’s hurt.”

The prince rested an elbow on his knee. “Kjotve’s judgement will come. The gods know of his cruelty just as we do. The Nornir will cut his thread soon enough.”

“Then let’s pray that I live long enough to witness that day.”

Taking a second to gather himself, Eivor broke free from the cage barring his mind for just a moment and looked Sigurd in the eye, returning to the same man the prince knew so well.

“...Anyway. Thank you for coming to check on me, Sigurd.” He whispered. “I appreciate it. I apologize if I was somewhat... harsh earlier. I’m just so lost right now.”

Sigurd wasn’t bothered. “I understand. We all have a breaking point. Even you. What’s important is that you don’t let it hold you down forever.”

“I know,” he acknowledged. “But sometimes, the temptation to give up is almost irresistible. The idea of being able to forget about all this, and live my life without fear or conflict -- it’s something that grows more alluring by the day. But I know I can’t let myself fall prey to these thoughts. I need to stay focused. I need to keep fighting. Even if it leads me into the Valkyries’ arms.”

Sigurd leaned closer to Eivor and placed a hand over his, mindlessly stroking it as if it were second nature.

“Well, wherever this path takes us, just remember that I’m here for you. You’ve saved my life multiple times already. It’s the least I can do.”

Suddenly realizing what he was doing, the prince came to an abrupt pause and instantly retreated his hand, silently cursing himself for not putting a leash on his affections. He backed away from Eivor and averted his eyes, stumbling over his next words.

“...F-Forgive me. I didn’t mean to--”

“--It’s alright.” Eivor interrupted. “You don’t have to explain.”

A deep sigh escaped Sigurd’s lips. “I just don’t understand why it’s so difficult to ignore the way I feel. I’m a married man now. Shouldn’t that be enough to hinder my fondness for you? Why does this always happen?”

The younger man offered some advice. “The best thing you can do right now, Sigurd, is to avoid me entirely. We both know how challenging it is to conceal our true thoughts. Perhaps we shouldn’t give them the chance to cross our minds at all.”

“But I can’t just pretend like you don’t exist. I still want you in my life, Eivor. I still want to be near you. We may not have the option of being together like before, but you’re not somebody I want to forget.”

Eivor’s face dimmed with sorrow. “Well, you may have to. For the sake of this alliance. Things are precarious enough as it is. We can’t risk anyone else finding out about our previous encounters.”

Sigurd disagreed. “You’re important to me. Nothing’s going to change that, no matter how much I may have to restrain myself. I just wish things were easier.”

The older man decided to put this conversation to an early end and rose from the ground, not wanting to let his emotions fester any longer.

“Anyway... I should get going. I imagine Ulfar’s still speaking with the jarl, and I’d like to join him. Do you want to come with me?”

Eivor refused the offer. “I’d rather be alone right now. I’ve had enough of discussing war and politics for one day.”

“Of course, I understand. You must be exhausted. Take this time to get some rest. I’ll tell you the outcome of our discussions later.” Sigurd took a few steps away from the Wolf-Kissed, leaving him alone on the ground. “Well then, I guess I’ll see you around, Eivor. Please, stay safe. Now that we know Kjotve is merely a stone’s throw away from Bjornheimr, I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

The young man remained seated on the grass. “The same goes for you, Sigurd. Be careful out there. You’re the last person I want to lose.”

“Oh, believe me,” Sigurd replied, “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”

[bohemiandivinity]

It’s not so bad,  once you get USED to it.

The WAR hadn’t been a particularly long  one,  but at that time,  they hadn’t any idea how long a war could  go on (  perhaps GOD did,  since She knew everything,  didn’t She  )—–no,  they wouldn’t discover that  until HUMANITY,  God’s cherished  creations,  began a war on their own that had lasted for THREE HUNDRED  &  THIRTY-FIVE YEARS.  In Heaven,  time had blended together,   days  &  nights becoming a meaningless way to measure it.

As an Seraphim,  Crowley’s original,  God-given name had been Cazaiel—–but it was a name he could BARELY remember,  afterward.  He hadn’t wanted  to fight in any WAR  &  while he had certainly  liked  Samael as he’d been (  despite  the grim duties with which he’d ALWAYS been tasked with  ),  he hadn’t EXPECTED to be drawn into the fight.  

As Cazaiel  would come to learn,  most wars ALWAYS seemed to begin with talking. 

Better working conditions,  Samael had said,  job advancement,  it had all sounded REASONABLE.  &  yet,  as the talking  escalated,  Samael began speaking of FREE WILL (  the free will to question,  to say no  to things they did not want to do,  for example  ),  &  then came the tiresome discussion  (  tiresome simply for the fact that it was a reoccurring argument ) of his refusal  to bow to Mankind once God had created them—–

How could She expect Samael’s love to excel beyond Her,  ABOVE Her,  to bestow upon Mankind,  who seemed to inflict suffering upon themselves,  upon others  (  although,  Cazaiel thought,  it was greatly influenced by God’s Plan,  wasn’t it  ?  ) ??  How could She EXPECT Her first creations, THE ANGELS,  to accept that She deemed Mankind above  them ??  

Cazaiel,  personally,  had wondered why God TESTED Mankind so harshly,  how She could allow all of the suffering,  all of the PAIN.  At this rate,  he thought,  She would test them to destroy themselves  &  She would let them.  WHY gift Mankind with a little bit  of free will only to PUNISH them for exercising it ?  Why did the angels,  Gods first  creations that were meant to do Good,  to LOVE,  to feel joyous,  &  without the inclination toward their own destruction ... why did they  have to submit themselves to Man ?  &  if the smidge of free will given to Man was so important,  why could the angels not have it ??

But ... his own questions hadn’t mattered,  in the end.  Nor did Samael’s,  nor anyone else who questioned Her. 

WHEN THEY LOST,  they were not simply cast out  of Heaven without any further thought,  no.  It had never  been THAT easy.  They were all nearly put on display,  upon their knees.  Almost like a TRIAL,  but with no arguments on whether you were guilty or not.  

You were.

The BURNING began within Cazaiel’s shoulder blades,  the pain of it searing,  almost unbearable  &  leaving him gasping  &  DIZZY.  It had only JUST started.  Terror gripped  him,  leaving him shaking as the fear,  the ANXIETY,  began to devour him from the inside out—–for,  he was abruptly terrified  that She had decided to sear his wings clean OFF.  She hadn’t  though,  &  he realized this once the pain slowly began to move forward,  &  then slowly UPWARD.  

Cazaiel watched  his reflection in the MASSIVE clear windows,  watched  as his feathers burned,  red hot at the edges,  encompassing CRISP WHITE  with a coal-like blackness.  He clenched his jaw,  his teeth,  against the PAIN of it,  gasped  for breath despite the fact that he didn’t need any—–it took every ounce  of FOCUS  &  self control not  to cry out,  but he couldn’t  stop the guttural sounds,  forcibly being choked down against his teeth.  Stop,  he wanted to say—–no,  he wanted to SCREAM,   please,  make it stop.  All he had done was entertain Samael’s questions,  which had in turn nurtured his own.  He had barely  even FOUGHT at all,  simply because he hadn’t wanted to.  

Did he REALLY deserve this ?

The PAIN felt like it had lasted for an eternity,  his entire form shaking with it,  &  once it had finally  reached the last of his secondary layer of feathers,  it was OVER.  Or,  that part was.  God’s voice BOOMED above them all,  startling  Cazaiel out of his dizzy,  exhausted  haze  &  it brought his focus back  to his wings.  They still burned,  but now it was in a DIFFERENT way,  a much more manageable way,  he supposed.  It felt like the remaining embers of a mostly distinguished fire,  whispers of it still burning beneath the surface.  He also realized the HARD WAY,  within that moment,  that he could barely  move them without igniting the embers once more.  

She spoke to them all collectively,  but at the same time,  individually.  He could hear  the difference between the words that were said to everyone  (  they echoed strangely above him )  &  which words were for only him  (  solid,  uncomfortably intimate,  almost like someone speaking with their lips far too close ones ear ).  

❛ FROM HEAVEN YOU ARE CAST OUT,   NEVER TO RETURN.  YOU SHALL DWELL WITHIN THE DEPTHS OF THE EARTH,  IN HELL,  WHERE THE DAMNED RESIDE.  YOU ARE STRIPPED OF YOUR ANGELIC STATUS,  OF YOUR NAME  &  ARE GIVEN ONE ANEW.  C R A W L E Y,  YOU ARE FALLEN,  A DEMON,  &  NOW HELL CALLS TO YOU.  TO THE EDGES OF THIS PLANE YOU WILL GO UNTIL NOTHING IS LEFT BENEATH YOU. ❜

But,  I cannot fly,  CRAWLEY  thought,  distantly,  but God’s presence had vanished  &  he received nothing in reply.  He would very soon  become USED to this silence,  this absence,  but within that moment he felt a great deal of EMPTINESS.  

He felt numb,  his emotions far too raw to feel ANYTHING right now,  he realized.

Crawley felt  the PULL of Hell  &  he did as he was bid,  not because he CHOSE to,  no .... because the pull was impossible to combat  &  he was TOO WEAK, too shaken,  to resist.  All of time BLENDED together,  as he had no idea  how long it had taken him to reach the edge.  He hadn’t MEANT to fall,  he hadn’t wanted  to,  but he was powerless  to stop himself from simply .... walking off of the edge.

He has NIGHTMARES,  sometimes,  about walking off of the edge,  the sheer feeling of falling  without the ability to fly.  One shift  of muscle against the swell of gravity sent a shock-wave of burning PAIN throughout his newly charred wings  &  since he no longer cared  whether he was heard or not,  he CRIED OUT against it,  the sound swallowed by the wind as he hurtled  toward the Earth. 

It was the SULFUR that completed  his transformation.  It crafted things into his corporeal form,  things that had not been there beforehand ;  his eyes,  which had simply been GOLDEN,  shifted into the golden eyes of a snake,  his pupils shifting into thin slits.  It felt as though the tip of his tongue had been TORN in two  &  with it came the shifting of teeth into something sharper.  He EMERGED as no longer an angel,  nor a FALLEN ANGEL,  but a demon.   A SNAKE.

-

Wet DROPLETS had begun to fall  from the sky above  &  instinctively,  Crawley flinched  away from it—–the muscles within his wings shifted slightly in an attempt to cover himself,  but the pain that followed (  as it always  had,  would he ever be WITHOUT it ?  )  forced them down again.  The angel that stood beside him,  encompassed in a creamy  white color from his hair to his robes,  moved without having to be asked.,  He LIFTED his left wing easily,  smoothly,  to shelter a DEMON from ... whatever  it was that fell around them.  

It was as if Aziraphale knew,  somehow.  Oh,  your wings probably hurt,  don’t they ?  Not to worry,   I’ll protect you,  These words were NEVER spoken aloud,  but Crawley heard them all the same  &  it left him with a curious feeling,  something that constricted  within his chest  &  left his throat tight.  It was tender feeling that he was not  supposed to feel,  NOT ANYMORE,  but it lingered still.  This angel,  the demon had decided,  was a good one,  a KIND one.  It was this kindness that would draw  the demon to him time  &  time again,  over  &  over.

[ser-yolomere-of-swagalore]

Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race myself, bitch.

James Joyce -- Ulysses (with some much needed editing)

I haven’t written here in a long time. In fact, after this post, I don’t really see myself writing here every again-- and no, before any of you (if there is, in fact, any one who will see this) jump to conclusions, this isn’t some kind of weird suicide note, or plea for help. What this is, is a sort of manifesto, or a summation, of everything that I’ve felt, and am feeling at the moment, and in a way, hopefully, purging myself of these feelings forever. It’s a goodbye, but also a new opportunity. A creation, as well as a destruction. A final litany of things that I have to say, or wanted to say, and a final exorcism of numerous antagonistic little ghosts that have been rattling around in my head for God knows how long. 

I’ve always been struck by the concept of a sort of Joycean paralysis. Maybe because it’s true-- that Irish people are, in a weird way, struck with a sort of deep, abiding, spiritual malaise, a psychological and emotional paralysis, as a sort of weird, post-colonial hangover-- or maybe because it simply hits too close to home. The narrative of a sort of genealogical, archaeological torpor is one that is all too easy to believe, because it is something that I have experienced quiet viscerally throughout my entire life, but also in a way that is difficult to articulate. The sense that you’re fundamentally at odds with the world around you because of some fundamental, spiritual displacement resulting from years (centuries?) of imperialistic and religious abuse isn’t something that goes well over dinner, after all-- especially when dinner is a hurriedly bought Burger King and the sound of mopeds careening up and down the Cardiffsbridge Road muffles the sound of Coronation Street on the television. 

But it’s a feeling that has stuck with me so long. Longer than I can really remember. This sense of being held back. By myself, by the world around me, by the people around me. Dreams of leaving, of emigrating, have been a consistent fantasy of mine. Occasional spurts of creative writing have always been characterized by the theme of a departure, whether through the realm of some childish Tolkien-esque fantasy or through a plane ticket that randomly fell into the protagonist’s (read: my) lap. That feeling of momentary, ontological vertigo, when the plane leaves the ground and you can feel yourself lifted in that miniature pocket of zero-gravity, is a sensation that I’ve craved and chased (either literally, or figuratively) whenever possible, with varying degrees of success. I even had, at one point, a bit of a miniature breakdown (you know those ones, where they creep up on you, where you have this vague sense that at any minute things are just going to collapse all around you, and nothing will ever be the same) and I started doing some pretty illegal things to get money (fill in the blanks there however you wish) in order to essentially run away, get a plane ticket to somewhere, and just start afresh. But that did crash down, either way-- I started having some viscerally severe panic attacks; I felt like I was going to be trapped here, forever, that I was going to die here, that all the dreams and aspirations I had of doing something worth while were just gonna be swallowed up the dull, plot-less relentlessness with which life here seemed to drive itself--arguably into the ground. I attended counselling, got a professional, objective perspective, and was able to get to grips with things. The anxiety stopped. The borderline insane drive to escape was lulled, and while the gnawing sense of there being a sort of hole, at the center of everything, dissipated, it didn’t quite disappear. I was, once again, able to manage, and plod right along. 

Over time, I’ve come to terms with the fact that my sense of malaise is not, in fact, the result of some kind of literarily prescribed sense of paralysis-- or, at least, not entirely. It is the result of years, perhaps arguably even decades, of mistreatment. By a family and a home that is so deeply dysfunctional that it is, legitimately, tragic. By an early upbringing so neglected and isolated that, to look back and take an earnest look, is genuinely pathetic. By a mindset and by people who see who I am and see something to laugh at. I’ve slowly come to terms with the fact that my family have never quite seen me seriously, as someone incompetent, flowery, soft, and not worth paying attention to. Years, again, potentially decades of subtle gaslighting, invalidation, negation, criticism, patronizing, condescension-- all compounded by shitty, so-called friends, who were all too happy to take advantage of my desire to please and turn it around on me-- had resulted in a person who had so much self-doubt, such a negative self-image, such a horrible sense of failure that, to further disappoint, would result in self-harm. Decades of having my life dictated to me, taking up responsibility and accepting the burden of my family’s terrible choices, of having my potential and my opportunities circumscribes by what seems to be the endlessly unfolding soap opera of my extended family’s self-inflicted pain.  And the worst part is that I simply thought all of this was normal. The concept of Joycean paralysis was able to help me understand, in a vague sense, what was really wrong, but only hindered me in truly understanding its origin.

I worry that if I go on like this I’ll only end up sounding like some kind of serially self-pitying asshole, one of those people that advertises their personal trauma and tragedy as a means to win the Sadsack Olympics, or obtain sympathy, or blame their lack of success and fulfillment on their past. But in the end, that isn’t what this is about. That isn’t the reason why I’m writing this post. In fact, the reason why I am writing this is far more joyous, written with a deep smile spreading across my face. I’ve spent my entire life orientating around myself around other people, of pleasing other people, and I’ve gotten very, very good at figuring out what is that people want, and giving it to them. What I’ve learned, an what I’ve finally gotten the balls to do, is do what I want. I’ve learned to say no. I’ve learned to pursue what I want, to accrue self-confidence, self-love, self-esteem. I’ve learned to deny people, to put myself first, and tell people who need to be told what for. I’ve learned that to be “good” is to give in, to do as I’ve told and take it all on the chin, and I’ve learned that to be “bad” is to pursue what I want, and to rebel. And, fundamentally, I’ve learned that when I am good, I am very, very good, but when I am bad I am FUCKING FIERCE. 

So I am leaving. In fact, I’ve been planning on leaving for quite some time now. Since March, roughly. I am moving to the U.K, getting away from this place, to spend time with people who I have chosen to spend my time with, that I have build up relationships purely of my own choosing and initiative, and whom I trust. To build a life that I choose to build, for myself, and shirking off as much of the trauma, pain, insecurities and self-doubt as I can. Psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan believed that the core motivating force in all human behavior was anxiety, and not just anxiety, but the creative and ornate ways we go about avoiding or managing it. According to him, a personality was simply a collection of habits and strategies people gathered over time to “avoid or minimize anxiety, ward off disapproval, and maintain self-esteem.” What I’ve learned, personally, is the sheer liberating power of identifying and deconstructing the aspects of my own psychology that are life-limiting, and taking great joy in completely and utterly destroying the ones that are build up anxious defense mechanisms. I would be lying if I said that it wasn’t scary, because when these mechanisms fall I’ll be thrust, head first, into facing the things I am most deeply afraid of—social rejection and abandonment, unworthiness and failure, unlovability and isolation, to name a few. But it is liberating because I’ve come to realize that, yes, our defenses serve a function, but no, we don’t actually need all of them to survive-- and then, suddenly, an entirely new life is possible. I’ve come to realize that I actually CAN tolerate anxiety; I CAN live with not being liked, I CAN be misunderstood, I CAN make mistakes, I CAN feel bad. And let me tell you, it is a relief. God is sometimes understood as a creator, but he can also be understood as a destroy-- And I am choosing to be the God of my own goddamn life, and taking great pleasure in destroying that which I don’t like.

I’ve ended up prescribing some great, symbolic significance to the act of me leaving. It is me righteously striking back at all the things that had made me hate myself in the past, because they couldn’t simply tolerate hating themselves and needed to destroy me in order to feel better. And so, to them, I say: 

Fuck my family, who have done nothing to actually foster and cultivate who I am as a human being

Fuck the people who have turned my own kindness against me and made me doubt myself

Fuck the people who have made me feel as though my command of words is a weakness-- I am a fucking fantastic writer, and I dare any of those people to challenge me, because I’ll write them into the fucking ground. 

Fuck the people who made me doubt my intelligence; I am more than smart enough to figure things out for myself and smart enough, at least now, to see them for the self-hating, jealous troglodytes they are.

Fuck this place that has made me feel that who I am is wrong, and lesser, and subordinate-- I am worthy, and powerful, and capable.

Fuck this country, and its backwards, stagnant, repressive culture

FUCK

YOU

And that’s it. There’s my gigantic, theatrical display of radical self-acceptance. In a way, what I want to do is leave, and never come back. To delete all my social media, and start afresh. But I know that’s not realistic. I know I have to tether myself to “home”, as much as I disagree with the idea this place is truly home. I will say this, however-- there are parts of my experience here, and my life thus far, that have been wonderful. I’ve got a handful of genuinely fantastic friends, and I’ve forged some very important memories with them. To burn those bridges would be unforgivable, and I would never be able to do that to them. 

It’s 2:16am. I was already exhausted but I had to write this and get it all off my chest. But this is it-- me signing off, forever. Let this be a testament to everything I want to be, an will be, from here on out. 

-Ian.

[ezzybel]

Designated Zoomer

It was March and the snow was beginning to melt. Hopper was still strict about Eleven leaving the cabin, not that she could get very far without running into wet soggy shoe issues with the melting patches of snow, and at least Mike knew she was alive this year, but even so, her heart wrenched to see him. Sometimes they talked… Through the phone with Hopper’s supervision or over the radio through Morse, but it wasn't quite the same as hearing his voice.

It was another Saturday morning, and Eleven was lazing around wondering what she could do. She had already swept the floor on Friday for the 3rd time that week, and she had dusted the shelves every other day before that.  Although the weather was getting warmer, it hadn't yet rained, and wet snow would often fall to later melt that afternoon. She watched the snow from her bed, hanging upside down. Suddenly a little pebble smacks the window, startling El. She flips over unto her stomach and studies the window more keenly. Another pebble. Tunk! Her curiosity peaked, and she got up to investigate. There below the window she was surprised to find Max Mayfield clutching on what appeared to be a brand new yellow bike. Her face was red, and her hair was wet with snow. She was wearing a yellow rain jacket that matched her bike. She still wasn't sure how she felt about her being in The Party, and although they cleared out the misunderstanding between her and Mike, that didn't mean she had to like her. Opening the window, she leaned out and called, "Max?" "Hey El... I get your under house arrest for safety, but I thought maybe you'd like to come out and hang out with us." Max responded. She didn't reply and thought about it, and remembered the last time she snuck out without Hopper's permission. It had taken her three hours to walk from and to the local school, and it didn’t help how late in the morning it had been already. The timing was nearly the same.

"Hopper will never find out. You’d be back before he knows it."

El looked at Max’s bike, could she really bike quick enough to arrive on time? The Party had said how she was a Zoomer. The thought of having a chance to hang out with Mike then threaded its way through her mind, and excitement for the possibilities begun to fill her. "What if somebody... Sees me?" She asked, calculating the risks of Hopper finding out. "Well as long as you don't do weird stuff, no one will have a chance of seeing us." El thought about it some more. She studied the gloomy weather, and the rough forest terrain they’d have to go through. How long did it take Max to get here? Looking at Max, she wondered if she could trust her? Lucas did, so did Dustin, Will, and maybe Mike. She had also already come all the way out here for her anyways. 'Friends don't lie...' she thought to herself. "Okay. I'll come" she finally said. She abruptly closed the window, and walked to the entrance, grabbed her coat, opened the door, and locked it behind her. It was chillier than what she had expected. Walking off the porch, she looked back. 'Hopper will never find out' she echoed Max's words, ‘Not stupid.’ She also recalled. She walked around to meet Max. "You ready?" She patted her seat. "Yes," she mounted herself onto the seat. Max looked at her and gave her a smile, she returned it with the thought of seeing Mike. "Hold on tight," Max said as she kicked off her bike into movement. They began to pick up speed, and the two began bouncing up and down with the rough terrain. As Max continued to pick up more speed, they bounced harsher, Max’s speed and the bouncing began to scare Eleven.

"Too fast," She said, adjusting her grip. Max hadn’t heard her over the sound of the bike going over wet leaves, snow and twigs. She watched how Max zoomed past the trees, and at the same time threading delicately through the trees. Her hair begun to get heavy with water as the snow continued to fall. Occasionally Max would accidentally wack El with her hair when they jumped over a fallen log or ramp made of snow. The cold wind began to prickle her cheeks and dry her eyes, closing them to also remedy her anxiety of crashing. Her attention turned to the sounds she heard. Early Spring birds chirping, the hum of the bike's moving tires, Max's tired breaths, and her own excited heartbeat. They continued to pick up speed as they started to go down hill. Max stopped pedalling and focused on dodging trees and shrubs. El opened her eyes to see where they were, but seeing the trees whizzing by at horrifying speeds, and the feeling of gravity pulling the two downwards made her shut her eyes once again. She felt the bike drop down unto a road with a heavy thunk. Max had slowed down, she could tell that she was tired, and a sudden appreciation for the new party member came to El. She came all the way out to the cabin to take her to her friends.

       Feeling safer with their current speed Eleven opened up her eyes once more and straightened her back, she hadn’t noticed how tight she had clutched unto Max. She watched as they passed by far off acreages, trees, shrubs and the "Welcome to Hawkins" sign. They were almost there. They were almost there! Quickly Hawkins neighborhood houses, and storefronts started to appear beside them. Passerbys on the sidewalk would occasionally look up to see the two girls whizzing by on the yellow bike, they would sometimes have a curious expression on their face as though they were surprised to see two girls on a bike. So much for not attracting attention. A joyous smile came onto her face as she began to recognize buildings and streets, nostalgic memories of the past two years flooded her mind. A pang of emotion beated in her heart. Finally they arrived at the arcade parking lot. There the party stood with their hands in their pockets, jackets zipped up and squinting while they looked at them. There was Mike. He had a surprised expression, that turned into the big smile she loved to gaze upon.

“Eleven?” He called. Max came to a slow, letting Eleven off first and then parked her bike. Her face was a bright red, and she was panting heavily. Eleven immediately went into Mike's arms into a tight embrace. "There I brought you your girlfriend." Max said through heavy breaths. Mike smiled at Max while still hugging El. "Thanks Max." Letting El go, she went over to Max and also gave her a hug with a big smile. "Thank you Max." At this point, Eleven had fully accepted the new party member into The Party. "I just didn't want Mike to be a big mopey baby for the third Saturday in a row." "Mopey Baby?" "Yeah Mike is always like 'huu I wish El was here, I love El, I miss El, huu I miss her'" Lucas chimed in to mock Mike.

"So I decided to bring you to him, since he's too much of a pussy to get you" "I'm not a pussy, my bike just isn't made for rough terrain." Mike argued. "I thought you'd do anything for El." Mike gritted his teeth at Max's remark "And you know I would! But there’s no way I could get her here as fast as you anyways."

“How long did it take you?” Asked Dustin. Checking her watch Max replied,

“An hour and a half.”

“Zoomer.” He said turning to El with a grin.

Mike let out a defeated sigh and turned to El. "El I’m sorry it wasn’t me who picked you up at the cabin, but I guess… I guess Max is our designated Zoomer. But coming summer we'll get you a bike. And we'll be able to hang out all the time!" Mike said as he grabbed unto El's hands. "Promise?" She asked. "Promise"

[wickednerdery]

Title: Parted Love Author: @wickednerdery Fandom: Crimson Peak Pairing/character: Sir Thomas Sharpe/Reader Rating: FRM Summary: “The perfect parting gift.” Notes: I THOUGHT this would a be quick follow-up to another one-shot, but I was wrong again...it’s long, lol! Hopefully worth it though, haha! It’s based on this headcanon by @creedslove, though I’ve made some adjustments to suit my desires/needs, lol! This one is dark, the “Reader” is a dark character...it’s smut with a fair amount of angst, mentions of violence, and the Sharpe’s childhood so head’s up on all that and, yup, there’s a “Read More”!

The moment you set foot on the property your travel boots turn red. Not the shade of fresh blood, but blood found in long-dead creatures. With an annoyed breath you unstick yourself from the clotted Earth and carry on towards the house. It looks all the worse for its years, blackened with rot of wood and soul. Whatever light it may have had centuries ago is long gone, it’s just decaying stone now.

“Madame!” The carriage driver goes to get down. “Perhaps I should go with you.”

“Nonsense,” you smile back pleasantly, letting red and black crawl up your dress. “There’s no one alive left to hurt me.”

“But this place, Madame. They say it is -”

“Haunted? Cursed?” You laugh. “Do not fret yourself with the dead, my friend, the danger always lies with the living.”

You leave him with that, carry on into Allerdale Hall. It’s red. Red all over. Sunken in, drowning in its own lifeblood. The black moths have taken over, but you merely bat them away as they greet you like an old friend. You’ve no trust or patience for the elevator - always a temperamental thing, once delivering you and Lucille right into the brutal hands of her father...even he’d struck you more than once on that occasion.

The shattered banister catches your eye, causes a pause as you inspect the dried blood coating spikes of wood. The girl must’ve hit hard; Lucille must’ve cursed that it wasn’t her head that struck. Without further detour you carry yourself up the many stairs, down the creaking halls, to the nursery.

It’d been small when you were a child, it’s smaller still now. You remember how you and Lucille huddled in a corner, giggling as your latest capture struggled to breathe in its jar. Lucille would take your hand as, with morbid fascination, you watched the last moments of another thing’s life. Sometimes she would brush a hand across your ankle or knee, always thinking herself so clever even though it was you who allowed it.

Thomas was also there. Always. Sometimes watching, often times looking away. He would work so hard on his many little projects, presenting them to you two as if the greatest kill on the greatest hunt. You would give him cheek-kisses as reward and he’d be so joyous he’d happily sit with you both just to remain close the rest of the time.

With boots you nudge aside broken jars and wind-up toys. Stained mechanic blueprints and floor boards. All to get to the one new thing in the room...a workman’s table covered in more sketches. Some for toys, some for the house, and many for the machine Thomas described back in America. He made himself an office, a respite. His devotion to his project was whole and genuine. His devotion to the girl must’ve been equally so. No wonder he never made it out alive.

“Oh Thomas...” You sigh, the house groans and bleeds. “Why didn’t you accept my offer, you poor fool?” You know why. You go to her room next.

It’s a massacre. Living creatures feed on dead ones, glass and blood spatter the floor, scorch marks spread towards the bed due to an unattended fireplace. It’s a curse this place didn’t burn to the ground as it sunk.

At Lucille’s mirror you pull pins from your hair, jab them into the frame for safe-keeping. Fingers undo coat, toss it across bed...dust and moths plume at the disturbance, but you attend the high collar of your gown. The house sighs, crimson weeps from the walls, as you spin and tip yourself back onto the bed. It wails and even you give up a cough as the air attempts a choke.

You watch moths skitter on the ceiling, swat flies from their attempt to pester, then sink hands into black and blue sheets. Your eyes slide closed as you fall back on memories. The childhood ones where you all explored and shared each other, finding a tenuous balance between enjoyment and jealousy, pleasure and pain. The more recent ones...the ones in America with just Thomas.

Stale blood and dust fill your nostrils on the inhale, his name falls out on the exhale. You think on his strikingly sad eyes, that quiver of his lips, as he’d begun to fall apart before you. Hand brushes across your neck and chest, remembering his hands. His teeth, his lips, his tongue as it did what even reluctant predators do...lap up the blood. A breeze curls at the hem of your dress, runs gooseflesh up your legs.

He’s there, but you don’t see him. Even if you were to open your eyes, you wouldn’t. Can’t. He doesn’t want you to...for shame, for fear of startling you, for his inability to apologize. He shifts between regret at dismissing your warning, your offer, and pure desire to be in the world of the living with you once more.

Layer by layer you gather skirt up around your hips, exposing yourself to the room. The house. Him. “Thomas...” you sigh, letting fingers burrow into soft curls, just brushing clit. You imagine his fingers teasing you, his hands spreading you as you set legs all the wider apart. There’s a sigh in the house that you swear sounds like him...Him calling to you. “Thomas,” you call back as chilled air caresses you again.

Thomas watches, wishing he could come back to you. For you. To join in the pleasures you indulge in now and ones that will surely come after. He moves closer, watches you shudder as if touched by him. He whispers your name again and this time you arch.

It’s not enough; you shift back, fully on the bed, bend and spread legs like the wings of a butterfly...or a moth. Fingers return to clit, encircle and rub, as your other hand slips past to graze entrance. It catches the first trickle of juices, spreads them up and back down as you increase pressure on that sensitive bundle of nerves buried in public hair.

Memories of your last time together cling to the spirit and, while unable to get aroused as the living do, he still feels it. The tingles of pleasure throughout, that tension of muscles, how he’d overheat in the throes of passion. He feels it all even as his new form lacks the signs of arousal. Thomas reaches out to touch...

You give a cry as pure ice hits your thigh, shocks a flood from your core before you slip two fingers inside. You imagine Thomas’ eager tongue dipping in, swallowing you down, as you direct him by the hair. You can picture him, with focus you can almost sense him in the room - the smell of his cologne, the sound of his panting, even the feel of his soft skin against yours are all there, somewhere, begging to be with you now.

If only he could enjoy the wantoness of you. Fingers working fast, furious, over your clit as others dive into glistening wet cunt. Two fingers, then three as you groan and gasp. Tentatively he moves closer, shifts over you. A black moth lands between your breasts and you bite lip so hard it leaks blood. He whispers your name in your ear and the familiar growl of it seems to reach you.

“Thomas...fu-fu...” Your legs snap close on your own hands like a trap, toes curl, as sheer will drives you past the edge and over it. Your hips lift high, sex brushes freezing air, and you to cry out a string of curses as the orgasm floods hands, thighs, backside, dress, and bed. You land in a puddle of yourself, curl up to the side as the moth flutters off. “Fuck...” you shake out groans, lick bleeding lip, then sigh. “Thomas...fuck....”

He knows it’s as much a curse at him as it is for him. He settles beside you, watches your ribs rapidly rise and fall, hears a single sob of his name. The peace doesn’t last long; you sit up, breathe deep, and then let out a blood-curdling scream of rage. If only he could hold you, tell you it’s okay...That it’ll be okay.

Flying from the bed you smash the mirror to pieces with bare fists before going to the vanity next, tossing it completely. The only thing that stops your rampage is Lucille’s entomology toolbox. Scissors and knives and pins...and women’s hair all braided and wound up. Delicate fingers pluck out a pair of scissors with hairs caught between blades before you shove the rest to crash and splinter on the floor.

No. Don’t. He begs as you spread blades like you did thighs. Dangerously wide. His eyes flash away as you run finger across, leaving a thin line of blood behind. You set a blade to your arm, then close both with a flick of your hand and set point to your chest. Please don’t. Don’t.

You take a deep breath, but change your mind. Death is the easy route. You bury the scissors deep into the wall, then pull out to watch the crimson flow from the wound. You impale again; this time you leave it in. Wet clay oozes around the weapon. Was this what Thomas looked like at Lucille’s hand? An impotent, stunned, slow-bleeding thing?

Thomas sighs with you, looks on as you gather your coat, pin up your hair, and flit out of the room. The only way to keep up with your glide through the house is to dissipate, watch everything at once. Watch you flutter on as gravity carries the remnants of your arousal down into your boots, as moths pester you to stay and scarlet clay slicks everything in attempt to delay your exit.

Once back outside you take a deep breath, gather yourself together and readjust your social mask. A sweet smile is forced on as you approach the carriage. Then something gleams out the corner of your eye and finally earns the house its win over your determination to leave immediately.

Stepping off the bloody path into raw muck you find it. A ruby ring. The Sharpe ring; the one Beatrice Sharpe once wore, then Lucille. The one you heard the girl wore after marrying Thomas only to lose it in battle. Your smile goes genuine as you crouch farther into clotted clay and pluck it from its spot. It looks rotted, black and red, but a wipe of your dress and it proves as stunning as ever.

You slip it onto your finger...the perfect parting gift. The house seems to shudder, groan, in anger. This ring is not yours to take.

The man you’d loved, the one who loves you still, looks on, forlorn. That ring should’ve been yours from the start, he can only hope it will not curse you to the same life and death as Lucille and himself now.

I LOVED doing with this one as much as the previous one...though this might really be the end now, haha! Still, I thoroughly enjoy writing a darker reader and exploring a sort of darker sexuality that comes with that. Also, haha, ghost smut is a fun new thing to write! :D  I hope all you out there enjoyed it too…and please let me know if you did! Bless @creedslove for inspiring this, hope you like it girly!! (And never be afraid to send more Sir Thomas Sharpe - ghost or otherwise - headcanons to me, lol!)

(Gif found on Google)

Tagging those I think would be/showed interest: @welcome-to-fangirl-hell, @zoesmama2024 @chibiyanai @wadeyourebarelyalive @ktonastya @brightstarmara @rizzo87 @creedslove @kandomeresbitch @carydorse @cheshire-cat-is-my-spirit-animal @littledeadrottinghood @tentacles-and-coffee @tarithenurse @magikat409 @acupofhotlatte @carydorse​

[minijenn]

Memoriam

Gravity Falls Cemetery 12:00 PM

It had only been a week since the group’s return to Earth and when they informed the others of Steven’s demise, everyone reacted differently: Greg and Andy were wrecks, Stan and Ford weren’t any better, Lapis and Peridot had grown very distant from the others out of shame, and Pacifica was sad and primarily comforted her husband during this crisis. The Pines’ kids comforted their parents over this event as well, but they all paled in comparison to what happened when they told Connie, Rosie, and Rebecca the news.

During their absence, the group noticed that Connie put on some weight, but when they remembered that she slept with Steven the night before they left Earth to bring Comet back, it wasn’t too hard to figure out: she was pregnant again. The joyous news turned bittersweet after she learned of her husband’s fate, with the group promising to help Connie get through this, even without Steven. Still, in the aftermath of this tragedy, Connie hadn’t bothered leaving the house, Rosie grew angrier out of grief and sadness, and Rebecca locked herself in her room, crying her eyes out.

Despite Steven’s surviving family’s feelings, it couldn’t be helped when they had to have a memorial service for him. It was originally intended to involve Steven’s surviving family, Greg, the Gems, Andy, Dipper, Mabel, Stan, Ford, Lapis, Peridot, Lion, Soos, Wendy, Pacifica, and the Pines’ kids. However, when the news got out, everyone in Gravity Falls intended to come and pay their respects to one of the Heroes of Weridmageddon, a moniker bestowed upon Steven, Connie, Dipper, and Mabel years ago. As expected, the whole cemetery was crowded with the entire population of Gravity Falls in attendance, a feat unprecedented in the town’s history.

Everyone was dressed in black and unaware that in the wilderness of Gravity Falls, the inhabitants shared in mourning the loss of Steven, a boy—now man—that helped save them all those years ago. The ceremony began with Garnet, mostly because she was the only member of Steven’s immediate family that could handle the event without breaking down.

“Dearly beloved, we are all here to mourn the loss of Steven Quartz Universe, someone we’ve all known since his childhood in one way or another,” Garnet said shakily, doing her best not to cry again. “We…cannot forget all that he has done nor, can we allow ourselves to wallow in grief. Steven was a happy boy who became a loving and devoted father and husband…and I know he would want to be with them again more than anything.”

Connie and her kids nodded in agreement, unable to even speak out of the grief they all shared. Everyone else important in Steven’s life weren’t better off, which only reminded Garnet why she needed to be strong now.

“Steven always felt obligated to live up to his mother’s legacy, but in the end…he became better than she ever was,” Garnet said with a bittersweet smile. “Steven grew into an incredible man with a devoted family, lifelong friends, and even though it was only half of what he was…he reminded us all what it meant to be human.”

Garnet then stared forlornly at Steven’s now-closed casket, briefly succumbing to grief before she recollected herself.

“Steven remained selfless, honorable, brave, and true, right until the very end and even though he is no longer with us, perhaps we can learn from his example and better ourselves,” Garnet said as she unconsciously cried with tears running down her cheeks. “Steven was…Steven was…a wonderful man and I’m sure that Rose would be proud of him. Please…I-I-I can’t…”

Unable to hold her feelings in any longer, Garnet collapsed from grief, her physical form briefly coming undone before she pulled herself together. When she stood up, she was surprised when everyone in Steven’s immediate life came onto the podium, even with her future vision. They all had bittersweet smiles and hugged the Gem leader, united by their shared grief. The moment lasted for a few minutes but when it ended, they were unable to add anything more to Garnet’s speech.

When it was time for Steven’s casket to be buried, they all remained in revered silence over his loss while the inhabitants of the wilderness and Gravity Falls mourned him in their own ways. Miraculously, Connie managed to find her voice long enough to ask for a moment of privacy with her deceased husband, which they unanimously agreed to let her have.

“Hey, Steven,” Connie said in a hoarse voice due to how heavily she was mourning him. “I don’t know if you’re looking down at us, but I wanted you to know that…we’re going to have another kid.”

There was an obvious moment of silence between them, which only made Connie chuckle bittersweetly as tears absentmindedly ran down her face. “Yeah, I can guess that would be your response. I don’t know if the kid will be a boy or another girl, but something tells me you’d be rooting for a boy; God, I wish the girls and I didn’t take up so much time in the morning.”

Eventually, she lost any semblance of levity as she formed a morose expression and said with a cracking voice, “I…I really wish you were here, Steven. We woke up together every day, we never went to bed angry, we never let a day pass by where we didn’t say, ‘I love you’ and we did the same for our kids, you…rocked my world every night if you know what I mean, and you were the greatest person I’ve ever known or will know. I love you, Steven…please, don’t forget that.”

Connie reluctantly left and one by one, Steven’s family and friends came to pay their respects before the remaining inhabitants of Gravity Falls did the same. Once the ceremony was over, they all slowly left, with Steven’s surviving family, the Gems, and Lion remaining the longest before they followed suit. Unbeknownst to any of them, Steven watched the entire ceremony from a safe distance away and was in a state of despair. It wasn’t until he felt an oddly familiar hand on his shoulder that he turned and saw his mother, Rose Quartz, in an identical spiritual state as him.

“Mom?” Steven asked anxiously.

“It’s time, son,” Rose said with a bittersweet expression as she held her son’s hand for the first time.

“Can you…can you please, show me who you really are?” Steven hesitantly requested, with Rose obliging as she shapeshifted back into her original form: Pink Diamond.

“Yeah, it’s me. I didn’t want you to… but, that was wrong,” Rose admitted as she hugged her son, still utilizing her new voice over her old one. “I put so much pressure on you without even realizing it and I put everyone in danger because I was so selfish.”

“Mom, you made a lot of mistakes, but you did care about the Earth,” Steven admitted with a bittersweet expression. “You cared about the Gems, my dad, and Lion and…whatever you did in the past doesn’t really matter now.”

The two remained in a comfortable silence before Steven asked, “So, what’s it like over there? Is it…nice?”

“It’s…okay enough. There’s a lot of good people and Gems there, so that’s comforting,” Rose replied as she tightened her grip on her son. “I don’t know if this means anything because of what I’ve done, but…I’m so proud of what you’ve become Steven. Oh, and don’t worry; we can pop in from time to time to check up on them.”

After a few moments, Rose and Steven ended their embrace and after a few moments, Rose sang, “If I could begin to be, half of what you think of me, I could do about anything. I could even learn how to love.”

Unable to pass on this opportunity, Steven joined her in a duet and both started to sing, “When I see the way you act, wondering when I’m coming back, I could do about anything. I could even learn how to love like you. Love like you.”

Rose then reembraced her son, but both continued to sing as their bodies started to glow pink. “I always thought I might be bad, now I’m sure that its true, ‘cause I think you’re so good and I’m nothing like you.”

She then stared deeply into Steven’s eyes and motioned for him to briefly stop singing, fully intending for this part to be towards him. “Look at you, go. I just adore you. I wish that I knew what makes you think I’m so special.”

Steven soon did the same, which stunned his mother to her core, immensely flattered by his gesture. “If I could begin to do, something that does right by you. I would do about anything. I would even learn how to love.”

For the finale, Steven and Rose united in a crescendo of heartfelt singing as their spirits began to fade from the Earth for now. “When I see the way you look, shaken by how long it took. I could do about anything. I could even learn how to love like you. Love like you. Love me like you.”

When their singing ended, the Gem mother and her child disappeared in two flashes of pink light, hopeful that their family and friends would one day come to terms with this tragedy.

[writings-of-a-hufflepuff]

Stranded {Part 8}

Fandom: Marvel/Avengers

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader (Female Identifying)

Series: Stranded

Warning: N/A

Writer: @imaginesofeveryfandom aka @thequeenofthehobbits

Summary/Request: Merman Bucky AU: You find yourself stranded on a desert island no thanks to a stupid group of pirates...you happen to make a friend, however, who’s determined to show you how to survive.

Part 1 X, Part 2 X, Part 3 X, Part 4 X, Part 5 X, Part 6 X, Part 7 X

@ria132love @thepoet1975 @inumorph @chameerah @shadyphangirl18 @mirkwoodshewolf @shadow257 @iamthemaskhewears @fandomsinabookshelf @theasparagusawakens @mundane-cup-noodles @fuckmewintertucker @fangeekkk @blissfullylostinarabbithole  @inlovewithmydreams @lloeppky @camibirdieboo @clean-and-claire @hollycornish @harrypotterlovi @magellan-88

You are warm as you wake, blinking the sleep from your eyes as you lift yourself onto your elbows. The shack, your home, is dark, light filtering in only slightly through gapes around the door and walls. The blankets Bucky has found are soft beneath your hands. You trail your eyes around the shack, small and dark, and Bucky is there beside you. His arm is still thrown over your waist despite your movements and he is sleeping peacefully. After that first kiss you found closeness more common and it was only common sense for Bucky to sleep beside you in the shack rather than outside in the dark and the cold.

You have readily admitted to yourself that you love him. You love his cheeky ways, the way he pushes knowing you’re unsure or concerned due to previous ideas of propriety. You love the curiousness he has about humans, about stories and cities and the shiny trinkets he finds. You love that he cares, that he wishes to help, that he’s always helped. That he teaches you how to fish better, that he teaches you how to swim better, that he teaches you that seaweed is edible, that there are things you can harvest from the ocean that you never thought of doing before. You love that he is warm beside you at night, that a fire is not necessary when you are curled together in your home. You love his love of fruit. You love his desire to learn how to forage for human food, how to plant. You love every aspect, the human and the merperson.

You take his arm from around your waist and lay it beside him carefully, trailing your fingers across his cheek, watching him sleep for a moment before standing and stretching. The sun has risen outside and you close the door behind you careful not to wake him. The house has held up through one rain fall already and you began an experimental garden planting the seeds of fruit that you’ve eaten.

There is work to do around the island, foraging mostly, collecting firewood for cooking, and fishing food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You wish ships would come past simply so you could trade, coconuts for books, for seeds from plants you miss eating, for more clothes, for a real bed perhaps, for little things you can’t quite get on your own.

You think that one day they might come past, you hope that if any do they respect your little island, your little home. You know men, you know they can be greedy, that they will take what they want and can ruin what you’ve built. Bucky knows this better than you.

You are foraging in the woods, collecting fruits in a basket you weaved together from leaves. There is a particularly annoying sweet fruit that is too high for you to reach even jumping and it frustrates you so much you do not give up. Until a hand reaches up and plucks it for you placing it in the basket.

“Good morning, little doll” A kiss is press to your cheek and you turn to return the favour. He still calls you that, still reminds you that he see your people as delicate and small, and it doesn’t annoy you anymore. Because it’s true. He is infinitely stronger than you, he is a magnificent swimmer. Even his tail could break your bones. Doll is apt in comparison to him.

“Good morning, Bucky.”

You walk together, him reaching for fruits you can’t until your basket has enough for the day. You pick the ripest, ensuring the other fruit is good for days to come. You have to be wise about what you consume, that much you know. You avoid greed knowing that food is only what nature can provide and that eating too much too quickly removes food for another day while more grows.

“Humans have bonding? Yes? You…you call it something different…”

“Marriage? Where two people share rings and vows and promise to love and protect each other until death?” You’re not sure if he means bonding as in building relations or bonding as in marriage. Creating a strong bond between two people. Marriage, serious, real. Something that really won’t happen for you, not legally anyway. The island has no priests, no one to do such a ceremony. But you don’t care. Simply being around Bucky is enough, even if your mother is probably rolling in her grave with displeasure.

You watch him turn your words over in his head, deciding if that is what he means by bonding. If the merfolk idea lines up with the human idea. “In many ways…promise to love and care. To be faithful. So, yes, human marriage.” He decides that marriage is much like bonding, enough that they can both understand the importance of it, the gravity. It is hard sometimes to cross the cultural divide between your two species, to make you both understand different and yet similar concepts.

“Why do you ask?” The two of you step back out onto the beach. You know why he asks…it’s not simple curiosity. Living together, loving each other…it makes sense that he would wish to make some sort of formal commitment even if no one else is around to acknowledge it but the two of you.

“I wish to bond with you…to…to show my commitment. You are my joy when the world was lonely and dark…you arrived on this island and I grew happy again.” You understood that loneliness well, understood how one person changed it all, how he had changed it all for you. How you’d gone from lonely, scared on this island on your own, eager to leave it, to eager to stay, to happy, to fulfilled.

“How…how to merfolk bond? Humans exchange rings in front of a…a religious man, we say words…” Marriage is a complex concept in reality, so many aspects that Bucky does not know about that make it up and you stick to the basic concepts knowing that those are ones he would understand.

“We share a piece of ourselves, a scale usually. We give it to the other and they give theirs to us…it symbolises giving part of our…” He points at his chest, perhaps heart, but you know better. Not heart, but “Soul?”

“Part of our soul.” He nods at your choice of word. Soulmates is perhaps the equivalent to human culture you think. Giving the person you love part of yourself, to share part of yourself with another, to be meant for another wholeheartedly.

“I don’t have scales…but I...I have hair?” You wonder if giving a strand of hair enough, if cutting some off is worthy of receiving a scale. In your world keeping hair is often to remember the dead, to memorialise someone, to keep a piece of them after they are gone. It is not a joyous thing, but maybe it can be.

“That is a fair trade I think…” He smiles at you softly, brushing your hair with his fingers, “Do you wish to bond with me?” He knows the answer, you know the answer. The answer is in your soft gaze, it is in the way you curl up beside him at night. It is in everything you do and everything he does.

“Yes…” You do, so much. To make a commitment to someone who means so much…you want to be his bonded, his wife, even if wife is not a term he understands. You want to forever be around him, to watch him swim, to try to swim with him, to forage in the wood together, to lie together at night. You wish to do these things forever, to revel in this love, this strange, new, different love.

You walk backwards from him with a smile, a promise to be back as you hurry to the shack grabbing the knife you fashioned from flint before rushing back outside. He is on the rock again, his legs have gone in favour of that tail, pearlescent, silvery blue, strong and yet delicate.

You stand in front of the rock and take the knife to your hair, cutting a chunk free, it is strange to look at your own hair in your hands, but this is part of the bonding and while it is not the traditional rings you are used to you don’t mind this. Rings are not something the two of you have, although you are sure Bucky could find some lost to the sea if he wanted.

You watch his discomfort as he plucks a scale from his tail, a more painful process than cutting your hair, more meaningful you think, but you do not have something of equal worth to give him. “Here, little doll...” He holds out the shining scale to you in the palm of his hand and you take it, replacing it with the lock of your hair.

You can feel the meaning of this moment in your chest, the important of giving part of yourself to someone, the symbolism. You can feel the importance of this scale, has a merperson ever given a scale freely to a human? Has it been centuries?  How long?

You watch his tail return to legs, watch and follow Bucky towards the house with a smile. You watch him shift through the trinkets he has brought you until he finds a locket. You watch him carefully place the lock of hair inside it and latch it around his neck, the pendant resting above his heart.

“You are forever with me now.”

“And you with me, Bucky.” You pull him close, rest your forehead against his and breathe. This moment is perfect, this is a home now, a family. You and him and this little house on the beach.

[welcometophu]

Not Your Destiny: Chapter 34

Marked Book 1: Not Your Destiny

Chapter 34

[ Previous | First | Next ]

It feels good to walk out to Helga, open the door and climb in. Ángel clicks the seatbelt in place, twists the ignition and curls his fingers around the steering wheel. He lifts his foot from the brake, just letting gravity help him roll toward the end of the driveway.

Heat. Flames.

He jams on the brakes, stops with his heart hammering, eyes closed. He exhales roughly, pushes the images away.

That was the last time he drove Helga. The last time he was sitting right here, in the driver’s seat. The last time he started her up and actually hit the gas.

But it’s not everything about Helga, and it’s not now. He blinks, takes another slow breath. Helga’s engine rumbles encouragingly, and he rubs the dashboard. It’s clean, shining like someone buffed it, and washed the windows as well, rubbing the streaks away.

She’s as perfect as an old car can be.

“Sorry, I just panicked.” He pats the steering wheel, twists to look behind himself before edging to the end of the driveway, then carefully backing out. “We’re just going to go see Papi, park on the street for a bit, then we’ll head to the shop. You’ve spent enough time there that you probably miss the Mustang after a night away.”

Ángel doesn’t think about the implications of that statement, that if Helga’s bonded with the ‘stang, what does that mean about him and Tony?

It’s never easy to park near the central offices, and in the end, Ángel has to walk a few blocks before he gets in to see Papi. When he gets there, Papi ushers him straight into the office, closes the door.

“You don’t trust someone,” Ángel says.

“I think something’s off,” Papi replies, gesturing for Ángel to take one of the chairs. Papi takes the other one, rather than sitting behind the desk, and they both lean back and prop their feet up, mannerisms mirroring one another.

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you,” Ángel admits. “I’m almost certain something’s off. Did you know that the Mollicone’s case is closed?”

Papi’s expression is neutral. “I haven’t read the report yet, but yes. I’ve been told there wasn’t enough evidence of an accelerant found. The burn patterns could be natural.”

Ángel gives him a dark look; he knows the burn patterns weren’t at all natural. There were hot spots, and cooler spaces, as well as the spots affected by his own attempts to call water. “And what do you think about that?”

“I think that without any further evidence, the case will remain closed.” Papi drops his feet, leans forward. “Ángel, I know they’re your friends. But my people have been—”

“I think you should investigate Ronnie Hamilton.” Ángel blurts the words out, interrupting Papi mid-sentence. When Papi says nothing, Ángel repeats them. “I think you should investigate—”

“I heard what you said.” Papi glances at the door. He stands, picks up the phone on his desk and presses a button. After a moment he says, “John, I need you to make sure that I’m not interrupted. If anyone wants to leave paperwork, they can leave it with you. If they want a meeting, schedule it no earlier than an hour from now. Do you understand?” A pause, and Papi nods. “Thank you.” He sets the phone back on the hook, returns to his seat and sits slowly.

“Talk to me,” Papi says, so Ángel does.

“The Mollicones are Lince,” he says, and Papi raises an eyebrow. “Right, we’ve been over this. Lince, the Cruz family, protectors. Tony thinks someone has it in for his family, and he thinks it’s someone like us. Another family in the church, someone trying to protect the community from evil demons. Which they’re not.”

“Which they are not,” Papi agrees. He leans back in his chair, fingers steepled. “What does this have to do with Ronnie Hamilton? He’s not a Mage. He’s not even Talented. It would be in his service records if he were.”

“He hates Tony. And I mean hates him.”

Papi’s gaze narrows. “How do you mean?”

“His kid went off on me about how much he hates cats,” Ángel tells him, his wrist on display. “I didn’t think about it then, because I didn’t think Daphne’s nephew would know about them being Lince. They’re private, right? I thought Daphne knew, because of something Tony said to me on New Year’s Eve, but I didn’t think she’d tell her nephew. And besides, why would he hate cats that much? But I was thinking, that’s the kind of hate you don’t just have. It’s not something you’re born with. That’s the kind of hate you learn from your parents.”

“So maybe Ronnie Hamilton just hates cats,” Papi points out. “Normal house cats.”

He’s questioning, but he’s not rejecting the hypothesis. Ángel recognizes that posture, the way Papi leans a little closer, his head cocked. The faraway look as he stores information, sifts through it on his way to unraveling a problem.

“I think he was talking about Lince.” Ángel lifts his arm, extends so that his wrist is stretched. “This isn’t a house cat, Papi. This is Lince. That kid thought I was Lince.”

Papi makes a small, thoughtful noise. He gets up and moves to the seat behind the desk, takes out a pad of paper and makes notes to himself. Ángel tries to stay quiet, but it’s impossible to sit still. He feels like he’s close to answers, and as if his skin might burst if he doesn’t figure out a way to get them.

Ángel pushes to his feet, paces to the window and looks out, then back close to the door. Papi coughs, and when Ángel glances over, Papi crooks his finger, motions for Ángel to move away from the door.

“Do you think someone’s listening in?” Ángel asks, and Papi rolls his eyes.

“They can’t hear anything if they try,” Papi says, writing again. “But there’s no reason to tempt someone into trying. You’re going to run into Hamilton when you walk out of here, probably. Don’t give him any reason to wonder why you were here.” Papi glances up again. “Thank you for the breakfast.”

“The what—oh.” Ángel nods, following along with the excuse. He sinks back into his seat, crosses his hands and taps his foot against the leg of Papi’s desk. “What are you doing?”

“Making a list of things I want to check into that Hamilton’s been involved in.” Papi’s pen scratches; it sounds like a long list. “If he’s capable of a hate crime against the Mollicones, then it’s possible that he’s capable against others. I have some cases I’d like to take a look at and review.”

“Mm.” Ángel keeps tapping his feet, rubs his hand against the ink on his wrist. He wonders if the Lince can feel the moon coming, if they’re all as joyous as this one on his wrist seems to be. It’s leaping straight for the full moon, meeting it head on.

The scratch of the pen pause. “Ángel.”

“Hm?” He looks over. Papi is staring at his wrist. “What?”

“How are things with Tony?”

Ángel blinks at him, wordless. “He’s… he’s having a rough time right now.”

Papi’s eyebrows rise. “I’m not surprised. His entire world is upside down.”

“Daphne—” Ángel inhales, tries to start the sentence over. He feels the weight of Papi’s gaze, struggles under it. “Tony was dating Ronnie Hamilton’s sister.” He pauses while Papi makes another note, breathes a little more easily with the momentary lack of his regard. He smiles slightly when Papi’s attention returns to him. “Was dating. They broke up. A few times since we’ve been here, and um….”

“Is he your soulmate?” Papi nods at the mark on Angel’s wrist.

Ángel curls his arm towards himself, cradles the mark against his chest. “No. Why do you ask?”

“I pay attention, Ángel,” Papi says dryly. “Remember, part of my job is looking for clues. Trying to find answers. And right now, as much as I want you to feel comfortable coming to me, this might have bearing on what’s going on. Is Tony Mollicone your soulmate?”

Ángel tries to relax the tension, letting go by inches. “No,” he repeats. “I mean, yes, I like him.” He huffs, smiles ruefully. “More than like him. I have a crush a mile wide on him, and yes, to just get it out there since I already told Abuela, I’m bi. She said you’d figured it out.”

Papi nods, makes a motion for him to continue.

“But Tony’s already inked,” Ángel says. “He was inked before this happened to me, and while I really wouldn’t mind if it were him… I mean, I’d be really happy if it’s him, because Papi—”

Papi puts a hand up. “I don’t need the details, not any more than I wanted to know with anyone else you’ve ever dated. I’m happy if you’re happy. But….”

Ángel isn’t sure what Papi’s waiting for. “But, what?”

“Have you asked him?” Papi leans on the desk, gestures at Angel’s wrist. “Did you ask if any of that ink was your mark?”

“Of c—” Ángel cuts off. Wait.

No.

He saw the ink the next day. He looked at it more closely on the Sunday after the marking. But there was so much ink. “It all means something to him,” he says slowly. “He has moons for the Lince, like—” He stops that thought before it finishes, but Papi nods, as if he knows that Ángel was going to mention Abuela’s ink. “He has the rose, and the ink on his back, and it all just—it means something to him. His parents watching over him, even. The same ink I thought about getting for Mami.”

One eyebrow arches higher than the other. “But you didn’t ask.”

Ángel drops his gaze. He can hear the suggestion in those words. “No,” he admits. “I didn’t actually ask outright whether any of the ink was a surprise, newly inked drawing overnight. He knew I was looking. Why wouldn’t he have said something?”

“He was dating Daphne, right?” Papi points out. “Maybe he wasn’t ready. Maybe he wasn’t as secure in his own self as you were.”

Or maybe he was as angry as any Lince would be, at the idea of a Mage affecting their life. Changing their heart, or forcing them to fall in love. “I’ll ask,” he says slowly. “Eventually, when it’s a good time for it. I’ll ask.”

“Good.” Papi looks back over his notes, runs a finger down the page as he seems to mentally check off items. “Did it seem to you as if Tony didn’t think the fire was an isolated incident?” he asks, tapping against his paper.

“The way he said not to worry about it?” Ángel nods. “Yeah.” He has a feeling he knows what Papi is thinking, and he clenches his hands, uncertain whether he wants this instinct corroborated or not.

“Give me a minute here.” Papi picks up the phone, cocks his head while waiting, listening it to it ring. “Hi, I need you to get me something from records. No, it’s not a cold case. It was closed, back in—when was the accident?”

Ángel doesn’t need to ask which one. “Four and a half years ago. In May, during the storm. I don’t remember the exact dates.”

“May 2012,” Papi says. “A car went off the road during the storm, both passengers killed before help arrived. Who were the first responders on the scene?”

Ángel fidgets while Papi waits.

Papi sits upright, tense and stiff. He grabs the pen, tucks the phone into the crook of his shoulder and holds it with his chin as he writes. “Mm-hm,” Papi murmurs into the phone. “I see. He filed a report. Was he the one who called it in? How long after the accident occurred—ah, okay. Yes. Lucky, yes. Pity he wasn’t able to do more.” Papi scribbles more notes, then sets the phone back on the hook. A moment later he sets the phone down.

“Ángel.” Voice low, serious.

Ángel straightens. “Yes?”

“In a moment, you’re going to walk out of here,” Papi says quietly. “You’re going to act like we’ve had a great late breakfast, and you’re going to smile and wave, and you’ll talk to everyone on your way out just like you always do. You’re not going to rush. But when you get to your car, you’re going to drive straight to the garage and you’re going to tell them to get out of there. Let the cleaners do their work, but I want all of the Mollicones gone and I want them to make it obvious that they’re gone. If you think the cleaners should have today off, then do that.”

Angel’s heart is rough in his chest. “Why?”

“In May of 2012, a young firefighter witnessed an accident during the storm,” Papi says slowly. “He stopped to help, to administer aid, and he called it in. He said he saw the truck go off the road, that it flipped twice, and that one passenger was dead on impact. He tried to save the woman, but she was dead by the time an ambulance got there. When asked, he said he didn’t know what happened, that the truck just swerved and went off the road. Investigations after the fact found debris in the road, and three out of four tires were blown. Between that and the rain, there’s no way they could keep control. The debris was unusual—metal pieces, blocks of wood—but was chalked up to the wind and the storm tossing debris around. The case was closed as an accident.”

“Who called it in?” Ángel asks. He knows, but he has to ask. Has to hear it.

“Ronnie Hamilton,” Papi says quietly. “It could be a coincidence.”

“Or he could have covered up evidence both times.” Ángel rises quickly, makes it to the door before Papi stops him, a hand on his shoulder.

“Slowly,” Papi says. “And smiling. I’m going to speak with Hamilton, but I don’t want him to leave here angry before you’ve had a chance to talk to the Mollicones. So right now, everything’s fine. Understand?”

Ángel wants to run out, race through the office and down the stairs. He wants to peal out fast enough that the cops will hear him.

He can’t do that, though. So he nods slowly, tries not to shake when Papi drags him into a hug.

“We’ll make sure they’re safe,” Papi promises.

Ángel’s glad to have backup, because he needs to make sure they’re safe, too. They’ve become another family for him, and he wants to protect them.

[ Previous | First | Next ]

[youdecode]

How to Wake up Early & How to get up Early? | Waking up at 5 am

“There is no sunrise so beautiful that it is worth waking me up to see it.” 

Wondering how to wake up early?  

Have you ever questioned yourself that generally how many sunsets have you lost? Countless? 

It is not only sunset which you are losing on but on several things. 

Waking up early is a blessing for you to conquer your entire day. 

I used to be a night owl. Now I do not even need an alarm for waking up at 4. 

What changed. I learned. I learnt from the experts. 

I invested in myself for a better life. 

I have taken several audio books, best ebooks and courses.  

I loved the investments because when I see myself now: I have just more time for everything. 

I used to rant that why God has just given 24 hours in a day. 

My to-do list always used to get shifted on the next day.

And most importantly I was compromising fun in my life.

If you are asking yourself that why you need to become more productive then the answer is :

Because you deserve success in your career, and health in your lovely relationships. 

If you want to live more intentionally then do check this productivity bundle.

 Back to this blogpost. 

But sadly it is not an easy peasy process, the rather true effort is required from your end.

This post will help you to catch the sunrise, to become mindful, and to slay your goals.

This post will help you so that by the end of the day you do not stare yourself helplessly in the mirror, recalling the disappointments of the day.

Let’s dig in.

  PS : Don’t forget to grab the freebie at the end of post, specially crafted for you  !

Benefit of waking up early? 

When I was studying political philosophy I came across several common human motives that drive our lives.

Those motives are so common that we tend to ignore them completely.

If I question you, why do you do what you do? You will surely have thousands of answers to it.

The same is the case with me.

But the ultimate answer is to FEEL GOOD.

We do everything in our lives to feel good. The utmost pleasure as Machiavelli framed it.

Every small action is controlled by how we are going to feel.

Interesting and very important.

The problem here is that switching to the morning routine, out of sudden, nowhere offers the experience of feeling good.

Initially waking up super early goes against the intrinsic nature of feeling good or being joyful.

But once you train yourself for it, there is no joyous feeling than conquering the gigantic milestone when half the world is sleeping.

Remember the point here is that you will not initially “feel good” and find it hard.

But this feeling will drastically shift if you:

Commit to wake up early & make it a habit

Conquer great milestones

Become productive

Be able to make more time of those 24 hours for your family, friends and loved ones

So this means waking up early is of the root cause of feeling good and of happiness?

You got me, girl!

If you want to other 56 drastic benefits of waking up early then below are the related reads.

How to practically wake up early?

You need to catch the cycle. The cycle of creating habits. Bear in mind that habit is a loop.

How to create that loop? An extremely simple form of RAR.

Reminder, Action, and Reward.

Do you need to identify each ingredient in the formula for creating the loop? I am simply saying:

the alarm going off can be a reminder,

the action has to be turning off the alarm!

the reward? Your favorite shake/meal [choose it for yourself but please get creative as the reward has to shake you off the bed! Don’t make your reward as brushing your teeth! ]

You need to spend a good chunk of time making the RAR formula workable. You need to decide the loop. And remember it is a loop thus no elimination is possible.

The best part is that you can use this formula for creating any habit in your life.

For now, our habit is waking up early. This loop is effective why? as it becomes your automatic response because of repetition.

The most common trap which we all fall into is the 10-minute trap where we use alarms in between.

Yes, the kind of mercy time. And guess what happens after that mercy time?

You eye yourself with such mercy that never let you hop out of the bed!

You can cater to such traps by installing any wake-up app like the sleep cycle until you master the RAR formula!

Step 2 of waking up at 5 am:

The second step in waking up early is creating a morning routine.

Let’s continue from the reward we left with.

Now your reward becomes your Reminder

Reminder: Get the reward

Action: Have 20 minutes of your Alone time(i will tell you why this alone time is fuel in your life)

Reward: Check phone notifications

You can adjust the time period of the 20 minutes as per your need. It is a blessing for you. This task is long enough so you can complete it and short enough so it transforms into a habit.

Questioning what to do in these magical minutes. I call these the extra minutes in which life gifts me.

Why? This time is of self-reflection.

This is the time where the subconscious mind is more active than the conscious mind.

And if you have been reading this blog then you know that the subconscious mind has infinite power.

It is connected with the higher self and has all the potential answers which you are seeking elsewhere.

If you want to know what my 20 minutes look like then follow these 4 steps. (there is no restriction, you can add as many steps by extending these magical minutes in 40)

Plug your fav song for inspiration & enjoy the sunrise

Visualize

Journal

Plan 

Before we jump into step 3 let’s give time as to why visualization, journaling, and planning has the potential of transforming your life.

I am a true believer in the law of attraction.

I have manifested countless things through this natural process that exist to make any wish come true.

People are already practicing the law of attraction in their lives, but they are practicing it unconsciously.

The day they become conscious of the process, magic will happen.

No one denies the law of gravity, but the law of attraction receives little acknowledgment. WHY? Because We do not have any 9.81 to support the law.

If one needs proof, one has to experience it. No other way!

And the good news is that both visualization and journaling are extremely powerful tools for practicing the law of attraction.

When you visualize, you are in essence setting a clear intention.

You are telling the universe (the God, or higher intelligence you believe in).

By visualization, you are transforming your thoughts into feelings. Simply close your eyes and think of your desires.

Think about the emotions attached. Feel the want. Experience joy.

It is a conscious meditation.

Then you begin journaling.

I am much of a fan of journaling for manifestation.

I DO it for getting answers when I am confused and I get them.

I do journaling to affirm that my goals are getting accomplished. When I was 12, yes I used to do diaries, but it never helped me. There is no right or wrong way of journaling but surely there is an effective way.

A way through which you could manifest what you desire. I have worked my sweat in developing the triple G’s technique. So what is the point?

Use my proven way of personal & professional success or deploy any method which brings you close to your goal.

Write in detailed what you have visualized, make your wish more concrete

You can simply journal the affirmations like “I am achieving all the goals”

Lastly, Make your to-do list and write them in the order of priority.

Step 3 of waking up at 5am:

Now, this is the step where you actually conquer your mornings. Always start with the hardest tasks.

Remember, that your brain will tempt you to get started with the easiest task first.

But that is the trap. Sometimes our brain can become our worst enemy. Why do I say so? Because it is lazy.

It works on connections and patterns. When we decide to accomplish the hardest, it will signal reluctance.

It will be least willing if you will do something completely new. (as there will be no pattern for it to follow)

It will scare you before you even start. What is the solution?

Become aware of this threat.

Laugh at its suggestions. Do you know what it will suggest?

It will ask you to spend the first two precious morning hours checking email? If it does that you question your brain . . . are you serious?!

The fear of doing the hardest will go the moment you START it

Just start!

Step 4 of waking up at 5am:

The final step to waking up early is to create an evening routine.

Remember your evening routine is capable of spilling the milk on your efforts. Thus, you need to pay attention to your latter-day.

Your evening routine will be actually driving your personal goals. So customize it accordingly.

Munching till 12, getting entertained till late night would not let you complete the habit loop.

So what is your RAR for the evening?

Reminder: You should have an alarm for 9 pm

Action: Shut everything and prepare your bed

Reward: Treat yourself with a good book

Reward here can be anything. It could be an episode of a series (remember not a complete series!!!)

Anything that you can spend your 30-40 minutes to. If you ask what my reward looks like then:

I generally read a book (mostly think & grow rich . . . yes I am a fan of re-reading)

I journal again for manifestation with the techniques I am obsessed with (hardly takes me 5 minutes).

Put my phone on the airplane mode

Sleep yeyii finally!

Key Points of how to get up early

Now, remember that you are making a system for yourself.

The steps which I have mentioned are tracking your goals while giving you plenty of fun time to relax.

Why do I call it a system? Because now everything is fed into your mind.

It is fed that you have to wake up early, spend 20 minutes mindfully, dig into the tasks, and then live a rewarding evening.

I know what is floating around your head. It has to do with the To-do list.

Don’t worry if you could not achieve whatever you wrote in the planner. After all, no one has ever died with an empty to-do list . . .

YOU WILL ALWAYS have things left, undone. It is not finishing the endline. It is about participating in that race.

It is about competing with your best self.

It is simply about running for a fulfilled life while actually living. (it is not a mindless chase, where you do not prioritize other things)

Yes, there will be times when someone will come over.

There will be times where you will have to attend certain events. What to do?

Prepare for those times by strengthening your loop habit of waking up early.

Even if you rarely have to sleep at 12, even then wake up as per your routine.

Don’t worry as you can compensate for the missed hours by taking a nap in the afternoon.

Blueprint of How to wake up early

Step 1: Waking Up

Reminder: ____________

Action: __________

Reward: _________

Step 2: 20 Minutes Routine

Reminder: ____________

Action: __________

Reward: _________

Step 3: Actual Milestones

Step 4: Evening Routine

Reminder: ____________

Action: __________

Reward: _________

Before you goo

You need to become a high performer.

Because if you study high performers in any field.

You will find that all achievers had a super productive morning routine in common.

Prepare yourself for the productive routine through the practical steps detailed above.

Tell me you are up for this loop? Is it really that hard?

My favorite FREEBIES for you 

 3 Epic PDFS For Instant Energy - Boost Your Productivity To An Insane Level

 3 Badass PDFS For Incredible Motivation - Fulfill Any Goal & Turn Any Desire Into Reality

 3 Essential PDFS For Remarkable Focus & Concentration -

 Grab 1100+ Journal Prompts To Tap Hidden Answers Of Your Life

 Grab 8+ Special Printables For Unstoppable Vision - Your Future May Depend On This

 MEET ME IN YOUR INBOX. I HAVE A SURPRISE GIFT FOR YOU! 

Simply Download the Images:

Power Words 1

Power Words 2

Power Words 3

Power Words 4

Power Words 5

.et_bloom .et_bloom_optin_9 .et_bloom_form_content { background-color: #000000 !important; } .et_bloom .et_bloom_optin_9 .et_bloom_form_container .et_bloom_form_header { background-color: #000000 !important; } .et_bloom .et_bloom_optin_9 .et_bloom_form_content button { background-color: #dd9933 !important; } .et_bloom .et_bloom_optin_9 .et_bloom_form_content .et_bloom_fields i { color: #dd9933 !important; } .et_bloom .et_bloom_optin_9 .et_bloom_form_content .et_bloom_custom_field_radio i:before { background: #dd9933 !important; } .et_bloom .et_bloom_optin_9 .et_bloom_form_content button { background-color: #dd9933 !important; } .et_bloom .et_bloom_optin_9 .et_bloom_form_container h2, .et_bloom .et_bloom_optin_9 .et_bloom_form_container h2 span, .et_bloom .et_bloom_optin_9 .et_bloom_form_container h2 strong { font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, Lucida, sans-serif; }.et_bloom .et_bloom_optin_9 .et_bloom_form_container p, .et_bloom .et_bloom_optin_9 .et_bloom_form_container p span, .et_bloom .et_bloom_optin_9 .et_bloom_form_container p strong, .et_bloom .et_bloom_optin_9 .et_bloom_form_container form input, .et_bloom .et_bloom_optin_9 .et_bloom_form_container form button span { font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, Lucida, sans-serif; }

DOWNLOAD

Welcome To The Community Decoder!

The post How to Wake up Early & How to get up Early? | Waking up at 5 am appeared first on You Decode.

[jkl-fff]

Ha! Well, thank you for acknowledging my basic human agency—my freedom—to answer or not answer as I see fit. Heh … Seriously, though, it’s no problem; please continue to send in any and all the questions you like. The attention and interest are, frankly, flattering. And the distraction is more than welcome—it’s fun!—so no worries.

First Time as a Teacher, How Did I Feel? This one is sorta tough, because I’ve kinda always been a teacher in one capacity or another ever since I was … gosh, 14? 15? That was when I started working as a camp counselor during the summer for the Boy Scouts (did so until I was 19). While I was there … Ho boy, I taught a ton of different merit badges—basket weaving, astronomy, emergency preparedness, first aid, wilderness survival, orienteering, small boat sailing, rock-climbing …

After that, I was on a religious mission for two years (because I was raised mormon and that’s just what mormons do) in France. Pretty much spent *all* of that time teaching people about the religion, or teaching other missionaries how to be more effective at teaching people about the religion (by Cthulhu’s carpals, I was so young and naif and desperately closeted back then … feels like it was four life-times ago …), and teaching a weekly free English class as a service to people. Though, naturally, the end goal of that was finding more people to teach about the religion, so … When that ended, I was asked to keep teaching in my home congregation, and did so until I was about … 23, and just sorta collapsed inside. Couldn’t keep pretending I wasn’t attracted to other men, couldn’t keep pretending the god I had believed in was helping me be happy, couldn’t keep pretending the whole thing wasn’t thrice-damned absurd … So I stopped.

Spent another year living in France after that, this time in the employ of their Ministry of Education as an English teaching assistant in a French high school. Then two years teaching French for one university while I got a Masters’ Degree (standard trade off: graduate students teach lower-level courses, usually getting their tuition waived, health benefits, and a modest stipend), an intense month teaching an accelerated French course for the National Guard, and finally (after a brief hiatus working for FedEx) here I am in my second year of teaching French for a different university.

To say nothing of all the Taekwon-Do teaching I’ve been regularly entrusted with since I was, like, 16 …

Like I said, it’s tough to answer this one. So constant, so regular, and for so long … I just don’t really remember how the first times at each respective task felt anymore. But I do know that it *now* feels exhilarating and energizing every time my class starts one of its French lessons. Those are kinda the times that I feel most alive during the week …

First Time Writing a ParaPines Fic, What Made Me Write It? “Adorable Like a Werekitten” (shameless plug time, read it and all my fics here: https://jkl-fff.deviantart.com/) was both my first ParaPines fic and also my first foray into fanfic altogether. According to the posting timestamp … jeez, that was on October 2nd, 2012—a little over 5 years ago … And as to what made me write it, well … ParaPines came into my life during what was a rather tumultuous time, emotionally speaking.

Back then, it was like I was adrift at sea (maybe I still am … but at least the sea is more-or-less calm now, whereas back then it felt like a maelstrom within a hurricane, and I would foundering). Happiness and companionship and love—even just as meaningful friendship outside of my family—were all things I had pretty much abandoned forever all hope of finding (gods above, I sound like an emo album from 2006!) when two things happened: I discovered some … er, ahem, um … erotic fanart of Dipper Pines (which led to discovering more fanart in general, which led to discovering Gravity Falls and ParaPines and ParaNorman, all of which I found to be some of the most fantastic and adorable things to ever exist), and I fell in love with a guy in real life.

Actually, the falling in love part might have been what made everything so tumultuous emotionally … Certainly, I was not happy before him, but I was content in my unhappiness. It was a stable, dependably gray life I led before him. And then, suddenly, in my life … him. Just as suddenly, I started questioning somethings … then everythings … then ALL OF THE THINGS! Why should I linger in misery? Why cling to celibacy? What purpose was there in remaining faithful to vows I had made for a god I no longer believed in? What exactly was wrong with being gay? Why was I so convinced being gay was wrong? Why did I loathe myself so? If I had committed no fault, why shouldn’t I deserve to be as happy as anyone who was straight? Why not *all* the gay people? Why not everyone everywhere? Why not me right here and right now? Why not me … and him, with him, for him and to him and through him and by him forever and ever? Of course, it was a slow process, what with being internal and psychological. Seldom so explicit and obvious as my gloss above suggests. No, it took months and years for most of these questions to work through themselves, and honestly some of that working is still taking place even now. I hope it never stops.

But I digress. All of this gradual falling in love with him and becoming friends with him and spending time with him and pining over him and despairing because of him—all of this, and more, which had me adrift in that maelstrom in that hurricane—was taking place during and after my discoveries, as I said above, of Gravity Falls and ParaNorman and the joyous amalgam of both that is ParaPines. I was in dire straits and desperate need of something—of anything at all—that could anchor me a little, and this fit the bill. Y’see, both shows are great (great writing, great characterization, great plot development, great messages), so I could enjoy them each unironically without a sense of embarrassment. And … and and and … the ParaPines fanart was all so … so pure, so innocent, so bright and free and easy. The boys always looked so cute and happy together, y’know? As if being gay with another boy was as simple as that. No big identity struggle, no big community turmoil, no angst, no pain, no fear. Just … two gay boys being cute and happy together, with everything being as simple as that for them … Basically, everything I was craving, everything I was fantasizing about, everything I wanted for myself and him … Everything I wanted “being gay” to mean …

So I latched onto this fandom like a life preserver (it may actually have been something that preserved my life), and soon found that I just needed to contribute to it. I *needed* to write, y’know? Needed to put all of the thoughts and feeling swirling and sloshing and storming around in my head down onto paper. So I started writing for the fandom, using that writing as a means to work through some of my insecurities and anxieties about being gay, about being in love with someone who I always dreaded would leave my feelings unrequited … Heh. Poor little Norman. Though they’re all foils for parts of me, he got the brunt of all my angst, falling head-over-heels for DipDopDoblivious.

All of which to explain why I’m so invested in these two, even today, and probably will be for the rest of my life. Simultaneously, they’re now imbued with parts of my very psyche and identity, and have basically kept me from ripping myself to pieces.

Oh, and more specifically for ALaW, I saw some freakin’ adorable art by @skeletonizer featuring werecat Dipper, and sorta had to write something in which Dipper became a werecat. Like, it was too cute to be resisted. Heh. I remember being shocked at myself as I wrote it (“Really? You’re writing a story about a crossover of two characters from completely different franchises? You sunk this low?”), and trying to justify it to myself as a literary exercise (“I’m seeing if I can write in a completely different tone and style than I normally do! That’s all that’s going on here, I swear!”) so I wouldn’t feel like such a nerd/dork/geek. Ha! Although it turned out to be a slippery slope, that ParaPines fanfic, since now I’m sliding down it all “WHEEEEEEEEEE!” with no hope of every getting back up and out of it. And embrace the persona of being a nerd/dork/gook wholeheartedly (life is too short not to let yourself love what you love because of what anyone else—including yourself—might think). 

Best “mistake” I ever made, deciding to write that fanfic!

(WARNING: A LITTLE NSFW AFTER THIS)

First Kiss and First Sex *sigh* These can both be conjoined, as they happened at the same event. The memories aren’t exactly pleasant for me (or rather, memories connected with him aren’t exactly pleasant for me now … they’ve all become rather melancholy), so I’m not going to dwell on or develop the answers overmuch. It was at a New Year’s Party, one that was jampacked with people and flooded with alcohol that people had brought with them to contribute to the festivities.

Now, I loved (love?) him, but I’ve never been under any illusions: he’s self-destructive, he’s damaged inside (more so than average people), and he’s an alcoholic as a result. That night, he imbibed freely and flitted about like a boisterous social butterfly. And I, true to my demeanor, drank only water or orange juice mixed with fresca. For the most part, I stuck to corners or quieter spaces or would linger out on the deck and watch the city in the distance (perhaps I would’ve spent the whole night out there, save that it was December-becoming-January and bitterly cold). Y’see, I’ve never much cared for parties; loud music, jumbled conversations in a raucous din, tight spaces filled with people, strangers everywhere I went … I’ve never cared for any of these. They overwhelm me and tire out my brain. But I would periodically go in search of him and check that everything was still okay, then force myself to try and socialize a little before seeking out a quieter spot again. As midnight approached, he came in search of me. He said he wanted me to be his New Year’s first kiss, and … and I had been pining for him for months at that point, dreaming of it—of my first kiss—being him, being the first person I had ever been *in love* with, saving my first kiss for him … Such a silly, romantic fool I was … so of course I acquiesced at once. Perhaps I shouldn’t have, but … Gods above, he was clumsy and uncoordinated from being drunk and there was that sickly-sweet aftertaste of booze on his lips. Yet it was the best kiss of my life—a kiss that sorta ruined kissing for me, because no other kiss has ever made me feel like that one did …

Next thing I knew, he had led me down into the basement, which was a roiling cauldron of fog (from a machine) and colored dance lights and silhouettes of other guys moving slowly to the music. The room wasn’t big and there were plenty of other guys in it, yet it felt strangely private. The fog made it impossible to recognize anyone unless you were standing right next to him, plus there seemed to be an unspoken understanding on the part of all present (all except me, who felt lost and at a loss in an alien world, since I wasn’t completely out yet and all of this was new and confusing to me) that this space was one free from the gaze and the judgment of others. Every man was anonymous down there, in a way, even to those he knew. Even to himself, perhaps. Maybe that was why he had brought me down there. Like a spatial manifestation of drunkenness, that room was a haze of socially accepted deniability to those went in. Anything that happened down there was considered to stay down there and dissolve from memory and the real world when the fog did. Inhibitions didn’t have to exist, and neither did consequences or responsibilities. [Which is all utter bullshit, by the way. You are you; you are what you do and what you say, and neither alcohol nor anonymity absolve you of responsibility for what you do and what you say, for who you are. People like to tell themselves the fairytale that these things can change you, or that it’s not really you when under their influence … but, like all fairytales, that’s bullshit people tell themselves to feel better so they can try and skip out on owning up to their own mistakes. Gods, I *hate* alcohol sometimes.] Anyway, he made out with me for a while against one of the walls. I should’ve said “no”, I should’ve told him that he was drunk and this wasn’t what he really wanted, but … When I made some feeble attempts at protest, he just said, “Shhh …” and kept going. And I was too weak to insist after that, too desperate for something more than just hanging out with him to refuse … Some other guys joined us for a bit, and he initiated a circle jerk with them. But I was only interested in him, and I guess the others picked up on that because they soon left me and him as alone as one could be in that room. He stroked me for a while, then sucked me for a while, but wouldn’t let me return the favor for long because he was “too drunk to get it up” …

The next day and every day after that, we pretended that nothing had happened—never spoke of it—though when I hinted at it … it was clear that he did remember. Crystal clear. But he wanted it to be something that dissolved with the haze of the room and the alcohol, something that wasn’t and wouldn’t then or ever be remembered, something that would never exist in the real world.

Sadly, that wouldn’t be the last time I got my heart broken by him. People think I’m smart, but I sure do make some dumb mistakes sometimes … and I make them over and over again …

Thanks again for the asks! Hopefully that downer ending on that last one won’t deter anyone from sending in more asks, though. Don’t be shy, people! Send in anything and everything you want to know! I’d be more than happy to answer them (and especially now that I just finished making myself depressed), and find them quite the fun distraction!

[setepenre-set]

Pleasant is the Fairyland (part 2)

Megamind/Roxanne

T rating, Labyrinth AU

AO3  |  FFN

The Goblin King Megamind is running out of time–he must take a consort. His Minion is concerned when the King declares he will have no one but Roxanne Ritchi—who is far too clever and nosy and difficult to manage. But the King has a Plan, so Roxanne finds herself whirled away from her unfulfilling, ordinary life…to the Labyrinth, at the center of which is a secret, the King promises her, if she can but find it. A secret with the power to save a world…or to condemn it to Nothingness.

Roxanne walked down the path between the tall green hedges, the Goblin King grumbling behind her as he followed, until she reached a fork in the path. She stopped then, and he came to a stop beside her. She glanced sidelong at him.

“I don’t suppose you’re going to give me a hint about which way would be the better choice,” she said.

He blinked at her, surprise and confusion in his face, and did not answer.

“Didn’t think so,” she sighed.

Roxanne looked again at the two paths; they appeared completely identical.

“Right,” she said, and walked down the right-hand path.

The Goblin King trailed behind Roxanne, frowning. He had given her a hint; he’d given her the book! And the book had clearly stated that she should have turned left!

Perhaps she didn’t trust the book? She didn’t know it was from him, but possibly she thought it was a trick, anyway, suspected it was meant to deceive her?

That would be reasonable; he should have taken that possibility into account…

He’d had to bite his tongue against a protest when she’d turned right; she’d asked him for a hint, but of course, of course he couldn’t offer her aid. Not here.

He glanced automatically at the shadows, stomach twisting—had they deepened? Were they longer, darker, than they should be?

A few paces ahead of him, Roxanne turned right again.

No. No, the shadows were the same, he reassured himself. The shadows were the same.

Again, Roxanne turned right.

The Goblin King suppressed the urge to rub his temples. He’d been planning for Roxanne to turn left; things would have to be rearranged, now, and he could already feel a headache coming on.

Only there was no way to predict which way Roxanne was going to turn, so how was he going to be able to—

Roxanne turned right once more.

“Oh!” he said, realization dawning.

Roxanne looked at him curiously, and he smiled at her in relief, moving swiftly to catch up with her.

“You’re using the right-hand rule!” he said. “Oh, I knew you were clever!”

She raised her eyebrows at him, her lips twitching in a way that seemed involuntary.

“You seem awfully pleased,” she said. “Aren’t you mad that I’m going to solve your labyrinth so easily?”

The right-hand rule; he could work with the right-hand rule—yes, he knew how to deal with this, now.

Roxanne, looking very satisfied with herself, took another right turn, and the Goblin King fell behind again and trailed after her once more, his mind furiously at work.

—something to equal out the way the secret entrance had been labeled, yes, he’d have to do that, and then—

Roxanne turned right yet again and then stopped.

The path between the hedges had opened up into a sort of courtyard, paved with stone, filled with stone pillars, and surrounded by stone walls.

She looked at the walls speculatively, wondering if she could scale one and take a look over the rest of the maze, so that she might see where she was going. Regretfully, she decided that it would be impossible. The cracks between the stone were much too small to offer a foot or hand hold.

There were two arches on the far wall of the courtyard, both leading into stone-paved corridors. Roxanne set out towards the right-hand archway—

—and then she saw, out of the corner of her eyes, an inconspicuous door, hidden behind one of the pillars.

A door that said EXIT.

Could it—surely it couldn’t be as simple as that—surely this must be a trick—

The secret entrance had been marked, Roxanne remembered, and that hadn’t been a trick; the Goblin King had been quite annoyed about that.

Was it really possible that he could have made such a mistake twice over?

(that was the thing about mistakes, though; wasn’t it—once you made one, you were prone to making it again and again and—)

Roxanne darted suddenly to the side, wanting to get out of the Goblin King’s reach. She flung open the door, went to step forward and—

She found herself teetering precariously on the edge because there wasn’t any floor beyond the doorway, just a sudden drop into a deep pit filled with dark water and—

Roxanne gave a little scream, arms windmilling wildly, and then she caught the door and used it to yank herself backwards, stumbling back into the courtyard and slamming the door shut once more.

“Don’t you like alligators?” said the Goblin King, his voice close to her ear.

She whirled on him furiously.

“You—!”

“Now, now, hold on!” said the Goblin King, moving back a few paces, laughter in his voice as he held his hands up in mock surrender.

“You—”

“I didn’t make you open the door, did I?” he said, smiling ingratiatingly.

“You tricked me—”

“You let yourself be tricked,” he said. “Your choices here are your own, Miss Ritchi. But I’m curious to know what it was about Goblin King that made you think safe.”

“I could have been killed!”

“Have you admitted, then,” said the Goblin King softly, his too-green eyes fixed on her face, “that this isn’t a dream?”

“I—”

(The alligators had leaped at her, their jaws snapping, all teeth and hunger—and she’d been able to smell the water, to feel the spray hitting her face—surely no dream could be that detailed)—

“…I don’t know,” she said.

The Goblin King nodded.

For the first time, it occurred to Roxanne that perhaps she should be afraid of him—this strange man with his glittering eyes and his inhuman shape and his smiles that didn’t curve quite right, that showed too many teeth.

(That it was a bit odd, the way she wasn’t afraid of him.)

“You told me there was a secret at the center of the labyrinth,” Roxanne said slowly.

“Yes, that is correct,” the Goblin King said.

“How do I know you’re not lying, though?” Roxanne asked. “How can I trust anything you say?”

“Oh, I can’t lie to you,” said the Goblin King. “No member of the fae can lie. Trick you and deceive you and twist their words to confuse, oh yes. But never lie outright.”

“Hmm,” Roxanne said, watching his face. “How do I know you’re not lying about that?”

She’d expected him to be offended at the question, but the Goblin King just blinked at her, head tilting thoughtfully.

“I—I suppose you don’t, really,” he said. “Huh. I—never thought about it like that, before. But—but surely you’ve heard that rule, Miss Ritchi! Surely you’ve read or heard stories about us and—”

“Yes,” Roxanne said, “Yes, I’ve heard that before, certainly. But, then—that’s just the sort of rumor I’d expect you to spread if you were prone to lying.”

The Goblin King stared at her for half a moment, and then burst into laughter—bright, loud laughter, joyous laughter.

(the kind of laugh to fall in love with)

“Oh, you are fun!” he said, “I suppose it all comes down to your choice, then, doesn’t it? Do you choose to believe me? Or do you not?”

Roxanne looked at him, eyes narrowed. He hadn’t tried to save her from the alligator door, but—he hadn’t pushed her through, either. And really, had he simply wanted to kill her, he might have done that several hours ago.

No, he didn’t want her dead, but he did want something from her, certainly. Was he toying with her, like a cat with its prey? Were her struggles entertaining?

He’d seemed so pleased, though, when he realized that she was using the right hand rule—when in a maze, take only right turns and you are guaranteed to find the exit eventually. Yes, he had seemed pleased at that, and she didn’t see why that should be so, if he wished to watch her fail.

No. No, it was something else he wanted.

Something that he wanted very much indeed, as he’d gone to all of the trouble of bringing her to this place and convincing her to enter the labyrinth.

(a secret, he’d said, at the center of the labyrinth. and he’d said that he couldn’t tell her, because of the rules.)

“…you want me to solve the labyrinth,” she said slowly.

The Goblin King gave a start of surprise, his eyes going wide, and then they darted swiftly from side to side, as though checking they were alone, as though he were—

as though he were—

—afraid. Of something.

(something in the labyrinth with them?)

The Goblin King looked at her again, biting his bottom lip, and he didn’t look anything like frightening now.

He nodded, quick and sharp.

All right. So he wanted her to solve the labyrinth.

“Can you help me solve it?” Roxanne asked.

The Goblin King, looking a bit pale, shook his head.

“This—this thing at the center of the labyrinth,” Roxanne said, “you need me to get it for some reason, don’t you? You need my help.”

The Goblin King raised his head and looked at her again.

“Yes,” he whispered, nearly silently.

“What kind of rules are we talking, then?” Roxanne asks. “The rules that won’t let you help me? Are we talking like—human laws, where it’s not the rules you need to worry about as much as the people enforcing them? Or more like physical laws of nature, like gravity and things like that?”

The Goblin King took a sharp breath, eyes fixed on her face.

He’d drawn closer to her, while she wasn’t paying attention, Roxanne realized now; they were very close. She must have been mesmerized by the green of his eyes, because for a moment, it seemed that there were shadows all around them—and that the shadows were—

(moving)

But that was ridiculous, of course; the sun was bright overhead, shining down into the courtyard among the pillars, and when Roxanne blinked, the shadows were in their proper places, to lie like tame dogs at the corners of the courtyard.

Still, that momentary trick of her vision had left her with a nasty feeling in her chest: a sort of sticky tightness around her heart, and Roxanne reached out without thinking for the Goblin King’s hand and laced their fingers together.

A jolt went through him at the contact; she felt it, and then his fingers tightened around hers.

“You ask,” he said softly, “the most dangerous questions, Miss Ritchi. There are—certain things—that it is best not to speak aloud, in this place.”

“You can’t even tell me the rules?” Roxanne asked. “But that’s not fair!”

“You’ve read the stories, Miss Ritchi,” the Goblin King said. “Surely you know that magic isn’t fair.”

“But how am I supposed to win the game if I don’t know the rules?”

The Goblin King looked at her, an expression of sorrow and pity in his glass-green eyes.

“Oh, no, Miss Ritchi,” he said, “no—you’re not meant to win.”

Invisible fingers drew themselves up Roxanne’s spine.

“The odds are stacked against you,” the Goblin King told her, watching her face, “you’re almost certain to lose. And the consequences for you, should you lose, will be dire. I—I would not blame you, Miss Ritchi, if you should refuse to play.”

He pressed his lips together, mouth flattening into a hard line.

“And so—” he said.

The Goblin King reached up with his free hand and sketched something in the air with his fingers, the motions sharp and precise.

A door appeared, in the brick wall beyond his hand. Except—appeared was not exactly the correct word. There was no sudden burst of light or smoke or sound. It didn’t pop into existence, or melt into being. It was simply—there. As though it had been all along, as though Roxanne’s eyes had simply missed it somehow, and the Goblin King had merely called it to her attention.

“—one last chance to turn back, Miss Ritchi,” said the Goblin King softly, when Roxanne met his eyes once more. “There’s the way out, back to home and safety for you: no tricks, no penalties. As I said, I will not blame you.”

Roxanne hesitated a moment, looking at the door, and then back at him.

He was paler than he had been, she thought, with lines of strain around his mouth and eyes.

The Goblin King let go of her hand and stepped away, though, and he smiled as he swept into a bow, indicating the door. Roxanne might have read the bow and the smile as mocking, had she not seen the way his hands shook, just slightly.

She looked at the door. She looked over at the Goblin King, who straightened up from his bow, still smiling at her, careless and reckless and sharp-edged.

And Roxane turned away from the door and walked towards him again, reaching out to place her fingertips lightly on his sleeve.

Emotions flicked in his expression, too fast to be human: shock, hope, fear, disbelief. He took a swift breath.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Roxanne tightened her fingers on his arm, heart beating hard.

“Helping you,” she said.

(the alligators and the shadows, and oh, oh, but this wasn’t a dream, was it, and she was afraid—)

She swallowed hard.

“—why?” asked the Goblin King in a whisper.

“You said you needed my help,” Roxanne said.

And she stepped forward, leading him across the courtyard, and through the archway on the right-hand side.

[standforford]

Too Close

@tortoisefeet i wanted to write something more fluffy since my last fic was really angsty so take this

there’s still some angst but it’s mostly fluff

also i have no creative title ideas so if anyone has one please let me know

Summary: When work on the portal turns into something a little more than math, Fiddleford wants Stanford to forget the events that transpire. But Ford wants the opposite.

Rating: T

Wordcount: 1,631

Pairing: Fiddauthor

 Ford glanced up from his work as his assistant rolled up his swivel chair next to him. He smiled as Fiddleford propped an elbow on the table and put his face in his hand.

“How’s it coming?” The lighter-haired man asked, staring contentedly at Ford with half-lidded eyes. 

Ford set down his pencil and adjusted his glasses, grinning. “Excellent. We’re actually ahead of schedule.” he replied. “I’ve just finished the calculations for the dimension of the portal aperture. I’ll have to have you check it over, of course.” Fiddleford took the papers in his hands. He clicked his tongue and scribbled something down. His friend watched him write for a few minutes.

“At this diameter, the activation force will crush the surrounding steel.” Fidds spoke, tipping a pencil toward him. “The entire frame will implode.” Ford looked at the spot he was pointing to and reached out to take the papers back. Their hands brushed. Eyes met and his breath caught in his throat for a moment. For just a second, he was in a different reality. Just as quickly, the world went back to the way it was. 

“Really?” Stanford glanced over the calculations. “Show me why.” He set the paper on the table and looked at his old roommate expectantly, as if awaiting an explanation. He already understood why, of course. Fiddleford’s work was as simple and clear as always. But playing dumb meant he got to spend a little longer a little closer to him. It was selfish, but his doubts dissolved as the two leaned their heads together and Fiddleford began pointing and explaining his math. Ford could smell the ink on his hands and the tobacco in his teeth, feel the warmth of his breath just inches from his own. Being this close… It was too much. He was going to do something stupid if he didn’t stop himself. Ford leaned back, bumping Fidds’ elbow with his arm. “Sorry.” he muttered, cheeks hot.

“It’s alright.” Fiddleford responded, looking over at him. Ford must’ve looked as flustered as he felt, since Fidds quirked a brow in slight confusion. Then his face changed to an expression of… What was it? Understanding? Satisfaction? “Hey, Ford…?”

He couldn’t even speak, just swallow and clench his fists. He tried to talk, but only a shallow breath escaped. And then Fiddleford was leaning toward him. He felt a soft hand on the side of his face and hair tickle his forehead. Then Fiddleford’s mouth was on his, gentle and warm. It was so surreal that he could hardly believe it wasn’t a dream. Their lips lingered together for a number of seconds before Fidds pulled away. It was over far too soon. Ford looked down at this hands, giving an awkward cough and trying to hide the fact that his entire face was flushed with reddish-pink. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the the other man reach inside his lab coat. 

“I’m so sorry, Stanford.” Fiddleford whispered. Ford glanced up, eyes widening in fear once he saw what was in his hand. 

The memory gun. The memory gun that was supposed to have been destroyed.

“Fiddleford, no!” he yelled. There was no time to think. Fiddleford started to bring the weapon into position to aim at his head, but Ford was faster. He grabbed his friend’s wrist and shoved the arm holding the gun away from him. They both stumbled to their feet. Ford made a grab for the gun with his other hand, but his assistant forced a hand between their chests and pushed him away. Still, Ford refused to let go. Fiddleford tried in vain to back away, but tripped over one of the wheels of a chair and was sent toppling backwards, bringing Ford down with him. As the southerner reached back to catch himself, his invention flew out of his hand and landed a few feet away. Fiddleford managed to put his hands behind him so he didn’t hit his head. He immediately shrank onto the ground as Ford started to come down on top of him. Luckily, Ford planted his hands on the ground and caught himself before he could crush Fiddleford, his arms taking much of the shock from the fall. Fiddleford was left laying on the ground with Stanford above him, one arm and one leg on either side of his body. He was effectively trapped underneath. Ford grabbed his wrist again and pinned the arm closest to the gun tightly against the ground, preventing him from reaching the device. 

Fiddleford stared up at him with wide eyes, breathing heavily. Ford wanted to be mad at him. But he wasn’t sure if the pounding of his heart was due to the adrenaline or something else entirely. He was still so flustered from the kiss and they were so close again and he just looked so vulnerable there beneath him… He brought his free hand up to cup Fiddleford’s cheek. This time, he couldn’t help himself. Making sure to keep Fidds’ arm pinned, Ford dipped his head down and kissed him. He felt fingers on the back of his neck, tangling in his hair, pulling them closer. He’d wanted this for so long…

His head was spinning and he loved it. He loved the way his whole body felt hot, the way their mouths moved against each other as he kissed him deeper. Everything except the smoothness of his face in his hand and the way it felt when the tips of their tongues touched was so far away. He never thought he would love being unable to think so much. 

He hated having to pull away, but he was completely breathless. Their free hands slid off of each other and back onto the ground. They stayed still and silent for a couple of moments apart from the sound of their breathing. Then Ford finally spoke. “Fiddleford… Why would you want to forget this?”  His voice was a desperate whisper.

“I… I…” Fiddleford struggled to get words out between breaths. “I di-didn’t think you’d return the feeling.” he stammered.

Ford almost laughed. Despite all his intelligence, he’d somehow never noticed the way he got when they were close? “Fidds, I’ve been in love with you since college.” He smiled down and let go of his arm.

“Well, how come ‘ya never told me?” Fiddleford let out a joyous laugh and grabbed his cheeks with both hands, pulling him closer. There was a pronounced smacking noise as their lips met again. A small hum of pleasure escaped Ford, who wrapped his hands around Fiddleford’s back and pulled him into an upright position. He broke the kiss for a moment to rest Fidds’ back against the wall before crawling over to him. He positioned himself so that he was kneeling in front of him, straddling one of his outstretched legs. In no time at all they were kissing again, Fiddleford’s soft lips brushing his own. Fidds smelled like glass cleaner and graphite. Every movement made his heart flutter and that strangely wonderful burning feeling spread further through his chest. 

Fidd’s hands didn’t drift from their position on his hip and shoulder unless it was to grab his head and pull him more tightly to him for a few seconds. Ford’s hands, meanwhile, drifted constantly from his face to his neck to his chest, shifting and rubbing and trying to find the best place to land. They couldn’t, every inch of him was perfect. They stayed that way for a while, tongues tangling, bodies rocking. It was loud, it was messy, and it was beautiful.

It was kind of funny, really. He’d been in Gravity Falls so long and he’d encountered so many bizarre creatures, but this was still the strangest thing that had happened in his time here. But that was okay. Anomalies had always been his thing, after all. 

When Ford’s knees grew sore, he finally stood up, grabbing his partner’s hand and helping him to his feet. He was in such a daze and so fixated on his face that he didn’t even notice Fiddleford grab the memory gun off the floor with his other hand. Fidds was careful to keep his arms around Stanford but not let the gun touch his back. As Ford pecked at his nose and chin and neck, Fiddleford kept his eyes wide open, carefully looking over his shoulder and twisting the dial without letting his body tense enough to alert Ford. He just couldn’t carry on like this knowing that there would be an argument about the gun later. So Ford would forget he had seen the gun at all today. He’d remember everything else, of course, but as far as he’d be concerned, the gun had been destroyed a while back. Fiddleford raised the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

Ford’s hands tightened around him for a moment, and then he froze. Fiddleford used the opportunity to run over to the desk where they’d been working and toss the gun into one of the drawers, slamming it shut. When he turned back to Ford, he was met with a dumb stare. Ford blinked a few times. “What were you saying?” he asked.

“Just that I love you.” Fiddleford answered, melting back into Ford’s embrace. Ford stared at the wall for a few more seconds, his mind strangely blank. Wait a second, why was Fiddleford…? 

Then Fiddleford kissed him again and all his questions disappeared. He closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of everything that was Fiddleford, his assistant, his friend, his lover. Ford drew back for a moment, taking Fidds’ hand in his. “I love you too, Fidds.” he murmured, burying his face in his neck. Fiddleford kissed his ear and smiled.

[storiesof2018]

Sea Dive

Bucky panted heavily, his lungs aching as they took in precious oxygen that his brain needed to keep him focused. The world was a blur of washed colors as the sun shifted closer to twilight. The cawing of seagulls echoed in the winds, while the raging tides roared against the shores of the beach he had taken himself to. The muddy relic in his arms was held tight against his chest, the prize and summation of his agonizing trip into the underwater cave beneath the island he stood on. He would always think twice now about ocean trenches whenever he took a swim in hopes of finding lost treasure. The greatest treasure in the world was in his grasp and now, all he had to do was deliver it to the sea mage that had bargained for it. Despite how tired he felt, how heavy his wet clothes made him feel, he slowly crawled his way onto the rocks on the beach. He was thankfully for the flat surface that made a bed for him to lie on.

“I did it…I really did it.” He chuckled heartily at his victory. There was a time when his thoughts would’ve been consumed with the idea of a lot of cash falling into his hands for such a discovery. Now, the only reward he could fathom and want was in the form of a elf-like beauty with mahogany colored locks and eyes, as brown as sweet chocolate, and a fin made of scaled sapphires. “Selina…” He whispered out to her, his tired gaze focusing in on the shores and watching as a shapely form began to swim its way towards him.

Propelling herself with deft grace in her fueled momentum against the undercurrents that rushed over the sleekness of her alabaster flesh; Selina advanced towards harboring shore that anchored her back to him, gleams of distant sunlight became captured in the roiling waves. Forthing eddies formed over the toned curves of her svelte waist as waves broke against her.

With every measured stroke of her arms, Selina reached closer, inexplicably drawn to the beckoning—visceral call of her name resonating achingly in the graveled huskiness of his deep timbre—desperation chased those rampant echoes. The lush swell of her crimson lips parted as salty water glazed over her tongue, as she arched her tail-fin beautifully high out of the fathoms, the incandescent scaled width eclipsed the delicate planes of her back, droplets cascading tantalizingly over feminine curves and the material of her light-blue sports bra in alluring contrast—truly a siren incarnate of the sea.

Standing impassively on the edge of the shore with steeled resilence, Bucky grounded his footing, his gray cargo shorts that fitted dangerously over thickened ridges and corded-muscles of the solid length of his thighs were drenched. His wary countenance was a stark variant of the daunting-wolfish menace of her beast machine; under the shadowing brim of his baseball cap, the hard-edge planes of his hawkish features were set into a telltale grimace, conveying infinite heartache he stubbornly leashed back. He appeared desirous-crestfallen to the potency of his unslaked desire of caging her into the passionate embrace of his shielding arms, holding her until the rise of daybreak. It was the inexorable division of their world-the cadence of their souls raged for closeness while the elements of the morphic curse towed her away from him.

Breaching the shallow end of the shore, her jeweled coffee irises clashed with his grayish-aquamarine as their gazes mirrored tellingly in flash of raw -irrepressible heat through his lengthy dark tresses webbed askew over the heaviness of his stubble jaw-they couldn’t wait any longer. Letting a seize of desire ride through her veins, Selina quickly braced her lithesome form against a rock’s smooth edge, temptingly challenging him to chase her in the shushing waves. “Are you coming to join me, handsome…” she purred sultrily, arching her back to expose the slight graven planes of her delectable, curvaceous waist that shimmered with a matrix of incandescent turquoise scales. “Come on, Barnes, don’t be shy…”

“Selina…” A joyous grin spread across Bucky’s lips and his eyes lit up like stars as he set his gaze on the radiant beauty he’d been searching for. Life had become much brighter since the day they first met. His love for discovering lost treasures had become second now that he’d found the one thing in life he thought would always elude him. It was a frightening thought, one he scarcely allowed himself to think over, but with the sea angel that wait for him by the shore, it was a risk he felt worth taking. “Its so good to see you,” he said as he brought himself to roll off the rock he’d been laying on. His body ached but he felt the short rest had abundantly refueled his strength as he pushed his way across the sandy path until he could feel the cool water sloshing against his n*** ankles.

The relic in his arms was set aside and he threaded loose strands from his temple. Slowly he sank to his knees beside the mermaid whose tail-fin rested in the waters. Silence hung in the air as they openly gazed at each other, warmth and wonder sparkling in their eyes, yet a small frown pinched Bucky’s brow as he remembered. “Where’ve you been? I called for you, I waited here for the past few days…You didn’t come.”

Guardingly her measures of restraint were balancing razor wire, as she quelled down a reactive throb knifing through her heart. The naked intensity of his grayish-aquamarine irises didn’t waver; raw heat of unshed tears was potent in throes of his anguished depths. The gravity of their harbored-unconquerable devotion seemed to be steeping with every new horizon-Bucky looked definitely vulnerable as he stood impassively on the shore’s porous edge, as the resurge of untamed hope feverishly seized his veins. With a deft stroke of her lithe palm, she grudgingly traced over the mass of scales that had melded into a tail-fin, repulsed by the physical absence of her alabaster toned legs.“Sorry for letting you down, handsome,” she finally returned, her gritted undertone hitching against a vehement seethe.“ I’m trying to figure all this out…” She lifted her hand out of water in a quick splash, gesturing to her cursive deformation. “I guess adapting to the damn water is all I have left and it’s not very thrilling…”

“Somehow I think I can imagine that,” he responded with a dry chuckle as she took in his soaked clothes and exhausted state. Inwardly, Bucky knew he couldn’t begin to understand what she was going through ever since this ordeal began to her—for both of them. What should’ve been a fun and generous vacation in Greece weeks ago had become a life-changing experience that saw them both forced to separate. The curse that enveloped her turned her into a creature that till now only existed in mythical texts and stories. Selina, his Selina, was a mermaid. A damn beautiful one at that, but unlike fairy tales, this wasn’t a happy outcome for either of them as he, her still very much human lover, could do nothing but stand on the sidelines and search hopelessly for a way to restore her.

Though they were divided by their place of habitat, their love kept them devoted and Bucky was determined to make it possible for them to be together again, as humans or merpeople.

“I know this hasn’t been easy for you, darlin’,” he said as he reached out to take her pale hand into his own. Oddly enough, her skin felt warm despite the fact she swam through the cold water more often than himself. He kissed the inside of her palm as she raised it to cup his face. He felt the warmth pouring off of her, calming his restless nerves so that he could continue. “It hasn’t been easy for me either, but you taught me that only the biggest score is worth fighting for.” Shifting on his knees, he reached over for the relic he’d recovered and brought it towards them. “Whether this works or not, I want you to know it won’t change a thing about how I feel about you.”

The last sconces of twilight gleamed over the steadiness of the water, captured in the fathoms as if liquid gold was being poured; with a shaky flex of her gliding thumb, she possessively traced over the full-bow of his sensuously wide lips, a phantom caress that seized his pulse, without a visage of hesitance stalling his restoked control, Bucky fiercely clasped his metallic fingers around her delicate wrist, as his arching lips bruised heady pressure over her knuckles, urgently tasting the saltiness of her pearlescent flesh, anchoring her to stay in his desperate reach. Within dueling seconds of lucidity, she became immobilized by the innate cadence of their nearing bodies, his supping lips slid feather-light over the edge of her curved palm while his teeth shivery grazed against ragged pants. “Buck-” She murmured breathlessly, closing her eyes to infinitely feel the aching reverence of his grounded devotion.

The huskiness of her voice delivered in a soothing whisper sent a pleasant shiver through Bucky’s body. His eyes closed slightly, taking in her unique scent of seaweed and jasmine that made everything feel fresh and savory. Her skin was like a warm blanket he was drawn to and he hopelessly wanted to be enveloped in her embrace. Time had stretched in the weeks since they had last been intimate, which made it seem more like months. The desperation and direness of their predicament made every moment restless and he couldn’t take the time to openly appreciate just how beautiful she was—as a woman, and a mermaid. His eyes opening, he caught her brown orbs glowing in the twilight of the setting sun. Enriched and enchanting, he was drawn towards her like a moth to the flame.

“You’re so beautiful, Selina Kyle. So much sometimes it scares me,” he smirked to convey a form of levity to his honest words. One of his free-hands held her hand in his while the other tender caressed her scaly hip. It was a mesmerizing experience as he felt the texture of her fin that reminded him of cool metal. The sapphire color blended with the water and yet somehow, appeared even more magical as the sun sank deeper into the horizon. Words failed him as he contemplated how to voice his approval of her new form, but the smoldering look in his eyes was enough of an indicator as he noted Selina looking at him with equal fervor. “You make one heckuva mermaid.” The distance between their lips slowly decreased, the tension of their intimate reunion was like a storm building and it would take only a slow tentative brush for lightning to crackle.

“Careful Barnes, don’t forget I can race with the sharks,” Selina quipped snarkily, her clashing senses raged to become abandoned at the space of heartbeat as she felt the virile softness of his edging lips increasingly ghost shivery heat over her angled jaw; she was blindingly falling back into the shushing waves, as he braced his bulked weight on his tauten forearms, aligning the length of his muscled calves with her tail-fin. A murmurous growl tantalizingly resonated from his depths-she was aware of his telltale surrender, feeling the extent of his unsated hunger readying to capture her lips with driving force of pure, unrepented heat. Nothing ebbed. She welcomed the delirious contrast of the cool water and the corded planes of his thickened chest shadowing fractionally over the ample swells of her garbed breasts. His metallic fingers drifted over the rigid scales, embracingly feeling the shifting mass that he would soon be weighed down with.

“Guess that makes me a lucky seal, huh,” he breathy quipped. And with that, his lips found hers at last, warm and fulfilling like entering a warm bed at home. It was soft and sweet at first, like two adolescents who were playfully exploring new territory, before it quickly grew heated. Breaths intermingled, minty and cool, lips feverishly hot as a dizzying passion overcame them. Their lips danced and overlapped in a familiar cadence that brought them closer together. Hands reached out and explored the planes of each other’s arms, shoulders and hair. Bucky smiled between their amorous exchange, boyish and full of life as he brought the mermaid into his lap. “C'mere.” He murmured. The added weight of her fin was oddly comfortable as he hugged her close and dipped her into another.

Shockingly the ardent urgency of his recapturing lips surged headier with every smooth thrust of his bristled jaw, there was no ease against warring tension between them, only a breakneck abandon that ignited a visceral beckoning as their swelled lips melded with throbbing paces challenge. The shifting glide of his robotic hand caressingly traced the sapphire-translucent fins-gracing the curvaceous mass, keeping her steady with intimate ease against the undercurrents stream-lining over them.

A breathless rush of pure heat solidified under the supplely cushioned pressure of his opened mouth as she intoxicatingly mirrored that heady pulse; starved desire was insatiably escalating with additive ferocity echoing with his throaty groans that chased her heartbeat.

Each rapturous tenor increasingly altered in unison, they became caught into the edge of the deepening kiss, through that unrelenting promise, unerringly Selina clung to his steeled embrace, registering the full heaviness of her tail-fin shifting against the rigid contours of his washboard abdomen underneath a soaked black shirt. Her lithe palm splayed over the broad curves of his shoulder, threading drenched-bladed tresses of his wolfish mane draped over his clenched jaw.

Aware of the bestial resilence in his flexing muscles on the verge of being unleashed, her widened tail-fin arced out of the water in reactive poise, Selina inherently braced her elbow into the seaweed coated sand as she arched into the heavy planes of his thickened chest, with blinding precision, his metallic fingers kneaded ravenously with spearing glide through drenched whorls of luscious mahogany, he palmed reverently over her graceful nape; that shivery caress induced evocative hunger beyond core restraint against bone-deep wanting.

Knowing the full extent- the sorcerous price of his heart, Bucky lifted his head fractionally, brunette tresses feathered the knife-edge curve of his bristled jaw, the aqueous depth of his glacial irises gleamed alight, a silver flame edged his dilated pupils-intense masculine ardor. “S'it’s been so damn long, kotenok…” The graveled rawness of his murmurous timbre had challengingly impelled her.“Hell, doesn’t matter now, we’re gonna strike this out, Lina…”

She didn’t want to deny that she craved for release from the sea-bound thralls. Evocatively, she urged the fusing-rhythmic variances of their joined bodies to implode, emitting a guttural snarl that stole her breath, his shapely lips slanted bruisingly over her lavish mouth, hungrily, Bucky changed the angle of the kiss with quenchless demand as the fervent duel ensued-raging through stowed heartache. She needed to live for one finite moment with him until dawn inescapably beckoned her back as he anchored her with invincible strength.

For Bucky, it was as if nothing had changed and everything was as right as it should be. Nothing mattered except this blissful familiarity, this closeness and bond with the woman he loved and there was nothing that would separate them. As their ravenous cadence continued with breathless enthusiasm, they were both dimly unaware of a presence in the sea. The normal lapping waves were disturbed by a fluctuating mass swooshing against the currents, sending a ripple effect across the shores. Bucky could sense nothing amiss, but he could sense Selina tense up in his arms and slowly cease her passionate exchange. “Lina? What’s wrong?” He asked her worriedly as he noticed a pensive look on her fair features. He brushed a curly strand from his face and caressed her cheek.

A portent suddenly rushed over them, shifting in the muscle strength of his arms with conscious reaction, Selina felt a cacophonous wake ascending, the rhythmic pulse of the bashing waves became turbulently violent as her dark coffee irises widened at the lucid ripples of ink teemingly jetting towards the shallow end of the vacant shore. Alarmingly, a deafening screech careened in spastic volume as she watched a shadowing mass of a colossal appendage-a writhing tentacle arcing to seize them into a choke-hold. The scarred width was unmistakably infused with suction cups ominously thrust out of the ocean depths and viperously coiled back above them; the intent to ensnare them was apparent. The rampant leakage of sludgy, odorous ink was making her tail-fin laden, she became arrested from mobility-cemented down.

“Buck-” She gasped in a breathless, gurgling pitch, blindingly forcing her lithe palms to deliver urgent momentum over the harden swell of his chest; pushing him away from her. The rancid miasma of decaying fish pervaded her nose, as she involuntarily quelled down the accelerated urge to vomit. “Get out of here…”

A creeping chill had ran down Bucky’s back the instant he detected the extent of Selina’s distress. It happened in the span of seconds, before the experienced soldier could react. He felt a violent force wrap itself around his neck; enormous and reeking of dead fish, it effortlessly yanked him off the ground and drag him across the sand. A choking gasp barely escaped him, his blue eyes wide with both shock and pain coursing through him. Selina remained on the shore, one of her hands reaching towards him while crying his name. He couldn’t find the breath nor strength to respond, his free hands struggled to pry the large unknown thing from his neck that sickeningly reminded him of an octopus tentacle. His instincts screamed at him to reach for his concealed knife tucked into his waist belt.

The roaring of waves deafened and large splashes of water crashed over him, obscuring his vision while an unearthly moan came from the seas. Bucky wrenched his knife from his holster and stabbed at the tentacle holding his neck. A roar bellowed and he suddenly found himself thrown violently against a rock. White hot pain crushed into his shoulder, his breath was robbed from his lungs and the world spun in a suffocating blur. “Se…lina…” He groaned searching for her with a dazed expression.

“I find it so amusing that mortals of the shore decide to penetrate domains that should not be left untouched by their gluttonous hands…” A malicious resonance of a discarnate feminine tone piercingly clashed over the disturbed shoreline; while jackknifing his torso off a heap of mushy sand to catch a resurge of breath, Bucky desperately punctured the snaking mass with a harsh traction of his brandishing knife gouging into the blackened scales. Geysers of ink spurted out, drenching his chestnut tresses hanging askew over his bruised temple, as he gnashed his teeth against unwavering ferocity invested in his reactive stabbing while he was being roped down to choke on his breath. “The price of that intrusion will demand your worthless blood to purge my treasure…”

“Claire?” Bucky said with a confused glare towards what appeared to be a feminine shape standing near the shore across from him. Though he was in an immense amount of pain, Bucky wasn’t disoriented enough that he didn’t recognize that familiar voice. Once the blur in his vision had sharpened into a clear focus, he could see the older everything much clearer now. Ever horrifying detail entered the forefront of his mind as he watched the older woman who he had thought to be a benign marine biologist and arcane enthusiast, reveal her true form. From the sea’s she emerged on a small tide-wave that never diminished in its force. It carried her as if she were commanding it. Her blonde hair glowed like fire in the twilight yet her once pale skin had become an unnatural cold blue.

And her eyes, her eyes were what unsettled him most. No longer the bright blue that would’ve charmed the hearts of even younger men, but now an amber hue that spelled danger for whoever she set her gaze upon. And currently, to Bucky’s chagrin, they were directed right at him. “What the hell is this?!” He demanded, feeling a surge of anger and confusion as he considered everything he’d been through today and what this woman…creature, had manipulated him into doing.

The stark measure of utter disdain was reflective in Bucky’s glacial aquamarine irises blazed gleamingly with unshed tears; the urgent extent of heartbreak was betrayed by her impeded tactics of deception. His shapely lips hung widely agape as he forced up heaves of breath, the constant eeling pressure of the swatching tentacle bruising his throat, he was temporarily a reluctant hostage to his damn vulnerability- the unbidden hope of being infinitely reunited with his enchanted kitten. The gravity of the extraction mission was a simple task; he recklessly followed her directions to an underwater cavern and snatched up the forbidden relic-he’d blindingly walked the wire of devotion, and now he was about to plunge into soul-deep thralls of a reckless defeat-the steepening price he couldn’t evade.

“You poor diluted fool,” She grinned sneeringly. “I needed mortal hands to retrieve Poseidon’s little treasure since you were so desirous to change for that beautiful siren over there,” she gestured a hand measuringly to Selina. “Well you didn’t disappoint me, and I am content for that, dear James, so beholden I will grant your wish…You desire to live forever in the sea with her, to surrender your humanity to the fathoms, then open your mouth wide and give it all to me…”

As Bucky listened to the sea-witch’s ramble, he had an inkling sense of peril. The way she spoke reminded him too much of an arrogant and cruel Trickster who believed humanity were nothing more than ants to be stepped on. The sting of her lies and betrayal was like a concealed knife going for the back. Every impulse inside of him told him to retrieve his knife, take Selina and get far away. But it wasn’t an option. Even if he could fend off this woman—this siren—he couldn’t get Selina away from the water without endangering her, and he wouldn’t leave her here either. That much he knew. Despite the aches in his body, he squared himself into a straight posture. He met Selina’s gaze not too far from him and did his utmost to reassure her with a tight smile.

“I’m not givin’ you anything’, lady.” He said up at her defiantly. “Whatever your name is. Something tells me you didn’t have me go through all this trouble to retrieve a rusted piece of junk unless it was for something worth lying over. If you were really willing to hold up your end of the deal, you could’ve just been up front instead of playin’ me.” He pointed out with grave tone. His metal hand lifted the relic into the air and contemplated his options.

“Buck-” Selina railed out, breath exploded from her lungs; a wet glide of errant tears dripped feverishly down the smoothness of her alabaster cheeks, the putrid ink was slathering over the scaled expanse of her laden tail-fin; with a desperate effort as she pinched her eyes, quickly, she flipped onto the taut planes of her bare abdomen; relenting against the sorcerous grip that was trying to immobilize her. The sliding momentum in the variants of her movements became sluggish, gravity was against her. Bracing her elbows over discarded kelp, she became crushingly aware of the sea-witch’s true intent—Bucky was being pinned down into the inevitable crosshairs. “Handsome, don’t you dare sell out yourself to her…”

“Arghhh…” Exploded from Bucky’s gaping throat in deafening volume as breath felt threaded; with bruising force, he was mercilessly pinned against sand, remnants of kelp flitted in the humid breeze as his drenched chestnut tresses messily webbed over his paling, bristled cheeks. The whirring pulse of his cybertronic arm faded out, a writhing tentacle plowed the shoreline, leaving a trail of blackish ink that spawned a parasitic odor.

A vicious flash of malevolence eerily illuminated over the hawkishly chiseled planes of her flawless ivory features, the hollowed lines of her jutting cheekbones etched into a ghoulish semblance that bespoke a devoid of mercy; the amber blaze of her glowering irises searchingly fixed on the disinterred relic Bucky heft up in the rigid clutch of his cybertronic hand. Sacrilege energy pulsated off the eroded casing, tendrils of rust sifted, revealing a golden shine beneath.

The wake of a dark conjuring had begun, Clarion felt the untapped power bestirring to become wielded. It was time to indulge a harvest of gorging mortal vitality, to eradicate the rapacious parasites that infected the ocean realm. The relic was one of the five beacons to open a cosmic gateway—to unleash a hellstorm of that would ravage the mortal world apart.

At the present moment, Clarion needed to remove her compliant, roguishly handsome thief from existence. She would use his heart’s desire against him—chasten him forever into the worthless throes of an undeserving curse. With a swift gesture of her scaled hand, the black tentacle lessened throbbing pressure over Bucky’s throat, giving him a chance to breathe.“It seems I have underestimated the price of your love towards your beloved mermaid, release my relic and I will stake my offer and make your pathetic wish become a reality to mirror a new existence with her… Isn’t that what you want, James, to trade off your strong legs for a useless fin?” she offered, tauntingly.

Once he had been released, Bucky had falling into a fit of choking coughs as his lungs struggled desperately grasp onto the much needed oxygen they’d been deprived of. His ears rang wildly and a pounding in his skull alerted him to an increase in blood-pressure and stress. Despite it all, his gaze never broke away from the sea-witch and towards Selina not too far from him who looked on with mild disbelief. He knew he should’ve told her the truth about what he had planned in that his mission wasn’t solely to find a means to reverse the curse placed on her, but to put it on himself as well. She would’ve never gone along with it, he knew. But now that she knew, he could only surmise that she knew who Claire really was all along and whatever it was he’d agreed to was bad news.

But he didn’t care about that. He had a mission, and that was to make sure they could have a life together, as humans or as merpeople. Once he felt able enough to speak, he stood tall and faced the sea-witch with conviction. “That was the deal. I got your treasure, and now give me mine. Either give Selina her humanity back, or make me like her.”

A terse growl tamped up her throat, with leashed poise not to blight him into oblivion, Clarion became repulsively aware of the rigged depth of his telltale heartache; he desired for his humanity to recede into her thralls-to become a wretched creature of the sea because of unabandoned love. Allowing vehemence to feed her decision of acceding his wish, her lips arced dauntingly. “Alright, I shall grant your pitiful wish, James, you want to share the fathoms with her, then be human no more…”

For a moment, Bucky stood puzzled by the suddenness of her acceptance. Time and again, he wondered if he was making the right decision in the face of a monumental choice. In his original time, having Steve beside him helped him to not only see a positive, but to also to keep himself from making rash decisions in the face of emotion. Deep down, he knew the decision he was about to make was one born not out of logic and intuition, but pure emotion. He loved Selina, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do to be with her again, as a man or a merman. Clarion in front of him had all the makings of a sinister villain, but he knew that to refuse her wouldn’t just ruin his chance at being with Selina again, but also make her an enemy that he couldn’t fight. Not like this.

“All right, I’ll give you want you want.” Bucky took cautious steps towards the sea-witch with the old jewelry case in hand that contained a necklace for all he knew. He felt her penetrating stare on him the way until he set the relic down on a rock no more than a few feet from her. The instant he did, he felt a cold chill seize him from head to toe, permeating both flesh and bone.

Feeling the pulsating aura generating from the discarded golden case that Bucky had flung at the breadth of her grounded feet, with a contented semblance of indulgence, Clarion welcomed the gravitic assonance of the sea-the Eye of Kronos was finally in her scavenging grasp to wield. Her lurid azure eyes chillingly blaze intensity of amethyst, as her lithe hand viciously scythed the air, ensuing an implosion of white-hot energy in the beckoning wake of her convergence- the resurrection of power; blindingly stealing Bucky’s vision as he dizzily collapsed on his knees in stilted mobility, seething out a bitten-off curse raggedly.

Not betraying her vindictive resolve to deliver a conjuring tumult in alacrity, she would be generous on bestowing him with his heart’s urgent demand-force Bucky to recognize the prevalent cost of his failure once his defiant spirit was inexorably seized into a new vessel of worthless existence. Unnervingly, gazing at Bucky’s feral visage, chiseled, broad planes of his youthful features honed like a knife-edge, as he jutted his stubbled jaw aggressively. He definitely reeked of masculine vitality and warrior elegance, his mesmeric grayish-aquamarine irises alighted stormily like cold steel under disheveled, lengthy tresses draped over the heaviness of his cleft chin-he was on the hairbreadth of restraint.

It was time to strafe off that innate sensuous beauty -evict the bestial-tenacious strength he fiercely harnessed that infused the sculpted contours and sheathed tautness of his bulked mass. A merman form was too rewarding for him; Clarion wanted him to become conquered into a morphic onslaught of defeat-watching every corded expanse of resilient muscle exponentially dissolve into a blubbery slug of listless pudge-he would never embrace his gorgeously beloved lover-mermaid- with tempestuous intimacy.

Smirking wickedly, with smooth ease of her hand, she began uttering in a Greek resonance.“Απαλλάξτε την ανθρωπότητα του James Barnes, δώστε του μια φωνή της θάλασσας που μόνο η σειρήνα του θα ακούσει … Συσσωματώστε τη σάρκα σε γούνα, τον κάνει να φουσκώνει μέχρι να ξεθωριάσει ο προβληματισμός του …(Divest the humanity of James Barnes, give him a voice of the sea that only his siren will hear…Merge flesh into fur, make him bloat until his reflection fades…)”

“W-What’s going on…” Bucky shuddered, unable to shake the sudden onslaught of something cold and sickly permeating him from head-to-toe. Every fiber of his being felt invisibly tethered to the witch’s command. He knew to expect a change, but what he was feeling now was dread—a calm before the storm. Selina’s transformation was relatively benign and painless despite its shock, but what he was feeling was nothing short of encroaching agony. “W-What are you doing?” Bucky leveled a glare at Clarion who smirked down at him cruelly. It became increasingly harder to speak as a strangled groan escaped his lips. He felt as if his molars were being pulled from his jaws and his tongue was as dry as a desert, lacking the moisture to spew words. The pain was piercing and leveled his brain was a vicious migraine.

Static rang in his ears, deafening to the point he felt as if it were absorbing him totally with every sound that failed to escape him. His skin burned and the hair in his pores prickled like hot needles. He could only sink to his knees and cradle his face, feeling as if a weight on his cheeks was making him heavier. Through it all, Selina watched with open horror.

Bracing her palms into the damp trenches of sand with an urgent momentum of fluid grace, Selina keenly registered the squeaky gnarling that emitted against his clenched teeth; visible ribbons of crimson streaked down his expanding neck as he feverishly slayed his clutched palm over the bulging mass sagging underneath his stubbled chin. The nauseous stench of putrid fish grew in rancid potency against the harrowing wake of the spell cast. A helium-induced squeak disturbingly emitted out of his depths when his quivery lips stretched agape, revealing spiked incisor fangs. With a launching thrust of her arced tail-fin, while dragging her svelte weight in a rushing glide, she effectively gained enough unimpeded traction to reach his side only to alarmingly reel back when a nacreous tendril of bluish energy impaled through her core, arresting her breath as she gasped out his name. “Buck-”

A quake of anxiety shook Bucky’s body, bringing him onto his back while the world spun in a blurry maze of colors too fast to distinguish. Nausea followed, so demanding he felt his breathing constrict and the urge to vomit became unshakeable. He rolled onto his stomach, releasing a bellowing cry of agony once a throbbing pain in his gut protested the sudden move. His free-hand unconsciously cradled his aching waist which revealed a horrifying revelation by the swelled protrusion of an expanding belly. “W-What?” He panted in shock. What was happening to him? What was that witch doing to him? “S-S-Selina…” He groaned, tears gathering in his unblinking eyes that finally closed tightly as if they were being stitched shut. He could hear her cry out for him, so far away and unreachable.

The struggle to speak became an unwinnable battle as his throat closed up; a swelling forming on his larynx that made each sound he made come out in the form of a squeak. An inhuman noise that one would expect from an animal. His eyes snapped open immediately as he felt every nerve and bone in his body tremble uncontrollably with convulsions. He wanted to scream, he wanted to lash out in any way that could make the pain stop. Pain was an old friend, but his mind could only fathom the horror of what was happening to him as he watched his fingers and hands mold into a foreign shape. Along with his skin, the hot needling sensation turned into an insufferable itching as fur sprouted from his pores.

Contractive pressure in the width expanse of his protracting stomach evoked a frantic resonance of his guttural squeaks to increased with raw anguish torturously ushering unwarranted dread to arrow into her irate heart, Selina instinctively lurched back as her dark irises chased the evident deformation of his rigid fingers sickeningly melding into a furry glob of chestnut that unmistakably reshaped into a jutted flipper. Dewy hooked claws extracted out from Bucky’s flattened digits in sync as the curved expanse of his muscled forearm began to rapidly contract into the outstretched material of his tearing black shirt.

The corded length of Bucky’s powerful calves became stubbed under vaporous arcs of mythic energy; as dislocated bones in his feet liquefied into a sludgy ooze, melting flesh blackened into a finned appendix that was shockingly akin to seal’s tail-fin. He no longer had legs to bridge the heaviness of his fattened bulk up. He felt boneless like a glop of jelly; as he became atrophied on his back.

Clamorous panic racked through his rubbery folds of dark fur in rapid fruition. Reality crushed him with force of a sledgehammer, his unkempt wolfish tresses were being sheared off his skull-he felt powerless-immobilized against threads of sanity. His blearing gaze clashed with Selina’s teary coffee irises that disarmingly echoed stark agony that she couldn’t bridle down with a measure of restraint.“S'just make it stop…” he cried out with shuddery pants, despairingly feeling his pointed fangs gouge into the deformed swell of his puckering lip. “I don’t wanna be this…”

A sulfuric raze of odor wavered nauseously around him which evoked a slosh of bile to mount in his flabby throat. The defined edges of his graven features became sheathed with furry layers of chestnut. He felt the taut ridges of his abdomen swell disgustingly outwards in expanding mass; that only stemmed his banking alarm-he was inevitably morphing into a squeaky tub of unpalpable blubber. “Grah…”

Thunderous concussive echoes hammered in his ears, a rush of wet heat trekked down the pudgy thickness of his cheeks as his straining abdomen continued to balloon into a rounded-overlapped expanse of lumpy flab. Rearing his head up, grimacingly with a sluggish tilt of his bulgy jaw, his glacial aqueous depths enlarged in telltale reaction to hysteric intensity against the latent heaviness possessing over him. Nothing abated in those painstaking moments as Selina watched him thrash his obese mass erratically, his thickening back suddenly jackknifed off the ground, he feverishly released a shredded growl, underlying his morphic rebellion in high-pitched volume. “Hrghh…”

The pain and shock led him adrift on a sea of denial, making Bucky wonder and hope that he was caught in the midst of a nightmare that would soon wake up form. But deep down he knew that reality and the world they lived in could be cruel. The changes he was aware of confirmed his initial thought that Clarion had screwed him over and he wasn’t being turned into a merman. He wouldn’t be swimming on the high-seas with Selina beside him, starting a new beginning together where nothing and no one could drive them apart. Instead, he would be a burden, too fat and furry for his beautiful kitten to love. His growing mass made him feel like an immovable block of concrete on the sandy shore, so damn heavy not even the tides could pull him in.

His legs, like his hands, had melded together into a blob of wet fur. His clothes had long since tore from his increasing mass, leaving him as nothing more but a naked ball of furry fat. His facial muscles twisted into something he couldn’t see, but from his nose he could spot long whiskers sprouting from his snout. A snout…He was a seal. He didn’t need to look in the mirror to be aware of the horrifying fact. Slowly, the pain in his body diminished until he was left in a blimped heap of exhaustion and unbridled panic. “I-I'm…I'm…”

“You’re a mortal spirit is now entombed within a fatten slug that prowls the borders of your diseased surface world …” Clarion remarked mockingly, narrowing her raved gaze down at the overly plump male harp’s glacial orbs widened as unprecedented dread assailed over Bucky, feigning despondence; he ashamedly shadowed his pudgy, whiskered muzzle with a stubby flipper, incoherently emitting out a high-pitched squeak while his fanged mouth drooped agape into a bewildered gasp.

With errant glide of tears streaking his pudgy muzzle, Bucky didn’t want to gaze at his damned reflection captured in the cresting waves that bashed against his slacken pudge as dark currents of ink dissipated underneath his dormant weight. She had gunned him down with a calamitous scourge as if the curse was a warranted penance of his mortal sins.

Clumsily lurching back on his clawed-flippers, Bucky felt like deadweight, it took a forced effort to shift the flabbing mounds of his brunette-slivery fur as the last remnants of his torn clothing peeled off the expanse of his girth. His vision became detached against a blear of welling tears as Clarion registered a telltale whimpery sniff before the bloated harp dismally pinched his eyes shut, feeling speared by the azoic force of unbidden heartache-defeat beyond measure.

In that stalled moment of her sepic tolerance, as she proceeded to retake the arcane relic off the mortal border, Clarion raked her viperous azure depths repulsively over the pudgy rolls of chestnut shaping over his bulbous girth that indistinguishably morphed him into a hefty sea beast-he was another ravaged soul that she deceptively roped down into throes of a befallen-damnable curse. “I never give you wretched mortals what you desire from the sea,” she hissed in a scathing pitch, her eyes flashed luridly with demonic hunger. She extended her hand, commanding a worming tentacle to seize her disinterred relic.“Not to worry, dear James, you’ll have a plentiful life in fathoms…Soon you’ll only relish about chasing fish instead of your beautiful love…”

The condemnation of Clarion’s words crushed Bucky like a ton of bricks as he squeaked, tossed and turned on the wet sand. He tried to stand and face the evil witch down, but his body no longer possessed poseable legs for him to manage such a feat. The feeling was like phantom limbs that were no longer there. Inwardly, he screamed in both distress and fury. The sounds he emitted were torturous and inhumane. His hands lashed out and he was mortified by the sight of short dark fins. No longer were they the appendages of metal and flesh that pulsed with strength. He was a harp-seal, nothing more than an enormous tub of fat and wet fur, and most alarming was that he was completely vulnerable beneath the evil witch’s stare.

“This isn’t over.” He sneered at her once he managed to roll over onto his belly. His nerves were filled with panic and he could either cry in despair or yell in anger. The latter was more preferable. “I won’t quit…Can’t.” He watched as Clarion’s body morphed until her tentacles vanished and her blue flesh took on a more human-like tone. She walked across the sand towards the rock where the relic was left, ignoring him completely as she retrieved it.

“Oh really,” Clarion snickered tauntingly, glaring at the fattened harp arch sluggishly on his swollen girth for headlong traction in his dormant momentum; within a fringe of a second, his stubby flipper desperately stretched with reaching intent for the abandoned relic that was in the heap of his shredded clothing. Bucky wouldn’t give her the victorious luxury of shackling his hellbent spirit into an oversized blubbery slug. In a vehement reaction, she propelled her barefoot in dragging motion, and viciously forced a haze of sand towards his muzzle, half-blinding him as he feverishly squeaked against the piercing sting-obstructing his resolve.“You honestly think that you can subdue my curse, I divested your reckless humanity…Dare to cross me again, dear James, and I’ll strip away your voice…”

Bucky said nothing, his sight and mouth obscured by the sand that was kicked in his face. He felt weak and pummeled. It brought back memories of his childhood when he was still too young to stand up to bullies and fight back. The fight inside of him still burned like a hot flame. But his body was as numb as ice. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. He could do nothing but watch as Clarion turned her back and carried the relic with her towards the sea. Her prize and victory trophy. The silence that hung over the area like a smothering pillow, was lifted and the noise of waves crashing against the beach rang loudly in Bucky’s ears. Clarion had left him to his fate. A defeated soldier, a defeated man—twisted and morphed into a repugnant sea-mammal that could never hope to be loved.

Not by someone so beautiful as Selina Kyle.

“Selina…” He squeaked into the sand, immoveable and lifeless as he watched the waves. He could sense someone approaching until a small shadow hovered over him.

With a caustic slide against the roughened sand, bracing her elbows for measured traction, undeviatingly against gritted teeth, Selina utilized remnants of her core strength;closing distance between the crestfallen male harp. The heaviness of her tail-fin weighed her down, the sulphuric air felt compressive as her svelte form locked into a planking stance, feeling a telltale contrast infuse against the sleek-bare contours of her curvaceous abdomen as she effectively arched herself inches off the ground, dragging her mid-drift over a heap of his discarded clothes. “Hold on, James…” she heaved out, breathlessly, gazing down at slacken rolls cushioning his blubbery side as he remained sulkily impassive on his bloated girth. Her lithe palm reached fractionally to grace his flipper that curved over his jutted muzzle, caressingly as he subtly quaked under her tentative strokes, imploring him into a grounded wake of steadiness.

“No…No. Stay away!” A harsh squeal emitted from the seal’s muzzle. Somehow the mermaid was able to sense the pain and anguish in the sound. His voice wasn’t the soft baritone with a silky Brooklyn drawl that could calm her nerves. Not anymore. The scratchiness of his words was stifling and hard to grasp. Bucky shuddered beneath the chill of anxiety creeping through his veins. His mind, unable to comprehend and accept the changes, tried fruitlessly to will his body to its command. Nothing worked, he couldn’t sit-up like a normal human with a poseable spine, he couldn’t push-himself up with hands that were no longer there. He couldn’t even roll over to look at his surroundings! Agitation and creeping stress clawed at him and the seal couldn’t contain the cry of agony that ripped from his throat.

“GRAAAH!” He wailed, but the sound that pierced the airwaves was of a howling animal that startled the seagulls off the shore of the beach. He could feel Selina lingering beside him, unsure of what to do as she tried to calm him down.

The knifing volume of his aggressive, guttural squeaks felt deafeningly akin to a sub-machine gun firing a continuous fusillade of bullets that riddled through her heart, cutting her deep until breath was arrested out of her. Lurching back in deft reaction against the raging cadence that morphed into a raw gnarl that resonated like heartache, Selina felt a blearing rush of tears edging for release as her liquid coffee irises gazed down at the underswell of his furred girth disturbingly increasing in width-he was fattening up to a listless extent of immobilization. The sea-witch had slingshot his humanity out of existence; his grip on reality was dissected into splintering anguish.

Keeping her curved palm anchored on his palpitating side, her dainty fingers drifted over rubbery mounds of plump flab, until she eased a flipper off his scrunching muzzle, gleamingly staring into the glacial aquamarine orbs beginning to darken into a soulless pitch of black. She was losing him-she had to enkindle his stoked defiance. “Don’t think for a second that I’m leaving you to dance alone, handsome,” she fiercely murmured, her palm tensing under the nick of his whiskers. “The damn curse doesn’t own you…”

Selina’s words ghosted over him like a warm blanket, but he couldn’t bring himself to be enveloped in its comfort. His hands…fins, trailed down the expanse of his enormous stomach, feeling nothing but sickening fat and wet fur. He was a beast, a fat and pathetic tub of meat that people would find amusing if not repugnant. Anger and hate festered inside of him, towards Clarion for doing this to him, but most of all towards himself for falling for her tricks, and preying on his desperation to save the woman he loves. The same woman who was trying get him off his fat-ass and not sink into the depths of despair. Bucky grunted and tried to shift away from her touch, finding himself unworthy of it. He was hideous; neither a merman nor human. How could she love him?

“How can you even look at me, Lina?” He squeaked as his black eyes gazed up at her. Her elf-like beauty caused his heart to swell. With both longing and heartache as fear of being forever separated, forever different, occurred to him. “I’m not Bucky anymore…I’m nothing.”

It was too damn obvious that Clarion’s soul-ravaging witchery was riding him into a vacuum of unbidden hopelessness, Bucky was on the verge of accepting his blighted fate, instead of abandoning him to choke on his tears, with fluid grace, Selina aligned her lithesome body against the rotund expanse of his laden-cushy form, sensing his vulnerability through sobs racking through him-nothing could be quashed down.

The unevaded connection became intimately snug as if she was sinking into an overlarge marshmallow as roiling waves lapped over their tail-fins. She embraced her capturing arm over his girth, holding him with unshakeable control. The fusing variation of their damned aquatic forms felt viscerally natural to the limits of their devotion. Lifting her hand to his muzzle with unerring intent, her thumb glided shakily over the jutted curve of his fanged mouth, tracing the sensuous bow-shape that with unfeigned reverence. “We’re going to fight this together, Buck, ” she whispered, promisingly, securing the heaviness of his blubbery mass close. “…if there’s a relic out that can change you back, we’ll find it.”

“T-T-T-Together…” Blearily, Bucky fathomed the hopeful intent in her words. The longer he laid immobile, he felt as if he were sinking into an abyss of ignorance and confusion. The world was a blur and the suffocating plume of Clarion’s magic hung in the area surrounding him. He felt dry, burdened and vulnerable in a way a soldier would in an opened-space where anyone could take a shot at him. He needed to…He needed… “Can we?” He questioned, feeling a wet trail of emotion pour down his furry cheeks. He wanted to give in, allow the despair to fully engulf him until he forgot everything and everyone. But the moment he felt her hand lovingly caress his mouth, everything became so much more clear—so much more hopeful. “Lina…” He sniffed, nuzzling her hand affectionately.

“The sea…it…its calling me.” He squeaked. The hairs on his body rose on end as if he were being attracted by a magnet. His weary eyes gazed at the horizon and the calm waters that looked as welcoming as a warm-bed.

Tactilely Selina’s fingers kneaded over his sheathing mounds blubber as the amber sconces of the fading horizon became capture in the rapturous waves that clashed against them, beckoning for her to usher him into the ocean fathoms-an isolated sanctuary away from the undercurrents that she had recently discovered while venturing pass barrier reefs; the surging need to return couldn’t be evicted.

They were both conditioned-lethal fighters who dared to breach the shadows; instrumentally fashioned by traumatic depravity that chastised their souls into throes of unforgiving pasts-explosive validity ran bone-deep like acid poured in a keg of diesel waiting for a lilt match to fall. Maybe they were free of being masquerading phantoms-Bucky’s voluntarily choice to surrender his humanity revealed an unbreakable promise of undying love.

He gave everything up to be with her in the sea, even if he now existed in the visage menacingly chubby harp; he was still her handsomely suave beast-machine, that would never change. They were inextricably bound together in the elements of land and sea. Heartbreakingly, Bucky’s throated squeaks drew up gravelly low as he steered his reluctant gaze achingly towards the clear sea-a different plane of existence to cross over.

The pressure of the sloshing waves had increasingly shifted with sonic echoes of a nearing storm- the intensity of distant lightning forked through darkened clouds, as Bucky’s shaded orbs arrested the spastic flashes, piercing light of voltaic azure gleamed mesmerizing with bestial heat-shivery lancing through her as prevailing hope escalated. He didn’t fully morph-his fighting spirit was anchored to a harbor of their humanity. Banishing all wage of her uncertainty, Selina gave him a breathless, watery smile, as her finger ghosted over his muzzle.

“Let’s get out of here, shall we, seal-boy” she purred sultrily with a kittenish play of a coy quirk tugging effortlessly on her burgundy lips,“Sticking around might call some unpleasant company to appreciate your chubby ass, and handsome,” Her dark irises flashed teasingly down at the swelled-out mounds of blubbery flab.“You’ve got a big ass move…”

The playful familiarity of Selina’s words was like a warm balm that Bucky felt soothe his very soul as he wrinkled his nose and gently nuzzled her shoulder affectionately. It was strange, but somehow natural in the sense he no longer had poseable lips. The dread in his stomach ebbed as he noticed the tender smile on her face as she then lovingly caressed his cheek. “Can’t argue with that, darlin’. Can’t say I’m looking forward to being a fat beach-seal. But as long as you’re my swimming-partner, I’d say its worth the ride.” It was truth, no matter which way things turned out.

He had been willing to sacrifice his own humanity if it meant they could share a life together as the same life-forms, but instead a much different and punishing form had been forced onto him. Fate or whatever power was at work in the world continued to throw life-changing obstacles in their way and somehow, they would find themselves past them and come out stronger. They had to. Hope was an ideal that Bucky latched onto, despite all the pain and suffering he’d endured in his life-time. It wasn’t just something he chose to accept, it was gifted to him by those he relied on most. Selina was his hope, his anchor to the man he used to be—the man he still could be.

For that, he would follow her anywhere. Love could take them above and beyond, and as the harp seal and the mermaid slowly waddled their way into the gentle tides of the sea, they never felt alone nor lost.

Completed: {August 25th 2018}

[nicksstoryvault]

Bucky panted heavily, his lungs aching as they took in precious oxygen that his brain needed to keep him focused. The world was a blur of washed colors as the sun shifted closer to twilight. The cawing of seagulls echoed in the winds, while the raging tides roared against the shores of the beach he had taken himself to. The muddy relic in his arms was held tight against his chest, the prize and summation of his agonizing trip into the underwater cave beneath the island he stood on. He would always think twice now about ocean trenches whenever he took a swim in hopes of finding lost treasure. The greatest treasure in the world was in his grasp and now, all he had to do was deliver it to the sea mage that had bargained for it. Despite how tired he felt, how heavy his wet clothes made him feel, he slowly crawled his way onto the rocks on the beach. He was thankfully for the flat surface that made a bed for him to lie on.

"I did it...I really did it." He chuckled heartily at his victory. There was a time when his thoughts would've been consumed with the idea of a lot of cash falling into his hands for such a discovery. Now, the only reward he could fathom and want was in the form of a elf-like beauty with mahogany colored locks and eyes, as brown as sweet chocolate, and a fin made of scaled sapphires. "Selina..." He whispered out to her, his tired gaze focusing in on the shores and watching as a shapely form began to swim its way towards him.

Propelling herself with deft grace in her fueled momentum against the undercurrents that rushed over the sleekness of her alabaster flesh; Selina advanced towards harboring shore that anchored her back to him, gleams of distant sunlight became captured in the roiling waves. Forthing eddies formed over the toned curves of her svelte waist as waves broke against her.

With every measured stroke of her arms, Selina reached closer, inexplicably drawn to the beckoning—visceral call of her name resonating achingly in the graveled huskiness of his deep timbre—desperation chased those rampant echoes. The lush swell of her crimson lips parted as salty water glazed over her tongue, as she arched her tail-fin beautifully high out of the fathoms, the incandescent scaled width eclipsed the delicate planes of her back, droplets cascading tantalizingly over feminine curves and the material of her light-blue sports bra in alluring contrast—truly a siren incarnate of the sea.

Standing impassively on the edge of the shore with steeled resilence, Bucky grounded his footing, his gray cargo shorts that fitted dangerously over thickened ridges and corded-muscles of the solid length of his thighs were drenched. His wary countenance was a stark variant of the daunting-wolfish menace of her beast machine; under the shadowing brim of his baseball cap, the hard-edge planes of his hawkish features were set into a telltale grimace, conveying infinite heartache he stubbornly leashed back. He appeared desirous-crestfallen to the potency of his unslaked desire of caging her into the passionate embrace of his shielding arms, holding her until the rise of daybreak. It was the inexorable division of their world-the cadence of their souls raged for closeness while the elements of the morphic curse towed her away from him.

Breaching the shallow end of the shore, her jeweled coffee irises clashed with his grayish-aquamarine as their gazes mirrored tellingly in flash of raw -irrepressible heat through his lengthy dark tresses webbed askew over the heaviness of his stubble jaw-they couldn't wait any longer. Letting a seize of desire ride through her veins, Selina quickly braced her lithesome form against a rock's smooth edge, temptingly challenging him to chase her in the shushing waves. "Are you coming to join me, handsome..." she purred sultrily, arching her back to expose the slight graven planes of her delectable, curvaceous waist that shimmered with a matrix of incandescent turquoise scales. "Come on, Barnes, don't be shy..."

"Selina…" A joyous grin spread across Bucky's lips and his eyes lit up like stars as he set his gaze on the radiant beauty he'd been searching for. Life had become much brighter since the day they first met. His love for discovering lost treasures had become second now that he'd found the one thing in life he thought would always elude him. It was a frightening thought, one he scarcely allowed himself to think over, but with the sea angel that wait for him by the shore, it was a risk he felt worth taking. "Its so good to see you," he said as he brought himself to roll off the rock he'd been laying on. His body ached but he felt the short rest had abundantly refueled his strength as he pushed his way across the sandy path until he could feel the cool water sloshing against his n*** ankles.

The relic in his arms was set aside and he threaded loose strands from his temple. Slowly he sank to his knees beside the mermaid whose tail-fin rested in the waters. Silence hung in the air as they openly gazed at each other, warmth and wonder sparkling in their eyes, yet a small frown pinched Bucky's brow as he remembered. "Where've you been? I called for you, I waited here for the past few days…You didn't come."

Guardingly her measures of restraint were balancing razor wire, as she quelled down a reactive throb knifing through her heart. The naked intensity of his grayish-aquamarine irises didn't waver; raw heat of unshed tears was potent in throes of his anguished depths. The gravity of their harbored-unconquerable devotion seemed to be steeping with every new horizon-Bucky looked definitely vulnerable as he stood impassively on the shore's porous edge, as the resurge of untamed hope feverishly seized his veins. With a deft stroke of her lithe palm, she grudgingly traced over the mass of scales that had melded into a tail-fin, repulsed by the physical absence of her alabaster toned legs."Sorry for letting you down, handsome," she finally returned, her gritted undertone hitching against a vehement seethe." I'm trying to figure all this out..." She lifted her hand out of water in a quick splash, gesturing to her cursive deformation. "I guess adapting to the damn water is all I have left and it's not very thrilling..."

"Somehow I think I can imagine that," he responded with a dry chuckle as she took in his soaked clothes and exhausted state. Inwardly, Bucky knew he couldn't begin to understand what she was going through ever since this ordeal began to her—for both of them. What should've been a fun and generous vacation in Greece weeks ago had become a life-changing experience that saw them both forced to separate. The curse that enveloped her turned her into a creature that till now only existed in mythical texts and stories. Selina, his Selina, was a mermaid. A damn beautiful one at that, but unlike fairy tales, this wasn't a happy outcome for either of them as he, her still very much human lover, could do nothing but stand on the sidelines and search hopelessly for a way to restore her.

Though they were divided by their place of habitat, their love kept them devoted and Bucky was determined to make it possible for them to be together again, as humans or merpeople.

"I know this hasn't been easy for you, darlin'," he said as he reached out to take her pale hand into his own. Oddly enough, her skin felt warm despite the fact she swam through the cold water more often than himself. He kissed the inside of her palm as she raised it to cup his face. He felt the warmth pouring off of her, calming his restless nerves so that he could continue. "It hasn't been easy for me either, but you taught me that only the biggest score is worth fighting for." Shifting on his knees, he reached over for the relic he'd recovered and brought it towards them. "Whether this works or not, I want you to know it won't change a thing about how I feel about you."

The last sconces of twilight gleamed over the steadiness of the water, captured in the fathoms as if liquid gold was being poured; with a shaky flex of her gliding thumb, she possessively traced over the full-bow of his sensuously wide lips, a phantom caress that seized his pulse, without a visage of hesitance stalling his restoked control, Bucky fiercely clasped his metallic fingers around her delicate wrist, as his arching lips bruised heady pressure over her knuckles, urgently tasting the saltiness of her pearlescent flesh, anchoring her to stay in his desperate reach. Within dueling seconds of lucidity, she became immobilized by the innate cadence of their nearing bodies, his supping lips slid feather-light over the edge of her curved palm while his teeth shivery grazed against ragged pants. "Buck-" She murmured breathlessly, closing her eyes to infinitely feel the aching reverence of his grounded devotion.

The huskiness of her voice delivered in a soothing whisper sent a pleasant shiver through Bucky's body. His eyes closed slightly, taking in her unique scent of seaweed and jasmine that made everything feel fresh and savory. Her skin was like a warm blanket he was drawn to and he hopelessly wanted to be enveloped in her embrace. Time had stretched in the weeks since they had last been intimate, which made it seem more like months. The desperation and direness of their predicament made every moment restless and he couldn't take the time to openly appreciate just how beautiful she was—as a woman, and a mermaid. His eyes opening, he caught her brown orbs glowing in the twilight of the setting sun. Enriched and enchanting, he was drawn towards her like a moth to the flame.

"You're so beautiful, Selina Kyle. So much sometimes it scares me," he smirked to convey a form of levity to his honest words. One of his free-hands held her hand in his while the other tender caressed her scaly hip. It was a mesmerizing experience as he felt the texture of her fin that reminded him of cool metal. The sapphire color blended with the water and yet somehow, appeared even more magical as the sun sank deeper into the horizon. Words failed him as he contemplated how to voice his approval of her new form, but the smoldering look in his eyes was enough of an indicator as he noted Selina looking at him with equal fervor. "You make one heckuva mermaid." The distance between their lips slowly decreased, the tension of their intimate reunion was like a storm building and it would take only a slow tentative brush for lightning to crackle.

"Careful Barnes, don't forget I can race with the sharks," Selina quipped snarkily, her clashing senses raged to become abandoned at the space of heartbeat as she felt the virile softness of his edging lips increasingly ghost shivery heat over her angled jaw; she was blindingly falling back into the shushing waves, as he braced his bulked weight on his tauten forearms, aligning the length of his muscled calves with her tail-fin. A murmurous growl tantalizingly resonated from his depths-she was aware of his telltale surrender, feeling the extent of his unsated hunger readying to capture her lips with driving force of pure, unrepented heat. Nothing ebbed. She welcomed the delirious contrast of the cool water and the corded planes of his thickened chest shadowing fractionally over the ample swells of her garbed breasts. His metallic fingers drifted over the rigid scales, embracingly feeling the shifting mass that he would soon be weighed down with.

"Guess that makes me a lucky seal, huh," he breathy quipped. And with that, his lips found hers at last, warm and fulfilling like entering a warm bed at home. It was soft and sweet at first, like two adolescents who were playfully exploring new territory, before it quickly grew heated. Breaths intermingled, minty and cool, lips feverishly hot as a dizzying passion overcame them. Their lips danced and overlapped in a familiar cadence that brought them closer together. Hands reached out and explored the planes of each other's arms, shoulders and hair. Bucky smiled between their amorous exchange, boyish and full of life as he brought the mermaid into his lap. "C'mere." He murmured. The added weight of her fin was oddly comfortable as he hugged her close and dipped her into another.

Shockingly the ardent urgency of his recapturing lips surged headier with every smooth thrust of his bristled jaw, there was no ease against warring tension between them, only a breakneck abandon that ignited a visceral beckoning as their swelled lips melded with throbbing paces challenge. The shifting glide of his robotic hand caressingly traced the sapphire-translucent fins-gracing the curvaceous mass, keeping her steady with intimate ease against the undercurrents stream-lining over them.

A breathless rush of pure heat solidified under the supplely cushioned pressure of his opened mouth as she intoxicatingly mirrored that heady pulse; starved desire was insatiably escalating with additive ferocity echoing with his throaty groans that chased her heartbeat.

Each rapturous tenor increasingly altered in unison, they became caught into the edge of the deepening kiss, through that unrelenting promise, unerringly Selina clung to his steeled embrace, registering the full heaviness of her tail-fin shifting against the rigid contours of his washboard abdomen underneath a soaked black shirt. Her lithe palm splayed over the broad curves of his shoulder, threading drenched-bladed tresses of his wolfish mane draped over his clenched jaw.

Aware of the bestial resilence in his flexing muscles on the verge of being unleashed, her widened tail-fin arced out of the water in reactive poise, Selina inherently braced her elbow into the seaweed coated sand as she arched into the heavy planes of his thickened chest, with blinding precision, his metallic fingers kneaded ravenously with spearing glide through drenched whorls of luscious mahogany, he palmed reverently over her graceful nape; that shivery caress induced evocative hunger beyond core restraint against bone-deep wanting.

Knowing the full extent- the sorcerous price of his heart, Bucky lifted his head fractionally, brunette tresses feathered the knife-edge curve of his bristled jaw, the aqueous depth of his glacial irises gleamed alight, a silver flame edged his dilated pupils-intense masculine ardor. "S'it's been so damn long, kotenok..." The graveled rawness of his murmurous timbre had challengingly impelled her."Hell, doesn't matter now, we're gonna strike this out, Lina..."

She didn't want to deny that she craved for release from the sea-bound thralls. Evocatively, she urged the fusing-rhythmic variances of their joined bodies to implode, emitting a guttural snarl that stole her breath, his shapely lips slanted bruisingly over her lavish mouth, hungrily, Bucky changed the angle of the kiss with quenchless demand as the fervent duel ensued-raging through stowed heartache. She needed to live for one finite moment with him until dawn inescapably beckoned her back as he anchored her with invincible strength.

For Bucky, it was as if nothing had changed and everything was as right as it should be. Nothing mattered except this blissful familiarity, this closeness and bond with the woman he loved and there was nothing that would separate them. As their ravenous cadence continued with breathless enthusiasm, they were both dimly unaware of a presence in the sea. The normal lapping waves were disturbed by a fluctuating mass swooshing against the currents, sending a ripple effect across the shores. Bucky could sense nothing amiss, but he could sense Selina tense up in his arms and slowly cease her passionate exchange. "Lina? What's wrong?" He asked her worriedly as he noticed a pensive look on her fair features. He brushed a curly strand from his face and caressed her cheek.

A portent suddenly rushed over them, shifting in the muscle strength of his arms with conscious reaction, Selina felt a cacophonous wake ascending, the rhythmic pulse of the bashing waves became turbulently violent as her dark coffee irises widened at the lucid ripples of ink teemingly jetting towards the shallow end of the vacant shore. Alarmingly, a deafening screech careened in spastic volume as she watched a shadowing mass of a colossal appendage-a writhing tentacle arcing to seize them into a choke-hold. The scarred width was unmistakably infused with suction cups ominously thrust out of the ocean depths and viperously coiled back above them; the intent to ensnare them was apparent. The rampant leakage of sludgy, odorous ink was making her tail-fin laden, she became arrested from mobility-cemented down.

"Buck-" She gasped in a breathless, gurgling pitch, blindingly forcing her lithe palms to deliver urgent momentum over the harden swell of his chest; pushing him away from her. The rancid miasma of decaying fish pervaded her nose, as she involuntarily quelled down the accelerated urge to vomit. "Get out of here..."

A creeping chill had ran down Bucky's back the instant he detected the extent of Selina's distress. It happened in the span of seconds, before the experienced soldier could react. He felt a violent force wrap itself around his neck; enormous and reeking of dead fish, it effortlessly yanked him off the ground and drag him across the sand. A choking gasp barely escaped him, his blue eyes wide with both shock and pain coursing through him. Selina remained on the shore, one of her hands reaching towards him while crying his name. He couldn't find the breath nor strength to respond, his free hands struggled to pry the large unknown thing from his neck that sickeningly reminded him of an octopus tentacle. His instincts screamed at him to reach for his concealed knife tucked into his waist belt.

The roaring of waves deafened and large splashes of water crashed over him, obscuring his vision while an unearthly moan came from the seas. Bucky wrenched his knife from his holster and stabbed at the tentacle holding his neck. A roar bellowed and he suddenly found himself thrown violently against a rock. White hot pain crushed into his shoulder, his breath was robbed from his lungs and the world spun in a suffocating blur. "Se…lina…" He groaned searching for her with a dazed expression.

"I find it so amusing that mortals of the shore decide to penetrate domains that should not be left untouched by their gluttonous hands..." A malicious resonance of a discarnate feminine tone piercingly clashed over the disturbed shoreline; while jackknifing his torso off a heap of mushy sand to catch a resurge of breath, Bucky desperately punctured the snaking mass with a harsh traction of his brandishing knife gouging into the blackened scales. Geysers of ink spurted out, drenching his chestnut tresses hanging askew over his bruised temple, as he gnashed his teeth against unwavering ferocity invested in his reactive stabbing while he was being roped down to choke on his breath. "The price of that intrusion will demand your worthless blood to purge my treasure..."

"Claire?" Bucky said with a confused glare towards what appeared to be a feminine shape standing near the shore across from him. Though he was in an immense amount of pain, Bucky wasn't disoriented enough that he didn't recognize that familiar voice. Once the blur in his vision had sharpened into a clear focus, he could see the older everything much clearer now. Ever horrifying detail entered the forefront of his mind as he watched the older woman who he had thought to be a benign marine biologist and arcane enthusiast, reveal her true form. From the sea's she emerged on a small tide-wave that never diminished in its force. It carried her as if she were commanding it. Her blonde hair glowed like fire in the twilight yet her once pale skin had become an unnatural cold blue.

And her eyes, her eyes were what unsettled him most. No longer the bright blue that would've charmed the hearts of even younger men, but now an amber hue that spelled danger for whoever she set her gaze upon. And currently, to Bucky's chagrin, they were directed right at him. "What the hell is this?!" He demanded, feeling a surge of anger and confusion as he considered everything he'd been through today and what this woman…creature, had manipulated him into doing.

The stark measure of utter disdain was reflective in Bucky's glacial aquamarine irises blazed gleamingly with unshed tears; the urgent extent of heartbreak was betrayed by her impeded tactics of deception. His shapely lips hung widely agape as he forced up heaves of breath, the constant eeling pressure of the swatching tentacle bruising his throat, he was temporarily a reluctant hostage to his damn vulnerability- the unbidden hope of being infinitely reunited with his enchanted kitten. The gravity of the extraction mission was a simple task; he recklessly followed her directions to an underwater cavern and snatched up the forbidden relic-he'd blindingly walked the wire of devotion, and now he was about to plunge into soul-deep thralls of a reckless defeat-the steepening price he couldn't evade.

"You poor diluted fool," She grinned sneeringly. "I needed mortal hands to retrieve Poseidon's little treasure since you were so desirous to change for that beautiful siren over there," she gestured a hand measuringly to Selina. "Well you didn't disappoint me, and I am content for that, dear James, so beholden I will grant your wish...You desire to live forever in the sea with her, to surrender your humanity to the fathoms, then open your mouth wide and give it all to me..."

As Bucky listened to the sea-witch's ramble, he had an inkling sense of peril. The way she spoke reminded him too much of an arrogant and cruel Trickster who believed humanity were nothing more than ants to be stepped on. The sting of her lies and betrayal was like a concealed knife going for the back. Every impulse inside of him told him to retrieve his knife, take Selina and get far away. But it wasn't an option. Even if he could fend off this woman—this siren—he couldn't get Selina away from the water without endangering her, and he wouldn't leave her here either. That much he knew. Despite the aches in his body, he squared himself into a straight posture. He met Selina's gaze not too far from him and did his utmost to reassure her with a tight smile.

"I'm not givin' you anything', lady." He said up at her defiantly. "Whatever your name is. Something tells me you didn't have me go through all this trouble to retrieve a rusted piece of junk unless it was for something worth lying over. If you were really willing to hold up your end of the deal, you could've just been up front instead of playin' me." He pointed out with grave tone. His metal hand lifted the relic into the air and contemplated his options.

"Buck-" Selina railed out, breath exploded from her lungs; a wet glide of errant tears dripped feverishly down the smoothness of her alabaster cheeks, the putrid ink was slathering over the scaled expanse of her laden tail-fin; with a desperate effort as she pinched her eyes, quickly, she flipped onto the taut planes of her bare abdomen; relenting against the sorcerous grip that was trying to immobilize her. The sliding momentum in the variants of her movements became sluggish, gravity was against her. Bracing her elbows over discarded kelp, she became crushingly aware of the sea-witch's true intent—Bucky was being pinned down into the inevitable crosshairs. "Handsome, don't you dare sell out yourself to her..."

"Arghhh..." Exploded from Bucky's gaping throat in deafening volume as breath felt threaded; with bruising force, he was mercilessly pinned against sand, remnants of kelp flitted in the humid breeze as his drenched chestnut tresses messily webbed over his paling, bristled cheeks. The whirring pulse of his cybertronic arm faded out, a writhing tentacle plowed the shoreline, leaving a trail of blackish ink that spawned a parasitic odor.

A vicious flash of malevolence eerily illuminated over the hawkishly chiseled planes of her flawless ivory features, the hollowed lines of her jutting cheekbones etched into a ghoulish semblance that bespoke a devoid of mercy; the amber blaze of her glowering irises searchingly fixed on the disinterred relic Bucky heft up in the rigid clutch of his cybertronic hand. Sacrilege energy pulsated off the eroded casing, tendrils of rust sifted, revealing a golden shine beneath.

The wake of a dark conjuring had begun, Clarion felt the untapped power bestirring to become wielded. It was time to indulge a harvest of gorging mortal vitality, to eradicate the rapacious parasites that infected the ocean realm. The relic was one of the five beacons to open a cosmic gateway—to unleash a hellstorm of that would ravage the mortal world apart.

At the present moment, Clarion needed to remove her compliant, roguishly handsome thief from existence. She would use his heart's desire against him—chasten him forever into the worthless throes of an undeserving curse. With a swift gesture of her scaled hand, the black tentacle lessened throbbing pressure over Bucky's throat, giving him a chance to breathe."It seems I have underestimated the price of your love towards your beloved mermaid, release my relic and I will stake my offer and make your pathetic wish become a reality to mirror a new existence with her... Isn't that what you want, James, to trade off your strong legs for a useless fin?" she offered, tauntingly.

Once he had been released, Bucky had falling into a fit of choking coughs as his lungs struggled desperately grasp onto the much needed oxygen they'd been deprived of. His ears rang wildly and a pounding in his skull alerted him to an increase in blood-pressure and stress. Despite it all, his gaze never broke away from the sea-witch and towards Selina not too far from him who looked on with mild disbelief. He knew he should've told her the truth about what he had planned in that his mission wasn't solely to find a means to reverse the curse placed on her, but to put it on himself as well. She would've never gone along with it, he knew. But now that she knew, he could only surmise that she knew who Claire really was all along and whatever it was he'd agreed to was bad news.

But he didn't care about that. He had a mission, and that was to make sure they could have a life together, as humans or as merpeople. Once he felt able enough to speak, he stood tall and faced the sea-witch with conviction. "That was the deal. I got your treasure, and now give me mine. Either give Selina her humanity back, or make me like her."

A terse growl tamped up her throat, with leashed poise not to blight him into oblivion, Clarion became repulsively aware of the rigged depth of his telltale heartache; he desired for his humanity to recede into her thralls-to become a wretched creature of the sea because of unabandoned love. Allowing vehemence to feed her decision of acceding his wish, her lips arced dauntingly. "Alright, I shall grant your pitiful wish, James, you want to share the fathoms with her, then be human no more..."

For a moment, Bucky stood puzzled by the suddenness of her acceptance. Time and again, he wondered if he was making the right decision in the face of a monumental choice. In his original time, having Steve beside him helped him to not only see a positive, but to also to keep himself from making rash decisions in the face of emotion. Deep down, he knew the decision he was about to make was one born not out of logic and intuition, but pure emotion. He loved Selina, and there was nothing he wouldn't do to be with her again, as a man or a merman. Clarion in front of him had all the makings of a sinister villain, but he knew that to refuse her wouldn't just ruin his chance at being with Selina again, but also make her an enemy that he couldn't fight. Not like this.

"All right, I'll give you want you want." Bucky took cautious steps towards the sea-witch with the old jewelry case in hand that contained a necklace for all he knew. He felt her penetrating stare on him the way until he set the relic down on a rock no more than a few feet from her. The instant he did, he felt a cold chill seize him from head to toe, permeating both flesh and bone.

Feeling the pulsating aura generating from the discarded golden case that Bucky had flung at the breadth of her grounded feet, with a contented semblance of indulgence, Clarion welcomed the gravitic assonance of the sea-the Eye of Kronos was finally in her scavenging grasp to wield. Her lurid azure eyes chillingly blaze intensity of amethyst, as her lithe hand viciously scythed the air, ensuing an implosion of white-hot energy in the beckoning wake of her convergence- the resurrection of power; blindingly stealing Bucky's vision as he dizzily collapsed on his knees in stilted mobility, seething out a bitten-off curse raggedly.

Not betraying her vindictive resolve to deliver a conjuring tumult in alacrity, she would be generous on bestowing him with his heart's urgent demand-force Bucky to recognize the prevalent cost of his failure once his defiant spirit was inexorably seized into a new vessel of worthless existence. Unnervingly, gazing at Bucky's feral visage, chiseled, broad planes of his youthful features honed like a knife-edge, as he jutted his stubbled jaw aggressively. He definitely reeked of masculine vitality and warrior elegance, his mesmeric grayish-aquamarine irises alighted stormily like cold steel under disheveled, lengthy tresses draped over the heaviness of his cleft chin-he was on the hairbreadth of restraint.

It was time to strafe off that innate sensuous beauty -evict the bestial-tenacious strength he fiercely harnessed that infused the sculpted contours and sheathed tautness of his bulked mass. A merman form was too rewarding for him; Clarion wanted him to become conquered into a morphic onslaught of defeat-watching every corded expanse of resilient muscle exponentially dissolve into a blubbery slug of listless pudge-he would never embrace his gorgeously beloved lover-mermaid- with tempestuous intimacy.

Smirking wickedly, with smooth ease of her hand, she began uttering in a Greek resonance."Απαλλάξτε την ανθρωπότητα του James Barnes, δώστε του μια φωνή της θάλασσας που μόνο η σειρήνα του θα ακούσει ... Συσσωματώστε τη σάρκα σε γούνα, τον κάνει να φουσκώνει μέχρι να ξεθωριάσει ο προβληματισμός του ...(Divest the humanity of James Barnes, give him a voice of the sea that only his siren will hear...Merge flesh into fur, make him bloat until his reflection fades...)"

"W-What's going on…" Bucky shuddered, unable to shake the sudden onslaught of something cold and sickly permeating him from head-to-toe. Every fiber of his being felt invisibly tethered to the witch's command. He knew to expect a change, but what he was feeling now was dread—a calm before the storm. Selina's transformation was relatively benign and painless despite its shock, but what he was feeling was nothing short of encroaching agony. "W-What are you doing?" Bucky leveled a glare at Clarion who smirked down at him cruelly. It became increasingly harder to speak as a strangled groan escaped his lips. He felt as if his molars were being pulled from his jaws and his tongue was as dry as a desert, lacking the moisture to spew words. The pain was piercing and leveled his brain was a vicious migraine.

Static rang in his ears, deafening to the point he felt as if it were absorbing him totally with every sound that failed to escape him. His skin burned and the hair in his pores prickled like hot needles. He could only sink to his knees and cradle his face, feeling as if a weight on his cheeks was making him heavier. Through it all, Selina watched with open horror.

Bracing her palms into the damp trenches of sand with an urgent momentum of fluid grace, Selina keenly registered the squeaky gnarling that emitted against his clenched teeth; visible ribbons of crimson streaked down his expanding neck as he feverishly slayed his clutched palm over the bulging mass sagging underneath his stubbled chin. The nauseous stench of putrid fish grew in rancid potency against the harrowing wake of the spell cast. A helium-induced squeak disturbingly emitted out of his depths when his quivery lips stretched agape, revealing spiked incisor fangs. With a launching thrust of her arced tail-fin, while dragging her svelte weight in a rushing glide, she effectively gained enough unimpeded traction to reach his side only to alarmingly reel back when a nacreous tendril of bluish energy impaled through her core, arresting her breath as she gasped out his name. "Buck-"

A quake of anxiety shook Bucky's body, bringing him onto his back while the world spun in a blurry maze of colors too fast to distinguish. Nausea followed, so demanding he felt his breathing constrict and the urge to vomit became unshakeable. He rolled onto his stomach, releasing a bellowing cry of agony once a throbbing pain in his gut protested the sudden move. His free-hand unconsciously cradled his aching waist which revealed a horrifying revelation by the swelled protrusion of an expanding belly. "W-What?" He panted in shock. What was happening to him? What was that witch doing to him? "S-S-Selina…" He groaned, tears gathering in his unblinking eyes that finally closed tightly as if they were being stitched shut. He could hear her cry out for him, so far away and unreachable.

The struggle to speak became an unwinnable battle as his throat closed up; a swelling forming on his larynx that made each sound he made come out in the form of a squeak. An inhuman noise that one would expect from an animal. His eyes snapped open immediately as he felt every nerve and bone in his body tremble uncontrollably with convulsions. He wanted to scream, he wanted to lash out in any way that could make the pain stop. Pain was an old friend, but his mind could only fathom the horror of what was happening to him as he watched his fingers and hands mold into a foreign shape. Along with his skin, the hot needling sensation turned into an insufferable itching as fur sprouted from his pores.

Contractive pressure in the width expanse of his protracting stomach evoked a frantic resonance of his guttural squeaks to increased with raw anguish torturously ushering unwarranted dread to arrow into her irate heart, Selina instinctively lurched back as her dark irises chased the evident deformation of his rigid fingers sickeningly melding into a furry glob of chestnut that unmistakably reshaped into a jutted flipper. Dewy hooked claws extracted out from Bucky's flattened digits in sync as the curved expanse of his muscled forearm began to rapidly contract into the outstretched material of his tearing black shirt.

The corded length of Bucky's powerful calves became stubbed under vaporous arcs of mythic energy; as dislocated bones in his feet liquefied into a sludgy ooze, melting flesh blackened into a finned appendix that was shockingly akin to seal's tail-fin. He no longer had legs to bridge the heaviness of his fattened bulk up. He felt boneless like a glop of jelly; as he became atrophied on his back.

Clamorous panic racked through his rubbery folds of dark fur in rapid fruition. Reality crushed him with force of a sledgehammer, his unkempt wolfish tresses were being sheared off his skull-he felt powerless-immobilized against threads of sanity. His blearing gaze clashed with Selina's teary coffee irises that disarmingly echoed stark agony that she couldn't bridle down with a measure of restraint."S'just make it stop..." he cried out with shuddery pants, despairingly feeling his pointed fangs gouge into the deformed swell of his puckering lip. "I don't wanna be this..."

A sulfuric raze of odor wavered nauseously around him which evoked a slosh of bile to mount in his flabby throat. The defined edges of his graven features became sheathed with furry layers of chestnut. He felt the taut ridges of his abdomen swell disgustingly outwards in expanding mass; that only stemmed his banking alarm-he was inevitably morphing into a squeaky tub of unpalpable blubber. "Grah..."

Thunderous concussive echoes hammered in his ears, a rush of wet heat trekked down the pudgy thickness of his cheeks as his straining abdomen continued to balloon into a rounded-overlapped expanse of lumpy flab. Rearing his head up, grimacingly with a sluggish tilt of his bulgy jaw, his glacial aqueous depths enlarged in telltale reaction to hysteric intensity against the latent heaviness possessing over him. Nothing abated in those painstaking moments as Selina watched him thrash his obese mass erratically, his thickening back suddenly jackknifed off the ground, he feverishly released a shredded growl, underlying his morphic rebellion in high-pitched volume. "Hrghh..."

The pain and shock led him adrift on a sea of denial, making Bucky wonder and hope that he was caught in the midst of a nightmare that would soon wake up form. But deep down he knew that reality and the world they lived in could be cruel. The changes he was aware of confirmed his initial thought that Clarion had screwed him over and he wasn't being turned into a merman. He wouldn't be swimming on the high-seas with Selina beside him, starting a new beginning together where nothing and no one could drive them apart. Instead, he would be a burden, too fat and furry for his beautiful kitten to love. His growing mass made him feel like an immovable block of concrete on the sandy shore, so damn heavy not even the tides could pull him in.

His legs, like his hands, had melded together into a blob of wet fur. His clothes had long since tore from his increasing mass, leaving him as nothing more but a naked ball of furry fat. His facial muscles twisted into something he couldn't see, but from his nose he could spot long whiskers sprouting from his snout. A snout…He was a seal. He didn't need to look in the mirror to be aware of the horrifying fact. Slowly, the pain in his body diminished until he was left in a blimped heap of exhaustion and unbridled panic. "I-I'm…I'm…"

"You're a mortal spirit is now entombed within a fatten slug that prowls the borders of your diseased surface world ..." Clarion remarked mockingly, narrowing her raved gaze down at the overly plump male harp's glacial orbs widened as unprecedented dread assailed over Bucky, feigning despondence; he ashamedly shadowed his pudgy, whiskered muzzle with a stubby flipper, incoherently emitting out a high-pitched squeak while his fanged mouth drooped agape into a bewildered gasp.

With errant glide of tears streaking his pudgy muzzle, Bucky didn't want to gaze at his damned reflection captured in the cresting waves that bashed against his slacken pudge as dark currents of ink dissipated underneath his dormant weight. She had gunned him down with a calamitous scourge as if the curse was a warranted penance of his mortal sins.

Clumsily lurching back on his clawed-flippers, Bucky felt like deadweight, it took a forced effort to shift the flabbing mounds of his brunette-slivery fur as the last remnants of his torn clothing peeled off the expanse of his girth. His vision became detached against a blear of welling tears as Clarion registered a telltale whimpery sniff before the bloated harp dismally pinched his eyes shut, feeling speared by the azoic force of unbidden heartache-defeat beyond measure.

In that stalled moment of her sepic tolerance, as she proceeded to retake the arcane relic off the mortal border, Clarion raked her viperous azure depths repulsively over the pudgy rolls of chestnut shaping over his bulbous girth that indistinguishably morphed him into a hefty sea beast-he was another ravaged soul that she deceptively roped down into throes of a befallen-damnable curse. "I never give you wretched mortals what you desire from the sea," she hissed in a scathing pitch, her eyes flashed luridly with demonic hunger. She extended her hand, commanding a worming tentacle to seize her disinterred relic."Not to worry, dear James, you'll have a plentiful life in fathoms...Soon you'll only relish about chasing fish instead of your beautiful love..."

The condemnation of Clarion's words crushed Bucky like a ton of bricks as he squeaked, tossed and turned on the wet sand. He tried to stand and face the evil witch down, but his body no longer possessed poseable legs for him to manage such a feat. The feeling was like phantom limbs that were no longer there. Inwardly, he screamed in both distress and fury. The sounds he emitted were torturous and inhumane. His hands lashed out and he was mortified by the sight of short dark fins. No longer were they the appendages of metal and flesh that pulsed with strength. He was a harp-seal, nothing more than an enormous tub of fat and wet fur, and most alarming was that he was completely vulnerable beneath the evil witch's stare.

"This isn't over." He sneered at her once he managed to roll over onto his belly. His nerves were filled with panic and he could either cry in despair or yell in anger. The latter was more preferable. "I won't quit...Can't." He watched as Clarion's body morphed until her tentacles vanished and her blue flesh took on a more human-like tone. She walked across the sand towards the rock where the relic was left, ignoring him completely as she retrieved it.

"Oh really," Clarion snickered tauntingly, glaring at the fattened harp arch sluggishly on his swollen girth for headlong traction in his dormant momentum; within a fringe of a second, his stubby flipper desperately stretched with reaching intent for the abandoned relic that was in the heap of his shredded clothing. Bucky wouldn't give her the victorious luxury of shackling his hellbent spirit into an oversized blubbery slug. In a vehement reaction, she propelled her barefoot in dragging motion, and viciously forced a haze of sand towards his muzzle, half-blinding him as he feverishly squeaked against the piercing sting-obstructing his resolve."You honestly think that you can subdue my curse, I divested your reckless humanity...Dare to cross me again, dear James, and I'll strip away your voice..."

Bucky said nothing, his sight and mouth obscured by the sand that was kicked in his face. He felt weak and pummeled. It brought back memories of his childhood when he was still too young to stand up to bullies and fight back. The fight inside of him still burned like a hot flame. But his body was as numb as ice. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. He could do nothing but watch as Clarion turned her back and carried the relic with her towards the sea. Her prize and victory trophy. The silence that hung over the area like a smothering pillow, was lifted and the noise of waves crashing against the beach rang loudly in Bucky's ears. Clarion had left him to his fate. A defeated soldier, a defeated man—twisted and morphed into a repugnant sea-mammal that could never hope to be loved.

Not by someone so beautiful as Selina Kyle.

"Selina…" He squeaked into the sand, immoveable and lifeless as he watched the waves. He could sense someone approaching until a small shadow hovered over him.

With a caustic slide against the roughened sand, bracing her elbows for measured traction, undeviatingly against gritted teeth, Selina utilized remnants of her core strength;closing distance between the crestfallen male harp. The heaviness of her tail-fin weighed her down, the sulphuric air felt compressive as her svelte form locked into a planking stance, feeling a telltale contrast infuse against the sleek-bare contours of her curvaceous abdomen as she effectively arched herself inches off the ground, dragging her mid-drift over a heap of his discarded clothes. "Hold on, James..." she heaved out, breathlessly, gazing down at slacken rolls cushioning his blubbery side as he remained sulkily impassive on his bloated girth. Her lithe palm reached fractionally to grace his flipper that curved over his jutted muzzle, caressingly as he subtly quaked under her tentative strokes, imploring him into a grounded wake of steadiness.

"No…No. Stay away!" A harsh squeal emitted from the seal's muzzle. Somehow the mermaid was able to sense the pain and anguish in the sound. His voice wasn't the soft baritone with a silky Brooklyn drawl that could calm her nerves. Not anymore. The scratchiness of his words was stifling and hard to grasp. Bucky shuddered beneath the chill of anxiety creeping through his veins. His mind, unable to comprehend and accept the changes, tried fruitlessly to will his body to its command. Nothing worked, he couldn't sit-up like a normal human with a poseable spine, he couldn't push-himself up with hands that were no longer there. He couldn't even roll over to look at his surroundings! Agitation and creeping stress clawed at him and the seal couldn't contain the cry of agony that ripped from his throat.

"GRAAAH!" He wailed, but the sound that pierced the airwaves was of a howling animal that startled the seagulls off the shore of the beach. He could feel Selina lingering beside him, unsure of what to do as she tried to calm him down.

The knifing volume of his aggressive, guttural squeaks felt deafeningly akin to a sub-machine gun firing a continuous fusillade of bullets that riddled through her heart, cutting her deep until breath was arrested out of her. Lurching back in deft reaction against the raging cadence that morphed into a raw gnarl that resonated like heartache, Selina felt a blearing rush of tears edging for release as her liquid coffee irises gazed down at the underswell of his furred girth disturbingly increasing in width-he was fattening up to a listless extent of immobilization. The sea-witch had slingshot his humanity out of existence; his grip on reality was dissected into splintering anguish.

Keeping her curved palm anchored on his palpitating side, her dainty fingers drifted over rubbery mounds of plump flab, until she eased a flipper off his scrunching muzzle, gleamingly staring into the glacial aquamarine orbs beginning to darken into a soulless pitch of black. She was losing him-she had to enkindle his stoked defiance. "Don't think for a second that I'm leaving you to dance alone, handsome," she fiercely murmured, her palm tensing under the nick of his whiskers. "The damn curse doesn't own you..."

Selina's words ghosted over him like a warm blanket, but he couldn't bring himself to be enveloped in its comfort. His hands…fins, trailed down the expanse of his enormous stomach, feeling nothing but sickening fat and wet fur. He was a beast, a fat and pathetic tub of meat that people would find amusing if not repugnant. Anger and hate festered inside of him, towards Clarion for doing this to him, but most of all towards himself for falling for her tricks, and preying on his desperation to save the woman he loves. The same woman who was trying get him off his fat-ass and not sink into the depths of despair. Bucky grunted and tried to shift away from her touch, finding himself unworthy of it. He was hideous; neither a merman nor human. How could she love him?

"How can you even look at me, Lina?" He squeaked as his black eyes gazed up at her. Her elf-like beauty caused his heart to swell. With both longing and heartache as fear of being forever separated, forever different, occurred to him. "I'm not Bucky anymore…I'm nothing."

It was too damn obvious that Clarion's soul-ravaging witchery was riding him into a vacuum of unbidden hopelessness, Bucky was on the verge of accepting his blighted fate, instead of abandoning him to choke on his tears, with fluid grace, Selina aligned her lithesome body against the rotund expanse of his laden-cushy form, sensing his vulnerability through sobs racking through him-nothing could be quashed down.

The unevaded connection became intimately snug as if she was sinking into an overlarge marshmallow as roiling waves lapped over their tail-fins. She embraced her capturing arm over his girth, holding him with unshakeable control. The fusing variation of their damned aquatic forms felt viscerally natural to the limits of their devotion. Lifting her hand to his muzzle with unerring intent, her thumb glided shakily over the jutted curve of his fanged mouth, tracing the sensuous bow-shape that with unfeigned reverence. "We're going to fight this together, Buck, " she whispered, promisingly, securing the heaviness of his blubbery mass close. "...if there's a relic out that can change you back, we'll find it."

"T-T-T-Together…" Blearily, Bucky fathomed the hopeful intent in her words. The longer he laid immobile, he felt as if he were sinking into an abyss of ignorance and confusion. The world was a blur and the suffocating plume of Clarion's magic hung in the area surrounding him. He felt dry, burdened and vulnerable in a way a soldier would in an opened-space where anyone could take a shot at him. He needed to…He needed… "Can we?" He questioned, feeling a wet trail of emotion pour down his furry cheeks. He wanted to give in, allow the despair to fully engulf him until he forgot everything and everyone. But the moment he felt her hand lovingly caress his mouth, everything became so much more clear—so much more hopeful. "Lina…" He sniffed, nuzzling her hand affectionately.

"The sea…it…its calling me." He squeaked. The hairs on his body rose on end as if he were being attracted by a magnet. His weary eyes gazed at the horizon and the calm waters that looked as welcoming as a warm-bed.

Tactilely Selina's fingers kneaded over his sheathing mounds blubber as the amber sconces of the fading horizon became capture in the rapturous waves that clashed against them, beckoning for her to usher him into the ocean fathoms-an isolated sanctuary away from the undercurrents that she had recently discovered while venturing pass barrier reefs; the surging need to return couldn't be evicted.

They were both conditioned-lethal fighters who dared to breach the shadows; instrumentally fashioned by traumatic depravity that chastised their souls into throes of unforgiving pasts-explosive validity ran bone-deep like acid poured in a keg of diesel waiting for a lilt match to fall. Maybe they were free of being masquerading phantoms-Bucky's voluntarily choice to surrender his humanity revealed an unbreakable promise of undying love.

He gave everything up to be with her in the sea, even if he now existed in the visage menacingly chubby harp; he was still her handsomely suave beast-machine, that would never change. They were inextricably bound together in the elements of land and sea. Heartbreakingly, Bucky's throated squeaks drew up gravelly low as he steered his reluctant gaze achingly towards the clear sea-a different plane of existence to cross over.

The pressure of the sloshing waves had increasingly shifted with sonic echoes of a nearing storm- the intensity of distant lightning forked through darkened clouds, as Bucky's shaded orbs arrested the spastic flashes, piercing light of voltaic azure gleamed mesmerizing with bestial heat-shivery lancing through her as prevailing hope escalated. He didn't fully morph-his fighting spirit was anchored to a harbor of their humanity. Banishing all wage of her uncertainty, Selina gave him a breathless, watery smile, as her finger ghosted over his muzzle.

"Let's get out of here, shall we, seal-boy" she purred sultrily with a kittenish play of a coy quirk tugging effortlessly on her burgundy lips,"Sticking around might call some unpleasant company to appreciate your chubby ass, and handsome," Her dark irises flashed teasingly down at the swelled-out mounds of blubbery flab."You've got a big ass move..."

The playful familiarity of Selina's words was like a warm balm that Bucky felt soothe his very soul as he wrinkled his nose and gently nuzzled her shoulder affectionately. It was strange, but somehow natural in the sense he no longer had poseable lips. The dread in his stomach ebbed as he noticed the tender smile on her face as she then lovingly caressed his cheek. "Can't argue with that, darlin'. Can't say I'm looking forward to being a fat beach-seal. But as long as you're my swimming-partner, I'd say its worth the ride." It was truth, no matter which way things turned out.

He had been willing to sacrifice his own humanity if it meant they could share a life together as the same life-forms, but instead a much different and punishing form had been forced onto him. Fate or whatever power was at work in the world continued to throw life-changing obstacles in their way and somehow, they would find themselves past them and come out stronger. They had to. Hope was an ideal that Bucky latched onto, despite all the pain and suffering he'd endured in his life-time. It wasn't just something he chose to accept, it was gifted to him by those he relied on most. Selina was his hope, his anchor to the man he used to be—the man he still could be.

For that, he would follow her anywhere. Love could take them above and beyond, and as the harp seal and the mermaid slowly waddled their way into the gentle tides of the sea, they never felt alone nor lost.

Completed: {August 25th 2018}

[my-hearts-an-open-door]

Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf and Taylor Swift’s ‘Reputation’: an essay of Swift’s new album and the kaleidoscope of being human.

This essay took a lot of time, a lot of persistence, and a lot of tears, and even more time doubting myself and my ability to even write it. It has been a long time coming and something that has been on the boil since November. I hope you take the time to read it, but most of all I hope it resonates with you.

In the linear notes to her album Red, Taylor Swift wrote, in reference to a love that doesn’t fade or spontaneously combust, “maybe I’ll write a whole about that kind of love if I ever find it.” And she has. But like all art, her newest album Reputation isn’t just one thing. The album has it’s many sides and angles, some of which are hidden beneath the surface. Above the surface as Swift has said, Reputation is a record that deals with crime(s) and punishment(s). But beneath the surface, if you quiet the white noise outside and listen carefully, Reputation is more about being watched versus being seen as you really are; it’s about what we don’t see, or perhaps, what we think we see or want to see of someone, or a situation.

“Someone who will still choose us even when they see all the sides of the story, all the angles of the kaleidoscope that is you.”

Taylor Swift

Alongside this, for me at least, the album is about Swift, and to a big extent, women and girls embracing their darker sides and doing away with the idea of perfection that has been placed on them. I’m not just talking in terms of sex or sexuality, though obviously that plays a part, but it is more than that. Simone de Beauvoir said, “Man is defined as a human being and woman is defined as a female. Whenever she tries to behave as a human being she is accused of trying to emulate the male”. In other words, man is the standard and therefore their behavior – good, bad, attractive or ugly – is just what makes them human. However, if a woman embraces ugliness or badness in her character or persona, she is immediately deemed a bad woman rather than just being seen as human.

Swift takes Beavoir’s statement and weaves it into her stories, pulling it this way and that, looking at it through a kaleidoscope of characters, experiences, and feelings on Reputation. ‘I Did Something Bad’ is the epitome of this, with Swift taking pleasure in playing the bad girl in this story.

“I never trust a narcissist/ But they love me/ So I play them like a violin/ And I make it look oh so easy.”

Even as it transpires that maybe the protagonist didn’t actually do anything that awful but because she has stepped outside the feminine persona, the “angel of the house”, she is already deemed guilty and deserves to be punished. Like Virginia Woolf who murdered the aforementioned angel, Swift has no qualms about tying herself to the stake.

“They’re burning all the witches, even if you aren’t one/ They’ve got their pitchforks and proof/ Their receipts and reasons/ They’re burning all the witches, even if you aren’t one/ So light me up.”

The damned if you do, damned if you don’t mentality was all over Swift’s first single ‘Look What You Made Me Do’. The difference here is that instead of pointing the finger and lusting for revenge, ‘I Did Something Bad’ is fully embracing the not-so-understanding facet of Swift’s personality, and not apologising for it either.

“If a man talks shit, then I owe him nothing/ I don’t regret it one bit, ‘cause he had it coming.”

‘Getaway Car’, an 80’s electro-pop song continues in this thread, except that this time playing Bonnie and Clyde has its consequences. Swift paints an epic tragedy in the making; fast cars, money, a love triangle, and a girl desperate to escape at any cost.

“The ties were black, the lies were white/ And shades of gray in candlelight/ I wanted to leave him/ I needed a reason.”

The inevitable sadness of a love affair that was never going to be and heist gone wrong. If ‘I Did Something Bad’ was embracing the not-so-nice side in joyous and liberating way, ‘Getaway Car’ is the sadder side. The one where despite our best intentions, we can leave damage and destruction in our wake.

“I’m in a getway car/ I left you in the motel bar/ I put the money in a bag/ And I stole the keys/ That was the last time you ever saw me.”

Away from the crime and punishment motif, outside of the caged bars and behind the smoke and mirrors, is the more fragile side of the kaleidoscope. The being seen as you really are, not as what the world thinks you are or wants you to be.

‘Delicate’, a tentative love song, a moment when you realise just how much you really like a person, and how much you hope that they see you for you, and not a single mosaic of one bad day.

“This ain’t for the best/ My reputation’s never been worse so/ You must like me for me.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCXGJQYZ9JA

Swift employs a vocoder on this track, evoking a simultaneously world and love worn weariness, and an intense childlike vulnerability. Like every beginning to a love affair, she knows one wrong move and the delicateness and newness, could crumble like a house of cards. But the flipside to this fear, is that exhilarating and magical feeling when someone sees you as you are really are, in all your weirdness. No explanation needed.

“Is it cool that I said all that?/ Is it chill that you’re in my head?/ Is it too soon to do this yet?”

The caveat at the end of each soft, sensual and image laden verse, is Swift singing “cause I like you…” As a way to perhaps temper her feelings, or perhaps to say with downcast eyes, “I like you and I hope you like me to”.

“Echoes of your footsteps on the stairs/ Stay here, honey/ I don’t want to share/ ‘Cause I like you…”

‘So It Goes…’ is the half way point of Reputation, where the bombastic sound and bravado of the beginning falls away to introspection and subtlety. Subdued and heavy, ‘So It Goes…’ is filled with echoes, distorted drums and an ambience that builds into a rock-esque chorus. It takes the being watched versus being seen idea further, with nods to magicians and illusionists, dark shadows and voyeur crowds.

“See you in the dark/ All eyes on you, my magician/ All eyes on us// Met you in a bar/ All eyes on me, your illusionist/ All eyes on us.”

There is a beautiful inevitability with the song, a gravity of falling, of powerlessness. Like the repeated line on ‘Delicate’, the title of ‘So It Goes…’ becomes an understated yet inescapable observation and statement on Swift’s part, becoming part of the end of each verse and refrain.

“And all the pieces fall/ Right into place/ Getting caught up in a moment/ Lipstick on your face/ So it goes…”

Or the parts of the song where Swift perfectly sums up the good girl/bad girl dilemma, and what it means to be you outside the cage of being watched.

“I’m yours to keep/ And I’m yours to lose/ You know I’m not a bad girl but/ I do bad things with you/ So it goes…”

Reputation comes to a close just like Red did, with the possibility of new beginnings and new ideas about love, in the form of the sparse piano ballad ‘New Year’s Day’. The instrumentation and lyrical imagery paints a scene in the life of a stranger; you can almost picture the “girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby/ Candle wax and Polaroids/ On the hardwood floor”.

I remember hearing ‘New Year’s Day’ for the first time in November, and the words that stuck with me the most were the ones that Swift had saved for a moment such as this song. They were the ones that made me think of my best friend in the whole world and how much I would miss him and the emptiness that would be left if we were to ever become strangers.

“Please don’t ever become a stranger/ Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere/ Please don’t ever become a stranger/ Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEHCXl4J9Qo

The song closes with the piano fading in and out, stopping and starting, as if replicating memories coming and going, and coming back again and new ones being made.

https://thewindingroadsthatledmehere.wordpress.com/2018/03/12/reputation-taylor-swift/