#its bizarre to think “you are torturing yourself” about someone and realizing that if you could hear yourself speak you’d think the same

[cassandralexxx]

There is something in looking at someone and seeing their pain. Seeing them try to be strong and cope in devastating ways. Thinking to yourself I hope they find peace but then realizing they are holding a mirror to who you are. It’s looking into a muddy puddle and seeing your own reflection. It’s thinking I am so sorry you are living like this, and realizing that you too are living in that way. It’s a twisted sort of kinship to both be lost.

[glowingbadger]

do you have anything in the ask box abt sfw + nsfw hcs w caspar and linhardt??-- if not, could i rq them pls?

Two Very Good Boys TM why have I not written more for them yet lol - especially Lin, he's a fav of mine for sure~

Also. Can I just say. Linhardt has so much Game. Like, half of his support chains end with him being like "what if we fucked and/or got married haha jk... unless?" and the other person just 👀👉👈

Caspar, Linhardt x GN Reader

SFW (nsfw below the cut)

Caspar:

- Caspar is as intense and energetic about love as he is about everything else. His feelings for you grow steadily as you work together as friends and allies, and he eventually realizes that there's a reason why he's always bizarrely excited for dull monastery chores like supply runs and patrols when he's assigned with you.

- When he finally confesses, it's in the middle of some such chore. He's been staring at you oddly as you work, until he abruptly says your name, then blurts out, "I think I'm in love with you." He practically shouts it at you, his eyes fiery and his face red. Once you work past the shock of the moment and affirm that you feel the same, he pumps a fist in the air, then laughs as he lifts you and spins you in a circle.

- He's not exactly "smooth" and doesn't have much romantic experience, but his unwavering sincerity and desire to be good to you makes up significantly for these. He's terrible at surprise gifts, since he always wants to get you something you'll love, so he'll spoil it by saying something like "So how do you feel about danishes??" right before heading to the best bakery in town. But when you thank him, wearing one of those warm, genuine smiles- he just melts, and he figures he doesn't have to be smooth or clever as long as he can make you smile like that.

- This. Man. Is a Cuddler. He doesn't like to be "mushy" in public, but he truly adores every-day physical displays of affection. He can't help swinging your hands a little when your fingers are laced during a walk through town, and if you're alone together, he just habitually has to be holding or touching you somehow. Caspar was never one to sit still for long- until he realizes that holding you to his chest while the two of you chat on his bed is completely addictive.

Linhardt:

- Oh Lin, this beautiful weirdo. For a long while, you won't get much of a love confession from him; instead, he just continuously puts himself near you. He doesn't need anything from you, and there's no pressure to keep him occupied in conversation- he just finds he's soothed in your presence. He doesn't question it until he finds himself even choosing your company over his studies or sleep. Then, for some time, he actually finds this new feeling rather disturbing.

- Finally, you're both enjoying a sunny afternoon, reading, casually chatting a bit, him dozing off periodically. In a quiet moment when you'd assumed he was fast asleep, he instead turns towards you and quite suddenly says, "If I were to tell you that I find myself quite insistent upon being near you at every possible opportunity, how would you describe that feeling?" when you don't give an immediate response, he follows this up with, "Would you consider that romantic attraction? Perhaps I really have fallen for you... hm..."

- Linhardt doesn't have much of a memory for birthdays and holidays (his mind is generally occupied with any number of other things), but you're not likely to find yourself doubting his feelings for you, nor his commitment. That's because he's very blunt about telling you. The delicate propriety of the nobility is of very little concern to him, so he feels no hesitation about placing a kiss to your lips in the middle of the (very occupied) library and telling you, "My, you are exceptionally lovely today." Before, of course, returning to his search for whatever tome he'd insisted he needs to review for his latest topic of interest.

- He is an excellent listener when you've had a stressful day or are in a bad mood. Though you will need to tell him directly if you're just looking to vent, because he's one to always think of a straightforward solution for you. But, as a creature of his comforts, Lin is wonderful at helping you relax. He'll hold you and rub small circles along your back until one or both of you dozes off- if you need it, he'll even force himself to stay up long enough to talk more, or recite some list of known crest effects until his gentle, even voice lulls you to sleep.

NSFW 18+ v

Caspar:

- He likes sex intense and passionate, and has no problem "doing most of the work," as it were. You may have to guide his pace a bit, as he can get a bit too excited- but he has immense stamina, so you'll certainly be satisfied by the end. In fact, he's fully capable of cumming more than once in a night, with a fairly short refractory period, so if you're up for it, fucking Caspar can become quite a workout in its own right.

- Caspar can be pretty bitey- he loves marking you and being marked, and even he's surprised by how much he just loves burying himself at the crook of your neck, or at your chest, or your lower stomach. He's been attracted to people before, sure, but he's never known he could be so absolutely entranced by someone's body before you.

- As you'd imagine, he's pretty vocal in bed, and likes it when you are too. His pleasured grunts and moans are completely shameless, communicating exactly how incredible you make him feel. He doesn't have much of an innate sense for dirty talk, but he loves it when you talk dirty. Even simple encouragement, like "Oh, Caspar- fuck, just like that! Mmmh- your cock feels so good-!" gets his body burning to his very core. He never realized it before, but his ultimate weakness is when you can tell he's getting close, and you moan out that you want him to cum for you. It's his kryptonite, and his body shudders as a powerful orgasm takes over him.

- His cock is about average length-wise, but it is thick and very nicely veined. He's not excessively sensitive or anything, but if you manage to tie him up or force him to slow his pace in some other way, it is deliciously easy to reduce him to a whiny, needy mess. He'll buck his hips up as you tease the tip of his cock with a slickened finger, desperation in his eyes as he groans out, "Ungh, Y/N, this is torture- please, I- I want you so bad-!"

Linhardt:

- He's deeply focused and fascinated by your body, and will study you for as long as you can withstand his gentle touch. He wants to know your every single turn on, your every tender sweet spot, and wants to hear every possible way you can moan his name. Related- I've seen a lot of people assume Lin is entirely and exclusively a bottom out of laziness, and I firmly disagree. We've seen how intensely he commits himself to the things that have caught his interest, and once you're his, he's going to learn everything he can about your pleasure. He's open minded and willing to try almost anything at least once, provided it's not too strenuous.

- Lin very much enjoys exploring some less expected erotic pleasures; things like circling your fingertips with his tongue, then nipping and sucking at the tender skin, or fucking between your thighs or ass cheeks without fully entering you until you beg him. His easy self-confidence and patience make him something of an unintentional soft dom. It's not that he aims to make you whimper and beg for him before he finally enters you- it's just that he's enjoying your body so much that he doesn't feel the need to rush.

- He loves cockwarming. Lying comfortably on his side with you cradled against him and his length buried in your warm little hole- it's absolute heaven for him. He gets to relax and feel completely at ease and even a little sleepy as you hold him deep inside of you, and it's adorable when you squirm a little, trying to get his cockhead to rub into you a certain way. He gives a light chuckle and nuzzles against the back of your neck, murmuring, "Now, now, don't be impatient- aren't you comfortable?"

- He's not much of a fan of the mess that can come with sex, and resents the cleanup time required, as once he's cum, he wants nothing more than to just hold you close and let your steady breathing lull him to sleep. So, he'll generally do his best to minimize marks, or a mess of cum- though, given his method is frequently to lick you clean, who's complaining.

[bored-storyteller]

uh I love your storys about Uta ^^. You write him so good and in character . Could you maybe write a story about him were him and the reader ( human) meeting at an auction like reader was captured and meets Uta there . But maybe they escape the auction house and meet Uta sometime after this again. I`m sorry I love Uta angst and fluff .

Dear anon. I'll tell you, your request inspired me a lot (that's why I did it right away), but I must confess that I'm not really satisfied with the result and I'm sorry (I rewrote it three times). I have to thank my poor summary skills for this defeat, I don't think I managed to really give you what you asked me. Feel free to send me clarifications or a further request for me to remedy!

43- Tokyo Ghoul, Uta x human!reader

“The bird of ill omen and the broken toy”

You are in front of his eyes, huddled in a corner of the cold and dark container. On your knees, tied up, you are the condemned to death ready to face the gallows, or rather you are a delicious dish wrapped in its most beautiful dress to entice the spectators.

"Oh, look here ... what a delightful creature."

You are not the main article, you are not the rare object, yet your smell has brought him there. Uta is not a glutton, but he couldn't resist the temptation to peek at whoever was carrying such an inviting fragrance.

"This is really a shame ..." his voice is sweet, calm, yet ironic and cruel. Yes, it's a shame that he has to give you to some miserly ghoul.

Uta doesn’t usually prefer a certain type of food, he is not delicate or picky, nor does he have problems eating even his similar ones. But he has to admit that while those bright eyes of yours, shining with tears and desperation, look at him, he really would like to be able to eat them. Yes, it is rare for someone to stimulate his appetite in this way, customers really have to thank him for his self-control.

You are so small in his shadow, and even if you tremble, even if you smell of fear, he sees no hope in your eyes.

You know you have no escape. As little as you may be when it comes to ghouls, you know you can't save yourself. You heard them talk.

You would rather die now than continue that torture.

He feels it, and oh, how tempted he is to grant your wish.

He leans over you, he wants to see you well, he wants to hear you. The demonic beak of his mask brushes against you, rubs against your temple like the muzzle of a mother cuddling his cub, or the muzzle of a lion that is playing with his prey.

Maybe, if he had met you in another situation ... maybe ...

No. He doesn't necessarily have to devour you. Nothing is ever said with Uta, even he knows it, he knows himself. Who knows what would have happened if you had met somewhere else. Who knows who you were, elsewhere.

In conclusion, you were both unlucky: you cannot survive, and he cannot be the one to eat you. You have something in common.

"Uta!"

Roma's voice makes its way, muffled by the metal container in which you are locked up - like a ready meal -

"I'm coming!" It's time for him to go on stage, for you it's time for the final bow.

He doesn't tell you anything anymore, he doesn't need to. He will say goodbye to you that same evening, but he feels a little happy that you are among the last items to be exhibited.

He still gives you a look, you, little shaking puppet, sweet broken toy. Who can fix you anymore?

After that, he leaves you behind, abandoned in the cold darkness of your last hours in solitude, as he plunges into the cold light of demons, ready to entertain his fellow men with his affable ways. What a crazy world you are both in.

. . .

Locked in your cold prison, if you could you would cover your ears in a desperate attempt to get away from the announcements and screams, but it's impossible for you. So you wait, trembling in your shell of panic, not knowing what to do. If only you had at least a vain hope, a false chance. If only you could save yourself, for some reason, any reason then yeah, oh, how dear life would be to you thereafter. But you can't even think now.

And you don't even realize that the noises change. The cries of the victims become the cries of the executioners, and the applause becomes breathless footsteps in search of a safe place. But you don't know it, or at least not until they get closer, more distressed. They are probably running away. But who can save you? Who knows you are there? Who can remember you?

And in fact, no one stops, no one frees you, and the footsteps and the screams brush against you and pass you, without bothering to kill or save you. At least you think so.

But as soon as the silence comes, the creaking of the doors opening makes you lift your face, towards the light.

He is there again, and you wonder if that Bird of ill Omen is not your hallucination. With that bizarre suit, that hateful mask, and those ancient letters around his neck that seem ready to strangle him.

He doesn't talk to you. He is simply looking at you, you feel him looking at you, behind that deadly beak. In the silence that surrounds you, whether it is a real silence or created by mutual presence, he suddenly occupies your every thought in those few seconds of eternity. Maybe it's the touch of death that wanders your mind, but suddenly unusual questions arise in you. Who knows who he is, what he does. What does he like and what not ... does he live in the alleys of the city, or maybe, instead, without that mask he pretends to be someone?

He came to take you and devour you. But it almost seems like a strange barrier is keeping him away from you.

And while you are suspended in this limbo of cold resignation, as he came he disappears, and with his disappearance he takes away from you that sad calm that had enveloped you.

The panic returns as someone approaches.

Don't scream. Don't scream. Don't scream.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Clean eyes, a clean face, no mask is looking at you agitated. You don't know how to answer, you don't even know if what you are seeing is true.

“I'm a human, I'm a CCG investigator. Don't worry, it's okay, we'll get you out of here. "

Without your being fully aware of it, you find yourself in warm, safe arms that take you away from hell behind you. You didn't even realize you were crying.

. . .

He recognized your smell right away.

Even if it's been some time since his meeting with you, it's hard to forget something that has affected him so much, especially if it is something that has particularly touched his sensitivity over that of others.

And it's not that Uta is then easily surprised, he is ready to expect anything from that crazy world, yet you manage to upset him without even knowing that he is there.

You are smiling. And that's not the fact, but at the same time it is. You are smiling sweetly, sincerely. Your eyes are clear and bright, and you are listening to someone talking to you about their petty problems without batting an eye.

That night, that night he met you, he came back to eat you. He was not a ghoul who got lost in gluttony, but given the situation he had a particular interest in the statement "carpe diem".

He hadn't, in the end. In the end he just looked at you. It would have been easy to swallow you, but he had left you there. He had told himself that he hadn't made it in time, but who knows what was really going through his head at that moment.

It doesn't matter anymore, however. What's a broken toy like you doing so quietly exposed? How can you smile at people like that, when surely the world around you has crumbled into millions of little bits?

You make him angry, you know? Humans like you, whom the world keeps getting back on their feet despite everything, provoke anger in him.

And you are there, a few steps away from him, and you do not realize that the one who had the task of trampling your life is watching you.

And no matter how much anger he may feel inside of him, he can't help but look at you, as you speak comfortable words to someone, while you give your attention as if you have no problem.

"Uta?" Renji's voice, intent on looking at him from behind the coffee shop counter, makes him look away from you.

"Nh? Ah… ”His gaze falls on his now coffee-stained lap. The stain is almost invisible on the black sweater, but it is damp and warm.

"Don't laugh ... can you give me a towel please?"

"I'm not laughing." Yet Uta could swear that in the serious voice of his trusted friend a note of amusement is audible even to those who do not know him.

Carefully he puts the cup back on the saucer, making sure not to do any further damage.

This then. When was he ever so distracted for a human?

But when he instinctively looks for you, after all that nice little theater, you're not there anymore. The table you occupied is empty.

Only one object remained abandoned on the shiny surface. A book lies alone, the bookmark sticking out in the middle.

It is placed on the side where you sat. Did you leave in such a hurry that you left it there?

It is not that he has a real reason to do it, yet, while he is about to leave :Re, with all the tranquility that characterizes him, he picks up that literary volume in his hands, hiding it inside his jacket. Even that printed paper is imbued with your smell by now.

. . .

You talk to books, apparently. The edges of the pages are filled with thoughts written in pencil. They are all yours, it almost seems like you use the books as your diary, but there is nothing so personal about you. They are just… points of view. The world told by you, depending on the inspiration that the phrases in the book give you.

"It must be difficult to live in a world where you can talk to your food about your favorite book."

When Uta's eyes had settled on that particular phrase, he had closed. For someone else it might have been a stupid phrase, probably, but for him it was like a punch in the stomach.

He doesn't know if you wrote it before or after the accident, but in any case that simple sentence arouses a mixture of emotions that he doesn't really know where to place. Even if you wanted to, you couldn't understand what it meant to be a ghoul in that world, but on the other hand, the utopia in which Renji seems so hoping could be made up of people like you. If only he believed it, Uta could like that world, as long as there was a place in that world for someone like him.

“Excuse me, did you happen to find a book yesterday? I'm afraid I left it here by mistake. " Your cordial voice betrays a note of alarmism as you speak to the young girl. Your hands grip the counter as if it were a rock of salvation, but your feet are ready to run elsewhere, to look somewhere else in case it isn't there.

"Oh ... no, I'm sorry, I haven't seen any books." Touka's voice is sorry, an apologetic tone hovers between her words.

"Oh, damn ... sorry, thanks anyway!" Your words are so hasty, so quick that he doesn't have time to interrupt them.

The bell rings and the door closes with a click.

"You have it, don't you?" Renji never misses anything - or almost -.

"Yeah, it’s better that I give it back to them before they run all over Tokyo on foot."

"How long have you been so thoughtful?"

Uta allows himself to take a last look at the silver-haired ghoul from over his sunglasses, as he prepares to leave the cafe: "I'm always thoughtful."

. . .

The snow has just started to fall. It is light and silent, the parks of the metropolis have not yet begun to turn white.

You would gladly stay and watch the show from the heat of your home, if it weren't for that damn book you forgot somewhere. Oh, you love your books, but they're so good at hiding. You were convinced you left it in the coffee shop!

"Excuse me…"

A cordial voice caresses your eardrums. It's so warm and peaceful, yet a chill shiver stops the blood in your veins.

Turning around, you meet a man dressed in black. He is strange, but it doesn't surprise you, there are a lot of strange people in such a big city, even people who wear sunglasses on a snowy day.

You had already seen him in the cafe, but you didn't dwell on him. Not because he doesn't get your attention, just… it was an instinct.

“I think you were looking for this. I found it yesterday by chance. "

Clear and tapered fingers hand you your much-desired book. On fair skin, intertwining dark patterns form inexplicable designs, at least for you, but you're sure they have a lot to say, don't they?

Slowly you reach out your hand, and hesitantly touch the cover, to resume what you were looking for.

The night of the accident did not disappear. You are scared. You are afraid of death, but even more of pain, of imprisonment. You are afraid of fear itself. However, you are also afraid of not living, of wasting, of losing.

You are in a limbo that does not let you escape, and you can not help but continue your life, savoring every second, waiting for the Bird of ill Omen to come and get you.

So you push back the mistrust again, and a grateful and kind smile goes to the one who helped you, without asking for explanations.

"Thank you very much." Your voice reaches his pierced ears with such unexpected sweetness.

"It was a pleasure." His smile, decorated with the piercing, is barely hinted at, but delicate - reassuring? -

And for endless moments you look at each other, in silence, without speaking and without thinking. And then, as if nothing had happened, the dances between prey and predator begin.

"Can I buy you a coffee?"

. . .

Your eyes look at him shiny, frightened. You are still in a cage, imprisoned by a body that will soon be ready to consume you.

Uta wonders if you really never anticipated this. All the times you've crossed paths, have you really ever been in doubt? Every time you looked at him, every time you smiled at him or laughed at his words, did you never guess the truth? No, maybe you've always known it from the start, broken toys never work too well.

The mask of that evening, like a macabre mockery - both for him and for you - is leaning on the work table, not far from you, looking at you placidly. It’s a coincidence that he pulled it out just in the morning.

Suddenly the images of that day come back between you two, like a dream. The incomprehensible to you tattoo on his neck has a creepy look overwhelmed by the shadows that the soft lights create on the ghoul.

Fear invades you, like a script. Yet, while the Bird of ill Omen looms over you, trapping you in the corner of the room with his arms, your terror is different from what he had already seen in you. Today it is almost more visible, less controlled, as you tremble beneath him.

Maybe it's the surprise of being caught in a trap by someone who – perhaps- you had slowly begun to love – despite everything-, or maybe, simply, inside you a little hope still survives.

Uta's head bends, and the tip of his nose brushes your neck, smelling the coveted perfume that had so attracted him.

If you're so scared, how did you smile all that time? How did you keep going? How did you keep loving that world?

Beside his mask, as a warning of future torment, your dear book lies silent, ready to say goodbye. You lent it to him last time, he asked you for it.

Your smell is as strong, sweet, delicious as ever - so why is his stomach closing up? -

His jaws open, and as delicate as cruel they enclose your fragile neck. In them, the accelerated beats of your heart, still alive, make him tremble.

One bite and you will be nothing but dead flesh, and he hesitates.

He had to kill you before it was too late, right? Uta should know himself well enough, he had to understand right away what was happening inside him.

A sigh, and then his lips pull away, his saliva stops wetting you. He is not hungry, he has already eaten.

He is still upon you, but now he is only looking at you, with his eyes of blood and darkness. You, like a frightened puppy, remain shaking in a corner for a few moments, lost in his pupils. And then, like a crazy lightning bolt, you run away, as you have always run away. You slip under his arms, and as fast as you can you reach the door of the shop.

Uta watches you go, swallows bitter air, and then bows his head, surrendered.

What will happen now? Will you shut up in fear? Will you tell anyone? Only time will tell.

He slowly gets up, his hands caressing each other's tattooed arms, in a distracted gesture of protection, as he approaches the table. His fingers touch it, and then squeeze it, while he looks at the book that is left alone again, without your eyes on it.

And then, suddenly, as if he had woken up from a dream, he notices something: your smell has not vanished.

Turning his view, he sees you. You are still there, or maybe you are back there.

Now it is you who are on the side of the light, and he is in the corner of the cage. The Bird of ill Omen has become the broken toy, left alone among his masks.

"What's up?" No matter the crack inside, Uta always looks so mature, peaceful, even after he has threatened to kill you.

You take a step towards him, but your outstretched arm continues to secure yourself to the door jamb. If you left he wouldn't follow you, you know that right?

"I ... I think I'm crazy, Uta ..." You too realize how much your behavior is against logic, how foolish it is to remain - to search - in your nightmare. But on the other hand, humans ... no, people, when they are desperate, lose the light of reason, and do wrong things. Things the world says are wrong. That world, which claims to be the only one, when it is nothing more than a facade, a corner of something much larger.

"Yes, I think so too." He really thinks so. You have to be crazy to still be there, at least as crazy as he is. "Why are you still here?"

You shrug your shoulders, hugging yourself more out of shyness than out of fear - yeah, you're no longer afraid, it's as if you've run out of batteries.

"I ... as long as I'm alive I can choose, right?" It came out of your lips so naturally that you didn't even realize it was you who uttered that sentence, yet it's a truth so deep, so intense that it has guided you from that damn night to this day.

"And what are you choosing?"

Your eyes cast a fleeting glance outside, at the glimmer of the city, and without hesitation you gently accompany the door to close, imprisoning you. Imprisoning both of you.

Maybe it's a prison, but this time it's really your choice. You are with that Bird of ill Omen, but you are not tied up, you are not thrown to the ground in a cold corner. You are with him, surrounded by works of art that stare at you impassively, but it was you who decided it.

"I choose not to ignore anymore ..." Your fingers intertwine with each other, you play with them as if you need to keep them busy as you approach him. He is waiting for you. "I want to understand."

"How can you understand?" He would like to tell you, but he doesn't say a word, because not even he can understand you. What kind of mask would suit you? Who knows, yet he has learned enough about you that he should be able to think of at least one. But no, you are always there, hoping for something, believing that after all, living is worthwhile.

So he stays there, even when you lean against him. Not a contact, but a fusion. Stomach against stomach, lungs against lungs, heart against heart. Your hands cling to his arms only to hold him closer, and as he looks at your closed eyes he knows you're listening to him. You're trying to feel his every breath, every twitch of him. You want to get inside him, and he lets you do it - isn't that what he wanted too?

The predator and the prey united in a single entity for an eternal instant.

It's all so against the moral and social rules, but what do you care now? You already know he could kill you. And in that world that goes round and round without stopping, a black writing in an ancient language that also goes around a greedy neck could be your starting point for putting the pieces back together. Maybe it's a disease, maybe it's madness, but deep down, why not? Why not go a little further? Better to die than to be afraid to live, right?

"How much confidence ..."

His voice further softened by his whisper makes your previously closed eyelids lift. His nocturnal eyes look at you slightly narrowed, a slight upward crease caresses his lips without even knowing it. It is difficult for Uta to do something without being aware of it.

He is very beautiful. Beautiful and awful.

"Can't I?"

The world out there, the crazy little world is gone.

"Well, why not ... you are my food, after all."

[blitzturtles]

Title: Countdown

Rating: Explicit (Pure PWP)

Fandom: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders (though quite a bit in the future.)

Pairing(s): JotaKak, Minor Jotaro/Kakyoin/Polnareff

Summary: “Interested in adding time to our arrangement?” Kakyoin asks, casually as he sets to testing his latest attempt at a fix. Jotaro bites back another pathetic sound that does more to Kakyoin than he’s willing to let on.

Notes: This fic starts mid-scene and has some (pre-negotiated) voyeurism kink, which is where Polnareff comes in (though his timing is more convenient than planned.)

I was going to do the aftercare scene, but this got long enough on its own. orz

-

Kakyoin is busy looking over a chunk of code that Polnareff had directed him to. Apparently he’s having persistent problems with bugs. The sort where, when one gets resolved, another (one or two, sometimes three) pops up in its place (is there any other kind?), and Polnareff is at his wits’ end. Fortunately, Kakyoin has nothing better to do than to try and isolate the problem for him. Or, well, he doesn’t feel like he has anything better to do. Someone else might disagree.

As if on cue, Jotaro squirms in his lap and lets out a soft whine. It’s a bid on his part to get more. More friction, more contact, more-- anything, really. Desperation drives him to do what he typically wouldn’t, but Kakyoin is hardly moved by the attempt.

“Interested in adding time to our arrangement?” Kakyoin asks, casually as he sets to testing his latest attempt at a fix. Jotaro bites back another pathetic sound that does more to Kakyoin than he’s willing to let on. He grinds his hips up, pressing further into Jotaro. If he doesn’t want to abide by their rules, then Kakyoin is all too happy to provide some incentive. “What did I say about censoring yourself?”

Jotaro sucks in a breath and curls forward, nearly collapsing on the desk in front of them. His fingers grasp at the edges. “Not- ah, not to,” he breathes out, then adds a belated, “Sir.”

Kakyoin takes mercy on him and decides against punishing Jotaro for the nearly forgotten honorific. He’s trying; Kakyoin knows that. Besides, he finds the whole thing rather endearing, from the failed attempts to keep quiet to the stuttered replies. Never mind the flush of Jotaro’s skin. Spread across his shoulders and up his neck, all the way to the tips of his ears. It’s such a lovely color on him. Kakyoin really ought to get this on video one of these days.

The computer pings and rips Kakyoin out of his thoughts. He blinks at the textbox that appears and quickly answers back. No luck, and, no, he can’t chat.

Oh?

Damn Polnareff for being the ever curious sort that really can’t read a room to save his life. And damn himself for his inclination toward the mischievous.

We’re in the middle of something.

He sends the message knowing damn well that Polnareff will follow-up. That he either won’t pick up on the insinuation or won’t care to. The man is nothing if not too curious for his own good, and Kakyoin is in the mood to take advantage of that.

I didn’t realize I was interrupting.

Kakyoin barely catches the amused sound that bubbles in the back of his throat. Jotaro’s too focused on counting the seconds to look at the screen, and he wants to keep it that way for now.

Do you want to see?

There are probably more subtle ways to ask. If nothing else, he could have been much more coy about the whole thing, but his own patience is beginning to wear thin. Jotaro squirms on his lap like Kakyoin can’t feel every little twitch, and he’s not sure how much longer he can hold out. He glances at the clock while Polnareff types and lets out a-- slow and careful, so as to avoid raising suspicion-- relieved breath to see that they have less than five minutes to go.

It would be a privilege.

The formality, and its meaning, aren’t lost on Kakyoin. Polnareff is drooling for it, and Kakyoin wouldn’t mind an opportunity to show off his boy. Beautiful and perfect and on full display. Someone ought to know how good Jotaro is for him. How patient he can be, if offered the right incentive.

“Shit,” Kakyoin sucks in a breath, feigning alarm even as he’s the one to start the camera.

Jotaro’s head snaps up. His eyes glance at the screen, then to Kakyoin, “What?”

“Polnareff’s starting a video chat,” Kakyoin feels more than hears the way Jotaro sucks in a breath and goes tense. For a moment, he thinks he’s mis-stepped, but he knows Jotaro.

“Shit,” Jotaro echoes his earlier sentiment and starts to move. A low moan escapes him as he does, and he falls back into Kakyoin’s lap with a huff of air. He barely managed to lift himself, yet his head falls back against Kakyoin’s shoulder as he lets out a high-pitched whine.

Kakyoin takes the opportunity for what it is and hooks his arm around Jotaro’s middle like a lap bar. He turns his own head to press his lips against Jotaro’s neck in a quick, reassuring kiss, “He knows.”

Jotaro’s eyes snap open, but he doesn’t dare move. Can’t bring himself to check to see if the camera is already on. He’s as bare as the day he came into the world (where Kakyoin is almost completely dressed), and he knows the camera is already set at a downward angle. It only ever works when it’s placed up high, which usually makes it the bane of Kakyoin’s existence. Right now, it’s Jotaro’s.

“Color?” Kakyoin asks, nuzzling into Jotaro’s neck like the bastard he is.

“Green,” Jotaro manages in another gasp when Kakyoin grinds into him. A promise for what’s to come later if he can behave himself. “And fuck you, Noriaki.”

Kakyoin laughs, unable to help it. There’s no heat in Jotaro’s words, and he won’t punish him for it, though he could. It wouldn’t be entirely fair, given-

“Such language.”

Both of their attention snaps to the computer screen then. Polnareff smiles sweetly at them, completely unphased by the sight that greets him. His hair is pulled into a loose ponytail, low at the nape of his neck, and he’s wearing an older t-shirt that indicates that, in combination with his hair, he hasn’t left the house all day. Which means this might very well be the most interesting thing he’s had the opportunity to lay eyes on.

Kakyoin’s little theory only gets further confirmation when Polnareff leans forward and rests his chin in his curled hand.

“Please, feel free to pretend I’m not here.”

“Easier said than done,” Jotaro grumbles under his breath.

Kakyoin isn’t buying the put upon act, not when he can wrap his fingers around Jotaro’s cock and feel how hard he is. Jotaro tries to press into his hand, apparently forgetting the rules once more. “You’re fortunate we have a guest, or that would be another five minutes.”

“Oh?” Polnareff perks up a bit. He ignores the desperate sound that Jotaro makes to ask, “How long has it been?”

“Since you sent the last email. Jotaro was getting a bit restless, and I thought we could both use a reminder,” for Jotaro, one of patience, and, for Kakyoin, one about staying on task. He can’t say that it’s worked out all that well for him, considering how the situation has devolved a tad beyond his initial intentions, but he has a feeling Polnareff won’t mind much if it takes them a while longer yet to work out the bugs in his code.

Polnareff sucks in a breath and whistles, impressed to say the least, “How much longer?”

“Didn’t you say to pretend- fuck,” Jotaro jerks forward out of reflex, and he regrets it immediately. The added separation is like torture. With his nerves already on edge, he can barely stand the lost contact, and sinking back down is damn near fatal. It’s all he can do to hold the desk so tightly that the wound threatens to splinter. One little rush of stand energy. That’s all it would take.

“My apologies,” Kakyoin starts in that sickly sweet tone he gets when he wants someone to know how insincere he is, though it isn’t Polnareff that he’s making his point to. “He’s usually better behaved.”

“Non, it’s been quite awhile,” Polnareff still doesn’t look phased. Jotaro can’t bring himself to look him in the eyes, but it’s unfair how relaxed he is when Jotaro can’t do anything. Not to hide and not to get off. “How much longer?”

Kakyoin takes a peak at the clock again, “Less than two minutes. If he doesn’t push his luck.”

It shouldn’t make his cock twitch, the way they talk about Jotaro like he isn’t there. Watching him like an object. He has no control here. No recourse. And his thoughts are too scattered for any kind of plotting. He wouldn’t, anyway. Because he wants this. Wants so badly to be good for Kakyoin and to do what he’s told. He likes sitting perfectly still while filled completely. It takes him out of his own head, away from the thoughts that race too frequently to be healthy.

“One minute,” Kakyoin says, breaking through the mottled thoughts. He reaches up to mess with the camera, adjusting it until- oh.

Oh.

He points it at their bed, and Jotaro doesn’t need to be fully aware to know what that means. It doesn’t stop him from planting his feet on the floor and preparing himself for what comes next.

Vaguely, he’s aware of the fact that Polnareff and Kakyoin have been talking the whole time. That Polnareff has his commentary and that Jotaro would be completely humiliated if he could process any of what’s said, but he’s too busy anxiously counting down the time until,

“Up.”

Jotaro whines, helpless. He can’t resist the tone Kakyoin gets when he gives an order and leaves no room for misinterpretation or arguments. For a moment, he forgets Polnareff is there, watching. Listening.

“I can’t- I can’t,” he whines even as he tries. And he really does try, but each little bit of Kakyoin that slides out of him leaves behind an emptiness that he can barely breathe around. He’s only vaguely aware of the tendrils that wrap around him, pulling him upward regardless of what he wants. He leans into the touch despite himself.

“Bed,” Kakyoin directs. Whether it’s aimed at Hierophant or Jotaro doesn’t really matter. They make it to the mattress in a tangle. Hierophant has no shame in running the length of Jotaro’s torso and beyond.

“How?” Jotaro breathes when Kakyoin approaches; it’s a bastardized and short winded version of what he’s supposed to ask.

“Head down. I want you on display,” and not only for himself, though Kakyoin isn’t above admiring his work when there’s no one else there. They’ve only ever talked about doing this before. Actually following through is something else entirely, and Kakyoin knows that neither of them will last long. If he can’t offer length, then he sure as hell intends to offer a show.

Jotaro rolls over onto his hands and knees. His thighs shake with the effort. He’s already at the point of exhaustion, but there’s an eagerness to the way he gets into position with his head dropped down into his arms after a moment of situating. He rests on his elbows now, rather than his hands, and his ass is on full display.

Kakyoin retrieves the bottle of lube with Hierophant. He pops the lid open and pours out enough to coat himself. Hierophant takes the opportunity to spread Jotaro open with their tendrils. Polnareff lets out a small gasp that has Kakyoin smirking. No matter who he’s sharing Jotaro with now, the man belongs to him.

“Like what you see?” He asks, knowing the answer already, but he doesn’t mind stroking his own ego. For putting someone so powerful and unrelenting in such a state. For having him in the first place.

“I do,” Polnareff confirms and earns the both of them a whine. Or, perhaps, Jotaro is just losing his patience. “Though Hierophant may beat you to the best part.”

Kakyoin glances back to find his stand sliding one of their tentacles into Jotaro. He watches, mesmerized for a moment, as it fucks into him. He could watch the two until the end of time, if it weren’t for the minor detail that he can feel everything Hierophant does, and he won’t last much longer.

“Enough,” he says and recalls Hierophant.

Jotaro nearly yelps at the sudden loss of contact, but Kakyoin is there immediately, pressing the tip of his cock against Jotaro’s twitching hole. It’s one smooth motion until Kakyoin’s buried deep with a groan, and he damn near loses it right then.

It takes everything in him to hold still long enough to regain some of his composure. He takes several deep breaths and refuses to move until he’s sure he can do so without cumming on the spot. Jotaro tries to press back against him, but there’s not any fight left in his body. He’s easy enough to shove back down into the mattress until Kakyoin’s ready.

He starts his pace slow at first, but it doesn’t last long. He can’t last long, and Jotaro babbles almost ceaselessly into the crook of his elbow after only a few, short minutes.

Kakyoin fumbles for a moment to undo the cock ring that Jotaro’s had on for the better part of the last couple of hours. It doesn’t take him much more than that, a few strokes and stuttering, half-thrusts before Jotaro comes across his own belly with a broken sound. Kakyoin barely outlasts him, buries himself deep and loses himself in the aftershock of Jotaro’s orgasm.

His vision blacks out for a solid few seconds, and all he can do is keep his grasp on Jotaro’s hips as a grounding point. At least until his breathing calms down and the blood stops rushing around so rapidly.

Jotaro’s collapsed into the mattress, too exhausted to be concerned with how he looks now.

Kakyoin takes a moment to appreciate his work anyway.

“I hope you enjoyed the show,” he says after another minute.

Polnareff hasn’t said anything. Not a single word, nor a sound, but the look on his face says it all. “Very much so,” he answers after a beat, “Though I think I’ll leave you two to your privacy now.”

“I’ll catch up with you in a bit,” Kakyoin answers, only halfway serious. He doubts he’ll be working on anything anytime soon. He has a very overdone husband to attend to, and he wouldn’t miss the cuddling for anything.

[thepeakyfckingblinders]

The Whore || John Shelby x reader

⤠ MASTERLIST⤟

Anon requested: “11&19 with John boy? cause I miss him “ (I miss him too, my poor heart aches)

Summary:  n.11 & 19 from prompt list: “Please, please, please” + “I’ll burn this fucking place down” Warnings: swearing, a lot of angst, prostitution, nudity, violence, mentions of abuse, mentions of rape, misogynistic talk, graphic description of signs of physical abuse

Author’s notes:

Behind each one of these works there are sleepless nights and something really close to multiple mental breakdowns, so, please, take a minute to send me a message about it, I need actual feedbacks to understand how to improve my skills and grow ♡

So, this request’s been in my mind for ages, and even though I’m not happy with its final part ‘cause it sucks, I’m literally obsessed with this idea, I love it so much that I’ll probably write a long fic about it, right after Contagio, but it will depend on you babes, because, first and froemost, I need to know what you think about this piece. ⤟ IMPORTANT

Please, if you’re a victim of any kind of abuse, talk to someone who can help you, nobody should go through something like that alone.⤟ IMPORTANT 

I edited the gif and added the text, it’s not an actual scene from the show, but I thought it could be a good idea, a small detail that could be added to my works. What do you think about it? Pls, let me hear your opinions babeees ⤟ 

I’m sorry for being this late, but I’ve been really busy in the past days and writing is never just easy, it demands concentration and effort, plus I don’t want you to be disappointed, so I’m always extra accurate while working. I hope this is worth the wait!

If you want to be added to my tag list, please, directly message me

I’m Italian, English isn’t my first language, so I apologize for every possible mistake I made. Also, please, help me improve my writing by telling me if there’s something wrong

ENJOY!

Birmingham was somehow silent that night, John noticed the unusually empty streets around him, as his feisty pace easily led him towards a well-known destination, his confident steps resounding in between the damp walls of those sordid blocks made of innumerable overcrowded flats. The unmistakable stench of stagnant urine viciously permeated his nostrils, soon causing a disgusted expression to taint his angelic face, while he avidly took the umpteenth drag of smoke from his Cuban cigar and finally stopped his unceasing walk in front of the most renowned brothel in the entire city. For about three years by then, day after day, his life had been perilously circling the drain: things had got totally out of hand, fate had pitilessly thrown him into profound despair, giving life to an apparently endless spiral of darkness and desolation, which was gradually corroding his fragile self, brutally strangling him, rapaciously plundering each of his already strained vital breaths. And, nevertheless, it was beyond hard to blame him for such catastrophic outcomes, after all, he’d scarcely survived the battlefield, only to find himself with a handful of nothing, left alone to deal with a dead wife and four children to raise on his own, while his guts crawled with excruciating grief and ravenous acrimony for the whole world, having him develop a tendency to self-destruction that was just as concerning as it was well concealed.  As a matter of fact, in spite of his private hell, he still remained a Shelby, and a Shelby wasn’t meant to be soft, nor weak, none of them could afford to succumb to their affliction, never, not for a moment. They had to be invulnerable. 

Or, at least, they had to look invulnerable, for truth was that John was scared, utterly frightened by all those unmerciful changes.  Deep inside he felt like a hopeless, undefended child, forsaken by God and discarded to wander that grim world without any destination other than death and misery, thus his blood boiled with virulence and venom, having his heart clench with blind wrath and his devastated young soul desperately long for sort of any distorted kind of unattached affection. That was basically the main reason why his bed was incessantly warm, or more accurately, warmer than it had always been before, because, needless to say, John Shelby had actually been an authentic ladies’ man since his first cry. His stunning beauty constantly teemed on everyone’s lips in Birmingham, there was not a single woman in the whole town who hadn’t dreamt of sleeping with him at least once in her life. Therefore, John was more than happy to please them all, literally, welcoming them with wide open arms, even during his past marriage; and, on those rare times when no girl went to knock on his door, he had now grown accustomed to seek relief into whorehouses, rather than sleep alone and become an easy prey for his ferocious demons.

So he eventually ended up dropping his smouldering cigar on the uneven asphalt of the most rundown place in Small Heath, “Le Belle Donne”, an Italian house of tolerance, quite dilapidated and about to fall to pieces, but which often happened to have his favourite prostitutes. Indeed, ever since the Peaky Blinders had defeated and subjugated Sabini’s clan, they’d occupied a prominent position among the country, to the point that several other Italian gangs on their territory, including the Changrettas who owned that brothel in particular, had finally given in to the Shelbys. As a direct consequence, to put it simply, John and all his brothers had, in a very real sense, earned the full right to abuse of whatever business the wops held.

“Hey, man!”  Johnny resonantly barked as he entered the hall, maintaining a pretty intimidating attitude and a menacing look on purpose, in order to strike even greater fear in his newest flunky. “C’mon, show me what you got” That rough order cunningly glided onto his lower lip, immediately followed by his hot tongue, while his famished gaze travelled around the room, examining the face of each harlot standing there with meticulous attention, without however finding something that could come anywhere close to seriously rapture him. Robert Turrini, the whoremaster, was a bizarre bloke, for his physical appearance could be probably described as both disturbing and amusing: his revortingly corpulent stomach wobbled and his short legs dangerously stumbled, when he made haste to stand up and accommodate his toughest client. “Mr. Shelby, what an honour and a pleasure to have you back!” Those sycophant words fled his moist and malodorous mouth, and nonetheless, his stubby fingers inexorably betrayed his true thoughts, since they were either nervously torturing each other or, as only alternative, convulsively running through his greasy, mangy bangs. “Please, sir, follow me, these are for yokels and boozers, nothing to do with gentlemen like yourself” Once again, Turrini’s shrill fawning tone relentlessly grated his ears, making clear reference to the bunch of second-rate whores who could be found at the entrance; thus the lame pimp quickly moved, his hand anxiously beckoning John to tread upon his heels, then headed towards an eerily narrow corridor, so scanty that it was almost impossible to cross, if not walking on the bias. The secret lounge was illuminated only in part by a squalid red light creating a gruesome atmosphere, a dull silence tyrannically reigned into that small space, although you were not alone, but practically glued to another girl; both sitting on a minuscle sofa, your elbows touching, still none of you dared emit a single sound. Everything felt like lead upon your papier-mâché ribcage, that horrible sensation forcing your traumatized brain to involuntarily keep counting the seconds until that heinous burden would’ve potentially staved in your sternum, definitively annihilating your splintered heart. As a result, when the ramshackle door opened and a high-pitched squeak scraped your skin, you really thought to be about to die. Your torturer made his entrance, and right after him, another man came in, yet you couldn’t spot his face, since the peak of his cap designedly casted a mysterious shadow on it. “These two right here, they're real young, real fresh” Robert flaunted his goods along with a nefarious grin, rubbing his soiled paws with evident greed. “Behold the finest offering of flesh and bone on the market” A sadistic snicker repugnantly accompanied his speech, instantly causing John to frown, visibly disgruntled with the way that man deliberately talked about human beings. Luckily, it was a known fact that the middle Shelby was used to treating his women with all due respect: whether he paid them or not, he always made sure they were comfortable with him and never shrank from giving them some good time as well; therefore, a vexed glare was shot in the direction of his gross interlocutor, before his crystalline eyes briefly fluttered around the place, then bumping into your elegant figure almost at once.

Your bloodstream seemed to benumb on the spot as the stranger’s confident stare entangled yours, his rawboned features being now fully displayed, for he had lifted his chin a little in order to properly look at you, and you only, despite Clarissa’s desperate and petulant attempts to get his attention with malicious smiles and ridiculous pet names. Even though your dazed mind had just been ruthlessly brutalized by the sudden, ablaze assault of his glacial irises, a few moments were enough for you to realize how profoundly different he was from all the low-down rats who usually came through that horrible place.

Each sharp, still somehow delicate, trait of his face was brimming with delicious youthfulness, a less keen eye might have even confounded his freshness with actual naivety, but not yours; you were far too clever to make such a coarse mistake. Furthermore, the midnight-blue posh fabric of the classy suit, remarkably folding his majestic body, left gaunt doubt that he was, in all likelihood, a considerably rich man, which was beyond disorientating you, since the price to pay for some tawdry delight in that brothel was outrageously derisory, to say the least. And ultimately, as much as it killed you to conceive it, he was without question one of the most enchanting men you had ever seen, to the point that you found yourself subconsciously wondering the possible reason why a heavenly creature of his kind would’ve needed to buy a miserable hour of dissembled love. 

“There she is” That malleable murmur, filled with longing and gratification, furtively sidled past John’s roseate mouth, as its corners seductively bent upwards and his gaze persevered in its praiseworthy commitment to scrupulously linger your finest shape in sheer adoration. Lace and organdy sublimely merged on the light crimson negligee you were wearing, your immaculate form appeared as a beguiling paradox into his dilated pupils, being your long legs lecherously left exposed, while every inch of your porcelain skin, from your lean neck to your groin, was painstakingly disguised by that unholy material, dark and inscrutable, albeit thin enough to allow him to glimpse the inviting turgidity of your nipples. His breath shuddered in awe when he went back to contemplate your aphrodisiac facial features, flushed cheeks and plump lips having him ache with desire, and then your doe eyes flooded by melancholy, strangling his soul with no mercy, entrenching into his brains the treacherous conviction that, at the end of the day, he would’ve gladly dilapidated his fortune, if only to venerate you from afar. “Oi, sweetheart!” His low voice finally rumbled within the walls of that small space, overwhelmingly vibrating into your abdomen, while you forced yourself to swallow the painful lump obstructing your throat and stand up, promptly responding to his command, aware as you had become that rebelling against your pitiable destiny would’ve served no purpose at all. Holding your client’s hand behind your back, but keeping your head down during the whole route, you silently guided him up the spiral staircase to the best room in the house, like you had previously been instructed by your pimp. His jacket and hat were quickly hung on the apposite coat-rack, leaving his muscular top covered with just his white shirt and blue vest, an alluring grin was flashed in your direction and you detected a libidinous sparkle in his irises, as he healed the rift between you at a slow pace. “What should I call you, sweetheart?” He knowingly used the same flattering pet name once more, whispering that barely audible question into your ear, for he was now behind you: his large hands laid around your waist, gently making your back and his vigorous chest fit together, while his skilled mouth brushed forthwith against your nape, drawing an ardent contrail of ephemeral pecks up until your jaw. “Just y/n” You gasped in response, the marked contrast between his warmth and your bitter cold body, along with crippling dread eating you alive, caused your scrambled stomach to squirm and your eyelids to distressingly shut into a frown. “Well, that’s a pretty good one, I’m John, by the way” A lovely, yet hinted giggle fleetingly filled your ears together with that little compliment; there was no record of mockery in his tone, though, it simply sounded like he wanted to be nice to you, without any aspiration of personal gain, and you almost blushed, caught off guard and no longer used to any form of kindness. Nevertheless, it was a matter of instants before another wet, long kiss was pressed on your jawline, making you startle with evident apprehension and, at a later time, definitively back away from him, as soon as you sensed his touch abandoning your hips only to climb your sides, till he reached for your nightgown’s collar and his fingers began to fiddle with its round buttons. “No, I’ll do it!” You curtly gave notice, as you temporarily lost control of both your speech and actions, placing your hands above his in order to shrug them off, then turning to face him with short breath, your open palms shielding you. “I got it” A noticeably softer voice supplanted your preceding rudeness once you gradually metabolised how much damage your incautious reaction could’ve done.

“Aye, aye, darling, as you wish” But John just chuckled, tenderly humouring you, while his forearms jokingly lift in surrender to your commands, although, truth be told, your strange behaviour had left him a bit bewildered, well-nigh confused. Carefully moving backwards, he cockily made himself comfortable on the edge of the double bed, sitting right in front of you with splayed legs, his yearning stare never deflecting from you, and started to unbutton his waistcoat along with his shirt and undershirt, until his statuesque torso was completely nude, in all its glory, as the moon transpired through the curtains and shed its faint rays on his every contour, superbly enhancing all of his muscles.

Without reprieve, he ogled up at you in pure adoration, devastatingly astonished afresh by your dazzling beauty, eager to feel your afire flesh around his, literally hanging on your every word or move, while a provocative smirk steadily rippled his lips. Still, he kept questioning why a seraphic vision like you was slowly withering away in that authentic hell on heart, adamantly squandering your blush of youth amidst that rabble of unrestrained putridity. It made absolutely no sense, and he couldn’t get rid of that pernicious thought haunting his mind ever since he had first seen you: you looked nervous, extremely defensive, almost paralyzed with fear; you seemed so different from all the whores he’d had before, hence his instincts, however obfuscated with cupidity, were screaming that something was wrong.  And when he watched you turn your back on him again, so to avoid his penetrating gaze as you reluctantly got undressed, it was enough for him to understand that his execrable hunch was right. Nevertheless, by the time his head managed to eventually reconnect to his mouth, it was already too late, the soft textile of your nightdress ineluctably fell to your feet, leaving you naked under his starving leer.

John choked on his own breath; for the very first time, he felt like a fledgling kid at his earliest experience, no matter if nothing could be further form the truth, in some turbid, cryptic way, you were able to make him vulnerable. His craw went hellishly dry while he continued to gape at you in awe, the sinuous curves of your flawless glutes, the meandering line of your superlatively arched back covered in part by your soft hair, your tensed shoulders and your refined legs, everything about you caused his mind to go entirely black, words stifling in his throat. Yet, as soon as you moved to face him and his sight was blessed with the full view of your voluptuous figure, something altered the light in his cerulean eyes, suddenly making it dark and gloomy. His jaw slightly dropped under the weight of that violent dismay: in conjunction, an obnoxious sense of nausea cruelly shot him in the gut and blind anger virulently assailed him, for your front bust was completely martyrized.

“What the hell...” That unmeant babble died in the gelid air, his shocked orbs demarcating the strokes of your damaged silhouette: your neck and collarbone were horridly plastered with several violet fingerprints, as if someone had mercilessly strangled you over and over, greenish bruises with the shape of full palms circled both your arms, there were conspicuous signs of ligature around your tiny wrists. Worse still, his eyelids had to squeeze a little in order to bring into focus the multiple oxblood dots stigmatizing your soft breasts, until he noticed in horror how those round specks were effectively cigarettes burns; all of the oxygen bluntly withdrew from his lungs, when he dwelled on the multiple blue and black marks barbarically desecrating the protuberances of your ribs. But what irremediably drove him over the edge were the two ghastly scars digging stretched grooves in your lower stomach, in parallel with your bulging pelvic bones and down almost to your livid groin.

Prey of that deleterious humiliation, you observed raw disgust contaminating his features and, with no apparent reason, the dormant hatred you had for yourself began to ferment inside your belly. “I-I’m sorry” you forced yourself to swallow your imminent tears, unexpectedly, the awareness of not being able to please him somehow inflicted more suffering on your mangled soul “If I’m not to your taste, y-you can...” The young man quickly stood up and, before you had the chance to finish your nonsensical sentence, he readily grabbed his shirt, approaching you with dispatch, his cold irises burning with an implausible mixture of fury and concern. “I don’t fucking care right now” His voice was unsteady, rolling down his tongue in fatigued panting, as his hands hastened to wrap his shirt around your shoulders, his trembling fingers struggling to put the buttons through the eyelets  “Who did this to you?” In truth, he was talking to himself rather than with you, noticeable impatience worsening his mad tone, yet you persistently steered clear of his inquiring look, more than determined to keep your mouth shut, forasmuch as your dizzy head was already helplessly spinning, along with your heart rabidly hammering against your sore ribcage. You were having a hard time figuring out what was going on, everything around you was so confused, you didn’t even know whether to trust him or not, you only wanted to close your eyes and forget about that lucid nightmare. “I’m not asking you, for fuck’s sake! Tell me who it was!”  That searing order tersely brought you back to reality and cleared how easily his rash temper could reemerge; indeed, all of a sudden, no trace was left of that kind, cheerful boy who earlier that night had succeeded in making you genuinely blush, on the contrary, when he cupped your cheeks and vehemently shook you, in a desperate effort to get your attention, his rough, authoritative command unbendingly hit you, and the sweet child within him ended up being thoroughly smothered by the scary, ruthless gangster that he truly was. That unforeseen contact had your feet automatically stagger backwards, your eyes fell to your tiptoes and your teeth started skewering your lower lip, while your exhausted brain resorted to its last ounce of strength, thereby obligating you to spit out a bit of your sorrow. “Three months ago, the man I once called father sold me to settle one of his debts with the Italians” Your thorax seemed to shrink to the point of absurdity once you became aware that it was essentially the first time you allowed yourself to say it all out loud. However, the presence of that compassionate stranger still represented for you a substantial barrier to surmount, leading your unquiet glance to franticly move from the grime on the floor, to the broken window on your left, anywhere, but never daring to meet his. “ I tried to run away, I swear I did, but they always caught me and-” 

A large knot callously plugged the bottom of your palate, causing you to hesitate for a minute, gently rubbing your own arms, in attempt to comfort yourself . “Robert has a short fuse, he g-gets pretty brutal when you don’t cooperate” Those disenchanted considerations carried an involuntary grin, it was nothing more than a spasm, but hid the unmistakable sign of an imminent cry, and John’s attentive irises certainly did not let it go unnoticed, yet he chose to stay quiet, because the last thing he would’ve wanted in that crucial moment was to scare you even more. “He beat me to death, each time harder than the time before, and then he let those men-... He-e kept me tied to that bed for days to teach me a lesson” Copious tears were now unremittingly streaming down your flushed face, your heart aching with raw affliction, preventing you from breathing properly, one of your palms instinctively went to cover the space between your breasts, in a vain whirl to ease that excruciating grief. “Oh, God” John simply sighed, he was precariously theetering on the verge of tears as well, thick veins untamedly pumped in the proximity of his temples, till his solid shape ruinously keeled over the longest side of the bed, his elbows piercing his own thighs, as he hid behind his clenched fists and finally permitted himself to indulge a couple of muffled sobs. Innumerable atrocities had clouded his eyes and soul during his brief life, he himself was capable of unspeakable acts of cruelty, still, that was absolutely intolerable, hearing your story was taking a terrible toll on him. Try as he might, he couldn’t conceive how somebody could have been so hopelessly evil, to abuse in such a heinous way a defenseless creature as pure as you were. That thought was irretrievably disturbing him, rancorously eroding his bowels, almost depriving him of his sanity.

“U-until I stopped fighting them”  Your last, indescribably anguished whisper struck the fatal blow, it unrelentingly plunged into his chest, sending an unbearable jolt of pain through his poisoned veins. For a brief instant, his expression, together with yours, harshly turned into a mask made of neat despair, as if your synapsis had been ravelled and both of you were enduring the exact same ache, at the exact same moment.

“I’ll fucking kill him!” Then, all at once, something apopletic inside him violently detonated, he berserkly stood up, roughly tripping over the beside table and everything placed on it. “Fucking kill that filthy bastard with my own two hands, bloody hell!” His hoarse yells made your bruised skin cringe and his furious steps covered the whole length of the room in the space of a scant minute; he was literally seething with murderous fits of rage, teeth grinding with irrepressible choler. “No!” your desperate voice erupted afresh and you hurried to reach for him, your hands unconsciously enveloping his cheekbones “Please, please, John, please, stop!” For the first time, his name slipped out of your aching throat in between those pathetic pleads, your wrists forced him to look at you, in attempt to dissuade him from his homicidal purposes; the mere thought of the potential disastrous consequences to his calamitous ire totally asphyxiated you, rampant panic assaulted your frail mind and, soon after, you found yourself hyperventilating and simultaneously rambling a bunch of incoherent words, your fingers gradually tightening their grip on him. “He’s gonna get so angry at me, he’s gonna- he-he’s...” “I’m a fucking Shelby, he does not draw a damn breath unless I say so” He firmly grabbed your chin with just two of his fingers, guiding your depleted pupils to entirely focus on his confident stare, and he growled that undisputable fact a span away from your nose. Petrified by that new awareness, you fell utterly silent, only gawking in his direction, while he put his undershirt back on with ease and rapidly grasped his cap. “Just stay here, do you hear me? Don’t move until I come back” An incandescent kiss was impulsively pressed to your forehead, no other words were spent, before he disappeared behind the door of your private hell. When your persecutor saw his special guest unyieldingly storming towards his desk with a truculent expression exuding fervent disappointment, he jumped on his feet, ready to find a solution to whatever problem had possibly arisen; one thing was sure, he never would’ve guessed what was about to happen. “Mr. Shelby, what’s wron-” John’s fist savagely collided with his jaw, nipping his cloying speech in the bud, without giving Turrini a second to process what was going on, another punch pitilessly smote him, and then another one, and then another, until hot, plenteous blood gushed from his multiple wounds. “You son of a bitch”   Animalistic groans left his rabid maws, sheer hate rushing through his brains, as he violently tossed him to the ground, immediately beginning to kick his torso with all of his brute force. “Mercy! I beg of you, sir, have mercy!” His victim’s prayers and harrowing screams barely titillated his ears, everything he could think about was your tragically marred body, hence an unbridled desire to give him a taste of his own medicine completely took over. “Where was your mercy when you were torturing her?”  Expertely holding his hat in the most efficient way, in a fury, John went down on his sacrificial lamb, promptly disfiguring just one side of his face, in order to take a quite theatrical pause from his wicked work.

“When she was imploring you to stop?”  Robert was now crying out loud, overwhelmed by that merciless agony, reduced to just invoke the glacial scynt of death, since nothing in his entire miserable existence had ever caused him more intense pain, than the coarse perception of a finely sharpened razorblade brutishly lacerating his flesh once more, inch by inch.

“Now bend your ear to this” despite his wrenching laments, John rudely lift him up by seizing the blood stained collar of his jacket “if anyone else but me goes near her fucking room again, I’ll burn this fucking place down!” And with that first, deadly threat the pimp’s head was brutally slammed into the wall, an umpteenth whine of contrition escaping his mouth filled with blood, nevertheless, no time was left for redemption.

“You lay a finger on her again” his skull was doggedly crashed into the bricks once again, a crimson spatter smeared the pale plaster covering them “I will break your neck” John’s knuckles clasped, having his red right hand effectively strenghten its hold on his neck, nearly killing him on the spot. However, fortunately for the whoremaster, Johnny would’ve not put an end to his sufferings, nor he could've simply taken you away, deep inside, he knew he needed to discuss it with his family, first and foremost, with Thomas, for the unstable equilibrium reached by the Peaky Blinder was far too fragile to start a new war against the Italians. Thus, with great difficulty, he forced himself to keep his mind clear and put a lid on his beastly instinct. “From now on, no one of you dirty swines is allowed to even look at her”  Throwing him to the floor, the middle Shelby delivered one last kick straight to his fat abdomen, and disrespectfully spit on him, marking with his salt slaver the end of his brutalized prey’s calvary. “By order of the Peaky Blinders”   As soon as the crackling door snapped open, your heart seemed to explode, your eyelids bolted with pure fear, whilst you pulled your knees closer to your clavicles, an ancient prayer lingering your lips together with heavy breaths, as you prepared for the worst. But the worst never came. “Y/n, hey, calm down. It’s all right” John’s husky voice echoed in your ears, and, you could’ve sworn it, that was, without the slightest doubt, the most beautiful sound you had ever heard. Your head abruptly tilted in his direction, an oxymoric mixture of fear and hope twinkling into your watery irises, deep pants still rocking your tiny self. “It’s me, it’s just me” Keeping his arms up to indicate his innocuous purpose, he carefully approached you. Almost immediately, you noticed the several scarlet handprints staining his pale top, eloquent sign that he had tried to wipe his palms on that ivory material as best as he could. Yet, you were so profoundly relieved to see his friendly face, that, to be honest, the sight of fresh blood didn’t upset you at all. It was like you had fallen into a fugue state, every single thing around you was so distant, your numb senses were only able to concentrate on John’s lean silhouette kneeling in front of you. “ No one will hurt you anymore, darling” his hands gently went to caress your thighs, while his worried gaze tirelessly sought yours and he spoke those soft, reassuring words “You need to trust me”. And you did want to put all of your faith in that young man. His delicate flair easily awakened you from that ostensible slumber, building a rousing fire inside your belly; without a thought about your unforeseen actions, you threw your arms around his strong neck, your knees producing a dry sound as they collided with the wooden pavement, still you didn’t care and you held him tight, letting out loud cries and drowning into his muscular chest, finally revelling in the feeling of that warm embrace. Soon, he entangled his callous fingers with your velvety locks, subconsciously narrowing his solid shoulders, as to shield your frangible figure from the outside world. “I'll get you out of here soon, I promise”

tag list: @spidey-pal​, @shadow-of-wonder​, @stassaurus​​, @peachlle​, @livvtheangel​, @myjbphase​, @namelesslosers, @crazyonesarethebest​, @vxxn128​, @keithseabrook27​, @spaghettirogers​​, @writingstudent​​, @hp-hogwartsexpress​​

[sachigram]

Telescope Now Chapter 4

((click here to read on ao3!!))

When Izaya wakes again, it's dark outside. He jumps, thinking he slept all day, but then he realizes it's just raining again. He feels a bout of nausea from his sudden movement, and he quickly sinks back into the couch with a loud groan.

“You sick?” Shizuo's voice asks. Izaya squints up at him. Shizuo is still here? He's on the other side of the sectional, as if determined to be as far away from Izaya as possible.

“Why're you here?” Izaya asks, letting his head fall. He doesn't remember much of the night before after deciding to go to Sunshine 60. He definitely doesn't remember how he got home.

“Wow. Did you just entirely forget about last night, or are you still waking up?” Shizuo says, and Izaya rolls so he can look at Shizuo without lifting his head.

“We didn't fuck, did we?” Izaya asks, and Shizuo chokes on his own saliva, his face going bright red as he coughs.

“What?! No! What the fuck?!”

“Ah. Then I guess it doesn't matter what happened,” Izaya says. He pulls his coat a little tighter around himself. He wants a blanket, but he doesn't want to move, and he's damn sure not going to ask Shizuo to get him one.

“It matters,” Shizuo says. He's got his feet propped on the coffee table, and Izaya considers berating him for it, but he lets it go. Shizuo must have helped him home.

“How pathetic am I?” Izaya asks, chuckling at his own misfortune. “Reduced to being helped by someone who wants me dead. Is this what rock bottom is like?”

“Stop being dramatic,” Shizuo huffs. “You got drunk. It happens. I'd be wasted all the time if I were you.”

“Ah.”

“I mean— fuck, that came out wrong. It's just that you're, you know, going through stuff, and I'm just saying if it were me, I wouldn't be able to handle it,” Shizuo babbles. Izaya smirks.

“What about any of this makes you think I'm handling it?”

“It just seems like you're the type that can handle anything,” Shizuo says.

“Shizu-chan, you don't know a thing about me. I guess that's commonplace for you, isn't it? Not knowing things.” Izaya tries to glare at Shizuo, but it's more effort than it's worth, being an asshole when he feels this bad. “Why did you stay the night here?”

“It was raining,” Shizuo says. “Also you were...upset. I don't know, I guess I thought it'd make me look even worse to leave before you woke up. I should have, though, since you don't even remember half of what you said.”

Izaya frowns, hating this. What the hell did he say? Surely, even drunk, he wouldn't go professing all his secrets to Shizuo, right? He really doesn't need another reason for anyone to pity him right now, and it's not like he's ever held on to the hope that Shizuo returns his desires. He decided a long time ago that if he couldn't have Shizuo's affesctions, he'd accept all of Shizuo's hatred. This is old news, nothing worth fretting over.

Right?

“What did I say?” Izaya asks.

“Uh.” Shizuo rubs the back of his neck, and Izaya is mortified, on pins and needles as he waits for Shizuo to keep talking. “You cried. Like, a lot. It was kind of concerning. You were even crying while you were asleep.”

“Oh. That's all?”

“That's all?”

“I can live with crying while drunk. Maybe I'm a sad drunk. I don't get drunk often enough to know.” Izaya tilts his head toward the TV and snorts. Shizuo is watching a home renovation show.

“You also passed out in the middle of the sidewalk. I guess you blacked out from the alcohol. I didn't know how drunk you were until we were moving. I should've stopped you from drinking so much,” Shizuo says.

“Stop acting like you're responsible for me. It's annoying.”

“You're annoying,” Shizuo counters maturely.

Izaya is going to tell Shizuo to leave, but it sticks in his mouth, refuses to come out. Shizuo looks nice like this, in the dim light from Izaya's living room, his white sleeves rolled up and his hair tousled from crashing on the couch. Izaya just wishes he could watch Shizuo stuffing his face with food to complete the image. It's like observing a wild animal in its natural habitat after getting used to only seeing images of it hunting. Maybe Shizuo feels the same way about Izaya, because despite his casual demeanor, he doesn't seem very at ease. Maybe he thinks Izaya is about to attack when in actuality, Izaya can barely lift his own head.

“Do you need something?” Shizuo asks suddenly. Izaya realizes he was staring.

“No.” Izaya watches a woman on the TV have a breakdown about her counters being too dark. Everything about this situation is so bizarre that Izaya can't grasp it's actually happening. “Am I still asleep?” he asks, expecting his sisters to emerge from somewhere.

“Stop being weird,” Shizuo says with a grimace, and Izaya laughs.

“I think maybe I've finally gone insane. I don't recognize dreams from reality anymore. They all just blend together.”

“You mentioned that before.”

Izaya grumbles, tries again to remember the night before. He recalls bits and pieces, knows he was an emotional wreck. It's possible he spilled his guts to Shizuo and Shizuo is just being nice about it. Then again, Shizuo has never been nice about anything before, so Izaya doubts it.

“Can you do me a favor?” Izaya asks suddenly, and Shizuo blinks at him. “Well. Multiple favors, actually.”

“What?”

“Can you go to the medicine cabinet and get me some ibuprofen? It's in my bathroom upstairs. Also a glass of water— and a blanket. It's freezing in here.” Izaya shivers in emphasis.

Shizuo narrows his gaze at Izaya before standing and shuffling away. Izaya hugs his coat tighter around himself. It's really too cold, and he wants to adjust the heat, but he doesn't want to move. Asking Shizuo to adjust the thermostat would be like challenging the gods. Izaya has no doubts Shizuo would break the thermostat into something completely unrecognizable, an avant-garde masterpiece.

Shizuo returns with a grunt. He tosses a heavy blanket over Izaya's head, and sets the pills and water on the table. Izaya adjusts, recognizing the fabric of the blanket.

“You brought the duvet from my bed,” he says, amused.

“How the fuck am I supposed to know where you keep extra blankets?” Shizuo asks, defensive.

Izaya hums and lifts up to grab the pills. He pauses, groaning as the room spins around him. Carefully, he sets the pills back down and stands, hurrying to the bathroom where he collapses in front of the toilet and vomits until his stomach is even emptier than it was before.

“Now this is rock bottom,” he murmurs, leaning back and flushing the toilet with his foot. He stays on the floor for a few moments, trying to decide whether he should throw up more, or risk taking the pills now. He stands and leans against the counter, looking at himself in the mirror. His reflection seems to blur around the edges, almost as if he's just an illusion. He sneers at himself. “I don't have time for this today. Not while he's here. Torture me later.”

“Are you talking to yourself?” Shizuo's voice asks, muffled from the wood of the door.

“Does that make you feel left out?” Izaya asks.

“Nah, knock yourself out. I'm gonna order food. You don't have anything here. What do you want?”

Izaya pauses, looking at the door in disbelief. He opens it, and Shizuo stands there, scowling at him.

“Well?” Shizuo barks.

“You're having food delivered here?” Izaya asks, giddy in spite of himself that Shizuo isn't leaving any time soon. “Get whatever you want. I don't think I'll be eating for a while unless I want to keep barfing.”

“Eh, soon enough you'll be craving something greasy. Tom-san always eats a lot after a binger.” Shizuo reaches in his pocket, pulling his phone out. He looks at Izaya closely. “Will you turn your nose up at a burger?”

Izaya grimaces, feeling nauseated at the thought of something so unhealthy. “If I do, you can just eat it yourself.”

“Fair point,” Shizuo says, and then he walks back towards the living room.

“What the fuck is going on?” Izaya asks his reflection. “Shizu-chan is hanging out with me.” He starts brushing his teeth. “Am I still dreaming?”

“Nope!” Mairu hops up on the bathroom counter, kicking her feet out as she watches him. “You've been asleep so long. I'm bored, you know?” She reaches out and pokes him. “I think Shizuo likes you.”

Izaya cuts his eyes at her. This is the first time he's actually seen either of the twins outside of his dreams. He looks around for Kururi, finally sees her hiding slightly behind Mairu.

“He seems worried about you,” Mairu continues. “You're way more popular than we thought.”

“You should've seen how many people came to your funeral,” Izaya says after he spits into the sink. “No one came to support me, aside from maybe Shiki-san. Kine wasn't even there.”

“Shiki-san likes you, too,” Mairu says.

“Different from Shizuo,” Kururi adds, her voice small. She sounds upset, and in contrast Mairu sounds too cheerful, like she's trying to make up for Kururi.

“Yeah, I don't think Shiki-san wants to jump your bones. But he might! Oh wow, that'd be something. We'd be loaded for real!” Mairu giggles and waves her arms around. “Hey, get over Shizuo and try to get with Shiki-san instead. Or Akabayashi-san! They're both executives, right?”

“I regret ever raising you,” Izaya tells them. He grabs his headband and pulls his bangs off his forehead so he can wash his face.

“Maybe this is what it will take to make you and Shizuo stop fighting,” Mairu says. “One big tragedy to bring people closer together! It's like a messed up love story.”

“Shizu-chan hates me,” Izaya says.

“Then why is he visiting you?” Kururi asks.

“I don't know. Why are you visiting me?” Izaya counters.

“We're here every day. You need other people, you know, aside from us.” She bites her lip, a nervous habit of hers, and she adds, quietly, “we miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” Izaya says. He looks over at their faces, and his eyes burn. “I don't know how I'm supposed to move on.”

“We aren't going to let you move on,” Mairu says, and she reaches out to take Izaya's hand. He lets go of his facial products in favor of giving them his full attention.

“Is it really you in my dreams?” Izaya asks them. “Sometimes I see memories, but then other times it's like you're both trying to scare me to death.”

“Oh, who knows?” Mairu asks. She grins at him. “Maybe it's your own guilty conscience, or maybe we're just trying to wake you up.”

“You're both rotten. I don't know why I miss you.”

“I wanna talk more about Shizuo!” Mairu says.

“He asks us about you,” Kururi says.

“He does?” Izaya asks.

“Whenever he sees us, he'll mention you. He's kind of obsessed with you, but I guess you know that already,” Mairu says.

“Obsessed,” Izaya repeats, looking at himself in the mirror again. “He probably just feels sorry for me.”

“Would you feel sorry if it was him?” Kururi asks.

“You mean if Kasuka died?” Izaya puts a dollop of soap in his palm and starts his tedious skincare routine. “I don't know. I think I'd be happy if he was in pain. If he was miserable, I'd know he wasn't out forgetting about me.” He rinses his face and looks up to find his sisters aren't there anymore. Izaya takes a deep breath and towels his face dry before applying a moisturizer. Shizuo appears then, his eyebrows rising as he looks at Izaya.

“Wow. Are those cat ears?” Shizuo asks, grinning. He points to the headband.

“My sisters have matching ones,” Izaya says. “Or had, I guess.”

“Food's on the way. Sorry it's more junk, but I can't really cook.”

Izaya pauses and glances over at him. “Shinra told you to babysit me, didn't he?”

“'Babysit' wasn't really what he said,” Shizuo says, and he leans against the door frame. “Look, I liked your sisters. I really think they would've liked for me to...”

“Stop.” Izaya doesn't look at him, doesn't dare. He applies another product to his face and forces his voice into indifference. “Nothing has changed about me, Shizu-chan. So you've seen a glimpse of my personality you don't hate yet, so what? It doesn't mean you and I are going to be chummy.”

“No shit,” Shizuo snaps.

“What exactly do you think you're going to get out of this? My gratitude? Do you think I'm going to stop tormenting you? Allow me to ease your caveman thoughts before you have a meltdown— I'm the same person I always was, and I'm incapable of leaving you in peace.”

“I-za-ya.” When Shizuo says it like that, it's almost like a song, like a prelude to an incoming battle cry. Izaya tenses, can't help it, but at the same time, he's craving for Shizuo to throw a punch. Izaya needs some normalcy, and even if he's enjoying Shizuo's company for some incredibly bizarre reason, a fight would make them both feel so much better. Izaya has a lot of pent up tension, is practically vibrating with it, and Shizuo must be able to tell, because the fury in his eyes evaporates and is replaced with something else, something terrible.

“I don't want your pity, and I don't want your help,” Izaya hisses, glaring at him. He feels such hatred in his body that he thinks he might sink into the ground from the weight of it.

“I don't pity you,” Shizuo says.

“Right. I'm sure some part of you enjoys this. I'm actually proud, Shizu-chan, that's very cruel of you. I didn't think you had the brain power to be so vindictive.”

“I'm tired of hating you, Izaya,” Shizuo says suddenly, his voice rising. He grips the top of the door frame and cracks it. “It's exhausting, and it's stupid. We're too old for this shit.”

“So saving me from myself is going to make me hate you less?” Izaya spits, and Shizuo growls before taking a step forward.

“Where does this end? Tell me that. When you envision your life without me, is it because you've killed me? What do I have to do to get you to leave me the fuck alone?!” Shizuo shouts, and Izaya takes a step back, can't help it. He's cornered, and they both know it. Still, Izaya isn't capable of yielding, and he's even less capable of shutting up, even when it's good for him.

“I don't envision you at all unless it's the idea of you dying in front of me.”

“Bullshit. You're obsessed with me, you won't even let me walk down the street without trying to pick a fight with me. Why the fuck do you hate me so much?” Shizuo asks, and Izaya leers up at him.

“Because you're an idiot, an overgrown toddler who destroys everything in his path the second he doesn't get his way. You spout your incessant drivel about hating violence, but violence is all you are, all you're capable of. You're a hypocrite, Shizu-chan, and I could forgive so many things, but I truly hate hypocrisy.” Izaya slaps another serum on his face and turns back to the mirror. He's well-aware of how strange this scenario is, Shizuo arguing with Izaya while he's grooming and hungover. This is a new one, strange even for them.

“God, just shut up, I'm so tired of arguing with you,” Shizuo says, shoving Izaya a bit. Izaya caches himself on the counter and turns, a knife in his hand.

“Get out,” Izaya says, and Shizuo looks from the knife to Izaya's face.

“No.”

“I mean it, get out. I feel like shit and your questions are idiotic. You're really going to ask me why I hate you? Are you really that stupid?” Izaya lifts the knife to Shizuo's neck, but Shizuo still doesn't back down. Of course he doesn't. “Last time I checked, you hated me just as much as I hate you. Can you tell me why?”

“Because you're a shitty parasite who ruins everyone's lives. You know all the shit you've done to me! You're obsessed, like I said—“

“Stop saying I'm obsessed with you like you aren't equally as hyper-focused on me. Sometimes I don't even do anything! You'd rather blame every problem you have on me than take responsibility for yourself.”

“That's because it is always to do with you, and you fucking know it!” Shizuo shouts, tilting forward. The knife slides a bit, and a trickle of blood flows from Shizuo's neck. Izaya watches it drip down, his lips curling in a snarl.

“If you hate me so much then just leave! I didn't ask for you to help me, I didn't ask for you to save my life, and I'm not asking you to stay now, you fucking monster!”

Shizuo throws a punch, and Izaya moves out of the way before slashing wildly at Shizuo's chest. Shizuo curses and jumps back, and the wall cracks where Shizuo hits it. They glare at each other, hatred clear in their faces, and Izaya can't help but grin wickedly. This is more like it. This is the monster he knows so well.

“God, Iza-nii, do you just have to ruin everything?” Mairu's voice asks from behind him. He whirls to face the mirror, and it's her face he sees instead of his own. She sounds hollow, echoing. Sometimes the twins sound like this, and sometimes they sound clear as day, as if they're really next to him.

“You aren't real,” he tells the mirror. His hand loosens around the knife, and it hits the floor, clattering on the tile. Shizuo looks at it, and then back at Izaya.

“You're really fucked up, aren't you?” Shizuo asks, but Izaya is still looking at Mairu's face. It's so easy to tell she isn't really alive anymore when she looks like this, twisted and contorted. She vanishes, and Izaya sees his own face, hisses and yanks the headband off before he steps past Shizuo and leaves the bathroom.

“Just get away from me, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, but of course Shizuo follows. He watches with a frown as Izaya marches into the kitchen and fishes a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet.

“Is that really a good idea?” Shizuo asks. “You're already sick.”

“Hair of the dog,” Izaya says, pouring himself a serving. He glances at Shizuo, sighs, and then gets out a glass for him, too.

“You wanna share your fancy shit with me?” Shizuo asks. Izaya shrugs.

“Sure, why not? Give you a taste of things you can't afford on your own. It'll hurt that much more next time you're forced to buy cheap.” Izaya pours it and slides it towards Shizuo, and then he raises his own glass. “To you, monster. May you live a long life full of destruction and torment.”

“Yeah, fuck you, too,” Shizuo growls. He takes a sip, and his eyes widen a bit.

“Smooth, right? This is Shiki-san's brand. I don't break it out very often.” Izaya throws his drink back and shudders. His stomach lurches in protest, and he worries the drink might surge back up, but it doesn't. “This is the weirdest day of my life.”

“I've had weirder,” Shizuo says. He leans on the counter and watches Izaya closely. “You never answered my question.”

“I'm sure I'll die of old age before I answer everything you don't understand,” Izaya says.

“Where do you see this going? I mean it, do you really think we can fight forever?” Shizuo asks, and Izaya gazes down into his empty glass thoughtfully.

“I try not to think about you, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, and there is truth in that. He tries very hard to think about anything else.

“If you don't think of me, then how the hell do you come up with your batshit crazy schemes to piss me off? Why can't you leave me alone?”

“I don't envision my life without you, either,” Izaya says simply, and he looks up at Shizuo's confused expression.  

“We can't keep this up forever.” Shizuo takes another sip of his drink. “One of us is going to die if we keep fighting.”

“A hatred like ours won't just go away. Hate is a strong emotion, one of the strongest we're capable of. If you truly hate someone, you hate them forever.”

“I don't buy that. You can stop being an asshole, and I'll stop chasing you down. It's as easy as that.”

“Is it?” Izaya asks. He pours himself another glass before he tops Shizuo off as well.

“You're the one who won't let this go,” Shizuo says gruffly.

“You're right,” Izaya replies, swirling the whiskey around in his glass. “It's not possible for me to stop hating you.”

“What if I just stop giving you the time of day? Stop rising to it, like everyone's always told me I should?” Shizuo asks, his eyes darkening as he leans closer to Izaya.

“Do you really think you can ignore me?” Izaya asks, and Shizuo throws the rest of his drink back before baring his teeth.

“I think I'll kill you if you don't back the fuck off.”

“So then kill me,” Izaya says. “I always imagined you would.”

“You want me to kill you?” Shizuo asks in disbelief, and Izaya pouts as the familiar ferocity leaves Shizuo's features.

“I'd love it if I could kill you, but I don't think you're human enough to die. I'm sure one day you'll go too far, or I will, and then you won't stop. You'll kill me, and everyone will know what you're capable of.” Izaya smiles, but it's not kind, and it's not happy. “I win either way.”

“You're crazy,” Shizuo snaps. He slams his empty glass on the counter, and it shatters. Neither of them look away from each other. “Something's wrong with you, something with your brain.”

“Pot, kettle,” Izaya says, and he gets out another glass for Shizuo. “You asked me if I'd leave you alone, and now you have your answer.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I fucking do. You're never gonna stop bothering me.”

“And you'll never stop chasing me. Isn't there a comfort in that?” Izaya asks as he pours Shizuo's glass. Shizuo barks a laugh, and Izaya looks up at him, dazed, taken aback that Shizuo could ever seem so relaxed in his presence.

“God. God. Yeah, there is.” Shizuo lifts his new glass of whiskey to Izaya. “Somehow, you're the most stable thing in my life.”

“I do aim to please you, Shizu-chan.” Izaya smirks before he sips his drink. “I bet you're wishing you let me get hit by that truck now, huh?”

Shizuo grimaces as he tosses the entirety of his drink back. “No.”

“Liar. It would've solved all your problems, and it would've been hands-off for you. Hell, you would've had a front-row seat to it! Do you think you would've been in the splash zone?”

“Izaya, fuck, stop. I don't want to think about it, okay? You—“ Shizuo shakes his head, tops off his own glass this time. “Do you really not give a fuck about yourself at all?”

Izaya scoffs, not liking the direction this conversation is going. Shizuo was supposed to like the idea, was supposed to lament saving someone who would never change. He isn't supposed to be looking at Izaya like this, like he actually gives a damn.

“Is that why you were on Sunshine last night?” Shizuo continues, and the implications hang. Izaya snorts.

“You think I was going to jump?”

“Were you?”

“Is that why you're here, Shizu-chan?”

“Answer my question, flea.”

“Answer mine!”

They glower at each other, Shizuo leaning over the shattered glass on the counter, and they both startle when there's a knock at the door. Shizuo grumbles and moves towards it, and Izaya watches him go, considers putting a cleaning product in Shizuo's drink, but thinks better of it.

“How domestic of you to answer my door, Shizu-chan,” Izaya lilts. “Rumors will spread, you know? You can't even blame me for it.”

“Fuck you, it's the—“ Shizuo starts, and then he growls. “Dammit, Shinra, what are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?!” Shinra shuffles inside, Celty in tow, and they both look from Shizuo to Izaya. Izaya's head throbs.

“Great, now there are two monsters in my home,” he mutters, sipping more whiskey. He feels like he'd rather be alone with the ghosts and his looming insanity than deal with all this at once.

“Did you stay the night?” Shinra asks Shizuo, ignoring Izaya and his dramatics.

“Well, yeah, I mean... It's storming and he's...” Shizuo jerks his thumb towards Izaya. “He's losing it.”

“That implies there was something left to lose!” Shinra says, laughing, and Izaya sees red. He throws his glass at Shinra, but Celty's shadows catch it before it makes impact. “Izaya-kun! What was that for?!”

Rather than answer, Izaya picks up the entire bottle of whiskey and pads towards his couch. He feels them all looking at him, but he's too tipsy to care. They're murmuring amongst themselves, and Izaya is busy tuning them out when someone jumps onto the couch next to him, startling him.

“Mairu,” he hisses lowly as she shakes his arm. She feels so real, so heavy next to him.

“Iza-nii! I'm bored!” Mairu exclaims, and the entire couch seems to move with the way she's bouncing.

“You're going to hurt him,” Kururi says, appearing at Izaya's other side.

“Look at him, he's already hurt!” Mairu keeps shaking Izaya, who has to fight to put the bottle on the coffee table before she can make him spill it. “IZA-NII!”

“Get off me!” Izaya snaps, shoving at her. It does nothing, as he just seems to phase through her. He looks at his hands, wondering how she can touch him, but he can't touch her. “You can't be here now, I'm not alone,” he whispers vehemently.

Neither of the twins seem to hear him, or more likely, they're ignoring him. They barely listened when they were alive, so Izaya isn't surprised. He feels himself being tugged by them, by something else, and he closes his eyes as a light blinds him and makes his terrible headache even worse.

When he opens his eyes, he's on the roof at Raijin. Izaya would recognize it anywhere. He used to come up here for lunch and for quiet, though Shinra would often find him anyway. He looks down at himself and is surprised to find he's transparent. He can see the tiles below as if he's not really here at all.

Off to the side, he sees a younger version of himself absorbed in a book. Izaya recognizes the title, The Picture of Dorian Gray. He still has the book at home, and he rereads it pretty often. He watches himself for a few moments, and then he hears movement on the stairs, voices carrying. The younger version of himself scoffs before ducking behind the wall, out of sight. The door opens to reveal Shizuo storming out onto the roof, Shinra chasing after him.

“Fucking drop it, Shinra!” Shizuo yells, his hands in fists. He whirls on the younger Shinra, who throws his hands up in surrender. “I'm not being nice to that goddamn bloodsucker! I'm tired of you talking to me about him; it just pisses me off!”

“I'm sorry! It's just that you're both my friends, and...” Shinra rubs at the back of his neck. “It'd be so much easier if we could all hang out together. I really think you two could be great friends.”

“What did I just say?!” Shizuo takes a threatening step forward, and Shinra howls before jumping back. “He's been sending thugs after me! I know it's him, and I'm gonna wring his scrawny neck until his head pops off!”

“Shizuo-kun, please, he's just trying to get a rise out of you! He's still really mad about you hating him on first sight, and—“

“If you say another word, one more word to me about making nice with that bastard, I'm gonna seriously hurt you. I hate him, and I want him dead. If I never saw him again, it'd be too fucking soon.”

Izaya watches them, and then he turns to his younger self, winces at the expression he sees. He remembers this day, remembers overhearing this conversation.

“I just wish you didn't feel that way,” Shinra says, and then he sighs. “C'mon, don't threaten me! I'm your friend, you know?”

“You're his friend, too,” Shizuo spits, and he crosses his arms. “I mean it, Shinra, I'm gonna kill him one day. You might as well get it through your head. I can't be chummy with a guy like that.”

“It boggles the mind that you're even chummy with me,” Shinra says, grinning wryly, and Shizuo shrugs.

“Yeah, don't remind me. You're just one of the only people who isn't scared of me, that's all it is.”

“Liar,” Izaya says, knowing full well no one can hear him. “I wasn't scared of you either, and you hated me for it.”

Shinra and Shizuo leave soon after, and Izaya is left alone with the younger version of himself, who is fingering the corners of his book forlornly. Izaya wishes he could say something to himself, but at the same time, he has no idea what he'd even say. He doesn't have any wisdom to offer, and as for comfort, every version of himself would reject it.

“This is when I decided I'd make him hate me more than anyone else,” he says aloud, watching as the young Izaya goes back to reading, huddled in a corner, tucked into himself. “I thought if it was the only way to get him to look at me, I'd be okay with it.”

“Does it work out?” the younger Izaya asks, suddenly looking right at him, maybe even through him. “Are you happy?”

“Does it matter? He's looking.”

There's a tug on his arm, and Izaya jerks awake, finds he's flat on the floor beside his coffee table. Shinra is hovering over him.

“Izaya-kun? Hey, it's okay.” Shinra puts a calming hand on Izaya's cheek, and Izaya leans into it, needs to know Shinra is really here. “Do you know where you are?”

“I'm home. Shizu-chan was here...” Izaya looks around wildly until his eyes settle on Shizuo, who is standing beside Celty, a worried look on his face. “Weren't we just at school?”

“School?” Shinra asks. “What did you see?”

“My sisters were here...” Izaya groans and tries to sit up. A fresh wave of nausea hits him, and he curls into himself instead. “You think I'm crazy.”

“I don't. I think you're going through too much for anyone to go through alone.” Shinra leans down, closer to Izaya's ear. “I'm here,” Shinra says softly, and Izaya withholds a laugh. If this isn't real, this is the cruelest trick his mind has played on him so far.

“You're heavy,” Izaya mumbles, and Shinra pulls back, offers a hand to help Izaya up.

“What the hell is this? He's seeing ghosts and passing out? And we're gonna act like it's okay?” Shizuo asks, and Shinra sighs as he supports Izaya onto the couch.

“It could be a lot of things. All of this could still be the mind processing grief, it could be sleep-deprivation—“

“I slept fine last night,” Izaya interjects, and Shinra looks between him and Shizuo, his eyebrows raised.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Shizuo says, narrowing his eyes at Shinra. “You asked me to look after him, and he was freaking out. What was I supposed to do, leave him here alone?”

“It's just above and beyond what I asked you to do, that's all,” Shinra says, and then he turns to Izaya. “How are you feeling right now?”

“Hungry,” Izaya says earnestly. “Aren't we having food delivered soon, Shizu-chan?”

“It's here already. You just had to go and pass out.” Shizuo walks towards the couch, a paper bag in his hand, and he sets it on the coffee table in front of Izaya.

“I'm so happy the two of you are finally getting along,” Shinra says happily. He wilts when Shizuo and Izaya both give him a look.

“Can you leave? I was fine till you showed up,” Izaya says.

“So you were fine alone with Shizuo-kun?” Shinra asks.

“Yes,” Izaya snaps as he unwraps his hamburger, which is ridiculously big. “Look at this thing. How the hell do I eat this, Shizu-chan?”

“You eat it, dumbass. Can you even eat real food, or do you exclusively live off the blood of others?” Shizuo asks as he flops onto the couch beside Izaya. He reaches for the bag, and he hums in thanks when Izaya passes it to him.

“Well, Celty, I think we can go! They seem fine!” Shinra says, and he balks when Celty's PDA shoves into his face. “Really, they're doing great! You heard Izaya-kun, he wants us to go!”

“Celty can stay. You're the one on my nerves,” Izaya mumbles through a mouthful of food. Shizuo's lips twitch upwards.

“Celty and I are a package deal!” Shinra wails, and he looks closely at Shizuo. “Call if anything happens, okay?”

“Shinra really should monitor you. You passed out so suddenly.” Celty's PDA floods Izaya's vision, and he squints at the bright screen, his eyes struggling to adjust.

“I'm fine. You can all go,” Izaya says.

“No. You can relent to letting Shizuo-kun stay, or you can come stay with me. You can't be alone, I'm sorry.” Shinra steps forward and puts a hand on Izaya's shoulder, his fingers squeezing.

“As if any of you care what happens to me.” Izaya tries to shrug Shinra's hand off him, but Shinra holds on tight.

“I do care, and so does Celty.” Shinra frowns and shakes Izaya a bit. “I really think you should come stay with us for a while.”

“He's fine, I'm watching him,” Shizuo says. Izaya grimaces at him when he sees Shizuo is already almost done with his own burger, his cheeks full of food like some sort of monstrous rodent. He glares over at Izaya. “What?”

“Watching you disgusts me,” Izaya says, leaning forward to put his burger on the coffee table.

“You watching me disgusts me!” Shizuo shoots back.

“How am I supposed to look at anything else when you're smacking and—“

“Okay!” Shinra says, his hands going up. “Don't kill each other. I don't have other friends to replace you.” He nods at Shizuo, wordlessly conveying his thanks, and then he's tugging Celty towards the door. Izaya tongues at his cheek, and when he hears the door closed, he turns to Shizuo.

“You can leave now, monster. I don't want you here.”

“Tough shit,” Shizuo replies, wadding up the paper his burger was wrapped in. “Shinra's right, you shouldn't be alone.”

“I don't want you here!” Izaya shouts, and Shizuo stiffens. Izaya rarely raises his voice, hates to lose his cool, but the longer Shizuo stays and acts like Izaya is anything other than an enemy, the more Izaya feels himself slipping. “Get out.”

“So you're just gonna sit here feeling sorry for yourself?” Shizuo asks gruffly, his eyes looking from Izaya to the bottle of whiskey still on the table. “Flea—“

“Out, I said! Out, get the fuck out of my apartment!” Izaya stands, wobbles on his feet, and reaches into his pocket, withdrawing his wallet and a few bills. He throws them at Shizuo. “For your junkfood. Leave before I call security.” He makes his way back upstairs and flops into his bed, too hot with anger to even care his duvet is still on the couch. He doesn't relax until he hears the door close below him, and he's honestly surprised when Shizuo doesn't slam it.

***

It only takes a day for Shizuo to come back.

Izaya is curled on the couch, his eyes on the TV, though he doesn't know what he's watching. He barely flinches when his door bursts open, and when Shizuo comes to the couch to hover over him, he keeps his eyes trained on the TV screen.

“Simon said to give this to you,” Shizuo says, putting a bag next to Izaya. “He said it's your favorite.”

Izaya doesn't look at him. Shizuo growls and kicks at the couch.

“Oi, did you hear me? Are you deaf now, flea?”

“I don't want you here,” Izaya says irritably. He sniffs and pulls his blanket up higher, hiding more of his face.

“Tough shit, I don't care what you want.” Shizuo crosses his arms and stands there. “You think you deserve peace and quiet when you never give me the same courtesy? Fuck you.”

“Then do what you want, just shut up.”

Shizuo scrutinzies him, taps his foot on the floor. “What's wrong with you? You look worse than usual.”

“The urns are here,” Izaya says, motioning to the counter. He put them right next to the broken glass he's yet to clean. “Told you they'd liven things up.”

Shizuo hesitates a moment before he sits next to Izaya, closer than he did the day before. Izaya tosses the remote at Shizuo, who catches it and flips through the channels before settling on some cheesy movie. Neither of them speaks for a long time, and it's Izaya who eventually breaks the silence.

“I didn't look in their coffins.”

“Huh?” Shizuo glances at him.

“I didn't want to see their bodies. I didn't want to remember them that way.” Izaya rolls to his back, and he watches Shizuo's face. “I'm actually a coward, you know?”

“I wouldn't have wanted to look either,” Shizuo says.

“Mm. I wish I had've.”

Shizuo keeps staring at him, a frown on his face, and Izaya laughs softly, shaking his head.

“I'm just not really convinced they're actually dead.”

“Flea.” Shizuo sighs and runs a hand through his messy hair. “They are. They're...gone. Don't do this to yourself.”

“Then tell me why those urns are empty.”

[judgmentofcorruption]

Episode 3–He Dies in the Snow Field; Scene 5

Judgment of Corruption, pages 98-104

Kayo living in Pixie had been a complete lie.

“I’m not so foolishly honest as to write down where I live in documents like that.”

Gallerian had protested that this was an illegal act, but Kayo didn’t pay any mind to that at all.

“If you’re going to prosecute me for it, do as you like.”

It was a provocation done with the knowledge that Gallerian was in no position to do that right now.

Naturally, even if he wasn’t in this situation, Gallerian would never have taken legal action against her. It was for the purpose of making her his collaborator that he had declared her innocent, after all.

--To give the main points of the explanation Kayo gave after that, this was the gist of it:

This facility, “Lunaca Labora”, was one of the places where she could rest. Only one of them—Kayo’s place of residence was not set in stone. Given her position, she apparently had several hiding places prepared in every region.

Just as Hel said, Lunaca Labora was an artifact of the old era. Kayo didn’t say how it was that she found this place, but she did explain in brief regarding its origins.

In the old era there had been the Magic Kingdom. In it was a researcher by the name of Seth Twiright, and supposedly “Lunaca Labora” was a research facility that he had created, established secretly under the barren snow field. As it was belowground it sustained very little damage from the “Great Catastrophe” that destroyed the Magic Kingdom, and remained on until the present day in its current state.

She said that here they were able to conduct medical procedures that surpassed modern science. It was proof that the Magic Kingdom had possessed incredibly advanced technology that defied what was normally possible, and it made sense that Hel’s father Heaven Jaakko had been searching for it so desperately.

After the “Great Catastrophe”, Seth had created a sorceress here.

“’The Red Cat Sorceress’—Are you familiar with that name?” Kayo asked Gallerian.

“…That figure has popped up several times, historically. There’s ‘IR’, who was said to be involved with the Venomania Event, ‘AB-CIR’ who was the owner of the Heartbeat Clocktower, and ‘Abyss IR’ who worked behind the scenes before and after the Lucifenian Revolution—"

“I’m impressed. That’s quite extensive knowledge you have.”

“I learned that during my course on violations of the special laws on magic. Any student of Levin University’s law school would know it.”

“This place was where that ‘Red Cat Sorceress’ was born. Seth put the soul of a girl on the verge of death inside a red cat plushy. The red cat became immortal with magical powers, and had the power to bend people to her will—”

“Where did you get this information? That wasn’t written anywhere in my textbook, at the very least.”

Kayo only gave a thin smile, not answering the question.

“…Well, whatever. If nothing else, it’s clear that you have a very detailed knowledge of magic. That is what I was seeking.”

Gallerian told her of his idea that he needed someone with knowledge on “witches” to reform the witch trials.

“—I see. So that’s why you declared me innocent.”

“Please work with me. You must know yourself, don’t you? Who I am the son of.”

“…Yes. Of course.”

“If you revere Elluka, then—”

“Wait a moment. We have something that takes priority over that right now, don’t you think? …I will give the matter some thought. However—first we must take care of Loki.”

“I have one more question on that. You—all of you, seem to have some grudge against Loki, but why is that? He himself is little more than a mere judge, like me.”

“Rather than Loki—it’s more his family…Really, it’s the Freezis Conglomerate we want to do something about. Though, well, all of our views on that do differ slightly.”

And then Kayo began to talk about her own motives.

“Elluka Ma Clockworker had received the patronage of the Freezis Conglomerate. The people who led it were trying to use the considerable magical power that she possessed to grant their fondest wish.”

“Their ‘fondest wish’?”

“Immortality… This, at least, is not something that one can gain so easily no matter how much money you have. This is something that started in the era of Shaw Freezis, the founder of the conglomerate’s previous incarnation, the Freezis Foundation. In actuality, Shaw had been able to secure an extremely long lifespan through the use of magical power. …Think this absurd, do you?”

“…I’ll hold back on voicing my opinion for now. Please continue.”

“That is why by all rights Elluka should never have been captured by the World Police, and even if she had she should have been judged innocent at the trial. It was known at the time that Hanma, the Dark Star Courthouse director, would change the verdict. But things didn’t play out that way. –She was betrayed. By the conglomerate,” Kayo said, her expression twisting.

“Are you sure of that? Or is it just your theory?”

“It’s fact. I heard all this from internal members of the Freezis Conglomerate.”

Kayo looked around at all the people around them.

“Beginning with Bruno, and excluding you and I, everyone here works for them—publicly, at least.”

“Everyone--Even…even that tiger-looking person there?”

“You mean Feng? I hear he’s kept on as a pet.”

The tiger—Feng--made a small groan. “…Though extremely reluctantly. It’s the only way I can afford my food.”

Gallerian closed his eyes. He appeared to be sorting through Kayo’s story just then in his head.

“—If what you say is true…Then the mastermind responsible for killing my mother—”

“Is the Freezis Conglomerate. They realized that they could not attain immortality even through Elluka’s magic. And so, to exterminate Elluka and her allies who stood as obstacles for them, they started a certain ‘hoax’. They took the bizarre events that were beginning to happen all over the world, and created the public idea that it was the work of ‘sorceresses’—or rather, ‘witches’.”

“I feel like you’ve gotten a little ahead of yourself there. You haven’t explained why the ‘witch hunts’ are still going on now that my mother is gone.”

“The conglomerate wishes to destroy all the sorcerers and sorceresses in this world. If they cannot be useful to them, then those who can use ‘magic’ that exceeds the scope of human knowledge are nothing more than a threat. Think this sounds crazy? It is crazy. The Freezis family has become a band of madmen who have forgotten the noble spirit that their ancestor once held.”

“…And Loki? Does he know all of this?”

“Who knows? But I’d wager he doesn’t. He was a child barely come into his own awareness when Elluka was executed. It is certain however that he is a member of the crazed Freezis Family. …You’ve had experience with that yourself, yes?”

“…I had always thought that Loki was a purely good person.”

“Perhaps he is that. But purity isn’t necessarily the right thing. There is ‘pure evil’ too—those who are called ‘HER’, in the old language. That is the true nature of the Freezis family as they are now.”

“…”

Gallerian appeared to be struggling to decide on what he should say.

Understandable. Kayo’s story had been a long procession of statements that were hard to grasp for the average person. Ordinarily it wouldn’t be out of turn for him to laugh it off as some ridiculous fantasy.

--Appearing to steady his nerve, Gallerian replied, fist clenched, “I still can’t trust you all. Everything you’ve told me is a bit hard to swallow. –But I am sure that you all have the intention to go against Loki. That means that our interests are aligned. …And it’s certainly true that right now I need people to work with me.”

“…I’m glad you can see reason.” Kayo put a hand on his chest. “I didn’t want to have to do anything untoward towards you if I could help it.”

“’Untoward’? Were you planning to torture me or something?”

“Rather than torture…More like ‘brainwashing’.”

“Don’t make me shiver. Cut it out. I’ve no wish to have my head be tampered with by some ancient device,” Gallerian said, holding out his right hand to Kayo. “Well…While I can’t see us becoming friendly, I do hope we work well together, Miss Kayo.”

“No need for formalities. –And I don’t much care for being called by my proper name. If it’s not too much trouble, I’d prefer you call me by my pen name, ‘Ma’.”

“Very well—Then, to our partnership, ‘Ma’.”

As a strange crew of many secrets watched on—

The two of them shook hands.

.

--Life, or rather fate, is a progression of crossroads.

So then, I wonder if Gallerian’s choice will ultimately have been the correct one.

That will probably become clear through some more observation.

.

…Though I’m betting that he’s made a mistake!

<<prev------directory------next>>

[aquagenesis]

This is by no means a vent post or anything I just need to discuss topics and ideas.

It’s so bizarre how, for most of my life, I did have psychotic tendencies and explicitly schizophrenic symptoms.  I would get disoriented on a school bus and want to make a big show of it; storm up to the bus driver in a fit of rage and demand to know where I was being taken.  I would ask incoherent, nonsense questions in class that would get me a resounding look of “what the fuck are you talking about”.  Friends in particular would always take the time to step in and allow me to re-phrase what I was asking because they would learn to understand sometimes information is jumbled in my head, which I am not aware of.

It happens on here too, though I’ve gotten better at it.  What begins as a cohesive argument in my mind eventually spirals into a whirlpool of me repeating the same three things, the same three points, the same three everything while pretending it’s something different.  Because I have voices in my head that take over and make it hard to focus.  I thought everyone heard voices, because how else do you process information?  But for other people, it’s not voices.  Not ones they can hear, at least.

The only thing that ever stopped me was, incredibly, what I think my paranoia was.  I was too afraid of making a scene because I thought, assuredly, they’d always tell me they were going to kill me.  I would stand up to assert myself only to get pulled back down in my own head with “if you cause problems, you will die”.  I thought that was survival instinct.  I prided myself, in fact, on my survival instincts because of things like that.  Because I believed every person who utilized and prided their autonomy was doomed to die for their arrogance.  How can you exist so unabashedly in life when you know death is something you cannot hide from and cannot know the origin of?  Standing up for yourself is putting yourself in harms way; the lines between “what is paranoia” and “what is formative child abuse” are too blurred for me to even care “which one it is” because they’re both the same.

It’s just knowing I was so schizophrenic.  Knowing I was so blatantly delusional; I’d get called delusional all the time because I wasn’t living in reality.  My original self was already forced to be so separated from its body because of infant-aged trauma when I felt “normal” it already wasn’t me.  Every time I’d stabilize myself in a deeper level of my own psychosis I’d get punched down through another one, like a personal version of Dante’s Inferno.

Of course I developed a dissociative disorder.  How else was my psyche supposed to survive losing family members who cared about me, how else was it supposed to survive losing everything.  The personality I shifted into to appease my conditions were never good enough; they never protected me enough.  It’s so fucked up my brain already had to put me in another reality to cope with not receiving basic physiological needs as an infant and then had to shatter and reform reality after reality because anything was better than living in real life but nothing protected me enough, nothing justified anything enough, nothing could make me feel like I was living how I was meant to.

And then I wonder why I got so deep in it.  I wonder why that’s all I knew.  It was.  Living in delusion was the only thing that kept me from being suicidal, because it made me believe something grand was meant for me at the end of it all.  I only broke down because, after everything, after five years of eviction and homelessness, there was still only despair ahead.  Now I’m 26. an entire high school education away from 30 but abysmally depressed I had to spend all this time helping myself, and continue to, in the vain hope one thing would ever happen to me to make life worth it.

All I needed was to be pushed into reality, to be shown and taught nothing happened to me in some grand plan.  All I needed was a therapist who would listen for long enough in my Anime Tragic Backstory to tell me, “Hey man, that was fucked up, but it’s not like you have to forgive them.  You don’t have to be tortured by anything.  You can leave other people; you can leave them too.”  But therapists are no longer trained to listen to trauma and try to work out anything formative that could have happened to someone.  I didn’t know I was schizophrenic.  Nobody cared enough to tell me I was unless it was through the “well...you have The Disorder.  we have to keep you to make sure your SCARY PSYCHOTIC EPISODE--you’ve seen American Psycho, right?--doesn’t make you do that to yourself or someone else.” lens of “take this medicine and it’ll fix something you don’t think is a problem, because psychosis deludes the brain into thinking it isn’t delusional”.

And there was nothing anyone could have done; my untreated schizophrenia prevented me from being able to work.  My delusions would go unchecked, people wouldn’t know I was stretching the truth and neither did I.  Through the lens of insanity I doomed coworkers to bitter rivals, others to beloved friends, and still others to unworthy of my respect with nothing in between.  My life was a grand path to luxury and respect from the bottom of the earth; who wouldn’t be adored to know me?

I would tell people time and time again I was schizophrenic, I was psychotic, I experienced delusions.  I was cast as “the good outcome” of a psychotic condition and my experiences, the only true part of my life, were chalked up to “well there Luke goes with his silly little rants again”.  I was abandoned to spiral because I was “okay”; I didn’t experience delusions where I thought I was God (anything remotely attached to that was different, I said it was different), my psychosis never drew me to suicide.  Everyone else who claimed they were schizophrenic were automatically compared to me and regarded as “good” or “bad” with no regard to what was swimming around in my brain.  If I didn’t have a god complex before (I did, but I said I didn’t, so there’s no blame here), I certainly developed one then.

But I knew I wasn’t someone to be compared to, because I did experience delusions where I thought not that I was God but some higher being, I was drawn to suicide at the drop of a hat.  But then I couldn’t admit to those things being so much deeper than they were, because everyone else who experienced these things were “bad” schizophrenics.  I was supposed to have this together; I knew I had no right to judge people with my same condition because I knew I was no better than them.  If I had a best friend I’d known all my life, I would probably go to them with my ever-wavering mental condition too.  That’s what I craved; the ability to tell someone about what was happening to me.

And it’s not like I ever thought I was entitled to people, you know, listening.  I never expected anyone to look me in the eyes and tell me “Hey buddy you know you don’t really seem in reality” because if someone said that to me I’d probably freak out and doom them to “Bitter Rival Plus” for the rest of my life.  It was the attitude that I was redeemable because of how well I handled everything, the way I never let my symptoms show, the way a one-time freakout seemed more preferable to everyone else but me because “at least he only got that bad once”, as opposed to the risk of smaller breakdowns more often.  I lost my ability to realize I had control over myself because the admittedly bad symptoms everyone else experienced, which I did too, never were offered support.  I was told a story of a mutual once-friend who threw herself off a roof in the midst of a schizophrenic breakdown.  The pitilessness of it all told me I would never find sympathy in admitting my faults.

It’s hard because if it were depression, if it had been depression, this would have been solved eons ago.  Anyone can go to a friend and talk through a depression; nobody can go to a friend and talk through a psychotic episode without your companion growing frustrated as you’re unable to grasp reality.  Once is fine, twice is annoying, thrice is overwhelming.  I can feel it just as anyone.  Nobody wants to talk to crazy people.

And what do people think that does, exactly?  Do you think your delusional friend can really have a talk once, be told they’re psychotic, and immediately know?  How do we have thousands of articles dissecting every aspect of anxiety, from work to generalized, but none to tell the everyman that “psychotic people suffer from a condition that prevents them from differentiating reality from fantasy”.  or, we do tell people, but it still follows the same rules of once is fine, twice is annoying, thrice is overwhelming.  Depression is a mental condition that causes extended states of misery.  Anxiety is a mental condition that causes extended states of stress.  Psychosis is a mental condition that causes extended states of, well, delusion.  Someone who wakes up already delusional is not going to be able to tell you “when it started”; everything has always felt this way.  Now that they can see clearly, because they feel energized (because they are delusional), “nothing is wrong” and they are left to spiral into whatever rabbit hole they fall into.

If we know it’s harmful to tell people with depression and anxiety to “get over it”, why are psychotic people different?  Why is it so hard to go into a relationship and be told, explicitly, “I have a psychotic condition”, and follow through as you would anyone else?

“Because psychosis is different.”  No further context needed.

[kpophours]

Prince of Hell

➵ VAV: (demon) Ace x fem. reader / one shot, demon AU / fluff, angst

➵ warnings: mentions of violence, mentions of death, mentions of alcohol

➵ word count: 3.5k

➵ series: Baron, Ayno, St. Van, Ziu, Lou, Ace

To spend eternity in Hell had been worth saving your little brother’s life.

So you will definitely never regret that decision.

Nevertheless… Hell sucks (shocker, right?).

It just drags on, endlessly. Minutes feel like hours, hours like days and days like weeks.

You have no idea how long you’re already here — probably a few years by now or at least that’s what it feels like.

There’s a little light in all this darkness that is your afterlife though — you got a job.

Sounds weird, right? A job in hell (well some jobs on earth are hell(ish), you guess). But well, at least you’ve got something to do. 

Even if it’s just filing endless lists of souls that are ready to be harvested by demons. 

If you weren’t so tired of Hell per se, you would find it funny, being a demon secretary.

At first you thought you could maybe make some of those list vanish, but your supervisor made it pretty clear that such a foolish attempt would mean endless torture for you.

Even though you were a hunter during your human life, protecting earth and its inhabitants from the supernatural world, you apparently lost all your nerve upon entering Hell. 

To be fair, some of the human souls you file and write on your lists deserve to be in Hell — murderers, kidnappers, sometimes an extremely corrupt politician. So you don’t always feel bad for handing out those lists to the demons.

For some time now, there’s been a new demon coming into your office to ask for your lists. You have never seen him before, but as everyone treats him with extreme respect (and a bit of fear), he can’t be a newbie. 

He goes by the name of Ace. 

„My list for today, please.“

You look up and directly into Ace’s more than handsome face. 

You wonder if this is what he looked like before becoming a demon or if this is just a form he chose for himself. He definitely has good taste, should the latter be the case.

„Just a second.“, you answer, turning around and opening the first drawer of the cabinet behind you. This is where you keep the lists with some of the worst cases — somehow you feel better when you know Ace only retrieves those really foul souls. 

„There you go.“, you say when you find his list, handing it over. When he reaches for it, your hands brush for a second and you feel your breath hitch.

His hand is warm and the little bit of contact between your bodies actually makes your heart flutter.

Are you already that starved for any form of contact? Well, the answer is yes. You haven’t had contact with any human soul in ages and most of the demons treat you like dirt (which to them, you obviously are).

Ace isn’t like that — he actually treats you with respect, continuously smiling at you, his eyes always kind. 

He’s definitely different from all the other demons coming into your office. 

„Thank you.“ Ace clears his throat. „So… How’s Hell treating you these days?“, he asks in a conversational tone.

You blink a few times. „Uh… Well. It’s Hell.“, you answer carefully, not really sure what to say, „But this job makes it more endurable, I guess?“

The handsome demon nods curtly. „Sounds good. Well, thank you for the list. See you tomorrow.“

With that, he’s off, leaving you in your confused state behind.

Ace continues to make smalltalk over the next few weeks (or years, who knows how time is actually passing in Hell). Slowly, you begin to relax around him, even telling him a few things about your human life. He seems to be really interested in the stories of your hunter life, asking you all kind of questions. At first, you’re a bit suspicious (what if he uses the information against your family? Against the Council?), but you quickly notice that he really just wants to know more about you.

So you actually begin to look forward to your daily interactions, probably because they’re the only times when you feel more human again, when you’re almost able to forget about being stuck in Hell. It makes your heart flutter, something you didn’t even know was still possible for you.

It also helps that Ace is more than easy on the eyes, of course. Even though you would never admit that out loud. 

The first time you realize you might have more than just friendly feelings for Ace, is when another demon almost kills you. 

It’s not your fault — you simply gather the names given to you, write them on lists and distribute them to different demons. You don’t decide which soul has to be retrieved.

And yet, that demon seems to think otherwise. 

One second, you’re sitting on your desk, shuffling through some papers and the next, you’re being pressed against the wall, two hands around your neck and a pair of red-glowing eyes in front of you. „One of the souls was a trap.“, he hisses at you, his grip tightening even more. 

You choke, body trembling. You know what demons are capable of, having been tortured just for the fun of it more often than you can count. 

„I didn’t-“, you manage to gasp, but before you can finish your reply, the demon is pulled away from you. Ace stands in the middle of the office, both hands burrowed into his dark trousers, appearing to be almost a bit bored. The other demon is writhing on the ground in front of you, ushering silent screams, his face a mask of absolute terror. It’s a bizarre sight and you’re unable to look away. 

„Are you okay, Y/N?“, Ace asks in a friendly tone, but you hear the barely suppressed anger behind his calm voice.

„Yes.“, you rasp, clearing your throat and finally looking away from the still writhing demon. Ace doesn’t look at you, his gaze focused on the other demon. 

„You will never touch her again. Do you understand?“, his voice is low, threatening.

You notice that his eyes are glowing as well - not red though. 

They’re… golden.

A color you always associated with angels, not demons.

Finally, he seems to let go of the other demon, who jumps up, trembling and bowing towards Ace. „Yes, my Prince.“, he mumbles, eyes sliding towards you and giving you one last hateful look, before sprinting out of your office.

You lock eyes with Ace, who smiles somewhat embarrassedly at you.

„You… you’re a Prince of Hell?“, you squeak, unconsciously pressing yourself closer to the wall behind you. During your life as a hunter, you got to know everything about the Princes — the hands of Lucifer himself, feared by all but the Unholy Lord himself.

„Uh, yeah.“, Ace simply says, scratching the back of his head, „Please don’t be afraid though. I won’t hurt you.“ 

He’s probably telling the truth, seeing how he just saved you from that other demon. Still, you decide to keep some distance between you, nodding curtly before quickly taking the place behind your desk again.

„You’re here for your list I guess?“ You sound way too nervous, but Ace is too nice to comment on it. He just nods, leaning over the desk and locking eyes with you. 

„Has he ever done something like that before?“, he asks lowly, his gaze worried. 

You gulp, averting your eyes and nervously beginning to shuffle some papers in front of you. 

„Y/N, answer me. Please.“

„I- well, this is Hell, so what did you expect? Of course he did something like that before. He or someone of the other demons, who knows which one.“, you answer somewhat exasperated, actually throwing your hands in the air, „But that’s what I signed up for when I struck my deal, so I can’t complain.“

Ace looks a bit taken aback by your sudden outburst, but nods slowly. „I get it. Well, don’t worry — no one will ever touch you again. I’ll make sure of it.“

You blink a few times. „Why?“ 

He shrugs. „I know this is Hell, but we do have a few rules. And torturing one of our best workers definitely is against those. And… well. After all, I was an angel before becoming a Prince of Hell.“ He almost whispers the last part. 

You cock your head to one side. „So it’s true that all Princes were angels once?“, you ask just as quietly. 

Ace raises one eyebrow. „Right, you were a hunter when you were alive.“, he mumbles more to himself, before answering you: „Most were, yes. But not all. The Fall was a very long time ago, so new Princes emerged and old ones vanished.“

„But you are one of the originals.“ You sound like you’re stating a fact, so Ace simply smiles secretively at you. You take it as affirmation. 

„Well, thank you for saving me. And wanting to protect me from now on.“

„Don’t mention it.“

With that, he plucks the list out of your hand, happily strolling out the room.

… And he’s actually whistling.

„I don’t know what this is, Baron.“, Ace says, burying his head between his hands.

The angel opposite him takes a sip of wine, raising one eyebrow. „Do I really have to spell it out for you?“

The demon simply glares, making the blond man shrug. „God doesn’t give second chances easily, so take it.“, Baron says, more gently this time. 

Ace sighs, sipping on his beer. „I know. It’s just… very confusing. I swear, I felt my heart stop the second I laid eyes on her.“

The angel just nods, listening intently. 

„I really like talking to her. She’s so funny! And she’s still very optimistic, even though she’s been in Hell for over 25 years now. And she’s great at telling stories. And-“

„Ace. This is your chance. Take it.“, Baron interrupts his friend’s rambling, „You know saving one human soul out of selflessness and love can reinstate you as an angel.“

The Prince of Hell just sighs again. „I know. But I don’t want to pressure her or anything like that. She just began to trust me, telling me more about her family and human life. I don’t want to scare her away by jumping something like that on her.“

The angel just smiles secretively. If he’s correct, he will soon have his oldest friend back at his side  - because Ace really doesn’t seem to notice that he’s already acting selflessly. And soon probably out of love, too. 

Ace drowns the last of his beer, standing up and looking down at the blond man. „I have to get back, now. And I heard there’s someone waiting for you as well.“

At this, Baron’s smile turns soft, his eyes forming little crescents. „I do actually.“ With that, he stands up as well, „I’ll see you soon, my friend.“ 

Ace just smiles, before returning to Hell.

Days and weeks blend into one another, Ace becoming a steady part of your daily routine. His soft smiles, little jokes and overall playful persona make your heart flutter from time to time.

You actually notice that you begin to find Hell more bearable, being under Ace’s protection obviously helping with that. No demon has laid hands on you again. 

Today, Ace seems even more cheerful than usually, whistling again when he enters your small office. You look up, smiling already. 

He grins brightly, leaning over your desk and closer to you. „Are you interested in a little journey, Y/N?“, he asks in a low voice, wiggling his eyebrows playfully. 

You begin to frown, tilting your head to one side. „What do you mean?“

He props his chin onto one hand, a small smile still playing on his lips. „Well, I got permission to take you out of Hell for a while. To help me with something on Earth.“

Your mouth actually falls open at that. „What?!“, you squeal, clapping your hands in delight, „I’m going back to Earth?!“

Ace knits his eyebrows together, grimacing a bit. „Well, only for a short amount of time. You need to be back in Hell at sunrise.“, he explains, „But I actually need your help with something, so I got permission to take you with me.“

You smile angelically. „I’m going back to Earth! I don’t care for how long.“ Then, you hesitate for a second, „What do you need my help for, though?“

„Nothing… uh, bad, I promise. It was a request actually.“

This makes you even more suspicious. „A request? Who would request me?“

Ace walks around the desk to stand in front of your, sporting a small frown when he’s looking down at you. „Your brother.“

The world around you begins to spin, black spots appearing in your vision — can souls have a panic attack? Because you’re pretty sure you have one right now. 

„Y/N? Please calm down. Your brother’s not in trouble, I promise. He did make a deal with me, but it’s nothing bad. Just five years of his life, nothing major — he will live to an old age anyway, so this means nothing. Really, I promise!“, Ace rambles, placing both hands on your shoulders and applying a bit of pressure. It actually grounds you, the world around you returning to its normal state again.

„I- I’m okay.“, you stammer and Ace nods relieved, letting his hands fall away from you.

„Good.“

„What deal did he make though? For what?“ 

„The Council is in search of a special colt — it is able to kill any supernatural creature with just one bullet. Well, except for demons of course. And I will provide your brother with the information needed for finding the Colt and for making new bullets. But he also said he wants to see you. He gave another of his years just for that.“

You pinch the bridge of your nose, tears brimming in your eyes. 

Your stupid, stupid brother.

To a demon like Ace, who’s immortal and never changing, five years might not seem like a lot, but for a mere human like your brother, it’s too much. 

Well, at least that’s what you think. 

You didn’t give your whole life away to have your brother give his years away like this.

„This is all thanks to the stupid Council.“, you grimace, „I bet he made him do this.“

Ace shrugs. „Possible. I know the Council can be quite a handful sometimes. At least, that’s what I heard.“ His eyes twinkle at that and he actually has the audacity to wink at you (yes, you were the one telling him about the Council being an absolute asshole sometimes). You blush a bit, crossing your arms in front of your chest. 

„Well, the deal is made. So there’s nothing I can do about it except give him an earful when I see him.“, you say, heart fluttering at the prospect of seeing your little brother again. 

You don’t even know how old he is by now. 

„That is right. So, let’s go.“, Ace agrees, holding out his hand for you to take.

You hesitate for a second, before gripping it tightly.

The next second, you’re not in Hell anymore, but standing in an open field.

The moon hangs low already and only a few stars are lazily twinkling down at you. It won’t be long until the sun’s going to rise. 

„Y/N?“, a male voice says from behind you, making you whirl around and letting go of Ace’s hand.

Behind you stands a man in his early fourties. He is tall and has broad shoulders, his hair is just beginning to gray and he has a few lines on his forehead and around his eyes.

Eyes you know too well — looking at you in a pleading way, asking for more sweets.

Being filled with tears when a favorite toy was lost.

Gazing up at you in awe and wonder whenever you did something pretty ordinary (like being able to patch up a tattered teddy bear). 

„Mark?“, you ask in a breathless voice.

A smile lights up his whole face and he takes a step towards you.

You look at Ace, a questioning look on your face. The demon simply nods, staying silent, both hands buried in the pockets of his black trousers.

That’s all you need, flinging yourself at your brother, who crushes you between his arms, hugging you tightly. He smells so different from what you remember, but he still feels familiar and like your little brother. Even though he’s looking so much older than you now.

„You are such an idiot.“, you say, voice sounding both muffled thanks to your face being pressed against Mark’s chest and tearful.

„I’m sorry.“, he chuckles, taking a step back and taking a good look at your face, „You look exactly like I remember you.“

„Well and you got old.“, you retort, smiling softly and touching some of his grey hairs. 

He laughs. „I know. I feel it in my bones.“ 

You release a deep breath. „So. You’re here to get information of the Colt.“, you say, frowning, „Did the Council make you do struck a deal? I swear, I’ll come back as a ghost and haunt him!“

Mark raises both eyebrows. „Y/N, I am the Council now.“

You choke a bit. „You- what?!“

„A lot of time passed since your death, Y/N. I’m one of the oldest ones now.“, Mark explains, shrugging a bit, „I was voted as the Head.“

You take a tiny step back, taking a deep breath. „Wow, yeah okay. I… that seems logical. Why do you need The Colt so badly, though? It seems like you didn’t want to lose any more time.“

Mark nods. „That’s right. Recently, a witch came back onto our radar — last time she was seen, she killed over 20 people and almost half the Elders of her own Coven. She’s protected by a demonic force, so we’ll need the Colt to finally end her.“

„A demonic force?“ At this, you turn around to look at Ace, both eyebrows raised.

He shrugs, smiling apologetically. „Not by me, I swear.“ 

You squint critically at him, but his face betrays nothing.

You look at your brother again. „Well, I hope this will be worth it. Five years are a lot, Mark.“

He simply smiles. „I know, Y/N. And I know you’re probably thinking that I’m throwing away the gift you gave me — your life in exchange for mine. But this is important to me. My son needs the Colt.“

Tears fill your eyes. „You have a son?“, you choke out, wiping away some of the tears rolling down your cheek. 

Mark takes your hand in his, pressing it gently. „I do. His name is Lou.“

You close your eyes, smiling sadly. „Lou.“, you repeat softly. 

Just then, the first rays of sunlight begin to touch the field you’re standing on. 

You whirl around, panic contorting your face when you look at Ace. 

He smiles sadly. „I’m sorry, Y/N. It’s time to go hom- uh, back.“ He extends his hand towards you, but Mark holds onto you. „No. This was too little time.“, he says, panic and tears evident in his voice, „I… I can’t let you go again.“ 

You breathe in, closing your eyes for a few seconds. 

„It’s okay, Mark. This was the deal you struck.“, you retort softly, touching his cheek and looking into his eyes, „Get that Colt and give it to your son. Continue on with life and try to forget about me, okay?“

He shakes his head. „I will never forget about you, you know that.“, he answers forcefully, pulling you in his arms and engulfing you in a bone-crushing hug, „I love you.“

You smile, choking on your tears. „I love you, too.“

With that, you step away from your little brother until you’re back at Ace’s side again. You think you feel the soft brush of his fingers against yours, but it’s too quick to tell. He walks over to your brother, handing him a few loose papers.

„Good luck. You’ll need it with Nightbringer.“ Without another word, Ace turns around and takes your hand in his. 

You look one last time at your brother, raising one hand in a farewell. Tears run down his cheeks and he presses one hand over his heart. 

You turn away from him, looking up at the demon beside you, who’s smiling softly at you. Your heart flutters at the simple gesture and his hand on the small of your back isn’t helping at all. 

You smile at your Prince of Hell, tilting your head to one side. „Let’s get back, then.“

And with that, Ace takes you back to Hell.

[masterlist] | [requests] 

[calliecat93]

RvB17 Episode 11 Review: Omphalos

This is normally the part of the review where I write an intro. But honestly, last week hit me so hard in the chest that I am too filled with dread to come up with anything. So fuck it, let’s dive right in! Second to last episode folks. It’s gonna be intense!

Overview

Our heroes are trapped within the depths of The Labyrinth, as Chrovos explains to Donut. At first, Donut isn’t concerned as that means they’re near him so he just has to wait. But Chrovos explains that, well… it isn’t that simple. The Labyrinth, as explained last season is home to demons, monsters, and ‘the ghosts of the past’. But not in the physical sense. The Labyrinth essentially runs on irony. It takes those trapped within to a negative place. This is demonstrated as we see Tucker alone, Wash seeing everyone die under his command, and Carolina faced with her Freelancer self. So yeah… it’s essentially Santa’s Warrior Test, but even darker.

Donut wants to go in, but Chrovos doesn’t have the power. Donut offers to give back the fragment that she gave him, but it won’t be enough. At this point, Genkins joins them and gives some more explanation. You see, the ultimate end goal of The Labyrinth is to drive the victim to despair. It can do this in various ways, by giving someone what they think they want or just putting them back in an uncomfortable place. We see this with Sarge being in civilian life, wanting to be on the battlefield… which he promptly gets and take sit back. Grif is sent back to… high school? College? Basic training? IDK. Regardless, he has an utterly insane gym teacher who pretty much tortures him via a fucked up obstacle course straight out of Wipeout.

So what’s the final result of all of this? We get to see with Lopez, who in his scenario is… human. He can talk English and the Reds instead have a robot named Gustavo… which great joke there. This breaks Lopez and in the real world, we see him walk off the ledge, supposedly to his death; You see, The Labyrinth doesn't harm you directly, it drives you to harm yourself. Genkins goes to continue his fun, telling DOnut that he’ll be joining them soon enough. The Everwhen goes with him. With no way to get into The Labyrinth and Chrovos utterly powerless, it looks bleak. We do learn that The Labyrinth itself is an AI, but it’s very dangerous and just seeing its Avatar is enough to put you in danger.

But just as all looks bleak, there is one more person there: Doc. Yeah, he was sent there along with Donut… which makes no sense because he should still be blown up, but whatever. Anyways, with a second Shisno there, if Chrovos takes back power form him AND Donut, it’ll eb enough to send the two into The Labyrinth. The episode ends, and with it the finale draws ever closer.

Review

Okay, so… got some mixed feelings here. Before I get into it though, I really enjoyed the episode. The Labyrinth is probably one of, if not the most horrifying concept that the show has introduced. It’s just an area that fills you more and more with negativity. It takes you to your worst moments, your worst fears, gives you what you think you want but in reality, it just makes you depressed.  It doesn't physically harm you, it drives you to harm yourself. Essentially, the end goal is to make you commit suicide, as we saw with Lopez. Now whether he really died or not IDK… but that is really fucked up. No wonder no one ever came back out of the few that went before. It’s dark and angsty, and I fucking LOVE it!

What could have been better, though, is some of the visions. Now most of them were really good. Wash leading the team against the monsters of the Labyrinth, only to watch them all die with him losing control of everything. Carolina faced with her competitive, driven self in Freelancer, trying to tell her off and tell herself about how her efforts will mean nothing. Only for her past self to brush it off and mock her on everything that she currently believes. Even Sarge’s was pretty fucked up. In short, Sarge cannot handle civilian life… but he can’t handle war life either. It makes sense. He never really had a civilian life, let alone remember one, so an office job would be boring. But he was also an ODST and was in a war and that clearly fucked him up. Most of his behavior is a facade and always has been, but he doens[t know how else to live. It’s really depressing when you think about it and not what I was expecting for him. I gotta give kudos.

What I cannot excuse though is Grif’s scenario. Lopez’s I can live with. Because going off everything before… yeah being a human would be his worst nightmare. But Grif… I mean don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate what we got. If this was to explain how Grif started hating effort, it’s effective. The coach is Sarge, but a million times more crazy and sadistic. He nearly got Grif blown up, shot, crushed, and it sounds like Grif was coughing up blood at one point. Like… fuck man. If this IS a high school, what kind of fucking school allows that?! It certianly helps explain why Grif would hate putting in any form of effort and why he hated Blood Gulch so much if Sarge brought those feelings back. Heck, it can explain hating army life in general since he likely had to be yelled at/pushed to his limit all the time. So yeah, I can get what they’re going for and I was overall okay with it. Jaosn’s voice acting at least was fun~

The issue is… well, kind of one I’ve had all season regarding the writing for Grif. In S16, Grif went through a ton of development. He appreciated and dedicated himself to his friends more. He started to resolve his issues with the constant adventures. He started to put in more effort and was willing to try and do whatever it took to end things. He was actually hesitant about the paradox and even tried to stop it once he realized it was Genkins plan. He formed this friendship with Huggins, something I’m very annoyed just got ignored after her return...though really I have issues with how Huggins was done this season that I’ll reserve for the season review. I’m gonna have words about the character writing, not just Grif either.

My point is Grif had so much development and buildup from last season and S15… and this season has completely and utterly ignored it. The first half, it was understandable since memory erasure and he was at least the most willing to listen to Donut. Now? No. There is no excuse. While Grif is still doing the job without complaint, all his development has more or less been ignored. He seems to harbor no guilt or anything about the S16 finale. He has had no resolution with Huggins or tried to patch things up. His scenario here had a TON of potential. If they don’t want to go the backstory route, we have his time on Iris and the S16 finale to play off of. What do we get? Him being bullied by a nasty drill sergeant. While I didn’t hate it, it was… underwhelming and just kind of insulting because of how much promise with him these past two seasons have had. Considering Jason was a co-writer and wrote some of those scenes (Episode 6 and 8 for example) and Joe still made the story here, the fact that they utterly ignored this is bizarre.. I’ll go into it more in the season review, but… yeah, I didn’t hate it, but I’m not pleased either.

Okay, so moving on to the ending. Still have no idea how Doc is there because there was no way for him to be there. But whatever, he and Donut are going into The Labryinth. It’s hard to say if Chrovos is going to betray them or not, we’ll see. But my concern is… well, IIRC DOnut was brought back to life because of the fragment Chrovos gave him. So if she removed that to power herself back up, not only does Donut and Doc lose their protection against Genkins… but won’t that kill Donut? IDK, maybe I’m not understanding it fully. Regardless… we have one more episode, and so much to do still. How they’re going to wrap this up in one IDK, I guess we’ll see soon enough.

Final Thoughts

Good episode. While I am annoyed with how Grif was handled, everything else was really fun. It was certianly a rollercoaster of emotion that I wa snot ready for. Our stage for the end is set my friends, and I have no idea what the fuck is going to happen. But I’ve made it this far, and I ain’t dropping out now. So onward to the finale!

[shewantedtobeasecretgirl]

5. Judy is a runt a.k.a. an anonymous cow, basic instincts and semantic questions

„Judy, if you go on like this, you can publish a three-volume manual for beginner monitor engineers next week.” I peek over her shoulders to see the notes and illustrations she made listening to Karrie’s explanations on how to find the optimal frequencies for microphones. I have to acknowledge that she’s trying really hard, according to Scully she spends hours with memorizing the content of her notebook. Eddie and Stone are giving an interview so we have to wait for them with the soundcheck. Jeff and I decided to use the remaining time for showing her our instruments and pedal boards to give her some insight about what’s happening during the songs and between them.

“I’ve never played the bass but I’ve always wanted to try it.” Judy sighs cautiously touching Jeff’s twelve-string bass guitar he uses to play Jeremy.

“If you’ve ever played a guitar, it’s no rocket science. I’ll gladly give you a few lessons, if you want to.” Jeff offers his services but I’m convinced that he would show the same enthusiasm if he had to help her unclog a toilet without using any tools. Judy walks to Jeff’s amplifier to examine the little basketball player figures that serve as his stage props.

“You must be a fan …” she takes all of them in her hands, one after the other.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve always played, mostly in school teams. So it isn’t difficult to figure out that it was me who came up with the idea of our original band name.” he shrugs smiling.

“Which was…?”

“Mookie Blaylock.” we answer in unison, making Judy shake her head and giggle.

“You can imagine how happy he was when he learnt that Eddie could play too. Before that he had tortured Stone and me on the basketball court next to our rehearsal place all the time.”

“Tortured? Don’t you like playing?”

“I do but I’m not good at it. You can see my body structure; I’m not a big challenge for him. And Stone is… rather a cheerleader type, at least that’s how he likes to call himself.”

“With pom poms?” she raises an eyebrow. “Don’t answer, I don’t want to know about the bizarre role plays in the band.”

We all blurt out in laughter.

“No, no pom poms but he’s better at verbal basketball.” Judy is blinking with a confused expression asking me for a more detailed explanation. “When he isn’t playing, he always tries to irritate the others with his comments from the edge of the court. And when he’s playing… you know, he’s the type who tries to convince you using arguments that you don’t really want to score against him. Which is kinda annoying when you’re trying to get past him doing a dribble.”

“I can imagine…” she leans down to get a closer look to the microphone-head puppet sitting on Dave’s bass drum. “Jackson 5?” she’s thinking loudly but Dave suddenly appears behind the drum kit and answers the question.

“Sly and the Family Stone.”

“Oh, that explains the funky taste I feel in your playing.” Judy’s face lights up.

“Thanks for noticing it. Ninety percent of listeners can only hear that I make noise.”

“Well, I belong to that ten percent who is obsessed with rhythm sections.”

“So much for friendship.” I play resentful but she immediately corrects herself.

“But I also love Bach who was the Eddie van Halen of baroque era… imagine Eddie van Halen with four hands. Just listen to his organ pieces.” she gushes blushing. “He was the riffmeister, “the” composer, there’s no question about it.”

“Do you headbang at home when listening to them? Anyway, bummer, it’s not me who’s the riffmeister and main songwriter of this band.”

“But I feel the potential in you, trust me. And this?” she waves with the stuffed lamb she found on the amplifier at the other side of the stage.

“That belongs to Stone, it’s a kind of mascot; he received it from his girlfriend.” Jeff explains.

“Oh…” “I know, I know, it’s difficult to imagine that there are girls who can spend more than three seconds in his company. They probably say yes to him only to shut him up finally.” he jokes on.

“No, I didn’t mean to… I just thought that it must be hard to maintain a relationship under these circumstances… you’ve been touring for more than a half year, you focus on your career, that’s not an ideal background for love… Of course, if you have complete trust towards each other, let’s say in a long-term relationship, it can work but…”

“It’s a weird story, they had met a few weeks before we started touring, they began to date and… they seem to be still together, I guess. We don’t really know Amber, we saw her only a couple times.”

“Well, then they must like each other very much. But I don’t want to pry into your privacy.” she sits the lamb back onto the amplifier.

“I was in a similar situation that time but I broke up with the girl. Or, to be more exact, I didn’t even start dating her, I didn’t want to waste anybody’s time.” Jeff goes on ignoring Judy’s last sentence.

“Fair enough.” she nods. “And… a cow? A COW? I want this cow, this is cool, I mean… having a cow on your amp, that’s hilarious!” she laughs admiring the stuffed cow standing on Stone’s Marshall.

“Then you have to fight for it with Stone, it belongs to him. I’d bet on you, by the way.” I remark and I mean it, actually…

“But a cow… why???”

“I guess it has something to do with Dallas Cowboys… he had even used to wear a DC baseball cap until he lost it…”

“And what’s its name? I guess it’s a she…”

“I don’t know… a good question, by the way. You should ask Stone, it is him who’s in the most intimate relationship with her of us… I mean… I have nothing against it until they do it publicly.”

“So Judy, when do you want to take your first bass lesson?”

Surprisingly Jeff tries to direct our conversation back to the previous topic.

“First? I don’t think it’d take more than a half an hour in all. Including foreplay.” Stone arrives with the trademark smirk on his face, followed by Eddie.

“Screw you!” Jeff slaps back. Judy is standing right behind his back so I’m the only one who can see that her cheeks are literally flaming, I’m seriously concerned that her head explodes in seconds.

“I tried to hire a few local criminals on the way back here to kidnap him, I swear. But nobody offered, they said there were things that even they weren’t willing to do…” Eddie mumbles and his roasting comment makes everyone chuckle.

“What can I say? The armor of sarcasm and my irresistible humor protect me from every kind of danger.” Stone grins satisfied while preparing his guitar. Yes, sure. We’ll have that carved on your tombstone if someone happens to stab you to death.

“What’s her name?” Judy steps to him pointing at the cow but Stone ignores her question, as usual. Come on, you can’t be such an asshole! But Judy seems to be determined this time. She clears her throat and repeats the question perceptibly louder. “What’s her name?”

She’s still pointing accusingly at the cow. Stone lets out a deep, annoyed sigh and asks back rolling his eyes but still not glancing at her.

“Whose name?”

This time it is him who doesn’t get an answer to his question. He lifts his head and his eyes follow the direction Judy’s pointing at. Realizing it’s about his stage animal he walks slowly to his mic, takes it in his hands and strides back to his amplifier.

“I’m saying it into the mic to make it more understandable: this is a stuffed animal.” his voice echoes in the concert room. He knocks on the head of the cow a few times to confirm his statement. “It’s not alive, do you see? It has no na... Jesus!!!”

His words get interrupted by the loud, ear-splitting noise of microphone ringing. He puts the mic quickly back on the stand and turns to her with a sinister, cold smile.

“So, dear Judith… I’m very tolerant and I know it must have been very difficult to leave your toys at home but I wouldn’t think you should search for replacement until you can learn how to ring out a fuckin’ mic. Maybe it wasn’t part of your education at the vocational school of substitute music teachers but if you manage it, I’m going to buy you a teddy bear, I promise.” His words are followed by complete silence; Eddie stares him confused, furrowing his eyebrows while Jeff’s body radiates anger, his threatening, furious eyes make clear that he’s about to punch him. Judy listens to him with a poker face but concerning her burning cheeks I’m sure Stone’s arrogant style hit her hard. And she’s probably not going to defend herself; she’s not going to confront Stone with the fact that it was Karrie’s work he’s just criticized. And Karrie is outside, smoking with the others, she can’t speak up for her either. But that doesn’t mean I should assist to this scene.

“Man, can you hear yourself when you’re saying things like that? That happens all time, it’s inevitable. You act as if it was a felony!”

“Moreover, Karrie spent like forty minutes trying to ring out the mics but it’s impossible to manage it here, she gave it up. Judy didn’t even touch the gear; she was just listening to her and making notes about every single word, all along the preparations.” Jeff adds, although if I were him I would have let Karrie out of that before this idiot targets her too.

“Then it’s high time she began to do something apart from distracting Karrie.” Stone fires back. He can’t bear not having the last word in the discussion.

“You’re ridiculous. If you need me, I’ll be outside… I leave before my fist executes a plastic surgery on his face.” Jeff grinds his teeth and clomps out riled up of the room. Eddie peers for long seconds after him; his look wanders slowly to Judy, then from Judy to Stone. I can literally hear the cogwheels clicking in his head.

“I need some fresh air too. Judy, do you come with me?” he asks pointing with his thumb in the direction of the hallway.

“Sure, just a minute.”

I glance at Judy; I can’t see any hints of embarrassment on her face anymore, she looks rather almost challenging. She takes a deep breath, walks back proudly to the cow and pats it on the back a few times.

“You poor thing! I’m sure we’ll find you a name soon since you have such a baaad, eeevil keeper.” she murmurs in its ears and walks past Stone with an amused, contented smile.

***

I take a deep drag of my cigarette and exhale it slowly into the night sky. Okay, officially it’s not mine, I got it from Dave, I never buy cigarette since I’m a notorious grubber. The amount I need is basically nothing in comparison to Dave’s dose, even Mike smokes more. If I bought one or two packets, I would lose them about within two hours and I should grub anyway every time I needed one so the result would be the same.

I’m listening to the chirping of crickets, it always sounds twice as loud at night as anytime else... Jeff hasn’t talked me a word since the cow affair. He avoided me on the stage ignoring my presence when I was bouncing on his and Mike’s side and didn’t set foot to my side either. When we celebrated Mike he managed to get to the other side of the group hug. But who would have thought he takes the role of the bodyguard of that chick so seriously? His pathetic struggle for her attention is getting more and more embarrassing. She’s an adult woman, she can talk or for a lack of real, acceptable evidences I rather only assume she can, neither needs she a spokesperson nor an enforcer. And I’m not going to apologize to her, I’ve said what I’ve said, I don’t care whether she likes it or not. What I rather care about is my friendship with Jeff but as long as he’s blinded by his hormones – and he’s obviously literally blinded seeing his choice – I doubt he would realize that chasing a colleague isn’t the smartest thing he can do. There won’t be anywhere to hide if things don’t work… But after all, it’s mating season, I can’t blame him, it’s pure biology, it’s about instincts. Basic instincts... Like that new Sharon Stone movie. Damn, that woman is hot... Yeah, it’s definitely mating season…

I walk back to the busses where the others except Scully and Karrie’s padawan are stretching their numb legs, smoking and still talking about Eric’s hilarious pre-birthday surprise for Mike. At one point of the show he appeared on the stage dressed up – or rather stripped off – as Henry Rollins and lead the crowd yelling inarticulately in singing Happy Birthday.

“Man, I was in stitches, I could barely start playing after it, I was shaking of laughter.” Jeff is still snickering recalling the scene.

“It’s interesting, your smile didn’t seem honest to me.” I turn to Jeff and try to force him to talk about our quarrel. Our quarrel? It was him who stormed out like a rhino…

“Seriously Stone, do you really think it’s about me? Look, I know how insufferable you can be and I know how to handle it. But she doesn’t. At first you ignore her and then you humiliate her before the band, what’s next? You burn her during the gig in front of the whole crowd?”

Hm, not a bad idea…

“It’s about respect, Stone, you should show some respect towards her…” Eddie murmurs. Now we have two bodyguards. Excellent.

“Has anybody noticed that I treat her the same way as anyone else in the team? If she doesn’t know how to behave in a company where everybody teases everybody, it’s not my problem.” I grumble lowering my voice and taking a few steps backwards. I don’t want Karrie to hear this; I like her and rely on her help a lot and I probably offended her a bit with my outrage when she came up with her idea about her replacement.

“Actually, she does, maybe it’s new for you as you’re deaf to wittiness except yours… but she has a sense of humor…” Eddie goes on.

“If she says something really funny, I’m going to be the first to laugh at it, I swear…”

“Oh, really? You would rather cut your own tongue off than admit you were wrong…” Jeff retorts and joins the others closing the topic. Okay, crisis averted, we’re in middle-aged married couple mode again…

“Scully?” I inquire from Ed since he still hasn’t shown up yet.

“I don’t know, he must be in the crew bus.” he shrugs glancing back at me and follows Jeff.

As I get on the bus I hear someone moving in the backside so I pace between the bunk beds in the direction of the noise. I find him opening a beer at the fridge; as he notices me he takes one more can out and offers it to me.

“Thanks. Hey Scul, could you pass me a few guitar picks?” I ask him accepting the beer.

“I gave you a bunch of them in the afternoon, you can’t be serious you lost them within less than twenty-four hours.”

“I reject these malicious charges; I was just generous and gave them to Jeff and Mike.”

Of course I have no idea where they can be, I probably left them at the club after the gig.

“Okay, here they are but you pay me five bucks if you can’t keep them at least for one week…” he hands me the picks with a skeptical face.

“And, where’s your new pet? Or did you forget her at the last gas station? I would totally understand…”

Scully frowns hearing my question and starts nodding intensively in the direction of the hallway mouthing something that I can’t decode.

“What’s that? Your Tourette again? Dude, I’m not good at speech reading. So, is daddy’s little girl going number one alone in the wood? What a progress…”

“Sssh, you moron, she’s sleeping over there, in her bed…” he whisper-shouts still flourishing towards the beds.

“Bullshit, there’s no one there, I didn’t see anybody.” I snicker sipping my beer.

“She’s there, do you think I’m an idiot?” Bingo but that’s not the point right now…

“No, she’s not.” I step to the bed he’s pointing at and tug the blanket with a quick move from it to prove I’m right. And suddenly something or rather somebody jumps out of the bunk like a jack-in-the-box.

“What the fuck???” I recoil yelling surprised and end up banging my head against the edge of the bed behind me.

“Holy shit!” the content of the bed screams simultaneously. She’s embracing her pillow; her face is framed by her two tangled braids. She’s not wearing her glasses, which reveals her huge, suggestive brown eyes making me feel I’m eyeing with a terrified lemur.

“Haha… I told you… hahaha… Stoney… I know… I know you’re lonely…. but… but attacking this poor girl in her bed… hahaha… that’s too fast even from you…” Scully already sqeaks choking of laughter and slapping his thighs with her palms after every word.

‘You’re not funny, Scul.” I growl at him painfully rubbing the back of my head with the tip of my fingers, unfortunately I can already feel a hump developing at the place of the impact. “And you… how you dare…?”

“How… how I dare whaaaaaat?” she yawns rubbing her eyes with her fists like a sleepy small child, probably being ready to fell in coma again.

“How you dare…” I stop for a moment because I don’t really know either the reason of my outrage “be… so small?” I have no idea what kind of answer one can expect to a question like this but she scared me to death, it’s a miracle that I can speak at all…

“What? How I…? No, that can’t be real… I must be still in a bizarre dream… “ she mutters slipping into her bed again. She curls up like a little hedgehog, pulls the blanket over her head mumbling something about hippies against her pillow. How she dares be so…

“Stoney!” I hear Scully’s voice as dimly as if I were diving under the sea. “Good morning! Man, you should have your ears checked, I’m calling you for the third time… let that poor kitty sleep and drink your beer before it warms up. Or if you want to be her big spoon, I don’t mind but in that case I want your beer, so please decide fast…” he grins from ear to ear.

I lift the can to my lips and flip the bird with my other hand, trying to send my darkest look tohim. I’m going to buy a bucket of paint tomorrow and decorate the crew bus with the text “Psychiatric ward”, I swear. They’ve earned that.

***

“Thanks for lending your fridge, girls!” Eric says trying to make the huge cake box fit into the tiny fridge of our hotel room. “My fridge is full of… hehe… hydrating substances… but not for external use only…”

“Eric, alcohol actually dehydrates body.” I correct him.

“Aaand that’s why I became a road manager, not a doctor.” he shrugs.

“And not only your fridge is full with those mysterious substances… those of Scully and Brett, Dave and Mike and Jeff and Stone too…” Karrie adds winking.

“Security measures. The golden rule of road managers: always make sure if there’s enough beer.”

“Mmmh, but what’s that delicious aroma? I can’t figure out its taste…” Karrie sniffles licking around her lips.

“Rum-flavored chocolate. I hope Mike will like it.” Eric clicks with his tongue.

“Or rather a chocolate cake-flavored barrel of rum, concerning the smell…” I remark, closing quickly the fridge before I get drunk with the intense odor.

“Okay, I think we’re ready, I only have to get a knife for the cake slicing…” he snaps with his fingers. “I’ll ask the receptionist…” he makes his way towards the door.

“Wait! Since we three are here… could we talk for a second?” I call him making him stop in his tracks.

“Okay…?” he turns back and glances surprised at me.

“Could we sit down?” I scratch nervously my upper arm and keep repeating the speech I mapped out after yesterday’s events in my head. Right after the cow incident I felt confident; the protective attitude of the guys helped me quickly forget Stone’s theatrical scene. But observing their body language during the gig I realized it’s not only about me… I was chewing on that whole night trying to recall every single word I heard and facial expression or move I saw last week. I managed to sleep like one or two hours until I got woken up by a drunk or high or who the hell knows why crazy Stone. I tried to fall asleep again but I was struggling with nightmares. Hard day’s hard night.

“Karrie, do you know what she’s about to tell?” he takes place cautiously on the edge of my bed while Karrie and I do the same on that of Karrie.

“No idea but I assume, we learn that within a few minutes…”

“I’ve been thinking… I’ve been thinking a lot… since I got here…” I start but get immediately interrupted by Eric.

“That’s a refreshing twist; roads aren’t famous for speculating a lot.” Eric jokes and gets rewarded by Karrie who shows the most widespread hand signal in the world to him. I suppress a smile and go on.

“I’ve been thinking about quitting.” I gabble.

“What???” they exclaim in unison.

“You’ve just arrived, what’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with us? You can’t be serious!”

“Do you still think that you can’t manage it without me? If you do, then you’re wrong, I’ve seen a few beginner roads since I’m in the business and you’re outstanding, trust me.”

“We need you…”

“You can’t do that to me…”

“I arrange you a payrise!”

“I would never forgive you that!”

Eric and Karrie attack me immediately and every time I open my mouth to explain my motivations, they cut me off yelling by turn.

“Stop, stop, stoooop!” I scream hitting my fist against the nightstan. Surprised about my outburst they both hush suddenly and blink at each other like two guilty child who got caught doing something banned.

“I still don’t feel suitable but that’s not my main reason. I… can see that the guys are already sick of touring, sometimes even sick of each other. And seeing some signs… I think my arrival added only fuel on the fire. And that’s the last thing I want… If my presence… my personality causes only debates and fights, I shouldn’t be here; it only poisons the atmosphere of the team.” I exhale loudly, relieved by having finished my thoughts finally.

“It has nothing to do with you as a person…” Karrie remarks quietly, staring in front of herself.

“Then what? You called me, asked me to join, convinced me by telling stories about a team, the Jamily which consists of friends and buddies… And okay, that’s partly true but since I’ve been here someone has always always grumpy, Stone, Jeff, sometimes Eddie… okay, mostly Stone but…”

“We should tell her.” Eric cuts in addressing Karrie.

“What should you tell me?” I furrow my eyebrows, are they concealing something from me?

“I haven’t mentioned that yet as I didn’t want to influence you decision… but at the same time of course I wanted you to accept the request…” Karrie begins unwillingly crunching her fingers.

“For God’s sake, what?”

“When I told my idea about hiring you to the guys, everybody was very supportive of it except…”

“Stone.” I finish her sentence. “Yes, I’ve already noticed that he’s the center of the tension. It would have been hard not to notice that, he’s demonstrating all the time that he hates me.” I roll my eyes.

“He doesn’t hate you. He just hates the situation having been vetoed as a quasi band leader.” Karrie explains.

“But the band consists of five members, not to mention the staff, is he a fuckin’ despot, or what?

“No, of course not but he’s kind of pissed off when he can’t convince the others about his ideas… which usually doesn’t last as long as this time, I have to admit that. And I’m kind of helpless but I still believe you should stay…”

“And if I stayed, how should I behave? Should I always hide in my hotel room or in my bunk bed to avoid possible conflicts? He jumps at me for anything I say or do. He hates me, he does.”

“He doesn’t hate you! He just decided to find you insufferable before meeting you! ... Okay, that sounded better in my head.” Eric snickers awkwardly.

“So what you’re trying to say is that being convinced about his infallibility and paranoid about his role in the band, he labeled me as an unsuitable, unbearable, childish, prude and unviable piece of shit without really getting to know me?” I count the attributes on my fingers.

“Exactly!!! You see, it’s not as bad as you thought!” Eric cheers with a bright smile. “Okay, I’m just kidding, the guy is nuts but since you’re anything but what you’ve just mentioned, you could handle him if you weren’t so scared of him.”

“I’m not scared… I just didn’t want him to drive everyone crazy. And I thought he was basically my boss and employees usually aren’t allowed to talk back…”

“He’s not your boss. We… and they all are the employees of the management, and nobody in or around Pearl Jam can be treated like this. So here I ask you… I demand you to speak up for yourself and if he keeps messing with you, I’m going to have a talk with him. Are we okay?” He smiles encouraging, although I’m not lacking for courage. So here we are… The last hints of doubt about Stone’s possible feelings evaporate immediately from my thoughts and get replaced by anger. I can barely answer without shouting.

“We’re okay.” I respond with a cold smile.

“Great. Don’t be late for the party!” he ruffles my hair and leaves the room.

I slowly glance at Karrie who stares back speechless, probably knowing the impact of Eric’s words on me. I flash a devilish grin at her and walk in the bathroom. I turn on the cold water in the shower cabin and began to rub my skin with the sponge as roughly as I can. Let’s prepare for that party!

[lollytea]

Make something.

"When life gives you lemons," is a fun phrase. It's go getter-y, endlessly optimistic. 

But the frustrating part is when you're TRYING to make lemonade but it can only drip drop drip out into a few blops of watery dribble. And its a moldy green. Lemonade is not supposed to look like that.

When life gives you good emotions, its self explanatory. Its useful. Gets shit done. But when you're being leeched from the inside with the bad feelings, you can't produce lemonade. You try but it's never good lemonade.

The only good use for being slumped is making something out of it. Like those writers did in your old school poetry book. Scraping the barrel so you can mass produce words into flowing and "thought provoking" prose, inspired by that concept of a tortured artist's angst. 

Its not like you're a tortured artist though. Not even close. You've always imagined their feelings as more....dynamic than yours.

You see the Great herself who somehow never struggles to find her vocabulary as she weaves the words together to describe what her turmoil is in a way that sways your insides like a cradle.

You see a man hunched with curled fingertips over a bleeding canvas. He's screaming for some unfathomable reason. Probably a part of his process. You really don't understand.

But you can't find those words like they can. You're not nearly as cinematic either. You don’t exist to be considered complex or to be fixed into artistic poses. You exist in order to walk the dog in the mornings, the cold air making you feel sick but only mildly so.

Your fat little face isn't wrung in any kind of angst right now. Its barely focused on the world at all, zonked out and gormless looking as usual, unresponsive to the way life blurs. The moderate amount of dizziness.Your brain is some kind of faulty digital camera. You can't capture anything that's not through a fuzzy lens.

It's quiet and it's anti-climactic and you can't word it in a way that sounds poetic. Because there's nothing poetic about it. It's not inspiration, it's a nuisance.

You can't make something out of this.

You like to think you don't feel anything. But that's not necessarily true. You're 70% numb but there are still those feelings that gnaw persistently until they break through the core and then you break apart.

You're anxious, that's usually what it is. It's an urgent kind of indecisiveness that hops between a crossroads, deciding whether or not you want isolation or to hear a friend say your name again. Its awful when you decide on both, becoming a floating head with a transparent disconnect.

You're no fun when you're like that.

You don't know to handle friends in a way that's both affectionate and indifferent. You can't risk getting upset if you get cut off. You've been left without warning before and you will be left without warning in future. You've decided you need to be mentally secure if that happens again. You need to be ready to convince yourself it wasn't that big a deal in the first place.

But even as batshit bizarre as you are, you know that's no way to live. You can't keep them fully at arm's length and you shouldn't and you WON'T. You need to love them for the sake of your own happiness. And theirs too. Because even in the indeterminate time they're in your life, they matter.

And you're anxious BECAUSE they matter.

You talk too much. You talk not enough. You can never figure out the right amount to talk and either way, it feels like you're doing it wrong. You like to let them do most of the talking but maybe that's not what you're meant to do either. Maybe that just sucks away at what little of a person you already are. You don't like to accidentally talk over anyone. It's never anything important you have to say.

You hope that you'll talk more when you're older. Or at least speak and not bother anyone.

You hope you'll have friends when you're older too.

But you own uncertainty just plays across as a riot inside your own head. It's messy. It's complicated. And it's so, so tired.

You can't make something out of that either.

You're bad at eating. Which is hilarious in its own right. One of the most basic tasks a human can possibly do in order to function and you're bad at it.

When you were a kid, being hungry was the worst way to feel. You couldn't cope with it. You would whine and whinge to be fed and then you were fed. And you would eat.

You ate too frequently, actually. In fact, you can't help thinking about what sixteen year old you would think of your current weight. She'd be ecstatic.

You probably wouldn't even have the patience to deal with her. You'd be too pissed that she was talking about your weight in the first place.

You'd tell her to shut up. It wasn't the way you wanted her to accomplish this. Because even if you reached it, you feel gross and guilty for what you do in your slumps. The idea that she'd be so happy about it makes your skin crawl.

Black Market Dieting.

The stomach groan lasts for days sometimes until it subsides when it realizes its plead is being ignored. You hate it. And you don't hate the way it feels, you hate that it's become an addicting way to feel.

And now you're afraid of weighing scales. You don't like that they know so much about you. You don't like hearing what they have to say. They're not alive, sure, but during this point in your life, no living person can give you worse news.

The eating problem is a stale situation, at best. It's not intense nor interesting nor can it be viewed from any alternative angles or metaphors. Because it's just a problem of yours. It's just uncomfortable to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

Can't make something out of that.

You use "Unlovable" a lot easier now. You say it in your head a lot. Which is a big development, considering that word used to scare you. You don't use it in an overtly anguished sense but in a resigned sort of way. Childishly bitter though. 

Its a thought that has set itself permanently into your subconscious. You don't slink away from it anymore. Though you're still beyond terrified, you sit still in it and accept.

You haven't decided on your final excuse just yet but by god, you have a plethora of them. What is it today, huh? Too sad? Too shy? Too boring? Too mean?

Sometimes it's that you're not smart enough or funny enough or SOMETHING enough. There's some kind of barrier and while you haven't pinpointed the exact flaw yet(maybe it's all of them.) something is certainly stopping you from trying.

You can't connect easily either. A fucking puzzle piece with some weird shaped grooves. Not a lot of people can attach themselves to it. You can barely make FRIENDS so how in the name of FUCK are you supposed to find-.....

And maybe, above all else, you're just afraid of them realizing their mistake. You hate being someone's mistake.

And of course, there's the obvious thing as to why you refuse to get anywhere in that regard. Another aspect in which you're "faulty."

You don't really like the word "Broken." It feels overdone. A little deviantart diary-esque for your own liking. Using faulty makes it sound like less of a problem. Like it's just a few glitches that won't cause any major inconveniences. 

Though you're not really sure if it's only just that.

You don't even know if you're proud of it like you try to pretend you are.

Like a bicycle with one training wheel. It's not necessarily a big problem to you. You can ride just fine on your own. It's them that aren't a big fan and would prefer if you were a little less wonky. Not that there's anything WRONG with you per say, they just can't imagine themselves with...you know.

And you understand. And you CAN do that. Obviously if you loved them, you would screw on the extra wheel for them. You'd try to fix whatever they wanted. You can adapt.

But what kind of delusional idiot goes around advertising a faulty bicycle that only CAN be repaired, if there's so many shiny, perfectly four wheeled bikes down the line.

They're not expected to screw the extra wheel in. It's already there and ready to go at a moment's notice. They can just as easily be purchased with zero of the hassle that comes with you.

So why bother exactly?

That's why you use Unlovable a lot now. Or at least why you're more accustomed to using it. You're all puberty-ed out so i guess you know some stuff for certain now. You've had a lot of time to think about it.

You're in a slump now. Another one. You forget when you got out of the last one and slipped into this one. You know there's a word for it but it's one you prefer not to use. At least when referring to yourself.

It's just slumps. Slumps are like being made of molasses. You do nothing, feel either too little or too much, drone like a librarian and the clock fingers whirl like pinwheels.

Sometimes you worry about slumps. What if they're not slumps at all. They happen too frequently that you could potentially call them your default state. Maybe the real "slumps" are the happier times in-between.

You don't do much of what you're good at when you're in slumps. Which is unfortunate considering you're only good at one thing.

And sometimes you're not good at what you're good at. Honestly, you don't know who decided you were good in the first place. It was probably you. You, saying you were going to be a writer and your family took your word for it that you were talented.

They always say you're good but you've never let them read anything of yours. It baffles you why they continue to say it. Support, you suppose.

But if you're really only good at what you're good at 1/8th of the time, can you really say you're good at all? It's such a small fraction of your time and energy. It can't be done most of the time. Sometimes, you just get lucky.

You can't even make something now. Despite the fact that you know you have to try.

But even with all that, you're still so much of an insufferable writer that there are some terms you refuse to say, even when writing closure vomit like this.

"I hate myself." Tired.

"Useless," Old.

"Worthless." No. No, that just doesn't work either. When you go yelling into the void, you're trying to not use the overused words. You want to acknowledge that you can at least see it from a logical standpoint instead of an old chicken scratch diary one.

You're obviously not above that but you're pretentious and like to believe you are.

You want to be taken seriously. Even when you're so obviously losing your mind, you want it to seem like your head is still on your shoulders.

You've incited multiple eye rolls already and you can live with that. It's what happens when you put an essay this long and this rambly on a public platform. An attention seeking post if you ever saw one.

But all you wanted was to write something. And during a time like this, its all you can write. All you can think about. Your objective is not to be told everything will be alright. If that was the case, you wouldn't be writing it all out to clear your head and fix it on your own.

It is solely to have your current headspace read, self dissected and understood and then it can all be ignored.

Like writing letters in paper airplanes. Throwing them to the wind and hoping someone out there hears you.

Because attempting to write about why you can't write is the most productive thing you can do in that scenario. You made some shitty lemonade but it's better than nothing.

And for the love of fucking God, let's hope that you will eventually make something.

[gyromitra-esculenta]

Synchronicity 14

F.E.A.R.!AU This is more atmospheric/body horror part.There needs to be some introduction to bombed out city. If you get the literary reference, kudos. I think it’s fitting considering some of the themes. Some interactions with probably real people. Beast is less of an asshole than usual. Kind of, dealing with block :) part.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

(...)“As long as he needs me.”

“He doesn’t. He never will. Not you.”(...)

***

(…)

He was down on the floor with his lips to a glass

Said he dreamed of a future that won't come to pass

That he once strived to excel in a world so vast

But why run a race when it's rig and he's fixed in last

(…)

“What even was that place?” Winston asks, his voice betraying his uneasiness, and Jack has to wonder how much had he seen of the site itself to shake him up enough to drop his go-to mission persona even for a moment. “There was nothing in any reports that a facility of this kind was located in Ilium, and I don’t like not knowing.”

“Talon blacksite. Probably for their Replica project,” Jack grabs the rifle and with a wince shoulders it. The platform is still slowly climbing. “I don’t think…”

“Wrong. The whole facility has been devoted to Harbinger,” Shrike unceremoniously invades their communications. Lena mutters something in the background, most likely stopping Winston from saying anything. “Creating so-called commanders and Reaper containment failsafe. The procedure all three of you underwent was to attune you to Reaper’s telesthetic footprint but Sergeant Morrison can probably attest to how well it went,” she continues, the sarcasm dripping even from the electronically modulated voice, “since he managed to synchronize with it.”

“Oh, it went very well, didn’t it, Sunshine?” The Beast’s chuckle resonates in his throat.

“Nevertheless, Lacroix thinks she can control it, and she is mistaken. It can’t be controlled, not once had they managed it during the nine years they had it sealed. One cannot claim control of a force of nature.”

Nine years. Sealed in darkness. Alone. A different kind of dread is what Jack feels when the elevator stops, the memory of someone howling in the darkness beyond the frosted glass door – the pain and the anguish forced into each and every of the animalistic sounds uttered – it still evokes a sympathetic response and threatens to cut away his breath with how his throat constricts.

He has no will left to argue with Shrike as something suffocating settles on his shoulders. White light. White room. Nothing changes. The clock is broken, it ticks but the hands do not move.

“Breathe,” the Beast’s whisper forces itself into his ear and he shakily lets the air into his lungs. With the way Lena’s voice has a note of concern to it he realizes he must have made some sort of noise to alert her.

“Jack, you right there?”

“Caught a bullet to the side, made do with a field kit. I’ll manage,” Jack winces pulling the needle out of his arm. A small drop of blood forms over the puncture site.

“Bloody hell, Jack, luv,” Lena lets out a frustrated sigh, “try to pin your position and we will try to get you…”

“This is no time to…”

“Shut it, Papa,” she sharply cuts Winston off. “We’re not bloody leaving him.” She had seen his files. She should know better. She should get as far away from him as possible.

“Good. Because now your best chance of survival and succeeding in destroying Reaper is in you all keeping together and making it to Still Island. I’ll contact you again if the need arises,” Shrike finishes.

“I’ll manage it to the stadium, Lena, worry about yourself and Winston,” Jack, turning around, inspects the area for the first time; the dilapidated warehouse is seemingly abandoned – the broken wooden crates stand alone by the walls, some of them even touched by rot and mold. A good cover for a hidden entrance, especially if it makes an impression something illicit of a mundane sort is being conducted in here.

“Feck off, you old sod, because when I get my hands on ya bloody arse…”

If Lena has any other choice words to add, they all drown in the rising static followed by a wave of something washing over him with an inaudible pop accompanied by a monstrous giggle the Beast lets out, its bulk vibrating against his side. Every surface emits sickly red glow with intensity increasing over the edges.

“You hear it, Sunshine, don’t you?” The buzzing in his communicator is voices garbled beyond recognition, incessant and changing in pitch ever so often. Jack glances at the Beast keeping to his side, his fingers idly buried in its viscous substance. He – no, they – have to hurry. There is an invisible clock ticking away in a white room. He approaches the rusted staircase and slowly starts to climb up, left palm instinctively flying to his side to brace against the pain in a furtive gesture, but the external pressure on the wound still somehow alleviates the tug and tear inside.

“I do,” Jack stops at the top to catch his breath. The roof of the warehouse is covered with corrugated sheets, some of them askew, some missing. The sky, it looks like a dawn is breaking, the light tinted with the same shade of red as everything else.

“He is calling for him but they all hear it, just as you do,” the woman with the tattoo under her eye lays a hand on his shoulder. The warmth of her touch helps to push the pain to the back of his awareness and lock it away where it does not bother him so much. “You need to be careful, rafeeq,” she whispers when the receding tide washes over them again and she melts away into black ash floating away on the air currents.

Jack moves towards the metal walkway and finally catches a glimpse of a car stuck in the wall, crashed in from the outside. The headlights are still working and flickering on and off but what stirs his attention is a skeleton half-thrust through the windshield as if it were driving the vehicle at the very moment it was thrown at the building. The sight is bizarre, maybe even more than anything he had witnessed inside the facility. Jack raises the rifle and advances, foot after foot.

Overhead, there is an incoming sound of a roar, of a burning engine, and as he snaps his head up he sees the sleek shape of a plane moving across the sky, the right jet trailing flames and smoke behind, fire licking alongside the surface of the wing. A liner. It shouldn’t be here, not after all this time. He had seen some of the coverage in the facility.

It is flying too low. Descending too rapidly. Wobbling from right to left. The pilot won’t be able to pull it up, and if he does try, he will break the plane in half. At this speed, when it touches down, no-one will survive, not in the urban environment, and the fuel...

The engine blast from the craft blows the rest of metal sheets off the roof and in seconds the shape disappears from his view only to be soon followed by torturous sounds of a crash and then, an explosion. The whole frame of the warehouse vibrates, and the car jostles forward dangerously but stays suspended. The headlights switch off after two another flashes.

Jack clenches his teeth and follows the walkway to the door on the left. He can’t dwell on it now because the clock is ticking. The hands don’t move. It measures the time that does not pass.

Inside the small darkened room his overhead display starts to act up and he holds his finger on the trigger. Nothing. It passes. Yet the feeling of a presence – of something other with him in that room – stays as he forces the door open and descends to the ground floor. The air grows colder and he can swear he sees his own breath coming out in white puffs.

“Come out, come out,” the Beast intones while curling around his legs. Prints made out of black grease mark its dance on the ground.

“Whoever you are,” Jack finishes for it, eyes searching. “Come out, come out…”

“Wherever you are,” the dark laughter runs down his back in peals and ripples in his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack notices a movement and turns shooting. Bullets pierce the air and embed in the wall. “They do leave such a foul aftertaste, Sunshine.”

The door to his right creaks and then tilts back, finally falling off the hinges into the world outside. The nagging feeling of not being alone passes far too slowly to be comforting.

“The ghosts, or the living?” Jack asks himself, eyes trained on the exit, and the alleyway he sees beyond the doorframe.

“Is there a difference, Sunshine?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“No. No, you wouldn’t,” with a somber note the Beast returns to him. Past the threshold the asphalt of the street is ripped up, he can see where the water pipes running below it exploded when the pressure of boiling water tore through them. The fact he’s probably dying of a radiation poisoning is an afterthought.

The rubble is everywhere and there is no intact window in sight. The burnt out frame of a bus stands half-crushed under the pile of concrete.

The unnatural quiet is what unnerves him, the overwhelming silence punctuated only by the crackling of the fires. Jack cautiously eyes the dead end where a side of a building collapsed and, after a short pause, sidles to the opposite wall and glances past the corner.

He pulls the trigger before his other senses catch up with the instinct guiding his hands; the grey figure – frozen in motion while running with hands raised above their head – explodes into ash gently whirling in the air until it slowly settles into a pile on the cracked asphalt.

The facility. The numerous piles of ash inside. The screaming woman that shriveled and splintered, and then crumpled into ash. Reaper will consume until he consumes all. The apocalypse. The end of the world.

Down the street there are two more ash silhouettes, one on all fours, the other standing – twisted to the side, lunging away, trying to hide, escape? It is the futility of the action that gets to him, for one cannot outrun their death.

With a thundering heart, Jack moves closer – the rifle heavier with each step he takes, claws biting into his shoulders in apprehension – his eyes never leave the figures. He licks his lips, unprepared for the sudden howl pushing another unseen tide of force tinting everything with a brownish sort of red.

The shapes made out of ash change and stir, grey transforming into flesh, cracked and sickly. The one on the ground, a woman, screaming, crawling, the skin on her exposed arms and legs bubbling and melting off, smearing wet splotches on the asphalt with each uncoordinated jerk of her body. Chunks of meat fall off her frame.

The standing one, a man, stumbling, hands outstretched – fingertips ending in dark charcoal, his face is seared into unreadable expression, lips charred and blackened, eyes oozing out of their sockets and down his cheeks like ghastly milky tears.

His communicator is screeching at him, the cacophony dizzying, and now he knows with a certainty raising bile in his throat those are voices of all suspended between life and death in the agony of their final moments here, a residue of some sort, a fleeting memory of being clinging to the crumbling reality.

“Not much more than you,” the scornful laugh comes from the doppelganger standing on top of the pile of rubble behind the tortured twitching shapes, his silhouette embraced by embers circling around him. The wraith weighs the knife in his hand, then throws it up to catch it effortlessly when it falls. “You are the same as they are, blind and stumbling, trying to grasp at something that’s not yours. Do you think he cares about you any more than he does for all the others?” He points the blade at him in his outstretched hand. “He has so many to choose from but in the end, I will make him see me, only me, and you, you will be devoured like all the rest.”

“I don’t mind,” Jack lowers the rifle, the barrel pointing towards the ground, and he smiles at the bloody apparition sneering at him over the nightmarish landscape. “As long as he needs me.”

“He doesn’t. He never will. Not you.”

The wave comes back and the pale-faced wraith fades along with the writhing screaming shapes that again solidify into bodies of ash as the change spills over them, and the myriad of voices in his comm quiets down.

“Not me,” Jack swallows back the bitter admission.

“Not yet, Sunshine,” the Beast whispers.

[kruppxreader]

The (Secret)ary Admirer

Prompt Request: “Imagine being mr krupps secretary and every time he leaves his office you put anonymous love letters and chocolates and flowers on his desk, then you get to see his reaction and see him get all flustered and huffy. they keep coming so krupp starts talking to you about his secret admirer and how he wishes they would come forward because hes starting to get attached. all the while he is none the wiser that its you.”

—–

You sat quietly at the secretary’s desk, filing papers and answering phone calls as usual. Once you learned the secretary position was up for grabs while Miss Anthrope took a leave of absence for the year, you were first in line for the job. You were living alone and really needed the money. Who knew living in Piqua was so expensive?

It was a simple job, and you did it pretty well: File papers, schedule meetings, answer the phone, get your boss coffee…

Your boss. He was another story.

Mr. Benjamin Krupp was his name. A real brute. He took the most joy you’ve ever seen in torturing his poor students and punishing them in the most bizarre ways. You’ve once saw a few students serving food as cafeteria workers for the week because they forgot to bring a pencil to class.

But there was something else about him. Something very peculiar, yet…. attractive.

You found yourself slipping into his office when he was out, leaving small surprises on his desk.

First you left a few pieces of wrapped chocolate. Mr. Krupp was confused, thinking somebody was trying to play a trick on him, or poison him.

“Hey, Y/N! Get in here!” He bellowed from his office.

You felt a lump in your stomach.

“Y-Yes, sir?” You swallowed hard when you saw him holding the candy in his hand. You were certain you witnessed your life flash before your eyes.

“Did you see anyone come in here while I was gone?” He demanded, waving the candy in his fingertips.

You timidly shook your head.

“N-No, sir.” You lied. “They must have walked in when I went to get your coffee.”

“Hmm…” He frowned, giving you a stern expression. “Well make sure it’s locked next time you leave and I’m not here. Someone could have robbed the place.” He turned his attention back to the chocolate, handing it back to you.

“Here. I found it on my desk. I don’t know where it came from.” He grumbled, handing it to you.

“B-But it’s for you!” You piped.

He drew up en eyebrow.

“For me?” He questioned.

You nodded. “It was left on your desk wasn’t it? Someone must really like yo-….”

He burst into a boistrous laugh.

“‘Like me?’ Now THERE’S a good joke.” He chuckled flicking one of the candies into the air onto the desk, resting his head in his hand.

“Y-You never know… Maybe you’ve got a secret admirer..?” You responded, mumbling somewhat.

This only caused Mr. Krupp to erupt in an even more raucous laughter.

“You’re a real jokester, Y/N. You can go back to work now.” He gestured back to your secretary’s desk. As you exited his office you could hear him chuckling to himself.

“An admirer… What a load of malarky…” He unwrapped the chocolate and popped one in his mouth.

Days went by and more chocolates came. Then it became sticky notes with anonymous compliments. This went on for about two weeks. And with every passing day, Mr. Krupp grew more and more confused. You managed to catch his face once or twice out of the corner of your eye reading one of your love letters.

You swear you’ve never seen him get so red without being angry before. He sputtered and stammered, yanking at his collar before slamming it in his desk drawer with the rest of his collection.

“Th-This is ridiculous…. Y/N was right….” He muttered to himself. “Somebody is messing with me… or…”

He looked over to your desk, catching you off guard. You quickly picked up the phone, pretending to make a call.

He slammed his palm on your desk causing your heart to jump right into your throat and drop the phone.

“You SWEAR you haven’t seen anyone go into my office, Y/N?!” He said franticly.

You shook your head rapidly. “A-Absolutely not, sir!” You felt a heat rush to your cheeks as he leaned over the desk, close to your face.

You watched his eyes go back and forth for a good few seconds, studying your expression before leaning back and taking a crumpled post it out of his pocket.

“Well… if somebody is really going through all this trouble to get my attention… they sure do have it.” A wide, goofy lovestruck grin spread across his face as he uncrumpled the post it love note.

He sighed. “I wish I knew who they were.” He said. “You could say I’ve gotten pretty invested now. Just… don’t tell anybody.” He attempted to regain his commanding composure, clearing his throat and stuffing the note back into his pocket. He whipped his head back in your direction.

“Y/N, I have a special assignment for you.” His face flushed red as he pressed his index finger onto your nameplate.

You sank back into your computer chair.

“Y-Yes?” You asked. You felt your heart about ready to jump out of your chest.

“I want you to figure out who this person is immediately…. i-if you can…” He stammered. You had to admit, it was pretty adorable watching him go from a tyrant to a flustered schoolboy. You couldn’t help but smile.

However that smile immediately sank into dread.

“Y-Yes… sir..?” You had to say yes, but what could you do? He was your boss! But what would your boss think of you if he found out his secret admirer was YOU?!

“Good. I expect results as soon as possible.” He concluded before hastily retreating back to his office.

You were left at your desk an anxious, blushing mess. You didn’t realize you were gripping your chair the entire time. You had one chance. This was it.

-

The following day you bought a big bouquet of beautiful white chrysanthemums with a card attached. A final love note. A confession.

Mr. Krupp had been out monitoring the halls for some time so you had to act fast. You slipped into his office with the vase and positioned the flowers on top of his desk just right.

You felt butterflies all morning, all afternoon, and now it was a raging swarm in your stomach. Before returning back to your desk, you decided to give the card one last final read.

It was then you heard a very hard throat clearing coming from the doorway. You felt as if all the color was drained from your body as you saw Mr. Krupp standing with his hands on his hips just a few feet behind you.

“What do you think you’re doing in here?” He demanded. He peeked over your shoulder, spotting flowers on his desk. You could feel the heat emanating from his cheeks as he drew closer to them.

“W-Wait!!!” You tried to stop him, but it was too late. He picked up the card from the little plastic fork.

His eyes grew wide. He looked like he was trying to find words, but no sound was coming out. You swear you could hear his heartbeat from where you were standing… or was it your own? He slowly turned to face you.

“Y-Y/N…..”

You backed up a step, trying to avoid his gaze. You tried to say something, you really did, but no words were forming. You stood frozen before him, squinting your eyes shut. You waited for him to terminate you on the spot.

Warmth. He was closer to you now.

You could feel him right in front of you. You could hear him breathing heavy. He was nervous. You felt a hand brush your arm.

“You… You meant all of that?”

You opened your eyes. He was definitely closer to you now. Sweat dripped down his forehead, and he was looking down at your feet.

You swallowed.

“Y-Yes…. sir….”

He was now looking deep into your eyes, almost longing. You felt him rest both hands on your waist now, his gaze fixated on your lips.

“Y/N…. I wish you had told me sooner…. and please, call me Benny…”

His voice drew lower to a near whisper.

“Y/N, I’ve never had someone in my life so easy to get along with… or talk to without you know, bickering…” He gestured his head back to the secretary’s office. He cleared his throat again, his voice starting to crack bit.

“Y/N… I think I’m in love with you…” He pressed his eyes shut. You opened your mouth to speak but he continued.

“.. and I… I know it’s not professional in the workplace but…..” You felt his grip tighten around your waist.

“I…. I would really like to kiss you… if that’s okay…”

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. It was as if you were in some fantasy dream but no, this was real.

“Y-Yes, Benny..” was the only thing you could mutter under your heated breath. This was too much for you to handle. He took a deep breath.

“O-Okay…” He started. “It-… It’s been a while…. just….. bear with me…. ” He trailed off, leaning in slowly.

Your eyes fell closed, and suddenly you felt him softly being pressed to your lips.

The kiss lingered on for a few seconds more. It felt like sparks were flying. You took the opportunity to wrap your arms around his neck, causing a small noise to slip from his lips in the kiss.

You stayed that way for a few moments more feeling the world pass by around you, until you pulled back slightly. You took in his dizzied, intoxicated expression.

“W-Wow…” The lovestruck grin returned to his face.

“Y-Yeah…” You agreed, taking his hands in yours.

It wasn’t a moment later the last bell of the day rang through the school. The two of you quickly gathered your belongings and waited until all of the students cleared out before departing.

Walking out of the school with one arm wrapped around his, you certainly caught the attention of quite a few staff members.

But neither of you cared. You had each other now.

The secretary and the school principle…

[brookebreazeale]

My dad died on Father’s Day

Kinda sounds like a punch line to a twisted joke. It’s not, though. That’s really the day he died.

I can’t remember the exact day we found out he was dying, but I remember the day exactly. I had called in sick to school, because my dad was, and I had to take him to the hospital to find out how sick.

I helped him out of the car and waited until he got his bearings. I casually linked my arm through his so he didn’t have to ask for help. His pace was painfully slow. I wondered if it was because he was in pain, or because he didn’t want to find out why.

I just wanted him to hurry. I wanted to get this over with. I needed to study for my SAT the next morning. There was a party I wanted to go to later, and I needed to go to my friend’s house and grab the jeans she said I could borrow.

I wanted him to hurry- so they could start the surgery, so we could find out what was wrong with him…so they could fucking fix it.

I woke up a few hours later, laying on the lobby floor with my head on my study guide. They said it would only take around two hours. It had been almost four. I opened my book back up to the algebra equations, shut it, opened it again, and flipped over to the vocabulary section.

I’d learned a good trick for memorizing vocabulary. You take the word and use it in three different sentences. But the sentences had to memorable, something funny or bizarre.

Aberration: a state or condition markedly different from the norm

My dad’s yellow skin is an aberration.

Sitting in a freezing cold hospital lobby by yourself waiting to hear if your dad is going to die is an aberration.

A 17-year old girl without a father is an aberration.

I laughed to myself. I was using death as a study tactic…an aberration, to be sure.

He came up behind me, asking if I was William Breazeale’s daughter. My book slipped out of my hands when I jumped up, sending my notes flying in all directions. We both watched in silence as the pages drifted to the ground. I looked up at him and tried to smile. He didn’t smile back.

“The surgery went well. There were no major issues. But we did find cancer in his pancreas that has spread to his liver.”

—

I slammed the door behind me, and his head shot up. He hated it when I slammed the door. “Sorry, dad!” Did I wake you? God, Sorry. How are you feeling?”

I cringed every time I asked him that. What the hell was he going to say? “I feel amazing. That last can of Ensure you shot into my veins tasted fantastic and is digesting perfectly. I’ve been tortured for the past hour because I’m too weak to make it to the bathroom. Other than that, I feel great.”

He attempted to smile. “I’m fine. How was school?”

“Fine. I have to go back, it’s only noon. I just came home to check on you”.

“It’s only noon?”

“Yeah. You hungry?”

“No.”

“Well, were you able to drink some of the juice I bought you?”

“No. I haven’t felt like it.”

“Dad! You have to eat, whether you are hungry or not. You are literally wasting away! Have you looked at yourself in the mirror?”

I stormed into the kitchen and brought back a glass full of juice. He took a small sip, giving me a look that made me sit down and gulp the rest of it down.

Jesus, Brooke. He already feels horrible and now you’re yelling at him, telling him how terrible he looks.

“Dad?”

“Will you make sure I’m here, that I’m with you when you go?”

He smirked slightly. Well, I’ll do my best, but I can’t make any promises”

“No dad, I’m being serious. You have to promise if I’m not here, you won’t leave me until I get back.”

“Brooke, I can’t promise you’ll be here when I die. But I promise you, I’ll never leave you.”

—

While the next few weeks dragged on, I acquired a slight obsession with the calendar. Every morning I scrolled across the row of days, then down the column of weeks. Which day was it going to be?

I flipped to the next page looking for…an aberration, I suppose. My eyes landed on the only words on the page.

Father’s Day.

I laughed out loud. You’ve got to be kidding me. My dad is going to die on Father’s Day?

—

Of course, I didn’t tell anybody this. How morbid and sad was that? The worst part was that I didn’t know which I felt more, sad or relieved.

I had a date. This was going to end at some point, and it was going to be soon. I would be able to leave the house again without having to find someone to watch him. I could go out with my friends without worrying about him. I wouldn’t have to give him morphine shots anymore or clean up after him when he didn’t make it to the bathroom. And I wouldn’t have to sleep outside his bedroom door, hearing him moan in pain, crying myself to sleep because there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

I wouldn’t have to do any of those things, because on Father’s Day, June 21st, my dad wouldn’t be dying anymore. He would be dead.

—

I spent that morning with my best friend and his family. I reluctantly agreed to go to church with them, cringing at every metaphor emphasizing the importance of celebrating “our father.”

We headed to a movie after. I asked if we could stop to buy a Father’s Day card before we went. I’m not sure why. He obviously wasn’t going to read it.

We made it to the front of the line just before the previews started. I grabbed my ticket, turned to his dad, and asked him to take me home.

—

I closed the front door behind me, making sure not to slam it, then peeked my head in his room to see if he was still breathing. I plopped down next to him to sign his card. The pen was out of ink. Of course, it was out of ink.

I went into the kitchen and started digging through the drawers, then stopped. I thought I had heard something- a moan or a whisper. I kept digging. The noise wasn’t coming from him. He’d been on a constant stream of morphine and hadn’t made a sound for days. I grabbed a pen, then dropped it and sprinted to his room.

He was dead.

“No, no, no. Dad, NO! You promised! Did you seriously just wait until I left the room to leave me? I sat down next to him, studying his face for some sign of anything. There was nothing. He was gone.

“How could you do this? I came back for you. I made everyone miss the movie for you. You were supposed to wait until I came back!”

The tears I had been holding in for weeks unleashed. He couldn’t just give me this one thing? He couldn’t just let me say goodbye?

Or god, maybe he was trying to hold on for me. Maybe he was scared, trying to work up the courage to do it, and I’d left him. I grabbed his hand, my head buried in the blankets, my mind reeling. I had left him alone…and now I was.

My guilt morphed into fear. I couldn’t move. I just sat there, crying, clinging to his hand.

Until I felt it, a gentle squeeze. I looked up and saw a tear make its way down his cheek.

—

That was 25 years ago. Yes, it was terrible, but it was so long ago.  The reality is, I haven’t had a dad longer than I had one.

Now, when I see my friends worrying about how badly they are fucking up their kids, I wonder what issues of mine are directly linked to him. My dad was an amazing father, but not always a great one. He, like all of us, had demons he never quite figured out how to conquer. Whether he was drunk or sober, wealthy or broke, in love or lonely, I just never felt like he ever found happy.

I’m sure watching my dad struggle negatively impacted me in various ways. But I also think it’s what made him, and our relationship, beautiful. I saw his humanity. I saw him keep a smile on his face when things were terrible, or conjure up some sort of silver lining, or scrounge up his last dollar for me and my sister.

Even if he wasn’t happy, he always made sure everyone else was. His life could be a complete mess, but he would do whatever he could to fix everyone else’s. He could be reckless and stubborn, but he was the person you went to when there was nowhere else to go. He was patient and kind and generous. And although he was guarded with his words, we never questioned how much he loved us.

For me, the most tragic part of all of this is the fear that he didn’t live the life he wanted because of me (us). I think he sacrificed so many of his dreams for us. That is the very last thing I would have ever wanted, and it breaks my heart.

—

Usually, Father’s Day doesn’t phase me. But today, as I sat watching the constant stream of fathers and daughters waiting in line for their coffee, I thought about him.

I thought about the past year and how desperately alone I’ve felt, and I realized something. Yes, I’ve felt lonely, to the extreme, but I’ve never felt truly alone.

Maybe this is just what I want to believe, but I think my dad had something to do with this. I think he has never been more present in my life than he has over the past few months- the beautiful souls who have come into my life; the books that have ended up in my hands; the words that have mended what we all thought was irreparable damage. These are the things that reminded me what love feels like, what hope feels like. These are the things that saved me.

Perhaps my dad knew that he was losing me, that I had lost myself, so he immersed himself in my day to day to remind me that he’d kept his promise.

He would make sure I made it back, and he would never leave me.

    Father’s Day. June 21, 1992. My dad died on Father’s Day Kinda sounds like a punch line to a twisted joke. It’s not, though.